A wee bit off topic, but the 100/100 challenge pushed me to a new PR yesterday for a 10-miler. 1:04:51, beat my time on the exact same course I ran last month by almost 4 solid minutes, with some gas to spare.

---

--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

No, don't worry. Not changing anything.....just having a discussion about next year.

Easy there folks. I thought this site was to encourage each other. Why is everyone worrying about other runner's runs. So what if I did numerous 30 mins runs. That what the rules stated. I only did this for myself, not to win this silly challenge. Don't worry folks, I would probably not outraced most of the ones in this challenge. Yes, I only have ninetoes and I also run with a special knee brace since I have osteoarthritis in my knee. A couple of years ago, I was told by a special surgeon that I shouldn't run anymore. You know how sad I was after I was told this. Then to make it worst, while I was changing, he was talking to some student doctors, and told them, there's a 45 yr old athlete with a 65 yrs old knee. When I went by him, he asked me if I heard that. I simply replied : thank you for saying I was 45 when I was a little older and If he was talking about me. I never gave up. Got a second opinion and here I am today, still running and still going strong on participating in Ironman. I've completed a few Ironman so far and since the knee brace I have done 4 Ironman. It's not about how far you can run it's about just getting out there and do it.
Going back to the challenge, I just got caught up into it and wanted to end the 100 runs. I wasn't in to win this thing, as someone said. Everyone in this challenge, whether they complete the 100/100 or not, are winners. No, I did not get injured and I am doing longer runs and training for IM Lake Placid and Florida.
So, for those who worries about others, please be careful what you say. Not everyone is as athletic as most of you are. Go Canada Go.....

How about those Canuks.

like I said, you did everything within the rules of the challenge. Even better is you are running when they said you couldn't :-)
Best of luck at Placid and Florida
and yeah how about those Canucks!!!

Ewan

---

Ewan

-------------------------

Damn you were rooting for Canada ?

---

__________________________________________________
Official Polar Ambassador
http://www.google.com/...P7RiWyEVwpunlsc2JtQQ

Hey, good for you for proving your docs wrong and great work getting out there....but if you ARE actually planning to get the best out of your training time for IMLP, doing 3-5 30 minute runs in a day is not really optimal training. I'll stick by what I said. Frankly once someone get's past a second run of the day, adding a third run while increasing mileage for the day, still boils down to spreadsheet chasing. But hey, if that is a priority, and got an athlete out, then that is great for them.

With a not so great knee, having to go through "multiple warmup" segments for me is just a pain in the knee. I'd much rather actually get it done in one run so I just have to get over the clicking and tightness once and then settle into "real running". I've been through my share of knee problems over time and I can't imagine having to go through this any more than once or twice in a day.....doing it 3-5 times...well, to each their own. Each of us have different ways our joints react.

As for this being a website to encourage each other, clearly you have not been around ST for long enough :-) :-) :-)

Don't worry Dev, I do not run twice a day. Like I said, I just got caught up and wanted to finish earlier than anticipated. I now returned to my normal training. But, not as much as you and others. I've seen you many times at various races and if you would have sore knees you would not be as fast as you are right now. And you wouldn't certainly be able to do everything you have been doing. I've read your race reports on tri rudy and they are quite an accomplishment.

Ninetoe, you really cannot judge how my knees work by looking at what goes on in races. If I stopped doing sport every time a doctor told me I was done, I'd have ended 15 years ago. I've spent many seasons barely being able to walk down stairs, or walk to the washroom at nite, so when I caution guys on crazy behavior, I'm speaking from experience. Spend a year in my shoes and you'd know that what you see in races does not happen magically. Lots of hard work to keep joints and chassis with lots of questionable parts moving along. But that's the life of a masters athlete.

The amazing thing about the human body is that anything is possible if you do the right things. Medical staff not accumstomed to dealing with athletes will just tell us to "pack it in" and stop doing this stuff. But there are always doc's who "get it" and will work with us. Last year when I broke my ankle, my doc had me riding the bike a weeks after I broke it. I'd take the air cast off, get on the bike, do my thing and get back in the cast. 5 weeks later I was running (really slowly, but running). My doc said, "it that was your mother, I'd have stuck her in a cast and told her to come back in 6-8 weeks to get it removed".

