Jenny's (& Jordan's) Star Wars Training Journal (Comments Welcome!)

[JennysSeven]

Are you using instantaneous pace on your device to determine those wide varying paces? I prefer lap pace instead. Instant pace sees large swings inherently because of how the GPS ping works on your device. But the wide swings are smoothed out over longer distances which is why I prefer looking at 0.5 mile to 1 mile splits for most "consistent pacing" checks. Even when I have near dead even blind splits, the instant pace on my watch is all over the place.

Yes, that's from the instantaneous pace given by the Map My Walk phone app. The splits I listed above are also from that app. Good to know that the instant paces aren't that accurate.

By the way, I did download Strava, but I'm so in the habit of using Map My Walk (I've used it for years...way before I ever started running) that I started that up today while totally forgetting that I had meant to try Strava instead. Next outdoor run I'll try to remember it!

 

[SheHulk]

Are you using instantaneous pace on your device to determine those wide varying paces? I prefer lap pace instead. Instant pace sees large swings inherently because of how the GPS ping works on your device. But the wide swings are smoothed out over longer distances which is why I prefer looking at 0.5 mile to 1 mile splits for most "consistent pacing" checks. Even when I have near dead even blind splits, the instant pace on my watch is all over the place.

I need to look into this for myself. Just getting to know my watch after 8 months lol.
Get it Jenny! I’m also 47 and running at Star Wars weekend. Been following you quietly.

 

[JennysSeven]

Today marks the end of week 8. I did get in both cross-training sessions, one of 45 minutes and one of 60 minutes, so that went well. And then runs of 5 miles on Tuesday and 3 miles on Thursday. Today was supposed to be a 7-mile run, but I woke up this morning with a sore throat (my 3 high-school boys went to a youth group retreat last weekend and all had colds by Tuesday/Wednesday, so there must've been something going around. Boo!) and wasn't sure how I was going to get that run done. I considered putting it off until tomorrow, but that will throw off next week's schedule when Thanksgiving will already throw it off enough. By later this afternoon I was feeling a bit better, so I decided to go ahead and run and just play it by ear how far I went based on how I was feeling during the run. It wasn't bad, but I was definitely tired sooner than usual. I ended up running 4 miles.

I'm thinking the best way to "make it up" will be to just repeat last week this next week, so that I get in the 7-miler before trying the next week in the plan's 8-miler. The other 2 runs stay the same in week 9 (5 miles and 3 miles) but I don't think I want to try an 8-mile long run without having successfully completed 7 miles. That will put the end of the 10-week plan off a week farther in to December, but I don't think that's too big a deal. That will still give me I think 17 weeks between the end of this plan and the Star Wars Rival Run weekend to bump the training up to the half marathon distance. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do for that, as far as training goes. I'll have to figure that out over the next couple weeks!

I'll need to do my mid-week run while we're at my parents' for Thanksgiving. They're on acreage off a highway so no nice neighborhood sidewalks to run on, but they are next to a big church with a huuuuuuge parking lot, so I think I'll use some mapping software to see how many times I'd have to run the perimeter of the paved lot to hit 3 miles. Parking lot circling sounds almost as boring as treadmill running. LOL! The good news is it's totally flat where they live.

 

[JennysSeven]

Well, time for another update, although I'm very discouraged right now. I accomplished absolutely nothing last week training-wise. I went to my parents' house for Thanksgiving already on the tail end of a cold, and between their older house, several cats, etc. I ended up fighting allergies the whole time we were there which combined with my cold to cause miserable sinus congestion and a nasty headache by the time we left on Sunday. Bleh.

I'm still not at 100%, but I know the longer I wait to start running again the harder it will be, so we went on a short run this afternoon. I didn't make it 1.5 miles before I had to slow to a walk, and only went a little over 2 miles total. And it felt HARD, at 12:31 for the first mile and 13:20 for the second (which included some walking). Hubby got me a Garmin watch for my birthday and this was my first time to use it on a run, and while I don't know what to make of half the stats, the ones I do know weren't very good. I'm hoping it's just because I'm not back to 100% yet. According to Garmin, I should be resting for 69 hours before another "hard" workout. Yikes!! Obviously that's not going to work with 3-runs-a-week training plus cross-training.

