Moraghan Training - Stevie G

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  • Why not SC.

    When I was about 23 I ran the Great North Run and was credited with 1:18:30. Although I'm sure I had something around the 1:20 mark on my watch, obviously this was just an old Casio effort.

    Thing is I'd only done about 6-8 weeks of running at about 20 miles a week, longest run would have been about 50 minutes. 42 year old me could not do that and I am pretty sure if I had carried on, done some proper training, I could have found 10-12 minutes and done sub 70. Thing is I didn't carry on and I probably would have got injured anyway so it's meaningless, just like WAVA  :)

    Only matters what you've actually done.
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    What an unwelcome surprise Aley! But at least there's a definitive reason - that's the positive. Now you know what's what, you can sort your mind accordingly, rather than that dreadful ignorance stage.

    Have to agree with Ric on the solicitor bit. Unless you're pretty sure it lies at his door it's an awkward expensive time consuming battle you probably don't need.
  • Phil - had to change on account of moving away from Brixton. Should've probably thought of that before I chose it as a name..

    Only a 77.23% for me at Wokingham. Useless. The 28 year old me did do a 77.xx  ;)

    Dachs/SC - that's awesome re; competing in Malaga - very impressive.

    I've done a slightly more detailed write-up on Wokingham if anyone fancies a read;

    https://spragginsblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/wokingham-half-marathon-18-02-2018/
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    Great report joe! I definitely think you need to stay on the thread, as it's likely you'll do some of the races us wycombe and berkshire guys do.

    Sharp start there , you definitely went hard. with a slightly slower start and getting on the back of a group at the right time you could easily have found extra i reckon
  • Nice report Joe - not going to tell you where our parking spot is though,a s it's even closer :wink:

    Aley - that's a bastard! Despite not asking for it, you definitely have my sympathy! Best of luck with the recovery.

    After two days of not running, I was a hoping for double today. Legs felt sore at the start this morning, but OKish after a few miles. Got off the train and could hardly walk though! DOMS has continued throughout the day and so the run home was abandoned! My 29 year old -self may have been slow, but he would definitely have recovered better!!! 
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    It's a sign of a well raced half marathon though Bus.

    If you're fresh as a daisy a day or 2 later, you're either a recovery machine, or you haven't put in!

  • PeteMPeteM ✭✭✭
    Aley; Rotten luck with all that. I suggest you give Slater Gordon a call. They are hugely experienced in the area of compensation for negligence etc. They will tell you if they would take your case on and that pretty much tells you the likelihood of successfully pursuing it. They took on my case after I was hit by the car whilst cycling about a year ago and did a very good job. It's loads of hassle pursuing it alone and costly too if it fails. SG (not our SG of course!) take all that risk but do take 25% of the proceeds. My case has just concluded and they did pretty well for me (and therefore themselves!). Having said all that I have to agree with Rob and SG that proving anything sounds impossible. 

    're WAVA predictions of our younger selves. I have an acquaintance who is both old and was till recently quite bulky. He was a great fan of some system he found that adjusted you results for both age and weight. Told me I could have done a 65 min HM if I was both 25 years younger and about 60kg! No doubt if I had Mo's genes and trained like Haile in his pomp as well he might have been right!
  • PeteM said:
    're WAVA predictions of our younger selves. I have an acquaintance who is both old and was till recently quite bulky. He was a great fan of some system he found that adjusted you results for both age and weight. Told me I could have done a 65 min HM if I was both 25 years younger and about 60kg! No doubt if I had Mo's genes and trained like Haile in his pomp as well he might have been right!
    I've seen a few of those calculators (got a few friends who are well over 6 feet tall and weigh over 90 kg, big lumps of cyclists) and they just say they are slow, heavy runners who would be slow, light runners if they lost weight. 
  • Simon Coombes 2Simon Coombes 2 ✭✭✭
    edited February 2018

    Ale - Glad to hear that things are likely to be sorted out and it wasn't anything more serious. Be nearly a year since the LFOTM meet..actually anyone fancy the one on 23rd March? Got some holiday to take so might do it.

    Reg - suppose knowing the amount it takes out of you to do 73/74/75 etc for a half takes out of you, I can't imagine running sub 70..as compared to say a sub 2 800 or a sub 4 1500, I just can't get my head round it.

