Shades Marathon Training

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Comments

  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Cal-That sounds like a good idea about autumn, with all your little niggles recently it might help you.
    Nice light morning here also,good 6 miles today before work,this morning run seems to put me in a good mood for the day ahead.
    1 bug bear I have had recently is the amount of cars that don't indicate at roundabouts,nearly had another accident today because I went as they didn't indicate then suddenly turned toward me,it was that close I gave him a whack on the back windowscreen as I nearly ran into it.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭

    Captain Big G (sporting a Trotters hoodie). 

    Weather has turned so much cooler and also rain this morning. Went for just a 4-mile run this morning but it was nice to turn the legs over. I don't know what my weight is but main issue is that I feel heavy - the thing is, there is lots of nice food here!

    Oh well - diet will start when I get back :)

    Cal, maybe have an autumn marathon in mind, but don't book it yet?  You never know - your injury may sort itself out and you may find you get back into the longer training runs (if that's what you want, of course). Maybe have one in mind that won't sell out and if hotel is needed just book one that you can cancel. It's up to you of course, but one thing I've learned about running is you can go from a bad patch to a good one relatively quickly. 
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Cal - that's quite a lot of drills to do before a run, not sure I'd run well after all that!

    Re autumn marathon, there are some good marathons that don't need early entry so if you change your mind you'd still be able to find a race.

    Ian5 - I get so cross too at traffic that doesn't indicate at roundabouts or anywhere else, such bad driving and as pedestrians at junctions/roundabouts we still need to know where they're going. I often gesture to them to specify where they're going and make it clear what I think of their driving.

    Captain Big G - great photo.   Good to hear the weather has cooled for your race.   Enjoying the carbo loading then :D
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    Hi all. Been a bit busy this week again!

    mamafox - congrats again on the trophy and the wine. Nice pic, though you look a bit jealous of the winner's trophy haha

    Iain - it was horribly warm on Tuesday wasn't it. Hope your training is going well

    Ian - nice work on the hills. Looking good for a PB this weekend.

    Steve - congrats on the job! Nice holiday running, good luck for your 10 miler. You are certainly building in some good miles at the moment.

    SK - glad to hear you are recovering. I like the can't do yet approach. Well done getting to another exercise class.

    Cal - Hope you can get to Liverpool in one piece. It does sound like your body needs a bit of a break, maybe these light weeks will be just the trick.

    Shades - seems like you are finally over your injury. Hopefully means this weekend will go well!

    Captain Big G - looks like you are enjoying your holiday. Good luck for the marathon this weekend.

    lily - that's a great amount of time to take off your half time and impressive weight loss too. Good luck with your marathon training!

    Not much running from me, did no running or squash for a week before going along to my club run last night. Got really wet but was a nice run, smaller group than normal as apart from the weather we had been invited to join another club that evening (I didn't as it's a bit further away and tough for me to get there in time). Ended up being a little faster and a little longer than I would have planned for an easy run, did 10 miles at under 8 min mile pace. Felt comfortable for about 6-7 miles, then the next mile or so was a bit of a struggle, then got a second wind and felt good again by the end. Legs a bit stiff today, but nothing worse than after a long run normally. Could still feel my knee on the run but better than last week. Conversely my foot feels better today than yesterday.
  • 1SteveMac1SteveMac ✭✭✭
    Emmy - I thought it was a great place to run, but there are a LOT of cyclists so I was always looking around to make sure I didn't get in someones way when moving across to a different path! It's lovely and flat around there though!

    Thanks for the comments on the job, I'd definately recommend taking some time off if you ever get the chance! I can see why so many Shadies don't work :)
  • SlowkoalaSlowkoala ✭✭✭
    Congrats on the job Steve! Is it very different to what you did before?

    Nick - glad the knee seems to be on the mend.

    Nice pic Captain Big G and glad to hear you are enjoying the good. Holidays are not the time to be dieting.

    After declaring I felt recovered, I've just noticed that my HR has gone over 200 on my last two easyish runs. Hoping it's a problem with the monitor but quite glad to be getting all the tests next week (but also a bit apprehensive!)
  • mowzermowzer ✭✭✭
    Steve - good news on the job front  :)

    Emmy - hope Evelyn is ok now.

    Good luck to Shades, Big G and Ian5 this weekend.

