I started leafing through coach Jim Vance’s book “Run with Power” a couple of months ago and never quite found the time to settle down to read it all through properly. I seem to spend WAY more time writing than reading and finding a couple of free hours is always tricky with ‘the day job’.…
I always thought that pears had quite a nice shape. But when applied to training ‘maybe not’. My training is on the verge of going pear-shaped in the bad, metaphorical sense. The volume is increasing steadily by half an hour a week. There’s an all-prevalent sense of mild tiredness throughout my body but nothing particularly aches,…
Cyclinganalytics.com have announced an update to their cycling analytical software with a new training load chart (above, nice) and a new CP curve; I think the one below – but, for example, also showing your CP curve compared to the male/female populations ie which centile you are on. Also some other new stuff on the link…
In previous posts I have scoffed a little about ‘Zone 2 training’ which, by now, I have become quite accustomed to. I sort-of noticed the increasing volume as the weeks went by but that was all fine as I was secretly enjoying running/cycling a long way and exploring new bits of my neighbouring areas that…
In case you need 6 tips, here are the first 5 for running a marathon. Sonia, based at Loughborough, did 2:32.
A lot of the Ironman plans I looked at rely on Training Zones. Either POWER zones or HEART RATE training zones. Much of the training is in Zone 1/2. Broadly speaking the Zone 2 to Zone 3 boundary (AeT/LT1) represents going from aerobic to anaerobic. With caveats, this specific boundary is a ‘real thing’ that…
Garmin’s Fenix 5 advertises the use of Training Effect 2.0 and will also be including a new Training Status. This was developed by FIRSTBEAT and announced as long ago as December 2015. As we know FIRSTBEAT are a leading HR-analytics company who partner with Suunto, Huawei, Jabra, Samsung, Sony and others. Indeed many of you…
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One of Polar’s stand-out features has got better…well at least more widely available. The previous implementation of the Training Load/Recovery stats on the cycling products was behind that of their other devices. Not any more The Polar stats and algorithm anecdotally seem more accurate than the equivalent Garmin measures. IMO Garmin Training Readiness is too…
I’ve re-blogged, below, a description from trainingpeaks.com of the differences between their products (WKO4 and TRAINING PEAKS). I’ve used similar power-related features to those in WKO4 in the free Golden Cheetah. The features are awesome and I’m sure will be awesome in WKO4 as well. The best, for a sometimes-slacker like me, is the mFTP…modelled FTP…a CP30 without having to…
Below is Mo’s apparent typical training week from ‘training a runner’ (Source, below). You can see he is hitting the miles to boost his aerobic efficiency and technical running skill. At the end of ‘Mo’s Training Week’ there is a video of his form analysed. Of particular interest to many of you will be his…
Here’s my own personal take on whether or not swimming will help your efforts to a faster 5k. Or for that matter how much your swim training will better your other tri-related sports if instead you are training for more than just 5k. Or you might be injured and worried about getting worse at 5k…
I needed a feel-good session today and for some bizarre reason my plan has 1 minute intervals with 2 min recovery. That’s a lot of speed and a lot of recovery, perhaps too much. Anyway I went faster than ever sneaking in quite a few minutes at 3 min/km pace… awesome. I just have to…
With 5k running (and especially at parkruns with a wide variation in ability) people seem to think they are either brilliant, rubbish or improving. Well the one thing for sure is that you are ALL better than those sitting at home watching Saturday morning TV. But for those that think they are brilliant and those…
I come from the ‘do as little mileage as possible’ school. Before you say I’m wrong the key is ‘as possible’. Obviously you need to get those longer slower miles into your bags before doing the quality work. So how little do you need to do (of the longer stuff!) Former US Marathon record holder…
We all want to get that PB down as low as we can. I guess there comes a point though where nature takes over and that PB will never be possible. But then you can just look at your age graded score instead! So there’s always room for improvement by some means. Even some 60…
How long will it take me to do 5k in less than 20 minutes? 5k runners often have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they can improve. When you start out the improvement is dramatic. But the improvement slows quickly and the training effort required to improve increases. It’s really a statement of the fairly obvious…
Yes. I would definately enter I represented GB in Age Group Duathlon and genuinely was worried that I may well have come last. As it turned out I wasn’t. There’s always someone somewhere that will be slower than you. You just have to hope they are in the same race!! But really who cares? Think…
Something to bear in mind. As you exercise you use the glycogen stored in your muscles (and liver to a lesser extent), with a bit of luck you might also burn some fat. After 30 minutes of doing whatever you do you will be WEAKER than when you started out. In itself exercise is bad…
This post is for 5k runners who are relative beginners and can run 5k in less than 35-40 minutes and who can run for 60 continuous minutes if they wanted to. Typically you may have previously been focusing on getting miles under your belt but have not found that you are getting faster 5k times…
