Running

Agreed, I'd never thought about the fact it doesn't feel nice to have someone follow you at night in built up areas and will change how I approach people now. I've done a lot of night running in the middle of nowhere so risks are extremely low and even so I rarely wear headphones so can now empathize with who others might feel given the difference in vulnerability.

Anyone else doing Escape From Meriden this year? I think I've secured a last minute place off someone dropping out....

5% faster you say....
Just checked my splits: 19:14 and 19:45
So by my dodgy maths, 5k race equivalent would be 18:16 (3:39min/k).
Mind blown. Well it's something to aim for. Will post how things go.

I wouldn't just take 5% off the quickest half of the 10k, since the assumption is you couldn't hold 19:14 for the 2nd half (as evidenced by the 19:45)
But 95% of the average 19:30 pace (so pretty much bang on 18:30) I think is definitely a reasonable goal...

I did similar earlier in the year. Haven't run under 18mins for 5k, then did a 36:45 10k including the 2nd half in 17:55 and a couple 3.5mi races that would have had a better split than my 'official' pb. Have since improved on my 10k and picked up a HM PB.
Still haven't tried a standalone 5k though... maybe I'll go for Dulwich too

Either way, very good work. a sub 18:30 beckons!

5% as a reasonable approximation, based on a load of race-pace calculators - Jack Daniels VDOT timings work out to around 5% increase in time for a doubling of distance, for example.

See how you fare at a 19:15 park run, and build from there.

Just had my third physio session, got the hallowed "don't need to book you into another session" on the way out so am chuffed to bits! Time to book an event I think, half marathon in January sounds suitably horrendous?

I'll ask here due to potential crossover.

Indoor rowing. I have just got a pro-form rower using the ifit app. I haven't ever rowed properly and haven't actually been on a rower for more than 2 mins in the last 10 years. When I have used a rower there was no noticeable talent there.

I have just done an intro session, 25min, 3x5min intervals with rests and warmup/cool down. I took it easy. The app is telling me I did 8km.

Unfortunately an undiscovered talent is very unlikely. Am I right in thinking that 8km in 25mins for a beginner with almost definatly poor form who was taking it easy suggests the the distance is being overestimated vs a concept 2?

I'd typically have gone for a cheery hello and wave or something but will try and just give space going forward

I really do think a cheery hello or a wave or something is perfectly fine amongst fellow humans!

A man running closely behind a woman in the dark is creepy.

It's not rocket science!

Yeah I'd say it is massively overestimating. 8km in 25mins puts you at a pace of 1:34 per 500 metres if I've got my sums right. That's like world record pace, the world record for 10km is something like 31 mins.

So I'm a one in a generation talent who, at 5'11 and 40 will blow the sport of indoor rowing apart?

Funnily its telling me I averaged 279w, which seems in the right ball park (I guess).

Looking at a pace to watts calculator I think the watts is high too.

Anyone run the Trigger Fell Race? I've spent the last year gallivanting on mountain trails in Canada, so not sure how much fun I'll have on boggy moorland in January, but it sounds like a good challenge.

https://youtu.be/aEu8l8UJ-r4

Update to this post ; first month completed of marathon training after 6 months not running. The plan was two weekday runs of 8 miles each, one run at the weekend of 11ish miles. I have stuck to this and most of the running was relaxed pace with a few miles of random faster pace here and there. My average pace on these runs is around 8 and a half mins per mile. I was cycling on the 'off' days, but I think it was a bit too much so pulled it back to shorter one hour rides. Hopefully keep the consistency and up the weekend run steadily to about 15 miles by xmas time. The colder weather is starting to make me not want to set off on runs, but halfway in (I do an out and back most runs) I am warmed up and glad for getting out! Sorry if this is a boring paragraph, but I thought it might be good for motivation to update here now and again :)

So I started getting really bad hip pain a month or two ago, coinciding with upping my mileage. It was deep inside, so I wasnt entirely sure what was going. However it was (and still is) painful enough that it was badly affecting my sleep which was the real problem.

The TL:DR is that I had four different diagnosis - piriformis syndrome first, then hip tendonopathy, then sciatia related to lower back, and finally stress fracture of the hip joint (from a sports doc - although tbh he was more coming at it as "I dont actually know whats going on, but lets go with the worst possible case and work back from there")

Most annoying thing was that the treatments are conflicting - stretching generally good for lumbar stuff, but bad for tendonopathy; loading/ weight excercise good for tendonoapthy, bad for stress fracture; etc. So I was doing nothing.

Anyway, went for an MRI which ruled out the stress fracture, and also showed no signs of tendonopathy. There's a disc bulge at L4/5 touching the nerve which (and I know that MRIs of spines arent anything like as conclusively linked to symptoms as is often thought) suggests its "just" sciatica from the lumbar spine (also given that there seems to be scepticism as to whether piriformis syndrome actually exists). Which is actually fine, as I've had this before, albeit on the other side and generally know what's to be done.

Kind of makes me think that we've moved on from blood letting and leaches. But maybe not quite as much as we'd like to think

It's definitely good for motivation, as is having an event lined up (do you?)

Yes, will probably do a timed half in January then the marathon in April hopefully.

I've started going running for the past month, and I just did my first ever metric 10k, in just under an hour. Not blazingly fast, obviously, but I'm still pretty chuffed. I've been doing reasonable training volume on bike this year, and I feel that definitely translates to some extent (I expect the weight loss helps, too).

Nice work! - if you’ve been going well on bike your fitness should translate. One thing to watch is that your strength my lag behind your aerobic capacity. So be sure to build that up at the same time through gym work or other

Thanks for the strength training suggestion, I'll definitely look into it.

[It feels pretty obvious that I'm lacking strength vs. overall aerobic fitness, but I assumed that would be the case starting out.]

nice one :)

Yes, pace and Watts definitely too high compared to C2. (I use C2 with the rowerg app.) I'm a big fan of rowing for running x-training. Reaches a LOT of body parts!

Concepts are the standard erg for rowing - tried a few others but always prefer the Concept.

Did 2 x 2km and a 5km on Friday - I find also find it great ancillary training

Any strong recommendations on training plans for a half marathon? I have 10 weeks and 6 days. I've been floating around half higdons page, having seen him mentioned in here before but open to others.
I'd like a 1:40 I think, which would be a 3 minute pb. Recently been hitting nearly 20km a week following rehab and gentle build up.