GCP- Great race! I bet in the right condition,s you would have had your sub-20.
David- Nice job! Your patience and wisdom paid off!
No test for me for a while so I just did a "whatever" run. Whatever pace and distance I felt like. It was like 40 this morning so I was excited to get outside. I live 1/2 mi from a rail trail, which is super flat but there was still snow and ice so I bailed and ran around the neighborhood which is very hilly. So the pace I hit was my easy pacce, but it was anything but easy. (Hills are not my friends!) But each mile was faster than the previous so thats a good thing. ANd great training for my 1/2 Mary in March (middle 5 miles are hilly) and Quassy.
I said I was not going to test, but with everyone else posting, I thought....what the heck. If nothing changes at least I will get a good workout in.
10 min Z1 WU 5 min of mobility exercises for the hip, knee and ankles 10 min Z1 WU. At 5 min mark I incorporated 30sec intervals at the fastest pace I thought I could run at, with 30sec recovery, until I hit 10. I then walked for 2 minutes, and then stopped the mill, reset and started my run.
My plan was 1mile at 7:42mile 1mile at 7:36mile 1mile at 7:30mile - remainder at as fast as I could boot it.
I DID NOT get in my own way until I got to 2 miles and then I started to doubt myself, so I held the 7:36mile until 2.8miles and then I upped it to the 7:30mile. This still resulted in a VDot bump for me.
If you recall, the last time I tested I came in at 24:16, but I did not change the paces I was doing (they were based on a 23:56-5km time), because I felt that I had flubbed the test by not pacing well and not believing I could do it.
New time is 23:30 and a VDot of 41. I know that these paces are doing and that I have more in me. I am learning to enjoy the suck. Cheers.
I strayed from my last post and found another 5k to run this morning. All pavement, no ice/snow covering and although I wasn't familiar with the course I went for it - nothing beats real race conditions, right? I even got a rare 40 degree morning at 10am race start. As we lined up for the start I turned to the guy next to me and asked if he was familiar with the course and if he thought it was hilly or if there was anything I should know. He was familiar, but told me he trains in "The Rockies" and doesn't consider anything hilly. I figured, ok, good enough and off we went. My goal was to break the 20min Mark for the race. My last run test was 20:05 in fairly flat conditions. Mile 1, I was out too strong and after seeing my garmin, I slowed, but still hit a 6:20 split. At around 1.5 miles, I hit the first hill....slowed me considerably as my hr jumped. Mike 2 split, 6:39 - uh oh! At mile 2.5, they stuck me with a very unfriendly hill which was not nice at that point of the race and it killed me. Mile 3 split, 7:01!. Residual 1/10 I ran at 5:29 pace..too little, too late. Total time was 20:23 according to my Garmin, but will have to get official time later today since I didn't stick around. Not unhappy, given the terrain, but not what I was hoping for.
One final thing I will note: I've done much more actual track running / flat road this OS vs last year where I just tried to hit my splits wherever. I live in a fairly hilly area. I am racing Quassy and IMLP this year. I feel like the hills (when running) have always been a place where I've passed my competition on race day. This is probably because I've trained on them continuously. I'm getting the feeling that in order to hit my targets for z4 - z5 in training this OS, the track work I've done may be a hinderence in the fact that it is not preparing me for the hills. I may do some of the z4/5 that I will encounter in the GF plan on the hills and use RPE a bit more to condition myself for this. Just a thought.
Brad- I too have trained mostly flat in the past and feel it hurt me at Quassy. When the conditions allow, I'm going to run hills as much as possible, and know that I won't hit my target pace. So a 9:20 on a flat might be 10:00 on a hill, and I'll let it go for the greater good.
Not that this has any scientific backing, but a hilly 20:23 seems "faster" than a 20:05 flat, so good job!!
Wow just got back from the track and a big congrats to my wife Brenda for nailing a 23:30 5 TT on the treadmill.. Well for me today weather is sunny and warm but we are digging out from a snow storm last night. So EN'ers Brent Eritou(left),Trev MacLean(centre) and myself(right,old guy) went to the indoor track to do out TT. Previous vdot 48.85 with a 20:20 5km last test . After a good warm up we all settled into our race pace and I finished up with a 19:59 5km TT . Pretty happy with a bump up to 49.85, in total a one point bump. The bumps now are starting to get harder I will take this today ! Carry on peeps and crush your runs and focus on your next trg block set.
PS : No run to compete in today so we did our own EN race set up look closely at the bibs !
That's me on the left in the group shot above. I totally blew up out there today, ended up DNF'ing.
