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Nicko, yes I'd say you'd probably done a bit too much in the previous days to run a good parkrun. Nice weeks mileage.
SBD, nice bit of pace pickup. I'm doing Burnham half. it's a pretty low key event with plenty of parking etc and a pretty straightforward drive straight down m5 and with an 11am start i dont need to leave until after 8. It's also cheap at £20.
oo, i decided against it. It's a lot of time out and expense. Ive decided that unless unavoidable such as London, I'm going to stick to races that dont involve hotel stays. Looks like you had a good run this morning!
Sadly i was too hungover at 10am to run in bristol so drove home and went out at 12 for 12. It wasn't overly pleasant or fun but it's done.
Well done on getting the 12 done DT. Are you targeting a PB at Burnham?
Go easy on those niggles Jools.
Excellent work at the 10K Leslie - the improvement curve is looking very impressive.
A good 15 to finish off a high mileage week nicko. Just need to make sure you don't try to squeeze too many speed sessions in.
Hope OO had a good one at GNR. How did you manage to get the last minute place?
Hope G-D is OK and back running.
16 miles for me late afternoon as the last run of the cut back week. Legs felt reasonably good so decided to pick the pace up to marathon effort for the last 5 miles - this came out at 6:39 pace which was quite pleasing and gave an average 7:16 for the run.
Six weeks left to Abingdon, so three big weeks with a couple of 10K and HM races and then a three week taper.
I suspect oo was not himself today to have got a place midweek.
Nice fast finish there, looking very good.
I managed 1:24:45 at the GNR, my slowest for a while but not too shabby. I ran at a steady 6:30 pace nursing a creaky hip. Then from 11 miles I emptied the tank over the last 2 miles with 6:23 and a 5:59, giving the negative split I was hoping for. This at least bodes well for my marathon in October.
I can't even look at Strava properly as I feel really left out not being able to run, I hate being on the bench.
So, after thinking the calf was better, it came back with it's mate, Shin Splints. Haven't run a step in over a week so looked at alternatives.
Had another cracking lake swim last week, I would have completed the 2 miles but it was getting dark and they forced us to do the shorter loop to finish. 1.8 miles completed, though. Got my event pack through the post, really looking forward to a different sports event and bagging that Classics medal.
I looked at how much time I spend running each week. It's usually around 5 to 6 hours, so I decided to match that time spent with other stuff.
The swim took an hour, I setup a turbo trainer in the garage and did 30 mins on the bike, concentrating on HR zones.
Over the weekend I had two really good bike rides. On Saturday I did 26 quality miles on the mountain bike doing one of my trail roots. Soft mud was replaced by sand and dust in the dry conditions.
yesterday, I got the road bike out and hit the Surrey Hills and targeted three decent climbs and totalled 36 miles at 16mph average (topped out at 38mph, that felt good!).
So that was all around 5 hours of activity, at least it feels like I'm keeping some level of fitness.
Leg actually feels pretty good today. I'll give it another few days and assess it to see if it can take a run.
NYC was never going to be a PB attempt, that has now been forced upon me. It will, however, be a good study on how to run a marathon on just a 4 week campaign programme!
That's a pretty decent run at GNR OO and a good turn of speed over the last two miles. Were you held up at the start and how did you manage to get the last minute place?
Bad news on the calf G-D but excellent work on maintaining the fitness. Hopefully you'll be back running in anger soon.
Good golf course miles PMJ - Wycombe Heights and Flackwell Heath?
Four weeks should be plenty DT.
Back to the intervals for me this afternoon, so 6 sets of 1,000m with 500 jog recovery. Kilometre splits came out as 3:43, 3:43, 3:43, 3:40, 3:40 and 3:37. Heart rate peaking at only 176 so still a bit conservative on the pace!
0054 you said sub 1:25 and put the effort in at the end to get it ,well done.
PMJ carefully negotiated 15 ,guessing on the course you wouldn't even see it coming just wake up in a mess !!!
Gdawg sure you've loads a time yet or well maybe not ..nice x training and fairly moving at 38 mph ..
SBD good long reps and getting quicker too.
and I did some 400 m reps myself after a 12 hr day shift , legs didn't really want to play ball after Sunday's race ( the winner only ran 40:30 so scope for a prize maybe in the future if no fasties turn up ) and the wind was quite strong at times so one way was quite a bit slower than the other.
8x400m after last weeks 6x400:
6:30 m/mile into the wind and 6:20 with the wind which seemed to die down just as I set of most times , rep 7 was really hard work due to the wind it would have been with the wind but a local dog walker I know came out of a shortcut just before I set of with a German Shepard and there was no way on a narrowish path I was flying past that without getting snapped so went the other way lol !!! 5.5 mile in total.
