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JCT1 - I was thinking the same thing when I ready your post. I'm really itching to have a crack at a good half marathon time in Wokingham.
bainspj - Cheers for the advice. I've been thinking the same thing about the midweek longish run but it's difficult to get much more into a lunch break. Might try to come in even earlier on Monday (start at about 6:30 at the mo) and push out the Monday run. I do 22 miles on Friday because that is the distance from work to home. Probably a bit further than I'd do otherwise but I enjoy the run (much preferable to driving). The weekend is always light so I feel like I recover pretty well.
TippTop - I think I'd find it mentally tougher to take my kids around a crowded market that go for a run in the wind. Probably just that I'm a bit antisocial. Well done on the 20 miler.
HA77 - I agree with others, the schedule in general looks good, but you will want to have some variation (building the volume of sessions over time and having easy weeks every so often), partly for physiological reasons but also it will be hard mentally to keep repeating a very similar schedule every week.
TT - 44M is still more than I've done in any single week since September (when I ran 72M on one day). Well done on getting 20M done!
8M for me last night alternating easy and faster miles. Easy ones were 6:5x and faster were 5:5x - felt fairly comfortable but still don't feel like I'm moving smoothly.
HA77 - just to add to the others, I know you do the long run on Friday to fit in with family, but if you could swap it now & then to a Saturday or Sunday morning you'd get more used to morning runs - Manchester doesn't start at 2pm! Also, all your 'quality' stuff is in 10-12 mile runs. Personally I'd find that hard mentally and maybe a bit dull, TBH, I'd probably have a bit more variety, swapping in a 6-7 mile tempo run, or changing to half mile or even 400m intervals now and then, particularly this far out.
Seems like there'll be a big thread turn out at Wokingham. Shame there's no equivalent of the Red Lion - the tent handing out free tea to runners is very welcome but not quite the same!
JCT1 .... Hampstead as you know is not a flat parkrun .... and FP is surprisingly un-flat. It's around 45 seconds slower than a 5k track time trial. Hampstead is tougher than FP but FP is still tough. Highbury and Hackney Marshes are faster (I've heard). I haven't run Hampstead in over a year and they are building a dam there at the moment so part of the normal route is closed. I'm not sure how they have modified it.
JCT/HA77 - I don't have anything to add, but welcome. More fredders for Wokingham. Yay!
10 x 800 w/ 100m/~60-70secs recovery last night. Felt pretty good and after a creaky 2:37 start, managed consistent splits mainly 2:33/4. Was forced down the pub afterwards to celebrate someone's birthday but still managed the 3 mile jog home after a couple of pints of Landlord and a burger.
Finally, nothing confirmed yet but I have officially expressed an interest in providing sub-3 pacing for RW at London.
Bains - yeah that sounds sensible. As I mentioned 2.45 is the target ATM and then see how we go.
HA77- Yeah PBing at Wokingham is on my radar for sure. I have heard its pretty fast??
TT - Got to start somewhere when getting back to it and that's a solid long run to begin with!!
Jimbob - Yeah HH parkrun at the moment is a nightmare because of that. Starts and ends on a huge hill and nowehere near as good as the usual route. Will have to give FP a shot when I am home thanks for the heads up.
PP- Great session and even better inebriated jog home!
Last night P and D had me 9 with 4 tempo at HM pace. Felt good and ended up slightly quicker despite the crazy wind. 5.45 m/m average and nice and consistent splits.
Time to back it up with 12 mile medium long at lunch today!!
Hello, just dropping in with a piece of shameless self-publicity
Nice Pic EC - The missus is B&C AC so her folks went to my wedding, although only met Paula myself at her coaches 80th party in May, nice girl.
Padams - Yeah was non scoring so didn't have an ideal warm up, looked at the photos on Flickr and you were with my LBAC team mate at the start, I was about 10 places back. Bit less pressure as compared to next week when it's just the old guard..PP and his dark blue hordes to contend with
8 x 1k last night on the grass at Luton, windy so happy with the spread, 3.17 down to 3.09 for the last one. The majority 3.11/12. Sick of training in a wind tunnel now!
Presumably you're the bloke dressed as a kind of gothic beefeater on the left, ES?
Dachs
. The "gothic beefeater" is one of my colleagues photobombing! I'm clearly the one dressed as Gru from Despicable Me! Of course I took off the rubber mask to pose for the photo.
Yes ES! - nice Paula picture, not blurred like my entry. I bumped into her this year at VLM expo and she was desperate for a pic with The Jimbob in his Boston jacket!.
Jimbob, yeah, it's a top quality photo, thanks to a friend with a 500 quid camera. The one I posted on here is 1/8 of the original size!
Looks like I need to start a separate "photos with Paula" thread or we'll be overwhelmed!
Gah! Now I'm a little jealous. I've never met Paula. How about Mike Gratton? He's quicker!
Nice photos. I wonder what she'd run right now - my guess is it'd still be pretty good.
Paddams / Cheerful Dave - Cheers for the advice. The program I put up is just typical and I do vary my runs week to week and always have an easier week at least every 4th week. I used to do more tempo and fartlek runs on for the Monday 11-12 miles but I found I was going too hard and would be sluggish and had some niggles for the rest of the week. By doing a progression run based on how I feel I've found I do much better at the intervals on Wednesday and long run on Friday. I think I might start to do more fartlek type runs though. The interval sessions do vary too, but I just put up my favorite 2. I am going to do something a bit different for the long run this week and try out a new pair Inov8s in Swinley Forest.
