First Bad Run In Ages - Venting Off!

Re- started running after a loooong lay of about 6 weeks ago and it's all been going really well, my fitness has improved and I've managed a 10k at 49.04 - my previous PB even when I was running regularly in the past was 49.42 so I was made up. Tried a 10k yesterday, started off okay, felt not bad but not brilliant either but checked my watch (I time check at a certain landmark on the run each time) and I realised I was hammering along - almost 40 seconds quicker than normal - the PB beckoning, I carried on. Suddenly 1k down the road I just "ran out". Just nothing left. I basically failed the run. I have no idea why that happened. I was comfortable at the quicker pace and feel I could maintain it, so I wouldn't say I started too quickly and just fried myself but legs just went to Jelly!!! WHAT'S OCCURING??!!!.

I was driving to work last week.  I looked at my speedometer, and I was going faster than ever. Over 70mph average... so I put my foot down a bit more...  and I got up to 80mph.  Fantastic - the car was simply purring along, it felt like I could go on forever.   But then, my car started coughing and spluttering and quickly came to a halt.  If only I'd looked at my fuel gauge.

Seriously though, you went faster than you're ready for. You need to build up your strength speed and endurance.. to break PBs.  And yet you smashed your PB last time out, and tried to absolutely smash it again - all on the back of a 6 week lay off.  Did you really need to ask this question?!!

Sorry, I've been running regularly (4-5 times a week) for 6 weeks, I wasn't running for about 6-7mths before this. I've started running with a sort of "hidden agenda". Since I beat my PB I've always got it in the back of my mind to hammer again and I am well aware that just bombing along all the time isn't the way to go. That said, it did occur to me that fueling might be the issue. It's still annoying though! felt like a waste of a run.

It's not fueling in the sense of not eating enough that day or the day before, it's fueling in that you were running anaerobically for too long and your body couldn't cope with the lactate. You're not fit enough for your body to convert a greater proportion of oxygen into energy and thus maintain your pace, so you ran out of steam. That's why it's better to run an even pace through out the whole run than to surge, run too hard at any one point and you burn out.

Also, don't go for pb's in training. You don't get medals for training. Save your efforts for races.

My fuel analogy was not ideal... but you know what I mean! Essentially, there are many things that make machines fail quite suddenly, that give you little warning.  Lardarse explains very well... I agree with him - EXCEPT...  of course you should go for PBs in training... unless you're racing very frequently!   It keeps me well motivated.

BTW... it was DEFINITELY not a waste of a run, assuming you suffered no injury. It will have contributed to the training of your lactate removal system... and also you'll have learned from the experience. It was possibly one of the most valuable runs you've done in a long time!

No, thankfully I'm injury free (for the first time in ages!) and I'm still injury free! So, no harm done. I didn't really think of it as a positive run, I'm still a bit of a novice, never really exelled at sports so I'm still reading about things like lactic acid and how that all works etc, so when you put it like that perhaps it wasn't a waste of time. I did think, annoying though it was at the time, that ultimately it's a learning curve. Maybe it will make me a better runner overall.

I wasn't trying to refute your fuel analogy just  to explain a little more that it's more than just because he hasn't eaten enough porridge for breakfast!

Not winnng medals in training is a little mantra to stop you running too hard in long runs, it's easy to go off at marathon pace (for example) in training and leave your best performance in a sunday lsr because you can't recover to race pace for the real thing.