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Agree with LD. Your body doesn't learn stuff. It is very good at keeping everything it needs within limits and doesn't change. I will experiment more with iPhone(5).
TR is right. I regularly hire cars in UK. I had one for 8 days over Xmas and it was just over 20 pounds/day.
PP - On the VLM pacing duties. Definitely in the 1.29/1.30 camp as if they can't do sub 3 off a 1.29 first half they probably wouldn't have done it off a 1.27, as they would have been smoked.
TR - You won't be looking over your shoulder as you'll be on a 1.23 first half for a 2.4x.
Still knocking out the miles and last nights 12m was a tough one physically as the legs just didn't want to know. Must be a blip.
TR - no direct trains so it'd be a 4-5 hour trip each way. I wouldn't hire a car just for a race. It's an annoyance, but it is what it is.
OS - your body doesn't learn stuff? I presume you're joking?
LD - agree re #2 and it being mental. There is a period where you've got to teach your body to utilise what resources it has available, but even that is partially down to the mental aspects of understanding what happens in certain situations.
I could never do low-carb. Telling an Irishman he can't have carbs would be like telling an atheist he has to pick a religion.
Everyone stop giving TT ideas about how to make it to the race - this would reduce my prize (if I do get one)! And I'm ignoring his sandbagging, although I guess we will never know....
PP - another impressive erg session. Even at my best I think it would have been a big effort to hold that pace for 45 mins.
Just an easy 45 mins on the turbo last night. Legs are feeling a bit better, but a bit of a niggle on the outside of my left ankle. I've got a tight ITB and I slightly turned my ankle on Tuesday, so may have tweaked the ligaments. Will do an easy run this evening and stick close to home in case I want to cut it short.
CW - Not sure I'll make triples a regular feature of my training! Think in the future I'll stick to lunchtime/evening if it's a hard session day or early/lunchtime, early/evening for easy days. Depends a bit on work schedule too...
TT - Big PITA with your car! All my niggles seem in the clear
Had a few tight spots this week as the mileage has come back up, but they seem to be manageable with plenty of good stretching/yoga in front of the telly every night.
DrDave - Well done on the long/parkrun combo and tempo.
PP - I'd go with an even 1:29:30/1:29:30, splits off the official mile markers and hug that little blue dashed line on the road...as long as you are confident of being able to maintain the even pace then it's up to those following you to keep up!
Commuting double day today, in the form of 2M easy jog (to train station)/8M Easy done this morning and then planning 7M (inc 2x2M HM Effort/pace)/2M jog this evening.
Great work. I've been busy (it's hard being "single")
I had a good session on Tue (3 x 1 mile @ 5:33) and yesterday was crazy XC session at Abingdon. I was strong on the flat but the driver training area was so rutted, muddy and with deep water it was almost dangerous as I fell over more times than I can remember with legs flayling (?).
https://totriornottotri.wordpress.com
Thanks for all the pacing comments. The general consensus is reassuring, and...
...is exactly the sort of logic I was thinking. Physiology aside, if I was borderline sub-3 but well prepared, I'd like the psychological comfort of a small cushion (1 minute) in the bank, with someone to drag me round at an even pace when things start getting tough.
PP - a mate of mine paced at Brighton (evenly) and said that he started off with a group of 30 or so runners. In the first few miles most of them were complaining (some quite vociferously) that he was going too slowly. By the end all the moaners had dropped back as they couldn't hold his "slow" even pace. Only two people stuck with it the whole way round. He said it was good fun as even the two successful ones needed quite a lot of encouragement in the last few miles and they were both incredibly grateful. So, agree that even splits are the way forward, ignore any moans at the beginning, enjoy it and keep mentioning how much you like to have a few pints of *insert favourite beer here* after a marathon but have left your wallet at home...
Toro - great session(s). Flailing.
TR - I'm stunned you can do those big sessions on your own at the crack of dawn, very impressed. Is your 2 mile strip of road lit or are you under headtorch?
PiMan - be careful, taking that many drugs doesn't sound healthy. Sounds like your ski trip must have been fun if your ribs feel like that though.
Loads more good training, TT, Al, JH1, Padams, SL (great pace), Charlie, DrDave (you should be looking at least sub 2.45 if not sub 2.40), ST, HR, OS, Postie, Wardi, Jimbob, AW, I got tired just typing all that.
Finding the food talk quite amusing. Dids, you seem slightly confused in your Point 1. Still not sure the porridge only diet is going to catch on. Point 2 makes much more sense although you don't even need to eat a "normal" meal the night before. I know I've argued in the past in favour of excessive carb loading but I find this low carb stuff pretty interesting now and personally feel that if nothing else it makes you feel more alert and awake and energetic during the day. There are downsides to it - it's more expensive, breakfast takes longer to prepare, if everyone did it then we probably wouldn't be able to produce enough food to feed the global population (quite a biggie) - and it's not for everyone but the world's more interesting when there are different options. How good it is for running training I don't know, I'm still experimenting on myself with it, but from results so far I'm not giving up on it yet.