JCT1 - I ran a couple of good HMs back when I was 16/17 (over 20 years ago now) so I don't think I'll be getting close to my PB. I did read that Wokingham is fast but don't know the course at all. Good pace for the tempo run.
Did a lunchtime 9x800ish m hills @ ~5:30-5:40/mile with steady 800m downhill recovery @ ~6:20/mile. When I say hills it's more like a gentle rise, about 12m climb per rep but it's the best I can find close to work.
HA77 - I ran 2h45 off an almost identical PB to yours back in 2010; with a few tweaks to your plan, you should be able to get down to 2.40 or better.
JCT1 - I think most (or at least many) on here have PB'd at Wokingham; conditions can play a part since it's in early Feb, but the big plus is the depth of quality to keep you company round. I've PB'd there in the last two editions (2013 in 1h17 and 2015 in 1h16) but don't think I got into the top 50 either time.
Have taken a couple of days off since Saturday's ultra (except for 5-a-side on Monday), but a bit bored now so will head off into the park for a few easy miles tonight.
And since we're doing celeb photo bombing, I'll save my Paula photos for another day, but raise you a couple of Olympic golds and a handful of world Ironman titles.
ES - your colleague has been tweeted by Paula. He might go viral.
Dan A - nice!
Loving all the photos!
I should be at the thread day out in Wokingham.
Nothing exciting this end: terrible reps session last night. Just seem to be really tired and run down at the moment, so Christmas can't come soon enough!
JCT - glad to hear of your common sense P and D decision. Its hard enough as it's written.
ES (and TJB) - careful, you'll have folks hounding you for your blood data now.
Wokingham is way too far out of my post code, but I'm in for Chichester which will hopefully blow away 10 months of non racing rust.
I'll probably be able to see the flesh spilling out of the shorts no doubt. I'll bring my reading glasses so I can actually see your shorts.
SC2- nice K reps
Some cracking photos there ES et al.
Solid session HA77 and good to hear from those in the know, Dan, that its a decent course with a deep field so should be a great day out.
Decent 12 at lunch today, Legs recovered quite nicely from the session, despite being absolutely battered by the wind the whole time, Like SC2 I am well and truly fed up of getting smashed around by this weather!
Padams - but unlike you I don't do any other training, so that was the sum total of my week.
PP - definitely not racing London then?
Good reps/training from PP, JCT1, SC, and HA77.
Nice pictures!
I managed to keep moving after Tuesday's long run (though was a little sore, understandably), but just kept it to 2 x 5m yesterday (mainly because I had some mates coming over to help put a ceiling up). Bit stiff, but not too bad. Feels like I'm turning a corner now as this week so far has been 10m, 20m, 2 x 5m, and another 5m this morning. Will do 10m home later with ~5m of it 'fast' (about current MP + 20s).
With a work do tonight, another night out tomorrow, and our club do on Saturday the next few days will be the acid test to see if I'm getting back in the groove!
I have a photo of me, my childhood athletics hero Colin Jackson and my son, but I can't seem to link to it. My son is holding a sword made of balloons, and I am about to make an ill-advised joke to Colin about there being a bomb in my bag. You will have to just imagine the scene.
Welcome to HA77, sure those times will tumble across the board. My marathons are generally under-par, so my advice on your training probably isn't too helpful.
TT, good to see some consistency emerging, but be careful not to turn too many corners or you end up going in circles.
Colin Jackson you say Dachs .....
TT - I'm almost definitely not racing London. The only feasible scenario that could change that is not being offered a pacing job and somehow gaining the mojo to race more than one marathon a year and believing that a sub-2:30 is more than likely. So fingers crossed for the pacing job, then I don't have to think about it!
In other freebie race news I had an e-mail from the nice organisers of the Maidenhead Easter 10 offering a complimentary entry for the 2016 race as a defending age category winner. Rude not to, especially considering I was probably going to do it anyway. So an extra plug for the race from me. It's a cracker, well organised, pretty fast and flat and they give away chocolate rabbits amongst the prizes.
I set the metronome to "subtle progression" for a lunchtime interval session today, 5 x 1 km along canal paths in the Docklands. It's actually 0.98 km, club mate reckons the rep times are equivalent to km reps on the track what with a couple of subtle slopes and some corners. I reckon it's a couple of seconds quicker. Anyway, 3:13, 3:14, 3:10, 3:09, 3:08, and I was trying not to blast it too much given XC racing on Saturday, and the fact that it was just over 14 miles total because I ran from home and not the Docklands.
PP - whether it's a couple of secs fast or not, those are some decent paces. 14M in a lunchtime you say? "Working from home"...
TT - I haven't been doing much other training either, on average one ride or turbo a week. Quite a bit of quality though - I think I'm going for the "race yourself fit" strategy at the moment.
No celebrity photos for me I'm afraid.
70 mins on the turbo last night, fairly tedious, but not creating such a puddle now I have my fan.
6M easy today, run with a hangover after yesterday's charity bash at work. I actually felt better afterwards. Earlier in the week I tried a tempo run 9M with 5M fast. Shocking - barely under MP on average! Ah well, Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.
Cheers for the advice everyone. I've done enough running to know pretty much what I'm doing but I've never prepared properly for a marathon so it's good to have input from people who have. Don't want to go into it half baked this time. I think the main thing I'll try to do differently is get in a longish midweek run when I can.
I'm going to have to cut my long run short today (meeting a builder about house extension) but we're going up to the Longnor in the Peaks for a friends birthday so might be able to squeeze something in whilst up there.