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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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I can confirm there was similar issues around the 3:30 pace group. We also had frequent interruptions in rhythm due to relay runners jogging ahead forcing the group to bunch & slow. Any bends were problematic too - it’s why I ditched them at about 10K.
First run back today. Very creaky to start but freed up after a mile or two. Managed 8M@8:34 reasonably comfortably.
TR - I feel for you, and empathise. It's getting over that initial hump that takes the most mental effort. Like you say it's tedious, but remember it always is, right up until it isn't, and it's the point where it isn't that keeps us coming back for more.
Reg - have you settled on a final pace? I think they've done two numbers before - I think the logic is it's easier to identify who you're racing, as apparently we're only interested in racing other championship runners. Realistically I think it'll provide a literal target on your back to non-championship runners, but even then that's half of the fun.
Jooligan - sounds like you've come out of it in decent shape.
Track last night. Before Manchester (and other marathons), I've done a 2km TT (probably around 3km effort +/- I guess). Watching my shin, and a little bit of effort on Tuesday meant I decided to be sensible and break it up. Ran 4 x 400s + 2 x 200s in a cruising fashion, with a 200m jog/shuffle between each. 82, 82, 78, 78, 36, 35. Done the job to shift a little sluggishness.
I've thought a lot about pace as I am not an experienced marathon runner and I have never run one off the back of 'proper' training. I am keeping it pretty open, I'd expect something around the Reading Half effort which would equate to about 2:33. I think 2:31 is probably the high end and 2:35 probably the low end.
In '16 I went into it with no idea what shape I was in (I was running less, but still a decent amount, and was reasonably consistent with it, and in the gym 4 or 5 days a week lifting) so my first 7 x 5km splits were all between 18:05-18:26, before 17:52 from 35-40km, and then 17:23 5km pace from 40km to the finish. The gym work definitely helped me keep my form throughout so I need to get back to that.
Love the big aims Reg whilst describing yourself as not a hardened marathoner. In a way that moight helps as you haven't had miserable experiences to temper expectations.
Jools - there's no-one I'd back more to see out a marathon with less than ideal prep!
Just as an alternative to all this long distance madness, I went and did the shortest track reps - 200m!
16x200m, 60secs
Bungled taking the first rep, but took the other 15.
Windy one way.
pretty much 36xx that direction and 35xx the other, bar one that crept into 36xx.
I didn't really mean I am inexperienced in running marathons as I have run about 5 standalone marathons but they are all years apart. The preparation for each, or lack thereof, has been completely different and haphazard. It was more in the context of knowing my MP.
I've not run one for 6 years and a lot has changed since then. Super shoes, proper mileage in the build up and some PBs.
SG - you know you want to do a marathon really
Reg - 100m strides for me tomorrow am. 2 x 4m jogs on the menu today. I think you'll find a good group at the kind of pace you're targeting, plus will probably find a few of the borderline sub-2:30 guys who weren't quite ready to run under it to target later on too.
I'm not setting any targets other than to run it hard and controlled and see what happens. Ideally that will, as a minimum, allow me to re-stamp my Champs card for next year, but we'll see. Race number is 1945 for anybody who wants to track.
Sounded tough Jools - well done though.
Good luck to TT and Reg - just downloading the app now as it happens, will load you both on. RR green vest TT?
Decent training this week - On the golf club paths for 5 x 1200 on Tuesday, managed to go through 800 just over 2.30 and got them in or below 3.50.
Last night caught the rain just on 6pm for the 16 x 300's on the track. Kept them around or just under 50, 46 for the last one. Horrid conditions.
7 mile run to parkrun tomorrow on the cards I think.
I am assuming they don't actually police the wearing of club vests in the champs start?! My club one is pretty crap and I am the only one in the wave so all of my team will be wearing the same one :-)
I'm having a few issues this week, around the glute and high hamstring region so I may well have another rest day tomorrow to help it settle, either that or just a couple of miles recovery.
