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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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7.10 pace, which was basically a 7.30 first mile easing in, then it just pretty much flowed in and around the 7.05-7.10 sort of mixer for the rest fairly comfortably. Not much elevation which always helps the average.
7 day week, so a beefy 67.5mile week.
Will have to commit to a few races soon as the numbers versus entries are steadily moving up.
Jools - I definitely want to do one of those Rose Inn 4milers this year, so might see you if you're at one. But as that's a good 5-6months off a bit early as so much more could and will happen before then!
As I am still alternating runs, last week was a 3 run week so only 29 miles last week, finishing with a recovery 8ish. Most the week's effort was centered on a Zwift race series with 6 stages in 7 days. it finished with races on Friday evening 90 minutes, then Saturday evening another 90 minutes and then Sunday morning at 8am which was 1 hour 45 minutes. So legs were a bit tired today.
As a result I almost changed my planned 6 x 1km to an easy run but ultimately the 6 x 1km was more motivating. Planned to keep them sensible and after a rusty 3:29 they came out at 3:20,24,20,26,19. Average 3:23 and they felt pretty controlled.
The switch from December 31st of one year to January 1st of the next is, of course, an arbitrary one and is a Western transition (with others picking different times of the year to do so). Is there a good training reason for getting a 17.xx or is it just an itch that needed scratching?
I used to have a break from running for a week or longer on a couple of occasions a year, once in the summer for a family holiday and once over Christmas and New Year. The former tended to be a busy time so running was swapped for surfing and carrying stuff up and down to the beach but the latter was just an excuse to kick back and pig out. Neither of the dates was particularly aligned to the running calendar: the summer break was still in the middle of the track season and the winter break in the middle of XC and marathons: it would have been far more sensible to pick dates in Spring and Autumn. The only thing that sort of worked was the Christmas break was a good way to ensure the body was rested at the start of a marathon campaign: so 16 or 18 weeks of high mileage needs a sturdy base and any niggles you have at the start get amplified.
So just wanted to put something 17xx in asap to re-address that.
For this time of year not doing the sharper track stuff a higher 17 will do.
Ideally in the summer will get way down the 17s once we're into June/July and doing 5k based work regularly.
As runners we often get hung up on certain mileage all round, and would freak at the idea of intentional weeks off. But in the scheme of things they probably do nothing negative and just refresh you. I think Paula Radcliffe had a month off a year?
I need to do a session tomorrow.
I might just do a 3x2mile off 90secs job.
Either a straight "quicker than the 6mile tempo pace", or alternatively progressing the pace from rep to rep. WIll decide tomorrow.
Quality detail on the transport, SG. Love it 😃. And good result!
Great photos from your parkrun, Jools. Brilliant to bro your daughter along.
That’s a fun sound bike series, Reg. impressive k reps as well.
Glos XC champs on Saturday, at Cotswold Farm Park (for the keen Countryfile watchers this is Adam Henson’s farm).
Advertised as 5.7M with various small and large loops around the fire and site. Perfect cross country running really: grassy, muddy, rocky, trails. Ridges, bumpy and a long drag. Had it all.
Slipped on the spikes (£15 Puma) for the first time in two years. They have got smaller or my feet bigger. Started off too hard, trying to keep up with a few peers, and eventually settled into a nice rhythm. Seemed to pick a few off in the second half which was good for confidence, although some I have beaten in the past have progressed during my slight regression.
Pushed hard on 5.4M towards the end of the final big loop, but erroneously! There was another small loop to go, with the course measuring 6.3M for most. A good lesson in pushing from further out - inevitably I did have more in the tank. That is the kind of mental trick that could lead to some breakthroughs.
Finished in no man’s land, but still pushing hard. 44th (about half way through the fields) and 23rd SM. 6:48 average pace on what was obviously a very challenging bit of terrain. Far hilly than GPS will show, with all of the bumps within the field. Proper running!
Warm up and down to round off a 10M afternoon, before a homemade curry and a bottle of Rioja.
11.5 easy buggy miles yesterday afternoon at 8:40 pace, to just cap a 60M week.
A friend has asked if I fancy Manchester Marathon in just under 12 weeks. I dismissed it out of hand at first, but am perhaps coming round to the idea if it can coincide with a family visit to chester.
Sounds a decent turnout.
I'd set the aim of the rep pace to just be "quicker" than what i'd produced on the 6m continuous tempos, which had top end of 6.12, and it went from there really.
90sec recovery
6.10,6.07
6.06,6.05
6.10,5.54
Felt a good thrash around town.
I suppose on a track I'd be looking to squeeze these under the 6min barrier, but different sesh entirely on the road isn't it.
This route is fairly safe, but does have a grassy part, and then a few road junctions, and one bit near a retail park you have to time just right to get across a roundabout.
