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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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Wouldn't say I've felt that for a while, but for now I'm taking the not small mercy of being able to turn out relatively competitively in local stuff, and Datchet sessions, which I did think was as recently as 18months or so ago.
However, if there's a bit more there I'll do my best!
You're encouraging me to put some concrete plans in place for cracks at faster 5ks. Battersea Park, Hyde Park, Gosport/Portsmouth, and maybe even Sale...
I suspect that will be my one attempt at 5k this year, I'd like to do a sub 35 10k now. I think I should be able to do that after today.
Most likely, I didn't race in the same standard of 5k race as 10k though, as predictor calcs would have well under 16.53.
If you could get in on the Eastleigh 10k somehow (sold out) on 17th June (and it's not a boiling hot day), that'd be an ideal quick fire attempt.
It's funny your first line...that was more my ethos under the Moz training days - less races, but going big on those. It's great for a certain stage of running, but the risk is you miss out on just adhoc stuff, or club stuff, or get a niggle at the wrong time that in effect in terms of flat out racing takes half the year out in a go.
The Datchet move feels ideal in a lot of ways. In and around the local series again, always one or two of them at events, chance of team prizes, and even if a race isn't a particularly red hot effort, it's still worthy of being around pals and all that.
An old pal years back in Marlow days stripped it down to elements like social, competing and attendance. Back in the middle of this thread I had little need for the former and latter, but now I'm embracing those two more, as well as trying to stay relatively competitive.
Regarding your previous PB being parkrun - given the number that are short in some manner and the varying degrees of difficulty, I only ever compare one course against itself and not as a 'true' PB, even though they're on Po10.
Not 100% sure about doing the session this weekend, woke up this morning with my throat feeling like a hacksaw. Went out and did my long run on some trails by the Waikato River and Huka Falls - much more enjoyable than the road options, and seemed to pass in a flash!
On another note, a couple of milestones coming up for me.
Currently sat at 40mi for the week, so planning 10 in some capacity tomorrow to get me to 50 - first 50 mile week since last September! Even better, currently on 180 for the month... So definitely gonna break 200 for the month, which I've only done on 3 occasions previously - Aug '16 @ 215, Nov '16 @ 231 and Mar '17 @ 235!
Next challenge is to just keep the consistency
Off for a break next weekend in Worcester. Trying to pick between their two parkruns, one is flat and round the racecourse and seems to attract the speedsters (winner a few weeks ago was Anthony WHITEMAN 16:55) and the other a bit more pretty but slower. Will probably opt for the racecourse as it is a few hundred metres from our B&B.
Text me or >>
scott.edgington@altonsports.co.uk
On and off running 1-2 x a week and struggling, well over a year now, a specialist podiatrist a week ago ended with some bad / good news than my re occuring plantar issue is down to my biomechanics and actually a damaged heel pad with a 3 month rehab window now - I had a very expensive 3D gait analysis with lots of sensors and a physical skeleton mocked up to assess things and running testing all the shoes I've been in . Yes HOKA proven to be the best
One for Dachs at least is we will be at Yately 10km and there's a chance you'll be able to redeem those vouchers on our stall.
Eastleigh we don't sponsor but there's always people coming in the shop cancelling
Cracking racing that Reg - what a time!
Matt - I remember someone telling me magic starts to happen when you start doing regular 50mpw
Looks like the relayers did well today in hot and humid conditions. Very sticky LSR for me of 13.7M, not helped by starting at midday 'cos I spent a lot of last night watching the massive thunder storm!
I deffo aim to be at Gosport for the mile/5k double Scott. Book me in! I'm still trying to work out the best fit standalone 5k course one
Good run Bus, last night was a dreadful night's sleep! The adrenaline of being glad the hated rivals Liverpool didn't win the biggest cup, and that massive thunder storm combined!
However, a decent turn out at the Runface relays at Upton Court park. After years of racing, I really embrace these low key little social ones these days.
The format was 4 runners in a team, 4km each, and the age of your team combined placed you in a category.
Ours pushed us into the 160+ category, and with one of the best ladies around in Jill, we had a mixed team.
With 5 categories, and male, female, mixed in all, there were a whopping 15 trophies up for grabs. Some categories were more competitive than others - we had 14 teams in ours, out of 50 teams!
I was designated 4th runner, and a scroll down the teams had me thinking we should definitely win our category, and come top 3 overall, but not quite sure about being better than that.
