Sports & Fitness The Running Thread (All Abilities)

Should be a good interin step to aim for before Novembers 60. I'm the opposite, anything more than 10-15k on road and my hips and knees are destroyed.

 

My training is ruined with a rug rat and work. Just trying to keep some basic fitness so when I get time I can ramp up easily

I wouldn't put money on there been any finishers let alone back just one!

 

Yeah, no one finished again this year if I recall rightly?

 

It's already come and gone this year. She only got to Loop 2, but didn't finish the second loop in the 30 hour cut off limit (apparently she didn't know there was a time cutoff for the second loop).

The 2018 Barkley Marathons: Confidence through Failure - Race Ipsa Loquitur

 

Anyone doing the Sydney SMH Half tomorrow?

Might see you there - I'll be in Green Start (hopefully not with a green face )

Goal time under 2:00:00 but by the looks of things there are a couple of steep sections here and there. Bit more up and down than the September Blackmores one. Will still give it a crack.

 

Arrrgh... finished in 2:00:10!

Timing was *just* a little bit off , but still a PB by over 3 minutes, on a course with a lot more ramps in it!

 

3 min off a PB is nothing to sneeze at! Congratulations. You'd have undoubtedly been faster if people didn't get in your way in these big events.

I've been keeping up my running this past month or so. Only doing around 30k a week, but noticing significant improvements (feels like every run I go for currently is a PB). I only started running again at the beginning of the year, so I'm obviously starting at a low base. Hitting the gym in my down days and my official rest day has become a cycling day (I don't know how that happened).

Obviously need a lot more miles under my legs before I try for my marathon goal (I'm a big believer that you should be running weekly ~2x the distance of the race you want to compete in if you want to give it your best), but happy at this stage to keep running at its current level so I can focus on gym & staying injury free.

 

Nice work @marty998 @Waldo

Something different for me yesterday, I "ran" up Mt Donna Buang. Up via the Mt Victoria Walking track (who's idea was it to put a walking track in a straight line up a mountain with no switchbacks?)

You climb 1000 vertical meters in the first k. The first 3.2k section from Warburton to the road crossing is an average gradient of over 24%

It was raining, cold, misty and muddy. Completely un-runnable (both due to being so sloppy so no grip and so steep).

First 5k are very tough, then your cross the road and it's becomes runnable and much better under foot.

18k with over 1200 vertical meters of climbing, we added an extension on the water race on the way down to get it up to 21.3k.

Coming down the bottom 5k was not really any faster than going up it! It was so steep and slippy, lots of slips and falls and muddy backsides.

Quads were destroyed by the bottom from talking your own weight the whole time.

Over 4 hours in the end, tough route but great day out and a cracking adventure. The adverse weather really makes it more exciting I reckon.

If you guys are using Strava, also check out Relive, you link it to Strava and it creates 3D videos of your run/ride with any pics you take embedded...

Relive 'Vertical K run. Bloody tough.'

And here's few pics from yesterday....

Numbnuts on Instagram: “Sunday. Where will your #adventure take you?”

Numbnuts on Instagram: “Cracker!”

Numbnuts on Instagram: “Sunday. Where will your #adventure take you?”

 

Dropped the 5 in the original posy and it won't let me edit it.... it should read:-

"You climb 1000 vertical meters in the first 5k"

 

Finished Toughest Mudder on the weekend. As a group we did 4 laps of the course = 32ks in 6.5hrs. Not a cracking pace but still fairly happy with the result. Hit the wall big time at the end of lap 3. 4am and drenched, 7degrees in Woodford, uncontrollably shaking, lots of competitors out and wrapped in foil thermal blankets.

Just pulled the headtorches back on and started putting one foot in front of the other again, feeling great come sunrise!

 

Nice work @Blueskies sounds brutal!

Would you do it again?

 

Probably, was a great challenge, good sense of teamwork with all competitors and would like to aim for at least one more lap next time. Just need a little time to pass to forget the painful side!

 

Very cool feature on Strava. Really nice countryside/mountains you're running through!
What do use to log your runs and take photos?

I finally got back into running.. rugrats have taken up all time before and after work, so I'll be running in the lunch hours at work. Will try running with aerobic heart rate and build my base back for now..

 

@vbplease I use a Garmin Fenix 5 watch to track the runs heart rate. That uploads straight to the Garmin Connect App on the iPhone via Bluetooth once you've finished your run.

I take photo's on the phone as I go and upload them to Instagram. They are Geo tagged based on where you are when you upload it.

Garmin Connect - Strava - Instagram - Relive are all connected to each other within the apps.

Once i finish a run, I save the Garmin, within a few seconds it uploads to Garmin connect and instantaneously copies in to Strava then Relive pops up and asks if I want a video of it. Meanwhile Strava and Relive pull all the photos in from Instagram that were uploaded within the time period of the activity. All that is automatic as soon as I hot save on the watch. The only thing I do is go into Strava and change he activity name.

