Official Strava/Runkeeper Thread

[AnalBumCover]

Thanks for the article. This helps me plan out the next phase (or "season" as you put it) in my training, which is to increase my mileage to 20 per week. Originally I had planned on making this a 12 week plan, increasing about 5-8% per week with a paring week every 3 or 4 weeks. I thought this was a conservative enough plan, but after reading this article, I will likely stretch this out through the rest of the calendar year. This gives me a half a year to just focus on miles and be able to adjust as my body allows. 20 miles/week may come sooner than that, but as long as it will minimize risk of injury, I'll be happy with this plan.

[hoopsguy]

Will be joining the group next week. I've gotten about 20 miles in over the past couple of weeks, after running a 5K (2nd one ever, first was in May of this year) and deciding that I wanted better times for the two I'm planning to run in July.

Thanks to all who participate here, and especially Alan T for sharing a ton of lessons learned between this thread and his dynasty.

[Icy]

I'm thinking about buying a weight scale to replace my current one.

The cheap one i have seems to be accurate enough with the weight, but the body fat sensor it has is totally random, when i take weight it can go anywhere from 15% to 45% body fat.

Besides controlling my weight, that i don't find that important as you also gain muscle when you train, i want to control my body fat. Is the Withings one good enough?

I have read about the Withings scale and find it too expensive at like 150€, mainly because it has wifi and even air condition sensors but... i can live entering my weight once per week in runkeeper manually, don't need it to be exported by wifi.

Is there any good alternative just for weight and body fat % or is that Withings really worth it?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Icy

Is there any good alternative just for weight and body fat % or is that Withings really worth it?

I like the withings because of the integration it has with so many things that I use as apps, and it is a very polished user experience.

That said, I don't think you're going to find any scale with an accurate body fat % reading. My withings scale doesn't have as much a range of error as your scale does based on what you said, but it is definitely not as accurate as doing a real body fat composition test.

For Scales, here was DC Rainmaker's recommendations from last year, as far as I know it has not changed that much (I'm not aware of much new out there at least):

Looking at scales these days, cheaper is better. Ironically enough, the cheaper you get, the more features and technology advancement you seem to offer. I’ve previously recommend the Withings WiFi scale – and that scale still stands in the recommendations pile.
However, I’ve also been using the FitBit Aria scale lately as well as I prepare my review. It’s a bit cheaper, though they do have slightly fewer partnerships in the endurance sports log arena (though they like Withings have an easy API for developers to access). Both track weight well, and both track body fat poorly (remember my scale testing?).
The Withings WiFi Scale is generally about $160 and available from both Amazon and Clever Training.
The FitBit Aria scale is about $130 and available from both Amazon and Clever Training.
Finally, for those looking for an ANT+ scale that connects to your various Garmin ANT+ watches and downloads the data straight into Garmin Connect, I recommend the A&D Lifesource ANT+ scale. It’s cheap, works just as well as those costing 2-10 times as much, and gets the job done…with an LCD display. And, it’s down to $60 these days, that’s nuts!
The Lifesource UC-324ANT scale is available from Amazon from $60 to $110.

My 2012 Sports Gadget Recommendations | DC Rainmaker

[FrogMan]

went out for a fourth run with my 16yo son yesterday. Every time we've gone out together, I've been pushing him a little more, in distance for now.

#1: 3.2 km at a pace of 5:29 per km
#2: 4.2 km at a pace of 5:36 per km
#3: 5.0 km at a pace of 5:57 per km
#4: 5.4 km at a pace of 5:43 per km

I've come to realize that he can run at 5:30 per km for about 3 km, then he starts to slow down and I'm working on keeping him on pace.

First run, we didn't do more than 3k.
Second run, he slowed down a little.
Third run, I knew I wanted us to do a 5k so I didn't push him much in the middle.
Fourth run, I knew we were taking a route that would challenge us in the middle and I knew we'd do at least 5k. First 3 to 3.5, we were doing 5:30 sharp, then we hit a tougher tiny uphill patch and he really slowed down.

I want him to keep on running with me but I know he's not that fond of it. I think he understands that he will benefit from it in the upcoming hockey season and I want him to keep on running with me every once in a while so I'm taking it easy on him. For me, these runs are fairly easy ones. In yesterday's run, my heartbeat never once went over 149. But I was with my son and that was cool.

FM

[Ben E Lou]

*Very* encouraging run at the mountain condo tonight. Here's why:

May 31: Run Profile | 4-Mile Mountain Run (2 Big Hills) | Times and Records | Strava (4 miles, 11:55 per mile, 146 HR)

June 22: Run Profile | Five-Mile Mountain Run | Times and Records | Strava (5.1 miles, 10:52 per mile, 151 HR)

In a little over three weeks, I'm knocked a full minute off my time in these crazy mountains without working much harder. Still got a long way to go, but those numbers feel very gratifying.

