This year, as I keep banging on about, my goals are around the weightloss, and working on the mental/emotional aspect, in order to keep the weight off once it's gone. To keep me pushing through the year, though, I'm setting smaller goals as and when I need to, to give me that little drive. With running it's all been a bit based around the half marathons, but on Saturday, when I beat last week's parkrun time again (by 4 seconds, it still counts!) I turned my sights to my 10km PB. The 10km race is only 5 weeks away, and the half marathon 7 weeks, and with a bit more work I could be on for a PB.
I managed to complete Pollok parkrun in Glasgow in 35:17, which I'm thrilled about. During the run, there were points where I felt I was letting myself down a bit - walking for longer than I ought, not pushing myself on, picking out a tree further down the path that I would run to, but then walking before I reached it, that kind of thing. My head was a bit all over the place, but I pushed for a fast finish (it's a downhill finish) and was thrilled to have got that time. Last time I was at this Glasgow parkrun was almost exactly a year ago, when I had a horrible panic attack during the run, and generally beat myself up quite a lot. My head was in a very different place a year ago - but now I'm running the same route almost 5 minutes faster, with some of the same demons still whispering to me. Of course, the huge difference is how much I'm listening to them; the main thing I'm doing differently this year is trying to not let one low moment turn into a low hour, or a low day, or a low week... I can only keep working at it, and keep pushing on.
So, yeah, I have a new fastest 5km time for the last 20 months, 35:17, and that's two weeks in a row I've managed that sort of time, on hilly 5km routes. So, my 10km PB now starts to look like a target... My PB is 2 years ago, 1:11:04 - in the same race on the same route that I'll be running in 5 weeks time. I've done the Glasgow Women's 10k 3 times, 2012 was 1:12:58, 2013 was 1:11:04, and 2014 was 1:26:17 - you can tell 2014 wasn't my year for running, lol. So can I beat my PB? Well, yes. I think I can. In fact, this morning while I was out running before work (slowly plodding around the steep Queen's Drive loop in Holyrood park) I wondered if I could drop under 70 minutes. It's worth a try.
I need to not lose sight of the fact that I'm running a half marathon two weeks later, though! My target for the HM remains beating my HM PB (2:44:20) but a course PB (under 2:46:31) will be a satisfying result regardless. Still got a lot of work to do, but motivation to do it.
So it came as quite a surprise yesterday (Sunday), when motivation just upped and walked out on me. I planned on doing a 'long run' or around 7 or 8 miles, but when I went out into the wind and rain first thing, I ran 1 mile, got annoyed, and called it off. I was cajoled by some facebook friends to going out in the evening, after a full day of procrastinating, and I ran/walked for 30 minutes (2½ miles) - glad I did, but irritated I hadn't done what I had intended that day. That's why I went out for the 5km around Arthur's Seat this morning, on a Monday which is usually a rest day. Rest from what this week??!! lol. It was lovely out there this morning; I always forget how nice it is to be up there before the crowds, and early enough for the rabbits to be hopping about, etc. Managed to get 3 responses to my 'good morning' greeting to passing runners this morning, which sounds surprising for Edinburgh, but actually I think I passed around 10 people in total. Grumpy auld buggers. It's the people who clock you running towards them, then just as you get closer they drop their shoulders and studiously watch their feet/avoid eye contact. What's wrong with folk?!! If I didn't live at the complete opposite side of town, I would consider moving my morning training to the Pentlands - people seemed much friendlier on the trails. :-)
I did the 5km loop this morning in 39:16 - certainly not the fastest I've done it, but not the slowest either - I walked a lot, and it was very windy up at the loch, but really, this morning's run was just to blow away yesterday's low motivation, get running, and start my week off well. Success. On the downhill, I was running for a few minutes at sub 9:30 minute miles - but couldn't sustain it. Garmin told me I got my fastest mile in today's run since I got this 620 in January - 10:07. I don't think it counts, since it was downhill, but still - me! ME! 10 minute miling!! :-) Home for grilled salmon fillet with kale for breakfast. It's going to be a good week, hopefully for us all. x
Seems your turning into a runner! Talk of PBs, definitely something that runners obsess over ;-)
ReplyDeleteIf you want to geek out on stats then the McMillian online Running calculator is interesting tool:
https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/index.php/calcUsage/calculate
You can provide it with recent race times and it'll estimate what times you might be able to achieve at other distances. The big but is that it's based on the progression of world bests at different distances and elite's tend to be able convert short distance speeds to long distances speed far better than us mortals, so it's worth looking at the longer distance estimates as upper bounds on what might be achievable.
