Shades Marathon Training

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  • Iain LoveIain Love ✭✭✭
    edited November 2017
    Emmy - um I'm quite certain I don't want to run today.. I'd be happy to walk normally at the moment.. 

    Shades - if the days were swapped around I would of been able to run for 6hrs on the Saturday. Everything felt like it was ment to be. I didn't feel like I pushed at any point. I wasn't watching my watch, I just ran 100% of how I felt and it paid off.. It is my 4th fastest marathon time so I'm really happy with it. Sunday well... I know I hadn't got my body prepared as well as I would like for a double,  hence the fact I struggled but I'm not unhappy with the result. I think I only entered cause I was over there and I though I'd make a weekend of it. My OH and my son were handing out the lap bands so they were involved too..
    Now this year's racing calendar has closed,  I can set my sights on training for London. A guy at my club has started a coaching business and wanted some volunteers to coach and then give feedback (for free) so I'll have a coach to help me aim for a champs place in 2019.
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    MF - hope you had a good birthday :) sorry that your race didn't go as well and hope you recover soon

    Shades - hoping that is correct about mara fitness coming back quickly haha.

    Big G - I nearly used AirBnB for Manchester this year, the ones I was looking at had mentioned in the reviews that people had stayed there for the marathon in previous years, if that's the case with yours then you'd hope they wouldn't cancel the booking. Might be more difficult if the reviews aren't in English though...how's your Dutch? We didn't stay as my wife was coming too and didn't like the idea of being there by herself with the property owner after I left to go to the race. Good "carb loading" at the weekend ;)

    SK - nice speed session, be careful with your foot though.

    steven - well done on your hill :)

    Iain - congratulations on your race win and then following it up with almost 30 miles the next day! Amazing!

    Ian - fantastic improvement this year, it's nice to look back and see how far you've come in a relatively short time. I'm sure there is a lot more to come if you want it just maybe not quite as rapid improvement ;)

    Jelly - hope the tightness doesn't develop into anything more serious.

    Emmy - hope you're alright, well done on the half.

    mowser - good to hear you're slowly getting back to running :)

    Cal - really feel for you, it must be so frustrating not knowing what's wrong :( All I can say is I hope it improves soon.

    I haven't run since Wednesday, though I played squash on Thurs and my legs felt a little fatigued. Thankfully it was only a friendly. We were away for a long weekend visiting family and I went out for a walk or two each day with my daughter in the buggy/sling so haven't just been sat on my arse like normal haha. I prob won't get another run in until Wednesday either, but hoping to get a run in this weekend and then a few next week as my wife and daughter are away for a few days.

    Also have found out some of my family are maybe doing the New Forest marathon on 9th Sept next year, so I might enter that as well as potentially Milton Keynes. I think (though not 100% sure) I'm the fastest runner out of my family who would be doing it so if I haven't managed to train properly for it then I can always run with someone else and enjoy it more, it looks like quite a scenic course, some road parts but lots on good paths through the forest as well.
  • E mmyE mmy ✭✭✭
    Morning all. Back to reality and a long drive back yesterday. I’ve not stopped. I was hoping to rest this morning but nursery called and I had to pick Evie up as she was crying the place down :-( 

    after yesterday, I’m seriously considering taking an entire break from running until Christmas. I’m exhausted, actually physically and mentally done for. I was thinking of maybe doing some yoga, get my niggles all sorted and then return to fitness. This could be because I’m a bit tired/ill but I’ll see how I am in a few days. 

    This afternoon is being spent in the doctors with Evie as I think she might have a chest infection. 

    Mamafox: hope you’re doing alright this morning 

    cal: sorry to hear that the injury is still there :’(
  • Hi All

    Just saying Hello  :)

    Thank you Shades for the timing plan and for your advise. 
    Starting this week I will be focusing myself on getting into the swing of the 3 weekday night runs back to back.
    I've added 3 'Pre' weeks into the plan to get my distance back up to 20+ miles to ensure I'm ready for the first week. I've also brought the plan forward an additional week to help cover Christmas break.

    Really looking forward to following your plan and joining this thread. This is uncharted territory for me running 30-45 miles per week. Very interested in seeing how my body adapts and the impact it has on achieving my sub 4hr marathon goal.

    Thanks 
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    Hi on the Beach. My target is also sub 4. I'm on rest period before my ultra training starts in the new year. Good Luck. 
  • Emmy - Congrats on the HM!
    MF - Sorry your race didn't go to plan and belated birthday wishes!
    Iain - Fantastic win and second days mileage!!
    Ian - Nice parkrun PB and sub 20!! I think you might be faster over 5k than that based on your 10k time!! GFA might seem too big a jump, but you could go sub 3:25 next time.

