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Hope everyone had a good weekend of running and racing.
I DNS'd my race as my lurgy came on strong on Sat pm and during yesterday, though it's not feeling so bad now. So racing didn't seem like a good idea, not least because it was quite a long drive to get to it, too. I just did a light 10M run yesterday instead -- it's just malaise in the head, no chest symptoms or blocked nose or anything, just a bit of drag really.
Hope you're getting back to normal Padams. I once had whiplash symptoms out of the blue which I put down to a sudden movement in my sleep.
Sorry to hear that Charlie but probably a wise decision.
My last day at work was a bit fraught as I was trying to leave a clean slate - I do all the problem jobs that no one else seems to want to do! When I finally finished the whole road network in the area was gridlocked so I parked the car, put my kit on a went for a run. Thankfully it had eased by the time I got back.
Had a tootle round the Park Run on Saturday (+4m afterwards) and joined a few chums for pizza and enormous steins of beer in the evening. Easy run Sunday plus fitted a new belt on the treadmill which was challenging but fun!
16.2m today almost in line with the P&D schedule. Nice day for it with light winds though a bit raw when the sun went in.
Good news TR - being consistently consistent is the name of the game.
Phil - I echo TR, if you can get the miles up on recovery days without too much of an impact on your body then that must be the way to go. No doubt as time passes the recovery runs become faster yet the same stress on the body.
Back home now so hello Bramble the dog and hello again farmers fields for the morning run.
Restricted myself to just a 10 & 13 this weekend; had to go up to Scotland to film a TV quiz show! (will let you know when it's on the telly next year). Probably only a parkrun plus 13 miles home next weekend. Nothing longer than 16 now until race day. Then really dialling it back in December. Have done six marathons and four ultras in the past 12 months, and could do with a break tbh.
Pug/DanA - you may well be right, wanted to try some big longer runs as a bit of an experiment as I know I'm not in peak/perfect fitness for Valencia and haven't specifically targeted it. I was always going to do a steady 24 and decided to throw in the last 2 for the fun of it. Heart rate was pretty low throughout, so the pace was very surprising.
OO - probably a sensible move. you've definitely got the training in the legs.
Legs feel fine after the weekends efforts. Having a relatively easy week as racing a half marathon on Saturday.
Dan - hope the quiz went better than 15-to-1 (although I seem to remember you got stitched up with a couple of very tricky questions).
My shoulder was fine, but now the other one is a bit sore in the same place. I think it might be to do with the fact that we are now "agile" working i.e. you don't have a specified desk, you just sit where you want. Which means a different chair each day and not quite being able to get it set up exactly the same.
XC on Sunday was OK but not great. A youngster I didn't recognise went off crazily fast - got about a 100m lead within the first km and then just stayed that far ahead. Our group behind was slowly reduced to just me and one other, and on the last lap I couldn't quite hang on any more so ended up in 3rd. Just over 28 mins for 5M (ish), which is a bit slower than previous years but not too bad. I checked out the two who beat me on Po10 and they are both young (1st was an U20, 2nd is 23) with very few races to their names so hard to tell if they beat me because they're fast or because I'm not running well. The guy in 4th I've raced quite a few times and has broken 34 mins for 10k this year, and I beat him by about 30s, so I guess that's not too bad.
Haven't had time to run since then due to work and family stuff but should get out at lunchtime today.
Sure you all know that one
Padams - That's none too shabby, bloody youngsters aye, they are either far too quick or knock out weekly sub 3 marathons out training seemingly for fun!
The Valencia marathon seems a speedy one; for 2016:
1,110 completed > 3.00.00 hrs
550 > 2.54
270 > 2.47
So to get into that top 270-300 or so finishers, after a week of high mileage, feel the need for speed so a 2.5m segment y'day and 2 m today @ 6 mm. Seem to still have a slightly sore hip, so will be looking for some downtime after Valencia and resist the lure of Lanzarote or Malaga in Dec - but I am weak!.
Joe - 2 marathons (consecutive weekends?), feeling invincible running sessions in between? And a 1/2 this weekend? You might get away with it as you have had a short running block build up, but if you have a crap day in Valencia at least you'll know why.
Slightly faster field than London 2017 who of the 39,550 or so finishers:
1935 > 3 hrs - 8 on 3 hr dead ouch.
1159 > 2.54
839 > 2.50
639 > 2.47
OO - sounds like a pretty fast field, I'll also try and aim for that top 270. Hopefully a few of us will all be starting in the same pen.
