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Sounds promising, TR, good stuff.
Still sounds like a decent race ES, good luck with the wider campaign.
Great performance as ever PP, well earnt medals there.
Very well done too Padams -- that hill sounds more like fell race stuff! Trust you didn't wear your Santa outfit for the XC...
Bedford HM for me yesterday. Here's a blatant copy & paste:
I was entertaining thoughts of 1:15:xx for this one, with excellent conditions forecast, so I tapered and even carbo-loaded a bit hoping it would be a pleasing last hurrah for 2016, before a few weeks' downtime before the spring campaign starts. I think I paced it OK (going for ~150 bpm this time, then upped the welly in the last mile or two), but it wasn't flat as I wrongly guessed (550' climb/descent, almost double St Neots). No official results yet but I got about 1:17:18, 7th place (I think) and first vet prize. I battled to pull ahead of what I took to be a veteran threat in the last half mile, only to discover that at 54 he was 7.5 years older than me, beat me by SIX MINUTES in London in 2:32:xx (1st MV50 there), and was having a slow one today with a nasty cold. Humbling.
Edit: forgot about monthly stats again. Year-wise, I know I've been through 3000 already, will probably finish the year on 3300 or 3400 or something -- easily my highest yet, but not quite 10M/day average...
Very nice xc racing from both PP and Padams!!!
And a solid HM from CW and 10k from ES.
Very nice annual volume CW and RB. I am currently just under 2400m, with a monthly low of 31m and a high of 292m.
OO - good to see you back!
Not really much to report here. The target for last week of 80m ended up as 64m. I'm on prednisolone to sort out some asthma issues - reasonably high dosage, but only for a short-term - and it really doesn't agree with me, so I've had dizzy spells, and woke up Friday morning to a persistent nose bleed. It has also messed up my sleep, so 4-5 hours a night is about what I've been managing. Luckily this morning was my last full-strength dosage, so I can hopefully get a bit more sleep and try establish some kind of regular training.
HH
Nice work too Padams. Love the Santa stuff.
Equally so CW - your fb race reports are always a good read!
HH
More ultra news from north of the border - inspirational stuff from a stalwart of the scene.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-38209045
Padams - Reasonable, ran 3.12 at Cornwall 2 weeks ago at c90% effort and it has more ups and downs than Linda Lucardi (one for the codgers!). Hopefully sub 3 at either Manchester and/or London with Gran Canaria as a warm-up marathon. Need to stay the right side of the injury line.
Some high quality running and racing going on - hopefully be joining the fun soon.
Good to see OO back & still running. I remember us running a couple of miles together when I first broke sub 3 in Cardiff in '06.
RB - that's a phenomenal run from DC. He finished four hours ahead of me at the Lakes Sky Ultra this summer. I'm no expert mountain runner, but I'm as experienced as anyone, and wasn't holding back too much that day.
Satisfying parkrun win on Sat in 17.41 on the tough Richmond Park course. Quickest time there since January. Will do my 150th parkrun there on Christmas Day. Got one two more proper races planned in before the end of the year too.
Hope you're soon better TT.
Nice cross country guys- and HM Charlie.
I've had my highest mileage year ever - past 4000.
OO - I remember you winning a Devon or Cornwall marathon, when was that ?
LMH - 4000 in a year is an impressive total, and a lot of big mileage weeks to keep the average right up.
slowly slowly indeed, I did another 5M today and was pretty uncomfortable after about 4M, so 5M is the limit for now, I need to do it a few times a week trouble free before I can try to run any further. However, seeing as the plan is to have a limit of 13.1M with a number on going forward (even after a swim/bike warm up), then I don't have to run further than about 10M any more in training. I havnt run a race since VLM 2015 and it will probably a while yet until the next as I cant see any quick running happening for a while. But some running is a lot better than no running.
Running (for the hell of it) is a strange sensation after not running for a few months, and does seem a bit pointless after not being in the habit for a while, and the thought of running 20M just makes me wonder "why?".
No more marathons TR?
CW - good run at Bedford. It's not flat, but I think it's relatively fast (although clearly not optimal). I got my first Champs qualifying time there, must have been around 2006.
Dan - another nice parkrun, you seem to be on good form (ignoring the marathon result!).
RB/Dan - I ran a lot of the Country-to-Capital with him a few years ago. We hit the canal (20M to go) and he took off and managed to catch the leader who had been a long way ahead. It was quite impressive.
Knees have been feeling a bit weird since Saturday so just done a couple of miles with the dog the last two mornings. Nothing major, just feel the occasional twinge.
TT -- sounds tough with the asthma medication, take it easy.
RB -- good story there. I've never done any fell-running in winter conditions (well OK, the Borrowdale race in August once was in hail, but at not icy underfoot) -- it must add another huge dollop of difficulty.
