Had some pretty awful chafing yesterday due to running in boxers, so I decided to take today off. Went and shot 100 3-pointers as a super light workout. Went 24 for 40, then 19 for my next 60

These are unguarded college 3s obv, shot on alternating baskets (back to back short court) without a rebounder. When I get back up to speed I should hit 55-60/100

Did a "difficult" rated 4.5 mile hike today. It was pretty hard, I'm exhausted.

Absolutely wrecked a game of 2 on 2 today, scoring at will and dominating. Then did 3x125 jump rope and one set of chins (lifted yesterday).

After 5 months your 5K PR is only 22:30??? Too many speed workouts. Not enough mileage. How many miles have you run in five months? About 200?
You're supposed to train at a speed where you can carry a normal conversation.

20 years after high school in five months I was able to run 6 miles in 39:30. I had run 600 miles of training during those five months. High mileage at a comfortable pace. Very little speed work. Speed work tears the body down. Comfortable pace training builds the body up. Also was a non athlete. Never ran in high school or college.

Yeah, unfortunately I'm a busy guy and running 5ks is not my job. I don't have time to put in a huge amount of mileage. I've probably run between 250-300 miles in that time.

Lately, especially, I've been working roughly 2x as much as I was last year. Doesn't leave time for the distance runs.

Also, while I set a fast 5k as my goal, honestly I'd rather be a faster sprinter and higher jumper for basketball purposes. I mostly focused on 5k because it's a fun distance that I used to run competitively and I wanted to get back to at least "respectable." I'm still running and lifting and have added consistent bball back into my routine, and I'm pretty happy with my exercise and fitness level at the moment. And I will still try to break my 5k record on occasion, mostly because it's a good workout, not because I care much about getting the fastest 5k time ever. I will never equal my PR again (16:53 btw) because I'm too old.

On my 42nd birthday I ran a 36:18 10K. You may be too busy. You're not too old.

I'm going to be 33 this year, I set the 5k pr when I was 17. I'm also 45 pounds heavier, which is a lot to overcome. Maybe if I didn't have anything else going on in my life at all and could devote myself solely to training I could beat my pr.... but its far from certain that I could ever get that fast again. And 22:30 is still faster than ~95% of humans.

You're running on a treadmill in a gym, aren't you? How long does it take to get to the gym and back? If you ran from your house, that time could be spent running.
Also think you starting by running too long a distance. I started by running only 6 or 7 minutes a day. Took 4 or 5 weeks before I was running 3 miles a day. This approach allowed my body to adjust. Galloway suggests taking 8 or 9 weeks to reach 3 miles a day.

Ran 3 miles outside yesterday at a relaxed, even pace.

Today I was going to shoot some bball but volleyball was happening in the gym. They invited me to play so I did for a game. I jumped a few times but other than that it wasn't all that strenuous.

Then I did chins and OHP. I am getting a fair amount of reps on these things, maybe it's time to start adding weight. Today I did 15 on my first set at about 85% ROM.

FWIW although I can do 100% ROM (8-10 reps on first set), I usually don't because it strains my elbows significantly more to go to a fully extended hang.

Yesterday I did that 400/400 workout that jaglawson admonished me for. I know it's not optimal 5k training but I really like it... it's a good balance of getting at least a little distance in (I end up running 2 miles in the course of the workout) and some anaerobic semi-speed work. After I did chins and rows (I think that's what they're called).

Today I played basketball for about an hour. We started with only 3 guys doing full court crunch. It's a short court, but it was still a great workout. Then we played a game of 2 on 2.

Ugh, had the worst night of sleep in a long while last night. In bed at 10, up at 1:30, tossing and turning until 5am.

Think it was due to beer (had 3) and too much thai food. Just felt bloated and ****ty all night.

So much for recovery. Gonna play bball today but probably not lift.

Come on man you can do it. Managed to get my PR to 21:50 recently with 3 months light training. You can smash 21 mins just keep going.

Bump

I basically gave up running for bball once I found a regular game I could play in during lunchtime at work. Been playing 3-4 fairly high intensity games each week and crushing souls.

However, 3 of the regs I play with are on vacation this week, so I if I want to get a workout, I'm gonna have to do some running. Today I hopped on the treadmill with the idea that I was gonna break my 5k record in a pair of bball shoes. Wasn't happening. Other than a small problem with my iPod where it would only play the first 12 seconds of each song, I started at a 7:03 pace and I realized pretty quickly that I wouldn't be able to sustain it for 3.1 miles.

So I bumped up the speed a bit and decided to just do one medium-hard mile. Finished in 6:48, then did a bit of light lifting (did chins yesterday after bball).

I'm sure I'm quite a bit off my peak running pace in all distances 400 meters and up, but my sprinting and jumping are much improved thanks to just playing a hell of a lot of bball. Yesterday I dunked a volleyball for the first time in a few years, hopefully a real basketball will be next.

