Official Strava/Runkeeper Thread

[Dodgerchick]

Welp, I was sitting on the couch watching The Twilight Zone and decided to check on this thread. I haven't had a chance to work out at all with the kid's after school schedule and planning their trip to SoCal, my time was limited. I kept telling myself, they're gone, I'm just gonna vedge, I'll start tomorrow. But, after catching up on this thread and following your's guys activities on Strava I felt like a lazy ass and put my running shoes on and stepped outside.

Thanks for the motivation, studs.

[Ben E Lou]

Anyone having trouble lately getting iSmoothRun to update Strava? It's updating all of my other apps, but I've had to manually upload the file for Strava the last three or four days.

[kingfc22]

Alan - you may have mentioned this earlier in the thread but I'm too lazy to look

What device do you use to monitor your heart rate? I'm looking into adding that piece so I can increase the data I receive on each run.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

Alan - you may have mentioned this earlier in the thread but I'm too lazy to look

What device do you use to monitor your heart rate? I'm looking into adding that piece so I can increase the data I receive on each run.

I have a garmin heart rate monitor strap that I wear around my chest. It pairs up with my garmin watch and records the data on my watch while I am running. The watch records my pace, distance, heart rate as well as foot cadence (from a seperate foot pod I wear on my shoe).

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Anyone having trouble lately getting iSmoothRun to update Strava? It's updating all of my other apps, but I've had to manually upload the file for Strava the last three or four days.

Works fine for me.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

Alan - you may have mentioned this earlier in the thread but I'm too lazy to look

What device do you use to monitor your heart rate? I'm looking into adding that piece so I can increase the data I receive on each run.

I use a polar h7 that is compatible with iPhone 5 and all the apps.

[Ryan S]

I don't think I am going to get anywhere near 40k this month as I will be doing a bit of travelling over the next few weeks, so that means lots of hotel treadmills rather than road running. I also want to get a few miles under my belt on the bike.

[lighthousekeeper]

strava site makes you realize how many crazy runners exist in the world. the elderly australian couple who are running a marathon each day for a year (circling australia). some dude went on a 100+ mile run yesterday (at a pace of ~15min/mi - which was like a 28 hour run). these are things i didn't think the human body was capable of.

[kingfc22]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

strava site makes you realize how many crazy runners exist in the world. the elderly australian couple who are running a marathon each day for a year (circling australia). some dude went on a 100+ mile run yesterday (at a pace of ~15min/mi - which was like a 28 hour run). these are things i didn't think the human body was capable of.

This is one of the things I have noticed as well. I was curious to see who the leader was after Day 1 of June and some guy had well over 100 KM's run.

[Dodgerchick]

Originally Posted by kingfc22

This is one of the things I have noticed as well. I was curious to see who the leader was after Day 1 of June and some guy had well over 100 KM's run.

I saw that too. Unreal. There's a documentary about 3 guys who attempt to run across the Sahara desert. They run 50 miles a day for... I dunno, can't remember how many days. Great documentary, it's amazing how far we can push our bodies:

[Icy]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Anyone having trouble lately getting iSmoothRun to update Strava? It's updating all of my other apps, but I've had to manually upload the file for Strava the last three or four days.

I spoke too soon, I get an error message too now, but the routines are being exported properly regardless that error message.

[Ben E Lou]

I disconnected then reconnected, and it synced this morning. *shurg*

[Alan T]

Humidity is below 60% for the first time in a while today, I only have a 3 mile run planned, but excited that hopefully I won't finish looking like I swam in a lake!

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Alan T

Humidity is below 60% for the first time in a while today, I only have a 3 mile run planned, but excited that hopefully I won't finish looking like I swam in a lake!

The wife and daughters are out of town this week so I'm getting to run during the best part of the day. 94% humidity here this morning and in the mid 70s before 7am. My glasses fogged up during the run. Felt pretty good though.

[lighthousekeeper]

in strava, you can see glimpes of your "personal bests" in places (like notification for a particiular activity you set 2nd best PR for 2 miles). If you upgrade to strava premium, can you see a listing of all of your PRs listed in one place?