The 2 main rivals, were a team with Chris H, Sean and Stevie I who on their day are all sub 18 5kers, and an older team with the enduringly quality Chris B, and Rob McH, a 50+ year old, but who posted a 2.07 800 as recently as a year or so ago!
Our team was probably an 18.30 guy to start, Jill who'd be sub 18, Sat who is working his way down into the lower 19s, and me
First leg starts, and it's a face off between two top Dashers, Chris B and Mr Bayliss, the latter seeing it home marrowly, Steve Illot taking the,m into 3rd. A fair gap, and we're in as 4th.
Jill takes it up, and get us into 2nd.
The nerves start to kick in here, as I have 2 decent guys against me on the 4th lap, so it depends how this lap comes out!
Satnam has taken us into 1st, but it's hard to see what sort of lead he has. It's a pretty decent lead over 3rd either way. Perhaps 15-20metres lead over 2nd though.
I set off, the course is all offroad, with some little ups and downs on little woody bits that no-one knew were even in this park!
Down start, adrenaline pumping, not quite sure how it'll go in what is now quite warm weather, plus strong humidity.
The best thing was by this leg I've got a few people on leg 3 to show me the route and chase down. Round 4 or 5 of them, and there's a turn into a section that allows me a sneak peak to my left to see where Rob Mc is.
I judge he'll take 8-10secs to get to where I am, so I put a little speed on, and whizz round this field.
There's a fussy couple of sharp ups and downs, including a very short muddy section with a tiny water jump!
Over that and we're half way already. Got to love 4k!
Back into the main park bit, and a couple of twisty turny bits. Am sure I've increased the lead a bit, but not really sure.
Past my pal James out supporting, cheers me on, but doesn't give me a steer on where matey is behind.
Round a big tree, and we're pretty close to the start line now.
However, there's around 1k to go!
Up to the top again, turn round a bush, and the glorious run in. I Spot I have a good few hundred metres here, so get to come in decently, rather than launder my breeks.
Over the line for first team home, 2.45miles in 13.39, 5.35 pace job. That's actually quicker than I managed on the 5k at Wargrave on the lovely smooth road surface 10 days ago, so i'm hoping that's a promising sign on an offroader.
Good chats with the team and clubmates, saw Big Pete, as it was an open event too. Saw Fabian Downes, who not unsurprisingly did the fastest leg in low 12s, but was running a low ley team of wife and parents, so didn't trouble any awards.
Then a long set of prize winners for all the categories with teams entered. No overall 1st which was a shame, but all worked out nicely.
Certainly wouldn't have fancied too much more distance today, the humidity is not my friend I'm very quickly learning. A good 10mins lying around job after, for probably the first time since Runnymede relays last year. I think it's that combo of offroad and humidity that does it for me.
Quick shower at work in between, and back to Home Park for a club BBQ, and there til gone 6 for a long day. Even enjoying my first footy match of sorts for years! Ludicrously small bouncy ball didn't help the old control, but sore shoulder aside hopefully have got away with this one off!
Upton relays for me too as new physio had improved my hip enough. In a 'mixed legends' team which basically means old gits (av age 60+). Pretty good team as 2 oldies (69 and 70) can still do about 19 for 4k and me (15'20) and a decent v45 lady (16'30) meant the cat win. Happy with my time and very even paced 3'50ish k's throughout on an all off road wacky course. SG report as ever describes it better than I could. Nice to see PMJ and his team going well too.
In reality, this was a bit too soon in the recovery from injury plan and also coincided with a week when I was off running on Thursday and Friday to watch England lie on its back and give up the ghost at Lords so I had frontloaded the week with miles as it also messed up the Sunday LSR.
Leg 1, ChrisB solid leg (I am sure he actually came home first) and passes over to Andy who got our team up to first with a reasonable lead over 2nd. My leg came in at 16:10 and Satnam (SG's team) was 15:15 but the splits are a lot more interesting: mine were 6:37, 6:49 and 6:27 for the last bit and his were 5:51, 6:21 and bits at 6:44 so he set off at full bore and made 46 seconds up over the first mile. The next mile 28 seconds but lost 12 seconds over the last bit.
SG was therefore passed a headstart and beat a 54-year-old.
I'll take a low 16s for 4k off-road (and it was probably a bit short) and it starts to look like a 20.xx 5k will be possible and soon after that back to sub-20 which is where I like to be. Next 5k is Tuesday lunchtime and the one after that Tuesday evening. Won't push hard at lunch.
