Official Strava/Runkeeper Thread

[HerRealName]

Subby goes on a 250 mile ride and then spends the next couple weeks running fast as hell. More machine than man.

Good luck, Cowboy. ABC's advice looks spot on to me.

[Subby]

I don't know what the hell is going on because I barely ran the last three years. I just started running again in late March after a year off from running outside and on my 15th run I was able to put up my best half-marathon time by a pretty wide margin:



Probably pushing a little hard on these - I think my target heart rate is supposed to be 136 or so based on my age - but I don't feel completely destroyed when I'm done. Who knows?

Anyway - happy to be running a little these days.

[Kodos]

Holy crap!

My brother, who also is an avid bike rider, turns out to be a very good runner as well. He has a great cardio-vascular system, and it sure shows up in his running.

[digamma]

1:30 is freaking flying.

[AnalBumCover]

That's mindblowingly fast.

I just got done watching my friend who'd been trying for years to BQ, and finally succeeded last Saturday with an exhausting 7:30/mi pace, and now I see a sub 7:00/mi "random" half marathon distance?

Crazy. Crazy.

I bow to you.

[Kodos]

I like your 262 Epic suffer score.

[Subby]

My new Garmin watch is also trolling the ^&*% out of me right now.

[AnalBumCover]

At the rate you're going, I don't think your Garmin is too off base.

[hoopsguy]

I assume that the serious cyclists in this thread have seen this before, but it made me chuckle and wonder about the thoughts of Mrs. Subby.

The shame of being married to a MAMIL, a Middle Aged Man In Lycra | Daily Mail Online

[Umbrella]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

My next post will be when I can break the 45 minute marker.

43:10. And my fastest average time since 2013. Next goal, do 5K in under 45 minutes. I think I would have come close to that if I had gone a little farther, but my knees were killing me.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

I assume that the serious cyclists in this thread have seen this before, but it made me chuckle and wonder about the thoughts of Mrs. Subby.

The shame of being married to a MAMIL, a Middle Aged Man In Lycra | Daily Mail Online

Heh. Love that column. She definitely gets pissed when I try to wear cycling clothes anywhere but on the bike.

She also understands I am waaaay happier when I am riding, so it's a pretty easy trade off.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by Umbrella

43:10. And my fastest average time since 2013. Next goal, do 5K in under 45 minutes. I think I would have come close to that if I had gone a little farther, but my knees were killing me.

Dude that is awesome. Congrats on hitting 43:10!

[MizzouCowboy]

Ran my first 5k race today. I was pretty nervous before the race but it went away as soon as I started running.

I finished 4th in my age group (45-49) with an official time of 29:29. Arrrgh, the top three finishers received medals. Strava had me at 28:54, although I forgot for 5 or so minutes to stop the time. ;P

Overall it was a great experience, a lot funner than I expected. I finished as the 37th male and 60th overall of 168 runners. I was really concerned with my ankle last night as it was sore as it's been for weeks. Luckily a night of rest and some aspercreme helped it out a lot.

[AnalBumCover]

Congrats on your first 5k! When's the next?

[hoopsguy]

Great job getting the first 5k completed. Bummer on being first to miss on the medal, but if that is a priority there are a number of races where all participants get medals. I know this as those are the only type of medals I've collected.

Once finished 2nd in age group (by one second!), but didn't know it until I had left the race. Shockingly enough, I received nothing in the mail.

[MizzouCowboy]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

Congrats on your first 5k! When's the next?

Thanks! I had the Joplin Memorial Run targeted as my first run several months ago, it is in honor of the 161 people that lost their lives in the May 22nd, 2011 Joplin tornado. It's the big run for this area, with a marathon, half-marathon, 10k, 5k, Walk of Silence, and kids runs. I'm pretty sure I'm going to run in it but I haven't committed to it yet.

Yeah the medal wasn't a big deal, just woulda been kinda cool to get one in my first race which would have been completely unexpected. I did get a cool shirt though!

