Random Running Questions

Myles Splitz

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

My own definitions of good and decent shift relative to my own progress. :

I think this generally is the crux of the matter for alot of people

Decent = In around where they are currently
Good = Where a person is training to be

Very few will say that their target is a mediocre one because they appreciate the work they are doing to get to that level and very few will admit that currently where they are is below decent as it implies they are not trying or they could be doing better off the level of fitness they have acquired.

This is why people's opinions vary to the point of a non comparison most of the time.

wrstan

Chivito550 wrote: »

YES!! Too many people hide behind age-grade calculators. Great to hear the above coming from somebody who could do likewise, but chooses not to.

Ooooooooooooooooh! That's a really low blow! Not that I'm overly sensitive about being an old fart of course

Chivito550

wrstan wrote: »

Ooooooooooooooooh! That's a really low blow! Not that I'm overly sensitive about being an old fart of course

Haha not a low blow at all. Many runners in their 40s and over could run much faster than they think they could if they stopped looking at these questionable and flawed calculators to tell themselves how good they could have been had they taken up the sport earlier. Pointless.

tang1

Chivito550 wrote: »

Pointless.

Bit like a fella blaming the lane draw for running a slow time at Indoor National's when he knows he can run faster.

davedanon

Chivito550 wrote: »

Haha not a low blow at all. Many runners in their 40s and over could run much faster than they think they could if they stopped looking at these questionable and flawed calculators to tell themselves how good they could have been had they taken up the sport earlier. Pointless.

For the record, I don't do this. I also don't 'hide behind age-graded results', and I train as hard as most on here.

I have never, ever chalked up some kind of moral 'age-graded victory' against someone who beat me, because they were younger.

Chivito550

tang1 wrote: »

Bit like a fella blaming the lane draw for running a slow time at Indoor National's when he knows he can run faster.

Idiotic comment. Your post is full of ignorance. 1) I know right well I am not running to my best right now, something I've alluded to and 2) if you had any notion about indoor 200m sprinting you wouldn't come out with such drivel.

Good man for going personal again. If you want to insult my performances come onto my log and do it. All input is welcome, no matter how clueless it is. Posting this here unwarranted is just pathetic.

ultrapercy

I think the decline in performance in late 30s and 40s is more to do with time issues rather than anything physical. Finding the time to train to a high level when you are at a very time demanding stage of life is tough. Career elderly relatives the community you live in all demand a share of time and leaves little for training. Then there are children, who by all accounts are selfish self centered little bastards. As for babies, well they do nothing for themselves at all and don't care about elite athletics let alone someone trying to run a sub 40 10k.

Krusty_Clown

ultrapercy wrote: »

I think the decline in performance in late 30s and 40s is more to do with time issues rather than anything physical. Finding the time to train to a high level when you are at a very time demanding stage of life is tough. Career elderly relatives the community you live in all demand a share of time and leaves little for training. Then there are children, who by all accounts are selfish self centered little bastards. As for babies, well they do nothing for themselves at all and don't care about elite athletics let alone someone trying to run a sub 40 10k.

My original comment was intentionally provocative and tongue in cheek, cos it irks me to see performance and age tightly intertwined in a conversation when discussing amateur level athletics, where for the most part, improvement is related to commitment, rather than age. But the items you've listed above, while valid, are not age related either. They are circumstantial and almost as likely to happen in your 20s or your 50s, or not happen at all (though there is a certain inevitability to some of those items).

Every set of race results throughout this country is littered with a disproportionate number of M40, M45 and M50 runners (and female equivalents). Are these the runners that don't have any kids? You must do feic all for the community yourself Ultrapercy, as more often then nor, you're topping the polls in most races in your county and neighbouring counties.

davedanon

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

more often then nor, you're topping the polls in most races in your county and neighbouring counties.

Ah here, let's leave the fecking election out of this.

Chivito550

ultrapercy wrote: »

I think the decline in performance in late 30s and 40s is more to do with time issues rather than anything physical. Finding the time to train to a high level when you are at a very time demanding stage of life is tough. Career elderly relatives the community you live in all demand a share of time and leaves little for training. Then there are children, who by all accounts are selfish self centered little bastards. As for babies, well they do nothing for themselves at all and don't care about elite athletics let alone someone trying to run a sub 40 10k.

Let's not forget Sinead Diver. Took up the sport very late, full time job, and married with kids. She's doing fairly ok for herself. Eoin Everard made a great point the other day as part of an excellent interview on the AAI Facebook page. He's now married, working full time, and yet actually thinks this has all helped his running. He says he's more settled, sleeps much better. He says he gets up early to run, and then again after work, and that you will always find the time to train.

https://www.facebook.com/AthleticsIreland/videos/1076697869027714/

Chivito550

On a different topic related to running, what is this doing on A/R?

