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Congratulations Poacher. I enjoyed the report up to the bit with the foot photo. But I'm with GM, I think - it just makes me realise how much I don't want to do ultras. No risk of me thinking 'oh, that sounds cool' and signing up on a whim!
Brilliant, Poacher - wonderful achievement, and great reporting. Having taken bus rides to the start for a standard point-to-point marathon, and being intimidated by just how far it seems to have to run back, I can only imagine your feelings as you took the ride to P'burg! Treasure that medal . . . .
Nice pic as well, lulling us into false security by wearing socks before unleashing the full-on foot show . . .
You wrote also " anyone with a few maras under the belt and some determination can finish".
well, I fulfil the first requirement, but I have nowhere near enough of the second . . .
Hats off to you (but socks on)
Poacher- great report and I think we can allow a foot pic in the circumstances, you earned it .
Doesn't make me want to attempt it though ... .
Hi all and welcome to VTR!
10K for me tonight and suffice to say the curse continues. Getting by on 20mpw for the past 3 months doesn't quite cut it. Lovely evening though and a tough undulating course made it feel like real hard work. Start was at sea level and then a sharp climb of about 200m, I felt very heavy in the legs. 2 loops around the country lanes with some stinger climbs but some nice downhill's to recover. Scores on the doors 40:18. Split 20:24/19:54. Only felt comfortable at the 8k mark and managed a 5:50 for the last mile. Swallowed lots of insects along the way....Must get fit.
Awesome Poacher! It does not make me want to run it though!
Great report Poacher- really inspiring and a really fantastic result. I'm assuming there was no fancy dress involved
Good run GM, not too bad at all, Good to finish strong, I think you can really push on from here.
Double sesh here after a crap week. Blasted a 10k with my work pals in about 45 mins.
OO - Thanks, it was a weird race with only 10 runners turning up tonight. I was being chased down by a young fast female triathlete who has consistently run sub 40 recently and is very strong. She did remark afterwards though, that I was good on the downhill's and that if the end had been flat she could have beaten me!
She came12 seconds behind but to be fair I am sh*te running uphill and I do tend to go mad when running down hill even when I'm nearly spent. 1st was 33:25, 2nd was 36:25 and then the 13st fly inhaling runner came 3rd in 40:18. As I said a weird race. Nice to see a friend of mine tonight return to some good form after a 10 week break due to shin splints, she finished 5th in a solid 42:16.
GM - Nice podium finish. Interesting fuelling strategy.
PMJ - I think I better stick to Lorenzo!!
It was without doubt the eclectic mix of food and drink at the various feed stations I've ever seen, ranging from the normal (water, sports drink), the "makes sense but you don't often see them in a big city marathon" (bananas, glucose tablets and coffee) to the downright bizarre (pickled gherkins and vegetable stock).
Poacher - great report. With you every step of the way - fantastic that you had the guts and determination needed to secure the Bill Rowan.
Out of interest, did you sort out flights and accommodation yourself or did you go through some kind of official tour operator?
I'm now in a bit of a dilemma ref the plan for next year. I'd really like to do Comrades (although I'm still working on getting a pass out) but I also want to have a damn good crack at a sub-3 marathon. I know that the latter will take plenty of hard work and effort (as it would entail a 7 minute PB) and I certainly won't be ready for it this autumn as I never seem to train as well over the summer.
So, with Poacher's words of advice ("It would be hard/impossible to do Comrades-specific training while targeting a flat out spring mara PB attempt") in mind, what's the best way to try and fit both in?
a. target a sub-3 in Spring 15 and wait until 2016 to do Comrades
b. target an early (Feb?) marathon for a sub-3 which would give 3 months to build up to Comrades.
c. forget sub-3 in the Spring and aim for a sub-3 in the autumn (Abingdon?) having built up a really strong base as a result of Comrades and simply enjoy London for the occasion it is.
Decisions, decisions!
MsE / Minni - are you both definitely on for Comrades next year? Anyone else?
Poacher - I presume you're up for a back-to-back Comrades attempt?
Still no running yet, but as I'm working from home tomorrow, I'm hoping to nip out for a gentle lunchtime run to stop myself going stir crazy.
Poacher, great run; great writeup. Very inspiring.
Lorenzo, you and me both for a sub 3, and like you, I see myself trying ultras after that. I've got 9m39s to chew through, so I'm not apt to have that happen on my next. That said, I've a sub 3 friend who'll also totter off for an ultra here or there. (b@$+*r*!)
Welcome, VTR. Lots of good advice/inspiration flying around here.
Lorenzo - hope you're fully recovered from that bug soon. Not sure if I've something in my system too.
Poacher - Brilliant report. That is such an awesome achievement. Hope the the achilles settles down.
Badbark - great news on the quad.
Abbers - nice tempo run. Any reason why you do 1-3-2 rather than 2-3-1?
CH - nice double!
GM - good run and very close to sub 40 on an undulating course.
8 miles @ 8:25 m/m - felt hard going, but feel I might be starting to recover.
