Dirk's Junkie group - CLOSED (Page 63)

Warren: Your Uncle is definitely in our Prayers, I hope he is doing well.

On My side I do have some exciting news about my race,  Here is the Race Report for the Flying Angel 5K.  It is a little long winded but it was a GREAT race and I wanted to capture it all.

The short of the story is I was able to mostly follow my race plan, my heart rate was about 5 beats higher than I wanted on mile 2 but it turned out OK.  For not wanting to "race" this course I managed to set a PR at 22:42.  Pretty good considering this time last year I ran my 1st 5K at 32:50ish.  If anybody doubts the slow and easy training method, this is proof it works!

WOW!!!!  You have absolutely without a doubt had your rights revoked to ever use the term slow with your running!  Unreal pace.

Warren - your uncle in my prayers.

I ran the Sam Costa half-marathon today, 1:44:03, race report posted.

Hoping to race a little better, since I've accumulated some good long runs overt the winter - will be working on speed during the summer.

Wow, Paul!  Great job.  Everyone is posting such impressive race times lately.  The Junkie Group is on a roll!

Joanne, that sounds like an really interesting run.  Nothing like a HUGE adrenaline surge at the end of a run to throw you into a race pace last mile.  I run at night a lot in the winter and I really like doing it but sometimes the traffic (vehicular) makes for a bit more challenging experience.

I am also glad to hear you're liking the nutritionist's input for your training.  There's a lot that can be gleaned at times from something like that.  Sometimes my daughters will comment to me about how much salt (sea salt) I put on a certain type of food and I have to remind them that it's really not hurting me.  Usually I can remind them of various times I come home from a run or ride and have white streams of slat running down the sides of my face or cakes next to my eyes.

Matt and Paul, you guys had incredible races yesterday.  I hope I am not the one to drop the ball this weekend.  But with the performances you two put up I'll have my work cut out for me.  I'll do my best to represent this group today and try not to disappoint. LOL

YES - since I started training with it I've been less sore and seen more improvement than in six months of training without. I forget who said it, but during training it stops you going too fast and risking injury, and in a race it makes sure you're not wimping out and leaving too much in the tank. There are people far more experienced than me who can explain the complexities of it, but here is how I've sort of figured out my zones (for running):

Endurance - 145ish bpm to 157ish bpm - keeps you slow enough to allow ligaments, tendons and joints to adapt without over stressing them and helps strengthen your cardio system.It feels almost embarrassing to be running at this speed, but I can keep going forever.

Tempo - 160ish bpm to 170ish bpm - puts a little more pressure on the cardio system (my breathing becomes labored, helps push cardio strength) but puts more stress on joints - sustainable through the middle part of a tempo run.

Interval - 170ish to 177ishbpm - This hurts and the effort isn't sustainable that long. I use it for one mile intervals or on hills. 177 is the highest average HR I can sustain for a moderate period or time and usually is my average when I'm running hard intervals.

I do the vast majority in the endurance zone, I'll intentionally hit the other two zones about once a month, but with all the steep hills around here, I spend a little time in the Tempo zone on almost every run.

There's some good stuff on BT about using an HR monitor and determining zones. I'm sold on it, but it does take a while to understand what you're HR is telling you. Once you've learned how to use it though it really does help.

Two important things though - 1, when you first start using it, you'll feel like you're running SO SLOWLY. Thats okay, that's the pace you should be doing. Secondly, none of the zones are exact, so listen to your effort level as well - moving your HR 1 or 2 bpm isn't like flicking a switch, it's a gradual change.

I hope that helps, I'm sure someone will correct me and tell me I'm doing it all wrong!

John

John, you nailed it all pretty well.  The BT links are here.  The field tests are hard and there are many people who don't really agree with dong them.  I think the more experienced and honest with yourself you get, the more you can use "feel" or RPE and not be particularly tied to HR.  After running by HR all winter, I can pretty much guess within a beat or two what my HR is while I'm running.  And hills also make my HR spike pretty quickly. 

At this point, I think I use HR mostly for keeping my easy runs easy enough.  I also like to have it as a marker for how my fitness is going, i.e. what it my run pace at 140 bpm, what is it at 150, etc.  Hopefully, the pace is increasing at the same HR over time. 