Sponsored Forum: Virgin Media Night Run – Sunday May 22nd 9:30pm

Krusty_Clown

Chivito550 wrote: »

On a different topic related to running, what is this doing on A/R?

Sponsored Forum: Virgin Media Night Run – Sunday May 22nd 9:30pm

Well, it is a running event (even if its not one that appeals to you or I). At €30 it doesn't strike me as good value for money, and the course looks pretty awful. Is it the same course as the Samsung night run? Just a new backer/promoter?

Are we allowed to say bad things about events that are paying sums of money to Boards Inc.?

Chivito550

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Well, it is a running event (even if its not one that appeals to you or I). At €30 it doesn't strike me as good value for money, and the course looks pretty awful. Is it the same course as the Samsung night run? Just a new backer/promoter?

Are we allowed to say bad things about events that are paying sums of money to Boards Inc.?

I see no reason why not.

28064212

Ugh:

RayCun

looks like a direct replacement for the Samsung run - similar route, if a bit less twisty, a bit later in the evening and the year, charity partner but no direct donation, and another high-vis race shirt.

Another race I have no desire to do, but people like running in the city centre...

aero2k

ultrapercy wrote: »

I think the decline in performance in late 30s and 40s is more to do with time issues rather than anything physical. Finding the time to train to a high level when you are at a very time demanding stage of life is tough. Career elderly relatives the community you live in all demand a share of time and leaves little for training. Then there are children, who by all accounts are selfish self centered little bastards. As for babies, well they do nothing for themselves at all and don't care about elite athletics let alone someone trying to run a sub 40 10k.

Another factor which has been mentioned before, and is related to Chivito's post about Sinead Diver above, is when you started. It does seem that many elite athletes burn out mentally and physically after a short number of years. Ordinary mortals may have it a little easier, and there are probably exceptional cases of people who maintain their times as they get older. I don't have a direct comparison from experience but I trained pretty hard in my mid-30's for cycling, and 15 years later I reckon I was as fit aerobically, and a little bit leaner. (That's all before my recent decline:))

As for playing the age card, I'm saving it for the day when there are no older guys finishing well ahead of me.

Something to ponder though: Is Christine Kennedy a much worse athlete now, running ~ 3hrs for a marathon aged 60, than she was running 2:35 back in the day?

Maximus Alexander

aero2k wrote: »

Something to ponder though: Is Christine Kennedy a much worse athlete now, running ~ 3hrs for a marathon aged 60, than she was running 2:35 back in the day?

Interesting to note that 2:35 is about 86% 3:00. I'm pretty surprised to think that the decline from someone in their 20s or 30s to their 60s would be only about 15%. That's amazing.

Krusty_Clown

aero2k wrote: »

Something to ponder though: Is Christine Kennedy a much worse athlete now, running ~ 3hrs for a marathon aged 60, than she was running 2:35 back in the day?

You make a good point. If we take your example though, you're running much faster marathons now, than you were 10 years ago. What has made the difference? Is it the focused marathon-specific training, or has age and wisdom made you faster?

aero2k

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

You make a good point. If we take your example though, you're running much faster marathons now, than you were 10 years ago. What has made the difference? Is it the focused marathon-specific training, or has age and wisdom made you faster?

I think your history is a much more impressive example than mine.

I'd love to claim it was the latter, but it was definitely the former, along with an accumulation of aerobic fitness and maybe stubbornness over the years - and of course the desire to stop young lads like you disappearing over the horizon:D.

Or, perhaps once I'd put the misspent youth of my 40's firmly behind me, the maturity of my 50's propelled me along to new heights - it's a case of which story appeals most.

The Black Oil

Any suggestions for snacks? Not sugary, ideally. I leave the office at 5 and have a banana after 4, but sometimes, like tonight, I'm too hungry to go for a run. Something I could take maybe just as I'm leaving the office. Can't be from a microwave. I usually get home from work before 7 and sometimes go for a run then. Maybe some plain nuts.

ronn

Bowl of cereal/fruit before you leave work,
Gronola bars.

The Black Oil

Cereal's pretty much out as there's no fridge, therefore no milk. Are there any healthy granola bars?

Myles Splitz

The Black Oil wrote: »

Cereal's pretty much out as there's no fridge, therefore no milk. Are there any healthy granola bars?

Handy one you can do yourself are protein balls, hundreds of recipes out there and very few need to be baked

Peanut butter,
Protein powder,
honey,
nuts of your choice,
Flax seed.

Mix in a bowl and roll into balls and allow to set (refrigerate) and can make enough for the week also works out quite cheap also.

Chartsengrafs

I discovered oat cakes in the past six months or so and find them great. No big sugar spikes, and you can add nut butter for something a bit more substantial. Can be quite cheap but worth reading ingredients as they vary.

spaceylou

The Black Oil wrote: »

Any suggestions for snacks? Not sugary, ideally. I leave the office at 5 and have a banana after 4, but sometimes, like tonight, I'm too hungry to go for a run. Something I could take maybe just as I'm leaving the office. Can't be from a microwave. I usually get home from work before 7 and sometimes go for a run then. Maybe some plain nuts.

