Training Monday 29th June

Back to the 10k pace reps with short recoveries this week:

2 sets of 1 x 800m + 5 x 400m with 30 seconds between intervals and 2 minutes between sets (effectively 90 seconds + 30 seconds rest after the last rep of the first set).

Don't have time for a video of setting up the session this week but apply the lessons learned in previous videos and you will get there. 

Alan

British Masters 5k Relays - Final Results

This weekend, the British Masters Athletics Federation published the final results for the BMAF 5k Relays in which we entered our fastest male and fastest female team from the Scottish Athletics 30 minute for distance event held earlier in June. It is a while since we have contested a BMAF team event and we certainly did the club proud. The men's team were entered in the M45 to M54 category (a team of 4 to count) and the women were entered in the W35 to W44 category (also a team of 4 to count). In both cases, we raided the Harriers' archives for some older vets to complete the teams as they also happened to be amongst the fastest of our 4 possible contenders in each team.

Both our men and women got their 5 runners out early in the 7 day long competition window (we had chosen 6 to run but injuries to Graeme Lindsay and Lorraine Buchanan meant that neither could race) with the result that both of our teams briefly lead the field. However, as the week wore on and particularly on the final Saturday, many of the fastest runners got their results in and both our teams slid down the rankings.

The final results were as follows (first 4 to count in each team, sum of times):
W35-W44
39th overall, 5th Scottish Athletics team
Julie Beveridge (20:14)  47th W35, 9th Scottish W35
Karen Allen (21:04) 81st W35, 20th Scottish W35
Alisson Lessells (22:41) 133rd W35, 33rd Scottish W35
Frances Ferguson (23:06) 47th W55, 7th Scottish W55
Julie Thomson (24:05) 160th W40 overall, 46th Scottish W40

M45-M54
48th overall, 6th Scottish Athletics team
Alan Derrick (17:56) 17th M55 overall, 2nd Scottish M55 (actually, it was Cambuslang's Eddie Stewart, an M60, who beat me, as always!!)
Gerry McParland (18:14) 64th M50, 28th Scottish M50
Ian Hughes (18:43) 89th M50, 35th Scottish M50
Martin Howell (20:04) 171st M50, 53rd Scottish M50
Stephen Phimister (20:14) 182nd M50, 54th Scottish M50

Well done all. Punching above our weight again! Roll on the Scottish 6/4 stage virtual relays in mid-July.

Possibly the most impressive time of the event was Irish M60, Tommy Hughes, who ran 16:11 to lead the 55 and over categories, achieving an age grade ranking of 98.7%, a stupendous performance (he ran a 2:30 marathon last year and represented Ireland at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where he ran 2:14, so an incredible athlete who somehow has managed to sustain that form for another 30 years).
Alan

Training Friday 26th June

Friday is another dual session day with running and conditioning via circuit training.

Do a much shorter run than yesterday, say 5 to 10k easy, ending with 6 x 80 to 100m of fastish but relaxed strides. Then do the intense Friday Circuits session later, 4 sets of 5 exercises for 30 seconds, 10 seconds between.

Alan 

Training Thursday 25th June

Recovery continues today in preparation for picking up the repetition progression next week. For today do an easy to steady 8 to 10 miles. Remember, hammering these medium length training runs doesn't give you any long term training benefit. All it does is knacker you so you can't train well the following days and hence you lose consistency and volume of training. The old saying is true in many cases "club runners do their easy runs too fast and their hard sessions too slow". Races are meant to take you to the limit, training runs are meant to slightly push the boundaries.

Alan 

Training Wednesday 24th June

Back to our usual double session Wednesday. Earlier in the day do 5 to 10k easy. Then later in the day do the Wednesday Circuits at the maintenance level (which is 3 sets of 15 x 30sec, 10 sec between). It is particularly important to warm up before and stretch after as tightness from the hill reps will be setting in.

Alan

Training Monday 22nd June

Today is either an SA Elevation Challenge day if you are yet to do it or an easy recovery day if you have. So just a short, easy run, preferably on softer ground.

Alan

June Auldhouse 5k Results

June seems to have flown by with several events occupying our time devoted to running. However, back in the first week of June we had another fantastic lockdown solo Auldhouse 5k TT participation. I am reluctant to mention the number of runners as I always miss at least one person but my rough estimate is that there were 18 who completed the traditional Auldhouse course and another handful doing socially distanced 5k's in the vicinity of their homes. So thanks again for the tremedous support. There are too many to list everyone so please refer to the full results in the Auldhouse 5k link to the left of the blog. However I will mention the fastest times, the course bests and the big improvers.

