Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
P&D Autumn Marathon 2017
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Happy 40th Millsy! Hope you had a good day.
Spoons - excellent parkrun, the improvements you're making are quite staggering.
Tom - 75 minutes with a stitch - very, very impressive.
Jooligan - epic weekend as always from you.
Decided to have a hit-out at parkrun on Saturday and didn't get the result I wanted - 17.36, which felt like a pretty flat out effort. Legs felt horrendous and not sure I've let myself properly recover since Wales. Way off the sub-17 shape I was hoping I might be in.
Sunday was much more fun, pacing at the Kingson half marathon. I had the 90-minute group which is always great fun, and I enjoyed towing people around to some PB's. Added bonus was that with Katie's PB being 1.28, I could watch her gradually drift away from me and shout @ her if she got too close. Thankfully, she didn't, taking another 40 seconds off her PB with a 1.28.03 and 5th female. Just missed out on the prizes. 4 miles WU and 3 CD meant 20 miles for the day.
However, after saturdays run, it's led me to think Amtserdam will come around too quickly for me to give it a real go with the current way I'm feeling. May well use it as a training run and then try and peak for Valencia on the 19th November.
https://spragginsblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/ironman-wales-2017/
Bolton is a possibility for me although I suspect Wales is more likely.
HA, Tom, I'm going to try a shorter taper as well, keeping this week similar to previous couple of months. In race week I will do what I did before Chester. 3-5M a day with a certain number of 90s MP effort bursts (5 bursts 5 days out, 4 bursts 4 days out etc). It seemed to work well to tune into MP, keep the legs ticking over, but definitely allowing enough recovery.
Great long run, AWC.
Amazing parkrun, Spoons. Especially as 18:08 was a big PB only the other week. Nice to catch up this morning as well. Recovery jogging chatting is the way ahead. Hope all goes well in the few days before OH.
JohnOz hilarious about the backwards walking. I have wondered how fast I could do a parkrun backwards.
Great work, Tom. Cracking time. Is it worth experimenting with nutrition and fluid intake? Hope it was just (a pair of) blip and doesn't occur at Abo.
Great fell racing Jooligan. Looks a bloody tough event. Expect nothing less from you.
Nice racing/not racing, Reg.
Good pacing, Joe. Peaking for the second marathon sounds a solid plan.
I paced Cheltenham Half at the weekend. Great fun, whipping the crowd into a frenzy and giving sage bits of advice to the 90 minute bus. The balloon was rubbish - genuine risk of strangulation and it bobbed along at crotch height somewhere behind me. The stick was light enough to carry and not be a problem. I had planned a marginally quicker first half as knew the hills and racecourse at the end were fairly windy and exposed. Eased up during the last mile as I had a bit to play with, and pleasingly everyone around powered on to their sub 90. Unfortunately, my watch measured long and I had to leg it for 200m at the end. 1:30:02 didn't affect anyone's PBs but a brilliant frustrating! I'd definitely like to pace again - something very enjoyable about doing a race but being able to chat throughout. 5M before and after to give a final long run before Abingdon.
Forgot to say happy birthday Millsy. I'll be joining you in V40s in a couple of months.
Nice work on pacing SQ.
Phil - I did a weekly hill session for strength over summer up until about 4 weeks ago then switched to more tempo runs that are more marathon specific. I think it's the most effective and efficient way of doing strength training. I'm not a big one for doing exercises other than running.
400s session done today with pushing too hard.
Sounds like you & SQ both had good training runs pacing 90minutes. Congrats to Katie too. As HA said I'm not surprised Chrissie remembered you given your attire. Enjoying Amsterdam by using it as a solid training run in the build-up for Valencia sounds like your best option for nailing that sub 2:40.
Happy 40th Millsy enjoy the new prizewinning opportunities. I'm almost a decade ahead of you & still improving so nothing to fear.
Well done on the pacing too, and SQ as well.
Spoons, fantastic PR, bodes well for the half.
Great race Jooligan, I ran every local hill on my LR yesterday for 1300ft of climb, hats off gor doing 4x that in one race.
Tom - shame about the stitch but still a great performance. I've only ever had a stitch from guzzling too much water too quickly.
Phil - I like hill reps. I tend not to do them when "on plan" as it would probably mean dropping a high effort session elsewhere. I recall the Road Racing book has some hill efforts.
In other news, got my mag today, looking forward to starting a plan proper already.
I wonder how many specifically do London because they can.
I remember reading about how you should only do 1 or maybe 2 marathons in a year and I am wondering how many Joe will have done this year, including IMs?
I actually like hills, I don't do hill reps very often but I do like getting off road in the winter and doing some hilly muddy runs.
Happy Birthday Millsy.
Great report Joe. I’m always impressed by how you manage to wring every ounce of performance out of yourself. The post-race calorie consumption is also very impressive!
Sounds like you’ve come away very motivated, and I’m sure a Kona spot will be yours next year.
I got my VMLM magazine yesterday too, still got excited even though I knew my place was confirmed.
I had the “rehearsal” session in my plan today. With another cold rearing its ugly head yesterday, I was half considering ditching it but when I woke up this morning I felt ok so decided I’d head out and see how I felt after warm-up. It was a lovely crisp clear morning, and I felt good, if still a bit snotty, so figured I’d go for it.
I completed the two miles at exactly 80 minute pace, 6:06/mi. Legs felt very good, effort felt a little harder than I’d like in the first few miles of the race, but I find it always does for this session. And it certainly felt much easier than a similar pace felt during LT sessions a few weeks ago. Once you factor in being fuelled up instead of running on an empty stomach, the race day adrenaline boost, etc, it should feel much easier come race day. As I said to SQ yesterday, I half expected not to even manage HMP (which has happened in the past) so overall a nice confidence booster.
