A funny headline, given that I was just reading up on the history of the "Black Ghost", a nickname given by other racers to a muscle-car which would dominate Detroit street races in the 70s, but never hung around to socialize. The car would just show up, win, and disappear, sometimes for weeks or months, before surfacing again to win, and again to vanish. Nobody knew the driver, nobody could get a look at him, and he was trying very hard to keep it that way.
This blew my mind, as I'd heard about this car in the 90s from a car-nut uncle, during the time when nobody knew the story, just that the car had stopped showing up in the mid-70s and nobody had ever seen it again.
Only in 2014 did the owner reveal his secret. Ultimately his reason for laying low is much more lurid than simply being a pacer like today's clickbait headline.
I wanted to know a bit more about the car and in particular I was curious about the brakes. The A34 Super Track package the car has added discs in front[1]. As someone who once owned a '68 Camaro with drums up front, phew.
Sad to see the comments at the bottom of the excellent article you linked to… it has one from this month mentioning the car is up for auction. I hope it’s for a good reason since it’s so sad to see prospective family legacy and history just sold off when hard times strike.
In an amateur context, I've paced about a half dozen races, half marathon and marathon distance. I've also served as a pacer for runners in the second half of a 100 mile race a couple times.
The purpose of a pacer for amateur runners is to set a consistent pace and provide encouragement to runners who may be running their first race at that distance. Or maybe someone trying to set a new PR. Since most courses are not flat, I actually try to run even effort, and explain that is the plan to the runners I'm pacing. So we slow down on the uphills and speed up a bit on the downhills.
Yes, runners can use a variety of electronic devices (GPS watches, heart rate monitors, accelerometers on your shoe) to try to set their own pace but none of these are perfect. They also require constant attention. And they don't provide moral support.
Even though I'm a fairly experienced runner (25+ marathons), I'll join a pace group myself when running a new course sometimes. A marathon can be mentally exhausting and it's sort of like being able to run on cruise control if you can just fall in next to someone else and rely on them to set pace.
Running in a pack is also just easier, not even considering the wind breaking potential depending upon speed and prevailing breeze.
On the 100 mile races, runners may have been on their feet for 12+ hours by the midway point and are starting to run into the night. Pacing those runners is really just about moral support and encouragement. Typically they are allowed to pickup a pacer after the 50 mile mark and I'll keep a single runner company for say a 12.5 mile lap and then they can switch to another fresh pacer. So they may get the company of 3-4 pacers in the second half of the race.
Another example is that large marathons have guide runners to help those who need assistance. Visually impaired runners. Maybe runners with prosthetics who are concerned about being tripped. Etc. I've never been a guide runner but I'd like to some day.
> Running in a pack is also just easier, not even considering the wind breaking potential depending upon speed and prevailing breeze.
It is worth noting that for mid-d races it's not just about countering wind, but also air resistance. There is a significant performance impact even if it's not windy. See for instance https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20823445/does-draftin...: "Pugh runs some calculations to determine that at 4:30 mile pace, drafting one meter behind another runner on a still day saves about 80% of the energy you'd otherwise spend fighting air resistance. That corresponds to about 1 second per 400 meters at that pace, and more on windy days." (Highly recommend Hutchinson's other work on the running and sports science, btw.)
(I am sure you know this. I'm mentioning it for others, because it's applicable to Sowinski's work, far more so than your own pacing for the longer races.)
4:30/mile pace is faster than all but the fastest amateur runners, and the effect would I assume be less at a slower pace. 1s/400m is less than 2 minutes over a marathon, so something, but not a huge amount.
1m behind is also pretty close to be directly behind someone, you'd be liable to kick each other.
By "wind breaking potential"
I meant both that from air resistance as well as that from a breeze, but I appreciate the clarification.
Even at the marathon distance it matters as we saw with Kipchoge’s Nike sponsored sub-2 run a few years back. Of course, Kipchoge ran that thing at 4:34/mi pace, not far off middle distance race pace!
Thanks for this explanation. I'm a newbie runner -- been running for a year-and-a-half.
I'm aiming to break the 2hr mark in my 3rd half-marathon next month. My last half-m in Oct 2022 took 2hr9min. I know, 9 minutes is a lot to shave off :-). I'll first aim to finish healthily.
Your message encourages me to join a pacer. (The last 5KM of a half-m feel endless.)
Stop eating carbs about 2 months before. I did this and went from a 2:06 to 1:58 with minimal training. My body carried several kg less weight and felt like it could consume its own fat energy more efficiently and I didn’t get the 2/3 slump.
I also started last, ran down the 2hr pace guy, then tried to stay 100m ahead of him. It felt primal being chased down by somebody and kept the mind sharp.
How do these runners knees not succumb to problems? Genetic lottery? I run 6 miles on a treadmill with zero drop & pronation inserts, stretch withe a calf wedge & still feel like I'm flying close to the sun with my knees.