Legs feeling good 2 days after, hopefully the hip is settling down.
Tough sesh Leslie👍
More solid intervals from you: I wouldn't worry about heart rate as they look plenty hard enough. How hard do you perceive them to be?
Yes, always concerns me. If I was to stand in the middle of the High Street, shout out "Fore!" and smash a gold ball down and hit someone I would end up in court but golf courses still have signs that indicate if the same happens to you on a public footpath on their land then you are at fault for being there. I have similar issues with a lot of signage: if you have a right of way on your private property then you need to embrace it and not put up signs such as "Bull in field", "Beware of riders who may approach fast" etc.
PMJ - The intervals were pretty hard but I was aiming for six consistent or increasingly quicker intervals so a bit conservative on the first few. These are meant to be V02max intervals at 5K pace but I'm not yet at maximum oxygen uptake, the lactate tolerance tends to be the limiting factor. Will try to push a little bit more over the next few weeks and see where the pace gets to!
OO - I did come across a recent section on the GNR website which suggested you could apply for a faster club runner entry but without any details of the criteria. Are you aware of anyone entering via this route? I ran GNR in 1985 and would like to go back again sometime to beat my 1:25:xx time!
A good set of 400m reps Leslie - a wise decision on avoiding the German Shepherd!
15 miles at the end of the day on the country roads. Legs a bit sluggish in the first few miles but managed to pick the pace up in the second half to give an average pace of 7:24 with the last four miles at 6:42 pace.
My advice would be to try the ballot as the best entry route. Would be great to see you up here next year 👍
Nice reps and 15, SBD.
Nice 800's, Leslie. Getting a good bit of consistency in now.
GNR is on my bucket list, however it's behind Berlin mara in the immediate term. I always thought there was a GFA option which was a 1.25 half or a sub 40 10k? A lot of popular half maras do this. I got late entry Bath a couple of years ago, months after the race was full via GFA.
G-Dawg, fingers crossed you get back and running asap.
Did an easy 6m progressive Tuesday, moving from 8.14mm to mile 6 of 6.57. Just getting the legs used to moving a bit faster. Easy but hilly 9 last night and I am beginning to feel back in the swing of things. 6M tempo planned today which will start out at mara pace and hopefully progress. First one in about 5-6 weeks so will take it cautiously. Got the Midland rd relays a week Saturday so that will give me a reasonable idea of fitness.
Trying to shift the holiday weight. Whilst the scales only have me 2lb heavier it has a nearly 3% body fat increase which as a proportion when you generally aren't that fat, is quite a bit and I can feel it in my work clothes. I've had a good week of early nights, clean eating and no booze so far so hopefully things will start fitting a bit better next week.
0054 I was just talking ta club mate who ran GNR and this 3 year bond was what she mentioned as to how she got in ! Id have guessed the fast club runner standard is sub 75 half as that seems to be the bar for entry to a fast mara these days , more than a few rungs above us mere fun runners lol !!!
DT good to see you back on the wagon again after your excesses on holiday ..
First club session in a while choice was 45 min tempo or 2 x15 min hard with 3 min rest , I chose the later and after Tuesdays 400's set of like I was doing 400's again at the front of the pack !!!!!!! Most of the fasties were doing the longer 45min so nobody bothered to pass ..
Pace was good after I got it reined in a tad with a 6:42/ 6:36/6:58 /6:39 for the 4 miles with hills on mile 3 slowing me a tad and 6:47 pace for the last approx 0.6 mile in the 30 mins with 4.6m covered, rest was 3 mins but a miscalc saw me only scoop 2 mins ..oops !
as a comparison my average 5k pace in august was 6:48 with a number pinned on so 4.6 mile above current 5k pace was a fairly decent effort and just over 8 mile in total.
I went down after work to tempo. Made it 10k instead of 6m. Plan was to start easy end and see how it went. Mile 1 6.40, followed by 6.34, 6.34, 6.34, 6.33, 6.35 and 6.30 for the 0.2 gave a 6.35 average pace so just sub 41. Been a while since i did a tempo so reasonably pleased particularly as the cool Autumnal days are yet to come (it was 20c tonight).
So another 3 weeks training and hopefully 4-5lb weight loss and i might be in ok shape for my planned half.
I'm in London this weekend so will seek out a parkrun whilst down there.
My training has been up and down the past 3 weeks. I mainly measure how I'm progressing for the marathon by doing 13 mile sessions (subLT runs) with 10 at roughly MP (or 80% of Max HR, which for me is 160). I do 2 per week, plus a long run, and easy runs mixed in to round things out.
