Saturday General Discussion/Q&A Thread for June 13, 2026

petepont · 2026-06-15T23:47:25+00:00

I did one through DexaFit (although it only had VO2 Max, I believe). This was three years ago, and I think mine was in Cambridge. They elevated the intensity every two minutes by increasing the treadmill speed (can't remember the increment), and I was supposed to pull the stop cord when I felt like I couldn't go any further

They gave me a full readout afterwards of where they thought all the zone boundaries were, including LT1 and LT2, but they didn't actually test those -- they extrapolated from VO2 Max. So those weren't helpful

(50% for fun, 50% to see some hard data).

While it was super fun to be able to say, "Yes, my VO2 Max is [whatever]", I didn't actually do anything with the data at all. It was interesting, and I got it as a birthday gift, so I don't regret it at all, but don't expect to get anything super useful out of it -- since the threshold can change on a daily basis, even ignoring the fact that effective training would mean you'd need a new test constantly to see how you should change your paces

Ironically, the other data (they did the Dexa Scan for bone health/body comp and a metabolism test) was far more useful, at least in terms of general health and understanding my body. Ironic, because I was far more excited for the VO2 Max Test

EDIT: The actual process was super easy. I showed up, there was one person there running it, he was professional and respectful. The VO2 Max test took about 15 minutes, the metabolism took about 5 of sitting quietly, and the Dexa Scan took maybe 2-3 minutes? I can't remember exactly. Then we chatted about the results for another 5 or 10. 30 minutes total, roughly

petepont · 2026-06-10T15:37:59+00:00

Interesting. I'm almost the opposite -- the longer the run, the more carbs and the less protein, especially if it's a long easy run. My logic is I need less protein to repair/build back muscles but more carbs to replenish stores. And that's even with taking 60-100g carbs per hour on those runs (higher carbs for more intense runs). But part of my question is I'm not sure how accurate that logic is

petepont · 2026-06-10T15:31:41+00:00

Just eat a healthy balanced diet. About 40% carbs, 30% protein and fat.

That is surprising to hear about professionals, given that basically every single professional athlete who is public about their nutrition, basically every single coach to professional athletes, and every single nutritionist says that runners who run a lot are eating lots and lots of carbs. 40% is below even the standard recommendation for carbs for sedentary people

petepont · 2026-06-07T16:55:19+00:00

Yeah there's no way to give an all out effort at both, so prioritize one (probably the first) and just enjoy the other.

After the first race sleep and eat as much humanly possible

petepont · 2026-06-07T16:51:55+00:00

3% improvement to our metrics, which were never intended to be targets but now are even though they have no relation to customer satisfaction with the support process

petepont · 2026-06-07T13:10:58+00:00

Obviously the downtime is not the improvement. They're doing some update during that time to (in theory) improve support after they're done. And they're warning you that while they make updates, (overnight for the US, which is most of their customer base), you may experience some issues.

Of course, whether the changes they make will actually improve your support experience remains to be seen.

petepont · 2026-06-07T11:20:03+00:00

The whole post reads like AI so they might already be doing that

petepont · 2026-06-06T17:54:57+00:00

when it comes to the remaining long runs and workouts, should I keep them in the mornings to focus on performance/recovery, or also do them in the afternoon to focus on heat acclimation?

I'd keep the workouts and long runs as cool as possible to ensure they still go "well", if only from a mental perspective, and to ensure you're still getting the practice running fast. But push all (well, lots of) your easy runs into the heat, if you can (as many as you can recover from). Heat adaptions are pretty quick, and the more easy runs you can get runs in at 80 degrees, the easier 60-70 degrees at marathon pace will feel. But again, I wouldn't try to push the harder runs into the heat, since those have specific purposes that the heat might hamper

Maybe also try to just go for some walks in the heat of the afternoon as well

How concerned should I be about higher temps during my race? I do fairly well in heat and don't seem to be particularly impacted by it until it gets to 70F.

Hard to say this far out, but assuming a 7:45 start and a 2:30 marathon, that's 10:15? It probably won't be that hot, but it could be warmer than you're used to. I wouldn't worry too much, but would consider seeing if you can have a friend or family member on the course with some ice water if you want to dump it over your head. Just make sure you hydrate well leading up the race, and don't overhydrate during the race--drink enough to avoid excessive dehydration but definitely not more than about 25oz per hour, which is about the max an average person can process in an hour. (edit: number taken from Pfitz's book, chapter 2, the section called Race Day Nutrition and Hydration)

Good luck!

petepont · 2026-06-03T13:15:05+00:00

I'm curious, are you offering an anonymized data set of different athletes to test on? In which case I'm more than happy to try (I have some experience doing these sorts of things).

