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The Middle Ground
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final 20 for me yesterday which I was supposed to do on Sunday but did the MP session. Passed by without incident. Kept it very bottom end easy.
10k on Sunday which the weather looks set to ruin.
Dan - good mile work. My best ever was 6:06, so sub 6 is an aim for me in the (hopefully near) future.
DT - sounds like your final marathon prep is going well. You are correct about the weather on Sunday looking poor, which is a shame. Is it taper time after that?
JGav - as above, take it easy while you are trying to change to a different running style.
Just back from a week's holiday. Managed some early morning runs along a beautiful coastal road out of the resort, including one intervals session which felt ok. Planning some kind of tempo session tonight. Weekend looks difficult due to a combination of childcare, an evening out on Saturday night and a family lunch on Sunday!
Next week, next week .....
Andrew, strictly speaking this week is taper. Even with Sundays 10k, i'll just hit 40 miles when I have been averaging 50 since mid August. I've always raced a 10k two weeks out from a mara for some reason.
Forecast is slightly improved Sunday with the weather systems worst passing through a few hours earlier as things currently stand.
There's quite a few big races this weekend so would be a shame for the weather to be poor when it has been so settled. Not least is the Cardiff half which has somehow catapulted itself to be the second biggest in the country, selling 25,000 months in advance. I did it 2 years ago and whilst it was a big race (circa 17,000) it is astonishing to suddenly see that growth. I wonder whether its profile was raised when it hosted the world half championships last March.
Managed to get my usual collection of pre-mara massages all set up yesterday on the dates I wanted.
Good that you kept going whilst away Andrew. Even though you have lots of freetime, I find holidays the most challenging time to run.
Just an easy 6 at recovery with strides later today.
Good luck with parkrun Saturday, Dr Dan. Oddly the lady that runs our rugby club grew up with you. She noticed we had you as mutual friends on facebook.
Good news on the weather ... looks like my early 10 miles will be OK. 20:29 at parkrun... don't seem to be able to run faster at the moment. Looking forward to rectifying that after Chester.
Being pragmatic, I ran a hard session at Robin Hood last Sunday and a 20 midweek and run nearly 40 miles this week as well as the usual x training and strength stuff. Also my time was nearly a minute faster than the 10k I ran 2 weeks out from London on a much flatter course.
Time to take it easy now.
Disaster for me ... a sharp Achilles pain 8 miles into 10 on Sunday morning brought me to a halt. Still tender/stiff this morning, so Chester looks very unlikely at this stage. Cant believe my bad luck after 2 years of being injury free.
Dan - that is bad news! Hopefully just a touch of cramp?
DT - good 10k. Imagine what times you could run if you were ever fully tapered for any of your races ;-)
I had a rubbish week in terms of miles, but at least the two runs I did were an interval session and a tempo session.
Runbritain thought it was quite tough giving it a 2.0.
Andrew- haha....I really should try and run more than 1 race a year properly tapered. In fact I cannot recall ever targeting and tapering for anything other than a half or a mara. It is amazing how short a 10k now feels. Yesterday somewhere during mile 3 I began hurting but recovered it by persuading myself that in a few minutes I would be at 4 miles and at that point 2 miles is nothing when you've only ran 4.
Dr dan, That is a complete nightmare. I'd be taking every treatment line possible from ibruprofen tablets, voltarol gel, ice, professional treatment etc. Fingers crossed it eases off enough.
I'm feeling a little lost in what to do this week and next as I've not really followed a schedule this cycle. I'll go for something like 6 at mp midweek and a longish 12/13 miler sunday I think. Beyond that I think I will just keep it easy with some strides.
Mostly easy runs this week with some strides in there before my debut half on Sunday.
Anyone else running the Royal Parks half?
Morning all,
Did a good little tempo session last night. Warm up mile, followed by 2 miles at tempo (7:31, 7:28), 90 seconds rest then another tempo mile (7:28), then a warm down mile. First two tempo miles felt really good, on the third the legs felt a little stiff but nothing to slow the pace.
