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It's a night trail half marathon, Cal, starting at 8pm and hopefully finishing about 2 hours later! It's mainly on the Wherryman's Way walking trail and runs from just outside Norwich towards the East of the county, finishing at Langley School. Dad is on duty as my coach/driver. Have enjoyed a bit of carb-loading today (as always) so just need to do a bit of rolling and have an early night.
Hello, Craig! Looks like you've made a good start to your running. Very satisfying when you start increasing distances.
A beautiful sunny but cooler day - perfect for running - but unfortunately I was only down for a 5 mile recovery plod. I am starting to feel that running at that speed is a bit of a chore, so although I enjoyed the weather, I enjoyed the running less so. Still, I'll have plenty of opportunity to run fast on Sunday. Let's hope I can.
10.2miles in bit over 1hr17 this evening. Getting darker and I'm getting older and my eyes don't adjust so well. Unremarkable except for a dog wagging its tail by a light on a foot bridge making it strobe.
Hope it went well yesterday Will.
Trees are annoying things for GPS devices JT. Hope you are okay. I also am noticing my poor eyesight in the dark with the years.
Good luck for tomorrow Cal - hope you have decent weather for it.
6 recovery with strides yesterday evening in new shoes (found my current road racing model in my size on the internet and they arrived quickly). OH went to play badminton in the next village so I was able to profit from a lift to use a flat stretch of path/road and the local school's 100m track. Had to remember to slow down early enough on the strides to avoid slamming into the solid beech hedge at the end of the 100m.
Then swapped to trail shoes for a gentle jog home for another 3 and a half or so.
10k race tomorrow - will have a try at my PB (44:19). Should be reasonable conditions - cool and overcast and not too much wind on a flat course.
Good luck to top MLRERS Cal and Hazelnut for your races tomorrow. I would put a fiver on you both doing well.
The night trail half more than lived up to my hopes. Superb fun, very challenging and it all went well. Starting at dusk, the swarms of vicious midges and mozzies devouring me as we waited to set off were a good hors d'oeuvre for the rest of the race. It quickly got very dark and the mix of every type of terrain required proper concentration. Early on we passed very close to a sewage works, which certainly got the nasal passages cleared and working hard. The trail then soon became a mixture of riverside molehill slippiness, tight rutted, root-strewn path and woodland recklessness. I unluckily got in a position where I was heading a pack with no other runners in sight, where it was a case of searching desperately for the next signage. That was a mile of hoping I wasn't leading everyone into an abyss, before I let someone else pass and take over the lead!
A couple of lengths of road would have been a comfort had they not included several decent hills. Miles 5/6 proved the toughest for me, which was earlier than I usually feel it. However, after that I felt really strong and managed get on and past a few runners at a decent lick. Tawny Owls hooted and bats were everywhere. Very adventurous stuff. In a masochistic way the most fun was a mile stretch, right along the river on an extremely narrow track with 6 foot nettles leaning in from both sides. We all got stung to shit...for a mile.
Mile 10 came up quickly and I almost powered home from there, even up the killer long hill at mile 12. A really excellent event, probably my favourite race yet. 2:02:31 and 42/151 runners. Happy with that.
This was compounded by my Garmin refusing to talk to my PC when I tried to upload my run, which meant I had to do a reset and lost all its data (I did write down my splits first) and then my oven breaking. So it's been pretty frustrating all round.
Fantastic 10k Hazel. You are getting properly quick across distances. And good work Cal. A tough day but still a strong time. The serious miles you've been putting in will pay off.
A 20min 5k on the gym treadmill yesterday. I generally pootle at first and increase pace, but even so had to start quick. It's like trying to start up an old car on a cold day. Just under 15.5miles today in bit over 1hr59. Sunny and warm out. There were a lot of people about and some ill considered flesh on show. In the grounds of a former psychiatric hospital there were a couple of stages set up and what looked like rehearsals for some religious passion plays maybe. Ran through the near deserted grounds of the university. My earphones went weird cutting out whatever frequency the vocals were on. When I got back there was a broad circle of sweat and blood on my tee about level with my belly button. Thing is I can't find any place I've been bleeding. I'm assuming it's mine and I haven't killed someone along the way and completely forgotten about it. 67miles this week. Silly.
Hmm - do you have a beer belly JT and were killing the insects with it by running into them fast to produce the blood on your T-shirt? Somehow I can't imagine you have to be honest. That is a lot of miles you've been doing.
Last pre-mara long run for me today: 16.4 miles in 2:33. Legs and everything else below the waist pretty grumpy but I told them to shut up and get on with it - at a sensible pace though. Probably some DOMS tomorrow. Now the taper begins in earnest.
3 smells / scents for the day: a freshly ploughed field (why does that make me hungry?), a field of clover in bloom - pretty pungent - and the best one: roasting coffee beans - smells a bit like slightly burning toast.
Just after setting off I met 3 girls on their way home from school sitting on their bikes in the middle of a residential street practicing singing Christmas carols and giggling. I had to giggle too which put me in a good mood for the rest of the run.
All the hard work done now, Hazelnut, except the running of the marathon! Inspirational. I've been humming Silent Night since your post. Still can't reach the high notes.
Very serious mileage, JT. Another form of masochism.
I decided on a Parkrun recovery on Saturday, so joined my Dad at Eaton Park. He had replaced his 1978 Bjorn Borg Nikes with a much lighter pair of half decent runners and smashed his PB by 40 seconds. 27:51 - I could barely keep up.