Well parkrun, Dan.
TR -- I do wonder about motivation for doing endless marathon training sometimes... but then it all seems worth it when I occasionally find myself going a bit giggly and weepy after one that goes well. And odd trade-off for months of graft, I'll grant you.
Padams -- what I should have appreciated is that this was going through villages near Bedford, not in it. There is also going to be an actual Bedford city HM next year, which should be pretty flat -- I did the 10K there in the summer and wrongly extrapolated its excellent flatness onto this HM!
Well raced CW. I ran the Bedford Half as my first V40 race years ago and yes, I ended up running those last 4 miles downhill with someone who turned out to be V50 and therefore at least 10 years my senior. We ran 1:17 or so and he wasn't even first V50!
LMH - short term no more, longer term probably no more. I won't be back to running decent distances in time for VLM, and I'm happy for my GFA credit to run out. I don't want to run commute or do 20 milers this Jan to March, and that only leaves the odd lunchtime 6 miler. I'm a bit heavier now from all of the strength training and there's no longevity in long distance road running for me going forward. My body would deal with it a lot better if i was 7 stone wet through like Charlie.
CW - but a campaign has a target, and when you are in the habit of running it seems perefctly normal, after a few months of no running, running feels strange and you ask yourself why you are running. The one thing I will miss is "standing on the summit" when you cross the finishing line.
SL - Seville is a belting city and marathon. Stacked field, flat course and a great finish on the track where Michael Johnson broke the 400m world record at the worlds in 1999!
A couple of weeks ago myself and a friend tried to pace two other friends to a sub 75 HM at Eton Dorney. One of the pacees had been ill and dropped off the pace at 6m taking the other pacer with him. That left Sam and I together and we were looking good at 11m (5:39avg compared to the required 5:43) - this coupled with the markers being in km meant that there was no cross checking being done. AJust after 20k I glanced at my watch and saw 1:11:35 - I knew from a metric friend that sub 75 was 3:33/km so we were about 8 secs outside the pace. Did another quick calculation to be sure and then broke the news to Sam that we had to really shift - he gave everything and collapsed over the line in 75:01, and was given 75:00 chip time. VLM refused it for a champs entry as they wanted 74:59. Gutted. Course was 13.29m on my watch and 13.20 or more on four others - could be coincidence but doesn't really matter now!
I'm just starting to taper for Pisa marathon on 18th Dec. Not sure on target yet but probably sub 2:32.
RS - I meant to ask when you posted on FB at the time - was it an F3 events race? They've got a bad rep, both for organisation, and measurement, so if it was them it wouldn't surprise me that a) it was long, and b) VMLM wouldn't accept anything not sub-75.
LMH - 4000+!! Wow! Very impressive.
I missed your test run yesterday TR. Sounds like you've improved, but not quite there yet. Hopefully it continues to settle down. I get everything you've said. Trying to get back to it I've had the same thoughts - it takes a while certainly to even begin to wrap your head around why you do it.
Hopefully nothing wrong with the knees Padams!
Another night of minimal sleep last night (which should hopefully improve now I've finished the course of meds) saw me have to drag myself out the door for a run. Figured I'd do an easy 4m, even though I had 16 down on paper, as I was shattered. Somehow ended up doing 18m, and probably would have done the 20 if I wasn't tight on time. Even finished reasonably strongly rather than struggling.
I'm proper shattered now though!!
They sound like event organisers to avoid Ryan - why on earth would you have km markers in a UK half marathon? Disappointing for your mate.
I jut plod a lot TT.
TR - we supposedly do this for fun so if it isn't floating your boat it's much better to do something that does.
LMH - doesn't matter whether you're plodding or not; it's obviously working for you!
RS - yep, fits right in with what I've heard unfortunately. Really gets my rag. For ages they piggy-backed on other races down there, claiming accurately measured and certified events because there were other races there with certs, when in reality they didn't even appear to attempt to put the markers in the same places. Chuck in these kinds of 'prizes', baggage issues, and general CNBA about seemingly everything and none of my club will touch them with a bargepole.
As an aside, if your mate already has a GFA start he can usually upgrade if he bags the champs time in between I believe.
Turns out 'run 18m' was the answer to 'how can I offset the sleep issues caused by the asthma meds?'
TT/RS - that company run a lot of triathlon/duathlon events where distances are usually notional rather than certifiably accurate. I did one of their duathlons at Dorney earlier this year and to be fair it was reasonably well organised, if a bit overpriced. Not impressed enough to go back though. I did a double take when I saw they were holding some running races on the same course later the same day - our 10k run was four laps of out-and-back with the turnround placed at a spot that seemed too convenient to be accurate. money for old rope - especially when they managed to persuade over 50 people to part with over 20 quid to run a 5k that day. You just have to hope that some of those filter on to decently-run (and measured!) events rather than get put off.
