You must be swift as the coursing river (as long as it's the Lazy River) - comments welcome

[WillRunForPizza]

July 11 - 17, 2022
HM training week 4 | 63 days until DC Half
In which I suffer various consequences

• M: 4.35 mi, 43:23, 9:58 per mile, 161 bpm
• T: rest
• W: 5.89 mi, 55:13, 4.09 mi pace @ 8:39 per mile, 178 bpm
• T: 3.5 mi, 38:06, 10:52 per mile, 153 bpm
• F: strength training, 128 bpm + PT
• S: karate, 148 bpm + yoga, 93 bpm
• S: 7.01 mi, 1:16:15, 10:52 per mile, 161 bpm

Weekly mileage: 20.75
Training time: 4:56:53

This week was a little rocky. On Monday I decided to try the regular social run at my local running store. It takes place at 6:30 and it was hot. Also there were a whole lot of people there - 90 (no that's not a typo) just in the 3-mile group. It's hard to pace well at social runs, so I was a little fast, but I did get some breaks at lights. I didn't love running on city sidewalks with so many people especially when it's so hot out, so not sure how often I'll be back.

I was a little nervous about the HM-pace run after the last time, but it went mostly okay. I ran early but it was already warm and sunny, so I went out on a shady route. Unfortunately the shady route has some hills, which made it hard to settle into a consistent effort for my pace. But by looking at my watch constantly (lol), I got pretty close to my goal pace - 8:39 vs. 8:41, and staying within about 30 seconds either way throughout the hard part.

The downside was that later in the day I developed a massive headache and had to take the afternoon off to recover. I did eat before and after the run and was fine for a couple hours, but by noon-ish my head was killing me and I felt nauseous. Taking the afternoon off to sleep off a running hangover is definitely not going to work long-term, so if anyone has suggestions for avoiding this in the future, I'd love to hear them!

I felt fine by the next morning, so I still did my easy run on Thursday. It was a little slow but felt okay.

Friday's PT and Saturday's karate class really worked over my legs, so when I woke up this morning I knew the run was going to be a little rough. Luckily I'm still only at 7 miles for my long run, so I got through it with minor aches and tiredness. Also a lot of sweat because it was pretty humid out.

Next week should be interesting because we have a board meeting on Wednesday and an event on Thursday. But I've planned everything out and I think I should be able to fit all my workouts in. We'll see how it goes!

 

[avondale]

For the headache....maybe you were more dehydrated than you thought? Next time maybe try more liquids before, during, and soon after your run? Headaches are pretty common with dehydration, although not usually at that level.

Also, maybe stretch out the upper body: shoulders, upper back, neck. Possibly you were tensed up in your upper body during the run and then afterward that manifested in a headache caused by those muscles.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

For the headache....maybe you were more dehydrated than you thought? Next time maybe try more liquids before, during, and soon after your run? Headaches are pretty common with dehydration, although not usually at that level.

I don't think so, although it's always possible. I did bring water with me on the run and drank some Gatorade and plenty more water afterwards.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

It's getting hot out there...

This week's weather has me (and everybody else it seems!) thinking about T+D adjustments. I know DopeyBadger has posted the T+D adjustment chart many times, which is helpful. However, the chart assumes that you will then go forth and calculate a 4.5% increase on a 10:20 pace (or whatever), and I'm gonna be honest, that seems like more math than I want to do

So I found this other chart to help my lazy butt approximate (link), which I am putting here so I can find it later. Slight downside that it only goes up to 10:30, but that works reasonably well for my normal paces. Why does it give a 4:00 pace and not an 11:00 pace? Who can say...

Here again are the adjustments:

On a related note, does anybody know if you can make Apple Fitness give you the dew point instead of percent humidity for workouts? I can get it from my weather app, but then I have to remember to look it up right around my run and note it. That's what I use to track workouts, so if I'm looking back I'll only see the percentage.

 

[NYC_MW]

On a related note, does anybody know if you can make Apple Fitness give you the dew point instead of percent humidity for workouts? I can get it from my weather app, but then I have to remember to look it up right around my run and note it. That's what I use to track workouts, so if I'm looking back I'll only see the percentage.