The old myth that running is bad for your knees. It isn’t unless you have a condition. What you may not have is tendons ready for the effort or the right supporting muscles. These can be worked on.
Genetics play a role, but it can be done with very, very gradual increments in weekly mileage, perhaps over the course of years. The "add no more that 10% rule per week" is even too aggressive over the long run. You have to give your legs time to adjust to higher mileages.
When I was 35 and younger I could run no matter what i did to my body.
Now that I'm in my 40's I find if I get knee pain, its almost certainly tight muscles around the knee.
That means I haven't' been stretching, drinking water, foam rolling or squatting and deadlifting enough. As you get older I find almost all ailments are a sign of not taking care of your body, not a sign of age related decay.
I'm 38 and run about 80km a week on average and have run since I was 12 years old. Humans are built for running! Any notion that running is bad for the average person is nonsense (clearly if you have some known underlying issue which may prevent running, e.g. one leg longer than the other, then it's best to avoid running)... Anyway, the key to not screwing up your knees, getting shin splints, IT band syndrome, or whatever else chronic injury is:
0. Unless you've been running for a long time or done some other endurance sport, your aerobic system is probably in terrible shape. Even if you are already a runner, it's likely your aerobic system is still in terrible shape. If your pace zones don't match up with your heart rate zones, e.g. you are out of breath no matter how heard you run and your HR shoots up the moment you start running then you need to improve your aerobic system. If you are stressing yourself on every run then you have a much higher chance of injury. On most of my runs I go <Z2, which is about 6.30 min/mile for me at the moment but could easily do a marathon at that pace and not be too stressed about it. I can breath through my nose at that pace and assuming I warmed up sufficiently, then breathing feels very easy and I can carry on a conversation with my running partners. Recovery feels almost instant after stopping. If your aerobic system is poor then you'll be dipping into anerobic territory which stresses the body a great dealand lengthens recovery time. I only work anerobically about 20% of the time. Teach your body to be a better fat burner, your aerobic system will thank your for it and you'll feel generally better overall in daily life. Learn about the aerobic threshold and the anerobic threshold. The secret to fast, injury free, easy running is to push your aerobic and anerobic thresholds as high as possible, so you can run fast whilst burning fat and not accumulating excessive levels of blood lactate. You can achieve this by doing most of your training below your aerobic threshold and the remainder at or above your anerobic threshold. Determining your aerobic thrshold can be tricky - some people say it's the pace you can run at when breathing through your nose. If you have a blood lactate monitor then it's the pace/HR when lactate starts appearing in the blood samples. It's maybe easier to do a metabolic test though. Read Phil Maffetone's book to learn more - it's a good introduction.
1. Make sure your form is good. The main things are: 1) don't overstride. If you overstride, you'll land on your heel instead of mid/fore foot and put quite a bit of stress through your legs. Instead, increase cadance and lower stride length so you are landing mid foot. 2) You see a lot of people running with their ass sticking out, which pulls centre of gravity backwards and makes running much more difficult - overstresses quads, shins and knees. Your centre of gravity should be directly over the foot in the stance phase. Try to make sure hips are forward and level. There's tonnes of stuff on the internet about running form. I think you can get most of the way there by increasing cadence and shortening stride. Running should feel like you are gliding over the road... People walking should be surprised when you beast it past them at 5 minute mile pace because your feet hardly make any noise when they touch the ground.
2. Make sure that all your muscles groups are strong and balanced, in pcarticular the glutes. Most people have weak glutes, specifically the glute medius, which will cause the knee to bend inwards when running, resulting in quite a bit of pain as it compresses the knee on one side and stretches it on the other. Many runners think strength isn't relevant for running but it really is. You need to keep on top of it and do strengthening exercises at least a few times a week. There's tonnes of blogs on the web which teach you the kinds of exercises you need to do. E.g. side leg raises, clam shells, squats, single leg dead lifts, glute bridge, marching bridge...
3. Recover properly. Any "tightness" after a run is probably because you've overworked some muscle group. Learn how to do self massage and maybe use a theragun or similar device. Cold therapy also helps. Try to sleep well (no alcohol before bed, no food three hours before bed, no caffeine in afternoon) and if you don't feel great or are ill then either don't run or do only active recovery that day. From experience you are way more likely to injure yourself on a day where you don't feel great.
4. Whenever you are going to do a hard session, warm up properly with some light aerobic exercise and mobility exercises. You want to make sure all the main muscle groups are activated and ready to go before you run. On slow days this is less of an issue. A hard session is anything above Z2. Always run at least 5 minutes in Z1 before starting any run. Alsways do at least 5 minutes in Z1 at the end of a run.
5. Diet. Don't eat refined carbs or any sugars. Focus on a high fat diet and only eat cars when you need to fuel before a hard session or race.
