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Just fake them nowadays!
4M again with the dog this morning, but let her off the lead this time and did some hill reps in the park. She must have done a mile or two more than me so seemed tired once we got home (for a change).
Well done on the unofficial PB OuchOuch!
And Wardi: best of luck, have a great race :-)
Good to Wardi in Spain on Sunday, enjoy the cold post race cerveza(s)! Sorry to hear about your dad CW, good work with the run in tricky conditions in the Cambs HM. Dachs, if you decided to do Bournemouth this autumn, I'd happily volunteer for pacing/wind break duties...
Hope the current benchees get back on the road ASAP, especially LMH, that was a nasty sounding knock from the car involved.
Training has been a bit up and down the last month post Wokingham, it roughly went like this; good week(105M), poor week (60M illness while travelling for work), good week (105M), Ok week (Ankle tendon niggle on Tuesday, thankfully resolve now).
So not sure how the Bath Half will pan out on Sunday, maybe a PB improvement might be on the cards still... been doing a good bit of short intervals on the treadmill (and a cheeky Friday night 5k in 18:06 made up of 200m fast/200m cruise) the last couple of days to try and get my legs turning over nice and quickly, I think my aerobic fitness is good, so hopefully I can persuade my legs to go with a bit of speed
Enjoy some warmth and race well Wardi.
Anyone else racing this weekend?
Just ticking over myself and trying to be sensible coming back from injury. Doing Fleet half next weekend which will first race since May.
Enjoyed a few post race beers in the sun though, and it's still my favourite marathon :-)
78m for me last week and taper time now for Manchester. Will try a combination of regular 10K blasts, some yasso's and the Sunday long-run, with next weeks along the river in Paris (Wales vs France) likely to be the most scenic.
Saw Al_P's result at Bath, another solid run but will let him announce it. I like how a "poor week" is still 60M!
Parkrun for me on Saturday. Had done about 6.5M beforehand (mostly with the dog, then running to the start) and spotted a clubmate on the start line who I usually beat but is generally pretty close to me (he's been running high-33 for 10K recently). He led to about halfway then I managed to pull away to win in 16:23, which is my fastest for a while and had a little bit left in the tank. It also included stopping dead a couple of times when backmarkers did silly things like swerve in front and stop to put their coat on a bench.
Then just a bit of messing about in the gym yesterday - 15 mins of cycling, 15 mins of leg weights and then 2M on the treadmill.
10 miles over to and around Battersea Park on Saturday. Lovely day, and very busy. I've pulled out what I thought were the key weeks from P&D 70 from Berlin and will try those, starting this week for this 6-week plan I'm attempting. See what happens.
Blimey Wardi, that was tough luck. Well done for getting around.
Well parkwon Padams!
I've seen some good results from a few people's weekend racing on Strava - just waiting for the reports now!
No race for me this week, but a heavy week of training and I'm pleased to say I nailed the key runs and really feel that was the best week of the campaign so far. Wednesday's 15 MLR averaged 6:46/mi for the last half. Friday's 7M tempo hit 6:04 average, and the last three miles were the fastest, with 5:52 for the final mile. Finally, yesterday's 22M seemed like a breeze, and the last 11M averaged 6:47/mi. If that's MP+10% (which is the aim) then I feel like I'm in good shape for Boston.
Padams -- impressive parkrun.
ES -- sounds like you're on great form.
I did another stint as a student experiment guineau-pig on Saturday, running 6x5km at a steady 7 m/M, sometimes with a rucksack to weigh me down a bit. I'd had 48 hours off before that to ensure fresh legs, so after the experiment I continued for another 10M to make it a 30M run in 7:02/M average -- and it felt pretty comfortable. (Last time I tried some marathon effort tempo after the experiment phase, but I sensed my legs weren't up for that this time, maybe because of the half last weekend). Then another 13M on Sunday, overdressed for heat acclimatisation, so a big weekend for me. Which is good, as I am to have a block of 4 high-mileage weeks now.
Unfortunately I now have a lurgy which developed yesterday evening -- trudged slowly to work nevertheless. Bah!
Wardi - Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you at the weekend, hope the weekend in Spain made up for it!
