DCM 2014 graduates - the next step onwards

Clearlier

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Hi Clearlier,

What advice would you give / tweaks to the plan perhaps would you make to prepare for a half marathon race. I'm entering the bohermeen half in early March so I will be looking at goal racing sooner than you will have goal specific plans sorted. I'm trying to balance the building on the fitness already gained and the further base building that the current plan does with the hope of running a good half (relatively speaking of course )

From what I understand of the plan you wold advocate replacing the tuesday session with alternating tempo and marathon pace each week which would be either side of HMP. Would it be beneficial to throw in HMP miles within the LSR at the weekend or am I better off leaving that 100% easy ?

Thanks in advance.

Hi PM,

Assuming that the mileage tracker is up to date for you and that you can handle it from an injury/life point of view the single biggest difference you can make to your performance for races over pretty much any distance is to increase the frequency of your runs. It looks like you're averaging just over twice a week at the moment. Given your recent running background it's not really enough to stimulate you and improve your fitness.

Definitely leave the weekend LSR at an easy effort. You could cautiously bump it up to 2 hours but your priority should be to add an extra run into the week.

The plan is designed to set people up to run well at distances from 5k to half marathon and on the whole I think that you would do best to stick to the current plan and just do a bit more of it. If you were coming off a 5k cycle then a marathon plan would probably work best but given that you have come off a marathon training cycle the current plan is a better option. If you're feeling like you can handle it you could accelerate the increase in length of the easy and long runs so that they increase every two weeks instead of four. Get the extra run in first though!

Pacing Mule

Clearlier wrote: »

Hi PM,

Assuming that the mileage tracker is up to date for you and that you can handle it from an injury/life point of view the single biggest difference you can make to your performance for races over pretty much any distance is to increase the frequency of your runs. It looks like you're averaging just over twice a week at the moment. Given your recent running background it's not really enough to stimulate you and improve your fitness.

Definitely leave the weekend LSR at an easy effort. You could cautiously bump it up to 2 hours but your priority should be to add an extra run into the week.

The plan is designed to set people up to run well at distances from 5k to half marathon and on the whole I think that you would do best to stick to the current plan and just do a bit more of it. If you were coming off a 5k cycle then a marathon plan would probably work best but given that you have come off a marathon training cycle the current plan is a better option. If you're feeling like you can handle it you could accelerate the increase in length of the easy and long runs so that they increase every two weeks instead of four. Get the extra run in first though!

Cheers mate. Last few weeks havent been consistent at all to be fair. Will be doing 4/5 days per week from here on. Would have been at that level going into DCM so it won't be too much of a shock to the body.

Consistency is the main first step though. Hear that loud and clear (no pun intended)

laura_ac3

Clearlier wrote: »

Hi Laura,

Thanks for the question.

Tempo runs address your lactate threshold most directly but there's an argument that all runs at tempo pace or slower contribute to improving your lactate threshold pace but from a performance point of view you need to have some training at a faster pace (not just easy) to be able to take full advantage of that (one of the reasons for having an off season is that you can do most of your running at slower paces and not worry about the short term impact on racing).

Fartlek is a way of getting in some faster running in an enjoyable way, it takes the pressure off to hit certain paces or efforts and it should be straightforward to tailor your effort to account for how you're feeling. I think that it's a good workout for a down week but am interested in any feedback on how people find it.

5k segments are designed more to help with your VO2 max which is a measure of your body's maximal ability to convert oxygen into energy. They will use your aerobic system but their purpose is to stimulate your anaerobic energy system. The plan that I've written introduces it very gradually so that the first few sessions barely touch it but do give you leg turnover benefits as well as helping the body adapt to running at a faster pace and the sessions towards the end have a bigger impact on it.

I'm glossing over a lot of stuff in the above and a physiologist would probably have a canary if they read it but hopefully it makes sense from a training point of view. I think that it's important to know what you don't know and I don't know physiology. I mostly use the terms as a shorthand to communicate about training and it shouldn't be understood as anything more than an attempt to explain how to complete training.

Again any more questions don't hesitate.

Thanks for the reply. And for the answer to PM about bohermeen as well, thinking of doing that myself so will take that on board.

adrian522

So, Tempo pace tonight, aim for a HR of between 81% and 91% or go for a particular pace?

Also given the Marathon Pace and Tempo pace are so similar (Marathon pace is 79-88%) what is the reason for the Marathon pace sessions to be that bit longer than the tempo sessions (e.g Last Marathon Pace session had 30 mins at pace, tonights tempo has 22 mins @ pace)

Clearlier

adrian522 wrote: »

So, Tempo pace tonight, aim for a HR of between 81% and 91% or go for a particular pace?

