Pandemic Running Thoughts (Comments Welcome)

And . . . I've got a cold. This one is preventing me from doing my Monday and Wednesday runs (at least). Fortunately, it's a week that I had planned for fewer miles at an easy pace. I'm hoping to be well enough to run on the treadmill on Friday before resuming the 9 mile week on Sunday. Here's hoping.
 
Greetings folks! I just thought I'd drop my head in and say hello again from India! So far running in India has been unthinkable. As some of you have said, the roads are just too chaotic and I really had to visit to really understand what that meant!

I did run three times while in Israel. The relatives I was staying with had a sort of measured loop around a block of streets right near their house, so I could get on that and do a loop for 3.5km. I ran once with the wife, who is planning on running the 5k in the 2019 WDW Marathon.

Hoping to actually run tomorrow in Jaisalmer. It's a quieter city and I should be able to fhave some places to run.
 
Two runs in Jaisalmer down! The first was just about 1km. Some of the "wildlife" can be a bit freaky and it's tough to run if there's a possibility in the back of my mind that the animal might charge.

Today's run was a bit more productive. Did two miles out and back on a main road leading out of the city. it's a small city (of about 70,000) and we're staying near the north end (for another day). The road out of town was long and straight and well paved. Running on the city roads is treacherous, given the amount of traffic, though lesser in this city than others) but the road leading north was much more comfortable. Managed to do a mile out and a mile back for 2 miles.
 
Now in Pushkar, India. I did do a third run for 2.5 miles in Jaisalmer and was planning to run today but, as a result of lack of sleep on overnight train ride (that not only left Jaisalmer late, but took about 12 hours to get to Ajmer, the closes city to Pushkar), I overslept today and had to forego the run. I'll get at it tomorrow and will hopefully be able to get three runs in this week in Pushkar before about a week of busier streets in Jaipur and Delhi.

Getting back on track is going to be tough back home to snowy, cold, Canada, but that's what the gym is for.
 


And the wheels come off again. I think i've come down with some bronchitis and I'm putting the running on hold until I get back to Canada (particularly because of the pollution levels in Jaipur and Delhi . . . the two remaining destinations).

Wish me luck!
 
Happy New Year everyone! And good luck to everyone who might be running the WDW Marathon Race Weekend! I'm following along as best as I can from half a world away. I wish I was running this year but the plan is to do WDW next year!
 
No, I haven't updated this recently enough, mainly because I've been reading done of the awesome trip reports about other folks' Marathon weekend! Great reading stuff by @rteetz @ZellyB and @DopeyBadger ! It's not just living vicariously, it's super inspiring!

Now that we're into 2018 and the current WDW Marathon weekend is done, and now that I'm back in the frigid tundra of Canada, it's time to look forward. To Dopey 2019 with a side order of my wife running her first race ever, the WDW 5K!

My dopey training gets under way just trying to get back to where I was before travelling.

I got back Tuesday night and did 2 miles on the treadmill on Wednesday and Friday. I have to say that the legs felt a little wobbly towards the end so I'm glad that I didn't try to jump right back in to where I was before.

This week, the plan is for 6.6 total miles, 2.2 each on Monday Wednesday and Friday. I'm actually at the gym right now on Tuesday, doing some crosstraining and weights, something that I've been neglecting.

After this week, I'm gradually increasing mileage, using the "no more than 10% increase per week" guideline, stepping back every four weeks.

This is all to get me to a half marathon, the Toronto Marathon in early May. From there, I'll start gearing up for dopey, but with a couple of other checkpoints in mind. First, on @DopeyBadger's recommendation, I'll look for a 10 miler to try to help with Proof of Time to improve my corral placement, and, I'll run the Toronto Waterfront half Marathon in October as my final tune up.

That's the plan! Looking forward to a healthy 2018 full of running!
 


