Talkback: ASICS Target 26.2 Team: Emma

EmmaC wrote (see)

Hi Ruth - That was a particularly naughty day! This week I've been really trying...and feeling a bit hungry too! So unlike Rosie - If I'm not eating I'm thinking about food!

I'm still not having sugar in tea or coffe or on cereal!

Monday - Breakfast - grapes, apple, low fat yog, fruit and nut sprinkles and cup of tea (no sugar)

Lunch - malt loaf, 2 slices of rye bread with peanut butter, bananas x 2

Dinner - Jacket potato veggie bake in a tomato sauce with grated cheese! Low fat strawberry yog.

Had similar food all week. On Saturday my tummy was fine so I was really pleased (first time I've done a long run without tummy cramps for ages!). I'll look back at what I had for dinner and lunch previous day... maybe the steak burgers were ok afterall!?

I've struggled towards the end of my shorter evening runs this week - with sore tummy and having to visit the smallest room as soon as I got back home. Not sure why there is this difference? Possibly the additional fruit - even though it was in the morning?

Think that the food I've been eating is generally lower GI so my energy levels and my moods have been much more positive and steady - hope I can keep this up! Hopefully I'll loose a little weight too! 

 )

Hi All back from work - v tired and have a stonking headache! Just stuffed my face as I got home - mainly due to being so tired I think.

Breakfast- chopped fruit breakfast (as per usual now), cup of tea

Snack -  mixed nuts

Lunch - 2 x rye bread with peanut butter, 2 x malt loaf, strawberry yoghurt.

Snack - fruit and low fat yoghurt (like breakfast)

Dinner - 1/2 think crust pizza, 1/2 jacket, salad, 3 slices of malt lof (oopsie but I felt like I deserved a treat as was so late back!).

40 is the new 30 - I so hope that my running can get better this year! I move in to a new vets category for the Grand Prix events this year - trouble is V2 is actually stronger than V1!

One of the women at our club is in her 80's and still racing - she came back from the European champs with a load of medals... she is a legend!

 Hi Emma, Agree you need to look back and see what you had before your long run with no stomach problems, we really need to get your food sorted out the day before and morning of race as it may take a while, so keep note before all long runs and see what we can work out.
Also are you eating enough at breakfast? Are you eating a little one day then much more the next. If yes, we need to even this out as this can lead to feeling tired as always on catch up; what do you think?

Agree with sam if you can take some raw salad that would be great at lunch, also some nice soup for variety  at lunch? You could then take the  malt loaf out and have one slice as your mid-afternoon snack. As i  wonder if too much malt loaf, combined with the other foods, is causing stomach (can we go to one slice a day as a snack, you can add a yoghurt to this and see if this helps?). Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday.

Rachel Hodge wrote (see)

I know it might be a bit far north but there is a 20 mile race in Hull in March. It's pretty easy to find on google. I had planned to run it because only one of my half marathon friends is training for a marathon and I thought it might be hard to do 20 miles on my own! I would use it as a training run but I like the suggestions from USB and Oscarr on the splits! Thanks guys!

Ruth - I have a bit of a malt loaf addiction!

Bit of a geedy guzzler actually - now I've bought the nuts I can't stop eating the darned things!

Good news about tummy on the last long run... v v v little cramping and no emergency pit stops. There won't be vegetables at lunch until Weds as my food delivery arrives on Tuesday. But I have got soup tomorrow with rye bread, bananas for my snacks. Will try to chop out the blasted malt loaf.

To put it in to context I did used to eat a family bar of chocolate every other night not too long ago! Really chuffed with my fruit intake ... starting to snack after dinner so I need to watch that!

Morning Mrs Soreen - should I be buying any shares?

Just found a 30k in mcs country in August for anyone planning an autumn marathon!  (Or at least it's up that way? I think it's nearby - Belper?)

Sleepy Bear wrote (see)

Morning Mrs Soreen - should I be buying any shares?

Just found a 30k in mcs country in August for anyone planning an autumn marathon!  (Or at least it's up that way? I think it's nearby - Belper?)

I'll have to change my name to Doreen at this rate.

I've gone cold turkey - no malt loaf at work for lunch!

Instead - Breakfast of prorridge, honey (only 1 teaspoonful), seeds and raisins.

Veg soup and rye bread for lunch, with fruit and yog for pudding!

Bananas (not stolen) for snacks!

Emma - you've changed - I'm not sure I like you anymore - who will normalise my naughty snacks now ROFL -  just kidding - you're doing fab!!!