Also given the Marathon Pace and Tempo pace are so similar (Marathon pace is 79-88%) what is the reason for the Marathon pace sessions to be that bit longer than the tempo sessions (e.g Last Marathon Pace session had 30 mins at pace, tonights tempo has 22 mins @ pace)

They should be done at different levels of effort. I aim for a difference of about 5 beats per minute between the two. The more that you do these sessions the better that you get to know what your body can and can't do. Very roughly, tempo effort = pace that you can hold for an hour, marathon pace effort = pace that you can hold for about 2 hours (sometimes known as AeT or Aerobic Threshold). The difference in pace between these two isn't actually that big.

It's also worth noting that as you get fitter you will be able to hold a higher heart rate for these types of runs hence one of the reasons for such a wide range for heart rate.

adrian522

Got through the session anyway,

22 mins Easy @ 9:43 m/m
22 Mins Tempo @ 8:08 m/m
22 Mins Easy @ 9:37 m/m

Seems lie a good session, I just struggled getting going at all this evening, just one of those days I think, but glad I got through it I guess

chickey2

I really like the tempo session. For the warm up I wasn't feeling great and was thinking I wouldn't last the 22 min at tempo but once I sped up I felt much better and the time flew by. I felt I could have kept going! Didn't manage my easy run today though as I felt so tired and all I could hear was howling wind and rain when I woke up. Will definitely go tomorrow though (I have to now I've said it here!)

laura_ac3

chickey2 wrote: »

I really like the tempo session. For the warm up I wasn't feeling great and was thinking I wouldn't last the 22 min at tempo but once I sped up I felt much better and the time flew by. I felt I could have kept going! Didn't manage my easy run today though as I felt so tired and all I could hear was howling wind and rain when I woke up. Will definitely go tomorrow though (I have to now I've said it here!)

Mad isn't it? Same when I did my first one the other week. After 3 minutes that felt like 10 I thought oh fcuk...I'm in big trouble. But got into it and was slowing myself down at the end to keep the HR right.

crisco10

Being a bit soft on myself the past two days. still have a bit of a cold and a few aches and pains after lots of sport, not running, over Christmas period (including a randomly sore hip).

Sorta been talking the approach of no prizes for killing yourself in the first week in January. Downgraded yesterdays tempo session to 7km easy and only did a 3km commute this morning...

Parkrun on Saturday, if I'm feeling better I'll go harder at that and turn it into a bid of a speedwork session.

Also had time to think about my next race; reckon it will be a 10k in March; either the FIT one in Phoenix Park (work would cover my entry) or the Wicklow Jailbreak on the 22nd. Would I need to differ majorly from the graduates training plan to target 1 of these?

Clearlier

crisco10 wrote: »

Being a bit soft on myself the past two days. still have a bit of a cold and a few aches and pains after lots of sport, not running, over Christmas period (including a randomly sore hip).

Sorta been talking the approach of no prizes for killing yourself in the first week in January. Downgraded yesterdays tempo session to 7km easy and only did a 3km commute this morning...

Parkrun on Saturday, if I'm feeling better I'll go harder at that and turn it into a bid of a speedwork session.

Also had time to think about my next race; reckon it will be a 10k in March; either the FIT one in Phoenix Park (work would cover my entry) or the Wicklow Jailbreak on the 22nd. Would I need to differ majorly from the graduates training plan to target 1 of these?

If you wanted to have one of those as your target race for the first part of the year then you'd want to change a little. I'd suggest that you pick up 3 or 4 races at different distances that you'd like to do and choose 2 of them as your target races. At this stage in your development there's a chance that you'll pick up a PB at a non-target race anyway.

adrian522

Got through the 6 Second Hill repeats session today. It was tough going into the wind. I choose the hill at fosters avenue, you all ran down it during DCM around mile 22.

Just about long enough for 60 seconds, not sure what I'll do for the 90 Second repeats to come.

adrian522

Has anyone gotten through the 30 day challenge yet? I signed up for it ages ago, I've now gotten all the emails but only today did I do day 1. Seems to take a bit longer than the 10-15 mins that's advertised but some pretty good stretches/exercises included.

Dubgal72

adrian522 wrote: »

Has anyone gotten through the 30 day challenge yet? I signed up for it ages ago, I've now gotten all the emails but only today did I do day 1. Seems to take a bit longer than the 10-15 mins that's advertised but some pretty good stretches/exercises included.

Haha glad to see someone's behind me on this! I've got as far as day three but have had to restart a couple of times as the gap between days was actually weeks!

chickey2

I got as far as day 21 on Christmas eve but haven't done any since! Was just thinking I should start again as I do think it helped and its easy enough to do while watching TV in the evening.

laura_ac3

Dubgal72 wrote: »

Haha glad to see someone's behind me on this! I've got as far as day three but have had to restart a couple of times as the gap between days was actually weeks!

