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20s seems like an awfully short recovery to me, but hey, what do I know about run/walking marathons?
8M with 6 x 0.3M hill last night and 8M to work this morning.
Sorry to hear the ribs aren't fully settled yet, Gul, but fingers crossed for you!
Good news about Berlin, GD.
BikeIt: that must have been a lot of caffeine. I might feel a bit lethargic if I miss my morning cuppa, but nothing on that scale!
PMJ - I wonder if you heard about this year's female winner of The Comrades Caroline Wöstmann? She adopted that strategy and destroyed the field to finish in a remarkable time of 6:12. She confounded many including the great Bruce Fordyce by taking walking breaks and pit stops but it certainly worked for her. She only took up running in 2008.
Caroline Wostmann also managed a negative split and I've got a feeling that she ran the final part of the race quicker than any of the men in the race so on a sample of one, the run-walk strategy seems to work. Unfortunately I seem to be having trouble downloading that episode so haven't been able to listen to the interview yet.
I suspect my caffeine consumption is even higher than yours BI - when I'm in the office I probably consume about 6 or 7 double espressos from the machine in the kitchen plus a fair few mugs of filter coffee when it's provided in meetings. Despite that, I never have any trouble getting off to sleep at night
A few easy runs for me so far this week to take me over the 2,000 mile mark for the year.
I have used a run/walk strategy in ultras. My rhythm has been run 6 miles and walk 3 minutes and closer to the end it becomes run 3 miles walk 2 minute. After these walk breaks I am much fresher and the first few miles after the break are easier. In fact after the first 2 breaks I've felt like I just started running. What I experienced is a delay in the fatigue which leads to slowing down and prevents 'the ultra-shuffle' or walking to the finish line. So I believe I can run faster on average over the whole course because of avoiding dramatic slow-down somewhere in the later stages.
So in a 9 hour event I may spend 24 minute walking, which is a net cost of 14 minutes. I avoided a long walk to the finish line which would cost hours (50 minutes for 4km as I experienced in 2013.)
So I think it is a range extender allowing the legs to recover and resume race pace. So say you could run 20 miles at 6:45 pace then detonate, a plan may be to take walk breaks to delay the detonation point and try and get a sub-3 marathon by extending the useful range of the legs. Just 20 seconds doesn't sound much to me.
Caroline Worstmann is the new superhero of SA running and everyone is hoping she could have an extended period of dominance like Bruce. She is also a university lecturer so I suppose I've no excuse other that she is hugely more talented and capable runner than me.
A nice 3 days of running here:
Tuesday : 70 minute 'treadmill hill' session with 6x2minutes
Wednesday: work run commute double 6.5km each way
Thursday: treadmill hill running for 15 minutes before work run commute double 6.5km each way
Lorenzo - I believe that's correct, her last 8k split was faster than any of the men. Similar here on the coffee consumption, counted 8 mugs yesterday and like you, it doesn't seem to stop me from sleeping but never stop drinking it so can't comment on the withdrawal effect.
BI - A satisfying treble there. What's the temp like there at the mo? I would imagine it's starting to warm up.
GD - Congrats on the Berlin place. Would like to do that one day. Will be interesting t hear your thoughts on the course and race.
Gul - Sounds like you might be turning a corner there with the rib injury. It's a fairly slow healing process.
Abbers - A good 4 days of training done.
VTr - Good to hear from ya but shame about that nasty head cold. Perhaps one of own who has now surpassed the thread target by miles "literally" could offer you and Lorenzo some advice re a change or improvement to the training schedule on how to break the 3 hour mark. I seem to recall Jools was stuck on that challenge for some time and once the breakthrough was made it was onwards and upwards.
I won't bother posting my yearly mileage as it's a mere morsel compared to folk on here, put it this way, I haven't a hope of breaking a 1,000 for the year. I've managed 4 runs this week, in metric -10/10/5/5.
I'm going to listen to marathon talk on my flight home today with interest. Seems crazy to me I have to say.
Quiet week here, only 2 runs so far but parkrun and a race on Sunday.
Interesting chat on the run/walk strategies. Back in February/Match I was supposed to do a 24 mile LSR but a mate talked me into trotting along with him at the Thames Meander marathon instead, The idea was to run it as an LSR, grab a medal and have another marathon on my total.
I made a point of stopping at all of the feed stations and having a chat to ensure I couldn't go for a decent time. I barely checked my watch and ended up with a 3.32. Still probably a bit too quick for the planned session but I felt fine the following day. Years ago that would have been a great PB and yet the run/break strategy appeared to make it a bit easier. Of course I was fitter than previous years due to being in-campaign but still thought provoking. Hmm...