The one bright spot in the past week was that I managed to eat allllll the Thanksgiving goodies, including lots of pie and other treats, and still came home at the same weight I was when I left. It usually takes about a week for my weight to recover after a holiday or vacation, so that was a nice surprise.

I'm going to try again on Thursday and see if I can get back closer to what I was running before. Maybe aim for 3-4 miles.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Between the cold, holidays, and a week off, you'll be back before you know it. I always say equal time off to equal time return. So if you end up taking 7 days off unscheduled in the middle of the plan, it'll probably take 7 days of easy running before you're back to where you were. So be patient and don't push it, and you'll be back soon enough.

Also, be patient with the Garmin "resting" feature. It takes a few weeks to settle in. Also, ensure that the data inputted into the device is accurate as those are important for an accurate "resting" feature. Mainly resting HR and max HR are the key components. Body weight is an important component (along with HR) in the estimated VO2max value (again it takes time for this one to be accurate as well).

Hope you're feeling better today!

 

[JennysSeven]

Between the cold, holidays, and a week off, you'll be back before you know it. I always say equal time off to equal time return. So if you end up taking 7 days off unscheduled in the middle of the plan, it'll probably take 7 days of easy running before you're back to where you were. So be patient and don't push it, and you'll be back soon enough.

Also, be patient with the Garmin "resting" feature. It takes a few weeks to settle in. Also, ensure that the data inputted into the device is accurate as those are important for an accurate "resting" feature. Mainly resting HR and max HR are the key components. Body weight is an important component (along with HR) in the estimated VO2max value (again it takes time for this one to be accurate as well).

Hope you're feeling better today!

Thanks for the encouragement on how long it takes to "get back" to where I was. I'm definitely feeling much better now, and ready to get back into the last couple weeks of my current plan.

That's also very good to know about the Garmin. It's been giving me super long recovery times, and my 6-mile treadmill run yesterday was "over-reaching" even though it felt easy. But then it's basing it off the only VO2 max reading I've gotten so far, which was from that first run on Tuesday when I was dying after a mile and a half. I didn't realize until last night when I was researching the Garmin stats that it bases those metrics off VO2 max, and it only calculates that on outdoor runs. So hopefully the low value it gave me on Tuesday was just because I was getting over being sick and still on decongestants (which I believe can raise heart rate anyway) and my normal stats will actually be better. I'll do tomorrow's run outdoors and see what I get.

 

[JennysSeven]

Update from last week:

Tuesday: 2 miles (had to walk at least 1/4 mile after the first 1.5) at paces of 12:31 and 13:20.

Thursday: 4 miles on the treadmill at 15:00

Sunday: 6 miles on the treadmill at 15:00

Curiously my new Garmin thinks I'm fluctuating between about 14:20 and 14:45 even when the treadmill is set at a constant 15:00. I'm assuming that's just part of it's settling in process. My guess was that it calculated pace using distance by assuming the same stride length it calculated on my GPS-enabled outdoor run, but curiously the distance it gives on the watch is just barely off the distance shown on the treadmill itself, so that theory probably isn't the right one.

This week I'm going to try to go back to 5 miles Tuesday, 3 miles Thursday, and 7 miles either Saturday or Sunday. I'm feeling healthy again, so time to jump back in where I left off.

 

[JennysSeven]

Today's run was much more encouraging. First of all, it was the farthest I've run continuously outdoors without taking a walk break, at a full 5 miles. I also finally found an outdoor pace that felt good & pretty easy, and I could keep up pretty consistently--my mile splits were 14:14, 14:22, 14:16, 14:05, and 14:04. Also, the Garmin gave me an "improving aerobic fitness" score instead of "over-reaching" like it did on Sunday, and gave me a recovery time of 28 hours (Sunday's recovery time given was a whopping 69). So that's all encouraging, as I definitely don't want to be overdoing things!!