Only a short session, but good to be getting back into these after a couple of months of largely easy paced running.
Was just reading through your recent threads and thinking 'this guy is on fire at the moment'. Really sorry to hear about your injury so close to the marathon. I literally do know what that's like! Hopefully it goes against the odds with this type of injury and clears up fairly quickly.
I'm just coming back to running having been out with second calf strain of the year. Heart rate's given up on me!
And talking of which, taking a rest day today after a little running and walking over the last few days (biggest day 3.2k, although the longest running stretch was 1k) plus a fairly hard session of single leg presses yesterday. Achilles grumbling, and so am I.
I almost bagged an Abingdon place from LS21 but the organisers wouldn't let us swap at this stage... don't want to wait a whole year to try again.
Good luck, Dr Dan. Lets hope it doesn't trouble you. Whilst it will be boring as anything you can imagine....there is a marathon on Saturday 14th November at Long marston airfield. It involves 8 perfectly flat laps. There is also a 5 and 10k and a half going on at same time. I may be there for the 10k, which is my boredom threshold. Depends on the need and desire I suppose.
I've ticked along very quietly this week with 2 spin sessions, a 5 mile recovery and 7 with 5 at mp. I am planning 12 sunday and due to run 5 with 3 at some sort of tempo today. My legs are a bit achy from a robust sports massage so will see how the warm up goes.
Good luck Dan, hope it holds up through the race.
DT - is your race a week on Sunday then?
I did 4 easy paced miles yesterday and have an interval session planned for tonight (6x400m at 7m/m pace with 1 min jogged recoveries), then a 'long' run of 5.5 miles on Sunday. Need to get the long run back up to 7 miles fairly sharpish over the next couple of weeks.
Andrew- Yes, I am a week sunday.
I usually do a parkrun the weekend before a mara, however I have a work function tonight so will be out late and drinking. I decided to do something similar over lunch although there was no way I would create the intensity and suffering of a parkrun on my own at lunchtime. Solid effort though coming out at 19.05 for 6.09mm.
Probably do an easy 12 sunday to complete the week.
Will write more later.
Just a very easy 12 for me today. Nice easy week coming up.
Checking in post Royal Parks Half. Had a really good run, came in at 1.38.34 very pleased to go under 1.40 which is what I was targeting. Debut half, so getting a PB was easy
Calves held up, had to protect the left one during the run but it didn't affect pace. Feeling very sore now, so a few days off methinks.
Need to decide what time to take off and when to get into winter training. Haven't set any races or targets for next year, thoughts?
Well done Dan - all the hard work paid off then!
JGav - a very decent first outing at HM. Maybe aim for another in the spring and then (if this sort of thing floats your boat) a marathon debut next autumn? Or just smash through a few 5k/10ks in the spring?
Did my intervals on Friday as per the above - all 6 reps came in at between 6.47 and 6.57 pace, apart from the first at 7.03 (obviously wasn't concentrating yet!). 5.5 at 9m/m pace yesterday. 19 miles for the week - not huge but a definite improvement!
> Go hard or go home. So I ran 3:22:57 to take 7:17 off my PB.
>
> Will write more later.
Great job on smashing that PB
Andrew, sounds like a positive session.
JGav- great result on your half.
I am just going through the motions this week and simply trying to avoid people generally so I don't get ill! Off out shortly for my final race day prep in full race kit. Just 3 miles at mp. Then I have a sports massage tonight. I imagine I will then just do 3-4 with strides on Thursday.
JGav - nice work at Royal Parks! You need a plan now.
Andrew - decent week for you and a ncie session.
DT - keep it easy! DO NOT TWEAK ANYTHING!!!
Talking of which....
