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Does a weasel whine? I've never heard one.
DFC - does Abyu now have British nationality? I remember my clubmate being most upset a few years back when he beat him in the Leeds Marathon as an unknown, when he went there with high hopes of winning.
TR - it's not just you that has to witness traumatic scenes. I was out running at about 8am on Monday on the towpath. Wondered why police were on the towpath at that time, but just ran past. If I had got up half an hour earlier, I would have come across this this .
Would have been the most shocking thing I'd seen since this major sports story . If thin is the new fat, then I'm looking forward to my senior competitive debut at the Gibraltar Open in March. Expect I'll be the only player who's taking a break from marathon training to participate.
Hilly - Had a fairly tired week of running; I should really have had a 'cut-back' week this week having increased the volume steadily for the last five but I wanted to back off next week instead to be fresher for the Abbey Dash/Thirsk.
I should really have dropped the speedwork but haven't hopefully to get close to a pb next week. My training times were encouraging me to keep on going but I may have done too much and ballsed that up! If I still feel sluggish and tired next week I will drop Abbey and run Thirsk, even if most of my speed sessions have been geared towards a 10k. Won't worry too much whichever way it goes though.
I lead a running club on Thursdays for the years 5/6 at my kids school. Most of them are great little sprinters but endurance wise pretty pathetic, apart from a couple of lads who are football crazy. Judging by the number of cars outside the school gates of a morning a sign of the times sadly.
DFC - you are awful!
BR. Dunt know him personally, just note that he now regularly appears on results as British, despite presumably being born in Ethiopea. Been over here a number of years now so suspect he is now officially a British citizen. I suppose we'll find out next year if he runs at the olympics in a GB vest vs Jon Brown the Canadian.
Sue C. Thanks.
Sue C, yep the youngsters who weren't swimmers in my group could sprint for short sections, but I remember 'my' 3 girls all swimmers had great endurance and always finished in the top 10 at school xc matches.
It's so easy to keep pushing oneself when training and run times seem to be improving or going good. That's what I did at the end of last year and this summer. I had a great year last year and come the November ran a very strong Holmfirth 15 race, but instead of backing off then and regathering myself ready for FLM training I carried on trying to put in the miles etc. Result injury, which I tried to train through, result further injury, result no FLM. I then managed to get myself fit enough to run White Peak in 3.12 as a hard training run with BR and surprisingly won it, followed by a strong run at South Downs marathon, very tough a few weeks later in June. Not happy to stop there I went on to do 2 short races the week after the marathon and a hilly 10 miler a week later, yep you can guess the result, more injury and a summer ruined as I couldn't train. I think I dropped out of several races as I continued to try and run. Not the best thing to do, but determination and stupidness sometimes go hand in hand
Back off when the body says so Sue and your reward will be the times you're aiming for.
Could have been doubly messy – you could have bumped into Amanda Holden in her jogging suit without her “face” on .
You could have wow-ed her with your leg muscles though – to see if celebrity fillies lust after them as well as normal fillies!
I’ll be following the trail of fillies that’ll be following you at Gosport if I decide to don the orange singlet after all.
Plenty of celeb runners round this way, but mostly (well apart from AH, totally) male. Adrian Chiles, Ray Stubbs, Tim Lovejoy, Gabriel Clarke (football reporter) - clearly a football theme going on.
Although I hang my head in shame when recalling that quite a few years ago, I tried to impress a local celeb in the gym by ramping up the treadie to 6 min miling. It was Davina McCall (pre-BB). I will take a straight red for that and leave the pitch in disgrace.
Yes I would be happy. I would then regroup and run another marathon. Cannot help thinking that you are missing out only running one a year. The time might have been crap, but I've got my V50 trophies from Torshavn and Dartmoor Vale on display in my kitchen. Very proud of them I am too.
OO Cornish Marathon
2:58:57 TT
2:59:37 OO
3:00:51 Dull
Dull
No doubt she says the same about me.
And so you should feel rightly proud, Dull.
Dull - I always used to wonder whether running 3:00:01 or 2:59:59 would have a material effect on my future motivation. Any thoughts on yourself?
