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Yeah sorry mate missed the important part out, haha Thanks for that anyway
RWH - I'm basically tracking my achieved programme from last year, where I ran eleven 20 milers. Plans aren't firm - if I have to do fewer, that's fine. Probably will stick in one of 24 miles, or maybe a little over as CW advocates. The pink grapefruit is a sub3 recommendation (TR, Joolska?) for heading off colds and sniffles.
DN - I ran my first four marathons off up to 55 miles, then did a bit more last year (av 58 miles) and will try to average about 60 this year. I've also gradually built up the number of long runs over that five years. I don't think I'll ever do substantially more as I think I'm close to what I can fit in this side of injury (and divorce.)
Dean - I like to do several races between 5k and HM from 8 weeks to 3 weeks pre-marathon, don't know where you are based but I did Great Bentley HM last year (6th Feb this year) and thought it was a good race. I've never done an over-distance run so can't comment on that but I do think a run (or two) of 23/24 miles would be a good thing to do.
I've been training significantly harder in the last 6 weeks than ever before. Training has gone well except that I've had a niggle on the inside edge of my left knee for several weeks which isn't going away and is starting to concern me. Doesn't stop me doing anything but something's not right. Not getting better, not getting worse. I'm going on a week's cruise next Monday with very little opportunity to run. I don't know whether to train hard again this week and rest next week or whether I should rest this week also?
FR - maybe train this week but not as hard as you have been doing? Better to air on the side of caution maybe and still early days training wise.............. although not when you look at some people's mileage/pace already, lol Are you doing London, whats yr target? I haven't really got going into a full schedule yet but then I did run a marathon in October so not that worried.
TT - it was a quiet Christmas here, hard to pize them off the PS3 that Santa brought em. How was yours ?
Drifter - I'm still in the 8 m/m camp with you, but only doing 13 at tops (although I did 12 more today). Couldnt dream of doing the run that pisc did, or contemplate 18 with 10 at MP like Mr Boat. But I'm saving my matches a bit this year.
MrBoat - 18 with 10 at 6:30s ? Sounds like a 2:50 plan to me.
CL - pink grapefruits have top qualities (has to be teh pink ones though).
12 bagged early doors to back up saturdays 13, should be able to squeek it up to 15 next weekend.
RW-H - I'd like to say 8:24 felt easy yesterday, but unfortunately for me it felt rotten. Nice route though apart from the bit of bog and climbing over a fence in the added on mile
Some nice long runs going on from the faster guys!
Got a bit of a problem with my VLM entry as in they've not sent my slip back even though I posted it the beginning of Dec and BR got his back before Christmas. Will have to ring them tomorrow as that's their first day of opening since Christmas and hope they can sort it otherwise I'll be looking at an alternative.
TR: I'm going to try and stick as closely as I can to the P&D plan and will run all of the long runs progressively unless they are given as MP specific; my first 20 comes next Sunday. I'll try not to make the mistake I made last year about 5 weeks out of pushing too hard on a midweek medium long run following the MMH20 when my achilles cost me about 80-90mi. The 85 mile plan does have more long stuff than last year's 70mi plan so I'm hoping that sorts out the endurance issue. I'm also not doing MMH as I'm not disciplined enough to hold back enough while I'm wearing a number; I'm doing Bath half instead. Do you have any idea of what pace you'll be aiming to run at yet? I know you did a lot of 20s last time but how much running did you do inbetween? I know you bang out quite a few hours on the turbo and swim. Will you be mainly just running for your training this time?
TR I'll be honest and say 8m/m is a bit faster than I normally go, I'm quite happy if my later 20's are run as negative splits and just into the 7:5x's for overall pace. I'm getting old, 47 next week, the first few minutes of a morning can be quite comical.
MrB, I had the 8M of MP in a 17 last sunday as well. I think that is what you call a Merry Christmas P&D. Although my MP section was laps of a local snow covered park (laps of just under 0.5M), so the pace was (hopefully) not MP, but definitely mara effort. I have been surprised with the first 3 weeks of the over 85 P&D plan in that although it looks pretty tough, because there is no speed work in there my legs still feel remarkably fresh.
RS, from a while back, no London for me this year, I am having another go at getting out to do Boston instead, which being the day after London this year thankfully means I cannot be stupid enough to try doing both.
TR, nice to see you back, and with a very relaxed attitude to London.
