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A bit chilly but otherwise glorious today. Enjoyed blue sky & sun for just over 12m.
Might get up for the Valencia Marathon tomorrow, mara 07:30 start our time, half marathon 07:00. Looks like a hell of a stacked field, 46 sub 2:07 men!
Probably not going to do a spring race for fear of it not going ahead again. I need something to get me out of the door though. I did put my name down for a club XC 8k today but missed that too with the sniffles.
Brighter days ahead for sure. Hope Marders goes well tomorrow in Valencia.
Twinge in my back from emptying the shed yesterday, the tanking and concrete next week. It's funny how motivation and confidence can affect things so much so quickly. Last sunday I was chomping at the bit, today less so.
Decided to stick to some sort of maintenance program for next few weeks. 80km or so with a midweek run and 90-120 mins on a sunday. I'll do some effort minutes to keep the legs ticking over and a tempo. Should keep things going.
@SJ: it's inevitable your mojo will dip. I'd actually do a proper end of season break in your situation, and for me that starts with a week of no running
SJ - that amount would keep you in good shape. Dont discount a spring mara yet, im pretty sure there will be a push to get areas into tier 2 as soon as infection rates allow. Good that marders got his sub 2.20 this time. Do they have to isolate for 2 weeks now? Id have loved to have run that race, but i hated being locked in for 2 weeks.
You are backing up decent weeks jools, nice.
Turbo for me today. Dissappointed to miss Goodwood, no wind today (due to my absence) so there were some rapid times accross the various distances. A quick scan shows someone who did 2.47 last time ran 2.42 today, i reckoned on losing about 30sec/lap accross the 11 laps, so seems about right.
TR.. yes a mixture of sod's law and pot luck on race conditions. I've had hailstones, soakings and heatwaves at VLM.
Jools.. nice long run to bring up the 60m week.
SJ.. I can understand your 'meh' state of mind after a promising build up. Just keep ticking over, daily runs have certainly helped me during this awful situation.
A pleasant 10k this morning and managed to pick a dry weather window. Rained pretty steadily early morning and this afternoon. 58m for the week.
TR - You've had a good training week. Decent weather and better times at Goodwood, it would have to be wouldn't it.
TT - Sounds a good strategy. You will bounce back in no time.
RJR - 2k @ 6.36 is still pretty swift. Crack it next time.
Jools - Good to see the runs getting longer and the miles crnacking up. 60 miles per week is a great place to be for sub3.
Wardi - Nice 12m.
JH/YIK - Welcome, hope you hang around. That looks like a cracking run JH. I ran 8m in similar yesterday, good for the soul.
With my road HM surprisingly now confirmed, was overdue to do a pacey endurance run rather than lots of easy miles, so Garmin on and a training-run HM in 1.28.01 (super morning to run, blue skies, sunny and crisp) 1st mile @ 7.14 and the others aver. 6.40. Hopefully will get the training benefit on Dec 20th! Easy week now as I am really aching.
Wardi - good weather beating skills.
OO - ooh nice, thats a good reference point. Similar to my 6.40 paced mp runs before GW. You are obviously in good shape.
SJ - really sorry to see that you weren't able to race in the end. Rest and reset like others have said.
Secured my place in the thread for another year yesterday. Didn't want to end the streak of 4 x consecutive years sub-3's, so a couple of months ago I got an entry into the run-through Goodwood marathon.
TR - I can confirm there definitely was some wind!! I'm sure it wasn't as bad as the day you had there, but I was variating 20 seconds per mile depending on which part of the lap I was on, and in the later stages it was an absolute slog - seemed to pick up during the morning. I'd been following your problems on here - sorry we didn't get a chance to catch up.
Anyway, there were no other objectives other than run under 3 hours. I think I'm a long way off the dizzy heights of 2:39 right now. Went out a touch fast but felt in control. 11 and a bit laps of the track.
Through halfway in 1:26, still feel ok, but by now the 20 mile, half, 10km and 5km have all started and there's all sorts of weaving going on.
Around mile 22 I remembered that no marathon is ever easy and no sub-3 can ever be a given. A minor implosion, but too late to put the time in too much danger and came home in 2:56. Fun day out, but probably wouldn't do it again - a bit of a boring course and zero atmosphere!
A steady 6 as a recovery run for me this morning.
OO - really solid pace for a training half, enjoy the easier week
TR - the trail from Southampton to Winchester is called the Itchen Navigation. We do it as a club social run in the summer usually, have a couple of beers in Winchester then get the train back. It’s a decent route, though can get quite overgrown in the spring. I walked it with a friend a few weeks ago but it was flooded in places so had to double back and take the road near Otterbourne.