    Easy 5 miles for me including parkrun, 13 miles for the week.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    OnTheBeach, good luck with the Sub 4 attempt!

    Emmy, sorry to hear you're still broken and that Evie's not well.  Maybe see you are in a few days, and decide what to do about the rest of the year.  Also, thanks for the offer of staying at yours for Rotterdam, but I won't have a car so wouldn't be able to easily get around.  I'm still undecided about doing it in any case...

    Nick, my Dutch isn't too great, but fortunately all the Dutch people I know speak very good English.  Also, the Air B&B places I was looking at had both English and Dutch details, so that wasn't too bad.  As I said to Emmy above though, I'm still undecided about whether to do it or not.  It's the cost that's putting me off, especially as there's one a few miles up the road on the same day I can do.
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    What stats do people record for their runs and races, want to keep record but last time I did this I got very stressed with pace. 
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    edited November 2017
    Big G - I know I certainly couldn't fit half the races you do into my budget! Although currently it's more of a time budget than a financial one, and in reality I probably could if I cut other things (eg squash).

    Edit: If I ever do a marathon abroad it'd likely have to be as part of a family holiday so not be cheap at all haha.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2017
    Big G - no point in going back to add up the number of units consumed at the weekend, same with calories, what's done is done :D

    Iain - hope the legs are recovering well.   That's a great opportunity you have with that coach, it's in his best interests that you really do well under his guidance, hope he doesn't work you too hard though.

    Nick - the New Forest marathon gets really good reviews, this new course is 50% road and 50% good trail and quite a fast course.  I used to do the old course when it was 95% road and was one of my favourite marathons, lovely part of the country.

    Emmy - sorry you and little Evie are not well.   Good idea to take a break now, you have nothing planned race wise in the immediate future and it you feel you need a rest then you do need a rest.

    OnTheBeach - welcome to the thread :) 

    Good to hear you're starting early so you can cope with Christmas week etc.

    You will have no problem coping with the consecutive runs as long as you keep the pace down, if you go too fast you will end up with tired legs.

    We've had a couple of runners this year who were aiming for sub 4  which they achieved.   Now they are well past that and chasing sub 3:30's. :o

    Jelly said:
    What stats do people record for their runs and races, want to keep record but last time I did this I got very stressed with pace. 

    Jelly -if you get stressed about training run pace and race pace, then don't record your training runs in public, such as Fetch or Strava.   Race results will always be available for everyone to see but not how you paced it unless you publish it or the race has several split times available.   If you're going to follow the training paces I advised many will tell you they are too slow and will encourage you to run faster, be careful when running with the club.   Remember nobody else will care what pace you run, or if it fits in with your plans so be selfish and run at the pace that is right for you.

    I still keep a hard copy training diary, with distance time, weather, course, HR , RHR and how I felt and any niggles.   The stats I put on a spreadsheet so I can consolidate my training by the week.   I don't bother using Garmin Connect as it doesn't give me data I want.

    My marathons and ultras have always been on a basic spreadsheet for 100MC purposes but I've never recorded my shorter races and I'm not even sure of my PB's at some of the distances, I'm in the process of putting all my races on one spreadsheet, I'm up to 308 races (all distances) now and I still have 7 years of races to go.  I know there's a few short races that I never recorded in my diaries but they're too long ago and not significant anyway.


  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Big G - Burton Bradstock have set their date for next year 14th October.   No doubt you'll be working on that race diary again this week ;)
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    Thanks Shades, I'm not going to be talked into running fast for training as it makes sense with your plan to allow your body to peek at the right time rather than arrive on start line knacked. Think I will follow your advise on distance and HR and RHR and how I feel. Still learning how I can translate this info into helping me. Find Strava ok but wish they didn't have PR for segments and crowns and leader boards. Like to see wear friends have run and how many miles I've clocked up. Still learning what's important and what's best to ignore.  past attempt have left me frustrated and comparing to others which wasn't making me happy. My hockey ? friend told me I needed to be selfish to run marathons. 
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    I think recording how you feel and whether you felt your run was good/easy/tough is important.   It's just a matter of trial and error as to what data you find useful and in what format you record it.   But don't let it stress you and keep it private if you want.    You do need to be selfish and look after your own training needs.
  • NickW2NickW2 ✭✭✭
    Jelly - I agree it's sometimes hard not to look at leaderboards etc on Strava. But I do find it quite a good resource for access to past runs, I'm not organised enough to write everything down so for me it's a good easy way to have a basic log.