Not quite your answer, but I've been using Weather Underground to look up past temps and dew points for tracking purposes.

 

[striker1064]

It's getting hot out there...

This week's weather has me (and everybody else it seems!) thinking about T+D adjustments.

You're not kidding. This week is relentless. We've been pretty lucky as our summer has been surprisingly mild. We've had I think 12 90-degree days scattered throughout this year so far, but we haven't had a sustained burst like we have this week.

In short: Yuck.

 

[DopeyBadger]

It's getting hot out there...

This week's weather has me (and everybody else it seems!) thinking about T+D adjustments. I know DopeyBadger has posted the T+D adjustment chart many times, which is helpful. However, the chart assumes that you will then go forth and calculate a 4.5% increase on a 10:20 pace (or whatever), and I'm gonna be honest, that seems like more math than I want to do

So I found this other chart to help my lazy butt approximate (link), which I am putting here so I can find it later. Slight downside that it only goes up to 10:30, but that works reasonably well for my normal paces. Why does it give a 4:00 pace and not an 11:00 pace? Who can say...
View attachment 686253
Here again are the adjustments:
View attachment 686254
On a related note, does anybody know if you can make Apple Fitness give you the dew point instead of percent humidity for workouts? I can get it from my weather app, but then I have to remember to look it up right around my run and note it. That's what I use to track workouts, so if I'm looking back I'll only see the percentage.

I use Strava plus klimat.app. The klimat app autopopulates my Strava run with my custom choice weather data (which I have it display Temp + Dew). An Apple Watch can autodownload to Strava. The klimat app costs me $5 per year which is well worth the cost.

Here you go:



I can make it even more specific if you give me your pace goals for different types of runs. It's a simple Excel formula to auto-calculate it all.

 

[avondale]

It's getting hot out there...

This week's weather has me (and everybody else it seems!) thinking about T+D adjustments. I know DopeyBadger has posted the T+D adjustment chart many times, which is helpful. However, the chart assumes that you will then go forth and calculate a 4.5% increase on a 10:20 pace (or whatever), and I'm gonna be honest, that seems like more math than I want to do

So I found this other chart to help my lazy butt approximate (link), which I am putting here so I can find it later. Slight downside that it only goes up to 10:30, but that works reasonably well for my normal paces. Why does it give a 4:00 pace and not an 11:00 pace? Who can say...
View attachment 686253
Here again are the adjustments:
View attachment 686254
On a related note, does anybody know if you can make Apple Fitness give you the dew point instead of percent humidity for workouts? I can get it from my weather app, but then I have to remember to look it up right around my run and note it. That's what I use to track workouts, so if I'm looking back I'll only see the percentage.

Yeah, the percentage math is annoying since time units are in 60s - 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour. What I ended up doing is figuring out what 1% was in seconds for each of my paces: easy, LR, tempo, etc. So once I know that 1% for my easy pace is 7 seconds, then I know that 4% is 28 seconds, etc. A bit easier that way.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Here you go:

This is perfect! Much better than the one I found on the internet. Thank you!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

July 18 - 24, 2022
HM training week 5 | 56 days until DC Half
In which I take some liberties with the schedule

• M: 4.02 mi, 43:01, 10:42 per mile, 160 bpm
• T: 4.51 mi, 45:55, 10:11 per mile, 169 bpm + core, 126 bpm
• W: rest
• T: strength training, 118 bpm
• F: 3.58 mi, 39:25, 10:59 per mile, 149 bpm + core, 108 bpm
• S: karate
• S: 8.03 mi, 1:22:19, 10:14 per mile, 162 bpm

Weekly mileage: 20.14
Training time: 5:26:48

This week was a busy one at work, so I had to shift around some workouts. Then I got a little carried away with the editing of the plan and made things harder than I was supposed to but it didn't kill me so here we are!

I did Tuesday's run on Monday. It went fine, although my HR got up to about 170 in the last mile and wouldn't go back down. No issues, though.

