Easy Run With Video

The reason for this post is twofold...  Firstly, I want to briefly describe the training plan that I am using to try and get up to being able to do the marathon distance.  My fitness has improved massively since the accident, so that even a half-marathon seemed plausible...  But the thought of running a marathon even in ten hours seemed, quite frankly, a stretch!  So, probably, a marathon training plan made sense.  Secondly, the video that was taken a few days ago didn't really focus on my feet much from behind, and that is what is needed for people in the know to analyse my running form.  That's my thought anyway, so today I asked someone else to video me, and, of course, I have attached it...

So firstly, the training plan...  I mention before that in June/July 2021 I bought a Stryd foot-pod, specifically to be able to accurately track my treadmill runs on my Garmin watch.  And the best gadget to enable this is, I am pretty sure, something called Stryd.  It tracks brilliantly on a treadmill and outdoors.  Of course, GPS can be used outdoors, but often GPS is sporadic if there are tall buildings or trees or whatever, but Stryd accurately measures my pace and distance whether indoors or outdoors and does not use GPS at all.  For outdoor running Garmin still tracks the route of the run using GPS, but the pace and distance come from the Stryd foot-pod.  It works absolutely brilliantly!  I was very happy with my purchase and am, I think, getting accurate measurements of runs indoors and outdoors, so all good!  But the raison d'être for Stryd is really to enable the measurement of power while running.  Now, as a keen cyclist, who often watches the grand tours, power is what cycling performance is all about.  Or, more precisely power to weight.  So I was fascinated to see this, and, if you are using Stryd to track your pace and distance anyway, you get a measurement of your power usage for free!  Excellent and interesting!  Once you have done a few runs, Stryd has an idea of what your "Critical Power" (CP) is, which is, I think, more or less the same as "Functional Threshold Power" (FTP).  Not sure of the difference in running but I'll use CP, cos that's what Stryd uses :-)  My CP is currently 294w (CP is measured in watts for power), which is a lot better than a year or so ago, but I will be interested to see if it improves as my training continues.  It recently went up from 287w to 294w so I guess I'm doing something right...  You can do specific runs to get an accurate idea of your CP, but my training plan takes that into account.  The training plan is completely power and time based,  E.g. my plan for today was to run for 50 minutes at an average power of 206-236w, which is 70-80% of my current CP.  This is fabulous for a training plan as it can adapt as your CP changes and is all about effort not speed.  So if you are running uphill or downhill or into wind or whatever, you aim for a particular effort!  Now the actual measurement of power has many factors with many people/companies/gadgets taking various things into account in different ways.  So my 294w CP may be vastly different if I was measuring using a different methodology.  But I don't mind.  Stryd consistently gives me the same measurements of power given the same circumstances.  So if my real CP figure is closer to 194w or 394w it doesn't matter.  I just need to know I am putting in more or less power than I was in the past, and that I am hitting (or not) my targets.  The targets are set by an absolute expert in this field, Steve Palladino!  When researching Stryd, Steve's name came up many times.  He really knows about running and training and power!  So, on Black Friday 2021 I bought a Steve Palladino marathon training plan, and that is what I am using.  And I will hopefully use it for many marathons to come over the years!  It is bought through an excellent, and free, training application called Final Surge1  I just love it!  Anyway, I have talked way too much here, so I will leave the training plan chat with a link to my 'coach'...

And secondly, the video...  I was doing my 50 minute 'easy' run today, and yes, I find even my easy runs hard but I'm slowly improving...  After about 40 minutes someone was there who looked like they could video me for a few seconds.  I asked them while I was running and they were fine with giving it a go.  So, while still doing my 50 minute run, I passed them my phone and said that I was hoping for a video from behind that focused on me from the knees down to the feet.  I've had a look and it isn't quite that focused, but it's ok I think. As it was my easy run it was 11.3kmh on the treadmill which, on that treadmill, equated to a pace of about 5:29 per km.  So, here follows a very dull video of me plodding along :-)

Treadmill at 11.3kmh