Loosing Weight Running???

MisterDrak

Recently upped the distance and intensity of my training for the DCM, and I seem to be loosing a fair bit of weight. At least 4 people that know me are saying that im beginning to look pretty skinny. I’m 5:11 and 76kgs.

My question is, should I try to remain at a reasonable weight above, or be happy to drop another 3-4kgs?

I appreciate that there is no right or wrong answer for the above, however would like to see what people feel about reduced weight means a faster time or does reduced muscle / fat mean burn out later in the race ?

tunney

MisterDrak wrote: »

Recently upped the distance and intensity of my training for the DCM, and I seem to be loosing a fair bit of weight. At least 4 people that know me are saying that im beginning to look pretty skinny. I’m 5:11 and 76kgs.

My question is, should I try to remain at a reasonable weight above, or be happy to drop another 3-4kgs?

I appreciate that there is no right or wrong answer for the above, however would like to see what people feel about reduced weight means a faster time or does reduced muscle / fat mean burn out later in the race ?

Stand in front of a mirror with your top off.
Tense your tummy muscles.
Put a hand on your tummy, jiggle it about, if anything moves you can loose more weight.

rofno1

tunney wrote: »

Stand in front of a mirror with your top off.
Tense your tummy muscles.
Put a hand on your tummy, jiggle it about, if anything moves you can loose more weight.

OK tried it. This is what I see: ~~~~~~

:(:D:D

Gringo78

MisterDrak wrote: »

Recently upped the distance and intensity of my training for the DCM, and I seem to be loosing a fair bit of weight. At least 4 people that know me are saying that im beginning to look pretty skinny. I’m 5:11 and 76kgs.

I wouldn't worry about dropping the weight to below 70kg and to be honest, you'd be unlikely to lose that amount of weight before DCM. be thankful for any weight loss you achieve between now and then...it will make things easier on marathon day.

Line up beside the front row of runners in your next race and see how skinny you look compared to them.....I doubt any are heavier than 70kg

MisterDrak

Thanks lads, so basically im a fatty ??? Just joking ...

But further question? Is there a correlation between weight loss and faster times (obviously elites are skinny), or is it really down to the quality of the pre race training?

Is that an idea for the 1000Mile challenge for next year, Ie Start weight in Jan Finish weight in month XXX????

Gringo78

MisterDrak wrote: »

Is there a correlation between weight loss and faster times (obviously elites are skinny), or is it really down to the quality of the pre race training?

been discussed many times here on other threads, but I think all things being equal i.e if you do the same amount of training between now and DCM but are 4kg lighter than if you modifed you diet to ensure you dropped no more weight, then yes, i think you'd be faster....the rule of thumb is 5sec/mile/kg. Think of it as not having to carry 4 litre bottles of water around the whole marathon course.

tunney

Gringo78 wrote: »

been discussed many times here on other threads, but I think all things being equal i.e if you do the same amount of training between now and DCM but are 4kg lighter than if you modifed you diet to ensure you dropped no more weight, then yes, i think you'd be faster....the rule of thumb is 5sec/mile/kg. Think of it as not having to carry 4 litre bottles of water around the whole marathon course.

mixing units there

/mile/lb
/km/kg

hunnymonster

tunney wrote: »

/mile/lb
/km/kg

Mile-1lb-1
km-1kg-1
ftw :-)

tunney

hunnymonster wrote: »

Mile-1lb-1
km-1kg-1
ftw :-)

but what was said was mile-kg

one second a kg a km is rather on the low side I would have thought

Gringo78

tunney wrote: »

but what was said was mile-kg

one second a kg a km is rather on the low side I would have thought

Agree....I'll go with Tunneys's 5sec/km/kg for marathon pace.

MisterDrak

Ok, so by way of a synopsis for my fat topic:-

1. I should not (reasonably) worry about the weight loss. Unless I drop below 70Kg.
2. Keep training hard.
3. Watch the October time tumble….

tunney

MisterDrak wrote: »

Ok, so by way of a synopsis for my fat topic:-

1. I should not (reasonably) worry about the weight loss. Unless I drop below 70Kg.
2. Keep training hard.
3. Watch the October time tumble….

Why worry about weight going down at all? If you hit 65kg then consider, just consider, a second bowl of ceral for breakfast.

"The trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight"

Gringo78

MisterDrak wrote: »

1. I should not (reasonably) worry about the weight loss. Unless I drop below 70Kg.

The 70kg mark indicates the point above which its a complete waste of time doing the Tunney Tummy test....it'll still be guaranteed to wobble at 70kg.

mloc123

Gringo78 wrote: »

the Tunney Tummy test

You should TM that.

As for weight loss, worry about it when you stop losing weight... or end up looking like this:

MisterDrak

Not exactly Prop-Forward material ...:D

itsalltrue

that guy has the ultimate farmers tan

dna_leri

Have a look at http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/weighteffect.php for predicted effect of weight loss. I have found it to be accurate for me when I started.

For example if you drop from 76 to 72Kg, it predicts a 10 minute improvement on a 4hr marathon time.

opus

dna_leri wrote: »

Have a look at http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/weighteffect.php for predicted effect of weight loss. I have found it to be accurate for me when I started.

For example if you drop from 76 to 72Kg, it predicts a 10 minute improvement on a 4hr marathon time.

Thanks for that, I've lost 2kg since the Cork marathon so according to that site have more than 4min in the bank for the next one already so I won't worry about the accuracy of the prediction, the placebo effect is good enough for me!

TFBubendorfer

dna_leri wrote: »

Have a look at http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/weighteffect.php for predicted effect of weight loss. I have found it to be accurate for me when I started.

For example if you drop from 76 to 72Kg, it predicts a 10 minute improvement on a 4hr marathon time.

That's on the assumption that all the lost weight is just useless fat, not muscle.

Btw., my race times seem to be the same no matter if I weigh 145 pounds (=65.8 kg) (as of 3 months ago) or 150+ pounds (=68 kg) (as of now), so I've come to doubt the usefulness of calculators like that entirely.