The Running Thread - 2018

[Bree]

“Fall” weather for Central Florida has arrived! T+D was 118 for my run this morning instead of 158.

 

[sourire]

Loved reading all the weekend race recaps so far! Congratulations all, and thanks for writing!!!

 

[LSUlakes]

I am for no logical reason terrified of 10 miles. I have gone 8ish miles for the last 2 months and been fine, and taken my kids to the zoo afterwards so really fine. But the thought of 10 has me crawling back into bed telling myself I will never do it.
Has anyone else seen a distance as unconquerable? Did you find a way to get past it?

It's a huge mental barrier, but once you cross it you will feel like superman and nothing will scare you, that is until your next goal is 20. But going from single digit to double is a really big deal so I understand where you are coming from. You got this!

 

[run.minnie.miles]

Congrats to all of the racers over the weekend! So many accomplishments to celebrate!!

 

[LSUlakes]

QOTD: Do you pause your watch during training runs? If so, what in an acceptable reason to pause? Drink stop? Restroom? Stoplight? Short rest?

Todays question is from a fellow poster. Thank you for your suggestion!

ATTQOTD: I pause my watch during my long runs all the time. I stop it for red lights, water stops, restroom stops, or to re tie my shoes. I just try to keep my stops short, nothing longer than 5 minutes. Now for a race, there is no stopping my watch, the clock at the finish line does not stop for me to use a restroom, so I dont then as well so I know exactly where I am at time wise during a race. As I get closer to race day, I use fewer stops during my training runs. I practice taking fluids and GU in while on the move, but stopping at a red light is unavoidable until race day.

 

[LSUlakes]

I am hoping this week things return to "normal" for me and wanted to apologize for my sporadic involvement in the thread last week. I missed Tuesday and Thursday from work with sick kiddos. By Friday the total damage was DD having the flue and both ears infected, DW and DS had strep. Everyone is feeling better, not 100%, but well enough to return to school / work today. Also the weather is amazing!

 

[GreatLakes]

QOTD: Do you pause your watch during training runs? If so, what in an acceptable reason to pause? Drink stop? Restroom? Stoplight? Short rest?

I pause my watch when I stop for more than a few seconds. Water stop, restroom, road crossing that will take a few minutes. If I am just resting or stopping to walk I don't pause it.

 

[FFigawi]

QOTD: Do you pause your watch during training runs? If so, what in an acceptable reason to pause? Drink stop? Restroom? Stoplight? Short rest?

I manually pause my watch during training runs at water stops, red lights, and other breaks along the way. I never stop it during race day, which is why I don't use auto pause in training. There's a chance I'd forget to change the settings. My bike computer is set up similarly because I can have two different activity profiles, one for training where it stops anytime speed us below 3mph and one for racing where it never stops. The training mode kicked in during the ferry ride portion of our century ride this weekend, lowering our average speed because the ferry topped out at 12mph.

 

[ZellyB]

Love the race recaps as usual, but have to give a shout out to @michigandergirl . You crushed it, gurl!!!!

 

[KSellers88]

LOVED all the recaps from the weekend! Congrats y'all!

ATTQOTD: I try not to pause mine. We don't have red lights where I live/run, so I don't have to worry about stopping for those. Every now and then I have to stop to talk to my grandparents or a neighbor as they drive by, but I try to be as close to race day as I can. The park and route in town that I run on does have streets that cross it, but I try to time crossing those to where I do not have to pause it.

 

[TheHamm]

Thanks @SarahDisney @flav & @LSUlakes for the encouragement and suggestions. I have ~5 long run opportunities left on the calendar and assume weather will take out half of them, so that panic is also not helpful. I will try the km unit, it is the only major metric unit I can’t seem to do in my head, but knowing I will try anyhow might be enough of a distraction. I do not see myself needing to get past 13.1 for quite some time, so I will not consider 20 miles an option

Also, I groaned (& perhaps mumbled something inappropriate) when this was the first song in church- after I chickened out of Sunday morning run as well.

During the hymn my 5 year old asked why I did not run that morning (there was the icy sheen on the sidewalk, but not the real reason). She followed it up by asking if I was going to run a race soon because she wants my potato chips that she is sure come home after every race. Being more time limited, but happy about daylight and warmer temperatures I went out for only 5 of my feared 10 miles. During the shorter than it should have been run, I actually considered today's QOTD, so talk about timely coincidences!

ATTQOTD: Yesterday was the first time I have paused a recording device (watch or phone) during a run. I always figured if I stopped for a red light it was like taking a rest during a race, and that during a race water stops counted- so keep it going! I went out hoping to get in 8 miles (not 10), but was tired and found the city had turned off all the water fountains since last weekend. I forged a new running path toward downtown and paused the watch while browsing hand held water bottles and chugging water at the local running store. I left with nothing but a stomach ache and a full bladder, so I did not even make my revised distance as my options seemed to be (1) cut run short and go home to use the restroom, knowing I would not escape to run further (2) use a tailgating portapotty still out around the stadium. I was going to go for option 2, but no TP made me decide 1. Watch was also paused for false stop at port o john. I felt terrible the whole run (guilt?) but ended up with a much faster pace than normal, so even with the stops my average pace would have been ... average! I do not think I would switch to pausing often, still not at lights, maybe if I stop in to the running store for water.