6 miles easy with 5 x 100m strides at lunch in the rain, I was aiming around MP but they came out a little quicker.
Cheers SC, nice reps there.
Reg - I don't know on the club vest I'm afraid but maybe include it in your bag just in case? Good luck managing the niggles.
Legs feel like leaded crap: that’s a good sign right? 😆
Recovery this morning and like Jools, legs felt dreadful 😄. Vo2max is up to 70 for the first time, Garmin race predictor is saying 2:23 😂 seems sensible so I’ll be setting out inside HM PB pace tomorrow 🤷🏻♂️
Re wet shoes - when I did Chester in 2016 the start was in the racecourse. An hour or so miling round in the damp and dewy grass. A few were wearing standard plastic bags over their shoes. Very good idea. Whilst they will get wet if it rains during the race, always good to start with dry feet and rescue blister risk.
A word of caution. Really wet, quite cold too. I would go equipped should one required getting back in one piece.
Double Helly. Fantastic combination for keeping warm in a storm. Bin liner as a kind of poncho. Not so daft to keep it on when running. As for shoes? When I did XC in the really wet/ice/mud, I would put plastic bags over my feet before putting my shoes on. Surprising how warm and snug they remained.
Bum bag with food. Finally a hat.
Btw Reg. Garmin had my VO2 Max at 79.0 today. It's bikery mind. How about 3 Watts/kg, Av HR 101 bpm?
🙂
From the moment I felt my shin go I knew it was going to be about managing my pain to stay just the right side of it to allow me to get to the finish line. I tried to pick up the pace a few times to see if that would stretch things out, but to no avail.
Ultimately it became a very long jog to the finish, being constantly passed throughout (by a disproportionate number of grade A muppets who elbowed and shoved their way past people, me included, to stay on the hallowed blue line - I might have had one or two 'discussions' lol).
Overall it was a day/weekend where anything that could go wrong did go wrong.
My tummy was a little dodgy (food related - need to find new carb loading weekend options from my traditional it seems).
I missed my targeted train due to misjudging how busy it would be, resulting in my not getting to Blackheath until well after 9, where I found a pitiful small number of loos, the queue for which resulted in I and others having to hand our bags in at the tent rather than the lorry.
This resulted in me stood at the very back of the championship pen and having to work my way forward.
Basically a chain reaction of events.
On the plus side, my Dad was always less impressed by times than he was by effort (or 'heart' as he used to phrase it), moxy, and stubbornness, the latter being a particularly strong family trait, and one that was fully on display yesterday.
I've never been in that much pain in a race. Fighting my body for 40km+ was attritional, both physically and mentally, but I now know I can take that much pain and keep moving, so I'll take that as a positive to move forward with.
The marathon is brutal, unsentimental, and takes no prisoners, and that's why I love it (and why I'm determined to address all my obvious weak points so I can repay it for yesterday next time out).
Reg - good to see you again, and well done.
SC - cheers for the shout out!
🙂
Reggie - Tried so hard to spot you, but even the app couldn't help!
Not as good as usual yesterday, weather was crap and the footie put a downer on proceedings too, annoying as Bmth have never played on marathon day - and I hope they never do again! (Apart from possibly a FA Cup semi final LOL)
You had a decent, probably unknowing battle with Mr Foster for a lot of it - was interesting how the 2 of you converged.
More insane, a woman I remember mentioning on here from a Battersea Park 5k - screaming and crying the whole way round, literally noise the whole way, for a lowish 17, did 2.35! Where the heck did that come from?!
Jools - typically mad - no doubt you'll follow it up with a 30 mile 7000feet hill run soon.
TT - i forgot to add you to my tracking, but that sounds some real hardiness to make it through like that!
Much more humble stuff for me today - it's that part of my 5k schedule where it's 200m crazy.
Last week was 16x200 off 60s, all 35xx / 36xx sort of lick.