Have to agree with cf though - I don't think it really stops. A few years ago, I would have been delighted with a 3.02. Nowadays, by comparing myself with others on here (and my own previous efforts), I think that it's below average, hence the reason for starting winter training two days after Amsterdam. Will do about 80 miles this week.
Hilly - thanks for your post, we runners are all good at knowing when our fellow runner need to re-assess their training but fail to take our own advice sometimes I find! I think I am a little too focussed with logging the miles and putting in the training sometimes without seeing the bigger picture that one missed session will not ruin all hopes of a 3.15 marathon/pb/whatever.
Another sign of the times is that my lunchtime running club has been cancelled. It seems that one of the boys at school fell on the playing field yesterday and badly broke his arm. Our Head wants various risk-assessments etc. done before she will let us take 25 kids onto it to train.
Understandable from her point of view but such a shame too.
I suppose the alternative is to run HM flat-out 3-5 weeks before, to predict whether you're on course for target?
I haven't quite decided what I'm up to yet - I've only just confirmed dates for a ski trip in early Jan (Lake Tahoe, cheap dollar, yeehaa!) so I'm in the process of re-jigging my schedule anyway.
Sue C wrote - I think I am a little too focussed with logging the miles and putting in the training sometimes without seeing the bigger picture that one missed session will not ruin all hopes of a 3.15 marathon/pb/whatever.
...or indeed that one missed session may improve the hopes of a 3.15 marathon/pb. When the legs are heavy and I'm not looking forward to a particular session, I find thinking along such lines help to ease the old OCD.
Last year I just ran Bramley as 20x 7 min/miles. I can do that at home, I may do the 1/2 thing this time.
Gator
I still appease the OCD with a pedal, swim or PJing instead of a run. But I agree that the odd day of no sports is good.
I've had 7 since the start of Aug - which shows how much cross-training I've done when I've been on the bench.
Interesting, the knee felt fine while running - in fact, I covered my usual 5.2M lunchtime womble in record time for the usual effort. However, I then sat down for 30 minutes and it was pretty stiff again when I got up.
So, the question is whether I should do another womble this evening before swimming or not. Workload may mean that I don't have a choice in any case.
Re 20M races, I just enter them because I find them much easier than 20M on my own. I never race them - my official 20M PB is 2.06, but my Berlin split was 1.53!
Gatorade - You are quite right, hadn't thought about it like that, usually too consumed by guilt about missing the session!
Just done my own session instead of 'coaching' the kids. 6 miles in total with 4 at approx. 10 mile pace. Session went fine as it happens but I was glad I wasn't supposed to be hitting 10k pace today which I have used my recent tempo runs for, felt much easier.
Good running all.
Just been for a mile swim in the outdoor lido (day off today so I went to my local) beautifully clear water with the sun shinning through and nice crisp air, unfortunatley it was a little nippy on the shoulders and arse! Perhaps indoor pools are a safer bet in the winter.
Today is my 301st day of running. Doesn't seem to have done me any harm, having pb'd at every distance at which I've raced during that period.
If anything I need to get stuck into the training, stop the racing and enjoy the benefits next summer, but have decided to race whenever and whatever I fancy until the end of the year. Looking like:
18/11 - HM
02/12 - Luton relay
19/12 - 5km
30/12 - 10km
That lot should keep me busy.
I've just missed out so many times (3.01,3.01,3.02,3.03 etc etc) that a 3:00:01 would give me massive encouragement. Even my recent attempts I consider to be near misses, as Dartmoor and Torhavn were both around 7 mins harder than running on a flat course like Abingdon. Strip out the 3 mins lost for cramp, and I'm still very close.
If I got a 2:59, I always thought I'd retire and punt for a sub 60 for 10, but I enjoy marathons so much now that I probably just reset my target to 2:55.
FYI I'll be doing around 80 miles this week the same as you with no doubles.
I won £25 at the Finchley 20, my first ever cash prize, so there's no way I would run one as a training run.