    For paces, I tend to run to perceived effort rather than worrying too much about a specific pace, although obviously it's sometimes disheartening when a given effort is slower than you want/hope it to be. Although I like to think I'm quite good at judging my effort level, training to HR is probably better still, though I don't have a reliable HRM.

    For my last marathon training block I put all my planned runs in a spreadsheet and then put what I actually did next to them, along with notes. This helped me look objectively at how I was doing, especially as I mixed things up a fair bit while sticking broadly to the plan I was following. I actually hosted it on Google Drive (this can be kept private) as I sometimes filled it in at home and sometimes at work, so it's here if you are interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N13Kgwl8YRpuVrKYfng4VEDD23_XMbFQ9TuSl6FFmzE/edit#gid=0
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Cal-Not good by the sounds of it,easy to say but try and keep the chin up and hope it gets better.
    Big G-Thanks for the comment,suppose to temper it a bit,I forget sometimes I've only been running for 2.5 years so this year should always have been a big improvement year for me.Sounds like you had a great weekend,that could have done you as much as good as a long run.
    Emmy-Sounds like you could do with a break,at the end of the day Xmas is only 7 weeks away and the break could do you lots of good in the long run,hope Evie gets better also.
    Onthebeach-Welcome to the thread,you are definitely in the best place for advice to head towards sub4,what type of times are your shorter distances?
    Steve-Our parkrun isn't the easiest,bit of elevation and 3 laps so lots of taking over for about half,inc running on grass to get past so I agree I can be faster on a 5k,as for GFA I agree it's a stretch but that's what this is all about  :D
    Jelly-I simply record mine on the spreadsheet I got off Shades,I put my actual underneath the plan,and note the type of run, time and heart rate so I have an idea of the effort.As for Strava I couldn't care about leaderboards(except the 1 CR i hold) and rarely look at them,it's cheesy but I'm not racing them I'm racing myself.I do enjoy seeing people training faster than me yet I beat them in races.
    Nick-That's a great sheet you have there,looking back your comfortable runs,are they easy? as they seem faster than I'm planning,what type of % effort would you say they were at?
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Jelly, just briefly talking about paces, you can see through what Ian on this thread has achieved this year that the slower paces work.  I know what you mean though; it's sometimes hard, especially in our club, as there is a kind of pressure to move up the groups, and even the coaches sometimes push the pace making it too quick (I'm not talking about our Wednesday speed sessions, which are fine).  For example, for City To Sea, I recced the hilly section twice with a group of Trotters, and I was off the back for most of the runs, although my marathon PB is faster than all of theirs (I'm now talking about 30-mins faster in one case).  They just wanted to push on though, but it's the wrong approach in the long training runs.  That includes an official coach too, but then he is always disappointed with his marathon time, so these days I just do most of training on my own.
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    Big G, agree and I was planning to run long runs at set pace for plan and I do like company and luckily have friends in the Trotters over a range of pace so don't always run with speedier runners.  Not worried about pace like I was just wondering what record is good to keep regarding looking back at training.  
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Got out for 5 miles after work last night,but it didn't register for some reason.Went to club tonight and it wasn't hills as there was a lot of races on this weekend so we went for a steady run instead,the pace hotted up in the middle and finished with 10 miles at roughly MP,didn't feel too bad but possibly a touch quicker than I'd have liked.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Ian - I think I can sense a touch of disappointment in your post that there wasn't a hill session last night ;)

    Jelly - it is useful to keep training data so you can look back at it.  In 2009 I did a 10 minute marathon PB which was unplanned, I just felt good on the start line and decided to go for it.   I've just put that race onto my race history spreadsheet that I'm doing and it was so useful to then look back in my hard copy diary to see what training I had done leading up to that PB and also how I felt in my races and my training.  (I had done a 100 mile week 3 weeks before, followed by an 80 mile week, followed by 2 marathons in 3 days the weekend before the PB, I don't taper well!)

    Lovely morning, not as cold as I expected, most enjoyable run.


    It's DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD day today, DD entry forms available at 9 p.m. tonight here 

    www.teignbridgetrotters.co.uk

    Don't worry next year it will be online entries so the faff with cheques and envelopes and stamps will be history.

