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Wardi - same for me fuelling wise I reckon when I did my first marathon in 2009, although I did have to get picked up once on a long run and the actual marathon was one of the worst negative splits you'll see. Feel like fuelling has come on a long way generally for the marathon as well as the shoes. Cork has some lucozade sport stations so i'll have to test that out again. Have a good time in Wales, some lovely running to be had no doubt.
Jooligan - looks like you've had a fun week out there on the trails. Banging out those miles on the notorious SWCP should set you up nicely.
TT - Hoping your sleep has picked up again after a bad night. I'm definitely feeling the worse sleep this time around. Volume is fine but never getting more than 3/4 hours in a row is a bit of a killer. From what i've heard of Canova I think it would break me but you've shown yourself very capable of mixing in the quicker stuff in training. I had a look at Richmond and they're claiming to be 90% full!
OO - Sounds like Tenerife was a success all round. Weather looks good for my cruise, pretty toasty everywhere but Madeira. Plan for Manchester looks decent although I find that when I get my legs go I really struggle to then slow down. I guess over that distance the slow down will be more natural than anything. Can't be many who run Manchester and London (unless for charity) so I guess the only hurt is from a publicity angle for Manchester.
SJ - Sensible jump to the treadmill. Do you trust treadmill paces? It ought to be spot on but i'm just never sure. Feel like i'm going hard when I'm doing 9 min/miles but to be fair my HR backs up that i'm not.
A fun end to the week for me with national road relays Saturday and 11 miles with the buggy on Sunday. Relays were a great event. Not as many big names as last year but Phil Sesemann ran the quickest long leg of the day in 25:27 (just a shade under my own 31:08). Warm and windy conditions but very pleased with that. In a big (by my standards) training week I felt really good knocking out 5:47 miles. My strava tells me that a year ago I ran an all out 20:30 parkrun, so a good reminder i've come a long way this last year. Longest buggy run to date Sunday but useful to take it out to make sure I kept it easy, although pushing a buggy into a 40mph headwind is not trivial. 53 miles for the week.
In response to a few, yes Cork definitely a goer provided things remain as they are. The marathon is 8 weeks yesterday and with an 11 day cruise in there it certainly won't be the perfect build up but if all goes to plan and I get to the start line fit I'll be confident of getting that GFA time. I know they've always provided a disclaimer with the GFA times but I for one am glad they've officially raised (lowered?) the bar. I had in my head I would need maybe a 2:52 to be sure of a place anyway. But for others this makes sure their expectations are realistic.
TT - really pleased to read that things seem to be improving for you. Onwards and upwards!
TR - as previously stated, I think that's a belting campaign you've put together there. We can always look back and think we could have done more, but you've done all the important sessions and you're good to go I reckon. Well done mate!
wardi - I hope you're having/have had a good time in Wales. Hope the niggles are still ok too post-chiro.
OO - Tenerife sounded great! Good to read that your injuries seem to be improving too. I'm with TR on the Manchester strategy. Halfway at a steady but reasonable clip, then try and hit MP. If it works it will be great overtaking so many people in the second half!
Jooligan - an excellent training week and really well-timed being 3 weeks pre-race. I do love Cornwall. Sounds like you had a fab time!
rjr - well done at the relays! I remember giving Phil Sesemann a fright at Brampton to Carlisle a couple of years ago. He only just beat me. By about 13 minutes I think. A solid weekend of training there though!
SJ - you're looking good to go mate. Hopefully the logistics work ok and you arrive at the start nice and fresh!
Things here are a bit so-so really. I've been having treatment for this hammy thing but the chap I see was away last week. I'm back in with him this eve though. It's a weird one. It feels nervy but I can't bottom it. Been trying to get stuck into my piriformis and that feels ok really. I don't really seem to have any tight spots per se. But the hammy just aches constantly and feels like it's going to 'grab'/cramp when I run. Benn trying to run as relaxed as possible, increase my cadence a tad etc. It's ok, but I'm not confident it won't go bang over the course of 26 miles. I've been doing a lot of single leg glute bridges with my working leg raised onto a step and that definitely replicates the cramping/grabbing sensation. Maybe it's a muscle weakness thing? Not really sure in all honesty. Will see what the fella says tonight anyway, and go from there.