Also, I may have another beer mile event coming up in a month or two... gotta work on those 400s and practice chugging

Couple other health notes:

- Had my cholesterol checked for the first time ever last week. Came back at 211 overall, with HDL of 56 and an LDL of 138. The 211 is slightly high (under 200 is considered normal) and so is the LDL (under 130 is normal). Meh? Should I be concerned at all? My diet is fairly rich and could use some improvement, but I'm not gonna give up carnitas cold turkey or anything.

- Lately my weight has fluctuated between 178 and 183, typically landing on about 181. This is down from an average of 186 or so back when I was running a lot. I feel a tiny bit thinner.

Ok, I did this to my ankle about 3 weeks ago playing basketball:



Obviously I haven't been able to do any cardio, although I've started back on the chins every other day or so.

Despite how it looks, it's just a high ankle sprain and I've been able to walk pretty much normally since a couple days after the accident. However, my hamstring has been just driving me nuts on that leg. It aches and feels a bit crampy throughout the day, and I wake up in the middle of the night with stronger, more annoying aches.

I'm guessing it's because I am not walking quite as normally as I think, and I'm probably under/over using that muscle somehow. But it's starting to tilt me a lot. How can I make my hamstring heal?

I've tried a bit of light stretching but I don't want to take it too far because it feels like it could cramp when I start to strain it in the least.

why are your toes bruised up?

The ankle is healed and I'm back on the basketball court. Out of shape, though. I basically couldn't do any cardio for 3 months, and now that I'm back, I injured my abs (either playing bball or doing chins), which has kept me from full effort on the court and completely eliminated my ability to lift.

I'd say I'm at 85% effectiveness playing basketball. Still able to crush most people, but not my usual elite level

When my abs heal fully, I'm considering doing a different log. Maybe something like a 3-month dunk challenge where I focus on vert and losing weight. Before I hurt my ankle I was getting close to being able to dunk again. Now I'm basically back to square one.

BAMP

Ended up getting back into running fairly seriously last summer, but then I partially tore my ACL and meniscus and sprained my MCL while wakesurfing. I didn't realize I had a serious injury and kept running, and ended up partially tearing my gastrocnemus muscle a few days later.

That knocked me out for about 6 months. No surgery (doc didn't think it would help), just PT.

I was finally able to resume running in March; as of right now I'm running 20-25 miles a week on average and about to start a training plan for the Portland Marathon in October. In the meantime I've been running 5ks whenever practical... Portland Parks has a series of 5k races that only cost $5... I ran the first one last month and shipped a 21:52 which is an adult PR. Got another one coming up in June.

I have 3 goals for the year:

- Break 20 minutes for 5k
- Break 4 hours for marathon
- Break 10 minutes for Beer Mile

Great run today, from the office down to the waterfront, along the Eastbank Esplanade. 7.3 miles in one hour (hit 10k in about 50:30).

I started at an easy pace and then did one mile at a harder pace (about 7mm) before dialing back to 8-8:30 mm pace.

I probably pushed a tad harder overall than I should have for just a regular weekday run but it felt good so I went with it. Plus there are lots of runners to pass on the Esplanade which is just too tempting.

Sitting at a bit over 97 miles for the month as of right now... gonna run at least 3 miles tomorrow to crack 100.

Just ran my second 5k of the year yesterday. I had been hitting ~25 miles per week, but I took last week REAL easy, because my calf felt like it was acting up again. So I only ran a little bit (8 miles total, not including the 5k), and did a lot of stretching and work with the foam roller instead. By the time the race came around my calf was feeling fine.

However, I quickly became dehydrated and I developed a side stitch around mile 2. I was on pace for sub 21 until about that point (first mile was probably around 6:30 or so, as my first lap was 6:45-ish). I ended up finishing in 22:10, which I suppose isn't bad. Only 20 seconds slower than my PR... and the course had a pretty solid hill (that we had to run 3 times because it was a loop). If the hill hadn't been there I think I would have PR'd even with the side ache.

Up next: I literally start my marathon training today, with an easy day of cross training. I'm doing one of the Higdon Intermediate plans.

hi SC, nice job getting back into it, and good luck with the marathon training. As you can tell, this forum isn't nearly as active with distance running stuff as it used to be, especially four or five years ago. The good news is that if you're ever feeling unsatisfied, there are a handful of great books about distance race training in general and marathon stuff in particular, lmk if you want a few suggestions.

There are also some good online resources but maybe nothing's more consistently useful than the McMillan Pace Calculator; obv it's not perfect across all distances for all runners but for most people it ends up being spooky accurate. Probably you use it already, but if not then there's the link.

A couple general concepts that you also probably already know:

--imo the whole Woody Allen quote about how "90% of life is just showing up" really suits marathon training. Four months of this crap is a long time and there are going to be setbacks, mostly small ones (scattered atrocious workouts, scattered low energy days, etc) and probably one or two big ones (sickness, injury, other bs). It feels like a catastrophe when it's happening, but just try to remind yourself that this stuff happens to everyone and the important thing is just not to overreact. Don't beat yourself up over a couple bad days, just keep showing up and trying not to force the issue too much.

