DCM 2012 Graduates - the next step

docrock

menoscemo wrote: »

Simple answer: Run more = Get faster.

Strides will not make you faster, they are just a way of stretching the legs at the end of an easy run, they are not a speed session and are not meant to be taxing.

If you up the number of times you run per week to 4 and then 5 times a week you will get faster. The whole point of the program I am putting up every week is to gradually get everyone used to running 5 times and 30 miles + per week. Upping the miles and frequency of the runs is the first and foremost way to help you improve (IMO).

Thanks Meno, I normally run every second day so one week I will run 4 times a week & the next will be 3 - my reason for this was to give my legs a rest because I over did the training previously & picked up a few injuries. For the first time in years I now have some calf muscles:eek: so I suppose I basically have the work done to break out of that routine & include another day every week without a major risk of injury.In saying that should I be doing my 3/4 sprints differently or do I just include an extra day each week & carry on doing what I'm doing?
Thanks again;)

ecoli

I agree with some of Meno's points. Speed is not the issue for improving your half times its strength as such people coming from a low aerobic base (I am not talking about recent mileage but moreso in relation to time on your feet accumulated in the previous +5 years) will see massive improvements simply from building their mileage.

Strides can be very useful and something which personally I would encourage you to keep doing 2-3 times a week as you progress to a 5 day or more training week. Strides can be great for developing leg turnover and running economy. This is something which becomes more important as you improve to a point where performance begins to plateau from simple volume increases and have to add new stimuli to training

The best analogy that I can use here is a car. Think of miles logged as building up the engine. There comes a point when regardless how much horse power you have it wont make the car faster as it has no way to transfer this power to speed. Turnover and running economy (derived from "speedwork") is like fine tuning the gears in order to allow the transfer of all this power into speed

menoscemo

docrock wrote: »

Thanks Meno, I normally run every second day so one week I will run 4 times a week & the next will be 3 - my reason for this was to give my legs a rest because I over did the training previously & picked up a few injuries. For the first time in years I now have some calf muscles:eek: so I suppose I basically have the work done to break out of that routine & include another day every week without a major risk of injury.In saying that should I be doing my 3/4 sprints differently or do I just include an extra day each week & carry on doing what I'm doing?
Thanks again;)

Start by doing 4 days a week consistently, keep most of the runs nice and slow. Your strides will keep your legs in touch with your speed (they way you are doing them sounds fine BTW). You should also stretch your LSR gradually. If you are looking at a half Marathon best to eventually get your long run up to about 15-16 miles consistently. You want to regularly go 'over distance' as it will give you great endurance benefits which a HM will need.

After a few weeks you can introduce a 5th Run every week. This should be a short recovery run (e.g. 3 miles very slow). At this point you could introduce a speed session (if you go back through my old posts as Blockic says you will see lots of different examples), you can do your recovery run the day after your session ( a recovery run will actually help your legs recover from the hard day before).

So basically gradually increase the frequency of your runs, then increase the length of your runs a touch. Only when you are are regularly doing lots of easy running do you increase the intensity of some of your runs- but it is best to do this in a structured fashion (speed sessions).
Don't try to increase distance/frequency/Intensity all at the same time as it will only lead to injury, only try to do one thing at a time. Also take a step back week every 3-4 weeks or when you feel you need it.

docrock

Thanks Meno:cool: (plus Blokic & ecoli) - you should charge for this advice,payable in pints of course:D - all taken on board & will be put in motion from tomorrow. Priceless guidance in fairness.

menoscemo

ecoli wrote: »

I agree with some of Meno's points. Speed is not the issue for improving your half times its strength as such people coming from a low aerobic base (I am not talking about recent mileage but moreso in relation to time on your feet accumulated in the previous +5 years) will see massive improvements simply from building their mileage.

Strides can be very useful and something which personally I would encourage you to keep doing 2-3 times a week as you progress to a 5 day or more training week. Strides can be great for developing leg turnover and running economy. This is something which becomes more important as you improve to a point where performance begins to plateau from simple volume increases and have to add new stimuli to training

The best analogy that I can use here is a car. Think of miles logged as building up the engine. There comes a point when regardless how much horse power you have it wont make the car faster as it has no way to transfer this power to speed. Turnover and running economy (derived from "speedwork") is like fine tuning the gears in order to allow the transfer of all this power into speed

I love Ecolis analogys (though he does seem to have a car fetish ).

Definitely agree about the strides, they are a good way to keep the body in touch with speed without being too taxing, hence you can do them several times a week at the end of an easy run. Much better to do an easy run with strides than an unstructured fastish run that's a little bit faster than normal but neither fast enough to be a proper tempo run nor slow enough to be truly easy.

From your first post I think your limiter is still mostly frequency and quantity of running so best to up that gradually for now while continuing doing your strides.

ecoli

menoscemo wrote: »

I love Ecolis analogys (though he does seem to have a car fetish ).

