progress

Michelle said:

Ex army, please.

Oops, sorry!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm going to hazard to say that despite our age difference you're
probably in as good a shape as I was when i started ...

I doubt that; I could barely pass the PT tests when I was in the
military, and I spent twenty-two years of sedentary life before I
started to run after retiring. I'm still classified as being
overweight, even though I've lost some twenty-six pounds in the past six
years, about sixteen of them in the past two years, and about ten of
them in the past three or four months, and four in the past four or five
weeks.

I have about four pounds to lose to get my BMI below 25. But in the
last four or five weeks, I've lost two percent body fat.

Congrats! Running is great for weight loss, isn't it?

I have gone this year from about a BMI of 24-25 to 21. I do think that
plays a factor in my pace times dropping. The lighter you are, the
faster you go.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I am hoping to break 30 minutes at my next 5K, in October, which I
think is realistic.

My best 5K has still been over 40 minutes.

My bet is you still have a lot of room for improvement, and I stand by
my suspicion that you could possibly match me, or end up faster than
me someday. Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely
will, if you keep up the running.

jen

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

I have gone this year from about a BMI of 24-25 to 21. I do think
that plays a factor in my pace times dropping. The lighter you are,
the faster you go.

Yeah. It's a matter of physics. <g> And wherever you go, there you are.

Quoted message said:

My bet is you still have a lot of room for improvement,

Definitely room for improvement, but the question is how much I can
improve.

Quoted message said:

and I stand by my suspicion that you could possibly match me, or end
up faster than me someday.

I dunno; you still have the age advantage.

Quoted message said:

Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely will, if
you keep up the running.

Yup; the question, though, is how much body fat I lose. That's a more
important figure than BMI, for reasons discussed ad nauseum on this NG
and elsewhere.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

I have gone this year from about a BMI of 24-25 to 21. I do think
that plays a factor in my pace times dropping. The lighter you are,
the faster you go.

Yeah. It's a matter of physics. <g> And wherever you go, there you are.

Quoted message said:

My bet is you still have a lot of room for improvement,

Definitely room for improvement, but the question is how much I can
improve.

Quoted message said:

and I stand by my suspicion that you could possibly match me, or end
up faster than me someday.

I dunno; you still have the age advantage.

Quoted message said:

Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely will, if
you keep up the running.

Yup; the question, though, is how much body fat I lose. That's a more
important figure than BMI, for reasons discussed ad nauseum on this NG
and elsewhere.

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body fat
you're dragging around?

I ran my fastest 5K when I weighed 125 lbs with a body fat of 13%.
This is when I was body building, so I had a lot of muscle. Now I am
not body building and haven't been in years. I have somewhere between
18-23% body fat, but weigh only 107, and I'm actually an inch or two
wider in places than I was at 13% bf and 125 lbs. And I'm definetly
slower.

Part of that is cardiovascular fitness and training and yeah maybe
even age (shudder!), but I also tend to think that having more muscle
- even if it translates into 20 lbs more body weight to drag around -
can make you faster. It probably depends on where you carry that
muscle. A guy with a huge upper chest might be slower because he's
carrying the muscle above the waist. A female like me, well, the
muscle is more in the butt and thighs and calves instead.. and that
powers my running more than it detracts from it.

jen

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body
fat you're dragging around?

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total weight
also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down or at least
countervail any benefit from the lost weight. And you need some fat to
burn while running.

Quoted message said:

I ran my fastest 5K when I weighed 125 lbs with a body fat of 13%.
This is when I was body building, so I had a lot of muscle. Now I am
not body building and haven't been in years. I have somewhere between
18-23% body fat, but weigh only 107, and I'm actually an inch or two
wider in places than I was at 13% bf and 125 lbs. And I'm definetly
slower.

13% of 125 is 16.25 pounds of fat.

23% of 107 is 24.61 pounds of fat.
18% of 107 is 19.25 pounds of fat.

So you weigh less but have more fat--between three and eight pounds of
it--than you did before. That means you have a lot less in the way of
muscles to haul your body around.

BTW, how tall are you?

Quoted message said:

A female like me, well, the muscle is more in the butt and thighs and
calves instead.. and that powers my running more than it detracts
from it.

To a point, yes.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body
fat you're dragging around?

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total weight
also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down or at least
countervail any benefit from the lost weight. And you need some fat to
burn while running.

Quoted message said:

I ran my fastest 5K when I weighed 125 lbs with a body fat of 13%.
This is when I was body building, so I had a lot of muscle. Now I am
not body building and haven't been in years. I have somewhere between
18-23% body fat, but weigh only 107, and I'm actually an inch or two
wider in places than I was at 13% bf and 125 lbs. And I'm definetly
slower.

