Welcome to the first week of the TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE WINTER SPEED CHALLENGE!!!
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There's still time to join - comment below! There’re 68 Challengers so far - can we make it past 70???
This Challenge will run for FOUR WEEKS, from Monday November 23rd to Sunday December 20th.
Here's what you do:
★ PICK YOUR DISTANCE: 1 MILE or 1 KM.
NB - only ONE Speed Challenge per person, and only one result per week please!!! 😘
★ WARM UP before you start!
I've posted a couple of videos at the bottom to give you some ideas about dynamic warm ups. Most of the movements in them can be done indoors so you can save your outside time for running. After the dynamic movements, finish your warm up with a jog for a km or so - you certainly want to get past that Toxic 10 before hitting your speed challenge!!
★ RUN your chosen distance AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!
You do not need to run every week, just do whatever you can fit in.
★ YOUR FIRST RUN GIVES YOU YOUR BASELINE TIME
I will calculate the change (increase or decrease) in the speed of each of your subsequent runs, compared to your baseline. I will present this in seconds, and also as a percentage.
★ POST THE TIME IT TOOK YOU TO RUN YOUR CHOSEN DISTANCE (in min:sec) on my weekly posts in the comments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please note well: I WILL NOT LOOK AT YOUR TIMES ON STRAVA OR ANY OTHER WEBSITE, you must post them here on HealthUnlocked.
😊😊😊
I will POST WEEKLY (Monday) updates, to collect your results, and put all the results into the spreadsheet, which you can view here:
I've just got back from doing it. I'll write up properly in C25K forum later. A glorious day but with a chilly wind. That was knackering! I started far too fast and faded at the end of the kilometre.
Garmin says: 4'50", with a peak pace of 3'36"/km, fading to 5'50"/km at the end.
Strava says: 4'48" based on the same data.
It's a personal record, beating my previous PR of 5'32".
You may well have started too fast, as I always do, but I think you can ignore the "peak pace" if it's right at the start - my Garmin gave me a peak of 2'53"/k after about 20 secs this morning, against an average of 4'30" over my mile ... 2'53" is about 17 secs for 100m, and though I can probably do that once, I'd then have to lie down for an hour or so , not run another 1500m!
The peak was from the graphs in the app afterwards. There was a distinct wedge shape to the pace graph over the kilometre. I wasn't looking at the watch at the start, only towards the end to see how much distance I had left to cover. (I misjudged the distance, ran out of straight road and had to continue by running round a large roundabout.)
Yeah, I was talking about the graphs too .... the fastest instantaneous speed readout I saw on the watch during the run was 3'45" right at the start (I do sneak a look after about 50 paces in case I've gone mad) but I think it needs about 30 secs to settle after a start or an about turn
Whoops I nearly missed the 🚌 on this one roseabi 🤫. If there's any spare seats for a little-un..... May I squeeze onboard, twas fun the last time out, and given the current climate any excuse to run is a good one in my I reckon 👍
Killed two birds with one stone this morning by doing the speed challenge as the 2nd km of my 5k, thus enabling a good warm-up and a lengthy warm-down. Had a bit of an upper hamstring twinge before I started so didn't push it too much, thus enabling plenty of room for improvement!😀 So my baseline is 5.28 - thanks roseabi.👍
Watch that upper hamstring - I had an upper hamstring injury in late spring and although it's largely sorted out, it still niggles now and then. There are loads of useful exercises for it, but I expect you know about them.
Thanks RD - I had something very similar this time last year and it stopped me running for 5 weeks, hence my caution. Yes still doing the exercises and targeted warm-up stretches!👍
Stopped me for a similar period of time. Sitting for any length of time exacerbates it I find. I'm getting another physio appointment soon as it's impacting on my long runs.
It would be very sensible to run the same course each time if you can - otherwise you cannot properly compare your results. If it's not possible you should try and run as similar a course as possible xxGreat result, well done!!!
I did 6.17 over 1k today, hardest thing was slowing down after. Did it on run 2 of a 5k. Will do same section and course next week even though there is a bridge which adds about 7 seconds, not that I am taking this seriously. Decent 5k time for me which after a few bad months of injury and health issues I was happy about.
I followed the 4 minute warm up, and as you say Roseabi, it’s better with the sound off once you’ve listened to it once. But I think I really felt the difference so that will become a regular warm up for me.
Today was a chilly southerly wind but we determined it was better running east for the challenge, especially as it was less busy. We did a nice little warm up jog 1km at 7:48 pace, and then @upthestanley went to his start point because he was doing the mile. I took off my long sleeved top, tied it round my waist, leaving my short top on. Started running and then clicked the watch on once I’d got to full speed. As usual I started far too fast (4:40??!!) , so gradually reduced to nearly 6:0 pace and then finished well in the final minute.
