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P&D Autumn Marathon 2019
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Fair enough Spoon. You know yourself far better than any of us.
Good news AWC, gives you a winter focus.
Backed up last night 15, with 10 inc my commute 6m tempo this morning. 20 something tomorrow will make a big approx 36hrs.
AWC - congrats on the entry, another one I’d love to do but at a leisurely pace.
Macca - I sense your report is going to be as epic as your run, can’t wait.
TR - getting some big miles in, must be rgetting really fit. What’s next for you?
Steve - good to see you straight back into it.
Spoons - another good session in the bag, good luck for the half.
Starting to wind it down this week and did the traditional pre race parkrun. Extreme winds didn’t help but still managed to squeeze out a PB of 18:21. Was able to work with a couple of others but they pulled away into the wind at the end. Keen to see what I could do on a better day, but I don’t really have much speed in me so not sure it will come down much more. Just the 3 runs next week to go.
23 yday, 10 today.
Morning all.
Super run yesterday spoons, especially following such a tough NAZ workout. Hope the BAC beast goes well. And if you could buy that measuring wheel to mark up numerous 200m intervals I reckon most of the Worcester running community would be grateful!
Blimey, TR, huge few days!
Great work on the parkrun PB, JohnOz. You say you haven’t much speed in you, but you are racking up the PBs. Bodes really well for the marathon, I’d say.
Standard trot around parkrun with the buggy on Saturday. It is Cheltenham paint week, so there was some exciting new graffiti (pretty good) to keep my daughter entertained. In other news, Cheltenham is getting a second parkrun this coming weekend. I suspect it won’t be as picturesque, nor quite as convenient, but good to have another local option.
I fancied a speedier run on Sunday, so took the exceptionally rare step of donning the VFs. Heading out for a classic 14M route, that incorporates a big hill early on, then plenty of undulations during the net downhill second half. Pleased to see a few 6:40s on the watch towards the end. Lovely country route, with a stunning sunrise and plenty of wildlife. A nippy 6C at the start though. Winter has arrived… 67M for the week, so building nicely post-Bath.
Enjoyable recovery with spoons this morning. Good to chat away.
Good work on the parkrun PB in the wind!
Running around the Cotswold/chelts countryside with the sun shining sounds great and better than trudging along the canals around here!
Thanks for the advice folks on the MP long run. 15m at target MP was definitely enough after a hard week and could feel tired hamstrings/calves (18/20 would have been way too much(. That said - pacing hit, so good confidence boost.
Where are you based BH? I love a good canal run. Well done on the MP. What did it come out as for you?
Good news about the legs AWC.
Busy few days TR, nice work.
Great work to set a PB in poor weather John, shows what great form you’re in. Congrats.
Decent week SQ. The photos of your run yesterday looked lovely.
Great MP run BH, well done.
Sounds very positive about the 10K pace Steve.
Chippenham Half went well yesterday. Started off with an enjoyable 7ish miles warm-up, along the Avon and then a cycle path I spotted on Google Maps. Then the race itself at marathon pace. Felt pretty decent, the course is gently undulating at times, but pretty flat overall. There’s a small hill at 12ish, but it’s then all downhill for the final 1/2 mile, which is always nice. Overall a very good race, well marshalled and organised.
Pretty sure the course was slightly long, as the 13 mile marker was dead-on, but the final 0.1 miles was about 400m! Anyway, 6:16 average pace, and the heart rate where it should be other than the hill at the end. Legs were obviously feeling pretty tired by the end, but still turning over well. Wrapped it up with a few miles warm-down for 21.9 miles at 6:30/mi average. Happy with that at the end of a 116 mile week, especially given a week before walking was still uncomfortable!
Taper time now, still have the final BAC 30/4x5/30 session, and the Worcester 10K, but mileage will drop right down. As Ben Rosario (NAZ coach) said recently, no one ever looks back and wishes they ran more during the taper!
Great stuff at chippenham half - sounds like it went well.
Nice PB John.
Interesting about another new Cheltenham parkrun SQ. Where's it to be? With Ross starting 6 weeks ago & Mallard's Pike a fortnight ago there are a lot more options locally now. You'd like Mallard's single lap fire trail steep climb over the first half but a glorious descent to the finish if I've got the course right. Nice cafe after too & of course plenty of waterfowl for your wee one to coo over.