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

in strava, you can see glimpes of your "personal bests" in places (like notification for a particiular activity you set 2nd best PR for 2 miles). If you upgrade to strava premium, can you see a listing of all of your PRs listed in one place?

No, unfortunately not if I understand what you are asking.

The way that I best can do this and think its available for non-premium also is to go to the Training tab at the top, then choose "My Activities"

You can then sort what you are looking at by distance, miles, number of activities or personal records.

So if you click on personal records, you can then see which runs during that time frame had some kind of personal records that you can then investigate further. It could include segment records too though.

Only personal record listing in one place that I know of is on your profile and it only shows your PR in 1k, 1 mile, 5k, 10k, half-marathon, marathon

[lighthousekeeper]

Strava's tracking of PRs is pretty wonky. For example, it says my PR for mile is 8:25. Yet I've had runs where I've had mile splits in under 8 minutes.

Also, I don't see Personal Records under My Activities tab - maybe its a premium feature.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Strava's tracking of PRs is pretty wonky. For example, it says my PR for mile is 8:25. Yet I've had runs where I've had mile splits in under 8 minutes.

Also, I don't see Personal Records under My Activities tab - maybe its a premium feature.

I know strava does not count a PR for a stretch with a negative incline. Like if you had a mile stretch of road all down hill, it will give you the trophy for it, but won't save it as your PR if I understand correctly. So maybe that happened to you

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Strava's tracking of PRs is pretty wonky. For example, it says my PR for mile is 8:25. Yet I've had runs where I've had mile splits in under 8 minutes.

Also, I don't see Personal Records under My Activities tab - maybe its a premium feature.

Sorry, told you the wrong place. Not under My activities. Its under Training Calendar

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

Strava's tracking of PRs is pretty wonky. For example, it says my PR for mile is 8:25. Yet I've had runs where I've had mile splits in under 8 minutes.

Also, I don't see Personal Records under My Activities tab - maybe its a premium feature.

Just a thought.. if you are looking for a much deeper stat dig into your runs, you might want to look at SportTracks.

It is not a website, it is PC software (They have an online website version that sucks though, and they don't support Mac with the downloadable software in case that affects you). Other than that though, for much better dig into the stats and power with them, you can install plugins that do most of what you are looking for. The free trial lets you do 90 days worth of runs, and most of the plugins are either free or crippled shareware that let you do something like 90 days as well. So you can see if you like it enough to decide to buy it or not.

For instance, here is what my 5km records page looks like in this. I also love doing my training planning in this app too.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Hehehe. No, I don't see me ever having interest in doing anything much longer than a 10K. My best guess is that 8 miles is as far as I'll ever run. (My longest run so far is 7 miles.)

Did 8 miles this morning. It didn't kill me, but I'm not feeling particularly motivated to go any further, either.

[AnalBumCover]

Today June 5, 2013 is National Running Day.

[Alan T]

I put together my summer training plan for running. For anyone interested in some of the details, I finally updated a post to my running log: Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Couch to ??k (A RL running dynasty)

Probably boring for non-stats folks though. Bunch of technical talk and pictures of graphs/charts

[Ben E Lou]

Are there online tools to build a running schedule that don't involve training for a race? Basically I'd like to enter in that my current best 10K time is 58:00, the most I've run is 8 miles, and the most I want to run is 8 miles, and have a tool build something out for me. I've found lots of "enter the race day and the distance of the race" type things...

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Are there online tools to build a running schedule that don't involve training for a race? Basically I'd like to enter in that my current best 10K time is 58:00, the most I've run is 8 miles, and the most I want to run is 8 miles, and have a tool build something out for me. I've found lots of "enter the race day and the distance of the race" type things...

You could perhaps use the Higdon Spring training plan found here: Hal Higdon Training Programs it primarily helps build a running base without the focus on a race. Since it is working on building the base though, there is very little speed exercises in it that would be focused more on improving your running speed. Your 10k time would naturally improve as your aerobic base improves though.