CW - That's a pretty nutty weekend even by your standard's, is Cambridge about be become the next Iten???
Padams - Swift parkrunning
ES - That's some excellent quality training you've banked lately, shaping up well...
Bath was a decent day out yesterday, got myself up behind the elites went out pretty hard, ticking off the first 4-5M at sub-PB pace (c. 5:25/M), found myself drigting around without a group of such to join up with, so as we went out on the first westward leg norht of the river I made the effort to catch the group of 8 or so 50-100yds up the road headed by a mate from BAC. Hung on the back of the group for a while but it was already stretching out a bit on the way back east towards the city centre. By the time we hit the second lap the group was gone and I was leap frogging back and forth with the same couple of runners. Still had Toby from BAC in sight and around 10-11M I could see the gap was closing to him gradually. I was starting to struggle a bit by this point, the pace had slipped into the mid to high 5:30s. Not having mile splits on my watch I still thought a PB might be on at 10M (55:08), but I was finding hard to keep my legs going (HR wasn't particular high for the latter stages of a race). Slowly reeled Toby in and managed to pass him into the final turn to the finish, except that the act of doing so spurred him on and he pipped me to the line by a second!
Scores on the door was 73:28 for 33rd place. Pleased with the effort, might be harbouring a slight throat bug and the course seems a bit 'generous' in length (13.27 on my garmin, most others are c.13.2) so probably quite close to Wokingham a month back IMO. Next up the Salisbury 10M in a few weeks, which I'm hoping will be a PB attempt as a last race effort pre-London
CW - 30M, that's nearly my weekly mileage in one go! And then 13M the next day. I would definitely have the lurgy after that weekend...
Nice parkrunning Padams.
Hope you don't come down with anything Al. Talking of long courses Silverstone Garmined at 13.45 miles yesterday so despite it telling me that I ran an average 3 seconds a mile faster than my half PB I actually finished nearly a minute slower. Still it was good to find that my first big week back in training hadn't broken me and I was able to run much faster than expected. Ended up 3rd woman and 1st old woman. Even better legs were good to go for a LSR this morning and for the first time I managed to run the route that I was knocked over on - haven't felt able to face it until this morning.
LMH - great to hear you were able to race Silverstone and get out for a long run yesterday. Hopefully all good signs for toeing the line at London.
CW - what are you like?!?
Al_P - Good to see you briefly yesterday, a very impressive HM performance again.
CW - Get well soon!
Well I'm officially, properly benched and declaring myself out of the running for London. After an aborted long run last weekend I laid off running and stuck to the gym all week, then went along to Bath for a long weekend, which included a trip to a physio on Friday who did what she could to loosen up the achilles and get rid of some knotty tissue (ouch!), and suggested I could give the race a go as a training run. Easy jog and warm-up the day before and morning of the race felt sort-of OK so I lined up and said hello to Al_P, set off a little quicker than MP since the first mile is slightly downhill (5:36) but as I got into my running I could already feel I was compensating and running asymmetrically, so stepped off the route at 1.5 miles.
The physio mentioned tendinopathy and gave me some very specific exercises to do (variations on heel drops), and suggested having a go at certain areas with a purple spiky ball (ouch!) so I know that this means there is damage which will take some time to put right. The chances of PB'ing at London would be remote even if I could resume full-on training right now, which I clearly can't, so I'm stopping running completely till the achilles feels totally normal.
Apart from the exercises I've got a definite x-training plan which involves almost daily indoor rowing sessions plus cycling, and I'm particularly looking forward (!) to getting back into a structured regime on the rower. 45 minutes this morning felt more comfortable than I was predicting, for a decent pace. Maybe I'll be buff and more injury-proof for some shorter stuff over the Summer. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and all that jiggery-pokery.
I'm on that tightrope now. Two months of high mileage and a few creaks appearing. Maybe a boozy trip to Cheltenham might be worthwhile in the long run.
Sorry to hear that PP, you've been in putting in some good sessions recently. I guess this is the phase pre-VLM where the legs are under the greatest stress.
Cracking half Al P and some good competitive racing going on too.
LMH.. well done on the podium at Silverstone, that must make you feel a bit more confident about VLM.