[Icy]

Yesterday i was invited by a friend to go this morning to do a short mtb ride with his group. Even when they said it would be just 25k, I was so scared as i have been biking for only a month, so i woke up early, had a monster healthy breakfast and got ready.

It ended being way softer of what i thought, we started doing the same route i usually do, totally flat, slower than my average speed for that route, but i was thinking, let's go slow because i'll die in the climbs later. Then we reached the climb, the first time i did it, so i was not sure if it was so long and started slow, just following the pack. The group started to break and i followed the top ones, ending the climb with them, so satisfied as they all talked about how in shape i looked for a newbie into mountain biking, i guess the months running helped a lot with my conditioning.

I'm going to go out with them every sunday from now, they have some 40k to 50k routes planned, will be a good test for me.

[Dutch]

Cool! I used to going mountain biking on some pretty steep trails when I lived in Turkey (a decade ago now...good grief)...and it was a blast...if not a killer workout. We would drop down into this canyon on a single-track trail that was about 10 blocks from my apartment and just go...then we'd have to climb back up (which would be the workout)...the goal was to get to the Fresh Orange Juice street vendor at the top.

[Ben E Lou]

For those who use Garmin, what model, HRM, footpod, etc. might you recommend? My Polar is having some issues and that might be a good excuse to switch over.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

For those who use Garmin, what model, HRM, footpod, etc. might you recommend? My Polar is having some issues and that might be a good excuse to switch over.

Can't recommend between any two models but I own the Forerunner 210. It does the job, I love it. I have the model without a footpod but with the HRM strap. I got it mostly because it was the cheapest of their more complete models and there is currently a 50$ off mail rebate thing for students so I entered on my son's name...

FM

[Fidatelo]

I have a 405 (no HRM or footpod or anything), I like it but a word of warning: the touch controls are probably more of a detriment than a feature. I find when it rains they stop registering properly, and in the winter I can't use them with gloves on. I do like the looks over the older rectangle models, though. And overall the thing is fantastic and I will use it until the day it or I dies.

[Alan T]

I have the 210 with Garmin HRM (Soft Strap) and footpod. I love the 210 and have had no problems with either the footpod or HRM.

[Alan T]

Dola... My June play month is over now, had my race this weekend and had a blast. Back on new training schedule starting tomorrow for the next 12 weeks. Should be really interesting to see how this ends up going for me. I'm hoping it will prepare me well for running a half marathon but also double to keep improving my 5k and 10k times as well.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I have the 210 with Garmin HRM (Soft Strap) and footpod. I love the 210 and have had no problems with either the footpod or HRM.

Just got mine today, can post impressions of it this week but I won't have a point of comparison as this will be my first running watch.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I have the 210 with Garmin HRM (Soft Strap) and footpod. I love the 210 and have had no problems with either the footpod or HRM.

Do these sync directly to your apps or do you have to do anything manually?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Do these sync directly to your apps or do you have to do anything manually?

If you mean the footpod and HRM, once paired with the watch, you don't have to do anything special with them. If you mean the activities saved on the watch, you have to connect it up to the computer and sync over USB to whatever app(s) you want to upload the data to.

There are some higher end versions of the garmin that you can set up to auto-sync with garmin connect without connecting through the computer, but I don't know which models exactly that is off the top of my head. For most of the watches, not only the garmin but the other brands too, you have to at least do a manual sync via the computer to something. (unless you just want to keep the data on the watch and not use any online apps I guess)

[Radii]

To follow up on some comments I'd made over the course of my last few runs on Strava, I had my followup with my podiatrist yesterday, he gave me an extra round of anti-inflammatory pills and i'm going to use the exercise bike for the next two weeks, no running to try to let it fully heal. This is to try to knock out a problem I've been dealing with since April with sesamoiditis (inflammation in the bones near the big toe/ball of the foot). I've been using shoe inserts that the doctor gave me back in April, and using an anti-inflammatory cream, and icing it every day whether it hurts or not (except when it doesn't hurt I only remember to do it every 2nd or 3rd day). Doing all of that starting back in April allowed me to keep running while it was healing and the doc says it looks much better now than it did when I first saw him, but its obviously not completely gone. I want it completely gone if that's possible and staying off it for a time is the best way to do that.

We have an exercise bike in our garage that my dad used some for physical therapy a number of years ago, I spent 25 minutes on it tonight, its the most boring thing in the world, so hopefully it won't take more than 2 weeks of rest to get back to where I can run without having to worry about this.

