The Higdon plan is great for a half marathon. She can choose from beginner to a more advanced plan depending on her goals.My 20yo cousin is looking for a half marathon training plan. Are there free ones out there?
She is in above average condition. She ran Cross country in high school but hasn’t run on a regular basis in like 2 years.
Thanks!
As one who went down this exact path, there are quite a few ones out there free - and they depend on her current condition, time to train, and race goals. If you google "half marathon training plans" you can easily find some free options that will describe the type of runner/goal they are for. This was a site I used when I decided basically in September that I was going to run a 1/2 marathon in November: https://www.halfmarathons.net/training-tips/My 20yo cousin is looking for a half marathon training plan. Are there free ones out there?
She is in above average condition. She ran Cross country in high school but hasn’t run on a regular basis in like 2 years.
Thanks!
Arent the Higdon plans un-free?The Higdon plan is great for a half marathon. She can choose from beginner to a more advanced plan depending on her goals.
They are free.Arent the Higdon plans un-free?
High FiveBQ or bust.
He's on Strava, I started following him yesterday after reading that article.Searched and didn't find it, but I assume you guys have seen this. Ultrageezer Gene Dykes. He smashed Ed Whitlock's 70-74 AG record. Pretty astonishing, particularly at the end of the article when he talks about his upcoming race schedule. I would curl up on the floor and cry at the thought of that schedule.
Let me introduce you to your new favorite American athlete: Gene Dykes.
Retired computer programmer, lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, married to a University of Pennsylvania economics professor, two grown daughters, one grandkid. Likes to garden, plays golf a few times a month, once got pretty good at bowling, to the point he rolled four perfect games.
But here’s why we’re talking about Gene Dykes today: He just ran a world record sub-three hour marathon…at age 70.
Dykes’s 2:54:23 (per-mile pace: 6:39), which he ran at the Jacksonville Marathon on Dec. 15, shaved a startling 25 seconds off the 70-74 age group mark set by the late, legendary masters distance runner Ed Whitlock.
It was a record which many—including Dykes—assumed would never be broken.
“I didn’t think this one was in my reach,” Dykes told me the other day on the phone, from his home in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. “Going into this year, I’d never run a marathon under three hours.”
What makes Dykes’s rise to record-setter so striking is that he was, by his own admission, a very average runner until he got a coach in his mid-60s.
Dykes, who grew up in Canton, Ohio, competed in track in high school and in college at Lehigh University, but, as he tells it, he wasn’t even close to a star.
“I was so, so thoroughly trounced on the track, that I really have this lifelong impression of myself as a mediocre runner,” he said.
Dykes would graduate college, get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, make a career in computer programming, and start a family. He ran on occasion, but only as a hobby.
“Sometimes I’d be in decent shape, sometimes not,” he said. “I didn’t race. There’s a big difference between racing, and just going out there and jogging for the fun of it.”
MORE JASON GAY
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Beautiful Schadenfreude for Patriots Haters December 10, 2018
The XFL Goes PG December 6, 2018
Six years ago, Dykes retired. By then, he’d been doing some racing, which he enjoyed. His times were very solid—he ran a 3:16 marathon in 2012—but he thought a coach might help him go to a higher level. He hired a local trainer named John Goldthorp, and told him he wanted to win his age group at the Boston Marathon.
“Who is this guy?” Goldthorp recalled thinking.
A partnership was born. Dykes, who will train through the winter in the Philly cold and snow, is blessed with a runner’s reedy frame—he’s 5’10” and walks around at about 143 lbs., dropping to 138 lbs. for big races. But he isn’t obsessive about a lot of the things runners obsess over.
“I never stretch, never do flexibility exercises,” he said. “No weightlifting, no strength, no core.” Dykes doesn’t count calories or adhere to any special diet. “I tend to eat healthy, but I’ll eat junk food with the best of them,” he said.
Instead Dykes sticks to a much more straightforward philosophy:
“Just run,” he said.
(He called “Just Run” the working title to “a book I’m never going to get around to writing.”)
