As you know, dear reader, if you read my last post, 2023 was my best racing year so far. Well, at least if we discount my year of glory — the glorious 2015.

The reason why it was such a good year is simply the fact that I had a great group of people I trained with and a brilliant trainer, Hakim.

Twice a week Hakim converts his encyclopedic knowledge of running into muscle food for our feet. And despite us being a group of ragtags, he never gets upset with us, he is never impatient and never ever looses his temper.

Well, except once. he sort of did. Christian, a fellow runner, suggested in our WhatsApp group that we take part in a so called Backyard ultra race in a nearby town.

Which is an odd event, and as the name suggests, it is organized from some random persons backyard. All participants run a 6-7 km round at the beginning of every hour until the last person runs alone the last round.

Let me explain with an example. Say the race starts at 9:00, then all runners start running then and run, say, 6.5 km. Each runner runs her desired pace, some are done in 30 minutes, others in 40, etc. Most runners are back in the backyard they started from before the clock turns 9:50. Then people drink and eat and joke and laugh until the clock turns 10:00 and then the routine is repeated. This Groundhogs day routine happens again at 11:00, 12:00, … and until the last person runs the 6.5 km within an hour for the last time.

The world record in this event is 102 rounds (684 km).

The members of the group googled and quickly got pumped about the event and we shared our enthusiasms in our WhatsApp group. And that is when Hakim, for the very first time, told us off properly. And he did so in the loveliest, funnies way possible. He wrote to us:

“I am starting to think that I am training the wrong group of people. Go-ahead, pick your self a pleasant tempo and go collect your dead-miles.”

Now, I know, a witty comment in a foreign language is hard to translate, and the English translation does not nearly hit as hard as the German original. “Dead-miles” is simply not as funny sounding as “Tote Kilometer”.

2023: Fewer Tote km and more quality

Considering that I had such a good year of races I figured I would look back at the year and see if I was doing anything different compared to last year. And or the years before.

So, I got out the rStrava package again and connected to the API and downloaded every single kilometer–dead or a life–I ever ran and registered on Strava.

This data is almost entirely complete for the last 3-4 years. Before that there are definitely some gaps and the further back the data goes the greater the gaps are. I was not always a diligent watch/phone runner.

Let’s start with a chart. The chart below shows every single km I have run and registered since 2018. The colors distinguish how many kms I ran at a certain pace. Dark blue are all the kms I ran under 4 min/km pace, pink are kms I ran between 4:00 and 4:30, etc.

If you, dear reader, are used to looking at a stacked bar-chart that breaks simple data down by year and another factor, well you don’t need to read more. The chart really says it all. But, after more than a decade of showing people data and telling them what it means, I have come to learn that charts are not everyone’s. Many people prefer text and narrative. Fair enough.

But, the reason I put the chart there is just to show:

• What an amazing couple of running years the last two years have been, more than 2,000 km in 2023 (*author pats himself on the shoulder and nods, approvingly).
• What a terrible year for running 2021 was.

Another way of presenting this data would be by a bit of a wider categorisation and split my training into three groups:

• Quality kms (pace under 4:30 and faster)
• Productive kms (pace 5:30-4:30)
• Tote kms (pace over 5:30)

In which case the same chart would look like this:

Let’s dig deeper and look at the numbers behind the charts. The table below compares 2022 to 2023 for each pace category. And it is remarkable to see the added quality kms. This year I ran 316 kms under 4:30 pace, that is 170 kms more than I did last year!

I seem to have traded off some of the slower productive training for quality. I ran 45 kms fewer at a pace between 5:30-5:00 and I spent netto, around the same time in the Tote-Km range (5:30+).

The table below is also an helpful way of looking at how I spend my training time. Looking the relative split of training is particularly useful when one has other demands on your his that limit the amount of time you can spend on the track.

It kinda tells you if you are allocating your training time efficiently or if you are wasting it on Tote kms.

And the table shows the share of kms ran split by pace and is indeed encouraging, and suggests that in 2023 I did allocate my scarce training time efficiently. For example first row, and most important one, tells me that 1.4% of my running I ran under 4:00 pace in 2022 and 5.2% in 2023.

Overall, I am pretty sure this focus on speed change contributed to my improvements this year. After all, if you want to run fast, best way to train for that is to run fast during training.

Hakim is right: Backyard ultra is silly, but for the same reason it’s brilliant

Now, Hakim is right. It is silly to run 6.5 kilometers every hour for 12, 24, 48 or whatever.

I mean, even if you are not working on your speed, why would you do that?

Well, I am one to talk. I did take part. And I loved it. It was a fabulous event, organized by the fantastically friendly Jo and Tim (who I knew nothing of at the time) and with loads of really nice running oddballs.

In the end Hakim did forgive us — well at least me, Cora and Pietro. We ended up being sensible and only doing three rounds. Christian, on the other hand, he ended up doing more than 42 kms on the day, which are probably a few to many Tote kms for Hakims taste.

Jo and Tim are comited to hosting again this year, and I will do everything in my power to arm-wrestle Hakim into joining.

Happy new year — Guten Rutsch!