Training Advice please.

In article said:

Quoted message said:

Actually, for my current status, I find a very strong
correlation with injury and running with others.

I'm with you on this one Dot. I sure it depends on the
group but most of the time these are groups of aggressive
runners and they turn out to be "Big [censored]" contests. You
will seldom see a group say let's make sure we hold it
down to 9's and see how easy we can run.

Since my group sessions consist of different types of speed
work, "hold it down to 9's and see how easy we can run" is
seldom the purpose of the workout (-;

Quoted message said:

Even the alleged easy runs end up getting horsed.

Easy runs are better done alone, IMO.

Quoted message said:

runner but more often works in reverse. It's really
dependent on leadership to keep everyone in their
appropriate group.

Yep. It might also require some discipline from a group
leader too -- it helps if you have someone leading the group
who is just trying to set a good pace, and not hotdog.

Quoted message said:

The Kenyans are a carefully hand picked group of
relatively even ability runners that run for money. Those
that don't make it are left by the wayside. IMO when you
try to mimic this concept without regards to ability and
leadership it turns into a mess. They are

Yep. When you try to mimic this concept, you need to have
fairly closely matched pace groups.

Quoted message said:

not emphasized because they really only work for select
relatively even paced runners and how does that happen
with open groups.

If you have enough runners, or low enough variance, you can
divide into sub groups.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

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

Quoted message said:

Dot said:

Donovan Rebbechi said:

In article <WAbbc.19863$He5.387491@bgtnsc04-
news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, Dot wrote:

Quoted message said:

Training in groups is a very effective technique, and
it is one that is really not given its due in most
training books, IMO.

Actually, for my current status, I find a very strong
correlation with injury and running with others.

I'm with you on this one Dot. I sure it depends on the
group but most of the time these are groups of aggressive
runners and they turn out to be "Big [censored]" contests. You
will seldom see a group say let's make sure we hold it
down to 9's and see how easy we can run. Even the alleged
easy runs end up getting horsed. There are usually some
big guns and wanna be big guns. The wanna be's try to
follow the big boys since they are faster. At times this
helps the slower runner but more often works in reverse.
It's really dependent on leadership to keep everyone in
their appropriate group.

In my winter runs which are geared for the more aggressive
runners, I harp on this issue. Only one person injured
this year and that was from a sprained ankle while looking
up to see a squirrel loudly frying on the electric pole.

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factors that gives the Kenyans the edge, and to just
ignore it or at least fail to emphasize it as an
important part of training strikes me as a

glaring

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omission.

The Kenyans are a carefully hand picked group of
relatively even ability runners that run for money. Those
that don't make it are left by the wayside. IMO when you
try to mimic this concept without regards to ability and
leadership it turns into a mess. They are not emphasized
because they really only work for select relatively even
paced runners and how does that happen with open groups.

--
Doug Freese "Caveat Lector" [email hidden]

Group training for elites has benefits that cannot be
quantified easily. Even for us "mere mortals" group training
can be a good thing. For beginners it can be beneficial as
well as long as the training group is of the same ability
level. Asking someone training at 7 min pace to slow down to
9min pace is not fair.

For beginners, the group runs become motivating as they
often will say (in our groups) that they know they need to
be training during the week to be prepared for the group
runs on Saturday. If they do not train during the week,
their fitness will suffer and the Sat runs will be bad.

One must be judicious in using them.

One aspect that is often overlooked is having group speed
sessions. Not everyone will be running the same pace or even
the same workouts, but having everyone together in one place
is motivating.

In article said:

Group training for elites has benefits that cannot be
quantified easily.

Yep. BTW, it was interesting to note the Italians holding
their own in the NY marathon, whereas the Americans were all
over the place.

Quoted message said:

Even for us "mere mortals" group training can be a good
thing. For beginners it can be beneficial as well as long
as the training group is of the same ability level. Asking
someone training at 7 min pace to slow down to 9min pace
is not fair.

