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To update, not sure i ever reported back but i ran 3:13:3x at London. So achieved my sub 3:15 aim, but probably not the best conversion off my 1:27:4x half in the build up. I was on for about 3:11 until having to stop with hamstring cramp twice in the last mile. Cramp is recurring issue for me when pushing it in longer races.
Anyway back on the marathon training cycle again and starting to put in more MP miles. I just don't know what that MP should be!
Last year i started marathon training with a 10k PB of 41:01 set in Dec 16, posted the 87 half in Feb, then 3:13 full.
This time round i started with a fresh 10k PB of 38:46 set late Nov 17, so hoping i can go sub85 half (maybe quicker if training goes well), then ideally sub 3:05 to bag London GFA, but is sub 3 possible?
I guess the truth is until i test myself over a half i won't know for sure but is it wise to put in sub 3hr MP miles into training now? Yesterday i did 16M split between 8 easy/8 MP and ran the MP miles in an avg of 6:45 feeling pretty good.
Finally i actually need to sign up to a spring marathon - has anyone run Vienna? Good marathon?
Rollocking noted, MsE.
Nice going, Birch. Onwards!
Did a 7 miler last night, 4 miles of whatever followed by hill reps (6 hard efforts) and a steady mile home. Same as last Monday and a bit quicker (7.27 avg) and stronger. Still feel a bit fat, mind. My eldest had his 21st over the weekend. We started on Friday when we tucked in to some lovely grub, starting with drinks at the Sky Garden (Walkie Talkie building) in London, followed by Dim Sum at Ping Pong and various other treats over the weekend.
That's it now, all celebrations out of the way and the diet can kick in properly.
Leslie - great news. Now no returning to the bench for at least 3 1/2 years.
DT19 - I'm sure MsE knows what she's talking about, so listen to her advice!
12 miles this morning. 6 @ 8:18 and 6 @ 7:44.
My other problem is my cadence is shockingly low - even in a race the most I've ever got to is 164, and all out sprints 168. If I'm on a long run it can go as low as 154. Will doing more fartlek runs help to improve my leg turnover?
Birch - good start to the week and pleased to see the comeback continuing.
Rich - that's still a reasonable conversion and you're still making good progress, so sub 3 is a possibility. I never know what pace my MP should be, but sounds like you're in pretty good shape. As you say, racing a HM would give you a good marker. Good luck!
GD - sounds like a good celebration. I'm sure you'll shed those extra pounds pretty sharpish with all those quality sessions of yours.
MrSoft - do you parkrun? Maybe that would give you a focus for some faster training in between races. I think P&D recommend strides to help with leg turnover, but fartlek could equally well work, I guess.
Sorry I missed your bad news, Freemers. But you are in good company with me and Jools both hopping along too. See it as a chance to focus on core and upper body strength work.
MrSoft - the best thing to do to get those feet turning over more quickly is to turn them over more quickly, e.g. you can try incorporating strides into your runs (within or at the end, or as separate drills) or bring in some fast feet drills into your weekly drills ('cause we all do those, right???????) Over time the habit will develop and your body will adjust so the runs come at a quicker cadence. Our cadence is as much to do with our neuromuscular engagement and sometimes it needs a bit of practise, e.g. when coming back from injury, doing more ultra running or simply just having had time off.
I do do park runs but more when I'm training for another race like a half marathon or 10k. I don't do them when marathon training though as I focus more on threshold sessions.
Dad Again, praying for winter is a concept that us Brits might struggle with. Does sound awful though...
DT19- do you think your sleep data on fitbit is accurate. My Garmin data looks dodgy- I think it sometimes confuses light sleep when I'm awake.
Mr Soft, I don't do many 1/2Ms. I think the secret is pacing but for that you need to predict well where you should be.
PMJ so what did you do instead at the W/end.
Freemers- oh no not you too. Hope your Mara plans don’t change though.
Poacher you old dog
Well done on the session, Birch. They can take some getting back to!
Rich, I did London last year in 3.04.45. My 10k was 38.48 and my half was 1.25.03.Obviously we are all different but the numbers certainly put you in the game. As for mp training, over the summer I was doing mp runs at 6.45 to 6.50. I tend to base it to a degree on hr so aim for 160 average.