On the bike, I don't seem to use HR as much but I like the data for post processing, mainly because I'm a data geek.

Well, I couldn't take it. I got up this morning and it looked like it was clear enough for a ride. It did snow last night a little, but I decided to tough it out. I took a new route that a fellow co-worker told me about. He said it would be a nice climb. He was right. I did a 52 mile ride. There was a great climb of about 1500 feet. Anyway, I was really enjoying the ride, even if it was cold. You can check it out in my taining log.

Everyone always asks that. What's you specialty? That's always a hard question. There isn't much I can't cook, but if I was to cook for myself, I would have to go back to my roots. I like European cusine. French, German, Italian, etc. I also love Cajun.

Matt, your race time is enviable, for sure.  I really like the repeated theme here about training slowly and frequently to build up.  Its so hard to be a beginner, and to know how slow I am, but it really helps me to be okay with it knowing that if I just keep training, I'll get there.

John, thanks for the feedback on HR monitors.  Any features that are a must-have?  Are certain brands better than others?

Congrats to all of you racing these days!  I'm so excited to hear about all of the fantastic race results.  I'm anxious to see how my training plays out, but my first race isn't for another 2 months.  I may need to add something to the calendar sooner.

Coming off of my recovery and testing week, I'm ramping up my aerobic endurance (zone 2) workouts.  Yesterday I did 11 miles in ~91 minutes - 8:20 pace in mid-zone 2 HR.  Nice!  Today I did my first outdoor bike of the year for 130 minutes.  It felt great to get outside - it's going to be dang tough to get back on the trainer now.

Hope you all have an excellent training week!

Curtis

John and Warren,

I agree.  HR training can be a crutch if you allow it to be.  But there is a lot that can be learned if you are of the mind to do so. 

If you decide to purchase a HR monitor I would suggest you look at getting a GPS type watch to go with it.  (I haven't checked the pricing for some time but I think they are close enough in price that  Garmin 305 (if still offered) can be in a very similar price range.)  There are big benefits to using both as one tool if it can be worked into the purchase.

The second thing to correctly using your HR monitor is doing the painful testing that Warren was eluding to.  This will be the best way to determine your HR zones.  If the test isn't done it is basically a huge guessing game.  What I know is that you cannot use the age graded HR max numbers that are published anywhere.  to be successful you'll need to get into the "pain zone" for 20 minutes.

I too can get right into the same HR zones during my runs if I pay enough attention to my efforts.  Usually I don't think about HR during my runs and just set out to make the run or ride feel the way I know it's supposed to.  And of course Warren is right about where your HR should be, the same HR max (pretty much) all the time.  You should see fitness gains while maintaining the same HR at faster pace.

I am fine with Columbia City as long as everything is good with Allison.

Linking a RR, or any link is actually pretty simple.  All you have to do is "copy" the link you want to publish, select the words you want to use to post your link (like my "Race Report" link above) by right clicking and dragging all the words you want to include (done just like you would if you were going to copy and paste something), then at the top of the page just above the area to write your post click the chain link.  Then you can paste the page you would like to post in the top line and then click "insert" and you're done.

Also I believe all of your race reports are in draft stage.  I cannot read any of them.  You also have to make them public for anyone to be able to read them.  After you save the RR just click the "Make Public" at the top and it's done.  Everyone IN THE WHOLE WORLD will be able to read your race reports.

________

As far as my race goes I'll let you all read the Race Report so you can make a determination for yourselves if I kept up with Matt's, Paul's and I am sure Brenda's example this weekend.

Something about my race today that was pretty awesome.  Seeing that the race was indoors, my bike was on a compu-trainer that was hooked to power.  I could see my current watts and average watts for the whole 20 minute ride.  But to be quite honest I really have never paid any attention to the power stuff because I knew it wouldn't make any difference to me because a power tap is A VERY LONG distance in the future. 

That said, my ride equated to a 270 watt avg. with  310 peak watts.  Is that good?  Or am I close to the bottom of the power scale?  I think it sounds like a fair amount of watts but I have no baseline to go by.

That's a very nice 11 mile run!  To be in that kind of work zone and maintain a solid pace like 8:20 is pretty impressive.

