Inflexible Determination

My Running Experience

Archive for the ‘Learnings’ Category

learnings encountered in my running history

Better Pacing helps a lot

Posted by eyestrain on August 13, 2009

clock

My last 10k runs have been a disaster at the 7k to 8k mark i always start to feel like I already hit the wall.  Initially, I thought the problem was my preparation, but with my last 10k I know for sure that I had good rest, stretching and energy preparation but I still encountered the same problem at the 8k mark.  So this morning I  had good rest,stretching and energy preparation but I felt like I still had to change something with my tactic.  So i’ve decided to use an organized approach with my pacing.  My battle plan was 1 and 2 KM Easy ,  3rd km Comfortable Fast run,  4th Easy again,  5th Comftable Fast again,  6th Easy, 7th CF, 8th Easy, 9 to last KM  a mix of Fast and Easy.  And heres the the result comparison below,

Left side is the New pacing i did today, while right table was my old pacing.  After comparing the two I’ve noticed I had better speed distribution and I also had more opportunity to run fast  because my energy was properly distributed in the entire run with my new pacing.

New Pacing Old Pacing
Split Time per KM Distance Avg Speed Max Speed Split Time per KM Distance Avg Speed Max Speed
1 0:07:31 1 7:31 0:44 1 0:06:08 1 6:08 5:07
2 0:07:54 1 7:54 6:41 2 0:06:20 1 6:20 5:01
3 0:06:09 1 6:09 5:07 3 0:06:29 1 6:29 5:34
4 0:07:47 1 7:47 6:34 4 0:06:55 1 6:55 5:30
5 0:05:53 1 5:53 4:52 5 0:06:30 1 6:30 5:01
6 0:07:42 1 7:42 4:42 6 0:07:16 1 7:16 6:01
7 0:06:01 1 6:01 4:39 7 0:06:51 1 6:51 5:49
8 0:07:31 1 7:31 5:40 8 0:07:11 1 7:11 5:34
9 0:06:08 1 6:08 4:18 9 0:07:17 1 7:17 5:36
10 0:06:40 1 6:40 4:39 10 0:08:17 1 8:17 5:07
Summary 1:09:23 10.01 6:56 0:44 Summary 1:11:56 10.00 6:53 4:48

After comparing my old run with my new pacing.  I learned that:

  • I need to properly set a Slow and Fast pacing every KM to properly allocate my energy for the entire run.  My old style before was run fast until I exhaust all my energy then recharge by slow jogging, then as soon as my energy level is back start running fast again which seemed to be a wrong approach based from my experience.
  • I did not experience any side stitch at all with my new pacing, in all my previous 10k runs i ALWAYS experienced a side stitch.
  • I only felt like I did a 5k training practice with my new pacing.
  • I felt like I can actually do up to 3km more after hitting 10k, but i already stopped at 10k
  • Less Body pain after the training.  yay!

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Whats your Collapse Point?

Posted by eyestrain on August 10, 2009

clpspoint

One boring night while browsing google around for any interesting article about running, I stumbled upon Baldrunner’s website.   He has a writeup  w/c talks about Collapse Point. Based on Baldrunner’s research, Collapse Point  is the point along the marathon race where you hit your “Wall”. This term was made famous by Dr John Wagner of the Honolulu Marathon Association.

While the formula for calculating your personal collapse point would be:

(Get your total mileage for 60 days) divide by 20 = Collapse point

or  to put it easier, get your weekly mileage,  then divide your weekly mileage by 7,  multiply the result by 60 then divide it by 20 equals your Collapse point.

After reading this article it was both good news and bad news for me.  Good news is that I came to a realization on how I can improve my weekly and long term training program. While Bad News is I still have a looooooooong  way to go to reach my 1st marathon.

——–

thanks to Baldrunner’s website for his article about Collapse Point.   =)

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