This week, 12x200 off 90s, an outlier a piece of 33xx and 36xx, but basically 34xx one direction, 35xx the other.
Makes sense - 1 sec quicker per 200m.
Wind felt a bit stronger than last week. Would be nice to have a still track for a "proper" go, but it's what it is.
Had a small bit of company today, a local running shop owner and coach was there with the kid who won the Marlow 7 last year.
He was also doing 200s, but luckily not in sync with me! Looked like he was doing some sort of float in between too and then bigger rests. Whereas mine were 200m, haunches, up, 200m, haunches, up, and repeat
Well done Reg. You’ll have to give it another go next year 😆
Well toughed out TT. Looks/sounds like you had a similar race to myself - albeit 90s/km quicker.
Unsurprisingly, given my relatively low mileage, post-covid symptoms/injury & another year older! I found doubling up even tougher this year.
I had very little confidence going into the race especially as the inside of my left knee has been painful since Manchester. Wednesday’s run only aggravated it & it was no better at parkrun Saturday. I couldn’t lift my leg properly without pain.
I set off at the very back of my wave & let everyone go which meant I had the unusual experience of running alone for the first mile or so. Thereafter I was being overtaken constantly since I was running at just over 8 pace whereas the following wave were going at or below 8. Starting off yellow meant that the 3rd mile had a bit of a rollercoaster in it too which took me off guard as I was expecting the usual downhill cruise.
I ran to a slightly lower HR than last week & hence a slower pace.
My ‘race’ wasn’t helped by an unscheduled pit-stop about 12K which cost me about 3 minutes.
Went through halfway in 1:51 but it was already feeling harder than I expected. By 25K I was slowing further & it was definitely a mental battle to run to the end. I saw my brother in Parliament Square which was a bonus boost but I still couldn’t lift my pace even on the Mall. Finished in a disappointing 3:54. Only consolation was I never walked.
Taking a few days off now.
SG - nice faster reps. I don't see me doing (m)any of those for a while - I need to go right back to basics and rebuild my strength.
RicF - a healthy sense of self preservation is not something I'm ever aware of having been accused of having. It keeps things interesting if nothing else!
Reg - how're you feeling now? Will you go again for an autumn/other marathon?
He came past me about between 16 & 17 iirc. Absolutely flying but weaving & stuttering cause he was running 60-90s quicker than anyone else around him!
Jools – yes, the relay runners certainly get in the way a bit. Can’t imagine it is an especially pleasant experience for them either. Very well done for London. I have no idea how you back up like that. A lady I work with got caught on one of the stuck trains. She said she arrived and everyone had started running. She had a clear first two miles!
Good to see a return to speed training from you, SC. Come on then – what races are lined up?!
Well done, Reg. In spite of a y disappointment, that is still a hefty PB. I hope you can look back with pride on an incredible training block. BTW – for some reason I think the 5 x 100m strides in the final couple of days of P&D is a little risky. Not sure why as strides usually help loosen things up, but I think by this point when one is tapering there is a tendency to really push them and perhaps invite injury. I certainly took a sore hamstring into London one year as a result.
Thanks, SC. I had six or seven serious stabs at sub 2:50. Got down to 2:50:26 in Abingdon (non-super shoes!) and 22:50:16 in London 2019. Both were pre-second child and for me the resultant disrupted sleep, possible extra eating as a result (not an excuse) have les to a few minutes decline. But I still really enjoy it 😊.
Sorry it was a tough day for you, TT. Amazing mental strength to cope with pain for 40.2k!
Plenty of recovery running here. Nothing faster than 8m/m yet. Mostly short 4-5M, although have enjoyed a couple of 10M on the canal. Finished yesterday with 6 x short hill strides. So good to reawaken things a little. 5.5 weeks to Dartmoor Discovery. Time to get back to some bigger hills soon!