Jools - Big week for you too.
RJR - That's a big MP workout.
Cut back last week with 57 miles, finished off with 18 miles on Saturday and 6 with strides on Sunday. Picked up a cough/sore throat, so hoping that gets out the way soon!
Exciting to read all the London posts!
LS - hammy aches are the scourge of the 50 something runner male with no flexibility left.......drills, strides and heavy weights seemed to have helped me in the last year or so, they dont tend to improve otherwise.
Joe - good that cork is a goer, you're fully capable of well under 2.55, if you are after a GFA.
Steve - good stuff, you put the work in.
10m commute home tonight.
LS21.. I hope the physio can work some magic for you, it does sound like a frustrating niggle. That is a fine assortment of merry men at the London start this year!
RJR.. the relays sound like a good workout, a decent week for you too.
SJ.. great effort doing those intervals on the treadie, seems a wild weather weekend just about everywhere.
OO.. glad you enjoyed the hols and good that your niggles are settling down. Good luck at Manchester whatever you decide.
Jooligan.. a good mix of miles over the weekend & positive that you totted up your best weekly total for a long while.
Another 10m walk in Wales yesterday, very blowy with intermittent showers - a couple of heavy ones to enjoy. I reckon I took my rain jacket off and put it back on again about 8 times! The journey back today was much smoother so got back in time for a 5.5m run this afternoon.
Session was ok last night. He got properly stuck in. I’m having today off and will try a run in the morning. Going to give it 36 hours to try and settle a bit. Will see from there.
LS - blimey; I'm tired just reading your travel to the start last year. Hopefully that hammy sees you around; fingers crossed for you!
Wardi - ouch on the drive down! Sleep is improving again, ta. Sounds like some good time on feet with walks and runs in Wales. Enjoy!
Jooligan - good to see you getting volume in again. That must have felt good.
OO - I've raced a few times at Dorney in the distance past (a local club used to put a 10km on there), so good to hear the marathon is chilled. As you say the logistics look good too, and if they put one on in August as TR suspects they might it would definitely be useable as an uptempo long run (of which I'll need a few in the approach I'm taking).
Sounds like you've had a great break and are well recovered! I'd go with something like TR's suggestion for Manchester. You could maybe do a straight 50:50 split, but either way overtaking people throughout the second half will be very enjoyable.
sj - yes with work and messy. I've ended up responsible for seeing 1million+ P60s out the door. I took it on last year as a favour after redundancies saw the previous incumbents leave, didn't like how it was coded so substantially rewrote it, and now is crunch time to see if my coding skills are up to scratch
It sounds like you're in good shape. You've put together a very good campaign!
rjr - good to hear Cork is a go! Yeah, bad sleep nights see me struggle getting off, and struggle if I wake up, so sometimes 3-4 hours is as much as I manage. Trend is improving now though thankfully.
Canova is not as tough as it's made out to be. If you compare it to Lydiard's original marathon schedules the workouts are better spaced out with more allowances for recovery. Canova tends to rail against comparisons to Lydiard, but in reality I'd class it as very similar to Lydiard's approach for middle distance (which was where Lydiard excelled), but applied to the marathon. A Lydiard++ if you like.
Good week and good relay leg from you. Significant progress on last year as you say!
Steve - good volume for a cutback week. Hopefully that cold shifts sharpish.
Joolska - all good with you I hope?
It seems I had a bout of covid about the same time as my tummy problems kicked into full gear, which gives some indication as to why I felt quite so horrible as that would have made a brutal double whammy. I had assumed the horrible headaches and the elevated/spiking HR were down to the stomach problems as they were effecting so many other areas, but possibly a combined cause for that aspect of things.
I only managed 24m last week - work, plenty of manual labour, and more work got in the way, plus I made a conscious decision to step back and 'recover harder'.
