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Running (and jogging) regimes

Fitness tips, Relaxation, Mind and Body
colin
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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261605

Postby colin » November 2nd, 2019, 8:28 am

vrdiver wrote:
Hoping to get advice on people's strategies to embed running into their routine, as well as hints and tips on suitable gear.

VRD

My strategy is to have a number of routes to choose from, all in attractive country side. This keeps me from getting bored by routine. I keep road running to the absolute minimum necessary to get me onto footpaths and open grassland, I am lucky in that I have areas of open public access downland available, this is very usefull as the downs provide mud free areas to run on. For footwear at the moment I use iNov 8 trail running shoes which have thick lugs on the soles, I also carry a small cyclists rucksack which in winter holds a light weight insulated top or fleece and wind proof or water proof if needed. Water bottle in summer, I also sometimes carry my phone which has a navigation app installed, I use this when exploring new routes , it also records my route and speed and provides objective evidence that yes I really am getting older every year. I run up hill down hill and accross hills though I am more likely to walk quickly down steep hills to avoid stressing my knees. I do not think the pronation issue is relevant to cross country runners.

colin
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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261622

Postby colin » November 2nd, 2019, 9:44 am

Something to add is that if you are new to running you may, like me, suffer from 'stitch' to begin with. If so this is because your lungs have not learned to inhale deeply enough to provide the increased oxygen requirement, just walk quickly when it comes on and resume running when you get your breath back. After a few sessions it was for me no longer a problem.

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261644

Postby vrdiver » November 2nd, 2019, 12:17 pm

colin wrote:Something to add is that if you are new to running you may, like me, suffer from 'stitch' to begin with. If so this is because your lungs have not learned to inhale deeply enough to provide the increased oxygen requirement, just walk quickly when it comes on and resume running when you get your breath back. After a few sessions it was for me no longer a problem.

I was lucky enough to be given advice from my gym teacher when doing cross country running at school - he told us to focus on the exhale, the idea being that if you pushed out as much used-up air as possible, you'd get the benefit of a full lungful, whereas if you didn't push out the last* 250ml or so, then you effectively lost that amount of capacity from your lungs.

VRD

*Not the absolute last amount of air, but as much as possible versus starting to inhale before finishing exhaling. As an example, whilst reading this I am breathing normally, but at the point where I am about to inhale, I can still exhale a bit more if I make the effort to. Normally one wouldn't, but when running it does seem to make a difference.

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261650

Postby colin » November 2nd, 2019, 12:49 pm

A doctor mentioned to me that strong quad muscles are very important to runners well being, you mentioned that you do cycle and perhaps if you did some uphill training on the bike and/or cycled to the start of your runs than would help strengthen and warm up your quadriceps (once the affected muscle has healed ) same doctor emphasized the importance of stretching after a run.

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261666

Postby vrdiver » November 2nd, 2019, 1:40 pm

Hadn't occurred to me to cycle before running, but now you mention it - brilliant! - opens up a lot more circular routes through nice parts of the countryside, as well as providing a warm-up.

If anybody suggests adding a swim to the run I'll know you're taking the proverbial!

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#261713

Postby colin » November 2nd, 2019, 5:15 pm

vrdiver wrote:Hadn't occurred to me to cycle before running, but now you mention it - brilliant! - opens up a lot more circular routes through nice parts of the countryside, as well as providing a warm-up.

Yes it does and that's what I do most of the time but I do use my most shabby looking bike and lock it with a good D lock.

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#262699

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » November 7th, 2019, 8:25 am

vrdiver wrote:Well, so much for a smooth resumption of running.

It seems I've strained a quadricep - pain about a hand's length above the kneecap and leg intermittently won't hold weight when the knee is bent, e.g. going up a step. Normal walking on flat ground seems fine, but there is a mild chronic dull pain that seems most pronounced when sitting (like now).

The knee itself is fine, just the muscle above it that seems injured.

Googling suggests I rest it for anything from two weeks to three months before resuming running, which has messed up my pre-Christmas get-in-shape plans a bit.

Any suggestions for other exercises to replace the running whilst waiting for the leg to recover?

VRD

So a week or so on and how are you doing VRD? Does your quad still hurt much?

Are you slowly rebuilding yourself and getting back into running? Hope so! ;)

I recently upgraded my running gear. I bought one of these

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GORE-WINDSTOPP ... B0785FW72M

for £80. It looks and fits very good. I've not started wearing yet, despite it being a little chilly and drizzly last night. Am saving it for when it starts to get really cold. Despite having a reasonable hi-viz waterproof Ron Hill running jacket, I found this to be only useful in lightish rain. And as I'm often out for approaching 2 hours and in possible downpours I wanted something better. I did find an Amazon review for this product by cyclist who disclosed that even after wearing in a thunderstorm he was "still comfortable".