From what it sounds like though, I personally would suggest that you actually train for a race, even if you don't plan on running a race. Because of how fitness vs fatigue works, it is very unhealthy to continuously add more and more and more miles on end. Eventually the fatigue would overtake you. So it is important to have recovery time or down weeks in the plan and most race training schedules that are good have that factored in.

I think picking out a race training plan will be exactly what you want. It will give you plans to work on your aerobic base while also mixing in speed work such as tempo runs or intervals and give you a good time frame to do it in. I would personally say you should pick a date 12 weeks from now and set that as your "race date" and then work on the race plan for those 12 weeks. At the end, take a week of less running to recover and then you can do it again or pick a new goal or whatever you want. YOu don't have to actually run a race to benefit from the training program.

If you do go that way, the very first training plan I used was Runners world smartcoach found here: Rodale Central Authentication Service (CAS) Login You put in the date of the "race", put in a recent running time (such as your 58:00 for the 10k) and then put in how many miles a week and intensity of your workouts and it will put a plan together for you with the times you should run in those workouts.

I use some more complex training plans now myself and use Daniels spreadsheets for determining running place, I would be happy to share that info with folks interested too.

[Alan T]

Dola, forgot to say, in the smart coach plan it does let you specify your running distance for your race to be 12k (7.4 or so miles), but because of how aerobic bases work, it will have your long runs be much more than 8 miles. So if the max you ever want to run is 8 miles for your long runs, then you could actually train for a 5k race. Or another option is when it has a 10 mile long run scheduled, you just stop at 8 if you want.

The plans are just a guide, never have to do more than you really want.

[Ben E Lou]

Thanks!

Heh. The Hal Higdon program includes "hill runs" once a week. Hehehe. I suspect I'd have to drive 50 miles or so to find some of those.

Looking around all of these suckers, so far the effin' RunKeeper half-marathon in 2:00 plan looks like exactly what I want to do, except for the part where you have to run a half-marathon.

We'll see.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Thanks!

Heh. The Hal Higdon program includes "hill runs" once a week. Hehehe. I suspect I'd have to drive 50 miles or so to find some of those.

Looking around all of these suckers, so far the effin' RunKeeper half-marathon in 2:00 plan looks like exactly what I want to do, except for the part where you have to run a half-marathon.

We'll see.

Hills is a common issue for people who live in flatter areas. The most common recommendation I hear from more experienced runners is if you can't find hills near by, you can substitute in stadiums or other equivalent steps instead. Others have suggested highway overpasses since they usually have an incline of some sort on them too.

[Ben E Lou]

So I think I've settled on just doing my own thing. How does this look?

	WEIGHTS	RUNNING
MONDAY	OFF	OFF
TUESDAY	chest/triceps	Tempo 60 Minutes
WEDNESDAY	OFF	Slow 45-60 Minutes
THURSDAY	back/biceps	OFF
FRIDAY	OFF	Intervals
SATURDAY	legs/shoulders	OFF
SUNDAY	OFF	Long Slow

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So I think I've settled on just doing my own thing. How does this look?

I can't comment on the strength part of the schedule since I am pretty negligent in that area myself. For the running, probably is fine. it has more speed work and less aerobic work that I personally like for myself, but sounds like what you are looking for. Some reading material that may interest you along those lines if interested are:

Run Less, Run Faster - A book from runner's world based on research done by Furman institute of running and scientific training. They put together their approach to try to make running more approachable for people with less time.

And an example of a marathon training plan from them: http://marathon.harvard.edu/images/first_first.pdf

Their attempt is to try to help people run faster without having to spend as much time on the aerobic base, and there have been people who have been successful with this program. Basically they have a schedule similar to what you are trying to put together, but do it with 3 running days a week. An interval run, a tempo run and a long run.

I know much of the stuff I read and follow have issues with Furman's stuff on this issue that they completely ignore building a solid aerobic base and they disagree with Furman's inferred belief that "easy miles" are "junk miles". But this might be something you are interested in looking at more since it has a good deal of scientific study towards a plan that looks similar to what you want.

