The Running Thread - 2018

[PCFriar80]

Congrats to all the races this weekend and thanks for your race reports!

QOTD: For those of yall who live in a mostly flat area and have a race that has a lot hills, how do you train for hills when you do not have them?

For me it's the opposite. I live in a hilly area so most of my training runs have a lot of hills, both good and bad. Flat stretches are a bonus for me.

 

[KSellers88]

ATTQOTD: My area is not really flat, but not really hilly. LOL. I am able to find routes that have both options. The route I run the most has about 400 feet of elevation gain, so I'll just repeat that loop over and over again if needed. I have never trained specifically for hills though.

 

[Bree]

QOTD: I'm running the Smoky Mountain Half in September. Um, hello hills. I live in FL and it's flat as a pancake. There is a running/bike trail through town that has a bridge that spans over a six lane road with a pretty steep incline. I figured I'd run back and forth on that a few times. I'm also planning on driving 50 minutes out to Clermont a couple times which has rolling hills. It seriously doesn't look like FL out there!!!

 

[GreatLakes]

Ran my 4th Flying Pig half this weekend and my son did his first ever organized race at the Piglet the day before. Saturday was a little rainy but pleasant and he had fun despite wanting go the wrong way the whole time and stopping to pick up everything he saw.

The half was great as always and has again cemented in my mind why this is my favorite race. Weather was a little warm (I like to race in low 40s) and a bit humid but this wasn't a goal race for me, just fun. I took it extremely easy and just wanted to come in under 1:40 which I managed to do. The energy in the whole city leading up to race day is great and they have so many events in addition to the Sunday races. If anyone wants to see how a city should do a race weekend do Cincinnati.

QOTD: For those of yall who live in a mostly flat area and have a race that has a lot hills, how do you train for hills when you do not have them?

We aren't mostly flat but we also aren't exactly hilly either. There are no mountains at all and if you live in a hilly area what we call hills would make you laugh. What we do have a few of are river valleys which have some decent (if short) climbs to get out of. If you really need to do hill work you hit one of the river valleys.

 

[SheHulk]

Race Report: Broad Street Run - 10 miler

Mini-rant: What was not so great about the run was the corrals were a mess. My only other corralled races have been with Disney (halfs + marathon), but those were so much better organized compared to Broad Street. For starters, there were no volunteers preventing people from starting in whichever corral they felt like and a lot of people took advantage of it. I'd been placed in a slower corral as I'd estimated my time at registration based on an older half marathon, so I lined up closer to the front so I wouldn't be caught behind too many people at the start. To my astonishment, a group of women from an even slower corral lined up behind me and started loudly talking about how they were injured and probably going to walk significant portions of the race and how they hadn't really trained. Why line up then in a faster corral towards the front of it then? Looking around at bib colors, there were quite a few others who decided to give themselves an upgrade to what corral they should start in. It was pretty obvious throughout the run as I kept passing people from earlier corrals that lots of people lied about their predicted finish time, this wasn't just a few people having an off day. Considering the number of people who take part in this run, and how congested it got at points, why risk getting trampled? And why don't the race directors verify proof of times?

Anyway, I did have fun seeing Philadelphia in a different way and finished in 1:20:38 despite weaving like a goalie all over the course to get around people. If I ever run it again, I'd switch my expectations to "fun run" instead of one I was trying to get a PR in.

I ran this yesterday and admit to being one of the people who was in the wrong corral. It was by accident I swear! I was supposed to be in yellow, so I entered the barriers where there were yellow flags and walked forward where there were a bunch of others in yellow bibs. OK this must be the place. I was standing around for about a half hour when a woman sidled up to me and whispered, "It's ok, I snuck in here too." I was so offended, like Excuse me, Madam, I am definitely in the correct corral. The guy she was with had a gray bib on and informed me that, Actually, this was the gray corral. When I entered at the yellow flags I was supposed to move back, not like a runDisney race where you move forward. There was nobody there to tell you where to go. And there were literally so many yellow bibs in that corral already that I assumed I was in the right place. I had entered 1:40:00 as my predicted time, and the gray/yellow cutoff was exactly 1:40:00. Between that and my having already stood around there for a half hour, I decided to just stand pat. All of this to say, I agree, the corrals were a mess. I like to follow the rules and even I screwed up.

I didn't have to weave, I just slowed down wherever it was super crowded. But yeah even I, at a much slower pace (1:46:34; that 1:40:00 turned out to be ambitious for this day but it was an honest ambitious) passed literally hundreds of people who must have started way ahead of where they should have. In their defense a LOT of people seem to run this race who are not regular runners and I think people are just optimistic about how they are going to do. Tons of people passed me in the first two or three miles and I passed tons of people walking miles 7-10. Death march walking not Galloway walking. I don't think you need a proof of time for corral assignment, you just say what you're going to run. I'm sure a lot of people lie but add to that the people who are just overconfident and you get this situation.

I think if you do Broad Street as a fun run it's great. I kind of like being around a bunch of people who are running their only race of the year, having fun, whooping it up. But if you are going for a specific competitive pace (like I planned to, but it wasn't in me that day) that's not going to happen here despite it being a straight shot, very few tangents, and mostly flat or downhill. Unless you're an elite who can just dash in front of everyone else from the start.

 

[FFigawi]

QOTD: For those of yall who live in a mostly flat area and have a race that has a lot hills, how do you train for hills when you do not have them?