I did the Ross-on-Wye one myself Saturday. I cycled there pretty hard & although it was only just over 7M I felt a bit cooked + legs were feeling the sudden leap in training volume so unsurprisingly I was shockingly slow. It's 2.5 flat laps all on grass with lots of turns. On a softer day it'd be ideal for XC spikes/training. I'd gone flat-out so the 9M return loop was plenty for the day. Sunday was beautiful so I jumped on the bike aiming to do 56M & plenty of hills as a tester for TriX in 3 weeks. I managed 60M & over 5000ft of elevation so that was 2 ticks however I had planned to run 5-10K after some lunch but I was that whacked I thought better of it.
First training run done since August 18th: 5M plod along the canal before work. Legs were definitely suffering from the bike battering still but gradually loosened up.
Horseshoe - if you did 15m at mp, then thats more than a good marker. I still say 18 or 20 is impossible outside of a race, i wouldnt get anywhere near 15 myself.
Good to see you chipper spoons, tgat BAC session doesnt sound much of a taper.
Hope you feel better soon AWC
Jools - getting the bit between yr teeth agsin.
Wet (and therefore cold) 10m home tonight, 3min reps in the morning, last big Abo week.
Spoons - Well done at Chippenham. I also like your style to ask for advice and then do what you wanted to anyway
Steve - are you committing to the 10k then, or still waiting to see if you can bump up to the half? A controlled 19:10 is very good running.
AWC - hope you feel better soon
Jools - glad to see you getting back into it
SQ - the VF’s on a training run, controversial. The Yorkshireman in me is thinking about the cost per mile! Solid week of training.
John - another PB bodes well in tough conditions. Good luck for Sunday.
Macca - still waiting for that race report!
Hamo - hope your absence is the result of a few too many in Gateshead yesterday!
81 miles total for me last week, with my first 20 miler of the plan as I missed the one 2 weeks ago. I find the first one always to be tough mentally and physically. 10 very easy miles over a couple of runs today though seems to have loosened things.
I decided against a hit out at park run on Saturday. I wasn’t feeling the best, so decided not to go and compound the performance at Maidenhead.
Spoons...Fair play to you, you know your body better than any of us, and Chippenham seems to have been the correct decision. Brilliant run for you there, and paced well, everything is pointing to good things for Berlin.
AWC...glad your legs are feeling good, shame about the cold though, hope it clears soon. Congrats on the Lakeland 100.
TR...Nice consistent big miles, as always, perfect mara training.
John...Brilliant PB, congrats.
BH...Class MP long run, bound to be a boost to your confidence.
Steve...Nice parkrun sandwich, and an very speedy pace for the parkrun itself, class.
Jools...That's a big weekend of training you've put in there, no surprise your feeling it.
HPR...It certainly was, and more than a few too many
As i said to HPR, i'm only just about sober enough now to be back on here after the Great North Run...have i said before how much i love the GNR weekend
The race itself went really well, and Macca will be happy to hear that i have a photo of me crossing the elite finish on the road, as promised
Haven't ran since, legs are a bit battered (that drop onto the seafront at 12 mile, can really bite), but more importantly haven't been sober since i crossed the finish line to be able to run.
The maddest thing about the whole weekend though, is after i finished a girl from Metro radio asked if she could ask me a few questions about the race, i said certainly. Wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around me, just talking to the woman, but Mo Farah was right behind me getting interviewed himself (still not noticed him yet
Best of luck with the final BAC sandwich tomorrow, spoons. A tough session.
AWC I don’t think VFs are the widest, but certainly a lot more so than my adios. And they will certainly have a much higher stack than altra.
Jools the new parkrun is around a playing field called King George V. It is weird as I have never even noticed it on a map before, but it looks a reasonable size. Thanks for the Mallards Pike info – sounds like it could be a great morning out. Solid work on the bike – and wise the knock the run on the head. I reckon you’ll make rapid progress from now on.
HPR, they are my old pair, to be fair! Big week from you.
Blimey, hamo, top 0.1% of finishers isn’t bad! Cracking PB – really well deserved. Now come on – get the photo up on here!