It was much busier than when we’ve done the challenge before but I managed to avoid the dogs on ever extending leads and pre-schoolers on bikes.
I’m pleased to announce a first run of .......drum roll.....,.. 5:38.4
Wow! I didn’t think I’d get close to my PB of 5:36 in challenge of July 2019 but I did.
I jeffed back to UTS in coffee and bacon bap queue with a big grin on my face.
7'16" for a mile this morning, which I reckon is 4'31"/k pace, and an actual 4'31" for the first k, compared with a 1k PB of 4'07" last time you challenged us. So I will go for the mile each week ....... a helpful wind today, but not the gale which accompanied the 1k PB.
Hi there roseabi. My time today was a s-l-o-w 7 minutes 56 for my 1km. I was trying honest . My excuse is age and a head wind. I am being positive and thinking that this is at least a good base line to try to make an improvement!😇
5:41 for me for 1km today. According to Strava thats my 3rd fastest 1km, so not a bad start, but should be room for improvement 😊 (though guess my previous best may have been downhill!)
A bit annoying?...I do some of that stuff anyway as part of my normal warm-up, but less reps. I didn't see any reason to change anything for this run - no jinxes here!
The middle km of a 4.5 k interval workout - 1k warmup, 0.5k recovery, 1k run, 0.5k recovery and jeffing the 1k cooldown. I must have got a bit carried away on my cooldown as when I stopped my watch it read 4.9km.
Anyway 6.21, beating my previous PB by 42 seconds.
Hi rises I. Thanks for organising this as it helped give me some focus today. Garmin has my last km out of 5 at 6:26 so please record that time for me. But.... I’ll really have to pull out the stops to improve much on that! 🥵🏃🏻♀️👍🏻
Hi roseabi, I don’t think I intended to start my challenge this morning but... Did some warm ups, weird lady but good exercises, brisk walk down to my usual start point and did, for me, a brisk first km at 9:20. Then off I went at a swiftish OGR 2nd km of 8:43 and that’s what I’m posting please! A PB for me - All I have to do now is repeat - gulp!
Morning! A little later in the week than planned, I've done my first faster 1k. Did it in 6.43 minutes. That was the fastest I could do to keep it up over that distance. Interesting and fun!
My first attempt at 1km -Hiya, well the NRC app always gives me a slower pace than my watch, and my watch says 6mins 2secs at 6.09pace so I'm going with that!!🏃♀️🏃♀️😁
A massive thank you for organising this , it's brilliant, I love a challenge!!
Haha you'd be surprised how fast they can move!!! I look after them for Hedgehog Welfare in my area, and you have to make sure you keep the hutches closed when you change food etc, I've lost one from being speedy!!! 😁🏃♀️🦔🦔
Thank you, I'm starting to feel a little better so hoping to go out tomorrow as didn't get out this morning again. I'm not expecting anything very fast but it gives me plenty of room for improvement. 🤞
Hi Roseabi Managed to get my run done this morning : as its the 1st day I've managed to get out on my own without 'the other half' slowing me down - roll on next week when he goes back to work 😜
The challenge is to “run as fast as you can”. I have a confession to make – I don’t know how!! I know it seems crazy – because everyone knows how to run faster - don’t they? You just run “faster”.
During C25K, I recorded some of my fastest times when I tried to adopt a relaxed, easy running style – it felt slower and less effort, but my times were quicker than when I was trying to push myself! I’ve done quite a bit more running since, but mainly focused on stamina, so I still haven’t worked out how to achieve my fastest pace.
I’m going to use the speed challenge as a bit of an experiment – to try different styles & see what produces my best pace. For my first run, I just tried to run fast. For my second, I’ll try to recreate the easy running style – to see if that still produces good results. And for my final runs, I will try to focus on other aspects – maybe cadence/steps per minute for one of them.
Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on what techniques I should try out to speed up?
When we TRY to run fast what generally happens is, unless we are really well-paced, we start off at a pace that we cannot maintain for very long. Here is a link to a screenshot of a graph of my pace in min/km for one of my runs where I have attempted a fast 1 km:
You can see pretty clearly how I started off fast and my pace tailed off 😂
Your C25K runs were much longer in duration than your fast 1 km, so I would think this effect would have been very much enhanced. You wore yourself out by trying to push yourself from the beginning of the run so that by the end of it you were probably going pretty slowly by comparison. When you paced yourself by relaxing and no doubt keeping a 'conversational' pace, your overall pace for the run ended up actually being faster. The observations that you have made about your "easy running style" are brilliant, and will help you go far as a runner - great work!!
But pace is relative to the distance you are trying to run and how long it takes you. So when you are pushing yourself for a fast 1 km, which only takes you around 5 minutes, you may well find that even if your pace does drop towards the end, you will still be running faster overall. Only one way to find out though! 😊😊😊
As for techniques, you are already on the right track by observing your own posture and gait, and by running longer and further. You can incorporate intervals workouts, hill running, and hill intervals into your runs to train for speed. Also, to get faster over the longer distances stamina becomes more and more important, so again you are definitely on the right track!