Dykes, who is affiliated with the Greater Philadelphia Track Club, just runs. Goldthorp, meanwhile, sets the training agenda—one to which Dykes closely adheres, running hard on hard workout days, and easy on easy ones, trying to avoid the common trap of failing to adequately push himself, or recover in between.
“Gene’s hard days have evolved,” Goldthorp said. “He’s able to do very hard sessions now, sessions that I never would have programmed for him in year one.” The coach believes Dykes’s secret is “consistency over time, just like investing.”
A devoted fan of super-long-distance ultra-running—in 2017, Dykes did three 200-mile events, including one around Mount St. Helens—Dykes racks up an enormous amount of mileage. It’s Goldthorp’s job to tailor Dykes’s training for big targets, like this year’s push to crack three hours in the marathon, which Dykes did for the first time this spring in Rotterdam, running 2:57:43.
It was the first time anyone other than Ed Whitlock had broken 3 hours at age 70 or older.
Dykes’s success has reached the level that he’s even been tested by antidoping officials a few times.
“That’s when you know you’ve arrived,” Goldthorp said, laughing.
Said Dykes: “I was very happy to have the opportunity to prove I only have the joy of running to pump me up.”
Goldthorp said it wasn’t until late last year that he and Dykes began to entertain the possibility of chasing Whitlock’s 70-74 mark. “It just seemed untouchable,” Goldthorp said. Whitlock, a snow-haired Canadian who famously trained in a cemetery near his house and died in 2017, remains a giant of distance running, with dozens of records across the sport.
“Let the record show that for age group world records, it’s still ED 35, GENE 1,” Dykes said.
That kind of humility is one of Dykes’s most pronounced characteristics, said his youngest daughter, Hilary Shirazi.
“I’m glad he broke this record, because he’d never go out of his way to share his accomplishments,” Shirazi said. “Even when I called him after [the record] to tell him I was proud, he said, ‘I’m just an old guy having fun.’”
Dykes’s wife, Olivia Mitchell, who teaches at Penn’s Wharton School, confided that her husband’s nickname is “#UltraGeezer.” (Yes, she used a hashtag. Professor Mitchell is cool.)
What’s next for UltraGeezer? At the moment, a rare stretch of time off—at least for a couple more weeks. But then Dykes will get right back on the road, stepping away from his focused marathon work to spend more time with his beloved ultrarunning.
“On the day [my break] ends, I’m going to run a 50-mile race in Louisiana,” Dykes said. “Two weeks later, I’m going to run a 50-mile race in Utah. When we get done, I’m going to run a 100-mile race in Texas, and two weeks after that, I’m going to run a 200-mile race in Australia.”
He’ll turn 71 on April 3. On April 15, he’ll be at the Boston Marathon, attempting to crack three hours there.
The UltraGeezer doesn’t stop.
“I do have this deeply embedded thing that I am just an ordinary runner,” said Gene Dykes, who the world now knows is anything but.
I remember January for some reason. I'm also very curious what he wrote to get such a hammer.Chief (when will he be back).
Yeah the Love Run, this is where I set my half PR. We’ll see how the training goes. Have you decided on a goal race for the spring?@pbm107 Nice report! And very kind words about so many of the runners here!
Is your half going to be the Love Run? One of these days everything is going to click for you in a half. I know you've had bad luck with allergies an other things out of your control. You responded well to Hansons this fall so I'm optimistic about your chances this spring doing similar training (before allergy season, anyway)! I suspect you're a better runner at that distance than you think you are.
He made a joke about Joe Bryant's wife's private parts. When I read it, I thought about PMing a warning to him to delete/hide the comment because it may not come across with the humor intended. But I then got sidetracked and never did.I remember January for some reason. I'm also very curious what he wrote to get such a hammer.
He made a joke about Joe Bryant's wife's private parts. When I read it, I thought about PMing a warning to him to delete/hide the comment because it may not come across with the humor intended. But I then got sidetracked and never did.
I'll probably sign up for that Carmel, IN marathon that Grue and Ocram are running. The price goes up $5 after December 31 so I promised myself to make a decision by then. That's the day before your half so that might be an exciting weekend around here.Yeah the Love Run, this is where I set my half PR. We’ll see how the training goes. Have you decided on a goal race for the spring?
