Wyld Hair On A Tangent Group -FULL (Page 6)

That is a good story!  A heart rate monitor should assist you in your training...not allow you to do it.  If you ever get to the point that you can't run with out your watch then you are addicted to a tool is using you and you should consider wiening your self from it.  That being said, I love my watch, I find it motivational and it makes my workouts more enjoyable but I can race, run and ride with out it.

 

Hi Rochelle,

I am definitely interested in following it and above all, which direction you will take given the amount of different concepts, opinions, discussions, etc. regarding the set up of training zones.

Currently I take my average heart rate for a 10 k run and using this heart rate, I have established my training zones using the table provided in most of the "Velo Gear" books (Training Bible, Perfect Distance, etc.).

LSD in zone 2, Tempe runs close to my Threshold, etc.

But I am trying NOT to be a slave of my HR monitor, but link the reading during a run to my RPE, as well. I think it is very important to get a good feel for your body.

Little anecdote: I was working in a sport store. So we had clients whose HR monitor was broken, or needed a new batteries, etc., and we had to sent it to the manufacturer. I swear there were people almost panicking: "Oh gosh, what shall I do without my watch???"    "Well sir, I would recommend you just go running!!!"  

I have sometimes the feeling that athletes are getting TOO dependent on all the gadgets.

 

Take care

YouYou

[/QUO-->

Edited by wyldhair 2010-01-12 12:25 PM

Count me in Rochelle.  I've done a running maxHR before but it was ~3 years ago.  I doubt it's still valid.  Me no like maxHR tests.   It hurts, Rochelle.  Still, I know it's a necessary thing.  I'll follow the thread and just hope my ankle gets better so I can actually participate instead of just reading along.

Thanks.

Vic



Hopefully you will find the tests I offer to just as accurate and not as painful as most of the 20minute stress tests....  Of course, if you want a very accurate highly painful method I have those available to offer too.. 

I wanted to tell you that I loved your interval counting methods...I would be interested in knowing how you count rest intervals on your fingers.... My Hubby said that was the best training program that he has heard of in years. 
The best program is the one that works for you... keep at it.

Rochelle

I struggle with the swim too.  The good news is that it is more form than fitness, the bad news is that it is more form than fitness.  I think that the March class will be a good thing for you.

Something I had a good experience with is the Total Immersion Swim books and Cd's.  I do not agree with all of his form and swimming programs for really fast performance but baby steps ehhh??? For the first 2 months of learning how to swim, I went to the pool and spent 75 -100% of entire time in the pool doing the drills in the book.  I didn't do much "swimming" as I really didn't know how.  Then when I started to swim and actually got live instruction a few months later, the instructor was correcting my timing and tweaking my interpretation only.  2 months of drills and struggling and near drowning and then after 2 weeks of lessons the entire outlook changed for me.  The instructor told me I had really great basics, I just had to put them together correctly.  Perhaps I would have seen faster improvement by just going  straight to the instructor? Or maybe I was able to get a lot more from the instructor by having really good basics? 

Rochelle

I look forward to hearing about your success!

I'm excited to try the max HR test this weekend.  I've done the 5k test before (actually it was a 10k but a coach told me since I was racing I could use the average for the 10k race) and it hurt.  The 20 minute test sounds ok for the first 15 minutes, but the following 5 minutes I'm sure will be brutal.

On another topic, I've recently been reading about running cadence.  I need to work on my biking cadence because I tend to use more leg muscle and have a lower cadence and I'm thinking I should be doing the opposite.  But biking I feel like I have more control of my cadence with gearing.

But it made me curious about running cadence.  I'm a pretty slow runner.  I had read an article recently about cadence and how the elite runners typically have a cadence of 88 - 96/minute.  This week I counted my cadence while on a treadmill and came up with 80/minute.  I tested some different speeds on the treadmill, and unless I increased the speed to where I was sprinting, my cadence remained @ 80.  Is that how it works, each person has a natural cadence, no matter what pace they are running at?

And how do you increase cadence?  The article mentioned some ways to increase cadence which included leaning slightly forward, and also putting your foot down when it was under you rather than in front of you.  This keeps your momentum moving forward.  I tried those two things and got it to 82/minute, but it felt odd.  Does it become more natural the more you practice it like most things?  Or is it a bad idea to try to change your normal running gait?