Fastest time for the second month in a row was Stuart Gibson who ran an excellent 16:24 on the hilly route. Stuart initially thought this was a course best but on checking back in the spreadsheet, we were able to confirm that he ran 4 seconds faster in 2013. Not only is this a remarkable time 7 years down the line but it was actually on the very same day of the month in 2013 that Stuart ran his best. A remarkable coincidence. Well done Stuart. Stuart's brother Robert also made his first officially timed run around the course in 24:45. The potential is there to be extracted!

Ian Hughes and Iain Tomb tied on 2nd fastest with 18:52. This was a season's best for Iain but not for Ian! However, achieving an excellent 28 second course best was Chris McCarron in 18:58, showing the great potential he has.

Callum Wright broke 20 minutes for the first time, finishing in 19:55, a 32 second improvement on last month. Well done Callum.

Also making a big leap forward, Mark Phimister set a new course best of 20:38, a 20 second improvement in one month, beating his Dad in the process but dragging Stephen round to a 20 second season's best too.

Alan

Form to Upload your Vertical Challenge Results to Scottish Athletics

The Scottish Athletics form for uploading your elevation gain results and Strava or Garmin link is here: https://forms.gle/TKyCTxQPyzRdxmCi6

All Harriers who have valid SA membership are entered. You can double check the entry list here (just type CGH in the search box to see all Calderglen entries. Sandy is there!):
https://data.opentrack.run/en-gb/x/2020/GBR/sahillchallenge/competitor/


Alan

Vertical Challenge - More Hints & Tips

Many Harriers have been out recceing their hills over the week and from that we have learned a few more things or a few questions have been raised. Here are some more hints and tips arising:

Remember that GPS cannot measure height or elevation with any useful accuracy. The clue is in the name Global Positioning System - the GPS measures horizontal position on the earth's surface only (if you have one of the more expensive Fenix running watches or Edge cycling computers, they have a barometric altimeter built in which provides accurate change of elevation data to your Garmin session. Most of us don't have that though). So if your watch displays elevation on its face and it is not equipped with a barometric altimeter, the elevation is not accurate. You have to upload to Garmin Connect or Stava to get a more accurate indication of elevation gain.

To determine elevation for your session, Garmin and Strava look up your position on their own databases of terrain height when you upload your session. Although they are mainly using publicly available height databases, they have also developed their own height databases based on analysing the millions of users' sessions which have been created with barometric altimeter equipped watches. These data cover popular running and cycle areas only. For the remote areas they will use the public height databases which are quite low resolution (e.g. one point every 50m) and tend to smooth out the terrain. Not a problem if you are covering a large distance on your session but can result in errors when the hill is only 100m long. As Strava and Garmin have their own elevation databases, they usually don't give the same elevation gain result. Submit the result and link from which ever app gives the highest elevation reading (Garmin Connect or Strava).

Garmin and Strava have also developed their own algorithms to try to correct the elevation for GPS positioning error. You will notice that even if you run up and down the same bit of road, the GPS track is a squiggly line which does not follow the same path each time. Garmin and Strava analyse this and decide that you probably were running up the same bit of road and use exactly the same altitude data for each ascent and descent to give the same smooth hill on each ascent. Of course, if you really are running a squiggly course up the road, to pick a steeper bit of terrain, this may not be captured! Furthermore, Strava (don't know about Garmin) have developed algorithms that compare your position to street and footpath maps. If it looks like you are very close to a road or path that is used by other Stava users, they look up the elevation data for that road or path and use that. So, the other day one member walked up a very steep grassy slope in EK which was very close to a footpath that went around the hill rather than up it. Strava recorded only a couple of metres elevation gain whereas it should probably have been about 10m. It is likely that Strava assumed he was on the path, which only climbed a couple of metres, rather than on the grassy bank beside the path. Therefore, for the vertical challenge, stick to hills that are on roads, pavements and well defined paths otherwise you may suffer from Strava being too smart for its own good.

Another Harrier tested the same steep hill on a road in EK 3 times (Glenburn). The first time she ran up 150m, then 200m and finally 250m. The height gain for all 3 ascents was 15m on Garmin Connect and in this instance Garmin Connect gave a higher height gain than Strava. It therefore makes sense to only run 150m up this hill and to use the result from Garmin Connect. Do a recce and walk or jog various distances up the same hill, download your data to Garmin/Strava and check how little distance you can get away with for the same elevation gain. The shorter the hill, the more reps you might manage.

The elevation gain you are to submit to Scottish Athletics is the one on the main screen of your Garmin (67m in this esample) or Strava (54m in this example) session as shown below.