Well, yes, apologies for the dramatics but it was, well, dramatic!!! But Thursday's sharpener session convinced me nothing major was up with the Achilles but it also told me that there was something amiss... and 26.2 has a habit of finding things out. I had switched off from the race during the week and ended up being quite poorly prepared. I had fuelled as I would have anyway but the logistics where poor and rather last minute. Set off to Chester from Leeds at 06:50 and parked up in a city centre car park about 8:15 and walked off to the racecourse. For some reason I thought the start was 9:30 but it turned out to be 9:00, so I ended up is a bit of a panic. Still, it saved me from any pre-race nerves (and I got to the start with more time to spare than at Abo last year - that one was very close!).
I was confident in my fitness, so the plan was 7:45-8:00/mi pace, depending how I felt and what was happening to my HR. So I set off at what I felt was MP ... missed the 1 mile marker but crossed 2 miles in 15:36, so all good. At 3 miles my Achilles started to ache and I thought "here we go"... but it passed. Not much to report after that ... I was relaxed, chatted to a few folk and kept my eye on my pace. About 10-11 miles the ache returned. I thought I should perhaps try to get to 13.1 and then stop... but by 12 miles it had gone again. So I kept running. Crossed 13.1 in 1:40:44 ... 5 min faster than London, so this was going to be good ... or very bad. And then I just kept on running - the ache returned a few times but it wasn't a real sharp pain and I started to realise that it would pass. I used my London fuelling strategy - 7 gels, one every 20 minutes, the first at 20 minutes and last at 2:20. Drank water though out. At 23 miles I passed the place where cramp had floored me in 2011. 23-25 involved some climbing and these were the only miles where I slowed below 8/mi ... they were tough but I was OK. At 25 miles I knew I had this in the bag and so I picked it up... passed the family and ran the final 1.2 miles in 7:3X. Official time was 3:22:56.
1, 7:48,
2, 7:48,
3, 7:31, 139 (av)/146(max) bpm
4, 7:56, 139/144
5, 7:40, 139/143
6, 7:47, 138/144
7, 7:42, 141/145
8, 7:45, 141/145
9, 7:41, 143/147
10, 7:19 145/149
11, 7:38 143/148
12, 7:34 144/148
13, 7:43 144/148 .... 1:40.44 at half
14, 7:53 147/151
15, 7:39 145/149
16, 7:44 149/142
17, 7:37 150/155
18, 7:57 148/151
19, 7:41 149/153
20, 7:37 149/153
21, 7:46 151/153
22, 7:46 152/155
23, 7:56 151/155
24, 8:05 148/151
25, 8:14 149/153
26.2 9:07 153/164 .... final 1.2 miles in 7:36/mi ... 2nd half 1:42:13
Split Chip Pace Leg Pace Position
10K 48:09 07:45 48:09 07:45 637 th
20K 01:35:46 07:42 47:36 07:39 592 nd
30K 02:23:42 07:42 47:55 07:42 532 nd
40K 03:12:49 07:45 49:07 07:54 461 st
Finish 03:22:56 07:44 10:07 07:24 454 th out of 2,644
After trying to break 3:30 for so long, suddenly a sub 3:20 GFA doesn't seem quite so impossible. Funny business this marathon running.
It’s taken me 9 marathons to properly crack the code, so I thought I’d try to reflect on what has helped me to finally become a reasonable marathon runner (although I hope there is still more to come).
Here’s the story so far...
Chester 2010 – 4:50:16 ... total nightmare – not well, should not have run.
Chester 2011 – 3:32:43 ... got cocky at 14, slowed at 20, crashed at 23.
Abingdon 2013 – 3:38:15 ... got cocky at 23, hit the wall at 24.
London 2014 – 3:37:35 ... bit too fast in first miles, tried to compensate, slowed at 20, crashed at 23.
Nottingham 2014 – 3:35:10 ... steady metronomic pace, slowed at 19, crashed at 23.
