The Running Thread - 2021

[camaker]

I’ve got a training physiology question I wanted to throw out there and see if anyone (*cough* @DopeyBadger *cough*) had an objective answer for.

Today’s running conditions were on the high end of hot and humid with a temp of 93 and dew point of 76 (T+D=169). My scheduled run was a 2 mile warm up, 6 mile marathon tempo, 2 mile cool down. I was a little concerned with the exertion level of marathon tempo in those conditions, so I elected to run it as a 10 mile long run. I adjusted my pace (mostly) per a standard T+D adjustment table, but it still ended up being pretty brutal.

Does the 10 miles at long run pace represent a higher or lower physiological stress than the planned mixed run of marathon tempo and easy paces? I’m wondering if I should be dropping all the way into my easy pace range to get to a less stressful workout in those conditions.

 

[shellott-hill]

I am no expert, but experienced a similar amount of extra stress on my run today. I was nowhere near 169, but definitely had trouble with my run due to the T+D effects.

I have looked at several articles on-line, it it looks like you should be adjusting your pace by around 8%. That 8% for my numbers does translate to changing my pace from M Tempo to LR. From what I see, you ended up doing 10 miles at an M Tempo equivalent instead of 6 miles + 2WU and 2 CD. That may be where all the extra stress went.

 

[camaker]

I am no expert, but experienced a similar amount of extra stress on my run today. I was nowhere near 169, but definitely had trouble with my run due to the T+D effects.

I have looked at several articles on-line, it it looks like you should be adjusting your pace by around 8%. That 8% for my numbers does translate to changing my pace from M Tempo to LR. From what I see, you ended up doing 10 miles at an M Tempo equivalent instead of 6 miles + 2WU and 2 CD. That may be where all the extra stress went.

Sorry. I wasn’t clear in what I did with my pacing. I didn’t adjust my pacing up from tempo and call it my long run pacing, I said I’m going to run this as a long run and adjusted the long run pace for the conditions. To put it in actual terms, here were the adjusted paces I was looking at:

Scheduled: 4 miles @ 11-12 min/mi, 6 miles @ 9:40 min/mi
Actual: 10 miles @ 10:23 min/mi

Now, I actually ended up with 10 miles @ 10:09 min/mi, so I know I was a little fast for a long run under the conditions, which didn‘t help things, but I don’t think it gives me an answer to the base question, either.

 

[DopeyBadger]

I’ve got a training physiology question I wanted to throw out there and see if anyone (*cough* @DopeyBadger *cough*) had an objective answer for.

Today’s running conditions were on the high end of hot and humid with a temp of 93 and dew point of 76 (T+D=169). My scheduled run was a 2 mile warm up, 6 mile marathon tempo, 2 mile cool down. I was a little concerned with the exertion level of marathon tempo in those conditions, so I elected to run it as a 10 mile long run. I adjusted my pace (mostly) per a standard T+D adjustment table, but it still ended up being pretty brutal.

Does the 10 miles at long run pace represent a higher or lower physiological stress than the planned mixed run of marathon tempo and easy paces? I’m wondering if I should be dropping all the way into my easy pace range to get to a less stressful workout in those conditions.

So if I remember correctly, you recently run a sub-4. So I'll use a 3:59 fitness level as an example:





Unadjusted, your marathon tempo is around a 9:07 min/mile and your estimated LR pace is around 9:56 min/mile (although that's definitely debatable depending on your source). Daniels says around a 10:09 min/mile and Hansons say around a 9:37-11:07 min/mile.



First thing to note is that my chart for T+D adjusted paces actually stops at 166 in this image. This is the original source for that conversion:

http://maximumperformancerunning.blogspot.com/2013/07/temperature-dew-point.html
So you can see he sets the T+D of 169 around an 8% (as @shellott-hill notes prior). He also notes that anything above a T+D of 180 is where hard running is no longer recommended. I did an easy run at a T+D of 177 once in June 2018, and it was pretty insane.

So if we adjust your M Tempo by 8%, that would be a 9:51 min/mile and your LR pace would be an adjusted 10:44 min/mile (based on my M Tempo * 9% calculation that I use). The pace you actually ran 10:09 falls much closer to the adjusted M Tempo than it does the 10:44.