    For the first time ever I did a session before work. Well I feel pretty warmed up after about 3 miles of running, so I thought it has to be more sensible than trying to do a sessions after you've been sat down for 3/4 hours. So I did 20 x 200 (well 35 secs) down the Regents canal with 20 secs recovery. Wasn't as busy as I had expected, had to get a few Lycra louts to slow down too, which was satisfying ;) Should give a decent amount of rest before the slogfest on Saturday.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭
    Sub 70 minute half, Simon. How does a 2:39 (800m) or a 4:58 (1500m) sound?

    Even I've managed that pace.

     Ok, for all but about the final 10 miles of a half, and doing so as a stand alone 5000m on the track, and in spikes. But you get the idea.

    🙂

  • Thanks for the comments guys: certainly some food for thought! 

    Won't be at March's LFoM but I bought train tickets for April's knowing that I would be fit and raring to go by then! Prior to the back problem, of course!
    Progress is rarely a straight line. There are always bumps in the road, but you can make the choice to keep looking ahead.
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    Will have to get to a couple of those Simon. Just awkward with a Friday midday time slot!

    Also have to watch the race count, already up to 7 in 2018, versus 0 at this time last year (!), and my "might do" list already has about 30 on it up until August :)

    Feels off to be at the end of Thursday, with only 27 miles on the clock this week! Will probably aim to get it to about 45 or so with Sunday's day off. Can't hurt to have an easy week.

  • Even odder to be on just 5.6!!! Still, add in the bike miles and I can claim 40 :smile: Double 15.5 to work and back to day. Nice and dry, but blimmin cold - couldn't get my lock open this morning my fingers were so numb!

    Legs feel Ok now, so will try again tomorrow. 
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2018

    Just gently mapping out the next 3 months. There's a lot in there

    • March - Southern 12 stage relays, Potential Maidenhead 10miler
    • April - Potential National 12 stage relay, Masters relays
    • May - Marlow 5, Wargrave & Burnham 5ks, Club pair relay, Club 4x4km relay  (Keeping an eye out to see if the club have freebies to the Bupa 10k, and also a little think over the Great Manchester 10k)

    Just need to keep the right balance between an eagerness to tick off old favourites, club races, and try new stuff, while vaguely performing well at most.

    A couple of the relays will act as sessions, the pairs and 4x4km for two.


    The last couple of years and this half marathon return has shown me I need to take the opportunity to do some of these events while still fit and well!

    I did look at the Paddock Wood half. It's 9 days after the Maidenhead 10m. It's a 75mile drive which is quite a haul. Bus, i'm surprised you travelled solo that far. Although it was in the year we did the GSR. 2012! Wow!

    GSR, we'll have to do that one again!

  • Interesting to get Dach's input, did he imagine that he'd do it when he first started running again?
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    edited February 2018

    Dachs did have a high track pedigree, a dad (I think?) who was a 30min 10k man (I think? Or did I make that up), and has a level of drive that makes the likes of me look like a couch waster and escalated to 80-90mile week running.

    So between those 4 things had every chance!

  • Ale - Glad to hear that things are likely to be sorted out and it wasn't anything more serious. Be nearly a year since the LFOTM meet..actually anyone fancy the one on 23rd March? Got some holiday to take so might do it.

    Hadn't noticed the date change: last Friday is the 30th, same day as Maidenhead Easter 10. May be time to get into the swing of it again: I reckon to have two or three stabs at it over a few months but I am in Texas April, Lords May, Alsace July, Cornwall August so March and June look like the only days left.
  • Did Paddock Wood with a local friend SG. The drive there was fine. getting away after was a nightmare though, as we got trapped the wrong side of a load of race-day closures that sent you round in circles!  It must be a fast course, as it is my PB, but I still think Wokingham is very slightly quicker - just that 2012 was a good year for me!
  • ML84ML84 ✭✭✭
    Aley, that's some rotten luck with injuries over the last year. I bet the osteopath would be mortified if they knew they've fractured someone's back. Not that it helps you. 

    Belated congrats on the Wokingham half to pretty much everyone ;-) I really do think now you have the monkey off your back, you really could smash your half pb. 

    Well done on the casual 73 min half too Simon! 

    Welcome Joe. I regularly read the sub 3 and P and D thread although I don't really post anymore and always read your race reports. 

    Been a woeful couple of weeks running from myself. Thought I'd be able to jog off the niggle and although I hopped and limped 75 miles last week it wasn't for shifting although it never got worse. The annoying thing is that I can walk around all day, up and down ladders, lifting and carrying, can prod and poke it but don't feel a thing. Then as soon as I set off I could feel it which was bloody frustrating. 

    Went to the physio on Wednesday and my left hip/glute area was unbelievably sore once he got stuck in. Took it easy again last night and it seemed to be better. *touch wood. 