The McMillain calculator does suggest you are in the right ballpark for doing 10k and half marathon PB's, so your ambition is well based, but the margins are close enough that you'd need to run really great races. Getting the pacing right will be a big part of it. Any chance you'll have a more experienced runner on hand to help pace you? (need to get some like Debbie Martin-Consani on board :-)
It's worth mentioning, time is on your side, every week you keep doing what you have done through this year w.r.t weight loss and regular exercise, is week on week improving your running fitness. Your steadily dropping 5k times and your ability to run further non-stop are all strong indications of this. This means a time that was impossible last month is now possible now, and in a month or two times that right now would be a huge ask will be attainable.
The actual PB's will be the easy part as long as your hold your course, the hard part is doing what you have done so far this year - keep focused on a healthy diet, keep getting regular exercise, managing stress and getting lots of good sleep.
Personally I'd I scrub the idea of a rest days, just have different levels and types of movement everyday - having a minimum number of counts per day has worked well with this. Instead of rest days have recovery days where the purpose is active recovery such as walking, swimming, short super slow jog, and some yoga, meditation etc to help on the mindful de-stressing.
This might well be very close to what you are already doing, but by giving these days a more positive and descriptive label could help refine what becomes your new normal baseline. As you push up the amount of movement you do at the baseline then the workout days no longer take such an important role in providing the fitness stimulus - what you do on average will be what is providing the overall stimulus.
This is certainly what I've found with my own training - I train every day now, but often it's a such a low pace or modest distance that it might not even seem like training. I've upped the daily baseline and put less emphasis on tough workout days, but my fitness month in month out has been improving.
Lots of very interesting points!! Lots of things I've already thought about, some I hadn't, I'll have a think and come back with a longer reply tomorrow. :-) x
DeleteI’ve used online race time predictor tools before – sometimes they seem quite accurate, but I know my ‘ability’ isn’t always matched with what I do on race day, the headgames play a huge role. I’ve even done tests to see what I could do if I trained for a marathon (haha), and it’s a good geeky statsy thing to play about with.
DeleteLike you say, a couple of 5km parkruns suggest I could get a 10k PB mid-May, but it’s close, very tight margins. I don’t run that well with pacers, because I don’t ‘pace’ myself properly anyway, and rely on ‘fast’ (for me) running intervals between walks, and so on. My 10k PB race, 2 years ago, was continuous running for 3 miles, then run/walk intervals for the rest – it’s not exactly the sort of run I could be paced with, lol. I also sometimes get pressurised and panicky if others are running alongside me, trying to urge me on. I’ve never ran a race with someone, just a small handful of parkruns, and some training runs. Normally, I’m on my own, and stuck with what’s going on in my head. So positivity, and building on what I’m doing now, is key for both races in May, for sure!!!
Keeping focussed, as you quite rightly say, is key. My kcals each day have been rising recently, as the focus has been dropping a little, and I need to rein it in and pay better attention. The motivation around my improving run times is helping, and my general approach to keeping positivity high, and dealing with any emotional speedbumps as I encounter them.
Now, rest days are an interesting subject – of course I still always try to get 10,000 steps on the pedometer each day (I don’t always manage it) regardless, so a rest day isn’t entirely sat about doing nothing, but you’re right that I can probably do more. I do, for example, count a day where I just fit in a slow 1.5 mile run as a day when I’ve exercised, but of course some days are a lot more intense than others, and there’s no reason that I can’t mix and match intense days with the quieter type of days, active recovery like you say, and just keep something happening every day. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, since listening to a podcast that inspired me. (Not yours, though that was really good too, haha.)
You don’t write much about your own training, online – so it’s interesting to hear you train every day. What does ‘train’ mean, though – solely run? I was curious after your ‘lessons learned’ part of your WHW Race write-up, where you had decided that your calf issues might not have happened had you spent more time in training power-walking up inclines; have you incorporated that into your training, since the race? Is your training 100% running, of some description?
W.r.t pacing, as your get fitter I think you'll soon find it unnecessary to talk walking breaks, first during 5km, then 10km, then halves. At slower average running paces it's actually more energy efficient to do run/walk, I haven't yet done the analysis to answer which speed yet though.. At some point I'll find some time to work out the maths. The exact figures will be vary person to person but the general principles will apply to all. I suspect the transition will be around 12 o 13 min/mile pace. If you do use a run/walk I'd recommend doing it consistently through a race, but when there are hills adapt the run/walk to fit around them.
DeleteAs for rest/recovery days, I feel it's as much as how you mentally view these days as the actual exercise you plan to do on them. This distinction may seem silly but it might come in useful on days where you want to just take the day completely off, instead of complete rest after a hard day you change focus to recovering from a hard day with a lovely walk along the beach or through a park. This type of active recovery is great from de-stressing, clearing the mind, and provided a nice gentle aerobic workout. Get them right and you return home calm, relaxed but also a little elevated and invigorated.