6. Up training distance gradually. Track things like resting heart rate at night or HRV to check whether you are over-doing it or not. Gut feel for this is probably more useful though. If you feel exhausted or you get pain then cut back on running and do more strength exercises.
1. Genetics that allow their bodies to push harder and recover faster (at the elite level) than an average human.
2. Years upon years of building up resilience by increasing distance, time, intensity in a semi-controlled manner.
That said, there's millions of people worldwide who run far below the elite level whose bodies don't crumble to bits. It's a total myth that running destroys your knees.
Aside from the other comments / suggestions...check your diet. It's possible you're eating something(s) that triggers inflammation; and when your running that inflammation manifests as pain in your knees.
I have run 30-40 miles per week since I was 15 to the age of 40 so far. The period I have injuries are correlated to the times I am not also training kung fu. Since kung fu involved a lot of deep stretching and yoga like stuff, I think the trick to running is probably just to also make sure to practice yoga seriously and you’ll be good
Besides proper weight training, have you gotten help with your running style? As a purely knee-saving exercise, I learned some POSE running. Let’s be clear, I do not run long distance nor do I ever want to. The single longest distance I have run is 10K. This was purely to stop heel striking because that was giving me problems.
I had knee pains when running only on the roads. It was due to weak muscles to support it.
Switched to trail running and it's been a life saver. It's a lot easier pace, but the hills/mountains really help stabilize the glutes and core. I'm running longer/further and still close to my 5k times from being a road runner
Have you tried running barefoot or with "Barefoot" sandals? It will quickly teach you the correct way to run without your heels touching the ground, which removes the impact stress from the knee. I have very much liked using them, albeit I haven't run on a treadmill.
Running is a highly repetitive task and it will amplify any biomechanical issues you have.
In the first phase of my running career, I used to struggle with achilles tendon problems, nothing any shoe or podiatrist or orthopedist was able to properly diagnose or fix.
Eventually I saw a PT. The PT clued me in that I had a weak core and bad biomechanics. To use an analogy: I was like a car with an out of alignment suspension. And I had been trying to fix it by changing the tires. When what I needed to do was fix the suspension. The suspension is everything above your feet, but in particular your hips and core. And mine were in terrible shape from years of sitting before I started running in my late twenties.
So I had to re-invent myself as a runner.
Originally I started with the exercises the PT gave me for my hips and core. I got rid of my motion-control shoes and my prescription orthopedic inserts. I switched to just a basic cushioned shoe. Shoes are like unsprung mass on a vehicle. I didn't want any more weight on my feet than I absolutely needed, especially since I wear size 11-12 shoes.
I started to pay attention to and work on my form. I found the PT exercises boring so I ended up joining a Crossfit gym for a couple years which worked for me, but I don't recommend Crossfit as generic advice since Crossfit gym and coach quality varies widely. But it worked for me.
With my form and strength in better shape, it enabled me to start putting in more mileage. Whereas previously I couldn't run more than 35 miles/week w/o risking injury, I was now able to comfortably run 65-75 miles/week. That allowed me to take on the types of training routines that I needed to achieve some of my time and distance goals.
Now, I know some folks who never cross train and don't get injured and maybe they just naturally have good form.
But for me it was something I had to work at. And the best kind of professional I know for advising you on this is a PT who is themselves a runner and works with runners.
The image I keep in mind when I'm thinking about running form is Mo Farah's:
Well the glaring omission is that you apparently don't do any knee strengthening exercises even though your knees hurt?
How do you expect to have strong knees without squats, lunges, etc? It's like saying you're bad at math and expect to magically get better at it, without actually practising math.
Even doing a few sets of squats every day is better then nothing, and for some reason most newbie runners think they can do nothing, with zero sports background, and still run every other day.
I went along as handler for a friend at a couple of Old Dominion 100s in the 1980s. The then course took the runners over Massanutten Mountain somewhere around 80 or 85 miles in, and the one year runner could be accompanied for the last 25 miles, the other year for the last 33. The first year I didn't need to accompany for my friend dropped out because of the brutally hot weather. The later year, I split the companion duties with my brother.
The thing about ultra-distance races is that the exhaustion can affect the judgment, and the runner and the race are better off having somebody with judgment unimpaired along.
Edit: I should add that the course took runners over Massanutten Mountain in the dark. Perhaps the real beasts managed it in daylight, but it was a nighttime leg for lot of good solid runners who were going to get the belt for finishing under 24 hours.
>Yes, runners can use a variety of electronic devices (GPS watches, heart rate monitors, accelerometers on your shoe) to try to set their own pace but none of these are perfect. They also require constant attention.
