Random Running Questions

Not the fenix, but the 255 is pretty much on a par feature wise with the 955 and Harvey Norman have the music version in store for €320 at the moment. It's 49 grams.

I've had a Fenix 6x Pro for the last year. I was never an avid watch wearer before, but did have a Apple Watch for a couple of years a while back. I was concerned buying it as it is large and I often found watches uncomfortable while working at a desk (which is all the time).

After about 4 months, I replaced the default band with a Nylon velcro strap and very very rarely has the watch felt uncomfortable or even intrusive. It's only an issue if my arm swells a little and the strap is a little tight, but a quick reset of the velcro strap sorts that immediately.

I've never had an issue running with it in terms of weight or size. Although a lot of money, I've never once regretted it.

I had the 35 also and upgraded to the 645. As already mentioned the ability to add more complicated sessions is worth the upgrade if your running needs that. There were also smaller things that I found worthwhile. The ability of the watch to light up when you flick the wrist while running at night was very useful. Much better than having the backlight on all the time. The really small thing of having labels for the data fields on the display. Garmin forces you to go up a couple of ladders on the range for this for some reason but looking at three metrics on the watch and trying to remember which is distance, pace or time caught me out more than once in a race especially if I was flicking between using kms or miles.

The ability to listen to music/podcasts also attracted me to the watch but I've stopped doing that and find it better to run without. Adding music is also painful unless you subscribe to spotify. Things like sleep tracking, pulse oxidation, stride length, vertical oscillation, ground contact time and all those extra bits of info - I've no interest in those. It's not like I'd really be able to make changes to them anyway.

Thanks for recommendations and feedback. Bespoke sessions are certainly something I would like...maybe an upgrade is a runner, I'll keep an eye out for Black Friday deals.

I've taken a bit of a break from running since the marathon, but my young lad wants to do a bit of training over the winter to keep up his fitness for his hurling. He turns 10 in February and would be fairly active, although I'm his U11 coach and he's not as active as I'd like him to be. He is a good hurler and has great commitment to it so he's keen to show that he's one of the more "senior" players when they start training again after Xmas.

I've been taking him out for a few runs at night during the week for the past three weeks, slowing building up to a 5K which he was to do before Christmas. We ended up doing this 5K last week and did it in 29.03 and it wasn't in great conditions running with a head torch in the dark. He then asked could I bring him to junior parkrun on sunday morning, so off we set. He came second in a time of 9.31 which he's obviously delighted about, considering the last time I took him there a year ago, he threw a strop and walked half of it, because he set off at a sprint and obviously couldn't maintain it.

So my question is, what's my best plan here to keep him enjoying his running but not wanting to make it sound like training. Is the couch to 5K for adults appropriate or is there a C25K for kids? Given that he can run 5K without stopping, is it even relevant? Our running club don't have a junior section, so there's nothing there for him at present. What's the most he should be running at that age and how many sessions? I'm thinking I don't want him running beyond 5K really, or more than 4 sessions a week, with a total mileage of about <10 miles.

The most important consideration for me is not to make it appear that it's my decision but he does ask can we do different things rather than just steady runs. I've taken him for a easy hill rep session and a slow fartlek session but this was more just to show him what all training can entail. Any advice would be greatly received.

Our wellness committee in work organised a speaker to give a talk on this a while back and we all got a year subscription (if we wanted it) to his company who promote and support a way of eating that to all intent and purposes is keto. The speaker was very charismatic and of course he had all the stats and impressive looking pie charts to back up the health benefits, you couldn't help buying in to the approach. The speaker was a dad of 2 young children and his whole family follow this way of eating (or so he claims), when he told us how many eggs they go through in a week, the whole room nearly choked - I can't remember the exact number but it was definitely 3 figures! I tried it for about 2 weeks and that was enough for me to get tired of eggs & bacon and to miss my porridge (which apparently has the same bodily effects as eating a bowl of coco pops - I think it was at this point he lost some of the audience). I don't recall the effects, if any, on my running, and I don't think I did it for long enough anyway, surely there is an adaptation phase. Definitely an interesting topic alright. I could be completely wrong, but I think @ThebitterLemon from around here may follow this way of eating.

Yep, I’ve been doing it for 3 years.