6 + 12 for me yesterday, have decided that I need to do a bit of quicker running in with the easy stuff now so did the 12 as a fartlek in the wind and pouring rain. Enjoyed running a bit faster, tried to be quite random with the speeds / distances of the efforts and recoveries and averaged 6.30 pace for the run. Aerobically it was good but legs hurt for the first time in weeks so hopefully they'll adapt and the faster stuff will improve quickly. 6 this morning and 16 planned for later.
to echo what you guys have been saying I will deffo be going for even pacing - no need to be a hero - just make sure I hit the right targets in training, set a realistic "safe" target pace to run in the marathon and go out and plod it out - hopefully it'll all come together.
Thanks DrD -- I had a situation with a different spot on the top of my foot for a while, but it seemed to be related to a smidgen of ?piriformis-sciatica which has now cleared up. It was OK this morning, anyway. And your training paces are impressive -- I too would guess you'll be well down in the 2:4x range for a marathon.
Nice fartlek double LJ, I did something a bit similar but the other way round again today. Another MLR/combo run this morning with a 1.0 ... 0.25 ... 1.0M rep inverse pyramid (7 reps in all), then tempo effort block at the end. Overall 14M @ 6:45/M, a bit further and quicker than last week (though less windy), with a 2.1 kg rucksack.
On the fuelling, my 6M on the way home was really laboured -- legs felt cranky didn't want to know, and I was quite breathless at 8 m/M, just like at the end of my (unfuelled) training marathon the other day when I assume I was running largely on fat. So last night I made sure I had a decent portion of pasta, my last wedge of birthday ginger cake, and a load of figs and prunes for good measure, in case it was all down to doing quite a lof of miles in the last few days and maybe falling behind on carbs. And indeed I felt very much better this morning, though it may have been a coincidence. I'll be on 70M tonight with tomorrow still to go in my week, which wil be a big one by my standards.
If anyone fancies more of a challenge than 26.2 miles next year, how about an order of magnitude longer: The Spine Race - 268 miles non-stop along the Pennine Way.
A friend (Race Number 37) of mine is currently within a couple of miles of completing it in 4th place (been going for about 125hours so far). You can track him (and all the others) to the finish at:
http://spine.opentracking.co.uk/race/
//The Spine looks properly menthol, LukeStur, so I'll leave it to hardened ultra-runners, thanks all the same.
12.5M at lunch with the last 4.5M in torrential rain. Lovely. 8.06m/m on slightly tired legs: did my first session in spikes for about 2 months on Tuesday and despite it being only 16 * 220m (I know Padams always likes the slightly random distances we do at B&W
) the calves have grizzled a bit since.
Mine was mileage
https://touch.facebook.com/events/489458451159627?ref=m_notif¬if_t=group_activity&__user=719995881
Pretty sad stuff
JH1 - takes a while to get used to the bigger training load I guess.
Toro - thats decent pace, could be a good shwoing from you Sunday.
LJ - I'm used to turboing at those times, and dodging cars is probably more interesting than looking at the garage door. But I do find it hard to run hard at the start of the quicker reps, and felt pretty wiped out y'day afterwards. Its about 50m from my start point then a left turn, along another road for about 300m then the rest of the 2M is along a mainish road at the top of the city. There are streetlights (apart from one very short bit), but theres about 20 side roads to cross each 2M length. Occasionally I have to slow or rarely stop for a car joining the main road. I think that next week work will get in the way of the session as I have some early work starts and I'll be stuffed if it gets icy, but I dont need to do all of the sessions, just most of them. And remember that I'm not doing them on my own, Ode does them too.
Good one on the MLR CW - high risk strategy there, fuelling on figs and prunes the night before a quick run.
a pretty tired Set of turbo reps this morning and then some 250s in the lido later.
Nice pace in those tempos/doubles LJ & Charlie. Good to see Jools getting back to it in earnest too - shame about the wetting though!
Jimbob.. sounds like a decent eyeballs out session, good work on the session PB.
Pi Man.. last year my Doc gave me Tramadol for damaged ribs after an ice fall. He started me off on 3 a day & frankly the side effects (drowsiness & constipation!) were as bad as the pain. I cut down to 1 a day as a compromise and put up with the slightly numbed pain.
