I'm pretty happy with that cluster. Not negative splits, but good enough for government work. Pace was definitely right on. I felt a little slow for the first mile, but I knew that my ballpark pace should be around 8:30, so I stuck with that. As the laps piled up, I was darn glad I didn't go out any faster. I pretty much nailed the test - no finishing kick left in the bag.
nice work guys and gals! I couldn't test this AM. I've been battling achilles tendonitis and ankle was just too stiff today. Going to try tomorrow AM and see what happens.
Completed my first VDOT test today. I'm a little bit confused as to what exactly this means for me - here are the results:
5k time = 20:17 (my mile splits were all 6:44-6:46)
VDOT = 49.0
LTHR = 166
I did get my zones after entering the data, but I'm not sure how this is computed? I am assuming that a higher VDOT score is better? Assuming that is true, why does Matt have a slightly lower VDOT than me with faster run splits?
5k time 26:04, VDOT of 36.4. Down from 39.5 on 11/3, but haven't run much since then due to a calf injury. Goal is to still be running in 14 weeks, so feel okay about this test. Need to get some run consistancy and get rid of some weight between now and then.
I did get my zones after entering the data, but I'm not sure how this is computed? I am assuming that a higher VDOT score is better? Assuming that is true, why does Matt have a slightly lower VDOT than me with faster run splits?
The run I posted yesterday was a workout with mile repeats, not a test. My test was a 20:27 and is the first post of this thread. I posted my run here since I figured it's be confusing to start another workout thread for the non-test runs, sorry!!
Incidentally, my TP based on my 48.5 VDOT is 7:01 and I did my intervals at around 6:40. I think my VDOT is a bit understandted since I had a VDOT of over 50 about 6 weeks ago. So I did the intervals based a lot on RPE and also it was dark so I couldn't see my watch. So that's where they all netted out.
19:33 at a HR of 166 at the local track for a VDOT of 51. Carl and I are neck and neck! Cycling is so much easier on my joints. It feels great to get back on the bike. I'm feeling a lot less beat up lately.
Great job all! OK, jumping in to my 5th OS with a run vDot of....38.6. Pretty much the same as my vDot 5 years ago AND after doing pretty much nothing but running slow (no other form of exercise) for the last year . I can firmly attest to the fact that running long and slow just reinforces your ability to run long and slow. Glad to be part of the group!!
Splits were 6:50, 6:52, 6:56, and then 6:00 for last 1/10th. I was not looking at my pace while running, so I ended up going out a bit hot and fading as the run progressed.
Notes: - VDOT is slightly different between old Data Tool (46.5) and new Data Tool. Going with new Data Tool numbers. Did I miss a thread that explains the difference and why?? - Today's time was 9 seconds slower than my impromptu 5k a month ago, so that is good. - Also, my starting point is 5 seconds faster than last year's first test, tells me I need to stop slacking off so much during my unstructured training time.
Over the last couple months, I've been doing some more endurance running (some MP/HMP, but not so much TP), so I didn't really know what to expect. I run on an indoor 300 m competitive track, so I know the course length quite accurately, and also how fast I'm going any particular lap. As usual, I started out too fast...but I started out WAY too fast this time, and felt like I was going to die at about lap 4 of 16 2/3 (call it 17). I tried to hang on for a little while, but just couldn't, and by half way through, I realized I just HAD to back off the effort level a little if I was going to be able to finish. This sucks.
The tale of woe is easily seen in my trace: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/260161561 (The distance of 3.07 mi is an artifact of the calibration and run velocity. The distance is right.) I lost 20 seconds between mile 1 and 2 and another 11 between mile 2 and 3. My cadence also fades pretty badly. My HR tells the story of the pain: 172 average and 175-178 for the last few minutes. That's the highest 5K HR I have EVER recorded.
That said, I can't complain too much about the results:
(Regarding Matt Aaronson's post - let's keep it to one run and one bike thread per week for now. As we see how much traffic there is, perhaps we'll have a separate "test" thread during appropriate weeks if that looks like a good idea.)
I could feel your pain/struggle reading the post. That is amazing to finish. Your numbers are so consistent over the years. That is so hard to do. Nice!
No Vdot test for me today... I am on the comeback trail from a nagging injury (snow shoveling & hip) where I finally took some complete time off in Sep-Oct. I then tried to ramp back up a bit too fast in Oct-Nov. I am going to play it smart this time and keep on my comeback schedule rather than push it a bit too hard in a test. So I just did a regular treadmill session this AM... Hope to be fully ramped back up for next vDot test..