For beginners, the group runs become motivating as they
often will say (in our groups) that they know they need to
be training during the week to be prepared for the group
runs on Saturday. If they do not train during the week,
their fitness will suffer and the Sat runs will be bad.

I think we can all understand Doug's perspective -- because
it is a familiar scenario. You get a bunch of runners,
usually from a competitive running club together. Most of
them are "speed freaks", the same sort of race-all-the-time
mentality Global had. The "training run" turns into a race
before long.

However, it doesn't have to be like this. Here's a scenario
I've seen:

in NY, the NYRR club holds "running classes" directed by Bob
Glover. The participants are broken down into groups of
differing ability, from people whose goal it is to run for
20 minutes without stopping, all the way up to the sub 6:00
crowd. The faster groups do tempos, hills, fartlek, and
intervals. The slower groups do some small hills and
continuous paced group runs where they swap the lead like
cyclists, and probably some other stuff. Each group has a
leader who is responsible for setting proper paces. Leaders
of the slower groups are supposed to run at the pace of that
group, not at their own race pace.

Far from being a "testosterone festival", the majority of
participants are female, and most aren't "speed freaks".
Having a pacer helps prevent it from turning into a race --
at least in the slower groups, most of the class just aim to
keep up with their group, and the relative homogeneity of
the groups makes this a realistic but demanding goal.

My fiancee attended these sessions, and after she started,
they formed a sort of focal point for her training. The
weekly group session imposed some order on an otherwise
chaotic schedule, and consistent training was built around
that. The 5 months after starting the group session
produced *greater* gains than her first 8 months of
training. Part of this is due to the workouts, but a lot is
also due to the motivational aspect of it -- she simply ran
more consistent (not high, but consistent) milage after
starting these sessions.

Quoted message said:

One aspect that is often overlooked is having group speed
sessions. Not

I remember "coaching" a team during college. Most of the
runners on the team knew what they were doing (whereas I
really didn't), so I just organised the workouts and let
them do their own thing. But just having everyone out there
early in the morning was motivating.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

Doug Freese said:

Dot said:

Right. *Pace* is unknown, but your *effort* (threshold)
is known or approximated.

SWAG based off heavy breathing. 🙂

got it 🙂

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For curiosity, do you actually time your work/recovery
portions or just go by what feels right (either breathing
or muscles) for the first set or an artifact of
topography or ...?

One of the few times I actually wear and use the chrono
feature on a watch.

ok, so you do use more structure than what I'm using now
(which is as much an artifact of snow and terrain as
anything else), but similar to what I've used in the past
for some workouts.

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Then increase over the weeks - based on what your body
feels like at the time or deliberately pick a longer
interval or more of them and force yourself to that
level? Just curious.

I'll start with say 4 reps and hold it for two weeks. Then
5 for a few weeks then it's either six or longer 5
depending on my mood and how much time I allot for tempo.

That sounds about like what I do when doing that type thing
and suggestive of the mod I was going to incorporate is the
appropriate way to go. I guesstimate the first time on
duration and reps (try to stop 1 rep before I feel like I
can't do any more - for injury prevention - usually about
3-4). In the past, I generally upped reps every other week
(each time I did that drill) - but it felt comfortable. What
I'm going to do in future, is hold at a rep level until it's
comfortable, then advance. I haven't done these things that
much in the past for it to be an issue, but probably will in
the future.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

Doug Freese said:

Dot said:

Let me rephrase my question from earlier gobbledy-[censored]:
Do you just wing it - based on breathing for effort level
and feel of muscles for injury prevention? or is there a
little more structure to what you're doing? That is, you
listen to your body and everything else takes care of
itself.

Wing it is based on years of experience in listening. It's
one of the reasons I don't use any tools to measure my
effort. If a HRM helps you level set your abilities and or
to ocasionaly measure progress fine. Thereafter they
belong in the drawer and you need to feel your runs.