Saturday/Sunday/yesterday were a bit of 'work days from hell' dealing with our operators who messed up some bits that I had to recover, but got out yesterday late afternoon to kick start my (hopeful) rebuild - 10mins warm-up then 45mins @ 85-90% of cMP (came out as 6:52, which is probably closer to 90% at the moment). Still some HR spikes/jumps, but rhythm was passable, so I'll take that for now.
2m easy either side of 5 x ~100m uphill sprints @ MAX effort this morning in the wind showed just how uncoordinated I've become over the last few months, but it felt good to be up and out.
TR - Certainly hope so. It's lasting the distance that's the key, but when is it not?
Steve - not a bad mileage week for a cutback there. Hopefully cough/sore throat just a quick in and out. Might give you an excuse for a few easier days anyway which is no bad thing at this stage.
Wardi - The weather this spring has been all over the place. I think it is generally heating up now. Certainly finding my runs a little sweatier.
TT - I think any plan that looks tough maybe isn't so much for the athlete with a good aerobic base. I'd assume that the pros following Canova have a really solid base and then those tough looking sessions just convert that fitness to the marathon. But i might be wrong. Nice looking sessions there. The hills will show up any issues in form!
c6 miles yesterday nice and easy. Today's run was the one in the block that makes me nervous. 15 miles with 12 @ MP. You're supposed to build up to it with 13(8) and 16(10) but with a late start to the block and poor scheduling on my part those two didn't quite happen as planned. I tried and succeeded to dodge the rain but thought I may as well face up to the wind as you never know what you might get on raceday. I stuck on the alphaflys and knocked out 15 miles @ an avg 6:27 a mile with the MP section @ 6:14s. Very happy with that but did feel a bit sick towards the end so something to think about nutrition wise.
Joe - well that run must give you some peace of mind, you just need to get the longer runs in. How was your achilles after doing that in Alphas?
OO - have you spoken to your mate Steve. I looked at the results and folks didn't seem to be much slower than expected. Maybe it was more sheltered there than where i was, but its only about 50m east of me.
5m and 4m today. Gales again (and record high tide overnight).
TR.. yes relentless poor weather recently, no doubt a heatwave will appear on London marathon day.
LS21.. hope the treatment calms the hamstring down. Having suffered hammy problems for most of the last year I share your pain.
TT.. you are due a bit of luck with your health after recent setbacks. Fingers crossed you get a consistent training period on the go.
10m this morning, a bit wet but preferable to the strong winds that appeared in afternoon. I have a dry throat and feel slightly off colour, probably caught some of Mrs Wardi's flu. I will try to run through it as I do feel better after a run in the fresh air.
I think any elite plan looks tough if you look at absolute paces rather than relative. It's very specific (he approaches the marathon the same way we would approach a 10km - lots of volume around target pace), and by necessity higher volume, but some of the easy days are ridiculously easy.
TR - I ran into a mate who done Brighton earlier. He said in the centre it was quite sheltered but very noticeable on the dual carriageway section out and back. And surprisingly hot - he got sunburnt. He lost some time towards the end, and with his experience I'd suspect conditions played a part. A mate's daughter done it as her first one, and seemed to buck the trend - ran with the 5hr pacer for the majority, but sped up late on to finish in 4:49.
Yesterday was almost as windy here as it sounds like by you! At least it's brighter than a few months ago.
Wardi - there seems to be plenty of bugs on the go at the moment. Fingers crossed it comes to nothing. Nicely done with the 10m, and thank you. Fingers crossed indeed!
6m easy yesterday pm. 5m regen/jog this morning. Beautiful, if slightly cold, here today.
TT - i guess he means up and down the seafront, maybe it was more sheltered there. I checked my AG and the winner ran 2.48 following 2.46 in Seville, and he couldn't have got much fitter in 6 or 7 weeks, so 2 min slower is good.......although we don't know full the story.
Last proper weekday run today. As TT said bit cold but dry and bright (ironic on the last run of the campaign). 10m as 2 easy, 3 av 7.11 and 5 av 6.50. Solid effort. Just 13m inc 6 mp Saturday to go. Although I managed to twist a knee in Sept 4 days out from the b of the bang.