Best thing I ever did, hair stopped falling out, skin improved, rarely get cold sore and energy levels vastly improved.

You get used to it and you can have a keto substitute for almost anything.

Don’t miss sugar or carbs but I get that it’s not for everyone

TbL

Sent you a Pm.

While I wouldn't say I'm knowledgeable, I've done plenty and been told by physios I am strong at them :) What sort of info you looking for? General tips?

I'd start with doing them off a high enough chair / seat, unweighted. Lower down slowly and lightly hit the seat, and drive back up. Watch for your knee collapsing inwards, I have to actively keep it straight but maybe thats a me problem not a universal one. You can eventually add weight, lower the seat etc

Afaik it should be avoided each time, which is why at the beginning by not trying to squat too low you have a better chance of keeping the knee straight. Its not easy! I think when I started doing them first I had the non squatting leg lightly resting on a yoga block, just barely with the heel. That gave a little more stability as I built up the strength.

I’m not even sure what a single leg squat is any why you would need to do one !

Anyways a pacing question relating to she rotation !

So I have found myself in possession of many different shoes - dunno 🤷‍♀️ how it happened .

I would usually wear endorphin speeds ( version 2 maybe ) for tempo work but last night was too wet and they aren’t great with wet . So I wore adidas pros. I was supposed to do hmp and for the life of me couldn’t run that pace in those shoes - kept going faster - Struggled even to slow down to tenk pace . I plan on doing races in Vaporflys which are even faster again and will need to practice in these . Should I continue to try and hit hmp in the super shoes during training or should I adjust the pace when wearing these to make sure I’m using correct effort for training . Or should it be a mix . ? I can see an argument for both .

Thanks

Would wearing old tech for sessions and hitting the paces not mean you could run faster in the race with new tech?

A propos of the last few posts....I have made a decision to only race in the stiff plated race shoes. The less rigid carbon or nylon plated shoes are more forgiving for day to day stuff and non plated for easy running/long days.

I also remember reading that one of the benefits of off road running is that it strengthens a bigger range of muscles in the feet and legs. These get less stimulation when road running. I have transferred this thinking to wearing different stack heights, foam softness, rigid plated, soft plated and non plated.

Below is an interesting piece from Doctors of Running, a group of physical therapists and physios with an interest in running, on the subject of the overwearing of supershoes.

"Despite the continued excitement around super shoes, we at Doctors of Running have continued to suggest using a variety of shoes not just for daily training but also for workouts. 

One reason for this suggestion is that using a rotation of shoes is one of the few things that have been found to decrease injury risk (Malisoux et al., 2015).

The other more in-depth and less defined reasons are that we are still unsure of the impacts of some of the new super shoes on our mechanics and tissue physiology.

It isn't that these types of shoes are bad, but whenever you spend large amounts of time in something, your body will start adapting towards it. Whether the adaptations are good or bad is what we do not know.

Thus far, we know that compared to traditional shoes, super shoes tend to make the greatest biomechanical impacts at the ankle. Studies have suggested that there is significantly decreased ankle work and dorsiflexion angles in these shoes compared to traditional footwear. There is also evidence that our bodies change how we shock absorb in these shoes, with runners tending to land with far stiffer mechanics in super shoes compared to traditional shoes (Kulmala et al., 2018; Pollard et al., 2018). This may explain why despite the continued progress in footwear development and increases in cushioning, running-related injury rates have remained consistent. Whether these changes are good or not is controversial. There are continued reports of decreased delayed onset muscle soreness following hard training in these super shoes. From a tissue adaptation standpoint, we don't know what is happening. We have discussed repeatedly that these maximalist, rockered shoes reduce stress on the Achilles tendon (Agresta et al., 2022). This can be fantastic for someone with Achilles issues to train through irritation. However the Achilles tendon, like any other tissue, maintains or increases its tensile strength and stiffness in response to appropriate loads. Reducing those loads consistently may have negative consequences on the tensile strength and stiffness of the tendon (Agresta et al, '22). It is for that reason that we also suggest having a variety of shoes to do workouts in as well as a more traditional uptempo/workout shoe that may provide some greater contrast to the super shoes of today. These traditional shoe types still have an important place both for those transitioning to faster running as well as changing up the types of loads and stresses experienced runners go through to maintain well-rounded and resilient tissue."