I have been battling a winter cold for the past couple days. I showed up rested, hydrated, fueled and caffeinated. I headed out on pace for a 19:45 which seemed doable.
Then at approx the 1.25 mi mark, suddenly got MAJOR cramps in my quads. Like someone has hitting them with a baseball bat.This has never happened to me before.
My pace slowed right down and my form was starting to get ugly. Rather than limp my way through and possibly injure myself, I pulled the plug on the test.
Pretty sure my cold is to blame. In hindsight I should have paced more conservatively. I'm happy with my decision to pull the plug. Must live to train another day!
No test for me -- lingering PF in left foot. I did manage 3 miles with little pain so that is a win for me.
Great work everyone. Inspiring to read! I am off to a swim plan until PF clear up. Hope to be able to continue to be motivated by all the athletes in NOS.
Happy Groundhog Day and Happy last day of the NOS!
Plan was to run a 13 miler to finish off the NOS with the first 1-2 as warm up then a 10k TT followed by the rest at Z1-2. All went well after a terrible bike test earlier in the week. 10K PR and the rest of the 12 miles felt great. Met an old friend out walking at mile 12 and walked home with her catching up on kids, work and family. Great way to end the NOS! Many thanks to Brenda and Joe for keeping the mojo going. Off to the pool next week. Happy Groundhog Day!!
@ Mom & Brad, I live in a hilly area too and have the same problem with pacing, but if you have a Garmin or other GPS Device there is something that came help you compare paces across miles with varying terrain afterwards. NGP or normalized graded pace adds grade into the pace mix and adjusts it for up and down hill grades. it's available on Training peaks and I think the Garmin connect site and probably others. I live at the top of a hill and it's definitely disheartening to see the pace fall at the end of the run, but then I get home and upload it and do the analysis and the NGP was good so I don't feel so bad.
@Elizabeth - smart move. Don't want to start off the season with PF carry-over. A podiatrist once told me when I had this back in '90 that if I just stopped running for three weeks, it would heal itself. That was when I started biking in '90 and he was right.
@Brenda - great test! I like the mobility part of the warm-up as well. I should learn those sometime!
@Gonzalo - test again, why not? But based on your run workouts, I'd say you have improved and if it doesn't show up on these tests, it'll somehow show up later. You put in the work and it'll show.
@Terry - what a great way to end the OS. Relationships are a great aspect of this sport - Well done on the test!
Today's weather was 37 degrees, drizzling, and gusts over 30mph. Thought I could test anyway but by 3.2 miles I bailed because the times did not make any sense. Will try again Tuesday. Time to chill out before Superbowl!
Did the RnR New Orleans Half Marathon as my run test today. And I got myself a drop in Vdot with a poor run. It was a great weekend to catch up with my best friend, but we treated it as eat way too much and stay up late way more than a race weekend, which I paid for today (but in the scheme of life, totally don't regret- great weekend!). Stomach issues definitely didn't help, but I think I was just not as ready as I should be for a HM. This winter has forced me inside a lot, and I hate treadmills so most of my runs were a main set only and I lacked the endurance I needed. One of the slowest HMs I've ever done, which is a bit disappointing, but also very motivating! I am curious how I would have done on a shorter distance, since I've been nailing the intervals lately. My next race is a 10k on March 1, but I might do a 5k by myself to see how I fare. Definitely also need to work on not just giving up when it doesn't feel good.
Great job everyone, and congrats on successful OS's!
Did my 5K test out this afternoon, on the same indoor track I did my baseline and 8-week tests on. 10 minute warm up at Z1 pace, then three 30-second sprints. Legs felt heavy, and I went out too fast, dialed it back. 28:29 total, with a 9:10/mile average, which is a huge improvement for me.
Congrats to everyone who completed the NOS, it was a great challenge and I can't thank everyone enough for their encouragement. I learned a lot from reading what the NOS alums posted as well.
First fail of the OS today, on this last day of the OS. After I saw the Super Bowl was a bust and the kids were in bed, I headed down to the treadmill to do a 5k run. Started out well but think I pushed it a bit too much as I felt like I was literally about to go off the back of the TM. Realizing I came way too close to that actually happening I decided to shut it down and call it a day. Walked for a minute and then said well, I'm here so let's just finish it. Interestingly I finished with the same time (well 2" diff) as the week 8 5k. Not really sure what it means but I'm happy with the overall results of the OS but mad at myself for pushing a bit too hard and deciding to walk during the 5k (mental fail).
Lots of good results above. I'm going to do the swim camp. Good luck to all with the rest of their seasons!