[hoopsguy]

Ordered my Garmin 235 today. Hoping that the built-in heart rate monitor shows up pretty well. I'll be happy to retire the existing HRM, which has both irritated my chest over the last couple of months, as well as not working reliably over the past year. And I'm expecting the GPS resolution times to be a ton better. The rest of the new features will likely require me to invest some time digging into them to see how they might help me think a little differently about my running.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

Ordered my Garmin 235 today. Hoping that the built-in heart rate monitor shows up pretty well. I'll be happy to retire the existing HRM, which has both irritated my chest over the last couple of months, as well as not working reliably over the past year. And I'm expecting the GPS resolution times to be a ton better. The rest of the new features will likely require me to invest some time digging into them to see how they might help me think a little differently about my running.

Love my 235. I was glad to be rid of the chest strap. However, in the early iterations of the software, the HRM tended to be a hit-or-miss per device. I might have been one of the lucky ones who seemed to have had an accurate monitor. But then again, I never did put the HRM to the tests (HR readings during interval training... which is where the complaints came from).

GPS is damn accurate. Picks up satellites almost instantaneously.

I've just recently started using the workout features on Garmin Connect, and it's great. Just build a workout (set up your warmup, intervals, cooldown, and anything inbetween), sync it to your watch, and go on a run using said workout. It's great. And the workout build feature is pretty robust. And the resulting activity translates great with Strava Premium's workout analysis.

There's also an alert feature that I use as well. Run/walk alert (like a simpler version of a workout). An alert when to eat/fuel or drink. Alerts when your pace is above or below certain levels, even when your HR exceeds or falls outside of certain levels.

For a while I did have bluetooth connectivity issues, but somehow I got it to stay connected to my phone.

Overall, it's a great watch.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

He's still around on Strava. Looks like he fell off the wagon for a short while in Feb, according to Strava. But he's out there now, running about 20+ miles/week.

Yeah, sorry about that. This winter was pretty rough on me. Work was brutal and I was working 80-90 hours with a crazy project. Between being so busy that getting in runs was difficult and stress eating, it was not my best few months.

Most of my runs that synced was just autosynced from my watch when I finished, I wasnt really looking too much at them.

Trying to get myself back together, going to run another marathon this fall, and work has gotten a bit better after April 1st passed, but now dealing with possible layoffs and such (including my boss and his boss), so still dealing with a bunch of stress.

I'm back to running 30+ miles a week, but just don't feel it right now, all of my gains from last year are gone and I'm just not in a great place right now.

[digamma]

Hang in there Alan, you'll find the benefits of cumulative training soon enough. Promise.

[Subby]

I am happy just knowing you are back out there. Keep plugging away, my man!

[Kodos]

Hang in there, Alan. Sorry you've hit a rough patch.

[lighthousekeeper]

Fitness App Runkeeper Secretly Tracks Users At All Times, Sends Data to Advertisers - Slashdot

[Kodos]

Note to self. Turn off GPS when not using actively.

[AnalBumCover]

From my post on Facebook.

My running streak ends tonight. What began as a Lent sacrifice went beyond Easter and continued on as I found new limitations to break through, and new milestones to reach.

Sure, I had many nights when I was trying to talk myself out of quitting. A couple of instances where outside encouragement kept me from hanging up the laces. But every day I managed to get out there and continue on.

To end the streak tonight however, is a decision I was at peace to make. Without rest days, my legs were not getting the recovery time they deserved. And I recognized that. Last week I asked my legs to keep on trucking for a few more days - then they can be at ease.

05/19/2016. Day 100. 152 miles covered.

[Kodos]

I think that's the right choice.

[MizzouCowboy]

I ran my 2nd 5k this morning in the Joplin Memorial Marathon, finishing in 26:33, nearly three minutes faster than my race 2 weeks ago. I think they said there was 1167 participants in the 5k, I finished 164th overall and 7th in my age group. Including the full and half marathon there was around 3200 runners.

I'm pretty happy with my effort, according to strava I set 6 prs despite having poison ivy all over my face, eyes, arms, hands and legs. Couldn't sleep worth a damn last night either.

I might start looking at some 10k runs now, there are some local night runs that look pretty cool.

Oh and the badass award goes to the soldier running a half in full gear.

[hoopsguy]

Wow, that is terrific improvement over 2 weeks! Very cool to see that, as well as taking the plunge on the 10k.