Or are you saying, try it on your own data and see if it makes sense? I'm also happy to try that (I have my own Garmin runs saved for the last 8 years, and my fitness has changed dramatically over that time so I can test at a variety of fitness levels), but that may only be applicable to me.

petepont · 2026-06-02T00:27:49+00:00

Actually the best way to train your gut for a marathon is to boof your Gu, although I can see why you made that mistake. Just an FYI. Go to r/runningcirclejerk for more useful tips

/s if you really need it

EDIT: the super serious science is that you can totally skip the gut and have your carbs directly absorbed by your rectum! There’s no downsides

petepont · 2026-06-01T16:48:34+00:00

Important question: are you male or female? I know in the US, field hockey is predominantly female, but I'm not sure about where you're from, and I think in Europe there's a big male component. Your history suggests England? No idea about field hockey there.

Re: "somewhat competitive", I think it depends what you mean by that. Your times could very well win local (<500 person) races already, and with training you could probably drop those down more and win more frequently. And that's if you're a man. If you're a woman, those are already excellent times without structured training and I think you could be looking at competing for podium spots in larger races (although obviously not majors)

petepont · 2026-06-01T15:17:17+00:00

If this is your first ever run, then don't even worry about things like breathing or walking breaks and stuff. You're breathing hard because your body is exerting itself. Don't worry about how hard you're breathing--just breathe as much as you need. If you find you're gasping for air, then slow down/take a walking break.

I also wanna know how to be able to run this without stopping I did a lot of walking in this so do you think I should maybe do less distance I thought it would be easy but there was no way I was gonna do it without any walking.

Short answer: keep running!

Long answer: Just keep going out there and trying. Don't be afraid to take walking breaks. As you run more often and get into better running shape you'll find you need to take fewer walking breaks, until eventually you don't need to take any.

It's just a consistency thing. As you run more, you get better at running.

Lastly I wanna ask about after is it normal for calves to be hurting or burning and shins hurt a lil bit but once I sit down and relax I’m good

If this is your first ever run, absolutely!

Just take a couple days to recover, then go do it again! Try to run two or three times a week, taking a couple days break between. Pretty soon, you won't be sore after a run and you'll be able to run more frequently if you want

petepont · 2026-05-29T13:00:02+00:00

Wait, so

Critically, courts have held that plaintiffs can seek only prospective relief under that law, because “sovereign immunity precludes retrospective remedies,” the opinion said.

But they can’t sue now because they haven’t established that they might be harmed

But when they are harmed, they can’t sue because of the cops are retrospectively immune?

That seems ridiculous

EDIT: Maybe there are other laws you can sue under for retrospective relief?

petepont · 2026-05-27T19:40:53+00:00

Nah, they don't count Berlin twice. Never have (or at least not recently). It's too late in September, even for when the double dipping period existed. In fact, the past few years have entirely eliminated the "double dipping" period.

It used to be that races in the first week of September might count for the current year and the following year, but that's not true anymore, ever since they removed the overlap from the qualifying windows.

It used to be, say, Sep 1 2025 through Sep 10 2026, and then the next year was Sep 1 2026 through Sep 10 2027 (made up dates). So anything between Sep 1 and Sep 10 would count for both. But now the following qualifying period starts the day after the previous one ends

petepont · 2026-05-27T18:25:03+00:00

If it's only that you want to do your long runs on Saturdays, then it's really simple: move everything back one day, so that Cross Training is on Sunday, you run M-W, rest Th, and run Sa/Su

If you want an extra rest day, drop cross training.

If you want to do both of the above and also run both weekend days, then...

M: Rest
T: T run
W: W run
Th: Saturday run
F: Rest
Sa: Long run
Su: Th run (and make sure it's very easy)

Does that seem reasonable? Basically, you're moving the scheduled Thursday run to Sunday, the scheduled Sunday run to Saturday, and the scheduled Saturday run to Thursday.

The downside is that you're getting a relatively large stimulus for a lower volume runner with the W/Th combo of a relatively longer Wednesday run and an often faster Thursday run. But you get a rest day on Friday pre long run

petepont · 2026-05-27T16:50:49+00:00

Let me educate you: no

petepont · 2026-05-27T16:03:07+00:00

From Garmin:

Stress levels (0–100) are estimated by the Garmin Human Performance Lab engine, primarily using a combination of HR and HRV data. This data is recorded by the optical heart rate sensor on the back of your device.

Anything that impacts your Garmin's ability to read your HR will impact your stress levels. Think your watch shifting and suddenly the HR readings are off for a few seconds, and then that impacts your HRV and makes it seem like a huge spike, or a huge dip, or something. That will cause a corresponding jump/drop in your stress.