Now with all that being said, this chart adjustment is a starting point for calculations and not the end all be all. It does not take into account solar radiation like the WetBulb Globe Temperature does (but those are pricey). Heat acclimation plays a major role as well as general unique physiology. So two runners at a T+D 169 are not going to necessarily have the same experience with an 8% adjustment. So that's where we go to the gold standard of effort over pace. The question you have to ask yourself is in an ideal situation would you describe a 10 mile LR as brutal, and the answer is very likely no. Conversely, would you describe a ~60 min M Tempo run (not including the WU/CD) as brutal. Depending on where you are in your training plan would likely dictate the response to that question, but I'm guessing it's more likely to be no as well. So your description of brutal tells us that despite the pace adjustment, your body perceived this workout as far far harder than either a 10 mile LR or a 60 min M Tempo. Where it falls would be best up to you to decide based on your past experiences.

From my perspective, It looks like your HR was in the 165-170s area. Your marathon PR was an average of 160, and only consistently hitting the 165-170 area at mile >20. Your HM PR is in the mid 170s from 2017. So just using purely HR as a measure of effort, it would appear your body perceived this workout like something between M Tempo and HM Tempo. Personally, I rarely if every schedule anyone for 60 consecutive minutes of HM Tempo as that's the maximum. So to me, while the goal may have been 10 miles at LR, this looks a lot more like 35 min at M Tempo and 67 min of HM/M Tempo. To me, that looks like an absolutely brutal workout from an effort standpoint. Close to a race effort is likely how your body will perceive it. If it were me, I'd be extra cautious the next few days to allow your body to recover from this effort. That's just from an outsider's prospective reading the limited data I looked through.

So the question becomes, if you were to encounter a similar situation how should you approach it? And my answer would be, it depends. It depends on where you are in training. It depends on what conditions you've been running in recently compared to the run you're looking to adjust. It depends on the purpose of the workout that you're looking to adjust. With that being said, more often than not I would likely recommend taking the easier road than the hard one in this type of situation. A "move on" type approach. Shuffle through the extreme day and come out all the better ready to attack your next workout in a few days. Alternatively, you suffer and push through the current workout, but it begs the question how much damage you could do and how long it lasts in relation to the big picture. And ultimately comes down to the idea of how much any one particular workout means in the grand scheme. For the most part it's close to zero, and really it's the cumulative occurrence of each successive run that truly matters. Certainly there's something to be said for not shying away from a challenge, but you have to draw a line somewhere and in my book a T+D of 169 is really pushing that line.

So now to the original question, under ideal circumstances, which is harder a 10 miler LR or a 2 mile WU + 6 mile M Tempo + 2 mile CD. According to my training load calculator 100 min of LR (assuming a 10 min/mile) would be 111 TSS ((100/60)*67)=111). Whereas a 4 mile of WU/CD = about 47 min and 6 miles of M Tempo = 54 min for a total of 101 min of M Tempo workout. That would also be 111 TSS (101/60)*67. It comes out to the same value because in my experience the rate of TSS is 67/hr for both LR and M Tempo (including WU/CD). For example, a 5k race is 104 TSS/hr. So high intensity but short duration. The answer from a TSS perspective is they are roughly equal. You will have some physiological differences in the purpose of the workout of course and training load is not the end all be all but merely a tool. But I would say under an ideal situation, the 10 miler LR vs 2+6+2 is probably pretty close to a similar difficulty workout. If anything I'd lean slightly towards the M Tempo workout.

 

[camaker]

So if I remember correctly, you recently run a sub-4. So I'll use a 3:59 fitness level as an example:

View attachment 589913

View attachment 589914

Unadjusted, your marathon tempo is around a 9:07 min/mile and your estimated LR pace is around 9:56 min/mile (although that's definitely debatable depending on your source). Daniels says around a 10:09 min/mile and Hansons say around a 9:37-11:07 min/mile.

View attachment 589915

First thing to note is that my chart for T+D adjusted paces actually stops at 166 in this image. This is the original source for that conversion:

http://maximumperformancerunning.blogspot.com/2013/07/temperature-dew-point.html
So you can see he sets the T+D of 169 around an 8% (as @shellott-hill notes prior). He also notes that anything above a T+D of 180 is where hard running is no longer recommended. I did an easy run at a T+D of 177 once in June 2018, and it was pretty insane.