    Shades - I was thinking of pulling out of the 100 anyway - I hate walking in the dark :(  and I don't see any point in doing something I really don't like (and which makes me very anxious). I'm going to be on a checkpoint there too. I'll look out for you on Sunday - I'm going to be very near the end on the canal bit. I have to have a rope in case anyone falls in  :s

    Nice gentle local walk with the footpath group this morning. Brilliant sunshine and quite hot. Yesterday we had torrential rain nearly all day and it returned this afternoon. Our dog was rather wet after his evening walk but he loves getting rubbed down with a towel.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Nick - hopefully the foot is healing now.  10 miles is quite a lot for a club run on a school night.

    Steve- I agree, taking a bit of time off work gives a chance to step back, reassess and make a few plans.  


    SK - please stop worrying about your HR, it's probably that wrist sensor again, they just aren't as reliable and have to be worn very tight all the time.   I rarely get high readings/interference on my chest HRM and the only thing that does cause the readings to go higher than my max is if there is a storm brewing and it happened this morning so there must be a bit of thunder/lightening around, common for this time of year.

    mowzer - I'm with you, not keen on the night stuff, especially the self navigation too.  My friend does the LDWA 100 and has finished about 8 I think and a few more where she didn't compete the full distance.

    That's a great place to marshal on Sunday, have you done Worcester? sorry, can't remember.   If I had to choose a place to marshal the canal section would be the place, hope you won't need your life saving skills!   I'm driving up on the day as it's only a mile off the M5 it makes for a fairly quick 150 mile drive, I hope.   Otherwise we could have met up for dinner.

    Very chilly this morning and felt quite fresh, short easy run today.
  • E mmyE mmy ✭✭✭
    Morning all :)

    Mowser - thank you. Evie is doing better now thankfully! I hope that you don't need to use that rope!

    Shades - Good luck for this weekend! 

    Slowkoala - That's a very high heart rate. Do you think it could be the connection? or low battery? I've had those two before when it was spiking? (was it spikingor a gradual increase)?

    I went out for a little recovery jog yesterday and i'm starting to think about a next race and just enjoying it. I was thinking about a late entry into Leiden this weekend but i'm not sure about it as it could turn very hot :/ 

    Captain G - Great photo! Have a great weekend. Enjoy 30km and the great support that you'll get there. They'll also have beer in case you want it ;)
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    Shades, yes 10 miles is longer than we normally do. Our "standard" routes are around 8 miles, though slower groups often do around 5-6 miles. There were only 3 of us running in my group on Weds though, and we decided not to do the route we had planned as it went round a field and we thought it would probably be really muddy. Then we got slightly lost :blush: I'm sure it's not ideal from a training point of view but I did enjoy it :)
  • mamafoxmamafox ✭✭✭
    Hi everyone, just popping in to wish Shades, Ian and Big G (great photo) good luck in their races this weekend. As usual, after the marathon I have been struck down with a cold/flu type symptoms and have completely lost my voice and feel generally pretty awful. My report has come on a bit (I'm actually on to the running bit now!) but I have been bogged down in helping son with two projects for his Brevet (bit like GCSEs). "Projects" make my blood run cold at the best of times but these are particularly awful plus he's left them to the last minute as usual  :#
    Anyway, good running for everyone this weekend - and I really hope you don't need your rope Mowzer!
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Emmy - glad Evie is better.

    How's your toe?

    I looked at the forecast for Leiden (didn't want Big G to fry) and it says max 19 and cloudy, is that too warm for you?

    Nick - I think 10 mile runs are a perfect training distance :)  Just makes it a longish night by the time you get to club, run, home, shower, eat etc.

    I have to get used to being in a local club again, I keep being notified about training sessions, was 400m reps this week, I didn't go, and then there's the write ups in the local papers and even a photo in one of them. :'(

  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    xpost mamafox - sorry to hear you've got post marathon virus again, you had it after your last race too?   I don't suppose the camping and the wine as your post race recovery helped much either.  ;)

    Hope the foot is OK
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    MF - looking forward to the report ;) hope the cold doesn't get too bad.

    Shades - Yeah it's often a late ish night, especially if I stay for a drink after, normally home and showered about 915ish if I don't stay. Not as late as when I have a squash team game, that's normally 1130ish, sometimes later after away games. That includes having dinner after as well though.
  • SlowkoalaSlowkoala ✭✭✭
    Hope you feel better soon, MF. I too hate school 'projects'; my 10 yo is doing a 5 week homework on Brazil right now. At least with the 17 yo, I can leave him to get on with it (although he's currently on study leave and only just up!)

    Thanks Shades, I'm not sure having HR data really helps me in any way, just another thing to stress about! These are the readings from yesterday and then today which is much flatter. Emmy - I hope it's a connection or battery thing, but it does go up gradually...
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Nick - mamafox writes amazing race reports, I don't know how she remembers so much about a race.   It will be worth the wait.

