I’m not an expert, but from my personal experience I underestimated the impact stress had on my training performance. I have a coach and we worked out my sleep quality was terrible, I’m on antidepressants to address a chrinic illness etc. So a lot of background noise that impacts training quality.
So i changed my goals to ensure I didn’t put more stress on my body. So cardio I do zone 2, keeping at MAF for longer. I do one intense cardio ride but the best is really MAF rate (weights).
I think see the person you’ve been referred too, but maybe it’s not a decline so much as your body changing and you need to adjust.
No, she’s just a standard GP and I’m in my mid-40s. And I’ve increased my swimming to weekends to mainly compensate for the less running time I was doing as it’s less impact on the body with less pressure on legs. I’m probably the world’s worst slowest swimmer too and so it’s quite a leisurely swim. I tend to run on harder surfaces but started running on softer surface of an oval last few weeks. There were a few weeks where I was just doing the swimming twice a week and running only Saturday and Sunday. It didn’t improve anything and that’s why I went the other way to increase my activity.
I love my GP but he has his limitations. His strength is that he will always seek other opinion, and does not limit himself to traditional medicine.
When I was younger used to run 6 km every weekday morning and longer distance with friends on every Sunday. We had a good coach who planned our runs on soft surfaces, like local racecourse ( Flemington) which was always quiet on Sundays with no track work for horses and no track maintenance. Was originally running around the streets each day, but changed it to laps of local footy ground, always had good running shoes. Was a bit boring but much safer and better on the joints.
We also did heavy weights for strength for planned periods, always supervised. The group was big into physiotherapy and massage.
As I got older, cut back running due to work commitments and got lazy, but as I had a solid fitness base could still do regular activity.
Now I am ancient and all I do is walk the dogs most days about 3 km. Not fit at all but reasonable for my age. Get full medical check every year and visit GP every three months; might seem a lot but I have lost friends in the past ten years to “sudden” illness that was actually developing in secret.
There is an old book by crazy Percy Cerutty, who was my coach for a short period, called
“Be Fit or Be Damned”. A bit out of date but the basic principles are sound. Percy was extreme and only started running later in life.
Percy would never agree but don’t overdo it. Not everyone has the metabolism to run the Marathon.
Shortness of breath etc are classic symptoms of restricted blood flow in the coronary arteries, but your GP, even if he’s no star, would know that and take appropriate action. I’ve been through that and saw my GP on a Wednesday late afternoon; at Friday lunchtime I was sitting up in bed with a stent in my LAD artery and feeling like a million dollars. Yours sounds a lot different. You’re doing an enormous amount of hard exercise and you’ve got things going on in your life that you refer to only obliquely. But if you want to set your mind at rest you could ask your GP for a referral to a cardiologist, and you could make inquiries first and choose the cardio that you want.
The tennis was pretty good last night, worth staying up for.
got to see Kyrgios bow out, Novak win and Destanee win.
I still managed to get up at 4:40am for 10km run at 5.
might pay for it later though.
I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the recovery metrics on my watch in recent months (repeated injuries are super frustrating, and the most recent one was clearly when I had been burning the candles at both ends, and was both tired and stressed.) The numbers give a pretty accurate assessment of how I’m feeling, and kind of make me second guess trying to push through an extra run when my body is saying no
The HRV number seems to really reflect my feeling (and having a couple of beers smashes it), but also the general sleep and recovery numbers. Was sick a couple of weeks ago and the training readiness was 1/100 due to poor sleep and other metrics. I wasn’t even thinking of training but it’s an interesting data point!
Anyway I’ve never been a morning exercise person, so a 4:40 run is never really in my consciousness!!
someone from the group started at 4;25am so must have been up at 4.
5-6am is pretty good hour in summer, then coffee post run.
really need to get to bed by 10pm though night before.
I’m a bit jealous of HRV and sleep score metrics, as my watch doesn’t have those features, still running with the Garmin 245 music.
I’ve been battling niggles myself, runners knee at the moment but manageable.
my schedule currently is
mon - rest or cycle hour easy
tues - run - session (today was 5x300m w200recovery), should have been 10 repeats though.
wed - cycle hour
thurs - run hour easy
fri - cycle hour
sat - park run
sun - long run 2 hours
Have put my name down for melb marathon wait list, but last 2 events signed up for had to wthdraw
I got the instinct 2 on massive discount about 6 months ago ($179, in yellow, hence the price!). I like the extra metrics, but don’t like the fact that I can’t read any of the small fonts!!
That looks like a very solid program. I’ve battled the last couple of years with niggles, so just trying to stop the cycle by being a bit smarter (so far not succeeding, but we’ll see …). Trying to not get overexcited on short reps, make sure I get good rest and stick to the strength work for my muscle weaknesses. Time will tell. Goal is a track 800 at some point before end of the summer season, and then a full XC season… Both seem unlikely.
The amusing thing is I get up a couple of times a week at that time to go for my swim just before work as I’m up. My body’s response was naturally to wake up even earlier after I started doing the early morning swims.
Honestly I’m glad it works for @Frosty but for me this has never matched my mood and how I feel. Although I have a pretty cheap Fitbit 5, so maybe it’s not that accurate.
Really hard to know when to battle through with a niggle and it’ll go away, or rest. Fortunately I’ve only had the former in the last 4-5 years since I took up running with exception of a persistently sore left Achilles for an age that just wouldn’t get better but fortunately wouldn’t get worse. With the smaller runs I’m doing now, it has finally cleared up. Good luck with your goals, sending positive energy your way!
Iirc it’s pretty inconclusive as to how important HRV actually is.
Over the years I’ve tried a few similar metrics and come to the conclusion there’s a bit of Shrodinger’s cat about it.
I know this is the general advice these days, but how do serious distance runners go with needing a new pair of shoes every month? Especially when shoes might be $300 a go.
For me I have too many shoes, but that’s a whole other story. Have about 450kms on the ASICS Nimbus, and am certain that they have a fair bit of life left in them.
Edit: have you seen the Normal stuff, where Killian Jornet ran a season of ultras in one pair of shoes??
I know a high level local ultra runner (has run mount blanc & UTA 100 & coast to Kosciousko ultra) they have done over 3000 in a pair of nike pegasus trail shoes. But they do a mix of on and off road.
For me lowest is like 10kms ( some shoes I just don’t like and give away one pair wore twice got injured twice they were a little small so gave away) most I’ve done in a pair was 2,226kms (nike zoom flyknit were a great pair). depends on the shoes though. I have a couple of Asics super blasters that have both done 900kms and still fell ok (better than my new pair as seems a bit smaller even though same size). Most shoes last around 500-800kms for me. If they last to 1000kms thats good.
Saucony Speeds are pretty durable.
Asic superblast durable
you generally need decent cushion for them to last