Anyway less about me, tell us how you are doing, VRD....

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#262761

Postby vrdiver » November 7th, 2019, 12:09 pm

After chatting with a physio, he suggested taking the two weeks off running approach. This was based on some swelling (I hadn't noticed) to the knee itself, and some stiffness which once I was aware of, became more noticeable - e.g. when crouching down, the knee feels like it's out of alignment with the kneecap not sitting quite right. Can't blame the latest injury, as that knee knelt on a broken bottle left on a football field (thanks very much, to the lout who left that behind) which, whilst a fair few years ago, does seem to make it a bit sensitive to any other injuries in the vicinity.

Plan is to resume a gentle jog this Sunday, as that will be the full two weeks off, but more as an experiment to see if the leg holds up (and the weather is looking nice that day). I do need to pick up a winter tracksuit though,

In the meantime, a few static exercises and stretches and walking the dog have had to suffice.

VRD
(11st 13 3/4 this morning - so under 12st but pinching rather more than an inch :oops: )

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#262843

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » November 7th, 2019, 6:03 pm

vrdiver wrote:Plan is to resume a gentle jog this Sunday, as that will be the full two weeks off, but more as an experiment to see if the leg holds up (and the weather is looking nice that day).

I'm glad you're getting back into the swing. Now, it's obviously completely your call, but if it was me, I personally would aim to do about half at a jog as you say, and half as fast walking. That is, do a fast walk for a minute or so, then break in the jog for a minute etc. and alternate that routine over a set time frame. My wife Mel, used to have a couch to 5k app and it got her doing something very similar. Anyway that was my approach when I last recovered from an injury.


I have gradually increased my running distance. It was a consequence of the woods getting muddier and wetter, so my route now is completely drove-based. Am doing about 15.5k about 3 times a week, and due to the cold, muddier and grittier surfaces there is 0 barefoot till it starts to warm up again.

Am now working on resolving what I always used to think was a dodgy knee due my motorcycle kick-starting days. After chatting to several of my running workmates (one is 66 years old and just recovering from a stent op. after a heart attack....so no one can say that comp. programmers are boring nerds!), and we are all in agreement; that we all have a dominant leg since we are all usually left or right-handed.

What me (and others it now seems!) found was that sometimes my right knee would ache slightly a day or two after a run. Nothing painful, just an ache. Basically my right leg is the strongest (i.e. that's what my best kicking action was from in football and karate days). My very dedicated mate James even took to measuring his leg calf girths to determine how lop sided he was a few years back! Anyway, what happens, sometimes is that when you are running very hard or getting tired and trying put a little more power down, the dominant strongest leg takes the brunt of the punishment. Furthermore whenever there are obstacles to leap/accelerate over, it is often the dominant leg which takes the lead in the operation.

From years on and off running, this understandably would strain/tire the right much more than the left. Now after all these years I've finally (well a few months back) got this figured out! :lol: So what I've been doing lately, in addition to doing squats and deadlifts (for both sides), is I have been doing singleleg deadlifts and calf raises, but doing 2x or 3x more reps on the weaker (left) leg. When I do I really notice which leg is the weaker one. My mate James was suggested also that when you are out running, that you can detect when you are over-powering it, with too much emphasis on one side, and his course then is to just back off the pace a little. James reckons its taken him several years, but he reckons he's almost corrected his imbalance. So this is my latest running goal - equally powered legs 8-)

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#262846

Postby vrdiver » November 7th, 2019, 6:30 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:... this is my latest running goal - equally powered legs 8-)

Nah - keep one leg stronger than the other - a definite advantage when running circular routes :lol: :lol:

More seriously, I'm a long way from that level of analysis; just hoping to get around my run without anything complaining too much. Thanks for the tip on walk-run-walk. It may well be the best strategy so as not to go back to square one.

VRD

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#262906

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » November 8th, 2019, 6:19 am

vrdiver wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:... this is my latest running goal - equally powered legs 8-)

Nah - keep one leg stronger than the other - a definite advantage when running circular routes :lol: :lol:

Excellent idea! :lol: Sadly circular routes are harder to find for me, what with the woods being out for all but very dry (huh? this time of year?) morning outings in this wet season.

Thanks for the tip on walk-run-walk. It may well be the best strategy so as not to go back to square one.

No probs. Personally I'd consider adopting it for the first month or so, but of course gradually increasing the proportion of "actual running" in your outings each time.

Also I'd aim for running twice a week, at least, but definitely no more than 3x per week for the first few months. In my arrogant opinion I think 2x is ideal for your level, since it's frequent enough for the cardio-vascular and legwork developments to occur, but gives you plenty of time off to recover. I personally wouldn't advocate running 2 consecutive days either, I certainly don't now, since I think I push myself enough each run to want at least a day off to recover etc.