I've thought a lot about this one, too much probably, certainly before the race. I am still ruminating on it to some degree. It may seem somewhat churlish but I was not that happy with my race. Hopefully my disappointment is not predicated on deluded expectations, I don't think it is, or was.
The party line when asked on target time was 2:35, well sub 2:35 and I thought that was a fairly sensible, if not a conservative target. Training had gone well, for me at least, I suspect if a professional or elite runner had had my build-up, they'd have categorised it as disastrous. The last six weeks however I'd consistently managed 80 miles a week and even one 100 mile week. I guess the average for the whole block was 70 miles. Quality was missing though, if 80/20 is the rough rule, I suspect I was nearer 95/5 and even that sounds generous.
Race week however did not seem to go so well. I don't think I was overly anxious but I certainly spent a lot of time thinking about the race. From Thursday to Saturday I had a headache and also woke up every night with night sweats and had to move to the spare room, soaked through. Additionally my groin was sore, hamstring tendinopathy returned and my glute was tight. I'd had all of this at various times in the block but they'd been absent or low-level for a while. I think the strides aggravated it but it seemed weird that a taper would bring back such issues. It's all stuff I run through normally but my concern was that the marathon would prove to be too much.
I could still feel the hamstring tendon at rest as I sat on the train to Blackheath with my wife, kids thankfully absent. The forecast rain had held off pre-race and I was able to prepare my ailments as best as I could, still working a massage ball into my glute to try and release the spasm just an hour before kick-off. It felt good to be in the Champs pen and I was still hopeful that I could manage my way through this race to a good time, my ambition was still there. I lined up about two thirds back as the elites were introduced to the crowds.
Heart beat noise starts and we're off. There was a bit of stride chopping early on and it took a while to get up to pace but I was happy to be held up to an extent. I didn't feel too bad in those early miles, pulled up along side TT and exchanged a few words. My heart rate had settled, having very briefly gone a little too high, up a small hill and pace was where I expected. I could feel my glute and hamstring though and my fear was that eventually they would fail me, so I just tried to relax and run normally.
Through 5km in 17:47 which whilst a bit quick, was still in my acceptable range and my heart rate and breathing were spot on. From here I just got into the mindset of ticking off 5km blocks, second 5km was 17:57 So through 10km in 35:44.
It was pissing down now, I had briefly considered discarding my cap during that first, rather muggy, 5km. I was glad I didn't though, as the rain ran away nicely of its peak. As I rounded Cutty Sark, I saw my wife, she was busy upstaging me, firstly being visible on the television coverage and then by being interviewed by BBC radio!
I remember still feeling bullish at this point, as I stuck my tongue out at her. The race from Cutty Sark up to 20km became a bit of a blur. I'd clocked a slower 5k split of 18:09 from 10-15km and it's probably somewhere between here and Tower Bridge that my legs started to feel heavy. I missed the 20km marker, indicative of the fact that I was now slightly disengaged from the race. I noticed the mats as I crossed them but wasn't really sure if it was 20km or not.
As I crossed Tower Bridge I assumed it had been, so pressed it anyway, the official 4th 5km split was 18:21 but I saw 18:40 due to the late pressing, I could feel I'd slowed though. My mood had changed too, I recall finding the crowds on the bridge as a somewhat unwelcome noise. I went through halfway in 1:16:16, I didn't have that feeling like I was going to hemorrhage a lot of time in the second half though, my mind was still about double that plus a bit, maybe 2:33/2:34. My only negative thought was that the niggles I had had, put low 2:30s out of the equation
It was not long after this that people started to pass me, one of which swerved across, causing me to react and tweak my hamstring tendon and almost immediately I started to lose ground more obviously, the group I'd been in, slowly moved away.
I went from 20km to 25km in 18:28 so only 7 seconds slower but that was the last relatively quick split of the day. I then remember seeing the 17 mile mark and thinking about my regular 9 mile route, I had slowed but that really didn't seem like that far to go, it's just that out and back I do all the time, if it wasn't for the steady stream of people now passing me I'd have been quite happy, if a little leggy.