[Alan T]

Get that foot better Radii. It is great that you have a non-impacting exercise like the bike that you can do to try to keep your momentum going.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Alan T

There are some higher end versions of the garmin that you can set up to auto-sync with garmin connect without connecting through the computer, but I don't know which models exactly that is off the top of my head. For most of the watches, not only the garmin but the other brands too, you have to at least do a manual sync via the computer to something. (unless you just want to keep the data on the watch and not use any online apps I guess)

here's a good guide to the different Garmin watches
athleti.ca | Garmin Comparison Guide

FM

[AnalBumCover]

For anyone looking for their training paces for long runs, tempo runs, speed runs, etc., I found a pace calculator online that gives it all to you.

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

Enter a recent race distance and time, and enter your goal race distance and time, and it will calculate the paces that will match your current abilities and maximize your training.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

For anyone looking for their training paces for long runs, tempo runs, speed runs, etc., I found a pace calculator online that gives it all to you.

McMillan Running - Calculator

Enter a recent race distance and time, and enter your goal race distance and time, and it will calculate the paces that will match your current abilities and maximize your training.

Yup. I've been referencing that one and this one to plan my workouts lately.

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. Made it to the first page (#50 out of 1,938) in the over-200-pound category of the Junedoggle. The Junedoggle

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh. Made it to the first page (#50 out of 1,938) in the over-200-pound category of the Junedoggle. The Junedoggle

very well done!

FM

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Heh. Made it to the first page (#50 out of 1,938) in the over-200-pound category of the Junedoggle. The Junedoggle

Nice!!

[HerRealName]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Yup. I've been referencing that one and this one to plan my workouts lately.

Good job. That is a cool feature except now I'm going to have to go premium and take a look. I'm guessing that we're close in miles. It seems like when one of us hits a milestone, the other (along with Thomas) hit the milestone soon after.

[Ben E Lou]

So I just noticed that there's a 5K/10K race at the beach on Saturday morning. If I decide to do the 10K and go all-out, how would I structure the rest of the week's workouts? Lower body strength training was scheduled for Friday, but I can always just push that to Saturday some time after the race. What about any running on Friday? After the hard intervals today, I was planning on going rather light. Should I run at all?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So I just noticed that there's a 5K/10K race at the beach on Saturday morning. If I decide to do the 10K and go all-out, how would I structure the rest of the week's workouts? Lower body strength training was scheduled for Friday, but I can always just push that to Saturday some time after the race. What about any running on Friday? After the hard intervals today, I was planning on going rather light. Should I run at all?

For a 10k race, I usually take off 1 or 2 days before. So with a Saturday race, you can take off tomorrow to rest up and give your legs a chance to be fresh.

10k is short enough of a distance that most of the taper guidelines for half-marathon or marathon or further distances aren't necessarily followed for it. The basic rule of thumb is anything that you do tomorrow won't help you for the 10k race and will likely hurt you by adding fatigue in. If you're just doing the 10k for fun and don't care about the performance, then you can stick to a training plan and run tomorrow if you want. Since you said before that you are in between training plans for a few weeks, I would just take it as a rest day tomorrow myself.

[Ben E Lou]

Cool. What about Sunday? That is supposed to be a long/slow day. Do I go shorter since I'll likely go all-out on Saturday?

[Alan T]

Most things that I have read suggest your most rest prior to your hard workouts and long workouts. The day after those workouts I commonly see an easy pace low mile recovery day if you are running 4 or more times a week or a rest day if 3 or less runs a week.

So in your case I would run a short recovery run at easy pace just to aid with recovery. For me that is usually an easy 3 mile run

[Alan T]

Strava has the July challenges posted to be joined. Same thing as May and June, distance based challenges. This time they are encouraging people to find dirt trails to run, but they say the challenge is still just based on kilometers run, they dont distinguish between dirt or road in the challenge.

[Icy]

Played a friendly indoor soccer (or futsal) game yesterday invited by some friends in a team that plays in an amateur local league, i'm probably going to join them in the next league in september after my 7 a side soccer team decided to stop playing a year ago.

I had not played any soccer for a year, and indoor soccer is more demanding due to the constant movement and sprinting along the court. Yesterday we were just 5 players per side, so no reserves, having to play the full game. I felt really great despite the heat, running and biking is really helping my conditioning and specially endurance, just need to train some speed before the season starts.

[Fidatelo]

I thought May was less than ideal but my Junedoggle ended up a boondoggle. I've hardly run at all aside from the half marathon, it's crazy how busy my weeks have been. I certainly hope I can get back into a routine in July.

[AnalBumCover]

This will begin my off-season from running as I will be vacationing in the Philippines for three weeks beginning July 4. I'll hopefully be able to get a couple of runs while there. But they'll probably be really short distances due to the heat and humidity there, as well as the lack of familiarity of the locations I'll be staying.

[Ben E Lou]

Who is Chirs Prewitt?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Who is Chirs Prewitt?

Hoopsguy on these forums.