Really happy about our 2 great Jan OS captains..we are in good hands
I didn't test today since I'm still nursing a sore heel, which has been nagging me for months. But I did run 4 miles @ 8:35 avg pace. This was my EZ Z1 pace from when I had a 50 VDOT in Jan 2012. My HR was never above 130 which also was in my Z1 HR zone from the 50 VDOT. It also felt like a RPE Z1 effort. Net I think all the extra biking that I've been doing while letting my heel rest has helped me maintain some of my run fitness. I did run a 5k turkey trot on Thanksgiving in 21:38 (43 VDOT) but I didn't really race it due to my heel, and have run less than 10 miles per week since then.
I think I going to continue to keep my mileage and intensity in check until the heel is better. So I probably won't make it back into the 50/50 club (50 VDOT and 50+ years old) any time soon, but I think I'm still in the century club (sum of VDOT + age > 100) with a 101 (43 VDOT + 58). Anybody else qualify for these clubs? Let WSM Al Truscott know and he will sanction your "official" membership.
@ Bruce I love it! I only qualify if you count decimals. (48.5 years old, 51.7 VDOT = 100.2) but it seems like maybe that shouldn't count until you're actually 50.
@ Carrie - Those are some very very studly (if I can use that adjective) numbers of your own!
Good job everybody! There are some high Vdot numbers and fast runners!. I think I will have this down about where to post-did it in the general OS thread but will join the discussion here. Vdot today 36.3 (26:10) down from my high of 38.3 end of first OS, March 2012. I started out slower than usual, had a strong finish and actually felt that I had a little left to give. So hoping to get back to 38 quickly and push over 40 by end of OS
I dislike testing intensely, since I was a kid. It's actually the theme of my next blog post because I was so anxious, I woke up at night a couple of times and told myself "really? for the baseline of an OS training period? get over it."
It was warm and very windy and I started out too fast, and the miles weren't passing fast enough. I told myself I couldn't quit until I figured out what I would write here (I guess that is where the accountability kicks in!). While I was trying to figure it out, how to say I quit 2 miles passed and then I thought I do not want to do this again, so might as well finish. I pushed the last mile and finished panting for air.
I always said I liked long and slow, and I have trained long and slow for the last two years. It's time to shake it up and see what happens.
5k time: 28:52 (a personal best for me). vDot: 32.3 LTHR: 174
granted, I havent had the time to read up on what the heck VDot means anyways ... but now I know what mine is. what do I do now with this info??
First run back after almost 2 months recovering from illness/injury. Minimal warm up, just ran without looking at pace to get a benchmark number. Quite surprised I managed to keep going for 3 miles. Playing field had turned into a quagmire.
Run test from 9 November - 28:37, avg 174, max185, vDOT=32.6
Well that wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, after 6 weeks of cookies, beer and general slovenliness. I squeaked into VDOT 48 with a 20:39 5k test yesterday. Thats a little down from where I was running 6 weeks ago too ( @Matt Arronson) , when I ran IMAZ on the cusp of 49/50. My guess is that it wont take but a week of regular training before I am back to that, so I may SWAG my VDOT up before I test, if the workout paces get too easy too soon!
run test complete! I stressed out so much over this b/c I thought I was going to be soooo slow. I haven't felt great lately (my kids just got over the flu AND strep), so took yesterday off to rest and did the test today. I improved! Vdot up from 40 to 40.8! Although now I'll just have to work harder with the faster paces...
My guess is that it wont take but a week of regular training before I am back to that, so I may SWAG my VDOT up before I test, if the workout paces get too easy too soon!
That is the right approach Rian. I'm doing the same.
@ William – awesome work!! that is just great. Assuming you stay uninjured you'll be ripping it up this year! All those pre-OS miles paid off. Interestingly I caught up on the phone with former-EN teammate Aleks Tasic this week and we was telling me he did a high volume-low-intensity block for a couple of months and then was running 2-mile cruise intervals at just over 6:00 pace, his best ever running fitness level. There is probably something to "building that aerobic engine" but for me personally the EN philosophy of high ROI given limited time makes that difficult. Also the risk of injury…although you seemed to emerged unscathed. Now the question is how you maintain that base you built…if it will hang around with OS training or if you need to supplement with some extra EP running. 90' Sundays for you for sure! Great stuff, very happy for you!