The first full week of post-return training is in the books and I'm pretty happy with running the equivalent of about 7 miles on the treadmill. The weather forecast for this coming week isn't great (a lot of snow/rain in the forecast), but I'm going to try to get out and do at least one day in the real world this week.

Monday I ran 2.2 miles, Wednesday 2.3 miles and Friday 2.5 miles. This coming week I've got 2.8 on Monday, 2.5 on Wednesday and 2.5 on Friday on the books.
 
Another week down and 7.9 miles in the books. I ran 2.8 miles outside on Sunday last week, another 2.5 on Wednesday on the treadmill and 2.6 on Friday outside. Woohoo!
 
The running continues. The week started with a 5k (3.1 miles) outside on Sunday, taking advantage of milder weather while it was still around. My average pace was 12:39/mile but my mile splits got faster as I was going (12:53, 12:45, 12:23).

My next two runs (2.8 miles Wed, 2.7 miles Friday) were both completed on the treadmill with quite slow paces (around 13;30/mile). I've started to use the treadmill with a 0.5 grade incline. I've heard differing thoughts about treadmill running and what level incline to use to simulate wind and just general actually pushing yourself through the world. But I don't want to add too much incline too quickly. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Another notion that I'm starting to come around on, particularly when it comes to treadmill running, is to go by heart rate. Reading 1:59 by Dr. Philip Maffetone, I'm reading more about training below the "Maximum Aerobic Fitness" level. Very similar to how @DopeyBadger sets out his training by heart rate, he figures (for laypeople without access to expensive fitness testing in a lab) that a good guideline for maximum aerobic level of heartrate is to take 180 and subtract age (41) and then subtract or add any additional qualifiers. Since I'm coming back to running after a layoff, I'm subtracting 5 more from the initial 180 which gives me a range of 124 to 134 bpm. I've found that my treadmill training just barely gets me to about 125 bpm when I increase pace to about 13:19/mile, and that's after about 30 minutes of running. I think that, especially for treadmill running, gauging pace by time and heart rate is going to be the way to go.

So I think I'll need to invest in a heart rate monitor watch or some gizmo of that ilk. Any recommendations for the severely budget strapped? I'm probably going to start with looking at getting one second hand.

Next week, we up mileage to 9.5 miles and I'll do four runs with 3.1 miles (or equivalent) on Sunday, 2 miles Monday, 2.2 on Wednesday and Friday. I have been cross training (and I likely will do an easy stationary bike and/or swim today) and really like swimming when the pool at my gym isn't too busy. I find that I have issues in one shoulder (I've had bursitis, tendinitis and possibly some rotator cuff issues) so I've been doing some weight training as well but I find that swimming really helps the shoulder rotationally.

Finally, I'm changing my Goal Race! Since my wife is going to be out of town on the weekend that I was supposed to run the Toronto Half Marathon, it gives me a chance to take the car for the weekend and do some of my part-time work covering the Toronto Blue Jays minor league baseball teams. AND, the Double-A team is playing in Binghamton that weekend, AND Binghamton has a half marathon on May 6! Interesting how that all just comes together! It's either that, or go to Lansing, MI where the team's Class-A affiliate is and run the Kalamazoo HM on the Sunday.
 
Any recommendations for the severely budget strapped?

http://www.scosche.com/rhythm-plus-heart-rate-monitor-armband

This one comes highly recommended.

I think that, especially for treadmill running, gauging pace by time and heart rate is going to be the way to go.

It's a great idea. The perception of effort between outdoor and treadmill can be off for some people as well. So 13:00 doesn't always equal 13:00. In those cases, I tell people to trust their effort. Run whatever pace on the treadmill that feels like 13:00 outdoors. This is likely the same "pace" as perceived by the body then and would elicit similar physiological adaptations. Similar to using HR, but just effort based.