Good strategy - annoyingly draft the monstrous grue for 20 miles then burn rubber and leave him angrily in the dust.I'll probably sign up for that Carmel, IN marathon that Grue and Ocram are running. The price goes up $5 after December 31 so I promised myself to make a decision by then. That's the day before your half so that might be an exciting weekend around here.
1:44:19Finally, that HM in October is circled on the calendar. I'm going to make it my #####.
That's as impressive as anything I've seen in here this year.2018 Year-end Report
Sorry to anyone I missed or anything I might have gotten wrong up top as I'm doing it from memory.
This still messes with me, almost 3 months later. I've had several dreams about wandering through the Virginia woods those last few miles, and I always have that same pissed off and confused feeling I had that night. Tahoe 200 is still on my list for the next couple of years, but given what I went through at Grindstone I just can't comprehend what I'll feel like on nights 3 and 4, even with a few naps thrown in.Other experiences or comments (about your year or any of the other guys, including funny memories):
Ima start with the funny one, my favorite annual game – what @SFBayDuck Duck Tale stuck with me this year. Because it’s always one of those. And this time it was taking 3 days post-race to realize miles 95-“100” of ‘going around in circles crossing the same creek over and over again’ (paraphrasing) at Grindstone were in fact the exact same miles he had ran about 30some hours prior and not something different. Ever wanna run a 100 miler, kids? This is what you have to look forward to.
I really appreciate what you said about me.2018 Year-end Report
I know I came in a month early writing some similar stuff but I'll go ahead and do it the right way.
Your goals coming into the year, and were they achieved?
At the start of the year, I was just coming off running my 2nd race, a 15K, which was both successful and unsuccessful all rolled into one. But, I was hooked and actually started mapping out the year, laying out race plans and starting to figure out training plans. My main goal was to keep running, run more, and get faster with the June relay race the highlight of what I wanted to do. There's no doubt I've obviously continued running, run more, and I definitely got faster. Relay race was accomplished and couldn't have asked for much more despite initially being disappointed with the end. The fact that I've finished the year where I have and still have interest to keep going is the biggest success of all.
New accomplishments or PRs in 2018:
Well, when you just start, obviously most everything is going to be a PR. However, while I'm sure it is pretty decent, I look at my overall improvement compared to the end of last year right after I just started and some of these results aren't THAT much faster. It's crazy how quick the gains can come early and how that slows down. I know with consistent training I've got more I can do, but realistically that's going to take some time to realize if it ever happens at all. We shall see. But, here goes
1 mile -- 6:38 unofficial (ran during the 1st mile of my 5K PR below)
5K PR -- 23:00 (better part was it was my 2nd PR at this distance and the 1st was set during the relay race)
10K PR -- 48:27 (first time at this distance)
15K PR -- 1:17:15
HM PR -- 1:54:33
Aside from the PRs, the accomplishment of finishing the HM has to be included. Finishing it never seemed in doubt until I was actually out there. Looking back, I needed to realize that just doing it was a success as well.
Your proudest and/or best race (or segment within a race):
Well, there are a couple that stick out here. The first is my 1st leg of the relay race and setting a solid 5K PR while doing so. I was so hungry for that race and in particular for that leg and hitting that number felt great. It made for a difficult rest of the day but still worth it in hindsight. The next has to be my race in Italy, not for the time, but for the experience of it all. So memorable and so enjoyable. I'm not sure why but it was amazing. And as an honorable mention, I have to include the 15K I just did a couple weeks ago. I was not in shape, not terribly motivated, but after some poor races this year, I wanted to run it smartly and use it as a springboard into this year and successfully did that.
A race or race training disappointment during 2018:
This one is easy. My Half Marathon without a doubt. I keep kicking myself over how that went and how poorly I managed it. No need to rehash, but that one is going to sting for a bit and provide some fuel for 2019 for sure.
Total training volume during 2018:
Currently at 895, so I'm going to fall short of the 1000 I was hoping to hit when I saw where I was halfway through 2018. But, not getting there doesn't bother me that much. I feel like I put in a good bit of time, especially just starting out and given my work/family situation. April was awesome, running every single day except April 1st.