Tuesday I decided instead of an easy run, I should do a mile for time to see how fast I was - a totally reasonable decision given the T+D of something like 146. So I jogged over to the track and ran, according to my watch, 0.98 miles in 7:28. (I ran 4 laps and a bit more but I guess the track, which is in fairness barely worthy of the name, being only a paved path around a baseball field at a public rec center, may not quite be 200 m.) That was a little slower than I wanted to be given my HM goal of 1:53:45, but it was pretty hot and I do have more than half of my training to go, so I'm not ruling it out yet. I took a short break afterwards and finished the last couple miles of my run at an easy pace.

Wednesday I had to be in the office all day, so that was my rest day. I kept the strength a bit light on Thursday because I wanted to give myself a bit of a break after making things harder than I was supposed to.

On Friday I took DopeyBadger's advice to start out extra slow so that when my HR started creeping up, I'd still be in a good place. I'd say it worked even better than I would have guessed - I think that might have been the lowest average HR I've had for a run since I started keeping track. And my peak HR was only 163. It was a bit slow, but it was also hot (shocker), so I wasn't worried.

Continuing the theme of messing with the schedule, for my long run I planned on some kind of fast finish. I played with some different ideas (a couple of slow miles and then each mile at a faster pace, e.g. M, HM, etc.; an extended period at HM pace; or even just doing a regular long run with some extra strides). But since it was supposed to be the hottest day so far this year, I decided to wing it. Thanks to some unexpected cloud cover, I ended up running the first couple of miles slow and then just speeding up mile by mile (for the most part):

1. 11:21
2. 11:22
3. 11:05
4. 10:36
5. 9:52
6. 10:39 (this is where I had to run back up a hill and it was hard)
7. 8:40
8. 8:19

I was pretty happy with the run overall and I didn't feel terrible afterwards, which was nice. Yay for making it up as you go!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

July 25 - 31, 2022
HM training week 6 | 49 days until DC Half
In which I am disappointed

• M: yoga, 94 bpm
• T: 4.01 mi, 42:56, 10:41 per mile, 158 bpm
• W: 5.75 mi, 54:39, 9:30 per mile, 168 bpm
• T: 3.79 mi, 42:46, 11:16 per mile, 155 bpm
• F: strength training, 128 bpm
• S: strength training/kickboxing, 144 bpm
• S: bike + 5 min WU + 5K + 5 min CD + bike

Weekly mileage: 17.55
Training time: 4:08:33

On Monday I did yoga so I could close my exercise ring. Apple got to me

On Tuesday I wasn't quite as good at taking it easy at the start as Friday, but it still went decently. All the T+Ds this week were above 140 even at 7 a.m., which is always a delight.

Wednesday I was supposed to do another 4-mile HM-pace run, but once again I messed it up. I did a mile WU and then either I started the pace part slow or my watch took longer than usual to catch up, which had me thinking I was too slow. But when I sped up I ran too fast. At one point I looked down and was running a 7:10 pace. Since my timed mile last week was slower than that, it certainly wasn't something I could maintain for 4 miles. I did 3.07 miles at an average 8:22 pace, and then I was very tired and decided to skip the fourth mile and just jog the rest of the way back. So that was annoying. I feel like I keep making these runs harder than they need to be.

Thursday was aquajogging. Okay, not really, but with a 72º dew point it felt like it. The pace was slow but I think it was mainly just compensating for the conditions outside.

My dog had a vet appointment on Friday for his annual checkup and vaccinations. This is always a thrilling adventure because they have to sedate him to examine him. So I dropped him off in the morning and tried to pick him up around lunchtime but he was still not doing walking things at that point. We made it home a few hours later but all in all lots of fun walking back and forth. Then I did some lower-body strength.