  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Bugger-Was going to say my entry got lost in the post  :D 
    Shades-Have you done snowmen marathon,which is harder there or DD?
  • Saw my physio. He said there was an imbalance in my back that was throwing everything out and causing the TFL to become overloaded. He prescribed strength work. So I guess that's what I'm doing.
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Haha,just read my last post,whilst Snowmen marathon would be pretty cool,I meant Snowdon Marathon
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    It was committee last night, and it went on for nearly 3 hours, but we got the Club Champs races agreed, so that's good.  The committee did make a few changes to my initial list, but we're good to go now and I've published the January races this morning, so people can book those up.  We again discussed what we could do for our young Trotter, but it's difficult to get the balance right in terms of funding for one individual, so still nothing concrete really, apart from to see if we can do something to help get him into the national press.  His Mum sits on the committee and said he's been invited to the elite start at Reading Half (which is quite a big race), so maybe we'll try and do something in the press prior to then - we'll see.  I think really, reluctantly, he needs to find somewhere else, as I suppose there will be some point where he starts to plateau through the training he's doing on his own.

    No running for me yesterday - it's taken me two days to recover after two nights out!  I'm hoping to get out today though as I'm feeling really lethargic so hopefully a run, even if it's quite short, may reboot the system some how!

    Shades, Chair admits he's quite old school with regards to the paper entries, but he likes the satisfying "thud" of the mail on the floor when it's delivered by the postie.  He's - albeit reluctantly - changing it from next year.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Ian5 said:

    Shades-Have you done snowmen marathon,which is harder there or DD?
    I read your post 3 times thinking I've never heard of that marathon, before seeing your 2nd post.   DD is harder than Snowdonia.  Snowdonia is a tough and lovely marathon but what makes it hard is that the worst hill which is long is at 21+ miles, and you know yourself that can be a tricky part of any marathon, leads up to the highest point of the course where the weather can be atrocious, I remember the marshals huddling behind their minibus to get some shelter from the wind and the rain pouring down.   Then there's a savage downhill leading down to Llanberis that would cramp the fittest legs.  I haven't done Snowdonia since they've put a longer stretch of off road in.  The scenery is beautiful.   Good for DD training.

    Cal - well at least you know now, although you haven't been doing an awful lot so surely there should have been some improvement by now.. Did he give you specific exercises to do to sort it out?

    Big G - that's good news that you've got the new Club Champs sorted out for the year.  

    Re the young Trotter, hopefully he'll get some attention after his run at London.   Good news he's been invited to Reading Half.  Although he did well to win DMV unfortunately that's not going to get him any attention, it's not even organised by runners so they don't publicise the runners or their achievements at the race past the local press.  Aren't UKA/EA supposed to offer support/guidance for up and coming athletes?   

    That weekend of yours has tired you out more than a double marathon :D

    Next year with online entries for DD I expect it will fill very quickly, easy to decide to do a race when sitting in comfort at home.   But hopefully places will still be available through the transfer list.


  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    I want it to stay paper entry. Someone was telling me drop out/ transfer are less with paper entry.  Getting a bit of banter on Facebook don't know why. 
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Rog has said that moving to online entries next year so it will initially be harder to get a place I expect.  His postman will be pleased though :D
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    I reported that fool to Admin on the FB DD page who keeps advertising his ultra on DD page, I think Rog has swiftly removed the post :)
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    Missed that, 
  • Ian5 said:

    Onthebeach-Welcome to the thread,you are definitely in the best place for advice to head towards sub4,what type of times are your shorter distances?

    Hi Ian 

    My most recent races were:

    GSR 10 miles 1:20 (Pace 7:56)
    Last ParkRun 23:08 (PB 22:21)
    2x Half Marathons last Nov 1:45 & 1:47

    When I run after work I seem to have a default run pace of 8min/miles. 
    However i'm planning on sticking to Shades plan which means I need to slow down a lot. Tonight will be my first attempt at running close to 9min/mile, which will feel weird but I need to adapt.

    Jelly - as you've mentioned app's like Strava can put you under pressure to try and impress the people that follow you. Now that I am about to start training at slower marathon paces I may switch all my events to private. Then I don't have to worry about what people think. 


  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Shades/Jelly, the positive thing about postal entries for Trotters is that we're guaranteed a DD place if we get our entires to Chair tomorrow at Club.  I suppose with online entries, Trotters entries will be mixed up with everyone else, so no guarantees for club members.  However, it will stop issues with cheques bouncing and things like that.  The chief marshal is looking a bit nervous as I think there may be a lot of Trotters doing it next year, many who usually marshal, and of course he needs even more marshals next year as the course is longer.

    I just did a 4-mile run....horrendous!
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