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New York Marathon 2009
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ahhhhh...
Last week of a ten week stretch on the easy mileage list. Am racing a 10k tonight that I have been targetting for a pb but three days under canvas at Glastonbury has not been the greatest preparation. Am doing the coastal run at Alnmouth next weekend and then it's full focus on a 16 week build up to NY.
Have not yet booked flights or accommodation as we are just finalising who is coming. The baby NotKittens look like they're going Transatlantic.
Loved the extra salt Gatorade at Boston - I think it's the main reason I didn't cramp as much.
Trin - do you really ever taper or do you just take a morning off??
That Gatorade in Boston was great...it worked really well for me in the marathon. But I've only got one sachet left
which I'm going to use at Kent. I've tried to order it online but can't find any company who ships it to Europe... not even Gatorade themselves! 
NotCat... of course I taper... I'm only doing 50 miles this week with an easy weekend of 10 Saturday and 15 Sunday
I used one of the sachets of Gatorade powder, made up to a litre of fluid, during Dartmoor and didn't suffer at all... PBd by 43 minutes in fact
Me sees business opportunity??
Gatorade Importation?
hey guys...ok, i've managed to do something to my knee in the last week so am now in panic mode regarding which training schedule to use. i had planned on using hal higdon's novice guide but am thinking of moving over to david kuehls schedule. any advice on which is better...??
Just done a gym session with my PT. I have been trying to work on my speed and so I get her to concentrate on core and speed sessions.
Just done 1 min at 12.5k and 30secs at 14.5k *6 and then a rest. Did three of these plus some core and now I am dead for the rest of the day.
I have Tadley 10k this weekend and I am hoping for a good time. At least the weather should be cooler than Thame last week.
Tacey S, cannot advise on the schedule but there are some great runners on here who should help. I hope the knee is OK, still lots of time to go.
A PT? That's very dedicated of you Hudds Dave. I've decided to do a half on Sept 27th and a 10k a couple of weeks prior to the big event. It means I have a crazy number of races in Sept but the others are all off road so don't really give an opportunity to pb over a distance.
How's everyone's training going? I spent all day in London yestreday so had to run in the evening but decided I also fancied a swim so I donned a backpack, ran to the pool, swam 40 lengths and ran home. Only a total of 5.5 miles but so not a good idea. It was mightily grim putting my sweaty kit back on for the return journey, especially the socks.
Keeping to my plan quite nicely so far (easy to say in week 1!) but am away for the weekend so have to try and run 15 miles around a strange town without getting lost on Sunday.
Raced Tynedale 10k last night and it was awful. Incredibly hot & sticky and I never got into a rythmn. Finished in worst time of the season and just over a minute slower than last year.
Felt depressed at lack of energy but consoled by everyone else's similar experience.
Last full week of low intensity before my 16 week crank up starts with the Coastal Run (13 mile approx). Have been enjoying crsips, beer and cake since Boston and have put on only about 5 pounds.
L'arvark,I'm no physiologist but it sounds like gatorade with added salt is a good idea, in my one and only marathon 2005 in NY it was unseasonably warm and by mile 19 I was craving samething salty but everyone kept offering jelly babies!! Will stick a packet of peanuts in my pocket this time! Personally I prefer water when I'm running but I'm not sure how feasible it is to run that distance without taking on board energy drink? As for those gel sachets...............eeew they make me sick, quite literally, am retching now at the thought!
Achingcalves didn't see the collapse you are talking about, tad embarrassing I would think! 8-miler tonight with some of the crowd coming to NY, thankfully it has cooled down a bit, not that I'm complaining mind you, school holidays start today in the northern part of the UK!!
TTFN
Mrs G-M
Rest day for me today, although I might in theory (see below) go for a swim.
Tracey S. Sorry, I have no familiarity with the David Kuehls programme.
Hudds Dave. Good luck in your 10k this weekend.
Tortie. Many congratulations on a successful Week 1. Good luck not getting lost at the weekend. Note to self: learn to use the 'get me home' feature of your Garmin before attempting 20-mile runs on holiday. My Week 1 training is going well enough, thanks for asking. 5 with strides tomorrow and a 15-mile race for the weekend to leave me on schedule. I am a bit worried that my knee pain - whilst not stopping me run - seems not to be 'just going away'. Here's hoping it does sometime soon.
