forgotten_aria | News Flash: running still sucks (for me)

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running,
taekwondo

News Flash: running still sucks (for me)

It's that time again. When I start training my 1.5 mile run for my black belt test. I'm trying very hard not to whine about it too much on social media this time, but this is my journal, so I get a few honest posts here, whiny or not.

I'm a month in. This is my first time training over the winter (usually it was from April to October.) Luckily my CrossFit gym got a passive treadmill, so I'm paying $20 a month for 24/7 access to the gym to use it. Sadly, it doesn't quite do the distance perfectly, so I don't know 100% if I'm running at the right pace. Since I'm still struggling with the intervals, it might not matter if the pace is perfect.

So far I'm really stuck on the run 90s, walk 90s, run 3m, walk 3m, repeat. I'm having a lot of trouble doing both 3 minutes. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. It feels so basic too. I hate how much running just makes me feel like a failure. Like it's something anyone with two working legs, heart, and lungs should be able to do.

It's also exhausting me pretty badly. I don't want to give up any CrossFit or TKD, so it means I have to scale my CrossFit pretty hard just to not run my self into the ground. My body has always been slow on recovery. I've had to quit my lyra classes because I just don't have the energy/recovery for it. (Though I have two classes that are going to expire, so I better get some in.)

I've been wavering between "is this worth it? 6 months of misery to maybe/maybe not get under the 18m mark?" and "I have to do this." He's changed the test so I don't have to hit that to pass as long as I do well enough on everything else. But this is also what being a black belt is about. Doing something hard for the same of another goal you do want.

I have been mostly keeping my tendon happy, but just barely. I can feel it get angry from time to time and then I give it some heat and it settles down.

I just don't hold out much faith that the training is going to work this time. I have a spreadsheet of numbers from the past 3 trainings, so I know what I should be expecting.

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Is the bar being able to do 1.5 mi at 10min average pace?

In related news, it kinda blows my mind that a couple I know have both completed 2 Ironmans where their usual not-training-for-an-Ironman pace is significantly slower than 10 min/mile, so thus after doing the swim and bike, of course their Ironman marathon pace is even slower than that. To me, "complete an Ironman" and "normal marathon pace > 10 min/mile" just baffles me, but woot, go go Danielle & Mike being very accomplished athletes!

Out of curiosity, are you working with a running coach?

1.5 at 12min/mile pace (18 minutes total.)

I'm using the c25k again, since it worked in the past, but no, no actual coach. I've had some people double check that my form isn't appauling or anything.

I'm not sure a running coach would know what to do with me and I think it would make me even more miserable to be paying money to still suck a running.

12 min pace: aha.

Well, you'd certainly have to find the right running coach, that's for sure! I suppose it's like anything: no sense getting a violin teacher who only knows classical ensemble music if what you really want to learn is contra dance fiddle. :) But yes, good to doublecheck form isn't wildly out-of-bounds, since that would rapidly lead to injury, I would guess.

At any rate, oof: my sympathies. Having an objective goal like this can be very liberating in that it narrows your focus, but it sounds like it's super debilitating in that it seems impossible. :( (I can take a (slightly wild) guess as to what's blocking you, but I wasn't sure if you were looking for solutions.)

I'd love to hear the guess. I think just my physical reality is blocking me.

Let's start with the most important, by far:

> I think just my physical reality is blocking me.

This, more than anything else, is what is stopping you.

You can't make yourself run faster by just believing you can run faster, but you can absolutely stop yourself from being able to run faster by tell yourself that.

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No, really, the stuff above is the most important.

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Okay, on to training details. Again, none of this matters unless you believe that you can do this.

Guess #1: your run segments are way too fast.

If you're trying to do your run segments at 12:00, then they are absolutely way too fast. You can build either distance or speed, but not both. If your run segments are at, say, 14 or 15 min pace, awesome: so long as only one foot is in contact with the ground, you're running, and it's that set of kinesthetics/biomechanics that we're training in.

When you're in the run phase, I think of the Effort level in 4 zones:
* uncomfortably hard
* comfortably hard
* easyish
* easy

It's very rare that I run at "uncomfortably hard". I should do that more often, don't get me wrong, because I should be doing more HIIT stuff. But C25K is very much not HIIT, not even close.

When you've built back up to a 3mi run, then maybe doing the last, mm, 5 minutes at Comfortably Hard, that could be a nice bonus to throw in on some runs.

For the run segments of C25K, you should be at Easyish effort level. You shouldn't be able to discuss last night's episode in detail (that's Easy effort level), but go back-and-forth on where to get dinner after this? Yes, you should have enough available breath for that.

Guess #2: your walk segments are too fast.

The point is to let your heart rate come down without letting your muscles get cold. Walk as if you're walking with someone who has mostly recovered from a sprained ankle.