Yes, those devices do require constant attention, usually by glancing at watch, what is rather distracting. But, something that mostly resolved this deficiency, at least for me, was Garmin Varia Vision - tiny heads up display mounted to sunglasses. it can keep in your eyesight all the relevant metrics. It is a great help for me in outdoor runs
In my case, practice, knowing the course, and running close to my easy pace all help. I have a pretty good sense of what different paces feel like, effort wise.
But I also use a GPS watch and Stryd pod to monitor my pace in real-time and keep track of my 1 mile and 5K splits.
Generally though, runners tend to go out way too fast in a race because they are very excited and should have gone through a taper, so it feels easy while running too fast at the start. Because it's not a race for me, I can avoid that excitement. Then toward the end, they slow down because they went out too fast. Since the entire race is at a relaxed effort for me, I can avoid that too.
I also probably haven't spent the last 10 days tapering, so I don't have to really adjust my feel.
That said: a few years back I ended up pacing the 4:30 marathon group which was almost 3 minutes/mile below my race pace and I was constantly having to check myself. My preference when pacing is to be close to my easy pace for the distance, not to fast, not too slow.
At an elite event there are LEDs along the inside of the track that are set to pace at world record pace or what ever pace the meet chooses. The rabbit can pace off the LEDs, or at some interval to the LEDs. Recently there may be multiple paces set by the LEDs.
My $0.02: Sitting on the couch is bad for your knees. Over-striding is bad for your knees. A weak core is bad for your knees. Running slightly faster on downhills is not bad for your knees.
FWIW, I've read nearly every running book there is including that one. I still have healthy knees at 51 and have run tens of thousands of miles on them over all sorts of terrain.
It is only bad for your knees if you don't know how to run downhills and don't train for it.
Running injuries come from overload or overuse (or bad health). Both causes can be prevented by being conscious of what causes overload and overuse and then training in a way that will prevent it.
If all you ever do is run flat asphalt and then you suddenly decide to run hills then yes, the downhill can be bad for your knees -- but that's just because you stupidly decided to introduce a new load your joints and tendons are not adapted to.
Same happens whenever you change technique or have some kind of imbalance -- your body will adjust by moving loads from one place to another but your brain may not be smart enough to realise the new place may not have had enough time to adjust to it.
Anybody can write a book, I guess. But don't take any running books as gospel. Nobody really understands everything about running (well... maybe Phil Maffetone does).
I run with severed ACL in one of my knees and so out of necessity I have to be much more knowledgeable to be able to keep running safely and keep my legs in good shape.
I wouldn't recommend speeding up on the downhills for beginning runners. But if you're well conditioned, running slightly faster on the downhills in a relaxed way won't hurt your knees. It all depends on the slope of course. On very steep hills, it simply isn't be possible to run fast downhill.
> I highly recommend the book Born to Run by Cristopher McDougall.
It's an entertaining read, but that's about it. The science is to be taken with a large grain of salt. (I've run more than 50000 km since reading it.)
As a [semi-serious] road cyclist and occasional racer, this reminds me of the duty of "domestiques" on cycling teams.
It's probably more obvious to this crowd than to the general population, but I'll say: because most of a cyclist's energy is spent fighting air resistance, (road) cycling as a sport is almost entirely about drag management and drafting other cyclists. That's also what makes it a team sport. Riding right behind someone ("on their wheel") in the right circumstances can save ~25-40% energy, and riding in the middle of a well-developed pack can save quite a lot more.
This is very back-of-napkin, in the real world of course varies with many factors: because drag is a square of velocity, this is exceedingly relevant on fast and flat courses but almost totally unimportant at the low speeds of climbs, and of course wind direction influences the outcome greatly, etc. But this is why you see pros riding within inches of each other's wheels. Whether you're trying to stay with foes or are being carried along by friends, you're trying to save energy and avoid being out in the wind.
What you see when you watch your local criterium, or the Tour de France, is teams trying to shield their sprinter from the wind to conserve energy ("save their legs for the sprint"). There are lots of things one can do along the way, from sabotaging other teams' efforts to do the same, to breakaways, etc. But that's the basic idea. Your local group ride of experienced folks isn't too different; they'll generally run "pacelines" and rotate on/off the front, taking turns sharing the workload of pile-driving into the wind ("pulling"), and move everyone along much faster as a result. It's a skill, but when you learn to do it well and have the choreography down, you can ride your bike silly fast. Technique matters at least as much as power.
90% of the people in the TdF are unsung heroes, aren't there to win. It's only natural to assume that the people on the front are winning the race, but, in view of the energy budget in the above theory, they're not. Outside of the last 200 metres or so, anyone on the front of the pack is definitely not winning, and would never win that way. They're working hard for someone else. And for most of them, that's their career right there.
I was once motorcycle touring in the Wyoming/Utah/Colorado area with a friend who was riding an old, carbureted Suzuki dual sport that struggled with power at altitude. We found we could significantly increase its top speed and fuel range by drafting it off the "bubble" created by my bike's panniers. Inside the bubble was like the eye of a storm.
