Sub 3h15

TR

Gul - i think ive said this before (?)......i used to be a one pair of shoes runner, put 1000m on them and then use a new pair, it defo caused aches and pains. Rotate 2 or 3 pair of varying age is the aim. I worked out that im currently using 3 different shoes, worked out that they are now all 400 to 500m so broke out a new pair, and it defo caused some minor aches.

DT - possibility of Goodwood if no Dorney, depends if Tier system comes back, but unlikely. Hopefully someone will put us a race on in May. Dont think it would be at Dorney or Goodwood though. Goodwood is fine, counting to 11 is s nice change ftom counting to 26, nice smooth surface, drinks every lap.....biggest problem was 40mph winds and weaving round 5k and 10k fun runners, esp given my finish time.

Gul Darr

TR - thanks. It was only a bit of a jokey comment tbh. I was rotating 6 pairs and threw out 4 which had done over 4,000 between them. I now have 2 relatively new pairs and 1 brand new. Niggles are probably down to overdoing a bit Could probably run but just being a bit cautious.

TR

Good oh, that sounds more like it. Decorating probably doesnt help either.

Joolska

7 with 10 sets of strides yesterday (with a speedier clubmate, so even though she dropped me on every set of strides, they were still faster than usual!), and then 6 miles steady today (combined with dropping cat food sachets off for recycling).

Hope the niggles are settling, GD. I now tend to adopt a slightly cautious approach, too: I'd rather take 2-3 days off early on with a niggle and then be fine than push through for another week or so and then ended up benched for ages.  I'll probably get too cocky again soon, though, and go back to assuming I can get away with running through a niggle.

MsE

Definitely in the Cautious Camp after my ankle horriblis in 2017 and 2018!

55 mins steady on the 'mill plus a 10 mins warm down.

One positive from lockdown has been my extra insight into how to manage tightness and anything I might've seen a physio or sports massage therapist for pre-pandemic. I also have started cutting hair and after cutting three inches of Msette3 and feathering the sides (all learnt from Youtube) I think I can add "hair cutting" and "body repair work" to my list of skills!

OO54

Nothing like running with faster runners to get the best out of yourself Jools. It takes some bravery though.
I'm due a haircut MsE usually with clippers but not a skill or job I relish.
Another awful day. Trying to coax myself out later.

CC2 - Speedy Goth

I think I'm made of niggles. I ran yesterday with a searing pain in my upper back/shoulder that meant I couldn't turn my head to look for traffic at junctions. I ran at least three times this week with a sore hamstring insertion behind the knee and I jarred my foot last night on a tree root (my foot hit the ground rather sooner than it was expecting to and at an odd angle - the same foot that I broke) so that's a bit sore now. Today's a rest day, but I'm sure it will be fine to run on. I think the break has made me just desperate to run and I think I can tell the difference between an annoyance and an injury. The hammie/knee thing seems to have gone, the back is much better after using the Theragun, a lacrosse ball and some Voltarol on it, and the foot is almost certainly fine too. I'd stop if anything was actually painful (rather than uncomfortable) when running. Anything lower body anyway. 

DT19

Tr, govt indicated the other night that a return to tier system was likely. Of course that means nothing as on 03rd January Johnson sat on TV swearing blind schools were safe and wouldn't close. Following day.....

I see run-through events are ramping up their summer programme with events in Cheltenham in June, Northampton also and a full goodwood race day in July with all the distances.

I'm due a haircut. I managed to get in the day before lockdown but I like mine doing every 4 weeks. I have decent clippers and scissors so next week my wife will need to give it a go. 

Speedy, yes it's good to know when something is a problem or not. If I had a few days out every time I had an ache I'd be taking down time every few weeks. 

MsE, yes Lewis moses. And agreed, I trust his system and planning fully. 

Decent session today with usual wu and cd then 2 x 4m at tempo off 1m float. I always like to negative split these things but thought I'd put myself in a hole when first 4 came in 6.15, 6.15, 6.18 and 6.15 but effort was right, then 7.21 float followed by 6.10, 6.14, 6.06 and 6.10, coming in at 6.21mm average for 9m at my usual targeted 160bpm average. 

Wrighed 10st 6 today, unprecedented for me and 10lb lighter than last time I ran a marathon.  

TR

DT - thats an av of not much slower than 80min pace, for 8m too. Self confidence is breeding self confidence for sure........i have a july GW place (rolled over from December)........i run the clippers over my hair every few weeks, i keep them in the garage with the power tools, you can tell by the sound they make when its all trimmed, one time my hair had got a bit long, the sound of the trimmers making a meaty cut drew my attention, the grade guard was on my shoulder and id put a grade 0 up the back of my head, soon grows back luckily.

DT19

Tr, yes close enough. At present every week I seem to be a little fitter! 