[Alan T]

Dola, That link to FIRST's marathon training plan is probably not really relevant for you.. here is a better one for you, a link to their 5k training plan:

http://www2.furman.edu/sites/first/D...ram-metric.pdf

It has 3 exercises a week, Intervals, tempo Run, long run. The long runs never get beyond 12k (roughly 7.something miles) which seems to be what you indicate you want. Give it a look

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Alan T

... do it with 3 running days a week. An interval run, a tempo run and a long run...

Long-term, that sounds *perfect* for me. Right now while I still have 25-30 pounds to lose and am not feeling overworked at my current level of training, if I don't get suckerered into doing the half-marathon training, I'm probably going to stick with the 5-6 days per week of cardio for another 4-6ish weeks, then drop it down to something like the 4-day plan I posted above around the middle of the summer, then down to interval/tempo/long later on.

[digamma]

I ran the NY marathon using the 3x a week plan. It was about 3 minutes slower than my Boston time, which is a very reasonable difference given the relatively more difficult NY course and crowding issues in the first mile there.

My conclusion was that it is a viable plan for a good performance, but maybe not peak performance. (Not sure if anyone is really going for peak performance.)

[FrogMan]

just came back from a pretty cool little 3k with my 16yo son. He's a hockey goalie and has never been big on cardio. He teaches karate with me and is even a second degree black belt, but he barely trains anymore. I'm hoping I can drag him outside for a few runs every now and then...

Kinda felt good that on that distance, daddy could still kick his boy's butt. I kept encouraging him though and he finished the 2 miles almost 90 seconds faster than what he did at school just a few weeks ago. Just showing me that he simply didn't pace himself right back then and had nobody to chase after...

FM

[Alan T]

As down as I was about last week's performance in my 10k, I'm absolutely pumped today. Decided to run a spontaneous 5k race (my training plan had an easy 3 mile scheduled, but I ran a not so easy 3 miles)

Days like today help me realize all of those days putting in the easy runs of long miles is worth it! Official scorekeeper time for the race had me at 26:32. My watch was a little slower 26:57, but either way still my best ever 5k

Getting close to a 20 minute improvement on my first ever 5k race last October 21st where I had a 44:30

[Dodgerchick]

Alan, that's awesome!

[Kodos]

Agreed. Nice to see your hard work is paying off with very tangible results.

[Fidatelo]

Congrats Alan, nice run!

[HerRealName]

I've been messing with different options for exporting nike+ information and I've found a good tool that will export into gpx files. I'll be joining the FOFC group soon - get ready to see the most boring running routes humanly possible. A lot of boxes and straight lines. It's what happens when you live in the middle of a mile by mile grid.

[AnalBumCover]

Heh, no worries from me. I live in a 1/2 x 1/2 mile grid.

[Kodos]

I always run at the local track.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I always run at the local track.

the maps of your runs always crack me up

FM

[FrogMan]

and Alan, well done! Are there 5k races like that every week where you live?

FM

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

the maps of your runs always crack me up

FM

Yep. They're a bit boring. Some day I may find a nice trail to run on.

[FrogMan]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Yep. They're a bit boring. Some day I may find a nice trail to run on.

fwiw, I'm still scouting the surroundings to give me some routes I will know beforehand how long I'll run. Right now I'm still going out with a vague idea of how long I want to go but I often end up taking a turn here or there to add some distance to my run...

FM

[Icy]

I use this site to find routes mainly for mountain bike, but it's also useful for running:

You can search by name, location, short by distance, etc.

Wikiloc - GPS trails and waypoints of the World

[Icy]

After taking care of my two kids suffering a cold or light flu, it was just a matter of time, both my wife and me are sick today too.

I have pain in my throat, my nose is pouring all the time and i feel tired. If the evolution is like on my kids, it will go down to my lungs in a day or two and stay there for a week with heavy cough.

What is my biggest worry right now? that I might not be able to run or bike or that maybe i shouldn't even if i can.

What do you guys do in those situations? just say "f@¢k you body" and keep training? or to take some rest days to recover?

If i end having to stop training for a week, i'm going to at least do an strict 1 week diet plan to lose weight as i have not been able to do it while training hard.

