Pine Belt Pacers Forum

Beginning Tuesday, June 16 at 5:30 pm at Thames Elementary Track, the Pine Belt Pacers, will offer a comprehensive 5K Training Program. The goal of the program is to prepare participants for the club's Labor Your Legs 5K run/walk which will be held Monday, September 7 at the Cloverleaf Center in Hattiesburg. The group will meet each Tuesday for 12 weeks.

Participants in the training program will follow a beginner, intermediate or
advanced plan based upon their current level of fitness. The beginner
program is for people who have had no previous running experience, as well as those who are running a couple of days a week. The intermediate plan is for people who are currently running between 15-24 miles per week and the advanced plan is for those who are running 25 or more miles per week.

The group will be provided a day to day training plan and the program is
free of charge. Additional information may be obtained by calling Becky
Ryder at 601-434-2619. Each plan will be available o the club's website
at www.pinebeltpacers.org.

I just wanted to get this back to the top to remind everyone that the 5K training will begin this Tuesday. Last night I got a call from someone who said the program was mentioned in the Hattiesburg American and it siad we would be starting on Thursday. I went back and looked at the email that I had sent to Alan Hinton at the HA and I gave him the correct date, so if the HA listed Thursday as the starting date, it is their screw up.

We should be home from our trip onMonday and I look forward to seeing all of you at the track. If you know of anyone who might be interested in speedwork, drag them to Thames on Tuesday.

By the way, Robin is also conducting speed training at the Oak Grove HS "track" on Thursdays. I'm not sure of the time.

My cell phone has died and I'm not sure when I will get it replaced. So, if any of you need to contact me, call me on Hollie's phone at 601-329-6802.

We had about 25 people for the first of 12 sessions of the speed for the 5K training program. Nine of the 25 were non-members. It's always nice to have these new people participate. If they come even close to the success of last year's beginners, it will be amazing.

Today was the hottest day of the year, so I was pleased with the turnout. Everyone seemed to tolerate the heat and got in their workouts.

Hi, Becky,

I really enjoyed the first 5K training session and started on the running plan. I am going to get a watch tonight but I don't understand what it means when it says:

4 miles @ :30-1:00 per mile slower than 5K race pace

I'm not sure how to calculate this or tell if I'm doing it right?

Thanks!

Very good question. Here is an example of what I mean.

If your 5K race time is 24:45, that equates to a mile pace of 7:55. Thus, your training pace for that day needs to be 30 seconds to 1 milute slower than that pace. This comes out to be 4 miles at a pace between 8:25 and 8:55.

If you are having difficulty calculating your 5K mile pace, there is a tool on our Pacer website. I think there is a link on the first page that takes you to it, under fitness calculator.

I found it--Thank you!! Now it makes sense.

Despite the weather prediction that the temperature would be near 100, we had 16 people show up for week two of the 5K training program. Last week we had 24 and most of the no-shows this week were accounted for in that they were out of town, working or ill. In total, for the two weeks, we've had 28 different people.

The beginner group continues to do very well. They all completed the workout as written---walk 2 lap WU and then do 4 x 100 run/100 walk, 2 x 200 run/200 walk and 1 x 400 run followed by a 2 lap CD walk.

The intermediate group, led by Vicki Copeland consisted of two new guys, with the remainder being people who were mostly in the beginner group last year.

Audrey did not have any advanced people, so she was able to do a solo workout and then do her CD with Kily Garcia. I think Kily said he had 9 miles easy on his schedule so he did some of it on the track and some of it on the neighborhood streets.

I will be out of town for the next two sessions. In my absence, Vicki, Audrey and Kily will be in charge. Come on out and join in the fun.

I wont be abe to go to the track this afternoon. I am working out of town.

Have a nice day.

Kily

OK, Kily, I got the beginners!! Be safe, we will miss you.

Okay, Becky's not here to e-mail us.

Do we cancel 5K training due to weather? Looks like it's coming down pretty good right now.

Sorry, just reading your post. FYI in the future - typically some people show up and some choose to be no shows. If it's not lightning sometimes we run in the rain. Also, sometimes it might be raining just down the road, but not at the track.

I'm missing you guys at the track, but I am on this crazy schedule (actually, I really like it) so my track days do not typically fall on Tues. Also, I will do doing mile repeats more than other speed work and prefer to do those off the track.

Thanks everyone for attending. Becky will be back Tuesday and we can hear all about her adventures. Please post some of your comments of the program, we would love to hear from you. Also, this time of the year the weather is weird, always show up, someone will be there!!

See all of you at Thames. Becky is back!

After missing two weeks of the 5K training, it was nice to see about 20 people present for the 5th week session. It was even nicer to see the improvement that participants have made since we started the program. In total, we've had about 40 different people who have participated in at least one session. Vicki's intermediate group has been very dedicated and my beginner group has several people who have not missed any sessions.

A word of caution---if you are working out in the hotter part of the day, you need to realize that your pace and endurance will probably not be as good as if you worked out in cooler temperatures. You may find that you will have to take walking or more frequent walking breaks in order to allow your heartrate to come down. In the heat, your heart has to work harder to pump blood the the body surfaces for cooling efforts. Because of that the large muscles needed for running may not get ample blood supply and will not be able to flush out waste products. Your legs will feel "dead" and you will have to slow down. The same holds true if you are really pushing on the run and the big muscles are demanding oxygen, there will be an inability to adequately cool the body surfaces.

In other words, just monitor your status. This can be done with a heart rate monitor or by stopping to manually take your pulse. There are several sites on the internet (including the fitness calculator section on the Pacer site) that will provide you information on target heart rates for various efforts. I think the ones that ask for age, resting hear rate and gender are the more accurate.

I've been running long enough that I can usually tell by the way I am feeling when my rate is too high. Personally, my resting heart rate is about 40. I usually train at a rate of 120-130. When it is 140-150, I'm working really hard and usually cannot sustain that rate for very long. I either have to slow down or walk. I then check the rate and when it gets to 100-120, I continue the run.

There *will* days when you just can't seem to get the rate down and recover enough to continue the run. Usually, this will be because factors other than heat/humidity. For me it is an indication of lack of sleep (overall fatigue) or illness such as a cold.