--sure, if you want to get all your marathon goals then some of the workouts are going to be sincerely hard and you'll have to suck it up. But try to pick your spots, because for tons of people the hardest part of marathon training is resisting the temptation to always do more. One piece of running advice that you hear a lot is that "it's better to show up at the race 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained," and man this is SO TRUE, but unfortunately it seems like the kind of thing that everybody has to learn the hard way. That said, if you're ever overtraining, then my nuanced advanced advice is to ****ing knock it off. Everybody has unexpected bad days in training, but if you have three or four in a row where your energy and enthusiasm is flat (and your resting pulse is high etc), then don't be too proud to reevaluate and/or to give yourself a legitimate break. It's a gigantic pain in the ass to recover from overtraining after the fact, so do your best to not be a freaking hero all the time and find a balance.

--one of the most common mistakes that marathon runners with your background make in their everyday training is that they run their easy days at too fast a pace. If you are constantly letting your easy/regular pace creep faster and faster to where you're having to exert some actual willpower in the majority of your workouts, then it's gonna wear you down. Look at those McMillan pace charts for this stuff and trust them. And it's fine if you don't wear a pulse thingy, but do learn how to periodically take your pulse for 15 seconds and get a sense for what your ranges are.

--the most common mistake that distance runners make with their form is having too slow a turnover. Tons of smart stuff has been written about this--including in this forum and you can search for it--but the bottom line is that the next time you're humming along at, say, 7:30 pace, count how many times your left foot is hitting the ground every minute. If it's below 87ish, then you would definitely benefit from nudging it up a little, and ideally you'll bump it to 90 or the low-90s (but any higher than that and it might be counterproductive). It's a surprisingly complicated topic, but for now just trust me that if you're at 85 or something, then gradually working towards a faster cadence (while keeping your pace the same) is going to solve a lot of problems.

--the most common mistake that runners make during races is to start too fast. Yes, I know you know this already, and sorry, but it's so important that imo it really can't be repeated enough. In a 5K for example, if you go out too way fast even in just the first 60-90 seconds, you are absolutely going to pay for that later in time and suffering. In October you are going to be at the starting line for your marathon and feeling terrific, looking sharp in your lucky socks and feeling cocky because you finally took a satisfying dump in the port-a-pottie on your third try. Congratualtions, and now that everything's going your way, please do NOT be one of the ten thousand goofs who get bewitched by the pre-race adrenaline and run the first mile of their marathon at their freaking 5K pace. Man, just please don't. Instead be the one person in a hundred who makes a good plan and trusts it and keeps it.

--the Higdon stuff is fine; honestly pretty much any plan is fine as long as you're out there putting in the time. But my kneejerk reaction to Higdon's intermediate plans is that it's a little weird to not be doing any speedwork. I don't mean that you need to be doing two tempos and a VO2 workout plus strides every week or anything idiotic like that, but imo you'd benefit from striking some kind of balance here.

Sorry for the wall of text but I'm not in H&F too much and I don't know if I'll see this again anytime soon. But best of luck with everything and we're rooting for you. And definitely keep massaging the **** out of your legs, especially with your history. Some people have more luck with one of TheSticks than with foam rollers, especially for the deep masochistic calf stuff.

Great post, thanks for all the advice.

- Sometimes it is a struggle to make myself run slowly. I think it goes back to my memories of running in high school -- it seems like we ran hard just about every single day. So when I take it easy, I feel like I'm slacking off, even though I know it's what I need to do. However, I've definitely gotten better at taking it slow after my various leg injuries.

- As for speedwork on the Higdon plan... I agree, but I definitely want to err on the side of too little. I may add some fartleks to the Saturday tempo runs... and I'm planning on running at least 2 more 5k races before the marathon.

- I have used the McMillan calculator a bit. If I plug in my current 5k pr (21:52) it gives me a marathon target of 3:33:10. I think that's a bit ambitious for my first marathon, but we'll see. The associated pacing seems fairly reasonable.

The foam roller has definitely seemed to help on the main part of my left calf (toes pointing straight up). However, when I use it on the outer edge of my calf (toes at about 10 o-clock), there is a TON of soreness and pain, particularly the upper part of my calf nearest my knee. Everything I've read says that this is normal, and that I should just take it easy and work slowly over those sore spots but it seriously feels like something is going to explode. Am I doing it wrong?

Just saw the official results from Sunday's 5k. I got 10th place out of 196. Also they had me at 22:22 which I know is wrong... I looked at the clock as I finished and it was 22:12. Oh well, 10th place HOLLA

Those conversion time charts are unrealistic for average joes. The top runners are training 100+ miles a week for marathons. They can double their half marathon time and add 3 or 4 minutes for the expected time for the marathon. Average joes can't do that. They can't train 100+ miles/week without getting injured. Double your half marathon time and add ten minutes. You would be lucky to beat that time.

I think ultimately I could actually beat 3:33 for a marathon... but not this year. I used to be a halfway decent runner (16:53 5k PR); if I can ever get my knee/leg issues fully sorted out I think I could improve my current times a lot.