So if we adjust your M Tempo by 8%, that would be a 9:51 min/mile and your LR pace would be an adjusted 10:44 min/mile (based on my M Tempo * 9% calculation that I use). The pace you actually ran 10:09 falls much closer to the adjusted M Tempo than it does the 10:44.

Now with all that being said, this chart adjustment is a starting point for calculations and not the end all be all. It does not take into account solar radiation like the WetBulb Globe Temperature does (but those are pricey). Heat acclimation plays a major role as well as general unique physiology. So two runners at a T+D 169 are not going to necessarily have the same experience with an 8% adjustment. So that's where we go to the gold standard of effort over pace. The question you have to ask yourself is in an ideal situation would you describe a 10 mile LR as brutal, and the answer is very likely no. Conversely, would you describe a ~60 min M Tempo run (not including the WU/CD) as brutal. Depending on where you are in your training plan would likely dictate the response to that question, but I'm guessing it's more likely to be no as well. So your description of brutal tells us that despite the pace adjustment, your body perceived this workout as far far harder than either a 10 mile LR or a 60 min M Tempo. Where it falls would be best up to you to decide based on your past experiences.

From my perspective, It looks like your HR was in the 165-170s area. Your marathon PR was an average of 160, and only consistently hitting the 165-170 area at mile >20. Your HM PR is in the mid 170s from 2017. So just using purely HR as a measure of effort, it would appear your body perceived this workout like something between M Tempo and HM Tempo. Personally, I rarely if every schedule anyone for 60 consecutive minutes of HM Tempo as that's the maximum. So to me, while the goal may have been 10 miles at LR, this looks a lot more like 35 min at M Tempo and 67 min of HM/M Tempo. To me, that looks like an absolutely brutal workout from an effort standpoint. Close to a race effort is likely how your body will perceive it. If it were me, I'd be extra cautious the next few days to allow your body to recover from this effort. That's just from an outsider's prospective reading the limited data I looked through.

So the question becomes, if you were to encounter a similar situation how should you approach it? And my answer would be, it depends. It depends on where you are in training. It depends on what conditions you've been running in recently compared to the run you're looking to adjust. It depends on the purpose of the workout that you're looking to adjust. With that being said, more often than not I would likely recommend taking the easier road than the hard one in this type of situation. A "move on" type approach. Shuffle through the extreme day and come out all the better ready to attack your next workout in a few days. Alternatively, you suffer and push through the current workout, but it begs the question how much damage you could do and how long it lasts in relation to the big picture. And ultimately comes down to the idea of how much any one particular workout means in the grand scheme. For the most part it's close to zero, and really it's the cumulative occurrence of each successive run that truly matters. Certainly there's something to be said for not shying away from a challenge, but you have to draw a line somewhere and in my book a T+D of 169 is really pushing that line.

So now to the original question, under ideal circumstances, which is harder a 10 miler LR or a 2 mile WU + 6 mile M Tempo + 2 mile CD. According to my training load calculator 100 min of LR (assuming a 10 min/mile) would be 111 TSS ((100/60)*67)=111). Whereas a 4 mile of WU/CD = about 47 min and 6 miles of M Tempo = 54 min for a total of 101 min of M Tempo workout. That would also be 111 TSS (101/60)*67. It comes out to the same value because in my experience the rate of TSS is 67/hr for both LR and M Tempo (including WU/CD). For example, a 5k race is 104 TSS/hr. So high intensity but short duration. The answer from a TSS perspective is they are roughly equal. You will have some physiological differences in the purpose of the workout of course and training load is not the end all be all but merely a tool. But I would say under an ideal situation, the 10 miler LR vs 2+6+2 is probably pretty close to a similar difficulty workout. If anything I'd lean slightly towards the M Tempo workout.

Thanks! That pretty much bears out my initial post-workout thoughts that I probably would have been better off dropping to an adjusted easy pace.

To help complete the picture given some of the unknowns that you pointed out, I have been running in T+Ds in the 150-169 range for a large portion of the last two months so I consider myself to be pretty well acclimated at this point. Acclimated doesn’t mean it’s fun or easy to run under those conditions, though. Also, today’s conditions featured full sun beating down throughout the run. It felt significantly worse than yesterday’s T+D=168 where there was cloud cover keeping the direct sunlight at bay.