40:18 on 20mpw sounds pretty good, Mr Mooney.
Hamster - Five years of Achilles pain and now all is dandy? That is very encouraging to hear. I mean, obviously I feel your pain and I'm pleased you've recovered. But, more importantly, what does it mean for me? Another two and a half years of moaning and then I finally run out of excuses?
Option C, Lorenzo.
Thanks for all the kind comments folks. I thought the foot pic was quite mild compared to, for example, that X-rated snap of Ant lying in the bath
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Lorenzo, it's a nice dilemma to have....obviously my training is more random than structured, but FWIW....
1 I think it would be near impossible to run one's fastest possible spring mara then one's fastest possible Comrades 6 weeks later. The training needed to eke out that extra few % of performance is just too different....e.g. the length of the LSRs and VLRS. Ditto the speedwork you would need for a faster mara.
2 A successful mara PB campaign can lead to breakthroughs at shorter distances but I think that's less likely to happen at longer distances. A mara PB would need plenty of recovery too.
3 Every year some people become ill, run down or injured while training for a spring mara PB. It would be awful to DNS or fail to perform as one hopes at Comrades a few weeks later, not least because it's an expensive, possibly once-in-a-lifetime trip that you want to savour.
4 It would be easy enough to build VLM into ultra training and run it without busting a gut. NB have a look at the seeding times for Comrades - you want to get into the best starting pen you can as medals are given on gun time. A sub 3.20 mara gets you into Pen B - London is a convenient place to secure this without getting too tired.
5 The elusive sub3 mara never particularly motivated me, but I can see why it is something to aspire to - after your excellent VLM this year you really do have to give it a shot, it's just a question of when.
None of this solves the dilemma! Why not get some holiday brochures with glossy pics of S Africa and leave them lying around for MsL to find....
As for the travel etc to SA, it's straightforward - you just need to book flights & accommodation. It would be great to build in a holiday - either in beautiful Kwazulu Natal, or maybe fly over to Cape Town
Having said that, if you really want to target sub3 in London and don't get injured or knackered, you could still have the satisfaction of finishing Comrades while accepting that you could have gone slightly faster with different training. However, Comrades has races-within-races due to the different medals, and settling on the day for copper rather than bronze, or bronze rather than Bill Rowan (due to missing the 11hr or 9hr cutoffs) would be disappointing.
Interesting to see what Bike It makes of all this...he's the Comrades expert
Gul - 2 reasons for the 1-3-2 structure. Reason 1: the 2nd mile of the 6 is downhill, so always nice to get a quick mile in the bag early! Reason 2: when I'm fitter, I can extend the tempo section to make it 1-4-1, so at the moment, I'm getting to the end of the 3rd tempo mile and assessing whether I can hold the pace for another mile. The answer for now is a resounding "no"!
GM - nice 10k. Sounds like a good effort over a testing course. Sub-40 on a quicker, flatter route, surely.
Abbers / Gul - I'm with you. todays routine involved a 1.5 / 4.5 / 1 and thats because I've got good speed & fitness at the moment on the back of the marathon, plus there's a local 10k race on Thursday night with about 400 entrants and I can feel a PB coming on.
Lorenzo - Difficult choice, I guess it depends on what your priorities are. I'd go for option a) bank the Sub 3 but you might get bored waiting til 2016 for the next milestone.
TAR - Thanks. Not too bad considering the low mileage at the mo and being about 6kg over weight.
Lorenzo/Poacher - Bruce Fordyce, who IMHO is arguably the greatest ever Comrades runner, talks about his racing & training in The Lore of running in the build up to a Comrades. I recall he said that he would normally do a standard marathon in Feb/Mar or a shorter ultra e.g. Two Oceans, but he never raced them, he only ran them as training runs. He was of the belief that most people began heavy training mileage too soon i.e. Jan/Feb for the Comrades and ended up either injured or over trained. I think he began to ramp up the mileage proper in March.
GM, nice negative split there. In the small field, do you feel that the split was the uphill/downhill factor or being chased by a girl?
First Friday of the Month so that means Ealing mile. I run out about 4.75 miles which is a good warm up but maybe a tad too long and got to the 12:30 race at about 12:23. Line up and we are off and even in the first few steps I am out in front. I wonder when the pack will pass but there is nobody coming by and by 300m in it is clear I am out front with just one guy sitting on my shoulder and breathing heavily. I concentrate on keeping good form and reach the halfway fine which is the bottom of the course. Start to come uphill and the guy behind pulls along and passes but encourages me to follow. I dig in and get to the final avenue with him ahead but I push all the way to the finish and hit the garmin for 5:23 which is a new PB so very happy. A few chats and then 4.75 miles back home for a good day running. Official figure is 5:22.5 which will get rounded up to 5:23 on po10. The guy who beat me got 7 seconds on me over that last bit and looking back he was 4 seconds ahead last month, but he improved from 5:31 to 5:15.