    SK - today's run looks fine, but yesterdays if it wasn't connecting to you properly will cause it to give odd readings.   Even with a chest HRM, if it's not on tight enough or have enough sweat/spit to conduct the readings will at the start of a run give ridiculously high readings and there's been loads of runners concerned about their readings posting on RW forums.   Doesn't happen to me as I'm female I'm able to put the monitor under my sports bra which gives a very snug and reliable contact for readings right from the start of a run. 

    Once you know your true max heart rate which I assume will be included in part of your testing then the figures will become more meaningful as a training aid.
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    SK - I find my wrist-based HRM is inconsistent. Sometimes it seems reliable but other times it just goes a bit haywire. To be fair, most of the times if goes haywire is when it's cold and I am wearing a T shirt - in these cases my arms probably are too cold to take a good reading as it just drops down to 80 or something. But sometimes it will jump up or down mid-run for no reason, and other times it just measures a lot higher/lower than usual. eg for parkrun it normally measures around 175 average, with over 200 for the sprint finish. But last time for some reason it just measured 117 average (having averaged 150 for a 4 mile jog to the start line that was over 2 min/mile slower). And I was really spent at the end!
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    mamafox - hope you feel better soon!

    I went for a later run today - just after 11am, which meant I'd eaten breakfast before. (Breakfast is usually two slices of gf toast with Meridian peanut butter, a protein shake made with 1 scoop of whey and half and half milk and water, plus black coffee). I found out that Liverpool doesn't start until 10am so I wondered if I should try to eat something before. Well, even though I went out a whole 4 hours after eating, I still got that oesophagus burny thing. It wasn't nice. Not sure what to do about that. Try to eat something big late at night, maybe? Eh...
    Hamstring wasn't great but I was happy with my pacing - 10:31/10:31/10:07/10:04. Hammy felt a lot better once I'd ground a hockey ball into it once I got back so I'm not unduly concerned. Even though it's the tendon that is the issue, the outside of the glute and ham get tight and angry if I don't give them a good going over. So I'll have to remember to take the hockey ball with me when I go.
    Main thing that worries me is that I haven't run more than a few miles in quite a while. How quickly does that kind of stamina drop off?
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Cal - it's a good idea especially with a later start to try and find what you can eat before a race.   Yes, eat more the night before, that will help.   I know a lot of runners find dairy difficult on race day so maybe avoid the milk and protein shake.     Most of your carbo loading will have been done before attempting breakfast so breakfast just needs to be a top up to the glycogen stores, even a couple of slices of cake will do the job.  :)

    Impossible to say exactly what level of fitness you may have lost, everyone is different but you ran a decent half marathon easily equivalent to a good long run.   You just need to wipe from your mind that you've been injured and not done your normal marathon training and you'll be fine.  You're not going to go out at PB pace but at a pace that is comfortable to you and enjoy the day.

    I have a spiky ball for glute work, it's one of those tumble dryer balls that you get in pound shops, might be a bit lighter than a hockey ball to carry around.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Nick - you've certainly had a few erratic readings from your HRM!
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    Cal - do you not normally eat breakfast before a marathon then? If that's the case, then I would just do everything as you normally do, but an hour later than if it was a 9am start. Which I presume means a big dinner fairly late the night before? Then there's the added bonus of one less thing to worry about in the morning :)
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    I'm hoping Leiden doesn't get too hot, Emmy!!  19deg would be okay for me, although with a 10:30 race start if it does get hot, that's going to be a problem for me too. I did Palma in the heat last October and found that tough. I've no time in mind though (I feel a PB is very unlikely), so that takes some pressure off a bit. 

    Went to Emmen zoo today, which was very good. Got a free entry and a tour around by the vet here. It's a well respected zoo, and about 1 year ago they built a brand new zoo, which meant moving all the animals which, by all accounts, was quite stressful! There're some amazing enclosures though, as starting with a blank canvas they could design what they wanted. This is part of the huge elephant enclosure, and I took this from a boat going through the jungle!

  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    Nick - no, I normally run fasted. Even both my marathons, though I do use gels during. But they were 9am starts. I've done Thames Meander half (4 times) fasted and that's a 10:30am start but that's two hours, not 4:30+.

    Big G - that's impressive! I bet the elephants enjoy that water.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Cal, yes I think they do enjoy it!  The vet said they have 10 elephants, which are in two groups.  They have a large outside area and a large inside area, and they switch the groups every few days so each gets to experience both.  In that area of that pic (inside), they were playing in that waterfall, and apparently that water is deep enough so that the largest bull elephant can submerge himself completely underneath, so you wouldn't know he's there. Incredible really.