So please don't tell me that I would not be able to do what I do if my knees were sore (not to mention achilles, plantar fascia, shoulder, neck etc etc). Trust me, they need a lot and love and care to get over the pain from various injuries going all the way back to high school football. But that's not an excuse as far as I am concerned. Every masters athlete trying to compete has a lifetime of broken parts that they just "deal with"

Dev

Hey Nine,

Keep running brother. It's hard for these guys to imagine someone doing something for the fun of it. God forbid if you do something that doesn't make you faster. I hope they change the rules next year and then we can call it the "ninetoe rule". hahaha....... You are an inspiration to me, keep going.

Hey Nintoe, what is great is that you got out and did a fair amount of running over the first part of this winter. I tell the guys locally that your performances in July are built on what you do from Dec-Feb. But looking at your log, you had a bunch of back to back 2 hour running days. With a bad knee, I really would not recommend this. Better to mix it up with some swim and bike (coming back to all the hard work required to keep suspect joints working optimally). Also your biking volume (if you have posted everything on ST) is extremely low for someone planning to do a July IM.

You can't hang up your bike wheels for the bulk of the winter and expect to ramp really quickly from Mar-June. Keep in mind that we are only 18 weeks before you have to START TAPERING for Ironman Lake Placid....that's not a shit load of time to get your bike legs ready to arrive at T2 with gas in the tank. If you don't take care of bike fitness, all this run training you did will be wasted with much of the IM run being spent walking...

Holy cow Dev, I think he was giving you a compliment....?!? maybe time for a rest day...:-)

I'm just trying to enjoy the closing olympic ceremonies. If I wanted a coach, I would contact you, but, sorry, I'll do what I feel like doing. My knees are just fine as long as I wear my brace. I tell people I'm there to simply challenge myself.
You just worry about yourself ( you do a real good job at that with your postings) and don't worry about my training.
Good luck in your future races and hope you don't get crippled up at a young age.

I think Dev is just upset USA lost tonight :)

---

__________________________________________________
Official Polar Ambassador
http://www.google.com/...P7RiWyEVwpunlsc2JtQQ

I appreciate that he is being nice to me. But I really do prefer to help guys as much as possible, and sometimes it is hard to hear the truth, but I don't want you guys breaking body parts and going through what I and many others around me have been through.

When someone tells me they have a bad knee and then does a 2 hour run day followed up the next day by 2.5 hours, my suggestion is that the knee will behave better with a more reasonable balance of stress+recovery. You don't even see Kenyans doing too many back to back days like that.

As athletes, it is hard from us to see the forest from the trees. I am as guilty as the next guy. Nintoe is telling me that he has a bum knee, but wanted to get the challenge done quickly, but is also training for IMLP. I'm looking at all those statements and based on a limited view of the picture, observe that his behavior is currently somewhat incongruent with the desired outcome (continue running and defy docs and race an IM in July).

"You can't hang up your bike wheels for the bulk of the winter and expect to ramp really quickly from Mar-June."

Dev,
At least from my n=1 perspective, this is not a true statement.

You're not doing IMLP are you? If so, you might be walking ~60 minutes after leaving T2 :-(. Half IM is a completely different animal.

Or, maybe a PR, at least on the run:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ou%20boston;#2489869

The diff is 6 more weeks to get ready for Louisville vs LP...and we're talking about Allan Faulds a multiple time sub 9:30 IM guy with 20 years of experience getting a run PB vs Ninetoe. Two completely different world's. You're arguing just for the sake of arguing by pulling up an N=1 sample for which most people on this forum aside from myself (I've known Allan for many years) and a few others don't have the full picture. When Allan says he's not doing that much riding it is faaaaaaar from zero. That IM Louisville run split did not happen by parking the bike in zero mileage mode.