When I commuted by bicycle in London in my 20s I would often draft behind double decker buses. Not terribly sensible, for various reasons including their exhaust, but very effective. And with a profile that big you don't need to be very close to get a good effect.
I rabbited in high school. We had an excellent state-level miler who could run all day but had zero finishing kick. My job was to set as fast a pace as I could for as long as I could to wear the opposing strong finishers down. I was usually good for a lap and a half or so. Not bad for a broad jumper...
The article uses the term pacer and rabbit but never really explained what function exactly this type of runner performed for the race organizers. They only alluded to this when mentioning other runners depending on the pacer. A little confused who the intended reader for this article is.
I had to follow up with a Wikipedia search where just the usage of the term “pacemaker” or “pacesetter” made things more clear.
It is easier to run behind someone and match their pace than it is to lead a race. It is also easier to run faster for shorter distances. A rabbit is someone that runs a fast pace for less than the full race distance so the real racers can be pulled through the early miles and save energy for their push to the finish.
Races want runners to run fast times, because that makes them prestigious. Runners want to run fast times, for obvious reasons. So races provide rabbits which lures fast runners to those races.
Here you go: “A marathon or half marathon pacer is a volunteer runner that runs a race at a specific pace for a target finish time. Pacers are usually veteran runners that have racing and pacing strategies they have mastered which they utilize during the course of the race. Pacers wear some type of signage/object such as a sign, balloon, or shirt identifying their target finish time.”
I’m not ChatGPT, but here is the Wikipedia article that may be of interest. Wikipedia describes “Pacemakers serve the role of conveying tangible information about pacing on the track during a race”
What confused me initially was who was paying him. I went into the article assuming he was pacing for a specific runner or team -- a bit like the teammate cyclist who is tasked with being in front so other cyclists can draft behind him the the Tour de France. So even though the article did mention a race organizer approaching him, I missed that.
Do the race organizers request a specific pace knowing what they know about the competitors? Do they ask for input from the various coaches before the meet? Or does he just always run the exact same pace and other racers pace themselves faster or slower just in comparison to him?
"Pacer" is a common word used to describe many activities that are time limited. It takes the common noun "pace" and a average English speaker )or really even a non native speaker) could figure out "pacer" means "to keep pace".
For someone who does not run marathons, I’d ask why a human would be necessary? People could use smartwatches, or there could be waypoint signs. This is a domain specific thing.
Without Googling, did you know what a patternmaker is?
I went to school with Alan Webb [1]. We were all essentially rabbits to him. I’ve never seen someone run so fast, for so long of a distance, in such a short time.
He went on to have an amazing career, obviously.
My partner regularly picks up pacing duties. It's pretty common for professional runners, and they receive some modest compensation depending on the size of the meet. Pretty trivial for a 1500 or 3k specialist to pace a 10k, for example. She's knocked out an 8:46 3k and is quite literally a human metronome, so it's a good go for her. Making sure your splits are even requires a lot of practice, however, and accelerating or slowing down is an unpleasant experience for the rest of the race participants.
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This blew my mind, as I'd heard about this car in the 90s from a car-nut uncle, during the time when nobody knew the story, just that the car had stopped showing up in the mid-70s and nobody had ever seen it again.
Only in 2014 did the owner reveal his secret. Ultimately his reason for laying low is much more lurid than simply being a pacer like today's clickbait headline.
(Ur jnf n pbc ol qnl, fgerrg-enpre ol avtug.)
https://www.dodgegarage.com/news/article/owners-clubs/2022/1...
1. Per https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/1970-71-dodge-chall...
The car is up for auction later this year:
https://monthly.mecum.com/2023/01/06/historic-street-racing-...
There’s a cool video on YouTube about it now.
For the curious and lazy
The purpose of a pacer for amateur runners is to set a consistent pace and provide encouragement to runners who may be running their first race at that distance. Or maybe someone trying to set a new PR. Since most courses are not flat, I actually try to run even effort, and explain that is the plan to the runners I'm pacing. So we slow down on the uphills and speed up a bit on the downhills.
Yes, runners can use a variety of electronic devices (GPS watches, heart rate monitors, accelerometers on your shoe) to try to set their own pace but none of these are perfect. They also require constant attention. And they don't provide moral support.
Even though I'm a fairly experienced runner (25+ marathons), I'll join a pace group myself when running a new course sometimes. A marathon can be mentally exhausting and it's sort of like being able to run on cruise control if you can just fall in next to someone else and rely on them to set pace.
Running in a pack is also just easier, not even considering the wind breaking potential depending upon speed and prevailing breeze.