TR. good progressive session today. Cheers, my bug seems to be wilting slowly and I'm do seem to be on the mend.
7.5m + 4.3m double today, managed to avoid the rain showers though a bit windy in the afternoon.
Steve - Another good week!
TT - Covid - still around and causing problems. A good few days of training for you, hopefully plain sailing from here on in and your on the up.
LS21 - Hows the hammie?
TR - A confidence building last strong session, well done. From the perspective of a compromised marathon campaign, your looks great, and well done to you for cutting back your mileage when the body was niggling.
Wardi - A really good double and good to see you on the mend - now mended.
A good 6m easy run with some running club mates who are also doing Manchester, and will do something similar today and then its feet-up time. Easy logistics compared to London, drive up tomorrow, stay with family, and a mere 4 stops on the metro from Sale to the start line.
Thanks for the advice on race plans for Manchester. After much mulling over, have decided to go for it on Sunday and try and run a sub-3. Its a long way to go for a glorified training run, so planning to go out c6.40 mm and see how long I can keep at it - suspect it will be to around 17 or 18 miles and then see what happens. I would give my odds of doing it at around 10-1 but would far would rather give it a go than not. Also think a fast 17/18 miles would be helpful for the Newport a few weeks after. Thankfully, my piroformis and achilles niggles have largely cleared up now so feeling much more pucker.
Wardi - good news on a seemingly quick recovery from the bug. Guess that's a +1 for running through?
TT - I think that's very sensible. The only reason not to approach it like other distances would be the trashing of the legs but part of that is necessary and if you compensate for it anyway it should be fine. I think after the most difficult days there's as much as 3 to 4 days of easy running?
OO - Good luck Sunday. You have to do what feels right. I'm sure you'll make the 26.2 regardless so if you feel like sub 3 is a shot well that's what we're here for? Good news on the niggles.
Legs felt pretty good yesterday considering (that carbon plate coming in handy). Very tempted to run yesterday but settled for my early gym session. A beautiful 14 miles in mostly sunshine this morning incorporating some country lanes. These MLRs are feeling great but the key is the long runs. In the lead up to sub 3 in 2019 I ran 19+ miles 5 times. I've got 4 long runs left in the plan so a couple of 20s and 22s should hopefully make a big difference.
Joe - good news then. I'd use them sparingly but you need to have done a HM or decent length effort in them......the best thing you can probably do in those long runs is do the P and D 21 or 22m where you run the 2nd half at +10%.......I even ran regular 23 or 24 milers before Abo 2019 and still cramped......the +10% method has helped me run a few neg splits or very even Paced maras........but going out easy and getting on the fuelling early are possibly even more important.....takes a pair of strong balls to keep holding back though as folks all cruise off early on.
5m earlier. Promised the spo id put in a raised flower bed, so been doing that today, what could possibly go wrong in taper time......?
OO.. good luck at Manchester, I'm sure you will post a decent enough result on the day. Good to hear your niggles have healed in time for the race.
RJR.. sounds like a nice run in the sun this morning. I'm so used to running in 2 layers that 17-18 degrees here was a bit of a shock this afternoon.
Easy 5.5m with Mrs Wardi today, I'm trying to coax her back into running after 3 weeks of flu.
Easy start to the week, then 8 miles with 3*1600m yesterday, reps of 5:58/5:47/5:45, happy with those paces as still feeling snotty! Number has arrived today for HM next week.
6m easy for me.
TR - that would make sense with the seafront/dual-carriageway. If I don't post a London time next year Brighton could be an option. Quite shallow at the sharp end though.
And ouch! I winced just reading about that poor woman! Hopefully the mp run today went well!
Wardi - good to see you getting back to it. And Mrs Wardi too.
rjr - good to read you've come through that MP run with no problems; very positive! Some of the sessions do indeed have 3-4 easy days of running between them. Most of the weeks only have 2 workouts, but the disclaimer here is Canova doesn't see the equivalent of a P&D + 10% run as a workout so some weeks will see a day or two of those runs (over a MLR distance) before a workout day.