Handful of nuts or nut butter (I like almond or peanut) with your banana (or other fruit).

Hummus and oatcakes or veg sticks

Granola bars - there are a number of recipes out there with no sugar, just do a google search. Personally I like the ones in Derval O'Rourke's cookbook. Making them also works out much cheaper than buying them, although I do usually also have an emergency 'naked bar' in my bag.

Hard-boiled egg (crackers/oat cakes optional)

Small tin of fish (or half a bigger tin - two days snack sorted) with oatcakes

And of course make sure you are well hydrated.

dna_leri

spaceylou wrote: »

Granola bars - there are a number of recipes out there with no sugar, just do a google search. Personally I like the ones in Derval O'Rourke's cookbook. Making them also works out much cheaper than buying them, although I do usually also have an emergency 'naked bar' in my bag.

.

Derval's recipes do not use sugar but they do use Agave syrup instead about which she says "This is found in the health shop". Just because it is found in the health shop does not make it any better than sugar:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/the-truth-about-agave

spaceylou

dna_leri wrote: »

Derval's recipes do not use sugar but they do use Agave syrup instead about which she says "This is found in the health shop". Just because it is found in the health shop does not make it any better than sugar:
http://www.webmd.com/diet/the-truth-about-agave

Appreciate that but I find that even when you take account of the higher calorie content of agave, because it is sweeter, I use a lot less overall in baking than I would sugar.

Anyway, for the granola bar recipe as far as I can remember (and I don't have the recipe in front of me) honey is the sweetener. As I say, I am open to correction as I don't have the recipe in front of me but I made some at the weekend and I am almost 100 percent sure its honey.

Battery Kinzie

I've started to use a heart rate monitor for my last few runs as I want to start being a bit more structured about my training, but it's only confused me a bit more. According to the classic formula, 220-Age, my max heart rate should be in and around 198. I have no reason to think this is wrong as my resting heart rate is about average (~60bpm), so I've started to base my runs off this max HR reading.

So my last few runs I've been trying to hit the 70%-80% of max HR zone to build my aerobic strength, which would be about 140-160bpm. Using McMillan's training pace calculator, this pace should be about 5min/km, at most 5.30min/km. However, I've been doing about 5.50min/km give or take 10 seconds for my runs, and my HR is still in the high 160s, sometimes low 170s, and rarely under 160.

Are my HR zones a bit off, or should I just be doing these runs even slower? My 8k time is 33.30, which is about 4.12min/km, so doing a lot of my running at over 6min/km seems awful slow. I know you should be going slow for a lot of your runs, but this seems a bit too much, no?

28064212

Battery Kinzie wrote: »

According to the classic formula, 220-Age...

Ignore that. There's lots of ways of getting a real (albeit approximate) max HR, the simplest being wearing your monitor in a max-effort 5k with a strong finish. 220-age is meaningless

Maximus Alexander

That's not a good way to get your max heart rate; it's a rough guide that can vary dramatically for individuals.

Have a look here, particularly this part:

Here are the two most common max heart rate calculations:

1) 220-Age

2) 206.9-(0.67*Age)

The 220-Age calculation is very popular because it’s easy and reasonably accurate for most people, while the other calculation was created in 2007 and is more accurate.

There’s a drawback, however, of these widely used calculations that few people understand. The standard deviation of the 220-age formula is + or – 12 bpm, and the other calculation has a standard deviation of + or – 7 bpm.

In case you never took calculus, or statistics, a standard deviation of + or – 12 bpm means that 66% of people are within 1 standard deviation of the max heart rate predicted by this 220-age formula, 90% of people are within 2 standard deviations (+ or – 24 bpm), and 95% of people are within 3 standard deviations (+ or – 36 bpm).

For example, let’s take a 35 year old man who has a max heart rate of 185 bpm predicted by the 220-age formula. Here’s how his max heart ranges would look:

1 standard deviation is 173-197 bpm (66% probability)

2 standard deviations is 161-209 bpm (90% probability)

3 standard deviations is 149-221 bpm (95% probability)

So, the point I’m trying to make is that these calculations work reasonably well for most people, but I think it’s important to cross reference these calculations with empirical data from when you’re wearing a heart rate monitor during exercise. I had one client who was 25 years old and a really athletic guy, but his max heart rate couldn’t have been above 165 bpm. He was part of the 10% of people who fall outside of 2 standard deviations predicted by the 220-age formula.

There's only a 90% probability that your heart rate is within a massive 24bpm of what that calculation produces.

As far as I'm aware, the only reliable way to get your max heart rate is with a heart rate monitor.