I have been having all of my rides outdoors for 2 full weeks and now we are about to have a short cold snap.  So it will be back to the drainer for me for a couple of days too..........probably.

Dirk, the 270 average over 20 minutes is very close to an FTP test.  A 270 watt FTP is quite respectable and can often result in a sub 1-hr 40k.  (flat course, good pavement, great equipment selection...)

So feel good about that number!

My 15k trail race went fine.  I've never raced a 15k distance before.  I suppose that if it were on the road, I'd pretty much run it like a 10k and hold on for another 5k.  And that may be what I did.  I just didn't want to run it like a 5k and die. 

The start was down hill and that got paces fired up and from there I did my best to maintain an even effort up hills.  I was doing my place counting as I ran.  After the first 20 seconds or so I counted and found myself in 11th.  steep down hill and then 10th.  Passed a 13 year old kid up a hill then 9th.  Kept counting.  Got myself as high as 5th by mile 2 and hadn't been passed by anyone.  Nonetheless I started a little too fast.  I then got passed by a train of 3 guys around mile 4 and they are the guys that paced right.

it turns out the trail was reasonably dry, miraculously so considering the weather leading up to it.  The morning was sunny and cool.  Perfect weather.  The forest is in that stage of greening up where it's still thin in the woods and all the baby leaves are that bright fresh green color.  It was great, what I was able to see while watching the ground in front of me.

My Adizero XTs never let me down.  They were pretty sure footed and stable.  I never turned an ankle or missed a step.  Even later in the race when I could feel the fatigue making my legs heavy.

Finished in 1:12 something.  Winner was 1:02 I think.  I was the first finisher over 40.  8th overall.  I'm pretty good at running in the woods, but I also noticed that the others in this race were too.

The pace is slow, but that trail is what those of you from Indiana would call extreme.  Don't have any idea how to make an objective evaluation of the quality of the performance.  Maybe I can check the ATHLINKS race results of others from my race results when posted...see what 5k or 10k times are turned in by the guy just before or just after me.

My daughter did good.  She used the strategic technique of walking the steep hills.  She did this and noted that she repeatedly passed and gapped other runners on the down hills after her walk up.  She's a pretty good downhill runner actually.

Her time was 1:40, which when we think about it seems pretty darn good.  It was just a while ago that she PR'd her 10k with a time less than twice her 5k PR (2 5k PRs in a row basically).  If she had done 1:30 it would have been about that same 5k/10k PR pace.  So not only does 1:40 seem pretty good considering the longer distance, but when you factor in the terrain taking a minute per mile out of your average pace then it really looks good! 

Next stop for Jordan is the Country Music Half at the end of April.

What I know is that patellar tendonitis is something that arises when the tendon and the tissues that surround it, become inflamed and irritated, usually due to overuse.  This may fit into your category depending on your frequency of running recently.  (I know you have been busy with tax season.)  If you have increased your mileage or intensity much to try to ramp up to the Ultra too quickly you may have your answer.

Typically when overuse is the cause of patellar tendonitis, athletes are usually active people involved in soe type of impact related sport such as soccer, basketball, volleyball and, of course, running.  Also, some athletes develop patellar tendonitis after sustaining an acute injury to the tendon, and not taking the proper time away from the sport to allow proper healing.  I would say that this type of injury is the most common......overuse.  Most of us are unwilling to take enough time off because we are so driven to sompetee in our sport.

I also think that Matt was giving some very good points.

1. Check the wear on your shoes
2. Log the miles in your shoes and take note of when they might typically wear out.  This can be very personal based on an particular injury or personal wear patterns.

I have had a meniscus tear for several years and proper muscular balance can be a huge benefit to decreased wear and pain and correct shoes.

Lastly, the strap can help according to many people but there isn't a lot of documentation that provide proof that it works, just that many who wear the strap seem to say it alleviates the pain.

Start with these evaluations and then let us know what you figure out.

I would rule out patellar tendonitis because you wouldn't be saying "toward the outside" if that were it.  Depending on how far to the outside I would consider chondramalacia as Matt said, or meniscus.  If you took a marker and drew a circle around the outer edge of your kneecap all the way around.  Would your pain be on or near some part of that line?  Or further to the outside?