Steve - nice paces on those 1600s!
This week has been underwhelming relative to expectations in some regards as work has messed things up, so after Wednesday morning's 5m jog I done nothing until Friday morning (another 5m jog). At the same time I've got a 45mins steady, speed work, and now a session under my belt.
This morning was my first session of any kind for ages (only 4th this year), and my first time in double figures for 2 months. Plus, more importantly, I actually felt like a runner (albeit a bit of a clunky one).
20mins either side of 3 x {3' @ Mara effort, 2' @ 80-85% - 6:17/7:03}, 5 x {1' @ 10km effort, 1' @ 80-85% - 5:56/7:11}, 2 x {2' @ Mara effort, 2' @ 80-85% - 6:16/7:10} + 2' @ 3km effort to finish (5:37).
Pleasingly, as I was running to effort the gaps between paces are spot on for what I'd expect. The total fartlek element was 35 minutes, which is a little under half of what I'd eventually expect to do (much like Monday's 45mins steady).
Possibly a jog later around more diy, and a few miles tomorrow watching Jr make his HM debut.
TR - you seem to be having pretty much the exact weather that we are up here. I honestly think this is the worst winter I ever remember, just in terms of 'bleugh' type weather. Someone told me yesterday that we've only had 3 days since 1st October where it hasn't rained! And it's constantly f*cking windy as well! I looked on Met Office yesterday and it was bright sunshine and 20C in London. It absolutely banged it down here, 25+mph wind and had a feels like temp of 4C. Fantastic. Anyway, see you next week - taper well!
rjr - that's a belting long run with MP - well done!! All looking good
Steve - another cracking run from you! Those mile reps are very tasty.
wardi - hope the throaty thing hasn't developed into anything worse and you're able to keep at it.
TT - good stuff that you're able to get back to it to a degree. Work sounds hectic, so just do what you can.
OO - good luck for tomorrow! Great approach re the race as well. Similar to me last year at Barca. I had a similar plan to you (in terms of effort level, not pace!) I struggled a bit later on but not too bad. Think I ran about a 4 mins positive split, but it was great prep for London 5 weeks later (where I ran 14 mins quicker). So good luck - hope it all goes well!!
If my leg holds up I’ll do ok. I’m a bit undercooked in terms of long long runs, but I know what I’m doing.
LS- we had something like 2.5 times the rain expected for Feb and 2 times for March. Add in all the gales and named storms ! So I feel for you.......it certainly won't be windy in the city next weekend. Look fwd to seeing you.
Was supposed to be sunny here today but was breezy and I could have done with long sleeves. 5m easy, 6m approx mp, 2m easy. I used Steve Way tactics and ran with more wind behind than with. Usually aim for av 6.45 and hope the HR stays lower, came in av 6.37 probably due to more wind behind than against. HR was a bit higher than id have liked though, but last mile was 6.27 into the wind.......unlike LS I have nothing over 12m as an mlr but have lots of 20s and 21s. Salisbury 10m points to 1.22 HM shape on a rested/decent day, so i have sub3 chances if i can deal with the distance. Not twisting my knee on Tues would be good (unlike last Sept).
LS21.. encouraging that your hammy has improved, hope everything holds together until race day. BTW I saw that Red Lion price list on FB. By contrast I was in a Sam Smiths pub. In town last night & bought a round of 4 pints for a tenner! As my mate is fond of saying. 'The more you drink, the more you save'.
TT.. you seem to be doing well to fit in your runs amongst a busy life. Great mixed session this morning, some good paces in there. Which half is junior doing? Hope he goes well.
Excellent mile reps Steve!
As my bug from earlier in the week is about 80-90% gone I decided to have another crack at Parkrun as conditions were good. Boxed in quite badly at the start (760 there today) but managed to find a few gaps and hit the first mile bang on target. Pleasantly surprised with another improvement, 22.49 vs 22.55 last time. Splits rock solid too.
11.5m with miles before & after.
Thank you for telling us your full name. I did search ‘Ouch’ on the tracker but no matches came up. Pathetic really.