The FastDay Forum

I'm still struggling with a lack of speed since new year and I have absolutely no idea why it has dropped off so badly.... My 5km PB is 30:24 but I can't seem to get under 35 mins at the moment!

I joined Bridgnorth running club last week and whilst it is great to run in the company of the "steadies", I'm still having trouble keeping up with them. So on Thursday I took myself off and ran without worrying about time. I did 7.5km, walked up the hills and remembered why I enjoy it.

This morning I didn't even bother driving to Telford for the park run so I went into town again and did an awful 6km that was a real struggle... but at least I kept going!

To be honest, I've been really concentrating on removing the last vestiges of my festive layer this week so it is entirely possible that I was low on fuel for this morning's run.

@Domane - don't beat yourself up about your pace! That will come back again with practice. I think it's great that you have joined a club. I joined one back in September and really enjoy training in a group (both for the social and coaching side) and I've improved my pace, breathing control and cardio no end since joining.
Is there a coach in your club you could ask for a plan? I'm surprised that on a long run your group are going too fast. We always start with a 45 minute jog before doing interval training and never go more than around 8kms an hour for this warm up. When you train (with a long run, not intervals) you should ideally not be about 70% of your race pace.
Good luck and keep running and keep enjoying it, that is the most important thing.

I've struggled with improving my pace as well. Losing weight upped it considerably, suggesting that my slow pace was a subconscious effort to protect my knees. I'm hoping HIIT on the bike (once my bruised tail bone heals) will help my running pace. Interval training on the track makes a lot of sense, if you don't have knee troubles. Or fartlek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek

Isn't it odd that performance varies so much from week to week? I had an OK-ish run this week - weather was terrible, very wet and windy so I didn't bring my dog. One of the other guys from my training group almost caught me on the final lap, and I managed to pull away and get round in 28:30ish. He was delighted that my pace-setting had helped him to another PB. My rival in 1st place on the Points table was back this week after injury - I try to use her as my own pace-setter, but I am very slow when conditions are poor.

What's your ideal running weight? Here is an article with an interesting table if you scroll to the bottom, which details how much faster you should be in races according to how many pounds you lose - providing you don't go below 18.5 BMI.
http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss ... eal-weight

Unfortunately, once over 40 we lose about 1% of speed every year on average - over 5km this is about 13 seconds for me.

I can get this back by losing 2 pounds. But I have to do it every year, and I am already close to minimum weight.

Susan, you have no chance whatsoever!

I haven't updated my tracker recently - I'm 58kgs at the moment so BMI of 19.3 so I could possibly lose a oouple of pounds and still be OK
However, since I've been training properly (4 x per week) with my running clus, my body fat has gone from around 19-20% to 12-14%, which is pretty near the minimum required (10%)so I'm not sure if it is a good idea or not! Maybe it would be OK for a 10k race but not for a half marathon.

What's your ideal running weight? Here is an article with an interesting table if you scroll to the bottom, which details how much faster you should be in races according to how many pounds you lose - providing you don't go below 18.5 BMI.
http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss ... eal-weight

That's interesting. I lost about 50lbs and took 8 min off my 10k PB without doing anything differently (probably training less, if anything). What I'm really looking forward to is being able to train smarter, and get even better times. Fingers crossed (though my HIIT on the bike plan may be permanently thrown out the window since my tail bone is still sore. I might have to learn to love the elliptical)

Here is a table with the ideal body fat percecntage for runners
http://cdn.running.competitor.com/files ... .23-AM.png
And here is how to calculate what weight you need to be in order to attain a specific body fat percentage:

The final step in determining your racing weight is to calculate how much fat weight you will have to lose to get down to your goal body fat percentage. Let’s look at how to do this with the example of a 38-year-old female who currently weighs 140 pounds and has 22 percent body fat and who sets an initial goal of getting down to 17 percent body fat (the upper limit of her ideal range) through improved training and diet.


Step 1: Calculate current body fat mass. Body fat mass = current weight x current body fat percentage expressed in decimal form. In this example: 140 lbs x 0.22 = 30.8 lbs.

Step 2: Calculate current lean body mass. Lean body mass = current weight – fat mass. In this example: 140 lbs – 30.8 lbs = 109.2 lbs.

Step 3: Calculate goal weight. Goal weight = current lean body mass ÷ goal lean body mass percentage. (Note: goal lean body mass percentage is 1.0 – your goal body fat percentage expressed in decimal form.) In this example: 109.2 lbs ÷ 0.83 = 131.5 lbs.

yeah, I think I'll need a more accurate number for my body fat % before I do that. My health check is next week so this should happen soon…

Thanks for the link!

Finally feeling like I can come back into this thread - I'm near the end of week three of 'my run 10 miles in 8 weeks' programme. Should have been on week seven by now, from when I started pre-Christmas... Basically I lost it over Christmas and since then wouldn't let myself move past week two until I was doing it properly. I had several weeks where I did the week day runs but none of the weekend cross training and runs.

Here's hoping that getting fitter and doing EOD fasting will see me back at parkrun, recording PBs soon I'm running up to 5k at the moment, but not scheduled to do PR for another couple of weeks.

Hi all,
Good to catch up with all your achievements.
I have been trying different things to try to get rid of my plantar fasciitis. Bought some walking shoes which I can also use for running in the wet, which has helped a bit, along with always wearing orthotics. Now trying only doing around 30 minutes at a time, whether running or walking (the speed doesn't seem to make any difference). That seems to be when the foot starts feeling uncomfortable, so presumably causing damage. Means runs are limited to less than 5k.
But the training I have been doing with the new puppy hasn't helped - I am my own worst enemy! Even time I spend on my feet cooking or cleaning out the chickens seems to count.
It would be so nice to mend it for good. Any ideas welcome.....
On the bright side almost at first target
Our parkrun is rather wet and slippery at the moment, so leaving it until boy is back at his tennis.

Andrea.

Jumping on this bandwagon as I've just recently taken up running. I set up a training calendar to get to 8K in 8 weeks - am currently a very very slow 4K. We have ParkRun here as well, but waiting til I can finish the whole 5K in my neighborhood before I head out to one of them.
And hoping that dropping weight from 5:2 will help with endurance and pace.
6 months ago, I could barely run 500 steps, so 4K now is a massive improvement. I would say that 2.5 months of TRX HIIT-style training (3-4x a week or so), made me much stronger and able to actually run a fair distance.
I need some new shoes for sure. I've also been suggested to try the Pose Method of running - will be checking out youtube in a few weeks for the drills.

In spite of the hills and bathroom break, I knocked 15 min off my last half marathon. Very pleased and very tired.

Brilliant! Well done. How are the knees?