Sunday night's attempt at a run was curtailed by stubborn children at bedtime. No idea where they get that from. Opted for a 9pm bedtime myself, as was suddenly exhausted, and woke up with a throaty cold thing. Fought the germs with Berocca and a very slow 1 hour run, which was 6 miles and a bit. Got hit in the mouth by a very large moth.
6 miles recovery today. My legs aren't too bad but I feel very tired. Sleep's been poor, especially the night after Maidenhead where I woke at 3 and was too hot to go back to sleep. Even an afternoon nap didn't help much. Tired again today.
Saw another runner wearing the same Manchester shirt I had on (last year's rather than this) so we had a little grin at each other.
That is a decent MP run just a few days post HM Cal. 10 miles at that pace is quite a bit. I've also had the matching T-shirt grin from another runner (a small, local event with a nice yellow one).
Rest day yesterday and 6 recovery with some strides today. Still feel pretty tired after the race and long run double so managed to keep the pace down for once (9:28 min/mile on average). First stride was a bit lacklustre but walked the recoveries and soon picked up to a good effort for each one.
Not particularly looking forward to one of the terrible 3 in the P&D plan tomorrow - 3 x 1600m @ 5k race pace. We will see. If I don't feel up to it then I will drop the distance or the speed.
I'm laid up in bed with a grotty cold. I've heard that it's quite common to go down with things after a big effort in a race. Anyone else had that happen or have any ideas how to avoid it? Am maxing up on vitamins, garlic and chillies, hoping to be okay again by Sunday, so I can fit in a longie before the Ipswich Half on 16th.
My currents PRs are:
5k - 19:30
10k - 42:00
HM: 1 hr 38
Cheers :)
The goose family has become a little dysfunctional, though. One of the youngsters has left (hopefully to pastures new, rather than being eaten by a fox or something) but the other has stuck around, much to the displeasure of mum and dad, who keep trying to chase him away. I saw them doing this when I went for a walk on Monday, and they were at it again today. A pair of Canada geese were watching in a bemused fashion.
That Egyptian Goose (actually not a goose at all, but a type of Shelduck) should have fledged by now, Cal. Not surprised it's parents are giving it the heave ho. Hope your throat doesn't develop into anything worse. I'm still feeling manky, but having the day off meant I could take my boy to school for his first day in Year 2. Cold remedy this morning is Reese's peanut butter cups and my homemade Kombucha. Feeling a bit better so aim to be running again by Sunday.
Hope we can both get rid of our lurgies!
Welcome to boothgm. Plenty of time for you to train for Spring 2019. Your race times do suggest you should be able to achieve a sub 3:30, the 5k and 10k times rather point towards 3:15 or better. There are various race predictors on the internet you might be interested in looking at e.g. from McMillan running, or on Fetch for example. As Cal recommends have a look around on the internet also for a training plan. I ran a 3:34 first marathon off of a 40 mile a week max plan from MyAsics based on 3-4 training runs a week for example. (HM PB: 1:38:xx). For me a sensible plan would be starting off around the mileage and no. of runs you are currently doing or can gradually build up to before the plan starts as you don't want to dive in and do too much too soon. If you find a plan you think might suit, taking you other commitments into account - work, family, other interests etc. - try some of the runs from the first week if they feel basically ok - the long run or any speedwork for example.
Last set of pre-mara intervalls for me today: 3 x 1600m off of 400m recoveries. Was in a work-related bad mood when setting off and therefore initially not especially motivated. I sternly told myself to get on with the job though and use the run to release a bit of pent up stress. Mile splits: 6:33, 6:40 and 6:42 so faded a bit but I managed to run each mile at a halfway constant pace right to the end. Each recovery began with a little bit of walking but I think that is ok. (3:02, 3:24 and 3:04). Worked hard enough not to take much notice of what was going on around me. I did imagine a race finish line to keep me going to the end of each intervall - today's featured pink ballons for whatever reason.
After a day of rest I decided to go to Dulwich parkrun today. It's an arse to get to by train (two changes, so even though it's only a few stops, it takes over an hour) so I decided to run it, which took 45 minutes. It's just over a mile past Brockwell Park, and I did a decent parkrun there after running to it two weeks ago.
Dulwich is a fast course. It's not entirely flat (there are a couple of very mild gradients) but it's all on wide tarmac paths. I cocked up my watch at the start so started timing myself late and knew I'd have a good few seconds to add at the end. I had a good, fast, even-paced run, finishing in 24:57 by my timing (oddly, watch actually made it 3.1 miles) but I knew my mistake would mean it wouldn't officially be the sub-25 I've been dreaming of. Ultimately my time came in at 25:11, which is my second fastest parkrun and a good time (especially considering I've been a bit under the weather, plus the fact I'd already covered 4.5 miles before I got to the start). My PB of 25:07 was at Peckham, which my watch measured slightly short, so this one would seem to be slightly long. Not that Garmins are all that accurate but it's worth considering. I was very happy with my splits regardless.
Of course, I then had to recover my breath and run home again, so I covered over 11 miles (closer to 12 in fact, but I always round down). Not a bad day's work.
5.1mile incline run on the gym treadmill yesterday. 16.1miles today in the pissing rain. A bus drenched me when it went through a big puddle. I went ballistic.
Right, just off to watch GNR.