30 runs in 30 days - who's with us? (Page 26)

Well, in this case it's more "how to" rather than "wanting to" or motivation as she keeps getting hurt. Left Brain is right on with how to start. That's about how I've done it when coming back from an injury as well.

One thing to look at is to make sure the easy is easy. I have almost a couple minutes between my threshold and easy pace. And the vast majority of my running is easy. I can go harder and it will still feel well short of "hard", but the accumulation of fatigue over consecutive runs builds up faster than I can recover from. This is harder to see than realized, and then one is all the sudden hurt in spite of doing the same thing as always. And getting back to the injury recovery, one will be well behind the "easy" pace because the chasis or frame of the body is not anywhere near strong enough to keep up with the engine (aerobic system). Left Brain (for example) is doing an excellent job staying well within himself to keep running frequency up while recovering.

Most can probably identify a hard or fairly hard run well enough, but may not put in enough spacing. Spread them out, having easy runs surrounding them. And that's if any hard runs are being done at all. With this in mind, also keep spacing with the moderate level runs too. There isn't much need to do moderate intensity outside of being in a build for a long race (like marathon or possibly HM for a slower runner). So don't do it. Stringing together several moderate distances might also not give one a chance to recover as well either. Like putting the pair 2's in a BarryP scheme back to back. Or doing something like 2-2-1-3.  Get the 1's in-between. Especially if a 2 is a harder run. And easy must be easy. My runs after a long or hard run are always relatively slow, even if it feels I could easily go faster.

Mileage increase can be another. It's easy to get lost on just how much faster you're increasing. The 10% can be misunderstood. It's a guideline for an upper limit. Not a target to shoot for week after week.

Generally, every training run should leave something out there. Easy runs should actually all feel refreshing. Even if they're after a harder day. If not, you went too hard (by effort or distance) somewhere in the last few days or a week. Maybe all of them. Hard days should still leave something out there. A tempo might be 20 min at near 10k effort. Intervals, you should be able to do a few more without a fall-off in performance.

Anything others might use to help out?

Nice job,.,,,geez.....3600 ft. gain is no joke!

#63 today for me.....6 very windy miles with my oldest daughter....longest run of the streak... 57:41.  PF pain is GONE!

The only thing I would add to what you said is stretching, ice baths and compression socks (for recovery, I never wear the socks running).  Approximately twice per week - I will sit in a tub that I filled with cold water for about 20 mins.  I then take a hot shower, put on my compression socks and relax for the rest of the day / night.  Seems to really help.  

Also, seems to help that I walk a lot for my job.  I will be sore in the morning - go to work, and by the end of the day the calves always feel better.  Any insight into why all the walking seems to help?  Maybe recovery walks are not a bad idea huh?    

Did you underestimate the difficulty of the trails - or the difficulty of 3,600 feet of elevation gain?  LOL  

Nice job man...seriously cool to finish a 50K

Thanks, the difficulty of trails. the trails I run here are mostly logging or lease roads, this was a single track the whole way with nothing level. I live in the hills so on my 20 miles run I routinely have 2500-3500 feet elevation gains during those runs. Sometimes a bit more. I need to find some single track trail, I'll talk to my mountain bike buddies, I do not mountain bike but I am sure they can direct me to lots of single track trails around here.

That's bad !- congrats

Excellent!

That's awesome! How well did you know the route ahead of time?

I save these types of things for times around a race, like in the few days before and right after. Otherwise I'm more on the train of thought for letting the body do it's thing. Just adjusting the load/recovery balance and make sure to fuel. Also in learning the difference between recovering and not working out. Go into a lot of detail with this could derail the thread.

For someone just starting off, or getting back into it, I'd rather see them just stick with the load/recovery and learn to balance that first. At the very least, get a good feel for that, and then if one really desires, add in some of the other things mentioned. This is for simplicity and better understanding. Otherwise there could be the "magic" factor still in there. As in not really knowing what's going on and hoping there is some "magic" cure to make everything better.

It's the movement. If you sit perfectly still you tend to get stiff after applying a training load. More so if it was a harder workout. Walking is a pretty light activity, so the movement doesn't really apply much more load. Now in your case, you're on your feet all day which can have an effect. This gets into what I said above about the difference between recovery and not working out. With that much walking, it's not as much stress as running or the other activities, but it's more than sitting down most of the day. You'll still likely recover to some degree, but not as much as if you could sit or lay down for periods at a time. This isn't to say it's a major problem for you, but rather something to know and factor into your expectations of training. A similar thing others may run into is doing a lot of errands or housework after a harder workout. Not really working, but not really resting either.

Then with the walks, they could be a decent recovery method if kept in check. But then consider the time factor since we're triathletes. Cycling and swimming also have the movement, and also have less stress or more easily controlled stress. So those can be done instead. For someone much more focused on running it might fit into the schedule better.

brigby1 - your comments about movement are interesting.  One of the things I've found as my streak goes on is that I don't tend to have those little aches and pains at the start of a run like I do when I only run 3 or 4 days a week.  My legs easily fall into the run and pick right up, much less warm-up time needed.

Suggestion for this would be to learn how to handle that for a few weeks. Very easy on the intensity, especially the first week. Could consider run/walk for at least some of these as well. I do when coming back from an injury. When you have the hang of it, build up *some* of the days while keeping the others short. This would be to get the day to day differentiation going. It doesn't have to be BarryP ration, but get something going.

I have calf muscles like rocks at the start of the shorter lunchtime runs.  My longer runs of 10km+ I run downhill towards the beach for 2.75km seems to be the perfect warm up, no niggles at all.

Lunchtime first 200m or so is an incline...

So I just realized something this morning while swimming. I have to do a "squat" basically on the flip turn, so I was being gentle at the wall. Realized that I was doing major squats last Monday during my strength training session. Which of course I've just started to strengthen glute medius and all those other imbalances I have!  It was definitely the "frogs" and "kangaroo walks" I was doing, which had some pretty deep knee bends. It was new to this body and just waaaaay too much.

 So my PT agrees its basically runners' knee but I think I got it from pesky strength training, not running!  phew!  That said, I will still take a week off and ice it, since she could feel a bursa developing around the patella.

Carry on, streakers!

Thanks, I did not know the route at all a head of time. I drove 6 hours the day before the race and just went to find where the start was. I walked about a half mile of the trail before dark. It was my first ever ultra as well.

Great job!

My first ultra was a trail run also and hadn't done much trail running. Trail running is a lot harder than running on the roads.

Day 56

That sucks - but glad you identified the issue.  Can't wait to hear that you are streaking again!