    They have polar bears too, but the vet said the designers made a mistake (In hindsight) with that enclosure as there is a large hill there, which the bears nearly always go behind - so viewers can't see the animals.  However, being with the vet, I was able to go around the back and see them there - and see them being fed - which was a privilege too.   I also went "behind the scenes" at a few of the other enclosures, met a few of the other animals, keepers etc, and had a nice lunch in the staff canteen.  A good day out.

    About the only thing that I didn't like about it was they they piped music in all over the zoo.  The vet detested it as well, as really it is an attempt to make the experience more like a theme park in some ways, but apparently the research shows that is what the average punter wants in a zoo.  It wasn't loud or anything like that, but just always there.  Personally, I think the music detracts from it though, even if it is felt to be "in keeping" with the country the animals are from etc.

    Anyway, I'm lucky to get this access, and being with someone who knows the zoo so well you get to hear lots of things about the animals, which you wouldn't pick up otherwise.  And hearing how passionate the keepers/vets and other staff are about their animals in inspiring too - they love their jobs in such a way that I've never felt about any of my jobs!  They are not as well paid as you may think though, but many are very well travelled too, getting to go all over the world for research or conferences, which is brilliant for them.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Big G - that zoo looks fabulous. it doesn't look like a zoo but an exotic holiday location, I hope the elephants think that too.

    Shame about the piped music, must be hard to get used to working with that in the background all the time.  I think most jobs working with animals are not done for the money but because they love animals and enjoy the work.

    Hope the weather isn't too hot for you tomorrow, as long as you've stuck to the 3 day alcohol advice you'll be fine.


    Rest day for me today.
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Big G-That looks a great zoo,I'm not surprised they all love their job,I think it's more of a life choice than most careers.
    Good luck to yourself and shades tomorrow.Just been for a 3 mile jog with the middle mile at race pace.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Shades, the "3-day alcohol" advice hasn't gone so well on this occasion.....  The thing is the Dutch beers (especially the Bok beers) are so nice, alongside all the various nibbles you can get in the pubs here.  I haven't been drunk, but I've had a drink each day so far....  I won't be drinking today though o:)   I'll treat the whole experience as part of the marathon learning curve :smile:

    Yeah, everyone who works in zoos does it for the love of their jobs I think.  The keepers are all highly educated though (a lot of them have Masters' degrees etc), as are the vets.  Certainly the vets could earn far more in a practice, but then they just deal with dogs and cats which can get a bit boring, so I'm told.  Yesterday, I was taken around the "Central Kitchen", which is where all the food gets prepped for all the animals in the zoo.  It's all computerised (the system measures out the food for each animal/enclosure, for their requirements) and it's a big undertaking for the people working there, but they were all very proud to be working in a state of the art place as well; some of those guys were highly educated too, as they're nutritionists by trade, to make sure the animals get what they need.  They were saying they had a big input into how the kitchen was designed, and it's just far easier and more efficient to work there now; apparently it's the most advanced zoo kitchen in Europe - even the flooring was specially designed to be easy to clean etc.  The vet also designed his own building (the layout of the rooms, corridors, operating theatre, sockets, storage etc) so he got just what he wanted, and then had the funds to buy the equipment he wanted too.  It really was amazing to see.  How it was all funded, I do not know - it apparently cost €200m to build the whole thing.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Ian - good luck for tomorrow's race.

    Big G - I think you should get a job in a zoo :)

    Re the alcohol thing, consuming alcohol in the 3 days before a race affects the ability to cope with the heat.   I was re-reading Fizz's book from the 70's and he said that in his book, he has a whole chapter on running in hot weather.   As it was written so long ago I looked on the internet and indeed it's still standard advice plus the other stuff about it depleting electrolytes, but it was the heat aspect I was looking at.  
  • SlowkoalaSlowkoala ✭✭✭
    Lovely elephant pics Big G. Stay off the beer today!

    I was on pacing duty today at parkrun, was the 23 minute pacer! 1st mile a bit fast (7:18 instead of 7:24) but 2nd and 3rd miles on target. Bit tricky as the 22 min pacer was a bit slow and less than 30s ahead! I finished in 22:49 but he was about 22:2X! 10yo smashed his PB by over a minute (21:38). Going to the Night of the 10,000 PBs a bit later, hoping to see Paula and Seb in the endurance seminar!
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    SK - must be tough having to pace to such a precise time, well done.   Those running genes in your family doing well again.

    Enjoy your evening, must be a great event.
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