Running

Yep, turned out pretty well. We defended our Southern Relays V40 title, now five in a row. :-) As predicted, I was the slowest member of the team but good consistency, all four of us 19.xx for the 5.8km leg. I set off on leg 2 in 2nd place with our supposed main rivals Herne Hill just behind, but some bunch I'd never heard of - North Herts Road Runners - ahead. Same order when I finished with similar gaps, then we took the lead on leg 3 and our fastest runner increased the gaps on the final leg for a fairly comfortable win. Cracking day!

(Most social media comments have been directed to my frankly obscene but very comfortable shorts.)

short short shorts ftw!

You should be ok, find a training program online for it to recover and taper right.

Good to see the v40s still rocking the old club kit. Congratulations!

It was my second, the GF and i took her kid the first week so we ended up walking bits of it. This time i ran at her pace and only had mild shin pain for the first half mile and some tenderness Sunday. Seems to have eased right off now at work so looks hopeful. Slow and steady for a while until my legs adapt i think.

Thanks, will do.

Followed the Nike+ app Half Marathon Training Plan for this run and it did me well - also collecting some new shoes today with better support (hopefully), which should alleviate some of the issues I've been having.

Aside from a little pain I'm really enjoying running so hope I can keep it up

NHRR are from north of us, they turned up at our annual relay last summer and blew us out of the water. Some strong runners there.

Nice one. Where d'ya find shorts that short?!

Cheers! Viga Pacer shorts (or "nappy" as MsPub calls it.)

I am so tempted by a light blue pair for XC season.

They’re obscene!

Been a week since I rolled my ankle, feels reasonably good to walk on but figure I should do some stretches/heel raises to strengthen before I give it a run...?

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Less is more. Tempted like 5awyr, in black though...

My money is on a tip off from @kl (although he might find them a bit long).

I'm NOT an expert but I'd caution against stretching anything down there too much/if at all. The bruising suggests there could be some ligament damage which still needs a fair bit of rebuilding/recovery and you don't want to be putting too much stress on damaged ligaments. (Strengthening maybe but take some advice from someone who might know better than me!)

Fasted zone 2 training - is there anything more boring? Might even have to break the no music/podcast rule for this shit.

Does anyone have experience with low zone stuff in general?

for fat burning, thought hiit was all the rage now. more interesting.

I do it quite a lot when I drop my daughter off at school. nice easy run in the morning, then something quicker in the evening.

I went out with her the other day (she'll be 6 shortly) and we played catch, as in she'll bomb it off and I'll have to catch up with her. I think we did sub 5 minute mile pace for about 40 seconds a few times. I'm going to try discouraging her from playing that game again, or I'll put her bike in a lower gear, secretly

Yeah, I spoke to a mate about getting best results for CV improvement in 4 weeks - he's an ex national tt champ and knows his onions - he reckoned 90% low intensity with 10% absolute max effort. The weightloss I'm hoping to manage with diet and the increased output from running again. That said, I'd need a 7700kcal weekly deficit to lose a kg a week - so I'm not sure how well that'll go!

In practical terms, 2 hard sessions a week consisting of 20 minute warm up and then 10 minutes of absolute max - divided into 10 x 1 minute or 5 x 2 minutes etc. The logic being that you can get plenty miles in around this due to low intensity and get reasonable volume but not tire yourself out too much so that you're capable of proper maximum effort on those days.

So my plan looks like
Monday 6-8 miles zone 2
Tuesday 6-8 miles zone 2
Wednesday 10 x 1 minutes with warm up and down
Thursday Rest if needed, if feeling ok 3-6 miles zone 2
Friday 6-8 miles zone 2
Saturday 6-8 miles zone 2
Sunday 10 x 1 again.

It may take some altering - swap a 10 x 1 for a balls out 5k or something - but I'm keen to see how it pans out. I'm keen to try and hit 30 miles a week for 3 weeks either way so my legs are back in the game for race day.

Also, I'm aware this is very silly and not much useful progress will be made in 4 weeks, but it helps me to get my head down if I have a fixed/strict plan.

Another running-specific reason (compared to, say, cycling at various intensities) for doing a high proportion of easy pace is injury prevention. Easy running builds up strength in tendons and muscles for running-specific form, making the more intense session easier to perform and to recover from.

^ Routine above looks pretty sensible. If you had longer than four weeks I'd substitute continuous hard efforts - i.e. tempo runs - for some of the interval sessions: good for (lactate) threshold improvement, and useful for race fitness, beyond just cardio fitness generally. But yeah, in a short time frame the harder interval sessions should have some effect on VO2 max/ aerobic capacity.

Thanks, good advice. I’m going to have a couple of gentle weeks on the bike instead of rushing back into it like an impatient idiot.

I figure as well that if I go ok I might add some tempo stuff so the week would have 2x interval, 1x tempo and 3x zone 2 or something like that but tbh in such a short time I have no idea.

Thanks for the reassurance that I'm not doing something totally stupid too!

A couple of sessions in the pool probably wouldn't go amiss to help aid recovery

. That said, I'd need a 7700kcal weekly deficit to lose a kg a week

Is that right? Seems way too high to me. Lots of running and calorie deficit and likely your body will lose muscle mass over fat (depending on your starting point). But I'm not an expert.

I've definitely got booze/pizza weight to shift. The calorific deficit number comes from a quick google - 3500kcal per lb/7700kcal per kg of fat - it's nice to have a vague quantity to be aware of, and I think I'll get about 3-5k calorie deficit out of running, and then cutting back on the crap in my diet should get me an extra 2-3k . Even so, getting fitness back is more important so if I'm struggling I'll just up my calories so I can train anyway. The weight will go back down eventually.

With such a short timeframe I just have to give it a bash and see if it works. Probably too short a window to try and adjust things - but if it does go well, I'd like to keep it on for a bit. That being said, dieting through winter is rough.

Also judging by how quickly the weight has dropped in the first few days gives me a bit of a cheaty head start (and suggests that my high point was inflated due to a very heavy pizza session the night before!).

Encouraging Marathon Pace effort this evening. 14 miles total, incl. 10 miles @ 5:54/m, 12 laps solo around Sutcliffe Park. Given recent form, I think the sub-2:30 dream is slipping away this time round, but I think I'd take 2:35 at Frankfurt in a month's time for a season's best.