How does one get faster running - besides running faster?

OK, bike question.  I found a nice used road bike.  It's kind of a vintage bike if you will but it's in awesome shape and I think I'm going to LOVE it as my first bike.  One thing I did at the shop was get some clipless pedals.  So here's where I think I screwed up.

I pretty much insisted that I wanted the SPD pedals because I REALLY wanted to be able to clip in to the spin bikes at my club which are SPD compatible.  Then I went over to the shoe guy.  He asked me how much riding I was planning on doing.  I told him I was training for a triathlon and hoped to eventually do a LOT of LONG rides and since the shoes can last YEARS (I'm used to how long running shoes last so this was a shocker), he picked out a pair of ROAD shoes for me.  You know, the ones with the hard, plastic sole.

Well, today when I went back to pick up my bike and have them put my cleats on my shoes, the manager said, "You're not going to want these SPD cleats on these ROAD shoes, you won't be able to walk at all.  So, then he suggested since I was riding long and on the road that I change to the ROAD pedals.  (Can you tell I'm confused?) I said I wanted to use the SPD pedals because of the spin bikes at my club.  He said, well, ok, then you need a MOUNTAIN BIKE shoe for those cleats so you can at least walk a little.

Now, I have this really quick road bike that I want to eventually ride for a really long time and I think I should NOT have gotten the pedals and shoes that were made for MOUNTAIN BIKES.

Am I a total dork for having the SPD pedals on a road bike?  Should I have stuck with the Road pedals?

HELP!!!  BTW, I haven't really even ridden the bike so it's not to late to change my mind.

I actually have a lot to say about cadence and I don't think I can say it in a short answer....
so Karen you asked for it:     I am sorry.  First let me say that I started working on my cadence  and gait in 2008. I have never had any injuries or issues run up to 80 miles a week, I just wanted to improve form and efficiency if I could.  And I was able to and had a pretty major break through in form, cadence and efficiency and I also got plantar fascitis when only running 20 miles a week.  Oddly enough, after suffering through a progressively worsening situation I finally got advice from some to top marathon trainers living in my home town and they recommend I change my form, cadence and gait to the "new" way I was trying to incorporate.  Did I get injured because I changed my gait or was it going to happen anyway??  I don't know for sure but there is a good chance of it being related. Particularly because plantar fascitis is becoming associated with tight hip flexors and calf muscles and the new way of running does make my hips a little tight and I tend to have tight calves. But even after going through the process and the injury I still have to say there is a benefit and if you can incorporate it into your style slowly and with awareness, you may get a noticeable improvement.  Also a fair warning to everyone reading what I have to say on this topic: most of what I have to say on the subject is my own personal observations or my opinion based on conversations I have had with some elite trainers and coaches. 

There does seem to be a lot of merit to cadence in running and it is getting more and more attention.  The vast majority of elite runners do run at 90.  I sometime use the polar rs800 running watch, it has a cadence function and says I run all of my runs between 86 and 92.  My races are at exactly 90.  The professionals that study this don't really know if f this is coincidence or not.  And so far, I haven't heard any data on what the average cadence of a sub-elite or back of the pack runner is.  But I have discussed this with one of the elite development trainers in Mammoth this past summer.  Some of the reasons that elite runners have a faster cadence is directly attributed to how they run.  A person that runs from the toe, meaning they push off hard with their toe has a slower cadence because it takes more time to roll over the foot and then the foot has to be brought up (higher) and then  back to the forward position and then to the front, usually in a higher knee up stride.  A person who runs from the ball of the foot, propels them self more from the hip and keep the foot closer to the ground at all times and the foot doesn't have to travel as far to get back in front of the hip.  The faster distance runners tend to be those that run from the hip and therefore they also have a faster cadence.    I am an anomaly.  I run more from the toe than most elite runners but I have a very fast powerful leg snap...  Is is a coincidence that I still end up with the same cadence as the other elite runner???  I personally don't think so.  There is an efficient cadence for cycling both for power and for endurance and oddly enough it is about 90 to 95. The mechanics of the cycling allow for a higher cadence but still the most efficient is still at 90. I don't think that this has been fully explored yet.