Legs feeling a little fatigued last night and this morning, and so I could perhaps have done with one more day’s rest, but decided to crack on with an interval session nonetheless. I had planned 5- 6 x 1M on the marked riverside path, with 2:30 jog rests. 6:08, 6:04, 6:08, 6:14. After such a decline in pace for the fourth, I changed tack, finishing with 4 x 400 in 1:29, with 400 jog recoveries. Total about 10.8M at 7:10 pace, also Strava will say otherwise with the GPS not enjoying the tree coverage. An enjoyable session and I really like having the quarter mile intervals marked out.
Nice mile reps by the way, and sensible to drop down if you weren't feeling the last couple.
(i'm the boy on the left in the black by the way, Mo's your man on the right in the red
Hamo - excellent, a very good return on yr investment, great to see.
Nice training SQ
Steve - hopefully im heading back to sub 255 shape, but i was only ever low 2.5X at best (although i didnt run this much) as im a bit heavy. Im also 52 now so running against the sands of time.
Upped last weeks 16 reps to 20x3min/30sec jog today, aerobically a comfy enough session but a bit of a leg breaker.
TR You've got to be getting back towards PB shape with three (& a bit) consistent campaigns behind you. Just need to manage the taper correctly & hope for a reasonably still day at Abo. A rerun of last year's conditions would be ideal.
No such thing as an easy 11M for me yet Steve. You'll smash that 10K for sure.
Never heard of it SQ. Sounds like a decent enough session with the late adjustment.
I had a bit of a scare yesterday when I checked on the date for TriX: I'd assumed it was the 29th but discovered that it's actually the 22nd
Steve...nice 11.
TR...20 reps of 3 mins is a good bit of work, fair play to ya. Will you cap it at 20 or do more reps in the next few weeks?
Jools...Sure that lost week would have just been tapering anyway
Set my alarm for 6 this morning to do 7 recovery miles, it went off, i quickly realised i couldn't be assed running in the cold pishing rain, so rolled over and went back to sleep for an extra hour in bed...good commitment shown by me as always
Get well soon AWC.
Sounds like you’re getting back in to things Jooligan. Bad luck on the date mix up, at least you realised now!
Big week HPR. Sensible not to parkrun if you weren’t up for it. I always find the first few big long runs tough if I’ve not done them for a while. Takes a little time to get in the groove.
Congratulations Hamo, absolutely fantastic performance. Great photo too. Think you’ve earned a few lazy days after that!
Still a good session even if you did cut it short SQ, sensible decision.
Great reps TR, that’s a big session, and not a lot of recovery!
Nice 11 and 10 Steve.
So, final BAC tempo sandwich today - 30@MP, 4x5@LT, 30@MP. Typically, the weather decided to get both warmer and windier - gusts up to 30mph according to the forecast, so not exactly ideal. Legs felt pretty good for the first MP section, but pace was slightly off at 6:22/mi average. Given the wind though I wasn’t too disappointed. The LT intervals actually went really well - average 5:46/mi, compared to 5:49/mi for the 4 min ones two weeks ago, and 5:48 for the 5 min ones from the same session prior to Manchester. So I was pretty pleased with that.
Unfortunately by this point, I was suffering with a slightly unsettled stomach that required a visit back to my flat. I was also conscious that while I still felt ok (as evidenced by the intervals), I was going to need to dig deep for the second MP section. I therefore opted to ditch it. If I didn't have the race this Sunday I'd probably have cracked on, but I don't want to overcook myself. This will hopefully leave me fresher for the 10K, and given I did 13 miles @ MP last Sunday, it’s no great loss. Overall it was 13 miles at 6:30/mi, so still a decent workout.
SQ - sounds like you rescued it and ended up with a good session in the end
Steve - things are always looking good if you find yourself deciding to add miles on the spur of the moment. Any plans for another half, or just concentrating on the 10k for now?
TR - Sounds like a good session. How long ago was your PB set? With your consistent training since Yeovil it certainly sounds like you’ll trouble it
Spoons - wise to drop the last section of MP, still a good session though
Jools - Good to see you jumping back in to training. Also, better to know now the date issue rather than in a couple of weeks! TriX looks a tough one, which distance are you doing?
11 miles with 5 at LT yesterday evening for me. The pace was 6-8 seconds per mile slower than where I thought I’d be, but I was pretty shattered from a stressful day and was struggling with a slightly iffy stomach. The effort was definitely in the right region, so the training effect should still be there.