The July one i was looking, having looked back bis Bedford autodrome on 25th July. If I just need to bank a gfa then it's worth a pop even if warm. 

TR

DT - unless its hot it should be ok in july, we'll have had time to get some warmer runs in, 9am start, water bottle every lap (drink some, pour some on cap) etc esp if you aim 2.57ish to tick a box, as you are heading towards 2.50 shape rapidly.

DT19

Yes, if I just want a gfa, sub 3.05 would probably do worst case. 

I said to Lewis earlier, as soon as racing starts he can forget structured training for a few months, I'll be bouncing from race to race for a while to readdress my numbers across all distances and hopefully break through some barrier, such as sub 80 half and sub 60, 10m for eg.

The positive right now of no races is that you can really focus on consistent training without breaking it every month or so to taper and recover. Also there's far less to work around when planning training. No nights out or weekends away which often broke things up for me. 

MsE

Wondering if OO ever managed the tempo...

Nice tempo efforts there DT.

Am I thinking that despite niggles there are none to be worried about Speedy?

Good to hear you are likely OK GD.

Well done on strides and recycling cat food sachets Jools.

80 mins on the treadmill today. Zwift really does help pass the time. I included a Michael Gervais podcast too. Now for an afternoon of Six Nations rugby. 

G-Dawg

Cracking work on the weight and overall fitness, DT. You’re due a big number in a race this year. Looking forward to seeing that.

My scales told me I’d lost 6lbs since Jan 1st this week. The change in diet and basically doing campaign miles (45 per week) seems to have accelerated my winter weight loss. Only 3lbs off desired race weight which is 12 and a half stone.

Out with a pal for 15 miles today. I know some of you call this a MLR but it’s a LSR for me. First mile was rubbish but once I met up with my mate, things just got better and it was the best LSR of the year. A good old chat session and we averaged 7.48 pace without even thinking about it. I needed that sort of boost.

MsE

It looked a really solid comfortable run GDawg. Nicely done on the steady build up and cut (as they say in the body building world). 

Ian5

For those looking for a summer race,Boston has said if their April race gets canned,they will look to have it asap,May,June or July.

Gul Darr

DT - great tempo run!
MsE  - nice zwifting. I haven't forgotten the foot exercises (did try a few the other morning but need to get focused after the decorating).
GD - good LSR
Ian - April date is no good for me, but if it gets postponed before it's sold out that will be worth checking out, thanks.
No running here and just a couple more hours of decorating to go (for now). Looking at buying a new watch seeing as my Garmin battery has had it. Has anyone had experience of Polar? Planning to go for a run tomorrow

Ian5

Gul-I have a Polar vantage and love it,never had a Garmin so can't compare but the battery seems to last forever, and the HRM seems very realistic as I now have a chest strap and the readings only seem to be a couple of beats different from the watch for similar effort runs.

G-Dawg

5 mile recovery to bring 45 up for the week. Hip and glute pain all but gone, just a tight thigh which the roller should be able to sort. It will be interesting to see where this higher volume base training takes me.

OO54

Hang in there Gul I'm sure your niggles will pass soon.
I've had an easy week of long slow runs in dreadful conditions. Today was no better but held out for 16.5 and 58 for the week. I could have carried on but it was just too awful.

Joolska

Hope the niggles settle, Gul.  I went for a Forerunner 45s when I replaced my old 220 at the end of last year, on the basis it is about the only one which fits on my small wrists.  You do have to ignore the daft wrist based HRM data, but can add a chest strap, I think (although I train to perceived effort rather than heart rate, so don't bother).

Sounds like things are improving for you, GD.  A tasty LSR/MLR, whatever you wish to call it!

10 with 8 x 1km off 2 minutes yesterday as part of a 10 miler (I figure I'm in about 40 min shape at the moment, and so it proved to be: between 4.00 dead and 4.06 for each rep), and then a rather ploddy 17 today to make 56 for the week.  For some reason I didn't sleep brilliantly last night, and the route I picked wasn't the best on a windy day.

CC2 - Speedy Goth

I have a Fenix 5S, which is only a little large on my tiny wrist. I bought an HRM strap, assuming the wrist based would be nonsense, but actually got similar readings. And the chest strap keeps failing to connect in the cold and wet anyway so I think I might as well turn the wrist-based HR back on again. 

Very windy and cold today, with intermittent snow/mini hailstones. I feared my face would fall off at one stage and found myself wondering if actually I might have been better off running in a face mask! Oh, and I had no HR data again. If the strap isn't dead then maybe I am?

DT19

Gdawg, good work on the long run and weight loss. I wager sub 3 for you come the Autumn.

Gul, ope things settle soon. I had a polar a while back in the days where they didn't have integrated GPS and it was a nuisance.  It was though a nice system beyond that. 

Ian, thanks for the info, thst may well prove an option for me. 

