The Importance of Training in a Group
Running is possibly the most selfish sport in the world. Even at a modest club level the time commitment that you steal from your family for your own gain is amazing. Races take the best part of a Sunday so your family can't really get anything done until your back and then you want to get back, bath, eat & put your feet up before getting another run in!
Training in a group you have to put your shift in and help others out. Running in a very decent group as a kid in my Enfield days I had to sacrifice some sessions to take my turn at the front of the group.
Some days things aren't going your way and you need some help and today was that day for me. Maybe feeling plenty of recent miles in my legs or just under the weather but everything felt hard today.
Plan was 10 mile tempo - roughly 164-170 bpm for me (half marathon pace). Running with DC & Ian T we are all roughly in the same ball park so would be a steady state run for DC and tempo for Ian too. We started first mile and 3/4 pretty much uphill into a fierce wind. I never really recovered from that and had to concentrate to latch on for the rest of the run.
The boys did a great job of pulling me along and pretty much took all the wind for me. There is no doubt I would have dropped the tempo at 2 miles if I had been on my own. Really helped doing it in a group and need to keep these runs regular.
To be fair if you are 'up for it' on your own it's easy enough but on bad days you really need your pals to help you along and I hope I can help out when the guys are struggling. Or maybe it'll always be me lol.
Managed 10 miles in 60.54, 6:05/mm which considering how slow the first couple of miles was is pretty damn good. Ian & DC really helped abd boy those 2 looked string today. If we had raced they would have wiped the floor with me!
Main problem for me was that my Garmin was constantly reading about 8 secs per mile slower than DC's. I manually lapped it at 9 miles and was 36 seconds behind DC's for the run - that's redick!
It's weird how seeing 6.14/mm when we were running at 6:05/mm (and pace was consistent) threw my head so far out. Am going to give my 405 a software update and see what happens?
Maybe it's my Garmin thats right? Not sure, has been giving some weird mile readings on my regular routes. I might just turn the GPS off for a while and see how that works out.
Be nice to see this pace drop below 6's today. It was blowing a gale so don't think it would have been far off sub 6's if it had been a calm day. Those first 2 miles were a total bastard.
Mind you, not as bad as seeing that dirty stamping c&%t Ballotelli score the winner against Spurs. Ho hum, you can't win them all!
Good week of training, 67 miles in the bank with 7 runs in 7 days. Nice consistent base building now after 63 & 65 miles. Most general runs below 7/mm and a couple of easy recoveries are getting me there!
Training in a group you have to put your shift in and help others out. Running in a very decent group as a kid in my Enfield days I had to sacrifice some sessions to take my turn at the front of the group.
Some days things aren't going your way and you need some help and today was that day for me. Maybe feeling plenty of recent miles in my legs or just under the weather but everything felt hard today.
Plan was 10 mile tempo - roughly 164-170 bpm for me (half marathon pace). Running with DC & Ian T we are all roughly in the same ball park so would be a steady state run for DC and tempo for Ian too. We started first mile and 3/4 pretty much uphill into a fierce wind. I never really recovered from that and had to concentrate to latch on for the rest of the run.
The boys did a great job of pulling me along and pretty much took all the wind for me. There is no doubt I would have dropped the tempo at 2 miles if I had been on my own. Really helped doing it in a group and need to keep these runs regular.
To be fair if you are 'up for it' on your own it's easy enough but on bad days you really need your pals to help you along and I hope I can help out when the guys are struggling. Or maybe it'll always be me lol.
Managed 10 miles in 60.54, 6:05/mm which considering how slow the first couple of miles was is pretty damn good. Ian & DC really helped abd boy those 2 looked string today. If we had raced they would have wiped the floor with me!
Main problem for me was that my Garmin was constantly reading about 8 secs per mile slower than DC's. I manually lapped it at 9 miles and was 36 seconds behind DC's for the run - that's redick!
It's weird how seeing 6.14/mm when we were running at 6:05/mm (and pace was consistent) threw my head so far out. Am going to give my 405 a software update and see what happens?
Maybe it's my Garmin thats right? Not sure, has been giving some weird mile readings on my regular routes. I might just turn the GPS off for a while and see how that works out.
Be nice to see this pace drop below 6's today. It was blowing a gale so don't think it would have been far off sub 6's if it had been a calm day. Those first 2 miles were a total bastard.
Mind you, not as bad as seeing that dirty stamping c&%t Ballotelli score the winner against Spurs. Ho hum, you can't win them all!
Good week of training, 67 miles in the bank with 7 runs in 7 days. Nice consistent base building now after 63 & 65 miles. Most general runs below 7/mm and a couple of easy recoveries are getting me there!
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