The only options around here are parking garages, overpasses, and one or two small hills that are useful for 30-60 second repeats. And treadmills too, of course. I used one quite often when training for Comrades because it's easy to model the five named hills on one. Set the incline to match the road, set your distance, and power walk like mad.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

ATTQOTD: I don't and I feel the pain afterwards.

 

[rteetz]

QOTD: For those of yall who live in a mostly flat area and have a race that has a lot hills, how do you train for hills when you do not have them?

I’ve never really ran a race that has a lot of hills. Disney only have overpasses which I don’t consider a hill. My area is pretty flat. I suppose I would have to run near the school by my house which has a hill.

 

[Jules76126]

I live in a hilly area. Every run has some type of hill in it. So I love when I get to run on a flat route.

 

[camaker]

QOTD: For those of yall who live in a mostly flat area and have a race that has a lot hills, how do you train for hills when you do not have them?

I have the opposite problem. The area around me is pretty hilly. Regardless of which direction I turn leaving home, I'm running uphill within a quarter mile. I actually have more of a problem trying to gauge whether my heart rate stays within the ranges it's supposed to for a given run because there are so many uphill stretches that boost it.

 

[PrincessV]

ATTQOTD: I make hill training a part of my year-round cycle. The only hills I ever encounter in races are the overpasses at WDW, so it's not like I need to train for hilly courses, but I live on the Gulf Coast of FL: hills are a novelty! We have a large bluff between where I live and the Gulf, so if I run that direction, I get a big, long hill in that way. In cooler months, I'll do hill repeats on a bridge that ascends from sea level to 75' and is about a 1/2 mile long; up and over a handful of time is a great workout. In the summer, I do "hill" repeats on the treadmill. Aside from being fun, I feel like the hill training makes me a stronger runner.

 

[KevM]

ATTQOTD: I have plenty of small hills around me. If I want large hills there a some that are pretty close and easy to drive to.

 

[LSUlakes]

QOTD: I'm running the Smoky Mountain Half in September. Um, hello hills. I live in FL and it's flat as a pancake. There is a running/bike trail through town that has a bridge that spans over a six lane road with a pretty steep incline. I figured I'd run back and forth on that a few times. I'm also planning on driving 50 minutes out to Clermont a couple times which has rolling hills. It seriously doesn't look like FL out there!!!

On one of our first times driving to WDW and we hit I75 south I was amazed at how hilly it was. I know they arent huge hills, but I was thinking it would be a lot flatter. Didn't feel like I was driving south in FL.

 

[JulieODC]

For me it's the opposite. I live in a hilly area so most of my training runs have a lot of hills, both good and bad. Flat stretches are a bonus for me.

Same here!

 

[roxymama]

ATTQOTD: What is a hill?
I run in a fairly flat area and for the most part the races in my area are fairly flat. If there are hills I think many people would sneeze at them as not being so bad. However, because I don't do a lot of hill training, even the babyish hills tend to give me a bit of that lactic burn and fatigue. I haven't been super good about adding in more than the usual 1.0 treadmill incline or on getting a lot of outdoors hill practice. i can get some hills when I go into 6+ mile routes if I go one particular direction.

I do tend to try to PR flat Chicago races and not so much out of town ones. And I tend to feel more pain when trying to PR up some baby hills but on fun-runs or times I don't care as much about I tend to walk maybe more than I should.

Also, what is a hill?

(Edited to add that my first experience with the Flying Pig and hills was eye opening and I that wasn't even on the hilliest of distances.)

 

[OldSlowGoofyGuy]

ATTQOTD: I do almost all of my training runs from the end of our neighborhood road. One direction is rolling terrain. The other direction is more hilly, with the first half mile being the worst.

I always try to do the hill direction at least once a week. When I'm training for a hilly race, like Peachtree, I'll do it more often. Sometimes I'll go 2 miles in the hilly direction, or sometimes I'll do repeats on 'The Hill'.

And when I'm feeling particularly stupid, I do the hill repeats with a weighted backpack. I know this is not an approved practice, but it is such a confidence builder on race day.

 

[michigandergirl]

ATTQOTD: I live in a hilly area near two river valleys. My morning neighborhood runs are nothing but hills, mostly smaller, but with 2 steep hills, one long and one short. My long runs I do on a flat rail trail, but I still need to go down (and then back up) a long, steep hill to the river to get to that flatter trail. I tend to dominate hills during races (lots of Pac-manning), but then people will sometimes catch back up with me on the flat parts.

 

[apdebord]

ATTQOTD: I am dealing with this right now. Most of my runs on Strava end with a negative elevation gain. But I have a half this month in Fredericksburg, VA which has some rolling hills. Apparently the hill on mile 10 is a bit of a beast. Then I’ll have some hills at Peachtree in July. To help, I’m doing the highest incline on my treadmill a couple times a week. We have a city park with a “mountain” so I am trying to be better about going over there for hill repeats. There’s also several bridges in the area that a lot of runners do, but I’m terrified of bridges so I haven’t talked myself into those yet.

 

[Keels]

I run mostly along the Trinity River, and when the water is low, you can run down the embankment to cross the river and run up the other side. It’s pretty brutal, but effective.

We also have two “hills” nearby that get you down to the river:

Zoo Hill (which, surprisingly, is by the zoo):



And RadioShack Hill, which is downtown:



They both suck equally.

In Florida, I usually run down to the sports park in the neighborhood next door and run up and down the bleachers, but I really don’t do that as often because it’s just stupid.

 

[baxter24]

ATTQOTD: My neighborhood has a lot of hills and I have to run up a big one if I want to run outside of the neighborhood where it can be much flatter. I know they make me a better runner but I hate them sometimes.