Thank god I used this one so my other analogy I use alot involves stilettos

Pacing Mule

ecoli wrote: »

Thank god I used this one so my other analogy I use alot involves stilettos

Yes because the time on your feet in stilettos is a different ball game altogether !

ecoli

Pageant Messiah wrote: »

Yes because the time on your feet in stilettos is a different ball game altogether !

Its the alternative to bare foot running to strengthen lower leg muscles:D

RayCun

ecoli wrote: »

Its the alternative to bare foot running to strengthen lower leg muscles:D

... and I suppose the stockings were compression gear, and you have an equally good explanation for the bra and frilly underwear :pac:

greenb

RayCun wrote: »

the bra and frilly underwear :pac:

Gel holders

ecoli

RayCun wrote: »

... and I suppose the stockings were compression gear, and you have an equally good explanation for the bra and frilly underwear :pac:

You only get so much advice for free can't give away all the secrets of training before I release the training book;)

kit3

ecoli wrote: »

You only get so much advice for free can't give away all the secrets of training before I release the training book;)

Something tells me we may not find this one on the sports shelves :rolleyes:

docrock

kit3 wrote: »

Something tells me we may not find this one on the sports shelves :rolleyes:

Well not on the bottom shelf anyway:eek::eek:

Dilbert75

Session done - total 10m in 80 mins. Unfortunately the last 2m were uphill - the joys of living on the top of a hill.

The good point about this weeks session was that it was easy organise an out-and-back - it was symmetrical done on distance rather than time.

Tough session though.

rasher_m

RayCun wrote: »

... and I suppose the stockings were compression gear, and you have an equally good explanation for the bra and frilly underwear :pac:

Looks like we can look forward to a picture of ecoli in Sports Illustrated 2013

ncmc

Did my 10 mile session tonight. It was tough I have to say. Total of 10 miles done in 82 mins (incl two stops) My splits were 9:25, 7:55, 7:58, 7:20, 7:20, 7:47, 8:34 - stopped for water 7:31, 8:15 - stopped for cramp:( 10:06

In some ways it's disheartening because I have a long way to go if I'm to do Ballycotton in 75 mins, but on the other hand, it is my first speed session and my split times were based on a projected 3:30 marathon rather than my current 3:57. So I'm going to take it as a step in the right direction, with room left for improvement.

On the good news front, my new, very expensive Aldi socks are lovely and comfy! In your face stupid '1000 mile' socks!

AdpRo

Session done - found it fairly ok, the last HMP section was tough but apart from that it was ok, I reckon it was very close to my 10m pb which is a good sign.


||1 Mile Easy|2 Miles MP|2 Miles HMP|2 Miles MP|2 Miles HMP|1 Mile Easy|
|Target Pace||9:15|8:45|9:15 |8:45||
|Actual Pace|10:30|9:13|8:42|9:11 |8:43|10:30|

coalshed

Did the session last night.

Found it difficult to keep to the pace during the first 2 miles at HMP, but managed to stay in touch for the rest.

||1 Mile Easy|2 Miles MP|2 Miles HMP|2 Miles MP|2 Miles HMP|1 Mile Easy|
|Target Pace||7:40|7:20|7:40 |7:20||
|Actual Pace|9:14|7:41|7:31|7:39 |7:21|9:01|

All in all it was tough enough, not helped by the fact that I definitely need new runners. Fr the first few miles I felt like I was running in these :

Gavlor

ncmc wrote: »

Did my 10 mile session tonight. It was tough I have to say. Total of 10 miles done in 82 mins (incl two stops) My splits were 9:25, 7:55, 7:58, 7:20, 7:20, 7:47, 8:34 - stopped for water 7:31, 8:15 - stopped for cramp:( 10:06

In some ways it's disheartening because I have a long way to go if I'm to do Ballycotton in 75 mins, but on the other hand, it is my first speed session and my split times were based on a projected 3:30 marathon rather than my current 3:57. So I'm going to take it as a step in the right direction, with room left for improvement.

On the good news front, my new, very expensive Aldi socks are lovely and comfy! In your face stupid '1000 mile' socks!

Bare in mind that 1. Xmas is only finished 2. You are running on your own 3. You've less than a minute a mile to knock off on race day 4. It's not for another few weeks

You'll definitely be there or there about at 75 minutes

ncmc

Gavlor wrote: »

Bare in mind that 1. Xmas is only finished 2. You are running on your own 3. You've less than a minute a mile to knock off on race day 4. It's not for another 2.5 weeks

You'll definitely be there or there about at 75 minutes

Thanks Gavlor, my race isn't actually for 7 weeks, I'm running the Ballycotton 10 on March 3rd, so I should be well improved by then. I probably stopped for about 2 mins in total, once to get water and once to ease out a cramp, so when I was running, I was actually keeping the pace quite well, annoyed with myself for the stops, but it's not the end of the world.

Started reading the P&D book, Advanced Marathoning, it's really good so far. It explains so well the mechanics of improving your marathon time and each runs function in getting that improvement. They explain really well the reasons behind recovery runs, which I didn't really do for DCM, so I am definitely doing a recovery run from now on after every tough run.