The crowd were also really getting on my tits now! When we went under the enclosed bridge bit, wherever that was, I felt more at peace and even sped up, but that was short lived, I would have quite happily finished that race in a tunnel, just to avoid all the commotion.
From 25 to 30km then with a 19:20. 8 miles to go and I've slowed to 6:20 a mile, weirdly though, that was it, I didn't slow down anymore. It's not like I decided to grit my teeth and up the effort, I simply stopped slowing down. There were still people passing, including a couple of local faces. One was SGs team mate Mr Foster, I remember looking at him as he pulled away and thinking how easy he looked, and assuming he'd be finishing in about 2:31, I guess I figured he'd started a few minutes after me and had made big inroads. Just shows how a big positive split and being passed can make you feel like you're doing worse than you are.
Most distressing of all though, and this was probably before Mr Foster passed actually, a lady came by being paced by what I can only assume was her husband or coach. He was giving her lots of angry motivational chat. All I could focus on though, was the absolute fecal carnage festooned across her shorts and down her legs. She'd obviously missed Paula's bridge stop. Given the time line and the nature of her behaviour, I do wonder if it is the same lady SG mentions!
Those last 12km were just about getting home, I'd managed to focus in and done a bit of maths, I figured 4 minutes per km would be enough to make the Champs spot safe for next year and get me under 2:40. 30-35km was 19:51 and 35-40km 19:52, final 2.2km at 19:48 pace! So after all the fun and games of the first 18 miles, I actually locked into some metronomic pacing
So over the line in 2:38:28. No dramatic collapse or emptying of the tank, it became more about a solid PB, Champs time for next year and just getting it done without doing too much damage. I am still not too sure what to make of it, I think I need to run 3-4 of these back to back making small changes each time to truly discover if it's a true reflection or just a 'bad' day. Again not wishing to sound churlish of course, I know it's still a good time.
I don't need to have done a marathon to recognise how brutal they are and how so much can happen.
I saw your start, well ahead of Mr Foster and thought you're either on for a massive one (relative to your ability, as a 2.38 is still a massive one on most scales!), or you'd slightly over reached.
What was shocking to me was Foster, Ferguson and Ellis from my boys were doing near perfect pacing from about 5k to 20miles,even going a second quicker for a couple of the later ones.
I dare say Foster measured his to almost perfection. However, he had what I'd call a perfect few months build up. 20mile and HM races utterly nailed.
I think fusing the best parts of your last year and this year's higher mileage would have got you closer to what you'd wanted, but like you say a 7-8min pb at that level is pretty mad.
I love the idea that our runner pal was caked in turd and that's what it takes to be top 3 in the masses. Screaming, crying, being bullied and not stopping with a gut of poopee
I don't know with races. I feel a little "off" right now, so the last thing I want is some massive local face off v rivals.
I might slide back in with some utter Cock and Biscuits level races to get the feel again.
I did notice Berkely have an interesting event on the "Middle" bank holiday Monday.
A mile, 5k and 10k all on the same evening! That'd be an interesting way to rack a few races up!
....or put in a mass of mediocrity at least
It's about 1hr 45 or so drive though which might get me working out a cost v benefit analysis though!
(Yes I have been on another course recently!)
I improved from a 2:56 to a 2:46 in six months doing that. Average mileage running was 18!
Two sessions of 5 x half mile and one long run was it for the week.
That other matter. I've seen a few runners in my time who have soiled themselves. Personally speaking, I refuse to equate running some race with the abject loss of dignity caused by making such a mess of myself.
No. I stop & drop at high speed and sod anyone's shoes that get in the way 😮.
That said. From my fishing days I remember a furious club member who had been rudely interrupted by some random guy, who was so distracted by his imminent squitters, that he didn't see him until he had unloaded into his tackle box. 🙄
🙂