@All - it's been fun getting through this with everyone - the good, bad, and sometimes the ugly! Great that we could all "carry" each other when needed and the team mojo is like having that extra gear! Inspired by you all and everyone's progress. Some of you knocked it out of the park and although others maybe didn't get the results we hoped for, I think we all agree that we exited the OS stronger than we entered....much stronger!
I'm on to swim camp for 2 weeks and see many of you on the other side in the GF plan. I look forward to following everyone's journey to their goals this season.
@Joe H - thanks for keeping us on board here and helping to motivate us (not that this group needed motivation!).
Finished up my OS doing the 10kTT, but it was the warmest day we've had here in a while - a whopping 34 degrees - perfect running weather. No races to be had so I ran it alone on a local course I can revisit any time I need to retest.
Very short warm up (because I was on a timeline), then right into the 10k. Completed in 50:17 for an avg pace of 8:06/mile. Beat my previous 10k race PR by over 4 minutes (I don't run 10ks often).
Super happy finishing the OS with a great run test since my bike test was a bit disappointing. Then home to shower and hit the slopes for the day with my kiddos. My legs were feeling that 10k all day...skiing was WORK.
Now onto swim camp.
Best wishes to all - hope to see some of you soon at races or at LP Camp weekend.
The good, the bad and the ugly. The good: this test is over and I gave it everything I had. Pacing was much improved compared to the previous two. Didn’t feel like puking at the end. The bad: The trail I chose had more of an incline than I expected. Strained calf muscle. I took my eye off the pace for :50 seconds fumbling with a shot blok. It only felt like a few seconds at the time. This dropped my pace into the 9:00’s. I conservatively calculated that this bone headed move cost me 9 seconds off of my pace in mile 2. It wasn’t in my plan, but I was in a dark place by this point. The ugly: What I looked like at the end. My wife thought I was going to puke all over the trail. This was a very mentally challenging run and brought me to a very dark place. It took every bit I had to maintain pace, even when it was slipping and to not throw in the towel at the half way point. Which I almost did. No vDOT bump, unless I factor in the 9 seconds lost during mile 2. I was expecting a better showing on this test, so I’m a bit disappointed. I keep going over the results and wondering what I could have done differently. The only two things I come up with are: test on a track and skip the fueling. Mile 1 Mile 2 Mile 3 Time Ave HR MaxHR vDOT Test 3 7:42 7:41 7:25 22:48 167 178 42/43 Test 2 7:04 7:44 8:01 22:49 162 176 42 Test 1 7:16 7:53 7:47 22:56 153 171 42
I started the first 1/3 of the OS training by HR. Don’t as why I made this blunder, but I did. This had me training at a slightly lower intensity for about 6 weeks. Luckily it was the first 6 weeks. Even though I am disappointed in my 5k results, I am amazed at how far my running has come in such a short time. If you call 14 weeks short that is. My legs feel stronger and I have more endurance to complete those Z4/Z5 intervals. By week 11, during a training session, I knocked 4:20 off of my 10k time. With proper pacing I believe I could set another PR by a couple of minutes. Now onto Swim Camp.
@Larry - a treadmill test is hard. But you'll see results soon enough once you get out on the roads!
@Dawn - congratulations! Tough conditions where you are were hard to train through - to get that much improvement says a lot about dedication!
@Rachel - good weekends with friends are more important than another medal on the wall if this wasn't an A race. Good decision.
@Ralph - see you in the SC forum this year? Looking forward to hearing about your races again!
I got the test in today and instead of doing the 8 miler I planned, I decided to run the same course as tests #1 and #2 so I could see how much I progressed rather than seeing what I needed to do for the next training block. Note: Ray - this was my back-up plan and I agree with you on the comparative analysis.
Test #1 AVSPD - 8:15/mi, LTHR - 173 Test #2 AVSPD - 8:07/mi, LTHR - 165 Test #3 AVSPD - 7:59/mi, LTHR - 168
End result was that I am now 16"/mi quicker at a HR that is 5 less. I'll take it as a success. But, it also means I get to do the run focus since this is clearly an area I need to work on!
So - time for a "Transition" then the run focus. I'm going to miss you guys! See you in the other forums!
Comments
GCP- Great race! I bet in the right condition,s you would have had your sub-20.
David- Nice job! Your patience and wisdom paid off!