Dublin 2014 – 3:39:10 ... deliberately slower pace, tough course/conditions but finished OK.
Abingdon 2016 – 3:31:02 ... slowed after 23 but didn’t crash.
London 2017 – 3:30:14 ... even pace, tough final 4 miles but no crash!
Chester 2017 – 3:22:56 ... even pace, tough race but I was strong at end.
So, I was 7 minutes faster at Chester 2017 compared with 6 months earlier in London! I was also 10 min faster than at Chester 2011 – a period in time when I set my current 5K, 10K 10M and HM PBs. So I am not any faster now tahn 6 years ago... but I am much better at marathon running! And I did this on a plan that averaged only 35 miles running per week. How? Well I think it’s down to the following:
1) I spend most of my time carb-depleted and am weight-stable. I generally avoid starch/sugars and prefer to eat meals based on protein, fibre and fat. This reduces carb-dependence, up-regulates fat-burning metabolic pathways and also makes me feel considerably less hungry – I have been weight-stable for 2 years without worrying about calories.
2) Long runs were always done in a carb-depleted state. I don’t mean just skipping breakfast, which just means the liver is glycogen depleted, but also ensuring that muscle glycogen levels are low too. So, I would run parkrun full tilt on a Saturday, to burn off stored muscle glycogen, and then consume no carbs between then and my Sunday morning long run (to avoid refilling the muscle and liver glycogen stores). This really forces the body to run on fat. If you haven’t done this before, and are carb-dependent as I used to be, then you need to go through a few grim weeks of adaptation. But then running on fat becomes easy. This probably wasn’t the key to the latest success, as I’d already sorted this by London ’17 (and partially before Abo ’16) and noticed huge improvements in fuel usage (i.e. no “wall”). But essential to maintain this capacity.
3) For Chester, most of these long runs were faster than I’d done before – at about MP + 20-30 seconds. Running slowly is supposed to improve fat-burning ... previously I’ve run at easy pace and perhaps put in a few of miles at MP at the end. But I reckon if you are on low weekly mileage, and if you are carrying no stored carbs, then you can afford to go a bit faster. You’re going to be burning fat anyway and you should have the legs for it. The advantage it that you’ll work some of those muscle fibres that the slower-paced runs never get to (unless you’re on high mileage). I did have a couple of runs where I was not able to do this for various reasons ... but most were comfortable at this faster pace.
4) I did 10 miles at marathon pace “MP” every week, always in a carb-depleted state. I’ve done what I called MP runs before ... the difference this time was that these MP runs were at “lactate threshold” pace. This is the effort level that is sustainable in a real marathon (not “predicted MP” based on shorter race times via on-line calculators which I used before) ... so that started out as 8 min/mile (based on my London ’17 pace and a real life lab-based lactate threshold test) but edged faster as the weeks went on. Alongside the faster long runs, I believe that this was KEY in pushing my lactate threshold out and enabling me to eventually run MP at a higher %maxHR.
5) Low mileage with cross-training to replace the recovery/easy run mileage you’d usually expect between the sessions/LSR. I ran only 35 miles per week (over 15 weeks, not including the final pre-race taper week). Not all that much running! Tues was the MP session, Saturday was parkrun, and Sunday was long run. There were some Thursday 2 x 5 mile doubles too but they fizzled out. Long runs topped out at 3 x 20 miles, 2 x 22 miles and 1 x 24 miles. Races were sparse unless you include parkruns as races (I run them like races) ... I did a 90:24 HM 4 weeks before the marathon and a 5:53 1 mile track race 2 weeks before, so knew I was in good shape. To get the most out of the 3 key run sessions, I needed to be active but reasonable light on the remaining days. I achieved this through cycling to/from work (unless I did a Thursday run double-commute). If you’re younger or more robust than me, then the more traditional easy “filler-runs” may be fine. But for me it reduced my injury risk through avoiding over-training ... and it meant I was fresher for the run sessions ... and I could get to to/from work for free! Due to summer holidays etc., it came out as 35 miles per week of cycling over 15 weeks.