Very similar to how @DopeyBadger sets out his training by heart rate

For me, HR is a surrogate marker of how the run went after it's over. I don't look at the HR mid-run because I don't do well with extra data like that (messes me up mentally). So I run by effort/pace, and then evaluate my HR post-run to track progress and confirm what my effort felt like. I think HR is a useful tool in the toolbox of a runner.
 
Finally, I'm changing my Goal Race! Since my wife is going to be out of town on the weekend that I was supposed to run the Toronto Half Marathon, it gives me a chance to take the car for the weekend and do some of my part-time work covering the Toronto Blue Jays minor league baseball teams. AND, the Double-A team is playing in Binghamton that weekend, AND Binghamton has a half marathon on May 6! Interesting how that all just comes together! It's either that, or go to Lansing, MI where the team's Class-A affiliate is and run the Kalamazoo HM on the Sunday.
Uhhhh jealous of your PT gig. #IsItBaseballSeasonYET
 
Quoting Jennamfeo -
Uhhhh jealous of your PT gig. #IsItBaseballSeasonYET
Anxiously waiting! I do take an annual trip to Florida for spring training and I'm looking forward to being able to run in warmer weather!
 
Anxiously waiting! I do take an annual trip to Florida for spring training and I'm looking forward to being able to run in warmer weather!
I was just checking the AZ Spring Training schedule in hopes that we could squeeze a trip in. I don't think we can, but we are going to the DBacks opening weekend most likely!
 
I was just checking the AZ Spring Training schedule in hopes that we could squeeze a trip in. I don't think we can, but we are going to the DBacks opening weekend most likely!

Dbacks fan? Or fan of another team?
 
Well the good news is that I hit my 9.5 miles this week, the bad news is that it was all on the treadmill. I'm running at a 0.5 incline. My scheduling wasn't the best. Instead of Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday runs, somehow my Sunday got away from me and I had to go to Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Which means that this week, I'll have three days of running in a row with runs yesterday (Saturday), today (Sunday) and tomorrow (Monday).

Since I"ve been on the treadmill I've been able to periodically track my heart rate and I'm still finding it difficult to get to the target aerobic max of 134 that the book "1:59" recommends training at to increase aerobic efficiency. Long story short, they say that by training as close as possible to your aerobic max, you increase aerobic and running efficiency and, over time, are able to train at faster paces while maintaining the same heart rate.

That said, I'm probably ok with training in the 125-130 bpm range (which is also supposed to give aerobic efficiency improvement), mainly because I'm still in a build up phase from the year of starts and stops due to injuries and being in India. I've also been pushing the speeds on the treadmill (I generally run faster in the real world, although I need to get a heart rate monitor to be able to monitor how the pace and effort levels match heart rate) because I've found that even at "paces" that have usually been recommended to me in the past (around 13:20-13:30/mile), my heart rate is still below the aerobic efficiency zone (124-134).

Fortunately, after a week at 9.5 miles and four consecutive weeks of increasing mileage, this is a "step down" week where I'll run just 8 miles.

Coming up this week:

Sunday: 2.5 miles
Monday: 1.5 miles
Wednesday: 2 miles
Friday: 2 miles

Let's hope this snow stops and the weather stays around the freezing mark and I'll be able to get outside again.

BTW, you can follow me on Strava - just shoot me a PM for deets!
 
Ran outside today! Also tried out the Scosche Rhythm+ Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and. . . . .it doesn't work with Strava on my phone. What? Well, I've got a crappy phone and it seems like it only works on phones running 4.3.0 Android or higher and I think I'm running 4.0.2. So, yeah. It looks like I'm going back to Runkeeper which WAS able to sync with the device on Bluetooth.

Anyone know how to transfer stats and run data from Runkeeper to Strava? Is it even possible?
 
First, on @DopeyBadger's recommendation, I'll look for a 10 miler to try to help with Proof of Time to improve my corral placement, and, I'll run the Toronto Waterfront half Marathon in October as my final tune up.

Are there any 10 milers in the Toronto area? Let me know if you come across one!
 

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