[Alan T]

So I have been trying to get more biking in, but absolutely never can find the time to do it. I didn't want to mess up my scheduled Sunday long run and only have a 3 mile easy-recovery run scheduled for tomorrow.. so decided to do a bike ride today..

18 miles later (on top of the 6 miles I ran this morning), my legs really hate me right now. I also feel like I want to eat absolutely everything in the house.

[Ben E Lou]

Hmmmm...and who was getting on ME about overtraining a while ago???

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Hmmmm...and who was getting on ME about overtraining a while ago???

Yeah.. my wife has been getting on to me a little about it. I couldn't help myself, I plead insanity.

[hoopsguy]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Who is Chirs Prewitt?

Hi!

Been following this thread for about 3-4 weeks now, finally pulled the trigger on joining this week. Looking forward to being part of the July competitions, as well as seeing if I can make some gradual improvements on my performance+times between now and my late-July (25th and 27th) 5K runs.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Hi!

Been following this thread for about 3-4 weeks now, finally pulled the trigger on joining this week. Looking forward to being part of the July competitions, as well as seeing if I can make some gradual improvements on my performance+times between now and my late-July (25th and 27th) 5K runs.

[Alan T]

Ben did you end up doing the beach race? If so, how did it go?

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Ben did you end up doing the beach race? If so, how did it go?

Seeing how he ran for an hour yesterday, then did some strength work, I figured he had decided not to do it but I could be wrong...

FM

[FrogMan]

and he was up at 4:41 this morning

FM

[Subby]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Hi!

Been following this thread for about 3-4 weeks now, finally pulled the trigger on joining this week. Looking forward to being part of the July competitions, as well as seeing if I can make some gradual improvements on my performance+times between now and my late-July (25th and 27th) 5K runs.

SWEET!

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Hi!

Been following this thread for about 3-4 weeks now, finally pulled the trigger on joining this week. Looking forward to being part of the July competitions, as well as seeing if I can make some gradual improvements on my performance+times between now and my late-July (25th and 27th) 5K runs.

and yes, welcome to the group!

Did my first full hour of running today. Went out with my son and set a nice pace that he could follow but he gets sorta bored around the 5 K mark so I arrange the route to do a stop close by our house and let him walk it off back home and went on my own from there. Had my eyes set on going for 60 minutes, no distance, just time. Had never done this before but got it done today and was pretty happy with it.

Pace went from maybe 6:20 or so with my son to about 5:25 or 5:30 on my own, without really pushing it too hard. Looking at the splits, I see our 5th km, the last with him, we had our fastest of this run at 5:50.

My next goal, that I'd like to reach before the end of Summer, is to be able to run from our home to the dojo and back. According to Garmin Connect, it's 7.1 km one way, so about 14.2 or so. Thing is, I know there will be a bit of a hill right smack at about the 8th km or so... Still a bit of work to do

FM

[Subby]

Originally Posted by Alan T

So I have been trying to get more biking in, but absolutely never can find the time to do it. I didn't want to mess up my scheduled Sunday long run and only have a 3 mile easy-recovery run scheduled for tomorrow.. so decided to do a bike ride today..

18 miles later (on top of the 6 miles I ran this morning), my legs really hate me right now. I also feel like I want to eat absolutely everything in the house.

This is the kind of stuff that gets me fired up. I love it.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Ben did you end up doing the beach race? If so, how did it go?

Originally Posted by FrogMan

Seeing how he ran for an hour yesterday, then did some strength work, I figured he had decided not to do it but I could be wrong...

FM

The Frog is correct. I had a plan that I really liked and was looking forward to, and decided in the end to stick to it. I did six easy Friday morning and did lower body weight work, then took Saturday off as planned. In a bit this morning I'm planning to run 10+. It's a little over 10 miles from my house to a particular location and back, and I just want to be able to say "I ran all the way to Park Circle and back without stopping." Plus that run will put me at a record for miles in a week, and put me almost exactly 10% over last week.

[hoopsguy]

So July will be the first month that I've got all my workouts in Strava. But I started recording runs in MapMyRun on 6/8 and compiled just over 40 miles for the month. That is the most outdoor running I've ever done since graduating high school.

I figure that 50 miles is a very achievable goal for July, given that I hit 40 while missing a week in June. Just set up a training plan for the month that calls for 5 days/week, which would be more than the 3-4 a month I've been running up to this point. If I hold to the training plan, I've got my 50 miles in the first three weeks.

[digamma]

big heat wave in Southern California this weekend, so I'm done for June with only the 80k badge.

USTA Tennis match at high noon will be fun today in 90 plus weather.

[Ben E Lou]

One-day freebie for iSmoothRun. I strongly recommend this app. It's normally 5 or 6 bucks.

iSmoothRun on SALE. Get the best running app for FREE! https://t.co/A8cMqWzMhH

— iSmoothRun (@iSmoothRun) July 2, 2013