Oscarr - ooooh oooh - must have missed those - mcs - can you humour us and repost? Please, thankyou.  I've bookmarked the half on the 1st - so I'l hopefully see you there

My god Emma, you are going to be hosting your own diet show soon at this rate  Really glad no stomach cramps on the long run at the weekend.

So it's rest or fartlek today, depending on the week's juggling. Are you feeling recovered enough from long run to tackle the fartlek?

 I just posted the below on Rosie's thread but thought it might be useful here, too:

Just a little bit of advice about schedule juggling, because it's unlikely that you can do the runs on any programme on the exact days set every week. This isn't aimed at any particular individual!

Pick out the most important two runs (for marathon training, these would be your long run (if you are doing a long run that particular week) and some kind of faster work - so perhaps tempo, brisk/ 10k pace training or speedwork

Schedule these on non-consecutive days that you are most likely to be able to fit them in on with the easy days or rest days on either side.

If you can then fit in any of the other scheduled sessions (as in non-easy days), do so - again making sure you don't do two hard sessions on consecutive days.

This will help you don't end up missing the most important sessions or 'squashing' all the hard stuff up towards the end of the week.

Just read your feedback on heart rate - thanks for that.

So let's take an average resting heart rate (RHR) of 58 (midpoint between your 56-60)

Your age is 39 which means your age-predicted maximum (MHR) is 181bpm.

Using the Karvonen formula, can use this info to work out what your heart rate would be at different percentages of your maximum.

Eg. 75 per cent (steady run pace) = (MHR - RHR) x 75 per cent + RHR

75 per cent = (181-58)x75 per cent +RHR = 150bpm

85 per cent (tempo pace)  = (181-58)x85 per cent + RHR = 162bpm

90 per cent (intervals pace*) = (181-58)x90 per cent + RHR = 168bpm

*On intervals, could be working as high as 99,100 per cent if v short with long recoveries.

So looking at your average HR across the 1000m intervals, you were working at between 85 and 90 per cent of your maximum. By the way - looking back at your results, you didn't take the full 90 second recoveries - you took 60 seconds instead. This would partly explain why your heart rate went up and up progressively...

Hopefully this formula will make sense to everyone. I'm terrible at maths so I am not sure how you use it 'in reverse' as in, plug in your heart rate to find out the percentage of max you were at.

I am trying hard to be good with my food Sam - I'd like to shift a bit of weight as I think I would run a bit faster and generally have more energy (for chasing the boys, swimming, football etc.). But I do keep falling off the wagon - I do think the main change of no refined sugar has made me feel better. But now I feel rotten about what the boys eat parental guilt!

The HR calculations make sense but (I know its a stupid question) what exactly counts as a tempo run? I understand intervals and steady runs but never sure whicj of my activiites is a tempo run.

This week - Was thinking of the SAndwich run tonight, Fartlek tomorrow (will read back what you wrote to Craig explaining this) then intervals on Thursday and 14 on Saturday. Should there be a short recovery on Sunday? Also I sent you an email as I missed 3 miler last evening - wasn't sure if this was in or out as last week was the week of mega juggling!

SamMurphyRuns wrote (see)

Just read your feedback on heart rate - thanks for that.

So let's take an average resting heart rate (RHR) of 58 (midpoint between your 56-60)

Your age is 39 which means your age-predicted maximum (MHR) is 181bpm.

Using the Karvonen formula, can use this info to work out what your heart rate would be at different percentages of your maximum.

Eg. 75 per cent (steady run pace) = (MHR - RHR) x 75 per cent + RHR

75 per cent = (181-58)x75 per cent +RHR = 150bpm

85 per cent (tempo pace)  = (181-58)x85 per cent + RHR = 162bpm

90 per cent (intervals pace*) = (181-58)x90 per cent + RHR = 168bpm

*On intervals, could be working as high as 99,100 per cent if v short with long recoveries.

So looking at your average HR across the 1000m intervals, you were working at between 85 and 90 per cent of your maximum. By the way - looking back at your results, you didn't take the full 90 second recoveries - you took 60 seconds instead. This would partly explain why your heart rate went up and up progressively...

Hopefully this formula will make sense to everyone. I'm terrible at maths so I am not sure how you use it 'in reverse' as in, plug in your heart rate to find out the percentage of max you were at.