Lesson(s) you’ve learned during the year:
Way too many. First is just the benefit of getting out. Just no substitute for it. My current fitness level is garbage and I feel awful. It's amazing how different it feels when you've gotten some quality workouts in. I've also learned quite a bit about racing itself. I look back at my very first race, the 5K last October, and I still can't believe how well I raced it, running at a pace I never had AND negative splitting. Since then, I've failed pretty miserably at replicating that feat. I now know what it feels like to hit a wall. To struggle through a long race. To look back and realize that it takes discipline to run smart.
Best memories of other guys’ training or races in 2018:
Man, this is tough because I remember lots of things at different times. I know it's been mentioned before, but things I read about in here stick in a weird way sometimes. I've been out on a run and then a post or line from a post will just jump out at me. It's great for motivation and for learning. But, I especially love following along in here and on Strava and I'm constantly awed by what some of you do.
So, in no particular order:
@pbm107 -- I hope you don't mind me saying this, but your Broad Street Run has stuck with me probably the most out of any runs for anyone here. You were absolutely primed to kill that race. When I saw your time and read your report, it was a gut punch. I remember feeling pretty down after reading your report and not even responding to it and I couldn't even imagine what you were feeling after putting the work you did in. And it was then that I realized that nothing is a given with running and racing. I also realized how much what you guys do really means and how invested I get in following along. So, to follow up, watching you crush Richmond was so gratifying. Was truly so happy for you.
@Juxtatarot -- Not much to really add other than you were an absolute machine this year in terms of training and PRs. A gold standard and you deserved every one of those accomplishments. And, aside from your own racing, always great advice and feedback personally.
@MAC_32 -- Well, your marathon report is the highlight. Reading how you gutted out the end and squeezed everything you could to hit your goal is something I remind myself of a lot. More importantly, with no disrespect meant to anyone else, your advice and feedback resonates with more than anyone else. Your perspective has completely changed mine as this year has closed out and moving forward. In particular, your post following my poor HM race really changed how I looked at that whole race and running/training/racing in general. So, thanks....
@ChiefD/ @Ocram -- First of all, stop getting banned. Secondly, I'm so glad that health-wise, you're back out and running and training for Carmel. Right along with pbm, reading your race report for the HM that didn't go well hit hard. Knowing that you wanted to get out there so bad and couldn't and thinking that it was likely the last time was tough to swallow. Watching you get out for these long runs and start putting in the miles is so pleasing to follow along. I'm probably looking forward to your Carmel race more than anyone else's coming up. On top of that, your constant encouragement here is contagious. Finally, meeting in person, you're every bit the good dude you are on here and then some. Thanks, GB.
@JShare87 -- That picture of you finishing the Treasure Coast Marathon with a smile of joy is one of my favorite pictures ever. I think of that, especially during difficult training times and during some hard spots in races. After a difficult marathon debut, you absolutely killed that race. I hate the injuries you'd have to go through this year and hope that things can improve because it's clear how much you love running. Just a BMF.
@SteelCurtain -- Boston. What a beast. In awful weather, you got out there and got it done. Your training and miles this year, geez. And even with all that, your pacing report was the cherry on top. You seemed to work so hard for that to help others and that says it all. Seeing the comments you got afterward from runners thanking you was so gratifying to read. Another one that has always stepped up with great advice for me, so thank you
@gruecd -- Despite running as long as you have and yet you still decide to go out and PR your marathon. Outrageous. Along with Steel, Juxt, and PBM, just another gold standard around here.
@tri-man 47 -- Love the experience you always bring. And while it may not have been a big deal, the race that the three of you Chicago gents ran and dominated is one of the ones I remember the most.
@Brony -- See above with tri-man. But your last 5K was a great race report to read after your constant battling as well. Watching some increased distances over the last few months has been great to see. Hope it continues.
@bushdocda -- I've already said it before, but you're where I'd like to see myself in the next couple years. Some relentless training and it paid off in your marathon. I use your training as some serious motivation and you've set a high bar. Congrats on a great race.