This is my first OS, and mine is definitely the lowest on this thread so far, so I'm hoping to give some courage to other slow pokes to post, though maybe there aren't any 5K: 36:56; vDOT 23.9; LTHR: 159. It's up from here!
Just got back from my 5k TT test ... this was freaking hard @ about only 2degC the breathing was real hard!
Nevertheless the result was astonishing fast (at least for me): 5k: 18:10 vDOT: 55.7 AvgHR: 181 / MaxHR: 190 (this is around 6beats below my normal MaxHR for whatever reason)
Unfortunately my tracks altitude is increasing very very smoothly all the time (around 10hm across the 5k) but I guess that doesn't really matter.
Was hoping to hit up a local 5k this Saturday, but they cancelled it. So I drug my butt out of bed this morning to hit the track.
I PR'ed early November and have been pretty lazy since. Today I shot for an 18:30, and I decided to use RnP's pacing strategy for a 5k. My previous strategy was
0 - .5 = Rabbit .5 - finish = omgomogomgomg
Which even in my PR resulted in the first mile being 20 seconds faster than the last mile.
I'm a race junkie and thrive off people pushing me, but for this morning's solo effort I was pretty happy. It did help mentally knowing other people in this group were also out there hurting across our great land. Wanted to hurl at the end, so that's about all she had cap'n. Splits were 6:00,6:02, and 5:54 for an 18:35. VDOT 54.2. After looking at the new training paces, maybe I should have sandbagged it a bit, ouch Time to get to work!!
Comments
Done.
VDot 36.3, 5k time: 26:12, Avg HR/LTHR: 178
Mi 1: 8:33
Mi 2: 8:24
Mi 3: 8:28
I'm pretty happy with that cluster. Not negative splits, but good enough for government work. Pace was definitely right on. I felt a little slow for the first mile, but I knew that my ballpark pace should be around 8:30, so I stuck with that. As the laps piled up, I was darn glad I didn't go out any faster. I pretty much nailed the test - no finishing kick left in the bag.
Completed my first VDOT test today. I'm a little bit confused as to what exactly this means for me - here are the results:
5k time = 20:17 (my mile splits were all 6:44-6:46)
VDOT = 49.0
LTHR = 166
I did get my zones after entering the data, but I'm not sure how this is computed? I am assuming that a higher VDOT score is better? Assuming that is true, why does Matt have a slightly lower VDOT than me with faster run splits?
Thanks!
5k time 26:04, VDOT of 36.4. Down from 39.5 on 11/3, but haven't run much since then due to a calf injury. Goal is to still be running in 14 weeks, so feel okay about this test. Need to get some run consistancy and get rid of some weight between now and then.
The run I posted yesterday was a workout with mile repeats, not a test. My test was a 20:27 and is the first post of this thread. I posted my run here since I figured it's be confusing to start another workout thread for the non-test runs, sorry!!
Incidentally, my TP based on my 48.5 VDOT is 7:01 and I did my intervals at around 6:40. I think my VDOT is a bit understandted since I had a VDOT of over 50 about 6 weeks ago. So I did the intervals based a lot on RPE and also it was dark so I couldn't see my watch. So that's where they all netted out.
@ Carl, great info! Way to Go!
Great job all! OK, jumping in to my 5th OS with a run vDot of....38.6. Pretty much the same as my vDot 5 years ago AND after doing pretty much nothing but running slow (no other form of exercise) for the last year
. I can firmly attest to the fact that running long and slow just reinforces your ability to run long and slow. Glad to be part of the group!!
5k time: 21:14
VDOT 46.3
LTHR 175
Splits were 6:50, 6:52, 6:56, and then 6:00 for last 1/10th. I was not looking at my pace while running, so I ended up going out a bit hot and fading as the run progressed.
Notes:
- VDOT is slightly different between old Data Tool (46.5) and new Data Tool. Going with new Data Tool numbers. Did I miss a thread that explains the difference and why??
- Today's time was 9 seconds slower than my impromptu 5k a month ago, so that is good.
- Also, my starting point is 5 seconds faster than last year's first test, tells me I need to stop slacking off so much during my unstructured training time.
Again, nowhere to go but UP!
OK. That was pretty ugly!!!
I could feel your pain/struggle reading the post. That is amazing to finish. Your numbers are so consistent over the years. That is so hard to do. Nice!