Would have been interesting and probably stressy being on that leg. May have found the 8secs to equal bayliss but may have tried to go out at the pace Chris b did and not do a 3sec quicker time than him in the end. Most likely you would do a faster run on the A leg as thats usually the closest to a proper race.
All good fun though. And mr.mcharg is not just any 54 year old. But obviously glad to pick up in front and then increase the gap.
Sounds like satnam put a real shift in to tail off like that at the end.
Whereas you probably have one of the lowest time reductions from mile 1 to mile 2 in the field. Mine was over 20secs.
Obvs would have mentioned you but didn't want to spoilt your report.
Crock of absolute shite.
Ends.
No doubt too hot and humid for a PB attempt today.
Do you have a detailed list of splits?
It's hard to tell though, as the second mile was clearly slower than the first one. But by how much. But I suppose to tail off in the last 0.45m or so versus mile 2 is down to storming it early on.
No results out yet, not sure if they'll have them to that sort of level. I was a bit oblivious at the time to how many people were at the finish, but watching the vid Jill posted there were loads!
7miles today, midday, and as per Bus, certainly a tough day of conditions! Jill managed to pb, but I'm sure that's been brewing for a while, and Dachs' times are at a level you have to hit things just right.
Think i'll keep the racing shorter when it's humid. 2015 showed me the worst case scenario when going long, with hills and humidity, but last year's 5.5m Runnymede relay offroad was a bit borderline! Yesterday felt plenty too!
Humidity and either distance, or offroad/hills seem to be a killer of a combo for me especially.
Therefore, I look forward to a few 5ks now, where it's either flat road, road with undulations, or flat grassy stuff.
Don't underplay the cycling and the previous training in your legs either, but generally agree it doesn't look particularly like you were in peak mode!
good relaying Pete, phil and SG
Hope you can get the consistency going Matt H
Dachs - Hang your head in shame. What a stinker!
Reg - as mentioned elsewhere, that's a fantastic run, I think things are only going to trend upwards from here as well.
Dachs - sorry to hear that, doesn't always fall into place, roll on the next one.
16 mile SLR saturday and 150 miles on the bike over 2 days on Saturday and Sunday left the legs with nothing for this mornings 18x800. Idea is to run them at HM pace and recover until the HR drops to 120 and then go again. The fitter you are, the less recovery you need. Averaged 2:54 which I was pretty happy with considering how tired I felt going into them. Knackered now.
So BUPA 10,000. Said I wouldn't do it this after last years chaotic ststart, but it's a decent beer up after. Forecast was warm again, although lucky the Brum 10k race wasn't today, or we'd have been swimming through Edgebaston!
Managed to have a quick chat with Dachs a while before the start, he said he was going to go for it again, so didn't expect to see him again. Saw quite a lot of the usual suspects due to the amount of club places being given out. My first world shoe problems were resolved when I decided to use the Saucony A8, as they are the newest and lightest shoe I own and AW said they were a good 10k shoe LOL.
Even though I thought I had done everything well in advance, I still got to the start area a bit late so had to awkwardly shuffle past quite a few. So the stars were introduced and we were off. Took ages to go through the start after the gun, I estimated 20 secs or so. The plan was to go through 5k in 16.29 or so, what with an easier 2nd half than Brum that would hopefully bring me out closer to 33 than of late. The Mall is quite wide, but through Traflagar square it has become a nightmare as I'm sure it has been narrowed over the last couple of years, so I was up and down the central reservation and close to the metal barriers. As usual folk doing 36/37/38 mins has got near the front.
So, thought I'd better check the watch at 2k to see where I was. Bollocks it had stopped on 13 secs! So I went to plan B and turned the watch back to normal time and tried to get an idea of how I was doing. Didn't really help so for the rest of the race it was just gauging it on folk I knew I was running against. Didn't feel amazing in that 3-5k section, but up against others it seemed to be ok, especially as I knew I started quite farther back than most. Came alongside and past Dachs at around 5k so I knew he wasn't having a great race. The 5-7k there's a few undulations until you go past and onto the long stretch of the strand to 8k. Felt as well as can be expected along this bit, but generally not too bad.