NotCat. Sorry to hear of your disappointment, but they can't all be stonking, hey? At least there are lots of good reasons to be slow at the moment (and therefore lots of reasons to be optimistic about quick 'improvement' coming your way soon). I hear you on the nutrition. I really want to go to a pool session tonight with my new club but I honestly feel (stupid) body-image concerns/shame may well stop me going. But if not now, when?
Mrs Gas-Man. You do know that you can register yourself on this forum for free don't you? You're not saving money by sharing your hubbie's access. I'm not being all feminist about this. You can register as Mrs. Gas-Man if you choose so to do, but it would be a lot easier for me, at least, to 'deal with' each of you 'in your own right'. Your call, though, obviously!
Anyway, I wish there was a physiologist/nutritionist on these boards, as I really want to get some good advice about how I might avoid getting leg cramps (although my surfing tells me that the truth is that no one really knows). I don't mind the gels: I just don't feel any benefit from using them and carrying loads of them is a drag. I do find the added-salt sports drink helps. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to eat peanuts on a long run, but I crave salt (and ingest way too much of it) pretty much 24/7. Right now, though, my superstition is that bananas are the best thing to try and help me beat the cramp (which obviously fingers potassium as a key element in what ails me).
School holidays already! When do they go back? And how big a running crowd are you going to NY with? Tell them all to come and join in the fun here!
L'ardvark it's just laziness that stops me from registering, I did think about it at work yesterday but the IT police have blocked the runner's world site, have politely asked them to unblock it but they've obviously got wind that you are a renegade bunch!
School goes back towards the end of August, it's always earlier, in Scotland, I think it traditionally had something to do with the potato harvest but not sure........we always find it best to book our holidays for the kids going back to school, that's generally when summer starts!
Our group of runners are all NHS...........3 plastic surgeons, 2 nurses, 1 anaesthetist (Mr G-M) and myself, clincal psychologist, all mixed ability, I suspect I'm at the bottom of the table but have at least the advantage of knowing the course, then again perhaps ignorance is bliss!! We all fly out from Edinburgh on Oct 29th, coming back Tuesday 3rd. The Gas-People have booked the Library Hotel, which thankfully is getting cheaper by the day as the exchange rate claws it's way back to something close to respectable, the others are baulking at the cost but just need to do a bit more private practice!!
We're having an inaugural team run tonight, will let you know how it goes!
I'd love have a group of people to train with for NYC! I have been pounding out the miles in my lunchtime in the gym with only Wimbledon to keep me company ;-(
Rest day today after racking up 20 miles this week before a long run on Saturday (probably 15 miles) and a loosener on Sunday.
Do any of the rest of you struggle with settling into a slow training pace for marathon training?
I do most of my training normally at 6.30-.7.30 m/miles and grinding along at minute or so slower just seems so....er...slow!
aha!!
I think we may have found the main cause of the problem to your recurrent cramps!
Although you need to replace the salt you lose through sweat when you're running, too much of the stuff in your system can actually cause cramping.
L'a... ok, well think of it logically.. dehydration is known to be a cause for muscle cramps. If you have too much salt in your system over a period of time then you will become dehydrated, whether you realise it or not. The body constantly tries to maintain a status of homeostasis, so it struggles against the salt intake. You add in exercise and the result is muscle cramps.
A friends Dad had got into the habit of putting lots of salt on his food over years and years. When he got to the age of 80 he'd had chronic problems with cramp and then his kidneys started to fail and he was hospitalised. Eventually they managed to stabilise his kidney condition and discharged him with instruction to dramatically reduce his salt intake. He doesn't suffer muscle cramps anymore.
Trin.
Thanks so much for engaging with this and trying to help me.
I confess to being sceptical about nutrition advice generally. I believe that various pressures lead experts and agencies to make all manner of poorly grounded claims that either change erratically over time or seem to directly contradict other claims from 'equally' reliable sources.
I am susceptible to logic, though. My trouble here is that sodium depletion has also been fingered as a cause of muscle cramps. And my (quite possibly biased) memory tells me that when I try to cut my salt intake I get more cramps. My 'solution' has been to keep the sodium intake high (I have even considered following advice to take additional salt in the run up to endurance activities) but make sure I keep the liqued intake very high, too. (This is consistent with my general approach to most things, e.g., having a perfectly healthy diet, supplemented by at least one unhealthy one on top.)