Here is Allan's training for Jan 2009

bike 26:15 787.5 km swim 6:55 16,400 m run 37:24 469.5 km Total 70:34 1,273.4 km


Here is Allan's training for Feb 2009

bike 16:10 485 km swim 3:15 8,700 m run 36:08 464.5 km Total 55:33 958.2 km

Here is Allan's training for Mar 2009

bike 10:20 310 km swim 3:50 9,300 m run 41:30 518.5 km Total 55:40 837.8 km

He did almost 1600K of riding from Jan to Mar. For Allan this might be "Almost no riding" but it far exceeds what Ninetoe has done for riding. Plus Allan had 6 extra weeks to get ready for Louisville.

Dev

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, I think that someone with a lot of previous biking experience can take 3-4 months off from biking as long as they keep running a decent amount during the break from biking and then recover a large portion of their previous bike fitness in 4 months.

I'm not saying it is ideal, but for someone with limited time during the winter, doing 8 hours of running as opposed to 4 hours of running, 4 hours of biking per week is not a terrible option (assuming the 8 hours/week of running is within their capabilities).

I'm not doing IMLP, but if I were I'd be able to get to where I needed to be in the 4.5 months between now and then.

I don't think you nor Allan Faulds fall into the same category of athlete as Ninetoe. Not beating up on Ninetoe, just pointing out that you guys are age group podium guys with years of athletic experience. That's not the majority of athletes around here :-) What you guys may be able to get away with does not neccessarily apply to the majority of folks :-(

I agree with Dev, You see a lot of people in this challenge compromise the rest of their triathlon training for this 100/100 challenge. The 100 runs do not mean anything if the runs are just runs at 30 minutes at 10 minute pace. For me I run 4 miles in 30 minutes at an easy pace. So when you see people not working their weakness with the run it does seem senseless. I have coached cross country runners for years and don't want the runners just running for running sake. I think what Dev's Challenge is trying to do is get the 3x week runner to run more but in his existing program . i.e A runner runs 3x 45 minute average per week. Do that 3 runs and add 1-2x30 minutes a week and hopefully after the challenge keep the 1-2 extra runs per week and you will see improvement. I went years running 100 miles per week because in the 70's and 80's that was done. I had a really good high school runner acheive a lot on 50 miles per week. If we jumped it up too much performance went down. For me I was really hoping to get the 100 runs and 900 k but twisted my ankle trail running last week and am holding off the running for a few more days just be being cautious is more important to me than doing a set of 30 minute runs just to get a 100 runs.My goal is for some fast Olympic Distance races this season and running is the key to that goal so with My A race 8 weeks away I won't take the chance for a training log.

I am and I am coming from nowhere to take you guy's down!!!!!!!!! Can you give me 3 more years to train and a 2 hour headstart though :)


Edit on 03/02/10
Did 6.1 miles on dreadmill today and 1000 meters in pool right after. Think the bathing suit I had on was made from "SHAMWOW" material forgot my bathing suit and ran in running shorts. After a shower of course. Sucker felt like it blew up to 20 lbs. got a great shoulder work out thats for sure.

---

__________________________________________________
Official Polar Ambassador
http://www.google.com/...P7RiWyEVwpunlsc2JtQQ

Just an FYI ninetoe has completed 19 - 20 Ironman races. He is an inspiration and great friend to very many age group athletes.
Go Denis!

Now worries man. Denis/Nintoe and I communicated offline. It really does not matter to me how many IMs anyone has done (let's just say the total number of IMs someone does is not going to particularly impress me). When someone does nine 30 minutes runs in 48 hours and at the same time tells me his knees don't work well, then I'll be pointing out that such training is not optimal to start, and certainly not ideal for someone with knee issues going through that many warmup cycles.....

It could be Craig Alexander or Chrissie Wellington doing 9x30 min runs in 48 hours, I'd still call them out for spreadsheet chasing.

Lots of cranky posts lately Dev. You OK?

I will admit to doing a lot of 30 minute runs over the last few years, some for challenge points and some because it has kinda become a habit. They are typically a quick 30 mins when I get off the bike which I would otherwise not do or an second run in the evening after doing my "real" run in the morning. I mostly do that when I run in the morning at home and then do a second one when I arrive at where I am traveling. I sneak off for an hour and meet the others at the bar after they have had a couple. It is a good use of time.

Not sure if I will make 100 this year or not. Will depend on how much new snow on the ski trips.