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P&D Spring Marathon 2020
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Jools, hope the XC went well.
I had my second stab at Gunpowder today (the one that was cancelled due to ice three weeks ago). So tube (with a change), then train, then a 2 mile run to the park, although as I was there early I did an additional mile around the park for three.
It's hard path there - not the smoothest stuff as it has a gravelly texture, but it's quick enough. Two laps with a slight incline at the start of each lap - it amazed me how many people I overtook on that, it wasn't even a hill. There was a bit of congestion at the start so my first mile was around 8:15, but there was a lot of space after that and miles two and three were both exactly 7:56.6. Consistent eh? I was breathing quite loudly during the last half mile and I did push myself, but still found a little something for the finish, which doesn't often happen. My official time was 25:20, which is somewhat outside my best but still respectable (especially given this has been a 51 mile week since I did my long run on Monday). Good enough for 5th lady and 1st VW50. Rather glad I pushed it towards the end because there were two VW50s three seconds behind me!
After adopting the bent-over-with-hands-on-knees recovery posture, I got some water and ran the two miles back to the station for a total of 8 miles. Home by 11, which isn't bad considering it's not the most straightforward journey.
I doubt I will run tomorrow - I don't like 20mph winds let alone 60. Damned storm may keep me indoors for two days. Almost tempted to go out again later today, for that reason, but I've just eaten a baked potato so it probably won't happen.
Pretty wild here, glad i didnt have to drive to Worthing let alone race.
P and D said 6+5, i did 12. Legs felt better than during ydays 20. Took a bit of a weather beating. Im sure it wont come in handy on vlm day.
XC was meh so not too sorry today's race got cancelled. Did a hilly trail 13.1 locally with a couple of clubmates through the worst of Ciara!
XC results are out. Despite feeling like it didn't go that well for me it appears I was slightly ahead of several rivals who've just beaten me in recent fixtures. Still probably 20s/mile slower than I would've been in previous seasons. Good news is we moved up to 2nd in Division 3, 520pts ahead of our nearest promotion rivals so looking promising with just one more fixture to go.
No running today - props to anyone who went out in that.
Good luck with the promotion, Jooligan.
TR - impressive mileage as always, esp doing them all in singles.
Jools - great read and amazing achievement. When you see how accomplished he is, it must make Jasmin Paris's record breaking win last year one of the most incredible ultra performances ever.
I see Ciara has been wrecking havoc over in the UK and for once conditions have been similar down here. A massive storm has reached the east coast and Sydney has had the most rain it's had for 30 years. Lots of flooding, trees down and some homes evacuated due to combining with high tides. Last time it happened some homes'swimming pools collapsed into the beach, looked like a hurricane had passed through. This all meant I resorted to the TM again for my LR, 25k in 2 hours. At least it topped off a decent week, just under 70 miles. Only 5 weeks to go and I'm behind in fitness but with it being a trail marathon at least I don't have to worry about hitting any sort of target paces.
Hope everyone else managed to get some running in despite the weather.
Enjoy the taper for Tokyo.
I had XC on Saturday which was dry for a change but the legs were definitely feeling the miles accumulated in the legs. As usual i just outside the top 50% (the quality is something else)
Braved the storm to go and collect the car from the pub yesterday morning. Managed to dodge the worst of the rain for the first 15 miles then it all came down at once . Rather than running an extra lap of the village I called it a day at 17 miles. The official plan starts on Tuesday for VLM / Comrades.
Jools - Good xc running and 1k reps.
TR - Massive week, with no doubles.
John - Good TM long run and big week there.
15 mile MLR on Saturday, nicely progressive without trying to run as such, first mile in 10:xx and final in 7:5x. 6 mile recovery on Sunday in the wind, for a 55 mile recovery week.
SQ...Nice recovery running.
Ha...22 mile on a Friday is more than decent.
AWC...Good recovering. Shame about the fence, the wind was brutal over the weekend.
TR...Massive week, especially with no doubles, no wonder your LR was hard work, well done toughing it out.
Jools...Nice windy trail run. Well done on the XC, always nice to beat rivals.
John...Good work on the treadmill, hope the storm isn't too bad over there.
Millsy...Good running in the XC, the standard sounds insane. Nicely backed up with a LR too.
Steve...Another big week, good MLR.
Saturday mornings 20 mile LR brought me to 107 miles for the 'rolling week', which is my highest ever total i think. The run went well, averaged 6.44 min miles and felt good throughout. I then went away for the night/weekend with the wife and ate and drunk my body weight in all kinds of good stuff
Usual Monday recovery doubles today. This mornings 6 were in the snow...we are getting all kinds of weather at the minute.
AWC - Helen is excellent, although you'll need a few hundred quid spare - she's not cheap. However, my achilles is now quiet after being a whiny little bitch for 18 months so it was worth it in my case...and I daresay becoming a more efficient runner has also helped me get my sub-4. She's a very interesting lady and quite quirky but she really knows her stuff.
Millsy, the quality in XC is insane. We've got some excellent runners in my club and it always amazes me how far down they finish.
hamo, that's an insane total! As is going out for a run in Ciara. I did see quite a few people out running yesterday when I popped down to Lidl, but I wasn't actually feeling that good yesterday - when I hit peak mileage I seem to be on the borderline of getting a cold for weeks at a time, though it never really amounts to anything.