At cat's age 163bpm is absolutely HIIT.

Edited 2023-12-04 20:50 (UTC)

Actually, good point: I don't know what Cat's baseline mileage is. I was assuming these workouts were the only mileage she's getting, in which case, yeah, a HIIT workout each workout is... well, it strikes me as a poor idea. Cat, if your base mileage is more like 12-15 miles/week, okay, then I would need to totally re-evaluate.

Just saw the google photos link. Does that say your run pace is around 10 min/mile, and maybe you started the first segment at slightly sub-10? Yes, I would totally not expect that you could sustain that.

Remember: 15 sec/mile is one quantum of running pace, so whereas I was guessing you should be at 14 or 15 min/mile, if you're starting at 10 min/mile, you are eight to ten quanta too fast.

To put that in perspective: you should be going at marathon pace during your run segments, and instead, you are going at slightly slower than mile pace. I'm... actually impressed that you could do a second segment and consistently hold that pace! Well done!!!

Now stop doing anything even vaguely like that for the love of all that is holy. :) Have a conversation with yourself during run segments that consists of 3-4 word sentences.
"How it going?"
"Not too bad."
"Too fast?"
"Nah, s'all good."
"You're a good runner!"
"Thanks, you too!"
"Not even hard."
"Yeah, kinda cool!"
"Right? Me too!"

1, being able to do that out-loud means you're not going too fast.
2, hey, free pep talk for yourself? Outstanding. :)

Slower pace doesn't usually give me any more stamina because most of the energy is being used bouncing up and down.

The only mantra that seems to help is "I'm not here" or just counting to 20 over and over. As a general rule, positive self talk usually backfires and makes things worse.

As for mileage, I'm not doing any other running, but I do about 4 hours of CrossFit and 4 of Taekwondo, which has variable amounts of cardio. And for the record, I can hold my own on machine (rowing, bike, echo bike) cardio against the other people in my gym.

> The only mantra that seems to help is "I'm not here"

Yeah, that, for sure, will tank your running.

> or just counting to 20 over and over

Aha! Now that's a great neutral mantra to use, outstanding.

> As for mileage, I'm not doing any other running

So, specificity of training. All of that should mean that cracking out a 5K at talk-about-latest-TV-shows-and-gossip-about-friends pace should be pretty doable. (I didn't say "easy", I said "doable". Big difference. :) ) Anything faster than that pace, though, is going to run into the problem of lack of specificity of training.

I'm still puzzled about this, though:

> Slower pace doesn't usually give me any more stamina because most of the energy is being used bouncing up and down.

Something is not adding up in my head, which I'm guessing is 90% me not understanding how you run and maaaybe 10% something about your running. Running slower often causes people to bounce, yes, but then generally the body chooses to be lazy and that slowly smoothes out the bouncing over time.

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Going back to pace deltas: Sat, I did a 5K and ran for time.

Warmup: first mile at 11:48, plus 0.26 at 10:56 pace. So clearly, I was warming up.
Stood around for almost 7 mins before 5K starts.
Splits: 9:58, 9:38, 9:26, last 0.16 @ 8:34.

So okay: 20 sec delta, 12 sec delta, and then redlined the ending, cool. So I'm thinking my goal 5K pace should be 9:41, maybe an aspirational 9:35 or 9:30.

Just now, so two days later, I go for a recovery run: 3.5 miles, which is long for a recovery run, but that's okay.
Splits: 12:20, 12:17, 12:04, 0.53 @ 12:07 pace.
You can tell when it started sprinkling and I picked up my pace a bit to get home a bit sooner. :)

But that's a 12:13 overall pace, as compared to my basically all-out 5K pace of 9:41. Your training should include days when you are markedly slower than your target pace, because you can only get so far in running via crosstraining (namely, TKD and xfit), and at some point, you have to lay down miles. The problem is, running is a high-impact sport, so you have to manage that impact via changing up your workouts.

Can you improve your running only via a few workouts that are only HIIT workouts? Of course.
But I would expect your running progress to be very slow (whereas your aerobic response would be excellent).

>> Something is not adding up in my head, which I'm guessing is 90% me not understanding how you >> run and maaaybe 10% something about your running. Running slower often causes people to bounce, >> yes, but then generally the body chooses to be lazy and that slowly smoothes out the bouncing >> over time.

Try running a 14:00 pace with a ruck sack. I would bet that's close what I'm trying to say here. There is this sweet spot where any slower doesn't feel any less tiring because I can't make gravity be any slower.

I don't understand "But I would expect your running progress to be very slow (whereas your aerobic response would be excellent)." My aerobic response is the limiting factor here. So maybe this is something you can help me understand?