MsE, did you enjoy the rugby? I suspect not? As a Welsh man I've enjoyed both yesterday's and today's outcomes. 

Nice reps,  Jools. 

Speedy, same herevwith my last 4m straight into a stiff easterly wind. I went out early for hme (9 15) for 18 and it went along  very well. Came out 7.39mm but the last 4 were straight into wind and left me oddly finishing colder than I started.  Beside that, it was  a very low effort run and I'm not feeling troubled by it now.

 That's 58m this week, next week is 61. 

Gul Darr

Thanks for the advice on the watches, guys.
GD - nice miles.
OO - 16.5 is pretty good going.
Jools - consistent intervals there.
Speedy - well done battling through those conditions.
DT - good to bank an 18 miler.
A little bit of snow here and 6 slow miles. I think I would have been okay to run this weekend, but thought I would wait till the decorating was finished (it is, hurray, for now)  All seems good

OO54

Gul, stopping running to finish decorating is not a statement you will usually hear on this thread 😉 Congrats on getting the job done.
Polar are one of those tragic companies (like Hoover, Kodak and Nokia) who were leaders in their field but got blown away by a new entrant with technological innovation and a better product- in this case Garmin who introduced GPS and heart rate monitors in a single watch device. The rest is history and I doubt they can ever recover.
A bit of snow and hailstones here so an easy beach run on the cards.

Joolska

I took advantage of not being in court today to do circuits and then a daylight run.  Very fresh out there, but beautiful and clear, and great that the ground is firm under foot rather than the mudfest it has been of late!  No snow here, but Bristol seems to have a bit of a micro-climate and rarely gets the white stuff!

MsE

Lots of snow in Surrey. The dry stuff too so I am looking forward to walking the mutts in it later. A couple of zoom meetings first.

Good to hear you went for a no stress easy run OO.

Congrats on finishing the decorating Gul. Next: ankle exercises and easing back into running?

You sound like you have developed a really resilient running body now DT. Have you been doing S&C with Lewis and Gemma as well as the running regime? Can't wait to see what you pull out of the bag come race day. And that was quite possibly one of the worst performances I have seen from England. I can switch allegiances easily though as although Dad was English, mum is Vietnamese and we lived in HK. The Welsh did well though!

Well done on braving a run in hailstones Speedy. Seems you get all the worst weather.

Nice effort on your final run last week Jools. How lovely to enjoy a day without travel at home. What is the situation re courts being Covid-secure? I follow a few legal accounts on Twitter and it sounds like it's been as disastrous as the rest of the country.

You sticking around that 45 mark GD? I focus on time rather than miles although think we are in the same zone. Currently around 6h pw.

Intervals today. 5*400m.  Oof.

Joolska

Most family hearings are remote, MsE, so I spend much of my life in my living room on Teams.  Sometimes I go into the office if I have a vulnerable client who needs to be with their representative, but I think I've only been to an actual court building once since lockdown 1.  We've got a bit of a backlog, because in the first few months (best guesstimate!) a lot of stuff was adjourned off, but once it became clear that Covid wasn't going away any time soon, most hearings have gone ahead.  From a lawyer's point of view it's interesting to have seen the gradual shift from the view that only interim/interlocutory hearings were really appropriate to proceed remotely, to the view that pretty much anything can be remote if balancing the need for a prompt decision against the downsides - and also quite a lot of fairly forthright Court of Appeal and High Court decisions reminding us that demeanour is rarely hugely helpful in assessing credibility of witnesses.  It'll be interesting to see if we continue to do some 'housekeeping' directions/case management hearings remotely once all this is over.  For the lawyers and clients it's generally a better use of our time (all too often I was doing a 4-4.5 hour round trip to Plymouth for a 15-30 minute hearing), but the court can't get through as many hearings where each one needs a video link at a set time, so I suspect the old ways will come back, and I will have to learn to love the 6.30am train to Plymouth all over again...

OO54

Interesting Jools, I wonder how work will look in future in many sectors. It has been the jolt many required to shake things up. If there is one thing I dont miss it's getting up at an unnatural hour, and commuting generally. In my case it was mainly international travel. Well over a year since I was last on a plane.
Where are you doing your intervals MsE- in the snow I guess?

Poacher

Surprising dilemma - what does the panel think? Pretty much given up on running due to the beginnings of arthritis in the knee - and have let go of the sport in my mind.  But some time ago in a fit of daft optimism entered the VLM ballot and was shocked today to get a place. No chance of running the whole lot, might be a bit of slow jogging and a lot of walking, 6 - 6 1/2hrs at best?  Would it be wrong to do that? (does the argument about taking a place from a "real" runner hold water?) Or would walking a mara be pointless? Is a last very slow circuit for old times' sake, at the back with the fancy dress brigade, OK? Not sure. Views welcome.