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#263736

Postby vrdiver » November 12th, 2019, 2:25 pm

Well, Sunday's planned run got postponed as I went to a quarry for the day to do some teaching (diving, not quarrying!).

Monday was a bit busy, so it was only this morning (Tuesday) that I got around to it. Sunday had been a glorious day, but today when I went out just before sunrise, it was holding a steady drizzle, the wind was definitely whispering "you don't want to do this, go back..... go back!) but I'd told Mrs VRD I was off on my run and it was too early to divert to the pub.

Anyhow, made it around my planned route without the leg giving way like it did last time, so very relieved and feeling much happier, despite the rain.

VRD

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#263777

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » November 12th, 2019, 5:08 pm

vrdiver wrote:Well, Sunday's planned run got postponed as I went to a quarry for the day to do some teaching (diving, not quarrying!).

Monday was a bit busy, so it was only this morning (Tuesday) that I got around to it. Sunday had been a glorious day, but today when I went out just before sunrise, it was holding a steady drizzle, the wind was definitely whispering "you don't want to do this, go back..... go back!) but I'd told Mrs VRD I was off on my run and it was too early to divert to the pub.

Anyhow, made it around my planned route without the leg giving way like it did last time, so very relieved and feeling much happier, despite the rain.

VRD

That's great. I'm glad you made it!

My latest runs have been quite interesting. On Saturday morning 7 am, there was frost down, and apparently the "feels like" temperature was about 0* C. So I decided to give my new jacket a test run. Seeing as it was "meant to be really cold" :lol: and I'd planned on doing about 16k, some in the woods, I also wore leggings with shorts over them. Within about 5 mins I was already starting to feel pretty warm what with hat and gloves too. Needless to say, about half of the run was done with the new jacket tied around my waist!

I went out last night (well 4-6pm). The wind was up a bit on the ol' Fens and there was some drizzle. I elected not to wear the super hot new jacket, instead 1 T-shirt, 1 short sleeved zipped top, and a very lightweight hi-vis waterproof (well kind of) jacket and longish tight shorts. The run started off ok, I'd planned to do my 15k route. Alas about 1/4 of the way in, my OCD (yes I did suffer quite bad once upon a time :() crept up on me......the "lights left on beeper" on my 20 year old car is bust, and I'd forgotten to check whether I'd switched them off, and I be running for almost 2 hours, was about 3-4 miles away from home and, yes, felt I little bit worried. So I ended up, midrun, switching to my 16k run, since that gives me opportunity to run past the car midway (the lights were off :oops:). However the 16k run, meant about 4k in the woods, which were dark by then, very wet and fairly muddy. Yes I do run at night with a head torch.....but all the same throwing a few k around the dark, wet woods was a quite a challenge. Kind of enjoyable, but very tasking, both regards avoiding the worst of mud and the puddles (I still got splattered legs) and the tree roots. Was also mentally quite tiring, what with trying to do a decent pace in the surreal undulating, weaving, slippery trails, continuously trying to figure out what the surfaces I was about to run on were. The dark woods section was certainly a workout, and toward the end I was getting really quite tired and almost got tripped ar$e over face by the odd tree root or two! It was certainly a big contrast once I exited the woods, back onto the broken drove, whereupon I maintained a slightly more sedate pace for a few minutes whilst my lungs and legs recovered. Back on the exposed Fens it was certainly rather fresh in the raw wind (perhaps I should have worn the new jacket!), but very exhilarating and once I'd finished and driven home, I guess I remained on a high for a few hours whilst my heart filled my legs up with endorphins.

Well, I'm glad you made it back VRD. If you can slowly work up to full runs and get through the whole winter, then you'll be well set up for the summer. I might even try to persuade you to try barefoot then! 8-)

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#269096

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 4th, 2019, 5:57 pm

A running update from me:

First, on the Saturday just gone, the morning was pretty cold, with freezing fog. Temperature at 8.00am was about -1*C and "feels like" -4*C. I decided that this would be a good opportunity to get proper usage for my new super warm GORE jacket. Indeed it was....and that with a single T-shirt beneath was easily good enough. On Saturday I also pushed my running distance up another notch, and I did 12.5 miles. Alas the run was quite slow going and I could feel my stamina waning a lot after the 10 mile point. Probably averaged just over 11 minute miles.