Dull
Day 18 of my running streak, and I feel great. In the past, after 6 or 7 days my legs have really started to ache and I've felt dog-tired in the evening. But not now.
Finally succumbed to temptation and ordered a Garmin 305 at the end of last week which arrived today (£130 from Amazon, post free). Did my first run with it at lunchtime.
6 miles, including 4 at threshold. A bit slow getting going today, was aiming for 6:15 , but averaged 6:23 (McMillan says 6:09 - 6:25 is the desired range for 6:45 marathon pace). fairly happy with that, but I had to push the last half-mile (HR up to 176 (91%))
More data than I can shake a stick at now - after only 1 run! I shall refrain from boring you all with it.
On the pre-FML 20 miler. I find that, depending on actual marathon experience, it is good to get one in, as:
It is an easier way of getting an additional long-run in, also I don't find that ½ are a good guide to marathon performance - maybe it is an aerobic thing for me, but I think the need to drink/take gels hinders me on marathons (I tend not to drink in ½).
And the Cranleigh 21 miler is a nice race – although it hasn't appeared in the schedule yet, so I am getting concerned that it won't be on this year.
For my buildup I am thinking:
? Feb - 10K ?
2nd March - Reading Half
16th March - Oakley 20 - First 10 miles @ LSR pace, last 10 miles at MP
Coming up to three months of injury free running, which is a record for me (normally manage a couple of months of good training, followed by a PB, followed by several weeks or months of injury). Gradual increase in mileage coupled with an avoidance of speedwork seems to be working.
Brighton 10k on Sunday will be interesting, I have no idea what to expect as I've done so little fast running recently. It'll be good to have a benchmark going into FLM training though.
The motivation thing is interesting I think as different people are motivated entirely differently. In fact the same person's motivation can change completely over a period of time.
Firstly, I just enjoy running and I aim to keep doing it at least until I'm 100. My main motivation is to be able to keep doing it as well as I can for as long as I can.
I don't have any running ambitions other than to run my next marathon as fast as I possibly can. For a variety of reasons, my best chance of doing that is at the FLM, so I focus on that and that alone. I don't find any enjoyment in travelling to races when I can just step outside my door and do the same thing. For a short time, I did quite a lot of races (but rarely the same distance more than twice), but for some reason it just doesn't "float my boat" any more, even though I enjoy running just as much Strange, really.
I've identified a fast 5 miler later in the month. Just got to go sub 31.30 to rank for that one, then round of the year with a sub 19 5k. I'll then be UK ranked over 7 different distances for my age.
Great for my ego.
Dull
8 miles at between MP and 10k pace on Monday and I've still got DOMS.
Just done 5 real easy miles, calves are more sore than yesterday (although at least the good one hurts too).
I suppose it was bound to happen after all the plodding I've done over the last few months, I don't fancy being in my shoes for the few days after I finally get to toe the line again.
Looks like a swim/pedal day tomorrow and hope I can get back to it at the weekend.
It will be something like this. Plan is to spend far more time around 100 miles a week than I did this year.
run 2/3 times a day
3 speed sessions a week
Doubles at the weekend
Long runs up to about 30 miles or use a 40 mile race as a training run
Rest days between 6-21 days depending how I feel
Gym 2-4 times a week.
TR
You've pretty much described how I've been feeling for most of the last 5 weeks!
Feels so strange now to actually feel rested and reasonably un-achey.
Final track session before mara tonight - 12 * 300m on my own coz I was too late to catch the club and they decided to go out on the road anyway.
Plan 10 steady ones tomorrow then a weekend of full time parenting (panto on Saturday!)
yeah, buck up Gobi you slacker..... and surely you could fit more into that schedule?
I mean, the long run looks just about adequate, but why the tennis on a Saturday and Sunday?
OO Cornish Marathon
2:58:57 TT
2:58:59 Do2
2:59:37 OO
3:00:51 Dull
If your "rivals" from Dartmoor are running then there could be a bit of a revenge match on, and if not then you'll be a marked man with your name on the the county championship, so I expect people to be looking to challenge you which will keep the pace up.