Last run was a 10 miler on Wednesday night. My watch always measures short, so I end up having to run further. After the run it told me I had done 10 miles, my mapping site told me I'd actually done 10.23. So, depending on which reference I go by, it was either 7.27 pace or 7.16. I'll take either!
GD
I may try the run / walk thing with the short stops in training and see how it feels. In reality it is what I do anyway on training runs as they are through London (roads to cross) or along the Thames (gates etc). 1,979 miles so parkrun tomorrow and 2,000 will come on on Sunday's long run.
Interesting to hear about the run/walk strategy. I can see how it works for an ultra, but would it be a good strategy for 26.2? Reminds me of a nightmare I had before VLM2010 in which some suggested I tried 21 x 1M / 400m reps... You could take each recovery really slow, say 10m/m, and 6:45m/m for the mile reps would comfortably give you a sub 3:15...
Well that was some parkrun- blowing a hooley on the NE coast. Fortunately it deterred the skinny young men and only the solid oldies turned up, allowing me to sneak a 5th place with 19:01. Something left in the tank for tomorrows beach race.
Gerard, let's hope a low mileage year gives you plenty of motivation and opportunity for next year!
Windy parkrun for me too - in middle of a 12.5 miler - lacklustre 21:27 enough for 1st VoGit & 75% WAVA, but felt hard work . . . .
Paced at 20 minutes today and came in at 19:59 and all was well. I paced the same course a month ago and struggled to hit 20 so it was nice to feel there was something left in the bag today. 17 miles tomorrow: uphill with a tailwind on the way out and downhill into a headwind on the way back.
Parkrun for me this morning as well - windy but not gale force. Would have pleased to get close to 19:30 so somewhat surprised to end up with 19:17 and a 75% WAVA as well.
However, not quite as impressive a parkrun as younger Lorenzito who despite having played about 3 hours of badminton yesterday evening set off with the leading pack before pulling away at the end of the first lap (out of 3) and winning in 17:17 (a PB by nearly half a minute) thereby regaining bragging rights in the Lorenzo household.
Not sure yet whether tomorrow will be a low key local XC race or a couple of miles slower run.
Hats off to younger Lz - that's a big reduction in PB over 5K
17 miles done this morning. I live at the top of a hill and hate the drag back up at the end so drove to the bottom of the hill to start so I had a downhill finish.
The route was basically the less hilly of the options I have. Wycombe is surrounded by long, tree topped ridges with valleys between, so you can run up and down valleys or across them. I ran up Bryant's Bottom (and also Brimmers Lane and Haw Lane, has to be a joke in there somewhere) to get to the top of the valley, flipped over to the next valley and back down. Only slight navigation error was a turn too early which added 0.5 mile (which was OK) and an ascent and descent of Bledlow Ridge (which was not).
Had my watch still in km from yesterday's parkrun so it came out as just over 28km so nice mental exercise counting up to 26.
2,002 miles so far this year, can take it easy now.
Well done, Lorenzo Junior!
A thoroughly mediocre cross-country for me: 16th, behind 3 clubmates I would normally beat (and last season my finishes were generally top 10, bar one 15th). Oops! Still, blew the cobwebs away.
9M this morning to bring up 50M for the week.
Birch-great wava for an oldun
PMJ- textbook pacing
Lorenzo-nice parkrun but junior is another league and with that pb Id say something starting with a 16 isn't far away !
0052-I think we all will be giving badminton a try now !
Jools-Let your buddies enjoy the win while they can !
staples now out my leg and making slow progress here
GUL-how are the ribs now, are you of the bench yet ?
I regularly run down Koch Street (KK MacArthur winner of 1912 Olympic Marathon lived at 102) then I go up Kamp Street
VT - Great to read your core injury recovery continues. Good mileage over the last few weeks
GM - Good progress
GD - Good 10 miler
OO52 - Good controlled Parkrunning in though conditions
Birch - Congrats on the age grade 1st Parkrun
Lorenzo - Good Parkrunning and fantastic by junior
PMJ - Well done on breaking 2k miles with a good 17 miler. Perfect pacing in the Parkrun.
Jools - Nice weekly mileage and glad you blew the cobwebs away, even if your not 100% pleased with you XC
Les - Good to read your staples are out - keep on recovering
Bike It - Excellent 20 miler in interesting and warm conditions. Make sure you replace those electrolytes too.
I'm running a marathon on Thursday but in true' Madbark' style, ran two 15 milers during the week and 2 races this weekend. I ran a solid, extremely muddy and windy 3 mile XC yesterday in 19:13. This was good enough for 2nd M45 and I'm due a prize.
Today I ran a 5 mile Santa run wearing my black and white Bah Humbug Santa hat. I was 9th after the first mile and 7th at half way. I kept moving through the field closing on the leaders and went into 3rd place after about 4 miles.