@Zasada -- Dude comes out of the mountains of Canada and just destroys his first HM. That was so awesome to watch and, given you and both recently started, a rivalry has been born! Seriously, what an amazing race you had and can't wait to see how you do in this marathon.
@SFBayDuck -- Nothing I really need to say here. You're on a completely different level that I can't even begin to comprehend, especially from a mental standpoint. I don't know how you do it but ....
@JAA -- Your lake swim stands out even though it wasn't technically a race. You tri guys are a different breed. I love what you bring here as a result.
@Hang 10 -- I know you don't post here as much anymore, but you still stick out to me from when I first started out here. Your 20 mile race was awesome to see. I know you're killing it on the bike now and hope that you can someday get back out running if you want to.
Sorry to anyone I missed or anything I might have gotten wrong up top as I'm doing it from memory.
Other experiences or comments (about your year or any of the other guys, including funny memories):
I hope I've provided some laughs as a complete newb in this thread over the last year. I know this is meant for funny stuff, but I look back at 2018 and no way I get to where I am now without this thread. Big, big thank you.
Goal(s) for 2019:
Have fun.
But seriously, I want to get a good 2-3 month base stretch of hitting 35-40 MPW and see where that takes me. After that, I'm looking forward to our relay race in June and hope I can do well and better than last year. Finally, that HM in October is circled on the calendar. I'm going to make it my #####.
He's dead on accurate about that BAMF picture too. If Chief hadn't made a (probably) hilarious but poorly timed vagina joke this would be a perfect spot for a run-on la-di-da.I really appreciate what you said about me.
Joke's on you - you're really still just wandering around that same ####### mountain two months later and are just too delirious to realize it.This still messes with me, almost 3 months later. I've had several dreams about wandering through the Virginia woods those last few miles, and I always have that same pissed off and confused feeling I had that night. Tahoe 200 is still on my list for the next couple of years, but given what I went through at Grindstone I just can't comprehend what I'll feel like on nights 3 and 4, even with a few naps thrown in.
It's true.I really appreciate what you said about me.
Just wear a raincoat.Good strategy - annoyingly draft the monstrous grue for 20 miles then burn rubber and leave him angrily in the dust.
This is not meant to put any pressure on him whatsoever, but...what the hell. I think 2019's biggest story in here will be the return of @Ned. And I can't wait to tune in and watch it unfold.Ugh, completely forgot @-OZ- and @Ned
That Racing the Station race was pretty neat. With all you've had going on, just impressive to see you out there as much as you are.
And, love seeing Ned back out there. I only had to miss 3 weeks and it was so frustrating. I can't even imagine. Hoping 2019 allows you to get back to being a BMF.
I still have the greatest avatar ever.
Just to be clear, who's leaving who in the dust?Good strategy - annoyingly draft the monstrous grue for 20 miles then burn rubber and leave him angrily in the dust.
You know I read this stuff and think, "hmm, could I?" The key word here is "retired." As my year-end report will discuss, another too-busy academic year has hampered by training. But, still, Dykes' seriously sub-3:00 effort is almost unimaginable. I truly dream of being capable of such efforts. Thanks for sharing.Searched and didn't find it, but I assume you guys have seen this. Ultrageezer Gene Dykes. He smashed Ed Whitlock's 70-74 AG record. Pretty astonishing, particularly at the end of the article when he talks about his upcoming race schedule. I would curl up on the floor and cry at the thought of that schedule.
Let me introduce you to your new favorite American athlete: Gene Dykes.
Retired computer programmer, lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, married to a University of Pennsylvania economics professor, two grown daughters, one grandkid. Likes to garden, plays golf a few times a month, once got pretty good at bowling, to the point he rolled four perfect games.
But here’s why we’re talking about Gene Dykes today: He just ran a world record sub-three hour marathon…at age 70.
Dykes’s 2:54:23 (per-mile pace: 6:39), which he ran at the Jacksonville Marathon on Dec. 15, shaved a startling 25 seconds off the 70-74 age group mark set by the late, legendary masters distance runner Ed Whitlock.
It was a record which many—including Dykes—assumed would never be broken.