Gavlor

ncmc wrote: »

Thanks Gavlor, my race isn't actually for 7 weeks, I'm running the Ballycotton 10 on March 3rd, so I should be well improved by then. I probably stopped for about 2 mins in total, once to get water and once to ease out a cramp, so when I was running, I was actually keeping the pace quite well, annoyed with myself for the stops, but it's not the end of the world.

Started reading the P&D book, Advanced Marathoning, it's really good so far. It explains so well the mechanics of improving your marathon time and each runs function in getting that improvement. They explain really well the reasons behind recovery runs, which I didn't really do for DCM, so I am definitely doing a recovery run from now on after every tough run.

7 weeks?! You'll be sub 70 by that stage

Regarding stopping for a min, I wouldn't worry too much about it, as fitness etc builds back up it'll become less and less of an issue.... And remember (unless you are an addict like career move!!) rest days are just as important as the lsr. It's the only way for your body to heal the micro injuries.

blockic

Gavlor wrote: »

And remember (unless you are an addict like career move!!) rest days are just as important as the lsr. It's the only way for your body to heal the micro injuries.

Very true though!

ncmc

Gavlor wrote: »

And remember (unless you are an addict like career move!!) rest days are just as important as the lsr. It's the only way for your body to heal the micro injuries.

No fear of that! If I had 1/4 of her energy and enthusiasm, i'd be laughing!

career_move

ncmc wrote: »

Did my 10 mile session tonight. It was tough I have to say. Total of 10 miles done in 82 mins (incl two stops) My splits were 9:25, 7:55, 7:58, 7:20, 7:20, 7:47, 8:34 - stopped for water 7:31, 8:15 - stopped for cramp:( 10:06

In some ways it's disheartening because I have a long way to go if I'm to do Ballycotton in 75 mins, but on the other hand, it is my first speed session and my split times were based on a projected 3:30 marathon rather than my current 3:57. So I'm going to take it as a step in the right direction, with room left for improvement.

On the good news front, my new, very expensive Aldi socks are lovely and comfy! In your face stupid '1000 mile' socks!

That's a great session especially considering how little you did over xmas. You'll have no bother with your goals

Gavlor wrote: »

7 weeks?! You'll be sub 70 by that stage

Regarding stopping for a min, I wouldn't worry too much about it, as fitness etc builds back up it'll become less and less of an issue.... And remember (unless you are an addict like career move!!) rest days are just as important as the lsr. It's the only way for your body to heal the micro injuries.

ncmc wrote: »

No fear of that! If I had 1/4 of her energy and enthusiasm, i'd be laughing!

KillianByrne

Was really dreading my 5m tempo run today, thought of every excuse not to do it then found a bit of HTFU & got out.

Plan was 1m warm up 5m at 8.40 and 1m warm down.

While I can't do a fancy table, the splits were as follows...

1 - 9.50 (warm up)
2 - 8.53
3 - 8.09
4 - 8.40
5 - 8.18
6 - 7.49
7 - 10.03

That gives me a 5m tempo avg of 8.23. Really delighted with that especially passing my door at tempo mile 4.25 and keeping going. Fast finish was nice to have.

I just need to sort out how to build some sort of metronomic consistency into my runs and bring those times in line with each other. But all in all a decent run, nice to know that after learning to run slow, I am able to still run fast!

tang1

8.2miles this afternoon including 10x150m strides. Man was it brrrrrrrr in Co Meath, first time ever running in leggings. Kind of felt bit strange without the red stilettos!!!

Gavlor

KillianByrne wrote: »

Was really dreading my 5m tempo run today, thought of every excuse not to do it then found a bit of HTFU & got out.

Plan was 1m warm up 5m at 8.40 and 1m warm down.

While I can't do a fancy table, the splits were as follows...

1 - 9.50 (warm up)
2 - 8.53
3 - 8.09
4 - 8.40
5 - 8.18
6 - 7.49
7 - 10.03

That gives me a 5m tempo avg of 8.23. Really delighted with that especially passing my door at tempo mile 4.25 and keeping going. Fast finish was nice to have.

I just need to sort out how to build some sort of metronomic consistency into my runs and bring those times in line with each other. But all in all a decent run, nice to know that after learning to run slow, I am able to still run fast!

Great running

*metronomic consistency?? We have our very own Sheldon cooper!!

career_move

tang1 wrote: »

8.2miles this afternoon including 10x150m strides. Man was it brrrrrrrr in Co Meath, first time ever running in leggings. Kind of felt bit strange without the red stilettos!!!

I'm sure it did

Steroo

tang1 wrote: »

8.2miles this afternoon including 10x150m strides. Man was it brrrrrrrr in Co Meath, first time ever running in leggings. Kind of felt bit strange without the red stilettos!!!

Tell me what these strides are? How to do them? Sprints?

New runner

5m done this morning including a pyramid session of 2min, 3min, 4 min, 3min n 2 min sprints with 90secs -2 mins between. Planning on doing 5k race on Sunday in Derry , very nervous as haven't done 1 since the 3 I done last summer. Hoping to beat my PB of 24.15. 😱