I actually forgot it 2 times in the last 2 weeks 🙂 - on
short runs where I knew an approximate duration by which
route I took. On my long runs, I use it mostly to gauge time
by when it's either time to turn around or whether I have
time to explore a new trail. But I do evaluate the hr graph
when I'm done - looking for places where I might have
slouched off or how much higher intensity (hill) work was in
there or how consistent an effort was. Usually this just
confirms what I already knew, but I have picked up some
useful information at times.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

feeling guilty because what I'm doing seems to be working
yet is in violation of many training guidelines except
"listen to your body"

Volating what guidelines?

10%-type rules.

If you look at my recent training on medium scale, it looks
like I took a huge jump up in duration of long "run" after
the snowshoe race (when I focused for 2 wks on the race
distance and only ss ran in that time period), and the mid-
week runs aren't anywhere near what's needed to support long
run. However, looking at larger picture - back to the
Christmas holidays - when I was skiing, ss running, some
road running on snow, and maybe that xt class thrown in
occasionally, my total aerobic / weight bearing volume
(measured by hours) was a little larger than it is now,
where I'm mostly running only. Looking at smaller scale
picture, the amount of running within the long run/walks is
probably not out of whack for the amount of running I did
before. But it's too hard to keep track of the running pct
(I've just guesstimated when I've posted about
it) to be able to say for sure.

Because of the duration, I'm a little tired at end, and if
there's a bunch of soft snow near the end, my form may break
down on stuff inbound that I ran outbound. So I'll walk that
- and still do even or negative splits. Because of the walk
breaks, my legs don't feel as trashed at the end of the run,
and I feel only a little stiffness the next day - the
pleasant kind.

I did one ss walk/run then 3 regular run/walks - all the
same basic way on consecutive Sundays although varied the
route a bit until I had surveyed most of the local trails
for best running conditions. The last one was the longest
(both distance and duration) by a little bit and had more
hills (about 40 minutes of sub-LT (between VT/LT and 10bpm
below, approx.) effort, and the one I recovered from
fastest. (Note: the section of trail leading to these hills
is one that has to be walked at least partially because of
holes in snow - so there's a built-in rest break
before/after. The hills are the groomed xc ski trail - far
enough from main trailhead that there aren't people walking
their dogs without ss or skis on it - so the footing is much
better than elsewhere.)

I'm taking the decent recovery time as a sign that I seem to
have bumbled into a sweet spot for stress / strengthen /
recovery for *me* and present trail conditions (not sure how
long it will work as weather changes and snow gets mushy).
BUT I'm keeping the mid-week runs easy for the most part so
that by Sunday I'm hungry to be out running long. By
challenging myself on Sun, I'm content not to try to push
anything weekday for now - just maintenance level for the
most part. It's the way my body seems to respond to
stress/recovery. Interestingly, this is very similar to what
I used to do (pre structured running) when I'd just do short
road runs during the week as maintenance, then go ski or
hike or whatever for multiple hours on weekend.

BUT I'm also noting, that regardless of how my body feels,
it's going to be short this weekend. *All* the numbers,
except total volume, suggest backing off a week. While I've
got the traditional week, month, year queries in my db for
totalling things, I've also incorporated rolling 10- and 30-
day queries for totalling - and I can do that by most any
type of exercise or aggregation. And, yea, no one number
that says yes or no, but just a general massaging of the
numbers by my brain since I'm clueless how to actually
quantify it.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

Doug Freese said:

Dot said:

Donovan Rebbechi said:

In article <WAbbc.19863$He5.387491@bgtnsc04-
news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, Dot wrote:

Quoted message said:

Training in groups is a very effective technique, and it
is one that is really not given its due in most training
books, IMO.

Actually, for my current status, I find a very strong
correlation with injury and running with others.

I'm with you on this one Dot. I sure it depends on the
group but most of the time these are groups of aggressive
runners and they turn out to be "Big [censored]" contests.