MSE- Thanks for the advice. I found the time last night for a mile outside. I am quite used to running at 8.30mm so it doesn't involve any real adjustment. Anyway mile last night was fine though things had tightened dup by the end of it but no reaction once home and stretched. I then did 2 miles a little earlier which felt better than last nights mile. Hopefully i'll be on it soon.
Mr soft, I have never paid any attention to my cadence, however I went for a run with a friend who just runs a bit for health purposes. The one thing he noticed and asked me about afterwards was why my feet turned over so much faster than his despite running at the same pace. I didn't really know the answer! I've just looked back on my garmin connect to when I started recording training in January 2015 an easy run would have a cadence of about 180. Looking at similar runs in December it is closer to 190 now, so something has happened without my conscious input to increase that.
Birch top marks for effort ,nice to see the comeback continue.
Richn a few sub 3 miles tagged on a run never did any harm,see how it feels !
Gdawg we all put on a bit a Christmas ,it will soon burn off again.
Gul nice 12 and no bench for a few years sounds great ,I could really make some proper progress with that timescale !
MRsoft the answer is so simple then ....race more ! Cadence is what it is, your is low mine is high at around 200 and is fairly hard to change so I wouldn't worry too much about it.I think Mine says more or less constant from 9m/m to 6m/mile just the strides get longer ! Could be why I'm crap at distances over a half though as I tire myself out !
Jools good news
snowing a bit so may just walk today !
The 8x10 hill sprints are more for injury prevention. Here is a good article about them - http://strengthrunning.com/2014/08/hill-sprints-injury-prevention-speed/
I usually do one fast session a week and a Parkrun @ HMP/MP within a long run. The fast session could be anything from 400m to 1 mile intervals. If I’m running marathons in consecutive weekends, I would only do MP efforts. In peak season I tend to race almost every weekend, at anything from 5k to HM when not churning out slower marathons.
I do believe that a structured plan needs to be followed for a peak marathon performance. You can’t go far wrong following a P&D Advanced marathon schedule - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Advanced-Marathoning-Peter-Pfitzinger/dp/0736074600My MP is under 6:30 but usually start at 9:30 pace and average about 8:30 in easy runs.
Badbark..I've got that book. Forgot there was a 12 week schedule in there. Might have a look at that later as that is realistically what I am aiming towards now.
Sounds nice PMJ, especially the G&T. I used to buy duty free on my way back from Geneva so I have quite a stash- eye for a bargain definitely beyond my consumption.
I never pay attention to cadence but its seems unreal when you look at the stats. Garmin says my average at York 1/2 was 190 spm- over 3 per second seems a bit unbelievable. How does that compare with you guys.
So pleased at you return and confidence Jools.
Very sound advice Badbark- your results are astounding...
Birch - interesting re cadence. This matters a lot on the bike but runners mainly ignore it. I think evidence suggest that elite distance types (M and F) have an eerily similar cadence around 180. I have sometimes measured it while barefoot on the beach and had trouble getting above 170. Also interesting re the treadmill. This is the first January in several years that i haven’t spent in that sweaty gym from hell in Africa and am realising now just how much the treadie did for cadence. Maybe it’s something you would be tempted to persevere with?
OO nice run by you - sub3 in London?
As for conversion, it has be to down to (willpower and) the no. and quality of LRs as well as accurate pacing. My mara pb was 2.57.14 off a 1.21.38 HM but I’m sure it could have been 2.54ish if I had bothered to do more conventional LRs. C**p conversion really.
No running here - legs tired from the mara and hard at work outdoors until forced indoors by sleety snow. Bah.
Re: cadence - I read about 180 being the gold standard for some reason. Downloaded a metronome app and did a few runs with that; syncing my footstrikes; found it really good just to keep a rythm and quite soothing! not sure how much it helped the running but was a fun experiment.
I've just looked up on connect my cadences for last 3 10k, half and mara-
Mara 190
Half 193
10k 194
I did some research testing recently for a friend on a sports therapy course and was filmed running for 10 minutes on one of those curved treadmilss. They calculated on that my cadence was 185.