On the 100 mile races, runners may have been on their feet for 12+ hours by the midway point and are starting to run into the night. Pacing those runners is really just about moral support and encouragement. Typically they are allowed to pickup a pacer after the 50 mile mark and I'll keep a single runner company for say a 12.5 mile lap and then they can switch to another fresh pacer. So they may get the company of 3-4 pacers in the second half of the race.
Another example is that large marathons have guide runners to help those who need assistance. Visually impaired runners. Maybe runners with prosthetics who are concerned about being tripped. Etc. I've never been a guide runner but I'd like to some day.
Pacing the 1:50 group in a half marathon:
https://i.ibb.co/4gRTjjT/FCC9720-D-4-E4-E-4-F74-91-EF-2-FCB2...
It is worth noting that for mid-d races it's not just about countering wind, but also air resistance. There is a significant performance impact even if it's not windy. See for instance https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20823445/does-draftin...: "Pugh runs some calculations to determine that at 4:30 mile pace, drafting one meter behind another runner on a still day saves about 80% of the energy you'd otherwise spend fighting air resistance. That corresponds to about 1 second per 400 meters at that pace, and more on windy days." (Highly recommend Hutchinson's other work on the running and sports science, btw.)
(I am sure you know this. I'm mentioning it for others, because it's applicable to Sowinski's work, far more so than your own pacing for the longer races.)
1m behind is also pretty close to be directly behind someone, you'd be liable to kick each other.
Even at the marathon distance it matters as we saw with Kipchoge’s Nike sponsored sub-2 run a few years back. Of course, Kipchoge ran that thing at 4:34/mi pace, not far off middle distance race pace!
I'm aiming to break the 2hr mark in my 3rd half-marathon next month. My last half-m in Oct 2022 took 2hr9min. I know, 9 minutes is a lot to shave off :-). I'll first aim to finish healthily.
Your message encourages me to join a pacer. (The last 5KM of a half-m feel endless.)
I also started last, ran down the 2hr pace guy, then tried to stay 100m ahead of him. It felt primal being chased down by somebody and kept the mind sharp.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095814/
>History of Running is Not Associated with Higher Risk of Symptomatic Knee Osteoarthritis: A Cross-Sectional Study from the Osteoarthritis Initiative
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5179322/
>Running does not lead to knee osteoarthritis, may protect people from developing disease, experts say
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141116094058.h...
Now that I'm in my 40's I find if I get knee pain, its almost certainly tight muscles around the knee.
That means I haven't' been stretching, drinking water, foam rolling or squatting and deadlifting enough. As you get older I find almost all ailments are a sign of not taking care of your body, not a sign of age related decay.
0. Unless you've been running for a long time or done some other endurance sport, your aerobic system is probably in terrible shape. Even if you are already a runner, it's likely your aerobic system is still in terrible shape. If your pace zones don't match up with your heart rate zones, e.g. you are out of breath no matter how heard you run and your HR shoots up the moment you start running then you need to improve your aerobic system. If you are stressing yourself on every run then you have a much higher chance of injury. On most of my runs I go <Z2, which is about 6.30 min/mile for me at the moment but could easily do a marathon at that pace and not be too stressed about it. I can breath through my nose at that pace and assuming I warmed up sufficiently, then breathing feels very easy and I can carry on a conversation with my running partners. Recovery feels almost instant after stopping. If your aerobic system is poor then you'll be dipping into anerobic territory which stresses the body a great dealand lengthens recovery time. I only work anerobically about 20% of the time. Teach your body to be a better fat burner, your aerobic system will thank your for it and you'll feel generally better overall in daily life. Learn about the aerobic threshold and the anerobic threshold. The secret to fast, injury free, easy running is to push your aerobic and anerobic thresholds as high as possible, so you can run fast whilst burning fat and not accumulating excessive levels of blood lactate. You can achieve this by doing most of your training below your aerobic threshold and the remainder at or above your anerobic threshold. Determining your aerobic thrshold can be tricky - some people say it's the pace you can run at when breathing through your nose. If you have a blood lactate monitor then it's the pace/HR when lactate starts appearing in the blood samples. It's maybe easier to do a metabolic test though. Read Phil Maffetone's book to learn more - it's a good introduction.
1. Make sure your form is good. The main things are: 1) don't overstride. If you overstride, you'll land on your heel instead of mid/fore foot and put quite a bit of stress through your legs. Instead, increase cadance and lower stride length so you are landing mid foot. 2) You see a lot of people running with their ass sticking out, which pulls centre of gravity backwards and makes running much more difficult - overstresses quads, shins and knees. Your centre of gravity should be directly over the foot in the stance phase. Try to make sure hips are forward and level. There's tonnes of stuff on the internet about running form. I think you can get most of the way there by increasing cadence and shortening stride. Running should feel like you are gliding over the road... People walking should be surprised when you beast it past them at 5 minute mile pace because your feet hardly make any noise when they touch the ground.