The Scottish Athletics instructions for uploading your results (the same as for the previous challenges) are in this pdf document. Make sure that your session is "public" before copying the link otherwise Scottish Athletics won't be able to view it.

The specific rules for the event are here.

Finally, set up your watch in the same way as we did for the 30 minute challenge as shown in this post/video. This avoids any button press errors when suffering from altitude sickness at the end of the session! Note that you could also set it up using the interval function on the watch as e.g. 2 x 7.5 minute reps with 2 x 7.5 minute recoveries no warm-up and no cool down. This will run for 30 minutes and stop automatically. All you have to do is remember to save the session!

Thanks to everyone for all the enthusiasm you have shown for this and the other virtual challenges we have done. Have a good one!
Alan

Training Friday 19th June

As everyone will be doing the  vertical challenge this weekend (starting from today), then training for Friday is either a rest day or actually doing the challenge. Do not do the Friday Circuits before the vertical challenge as the jumping in the Friday session kills the legs temporarily and we will need all of our strength and power to get up those hills!

Remember, even if you are injured and can't run but are mobile, it is fine to walk the challenge (as long as walking is not aggravating the injury). Every metre could count.

An updated post with some final Vertical Challenge hints and tips is coming very soon.
Alan

Training Thursday 18th June

As we are trying to leave the legs fresh for the vertical ascent challenge this weekend, a relatively light session to put some power through the legs without tiring them too much. Run 10 to 14k easy. In the middle of the run do 5 x 1 minute at 10k pace with 1 minute jog in between. Try to choose a flattish part of your route for that.

Alan 

Training Wednesday 17th June

As we are in a period of intense virtual racing whilst still handling quite hard rep sessions, the Wednesday circuit sessions must be for maintenance and consolidation only and not building in volume. Therefore do a 5 to 10k easy run through the day and then do one set down from your maximum number of Wednesday Circuit sets. For most of us that will be 2 or 3 sets. Precede with a short run of 1 to 2k and finish with stretching.

Alan

Training Monday 15th June

For those doing the BMAF 5k Virtual Road Relay, do not do this session!

Training on Monday is a consolidation of the 400m reps from last week as we made a significant step up in total rep distance. Some found this session quite easy. That is fine, the total recovery was also significantly greater compared to previous weeks. However, if you found it easy, don't go any faster. This is still a 10k pace session and the 30 minute virtual challenge gave a strong indication that what is easy over a 400m rep is not sustainable over 30 minutes, let alone 10k.

The session is again 2 sets of 7 x 400m with 30 seconds recoveries between reps and 2 minutes between sets (which consists of the 30 seconds after the 7th rep + 1:30). Consistency is the name of the game. Be accurate and precise with your pacing. Refer to the video on last Monday's blog post for instructions on how to programme your Garmin via Garmin Connect.
Alan

Scottish Athletics Vertical Ascent Challenge -some tactical and technical pointers!

For this event, Russell has now entered everyone in the Harriers who has a valid Scottish Athletics membership. If you're SA membership is not up to date and you would like to represent the club, renew your SA membership and then you can enter the even via the SA web site Events section. 

The competition window opens on Friday 19th and closes on Monday 22nd June inclusive. The aim of the event is to gain as many metres of elevation in 30 minutes as you can with the proviso that you must also lose approximately as much elevation as you gain and it should not be a point to point route. There is a further proviso that the hill you use must not have an elevation gain of greater than 100m, but that won't be a problem within EK unless you are starting in Rutherglen or Cambuslang (which is a height differnce of 150m+) and running to EK (a bit of guidance, don't do that!). This means that it is a half hour session of hill reps up and down, something we do often at the Harriers. The total elevation gain in your session is as indicated on Garmin Connect.

Many have been asking what sort of hill to use. The idea is to gain as many metres as possible in a half hour. That means that short, fast hill reps and recoveries are better than long, slow hills. For example, doing Lickprivick from the bottom to the water tower would be a bad choice. The total running distance to the top is about 800m. It takes me 3 to 4 minutes to get up there and it is an elevation gain of about 40m (according to the OS map). Turning around and running fast back down would take 2:30 to 3 minutes, so 5:30 to 7 minutes to go up and down and therefore 4 or 5  reps in total if I could keep that going for a half hour giving about 160 to 200m of ascent. However, if instead I only run up Lickprivick for 1 minute at a faster pace, which wouldn't even take me to the bus stop, I reckon I could gain about 15m of height, and get back down in about 1 minute comfortably too. The OS map suggests that I need to run about 200m to gain 15m on Lickprivick. I am sure I could do that in 1 minute. This would mean at least 15 reps in a 30 minute period which would give about 225m of elevation gain, considerably better than doing the full hill.