Sam - the formula you need "in reverse" is;

% of Max = (AHR-RHR)/(MHR-RHR)x100  

AHR is Actual Heart Rate; RHR is RestingHR; MHR is MaxHR

For Emma in the above example where RHR is 58 and MHR is 181 this gives:

% of Max = (AHR-58)x0.813

So, using an example of AHR from above of 162 the formula gives (162-58)0.813=84.552%

Hope it helps, Oscarr.

EmmaC wrote (see)

I am trying hard to be good with my food Sam - I'd like to shift a bit of weight as I think I would run a bit faster and generally have more energy (for chasing the boys, swimming, football etc.). But I do keep falling off the wagon - I do think the main change of no refined sugar has made me feel better. But now I feel rotten about what the boys eat parental guilt!

The HR calculations make sense but (I know its a stupid question) what exactly counts as a tempo run? I understand intervals and steady runs but never sure whicj of my activiites is a tempo run.

This week - Was thinking of the SAndwich run tonight, Fartlek tomorrow (will read back what you wrote to Craig explaining this) then intervals on Thursday and 14 on Saturday. Should there be a short recovery on Sunday? Also I sent you an email as I missed 3 miler last evening - wasn't sure if this was in or out as last week was the week of mega juggling!

Hi Emma

Nope 31 was a great mileage for last week so glad you didn't do the extra easy run on Sunday!

The structure for this week sounds fine - and glad you had a rest day yesterday if you're doing the sandwich run tonight. Keep the fartlek reasonably low key tomorrow - not too many v hard efforts  please! Then rest days on Wed, Fri and Sunday.

So, as for tempo pace. It is typically around 5-15 seconds SLOWER per mile than 10k pace. (The faster you are, the more seconds slower you should opt for, the slower you are, the closer to 10k pace) If your 10k pace is an hour or more, I would consider 10k pace and tempo pace the same. This is usually around 85 per cent max heart rate. On the Ultimate schedules, I think where it says 'brisk' is the most similar to tempo pace. It's a bit quicker than your half marathon pace, Emma (this is partly because 'relatively speaking' your 10k time is more impressive than your half mara time, so there is a slightly larger gap than you might typically expect.) Hmm, wondering if I should say this to you - give you something else to worry about?!  Please don't. It just means you've got more natural speed - or possibly, that you were better prepared for your 10s than your halfs. Anyway, we're working on speed and endurance now so please don't worry about it..

Oscarr: Thanks for your fabulous maths! That's really helpful. I'm going to copy it down in my little black book where I keep all my coaching notes

Sam - pleased to help.  Think you probably have worked this out but the formula should read;

% of Max = [(AHR-RHR)/(MHR-RHR)] x100  (i.e. multiply the whole lot by 100)

Everthing else I gave in the post is accurate

Oscarr.

I'm definately better at 10s than halves! I'm not worried about it - just find it odd. I find that I get to 10 miles and the wheels come off in a half. Lots of that is fatigue (through poor endurance training/not enough?) and psychologically I think I fail.

At TW last year (whic is a tough course) I had 36 mins to run just over 4 miles - my initial response was I can't do it. Then I started 'talking to myself' (not out loud I don't think) saying it was only 9 min miles and that I could do it. 2:01.02 achieved. Barns Green in October - just a hideous run quite frankly. Horrendos stitch for 6 miles which just took the wind out of my sails.

I also worry in races that if I go out too hard that I literally won't finish - this is slightly less of a fear over a shorter distance! By the way I've not managed to achieve 51:22 again (have done two 52 :30's as closest!). Would love a sub 50!

Tempo for me should be 8:19 + 5-15 - About 8:30's?

Half will be close to 9 - but aiming for slightly better in Tunbridge Wells? 10k - pushing towards 8 min miles?

If you look at my body type I am not the usual long distance runner - but too sturdy for that. Probably best at about 200m  and I like 400m as well - I love a sprint finish so probably that's why I love track training so much!

I still don't know what happens about hotels on Saturday - Do I book and pay for it?

Sam - another thought about this formula is that if you use it for a lot of students I think the simplest way to present it is to start with the simpler version:

% of Max = (AHR-RHR) x F      {where F = 100 divided by (MHR-RHR)}

MHR and RHR are fixed so students can work out F leaving them with a very simple formula for easy future use.

mmmm a 13.1 mile pancake - lemon and sugar surely!

As far as malt loaf, chocolate, granla any yummy sweet things goes - I am really poor at sticking to a sensible amount! Just go back again and again!