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Hi all, thanks for all the messages. I am over whelmed by all the support, it's been a humbling experience. I'm physically and mentally exhausted although part of that may have been the 6 hours of drinking and not getting to bed until 2ish!!!
ES good luck tomorrow.
I'm currently out in Lanzarote. Done an accidental/unplanned marathon. With no long runs since London and 18m on Tuesday the closest to that (which left me shattered the next day) I set a target of 2:50 which I figured should be a solid, but slower than current MP, effort. Ran to feel and when I was tired just let the pace slide. Ended up with 2:49 which was good enough for 4th.
A marathon is a flipping long way especially when the temperature is in the 20s!!
The afters saw me doing similar to SL, so today's jog might be a bit slow.
well done Stu, excellent stuff. Thats two treadmill WRs that the thread have achieved now, first solo one though, so cracking effort.
belated happy birthday wishes to CD, I'll be making that age group switch soon too.
did another 5M Friday, 15M for the month so far, what a mileage monster !
From little acorns TR
TT.. damn good effort for an impromptu marathon! Not surprised it was a warm one - I was on Gran Canaria last month and it was 20-26 degrees during the day
Jooligan.. nice one on the CR, must try the pre race cider approach!
Trotting round to the Park Run start yesterday I was passed by a lad running at about 6mm pace, his warm up presumably! He pootled round to take the win in 15.05, 2nd fastest time ever at York. Turned out to be Graham Rush from the Cheltenham & Gloucester club. Any of you SW folks come across him?
16.4m done this morning, cool & breezy so pleased to get it done.
First 20M of the VLM build-up done today. Target was 8min/mile & it was going fine til 17M then the final 3 mile climb destroyed me & I lost 4 minutes! I last ran that route in March a month before Brighton & I was 8 minutes faster then. Lot of work to be done.
Wardi: I've lined up on the start with Graham Rush at the Glos League XC a few times but that's as close as I've been as fortunately I've managed to avoid being lapped by him! He's recently had a GB call-up I believe. BTW club is Cheltenham & County Harriers who attract all the top runners locally.
TT: 2:49 for an impromptu marathon with a 2:50 target on very little specific training. Awesome! What's the target for Spring now then?
SL - immense effort, massive congrats. I expect it hurt a lot!
TT - nice impromtu marathon! Must give you a bit of confidence.
Not been up to too much - work Xmas do on Thursday was fun but probably had a bit too much to drink. Had the day off on Friday but just did a short gym session (which didn't involve doing much at all really). Saturday was parkrun and managed 16:41 without too much effort (was a fair distance ahead of 2nd place), and other than that just some miles with the dog every day.
TT - staggering!
Padams - still banging out fast times from small mileage - amazing!
Jooligan - early days, nothing to worry about.
I had a shocker at the MK Winter Half unfortunately. I felt bad right from the start, but at least for the first 5M I was faster than Chicago MP. We'd been told there was a flood between miles 5 and 6, and sure enough, we had to wade through about a foot of water. After that, for whatever reason, I could not get the legs moving again. To some extent I was hampered by some niggles but in any case, I was in the 6:4x range for the next 5 miles. Then suddenly the legs woke up again and I ran the final 3 miles at 6:20 pace, overtaking ten other runners as I went. Ended up with 1:25:00 which is bang on Chicago MP pace.
So what have I learned? Well, running a race a week for 6 weeks clearly doesn't agree with me! Ah well, P&D for Boston starts tomorrow so back to focussing on endurance for a while, which is probably just as well.
Boston training started for my friends and I today
18 weeks to go!!
After Abingdon in October, I've had a couple of months of reduced miles and effort, I'm very excited to be following a plan again, I'm gonna to be following P&D 70-85MPW
Had a couple of easy effort weeks build up, 50+ followed by a 60+ and feeling pretty fresh and ready.
Electric Sheep - does your training start tomorrow cus you're following P&D and Monday is a rest day?
SL - Congrats - great skills!
TT -- amazing result on no training!
Wardi -- Graham Rush maybe used to live round here; he won a local 10K last year by miles which I did this year (but he wasn't there for it this time). Well done on the long run.
Well done in those parkruns Jooligan & Padams.
ES -- cripes, a foot of cold water would have my legs protesting pretty badly!
I decided to have a couple of easy weeks (one now done) before starting spring campaign training. Not sure if I'm doing the right thing -- probably just getting less fit and heavier, but if there was any recovery in order, I should be getting it. So just 40M last week, maybe similar this week.
Cheers all. Bearing in mind I ran a(n expected) small positive split (less than 2 minutes), the positions at the chip mats tell enough about how people pace marathons: 10km (17th), HM (12th), 32km (7th), Finish (4th).
TR - how is the body holding up to the runs?
CD - a belated happy birthday.
Wardi - similar. I think race day was in the 23-25 region. Nice for relaxing, not so much for running!
Jooligan - I'm hoping to be able to pb at London (currently 2:27:48). Loads of time for you; don't stress it. No point comparing how you felt a month before a marathon with how you feel 4.5 months beforehand.
