The Running Thread - 2020

[rteetz]

I also ran NYC virtually today. I’ll go a bit more in depth in my journal with photos and I’ll have a vlog recap.

I began about 7:15AM here and it was a lovely 30 degrees. I had been watching the weather all week and it originally called for rain but those chances went to basically none by race day.

My first 10 miles were fantastic. No issues whatsoever. I’d say probably the first 15 really were great actually. After that of course some fatigue and tiredness set it. My nutrition could’ve probably been better too. Those first 15 my pace was pretty much all below 10 minutes a mile with many being closer to 9:30. After 15 it was around 10 minutes or a bit higher.

My left quad began to cramp around mile 24.5-25. Thankfully that didn’t set me back more than it did for a few minutes. I did have to stop for a water refill around mile 20 as well. The final few miles were in the 11 minute range.

My unofficial/official finish time was 4:28:28 which is a PR if we count it but I won’t due to the virtual nature. My previous 4 marathons are all Disney so lots of stopping for characters and various things.

Overall it was an interesting and different experience. Definite kudos to those who have or are doing virtual marathons. It’s definitely a different animal doing this on your own. I won’t rush back into a virtual marathon but don’t think I’d have problems with any future half virtuals or below. Now it’s just to wait and see when I get to run NYC in person.

 

[huskies90]

Another Live Race Report:

The Devil Made Me Do It!! 5K
Glastonbury, CT October 25, 2020 9AM

My 24 year old daughter and I ran the Halloween themed “The Devil Made Me Do It!!” 5K this morning in Glastonbury, CT. My goal for this race was once again to attempt to break my 5K PR of 19:33 which I set way back in 2003. I was 34 then (I am 52 now) and since I have not been able to break 20 minutes in any of the 5K’s I’ve done over the last 17 years (I did it twice in 2003), I really thought this PR would stand forever.

My daughter lives in Chicago and I have not seen my her since last year’s Disney Marathon weekend as several trips to visit each other have been canceled over the last 8 months. But she decided to visit CT this week and we thought it would be fun to do a race together while she was here. And a Halloween themed race means fun costumes!! There were some good ones - one person ran dressed as a huge bottle of hand sanitizer lol. I dusted off and wore the Captain America Civil War Under Armour compression shirt I wore for this year’s marathon.

This is the fourth post pandemic live in person race I have done and they did all the same social distancing rules as the other three. They did a wave start of 20 people per wave - 15 seconds apart. Out of all the various start methods, I like the wave start the best as it feels the most like a normal race. This race organized the waves randomly by order of registration and not by projected finishing times. My daughter and I were in wave 3 which meant I had to pass not only those in my wave but also the 40 people that started in the waves ahead of me.

The race started and finished in a middle school parking lot and did a loop around a quiet neighborhood. It was a cold 42° which was ideal for a race. I think the ideal conditions helped me succeed in reaching my goal of breaking my personal best. I finished with a time of 19:12 (6:11/mile pace) which was good enough for 5th overall and 1st in my age group. My daughter finished 3rd in her age group.

In this crazy pandemic year of canceled races, in 2020 I was able to complete what I am calling the “PR Grand Slam” - setting personal records for 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon in a single year. It goes to show that getting older doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down. Here are my PR’s - all in 2020:

5K: 19:12 (6:11/mile)
10K: 42:53 (6:54/mile)
Half: 1:35:05 (7:15/mile)
Full: 3:56:17 (9:01/mile) - Dopey Challenge

 

[Novatrix]

I ran my virtual Marine Corps Marathon today. Technically, I had until 11/10 to run the race and register results, but with how unpredictable my schedule has been lately, I decided that this would be the weekend to just get it done.

Unlike a lot of the others who've been participating on this thread, it's been hard for me to remain motivated to train with a lack of real in-person races to look forward to, plus I've been doing a lot of renovation work on my parents place which takes up all my after work hours. I've been running, but not with a structured marathon training plan and not with the consistency I had last year.

With that in mind, all I was aiming for today was completion of the miles and to maintain an easy pace.

I started at 12:30 pm with a temperature of 50 °F. The temperature didn't really much over the course of my run, and thankfully the intermittent showers predicted never became worse than light drizzles. I decided against carrying hydration over the course of the run, instead planning to swing home when I was thirsty or hungry.

The first 4 miles were pretty good, with my pace being in the high 10s, but looking back I must have been warming up, as after my first break my pace was in the low 10s for the rest of my no break splits. Decided to head back home for hydration and snacks, then headed back out again.

Miles 5 - 10 were pretty uneventful. In order to take my mind off of the distance, I not only was listening to an audiobook, but was also playing Pokemon Go the whole time. Let's just say, over the course of the marathon I caught a lot of Pokemon, as well as numerous perplexed stares as people saw a mad woman jogging by while frantically swiping her phone.

