North East Running

For a number of years now I have ran seven days a week most weeks. Very roughly following: Monday = 10k easy Tuesday = Effort (either intervals or tempo) Wednesday = 10k easy Thursday = Effort (either intervals or tempo) Friday = 8k extra easy Sat + Sun = either parkrun + long run OR 5k easy + race day A typical week is 74-80km per week. For someone who has ran competitively for less than 10 years... My theory (hope!) is that if you put consistent effort in, and run smart having recovery days, then your times slowly get better.  (My first sub-20 parkrun was 2016, my first proper race 2018) However, by the middle of this year I ran a couple of races well off the pace. May, June and July were not good months for running. Two examples below. The first was Riverside parkrun - a run I have done many times before and in the 12 months prior had kept all of the splits below 3:30km to put in times in the low 17s. However, the run below, was relatively poor. In particularly km4 which at 3:49...

When using a running watch (I use a Garmin) the Lap feature is pretty useful. It allows you to break your run into set distances (a Lap). Then when analysing on the Garmin or Strava website/app you can see your Splits, which are an analysis of your performance for each Lap. For example, ' For the 8th km of the race my average pace was 3:40/km, my heartbeat was 178bpm, and the elevation difference was +6m giving me a grade adjusted pace (gap) of 3:38/km '.  1. Auto lap Out of the box, most running watches automatically record a lap at 1.00 km (or 1.00 miles if you want to be old school ). The image below shows the default setting on my watch. Auto laps - the default option The screenshot below shows the automatic analysis of a recent race I did (Jarrow 10k) - I knew I needed 3:33/km average for a PB. I very nearly got it - but the laps/splits into the breeze where the pace was slipping to 3:40/km meant I just missed out. During the race by watch notified me every km so I knew wh...