A Generation Thing (sorry it's a long one)

[OldManRunning]

As you know I graduated in November last year. After consolidation I have loosely been following Ju-Ju's Magic Plan. My longest run so far was a 7.52k Jeffing run in 52mins. Before I say what I say next please believe that my opinions on various aspects of training and advice have moved into the present rather than left in the past. I am 67 and hadn't run for 30+ years so obviously they were quite dated.However after the Jeffing run my old little man on my shoulder kept on saying "Yes, but you didn't run it all!" I got a lot out of that run one thing being 'it's ok to walk'.

Last week I planned a route for 8k which hopefully I'd run this week. You may have read a comment about Mrs OMR and I being without heating or hot water, we are now into day 13 and our home is freezing. We are now staying in a local pub until Sunday when hopefully our new boiler will be fitted on Monday. The irony here is that our room is so hot we had to turn the radiator off and open the windows 😂 😂

Determined to do the 8k and being a few kms from the original start I had to adapt as I ran. I went at a slower pace, something learned here from you good people, my breathing was more comfortable and I could have held a conversation; I did a bit as Coach B was talking to me about being thankful in his 45min run on NRC.

I used Spotify for the first time not too sure about the playlist content but it got me through, I will probably make up my own next time. It was dark when I started but the sun rose behind the cloudy veil as I ran.

It was quite a comfortable run and I was quite chuffed that I completed the 8k (without walking 😂).

Other than my last split, where I felt fresh enough to up the pace in the last 0.5k, it was pretty evenly paced.

My C25k journey started just over 6 months ago and like many of you here I have got a great deal of satisfaction and a feeling of acheivement, especially when you factor the age thing into it.

However there is one thing that has really brought this home to me.

I lived in Germany when I was 20 for a few years. Obviously the Germans operate in km's and we in miles. We were always calculating distances and speeds one way or the other, a simple multiplication and division of two numbers, 5 and 8 because 5 miles was equivalent to 8 kms.

I realised this after my run yesterday and could see 8k wasn't just a long run building up to a 10k, I had actually gone from not running at all to running 5 miles in just over 6 months. A very good reason for feeling chuffed and proud. 😁

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate10]

Fantastic post and what a journey! You’ve got so much to be proud of. I feel a new badge might be coming soon…60 minutes/10k.

The km and mile thing is so funny isn’t it! I can’t picture how far a distance of anything above 5km is laid out on the ground. I guess from driving we get used to things being a certain number of miles away. Often when we run a lot of out and backs or circular routes we don’t appreciate that we’re running a really long way! It’s amazing when you think about how far you’ve gone-five miles is a brilliant achievement.

Huge congratulations to you!

[Beachcomber66 Graduate10]

Congratulations OMR; excellent run!!

I followed a similar track, starting at age 66 which has now fast forwarded to 71 at the end of this month! You are running your long runs more quickly than I did to begin with though. Part of me expected something to go wrong, so I erred on the side of caution. A bit of pace came later, but I still try to be careful as I am sure that the need for speed has been at the heart of several trips to the physio. I am still learning to increase pace by increasing cadence rather than stride length.

You are on a road which leads to 10 miles and HM if you choose to go that way; age isn’t a barrier in itself. But, you have clearly learned the most important lesson with your 8k. Celebrate every run for what it is. This isn’t a mere stepping stone to something possibly faster or longer, or both, it is a great 8k which deserves celebration. Maybe I am spending too much with CB 🙂🍻

[LottieMW Ambassador in reply to Beachcomber66]

😂 Never too much time spent with CB! I’ve done that run too! 😂

[Beachcomber66 Graduate10 in reply to LottieMW]

😂 I am starting to believe that!

[Chinkoflight]

Just such a good feeling, well done. 💪💪💪 I think jeffing starts to work when you can comfortably run the distance and that's only a recent thing for me. My journey's a tad longer than yours, and I can comfortably run 5k and with that has the ability to stop and start too without any issues. Early days of running to a distance, not a time, I felt I had to keep going, if I stopped I wouldn't start again. The comfortable measure helped that. As distance has increased, when I could comfortably run 7k, I could mix up the pace and stride on short runs which was a sort of challenge. I did a 'proper' interval session this week for the first time and decided to walk the short rest bits in-between the faster runs. It worked.

[nowster Graduate10]

8:5 is close enough for most purposes.

If you want something closer, 103:64 is good to 4 significant figures, but nowhere near as easy to calculate in your head.

I'll let you in on a little secret: when you see a modern road sign saying "XX yards", it's lying. It's usually the distance in metres. The little marker posts on motorway verges are 100m apart (except in Northern Ireland). Road construction plans are all in metres too.

Ireland (apart from The North) switched from signing distances in miles to signing km over the course of the 1990s, and switched from having speed limits in mph to km/h in a single day in the early 2000s.

Britain had plans to do the same, which probably would have happened some time in the 1970s. Money was tight, and it didn't go ahead.

In the last three years I've got quite good at visualising distances in km, especially if I've done a run of that length. When driving I still think in miles, though.

As a child in the 1970s I was exposed to both metric and imperial, so I'm bi-mensural.

[Leotigris Graduate10 in reply to nowster]

Hi Nowster, as a traffic engineer I can confirm that the distances in yards aren't what they seem. We measure the distance in metres and then convert to yards (rounding down or up too) so its an approximation. You can add to that the fact that the signs themselves are not located with 100% accuracy.

[nowster Graduate10 in reply to Leotigris]

Also, plonking a sign down at the exact point isn't always physically possible.

Very occasionally, you see mistakes made, and signs made out with distances in metres (with the word metres written instead of yards).

[LottieMW Ambassador]

Well done OMR! 👏🏼

You deserve to feel chuffed and proud! 👍🏼😉🌟

[Sulley101 Graduate10]

Brilliant! If I can get that far in 6 months I’ll be over the moon. Great pace too! You must be so pleased! Happy running.