Active Community: Message List

Dress Code for Runners in Races?

guest — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:37:54 GMT

Folks,

seriously, if you have carbs left in your brain to care what other people wear, you are just not running hard enough.

Get a grip ;-)

Stefan

Is it possible to stay/get in marathon shape running 1 X wk, plus X-training ?

guest — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:40:52 GMT

Define marathon shape. Most people i see during a marathon these days are not in what i would consider marathon shape.

So what are you trying to accomplish? Run a marathon? Run a marathon in a decent time? What would you consider a decent time? Can you finish a marathon with only on weekly run in preparation? Yes. Will that be easy on your knees? No. Is it worth it? I don't know. If you can provide more detail (including your HM finish times) it would be easier to give advice.

Best,

Stefan

Marathon

guest — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:33:14 GMT

I would guess that you are asking the wrong question.

Can you run 2 marathons in a month? Yes. You can run two marathons in a weekend. And no, I am not talking about me, or a hypothetical well trained runner, I am talking about you.If you can run a marathon in 5 hours, it would be very reasonable to assume you can run 2 on consecutive days running them in maybe 6 - 6,5 hours each. So, running them a month apart, maybe 5:30 for both of them, shouldn't be a problem. Please note that BOTH marathons have to be run in a signifficantly slower fashion than your current capability.

Coming back to my initial statement: Is this really what you want to do? Or is your question rather: Can I have two great marathon performances within 4 weeks? In which case - and I hope you don't mind me being frank - , taking into account your lack of experience and not stellar finish time, I would say: No. That is probably not a good idea.

Best,

Stefan

... who will run Frankfurt marathon on 10/28, Dublin on 10/29 and NYC on 11/4 ;-)

Gadgets?

guest — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 21:20:17 GMT

fit bit is nice for motivation, but not training

striiv --> never heard of

Nike fuel band, great for motivation and training

bodybug is an overpriced pice of ..., as far as i know only sold by a large gym chain

pedometer not useful

but if you really want to train, get a heart rate monitor, even a cheap one. Beats all the other mentioned gadgets. If you are into social pressure, maybe Nike + hrm works best. Otherwise, go for the cheapest Polar.

Best,

Stefan

How to improve?

guest — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:11:37 GMT

Hi David,

first of all, forget the Polar Zones, they are based on statistics, not on your body and the underlaying formulas have deviations of over 20%. Not suitable for running. The gold standard is to get a lactate threshhold test. This gives you very acurate numbers for your heart rate zones (wich you can then enter manually into the Polar, making the Polar a great tool for training.

Second, to run faster, you have to run faster. Interval training is the key. There are a ton of interval training sessions out there. If you are really sure that you have no heart issues, I would highly recommend Tabata intervalls. Google it, it is the best. One thing though. If at the end of the last intervall you even ask the question if you can do one more, you are not doing it fast enough. It really is just a five minute workout. Stick to it, you see the results in 3 weeks. I would do something like this:

Mo: Rest

Tu: Tabata

We: Core Strength

Th: Tabata

Fr: 800m intervals (goal: 3:30 per 800m, gradually working up to 10 intervalls

Sa: Rest

Su: longer run, about 1 hour

Let me know what you think,

Stefan

eating during a long run

guest — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 09:55:04 GMT

Dear Lenzlaw,

I strongly have to disagree with your notion that a mile requires the same amount of calories independent of speed. That is not true for a wheel (due to wind restistance being an exponential function of velocity), but even less for a human body running. While the physical processes involved are rather complex, if you want to simplify it, and take the sport (e.g. running) and to a certain degree the body weight as given, it comes down to heartrate over time. A cardiovascular systems running at a given heartrate burns roughly a similar amount of calories per hour, whether it is well trained and running 10 miles or less trained and running 5 miles. Most of the energy spent while running is NOT spent for forward propulsion, but for heat management.

Best,

Stefan

stress facture, but then they said no ??

guest — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:38:48 GMT

Listen to this (very short):

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/so/so120812olympic_syndrome

maybe you can find a certain similarity to your stress fracture. I would just go for a shor run and see how it holds up.

Best,

Stefan

eating during a long run

guest — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:26:04 GMT

Hi Chell,

as in most cases, the answer is: it depends ;-)

What do you consider a long run, measured in time, not distance. For someone who trains for a 1:10 half marathon and someone who tries to break 2:30, "long" have different meaning. As a general rule of thumb I would suggest this:

anything under 45-60 minutes, have some gatorade before your run and bring some water and you will be fine.

45-90 minutes: bring a gel ( or a small pack of raisins), which you eat at about 45 minutes before the end of your run. That should do it.

anything longer: another gel or small pack of raisins every 45 minutes.

The key aspects to mind here are: Even if you eat simple carbs like raisins, your body needs at least 20-30 minutes to process the food, so anything you eat within the last half hour of you run, will not be available during the run. Keep that in mind while racing also.

Do not eat anything other than carbs; fat and protein (e.g.. nuts) might be awesome foods, but not while running. You do not want your body to have to allocate resources to process trail mix, granola bars or anything like that during a run.

Also, this whole protein craze is pretty ridiculous. Yes, it is true, that if you run out of carbs, your body will start burning protein (when at a higher heart rate), since it is metabolically more efficient as far as oxygen consumption is concerned, but you are training for an half marathon, and not for an Ironman. Have a smoothie directly after the long run, if you are concerned with muscle loss.

Hope this helps some, if you have further questions, please ask

Best,

Stefan

p.s.: the words dairy and running usually result in a pretty explosive mixture in your GI tract.

Training with fido

guest — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 19:03:48 GMT

I very much doubt that fido has reached her physical - as in muscular, or energetic - limits. The issue is - and CJMark hinted at that - that dogs have a different temperature regulation systems than humans. While we sweat as a way to cool and are therefore able to consistently exercise for long periods of time, dogs don't. Their only way to cool is through their tongue and simply taking breaks. I would therefore try to do intervals and see how she responds to that, or take her to a track workout and provide her with a place to rest (and show her that is it ok to do so, too) while you keep running.

Best,

Stefan

Re: Walking a Marathon

guest — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:23:16 GMT

6 1/2 hours at IM Loisville, with two huge bisters on the balls of my feet