“I didn’t think this one was in my reach,” Dykes told me the other day on the phone, from his home in Bala Cynwyd, Pa. “Going into this year, I’d never run a marathon under three hours.”
What makes Dykes’s rise to record-setter so striking is that he was, by his own admission, a very average runner until he got a coach in his mid-60s.
Dykes, who grew up in Canton, Ohio, competed in track in high school and in college at Lehigh University, but, as he tells it, he wasn’t even close to a star.
“I was so, so thoroughly trounced on the track, that I really have this lifelong impression of myself as a mediocre runner,” he said.
Dykes would graduate college, get a Ph.D. in biochemistry, make a career in computer programming, and start a family. He ran on occasion, but only as a hobby.
“Sometimes I’d be in decent shape, sometimes not,” he said. “I didn’t race. There’s a big difference between racing, and just going out there and jogging for the fun of it.”
MORE JASON GAY
Expand the Playoff, College Football December 16, 2018
The Family That Left the Dolphins Game Early—and Missed a Miracle December 13, 2018
Beautiful Schadenfreude for Patriots Haters December 10, 2018
The XFL Goes PG December 6, 2018
Six years ago, Dykes retired. By then, he’d been doing some racing, which he enjoyed. His times were very solid—he ran a 3:16 marathon in 2012—but he thought a coach might help him go to a higher level. He hired a local trainer named John Goldthorp, and told him he wanted to win his age group at the Boston Marathon.
“Who is this guy?” Goldthorp recalled thinking.
A partnership was born. Dykes, who will train through the winter in the Philly cold and snow, is blessed with a runner’s reedy frame—he’s 5’10” and walks around at about 143 lbs., dropping to 138 lbs. for big races. But he isn’t obsessive about a lot of the things runners obsess over.
“I never stretch, never do flexibility exercises,” he said. “No weightlifting, no strength, no core.” Dykes doesn’t count calories or adhere to any special diet. “I tend to eat healthy, but I’ll eat junk food with the best of them,” he said.
Instead Dykes sticks to a much more straightforward philosophy:
“Just run,” he said.
(He called “Just Run” the working title to “a book I’m never going to get around to writing.”)
Dykes, who is affiliated with the Greater Philadelphia Track Club, just runs. Goldthorp, meanwhile, sets the training agenda—one to which Dykes closely adheres, running hard on hard workout days, and easy on easy ones, trying to avoid the common trap of failing to adequately push himself, or recover in between.
“Gene’s hard days have evolved,” Goldthorp said. “He’s able to do very hard sessions now, sessions that I never would have programmed for him in year one.” The coach believes Dykes’s secret is “consistency over time, just like investing.”
A devoted fan of super-long-distance ultra-running—in 2017, Dykes did three 200-mile events, including one around Mount St. Helens—Dykes racks up an enormous amount of mileage. It’s Goldthorp’s job to tailor Dykes’s training for big targets, like this year’s push to crack three hours in the marathon, which Dykes did for the first time this spring in Rotterdam, running 2:57:43.
It was the first time anyone other than Ed Whitlock had broken 3 hours at age 70 or older.
Dykes’s success has reached the level that he’s even been tested by antidoping officials a few times.
“That’s when you know you’ve arrived,” Goldthorp said, laughing.
Said Dykes: “I was very happy to have the opportunity to prove I only have the joy of running to pump me up.”
Goldthorp said it wasn’t until late last year that he and Dykes began to entertain the possibility of chasing Whitlock’s 70-74 mark. “It just seemed untouchable,” Goldthorp said. Whitlock, a snow-haired Canadian who famously trained in a cemetery near his house and died in 2017, remains a giant of distance running, with dozens of records across the sport.
“Let the record show that for age group world records, it’s still ED 35, GENE 1,” Dykes said.
That kind of humility is one of Dykes’s most pronounced characteristics, said his youngest daughter, Hilary Shirazi.
“I’m glad he broke this record, because he’d never go out of his way to share his accomplishments,” Shirazi said. “Even when I called him after [the record] to tell him I was proud, he said, ‘I’m just an old guy having fun.’”