TR - Spot on, Devon 1st, Cornwall 3rd and great to see your back on the road. Just enjoy the running because you can, and the motivation to run races will/ may come back when the time is right.
TT - Liked the answer.
RS Be interested what you think of the Pisa marathon (albeit in the blur with the admirable speed you will run it) as on the long list for 2017
He's obviously too shy/nervous/modest to remind you, but tomorrow morning it's SL's 50k treadmill WR attempt.
I'm going down to be Norris McWhirter as a witness for GWR, and I'm going to attempt to live stream / film it via Periscope so you can all watch along if you fancy skiving off work for three hours.
Starts at 9am and the record he's going for is a smidge under 3 hrs (that's about 5.43 min/mile pace for 31 miles
!!).
Think I've sussed how Periscope works (not used it before), but assuming the wifi connection is OK, it should be pretty straightforward. If you are on Twitter, just follow us @xempouk and you'll get a tweet with a link once we start broadcasting just before 9am. If you're not on Twitter you'll need to download the Periscope app (for free) onto your phone or iPad and then search for it: I'll call the stream something like "Stuart Leaney 50k treadmill World Record attempt".
You can send messages as it's broadcasting, so we'll ensure that he's kept up to date as he goes. All for a good cause too - here's the charity link
HH
Cracking stuff indeed about Donnie, such a nice down-to-earth guy too.
LMH - 4000? Jeez, am in awe.
RS - nae luck on the distance/time/crappy prizes.
Legs a bit mashed after doubles every day this week, 45M so far, and only halfway through the week.
Got my application accepted last night for the Ronhill West Highland way Race in 2017 - 95 miles, technical route, 14760ft of ascent. Scariest thing I've ever contemplated running-wise. https://westhighlandwayrace.org/
Congrats RB. I watched the Adventure Show episode with the WHW race on it so that pretty much makes me an expert on the matter. Any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Best of luck SL, the internet signal is pretty sh*t at my work so no chance of catching any of it. DBS!
All the best to SL. Dan, maybe you could give him the full VLM experience by playing Keep on Running and Simply the Best on endless loop? If that isn't sufficient motivation just keep shouting 'nearly there' from about 10 minutes in.
6 easy miles this lunchtime to celebrate aging up to V50.
Dan - any chance you can post updates on here? I won't be able to access periscope.
SL - DBS!
Something to look forward to RB....................
Has anyone run the BHF Warwick half marathon? Considering it as a pre-VLM run out on the 5th March.
Dan/SL - Thanks for the reminder, I'll be following with interest.
RB - Congrats! (I think!) Better start getting some miles in, eh?
Happy birthday CD!
Does anyone measure their perceived effort by breathing pattern? I think mine's changed gradually, presumably as I've got fitter, as I tend to change from a 2/2 (steps breathing in/out) to 2/1 earlier during a race but manage to sustain heavier breathing for longer. (Or maybe my lungs have got weaker?! Doubt it...) Anyway, I was aware of this today as I repeated last Thursday's tempo-lite run, i.e. a moderate intensity effort to save myself for XC on Saturday. I managed the same pace as last week, 5:46/m for an extra mile, 5 rather than 4, and managed to maintain 2/2 breathing all the way. (9 miles total.) I'll continue to do this as a check on perceived effort as marathon training proper starts, because for me it corresponds reasonably well to a distinction between ~MP vs. threshold intensity or quicker.
Thanks Alan and PP
PP -- eh? Surely a CW calculation is required?
RB.. congrats on the WHW entry. A couple of my club mates (the two who organise the Hardmoors stuff down here) have both done WHW so I will see if they have any useful tips.
Best of luck to SL, hope he flies along tomorrow. At least he won't have to worry about the weather.
CD.. many happy returns, I peaked at 50 if that offers any encouragement.
DanA.. well done on the Park Run win, at least you're getting some compensations for the Valencia mystery.
Charlie.. well raced at Bedford, you must be reasonably confident that another sub 75 is achievable somewhere.
RS.. all the best for Pisa, enjoy the taper.
Ouch Ouch.. nice to see you popping in again, which AG are you in these days?
LMH.. cracking mileage! It has given you some great results, shame you've ended the year with a niggle.
A bit of double racing at the weekend with a Park Run + 4m Sat, Sherwood Forest trail race on Sunday. The latter is the most charming off road course I've ever done, probably why it sells out very quickly. Mrs Wardi finished 2nd W55 so she currently has bragging rights in the house. I'm attempting the Marcothon again (run every day in December). I was thwarted on day 29 last year when our local bridge collapsed and I was evacuated from my house. I am hoping for less drama this year.
SL, if you are checking in, good luck.