While approaching mile 11, I decided I was hungry, so swung back to the house for the typically non-marathon related snack of several slices of sourdough with butter which surprisingly hit the spot. I definitely lingered a very long time over this break, but eventually dragged myself out the door (with a Gu gel for the next time I got hungry), then was off again.

I was still maintaining paces in the low 10s after the break, and decided around mile 15 that if I went back to the house again there was too much risk of either not wanting to go out again and finish the miles or getting hung up with family business, so I decided I would just finish the next 11.3 miles before returning. (At this point, I wished I'd brought along a hydration belt or backpack.) Other than the one Gu I brought with me at mile 17, I went from miles 11 to 26.3 without food or water and it was surprisingly okay. I didn't really crash like I normally do at the 23 mile mark, which I attributed to the combo of real food at the near mid-point of the race, and going at a slower pace.

I finished 26.3 a 1/2 mile from home, however, and as soon as I stopped running the hunger and thirst really hit. In season appropriate fashion, I felt like a zombie slowly shuffling home thinking purely of food (though "Carbs" and "Water" were my refrain instead of "Brains") and my mouth hanging open. Though I can't honestly say that's very different than how I feel after most races.

Overall, I ended with a total time of 4:55:30 and a moving time of 4:33:55. I'm glad I got it done, but I didn't feel anywhere near the satisfaction of the real thing. It felt just like a very long training run, and it's tough to push yourself physically when you don't have aid stations or a course closed off to traffic.

 

[jmasgat]

Can I just add my to everyone who has run a virtual marathon. I can't wrap my head around the mental stamina it must take to do that. @Novatrix Your recap is my favorite virtual race recap of the bunch. Something about your bread stop, and your zombie food line just made me smile (And rang a bell).

Today I was out for a typical 5-miler wearing my Marathon 2020 shirt. A guy ran by me going the other way, pointed and yelled "I ran that race, too!" It's rare that I see anyone with a Disney shirt, so that made me smile, and made my last mile about 45 sec faster than the first.

 

[SheHulk]

Can I just add my to everyone who has run a virtual marathon. I can't wrap my head around the mental stamina it must take to do that. @Novatrix Your recap is my favorite virtual race recap of the bunch. Something about your bread stop, and your zombie food line just made me smile (And rang a bell).

Today I was out for a typical 5-miler wearing my Marathon 2020 shirt. A guy ran by me going the other way, pointed and yelled "I ran that race, too!" It's rare that I see anyone with a Disney shirt, so that made me smile, and made my last mile about 45 sec faster than the first.

I was running on the local rail trail last week in my Star Wars 2019 Half race shirt. There are road crossings on this trail and a pickup truck stopped at the crossing and waved me through. When I got across, he rolled down his window and pointed at his passenger and excitedly yelled, "She ran that too!" The passenger waved happily. Definitely nice, especially these days.

Also totally agree on the virtual marathoners. That's a gear I just don't have.

 

[KevM]

I was running on the local rail trail last week in my Star Wars 2019 Half race shirt. There are road crossings on this trail and a pickup truck stopped at the crossing and waved me through. When I got across, he rolled down his window and pointed at his passenger and excitedly yelled, "She ran that too!" The passenger waved happily. Definitely nice, especially these days.

Also totally agree on the virtual marathoners. That's a gear I just don't have.

Ha. This seems like the week of having another runner acknowledging a race shirt. Last Friday I was out on my run wearing my Broad Street 2019 short and had a passing runner on the other side of the street say “hey man, great short. I did that too.”

As for virtual marathons, I’m thinking g about doing one on 11/23. That’s when the Philly Marathon was supposed to be and even though it was canceled a while ago I’m still doing the training g plan for it.

Also, speaking of virtual runs, Jeff Galloway now has two, a 5K and a Half, or the option to do both.

https://runsignup.com/Race/GA/YourT...S2MYA1wu51kLG5CWQNmibNev1abtSpA&remMeAttempt=

 

[garneska]

I am not signed up for the Jeff Galloway virtual but i ran it in person last year. I was hoping to do it this year to try for a PR. Course is a bit hilly but it is where I train. The start is about .5 miles from my condo. It is so convenient to get up at a normal time and have a quick jog to the start right before it begins. I even love that I can use my condo bathroom and not a port o potty. The finish is great too. it is a less than a half mile the other direction from my condo. Race logistics alone makes me want to do this race again.