2. Make sure that all your muscles groups are strong and balanced, in pcarticular the glutes. Most people have weak glutes, specifically the glute medius, which will cause the knee to bend inwards when running, resulting in quite a bit of pain as it compresses the knee on one side and stretches it on the other. Many runners think strength isn't relevant for running but it really is. You need to keep on top of it and do strengthening exercises at least a few times a week. There's tonnes of blogs on the web which teach you the kinds of exercises you need to do. E.g. side leg raises, clam shells, squats, single leg dead lifts, glute bridge, marching bridge...
3. Recover properly. Any "tightness" after a run is probably because you've overworked some muscle group. Learn how to do self massage and maybe use a theragun or similar device. Cold therapy also helps. Try to sleep well (no alcohol before bed, no food three hours before bed, no caffeine in afternoon) and if you don't feel great or are ill then either don't run or do only active recovery that day. From experience you are way more likely to injure yourself on a day where you don't feel great.
4. Whenever you are going to do a hard session, warm up properly with some light aerobic exercise and mobility exercises. You want to make sure all the main muscle groups are activated and ready to go before you run. On slow days this is less of an issue. A hard session is anything above Z2. Always run at least 5 minutes in Z1 before starting any run. Alsways do at least 5 minutes in Z1 at the end of a run.
5. Diet. Don't eat refined carbs or any sugars. Focus on a high fat diet and only eat cars when you need to fuel before a hard session or race.
6. Up training distance gradually. Track things like resting heart rate at night or HRV to check whether you are over-doing it or not. Gut feel for this is probably more useful though. If you feel exhausted or you get pain then cut back on running and do more strength exercises.
1. Genetics that allow their bodies to push harder and recover faster (at the elite level) than an average human.
2. Years upon years of building up resilience by increasing distance, time, intensity in a semi-controlled manner.
That said, there's millions of people worldwide who run far below the elite level whose bodies don't crumble to bits. It's a total myth that running destroys your knees.
Switched to trail running and it's been a life saver. It's a lot easier pace, but the hills/mountains really help stabilize the glutes and core. I'm running longer/further and still close to my 5k times from being a road runner
In the first phase of my running career, I used to struggle with achilles tendon problems, nothing any shoe or podiatrist or orthopedist was able to properly diagnose or fix.
Eventually I saw a PT. The PT clued me in that I had a weak core and bad biomechanics. To use an analogy: I was like a car with an out of alignment suspension. And I had been trying to fix it by changing the tires. When what I needed to do was fix the suspension. The suspension is everything above your feet, but in particular your hips and core. And mine were in terrible shape from years of sitting before I started running in my late twenties.
So I had to re-invent myself as a runner.
Originally I started with the exercises the PT gave me for my hips and core. I got rid of my motion-control shoes and my prescription orthopedic inserts. I switched to just a basic cushioned shoe. Shoes are like unsprung mass on a vehicle. I didn't want any more weight on my feet than I absolutely needed, especially since I wear size 11-12 shoes.
I started to pay attention to and work on my form. I found the PT exercises boring so I ended up joining a Crossfit gym for a couple years which worked for me, but I don't recommend Crossfit as generic advice since Crossfit gym and coach quality varies widely. But it worked for me.
With my form and strength in better shape, it enabled me to start putting in more mileage. Whereas previously I couldn't run more than 35 miles/week w/o risking injury, I was now able to comfortably run 65-75 miles/week. That allowed me to take on the types of training routines that I needed to achieve some of my time and distance goals.
Now, I know some folks who never cross train and don't get injured and maybe they just naturally have good form.
But for me it was something I had to work at. And the best kind of professional I know for advising you on this is a PT who is themselves a runner and works with runners.
The image I keep in mind when I'm thinking about running form is Mo Farah's:
https://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/14th+IAAF+World+Athletic...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxf1gEkm_EE
Here's some of the exercises he does to have and maintain that form:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx2i6TKMi1A
And for comparison, here's Ed Whitlock in his 80s:
https://mindmotionmatter.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ed-runn...
How do you expect to have strong knees without squats, lunges, etc? It's like saying you're bad at math and expect to magically get better at it, without actually practising math.
Even doing a few sets of squats every day is better then nothing, and for some reason most newbie runners think they can do nothing, with zero sports background, and still run every other day.
The thing about ultra-distance races is that the exhaustion can affect the judgment, and the runner and the race are better off having somebody with judgment unimpaired along.
Edit: I should add that the course took runners over Massanutten Mountain in the dark. Perhaps the real beasts managed it in daylight, but it was a nighttime leg for lot of good solid runners who were going to get the belt for finishing under 24 hours.