Still a bit bunged up but feel better than yesterday so hopefully it’s under control. Just have to keep telling myself I had a similar cold in the week leading up to the Worcester 10K, and that went ok
SQ - great work on the pacing. It's great fun right? I really enjoy it. I'm doing 1.45 at Royal Parks this Sunday, should be a nice relaxed one.
HA - thanks mate. Sometimes you just need to simplify it a bit I think and get back to basics, and not got lost in the numbers and times. I say I'll not race Amsterdam, I'm sure I'll be raring to go come next Friday.. But it might be worth holding back for the bigger picture.
Jools - thanks for the comments. I think you're right, I could probably take more on during the bike. And then with the marathon, I knew I kinda had to go for it, being 20 minutes down, but probably got a bit too excited.
Macca - always exciting to receive that mag.
Away in Valencia for our pre-season testing. Want to get a full week of running training in so did a double day recovery yesterday (11 miles) and then a 13 MLR this morning early doors. 22 degrees at 5.30 - muggy.
You get no sympathy from me for running in 22 degrees. I feel like I will have an advantage at Wales as I have ridden the course twice now.
Happy Birthday Millsy, welcome to the club, help yourself to a few vets trophies!
Spoons, great result on the parkrun PB. If it helps you feel any better, when I set mine last year, I was also outsprinted by an 11yr old.
Tom, 75:20 is still an amazing time. Can't offer any advice on the stitch. Not something I've suffered from before.
Jools, again another solid parkrun / racing weekend.
Joe, that parkrun time is still decent so soon after the IM.
John, Shanghai sounds like an experience. We had a guy do our parkrun backwards once.
A very busy weekend for me, with only a small amount of running.
I enjoyed my Friday night out in Kingston a little more than planned. Had set myself a 3 pint limit but ended up having 5 and a huge plate of bratwurst, sauerkraut and mashed potato in a German restaurant at 9:30pm. Not ideal prep for parkrun. Woke up feeling better than expected and jogged down to Bushy park. Went off a little too fast in the first mile as wanted to get ahead of any congestion. Struggled in mile 2 but had a half decent 3rd. Crossed the line in 18:09. My fastest 5k this year and my final run in my 30's. The first finisher dipped under 15 mins and I was in 27th place!!
With decent prep I'm confident of getting a 17:5X before Xmas.
Went out with some friends on Sat night to celebrate my birthday and then another friends wedding on the Sunday so far too much food and booze consumed. I'm usually happy to see the VLM mag on the mat but with a stinking hangover I'm still to look at it in any more detail.
Happy Birthday Millsy, nice day for it. I quite fancy some pacing jobs, how you go about getting involved? Just contact a race organiser?
I've put some decent training in last few days with a main set of 10 miles at 5.45 pace on Saturday which felt surprisingly comfortable. Thanks for your thoughts on hill reps, I had ago last night and did a Jo Pavey recommended session (which I shortened a bit due to it being the first one). Did 3 x 1 min, 3 x 45 secs, (dropped the 3 x 30 sec) and then finished with 2 minutes accelerating over the top of the hill. All with jog down recovery and 3 minutes between sets. I found it aerobically tough and definitely had some lactate to deal with which is different to my normal training and I guess the point. It was a good session though and will rotate it with the half mile reps and LT sessions.
I was around 73kg before my Ironman but generally hang around the 74-75kg mark and I am slim so I suspect I could, if disciplined get below 70kg. I also recall Joe dropping some weight before his marathon PB.
I kind of use the cycling as an excuse for being a bit heavier and if I ask normal people they'd tell me to put on weight!
I am wondering if this could be the key for me to make some significant improvements, alongside increasing my mileage.
Yesterday I had two doughnuts, packet of biscuits, box of malteasers, a piece of chocolate cake, two banana fruit bars, 6 gingernuts, 3 bourbons and half a packet of dried mango. That's just what I ate outside of three meals.
I think I need to seek help.
As a cyclist, don't underestimate the vital importance of aerodynamics (position more vital than equipment) I spent a lot of time testing position and equipment on a known circuit over the years. Easy if you can afford a trip to a wind tunnel or aero testing at a track, but pretty time consuming if not. Just to make a point, I did a 100 mile time trial in 3h36 with only 218 watts, which is not a lot of power. Just ask if you want any further advice.
With regards your diet, that is a lot of pretty bad stuff in one day!
I've had a bike fit but the focus was more on comfort rather than getting an aggressive position. I suspect there are gains to be made there. The link below is from last week.
I'll be moving to a power meter for next season but I probably won't get it until the spring. I can do some testing then.
https://www.finisherpix.com/gallery/photo/en/eur/1955/1495/1955_103106#1955_103106
When I want to drop a couple of kg I try to make sure there's no junk in the house but it's all the krispy kremes and biscuits at work that take real will power to resist.
HA, I find those American junk doughnuts easy to resist, the spelling is enough to put me off.
It doesn't help that I work 100 metres from Waitrose.
Impressive hungover parkrun Millsy - mine was sluggish after 3 & Sunday's run was an ordeal as I'd had about 6 pints of farmhouse cider the night before - I lost count somewhere.
I'm sure they mean no racing more than 2 marathons a year. I've ignored this and done a marathon Saturday then another on Sunday. Both largely off road & hilly so not super fast but tough. I've also done marathons a week apart a couple of times. The first were off-roaders & both went well with course PBs each time the second time was Brighton - VLM in 2016. Brighton is my PB but VLM killed me as mentioned in my previous post.
100M in 3:36 sounds insanely quick Phil but 218W sounds feasible though I know I'd not be able to hold it that long.
Imagine something written here about running to keep HA happy........