Dykes’s wife, Olivia Mitchell, who teaches at Penn’s Wharton School, confided that her husband’s nickname is “#UltraGeezer.” (Yes, she used a hashtag. Professor Mitchell is cool.)
What’s next for UltraGeezer? At the moment, a rare stretch of time off—at least for a couple more weeks. But then Dykes will get right back on the road, stepping away from his focused marathon work to spend more time with his beloved ultrarunning.
“On the day [my break] ends, I’m going to run a 50-mile race in Louisiana,” Dykes said. “Two weeks later, I’m going to run a 50-mile race in Utah. When we get done, I’m going to run a 100-mile race in Texas, and two weeks after that, I’m going to run a 200-mile race in Australia.”
He’ll turn 71 on April 3. On April 15, he’ll be at the Boston Marathon, attempting to crack three hours there.
The UltraGeezer doesn’t stop.
“I do have this deeply embedded thing that I am just an ordinary runner,” said Gene Dykes, who the world now knows is anything but.
I noticed this on Strava but hadn't read about it on this thread. Incredible. Do you have a specific goal in mind for how long you want the streak to go?I’m also on a current running streak of 152 straight days.
This really spoke to me. So many days are like this even though I've never really internalized it like you have. Some days I go out to Prairie Mountain with no intention of attempting a PR on my ascent, but then my legs feel good 1/3 of the way in and I decide to give it a go. Other days I can feel the fatigue in my legs and just know that I should take it easier. The only thing I find that I have to "force" myself to do is just to get out and do something. Once I'm doing that "something" it's easier to figure-out what pace is best.Also, for most runs (speed and pace runs are an exception), I run the pace that I feel like running. I subscribe to the theory that the body knows more than the brain and we just have to listen to it. I normally run at a pace where it would be annoying to run slower but not easy enough to run faster. That sweet spot varies from day to day for more reasons than my mind can figure out. My belief is that pace is a great pace to train at. The body knows intuitively.
Keep sticking with it and 7x per week should come. It seemed crazy and unwise to me 2-3 years ago, but the body adapts over time. I hadn't done more than 16 days in a row before this year and when I did anything like that issues followed. This year without trying I went to 19 days then 23 and finally 35. And each time either the calendar or inclement weather stopped me, not my body.I noticed this on Strava but hadn't read about it on this thread. Incredible. Do you have a specific goal in mind for how long you want the streak to go?
I've increased my training to 6x weekly but even though I would love to go to 7x I find the day off really allows my legs to recover from the perma-sore they seem to be in most of the time now.
This really spoke to me. So many days are like this even though I've never really internalized it like you have. Some days I go out to Prairie Mountain with no intention of attempting a PR on my ascent, but then my legs feel good 1/3 of the way in and I decide to give it a go. Other days I can feel the fatigue in my legs and just know that I should take it easier. The only thing I find that I have to "force" myself to do is just to get out and do something. Once I'm doing that "something" it's easier to figure-out what pace is best.
My plan is to go through the Chicago Marathon in October.I noticed this on Strava but hadn't read about it on this thread. Incredible. Do you have a specific goal in mind for how long you want the streak to go?
I've increased my training to 6x weekly but even though I would love to go to 7x I find the day off really allows my legs to recover from the perma-sore they seem to be in most of the time now.
You have kicked some major ### in a short period of time. You should seriously be proud of yourself.Actually probably have to change my self description. By pretty much every measurable, I have dropped from "obese" to just "overweight" but just barely. Still a nice feeling to break the barrier!
Thanks, I appreciate it. Sign of progress... Took my dog with me on a run Saturday. Ran a familiar path and did 6.6 miles. Taking the dog means a little extra work as he likes to try to attack passing cars and wants to run balls to the wall for the first mile and a half and I have to convince him to pace himself! Ran the 6.6 in 1:02! And it felt like a comfortable pace - like I felt I could keep that pace indefinitely and even picked it up a little the last mile. Averaging 9:19/mile and feeling like I could just keep trucking was a great feeling.You have kicked some major ### in a short period of time. You should seriously be proud of yourself.
I know all of us here are proud of you. Just awesome.