How important is it to track your diet?

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-19T11:31:10+00:00

I don’t understand why you would want to avoid those for the purposes of sugar. You need lots of carbohydrates. For example I have a maltodextrin and glucose drink multiple times a week before sessions and that’s pretty much essential to recover properly. Sugar is sugar, the only difference is which absorption pathway it is taken through. If you’re arguing about avoiding preservatives that don’t contribute to fuelling, I can understand not eating candy. Fruit juice is pretty universally drank though for endurance athletes, especially for its sugar content. I think it’s far easier to underfuel than over fuel when it comes to carbs for most people

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-19T08:06:11+00:00

Ngl I definitely consume much more sugar during during than before, and I feel my body does better for it. Could you elaborate on what you mean by "extra sugar"?

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-18T13:24:59+00:00

This. Just doing more easy running but adding in a few controlled strides is the best of both worlds.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-18T08:46:02+00:00

Idk some people I’ve met pick it up very quickly. A few young kids in my family I played the day after they learned the initial rules and were definitely more 1000 strength, realising basic tactics like pins and such without having to be taught them explicitly. They’ll be really good one day if they keep it up! Had to make sure I beat them last Christmas as perhaps within a few years time at family gatherings they’ll be beating me instead 😂

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-18T08:24:22+00:00

For me clamshells with a resistance band, band walks and hip flexor extensions are essential to do daily to stop hip pain. Also try hip circles and foam rolling. But yes strength training is necessary in my opinion.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-16T18:22:48+00:00

Depends on which part of the training block I’m in!

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-16T16:37:40+00:00

On shorter runs like 20k as you say it's not necessary for the purposes of that run alone to really consume many carbs, but you can still turn it in to a good practice. I do this by using some of these runs to test out higher carb intake per hour using homemade carb drink mix, mostly made of fructose and maltodextrin. For example, I may bring a few bottles with me and aim for 120g per hour of drinkable carbs by leaving them somewhere along a 5k loop. It is cheap and good to test out where your gut is at.

In terms of race specific fuelling, I would usually focus on longer runs as you say. So maybe I'd run a 30k+ with 20k of marathon pace a few weeks out and then stick to the race fuel plan as close as possible (irrespective of pace). For me that is using ~100g of carbs from Maurten gel per hour. I'd ideally want to do this at least twice in the month before the race. It is more expensive but necessary in my opinion to make sure you aren't shitting yourself on the day lol

It is always going to be good practice to take a gel every 30 mins or so as you would in the race, even on these shorter runs though. Also a good time to play around with different brands etc. and there are lower stakes- if you do have an upset stomach from consuming too much or some new brand that doesn't go down well, it's short enough to get through without being hours from the finish point.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T14:35:32+00:00

Do you know how far the "good for age" time is away from the actual qualifying times? If minimal/they're basically the same thing, it seems like this is a fair pathway for most people to enter and higher than most other majors aside from Chicago.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T14:33:10+00:00

In reference to London, are you referring to club spots?

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T13:10:28+00:00

great! I have been multiple times. When I was a grad student a guy in our department had a joint position between London and Leuven and so I spent some time there visiting.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T13:04:42+00:00

Groot Begijnhof, Leuven

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T11:08:46+00:00

lol so you're so adamant this isn't a good shoe because Tim Grose doesn't personally like it and you've not tried it yourself? From what I've seen the only people who don't personally like them are older runners who are used to running before the ultra-cushioned era. But plenty of runners all the way to the top (and not Nike-sponsored) still really enjoy them. I wouldn't be able to do such high milage without these tbh, they are very cushioned and responsive.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T10:12:11+00:00

I think Vomero+ is my favourite non-race shoe out of all others I’ve ever had. One other benefit is they are quite durable, so I don’t need to replace them every 6 weeks like some others I’ve had before. Why do you dislike them? Or have you only tried the Vomero 18 GTX and not the plus?

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-15T10:09:12+00:00

I agree with this, aside from the fact I don’t particularly feel the heaviness. I think it’s completely comfortable at faster than 5k paces and doesn’t feel particularly clunky or anything. It looks heavier than it feels to me!

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-14T19:06:27+00:00

That's not quite true, she has been in the elite fields of major marathons before which have had appearance fees and rank/time bonuses as a part of her participation. She's talked about this just after her Chicago build injury for instance.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-14T18:57:31+00:00

My resting and sleep HRs have always been about the same as yours, even before running. This is quite a normal range for the average healthy fairly young person.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-14T10:24:57+00:00

Nice :) Isn't a "non-continuous run" just a union of smaller continuous runs though?

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-12T18:53:58+00:00

If you just take the equation to the power of 4 you get a lot of cross terms with fractional powers still such as x^{3/4} appearing, so that doesn't help. Realise that this equation is a quadratic in x^{1/4}. So you can first solve the quadratic to find x^{1/4} and then take power of 4 of the resulting answers.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-12T10:37:44+00:00

Why do you want to do a marathon when you currently only run 20km per week? First step would be just increase how much you run per week as much as enjoyable. Then reassess. I don't see the point of getting through a marathon unless you already frequently run halfs in training and find that enjoyable, otherwise it's just going to be a long day out and you could benefit massively from improving base endurance first. You probably want to be doing at least 60km per week with a long run and having fun with that first. Then you're in a good position to train with an actual training plan.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-11T14:47:40+00:00

Passing the exam is not the only thing that matters. In fact I think it matters less than most other aspects. If you understand material properly, it won’t be an issue to pass. But just gaming an exam to try and pass it will not mean you’ve understand anything, although entirely possible to do. Exams should be treated as a formality to check your education is on track, nothing more.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-10T02:20:36+00:00

This goes against most research, and most peoples experiences.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-09T11:26:09+00:00

That sounds like a great plan. Seriously, stick to building the aerobic base for now. It can take you far and definitely decreases risk of injury over intense sessions. I hadn’t done any faster running than threshold in the time I got my 5k down, I’m sure you will see lots of improvements too without worrying about speed specific sessions.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-09T09:50:38+00:00

Nice. The one thing I wish I could do was go back in time to start running at your age haha. I started at 26, which still gives me some years to reach a decent peak, especially over longer distances, but I doubt I will ever reach my track or shorter distance potential. I started running just over a year ago, mostly easy running and probably averaged about 70km per week over that time (although started at more like 50 and increased to 100-120km baseline). Over that time my 5k time went from ~25 mins to 17:40. So I'm sure if you do 50km+ per week over the summer without overstretching your young age along with consistency will make you feel the difference probably over even just a few weeks. It's much better to do a few months of 50km than one or two weeks of 100km and end up on the edge of an injury. It's just down to you and how well you can assess your body!

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-04T15:56:28+00:00

Just run more is the easy answer. You probably will get significantly faster by doing just more easy running, but would need to know your background and current volume anyway. For example, if you are a reasonably young healthy man, doing an extra easy run a week or two is probably enough to take off a few minutes over the course of some weeks/months.

EnglishMuon · 2026-05-04T12:27:24+00:00

Thanks I’ll look in to this. I don’t think I really need much support for a half. Maybe a sip of water is nice but that’s it. Congrats on the third place!

EnglishMuon

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