So I am not a physio or have studied this, so take the following with the same gravitas as "so I read somewhere on the Internet..."

At least in my experience, there's a massive difference between "overall aerobic fitness" and "how good I am in this particular aerobic-based sport".

So what I would expect from your TKD and xfit experience is that your aerobic engine can run for daaaays, which woohoo, outstanding, yes, very good. But then there's a completely different sphere of the particular sport, and I believe? this comes down to neuromuscular coordination. Sure, xfit will mean your muscles can deliver power, both explosive and sustained, and similar for TKD with all its kicks, but just as you wouldn't expect a marathoner to be instantly good at TKD kicks or box jumps, so I wouldn't expect to be good at . Now, have a distinct advantage? Sure! Maybe (ha ha, maybe!) the marathoner has good standing-on-one-foot balance, so cool, they can skip that part of learning a front snap kick, buuut there's everything else that goes into a snap kick. Likewise, just because you can stand on one foot and crack out N front snap kicks without setting the kicking foot down isn't going to help all that much with running.

That's just the first level. :)

When you run faster than you should be during C25K, it's like someone with 1 year of training trying to do kicks like someone with 3 years of training: hang on, that's not a good idea. "But I already know how to run!" Well, sure, we all know how to run 10 steps. But a mile and a half? No, of course not, most people would actually have difficulty running more than a half-mile without a break.

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Years ago, Alyse and I did RAGBRAI, a 7-day ride across Iowa. We had to train a lot for it. We both rode the same number of miles (maybe she did a bit more midweek). But the big differences were:
* prior to starting training, she was already doing spin classes, which she continued during training
* I was a marathoner; I did a tiny (but non-zero!) amount of running during training

This became SUPER obvious because we were on a tandem, so on Really Steep Hills, she had 1, the balance to 2, stand up in the pedals and power us up the hill. I was contributing, but pffft, I was definitely not putting in 50% of the power. Her specificity of training - spin classes - was what was enabling her.

Similarly, on long days, near the end, I definitely noticed that her power output was dropping off. Didn't tank or anything, but my endurance degraded more gently than hers: this was my marathon experience paying off, because my body was trained in going for hours without a break. I have this recollection of asking her to help me pass some people, so bam, she drops the hammer, we pass them, and then her power output crashes as she aerobically recovers while I'm like, okay that sucked but whatever I'm good. But could I have summoned that power myself? No.

This, to me, is a good example of the difference between crosstraining versus specificity of training.

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If you like, let's schedule a time to video chat and go over your training logs.
Or, flip side of that, let's do nothing of the sort :D and I'll encourage you to work with a run coach.

Analogies are always suspect, but I feel like what you're trying to do is like... it's like if I wanted to get to where I was bench pressing bar + a 45 on each end, so that's, what, 130? And okay, when I start, I can do the bar, 5 sets of 5 reps.

And I'm working out 3x/week, but then the next time I workout, I'm trying to go from 0 on the bar to 2*25s. Aieeee! :D

So it's not that my goal is wrong
or that I don't have the determination
but the details of how I'm trying to train are totally getting in my way.

Does that make sense?

Yes, thank you for that explanation. It makes sense.

I still feel that I'm SO bad that coaching wouldn't help. Just like I can't work on my pull ups because I can't even do a negative and all the coaching help just assumes that once you can do scap pull ups, you can do negatives. Most coaches don't know what to do with someone who struggles with step -1.

It doesn't help that 1) I'm on a deadline 2) 3x30 minutes a week is already more running than I WANT to be doing 3) all the emotional stress running causes

If it was something I wanted to be doing because I loved it and it was going to be a life long passion, then I think your advice makes a lot of sense.

3x/week is an ideal schedule for getting this goal done, so good job on that! When I was leading C25K classes, I said in the pre-class materials that the hardest part of C25K for most people is carving out non-negotiable running time. ("Treat it like you have to pick up your kids.")

My sympathies about the emotional stress. That is not a light burden, and that's why I was offering to help and/or suggesting a coach. Ideal would be a run buddy, but I'm in Somerville, so I don't think I'm anywhere close, because from the sound of it, what you need is a "show up, and then I'll do the plan. In fact, I don't even need to know what the plan is; I'll just do it" mental effort-less help for awhile.

>> The only mantra that seems to help is "I'm not here"

> Yeah, that, for sure, will tank your running.

It actually helps because it keeps me from crying, punching myself, and getting depressed. Running is a huge hit to my mental health.

Blurgh. I'm sorry. :(

But the counting sounds like a step in the right direction!

Another I heard was from Meb Keflezighi (winner of the 2014 Boston Marathon). During the hardest part, he was just repeating to himself: "Boston Strong. Meb Strong." over and over and over.

