Sub 3.30 Tim: #asics262

edited February 2017 in Spring Marathon

Bonjour, comment allez-vous?

I am so proud to welcome you to my ‘Journey to Paris’ thread.  116 days from now I will be on the start line.  Here is where I will share everything between now and then. The bespoke training plan, the nutritional guidance,  the sports psychologist help. Whatever takes place on this incredible journey will get documented here. The highs, the lows, the lack of wine along the way, you name it, I’ll share it!  As I write this first thread post my excitement levels are rising (again) and colliding with the nerves of what lies ahead.  The training plan is currently being written by Sam Murphy and is due to start next Monday.  

I would love you to join and share this journey together with me, learning, sharing, encouraging, inspiring and maybe being inspired by it. Thanks to Asics and RW for giving me this fantastic opportunity and to anyone and everyone who supported me, I will be eternally grateful.

 

Time to fire up the trainers.

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Comments

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    Good luck for Monday. Will be following with interest.
  • Millsy Thanks very much, image

     

     

  • Such is the incredible speed of this journey that store day has already happened. For those who did not get to see it, I made a musical souvenir of the day.

    http://flipagram.com/f/NRB0UfofrW

     

     

  • Yes! The thread is up! I'll be starting next Monday as well bud hoping to learn a lot from your experiences and your expert guidance. Very excited for you and I think this is the start of a great thread!
  • Great to have you on board oh magical ginger one !

    Hope the thread lives up to expectations! Feel free to guide us with any of your nutritious Scottish knowledge! image

  • MalcsMalcs ✭✭✭

    Massive congratulations once again!

    Let's get this party started image

  • MinniMinni ✭✭✭
    Well your new place looks very nice Superman. Maybe just a few scatter cushions and scented candles needed? And is that the coffee I smell? Just milk thanks!image
  • MinniMinni ✭✭✭
    Ooh party?? Forget the coffee, let's open the wine! Ruth won't be watching yet. image
  • Good luck Tim, looking foward to following your thread and getting some tips from you image

  • Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! New thread!!!!

    The VLM is 2 weeks after Paris so that means I have a couple more weeks of mince pie eating before I join you in the proper training but really excited to follow your journey and hear how everyone else's training is going.

  • Minni Due to my poor Visceral fat rating (more to follow on this) I have invited Ruth to the party already! Your coffee is on the table and I will nip down to Wax Lyrical (are they still about) for some candles. I am all about scented candles image

    Malcs Great to have you around, you are the sub 3.30 legend!!

    ktkt Thanks very much and looking forward to sharing!

    Ruffles Can you come back in two weeks when you have stopped eating. image

  • MalcsMalcs ✭✭✭

    Voting is over now so you can disengage crawler modeimage

  • Part of this brilliant journey is the Store Visit. This was my write up:  (part1)

    My London Asics store visit
    (herein after known as 'Store Day - The Day of 3 Discoveries') started with a
    lovely walk through Hyde Park. Even though a fantastic runners experience lay
    ahead why did I get runners envy when any Hyde park runner ran past me. 

    As I approached the ASICS store the heavens opened. I pushed at the front door
    only to find I was early and the store had yet to open. Arrive at 9.30 means
    9am right? Don't they understand excitement levels mean emails and timings
    aren't properly read. After a while fellow winner Tom (of sub 3hr fame) turned
    up and after extensive knocking and some rather longing looks we were let in! I
    felt it was inappropriate to issue a Paddington Hard Stare to the store worker
    who had let me stand outside for some time. Luckily I didnt as she was the
    lovely lady who checked all my purchases against the sale offers and found a
    pair of my shorts were half price even though the tag had  them down as
    full price. 

    We were led to an underground lair where I was informed no photos were allowed
    as the room was full of new season stock and next seasons pro forma's
    which rivals such as Nike and adidas would love to have sight of. It was
    brilliant looking round at stock and designs of the possible 2015 and 2016
    ranges. I did leave one idea on their ideas board. Racing Green. I would bloody
    love some kit in racing green.    Soon after we were let in Tony (1st
    timer) Andrea (sub 4-30)  and Amy (sub 4hr) arrived and the Asics 5 were
    complete!  The lovely people from RW had laid on a spread of croissants,
    juices, fruit and nuts. If they thought we would scoff unhealthy breakfast
    pastries and show ourselves up they were utterly wrong. Hardly anything was
    eaten as excitement levels were so sky high no-one was hungry in the slightest. 

    I thoroughly enjoyed the next 15 mins or so as I had some time to chat to my
    fellow asics 262 teammates. I hadn't had much chance to get to speak to them at
    Bootcamp but early on I could sense this was a good group who were importantly
    turning into a good team. Chitter chatter and laughter were the order of the
    day before the packed itinerary was announced. 