The surprising thing is that the Garmin is still giving me the same low VO2 max of 34, telling me my "fitness age" is 47 (actual age is 48) and that I'm in the bottom 50% of people my age and gender. I didn't expect that at all, since I'm generally healthy, was moderately active well before I started running, I eat well, and am within my ideal weight range for my height, etc. I guess I'll look at the bright side and say that at least that means there's lots of room for improvement!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Today's run was much more encouraging. First of all, it was the farthest I've run continuously outdoors without taking a walk break, at a full 5 miles. I also finally found an outdoor pace that felt good & pretty easy, and I could keep up pretty consistently--my mile splits were 14:14, 14:22, 14:16, 14:05, and 14:04. Also, the Garmin gave me an "improving aerobic fitness" score instead of "over-reaching" like it did on Sunday, and gave me a recovery time of 28 hours (Sunday's recovery time given was a whopping 69). So that's all encouraging, as I definitely don't want to be overdoing things!!

The surprising thing is that the Garmin is still giving me the same low VO2 max of 34, telling me my "fitness age" is 47 (actual age is 48) and that I'm in the bottom 50% of people my age and gender. I didn't expect that at all, since I'm generally healthy, was moderately active well before I started running, I eat well, and am within my ideal weight range for my height, etc. I guess I'll look at the bright side and say that at least that means there's lots of room for improvement!

If I were to take your Galloway mile you did earlier (10:49) and inputted into an estimate, I would actually get a VO2peak of 24.0.



This would estimate your 5k time around 36:50. Ignore the HR data since I didn't know your inputs. More importantly at this moment, it says that a pace you should find very easy should be around a 14:20-15:15. Which given the 5 miler you completed seems relatively close. But certainly, don't fret. The VDOT (or VO2peak or VO2max) depending on what you want to call it, can certainly be improved. I guarantee as you continue to train you will see that number improve with good aerobic training, mixed with speed work when you're ready for it, and losing bad weight.

This is the chart of someone with a VO2max of 34:



I think most research puts the VO2max value at about a 15-20% improvement cap. But I think that's related to an absolute VO2max which "removes" the body weight component per se. So for example, let's say someone had a body weight of 200 pounds and a VDOT of 30. Their absolute VO2max is 2.7 liters/min. Now let's say that person was able to drop 25 pounds of bad weight down to 175, but didn't actually improve their cardiovascular fitness per se. So at the same 2.7 liters/min absolute VO2max but now at 175 pounds, their VO2max would be 34.3. So they improved their VO2max by 14.3% just by dropping 25 pounds of bad weight. That's the difference between a 30:40 5k (VDOT 30) and 27:25 5k (VDOT 34.3). Now in theory, they could still improve their absolute VO2max by 15-20% max. So they're 2.7 liters/min could be as high as 3.24 liters/min (somewhere around a VDOT of 36.6 or a 26:00 5k vs the original 30:40 5k). Now add in losing 25 pounds for this person, and suddenly their 30:40 5k becomes a 23:10 5k. So it goes to show that there can be a tremendous improvement through continued exercise and bad weight loss to this estimated VDOT value.

I'd guess when I was in Middle School my VDOT was around 38.3 (based on 7:20 mile time). I'd guess my VDOT when I first started running as an adult was around 30.8 (based on 30 min 5k). I'd guess my VDOT after 6 years of training and dropping about 40 pounds from when I started running peaked around a VDOT of 53 in Jan 2018 (based on a 39:54 10k). So my VDOT has improved from 30.8 to 53 (or about +72%) with training and losing some bad weight. I don't add this to brag, but simply to show a real life example of how it can be possible to improve this value fairly dramatically.

My guess on the current VO2max Garmin estimate is that your watch may still need some more data to be more accurate (plus you're still coming off that sickness). Additionally, the HR max you have inputted might be too high relative to your own personal max. What do you have as your maxHR and how did you come to that number?