6) Race fuelling. I do not fuel up on carbs before a training session any more ... unless it’s high intensity, which is quite rare when marathon training. But I DO fuel on carbs the day before all races, and sometimes for parkrun too. Train low, race high! For marathons, I carb load from Thursday afternoon, straight after my last run (which includes 4 x 400 m at “1 mile pace”). I eat a lot of carbs Thurs/Fri, and calm it down a bit on Sat to avoid gut issues. Muscle glycogen should be well topped up on race morning. On race day I have 4 slices of white toast 3 hours before the start, to top up liver glycogen stores which deplete overnight. But then I avoid any further carbs. To start the race on normal blood glucose levels, I start the race unfuelled ... the idea is to avoid triggering insulin release as this potently switches off fat-burning. I want to get the body utilising fat from the off. Once underway I take 7 gels during the race, one every 20 minutes, the first at 20 minutes..... once the muscles are working away, they can take up glucose in an insulin-independent manner, so fat-burning is not switched off. I know can run 24 miles in training unfuelled at MP+20s but I still assume that I need carbs to maintain MP over 26.2, although I haven’t tested this. While, the carb-depleted training means I now burn a greater percentage of fat when running at MP, I will be likely be using some carbs at marathon intensity (lactate comes from burning carbs ... and I am at/above lactate threshold). The idea of the gels (60g carbs per hour) is to conserve stored muscle glycogen for the later stages when the intensity goes up. The last gel comes 2:20 into the race ... after that stage, it is unlikely the digestive system will absorb any more. This fuelling approach has worked really well in the last 2 marathons, in sharp contrast to earlier ones.
DrDan, looks like a great strong run. Yes, sub 3.20 appears more than achievable all of a sudden!
Interesting reading your various points of analysis. Points 1 and 2 I have no experience of. Points 3-5 I do have experience of. You are right in what you say about running the long runs faster. In 2016 I followed the run less philosophy to the letter and found running 20 much closer to mp reasonably straightforward. I also find that because almost all your running is faster than very easy, my pace that might now naturally gravitate to 8mm for easy would gravitate more to 7.30mm as my only time running 'easy' was the long run. I then found that for 2017 I tweaked the system and upped mileage and found it got gradually harder to run the paces prescribed. This time around I have gone back to basics and placed more emphasis on miles and not tried to run fast.
In terms of fuelling, I am with you on the 2.5 day carb load. I go all day Thursday and Friday and until lunchtime Saturday, aiming for 10g of carb per kg of my weight, so roughly 700. My in race fuelling is my biggest issue as I have struggled with gels and so 2016 and 17 were fuelled on jelly babies, which don't contain near the same benefits. I may try again with gels in my training over the coming months.
So 5k at mp today came in at 6.39 for 159hr. Same run before London came in as 6.46 for 159. Today there was a strong headwind for miles 1 and 3 as I looped the park, so think it could have been better in neutral conditions. Other than a few miles with strides Thursday I am done.
Looking at this and my London 2016 and 17 campaigns and taking the 3 months immediately before race month-
2016- 385
2017- 424
2017 (now)- 530.7
The mileage increase from even spring to now works out about 8 per week. Added to that is the fact during this period i've had a 2 week holiday and raced 2 flat out halfs and 3 x 10k.
Fingers crossed the extra mileage yields the result it deserves!
jgav- over the 3 cycles I have posted, save for the 2 weekly key sessions, my mileage all round has become slower.
In the 2016 cycle my mileage was much lower but I was able to run my long runs about 30-40 seconds a mile faster than what I have done this last cycle. I was also able to run bigger sessions ie then I would do 10 at mp. Now this cycle, save for when I ran the robin hood half at mp, my longest mp session has been 6 miles. So there has been a very clear trade off between miles run and the pace of those miles.