No test for me for a while so I just did a "whatever" run. Whatever pace and distance I felt like. It was like 40 this morning so I was excited to get outside. I live 1/2 mi from a rail trail, which is super flat but there was still snow and ice so I bailed and ran around the neighborhood which is very hilly. So the pace I hit was my easy pacce, but it was anything but easy. (Hills are not my friends!) But each mile was faster than the previous so thats a good thing. ANd great training for my 1/2 Mary in March (middle 5 miles are hilly) and Quassy.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/439479052
10 min Z1 WU
5 min of mobility exercises for the hip, knee and ankles
10 min Z1 WU. At 5 min mark I incorporated 30sec intervals at the fastest pace I thought I could run at, with 30sec recovery, until I hit 10. I then walked for 2 minutes, and then stopped the mill, reset and started my run.
My plan was
1mile at 7:42mile
1mile at 7:36mile
1mile at 7:30mile - remainder at as fast as I could boot it.
I DID NOT get in my own way until I got to 2 miles and then I started to doubt myself, so I held the 7:36mile until 2.8miles and then I upped it to the 7:30mile. This still resulted in a VDot bump for me.
If you recall, the last time I tested I came in at 24:16, but I did not change the paces I was doing (they were based on a 23:56-5km time), because I felt that I had flubbed the test by not pacing well and not believing I could do it.
New time is 23:30 and a VDot of 41. I know that these paces are doing and that I have more in me. I am learning to enjoy the suck. Cheers.
One final thing I will note: I've done much more actual track running / flat road this OS vs last year where I just tried to hit my splits wherever. I live in a fairly hilly area. I am racing Quassy and IMLP this year. I feel like the hills (when running) have always been a place where I've passed my competition on race day. This is probably because I've trained on them continuously. I'm getting the feeling that in order to hit my targets for z4 - z5 in training this OS, the track work I've done may be a hinderence in the fact that it is not preparing me for the hills. I may do some of the z4/5 that I will encounter in the GF plan on the hills and use RPE a bit more to condition myself for this. Just a thought.
Not that this has any scientific backing, but a hilly 20:23 seems "faster" than a 20:05 flat, so good job!!
Wow just got back from the track and a big congrats to my wife Brenda for nailing a 23:30 5 TT on the treadmill.
. Well for me today weather is sunny and warm but we are digging out from a snow storm last night. So EN'ers Brent Eritou(left),Trev MacLean(centre) and myself(right,old guy) went to the indoor track to do out TT. Previous vdot 48.85 with a 20:20 5km last test . After a good warm up we all settled into our race pace and I finished up with a 19:59 5km TT 
. Pretty happy with a bump up to 49.85, in total a one point bump. The bumps now are starting to get harder I will take this today ! Carry on peeps and crush your runs and focus on your next trg block set.
PS : No run to compete in today so we did our own EN race set up look closely at the bibs !
I have been battling a winter cold for the past couple days. I showed up rested, hydrated, fueled and caffeinated. I headed out on pace for a 19:45 which seemed doable.
Then at approx the 1.25 mi mark, suddenly got MAJOR cramps in my quads. Like someone has hitting them with a baseball bat.This has never happened to me before.
My pace slowed right down and my form was starting to get ugly. Rather than limp my way through and possibly injure myself, I pulled the plug on the test.
Pretty sure my cold is to blame. In hindsight I should have paced more conservatively. I'm happy with my decision to pull the plug. Must live to train another day!
Great work everyone. Inspiring to read! I am off to a swim plan until PF clear up. Hope to be able to continue to be motivated by all the athletes in NOS.
Happy Groundhog Day and Happy last day of the NOS!
Cheers,
Beth
@Elizabeth - smart move. Don't want to start off the season with PF carry-over. A podiatrist once told me when I had this back in '90 that if I just stopped running for three weeks, it would heal itself. That was when I started biking in '90 and he was right.
@Brenda - great test! I like the mobility part of the warm-up as well. I should learn those sometime!
@Emily - excellent test! Congratulations!
@Gonzalo - test again, why not? But based on your run workouts, I'd say you have improved and if it doesn't show up on these tests, it'll somehow show up later. You put in the work and it'll show.
@Terry - what a great way to end the OS. Relationships are a great aspect of this sport - Well done on the test!
Today's weather was 37 degrees, drizzling, and gusts over 30mph. Thought I could test anyway but by 3.2 miles I bailed because the times did not make any sense. Will try again Tuesday. Time to chill out before Superbowl!
OS last long run is in the books.
46 degrees and Foggy as all get out but 13.14 miles in 2:06:37 for an average pace of 9:38.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/439423171
I got the negative split pacing and the last mile was the fastest.running it through the calculator that is good for a VDOT of 34 which is significantly lower than my VDOT as calculated on 5k pace.
BUT it is the first 1/2 marathon time that I have so it is probably a good predictor of my performance on longer distances.
I have already shown that I overachieve at shorter distances and now I just need to be able to sustain that pace.