My old versions were either a 0.9mile loop which had a petrol station and 1/2 of the loop had drives on, or a rampage from the other side of town that had quite a few drives/a petrol station/junctions and needed a crossing of a main road at some point too. I look back at that one and think, that was fraught with risk, especially the evening ones
The main beauty of this route is I can set off as late as 7.40 or so to allow the food in/out process to work smoothly, end near the door, but still get solid workouts in.
Would definitely need a track for anything shorter than 1mile reps I think, as it's difficult to hit the intensity as well.
Will probably carry on concentrating on the 10k - HM sort of training for a couple of months, and then switch it down to 5k stuff, and hopefully enjoy a summer tour like a few years back.
Well The course at Beds/Bucks was a proper course....but we only did 3 laps and so was only 6.5k! Obviously it was bloody hard as it was muddy and very up and down. Didn't change positions that much, finished 15th just behind NH the Chiltern V50 who is very good at xc.
Lots of comedic falling over, mainly by one of my training partners with his track spikes on!
Got a bit pissed as it was my mates 40th sat night, only did 30 mins Sunday. Not doing Luton tonight as too much work
I'd definitely say that a key element of training and racing is periodisation and part of that is the rest and recuperation.
Today's session was probably more a HM sort of zone, so it might be that my HMP right now might be say 6.05.
My last hm at Wokey was 6.05 pace, but that was that mad stormy year.
However, on the other hand it was pre the big race lockdown and it felt quite hard work to recapture that race intensity since then ,and being 2 years ago you can't take it for granted.
So it's hard to tell. On the track I'd probably average under 6. It's along the lines of what Reg said about you probably need track for certain reps, or at least a route you don't switch between grass and watch people and roads etc.
Having said that I remember thundering a 5.50 2x3mile session once across town, but then raced 5.42 at my 10miler.
Contrast that with once doing a 14miler, ending with 2x3m, at 6.15 or so and then the last 3miles came out 5.57, then the hmp average in a race came out 5.57. I was impressed with the pure accuracy of that!
The 28.35 would give a sub 1.20 on the calculators, but they don't always account for what your strength is. I always presumed I was better at short stuff until I saw the paces for 5k etc that my 10m/HM supposedly should bank and couldn't get near them
I suppose in all ways there's a big difference between a wet parkrun with a slightly dodgy pre run set of circumstances that you don't really feel up for, 2 runs the day before etc, and a proper fast 5mile race amongst quality, that you're up for, are mentally fresh for having not done a 5miler for years, getting there rested and keen and feeling excited to see what you can do.
I hope there is anyway, as I must have gone through 5k within that 5m a good 10secs quicker than the actual 5k
I need to do a 10k fairly soon. 36.53 at Silverstone felt a decent go at the time, but I can probably get that down decently, assuming the 5m equivalent performance is still with me!
Will probably get 2 or 3 10ks in, just need to decide if I want to / am ready for a decent HM.
The hard thing is the race grouping: if you are doing 5k, 10k and a half then do you group the 5k and 10k together or the 10k and a half? I always found that I could do a decent 10k off 5k training and holding on but always found the half a bit too long without adequate training and that took the edge off the speed.
But then in 2018 I did a really nice hm basically off a string of Thursday 15milers (allowing for Sunday xc) supplemented with a few dasher sessions such as 6x5mins etc.
So there may not be anything more specific than beefing those 13s up to a few 15/16s.
I did also did a 6 mile tempo today - split as 2 miles @7:04; 1 mile @ 6:38; 2 miles @ 7:04; 1 mile @ 6:38.
Paces more or less spot on - I’m fortunate to live along Liverpool waterfront which has a lot of uninterrupted running - can go almost 10 miles along it without hitting a busy junction!
However it is often windy… though not tonight. Yay!
Did have to contend with the usual dog walkers with uncontrollable dogs; youths on scooters (not sure who played that!) and running groups with approximately 20 people running in a large group!!
Half for me on Sunday - I think I’m just going to go all or nothing with the sub 1:30 pacer…
So if sub 90 is the aim, that's 6.52 pace, so would the 7.04 stuff be similar to my HM + 10-15sec type stuff, or is the 7.04 nearer to HM current pace and you're looking to stretch on in the HM?
Either way that's a tasty step in pace for the 1mile bits, 10k pace?
> That looks a strong effort there Bradders.
> So if sub 90 is the aim, that's 6.52 pace, so would the 7.04 stuff be similar to my HM + 10-15sec type stuff, or is the 7.04 nearer to HM current pace and you're looking to stretch on in the HM?
>
> Either way that's a tasty step in pace for the 1mile bits, 10k pace?