Anyway, I banged out 10 miles this morning, feeling OK, so it was the right call.
Millsy - are you doing anything specific in that plan ?
AWC - im with you on the fence.
Hamo - sounds like a great weekend, you can keep the snow.
SQ - well done Mrs SQ. Nice one on the 18, top dedication for that on a monday morning.
10m inc strides today, it was grim out there today.
TR, well done on toughing that out.
Well done for getting in the strides, TR. The questions is: with our without a tailwind? I'd always opt for with for strides, but varied for intervals.
Hamo - wow just smashing distance and pace at the moment. Careful you don’t overdo it, have you just had a recovery week? Good that you can still fit in the odd splurge, makes for a happy balance.
AWC - shame about the fence, is it a long one? A significant number of homes here still without power and forecast for more storms this weekend. The upside is almost all the bushfires are out and the dams are almost refilled to normal levels.
Easy 7M yesterday and another today with a couple of tempo sections, the first one flat and the second over hills. Trying to get my legs used to hammering downhills over the next few weeks without getting another injury.
SQ...Yea the wind soon blew the hangover away
TR...Seems like we are keeping the snow alright, my run this morning was in a blizzard. Good strides in bad conditions.
John...Yea, the week before last was a recovery, then last, this and next week are all 100 plus miles before another recovery week. I like following a plan that is written by someone who knows what they are talking about, because i can turn off the mind a bit and not overly worry about overdoing it, becasue they have it covered (to a point) if that makes sense. Good luck with the hilly tempo, good idea to start getting used to them now.
10 miles with strides this morning, in fairly heavy, lying snow...nice to look at, slippy to do strides in
TR, I`ll be basing my plan on last years but swapping most of the track sessions for hill reps and making the long run more Comrades specific eg, road not trail and including plenty of long downhill sections. Most weekends will have a 12-15 miles on the Saturday (including a hard effort parkrun) followed by the LSR on the Sunday. It`s a bit of a mish mash of P&D principles combined with some specific tips I`ve picked up from my research.
SQ - Nice TM long run, and congrats to the wife on parkrun PBPB.
John - Nice tempo.
I had the dreaded 12 with 7 today...it was feels like -5c temps, windy in parts and I even had some snow, which made it delightful ;-)
Anyway paces were, 6:33,6:34/6:31/6:23 (yeah this feels tough but doable)/ 6:50 (damn this wind)/6:56 (might as well bin this off now)/7:02 (how can wind come from more than one direction!).
Anyway after 5 miles, I was going to bin it off, but then decided on the just one more approach to grind it out. Paces were slow, but HR was in the right range. 7 miles at 6:41 average.
Any kind of tempo effort in this wind is solid, Steve. I wouldn't have dared look at splits - as long as you were working fairly hard it'll pay off.
Sounds a good plan, Millsy. And certainly did you very well last year. Happiest man in the Red Lion I seem to remember!
John the plan goes up to 3 hours, twice. So depending on effort, that'll be circa 24M.
Cold coming out and feeling generally a bit rubbish. Pleased an easy day was planned, with a very relaxed hour in the sun and wind. Averaged just below 9m/m, keeping HR low. Felt fine whilst running. I know this will be the case from experience, but then you always feel a massive fraud having even the tiniest moan to a colleague later on
Hamo - youve copped some weather recently.
Millsy - sounds good, those weekends will also set you up for vlm.
Steve - well done, its the effort that counts, well toughed out.
17m tonight
Fortunately they’re prepared & have a back-up certified course ready to go. Provided Dennis doesn’t deteriorate further I’ll be racing this Sunday but should have a decent excuse for a shoddy time
First double day of the campaign yesterday, 4 Am followed by a 10 mile hill session in the evening.
Already working out alternatives for the weekends training as lots of parkruns are looking dodgy due to the weather and I need a safe LSR route for Sunday
Steve...well toughed out LT run in bad conditions, I agree with Jools, pace doesn't matter in that wind, class work.
Jools...Not sure i'd have like your cycle commute. Nice treadmill effort, and all the best for Sunday. Good that they have a back up route, the swimming that would be required would make it a duathlon if they kept that first course you've put the picture up of
SQ...Nice recovery running.
TR...Nonchalant 17 there, good work.
15M MLR in the ice and snow this morning. Wasn't really feeling it mentally from i woke up, and the constant slipping and sliding didn't really improve my enthusiasm, but its done, banked and that's what counts.
Hamo - Nice MLR, crap weather again for you.
TR - Nice 17 there midweek long run!!
Jools - Good job they have another course.
6 mile recovery with my snotty nose this morning, 5 miles planned for later.
I didn't have the best run today. Opted to go out after 9 in order to avoid any potentially frosty bits, and it was nice and sunny but still an icy wind. I had toyed with the idea of making this my long run (which is only meant to be 16 this week) as Sunday looks bad, but when I got to 8 I realised I just did not want to do another 8. My legs didn't want to go any faster, either, so it was just a vanilla easy run, 10 miles (same as Monday, albeit one whole minute quicker, whoop). I think I'm tired.
Millsy - looks like another weather beating ar the weekend.
Hamo - well done, you are due a good ROI so far.
Best days weather for a while and only had 7 or 8m to do.