I did a little online research and came to the conclusion that I need to pull the distance back in. I need to work on my cadence a bit, and speed things up. Clearly training up to my stamina limit will impair my running form. So what I started for yesterday's run was a shorter run (7 miles) and once I'd warmed up a bit and done a couple of K, I endeavoured (and largely succeeded I believe) to step up my pace and focus on "going faster but more emphasis on increased steps/minute and not sure on lengthening stride". This was quite hard work, and when I was doing a reasonable pace I could really feel it in my hips/glutes. My timings were improved to about 10.4 minute miles, so I'm chuffed that I just *might* be able to crack sub 10 minute miles at some stage. Anyway so my current plan/regime is to do one long run (10-13 miles) in the weekends and a couple of shorter quicker runs in the weekdays, i.e. focus stamina in the long run and speed in shorter ones.

Finally here's one the better articles I read:
https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a ... -the-hips/

this one was also ok,
https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/the- ... e-standard

but I can see why some readers may find the guy's words somewhat disheartening. But I guess he's not quite focussing on "beginners" etc.

vrdiver wrote:...Anyhow, made it around my planned route without the leg giving way like it did last time, so very relieved and feeling much happier, despite the rain.

VRD

So where are you at with your running, VRD?

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#269150

Postby redsturgeon » December 4th, 2019, 9:59 pm

Barefoot?

John

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#269178

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 5th, 2019, 6:38 am

redsturgeon wrote:Barefoot?

John

No not until it starts to warm up again in spring. The first problem with the barefoot style as the season darkens is that farmers get the sugar beet in and sections of the drove get much more gritty and gravelly, which is quite painful. I discovered the second major problem back in late october/early november, and that was that the cold desensitises one's feet. It also makes their surfaces less supple and adaptable. I'd been running barefoot on a weekend morning and my feet were cold. Because they were cold I endeavoured to run faster, but also the coldness desensitised them. When I got back to the car I drove home barefoot, then got home and had a really quick shallow bath, to cleanup. Then after I got out the bath I walked into the dining room, and inspected my feet. One of them was bleeding (Mel wasn't best pleased with the blood on the carpet!!). It was from the cold making my skin less supple, and the rough surface must have rubbed a blister down to the subcutaneous layer I guess, and my feet nerves were obviously not feeding this information back to my brain on time! So I'm back to running in the minimalist shoes for now. I maintain that barefoot running is awesome for developing a good style, and it can make the running experience much more invigorating, but temperature and exact nature of the surface are very important variables to consider. It's wrong to say that the surface must be soft. I've barefoot fine on smooth grit free warm tarmac. The main problem, as I discovered, is very gritty, abrasive tarmac, especially when one has lost the sensitivity to detect it correctly.

Matt

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#269610

Postby vrdiver » December 6th, 2019, 2:10 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
vrdiver wrote:...Anyhow, made it around my planned route without the leg giving way like it did last time, so very relieved and feeling much happier, despite the rain.

VRD

So where are you at with your running, VRD?

Sorry, been off-line so didn't catch this very promptly. Not quite at your distance, I'm sticking to a 6km route running it every three days*. The dog comes with me, and I swear she's taking the proverbial, running backwards and forwards, then walking (yes, walking) alongside me for a while, before romping off into the woods and joining me again a minute or so later for another walk.

Pace is OK-ish. 8.7min/mile (5.4min/km) but I do have to stop a few times to put the dog back on the leash as we approach roads or to clear up dog poop (now that's probably not on many joggers' to-do list!)


*Missed my last run (man-flu) but hoping to get going again asap. The current route takes 32 minutes, so will be looking to extend it a little once I'm fit to run again.

VRD

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Re: Running (and jogging) regimes

#269613

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » December 6th, 2019, 2:18 pm

vrdiver wrote:
TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
vrdiver wrote:...Anyhow, made it around my planned route without the leg giving way like it did last time, so very relieved and feeling much happier, despite the rain.

VRD

So where are you at with your running, VRD?

Sorry, been off-line so didn't catch this very promptly. Not quite at your distance, I'm sticking to a 6km route running it every three days*. The dog comes with me, and I swear she's taking the proverbial, running backwards and forwards, then walking (yes, walking) alongside me for a while, before romping off into the woods and joining me again a minute or so later for another walk.

:lol:

Pace is OK-ish. 8.7min/mile (5.4min/km) but I do have to stop a few times to put the dog back on the leash as we approach roads or to clear up dog poop (now that's probably not on many joggers' to-do list!)

Bloody hell! You put me to shame with that pace already mate. I'm currently varying from low 10 min/mile to 11min/mile depending on my routes. Well done.

*Missed my last run (man-flu) but hoping to get going again asap.

Yeah, keeping the routine going in winter months can be a challenge. I've been very lucky so far this year. I just run whether I'm sniffle-ly or not. So far after a few miles I forget about any weediness I may have felt when I first woke up.

Matt


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