Training Log Archive: rcro

Out a bit earlier than usual as it actually snowed this time and the later you get out the more people ruin the running surface, or it thaws given it’s actually quite warm and sunny.

About 3 inches covering where untouched, and most of the time was in enough snow for the shoes to be ok. Only bits that really weren’t that nice were the pavement on the Ridgeway (I estimate about 5,000,000 people had walked them by 9.30), and the road by the gypsy camp which was surprisingly compacted. The cycle path by the cemetery wasn’t that good either.

Thought about going up to 14 locks and then the fields behind Rogerstone school, but the bridge over the canal was actually slippery and towpath looked all very compacted so didn’t look like it would be much fun.

Pace fairly easy but the snow wouldn’t have allowed particularly fast, and was trying to avoid too much impact on hard surfaces - these shoes are made for off reading and have done nearly 950 miles now, a bit past their best. Nice to go off the side of the Ridgeway and into Gaer again - not good for road shoes in winter.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4672097880

GPS again very good, some bits where slightly offset but 90% of the time it’s got me on the right pavement (when I didn’t run down the middle of the road) today.

Double Ridgeway with Canal.

Waited for the ice to go but despite the millions of people was still very slippery on the flat bit of canal along Allt yr yn reserve. Whilst not going hard surprisingly set a few segment PBs today after the worst of the ice. Was being held up by a very slow and very wide female cyclist at the end of the locks and had to overtake on the water side and accelerate to get away - so helped on the motorway section even with basically walking the bridge as couldn’t tell whether the concrete would have grip or not.

Didn’t really want to go up Ridgeway again after but it turned into a slight effort and tried harder towards the end to be just 1s off my PB up there. Definitely a lot of room for improvement on this, and probably the end to end Ridgeway segment too.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4667926150

Again gps plot is approximately 50% perfect and 50% consistently offset. HR looked to be behaving but again in the 170s for easy downhills in the last 2k.

Worked late today as expecting to be given an appointment for tomorrow but they didn’t call so I guess it won’t be. Got dragged into other work calls though - but at least they were interesting.

Fairly easy today as expecting it to be cold and the later it is the less keen I am to push. Stomach also not good as various calls meant I wasn’t totally run ready by the time I had to get out. 6.40 really is late to start a run nowadays.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4663804532

Give Polar some credit, the GPS plot really is useable again, and there were periods of perfection (I.e. V800 standard) during this run. I also think the HR was about as good as I’ve ever known it today - whether that is good is still questionable, but it is nice to see it engaged early on.

MapRun6 testing. Seems to work fine - unlike the Garmin which worked fine 95% of the time but 0% of the time at the start. Whilst I've been disappointed with the Polar recently, I don't need many minutes of Garmin time before I'm reminded why I gave up with them.

Relatively easy run today, according to oHR, very easy with not going above 130 until after I summitted and didn’t want to step up after any of the times I took off or swapped wrists. I don’t think it’s any better than before, similar position to where it was in the summer giving junk for the first 2.5km.

GPS plot looks better though at least.

Lost another KOM today to a pair of eye wateringly expensive shoes. The person is definitely quicker than me and his run had the sole purpose of this single effort - so why not just beat me without mechanical advantage? I’m confident in my own abilities not to compare against other runners on segments, but as it’s starting to follow road races in being who cares the most and wears the fanciest footwear leaderboards will end up just as meaningless as race positions soon. I like segments for seeing how I perform on each run against my previous runs, but don’t take anything else too seriously. It’s all about enjoying the running, right?

https://www.strava.com/activities/4658551691

C • Indeed 1

Watch had a firmware update today. Main improvements being with GPS and HR accuracy - so interesting to see what changed.

HR still crap most of the time. It was 147 suspiciously often, but notably not so on the downhill return along Bassaleg Road, which despite the easy pace peaked at 181. Spiking on low cadence downhills has been a bit of a theme and not resolved.

GPS is better than it has been recently - but it has been verging on absolute shit most of the time since the dodgy Sony satellite pre-locations at the start of the month. Today was far from perfect, but at least the shape was mostly right (if offset) rather than zigzagging across roads and gardens - so it’s back to being useable at least.

Pretty wet and windy so a day to be glad that it’s done.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4653115721

Easy run incorporating FoDAC’s 5 mile consistent pace challenge. Not taking it particularly seriously but noted the time at 1.60km (7:15) and made sure I was pretty close at 3.2 etc. Strava disagrees with the watch a bit so it’s a good job I did check the watch every 1.6km to infer the actual splits.
7:17, 7:17, 7:06, 7:24, 7:22. Scoring based on number of seconds away from first split so that would work out at 23.

Not an easy route to pace - as I don’t care enough to run somewhere flat. Thought I was behind time at the bottom of the Ridgeway so ran it normally and was very early (in the region of 30s) at the top. From there significantly reduced the uphill and downhill effort, slightly too much but never mind.

Fairly easy run done at a reasonable pace - without really noticing doing it. So good to do.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4647720287

Usual Ridgeway in the (light) rain.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4642565356