Something else you may be looking at is the race predictor, but I'd knock some time off those predictions because they assume absolute perfection with running economy which very very few people have. My times usually end up about 4 VO2max values less than what my watch thinks I could do. Here's a chart with lots of different VO2max Garmin race predictor values:

https://cicerunner.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/garmin-fr620-race-times-from-vo2-max/

 

[JennysSeven]

Thanks for the info! I'll dig into those charts here in a bit, but off the top of my head, the main reason why I was assuming that value was really low is because the Garmin puts it at the bottom end of "fair" and tells me I'm in the bottom 50% of my age group. I just didn't see that coming, as I consider myself active and healthy.

As for max heart rate, I didn't input anything that I can recall. I'm assuming they get a generic number based on my age--maybe the old 220 - age or whatever the formula is. For whatever it's worth, my heart rate does get really high relative to my resting heart rate, which is low. (Today's run averaged 167. My average resting heart rate is 60.) But maybe that's just how I'm wired. I don't know. My heart rate is lower on treadmill runs. I'm sure lack of elevation change contributes.

My weight is okay, but my body composition is probably still higher fat than it should be. I really should do weight training and improve muscle mass. Going by height and weight (5'8"; 153), my BMI is 23.3. I could lose 10 lbs. and not miss it, lol, but probably not much more than that. I've lost about 10 lbs. since the beginning of the year. I'm not really focusing on that right now, but just by increasing mileage and whatever extra cross-training I've done, I'm still slowly going down. My diet is good, so no real reason to count calories or anything.

I did see the race predictor times suggested on the watch and thought "hell, no!" LOL!! They are VERY ambitious!

 

[JennysSeven]

Okay, so looking at those charts the first one (with the VO2 of 24) really looks like what I'm actually capable of right now.

I'm just having a mini-tantrum over Garmin's chart, lol. I don't want to be at the lowest end of fair (only 1 ml/kg/min above poor!!) I expected to at least reach "good" in the middle of the chart! LOL!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Thanks for the info! I'll dig into those charts here in a bit, but off the top of my head, the main reason why I was assuming that value was really low is because the Garmin puts it at the bottom end of "fair" and tells me I'm in the bottom 50% of my age group. I just didn't see that coming, as I consider myself active and healthy.

I guess if you lined up about 100 people that were Female 48 and you finished in the 50% I'd say that's doing pretty well starting out. My first race I finished where 92% of Males of the same age finished faster than me. But don't let it get you too down, remember that this value is a rough estimation from the watch and there are plenty of other aspects of fitness that would not be covered by this value. You can definitely be active and healthy and have a low VO2max estimation.

As for max heart rate, I didn't input anything that I can recall. I'm assuming they get a generic number based on my age--maybe the old 220 - age or whatever the formula is. For whatever it's worth, my heart rate does get really high relative to my resting heart rate, which is low. (Today's run averaged 167. My average resting heart rate is 60.) But maybe that's just how I'm wired. I don't know. My heart rate is lower on treadmill runs. I'm sure lack of elevation change contributes.

What pace did you run today to get the HR of 167? Yea, that 220-age thing is average, but the deviation from that value is huge. I would be 220-33 (or 187). And my actual maxHR is probably pretty close to 172. I know some runners with a maxHR in the 200s and they're in their 40s.

Based on the pace of today's run and the 167, we might be able to get a pretty good guess as to your maxHR. Also the easy 5 miler you ran would be a helpful HR data point as well.

My weight is okay, but my body composition is probably still higher fat than it should be. I really should do weight training and improve muscle mass. Going by height and weight (5'8"; 153), my BMI is 23.3. I could lose 10 lbs. and not miss it, lol, but probably not much more than that. I've lost about 10 lbs. since the beginning of the year. I'm not really focusing on that right now, but just by increasing mileage and whatever extra cross-training I've done, I'm still slowly going down. My diet is good, so no real reason to count calories or anything.