One can dream about sub-3 Poacher but my hearts not really in it this year. Just want to survive 3 maras in Spring, and if one of them is close to 3 hours I’ll be fairly happy.
On a slow gentle run like this mornings 12km the cadence is a little slow (173 today).
In interval reps its much quicker - typically 185-190 but with some particular sprint sections getting over 200.
Average over Melbourne Marathon last year was 184 with a max of 197 (final exhausting sprint around the last 200m of the MCG track to try and burn off another guy).
Overall I'm not really that bothered about cadence. Its not something I focus on much at all, but occasionally when tired I'll try and shorten the stride and keep cadence high rather than overstride to maintain speed.
On the cadence thing, I knew about the 180 being the optimum (so the experts say) and have kept it in mind to a small degree but mine has adjusted naturally. My last 10k race was 180 and last half and full maras were 178, so not far off.
Knocked out a 10 miler last night with a pal. it was my first run this campaign where I felt like I had any sort of flow and rhythm. We averaged 7.20 and it felt very comfy, nice to hear him telling me to rein it in at times.
Chest needed some lurgy clearing and I'm still a bit sniffly this morning. Will this bug every go!?
just before the run last night I went to the Doc's where I had frozen nitrogen sprayed onto some sun damaged skin on my cheek. Got a nice red mark there now. Remember to keep the sun cream on, Gang!
After 4 consecutive days, I'll rest today, will just do some core and stretch at the gym on the way home from work.
Badbark, thanks for the post. I've got the P&D book and had it for a few years, but have never actually fully followed the plan as on the occasions I've tried I got injured
I've had a cold since New Year's Eve, and didn't run for 13 days! I'm slowly getting back to it now, and genuinely enjoyed a 7-miler yesterday; it's the first run I've enjoyed for a while and wasn't concerned with pace or anything, so just ran. I did my marathon PB at the start of December but then kind of felt flat for the rest of the month and going through the motions to some extent, so yesterday's run was hopefully a return of the mojo!
At 150 spm, your stride length is 1.66m and as you get faster it gets shorter, so 160 spm 1.56m, 170 spm 1.47m, 180 1.39m, 190 1.31m and 200 1.25 m.
There is a trade-off, so longer stride means more air time so you have to jump higher each stride and that takes more energy and shorter stride means more impacts with the ground that have to be overcome. Somewhere in the middle is the optimum so you aren't bouncing up and down like Tigger but also not repeatedly striking the ground.
The exact optimum will depend on how efficient you are as a runner. We all suffer the same in terms of energy required to lift us up off the ground but if you are a heel striker you will incur a higher penalty for a higher cadence so the tendency is to over-stride and that makes the heel strike worse.
Basically, as long as you are not heel striking cadence is somewhat irrelevant. If you are, stop it right now (and the way to do that is increase cadence and decrease stride).
Leslie - and sensibly cautious
Badbark - does 3% count as a hill?
Birch - no trouble at 'mill, then?
Poacher - hope your legs are suitably rested.
Nick - sorry to hear that but best to get your achilles sorted.
GD - good 10 miler. Hope that lurgy shifts completely soon.
PMJ - thanks, that's clear then.
Not having a fancy watch, I've no idea of my cadence other than an odd occasion when I've tried to count it and it was just over 170 I seem to remember. Of course it probably changes if you observe it
10 easy miles this morning.
PMJ- Thnaks for that cadence detail. I was considering that factor last night and was going to pose the question this morning.
Big-G Thant must have been some cold to stop the running for 13 days! I tend to train through them as far as I can and consequently end up having them much longer than what I naturally would.
GD- Nice 10 miler. I love that feeling when you are in the swing of things and nothing seems to trouble you. Cant wait to be there.
Does anyone else have strava premium? I note that with the perks there is a once per policy year race cover when you are injured and cant run, which would cover the race I missed sunday. Looking at the policy I am not sure I can be arsed for £14. You need your entry confirmation (which I don't think I have) to show you did not enter whilst injured. You also have to show you couldn't get a refund or transfer number for fee and you need a letter from a physio/gp saying you couldn't run.
Just some strength work planned today in the form of a bodypump class.