MrB - sounds good, if you're going to follow a plan then commit to it and believe in it. I mainly just did the long runs and the midweekers last time, plus the odd other run. I was going well til the MiL passed away in Feb and then got derailed a bit. I still cant commit too much more time to running cos of the 1/2 IM in May, but I'm bringing back the running to work and back twice a week this yr, I did it before MMH 2009 and it brought my running on a lot. So for the next 5 or 6 weeks I'll do a long run of 15ish, and a commute of somewhere between an 8 and a 12 in the morning and a 4 or 5 on the way home twice a week (plus maybe the odd extra short run), in the last 6 weeks I'll try and put in an extra run too. Simples !
better than 2:52 in the aim - hopefully.
Drifter - I'm not that bad yet, but you have 3 yrs on me.
JAP - I've over analysed it and over thought it before pace wise and been wrecked by 8M, I'm going back to a simple plan of consistency and a bit of icicng at the end.
Thanks re the pink grapefruit tip - like it! I eat 2 oranges a day which may help but will definitely look out for those 'pamplemousse' as the french so delightfully call them.
Interesting discussion re. 20 milers. For me at this stage of the campaign time on feet is probably more important than fast long runs. For instance, for my purposes our 2h30 18 miler yesterday was more useful than if I'd done 20 miles in 2h20. I'm not starting specific VLM work until 23rd January which leaves 12 weeks but I'll be doing 20+ milers every Sunday until the taper so I guess around 10 or 11 x 20+ milers. My coach has in mind a varied package e.g. 20 slow, 22 with fartlek, 23 with hills, 24 slow, 21 fast finish etc. etc. (CL some of that is similar to you therefore I think?). The 24mile slow should hopefully be a 3h15 run or so. This all providing I stay injury-free
. Might scrape to 60 mpw but doubt I'll get beyond that. Key at the moment is to secure the structure.
Drifter: I've had this plan in mind since last year, so built up to 60-72 mile weeks through the summer/autumn, basing my year loosley around P&D with respect to the midweek medium long run and proper recovery runs of about 6mi, whilst also trying to attend as many of the twice weekly club sessions.
JAP: completely agree with you regarding feeling fairly fresh; well I do now after getting over my manflu. P&D, although it has some fairly tough MP sessions early on there is no speed work which I would have been doing on club nights, which unfortunately don't really fit in with P&D (wrong nights). I really do think the recovery runs help me better than a rest day (under 76% MHR).
TR: I was sure there was something which disrupted your campaign last year, forgot it was your MIL; sorry. It must be difficult with the 1/2 IM to target along with VLM11. Don't think I could dedicate enough time to the swimming bit; I'd miss the running too much.
RS, from a while back, no London for me this year, I am having another go at getting out to do Boston instead, which being the day after London this year thankfully means I cannot be stupid enough to try doing both.
Good news! In 2009,through the magic of p!ss poor planning, I finished Abingdon and drove straight to LHR for a flight to US- you could easily make it
.
Just heading off for my run home- was -6C this morning and doesnt feel much warmer now.
MrBoat - I was still only going to run 3 or 4 days/week last yr but was aiming to do some MP and intervals etc each week but after Feb 14th it never happened, so I just bagged the 2 main runs each week as a minimum.
Coro - that is very much my neck of the woods (LT 2M away, I live the other side of Portsdown Hill), Sun 9th or 16th (not that I'm offering to do 20M at yr pace !), Country lanes or down to the Seafront and back ?
JAP - it made me laugh that his 10M in the ice was 60 mins !
TR.. I knew that piccy of Nell would flush you out
. Thanks for the good wishes, Mum's funeral is on Friday so I'm just burying myself in training until then. Good to hear you have a minimalist plan of sorts.
15.6m today, windless & blue sky so very enjoyable. It did however remind me of one of my pet hates - fly tipping. I run mainly on country lanes & trails and some of the stuff that gets dumped in the hedgerows beggars belief. Some of it is small enough to fit in a wheelie bin FFS. Not to mention the fact that the local town has a proper waste disposal facility. Line 'em up & shoot em' I say!
MrB: I'm also following the P&D 70-85mpw plan from the 2nd edition. Didn't do the long run with MP section on Boxing Day because it came at the end of my 4 day block of illness and i wasn't going to do catch up. But I still got in 63 miles last week, even with swapping the long run to today.
16 miles today at a very easy 8mm or thereabouts (2:09).