Another one here worse than you. I managed day one but with packing, moving and not being able to find free floor space in the apartment I didn't quite get any further Meant to after the move but never seemed to happen!!! Keep meaning to start again but like Adrian I found it took way longer than the "10/15" minutes on the video!

Firedance

Yep me too, I got to about week 3 the first time and then week 2 the second time... its finding the time to fit it in along with all the other stuff/stretches/core work etc etc.

So what do runners do when they can't run? turns out the answer is read about running, a lot! and as it also turns out there is conflicting information left right and centre however, I've learned a few things that surprised me.... Planks are bad! apparently they get the wrong muscles firing (or something to that affect) and I'd been doing a 'plank a day' challenge since November I can't remember who's log i read that on but somewhere here. Also, I know its been mentioned here but I've seen it across the boards in a few places about running for time and not distance, I will most definitely be getting my head around that one when I get back on the road.

Another pearl of wisdom is that AIS rocks,, thanks Ososlo, I didn't really pick it up when we were marathon training and what a loss that was. It will be a permanent part of my pre run routine. I've one more week off running and then I'll be easing back in, hopefully this Sunday as a start. I don't think there's any point in jumping into the plan here for the moment, I think a few easy runs for a couple of weeks before getting stuck into the harder work.

Hope the running is going well for everyone else, am really enjoying reading the new logs.

smashiner

I went out for a run last night waaaaay too fast and blew up after 4K, had to walk for 5 minutes to get my breath back then slogged the last 5K back home........note to self, the theme from 'Rocky' alone will not actually improve your fitness .
Mind you, it was a good experiment for the Raheny 5 on the 25th as I always go out too fast in this race and end up struggling for the last 2 miles!

On a more positve note, I am back running up to 12K again without any injury niggles. I am running home from work (10K) 2/3 times a week, all up hill and generally into a wind and then a decent run at the weekend .....tough going but hopefully will help me to get my fitness back to where it was in the summer.

I plan to get back on the bike in a few weeks time when the evenings get a bit brighter and get a bit of cross training done too......feeling good about 2015 !!

Anyone else slogging away in the wind??

ciaranmac

I haven't been running since the 10k race I did on Stephen's Day (smashed PB!). I made a resolution to exercise every day in January and so far I've kept it. It's been all walking, exercise bike and stretching/strengthening work though (including planks). I started the 30 day challenge in November but I haven't been doing those every day! I'm really struggling with the stage 3 exercises - I haven't yet managed to get through all the reps for day 13 after a few attempts. I'm thinking it would be no harm to start over. I've been mixing them with weights and yoga as well. And I should really update my log...

Edit: Planks are bad?? I must look that up

chickey2

smashiner wrote: »

Anyone else slogging away in the wind??

The wind is killing me! Yesterday I started off running downhill with the wind and was flying along thinking "this is going to hard on the way back!" I wasn't wrong. The wind was so strong I had to walk some parts as my heart rate was so high. Strangely enough I covered more or less the same distance in 100 minutes, I guess the speedy first half made up for it.
Looks like its going to be cold tomorrow. I lost one of my running gloves so might be a bit cold. Might just take my regular gloves just til I warm up.

chickey2

After all my talk about running this morning I woke up feeling awful so went back to bed. Couldn't go to work I felt so bad. I'm on the sofa now full of neurofen but at least I'm getting some time to read about running like firedance! I've been reading some articles on the kinetic revolution site. Clearlier, do you think there's anything to gain from monitoring cadence? I haven't a clue what mine is but was wondering should I measure it and maybe improve it. I got a metronome app on my phone. Im guessing you just set it at your goal cadence and try and run with it. I don't know if its the kind of thing I could just try myself or is it better to do it with someone who knows what they're doing.

I liked watching the slow mo recordings of the elites. I shudder to think what I'd look like running slow mo! Although I was fascinated by Priscah Jeptoo and her mad (but fast!) running. Boards won't let me add the link but just search Priscah Jeptoo running technique on you tube and you'll find it.

Firedance

chickey2 wrote: »

After all my talk about running this morning I woke up feeling awful so went back to bed. Couldn't go to work I felt so bad. I'm on the sofa now full of neurofen but at least I'm getting some time to read about running like firedance! I've been reading some articles on the kinetic revolution site. Clearlier, do you think there's anything to gain from monitoring cadence? I haven't a clue what mine is but was wondering should I measure it and maybe improve it. I got a metronome app on my phone. Im guessing you just set it at your goal cadence and try and run with it. I don't know if its the kind of thing I could just try myself or is it better to do it with someone who knows what they're doing..

ha ha haaaaa you've caught my reading everything in sight bug! I actually downloaded a metronome to my phone a couple of weeks ago too, you're supposed to set it to 180 BPM which apparently is 'optimum' I haven't really been able to try it out obviously and would love to hear what Clearlier thinks.