 

[avondale]

Another Live Race Report:

The Devil Made Me Do It!! 5K
Glastonbury, CT October 25, 2020 9AM

My 24 year old daughter and I ran the Halloween themed “The Devil Made Me Do It!!” 5K this morning in Glastonbury, CT. My goal for this race was once again to attempt to break my 5K PR of 19:33 which I set way back in 2003. I was 34 then (I am 52 now) and since I have not been able to break 20 minutes in any of the 5K’s I’ve done over the last 17 years (I did it twice in 2003), I really thought this PR would stand forever.

My daughter lives in Chicago and I have not seen my her since last year’s Disney Marathon weekend as several trips to visit each other have been canceled over the last 8 months. But she decided to visit CT this week and we thought it would be fun to do a race together while she was here. And a Halloween themed race means fun costumes!! There were some good ones - one person ran dressed as a huge bottle of hand sanitizer lol. I dusted off and wore the Captain America Civil War Under Armour compression shirt I wore for this year’s marathon.

This is the fourth post pandemic live in person race I have done and they did all the same social distancing rules as the other three. They did a wave start of 20 people per wave - 15 seconds apart. Out of all the various start methods, I like the wave start the best as it feels the most like a normal race. This race organized the waves randomly by order of registration and not by projected finishing times. My daughter and I were in wave 3 which meant I had to pass not only those in my wave but also the 40 people that started in the waves ahead of me.

The race started and finished in a middle school parking lot and did a loop around a quiet neighborhood. It was a cold 42° which was ideal for a race. I think the ideal conditions helped me succeed in reaching my goal of breaking my personal best. I finished with a time of 19:12 (6:11/mile pace) which was good enough for 5th overall and 1st in my age group. My daughter finished 3rd in her age group.

In this crazy pandemic year of canceled races, in 2020 I was able to complete what I am calling the “PR Grand Slam” - setting personal records for 5K, 10K, Half Marathon and Marathon in a single year. It goes to show that getting older doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down. Here are my PR’s - all in 2020:

5K: 19:12 (6:11/mile)
10K: 42:53 (6:54/mile)
Half: 1:35:05 (7:15/mile)
Full: 3:56:17 (9:01/mile) - Dopey Challenge

Wow, awesome PR! Congratulations to both you and your daughter!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Some interesting reads on marathon training and performance recently published:

Human running performance from real-world big data (Research Paper)
New Study Predicts Marathon Performance from Wearable Data (Summary Article)

Fit to Run: Personalised Recommendations for Marathon Training (Research Paper)
Big Data Reveals New Marathon Training Approaches (Summary Article)
A look at the “Big Data” (Summary Article)

 

[GreatLakes]

Some interesting reads on marathon training and performance recently published:

Human running performance from real-world big data (Research Paper)
New Study Predicts Marathon Performance from Wearable Data (Summary Article)

Fit to Run: Personalised Recommendations for Marathon Training (Research Paper)
Big Data Reveals New Marathon Training Approaches (Summary Article)
A look at the “Big Data” (Summary Article)

Interesting and thanks for the share. My FR945 got new firmware last week and one of the new features is a suggested workout that takes into account not just your activities but your HR, stress, sleep, and some other metrics. I'm excited about the possibilities for training.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Interesting and thanks for the share. My FR945 got new firmware last week and one of the new features is a suggested workout that takes into account not just your activities but your HR, stress, sleep, and some other metrics. I'm excited about the possibilities for training.

Interested to hear what types of workouts it suggests compared to what you had planned to do otherwise. Seems like it is taking into account some valuable data points.

 

[Kerry1957]

Some interesting reads on marathon training and performance recently published:

Human running performance from real-world big data (Research Paper)
New Study Predicts Marathon Performance from Wearable Data (Summary Article)

Fit to Run: Personalised Recommendations for Marathon Training (Research Paper)
Big Data Reveals New Marathon Training Approaches (Summary Article)
A look at the “Big Data” (Summary Article)

Billy,
A quick read seems to validate many of the ideas in your custom plans. Do you see incorporating any tweaks into future plans based on these studies?

 

[GreatLakes]

Interested to hear what types of workouts it suggests compared to what you had planned to do otherwise. Seems like it is taking into account some valuable data points.

So far it has been 9:00/mile for 45:00 all week so slow miles to increase my low aerobic numbers. I installed the update right after a few days of harder intervals and my sleep has been bad the last week (which it noted in the explanation). Once I have it a while longer I'll let you know how it adjusts.

 

[MissLiss279]

So far it has been 9:00/mile for 45:00 all week so slow miles to increase my low aerobic numbers. I installed the update right after a few days of harder intervals and my sleep has been bad the last week (which it noted in the explanation). Once I have it a while longer I'll let you know how it adjusts.