I need to go back and do a few more 400m reps and get them down to about 75 seconds if I can and then have another go at the start of July. reckon I can get a 5.1x. I also have a track mile at the end of June and am hoping for a 5.0x.
Race again on Sunday, Wargrave 10k. Can't decide if a day off or a light recovery will do me better.
Thanks PMJ. It was a 2 lap course and the climb at the start affected me for about 2k. I was uncomfortable until about 3k and was just trying to hang on and leave something for the 2nd half. I'd say the finish downhill was to my advantage as I let rip and others commented that they might fall if they went fast. That was never a thought that occurred to me. The girl chasing me down has some form. Ran 38:50 on a recent flat 10k course and sub 20 5k in a 1/2 Olympic distance tri event, so the course although undulating, swung in my favour. She is 2-1 up though, hopefully I will have the opportunity to level the scores in a 10k in July. I have about a 50lb handicap which means running uphill is a lot harder for me. Marathon training commences in 2 weeks and I am determined to shift about 20 of those lbs. The training should take care of about 14lb, the rest will need something else......
PMJ - Very nice mile time and pb! A 16 second improvement is a lot for the other guy. What is his pb, do you know?
He set his PB today. I looked him up on po10 and he seems to have a lot of PBs close to me and races locally and it is odd we have not raced head to head a lot more. He is, however, a mere 40 so you have to let these youngsters have a bit of glory.
Mere 40, ah I feel young now. Wonder when your next head to head will be? FWIW I would have rest day if you're going to race the 10k.
Poacher- Amazing effort, really enjoyed your report. You have a great ability to dig deep on these ultra's, I'd struggle with a marathon on the limited mileage.
Abbers- Gul beat me to it with the 'why don't you run your 1,3,2 tempo session 2,3,1 instead'. I reckon you'd improve the session with a better warm up and a mile cool down is plenty, when you get fitter a 2,4,1 would be even better imo.
Nearly there Gerald, double your miles and its in the bag.
Lorenzo- A.
Great bit of speed PMJ, I'd have a slow plod tomorrow. I always feel sluggish if I have a day off before a session or a race and you don't want to feel heavy legged in your 10k.
A decent amount of running for me this week, should do about 60, after a very cautionary last week due to my tight hamstring.
Submitted my London marathon deferral email, hopefully see a few of you next year.
Welcome (again) to the new folk, plenty of advise and inspiration on here.
Inspired by Poacher's Comrades efforts - very impresive off minimal training. And a great report. There is an almost hypnotic pull from Comrades - so despite thinking that a marathon is the furthest distance any sensible person should run - I'm begiining to feel the attraction ...
Sorry to hear it all fell apart on the day Gul but a sensible decision to drop out early. Keep the faith - your day will come.
Trying to get back in shape here. Best not to mention the weekly mileage other than that I'm ahead of Keir! A few niggles to contend with (not sure where the hip flexor strain came from ...) and spending far too much time for my sanity on the dreadmill but I'm hoping to toe the VLM line in 2015 ...
Abbers - OK, that makes sense. As Moof says, if you have the time a longer warm-up helps too.
PMJ - congrats on the shiny new mile PB - fantastic effort. Definitely more to come.
SBD - good to hear from you. Hope it all comes together.
16 miles @ 8:47 m/m d&d. Still started to burn-up but not till about 13 miles. I'll just keep plodding away till I feel better.
My only serious run yesterday was to catch my train to the airport. I missed it and had to pay £60 for a taxi. More speed work needed...
Good to hear you are getting back in shape SBD- any news on GFA entries for VLM 2015 yet?
Seriously though, now I can walk again, I'd say Comrades took a fair amount of time, planning, stress, dinero etc, plus it's exhausting to fly to the other side of the world for 4 or 5 days to smash your mind and body to bits for hours on end, on tarmac and in the heat. BUT - it was simply a sensational experience, better by far than Boston, NY, and any other big race I've done. I've already told MrsP I'm going back next year.
PMJ - strength to strength, excellent stuff
I am quite tempted by Comrades 2015, but I suspect I wouldn't want to take a decision until after Frankfurt. Midlands T&F match for me today and I think I'm just down for the 3k this time. Planning on escaping before they even attempt to rope me in for the 4x 400 again!
OO-51 - I am also wondering what VLM mean by check back in June - when we are now in June!
After a few fairly light weeks, I'm just coming to the end of my first week for Nottingham Marathon marathon build up. 16 weeks is my normal plan, but next week I have 4 days away when no running is possible, so I've started a week earlier. 7 miles with 3x1600 last night was a welcome shock to the system.
Surprise PB at the parkrun this morning. 17:49 official time but 17:45 on my watch with a WAVA of 83.4%. 5:46 first mile left me in 10th place, then battled into the wind mile 2 with a 6:00 mile moving up to 6th place. Last mile was 5:45 taking 2 more places to finish 4th in a quality field. Junior OO won the ladies race in a new PB or 20:19, so much celebration in the OO house today
Yes sounds fishy. Fishy1...