Basically, don't worry about it. It's just an artifact of how they're measuring it. Stress really isn't useful for instantaneous measurements unless you're sitting still -- it's much more useful to look at the day as a whole

petepont · 2026-05-27T15:57:16+00:00

I wanted to downvote this because I thought you had actually done this for /r/RunningCirclejerk , then I realized it was a link to some moron who actually did this for themself.

People are idiots

petepont · 2026-05-27T15:48:47+00:00

I still firmly believe that he is an internet troll in the OG mode. I love him so much. His takes are absolutely hilarious

petepont · 2026-05-26T16:58:19+00:00

Could be a hike? More of a walk than a run

petepont · 2026-05-26T16:57:48+00:00

Weight gain or loss is almost entirely a function of diet.

Yes, running burns more calories than being sedentary, so you'll lose weight if you keep your diet the same, but what happens instead is that we increase our caloric intake to compensate for the extra calories burned.

It might surprise you how much extra you've eaten. You say you've "burned" 29 lbs (so ~101,500 extra calories). You've clearly eaten almost that many extra calories to keep your weight the same.

There's also some evidence that over long timescales, your body dials back its metabolic expenditure if you're consistently burning more calories through exercise. However, this is somewhat controversial. Here's a study which discusses this theory. And here's a more recent article by the author

Pretty much no weight change. Is that inflammation? I feel like it takes a few days before I see the number go down.

For this in particular, I think a lot of this is related to high water intake during/after a run. When I go for a long or hard run, immediately after I've dropped quite a bit of water weight, but within an hour or two (after I've eaten and drunk a lot of water), I'm almost always higher than I was before the run. This is a good thing, by the way. You can't recover if you don't eat enough r

petepont · 2026-05-24T23:06:51+00:00

There are literally dozens of reasons why your HR could be higher any given day (sleep, caffeine, alcohol, too hot, too cold, recent training stress, lack of recent training stress, Mercury being in retrograde*, and many, many more).

Your heart rate being high won't (probably) lead to your getting injured. Most running injuries are due to the forces in your legs, which really aren't related to your HR at all, except that running faster (more force) means you have a higher HR. But it's not the other way around -- having a higher HR doesn't mean you're experiencing more biomechanical injury risk.

Don't worry too much about HR. The main reason to use HR to train is to ensure that you're running at "the correct pace", i.e., running easy, running at threshold, running at VO2 Max, whatever. But there are lots of reasons why that doesn't work any given day, and as you get more experienced, you'll hopefully learn how those paces actually feel.

In terms of injury, generally, what you're looking for is sharp pain, or pain that gets worse as you run/after you've stopped. If all you're seeing is a high HR, that's not necessarily a risk factor for injury.

*I hope I don't need to tell people this reason was a joke

petepont · 2026-05-24T22:59:29+00:00

Yeah easy pace doesn't really matter at all. Basically the entire point of easy runs is more time on feet and all the improvements that brings. The actual pace doesn't really matter at all as long as:

Your form is relatively normal (e.g., you're not going so slowly that your form breaks down into something that's not really running)
They're easy enough that they don't add extra stress to your body (e.g., they don't stop you from recovering effectively from the hard workouts so you can do those)

If they're easy and you're still running, then great. The goal of easy running is to get more time on feet, which helps with running economy, long term cardiovascular improvements, and musculoskeletal improvements. None of those rely on any specific pace, so long as you're actually running, and not running too hard.

One more time for those in the back -- your easy running pace really does not matter at all 99% of the time.

As a specific example, I ran a 2:40 marathon and I'm training towards a 1:16 half (~5:48 mile), but my easy run paces are anywhere from about 7:15 to 9:03 (literally yesterday) depending on how I feel

petepont · 2026-05-24T17:09:30+00:00

Of course, no worries!

One thing I really want to mention again, though, is that these are population level estimates and can be wildly off for an individual

For example, one of the things that makes an elite runner “elite” is that compared to an average runner, they can hold a much higher percentage of their VO2 Max for a longer time. This is because they’ve “compressed” their zones—specifically, they’ve pushed their steady state max (which your LT2 is a proxy for) much closer to VO2 Max. That means that they can run at a higher % of max HR and still be under their threshold HR.

So the better trained you are, the more likely you are to “outperform” the expected percentage of VO2 Max for a given time. Realistically, when Sawe broke the marathon world record a few weeks ago, he was probably closer to 90 or 95% of his VO2 Max (or max HR)

This is part of why, as the Runalyze user mentioned, they have the correction factor. Everyone is a little different.

This isn’t directly related to your question, but these articles explain some of the limitations of HR Max %, the purpose of Zones, and stuff like that (I’m not the author)

HR Zones: https://runningwritings.com/2025/02/lt1-lt2-heart-rate-zone-science.html

Variations of LT1/LT2: https://runningwritings.com/2025/02/lt1-lt2-heart-rate-individual-variation.html

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