New Personal Best! Brag About That New Pb!

[Dangerscouse]

An unexpected 10K PB for me today - 40:16.1. I was aiming for 2:02.5 pace, but set off quicker for the 1km, felt OK and increased my pace slightly, and had some good energy left for a sprint for the last 1km. Really happy to have knocked 35 seconds off my PB, but now my mind has started wondering if I can go sub 40 mins ... that's going to hurt

Well done, that's a huge chunk to take off. Going sub 40 will hurt, but I do think it is possible, although it's all too easy to say that just looking at splits. We weren't experiencing it, and the data can hide a lot of wobbles and struggles

[Pendolino]

Just done a 6k at 2:03.8, not sure how that pro rata's down to 5k, but feel like I'm getting closer by the week!

[Dangerscouse]

Just done a 6k at 2:03.8, not sure how that pro rata's down to 5k, but feel like I'm getting closer by the week!

A rough guide is 6k is circa 5k +1 (2:02.8), but it's a tough one to call. It might be closer to 2:02.0 for you, as a 6k is mentally quite rough in comparison.

[Pendolino]

Cheers for the rough guide - it feels tantalisingly close either way. Those 2-3 seconds are gonna become my nemesis over the next couple of months, I know it

[Dangerscouse]

Cheers for the rough guide - it feels tantalisingly close either way. Those 2-3 seconds are gonna become my nemesis over the next couple of months, I know it

It's close enough for you to go sub 2:02. Belief is a huge part of it and now you know you what you can do on a 6k, a 5k will feel more manageable.

[Pendolino]

Cheers for the rough guide - it feels tantalisingly close either way. Those 2-3 seconds are gonna become my nemesis over the next couple of months, I know it

It's close enough for you to go sub 2:02. Belief is a huge part of it and now you know you what you can do on a 6k, a 5k will feel more manageable.

Yeah, I'm fairly sure if I slept well, had a light proteiny breakfast, hydrated well and paced properly, I could struggle across the 5k finish line at 2:02. Then it's just that last 5% more (in terms of power) to get a sub 20 minute run!

I took a few days off as I was sensing burnout, and today was the fresh attempt which gave that satisfying result. 6k was one of the BPP sessions anyway, back to intervals tomorrow, and it's gonna hurt I know.

P.s. I did have another crack at the 500 m today, albeit after a heavy meal and lots of vaping (I know.......)... Managed 1:38.6, compared to my 1:46 three months ago. Recovered quick today - was feeling rough for an hour when I did it back then, nice to see the body adjusting!

[Dangerscouse]

P.s. I did have another crack at the 500 m today, albeit after a heavy meal and lots of vaping (I know.......)... Managed 1:38.6, compared to my 1:46 three months ago. Recovered quick today - was feeling rough for an hour when I did it back then, nice to see the body adjusting!

That's a very good improvement, especially coupled with the lack of any after effects

[Pendolino]

P.s. I did have another crack at the 500 m today, albeit after a heavy meal and lots of vaping (I know.......)... Managed 1:38.6, compared to my 1:46 three months ago. Recovered quick today - was feeling rough for an hour when I did it back then, nice to see the body adjusting!

That's a very good improvement, especially coupled with the lack of any after effects

I haven't adjusted the drag factor (~ 145) since I got it, wondering if it's worth cranking it up to 10 for the 500 metre sprints, as I find I'm struggling to keep up with the sliding seat more than anything on those?

Also, and I promise I'll leave you alone after this (!), are there any good rules of thumb for intervals = SS predictions? For example, I just did 3 x 1500 at 1:58.8 with 3 minutes rest in between. Is there a quick mental calc I can do to transform that into a 4500 m SS prediction? Does such a rule work for 6 x 500 vs 3000 m, or 2 x 2500 vs 5000 m etc? I know about the purely SS predictions based around Paul's Law etc (I have them bookmarked on my phone!), but I'll often find I improve most after a string of intervals but am then left guessing what pace to do my next SS at.

The BPP gives some good pointers, I.e. do the 3 x 1500 one second faster than the 3 x 2000, but I do like my little math tricks and shortcuts...

Thanks again mate, wasn't sure whether to start a new post or something as really don't want to hijack this thread which is for PBs, but hopefully it will help others who are at a similar point of training and looking to improve!

[MPx]

Without wishing to step on Stu's toes...

An increase in DF is likely to help a 500 TT (Time Trial). But its a bit far to go straight to max (10) unless you're used to it. Like you I use 140-145 for everything except ~165 for 500m; 185 for 1 min; and max (200+) for 100m. And that is TTs only, any sprint intervals or other training is all at the lower number.