TR - it wasn't consecutive weekends (14 days apart), and both were run at a relatively easy effort, and I only did one relatively short session in between. As if not had a long build towards Valencia (only around 7-8 weeks), I wanted to try something different as I've already accepted it probably isn't going to be a PB this time around. I'll give it a crack tomorrow and then focus on resting up before Valencia. If anything I'm just interested to see how it turns out.
As mentioned, got a half tomorrow (Thames Meander). I doubt it'll be a PB as it's not a fast course (along the river, dodging pedestrians, quite muddy), but I'll give it a go regardless and hopefully get into a good battle with others.
OO - I just had a look. Definitely a quick field. 55 under 2:30. My pb would have placed me 49th, whereas in Amsterdam when I set it I was 35th.
Good luck for the half tomorrow Joe.
Sounds like a good xc outing to me Padams. Nice one.
Not much to report here really. All going in the right direction as I'm starting to get more consistent mileage now I've stopped marathon training - 82 for each of the last 2 weeks, 336 for October (2nd biggest in the last 3 years), after 251 in September, though the previous 5 months averaged 37mpw!
My long run list, however, is a different story - it actually goes like this: London Marathon 2016, Valencia Marathon 2016, 2017 - 2 in Feb, 2 in September, 1 in October, so an average of roughly 1 every 11-12 weeks.
I ran one of my hills+stuff sessions last night: wu, 2m @ 5:15, jog, 8 x 420m hills (5k effort up, solid pace back down), sprinting the last 100m of the last hill and straight into 2.7m @ 5:38 (first minute or so of that stung a bit). Averaged 6:05 for 11.5m all in, and it's possibly one of the best of those workouts I've run.
Amazingly my legs were ok this morning as I tempo'd the last 2m of my morning 6 (5:29).
Plan for Valencia is to do as I always do - run to feel, aiming to stay just the right side of red-lining it, and see what comes out. Hopefully you won't see me crawling to the finish, but anything is possible. I hope the rest of you are in, or enjoying, your tapers!!
TT
Joe B
DanA
OO - (a) 2.46 (b) 2.47 (c) 2.48 - keeping it tight!
Wardi
Good luck tomorrow Joe any others racing.
Continuing my theme of the legs forget how to run fast before they forget to run long, trying to add some speed to sessions now, so 4m @ 6.10 within a 9m y'day although nice and steady 11m today. Will look to do around 40m next week - key being around 6 of these in 5:4X in some yasso-type sessions.
Good luck with the half tomorrow Joe. Anyone else racing anything?
I can get in with the first race report for the weekend, this morning's Ballbuster. Wet overnight, and drizzly rain throughout but warmer than usual so not bad conditions in the scheme of things. I know I'm not in shape for a proper crack at it so the first 8 mile run was trying to be sensible, and when a couple of guys I was with pulled away going up Box Hill for the first time I let them go, hoping (correctly, as it turned out) that they were in relay teams. Not sure where I was position-wise, but it was a couple of minutes slower than I used to do, plus an extra couple of minutes because they've moved the entrance to transition right round the corner.
I was pleased with the 3 laps on the bike, it was only on the third lap that a few started to come past, and I thought I'd set myself up Ok for the final run. I'm lacking some endurance fitness so it was nothing special, but I pulled away from the guy behind on the final ascent and was gaining on the guy in front, so must have been doing something right. Final score was 3:06:02, my slowest for a while but not if I take the course extension into account. First V50 was a bonus, £70 and a box of 30 SIS gels, so it's a good job I like orange.
CD - I saw wet roads and leaves the other day and thought it must be ballbuster time soon. Another strong performance. Hope there is a long shelf life on those gels, 30 is a lot of marathons.
I upped my long run by a mile to a massive 13m today, longest run for well over a year. What an aerobic monster!
Monster indeed TR, the lummox will return!
Massively well done CD, 3hrs plus is a lot of competitive exercise.
TT.. you seem to be in great shape, will be interesting to see what you clock in Valencia.
11m today brings up 62m for the week. Park run was torture yesterday - a later 'Poppy Run' 5k was being set up on the same course and while we were running the smell of bacon butties could be detected wafting around the route
Easier week coming up similar to OO.
CD - good effort, I saw the results yesterday. I wouldn't fancy that bike course on wet roads with leaves on the ground.
3M very easy on Saturday for me with the dog and mini-Padams. Then fitted in 12.5M yesterday with 2 x 3M fairly hard (18:15 for each). The other miles were all 7:0x, so 83 mins for the whole thing. That got me to about 33M for the week, which was a lot more than the previous week!
Cheerful Dave - Nice work, V50 winner I like it.