Also, going back to my 1 km attempt, using the knowledge I got from analysis of my run, I can try to run faster by not allowing my pace to drop like that!
By way of contrast, my graph looks nothing like that at all. Apart from a period towards the end, the first 0.3km is the slowest and the final 0.25k is the fastest. How did that happen?
Possibly you need more of a warm up - increase your warm up jog by a half km and include some very short sprints at the end of the warm up to get your legs turning over ready for your speed attempt.
Thanks for that advice. I did a 1k slow jog to warm up but I might try including some short sprints as well next week. I also didn't start off too quickly as I had no idea how fast I could go or how long I could sustain it. Looking forward to next weeks attempt!
Hi roseabi, Thanks for your detailed reply. I don't think the difference is just due to my pace tailing off - I think my running technique varies, and is sometimes more efficient (and hence quicker) when running relaxed and easy. Can I repeat that technique on the next 1km run? As you say: Only one way to find out! 😊😊😊
This information is so valuable and makes perfect sense! I was trying to figure why I can do a 1km run in 6 mins and yet still haven't managed a sub 30mins for a 5km which is driving me mad. So I'm doing longer runs at the weekend, ie 10km and some shorter faster runs during the week so hopefully I will increase my stamina. No hills where I live sadly.,🏃♀️🏃♀️😁
Clearly you can't expect to maintain your 6'00"/k pace for ever - that would take you to a marathon in just over 4 hours! This handy calculator runsmartproject.com/calcula... suggests that if you can run 1k in 6 minutes, you might expect to get to 5k in 33'37" (6'43"/k pace) and 10k in 69'58" (7'00"/k).
Surprisingly, not everybody seems to know that to run faster you have to run faster. You do 👍, so you're ahead of the game! Lots of people seem to think that to run faster, you have to run further, slower. While this certainly makes it possible, it doesn't make it happen. To make it happen, you have to increase cadence or stride length, or both, and obviously you can only do this over shorter distances to begin with. Which is why an occasional speed challenge over a shorter distance (thanks roseabi ) can bring that sought-after improvement in PBs over the longer ones - it teaches your legs that they can go round faster, or stride out further. Long slow plods just don't do that (though they do do lots of other good things 😀).
Thanks UpTheStanley. Yes, I really appreciate roseabi setting up the speed challenge - very useful for beginners such as myself to try something different and learn from the experience. Until now, I've struggled to include speed / intervals during a longer run and I have tended to avoid any hills, but the speed challenge has helped & I will try to include both in my running from now on. And thanks for posting the speed calculator above - it is really useful.
Hi roseabi can I post a time of 5:51 for this week please? I’m going to use the fastest 1K time from a run of at least 5K each week🏃♂️ It seems a bit bizarre but that will help me carry on with my LEJOG challenge while not running fast too regularly😊
Hi David, well done!!As I mentioned to BrianUK, it would be better to use the same 1 km each time to be able to compare your runs properly. But this is your challenge of course! And it could well be that your fastest km happens at the same place in your runs anyway 😊😊😊
Thanks Roseabi, I always aim to run the last km of my runs at the fastest pace, so that’s what I’ll be using. Most of them are over 5K so I’m comparing like with like every week😊
Kitten #2 needs more practice. I think he might struggle to go under 25m over 5k at the mo'Age graded time? I'm only getting used to being in the top 50%! You'd slaughter me on age grading 🤣
Hi Roseabi, my first run in the speed challenge 7:09 for 1K. I ran 7.05 in the Spring speed challenge which is still my fastest 1K ever so not much room for improvement!! Let's see if I can beat it this time 🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️
I'm in! 7:37. It was my first and only km today. Was supposed to be the warmup but I got a stitch so stopped the clock and walked home! Def room for improvement as Strava tells me my PB is 6:51 back in August.
I'm just in from my speed challenge. I did it as part of my 5K run this evening. I did 2K at a nice gentle pace. Took a quick break and then attempted a 1K speed challenge.
I did 1K in a time of 4 minutes and 55 seconds, 4:55
I then ran 2K home at a 6 min/km pace. Attempt 1 done.
Thank you. Don’t compare yourself to others. I can only manage that pace for 1K. A friend of mine can run 5K in 15 minutes and a Marathon in 2 hours and 30 minutes. I certainly don’t compare myself to him. We all run at different speeds. Nothing at all wrong with 6:02, that’s great. If you read all the posts you’ll be faster than many taking part in the challenge. Happy running and well done on your 6:02.
Argghh, didn’t realise you’d all started! I ran 11k yesterday and hills on Monday. I toyed about going out today on this beautiful crisp morning, but my legs can tell they’ve worked harder this week having had their little hiatus.