Damn winter/srpring is being unusually long in Spain, past year at this date we had the max temperature here (104F) and today is raining and 70F. We have 2 warm sunny days, and then storms, wind and low temperature for this time of the year, so it's so easy to get sick as you don't know what kind of clothes to wear.

[finketr]

Originally Posted by Icy

Damn i'm sick today, after taking care of my two kids suffering a cold or light flu, it was just a matter of time, both my wife and me are sick today too.

I have pain in my throat, my nose is pouring all the time and i feel tired. If the evolution is like my kids, it will go down to my lungs in a day or two and stay there for a week with heavy cough.

What is my biggest worry right now? that I might not be able to run or bike or that maybe i shouldn't even if i can.

What do you guys do in those situations? just say "f@¢k you body" and keep training? or to take some rest days to recover?

If i end having to stop training for a week, i'm going to at least do an strict 1 week diet plan to lose weight as i have not been able to do it while training hard.

Damn winter/srpring is being unusually long in Spain, past year at this date we had the max temperature here (104F) and today is raining and 70F. We have 2 warm sunny days, and then storms, wind and low temperature for this time of the year, so it's so easy to get sick as you don't know what kind of clothes to wear.

When I visited the incubators of death, i mean my niece and nephew, they got me pretty sick. I couldn't even really sit up for a couple of days...

I say take the time off and get better.. don't let it turn into pneumonia.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

and Alan, well done! Are there 5k races like that every week where you live?

FM

In Massachusetts there are tons and tons of 5k races for charity every week, virtually I could easily find one to sign up for any time I want. The one I did yesterday is just a low key 5k (Costs $5) held by a local running club every week. No prizes or shirts or anything, just a chance to go out and race each week if you want. I enjoy doing the races, but try not to do them too much as I end up running way too hard and it wrecks the rest of my training plan if I am not careful about scheduling it in.

Originally Posted by Icy

I use this site to find routes mainly for mountain bike, but it's also useful for running:

You can search by name, location, short by distance, etc.

Wikiloc - GPS trails and waypoints of the World

For a while, I used RouteLoops: Free, custom route planner for biking and running mapping . You don't even have o search for routes, you just put in your address and how far you want to run and it gives you a loop to run of that length (or as close as it can find). Some of the routes it gives back are a little crazy, so sometimes I would have to have it try over again a few times til I found one that I liked.

Now though, I've pretty much gotten all of the possible combinations within 10 miles of my house figured out so I just plan my daily runs by hand using Garmin Connect. Runkeeper has a route creator that is similar where you just map it out by hand on the road and at the end it comes back with the distance, but I like Garmin Connect's better solely due to how it presents the total elevation of the run so I know how much trouble I am getting myself into with hills.

Originally Posted by Icy

What do you guys do in those situations? just say "f@¢k you body" and keep training? or to take some rest days to recover?

Luckily for me, somehow even with 3 kids and a wife that works in the school system I haven't gotten severely sick since I got back from my back surgery in December. So I don't have a ton of first hand experience on this one. The rule as I understand it that many runners stick to is something like the neck rule:

If its above the neck (such as a head cold), sniffling and runny nose and such, its generally considered ok to go out for your run, but be aware of your body and don't push too hard, just take it easy.

If it is below the neck, such as a chest cold, take the time off. In addition, if you're running a fever of say 97 F (37.2 C) or more, you should probably take it off as the energy you spend in running could probably be better spent fighting whatever it is you have.

The only caveat I've read is just be cautious if deciding to run with a head cold, you don't want to run with a sinus infection or anything, and you definitely don't want to push yourself too hard and make yourself even more sick as that can sideline you for far longer than a few days.

You won't lose your fitness that you have gained from running in taking off 3 days or such. So my personal opinion, unless you have an important race or something that you absolutely don't want to miss, just take the few days and use it as an extended recovery phase which will reset your Training Stress Balance and make you fresher when you're better.

[Subby]

Up to 19 members in the FOFC Strava club. Pretty impressive!

Next step - upload a profile pic. I don't care how hideous you look.