Most of my subLT runs this season have had miles in the 7:0X to 7:1X range. Good sessions have been closer to 7 and others I fade a bit or simply end up at 7:10ish pace. Well 3 weeks ago, my first subLT of the week came out about 6:35 to 6:40 m/m (for the fast 10M in middle) at the same effort I usually have (measured by HR). It may have been the most under control and exhilarating training run in the past few years. I finished full of energy knowing I could have kept going. This was paired with a super strong LR a few days before. So imagine my surprise when my second subLT that same week came in around 7:10 m/m (I had no zip and was exhausted well before end)! My confidence and good feelings were shattered (and wondered was my watch just off for the good run a few days before? Was it real??...but checked and distance was correct vs many other runs over this course).
I then flew to Belgium for a meeting and that was a cutback week. First couple runs I still felt very depleted and nonenergetic with heavy legs. But then I had some more holy crap runs were I just flew at very low HR (just happened w/out pushing).
Got back home and this week my first subLT (fast miles) were back around 6:4x and I felt awesome (gas left in tank at end). Second subLT was today and again 6:40-6:45 steady the whole way (little less gas left, but hadn't run out by the end). So after steadily doing the HADD training plan since April, I finally seem to have gotten my big fitness bump. And just a the right time. Next week is cutback, then I do my final full week and taper. So just have to keep all things wrapped in cotton.
Last thing to share. I got the Nike Next %. I tried 1 run this week (did 7M of a 10M easy run using them). They are quite nice. Super soft (almost too soft) but man do they spring/give back. Hard to tell on a recovery/easy run, but I do think I was 10-20 sec/mile better than I otherwise would have been. Only issue was my low back got tight in these. Did some reformer work the next day with PT and that went away (she also watched me run in them and said all looked good). So a little worried they might not be perfect (ie my back, especially if it happens again). I think my next try will be to do a subLT in them and see how they really perform at race speed (which should be different/better as that is what these are designed for (ie not recovery runs at slow pace). Will decide then if it is worth using or binning. After all, my Kinvaras are getting me round pretty well now.
Sorry for the long winded post.
Last thought. Kids went back to school a few weeks ago and I've lost about 2 hr of sleep each night during workweek (as they/I get up at 6 am instead of 8). Must try to get more sleep to stay healthy/recover. But major work assignment projects/deadlines between now and race day. Same as it always is I guess.
My steady tempos/mp training runs are targetted to 160 bpm and tend to come out in the 6.30-6.40 range. Sometimes it just varies as you've set out above.
Hilly Fields parkrun in 19:15, not too shabby 🙂
Not too shabby indeed OO. What are the odds to get a place through the GNR ballot?
A good couple of weeks training VT. Two session per week with 10 at MP sounds quite hard work. I would go with the fastest time as a race predictor given you'll be rested and tapered!
Good luck for the Bristol HM tomorrow Jools - weather looks perfect.
Good to see you back to proper training DT - should be easy to shift those holiday pounds!
Speed returning nicely there Leslie - a good session to get under the belt.
10K parkrun this morning. So, 5K w/u a 5K solo effort and then the parkrun itself followed by a 5K w/d. Back at Black Park (no sign of PMJ!) for only my 10th ever parkrun (the 50 shirt is going to take some time!). Had managed to record a PB of 19:11 three weeks before Boston and was hoping I could shave a few more seconds off this. Feeling very sluggish on the warm up but managed to cover the solo 5K in 20 minutes dead although I was feeling pretty spent by the end. On to the race itself, made the mistake of setting off a little too quick with the first kilometre reached in 3:41. This was either going to be very painful or very quick! However, I was encouraged by the lack of runners ahead and after a second kilometre of 3:42 I found myself in second place with the leader only 20 meters ahead. All very strange! However, thoughts of a maiden parkrun victory rapidly vanished as the runner who had been on my shoulder for the last 500m cruised past (in my defence he was a 20-24 yr old!). The pace dropped a little for the next two kilometres, so 3:48 and 3:48 but I managed to pick it up over the last kilometre with a sprint to the line, crossing in 18:51, finishing fourth with a 30 second PB. Not a bad morning's work! Just need to nail the long run tomorrow and it'll have been a good week.
SBD you would have got the win ( sorry first finisher !!!) without the extra 5k !
DT cracking tempo with sub 41 10k, in good shape for you half .Yes progress is good for me but I hope the wheels don't fall off again like so many times before !
Jools best of luck in the half today.
5 easy last night.
1:27:53 for me, very average and an unfortunate massive positive split having gone half way on track for a 1:25. Felt like it was hotter today than the temp showed and I was not a fan of the course, but a funnish day nonetheless.