The athletics/running thread

[Gary the Enfield]

Doesn't look like you tired. I'll show you some times of a tiring man if you like, and from over a third of the distance too . Well done, mate.

Cheers.

[thebish]

Cheers. I tired towards the end, though. My aim is to see if I can up the rate and do a pb in St Neots in November.

but you speeded up!

[Gary the Enfield]

Cheers. I tired towards the end, though. My aim is to see if I can up the rate and do a pb in St Neots in November.

but you speeded up!

No. That's minutes per mile not miles per hour. My average minutes per mile went from 7.3 to 7.4 which means I took longer to cover the mile. It's fine margins but it's there.

[thebish]

Cheers. I tired towards the end, though. My aim is to see if I can up the rate and do a pb in St Neots in November.

but you speeded up!

No. That's minutes per mile not miles per hour. My average minutes per mile went from 7.3 to 7.4 which means I took longer to cover the mile. It's fine margins but it's there.

ahhh!! it's getting late and I have read FAR too much small-print for one night!!

[Gary the Enfield]

Cheers. I tired towards the end, though. My aim is to see if I can up the rate and do a pb in St Neots in November.

but you speeded up!

No. That's minutes per mile not miles per hour. My average minutes per mile went from 7.3 to 7.4 which means I took longer to cover the mile. It's fine margins but it's there.

ahhh!! it's getting late and I have read FAR too much small-print for one night!!

No worries. About to sign off meself. The drive back from Newcastle was loooong.

[thebish]

No worries. About to sign off meself. The drive back from Newcastle was loooong.

will have a NE treck myself this week as drive my 2 boys up to Middlesbrough Uni... it's a 710 mile round trip....

[Gary the Enfield]

No worries. About to sign off meself. The drive back from Newcastle was loooong.

will have a NE treck myself this week as drive my 2 boys up to Middlesbrough Uni... it's a 710 mile round trip....

Good luck with that. And don't stop at Scotch Corner services. They're shit.

I pulled in for a comfort stop yesterday to find 4 of the 5 cubicles were occupied or broken. The only empty one had a floater in there that must have been polystyrene or a Lion Bar. Just. Would. Not. Flush. Grim, grim, grim.

Also there was either a Costa coffee or Burger King and nowt else (oh, apart from the shitty sandwiches that WH Smith serve)


Anyway, avoid.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

No worries. About to sign off meself. The drive back from Newcastle was loooong.

will have a NE treck myself this week as drive my 2 boys up to Middlesbrough Uni... it's a 710 mile round trip....

Good luck with that. And don't stop at Scotch Corner services. They're shit.

I pulled in for a comfort stop yesterday to find 4 of the 5 cubicles were occupied or broken. The only empty one had a floater in there that must have been polystyrene or a Lion Bar. Just. Would. Not. Flush. Grim, grim, grim.

Also there was either a Costa coffee or Burger King and nowt else (oh, apart from the shitty sandwiches that WH Smith serve)


Anyway, avoid.

Surely you mean: Anyway a void.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Couple of club runners in the pub last night (rare enough event in itself) banging on and on about fartlek training and how wonderful it was. Has anybody here tried it and did it benefit you?

[Gooner Girl]

Couple of club runners in the pub last night (rare enough event in itself) banging on and on about fartlek training and how wonderful it was. Has anybody here tried it and did it benefit you?

Yes, my coaching involves getting the athletes to do some Fartlek (speed play) training. It's a good form of training, obviously depending on what you want to achieve.

Being a football coach too, I find it's a good form of fitness training for that as it replicates what you do in a match better then just continuous running.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Couple of club runners in the pub last night (rare enough event in itself) banging on and on about fartlek training and how wonderful it was. Has anybody here tried it and did it benefit you?

Yes, my coaching involves getting the athletes to do some Fartlek (speed play) training. It's a good form of training, obviously depending on what you want to achieve.

Being a football coach too, I find it's a good form of fitness training for that as it replicates what you do in a match better then just continuous running.

We were talking about increased stamina in endurance races (10k and above, x-country/fell) and they both swore by this fartlek stuff. I've done short speed stuff before, but just to up my basic pace a bit, and long endurance stuff is my staple for 'training', but never tried the two together, never tried the fartlek technique to help increase endurance over distance (which is what they were claiming it helped).

[Gary the Enfield]

Couple of club runners in the pub last night (rare enough event in itself) banging on and on about fartlek training and how wonderful it was. Has anybody here tried it and did it benefit you?

Yes, my coaching involves getting the athletes to do some Fartlek (speed play) training. It's a good form of training, obviously depending on what you want to achieve.

Being a football coach too, I find it's a good form of fitness training for that as it replicates what you do in a match better then just continuous running.

We were talking about increased stamina in endurance races (10k and above, x-country/fell) and they both swore by this fartlek stuff. I've done short speed stuff before, but just to up my basic pace a bit, and long endurance stuff is my staple for 'training', but never tried the two together, never tried the fartlek technique to help increase endurance over distance (which is what they were claiming it helped).

Fahrtlek (it's German) training is a continuous jog with interspersed efforts of between 15 seconds and up to a minute and a half. It's a good way of increasing stamina through continuous movement. It's also a good idea to do the efforts on a hill (up, not down) to give you that extra work out.

If you do a core session, a fahrtlek (45 minutes to an hour) and a long run (6 to 8 miles) once a week you won't go far wrong.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

4 recommendations for, none against. Can't argue with that, I'll give it a go then this weekend.

[Bruce Rioja]

Fahrtlek (it's German)

Swedish, shirley?

When I read up on it it said that it was pioneered by some Swedish cross country dude because they kept on losing to the Finns and he needed to improve their fitness and stamina.

[Gary the Enfield]

Fahrtlek (it's German)

Swedish, shirley?

When I read up on it it said that it was pioneered by some Swedish cross country dude because they kept on losing to the Finns and he needed to improve their fitness and stamina.

Correct. Never looked into it. Just repeated what I was told. Won't happen again.

[Gooner Girl]

Yeah, Brucie is right, its a swedish word.

The reasons its so good are

1. it works both your aerobic and anaerobic systems and

2. you can tailor it exactly to what you want. Beginners can use it as a walk and jog like on Bruce and bish's couch to 5km programme, more advanced runners can use it as GtE describes but the beauty of it is you can choose how long you want the jogs and sprints to be so it can fit your training and level of fitness perfectly.

[Bruce Rioja]

Yeah, Brucie is right.

Like that could ever be in doubt about anything

[Gooner Girl]

Yeah, Brucie is right.

Like that could ever be in doubt about anything

Hmmm!

[Harry Genshaw]

Just seen this. Well done GtE. Great effort particularly with how busy it must have been. How did you find running in such a crowded environment or did it open up a bit after a few miles?

[Gary the Enfield]

Just seen this. Well done GtE. Great effort particularly with how busy it must have been. How did you find running in such a crowded environment or did it open up a bit after a few miles?

To be honest I struck lucky as I was in the first pen behind the elite athletes. The only 'traffic' I experienced was people queuing up to high five Mo Farrah, Ellie Simmonds and Greg Rutherford. Skipped past them and I had a free run. Like I said I feel I could have pushed it and got a pb but reined it in and enjoyed the race as a consequence.

Have you done it before HG?