Too Gauche? I am considering making the running store with its water cooler and restroom a part of my winter (i.e. public water fountain-less) route. I cannot decide if this is OK or not. It also passed through my mind that I could go 3 miles to running store A, the 2.5 miles to its sister store, and back home to create a loop with facilities, but that may be a bit much..... They do group runs out of both stores, but never at times I could actually go.

 

[Capang]

ATTQOTD: I do when I need to reset my intervals. However I started using a second app for an interval timer so I can get a better idea of my actual time during longer runs.

 

[apdebord]

ATTQOTD: No, I don’t pause. I tend to just stop for refills if I’m using my handheld, so I count it as a water stop in a race. When I ran trails last weekend with my husband, I didn’t pause for all the times we stopped: restroom, meeting a friend, waiting at the crosswalk to get to the beach, walking on the beach and photo ops. I also stopped and did all the little exercise things, just because it was fun.

 

[Miranda]

ATTQOTD: I stop my watch any time I stop in training (drinks, gels, tying shoes, crosswalks/lights, trains). The trains thing is a real issue for me sometimes, there's a set of train tracks that goes right through the middle of my town and a lot of my longer runs that would go into town always crossed the tracks. Sometimes the train is the Amtrak Downeaster, which is nice and fast to wait for... they only park at the train station and block one of the roads downtown (but not all of them) for a few min to load/unload passengers, then they're on their way (and it's a shorter train, like 7 cars or so), but one time in the middle of January, I got stuck on the wrong side of a freight train that took about 20 minutes to go by. It was ridiculous... a ridiculously long train that for some reason came to a stop, started moving backwards for a while, then stopped and started moving forwards again. The traffic backed up all over town was nuts and by the time I got moving again, I was frozen solid. I had been half seriously considering trying to do a roll under the train when it was stopped (road pavement tracks, not the raised ones on wooden rails). But that would have been really dumb... I was really cold though (it was about 20F out). I should have gone to wait in the coffee shop like 250 yards back, but I kept thinking that it must almost be done.

I do not stop my watch during races except my first HM (Tinker Bell 2015). I made the rookie mistake of drinking WAY too much water waiting in the corrals and I had gotten there super early because I was in the last corral so I wanted to be up near the front of the corral for time purposes. I had to pee so bad, but I didn't want to lose my spot up near the front of the corral, so I had to pit stop at the first potties right when we came in behind the Cars ride around mile 2. I really wanted to know what my time would have been without the stop, so I paused it for the potty line and stop (it was like 10 minutes of waiting!). This is the only time I've ever made a race pit stop!

I never use auto pause not because I am afraid of forgetting to disable it... because sometimes it pauses me while I'm walking. I'm not walking that slowly, I walk at a 15-17 min pace! Actually I guess it's Strava that pauses me maybe not my Garmin. I forget why I turned it off on my Garmin, I guess because it just became habit to hit the button all the time.

 

[ZellyB]

ATTQOTD: I never pause my watch during training runs. I'm not usually that focused on pace during long training runs anyway, so I don't worry too much about the overall pace as long as I know my moving pace is about where I want it to be.

 

[tigger536]

@michigandergirl AMAZING PR! Wow!!!
@BikeFan congrats on a great race! I'll be at MCM too!
@Disney at Heart the 10 miler is one of my favorite Atlanta races. I am sad I was out of town the last two years and missed it. great job!

ATTQOTD: I don't pause unless there is a really unusually long delay. Except for speedwork and tempo, I take training runs easy anyway.

Detroit Free Press Marathon complete! It was 26 degrees at the start, cold for this southern girl. Still, I ditched my LS by mile 3, and just ran in short sleeve and skirt.

My 18th full and a PR by over 11 minutes! I hit my goal of 4:15! (4:15:15 official time). This race had great local support. It was cool running over ambassador bridge and through Windsor Canada. The tunnel back was super cool too (not literally - probably the only time I felt truly warm during the whole race, lol). Indian Hills had people cheering from parties on their lawns, and handing out beer (and a bloody mary). I took liberal use of this lol. Belle Isle was pretty but super windy. Highly recommend this race!

My friend and I also ran the 1 mile and 5k on Saturday as part of the Motor City Challenge, new this year. We both missed our 5k PRs by 7 seconds, oops. Had fun at these too though!

 

[Jules76126]

ATTQOTD: I do pause my watch to cross the street. We have a major road to cross and you need to wait for the walk sign. Depending on when you arrive it can be anywhere from 30 seconds to over a minute. That is the only time I pause.

 

[camaker]

ATTQOTD: I pause my watch during training runs when something delays me for more than a few seconds. As an @DopeyBadger training plan follower I'm trying to hit and get used to the feel of specific paces during the training runs. As such, I want my auto-lap feedback to be reflective of my moving pace, not my overall time spent running. During races, I never stop the watch, as the race clock never stops. I'm trying to accomplish two different things during training and racing, so my approach is tailored to the task at hand.

 

[AFwifelife]

ATTQOTD: I only pause my watch when I’m on the treadmill and need to start over the time. When I’m running outside, I just do loops around my very quiet neighborhood so I don’t have to wait for lights or cars.

 

[tidefan]

@LSUlakes , I am revising my Marathon goals:

January 13 - @tidefan - Walt Disney World Marathon (Don't Die/Finish, N/A)