I was closing on the leading two but was stupid, and thought I was running 6 miles! I didn't give it everything over the last 1/2 mile but had closed from about 100m at one point to about 10m behind. It only dawned on me we were at the end when the first two had a sprint finish battle. I thought we had a lap of the park to run as we had started with a lap and the rest was out and back. Doh!
Oh well, the prize was the same for the first three so no harm done. I got luxury chocolate biscuits, Belgium Chocolates and a bottle of Cava. Excellent! My time was 29:36 so about 5:55 pace.
That's 65 miles this week and 35 consecutive running days. I'll be attempting another sub 3 marathon but without a taper. Loving it!
Good running badbark. I just had a sneaky look at you on po10 (love the new photo in the NI vest by the way) and you are knocking the sub-3s off like ten pin bowling: any thought of trying to do one really fast one?
Another cracking run Badbark, your really are on a hot streak.
My beach race was pretty mediocre, but a great testing run with the tide in, and a consolation team prize.
2 weeks to shine up for my next 10 km at the famous Saltwell Park in Gateshead- a head to head with junior. Not sure I'll fare better than you Lorenzo
VLM for real starts after Christmas, now is base building. I am doing 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 up to Christmas so 5 down, 3 to go. These 3 need to be squeezed in so Thursday this week, Wednesday next and then Tuesday week after.
This week will be the 18 and not much more beyond that. Day off tomorrow, then 5 and 7, 18 in Thursday for 30. Friday off, Sat easy parkrun and Sunday XC race to make a low 40s mile week.
VLM training for full is all that plus some to get to ~55 miles a week. The big difference, at least in my mind, is the MLR. When I am truly marathon training I will do a long and a medium run so say 18 and 13 for 30+ miles in those 2 runs, then another 4 runs a week to go over 50. In base I cut back the runs so just 5 runs a week.
Where's everyone gone?!
Good structured plan there PMJ - agree with you about the benefit of the midweek run but I often find it difficult to fit a couple of hours running in. How do you manage it?
Nice bit of prize grabbing by you there Madbark and a good animal spotting session from BI. Sounds brutally hot out there at the moment.
6.5 miles across the various commuting legs today took me up to my highest ever annual mileage with 24 days to spare.
Funny enough PMJ, I've planned a very similar approach but not with the same level of distance. For the last 13 weeks I've run a 10 miler after work every Wednesday in order to get myself used to doing them every att that time every week. I'll do another tomorrow but will have a break for a couple of weeks before campaign proper begins on Dec 28th.
Those 10 milers along with the LSRs at weekends should boost my miles and hopefully provide greater endurance.
My campaign will involve 4 and 5 runs per week alternately with spinning classes and core/strength sessions at the gym which I do every week anyway.
Great running again Badbark, well played!
GD
Good parkruns from OO, Birch, PMJ and Lorenzo and what an amazing parkrun from younger Lorenzito!!!
PMJ - nice 17 miler to bring up 2,000 miles.
Jools - XC still a good session.
Leslie - pleased to hear the staples are out! Ribs are on the mend, but I think it's going to take a bit longer.
Bike It - not surprised you slowed down in that sort of temperature! No idea how you do it.
Badbark - crazy stuff as usual and very impressive too. All the best with the marathon on Thursday! Will you taper tomorrrow
Lorenzo - still here - just lurking! Well done on the new highest annual mileage.
Ribs are still sore every now and then - Saturday night was bad for some reason. Starting to think I might have to write off the rest of the year and set some new targets once I get back into running. Spotted a local marathon which got me quite excited. It's in Boston (Lincolnshire not Massachusetts!) which is only 30-odd miles away! But then I spotted that it's on my wedding anniversary. Oh well.
GD - good to have a few weeks between campaigns!
Been busy lately & not had the chance to check in.
I like the idea if the run / walk marathon and I think it is doable if practised in training. I did the run / walk a lot in my training for the 24 hour race and think it enabled me to get the extra miles in for training. For example a 30 mile run broke up into run /walk was done in 4 hr 15 minutes. Whereas if I ran without stopping I don't think I could have done 30 miles in one go?
Great park running going too, well done junior Lorenzo.
I’ve run 100% effort in two marathons this year. I had a proper build up to London, and then Dublin was the 4th marathon in 9 weeks, but finished both in 2:51. So I don’t really think it makes a huge difference to me. I’m capable of a sub 2:50 but with a 5k PB of only 18:03, I don’t have the speed for much better.
I love running marathons but don’t like the thought of 3-4 months of hard training towards running just one. So much can go wrong - the weather, illness or injury, normal life stresses or just having a bad day, that can scupper a targeted goal. I now prefer running lots of marathons targeting sub 3 in each.