Tomorrow is 10 miles with 5 @ HMP. Tough to fit that into a working day - but I'll see what I can do.
Hi guys,
I am new here so not quite sure what the protocol is for a new member. I am running the VLM this year and it will be my third marathon after I started running last year.
I am aiming for a sub 3 marathon and have slowly been getting back into it for the last month. I had my first hard long run yesterday and although it was not easy it was encouraging as I could hold 7mins a mile through rough terrain in Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common. The legs feel ok today, so I will defintely be ramping up the milage this week. I will probably peak at about 50-55mpw and I am following an adapted version of the Level 2 Marathon program in the book called Run faster 5k to Marathon by Brad Hudson.
I find this plan suited me when I trained for the Amsterdam marathon last year as I am still getting into running, and it does not contain too much speedwork, a friend was following the runners world program, and it seemed a lot more suited to seasoned runners...or people more conditioned for speedwork.
My big goal for this race is to succesfully get into long distance triathlons and have set a goal of 11hours for my first race in November. At the moment it is all about running though, and I am just maintaining my swimming and biking fitness, so I will be substituting some recovery days of running with some long rides. I turn 33 this year, and my body adapts relatively well to all the training, and I am lucky not to have any real injuries apart from some sensitive IT bands on both sides, but hopefully I can get my posture up and cadence higher as this seems to get rid of most problems.
Sorry for the long first post, I look forward to contributing and seeing some of you at the race!
Charliew, Rsalter,and CL Thanks for the advise re long runs will try and do a couple of longer runs and see how I feel .
FilthyRich I am based in twickenham , I noticed there is a half at watford which is a bit closer than Essex for me which might be suitable , the only drawback is that it is only 4 weeks away from Barca and I have never raced less than 5 or 6 weeks before the marathon, Interested to hear how close others race and and what pace?Intersting that my last post turned into a stream of "<blockquote class=quoteheader>" b@llocks. Oh well.
Nice easy run home: 6 miles at ~8 min miling (dont laugh). Niggly calf/knee seems under control, but taking it easy. Same again tomorrow morning.
I agree re fly tippers, Wardi, having been back in UK last week and seen their work. I do think snipers should be strategically placed to take them out. Not unreasonable in my view.
Wardi - a tough time, my thoughts are with you. I hope Friday helps for all involved.
TR - 9th. I'm looking a 20M route that a) I won't get lost on and b) won't get run over on.
That DOD character looks hardcore - 146M week. I liked his Sunday - am 26M with 10M in 56, pm 7M
welcome to the new folks
Wardi - I hope that Friday goes as well as these things can.
Coro - have a look at this, it chould be easy enough to follow and its all pavement/cycle lane based without having to cross too many side roads. On the way back you shouldnt get lost as you just aim for the big hill at the North of the city. Give me a wave just after the 2M point, I might be out there myself anyway.
Some interesting annual mileages posted up a few days ago. It struck me that some were relatively low (under 3000). For those people that ran under 3000m and still achieved big jumps in fitness and marathon pbs, was the lower (than some) mileage a function of a) injury illness (thinking of Selbs there), b) a conscious decision to focus most of the training into key long runs (CW) or c) just a case of build up for the marathon(s) then not really bother running much between them?
I spent an instructive afternoon in Barnsley Archives the other day. Whilst engaged on MA research I managed to become distracted and ended up reading all the local newspaper reports (which were 4 page pull-outs which in itself says something about the status of the races) for the Barnsley 6 1974-98 and the Barnsley Marathon 1974- c.1988. A few notable points which struck me were...
1. In 1985 the marathon had 112 sub-3 finshers out of just over 400 (it was a tough route as well).
2. If you weren't through 20m in 3hrs you were pulled off the course.
3. The Barnsley 6 was the first race which let women openly compete on the road above about 2m (separate races to begin with).
4. Three times a day training was conisdered normal for those at the sharp end.
5. The front people looked ever so skinny.
6. The winner of the ladies' race got a teasmaid
7. That it was such a big event locally, with the route thronged with supporters and got full backing from the council, with the mayor handing out prizes etc.
8. Steve Jones ( but not alas Deek) won the 6 one year as a guest after the entry deadline, allowed to run at the last minute but upset the winner (Bernie Ford) by taking the shine off his victory.
9. A lot of the old guys you see wheezing around at the back of local races now would have blown me and far better runners than me away. Only a couple on this thread could have lived with them.