Ouch Ouch.. congrats on the 5k PB, here's hoping you can get the sub 3 at Manchester.
30m is a big day out Charlie! What do you use to weight the rucksack down??
Dan A.. deffo go for the Cheltenham trip but avoid the tipsters.
Looking back on my race I now remember being overtaken in the last 2k by a chap pushing someone in a wheelchair. I did manage to overhaul them before the finish though in fairness I did let their tyres down.
PP - gutting, but sounds like you're already moved on and looking forward to other things.
Just 2M with the dog this morning (please ball-chasing for her) as I'm planning on going to the track this evening for the first time in about 10 months (actually my first evening training at all since mini-Padams).
Dan/Padams - most of my GP visits all come down one of two things - either asthma, or anaemia . I'm prone to bouts of the latter, probably due to my IBS causing malabsorption (though I had blood related issues when I was a kid - I was in hospital 2 or 3 times a week when I was 8/9 for several months - so it could be linked to that too). This is panning out to be the worst case of it I've had that I can remember since I was in uni though.
Good parkrunning Padams.
ES - looking very good!!
CW - nuts! Nothing new there then ;-)
Al_P - nice run at Bath. Bath is notorious for coming in long at the front end because of running the second lap long, around the outside. Last year, up until about 7m my Garmin was pretty much bang on with the mile markers, and ended up being about 250m out. Marigold said it's the same every year.
LMH - nicely done! Coming back nicely!
Fingers crossed you stay on the tightrope Dan.
PP - that sucks but sounds like the right decision! I can empathise as I too am done with London at this stage.
After last week's track session my legs were still sore by Sunday, which is ridiculous, and my ability to even jog without being out of breath was diminishing - I struggled (painfully slowly for the effort) through a 6/10 double on Sunday, which, combined with struggling jogging up a hill yesterday (home after less than 2m) put paid to any thoughts that the supplements would have a quick effect. My levels obviously hadn't bottomed out by the time of the tests.
Apparently it can take up to 4 months for folate levels to come back up to normal. Probably also similar for my ferritin levels too, given where they are. I was in before Christmas for something they thought was asthma related, but now the thinking is that my iron and folate levels were already quite low by then because the prednisone made very little difference at the time.
The signs were there that I was coming around, but any bit of faster running took disproportionately more out of my legs than they should have done, and to get a sub-2:30 at London, never mind a pb, I needed everything to go perfectly. Making the decision now means I can get myself sorted for one proper campaign, rather than aiming for two disrupted ones. After 2+ years out of proper training I knew it was never going to be straightforward to get back to it. No biggie; I'll get there in time.
LMH -- a good one for you too, well done (especially given your recent injuries). Amazing powers of recovery to do the LSR the day after a hard half.
PP -- such a shame to miss London when it will have been the first time you've actually raced it for a while, but jolly sensible I'm sure. Good luck with it.
Wardi -- the students gave me a Camelbak type thing. But initially it had quite a lot of air trapped, and the slosh caused some odd dynamics! Squeezed the air out for the second stint with it (but then it started leaking...).
TT -- so will you still do London but not aim for sub-2:30, or are you also canning it? Sorry you're still suffering, either way.
Felt pretty rough jogging home yesterday, so I opted for the bike today. I take solace from the fact that doing only low-quality training for about 3 weeks with that chesty cough left me in surprisingly decent shape for the Brass Monkey half back in January, so a few days compromised by a cold shouldn't matter.
CW - That is nuts indeed
PP - So sorry to hear that....bugger. Positive vibes for a speedy recovery and you get back in the running swing of things soonest.
Think I will ease off a bit this week as been on the go for months now and also feeling a bit creaky.
Cheers Wardi. How are you feeling now?
Charlie - or I just didn't try hard enough (but in my defence the physio had said that I wasn't allowed to race flat out).
Enjoy the track sessions Padams.
Knowing when to ease back is a good thing OuchOuch.
That's a tough way to learn ES.
LMH - the only positive is that it's bad enough that any improvement will be noticeable whilst waiting for the levels to get back to where they should be. Right now I'll settle for not waking up with a headache every morning as a starting point tbh.
OO - sounds sensible if you're feeling creaky. An easy day or two may be all that's needed.