As for my own training, my last posts probably covered my training in a bit more depth, the quick answer is that I now aim to run every day. I don't think it's strictly necessary to run absolutely every day, a decent walk would be just as effective, but in terms of motivation to get out the door in bad weather having a run streak to perpetuate has been useful.
Knowing that I'll be running tomorrow also means that I hold back a little on my runs, especially when I feel an injury niggle, to make sure that I'll still be in decent enough shape the next day. Perhaps this more than anything else has been what changed me from a injury prone runner to a more resilient.
I'm now on strava, I've kept my training public so others can review if they feel inclined:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7209287?utm_source=top-nav
As for my power-walking up hills, oopps haven't really added that into my training yet... I had forgotten about that goal, till you reminded me! ;-) For the last five and half months I've been running everyday, with the primary goal of improving aerobic fitness and general resilience. My HR for a give pace is now more than 10 bpm lower than it was this time last year so it does look like my aerobic fitness has come along way thanks to running every day.
Resilience of my calves is still a problem though. At last weekends ultra, the Skidaddle Great Tartan Ultra, along the newly opened Great Trossachs Path my calves were the weak-point, getting more fatigued that other parts of my body. My calves have had some form of DOMS for most of the past three months so it might simply be not quite enough recovery/taper before racing, or perhaps I need to adapt my training to strengthen my calves. Perhaps power-walking up hills is what is missing!! :-)
Whether walk breaks are "necessary" in my runs isn't really the issue, unfortunately. It would be a LOT easier if it was purely down to my running fitness whether I take a walk break - most times it just comes down to the panicky or self-destructive voice in my head, and whether or not I can quieten it down that day. Having such massive self-esteem issues, it's often shortly after I congratulate myself for doing well that the sabotage starts to kick in. "You think you're worthy of success? We'll see about that...." - but of course, as you can see from my posts this year, that's something I'm working hard to beat. :-)
ReplyDeleteThere are loads of ways to strengthen your calves - sit on a chair with your feet on the floor, and put something heavy on your lap, over your knees, then just lift your heels up while keeping your toes on the floor, hold, then back down, and repeat 20 times. :-) Do regular standing calf raises and heel drops on a step. And yep, power-walk up those hills *like you said you would*, haha. x
The negative self talk cycle is a tough one to crack. As you say your walking breaks are often dictated more about this self talk than your physiological need. It might be useful to have a look at your HR monitor traces for periods when you do find yourself struggling. It could be that your HR is actually getting quite high and negative self talk is mental manifestation of the physical stress the body is dealing.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively it might be that the negative mental spiral actually causes your HR to rise, and then for other systems to start getting a bit freaked by it in response.
At different times you might see either mechanism at play, or perhaps even both at the same time, with a moderate amount of physical stress making the negative thought pattterns more likely, this elevates the stress levels and HR, then body/mind starts panicking that something is wrong and the bodies cure all for stress is to slow down.
One way to tease apart what might be dominating would be to see if the negative thought cycle proceeds high HR, or whether it comes after. If the negative thoughts proceed high HR then it's likely that mental processes themselves need to be tackled directly, if the negative thoughts come after a period of high HR then just keeping your HR below "panic" thresholds might do the trick.
As the bodies natural response to internal stress is to slow down perhaps one could pre-empt it and walk right away, prior to the HR getting high, get the mental side sorted, then get back running. This might be a bit counter-intuitive, as you'd could see it as giving in at the first sign of stress, but what I'm wondering about is whether you pre-empting will get the mind and body used to the idea that there was nothing to worry about in the first place, all systems are still doing just fine - your body is in safe hands with your mind in charge.
With training the body and mind you should see a lifting of ceiling of where the central governor at a sub-conscious level, and your conscious mental process start to give you more leeway with pushing yourself.
I would add that looking at your HR figures during races your certainly aren't slacking. You might feel that the mental side is letting you down and that you aren't putting the same level of effort in as everyone else around you. The HR figures suggest otherwise, you really are putting ever bit as much effort in.
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With my calves, I have wondered about doing specific exercises, and have done a few calf raises, but with increasing my training volume over the last few months I've been skirting over-training pretty closely so have been wary of adding more physical stress to an already stressed muscle group. My current hope is that my calves will settle during taper for the Fling and will actually big stronger for it.
After the Fling my plan is to add more WHWR specific training in, more hills, more walking up steep hills. Calf raises strengthening exercises would seem to be a sensible thing too.