I skipped karate on Saturday because the dog was still a little out of it and I didn't want to leave him for an hour. Instead I did an upper-body strength and kickboxing/cardio workout. Then in the evening I did some extra stretching and foam rolling to prepare for my 5K the next morning, which I will save for the next post.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Race Recap: Summer Georgetown 5K

Pre-race
This was a small local race that I signed up for because it fit perfectly into my training plan. I wanted to treat the prep as practice for the half, so the night before, I stretched, went to bed early, and actually fell asleep. Then I woke up at 2:30 a.m. because one of us decided he really needed to go outside and couldn't wait a couple more hours So I got up, walked the dog, reset my alarm from 5:10 to 5:30 to make up a little bit of the sleep I lost, and went back to bed.

It was hard to get up again a couple of hours later, and I stumbled out the door again with the dog around 6 and got back at 6:30. The race started at 8. I had originally (before the middle-of-the-night potty break) planned to leave at 7 but actually made it out around 7:20. I biked there and arrived around 7:40. Fortunately there was no line to pick up my bib, and they were still starting the 10K so I had time for a quick warm-up jog and some dynamic stretching.

Race setup
The race was out and back along the C&O canal towpath, which is one of the routes I like to use for long runs so I'm pretty used to it. A few days ago, it looked like the weather was going to be an improvement on the past couple of weeks - maybe even below 70! - but by the time this morning arrived, we had no such luck. I think it was about 75+66. Could definitely be worse, but not the greatest race conditions.

Since it was a small race, the way they did starting groups was just to call up people by their anticipated time. There were two people in the sub-20 group and a dozen or so in the sub-24 group. I started with the next group (sub-28). The path isn't very wide and wasn't closed to other runners/walkers/cyclists, so they warned us to watch out for them along with the HM and 10K runners who had started before us. Then we were off.

Race
At first I felt great. I was running a little over an 8-minute pace and feeling comfortable. I passed a couple of people and felt proud of myself. The course was a little muddy but nothing too bad. Mile 1: 8:07.

As I got closer to the turnaround point, I started to feel a little more tired, but still okay. Because the trail was narrow, it was a tight turnaround, but there wasn't anyone too close to me, so it was fine. I did not get water because it was a 5K. Mile 2: 8:10.

By the third mile I was definitely dragging a bit. A couple of people that I had passed earlier passed me And my HR was pretty high. I could feel myself slowing down and was disappointed. Mile 3: 8:24.

Once I could see the finish, I tried to speed it up and ended up doing the last 0.1 mi at a 7:56 pace. Overall: 25:44, avg. HR 188 bpm.


Conclusions
The good news is that because it was a small race, I was 4th in my age group and 9th among all the women in the 5K, which was pretty cool. The bad news is that to be on track for a 1:53:45 HM finish, I would have needed to run the race about a minute faster. I put my time into a few pace calculators and they came up with 1:58:xx as a projected HM time, which is definitely disappointing, especially considering I ran my last HM only about 90 seconds slower with pretty minimal training.

Is it time to let go of my s2 goal? Maybe it's just barely still possible given ideal conditions. But I also think ideal conditions aren't likely in the middle of September in a mid-Atlantic swamp. I guess I don't have to decide now. We'll see how the second half of my training plan goes. I am just a little disappointed that my race times aren't matching up with my goals.

All that aside, this race definitely went better than my last 5K. I could definitely have done better with pacing - I still have trouble recognizing how long I can run at a given pace - but at least my splits were within 20 seconds. And I think if I didn't have a time goal in my head, I would have been pretty happy with this race, which was faster than anything I've run since high school. I will just keep trying to remind myself of all that!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Is it time to let go of my s2 goal? Maybe it's just barely still possible given ideal conditions. But I also think ideal conditions aren't likely in the middle of September in a mid-Atlantic swamp. I guess I don't have to decide now. We'll see how the second half of my training plan goes.

Not yet. 1) It wasn't your "A" goal race. This was a mid-training plan race. 2) Just because you didn't hit a certain time threshold doesn't mean you can't do it on race day. Let things play out and then make a decision the week of the race. During my 2020 M training, I did three HMs in the span of a few weeks. I ran the first and third at "A" level effort. I did the first in 1:34:57 and the second in 1:28:40. The difference wasn't completely accounted for by a difference in temps.