Hope the neurofen works and you're back on track soon!

adrian522

This 180 being optimum is a bit of a myth from what I can see.

I don't think setting this as a target is something we should be doing at this stage of our running careers. 180 is a lot of steps to take per minute and (for me anyway) it leads me to being out of breath very quickly and not very conducive to easy paced running.

I really think we are over thinking things here.

The 180 comes from the 1984 Olympics when Jack Daniels and his wife counted the steps taken by the athletes at the front of the various races and no one has really challenged this theory since then.

Good Article here:

"What cadence should I aim for?
Once again, you have to be careful what you read.
As the subject of cadence has become more main-stream, so too has the emergence of the “magic” optimum stride-rate of 180spm. The reason for this is as follows: at the 1984 Olympics, famous running coach Jack Daniels counted the stride rates among elite distance runners. Of the 46 he studied, only one took less than 180spm (176spm). Daniels also noted that in his 20 years of coaching college students, he never had a beginner runner with a stride rate of over 180spm.
Unfortunately, Daniels’ studies have been misquoted and as a result lead to all too frequent claims that everybody should be running at 180spm. These claims ignore the fact that Daniels noted stride rates of at least 180spm, not exactly 180spm. History clearly shows Haile Gebrselassie running 197spm en route to his world record time of 2:03:59 at the 2008 Berlin Marathon, and Abebe Bikila used a 217spm to become the first man to run a 2:12 marathon (2:12:13, Tokyo 1964).

As was suggested at the beginning of this article, differences in our biological make-up means what works for one runner will not necessarily work for all. If you do one day become an elite distance runner (and we sincerely hope you do!) it is highly likely your race cadence will be over 180spm. However, and this is the important part, your journey to 180spm and beyond needs to be gradual."

Another good article here, that covers more or less the same ground.

Firedance

adrian522 wrote: »

This 180 being optimum is a bit of a myth from what I can see.

I don't think setting this as a target is something we should be doing at this stage of our running careers. 180 is a lot of steps to take per minute and (for me anyway) it leads me to being out of breath very quickly and not very conducive to easy paced running.

I really think we are over thinking things here.

The 180 comes from the 1984 Olympics when Jack Daniels and his wife counted the steps taken by the athletes at the front of the various races and no one has really challenged this theory since then.

Good Article here:



Another good article here, that covers more or less the same ground.

Thanks Adrian, that's pretty much what I was saying the other day, lots of conflicting information, even throughout boards. You're absolutely right about the overthinking and much of the stuff I've come across definitely relates to better athletes than I but its still interesting to see how ideas evolve. Am off to read those two articles now..

chickey2

Yes James dunne says the 180 cadence is not the gold standard either and you should just try increasing by 5 or 10% rather than aiming for 180. Has anyone actually measured their current cadence?

adrian522

I did about a year ago, but never followed through on actively increasing it. More focused on running with good form than counting steps.

menoscemo

chickey2 wrote: »

Yes James dunne says the 180 cadence is not the gold standard either and you should just try increasing by 5 or 10% rather than aiming for 180. Has anyone actually measured their current cadence?

The more modern garmins (FR 220, FR 620 etc) all measure your cadence automatically for every run. I must have a ridiculously short stride because mine is generally around 190 for easy runs and over 200 if I do intervals races or Tempo runs :eek:

crisco10

adrian522 wrote: »

I did about a year ago, but never followed through on actively increasing it. More focused on running with good form than counting steps.

My garmin claims to count it. I assume it is only +-10% accurate but as a relative indicator, it probably does a job. I find the 180 thing a bit funny and not to my experience. I find that my cadence is totally reliant on my pace. I always thought this to be a good things as I imagined it to reduce overstriding when I'm trying for "sprint" finishes.

Examples:
5k parkrun in 19:30; 183 Strides per minute (with it being about 200SPM in the final 500m)
5k Easy in 26:50: 178 SPM
DCM: 173 SPM

adrian522

When I say I measured it, I mean the old fashioned way, counted my strides for 60 seconds...lost interest in that real quick.

adrian522

Created this weeks tab in the spreadsheet, not sure if everything still calculates ok, let me know if you notice any problems.

Didn't get the session done tonight. The footpath was pretty icy so didn't want to run the 5K intervals on them, just went for easy miles instead.

annapr

adrian522 wrote: »

When I say I measured it, I mean the old fashioned way, counted my strides for 60 seconds...lost interest in that real quick.

I for one absolutely refuse to care about cadence. Or even understand what it is. Bah humbug.