Padams - in terms of mentally just going out and doing a marathon without any endurance, yeah, definitely. Plus I guess I got the long run side of things mentioned previously out of the way! Nice chilled parkrun!
ES - tough break on the race, but useful from a training perspective nonetheless!
CW - no harm giving your body a break occasionally, and it's the best time to do it!
ES - Sounds like the water certainly did something to your legs for a bit. All good training.
CW - Agree with TT - a break will probably do you the world of good.
Did my usual 2 at marathon HR today but the HR monitor was misbehaving so had to go by effort. Came out at 5:44/mile (2:30 pace) which is a good confidence boost but difficult to know how close I really was to marathon effort.
Just a couple more short runs tomorroe and Thurs then two days off before the race. Can't wait
RS -- good luck -- sorry, what are you doing? Two full days off before the race... I remember reading muscle enzyme activity drops within about 48 hrs so I do teeny tiny tune-up runs even on the couple of days before to keep my legs "activated". A quick Google fails to justify that now though (haven't read it all but a long piece here might be of interest: http://www.sportexperts.org/publication/44.pdf )
Good people and dangerous to know.
Finding this very entertaining to listen to http://podtail.com/podcast/running-commentary/
RS - Hope you smash it at Pisa.
TT - that is an incredible run, congratulations.
ES - Bad luck mate.
CW - what does an "easy" week or 2 look like?
Padams - Casual sub 17.
TR - Great to see you back at it.
Another great read through of the last few pages, great to see reports on a few of the races I have done in the past - like the Bedford and MK Winter halfs. Fascinated by the treddie challenge too - amazing stuff.
Mainly to say well done to Padams for his great Chiltern league performance, it was my club mate that he overtook at the end too. I was languishing 25 places back..and yes the hill at the end is ridiculous! Managed to get a few garbled words out when he saw me in the finish funnel
I train with the winner of that XC - and god he is a machine. 5 x 2k last week on grass with 200m of slope in each. All in about 6.03. I have to do shorter reps to get the recovery in!
SC - thanks, yes, was quite pleased with my run there, especially to beat your clubmate who's got much faster PBs than me over that sort of distance. I've been trying to think of a tougher hill than that one - the only tougher hills I've "run" were in the Lake District.
I was speaking to my clubmate who came 2nd to IK - my clubmate didn't know who he was so had assumed he had gone off way to fast and was going to slow down. I think he was a bit shocked when he just kept pulling away!
RS - funnily enough, after Saturday the idea of going somewhere every month or two and doing one as a training run is starting to appeal. If I can get a few days break and have the chance of a few quid for a training run (I'd have to be an awful lot fitter for that to be viable, but if I'm in around pb shape then a sub-2:40 should be comfortable enough and a good training stimulus) - the top 3 Saturday were 2:35, 42, 43 with prize money of 500, 300, 200 euros (I think).
I know some of you are Canova fans. I haven't read these yet, but Letsrun done a Q&A session here.
TT - I've considered playing that game before but I think you need to running around 2:30 to regularly pick up the monies.
I've confirmed with a Brit who's in Pisa that we will be setting off together at 2:32 pace. I've also got my number - 13 and it's my 13th marathon...
TT - Cracking run in Lanzarote! That must've been great fun and a nice confidence booster. I reckon prize-bagging marathon tourism would be bloody hard work. Even Marders tends to stick to HMs when he wants to earn a bob or two, and he's a machine.
Ryan - Good, er, luck?
I ran 3 of 4 consecutive-weekend XC races on Saturday, the Southern Vets' champs. SC and the Herne Hill guys took our title in some style and I couldn't keep up with them but I was still pleased with my run, 13th place in what seemed like a stronger V40 field than usual. This Saturday is the South of the Thames "Senior" race, which we're hosting in Beckenham. 7.5 miles which might be more my cuppa tea.
Decent track session last night, 2M @ MP (5:38/5:38) followed by 400 / 6 x 1200 / 400 (100 recovery), 400s in 75/72 and averaged 3:51 for the 1200s. 14 miles total, 19 miles for the day. Will either take things fairly easy for the rest of the week or get in another moderate-intensity tempo run on Thursday.
Good luck Ryan -- hope it all works out, including those bracing walks!
Well done yet again in the XC PP.
SL -- I'm making this up as I go along, but my easy weeks are going to be about 40 miles of mainly commuting runs, no speed, didn't bother to do a long run this Sunday. I was just conscious I shouldn't start training for VLM too soon and don't have a race for a few weeks, so while I haven't got any specific niggles it seemed fair to my legs to give them a relative rest. Actually I went mad and did a 17.5M double yesterday to make the most of having bothered to wear extra layers for heat acclimatisation, and plodded in again today, but never mind.
HH
Been offline last few days, seems I've missed a fair bit.
Some superb racing over marathon, xc and parkrun distances.
Getting my body used to this double commute running again - 3 doubles last week, interrupted with a midweek Xmas do, followed by hangover, so 1 way run only. Long-ish of 15 on Sunday to give 75ish for the week. This week so far - 9+5, 10+5, 6+5, with a 20 planned for Sunday. No speed at all, mostly 8min/miling with a backpack.