    On a side note, how the hell does that Runbritain site work? The rankings are a right load of tosh. I was seeing how another lad from the yorkshire marathon had been doing race wise since and noticed he ran with Dachs at Wokingham last year. Somehow all the 32 min 10ks, 4 min 1500s, county vests, the odd sub 70 half and international medals it has me as being ranked the highest on the thread with a 16 min parkrun and a mid 71 half. Hahaha. 
    How the hell does that work? Race less and go up the rankings? 
  • Just had a read back, sounds like a real ordeal Aley, hope it all gets sorted out soon.

    Stevie G said:

    Dachs did have a high track pedigree, a dad (I think?) who was a 30min 10k man (I think? Or did I make that up), and has a level of drive that makes the likes of me look like a couch waster and escalated to 80-90mile week running.

    So between those 4 things had every chance!

    I was more thinking about how when you're younger you don't tend to put limits on what you think you're capable of. I think that helps you progress. I just kind of assumed that I'd knock off 10 minutes no problem even though I may not have been capable. Now I'd be happy to do 74:xx minutes before I get too old.
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    Interesting to hear that Bus, and their website says there's one "small "hill about 1.25miles in.
    I think I'll stick with Maidenhead 10 for 6 weeks time. There's still plenty to achieve at that distance after so long without one.

    There's a decent choice of autumn/winter halfs at the end of the year. Maidenhead, Slough (back after 30 years i think!), Ealing and Gosport.

    Freezing cold today! It's funny, 8miles today felt plenty, as it just felt like a 6miler spun out. When i was doing 15s I'd set myself that i was in for the long haul. Funny thing the mental side in running.

    Matt - 75mile week with a niggle. That's pretty amazing stuff! Run Britain we've all known for ages isn't worth too much esteem. Though usually just racing a lot boosts you up massively, so it's odd to see the opposite.
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    Reg Wand said:
    Just had a read back, sounds like a real ordeal Aley, hope it all gets sorted out soon.

    Stevie G said:

    Dachs did have a high track pedigree, a dad (I think?) who was a 30min 10k man (I think? Or did I make that up), and has a level of drive that makes the likes of me look like a couch waster and escalated to 80-90mile week running.

    So between those 4 things had every chance!

    I was more thinking about how when you're younger you don't tend to put limits on what you think you're capable of. I think that helps you progress. I just kind of assumed that I'd knock off 10 minutes no problem even though I may not have been capable. Now I'd be happy to do 74:xx minutes before I get too old.
    74:xx would be a fantastic result. Let alone into your 40s.

    I agree it doesn't help to limit things, but you don't wanna be in the Samir, Mike Rushton,Tom Chinnery gang who set insane targets, and then disappear off the face of the planet when they're still a million miles off.
  • The hill is more a slope really, and early enough in so as not to do more than temper early exuberance! More of an issue for me with PW was the seemingly endless number of little canal (I think!) bridges in the last few miles. No more than a few feet climb each, but really seemed to hurt at the time!  Still 21 secs faster than my best at Wokingham Yet and Frank F has his PB there too.

    Matt - only to be expected that even you will get the odd niggle to slow you down! Hopefully the physio has put you right.  Runbritain is just bizarre - only Stephen hawking (and possibly Philip) understand how its algorithms work!

    6.5M to the station for me this morning. Better, but still a lot of DOMS in the legs for the run home tonight.

  • Cheers ML84, hope the niggle clears up. 75 miles you nutter.. I just try and stay in the top 20 of the vets group I'm in on Run Britain for the full 5 years, obviously easier at the start!

    SG - Just get racing lad. Gets you quicker than fannying about doing too much training :) One race a week and all you need is one other hard session and one longer run. Easy!

  • DachsDachs ✭✭✭
    Reg Wand said:
    Interesting to get Dach's input, did he imagine that he'd do it when he first started running again?


    Frankly, when I first started actually training again I didn't even imagine I'd break 80 minutes.  In the event, I did that within 4 months.  So my expectations were ridiculously low to begin with.  Never really thought I had a shot at 70 until I was in the 71s, and still didn't even really believe it then.  First inkling I had that I might actually do it was about 2 months before the race itself.

    SG, it was my uncle who had the talent, albeit a 31:xx 10k man rather than a 30 man.  My dad was and is a runner, but not anywhere near that fast.  He was more of an 800 man.  At 65 he can still beat me in an impromptu sprint involving the kids in a playground, but all my longer times are much faster than his.  Whilst I was a club runner as a teenager, I was very mediocre and didn't really have anything that one could call 'pedigree'.