    We each had a separate one and mine was 
    Foot ID
    Body Test
    Apparel shopping 
    Coach Interview
    Photo shoot
    Q&A 

    Andrew was my ASICS professional. A gentle giant, very very passionate about
    both ASICS, the scientific approach within the running lab but all round
    friendly chap. Malcs had spoken highly of him so I was pleased to be spending
    the day with him. Firstly he needed to know my height. 5'9 I proudly told him.
    His quizzical look and the reaching for his height measurer showed me he didn't
    quite believe me. As I've been 5'9 since the early 90s I wondered why he was so
    disbelieving. Step forward the first of my day's discoveries. I am not and most
    likely have never been 5'9. I was fairly astounded. Not enough to have noticed
    that the RW photographers were rolling around with laughter at my discovery
    rather than capturing the day!! Get back snapping boys, I'm taller than
    Cruise!! Is losing height worse than having a fat arm Malcs? 

  • Part 2

    With 4 lasers and 8 cameras, the 3D Foot Scanning System takes a 3D scan of your feet and brings to life with amazing clarity your actual foot. The dynamic FOOT ID with special test shoes and software uses a camera to analyse your gait while you run on a treadmill. The result is a personalised FOOT ID to provide you with the right shoes and the right fit. 

    How? Well you get a number of small circular stickers placed over your foot and
    leg. You then place your foot into a machine which houses the lasers and
    camera's and produces a 3D image and specific foot measurements, length, breadth, girth (quiet now) instep, arch, heel angles and toe angles. This is coupled with the camera work on the treadmill shows your toe directions and foot landing patterns. Other running data is available such as step frequency, step length etc but there just was not time to discuss it all with Andrew. 

    The end result was discovery 2. I am not an over pronator. I have worn over
    pronating shoes since I can remember but according to Andrew and the FOOT ID, I am a neutral. I even saw the video evidence. The FOOT ID and the neutral shoe work coupled with all the foot imprints show where my pressure falls and using this together with angles and foot direction reveals a neutral foot. This
    causes a problem though as my foot is used to the amount of cushion it receives so to fix it I will be now wearing a half way house shoe for a few months until my foot gets used to less cushioning before heading to a neutral shoe. 

    It was lovely trying on so many pairs of shoes. I have always wanted a racing
    show so tried one however as I have quite a wide foot, they felt a tad tight.
    Andrew felt and prodded around and thought they were a decent fit but mentally I felt they were too tight so I declined. I will stick with the half way house between over pronator and neutral for the next few months and see how it goes.  I would report the photographers had recovered from the carnage of height loss and were now snapping away at will. Be interesting to see their results, especially the height loss scene! 


    Then it back into the store. OMG, where do you start? Andrew moved from
    technical scientist to personal shopper with ease. I felt just like Julia
    Roberts in Pretty Women. Well maybe not. She's a bit tall. Firstly I asked
    Andrew for a base layer. He said ASICS had a brilliant muscle base layer and
    gave me what he said was a large. Now if I tell you the garment he gave me
    looked too small for my 4 year old daughter  I would not be joking. He
    said to me to have faith and try it, which I did but once on, which took a considerable length of time, I could not get out of.  I ended up with it stuck over my head with one arm in and one arm out. I tried a number of times but just could not get it off. I could hear Andrea from RW and the photographers outside and so nearly had to call for their help but just managed to get it off.  I
    moved swiftly on to a nice loose fitting Gore Jacket. 

  • Part 3

    I stuck to my pre-decided plan of quality not quantity and soon racked up my
    £500 but was very pleased with my choice of a few pairs of shorts, running
    compression tights, Gore Jacket, trainers, trackie top, running shirt and a
    brilliant zipped running top. It was fun watching the lady run it all through the till. As I said I had gone over the £500 allowance but my brilliant checkout lady reduced this with sale findings. 

    RW creative directors then decided what we should wear for the photo shoot. It was requested one of the men wear their tights. Put it this way, no-one rushed to offer unless the acceptance that shorts could be worn over the top of the tights. Myself and Tony pulled the age rank and Tom was left donning his tights under his shorts. Once changed we headed back into the store and had what seemed like a gazillion photos taken but no moaning, it was so much fun. A number of shoppers stopped to watch us and a couple could clearly be heard to ask each other 'who do you think they are?' Definitely not Runners World
    readers. 

    A break for lunch was followed by the Body Composition Analyser. It is a strange sensation. Stepping barefoot onto metal scales whilst holding two handles which are sending electrical currents around your body is weird. Now for anyone who might have read previous posts of mine or old tweets, you will know I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I wont go into it now but I knew the results of this test were not going to be great. However Discovery 3 was rather worse than expected. %Fat, %Fat Mass, Muscle Mass, Total Body Water % and BMI were quite frankly, awfully poor. But the Visceral fat rating was horrific. It is ranked between 0 and 13 and if we consider that Amy and Tom are both 1's and Andrea is a 4 (apologies I was not around for Tony's) there was an audible gasp when my 9 was announced. This fat rating is the bad fat which lives around the organs. This coupled with the other stats shows that I am eating and drinking in an awfully bad way!  I knew it would be bad but not this bad and my first meeting with Ruth is most likely to be brought forward. This is a good thing and is just the tonic and help I know I need but have not been willing to face. Watch this space. 