Ha, well I follow a coaching plan (Hawkins runners, theyre excellent) so I usually just do the paces on the plan without much question 😂
I think it’s roughly HM pace and 10k pace.
My 5K PB is quite a lot stronger than my other distances (19:27). In fact my mile is probably a lot stronger, though I’ve not raced one in a while.
1:30 is ambitious but Brass Monkey runs fast… so we’ll see.
That's a heck of a workout, I would have to go to the track to even dream of it, and I've always thought 6miles HMP is a very tough session, and you're throwing 10k bits in too
I'd be fairly confident that you have a decent breakthrough imminent
> I think that session with recoveries in between the HM and 10k sections would be a strong workout, let alone continuous!!
>
> That's a heck of a workout, I would have to go to the track to even dream of it, and I've always thought 6miles HMP is a very tough session, and you're throwing 10k bits in too
>
> I'd be fairly confident that you have a decent breakthrough imminent
I did look at the session and think “no way” so makes me feel a bit better 😆.
It feels that sort of scenario.
the fun happens when you do that though and the zones ramp up
LSR of 20 miles on Sunday cause I could. Company for the 1st 13.5 which helped as did the glorious weather. Sunnies were out 😎 Undulating Forest trails
Easy 4.5 recovery yesterday to freshen the legs up for Double Track Tuesday.
Usual 4.5M with 16x200m at lunch. Pleased not to have lost any speed in the 4 weeks since last doing any speed work all in the 39-41” range so 5:25 pace
Club this evening 5x3’ off 90” then 3’ static recovery followed by 7x300m off 1’ The longer reps were 6:00 pace & the shorter ones 5.
Good session Jools. I thought i'd do the old 8 minute tempo (down to the triangle where I do my 400's), 3 mins, 10 x 400 off 60, 3 mins then 8 mins tempo back.
Wore the clown shoes as the old Adios are too boneshaker now. Felt nice, definitely helped on the 2nd tempo. Looking forward to getting the new Adios now.
I'm up to about 500 in the Adios 5 now.
I would advise that if you can you have a few words with the pacer before the race. Firstly it means you should be able to start at pretty much the same time (nothing worse than following a pacer only to find you started a few minutes ahead or behind them so your chips times are way out of line) but also to understand what pacing strategy they will use. I have paced half marathons and been told to do so at even pace throughout even though the last mile had a killer hill so, surprise, surprise, the group we had at 12 miles fell away. On other occasions, I have been asked to pace for the course, so get a few minutes ahead on the downhill parts and let those slide on the uphill portions.
Incidentally, the Wokey 2020 half is the only time I can really remember being in the mix of a pacer, but only with half a mile to go.
The sub 80 guy came past and I thought that for certain would mean I'd be over 80, but he must have got in 10secs clear of it, so I still scraped in that day.
We exchanged a "nod" to each other, but clearly I'd not seen him 90% of the race, it was a windy day so the time was under what I "could" have got that day, and I hadn't actually at all used him, so wasn't going to thank him as such
I followed the 90-minute pacer at Reading one year (coming back from an injury and wanted an easy run) and turns out he couldn't do 90 minutes: bit of a winker IMHO.
Pacing Dorney 10k round the lake on one of the customary very windy one direction days must be fun.
But I suppose pacers aren't invincible as your 96min 90min showed
Single for me today, 9miler, instead of the up the grassy bank in Wooburn I went along the trail a bit, and up the less steep but longer route up. Quite slow as the first couple of hundred metres is a twisty muddy little woody bit you have to bend under trees etc, and then emerges to a bit of a ploughed field slog.
Nice varied route though, that bit and especially having reached Flackwell and back on to flat smooth road, with the big sharp downhill to come, the best bit.
Luckily the year I did Dorney there was no wind. I have paced in windy conditions and then the chat with the pacer definitely does help: a pacer with a flag doesn't provide a lot of shelter but it is hard work!
Yes, pacers are not invincible but if you are having a bad day you do what you can and then fold away your kit. That year at Reading I started alongside the pacer so knew we had the same chip time. You know the profile at Reading so it has a steady uphill part to 3 miles, then fast down through the campus, a few ups and downs through the town centre and then that last uphill drag from 11 onwards. At the top of the campus I felt we were down on schedule and I asked him what his schedule was and he said "even" so I left him to it. He crossed the line with his flag still up.
If you're running 1:20 or faster then you really don't need a pacer, you must know what you're doing at that level. I suppose if there's a group on the pace when the going gets tough it might help spur you on. I have a former clubmate/rival who's run 1:14:xx the last two times at Wokingham so I am hoping to be duking it out with him rather than a pacer.
Weather was so nice and sunny yesterday that my planned 8-10 miles ended up being 11.5.