This is why I'm thinking more in terms of the Anchorage
ultra folks rather than the local women's running group.
Ultra group is looser organization (just people out
running), run year round, and the guy that spearheads it has
indicated they have a wide range of abilities ("less speedy"
was his term; I suspect 6-10 participants, although maybe
more) and the Thurs night runs are social as much as
anything. They may split in groups and meet up again
somewhere on the trail or some are out/back, just go as far
as you want. They have another workout on another night
where they do their speedy stuff. But the fear of getting
sucked into a little faster pace or going just a little
farther is what's keeping me from trying running with anyone
until I'm up to about 3 hr comfortable. On my own, I know
when to back off. If I can get to 3 hrs, I feel I should
have some of these foot and other issues under control
(perhaps ancient history). The group does some of the easier
trails as well as their ice-axe runs - and I'll pick one of
their short, easy 2-hr runs.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd
Heinrich in Racing the Antelope

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

Dot said:

Donovan Rebbechi said:

Training in groups is a very effective technique, and it
is one that is really not given its due in most training
books, IMO.

Actually, for my current status, I find a very strong
correlation with injury and running with others.

I'm with you on this one Dot. I sure it depends on the
group but most of the time these are groups of aggressive
runners and they turn out to be "Big [censored]" contests. You
will seldom see a group say let's make sure we hold it down
to 9's and see how easy we can run. Even the alleged easy
runs end up getting horsed. There are usually some big guns
and wanna be big guns. The wanna be's try to follow the big
boys since they are faster. At times this helps the slower
runner but more often works in reverse. It's really
dependent on leadership to keep everyone in their
appropriate group.

So I'm a good leader. And I've been lucky about groups.
I've pretty consistently hit groups where they'll say
before starting that they're going to do a certain
workout, and then do just that. No less, to be sure, but
also no more. I've also served as pace-restrainer for some
folks who really are faster than me, but who feel a need
to hold the pace down at least for the first half of their
run. Every so often, one will pull away from me so I call
out 'bye' to them, and they recall what their purpose for
the workout was.

I do know some folks who try to turn everything in to a
race. Either I'm faster, and go on with my workout as they
die, or I'm slower (at least for the workout I plan on)
and wave goodbye as they 'beat' me. Race day, surprise, I
do comparatively a lot better.

Quoted message said:

In my winter runs which are geared for the more aggressive
runners, I harp on this issue. Only one person injured this
year and that was from a sprained ankle while looking up to
see a squirrel loudly frying on the electric pole.

That's one of the vastly underrated measures of training
program
success. (er, lack of injuries, not number of fried
squirrels).

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and
amateur activities notes and links. Sagredo (Galileo
Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less
appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a
more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article <[email hidden]>,

Sam said:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Doug, when I first starting coaching folks we had regularly
(every other Sunday) track sessions and I had come from a
bit of a track background so running on the track was
natural. When I moved to Colorado, people just do not like
to run on the track so I adjusted. I have a "course" over
which I run my 2x20s in order to track progress. I have
only a general idea of how long I run each time (I measure
it on a bike but with the course altered every year (due to
"renovations" on the path) I have to measure anew each
year. I also have an idea of where I should be every 5
minutes in order to pace myself.

If I ever invest in that Garmin Forerunner 201, I will
probably be depressed at how little ground I am covering.

Anyway, the body works on time, not distance.

That last sentence, I've decided, is maybe the most
important statement about approaching training.

Well, time and effort level. Speeds and distances are just
ways of figuring time and effort level. But it's time and
effort that do the training.

--
Robert Grumbine radix.net~bobgOpen ↗ Science faqs and
amateur activities notes and links. Sagredo (Galileo
Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less
appreciated than they would be had they been presented in a
more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

In article said:

Quoted message said:

In my winter runs which are geared for the more aggressive
runners, I harp on this issue. Only one person injured
this year and that was from a sprained ankle while looking
up to see a squirrel loudly frying on the electric pole.

That's one of the vastly underrated measures of training
program
success. (er, lack of injuries, not number of fried
squirrels).

Had this image of evil old Doug sacrificing squirrels when
his group get injuries so that he can maintain his
performance on the "comparison with number of fried
squirrels" metric.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