  • Part 4

    Then it was a 1 2 1 session with the coaches. This was what I was here for. Not
    ungrateful for any of the other excellent experiences, I am a runner and I want
    to run. Sam had an excellent questionnaire which we went through. We went
    through all my stats, (pleasingly not height) thoughts, achievements. When I
    could and couldn't run, whether I had track, treadmill access. Could i run off
    road? She has some excellent charts which review possible performances and we analysed some of my weaknesses. There is a debate around whether I am allowed to run the Portsmouth Coastal Marathon next week, Sam will decide over the weekend. Whilst this part of the  day is receiving the least on my write up, it was just brilliant. Once I have got my schedule I will go into more
    detail on this session. Put it this way, she has taken all the pieces of
    information I could give her and she wanted, strengths weaknesses and concerns to build my bespoke plan. She is so calmly positive I cannot
    wait for the programme to start. 

    We finished with a Q&A over whats to come. Threads, training days, marathon
    weekend etc. Please ask any questions you want at any time, I wont go into
    detail over this yet as it will most probably come out during the coming weeks.
    I did not stop smiling from the moment I got up to well now as I haven't
    stopped. It was quite frankly an unbelievable experience. To those who have supported me and voted for me and believed in me, thank you as without you I would not be here. To ASICS and RW, I thank them again. Today was unreal yet real at the same time. And to my fellow team mates, thanks for today, you are brilliant and I cannot wait to see you soon. 

  • "lack of wine"!!!! they are reducing your alcohol intake?! I'd quit now if I was you, can't be worth it image

    Any news on your plan yet, when do you see what they have in store for you?

  • Hooray, you're up and running!

    I shall be keeping a close eye on this thread over the coming months, looking for training and nutrition tips, and well as following your progress Tim.

    It's Manchester for me and the generic 3.30 asics programme to start off with, starting next week, and a quick look at that tells me next Monday is a rest day image

  • The Running Andy I suspect it wont just be wine they ban me from given my Visceral fat rating of 9/13. For reference Tom (sub 3.00) / Amy (sub 4.00) were both 1/13. 

    BK Canter Hooray right back atcha image   I hope to be full of nutritional tips sooner rather than later given the above and a BMI of 26%. 

    The training plan is imminent. Interesting the generic plan has a rest day on Monday, I might go for some core training then or a spin class. I am quite interested of the benefits of cross training on rest days or just rest? 

  • SupermanRuns wrote (see)

    ... the Visceral fat rating was horrific. It is ranked between 0 and 13 and if we consider that Amy and Tom are both 1's and Andrea is a 4 (apologies I was not around for Tony's) there was an audible gasp when my 9 was announced. This fat rating is the bad fat which lives around the organs. This coupled with the other stats shows that I am eating and drinking in an awfully bad way!

    Sorry Tim, I am officially the fattest at ... (gulp) ... 10 with most of it on display out front? Ouch. The bit of good news is, apparently, that I've loads of muscle and I'm very balanced. So, there's hope for me.

  • Well Ant ignoring our 10 rating thats great news about your muscle. Pity I didnt trouble the scorer on muscle. My arms were officially twigs in the muscle ratings. image

  • Hmm did someone mention wine....



    So glad your thread it up and running! Yay!!
  • Amazing. A little bit of wine mentioned and a Tigger appears. Welcome, pull up a chair and make yourself at home.

    I thought it might be good to say what my vital stats are. Running wise. image

    5K 20.07  (2014)

    10K 41.57  (2012)

    Half Marathon1.34 (2014)

    20Miles 2.37 (2014)

    Marathon 3.51 (2012)

    I haven't run a 10K this year actually on reflection. Last year I ran a 42.03 in my Super Suit which I was very pleased with.  Any thoughts on these gratefully received? 

  • MinniMinni ✭✭✭
    I'd say they are typical of a man. Mine are typical of a woman:



    5k 20:39 (2012)

    10k 41:57 (2013)

    HM 1:31:20 (2013)

    Marathon 3:15:48 (2013)



    Generally I find that men tend to be faster at the shorter stuff but struggle with the endurance but women tend to be the opposite. Obviously not in every case though!
  • I look at yours Minni and part of me gets peace of mind, over the shorter distances, but then I look at the longer one, the marathon and its 36 minutes different!! Have you done a 20 miler out of interest? 

  • MinniMinni ✭✭✭
    Never done a 20m race. There's none around here and, personally, I think racing 20m in marathon training is suicidal.
  • Good luck with your training Tim!  Paris is a great marathon and look forward to following your journey over the next few monthsimage!!!

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