I’ll either go out tomorrow and do one slow km/one fast, or incorporate my first week’s “score” into (Not) PR on Saturday. I’ll be back! 😀
Hi roseabi Completed my baseline 1k today, I set up my watch for a warm up for 2k first but didn’t judge my route very well and my speed section started at the top of a hill in the woods ( where a horrid fall took me out for 5 weeks in Summer!) where I dare not run fast, so I think I may miss that section out next week! Not ideal I know but hopefully will get the route right next time and be able to stick to it , oh yes it was 6.29, I couldn’t have kept the pace up much longer today, interesting and fun challenge, thanks 🤗
I've not forgotten the Speed Challenge roseabi ! However, as our lockdown limit moves from 1hr/1km radius to 3hr/20km radius from home on Saturday I'm planning my first attempt at the weekend. It'll be much easier to find a legal route then!
Thanks roseabi . I had a quicker-than-usual kilometre during my 4k run this morning, so if things don't work out over the weekend I'll post that number, but it definitely wasn't as fast as I can. Fingers crossed for this weekend's partially unlocked run!
roseabi, I did my 1k speed challenge as km 2-3 of a 5k run this morning. Question though: does my time still count even though it was a bit downhill and left me needing a 10 minute walk to recover before running home at a considerably slower pace?! If yes, then my baseline is 4:11. That's 20 seconds faster than my previous 1k PB. Some stupid baseline that is! Am not entirely sure how that happened. Though I warmed up properly for once, using the exercises in that video you posted, so huge thanks to you for that. (I can't stand that woman so I just noted what she did and ignored the video!)
Well done!!!!You can run any type of route you like, but I suggest that you keep that same route for each of your runs because that is the only way you can properly compare your results week by week.
The idea is to run all-out, but if you are worried about your recovery time perhaps see how you feel next time? There is no need to complete all four runs if you feel it's too much.
Thanks again roseabi Tbh I wasn't worried about recovery time; if I think about it I didn't actually *need* ten minutes, I just didn't feel like running through the village still huffing and puffing! I was more concerned that I was supposed to be able to keep running after the fast 1k, rather than needing to get my breath back. xxx
The fact you were able to run at all after the challenge, never mind the speed, suggests there’s more to come 😀. Nice gentle warm up, then the challenge, that’s it for the day (maybe two days) for me!
Oh yesss! I’ve found a way to enjoy running fast (for me that’s imperative!) Ashton Court has the perfect 1km section for me which I did this morning. It’s 90% downhill and on a nice paved path. Result was 5:11. For me that’s supersonic so I’m very pleased. 😀
Not at all Jonathan, mine was 90% downhill! But it gives me a fighting chance of getting a 4 minute something km which would never happen on the flat! 😀
Hi Roseabi - did my baseline 1k run this morning - very frosty and misty. Baseline time is 6:05Wasn't my most settled run but enjoyed taking photos of the misty river in Richmond. Beautiful morning.
Hi, I warmed up with first 2K of 5K run, then 3 -4 K speed challenge unfortunately I started out too quick (think running for the bus🙈) I reached fastest speed of 6:13 👍min/Km but had to slow to recover so fastest 1K time is: 7:12. On the plus side I recovered for the rest of 5K without stopping and got 2nd best 5K time. I will use the same route next week but make it the last K of my 4K run
Good morning roseabi! After a few days off trying to sort lots of things out in my body and head I was definitely good to go this morning. 👍
Fitted in the speed challenge as part of km 3 to 4 of (not)parkrun which is a lovely, undulating section with no road junctions. Kicked off a bit quick but a downhill section levelled me off again so did 1km in 4:55 which is a pb for me 😀 So much for starting off slowly and building up 🤣
Hi roseabi, thank you for organising this, I'm not usually a fan of a fast run but I enjoyed my attempt this morning. It's my first run in a week due to the migraine but I was determined to give it a go today so did the 'fast' km in the middle of a short t 2 mile trot. I'm pretty pleased with my time, all things considered. I managed 6.13, not far off my fastest ever 1km so I'll definitely take that.
Thanks again and happy fast running every one 🏃♀️🏃♂️💪
Hi roseabi- I'm a bit late with my 1k but did 5:50 as my second of 4k this afternoon, after spending Thursday night in A&E with gastritis and a low heart rate😬 very pleased with my efforts this afternoon and although tummy is tender I feel much better for the fresh air 😁🚶♀️👍
So on 24th Nov I ran a fast 1km in the middle of my short run on Ju-ju's magic plan. I was running 3.5k so decided to run the 2nd k as fast as I could. And I timed it at 6:07 which is unbelievable for me. I think I may have set my bar too high. But hey ho. Let's see what I get next week.
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, not run another 1500m!
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