Not quite clear on your terminology SS = Steady state = lower training pace; TT = Time Trial = as fast as you can manage for the piece. All the predictors I know are for TTs not SSs.

HTH

[Pendolino]

Without wishing to step on Stu's toes...

An increase in DF is likely to help a 500 TT (Time Trial). But its a bit far to go straight to max (10) unless you're used to it. Like you I use 140-145 for everything except ~165 for 500m; 185 for 1 min; and max (200+) for 100m. And that is TTs only, any sprint intervals or other training is all at the lower number.

Not quite clear on your terminology SS = Steady state = lower training pace; TT = Time Trial = as fast as you can manage for the piece. All the predictors I know are for TTs not SSs.

HTH

Cheers mate, yeah my terminology will be the confusion haha, when I say SS I'm referring to longer pieces, but for the purposes of wanting a rule of thumb, I'm talking about them being at max effort, I.e. if I can do 3 x 1500 at 1:58 ish max effort, what should I be able to do 1 x 4500 at?

I think I've been doing steady states all wrong tbf - I always give in to temptation and it ends up being a kind of time trial, exhausting myself by the end. Will work on that. I did, however, do a proper 10,000 SS last night, that is, I felt a bit tired but was really in the mood, so I just stuck to a pace of 2:15 for it, and was surprised how relaxing it was. It made me realise that I should be aiming for that for my steady states going forward. Definitely guilty of chasing the lowest numbers possible recently!

[HornetMaX]

Cheers mate, yeah my terminology will be the confusion haha, when I say SS I'm referring to longer pieces, but for the purposes of wanting a rule of thumb, I'm talking about them being at max effort, I.e. if I can do 3 x 1500 at 1:58 ish max effort, what should I be able to do 1 x 4500 at?

I think I've been doing steady states all wrong tbf - I always give in to temptation and it ends up being a kind of time trial, exhausting myself by the end.

I used to do that too. Was rowing 2 SS sessions per week, 1x1H and 1xHM: even the HM I was rowing it at 2:07/500m ... now I do the same SS sessions at 2:11 - 2:12 and keep the high intensity stuff for the other weekly sessions.

[MPx]

I.e. if I can do 3 x 1500 at 1:58 ish max effort, what should I be able to do 1 x 4500 at?

Impossible Q without knowing rest times and relative strengths - also 4.5 not a distance many will have experience of. FWIW I do a 4x1500 5r about 2s quicker than my 5k pace and I'm generaly better at intervals than longer TTs.

[iain]

I am also not aware of any general rule. There was even one cycling study that concluded that >1min rest didn't make you faster although even on 500m rowing intervals there is consensus that increasing from 1min to 2min rests makes a significant pace difference. Personally I have a view of how my long interval sessions compare to 5k TT pace and short intervals to 1k & 2k. You can then use the extended Paul's Law used in the FS predictor to convert from these to other TT between 1k & 10k. Unfortunately the intervals I do are from the PP and the BPP does less intervals with shorter rests to build up to the full PP, so I can't help you with the BPP intervals. What I would say is that improvements in longer intervals in S/500m should be similar to 5 - 10k TT improvements if done at similar exertion levels, while shorter interval improvements could be used similarly for 1-3k TTs.

[Dangerscouse]

Without wishing to step on Stu's toes...

An increase in DF is likely to help a 500 TT (Time Trial). But its a bit far to go straight to max (10) unless you're used to it. Like you I use 140-145 for everything except ~165 for 500m; 185 for 1 min; and max (200+) for 100m. And that is TTs only, any sprint intervals or other training is all at the lower number.

Not quite clear on your terminology SS = Steady state = lower training pace; TT = Time Trial = as fast as you can manage for the piece. All the predictors I know are for TTs not SSs.

HTH

that's what I'd have said anyway Mike, so it's all good

[Dangerscouse]

I think I've been doing steady states all wrong tbf - I always give in to temptation and it ends up being a kind of time trial, exhausting myself by the end. Will work on that. I did, however, do a proper 10,000 SS last night, that is, I felt a bit tired but was really in the mood, so I just stuck to a pace of 2:15 for it, and was surprised how relaxing it was. It made me realise that I should be aiming for that for my steady states going forward. Definitely guilty of chasing the lowest numbers possible recently!

Imo, you need to do the SS sessions at a pace that is in the Goldilocks zone, with occasional pushes into something a bit more challenging.

Relaxing is definitely a good feeling, especially if it's going to give you the ability to push harder when you need to. It's a common and all too easy mistake to push too hard too often, although some people thrive on it so I'm not going to say it's definitely not suitable for you. It's just very likely to not be a good idea, especially as it can take a while for it to accumulate enough to really start becoming detrimental, so you're lulled into a false sense of omnipotence!