Ha! Mine told me to run 9:15 for 45 to increase my anaerobic numbers.
it keeps telling me to work in some higher intensity running. I guess it doesn’t like all my long, easy paced runs.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Billy,
A quick read seems to validate many of the ideas in your custom plans. Do you see incorporating any tweaks into future plans based on these studies?

Human running performance from real-world big data (Research Paper)
New Study Predicts Marathon Performance from Wearable Data (Summary Article)

So this one is essentially a new marathon prediction model based on data that wouldn't be available to me from other runners. It would be interesting to see how it compares to the Vickers and Ian Williams prediction models. Given the Fig.4 histogram it shows a reasonably large spread (+/- 20%). I bet for people I write plans to that I could predict their final marathon time +/- 5% about 75% of the time. Similar to what their data generates.

VO2max is not the end all be all. And for a prediction model for marathon performance your ability to "hold" a reasonably difficult pace is great information to have. So that makes sense to me.

TRIMP and HRSS are very similar. They use TRIMP and I use HRSS. Although to be fair, I don't calculate HRSS for others when I write plans for them. I've done it a few times for myself and am still working out the kinks. But doing the plan writing in this manner takes probably double the time. I have learned quite a few tricks along the way in terms of calculations and trends with HRSS for myself that I have applied to others plans for the last 6-12 months.

Fit to Run: Personalised Recommendations for Marathon Training (Research Paper)
Big Data Reveals New Marathon Training Approaches (Summary Article)
A look at the “Big Data” (Summary Article)

-Train slow to race fast. Check!
-Train across the entire spectrum of paces from fast to slow. Check!
-Give people pacing so they don't slip into running too much "hard" because they can. Check!
-TRIMP limit. Not so much. But I do watch on a daily, weekly, or whenever I get an update basis in terms of clues that they might be slipping into overtraining. Typically when two hard runs in a row go poorly.
-Big picture training where no one run means more than the others. Check!
-Train hard-hard-easy-moderate. Not so much. The Hansons article raises a good point as to whether the hard-hard forces the need for easy. So is it a matter of it being ideal training or a matter of being forced into it? I think what matters is that the quality of the training stays high. So if someone can put in high quality training in high-high, then I wouldn't be opposed to it. One thing I've learned over and over is that there are a few guiding principles, but there are definitely tweaks that work better for some than others. That's where that individuality comes out. So when we string together multiple plans is when we can start to see where someone is responding and not responding to different stimuli.

So I wouldn't say there's a ton from these that I would incorporate, but rather was a reinforcement of what I've seen on a smaller scale than the data set they are working with. One day, I'd like to have access to more training load data from the runners that I'm helping. Because I think that's a vital tool that to this point I haven't utilized for others training plans as much as I have for my own.

 

[flav]

I think the shelf life for the Maurten 320 powder is usually 1-2 years when I've gotten it.

Mine expire in June 2021... Will have to find reasons to use it before they bloat.

 

[FFigawi]

So far it has been 9:00/mile for 45:00 all week so slow miles to increase my low aerobic numbers. I installed the update right after a few days of harder intervals and my sleep has been bad the last week (which it noted in the explanation). Once I have it a while longer I'll let you know how it adjusts.

Where do I find the suggested workouts on my 945?

On a different note, the WSJ wrote an article about the impact of the pandemic on races. Looks like virtual race fatigue is setting in and people aren't signing up for them in the same numbers as before. That'll make it tough for a lot of races, especially the smaller ones, to survive.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronaviruss-toll-on-marathons-and-other-races-a-95-drop-11603800000

 

[MissLiss279]

Where do I find the suggested workouts on my 945?

On my Fenix 6s, starting yesterday, when I went to start a run (or treadmill run), the first screen popped up with a suggested run. Today it is suggesting a 32 minute Recovery run. Yesterday, it was a 45 minute Tempo run.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Mine expire in June 2021... Will have to find reasons to use it before they bloat.

I have several Maurten gels that are dated in Oct 2020 (now) and they're no different than they were the day I got them. I used them last weekend without any issue. It's just a "Best Buy" date and not an expiration, necessarily. But I'll let you know when I notice a change in the months to come.

 

[GreatLakes]

Where do I find the suggested workouts on my 945?

On a different note, the WSJ wrote an article about the impact of the pandemic on races. Looks like virtual race fatigue is setting in and people aren't signing up for them in the same numbers as before. That'll make it tough for a lot of races, especially the smaller ones, to survive.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronaviruss-toll-on-marathons-and-other-races-a-95-drop-11603800000

First, make sure you have the newest firmware. They roll it out in phases and I'm not sure it is at 100% distribution. It is firmware version 5.20 that adds the function.

For me as soon as I select run it interrupts the watch screen with the suggested workout. The manual way to get there is to go to run -> middle left button for options -> workouts -> Today's suggestion.