13% of 125 is 16.25 pounds of fat.

23% of 107 is 24.61 pounds of fat.
18% of 107 is 19.25 pounds of fat.

My scale has the impedance testing, it gives me 23% but apparently
these scales are notoriously inaccurate and tend to read high for
women. The Navy method, and a few other ones online (Covert Bailey has
a good one), where you pop in your neck, waist, hip, thigh, calf, etc
measurements, all put me at 18%. I figure if I had it tested with
calipers the results would probably be somewhere in the middle... but
who knows.

The 13% was calculated using caliper method when I belonged to a gym.
So that's the only one I'm really sure about!

Quoted message said:

So you weigh less but have more fat--between three and eight pounds of
it--than you did before. That means you have a lot less in the way of
muscles to haul your body around.

Yep.

Quoted message said:

BTW, how tall are you?

Only 5'0, with really short, stubby legs! I never realized just how
stubby they were, until my DD's grew to my height... of course, now
they have grown past my height.

jen

Al Bundy said:

An older runner might be better off to use the
clock time for the training run rather than measure by the mile.

Allelujah and Amen. Even younger runners could do the same. The only point
I can see in counting distance is to check pace (or to wave my privates at
other r.r regulars :-P).

The "I have to run x miles today" is so obviously NOT te be taken
seriously, cos what happens when you do kilometers? Should you do 1.609
times the miles value, or something so much more clever?

Distance targets are OK as long as they say what pace groups they are
designed for and what the upper time limit is. I dropped Higden's plans
for my first marathon, despite his book being the primary stimulus for
wanting to run a marathon, cos the daft [censored] asks you to run more than
a marathon distance in training.

Where's the bloody sense in that? He says "I want to run 42.195km for the
first time, so I have to run 46km in training to be sure I can do it".
Well, doh!

It's like saying "I want to jump 1m80 for the first time in a high-jump
competition, so I have to be able to jump 1m85 in training to be sure I
can do it. Well double-doh.

Michelle said:

"Personally it would have been better to pick a longer training plan,
but that is neither here nor there now. You work with what you have."

Exactly. I ran my first half-marathon off only two short cross-country
races (<8k) and a couple of long runs of 90 mins (so about 14-15k at the
time).

I did not die. Tho' I must admit I remember saying to myself, at the 17k
mark "You [censored]-wit! Never ever again will you do something as stupid as
this! You must finish, it's a question of honour, but why do you want to
hurt this much, you dull [censored]?"

So let's just say that if you haven't run for something like 90 minutes in
one go, before you do the HM, it will get painful around the two thirds
mark. But you will be perfectly able to finish, whatever your training, as
long as you really want to.

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

I dropped Higden's plans for my first marathon, despite his book
being the primary stimulus for wanting to run a marathon, cos the
daft [censored] asks you to run more than a marathon distance in
training.

I just checked out his plans at his web site; all of them max out at 20
miles. Maybe the plans in his books are different, or maybe he's
revised them since the time you read the book.

But there are people posting here who have said that you should train at
longer distances than the race.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Charlie Pendejo said:

C'mon, where's that penal colony spirit?

Penal is not the adjective of penis.

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Quoted message said:

BTW, how tall are you?

Only 5'0,

OK. I was wondering about your weight. I'm 5'6" and if I weighed in
the 130s even, I'd be skinny as a rail. I know, because I weighed 133
the day I joined the army.

Quoted message said:

I never realized just how stubby they were, until my DD's grew to my
height... of course, now they have grown past my height.

My daughter had the courtesy to stop growing when she was an inch
shorter than I am. Her legs are longer than mine.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

Penal is not the adjective of penis.

You obviously have not been in jail. <g>

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

So let's just say that if you haven't run for something like 90
minutes in one go, before you do the HM, it will get painful around
the two thirds mark.

It took me about 88 minutes to do six miles last week. I'm still trying
to decide whether to do the seven that the training program calls for
tomorrow or to do a 10K race.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

I just checked out his plans at his web site; all of them max out at 20
miles. Maybe the plans in his books are different, or maybe he's
revised them since the time you read the book.

Yeah sorry for not giving more context. Higden has changed, it seems,
since the edition of the book which spurred me to run a marathon. In the
edition I have, he asks for a 28 mile longest run in the 3:45 marathon
schedule.

If you can run for about 90 mins without getting into total distress, you
can almost certainly run a HM (supposing that you are going to finish in
less than 2:15 or so).

If you think you are going to need 3 hours for the 21k, you really would
be much more comfortable if you have already run for 2 hours or so.

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

If you think you are going to need 3 hours for the 21k, you really
would be much more comfortable if you have already run for 2 hours or
so.