No Vdot test for me today... I am on the comeback trail from a nagging injury (snow shoveling & hip) where I finally took some complete time off in Sep-Oct. I then tried to ramp back up a bit too fast in Oct-Nov. I am going to play it smart this time and keep on my comeback schedule rather than push it a bit too hard in a test. So I just did a regular treadmill session this AM... Hope to be fully ramped back up for next vDot test..
Really happy about our 2 great Jan OS captains..we are in good hands
Good luck to all!!
Good work everyone!! Way to get it done.
I didn't test today since I'm still nursing a sore heel, which has been nagging me for months. But I did run 4 miles @ 8:35 avg pace. This was my EZ Z1 pace from when I had a 50 VDOT in Jan 2012. My HR was never above 130 which also was in my Z1 HR zone from the 50 VDOT. It also felt like a RPE Z1 effort. Net I think all the extra biking that I've been doing while letting my heel rest has helped me maintain some of my run fitness. I did run a 5k turkey trot on Thanksgiving in 21:38 (43 VDOT) but I didn't really race it due to my heel, and have run less than 10 miles per week since then.
I think I going to continue to keep my mileage and intensity in check until the heel is better. So I probably won't make it back into the 50/50 club (50 VDOT and 50+ years old) any time soon, but I think I'm still in the century club (sum of VDOT + age > 100) with a 101 (43 VDOT + 58). Anybody else qualify for these clubs? Let WSM Al Truscott know and he will sanction your "official" membership.
@ Carrie - Those are some very very studly (if I can use that adjective) numbers of your own!
Vdot today 36.3 (26:10) down from my high of 38.3 end of first OS, March 2012. I started out slower than usual, had a strong finish and actually felt that I had a little left to give. So hoping to get back to 38 quickly and push over 40 by end of OS
I did it! And I hated it.
I dislike testing intensely, since I was a kid. It's actually the theme of my next blog post because I was so anxious, I woke up at night a couple of times and told myself "really? for the baseline of an OS training period? get over it."
It was warm and very windy and I started out too fast, and the miles weren't passing fast enough. I told myself I couldn't quit until I figured out what I would write here (I guess that is where the accountability kicks in!). While I was trying to figure it out, how to say I quit 2 miles passed and then I thought I do not want to do this again, so might as well finish. I pushed the last mile and finished panting for air.
I always said I liked long and slow, and I have trained long and slow for the last two years. It's time to shake it up and see what happens.
5k time: 28:52 (a personal best for me). vDot: 32.3 LTHR: 174
granted, I havent had the time to read up on what the heck VDot means anyways ... but now I know what mine is. what do I do now with this info??
oops. apologies.
I know I said I did not know what to do with the vdot but I did save my paces to my training so need to tell answer that part!
Mile 1: 10. 23, Mile 2: 10.25, Mile 3: 10.28
First run back after almost 2 months recovering from illness/injury. Minimal warm up, just ran without looking at pace to get a benchmark number. Quite surprised I managed to keep going for 3 miles. Playing field had turned into a quagmire.
Run test from 9 November - 28:37, avg 174, max185, vDOT=32.6
Well that wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, after 6 weeks of cookies, beer and general slovenliness. I squeaked into VDOT 48 with a 20:39 5k test yesterday. Thats a little down from where I was running 6 weeks ago too ( @Matt Arronson) , when I ran IMAZ on the cusp of 49/50. My guess is that it wont take but a week of regular training before I am back to that, so I may SWAG my VDOT up before I test, if the workout paces get too easy too soon!
That is the right approach Rian. I'm doing the same.
Go, Rian!
Nevertheless the result was astonishing fast (at least for me):
5k: 18:10
vDOT: 55.7
AvgHR: 181 / MaxHR: 190 (this is around 6beats below my normal MaxHR for whatever reason)
Unfortunately my tracks altitude is increasing very very smoothly all the time (around 10hm across the 5k) but I guess that doesn't really matter.
I PR'ed early November and have been pretty lazy since. Today I shot for an 18:30, and I decided to use RnP's pacing strategy for a 5k. My previous strategy was
0 - .5 = Rabbit
.5 - finish = omgomogomgomg
Which even in my PR resulted in the first mile being 20 seconds faster than the last mile.
I'm a race junkie and thrive off people pushing me, but for this morning's solo effort I was pretty happy. It did help mentally knowing other people in this group were also out there hurting across our great land. Wanted to hurl at the end, so that's about all she had cap'n. Splits were 6:00,6:02, and 5:54 for an 18:35. VDOT 54.2. After looking at the new training paces, maybe I should have sandbagged it a bit, ouch