I am aware that I may be coming across as using motivated reasoning here, aimed solely at justifying my inappropriate behaviour. (Try persuading me that I should drop my alcohol intake...) I'm truly not, though. I do like salt but cutting back on it would be a small price to pay to avoid cramps. It's just that at the moment I can't help being more persuaded by my cravings (listen to the body and all that) than I am by claims that I would benefit from less salt (especially when others are telling me I need, if anything, to take more). I do want to get it right, though, so if you are (or anyone else is) confident that I should cut salt and are willing to have another crack at peruading me, I will be nothing but grateful (although of course it may not come across like that).
I am really, genuinely grateful to you for taking the time and trouble to try and help me, Trin. No one said that being Cheerleader-in-Chief was going to be an easy job.
Hi Guys
How have the long runs gone over the weekend? At least it has been a lot cooler down south.
I have just done Tadley 10k and got the PB i have been chasing. Did 47:22 which is 25secs of my PB and 2 mins quicker than last week in the heat!
I know it may not be that quick but for me it is a huge step forward as I was begining to think the PB's I did 2 years ago were a fluke.
L'ardvark, just for you:
Set off and ran quite hard, overtook some people
,(first smiley face ever on a forum for me), ran a bit harder and finished.
Well done on the PB Hudds Dave!
L'A / Trin: interesting conversation re: cramps/salt. I always find a bacon butty, banana, cup of tea and a lucozade sports drink sorts me out before a race/long run.
Talking of which, I did a slow 15 miler this morning (2.15)
Up the grand union canal for 10 miles and then into the heart of the Chilterns in hazy sunshine for the last five miles. Much cooler today than it has been through the week and, joy of joys, a breeze!
Best thing was the end of the run where I met the wife and kids for a pub lunch. Yum.
Now enjoying the tennis on R5live...happt training!
Afternoon all
Did a "15-mile" trail race today. My mantra for about the last 4 miles was, "I want to stop now." Motivational psychology and all that. It was hot and so I walked through the first 3 stations to drink every drop of the sports drink provided. (22 C). Even so, I was alarmed to be 17 minutes slower than last year. An early RW review mentions that they added about a 3/4 mile onto the course to try and make it closer to the advertised length. My Garmin registers 14.83 this year compared to last year's 13.52. So only half a minute per mile deterioration. Oh well. Can't be better than last time every time. And a new course PB, I suppose.
Hudds Dave. Many congratulations. And an excellent race report. I feel proud to have played some small role in getting you to post your first ever smiley face.
Achingcalves. Your run sounds a lot more enjoyable than mine was! I hope the grub was good, too. And the ale.
Trin. I suppose you are running as I type. I hope it is all going brilliantly. I spoke to the Lucozade Man at the end of my race today. He told me to take more salt! (But he did also say it might be helpful to cut back on my salt between races.)
Well done on the PB Hudds Dave & great race report!
L'ardvark - I always thought lack of salt whilst running caused cramps; that's why endurance drinks contain extra salt.
I've just got back from my 15 miler as I couldn't fit it in any earlier but it did mean I got to do it at home rather than in the wilds of Herfordshire. My Garmin went crazy during the first couple of miles through some woods and by the time I got a point that I KNOW is 2 miles it was only registering 1.5 miles with an average pace of over 11mpm which is daft. I decided to reset it rather than feel obliged to get the average pace down to something reasonable. Really pleased I did it though as that means I've not missed a single run this week and have cranked out over 50 miles this week.
How old is your Garmin? I've had mine over 2 years with no probs at all. i even ran back through the same section of wood at the end of the run and had no issues so don't know what it was doing on the way out!
I've just eaten a strawberry cornetto and a pack of pickled onion monster munch (in that order) for my tea. That's bad right?
Hi all,
Me and my OH did Shifnal Steeplechase (half marathon (part road part xcountry)) yesterday. Very hot, so took it easy, used it as my LSR for San Fran on the 26th, managed a 1:42.
Hope everyone else's trining going well.
See you all in NYC
Sorry guys... something major has happened here. I'm going to have to go away for a while
Hope it all goes as well as it can do, Trin. We'll all be thinking of you and wishing you well.
Good luck Trin, hope you are ok we need to to stay strong and shake those pom poms for us xx
Mrs G-M