Does anyone have any experience of using the Jack Daniels plans…I’d be very interested in hearing what changes/modifications you made and your experiences in terms of how prepared you felt.
As background, I started the Q2 90-113km plan back in June. Because I was in the middle of triathlon season, I did the the two quality workouts in combination with 3 cycling workouts and 2-3 swim sessions. I didn’t aim to hit the weekly km goal as I simply wouldn’t have had time to and also wouldn’t be able to recover with the additional cycling workouts.
Ambitiously, I set my starting week one paces so that my final marathon pace runs would be the same as that required to get a sub 3 hour marathon (4:16/km). I saw this as a “stretch goal” but also thought I just might be able to do it (I did a half marathon in 1:28:30 in March).
Training was going well and I was completing the quality workouts as planned and hitting the prescribed paces. My weekly km’s fluctuated between 40 - 80km depending on how I felt each week and how much time I had for additional runs outside of triathlon training. However, I went through a patch of 3-4 weeks with limited running due to 18 days holidays combined with my “A” triathlon race (just before holidays which required a weeks taper).
Now, triathlon season is over and I can mostly concentrate on running. I have 7 weeks to my marathon but I have 17 quality workouts left. So, if I want to do all quality workouts left in the plan, I will need to do a few weeks with 3 quality workouts. Either that, or I should cut some of the workouts completely.
So, my questions to anyone who has done the Q2 plan before would be:
- Of the 4 types of quality workouts (marathon pace, intervals, tempo, long easy), which would you recommend shortening and/or cutting completely? My thinking is cutting the interval sessions because I think they have probably the least benefit compared to other 4
- Do you think its more important to do the quality workouts at the prescribed paces or get the weekly mileage in?
I’m unsure what I should aim to run at on the actual marathon…my current marathon pace runs are done at 4:14/km and I can complete every workout at this pace but I’m usually at my limit (longest marathon pace run was 17 miles with 12 miles at marathon pace) and can’t imagine doing that pace (or close to it) for a full marathon. Is this a sign that I should lower my expectations or will the taper/adrenaline significantly improve ability to run at that pace over the full distance?
- The longest marathon pace run in the plan is 17 miles with 12 miles at marathon pace…does this sufficiently prep you for doing full marathon at marathon pace? Or should I add in sessions with longer marathon pace runs?
Sorry for the long post…but would be great to hear anyone’s perspective from the Daniels plan…my training seemed to be going very well and I was confident I could go the distance at sub 3 hour pace but now I feel like I won’t be sufficiently prepared in time for it
Hamo - possibly 24 reps next week, but i have a 1/2 mara the following sunday, we'll see.
Spoons - your tummy playing up alliwed you to keep some powder dry. You cant get any fitter now.
Hyde - its the effort that counts. I did my first mara in 2008 in 2.53 aged 41, in 2012 i did 2.51.0x (pb), in 2013 i also did 59.09 and 78.15 which are still pbs. But i was more multisport and ran less. I had a very low 12 months mid 2016 to 17, and have been trying to get back to it since. Low 2.5X and low 8X are the aims now, before i get too old.
D88 - sorry cant help.
AWC - cheers, there are plenty of folks still going well in their 50s, the AG rankings are an eye opener and inspiration. Enjoy the Ivy.
6m easy today.
Hamo - glad you pointed out yourself/Mo 🤣. A brilliant race, so glad you finished on the road and some. That is an excellent photo too. I think you earned a lie in.
All good training noted TR, RSR, HPR, SQ, BH and Steve.
I think I spotted another PB somewhere through my brain fog John, well done.
Jools - sounds like you’ve hit the ground running, good luck with the shortened build up.
AWC - hope the cold has cleared. I’m in for LL100 too, it’s a great (tough) event, theres a good blog about it on the Centurion site.
I ran a P&D session today so thought I’d mention it. 4@LT - down on spring times but not massively so, all things considered, very happy with it.
Report update - I’m about 3/4 through but be warned, it’s not very exciting😴 To answer a few questions, yes I would do it again at the drop of a hat, I loved the whole experience even if my face didn’t show it at the time - type 2 fun I think they call it ! SQ - they gave out different coloured wristbands depending on race, I only spotted a couple on the campsite, one of which was in a van. Truth be told, I felt a little guilty spending 5 days doing my thing so spending £40 on accommodation instead of £400 allayed the guilt a little.