 

[striker1064]

Congrats on your 5k! Don't lose hope - you still have several weeks to get in quality training for the half, and in my research the historical September T+D for that day is generally a bit lower than today.

And actually I just jinxed it by saying that. It's gonna be super hot now.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Not yet. 1) It wasn't your "A" goal race. This was a mid-training plan race. 2) Just because you didn't hit a certain time threshold doesn't mean you can't do it on race day. Let things play out and then make a decision the week of the race. During my 2020 M training, I did three HMs in the span of a few weeks. I ran the first and third at "A" level effort. I did the first in 1:34:57 and the second in 1:28:40. The difference wasn't completely accounted for by a difference in temps.

Thanks! Glad to hear there's still hope.

Congrats on your 5k! Don't lose hope - you still have several weeks to get in quality training for the half, and in my research the historical September T+D for that day is generally a bit lower than today.

And actually I just jinxed it by saying that. It's gonna be super hot now.

Oh never mind we're screwed now

 

[avondale]

Congratulations on a fast 5k! Even though today was better T+D than lately, it was still pretty darn high for a good race.

I was going to wallow in pity with you about the T+D around the DC area lately. At least you are smart enough to run in the morning. For various reasons with my schedule, I am usually running in late afternoon after work. Whew!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

For various reasons with my schedule, I am usually running in late afternoon after work. Whew!

That takes discipline to go out when it's so hot! I've done it a couple of times and oof

 

[WillRunForPizza]

@DopeyBadger can you use the T+D chart backwards? Like if I find the appropriate T+D and scan down until I get to my actual pace, will it tell me what I would have run if T+D were less than 100? Ex: Today I ran 3.5 mi at 10:54. T+D was about 155. So if it were cool and not humid, would I have done the same run with the same effort at ~10:15?

There is no real reason I need to know this; I'm just curious.

 

[DopeyBadger]

@DopeyBadger can you use the T+D chart backwards? Like if I find the appropriate T+D and scan down until I get to my actual pace, will it tell me what I would have run if T+D were less than 100? Ex: Today I ran 3.5 mi at 10:54. T+D was about 155. So if it were cool and not humid, would I have done the same run with the same effort at ~10:15?

There is no real reason I need to know this; I'm just curious.

It's a good question. The answer is that the T+D chart is imperfect when making pacing decisions going from 100 to 155. So it's imperfect going in the reverse direction as well. With that being said, collect enough data over a long period of time and the HR vs T+D Adj. Pace trendline will give you a good picture of where current fitness is. There are other aspects of endurance racing performance outside of the relationship between HR and Pace, but it gives you a generally good idea. During the summer (well, all the time), the #1 thing I track is the relationship between HR and Pace. Because outside of every other measure of data I've collected it's the best at pinpointing where I am under ideal conditions.

So boiled down, I wouldn't trust one single run to make any judgement calls on what you could or couldn't do under ideal conditions. Collect lots of data, and you'll have a pretty good, but imperfect, idea. So yes, you can make that reverse calculation but view it skeptically. I've done amazing workouts in the heat and they don't always translate when the temps drop.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

It's a good question. The answer is that the T+D chart is imperfect when making pacing decisions going from 100 to 155. So it's imperfect going in the reverse direction as well. With that being said, collect enough data over a long period of time and the HR vs T+D Adj. Pace trendline will give you a good picture of where current fitness is. There are other aspects of endurance racing performance outside of the relationship between HR and Pace, but it gives you a generally good idea. During the summer (well, all the time), the #1 thing I track is the relationship between HR and Pace. Because outside of every other measure of data I've collected it's the best at pinpointing where I am under ideal conditions.

So boiled down, I wouldn't trust one single run to make any judgement calls on what you could or couldn't do under ideal conditions. Collect lots of data, and you'll have a pretty good, but imperfect, idea. So yes, you can make that reverse calculation but view it skeptically. I've done amazing workouts in the heat and they don't always translate when the temps drop.

Makes sense, thanks!