So it's then just after 8k you have the long stretch through Whitehall, past the Red Lion to Parliament and turn right to pick up the end of the London Marathon route. This bit usually does me in, but I didn't get passed by too many. The last kilometre has 800,400,200,100 signs up that seem to prolong the agony and I'm in with 33.30/33.40 on the clock (I think), so chip time will depend on the time it took to get through the start.
So better than expected and in the pub the actual time is 33.07, find out later that this is the first V45 too. So a few pints after with my dad who had come up for the day, then back to Poole on the train to end up going for a paddle in the sea. Result.
Burnham 5k for me tonight.
Was ok, but i'm tracking slower than last year across the recent races now, so probably need to get my head down and switch things up.
Interesting course, down first part, back up to the start by 2k for a short loop, then a longer looper taking a wider route, before a fair climb for half a mile to the end - quite a killer by then
Clocked Mr livesey, our super fast local chap. Warned some people not to try to match him. Hadn't exactly felt mint in the warm up, pretty humid, and as I crouched in the woods pre race, I was destroyed by sweat!
Anyway, first km, sharply down the road, and settles, and it's come out 3.07 cripes! I'm not sure i put that down last year in my 17.20 here
We press on, up round the bend, and I'm in second as we reach 2km. The pace has obviously slowed, and it's a 3.40 km, with a shorter version of the climb we'll make later.
I do slightly wonder if I'll see this home for 2nd, but realise I'm miles off 1st, so sort of in no man's land.
Descent again, and onto the wider loop. Someone storms past in red, and i'm fading a little. This will be a long race!
I clock someone else quite close, it's only Stevie I for Datchet, a chap i'm always ahead of in reps, and races. Give him a hello, and he's ahead by 3km. I respond a little, but am feeling a little ruined already so i'm suspecting I'll let him slip.
Steve is a nice guy and very polite, so he's a bit unsure about forging on, but short of me saying "i'm rucked, press on" my body probably said that physically!
On we go, and he can only be a few seconds ahead but it feels unassailable!
Some geezer comes by at around 4km, well timed, just before we start the hill.
The two can only be in shirt chucking distance, but i'lve nothing, and in reality i'm just pleased to get over the line.
17.38 i think, Steve can only have been 17.35 but a little bit of a rude awakening. He's going well though, a nice pb, whereas I'm in a little state of uncertainty right now. Down on time in Marlow 5, Wargrave 5k and now Burnham 5k. A few minor pots in low key stuff to cheer, but it's sort of feeling a little "decent" rather than more.
5th position i guess isn't too bad, but felt a bit more uncomfortable than Wargrave 2 weeks ago. Maybe the first 2km pretty much almost a solo time trial with a 3.07 first km was just too sharp for current fitness, but it was down.
We'll see. I think last year had a good build up through the whole 5k plan I do, whereas this year it's been a bit mixed in with races and Datchet sessions.
Probably haven't quite got the right effort level going on, just comparing v last year, not trying to compare to 5-6 years ago glory days!
What do people think?
Hopefully just a less than top reaction to 2 humid races over 3 days. The rest of the summer series races are pretty much flat now on, different surfaces, but should allow a bit more regularity of splits.
I mean, 3.07,3.40,3.25,3.37,3.48 is all over the shop, mainly due to ups and downs.
My garmin only recorded it as 3.01m, but others had it higher, so hopefully it was the right length and the bends and tree cover reduced the reading a bit.
Looking at the last 2 5ks, they've both been 2 days after another race, so that probably hasn't helped.
All feels a little bit underpar right now though
Impressive 10k Simon and kudos for the top V45 in a big race like that.
Another consistent outing there SG, two races in three days sounds like a lot to me, I don't think I could do myself justice like that. Mentally it must be hard to get ready for so many different races.
I have just kind of realised that I am down to do the Endure 24, I think next week, in what looks like a team of 5. I am a bit worried about disturbing my rather sensible approach of late, with such a mental event.
Moz used to say for a runner with years behind them, doing 2 so close can guarantee underpar in both!
Will try and keep it one a week now. Hopefully no need to panic just yet! Body felt a bit tight and tired after not just Sunday's relay, but the footy and long day after!
Endure 24 if you get the wrong weather can be a right slog! Our Datchet fast boys speak with horror about a few years ago where it was a drenched mudfest! Just 5 runners means you'll be running for not much under 5 hours, and more awkwardly it'shard to grab sleep. Will be something interesting though. You have to try new stuff, if only to rule it out in the future!