There is no need to go up the hill for the same time or to the same point every rep. If you need a recovery period, go up for only 30 seconds rather than a minute and back down again. Or if you only have a couple of minutes left, try to do a lot of short, fast up and downs to finish the half hour off. These timings are just an example. 1 minute may be  too long; maybe 30 to 45 seconds suits you better. 

Steep hills are better but not so steep you can't run fastish. The hill at Langlands we use for reps is a good one. Avondale isn't so good as it is quite a gentle slope and you have to run a long distance and hence time to gain much elevation. There are no shortage of steep hills in EK/Cambuslang!

This week is the week to experiment. Find your hill or hills, record some data on Garmin Connect and work out what your best strategy is going to be to gain the maximum amount of elevation in a half hour. 

Remember that running fast uphill is particularly stressful. We always say don't run if you are not feeling well. This is even more true for this session.

A FINAL VERY IMPORTANT POINT. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT THE AUTO PAUSE FUNCTION IS SWITCHED OFF ON YOUR GARMIN AS THIS WILL PAUSE THE WATCH IF YOU TAKE A REST BETWEEN REPS AND INVALIDATE YOUR TIME. Do this as follows on your watch:

Menu > Activity Settings > Scroll down to Auto Pause > Change it to "OFF" if it is not already off.

Here is a video showing it on my watch.

Alan

Training Friday 12th June

I'm losing track of the days, sorry for the delay in posting.

Today is a light training day following the threshold session yesterday. Around 5 to 8km very easy. Later in the evening, do the intense Friday Circuits session of 5 exercises x 4 sets. Warm up before, stretch afterwards. 

Alan 

Training Thursday 11th June

Sorry for the delay on this one. Early morning calls with Australian office.

Today is Threshold Thursday. So that is one hour race pace (3 spoken words) and is consequently significantly slower than 30 minute challenge and Auldhouse 5k effort!

5 x 6 minutes, 2 minutes jog recovery. A few easy miles to warm up and cool down. 

Alan

Training Wednesday 10th June

A day to consolidate aerobic base and muscular condition. Therefore do 8 to 12km easy during the day and then the Wednesday Circuits (no more than 3 sets) in the evening with a short run and strides to warm up and stretch to finish.

Wednesday Circuits 

Stretching

Alan

British Masters 5k Road Relays

Update - submitting results - once you have recorded your 5k (anytime between 14th and 20th June inclusive) you need to get your Garmin Connect embed code link (not from the Garmin Connect app but from the Web version of Garmin Connect, using exactly the same procedure you would have used to get the link for the Scottish Athletics virtual events) and email that link to me as only the "team manager" who entered the teams can upload the results. My email is w.alan.derrick@gmail.com 

Hope you have all got nice flat routes planned on windless days! 

Alan

As a celebration of the club's success at the Scottish Athletics 30 minute distance challenge the other week and using that as a "retrospective virtual trial", I would like us to enter our fastest ladies' team and our fastest men's team in the British Masters 5k Road Relay Championship. This is also a virtual event requiring us each to run a 5k following similar rules to other virtual events (i.e. no point-to-point courses). It is many years since we sent our fastest men's and ladies team down to the British Masters XC Relay Championships, so now is a chance for us to do something similar but without having to drive to Sutton Park in Birmingham!

The event runs from 14th June to 20th June but probably best if we get the 5k's done over the first few days of the window (14th/15th) to leave adequate recovery before our Scottish Athletics vertical ascent challenge the following weekend.

There are 4 to count in each team but I suggest entering the fastest 6 to allow for off-days. Only the fastest 4 times submitted will then count. Our fastest eligible runners (35 and over) fit into the following team categories:

Ladies (W35 to W44 team)
J Beveridge
K Allen
A Lessells
F Ferguson (drops down in age category)
J Thomson

Men (M45 to M54)
A Derrick (drops down an age category)
G McParland
I Hughes
G Lindsay
M Howell
S Phimister

As you can see above, individuals are allowed to drop down age categories. Unless you know of an even flatter route, I would use the same route that you used for your 30 minute challenge but turn at 2.5k rather than 15 minutes!!

If all the above named agree, then I can enter the teams. Results are to be submitted via a similar process to the Scottish Athletics virtual challenges from either Garmin Connect or Strava.
Alan

Training Monday 8th June

We are back on the 400m rep bus for a continuation of that journey. However, with the benefit of the 30 minute challenge last weekend, we have all had a reality check on where our 10k pace should be. This is the week to reassess the pace for the reps. Look back at your 30 minute SA challenge average pace and make that the new pace for this week's 10k pace reps. In all cases this will be slightly slower than you have been training at up till now.