From a pacing standpoint, my structure is a little faster than what you estimated above, which leads to some of the adjustment differences observed. I’m actually still using the pacing structure you put together for me after that HM PR in 2017 and I think it works out to a target 3:56 marathon:



Your points are well taken on the “shuffle through and move on” aspect. It’s a concept I struggle with in my training. You know I tend to have more of an aggressive bent to my training approach and tend to strive to “be the irresistible force” powering through, rather than the willow bending before the wind. There are times for each approach and I’m trying to work on my balance with them. Ironically, my selection of the long run today was meant to be a “willow” concession to the elements. That’s why I came here with my question when reality didn’t seem to match the plan. Next time I’ll know to back off further. Thanks again!

 

[garneska]

thanks for the question @camaker. that was a good discussion. I am like you and tend to suffer through. I am running in the morning so my T+D has been between 140 - 150 but the sun is not full up so i have a little break there. Today my run was slow. I won't say brutal because i did adjust my pace. While not on a plan at the moment, I knew today should be an easy day. For a change i threw out the pace and said do what you can. I found it a good time to work on keeping my cadence up with a a slower pace .

 

[TheHamm]

The Adrenaline’s seem to have no change between models. The store was pushing hard in the fall for me to try the 20s based on how I was moving, though they happily fit me in the Ghost 13s. I bought a pair of each at the time, then promptly hurt my ankle. Every time I thought I was healed I would go out and do something stupid like fall off the edge of the sidewalk while walking the dog and be back on the injured list, so both my Ghost 13s and Adrenaline 20s are virtually new. The store owner (been selling shoes for 40 years) is a big believer in not changing shoes for people who have something they like unless the product changes, which is what happened Saturday. The Ghost 14s are unwearable as far as I am concerned, which is how I ended up with a pair of Adrenaline 21s. DH is all for them for the added stability he is hoping they will provide my right ankle. He got a pair of Saucony Guides.

The other local running store (shoes, gear and races), sent an email out Sunday that was interesting. Essentially he has been told by his suppliers that shoe shortages will continue until mid-2022. He went on to explain that the manufactures have two different types of inventory: their wholesale inventory which they sell to other stores and their on-line direct to consumer inventory. The manufacturers are keeping a higher direct to consumer inventory and a lower wholesale inventory right now, which is why you might be able to find shoes on line and not in stock at your local store.

Thanks! I actually stopped at a local running store this morning and asked to try the new adrenalines and they were out of my size, also citing a shortage they do not expect to end soon. They had me try the men's version and I thought it felt similar to the pair I have, but with the width a bit off it was hard to tell if there was much of a change in the footbed. They also put me into the Ghosts of the correct size which felt super squishy but mostly the correct shape. I tried to ask why someone wants a more soft shoe and got a shoulder shrug and was told some people like it for longer distances. I am not sure that I want to move to a more squishy shoe if the current GTS are more similar to what I have as I am not really looking to go for longer distances.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

thanks for the question @camaker. that was a good discussion. I am like you and tend to suffer through. I am running in the morning so my T+D has been between 140 - 150 but the sun is not full up so i have a little break there. Today my run was slow. I won't say brutal because i did adjust my pace. While not on a plan at the moment, I knew today should be an easy day. For a change i threw out the pace and said do what you can. I found it a good time to work on keeping my cadence up with a a slower pace .

This week has been brutal here. I managed to get in my 8 mile interval run on Tuesday (2 miles easy, 4 miles @ 10k race pace broken into 1200m efforts, 2 miles easy). The next day was 7 miles at an easy aerobic pace and I had to ease up the last 2 miles to finish. Day off yesterday, then 8 miles today. Today I was supposed to put in some Tempo work, but nope - my legs were dead from step #1. I got in the 8 miles, but it was a slog. I think that I am dehydrated and I plan on drinking and taking in a lot of electrolytes today. Tomorrow I have an easy 6 miler before a 15 miler on Sunday. I need my legs back for that 15 miler.

Running in the heat is so much harder for me. So. Much. Harder.