I have actually spent a fair amount of awareness on my style, foot patterns and cadence this last year so I can tell you that yes you can change your cadence and it can improve your running.  It isn't something that is going to happen overnight and you shouldn't want it to happen fast. Quick changes don't allow your body to adapt and you will end up being injured due to imbalance.

So, Here is what I recommend doing to improve running for and thus cadence:
Before you go running stand straight and lift your toes up.  Lift them keeping your heel on the ground and the foot straight.  You should feel the lift coming from your shin.  With your toes up swing the leg up from the hip not the knee.  But it is okay to bend the knee.  Swing the leg up 10 times.  then do the other leg.  This will help teach your toes to stay up, will strengthen your frontal tibial is (shin) and will engage your hip flexors in the motion of bringing your foot forward. 
You can do this before all of your runs and is a good exercise to do anyways.

Next. Pick a running day where you are not fatigued and you don't expect the run to make you really tired. (don't do this on a long run or interval / tempo day)  Run normal and in the middle of your run focus on the left leg, counting the number of steps you take with the left leg only, your goal is to have 30 steps in 20 seconds.  The simple act of counting will help speed it up a little, the rhythm of the average person counting is about 90 per minute.   hummm... there seems to be a trend here. Be careful not to "run harder" to get a faster cadence. Your heart rate will go up and your pace my increase some but that isn't what we are trying to go for, you want your legs to move faster by efficiency and rhythm not by brute force and effort.   When you get the rhythm figured out, check back every 2-3 minutes to make sure that you are still at 30 steps per 20 sec. It will start to feel natural, eventually because you are finding a rhythm to associate it to.  Don't focus on this for more than 5- 10 minutes the first couple of weeks.  Work your way up to  3 sets of 5 minutes  of doing this.  If you are having a hard time getting the cadence up try incorporating these changes into your run when you trying to pick it up:

Okay a few tips on efficiency...running from the hip. 
 Running from the hip vs running from the toe is about pulling your body forward from your hips...you want to lift the knee with you Psoas Muscle/hip flexors not from the quad.  Imagine that a string was tied to your hip bones and you where running so that the string would not get tight.  This will cause you to straighten out your body, and get your hips in front of your legs and this will let you transfer weight off of you legs faster and will pull your back leg forward faster preventing you from a toe off.  Also be careful when doing this... you will want to take special care of your hip flexors and psoas so they don't get tight from this new form.  Hip flexors are sneaky... you won't know they are tight until long after they have pulled your hips out of alignment, rotation and caused back pain, hip pain and plantar fascitis.  Stretch and massage and trigger point the hip flexors is you have any tendency for tightness here.

I have heard about the suggestions in the article you read about placing your foot under you  and leaning forward.  I understand what they are saying but I think that they are explaining it wrong.  What they mean when they say lean forward is a can of worms and is vague and I see misinterpretation written all over that phrase.  The foot in front issue is also a separate concept that is floating around out there that you no longer want to have a full long stride. The 70's method of striding out is apparently no longer in fashion.  But if you watch the elite athletes they are still doing it. What they are trying to say is get you hips forward and  use your hip flexors sot hat you do not lift your knee so high.  Try that and see if that feel more comfortable.

Now your final question... How do you run faster other than by running faster?   Oddly enough, the best way to run faster is to run slower.  No Kidding.   This is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to do the HR thread.  Most people run way to hard on all of there runs.  I just coached a high school girlfriend through her second half marathon.  she suffered through her first and had bad IT Band issues the entire time.  I cut her mileage down by 33% and slowed all of her runs by 2 minutes/mile.  I can tell you that she was freaking out the entire training period, to stay in the HR zones I gave her she had to walk anything that closely resembeld an incline. I know she secretly was sure that she wasn't even going to finish.  She ended up running 11 minutes faster with a final time of 2:04 and didn't have any IT band issues.

Okay, was that way more information than you wanted to know about cadence?

