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Oct 2017
1:41pm, 11 Oct 2017
2,339 posts
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K5 Gus
I pretty much missed 4 complete months Oct - Jan with achilles problem, but have been injury free ( apart from maybe 1 or 2 small niggles ) since start of February, so had 8 months of decent training.
The 10k I ran 4 weeks ago was 2nd fastest ever, and fastest on a flat course ( PB was on a net downhill course ), so got the speed just need to see if I have the endurance.
Unfortunately I don't have a useful Half time for this campaign - the one half I ran was terrible ( 1:35 ) think I had some sort of virus as HR was through the roof.
The on-line race predictors, using that 10k time and a fast parkrun, say I should be in 3:02 shape, but no way will I be going off at that pace !!
Current thinking is 7:20 on way out and see if I can increase to 7:15 on the way back.
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Oct 2017
2:01pm, 11 Oct 2017
11,858 posts
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Chrisull
larkim - drilling down into Sanjay Sharma's article, I came across this:
"Current evidence indicates that only a small number of athletes may be at risk of cardiac damage from long-standing intensive exercise and the endorphin-mediated euphoria with such practice in some athletes may be ‘cardiotoxic’ in only a minority."
So, in other words, it's really horribly unlucky to experience such a terrible event.No comfort to those that do. To be flippant - and massively flippant with probabilities, because there is a greater risk of heart issues than these following examples:
if you buy a lottery ticket, you are at risk of winning the lottery. Or if you board a plane you are at risk of being in a plane crash. But realistically, as an individual, the probability is such that you are not going to win the lottery jackpot, you aren't going to be in a plane crash. So if there was a small increase in probabilities, and if I said to you, today your chance of winning the lottery is 1 in 45,057,474, but today I'll give you 1 in 42,111,274. (roughly 3 million better) then you would take the better odds, but wouldn't exactly start ordering the champagne. It makes no functional difference to the individual is my point (which you agree with). It just means if you know hundreds of people (via say an online community such as Fetch or Strava), more likely one person at least will experience it. So why am I labouring it? Well, I know a sports scientist with a PHD in that discipline who won't run a marathon because of the risks. I don't agree with him.
Looking up PVCs (or PACs I see, which they are more likely to be) premature skipped beats - in understandable terminology (which I get), they could possibly be a risk factor for running longer races. However there is no test that is currently reliable- seems to be Sharma's take:
"Current recommendations for identifying middle aged athletes at the highest risk of SCD rely on an exercise stress test; however, it is recognized that most abnormal exercise tests in asymptomatic middle aged athletes represent a false-positive result and have a low-predictive accuracy."
Which goes back to HappyG's point about wanting to take a test... if you have no symptoms, no current test will help spot it. A similar pattern is emerging with testing for some cancers too it seems (the bodies immune system kills them before they are ever a danger, and treatment for something that might never become a problem is worse). Too much testing can be as bad, as ignoring symptoms.
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Oct 2017
2:07pm, 11 Oct 2017
3,134 posts
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Curly45
A couple of things:
SPR 1.3 Handicap :O that is impressive.
I was very happy this week to see mine go to 5.5!
Welcome to Pete.
Loving all the stats analysis, especially around pacing tactics.
Downhill running is a tough thing for many, I tend to find concentrating on the feet landing position (obviously a lot easier on tarmac) as underneath you as much as possible helps.
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Oct 2017
2:35pm, 11 Oct 2017
25,070 posts
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SPR
Curly - Thanks. The best two runners in my club according to RB (one is the best from 5000m up to 20 miles, the other just pipped him at Chester) both went sub 2:30 at Chester and are now both at -2.6!
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Oct 2017
2:35pm, 11 Oct 2017
27,645 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Gus, I notice that RicC, he of the 2:55 mara was 3:10 at Loch Rannoch last year. So even though it's not too hilly, presumably it is a bit tougher than a VLM or an Edinburgh? Very best of luck with it. But don't go too quick - I'm eyeing your MV50 times in the club best spreadsheet for a year or two hence! 
Time to start putting 5, 10 mile, 10k and half maras into my plan. From Dec/Jan probably - mostly filled with XC til then! G
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Oct 2017
2:50pm, 11 Oct 2017
1,953 posts
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jdarun
Yeah I've also a black mark for "athlete's heart" in a health check (along with obesity, but that's another story). The test results came with no advice but a bit of googling suggested that it was not thought to be a problem in itself, and given no other history (personal or family) or symptoms there was nothing worth worrying about. Having got to my late 40s it seems unlikely I've got any major undiagnosed problem, though late to running I've done plenty of hard exercise earlier in life. In fact someone I rowed with back in my student days dropped dead in the boat one day (I wasn't there at the time) from precisely one of these young person heart issues like the footballer, so I've always been aware of the issue. Another more middle-aged friend also had a heart attack a while back while training out by himself and was lucky to be found and survive, after a stent and pills he is back doing mountainous 100km+ ultra marathons at a good lick though I believe he was advised to keep a lid on max HR. In his case there was high cholesterol involved and a "proper" heart attack I believe, despite being ridiculously fit and not at all overweight.
So my take on it that it's just one of those things, without any specific reasons there is no reason to lose sleep about it. We all die of something and running is very very much more likely to lengthen than shorten our lives. Perhaps not much comfort to the handful caught up in it though...
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Oct 2017
3:03pm, 11 Oct 2017
2,340 posts
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K5 Gus
HappyG - did you check RicC's log though ? He did the first 16 miles at steady 7:50 pace, then suddenly switched to 6:15-6:20 for the last 10 miles
So just some sort of training run for him
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Oct 2017
3:17pm, 11 Oct 2017
3,218 posts
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Windsor Wool
time flies Gus, sorry - I really remembered it as being more recent that you'd struggled but your log does show a nice run of consistent consistency so you may well be coming home in a nice -ve split....
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Oct 2017
4:19pm, 11 Oct 2017
3,034 posts
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larkim
Finally the RBR update of the Chester results seems to have happened. I continually find their national rankings intriguing. Here's my 2017 position:-
Dist Year Time %age
5K 2017 18:59 10.0%
parkrun 2017 19:39 0.7%
10K 2017 38:44 3.0%
10M 2017 67:00 8.1%
HM 2017 89:21 4.5%
20M 2017 2:31:32 19.0%
Mar 2017 3:14:29 7.3%
So I'm in the top 0.7% of parkrunners, but with a faster time I'm only in the top 10% of 5ks. Top 3% for 10k but only 8.1% for 10M. And 4.5% for HMs yet only 7.3% for a marathon.
I know the reason why these are all over the place - its participation volumes of course. parkrun is truly mass participation, whereas 5ks are now really only raced by "proper" club runners. 10k and HM are popular with both the mass particpants and the club scene. And perhaps marathon is self selective - it remains a big challenge to most, so whilst there are volumes of mass participants, perhaps not at quite the same level as 10k or HM?
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Oct 2017
5:12pm, 11 Oct 2017
27,646 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Yip, all of that larks. I find runbritain handicap a bit weird because of the SSS and vSSS ratings. I prefer WAVA and using my own adjustment for course and conditions to know how well/badly I ran. G
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