 

[GreatLakes]

Thanks! I actually stopped at a local running store this morning and asked to try the new adrenalines and they were out of my size, also citing a shortage they do not expect to end soon. They had me try the men's version and I thought it felt similar to the pair I have, but with the width a bit off it was hard to tell if there was much of a change in the footbed. They also put me into the Ghosts of the correct size which felt super squishy but mostly the correct shape. I tried to ask why someone wants a more soft shoe and got a shoulder shrug and was told some people like it for longer distances. I am not sure that I want to move to a more squishy shoe if the current GTS are more similar to what I have as I am not really looking to go for longer distances.

Our local stores are also not getting a ton of inventory. One tactic I like is to go to Running Warehouse, get the specs on the shoe you do like (drop, stack height, etc) and filter for any shoes that are similar. You can then see if you can try them on locally. I had to resort to Prime Wardrobe to try on a few since no one had them locally. Between Prime Wardrobe and Zappos I was able to try on 5 or 6 options and then return the ones that didn't work. Zappos isn't try before you buy like Prime Wardrobe but they will refund you promptly.

 

[TheHamm]

Our local stores are also not getting a ton of inventory. One tactic I like is to go to Running Warehouse, get the specs on the shoe you do like (drop, stack height, etc) and filter for any shoes that are similar. You can then see if you can try them on locally. I had to resort to Prime Wardrobe to try on a few since no one had them locally. Between Prime Wardrobe and Zappos I was able to try on 5 or 6 options and then return the ones that didn't work. Zappos isn't try before you buy like Prime Wardrobe but they will refund you promptly.

Good idea, I am not particularly savvy on filtering for similar characteristics online. I will play around with that and see what else it suggests.

The store was pretty cool about calling their other location to see if they had them, acknowledging that an event downtown would make parking a pain for the balance of the week, and proposing I buy them to hold them for the week and get a refund if I did not like them in store. I passed and figured in a town with an unreasonable amount of running stores for its size, I am going to hold out for trying in person. It will be another week before I have time to go out, but that is why I started before my shoes were on the tail end of their lifespan!

 

[GreatLakes]

Good idea, I am not particularly savvy on filtering for similar characteristics online. I will play around with that and see what else it suggests.

The store was pretty cool about calling their other location to see if they had them, acknowledging that an event downtown would make parking a pain for the balance of the week, and proposing I buy them to hold them for the week and get a refund if I did not like them in store. I passed and figured in a town with an unreasonable amount of running stores for its size, I am going to hold out for trying in person. It will be another week before I have time to go out, but that is why I started before my shoes were on the tail end of their lifespan!

Let me help you out a bit. You mentioned the Brooks Adrenaline so I'm assuming you mean the 21 GTS shoe. If you go to that page on RW you'll see the following:



If you enter those values into the woman's shoe filter it only returns that shoe and the Asics Gel Kayano 27 but you can play with the settings to get something close if you want more options. For example including both medium and low stack height and adding in moderate stability adds in the Mizuno Wave Inspire, the Asics Gel Kayano Lite4, and the Asics Gel Kayano 28. Including a 9-10mm offset instead of just the 11+ adds in a bunch more.

It just depends on how much you want to play around.

I used to run in a shoe with a 11+mm offset and I've slowly been trying to get that closer to 0. I'm currently at 4mm but that is my third step down. Going too far in one round puts a lot of stress on the Achilles I've heard. The more I am reading about the mechanics of the foot the more I'm looking to get as little shoe as possible to let the natural mechanics of my foot take over.

I'm currently most of the way through my new favorite running book. The full name is a mouthful: Run for Your Life: How to Run, Walk, and Move Without Pain or Injury and Achieve a Sense of Well-Being and Joy by Mark Cucuzzella, M.D. He touches on just about everything simply. This is kind of secondary to this conversation but he talks a lot about allowing you foot to do its job. I stopped using SuperFeet insoles because of the book.

 

[TheHamm]

Thanks, @GreatLakes ! think it will be helpful to have a few other options, and it is a bit reassuring that the other shoes you filtered include ones I have been in before.

 

[TheHamm]

Thanks, @GreatLakes ! think it will be helpful to have a few other options, and it is a bit reassuring that the other shoes you filtered include ones I have been in before. I think there will simply be a lot of trial and error because I have wonky arches but having a start is important!