Appreciate it was boring but might have to put an entry into Goodwood for April/July just to get a mark on the board. I have a Liverpool place which may get cancelled in May and presumably I could enter Milton Keynes but it's likely to be correlated with Liverpool. Sounds like the 5k at Goodwood was fun and games yesterday with bike taking the wrong turn and it ending up 400m short.
Oulton Park would be closer but my colleague who ran the half there yesterday measured it 400m long. I think that's reflected in there being just 3 pbs in the top 50. The marathon though had loads of pbs so maybe running there isn't so bad?
JB - fair play, well played. as you say all marathons are easier on paper than tarmac. I guessed there'd be some wind as its so exposed, just less than i copped. Imagine the splits i was doing. I dont mind the closed off races for a marathon as im not actually racing anyone its all about pace vs effort for myself. As you say biggest let down is the 5k and 10k brigade that you have to weave through. Dorney doesnt have those distances. My GW entry got deferred so I'll go use it.
Joe - nail on the head there, for 2.5Xers like me all marathons take certain amount of converting.
At goodwood you run the wrong way from the finish line when you start and then turn at the correct point (or not), then do your x amount of laps. I guess the cyclist got his distances mixed up, good job it was only a 5k which can be done again soon.
Wardi - tough break on the watch, but at least you have a backup (and the treadie).
sj - a low key maintenance approach sounds like a good idea mentally as well as physically.
Joe - well done on bagging the sub-3. The lack of crowd must have been an issue when it got tough?
I got too cold at Jr's football Saturday morning so took the day off, and then just went for a gym session on Sunday leaving me on 62m for the week (still my biggest week in longer than I can remember). Started this week off as 30 mins up, 4 x 1/4m (1min recs) on the roads, 30 mins down. Got 84, 83, 82, 81 for the quarters. It's almost funny to start a short reps session at about Mara pb pace. Got to start somewhere though!
10m commute home for me.
JoeB.. nice to see you on the thread again and congrats on the multi lap breezy marathon, target achieved.
A bit nippy today (circa 3 degrees) but ok once I warmed up, 8.5m done. Good news in that the Garmin strap arrived today (only ordered it on Friday afternoon!) so that is now fitted and I'm back with the smaller 230. My arm feels about 2oz lighter.
It rained last night here and then the temps plummeted early doors (i could hear the roof icing up at 4am) which made todays run commute very slow and a bit silly, so just the 5m minimum. Although thats not a bad thing at the mo.
Wardi - nice consistency in less than ideal conditions. it certainly is wet and cold atm!
TR - I've heard of the roof tiles freezing but thought it would have to be pretty extreme temps but obviously not! Can't fault you for taking the minimum miles.
JH - nice run with marathon paced(?) miles. I've been guilty of being a bit hidden in the past at night so i can't say much but it does wind me up when people are walking at me playing on their phones.
3m yday and another 3 again today. feeling a bit lethargic but keeping it all slow with an eye on hitting up the track on friday in the shoes if I feel good.
Joe - super shoes are banned on the track now ? (If it was a proper race?), or is that in other countries only?......cos it rained, the roofs, pavements, cars etc were all wet, then it froze and everything had a coating of ice. Folks scraping cars were struggling to get the doors open.
TR.. you must be having colder/mistier nights down there, it's chilly here but I haven't seen any frost recently.
11m run home tonight.
Nice mileage TR and Wardi. I'll second TR; there have been some bitter mornings down this end of the country. I got 15m done yesterday am and don't think it got above zero. 8+5 double today where 5 degrees almost felt summery by comparison.
TR - Well it's just me solo on the track. I've only got the 4%s as well if that makes any difference? Interesting though that there's evidence out there that the 4%s don't perform that well on the track, at least relative to spikes. I don't own spikes so presumably still some benefit to be had?
JH - Sounds like a good plan!
Wardi - It's probably mostly in my head. My energy levels are definitely down in the last few weeks. Struggling to get out of bed, but then it is dark. More running in the evenings in the dark rather than at lunchtime. All things that could have an effect. Chunky midweek run from you there.
TT - Good to see you with the bit between your teeth again.
JH87 - Do you have a specific Sept marathon in mind?
Wardi - Good midweek 14m.
Joe -I would hope to go a few minutes quicker but (said to the M&S marketing theme). This is not a normal half marathon, its a Cornish half marathon, it has 1000 ft of climbing, 5 big hills and descents we have been warned about! C1.26 would be decent.
7&4&7 for the week so far. All in daylight as wfh and hate running in the dark after sunset, before sunrise surprisingly fine.