TR - Nice run fella, it#ll come back... keep up the good work!!! And make sure you do more miles than Padams hahaha
No races for me over the last week just some solid and fast training (well fast as in hard stuff) which I've never really done before to be honest... and todays session will be more of the same. Today's fatboy weigh in was 83.3kg (13st 1lbs in old money) which I'm not happy about and really do need to cut this right down now in this last 8 weeks
Wardi - That's a decent mileage week. Now the shock of the faster stuff.
Padams - I like your description of your 2X3m as fairly hard. All good stuff.
TR - The Return. (can you see what I did there?)
Pug - Don't overdo the fast stuff. I aim for no more than 8-10% of my weekly mileage to be faster than likely mp in any given week. It will be the higher mileage that will bring down the puppy-fat.
Now in 2 week taper period, so 6m this morning, with 3K @ 5.35 mm. Scales now saying just over 10st 4 - promising.
TT
Joe B
DanA
OO - (a) 2.46 (b) 2.47 (c) 2.48 - keeping it tight!
Wardi - (a) 3.30 ish (b) build up a thirst
So based on my poor running base I was thinking of continuing to build the long run up to 2.30 to 3 hours so around 22-28 miles just to get the legs used to the distance before the specific marathon sessions in February and March. I know this may be against normal thinking and April is a long way away but I don't want the dreaded death march like I had in my last marathon at 20 miles. I am only running 4 days a week (cycling the others) at the moment with a medium long run and a couple of 10 milers as well with some marathon/half marathon paced sections in.
Thoughts please.
Shameless copy and paste of this weekends report from another thread - apologies;
Thames Meander half for me on Saturday. I've been lacking any motivation to want to go and run hard recently, so I turned up to the start line pretty relaxed but not really that 'pumped up'. A parkrun takes place at the same venue so I arrived early so I could volunteer beforehand, leaving me 30 minutes to get ready for the race.
Heavy overnight rain had left the towpath pretty boggy, so conditions were quite slippery underfoot. I knew that the standard wouldn't be too high, so I might find myself somewhere near the front. Sure enough, after the over-eagerness of some in the first couple of miles, the lead-group was whittled down to four, with me setting the pace and ticking off miles all within 3-4 seconds of each other just based on feel.
We got to halfway (it was a straight out and back along the river), and I could see the guy in 4th was really hurting, and soon enough we were down to 3. I think I made a mistake by sitting at the front the whole time, but this wasn't a situation I usually find myself in. With about 3 miles to go, one of the guys made a break and I just didn't have the mental strength to go with him, which was disappointing.
Then with 1.5 miles to go, the other guy also went, however, he only got 10 metres or so on me. Then, with half a mile left I actually reeled him back in and went past him, only for him to kick again and beat me by a few seconds. I ended up in 3rd, finishing in 1:21. Looking back now, I definitely had more in the tank in the closing stages, but oddly didn't have the desire to push harder - not had that before.
It was nice to get a podium finish, but underwhelming considering I went through halfway at London this year in the same time - it was also a good 5 minutes off my PB. I've got to accept I'm not quite as fit as I was back in April and readjust targets for Valencia in 2 weeks accordingly. I'll really ease off now, and accept there is no more fitness to be gained.
TT
Joe B (a) 2.45 (b) 2.47 (c) 2.49.30 (my 2nd fastest marathon time)
DanA
OO - (a) 2.46 (b) 2.47 (c) 2.48 - keeping it tight!
Wardi - (a) 3.30 ish (b) build up a thirst
Nice to hear that the training comeback continues, TR.
JoeB -- well done on the podium in your half.
PM2 -- I totally believe in doing seriously long training runs, even if total mileage is low. I do a lot more volume now, but I once clocked 2:43 at Abingdon in a 40mpw average campaign -- but with two 26M training runs in there. It was the first time I managed a nice even-paced marathon and I've been doing a sprinkle of full-length runs in each campaign ever since. I suspect one never really adapts to fat-burning if long runs top out at ~20M. And I do like to throw a long run in now and then even if I'm not officially in marathon training, just to keep the endurance adaptations ticking over (rather than letting them fade away completely before the next one). So yes I think you're onto the right kind of thing.
...yesterday being a case in point. I had intended some overdue speedwork in my long run, but sensed my legs were still a little jaded from a week of doubles (but Sat off). And there is a low-key ultra I'm toying with entering in 3 weeks, and it had been 4 weeks since my last proper long run (the Chester marathon), and I have a half in a fortnight -- so this was my last chance for a proper long run. So I changed plan on the hoof to clock another training marathon, not very quick (3hr12) but hopefully effective in keeping my endurance up. Then just a minimal commute run this morning.
JoeB - As said elsewhere well done and I am confidently expecting you to disappear out of my view around km 20 in Valencia and I am aiming to PB.