Yes, those devices do require constant attention, usually by glancing at watch, what is rather distracting. But, something that mostly resolved this deficiency, at least for me, was Garmin Varia Vision - tiny heads up display mounted to sunglasses. it can keep in your eyesight all the relevant metrics. It is a great help for me in outdoor runs
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But I also use a GPS watch and Stryd pod to monitor my pace in real-time and keep track of my 1 mile and 5K splits.
Generally though, runners tend to go out way too fast in a race because they are very excited and should have gone through a taper, so it feels easy while running too fast at the start. Because it's not a race for me, I can avoid that excitement. Then toward the end, they slow down because they went out too fast. Since the entire race is at a relaxed effort for me, I can avoid that too.
I also probably haven't spent the last 10 days tapering, so I don't have to really adjust my feel.
That said: a few years back I ended up pacing the 4:30 marathon group which was almost 3 minutes/mile below my race pace and I was constantly having to check myself. My preference when pacing is to be close to my easy pace for the distance, not to fast, not too slow.
That is bad for your knees.
[edit] I highly recommend the book Born to Run by Cristopher McDougall.
FWIW, I've read nearly every running book there is including that one. I still have healthy knees at 51 and have run tens of thousands of miles on them over all sorts of terrain.
Running injuries come from overload or overuse (or bad health). Both causes can be prevented by being conscious of what causes overload and overuse and then training in a way that will prevent it.
If all you ever do is run flat asphalt and then you suddenly decide to run hills then yes, the downhill can be bad for your knees -- but that's just because you stupidly decided to introduce a new load your joints and tendons are not adapted to.
Same happens whenever you change technique or have some kind of imbalance -- your body will adjust by moving loads from one place to another but your brain may not be smart enough to realise the new place may not have had enough time to adjust to it.
Anybody can write a book, I guess. But don't take any running books as gospel. Nobody really understands everything about running (well... maybe Phil Maffetone does).
I run with severed ACL in one of my knees and so out of necessity I have to be much more knowledgeable to be able to keep running safely and keep my legs in good shape.
[Citation needed]
I wouldn't recommend speeding up on the downhills for beginning runners. But if you're well conditioned, running slightly faster on the downhills in a relaxed way won't hurt your knees. It all depends on the slope of course. On very steep hills, it simply isn't be possible to run fast downhill.
> I highly recommend the book Born to Run by Cristopher McDougall.
It's an entertaining read, but that's about it. The science is to be taken with a large grain of salt. (I've run more than 50000 km since reading it.)
It's probably more obvious to this crowd than to the general population, but I'll say: because most of a cyclist's energy is spent fighting air resistance, (road) cycling as a sport is almost entirely about drag management and drafting other cyclists. That's also what makes it a team sport. Riding right behind someone ("on their wheel") in the right circumstances can save ~25-40% energy, and riding in the middle of a well-developed pack can save quite a lot more.
This is very back-of-napkin, in the real world of course varies with many factors: because drag is a square of velocity, this is exceedingly relevant on fast and flat courses but almost totally unimportant at the low speeds of climbs, and of course wind direction influences the outcome greatly, etc. But this is why you see pros riding within inches of each other's wheels. Whether you're trying to stay with foes or are being carried along by friends, you're trying to save energy and avoid being out in the wind.
What you see when you watch your local criterium, or the Tour de France, is teams trying to shield their sprinter from the wind to conserve energy ("save their legs for the sprint"). There are lots of things one can do along the way, from sabotaging other teams' efforts to do the same, to breakaways, etc. But that's the basic idea. Your local group ride of experienced folks isn't too different; they'll generally run "pacelines" and rotate on/off the front, taking turns sharing the workload of pile-driving into the wind ("pulling"), and move everyone along much faster as a result. It's a skill, but when you learn to do it well and have the choreography down, you can ride your bike silly fast. Technique matters at least as much as power.
90% of the people in the TdF are unsung heroes, aren't there to win. It's only natural to assume that the people on the front are winning the race, but, in view of the energy budget in the above theory, they're not. Outside of the last 200 metres or so, anyone on the front of the pack is definitely not winning, and would never win that way. They're working hard for someone else. And for most of them, that's their career right there.
I had to follow up with a Wikipedia search where just the usage of the term “pacemaker” or “pacesetter” made things more clear.
Races want runners to run fast times, because that makes them prestigious. Runners want to run fast times, for obvious reasons. So races provide rabbits which lures fast runners to those races.
Link: https://halfmarathonforbeginners.com/what-is-a-pacer-in-runn...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacemaker_(running)
Do the race organizers request a specific pace knowing what they know about the competitors? Do they ask for input from the various coaches before the meet? Or does he just always run the exact same pace and other racers pace themselves faster or slower just in comparison to him?
Based on these incentives and discussions with the runners (and coaches) the pace the pacesetters run is set.
> Meet directors pay him
Without Googling, did you know what a patternmaker is?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Webb_(runner)