Just when I was looking forward to a run in the afternoon sun the sky turned black - I suspected rain storms but it turned out that a tyre recycling plant 5m away was on fire & blotting out the sun. Anyway 11m steady this afternoon under a sky resembling a Metallica album cover, trying to keep my powder dry for the race on Sunday.
Tyres on fire pictures here..
..http://www.minsterfm.com/news/local/1179755/15000-tonnes-of-tyres-on-fire-at-recycling-plant-in-sherburn-in-elmet/
TR -- a head-torch is good for aiming at drivers coming up to give way from side roads, even if you don't need it to see where you're going. Doesn't stop them all, but would improve your averages.
Wardi -- golly (on the tyres).
3.2M at 7:10/M (which felt pretty damned quick after this morning) to get home, now at 72.5M for the week. I'll do some recovery bimbles tomorrow to hopefully bag a rare 80+.
CW - I would have thought thats quite dangerous for the drivers just as they are about to join a main road. I'm prepared to give way to them when I need to.
Wardi - that's a bit inconvenient, well done for getting the run done.
Jools - nice session, and pleased to see you're still doing silly distances!
Did my easy run and actually felt good once I got going, was holding back at 7s and stretched out to 6:30s for a few miles. Got absolutely soaked though!
Evening all, I'm training for London this year and targeting the magical sub 3.
Just wondering if anyone has any particular advice on incorporating XC races and sessions as part of build up to a spring marathon? For saturday races I was planning on racing them hard (5-8M) day before an easy long run and for Sunday races just put additional easy miles on the end.
Been following the thread last few weeks, great to see so many people training hard and putting in some serious mileage and sessions!
Padams - coming together just in time for Sunday.
TB7 - sounds like a solid weekend plan to me. I'm not adding miles onto Sunday races myself but I guess it depends upon how often you'll race. I still hope to get about 7 or 8 long runs in (mostly 20M, but the odd 22M too).
LJ and CW - Great mileage
Jools - Good to see you getting back to it.
Padams - Looks like you may have a good one on Sunday.
Wardi - Good run in horrible conditions.
Talking about horrible conditions 13.4 miles in hard rain, strong winds and flooded pavements, included the BAC session of 3x15 mins off 3min recovery.
1st rep 5.28
2nd rep 5.33
3rd 5.21
7 wombled this morning.
SL - nice one, how do those paces compare with your HMP and MP ?
We copped some very heavy rain again overnight, more flooding about, the Stubby course might be affected.
Steady turbo effort this morning, HR low, still feeling pretty smoked.
Nice session from Jools, Toro, CW, Jimbob and SL. Sounds Apocalyptic Wardi! Great mileage too LJ.
TR - Last I heard (via twitter I think) was that the course for Sunday has some minor flooding but was still runnable. Although that might have changed overnight there's still a few days to let it drain and the weather is forecast to buck up for Sunday....
TB7 - Agree with TR, that's a good approach, in past campaigns I've tended to go for longer distance Sunday races (20milers) and used it as a structured long run (i.e. 5M steady/15M MP). But this year I'm changing tack slightly and doing shorter races (up to 10M), but harder with easy warm up miles and whatever pace miles I can manage comfortably after (up to 20-22M). I think this will suit me as I often find I need a good few miles to warm my legs up (they never go well straight off the bat). This Sunday will be 5-6M easy/Stubbington 10k/8-10M Easy (possibly progressing to steady by the end). Oh and I'll throw in a couple of full marathon length steady long runs too, MP+45sec or so (first one is a week on Sunday hopefully).
Somehow dodged most of the rain yesterday on my runs
The 7M from work with 2x2M HM effort was tough, it's not the best route for it with a decent hill in the middle of effort mile no. 2, lots of traffic issues and it was windy (excuses made!). 6:08/6:23 and 6:01/6:06 mile splits for 6:29/M overall, wasn't bad considering but probably need to find a better route! 1k Swimble and some core/glute work in the gym this am.
TR - probably bang in between them, although my Heart rate was below marathon heart rate.
Sounding nice and limber Padams. Honestly, I don't do sandbagging, so I can guarantee I wouldn't have been a threat to you at all. I've gotten pretty good at predicting what shape I am in/will be in. If you remember 6 weeks out from Amsterdam last year I had just run a flat-out HM in 72:41 and predicted 35min 10km' for Amsterdam, which is pretty much what it turned out to be. FWIW, I reckon on a good course at the moment I would be 56-57.
Excellent on the (lack of) niggles Al_P
That looks nasty Wardi!
Nice sessions from Toro, LJ, CW (good mileage too!), Jools, Jimbob and SL.
Legs a bit tired here after 59 in the last 3 days. 6 this morning including 2 uphill surges (~300m and ~1400m) and then the last 2m @ 5:40m/m. Track this evening for 5m (+/-) of reps at about 5m race effort.