[Northwood_DK]

I ran my second marathon yesterday in Copenhagen.
Stayed on pace for my four hour goal for the first 23K. Then I like many others had underestimated the heat (+25 C with clear blue sky) and didn’t get enough to drink. Started to cramp up in both legs.

I gave up, pulled off my start number and started to walk back.
Then changed my mind and put my start number back on and started running again.

The last 15 K was a mix of walking and slow running to keep the cramps under control.
In the end close to 10% of the 9400 starters didn’t finish so I am just happy for making it all the 42K.
Now I know what it feels like to “hit the wall”

[digamma]

Congrats!

[Subby]

Wow way to tough it out. Leg cramps are THE. WORST.

[Kodos]

Way to overcome adversity!

[lighthousekeeper]

Originally Posted by Northwood_DK

I gave up, pulled off my start number and started to walk back.
Then changed my mind and put my start number back on and started running again.

I picture this as the dramatic turning point in the movie. {music swells}

[AlexB]

... Before running straight through the finish line, to the girl who had just turned to walk away, and after a short uncertain pause they fall into each others arms. Roll credits!

Slight change of tack, just signed up for my first organised ride/run, an 85 mile Sportive in just over 6 weeks. Longest ride this year? 35 miles! In Ireland for a week next week, so will have to try and get some longer rides in in June!

[Northwood_DK]

Nobody would sit thru a slow five hour movie like that.

[Subby]

This is the 3rd year in a row I have completed a local ride called Kill Bill. This year was a little different as I attempted on a single speed bike. It was hard, but I finished without crashing! Anyway - on to the next stupid thing...

[Kodos]

That's totally a Subby thing to do. Nice job!

[Kodos]

Happy 3-year runniversary to me! Also, I just grabbed my first FOFC Strava challenge "championship." Thanks for starting this thread, Subby. You're pure awesomeness.

[Subby]

Dude that is so great. We need to make better use of these challenges bc I can't have you beating me like this.

[Kodos]

Well, you did have like a thousand miles of cycling that I didn't have in May, so you can let me have my little "wins" now and then.

[Kodos]

I think I'm gonna do the Hartford marathon this year. This looks like a good program for someone who's not quite a novice, but a first-time marathoner?

Hal Higdon Training Programs

[digamma]

I think the Higdon programs are great. I ran my first three or four marathons off of his programs.

[Subby]

Higdon would be the program I would use if I was disciplined enough to follow a training program.

[HerRealName]

I recommend following whatever plan FrogMan followed. The man crushed it last weekend and I read somewhere that it was a warm weekend up there.

[Kodos]

Frogman is a great runner. That's for sure.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I think I'm gonna do the Hartford marathon this year. This looks like a good program for someone who's not quite a novice, but a first-time marathoner?

Hal Higdon Training Programs

When he say 5 m run, that means run faster than goal marathon pace, correct?

[cartman]

So, I finally got some resolution on why my knee has been giving me so much trouble since my procedure back in December. I've been trying to get back on my bike, but my knee has been very uncooperative. I went back to the orthopedic doc, and he took a look. As part of the procedure in December, he moved my kneecap to get it to line up properly. I guess it had always been a bit off-kilter, but I never really noticed. Turns out that my kneecap was trying to get back into its old position, and was stuck halfway between the old and new spot. Luckily the fix didn't require any surgery, just a, well how should I put it, forceful manipulation of the knee cap back into the 'new' spot. I'll have to wear a sleeve brace on my knee for a while to help hold it in the new orientation and get it to stay there, and he said to try again on the bike. So later today I'll see how it works. I signed up a while back for a bike ride in Italy, TX which happens next weekend. It might be pushing it a bit to make that one, but hopefully I can do one of the shorter distances at least.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Kodos

When he say 5 m run, that means run faster than goal marathon pace, correct?

I believe it is the opposite, run slower than projected pace. In the link you posted earlier, he mentions that speed work isn't part of that program.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by Kodos

When he say 5 m run, that means run faster than goal marathon pace, correct?

5m "run" means relatively easy pace (slower than goal race pace)
5m "pace" means goal race pace.

[AnalBumCover]

dola

And the Sunday Long Run is at a comfortable pace. According to the link, 30-90 seconds per mile slower than your goal marathon pace.