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I woundered if you were hot wearing gloves RB?:o)
SB, I'll most probably have the one with RC and her team mate, my finish one and I'll go and look for one where my feet are off the ground like Wardi, so I look faster!:o)
I'm thinking of doing an autumn marathon too for the 3hr attempt, but yet to make up my mind fully.
All this talk of the GFA goalposts changing is getting me rather worried. Now I need to go out and get a sub-3 in the autumn (at least that is what I've told Mrs Podro).
Re photos - I always look as if I'm walking in my photos. Either that or I'm at the end of a race and my head sags so I appear to be contemplating my beer gut. Seriously unphotogenic :-(
I played football last night and my legs felt fantastic (I obviously didn't run hard enough :-) )
Anyway, back into training now, so will keep you all updated :-)
My photo also looks like I'm walking, but I was overtaking loads of runners between 23-26.2 miles !!
hilly - thanks for the confidence in my ability to break 40 min and 20 min! I'd like to think you're right but I have failed in my last three attempts.
SB - the ND30K does sound like a real possibility. Are you doing it?
What is the opinion here of what half time one would need to have done to be confident enough to go for a 3:00 marathon? Those women who have done it (Pipes, TmR) what was your half time when you did? I'm also interested in the men's experiences but I do think it's perhaps less relevant because women tend to have more endurance so can perhaps get away with faster marathon times for the same half (or slower half marathon times for the same marathon, whichever way you want to look at it).
I'm thinking about 'what next' and might focus on getting my half time down from 1:28 to as far below 1:25 as I can, and then launch an assault of sub-3 in Autumn.
My current half (1:25) is my highest age related performance, which makes me think I'm going to battle to improve on it much, if at all. I'm definitely still going to try; I just feel a sub-3 for me is rather a big ask. Still, that's the fun of dreams!
But that came off a 1:33 half PB. 2 weeks after London I better that slightly with 1:32. I like to think that at around that time I could have got under 1:30 under good conditions and not tired, but I never improved on either the marathon or half time. I was going for the champ start time, and took a big calculated risk. On that day everything came together, and I had a brilliant race, but I was aware that it could also have been a disaster. My mindset was that I wouldn't have been interested in a PB, which was outside the qualifying time.
It has also probably led me to being over optimistic in subsequent marathons, setting off too fast and blowing up.
But in my opinion, if you and Hilly had gone for 3hrs with your existing PBs you would have had a very fair chance of getting it. Another 6 mths training with any PBs that come your way, and it should be a doddle! Good luck.
I've decided after reading this thread and talking to a clubmate that I will not go for a June marathon but, like RC and others spend the next few weeks concentrating on getting my shorter distance times down. I would dearly love to get under 1.30 for the half and I was only 19 seconds away at (very flat!) Silverstone. After that, I'm going to do the Venice marathon in October and try for a pb there.
I was thinking the other night about this and whether in your situation I'd go for trying to improve my speed over shorter distances on the grounds that you already have the endurance. On the other hand if you are on a curve with bringing down your marathon times maybe more of the same is the way to go.
Nice photo, Wardi ;-)
RC, if you'd asked me last week, I would have probably said that I had a 10k in mind for 25 June, but I'm defnitely now considering the ND30K.
No re-commencement of training for me yet as my heavy cold is still reluctant to leave me, but I'm hoping to get back to it this weekend.
I think I'm going to do an autumn marathon, but I think it's going to be New Forest Marathon, which I don't think is a fast course as it's got a couple of hills so I'm told. So the aim will most probably be to run it as fast as I can and then if I don't achieve 3hrs I'll give it a serious attempt at London next year.
RC, I've done 2 10k's in the London build up this year and both times I failed to get anywhere near my predicted potential, but I guess that's because the training was geared towards a marathon and I refused to taper for them or I just am not a strong 10k runner!
Sorry its taken me so long to say well done to you all but to be honest i havent turned the pc on all week.
Huumph-So sorry to hear that dreadful news,terrible thing to hear.
Hope you recover from the cold soon, SB.
No, I wasn't hot at all during the race. I normally need gloves from September to May as my hands are always cold, even when running. The upside to this is that I have no problems whatsoever with running in hot weather. It can be as hot as it likes, as far as I am concerned.
RB, I wish I ran well in the heat as I love running in summer but just don't do it too well!
SB-2003 was a hot day at Blackpool, but last year was a good day for running. I did the half and managed 1:30:03. It's very flat. 99% i'm going for the half again this year.
Good to see that everyone is as positive and motivated as ever, if not more so.
BTW managed a 19 minute 5k in May last year but I can't get near 40 minutes for a 10k.
Heard some good comments about the Nottingham marathon which will be my next bid for a time. Anyone any opinions?
Downloaded my photos and it looked like some photos of my grandad!! Until the screen broke in protest!!
Pipes - so probably your half marathon time at that stage was a little soft? I suppose for my 1:25 I did have a very easy course and perfect conditions.
The UK rankings are updated with London results now!
I also think the key to the question of how much to add on double the half marathon time depends on your training. I know far less about your marathon build-up, Ratty, than we know about Hilly's, but my impression is that Hilly had done more miles, but your speed over shorter distance may have been faster. This would have a bearing on the %HR you could keep up for 26.2ml. It seems that many of the guys on this thread have much much faster 5k/10k, even half marathon times than the women, but haven't put in nearly so many miles in training, or done so many 20ml runs. This would mean that for them, say 7:30 pace, would be 80% HR or less, and feel much easier; any faster and you blow up before 26ml.
On the other hand with enough miles in your legs it becomes possible to operate at 85%+ for 26ml, so much nearer in pace to 5k-half marathon pace.
So you have 2 options - either lots more miles, or lots more speed; obviously the combination of both will enable you to do even better.
Your half splits were very even, but if you recall what the commentators say about Kenyans running track races, they always say how they try and break up the rythym and make it harder for everyone else by constantly surging and slowing; this sounds very much like your race, esp the first half where you would have had more control of the pace. If you had just concentrating on keeping you HR uniform, overall you might have had an even easier time, and done even better. (but please don't think I'm being at all critical - your preformances are really inspirational)
The marathon rankings didn't come up for age groups, but I was 8th over 20 miles and 39th over half marathon.
My splits were pretty even for the first 14 miles (about 7:10's), then I slowed down to a worst mile of 7:38 at mile 19 as I was staying at 86% Max. After that, cos I let my HR up, I was able to speed up to ~7 min/miles for the last 6.2, finishing at HR=182.
In training I did no speed work whatsoever, only 1-2 runs per week at 83-86%Max Hr, everything else was 70%-75% MHR. Just lots (~60 mpw) of slow miles.
That got me a new pb of 3:09, for the previous two years I was stuck around the 3:22 mark..
Not saying that speedwork should'nt be done, i just did'nt do any. Perhaps, now that I've got my aerobic threshold up to ~86% I could add some speedwork.
hilly - you are 93rd in the marathon rankings overall. That was good enough for me so I didn't bother to filter by age ;-)
TmR - actually hilly did have better speed than me over all distances in the build-up to London. Her 20 mile time was way better than mine and she'd also just done that sub-20 5K. The only one where I was ahead was the half marathon and hilly hadn't actually raced one because of having to drop out of Bath. It's been very interesting to me to watch and compare times.