I'd agree. No reason to aim to lose more weight. Over time you'll convert that mass that will on its own help you become faster and stronger.

I did see the race predictor times suggested on the watch and thought "hell, no!" LOL!! They are VERY ambitious!

I laugh so hard when I see mine. Like, right.... and nope! I'm not sure I could barely keep up the "5k pace" for more than a mile.

Okay, so looking at those charts the first one (with the VO2 of 24) really looks like what I'm actually capable of right now.

I'm just having a mini-tantrum over Garmin's chart, lol. I don't want to be at the lowest end of fair (only 1 ml/kg/min above poor!!) I expected to at least reach "good" in the middle of the chart! LOL!

Just motivation and fuel to the fire! You're just starting out running and undoubtedly you will significantly raise your VO2max. It's not impossible that you could be in the "good" range within a year's time. Then you'll lower your Lactate Threshold pace. Then you'll start to maximize your Running Economy. You've got this! Enjoy the journey. One of my favorite things is to track the progress myself by plotting pace vs HR over time using 2-week cycles. Like this:



A HR that was equal to a 9:21 min/mile pace (80% HRR) back in Spring 2015 was a 6:43 min/mile in Spring 2017. Be patient and watch that VO2max soar!

 

[JennysSeven]

Today's run:

3.1 miles. Splits of 12:34, 12:20, 12:05, and 1:05 for the last tenth. I admittedly started out too fast but was feeling good until early in the 3rd mile, when I realized I probably should've started out slower. But by about 2.6, it hit me that I was going faster than my previous 5k PR, so I had to at least try to keep it up, lol. I ended up finishing 7 seconds slower than my 5k PR from a few weeks ago, and that was an actual race.

I also spent several seconds of that first mile flat on the ground...Jordan was running with Leia (GSD pup), but she WANTS to run with me and stops if they get too far ahead of me. So at one point I caught up to them and she ran in front of me and I stepped to the side off into the grass, and as I was off-balance trying to avoid her she jumped up and knocked me over. Thankfully I caught myself with my hands on the grass before going down flat and didn't bang up my knees or twist an ankle! But I'm sure that added 10-15 seconds to that first mile split, lol.

I finally went out last night and bought Jordan and I "real" running shoes, getting analyzed and fitted at our local running store. I've been running for the last 10 months in running shoes from the Adidas outlet at our outlet mall, which have also been my every day sneakers. So while they were decent shoes, they probably weren't my ideal fit and definitely had too many miles on them! I got inserts for them (I over pronate and have worn custom orthotics for years) so we'll see how those compare to my custom ones. So far they feel good. And it turns out Jordan has my feet--narrow, very high arches, and he over pronates even worse than I do, so we got a similar combination for him. And I got good socks--no more running in cheap Walmart cotton socks. I definitely felt a difference in my feet and legs running today--it felt like less effort, especially running uphill.

Oh, and about that max heart rate--the highest recorded during this run was 192--a far cry from the 172 that the 220-age formula would suggest. Average over the whole run was 173. And while I was putting in higher effort, I don't think I was at an effort of "If I don't stop this right now I'm going to keel over" or anything.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Oh, and about that max heart rate--the highest recorded during this run was 192--a far cry from the 172 that the 220-age formula would suggest. Average over the whole run was 173. And while I was putting in higher effort, I don't think I was at an effort of "If I don't stop this right now I'm going to keel over" or anything.

Well minimally you would be looking at this then:



I'd at least confirm your maxHR is at least 192 in your Garmin Connect profile since you hit that number thus far. And I'm assuming your HR climbed and fell from that 192 and it wasn't just a sudden erroneous value. The 167 from the other day and the 173 average today would suggest the 192 could very well be a real number. I'd say those "5k" and "10k" HRR values above are a range I barely ever hit until the end of those race distances. But the other values (LT, M, LR, and Easy) are much more consistently always within the ranges the calculations give me during a normal training run at that set pace. When you ran the 14:30 min/mile pace the other day, was your HR in the 130-148 range?