Yes it is about the toughest hill I can think of - Stanmer pk in Brighton has a few toughies too. If you have the Beds/Bucks County championships there you have to go up it twice. I did see a St Albans vest quite close to IK at the start, thought..he's brave! To be fair speaking to Ian afterwards he was aware of your mate's track speed so he wanted to get away from him! Also Elliot is going really well at the moment, so you did well to beat him.
Keep up the good work!
PP - see you Saturday. Remember its my work do tomorrow night (getting excuses in early.
.)
SC - yes, he did 1:48 for 800 this summer I think so does have a bit of pace! He was never going to beat IK over that sort of distance though.
PP - very nice combo session again.
Just some running with the dog so far this week (averaging about 3M per day), then into work this morning (but that's only another 2.5M). I might make it to the next XC fixture this Sunday - that's the lower standard league, but I've won the last 2 fixtures so would be nice to keep the streak going.
RS/PP - with the extra marathons, Marders is fast enough at HM to bag £ that way whereas I'm nowhere close. The idea only occurred because if I had been fit I would have bagged a few quid in Lanzarote for the same effort, and one or two I was looking at for next year anyway are not dissimilar in terms of depth, plus a lot of my club go off to marathons around Europe on a regular basis, so it's as much about a club break as anything else - any bit of prize money would just be a nice bonus and very secondary to the idea of a training run and a short break.
Best of luck for Pisa RS.
Nice track work PP.
Good volume RB.
Not been online here for a few weeks, so mega-congratulations to SL - saw the pictures and that looked tiring enough! And well done on raising money for a good cause.
Also 'not bad' for a cheeky marathon from TT - a turn-up-and-run faster than my pb.
And lots of nice training elsewhere.
As for me, I've been plodding along. Everytime since Abo I think I'm about to re-enter proper training then a lurgy has bubbled up via nursery or school to cut everything back for a week. But I think I'm still in not too bad shape and there's two months to Wokingham half which is my next race (bar the odd parkrun).
Afternoon all, thought it was time for a read back and once in a while head above the parapet appearance
SL - That treadmill WR is simply astounding
Couldn't watch it live as I was abroad, but watching the last 5mins it was very clear how much effort it had taken!
TT - Like the cheeky off-the-cuff sub3 marathon in the sun, good work
RS - Good luck at Pisa this weekend, hope it goes well for you.
Dan - Belated commiserations on your Valencia woes, a real strange one that with you coming back to run well at parkrun so soon after....
Great to see lots of familiar faces (and some new ones) posting of late. Some quality XC racing from PP & Padams and nice to hear from TR and Lord Dids again
CW - Going back to the headtorch discussion, I had the Alpkit Gamma, didn't know about rechargeables invalidating the warranty until I found that this had happened to the battery compartment...
Ni-Mh batteries had scorch marks on them so clearly it had got pretty warm! Tried emailing Alpkit, but just got a 'told you so' reply (which is fair enough). Replaced the Gamma with another one from them (v small, lightweight, but no longer available) which does take rechargables. Now tempted with one of these https://www.alpkit.com/products/qark as it's much brighter than the Gamma and is USB chargable.
Not got much to report running wise since Abingdon. Recovered in time to give the Gosport Half a good crack, felt strong but a sub-75 time was thwarted by a daft cross/headwind for half the race (75:31). Got a strong sense of deja vu from the year before as I ran pretty much the whole race with the same guy from Lordshill RR in very similar conditions and failed to sub75 on both occasions, although this year was 20secs faster at least...
Mucked around with a few parkruns, the best being a 17:3x weekend before last. Apart from that I've entered the inaugural Winter Cross 50k in the Meon Valley/SDW on 28th Dec as a bit of post-Christmas fun, should be a good way to burn off a bit of turkey
RS and Dan - Give it full beans in Pisa you both deserve good runs.
Nice to see Pisc and AL_P pop in.
CW - 17.5 miles in a day doesn't strike me as being part of a down week. ;-)
After 5 days off I've done a few short runs and my legs seem to be fine, I need to start running again as I'm eating like a pig.
Hello All!
Nice XC there PP.
RS - best of luck in Pisa.
SC2 - nice to see you back. I ran the Wolverton 5 (got a PB
) and saw your name in the results list - great performance.
Padams and SC2 - agree that IK is a monster. I started following him on Strava because these days he's doing a few runs around my neck of the woods and I'd noticed him steal a segment or two. The training I see him posting is unbelievable.
So P&D for Boston has begun for me. I've decided to mix it up bit this time around. In looking over the higher mileage P&D plans, I noticed that they're basically the same as my normal 55-70 plan, but you double run 2 or 3 days a week, and all the extra runs are 4-6M at recovery pace. That seems achievable to me. So I've adapted a P&D schedule based on the 85M plan but still retaining Monday as a day off because I find I need a day's rest each week. Five days in and I'm knackered already
. I was worried that I'd scupper myself by running the recoveries too fast, but so far there has been zero chance of that because I couldn't run them too fast if I tried!