I tried that one for myself. Didn't work at all, but I mention it because I think there's a lot of value in trying different approaches and being mindful which are positive or neutral (use those) and which are negative (avoid those).

Not a running coach but I am a bit of a cycling coach and intervals are a thing there too, at similar scales (anywhere from 45s to 3m of hard-as-you-can effort, and then just enough recovery that the next effort can also be as hard as you can), starting with shorter intervals and moving towards longer ones.

A few things jump out at me. First the good: you should in fact be barely able to get to the end of the interval. In fact I usually try to trick myself by saying I'll do a somewhat shorter one, like 2.5 minutes instead of 3, and then at the end when I feel like I can't continue, see how much longer I can go at that effort. Sometimes I make it the rest of the way and sometimes I don't. On a good day I get to 3 minutes feeling like if I tried to keep going to 3:05 I'd puke.

But the bad is: if it feels like you're not able to get to the end out of weakness and not because of pushing yourself, you might need to adjust some of the parameters of the workout. Maybe 90s is too long for the short interval (I know it is for me, and I do 45s for my short intervals). Maybe you're not letting yourself recover enough during the walk, and you need to walk slower or use a longer recovery time. Maybe it's better to do two or three short intervals followed by two or three long ones. Maybe the long intervals shouldn't be the same effort all the way through, but consist of alternating 30s to 45s efforts at 100% and 80% or 90%. Maybe a passive treadmill is just enough worse on your body that an electric one is better, or maybe treadmills are just not where you can push yourself. There's no one size fits all answer.

Do you have a heart rate monitor? I'd love to see a graph of your heart rate, or failing that then at least numbers for the midpoints and endpoints of the runs, and the endpoints of the walks.

Edited (icon update) 2023-12-04 20:00 (UTC)

BTW, I'm not just running on the treadmill. I'm also running outside.

Sadly the link to my garmin activity didn't work. Runkeeper doesn't seem to have a plain export. Here's a screenshot. https://photos.app.goo.gl/JFL5JzE3Wx7b33Eh7

What's your warmup? This is looking like your body isn't ready for that first long interval yet.

5 minutes of walking, with some extra moves, to get the kinks out.

My first move would be adding something to that, with the aim of having your heart rate a little higher at the start of the first interval. Maybe your walk is brisk enough that another 5m walking would do it. It looks like that first interval is making a nice warm-up so maybe just double the first short interval and have the second one also be short instead of trying to do a long one there. ETA: That is: 5m walk to warm up, 90s run, 90s walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 180s run, 180s walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 180s run, 180s walk. I presume you know this and only didn't include the cool down at the end so we'd get more zoom on the intervals, but just in case: don't skip the walk at the end, you can hurt yourself by not cooling down as much as by not warming up.

Edited 2023-12-04 21:32 (UTC)

yes, the warm up and cool down aren't in the data. There is a 5-8m cool down walk.

Part of the problem is that I think most people have a running pace that they can run a long time at. So most coaching comes from that. There is no running pace where I can run longer than 5 minutes. This is why I don't think a running coach would do me any good. I feel like there is some baseline that I don't meet that would be required.

In cycling anyway most people will start a season without having a pace like that, or at least without having one that's relevant to their goals. Intervals will increase your endurance and turn that 5 minute pace (or 3 minute pace, if that's what you have) into an 18 minute pace.

Actually, I never get to 18 minutes. I pass by doing 11:30 pace for 6, walk, 4:30, walk, 4:30, walk 6.

In that case I'd expect that once you figure out what's holding you back here you'll be there in a matter of weeks.

Not sure what I'm going to figure out. I'm trying the thing that has worked in the past and that was never easy. I think what is holding me back is that I'm 5'6" and 230lbs with short, stubby feet. I blame my toes. ;)

Looks to me like all you need to figure out is how to get the most benefit from your first set of intervals. The numbers from the second set look like a nearly ideal workout.

Edited 2023-12-04 22:27 (UTC)

BTW, this was the week before successfully hitting my intervals. https://photos.app.goo.gl/2nDjePxarXS1WaXw8

Edited 2023-12-04 22:28 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think you were warmed up enough last week either. Second set of intervals from last week looks gorgeous though.

One thing both data sets show is you not slowing down enough during the first recovery. But I bet if you were more warmed up you'd get your HR up quicker and then that recovery would probably take care of itself.

I hear you saying it worked last time you did this training. But I bet it was a lot warmer out then. Warming up in December just takes longer than it does in May.

Edited 2023-12-04 22:57 (UTC)

>>> Warming up in December just takes longer than it does in May.

This was important for me to hear. I learned the hard way that hot weather killed my stamina. I never thought about the 50 degree weather possibly causing something.

Thank you.

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News Flash: running still sucks (for me)

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