I have a 5 K coming up in a couple of weeks so it will be interesting to compare the VDOT results.
Now on to Swimcamp.
Woo Hoo!
Great job everyone, and congrats on successful OS's!
Baseline VDOT - 26.2
8 Week VDOT - 39.8
14 Week VDOT - 32.8
Congrats to everyone who completed the NOS, it was a great challenge and I can't thank everyone enough for their encouragement. I learned a lot from reading what the NOS alums posted as well.
On to swim camp!
Lots of good results above. I'm going to do the swim camp. Good luck to all with the rest of their seasons!
I'm on to swim camp for 2 weeks and see many of you on the other side in the GF plan. I look forward to following everyone's journey to their goals this season.
@Joe H - thanks for keeping us on board here and helping to motivate us (not that this group needed motivation!).
Finished up my OS doing the 10kTT, but it was the warmest day we've had here in a while - a whopping 34 degrees - perfect running weather. No races to be had so I ran it alone
on a local course I can revisit any time I need to retest.
Very short warm up (because I was on a timeline), then right into the 10k. Completed in 50:17 for an avg pace of 8:06/mile. Beat my previous 10k race PR by over 4 minutes (I don't run 10ks often).
Super happy finishing the OS with a great run test since my bike test was a bit disappointing. Then home to shower and hit the slopes for the day with my kiddos. My legs were feeling that 10k all day...skiing was WORK.
Now onto swim camp.
Best wishes to all - hope to see some of you soon at races or at LP Camp weekend.
The good: this test is over and I gave it everything I had. Pacing was much improved compared to the previous two. Didn’t feel like puking at the end.
The bad: The trail I chose had more of an incline than I expected. Strained calf muscle.
I took my eye off the pace for :50 seconds fumbling with a shot blok. It only felt like a few seconds at the time. This dropped my pace into the 9:00’s. I conservatively calculated that this bone headed move cost me 9 seconds off of my pace in mile 2. It wasn’t in my plan, but I was in a dark place by this point.
The ugly: What I looked like at the end. My wife thought I was going to puke all over the trail.
This was a very mentally challenging run and brought me to a very dark place. It took every bit I had to maintain pace, even when it was slipping and to not throw in the towel at the half way point. Which I almost did.
No vDOT bump, unless I factor in the 9 seconds lost during mile 2. I was expecting a better showing on this test, so I’m a bit disappointed. I keep going over the results and wondering what I could have done differently. The only two things I come up with are: test on a track and skip the fueling.
Mile 1 Mile 2 Mile 3 Time Ave HR MaxHR vDOT
Test 3 7:42 7:41 7:25 22:48 167 178 42/43
Test 2 7:04 7:44 8:01 22:49 162 176 42
Test 1 7:16 7:53 7:47 22:56 153 171 42
I started the first 1/3 of the OS training by HR. Don’t as why I made this blunder, but I did. This had me training at a slightly lower intensity for about 6 weeks. Luckily it was the first 6 weeks. Even though I am disappointed in my 5k results, I am amazed at how far my running has come in such a short time. If you call 14 weeks short that is. My legs feel stronger and I have more endurance to complete those Z4/Z5 intervals. By week 11, during a training session, I knocked 4:20 off of my 10k time. With proper pacing I believe I could set another PR by a couple of minutes. Now onto Swim Camp.
@Antoinette - great work! 4 minutes is tremendous and I think that should more than make up for the bike test!
@Brad - I enjoyed your posts!
@Larry - a treadmill test is hard. But you'll see results soon enough once you get out on the roads!
@Dawn - congratulations! Tough conditions where you are were hard to train through - to get that much improvement says a lot about dedication!
@Rachel - good weekends with friends are more important than another medal on the wall if this wasn't an A race. Good decision.
@Ralph - see you in the SC forum this year? Looking forward to hearing about your races again!
I got the test in today and instead of doing the 8 miler I planned, I decided to run the same course as tests #1 and #2 so I could see how much I progressed rather than seeing what I needed to do for the next training block. Note: Ray - this was my back-up plan and I agree with you on the comparative analysis.
Test #1 AVSPD - 8:15/mi, LTHR - 173
Test #2 AVSPD - 8:07/mi, LTHR - 165
Test #3 AVSPD - 7:59/mi, LTHR - 168
End result was that I am now 16"/mi quicker at a HR that is 5 less. I'll take it as a success. But, it also means I get to do the run focus since this is clearly an area I need to work on!
So - time for a "Transition" then the run focus. I'm going to miss you guys! See you in the other forums!
HOLLLLY COW!!! Talk about speed
Congrats on the successful tests all!