The session is 7 x 400m with 30 seconds recovery x 2 sets with 2 minutes between sets. Note that the two minutes includes the 30 second recovery after the 7th rep of set 1.

The following video shows how to set up in Garmin Connect as a custom workout. Don't forget to click the transfer to watch icon as shown in the last step of the video and then to synch your watch with the phone app to finally transfer to the watch. 

Alan

Virtual WHW relay

I almost forgot that I'd made a wee video of everyone's photos from our virtual relay of three weeks ago. Before the event fades from our memories you can indulge yourself with a reminder here Virtual WHW relay photos

WHAT A WEEKEND THAT WAS

It doesn't matter that were all isolated from each other as we demonstrated again what a strong club we are over the weekend doing Scottish Athletics virtual challenge. Despite being apart the encouragement given and received was phenomenal. We all ran separate courses but all for one cause.
We seen as the leaderboard was updated regularly that our Ladies went into the lead and remained there most of the weekend only being caught on the Monday evening and finishing in a fantastic 3rd place. I must add that the official team results are not gender specific but are all mixed teams which you can see below. On the total distance covered by clubs for a middle sized club we done exceptionally well punching way above our size finishing 2nd with a total of 173.61k pushing Cambuslang into 3rd by 1.09k. Bellahouston RR won this by a country mile beating us by 129k but you must consider they have about 5x our membership.As you will see from the breakdown below we also had some fantastic individual performances in the age categories. I also have to give an apology to Sandy on here. Despite thinking I had entered everyone with a valid SA number it turned out I hadn't entered Sandy. Not sure how but will be more vigilant for the next event. Althought not on the results its worth noting Sandy ran a superb 5.94k.
The next event is a 30min challenge but theyre looking for elevation gain. Same rules about loops and no point to point the one addition is there should be no significant height gain from start to finish. Basically what you go up you must come back down. This will commence on Friday 19th June for the 4 days over the weekend. Anyone whos membership number has expired get it renewed as soon as possible so its there when I do the entries.
Without further ado here are the final team positions and a breakdown of age category positions.

The overall distance challenge we were 2nd 173.61k

Mixed master teams    6th    A Derrick,  G McParland,  F Ferguson and  J Thomson

                                   16th   I Hughes,  G Lindsay,       L Buchanan and  R Kelly

Mixed senior teams    2nd    C Wright,   A Buchanan,   J Beveridge and  K Allen

Mixed open teams      6th     A Derrick,  G McParland,  J Beveridge and  K Allen

                                  13th    I Hughes,   G Lindsay,      C McSorley and  A Lessells

                                  20th    M Howell,   C Wright,        F Ferguson and J Thomson

                                  28th    S Phimister,  D Wardrope,   M Beaton and L Buchanan

Age category positions

Senior women    13th C McSorley       16th M Beaton

W35                   2nd  J Beveridge       4th K Allen            6th A Lessells

W40                   14th J Thomson        23rd  L Buchanan

W50                 13th  R Kelly

W55                 2nd F Ferguson

Senior men     21st    C Wright

M35                19th     A Buchanan

M45                 15th   G Lindsay         24th D Wardrope     34th R Lawton

M50                 5th=    G McParland       5th=    I Hughes     14th M Howell      17th  S Phimister

                        23rd    J Holmes            27th  G McInally

M55                 2nd     A Derrick    17th J Mearns    20th E Reid    24th R Couper

M60                  10th K Leinster

M65                 4th W Buchanan      6th D Searil

Training Friday 5th June

June Auldhouse solo TT window is still open for those recovered enough and still to do it. Otherwise, Friday is a gentle run of 5 to 8k followed later in the day with the intense Friday Circuits session of 5 exercises per set for 30sec each, 10 seconds between. Do 4 sets.

Alan

Training Thursday 4th June

The window is still open for the June individual Auldhouse 5k TT. That is one option for today. Otherwise continue the recovery week with 8 to 10 miles easy. Finish with 6 x 80 to 100m accelerating strides to take the lead out the legs. Ideally do this on grass or trail.

Alan

Training Wednesday 3rd June

This is the usual double session day. Therfore try to get out for a 8 to 12k easy run during the day. In the evening, have a brief 1 to 2k warm up and then the same number of sets of the Wednesday Circuits as you did last week (which should have been one less set than the max number of sets you have done so far). Stretch to finish.

Alan