    You've really been through the mill there Alehouse, but there does seem to be some light at the end of the tunnel.  Here's hoping that the light isn't from a UFO full of aliens eager for an anal probing.

    Joe, the blog made for a good read.  Nice to see you running from all those different angles as well.


  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    Simon, yep, using those XCs as sharpeners, while i did my 15milers helped, and it's like what Phil said years ago, tonnes of races, but only small number of A races.

    Wokingham half is finally on the PO10 account. Feels great to see an entry under HM on there after a couple of years without :)

    Tried to take the initiative and get the TVXC stuff on there, sorting results, loading them and links, but apparently they are all still ridciulously set as "provisional" so can't be loaded.

    Ho hum, surprisingly tough to get this sorted! Will be good to pad the PO10 out though!
  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭
    ps Simon, i actually looked into doing a 5k in north Wales (Ruthin?) on Sunday morning, pre United game.

    Before quickly realising that there's being keen, and there's being ridiculous :)
    No need to shoehorn silly stuff in
  • ML84 said:
    On a side note, how the hell does that Runbritain site work? The rankings are a right load of tosh. I was seeing how another lad from the yorkshire marathon had been doing race wise since and noticed he ran with Dachs at Wokingham last year. Somehow all the 32 min 10ks, 4 min 1500s, county vests, the odd sub 70 half and international medals it has me as being ranked the highest on the thread with a 16 min parkrun and a mid 71 half. Hahaha. 
    How the hell does that work? Race less and go up the rankings? 
    Stevie G said:


    Ho hum, surprisingly tough to get this sorted! Will be good to pad the PO10 out though!
    I've never fully worked out why we have both Po10 and runbritain. They have the same underlying database and IDs so e.g. I am 

    http://www.thepowerof10.info/athletes/profile.aspx?athleteid=75021
    http://www.runbritainrankings.com/runners/profile.aspx?athleteid=75021

    I'd prefer to just have the one and not have to switch back and forth between the two.
     
    but it seems po10 is owned by UK Athletics and runbritainrankings by Tim Grose working for Athletics Data which is http://www.athleticsdata.com/ and they are contracted to run po10 for UKA.

    The basic problem with runbritainrankings is they use the same data twice.

    Let's think of a parkrun that happens on two consecutive Saturdays and the first Saturday is a mob match between a couple of local clubs so they all turn up and run hard and the next Saturday is the day before a big Sunday race so they all turn up and jog round. The runbritain scheme looks at those two runs and says the second is clearly harder than the first so gives it a higher SSS value. 

    If a runner does these two runs and runs identical times, then his vSSS score is lower (better) on the second run and that gives him a better handicap. So same runner, same course, same conditions, same time and he gets two different handicap values. 

    If I look at my top 5 scores (they only count your top 5 and the scores decrease over time to fade away with short runs fading more quickly) then I have Wokingham Half with a SSS of 0.2 which means it is a really fast course and my vSSS is 1.0 so I did badly compared to other in general. Above that is Wycombe Rye parkrun which I ran on Dec 30th when a load of people are doing a post-Christmas easy run and the SSS for that is 3.2 so I get a massive plus handicap score for running less slowly than a load of people who ate too much turkey. Same for New Year's Day parkruns: always get a high SSS.

    The trick is to run reasonably well in an event when others are shite. You get much better scores for a fast parkrun when everyone is having a day off then you do for racing well in a competitive race.






  • Stevie  GStevie G ✭✭✭✭

    There's some interesting parts to it.  The course toughness rating for example. I presume 6.0 is the max, as I had that for the Murder Mile.

    Also for the Gadesbridge parkrun though..which did have a couple of ridiculous climbs and wanders through undulating fare.

    Apparently the lower the vSSS number, the better you did v the field.

    They give me a 22.6 for vSSS for the Murder Mile. Which presumably means an outrageously poor comparison against the rest of the field?

    Best negative figure, thus best performance versus the field then, was -3.1 for a 5.00 dead Ealing mile last year.

    Wokingham half this year came out -0.1


  • Stevie G said:

    Apparently the lower the vSSS number, the better you did v the field.

    They give me a 22.6 for vSSS for the Murder Mile. Which presumably means an outrageously poor comparison against the rest of the field?


    As I said, it is a flawed model. I have run the Ealing Mile at it has SSS of 1.0 (so like Staines 10k)  and 3.0 (so like Shardeloes off-road 10k) and it is the same course.
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