 

[JennysSeven]

My average on Tuesday when I ran between 14:04 and 14:22 was 167, only 6 less than my average today at a much higher pace/effort level. I'm half wondering if I should be concerned that my heart isn't normal. (I've never had heart issues and have always had normal physicals, etc., although my last was close to 2 years ago.) For what it's worth, on both those runs (Tuesday and Today) I hit 155-160 within the first minute and a half and then gradually climbed from there. And I really don't think I'm doing an all-out 100% effort while running. If I was, I wouldn't be able to sustain it for 3-5 miles, right?

 

[DopeyBadger]

My average on Tuesday when I ran between 14:04 and 14:22 was 167, only 6 less than my average today at a much higher pace/effort level. I'm half wondering if I should be concerned that my heart isn't normal. (I've never had heart issues and have always had normal physicals, etc., although my last was close to 2 years ago.) For what it's worth, on both those runs (Tuesday and Today) I hit 155-160 within the first minute and a half and then gradually climbed from there. And I really don't think I'm doing an all-out 100% effort while running. If I was, I wouldn't be able to sustain it for 3-5 miles, right?

What's your cadence for these two runs at 14:00 min/mile and 12:00 min/mile?

 

[JennysSeven]

Cadence averaged 141 for the 14:xx/mile run and 154 for the 12:xx/mile run. My stride length was a tiny bit longer today too. (.8 vs .85) I was guessing comfier shoes, but I have no idea lol.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Well that rules out cadence lock then. Sometimes an optical HR monitor can pick up the cadence instead of the HR. But that’s only the case if they suddenly line up which doesn’t appear to be the case here. Next best guess is that your HR still has not recovered from the cold you had. Because I would be shocked if pacing under similar environmental conditions which are nearly 2 min/mile are only separated by 5 bpm. Something else seems to be going on here. It’ll be interesting to see what that HR looks like over the next week or so and if it starts to shift down. A very curious case.

 

[JennysSeven]

Yesterday I completed my first 7-mile run. I did it at the gym on the treadmill so I could be sure to control my pace better...Did the whole thing at 15:00 m/m. The Garmin gave me 7.66 miles to the treadmill's 7. I came home and googled how to fix that, and turns out I have to tell it I want to change the distance before I save the workout. Next time I will do that, and hopefully the watch and the treadmill will eventually match up. Average heart rate on this run was 151. Hubby called me with a few questions when I was at the beginning of mile 6 and I could talk to him easily, so I'm guessing that confirms that's a nice easy pace for me.

This week has a 5-mile run, a 3-mile run, and then an 8-mile run over the weekend. Then the following week is the last one in the plan I'm doing, with I think 3 miles, 2 miles, and 2 miles, and then supposedly ending with a race (it's a 15k plan.) But the 10-mile race we're doing isn't until the 30th, so I'm not sure what I should do between now and then. Maybe repeat one of the last couple weeks and put off that last taper week until the week of the race?

While I do think I've made a lot of progress, I'm okay with the fact that I'm not to a point yet where I can get a sufficient POT For Star Wars weekend at this 10-miler. So I'm just going to enjoy it and be proud that I can run that distance, rather than push too hard and be disappointed if I don't make it. Back at the beginning of February, that last 1-minute run of C25K Week one Day one was a challenge I had to push myself through. So being able to complete a 10-miler 11 months later will be pretty huge to me!

 

[DopeyBadger]

This week has a 5-mile run, a 3-mile run, and then an 8-mile run over the weekend. Then the following week is the last one in the plan I'm doing, with I think 3 miles, 2 miles, and 2 miles, and then supposedly ending with a race (it's a 15k plan.) But the 10-mile race we're doing isn't until the 30th, so I'm not sure what I should do between now and then. Maybe repeat one of the last couple weeks and put off that last taper week until the week of the race?

Something like a 4-3-5 set of runs would help bridge the plan an extra week. It's a little extended taper, but you'll be fine.