It's all really seamless and integrated,

You don't need the garmin either, my mates all run with just the Strava app running and tracking on their phones, everything else is the same in regard to Instagram & Relive links.

The iPhone 6s and above have barometric pressure sensors in too, so you get decent elevation data, as does the Garmin Fenix.

The iPhone 5 and below extrapolate elevation from the GPS which is woefully innacurate,

 

Wow, can't believe how well it's automated.. that's very cool!

How do you find the heart rate monitor on the Fenix? Is it pretty reliable?

 

@vbplease Yeah, works great. The only thing with it is you have to have your Strava and Instagram profiles set to public to trigger the Instagram import and Relive video creation.

You link your Strava and Insta within Strava, when you upload to Strava it checks your Instagram account and pulls in any photo's upload between the start & finish activity time plus a little each side (you can delete any that skipped in that you don't want), but if you set your Insta to Private Strava won't import them.

Simian with Relive, you set Relive to watch your Strava feed. As soon as it sees a new activity it imports the data and photo;s from Strava (whether they got into Strava via Strava direct photo's or through Instagram), and asks if you want to create a video, The relive app also lets you add any further from your phone album or change the activity name etc. But if your Strava is set to Private then Relive will ignore any new activities popping up in your feed and not create a video.

You can't make videos of historic activities, it only works on the fly each time it detects a new activity in your Strava feed. If you don't create a video from it when asked then you cant go back later and make it.

From what I read, the Fenix HR is pretty good but none of the wrist based HR's can touch a chest strap.

For me though, not being an athlete by any means, I'm not too concerned about absolute accuracy as much as watching the overall trends over time - it's been cool watching my working HR come down as my speed has gone up over the last year or so. It seems to be pretty accurate form what I can tell, I do get the occasional 200+ bpm on an all out effort which can't be right (I'd likely die), but they don't happen very often.

It's a great tool now I have enough runs under me to correlate perceived effort with HR. Now I know roughly what HR to sit on for 5k, 10k, 15k, half marathons and 30+ etc. I've got it pretty fine tuned now. I know if I'm going above my target HR for the distance I'm aiming for I'll blow up before the end and need to wind back even if perceived effort is feeling good.

Next time I jump on the treadmill with the chest HR I'll wear the Fenix too and see how they compare over an hours treadmill run.

 

@vbplease I put an hour on on the treadmill last night with both chest HR strap connected to the treadmill and also ran the Fenix.

I ran a variety of speeds and inclines to get the HR through a decent range.

The Fenix and chest strap were within 1-2 bpm of each other (sometimes Fenix was a 1-2 over, sometimes 1-2 under the strap).

When changing speed or incline the chest strap seemed to react quicker with maybe a 5 second lag on the Fenix but once you were at a steady effort again the Fenix caught up and settled and was back within 1-2 bpm of the chest strap.

Interestingly, when I finished and stopped both the tread and watch the watch was within 10 meters of the distance ran on the treadmill console and within 1 second on the average pace! All from it's accelerometer algorithm. I deleted the watch activity too soon, I should have had a look at the splits breakdown to see how it compared right across the hours range.

 

I read similar reviews of the wrist hr devices from DC Rainmaker who mentions there is a bit of a lag, a few bpm's out and perhaps a few irregular spikes and dips, but for the most part will do the job very well.

I'm thinking of getting a headphone hr device like the Jabra Sport Pulse. Its only $114.. that way I can run with just the phone and wireless headphones, track the run, track hr, listen to music, and receive a call in case of emergency..

 

@vbplease If you're not going for a watch just yet and track with the phone you could try a bluetooth HR chest strap and I recommend Trekz bone conducting earphones.

I have a Quadlock Bluetooth chest strap that talks directly to Strava as your phone records but they don't seem to have them on their site anymore.

I did find this one, no idea if it's as good:-

Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor – Trakteam

If I run with ear phones then I always use these, they sit on your jaw line in front of your ears and conduct through the bone so your ears are still open. You can still here everything going on around you as well as your music in your head! Amazing. Not as good quality as an in ear bud but more than good enough, If I'm going for a long run I tend to listen to podcasts.

Aftershokz Treks Titanium Wireless Headphones (Slate Grey)

They're also great if you need to make a long call at home. Very comfortable and you can still hear the TV when your mother-in-law is on the phone boring the pants ff you!

They actually work really well as hands free phone when you're out walking too to be honest, wind noise at running speed I've not tested but my partner has a pair and she used to phone me whilst out walking the dog the sound quality was better than calling direct from her phone.

EDITED TO ADD - Just checked their Aftershokz site, it says they have "dual noise cancelling mics" which would explain how they are so clear when receiving calls.

 

I assume you have put the treadmill through its paces now. How are you finding it? Anything that is annoying with it or is it about as good as treadmill running gets?