I think that by the time of the HM, I'll have done that.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

It took me about 88 minutes to do six miles last week. I'm still trying
to decide whether to do the seven that the training program calls for
tomorrow or to do a 10K race.

Why not run a mile (or three quarters, or point eight, or however
goofily precise you care to be... because of course these programs
have everything alchemically determined for training perfection to the
nearest five meters, and a hair more or less, faster or slower, will
send the whole house of cards tumbling down!) as warmup then the
race? Good to practice being in a race setting, and running whatever
is long by one's current standards is easier and funner with company.
As is running short, but especially long.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Charlie Pendejo said:

Why not run a mile (or three quarters, or point eight, or however
goofily precise you care to be... because of course these programs
have everything alchemically determined for training perfection to
the nearest five meters, and a hair more or less, faster or slower,
will send the whole house of cards tumbling down!)

LOL

Quoted message said:

as warmup then the race?

Good idea. I'll just have to make sure that I get there early enough to
get that done before the race starts. Thanks.

Quoted message said:

Good to practice being in a race setting, and running whatever is
long by one's current standards is easier and funner with company.

Well, I will have company at the start; then I'll just have the company
of everyone else's dust. Well, not quite everyone else's. About 5% to
10% of the runners will be behind me.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

steve common wrote:
[...]

Quoted message said:

Distance targets are OK as long as they say what pace groups they are
designed for and what the upper time limit is. I dropped Higden's plans
for my first marathon, despite his book being the primary stimulus for
wanting to run a marathon, cos the daft [censored] asks you to run more than
a marathon distance in training.

That's interesting, as the plans on his website stop at 20 miles, and he
specifically argues against longer long runs. E.g. from the Advanced
schedule:

"The key to all my marathon programs are the long run on weekends, which
builds from 10 miles in the first week (Week 18) to a maximum of 20
miles, done three times in Weeks 11, 13 and 15. Although some
experienced runners do train longer, I see no advantage in doing 23, 26
or even 31 mile runs. (I've tried that myself in the past, and it just
wore me out.)"

So looks like he changed his mind on that one since writing that book.

- Nicholas.

"Michelle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body
fat you're dragging around?

If for example one weights 150 and 15% body fat races someone 150 with
5% body fat the my odds are on door number two.

Quoted message said:

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total weight
also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down or at least
countervail any benefit from the lost weight.

If one is loosing muscle mass they are going to a ludicrous extreme.

Quoted message said:

And you need some fat to burn while running.

Yes you need some fat but that fat does not come from love handles or
abdomen.

-Doug

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

Quoted message said:

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total
weight also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down
or at least countervail any benefit from the lost weight.

If one is loosing muscle mass they are going to a ludicrous extreme.

Well, take Shiny Penny as an example; she used to be a body builder.
When she stopped that, she lost muscle mass.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And you need some fat to burn while running.

Yes you need some fat but that fat does not come from love handles or
abdomen.

Where does that fat come from? Seriously, I don't know; I thought that
fat is fat. When you lose weight by losing fat, the fat is burned as
energy, right?

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

Quoted message said:

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total
weight also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down
or at least countervail any benefit from the lost weight.

Quoted message said:

If one is loosing muscle mass they are going to a ludicrous extreme.

Well, take Shiny Penny as an example; she used to be a body builder.
When she stopped that, she lost muscle mass.

Yes, over a period of years, I did. It took years before I started to
*look* fat though!

To guard against losing muscle, I've been very careful this time with
my diet - nothing extreme. My software program estimates that since
January I have averaged only a 175 calorie deficit per day. My calf
muscle has stayed the same measurement as the rest of me has shrunk,
so that to me is a good sign. There was one month there when my calf
lost a 1/2 inch, and I realized I was cutting too many calories, so I
fixed that.

But I could certainly still stand to gain more muscle. I just chose
this time to lose the fat first, and once I got to a certain level
(about now), to then add the weight training (won't ever add it back
in at my previous levels - I no longer have any interest in living in
a gym every day!). A big part of that decision was based on my fear of
injuring myself with the weights.... since I have done that in the
past. And also because my number one priority has been the running.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And you need some fat to burn while running.

Quoted message said:

Yes you need some fat but that fat does not come from love handles or
abdomen.

Where does that fat come from? Seriously, I don't know; I thought that
fat is fat. When you lose weight by losing fat, the fat is burned as
energy, right?

I could be wrong about this, or my knowledge out of date, but I seem
to recall that while exercising fit people burn the fat that is within
their muscles. That's because it's easier and quicker to access. To
burn the fat you need oxygen and fit people have a lot of capillaries
in the muscles to bring the oxygen to them. So it's a more efficient
system, to burn that fat rather than subcutaneous fat, during
exercise.

jen