You are most definitely NOT a dork.  I can say this because I rode for years with a SPD/Mountain bike setup on my road bike.  Many people prefer SPD's and some people decide to go with mountain bike shoes for both bikes solely on the decision that they don't want to buy two pairs of shoes.  

The only reason I would make any recommendation for you to consider a different pedal is if you develop knee pain on the bike.  Some clip less pedals have no free float and can be hard on the knees, SPD's are not the worst but if you have pain then there are other options that may help. 

Hey Guys,
Just got back from the frigid cold of Orlando, FL.  I'll have a race report up later.  I'm also trying to read the million messages you've all posted so I can get back into the loop. 

Don't worry about it.  Just get a mountain bike, too

Nah.. there are some really cheap road shoes out there that take the SPD cleat.  LINK to one.  I used SPD cleats for about a year and a half when I first got a road bike. 

But... if they'll take the stuff back since you haven't used it, I'd personally recommend some kind of LOOK, KEO, or Shimano cleat.  Hard to explain the difference in the way it feels, but it's just better.  Then, If you are still set on using the SPD system for spin class, just buy an extra pair of cheap shoes and some spd cleats.  I actually had a dedicated pair of spin shoes for a long time.  Then I got a trainer and never went to spin again.

Edited by sesh 2010-01-13 9:20 AM

This is it.  It's a 1996.  Don't know if that's considered an "older" bike or not but the guys at the bike shop commented as such.

Oh that is sweet!  Down tube shifters, too!  That is classic and gorgeous.  And it looks in great condition.  The white cable housing is an awesome touch.  I'd wrap the bars in white , but that's just me   When I built my tri bike, I went as white as possible:

Although, I have to confess.  I've actually abandoned the white tape and tires.  Those are red now.  Had to match our tri club kits ya know.  Oh, and my saddle is now a pink ISM Adamo.  Found too good of a deal at a breast cancer fund raiser to pass it up.

Edited by sesh 2010-01-13 1:17 PM

Vic, Yep that is vintage. But a nice bike all the same. You got a screaming deal and you are sure to get a lot of fun and miles on the bike.  I just gave away a Vintage 1950's euro touring bike to a neighbor down the street.  I could have sold it on ebay for $1-2k,  but I knew the kid (he's 25) would actually ride it.  I love seeing him out riding it and he says he gets a ton of attention for the older population...

On a side note, I find that the colored tires and matching bar tape and saddle make your bike really easy to find in the tri bike racks during races.  look down the rows looking for color wheel...bingo there is your bike.

Rochelle

Rochelle -

Thank you for the detailed explanation of cadence and the info on how to go about changing it slowly.  You really are a wealth of information!

I am going to try to fit the 20 min. HR test in this weekend and calculate my zones using the link you provided.  I'm so curious to see if they are even close to what I had calculated before.

I will report back!

 

Hello Vic,

"You're not going to want these SPD cleats on these ROAD shoes, you won't be able to walk at all." - That's just b u l l  s h e e e t!!! (funny, if your write the word in the normal way, the site is filtering it out)

There is not doubt about that walking with road cycling shoes and whatever cleats they have is weird. The duck walk. And it might be worse with the Mountain Bike SPD cleats.

But let's see how much you walk in bike shoes: well, you leave your house, take your bike and start pedaling. Maybe twenty meters? During your tour you have break to drink a coffe. 20 meters? You go to your Spin class. Wear your running shoes, take your bike shoes in your hands and put them on when you are standing next to your spinning bike. 0 meters.

This is exactly what I am doing. I have as well MTB SPD cleats on my shoes.

Bill is absolutley right when he is saying that there a some cheap shoes out there (Nashbar is a good place although I would always like to try bike shoes on - the fit is quite important). But if you prefer spending the extra money on something else, there is no need that your NEED to buy another pedal system.

I admit though, that I have never tried out pedals like Look Keo, Speedplay, etc. So I am not able to comment whether there is a real difference when it comes to cycling.

 

Take care, and by the way: gorgeous bike!

YouYou

 

Edited by YouYou 2010-01-13 6:51 PM

And you got the abreviated version!!!! No one ever wants to talk about running cadence.  I was so excited to tell someone about it!

It was still filtered it out on my mobile update.  big brother