 

[Grabnar]

I'm currently most of the way through my new favorite running book. The full name is a mouthful: Run for Your Life: How to Run, Walk, and Move Without Pain or Injury and Achieve a Sense of Well-Being and Joy by Mark Cucuzzella, M.D. He touches on just about everything simply. This is kind of secondary to this conversation but he talks a lot about allowing you foot to do its job. I stopped using SuperFeet insoles because of the book.

Recommended from me are the two Jay DiCharry books and his new Mobo board. I was having horrible plantar's fasciitis and arch pain until I started using that board to strengthen my arch and stretch religiously. It's been immeasurably helpful and while the injuries haven't fully resolved in the month that I've been doing the exercises, they're <1/10th the problem they were.

 

[dmross]

Oh, I've been gone from the boards for so long! Had to get caught up a little. My latest running adventure was doing a couch to 5K with my daughter who just graduated from high school and is off to Army Basic Training tomorrow! We had a good time, although she "hates" running. She was a good sport, and we finished our 5K almost on goal on July 4th (It was EXTREMEMLY hill and humid so we backed off a little.) At least she has a good fitness base to start Basic. She tested yesterday and passed the 2 mile easily. I'm very proud of her, but also very nervous as a mom. I'm stalking the runDisney site to think about future races... it will probably be W&D 2022 or 2even Marathon weekend 2023 before I can run at WDW, but for now I have a local half in October. I'm also going to do a run streak while my girl is in Basic. I'll need the distraction and maybe it will send her some good running vibes!

 

[Herding_Cats]

Well today was pretty interesting! I put the baby toddler down for her morning nap, let the teenagers know, and headed to our HS track about 10 minutes away to do my R interval run. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a vehicle with 2 26.2 stickers (I later found out that they were Boston Marathon stickers) on the back and an older gentleman our running laps around the track already. And he clearly knew what he was doing. MS/HS cheerleading practice has apparently started and about 15 girls filtered in and started doing their warm ups (I was 1 lap away from completing my warm up.....the man who was already there had lapped me a couple of times by this point) so I was making landmarks for where my 100 and 200 start/stop points would be on the opposite side of the track from where those are normally run. As he passes me, the man says "Are you training for something specific?" and so I told him I was training for my first marathon in October and he replies, "OH! I've run 52 marathons! Can I give you some pointers?"

Come to find out he's run boston multiple times, wins his age group in most of the races he enters (he turned 75 this year), beat Jeff Galloway at one of the MW weekends in I think the 10k(?) about 15 years ago, etc.

Really interesting conversation and he was so nice and encouraging, and pointed out some stuff I need to work on in my upper body movement (that I have been starting to pick up on, but wasn't really putting that much effort into fixing yet) that he thinks will go a long way to helping my improve my efficiency.

I mean....our town has ONE traffic light. What are the chances I would meet someone with that much racing experience here?

 

[TheHamm]

Question for Today
What is your ideal weather to run?

This morning's temperature dropped 15 degrees and 10% RH vs what it has been of late, and I found it glorious. I simply enjoyed not stepping out the door and sweating before I even got going, my pace was just a little faster than it had been, but it felt easy and if I did not have to be at work I would have kept running. This led me to thinking about running conditions I would prefer, and consider how that would probably not be the choice of others. I would pick ~50°F, not-noticeable RH which I never check unless it is irritating so I do not have a value for, overcast, with a light breeze.

 

[DopeyBadger]

Question for Today
What is your ideal weather to run?

According to my Race VDOT data, my best performances come when the windchill is around 30-35F. T+D wise around 60-75. Anything less than a T+D of 100 is good. But once I pass a T+D of 120 is when my performance really starts to suffer worse than current fitness would project.

ETA: I wear shorts and tank at those temps.

 

[Guidman]

ATTQOTD:
Anything below 50 works. Ideally, right around 40 (give or take) for a race start and not getting much warmer than 45 is perfect. I can be in a singlet with that and be completely fine.

 

[GreatLakes]

Question for Today
What is your ideal weather to run?

For a race or hard effort the low 40's. For anything easy or the track around 60 is nice.