My Last Run

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  • snewma00snewma00 ✭✭✭
    Dubai, Cal, for a week. Will need it after this weather & training!
    I plan to eat EVERYTHING I see
  • Good streaking, Stephen and nice poaching!

    Good luck to those valiant taperers. Not long until marathon days loom. Full respect for you after my let few weeks of proper(ish) long distance training. 

    Nice 20, JT - and your 'slow' pace still makes me feel like a snail stuck in reverse.

    The streak continueth, Swittle. Quite remarkable. Any wagers on when it may be broken? (Obviously not wishing that on you!)

    Great commitment to the cause, Hazelnut and Nessie.

    I'm training for an 18 mile race in May, Nessie - so building up to an eventual marathon. I do like the challenge of training just on its own though. Uplifting. Plus, I'm not a fat, drunken slob anymore :)

    I enjoyed a wee recovery trot this morning. Just 2 miles in the sun and birdsong. Forget me note were dazzlingly blue.
    I run, therefore I am.
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    I went to Dubai just before my marathon last year, snewman. I'm a rollercoaster geek and they have a few good parks there and in Abu Dhabi. They give you goggles to wear on the fast outdoor coasters (like Formula Rossa, the world's fastest, currently). I thought it was health and safety madness until I realised it was to stop your eyeballs from being sandblasted...yeah, you need 'em.

    18 miles is not to be sniffed at, Will. Good luck with that. Could an Autumn marathon be in the offing, then?
  • JT141JT141 ✭✭✭
    Bit over 8.3mile road/offroad in 1hr02. Not so muddy. Saw a couple of pigeons fighting in midair, and a kestrel hovering by the road.
    Ness, you love the challenge of all this marathon training, just 'cause you can - #Nobody's Twisting Your Arm# (starts singing The Wedding Present).
  • Nessie great speedwork - enjoy your break and the hot cross buns (haven't eaten one of those in years!).  Good idea with OH on the bike - wonder if I could talk mine into that on Sunday?

    Really idiots at the rail crossing JT, though I admit to having done it out running and on my bike.  Not much chance of getting trapped between the barriers like a car though.  I do take care and only do it if the barriers are falling or have only just gone down.  Nice 20 miler.

    Have a good 20 miler tomorrow snewma.

    Good plan regarding building the miles not only in training but in racing Will.    

    I'm not looking forward to those taper niggles Cal.  Just the reduced mileage!

    Nice description stephen. 

    Intervalls today - warmup 3 miles, intervalls 4 x 1200m with 3:30 mins recoveries, trot 2.5 miles back again.  10 miles in total. The intervalls were tough work but I managed to avoid the big fade during each one and from number 1 to number 4.  The brook alongside of which I was running is pretty full again, splashed through plenty of puddles.  My once white shoes are now liberally speckled with brown but I use them to run in and not as a fashion statement.  The black ones I tried didn't fit.  

    Have a good Easter everyone.  Do chocolate bunnies count as carbo-loading?  Ah - I'm not supposed to be doing that yet.
  • Stephen E FordeStephen E Forde ✭✭✭
    edited March 2018
    6.22 miles. Each mile loop ending on a short 1.5 minute climb. A half-house workout with a total of 435 feet of elevation.  A proper hill repeat workout would have been better but so would World peace and better acting on Hollyoaks but you can't have everything....It took 50:24 minutes including the cool down so  take that persistent drizzle/rain!

  • Swift miles Stephen. 

    11 miles for me today at a bit more than 9m/m.  OH joined me for the first 4 before turning for home which was nice.  Lots of birdsong to listen to.  Just made it home before the rain started.  Rest day tomorrow then the last pre mara 20 miler to end a tough week.  Ticking off one run at a time but the legs are just tired no real niggles fortunately.
  • swittleswittle ✭✭✭
    I feel in danger of picking up some taper madness here!  Full of admiration for the big mileage types gearing down for spring 26.2s and running long....because it is possible.

    JT, it's the getting out that counts: pace is a variable bonus imho.  ;)

    Nessie, I have a Streaking buddy who lives on Mersea Island - she's struggled since an off road Mara in Yorkshire last autumn - running one-mile Streak savers.  :o

    Will, I never start running daily with a target in mind: that would restrict me when/if I got there.  If there's a target at all, it's being fit enough to run the next day.  There'll be plenty of days down the line when I can no longer meet it.

    Stephen, interesting info on the nursery rhyme: I'm sure it has a darker meaning...good sessions too.  

    So, Hazel, you'll not be exchanging *those* shoes, then?  That is a challenging sesh: well run!   :)

    4 laboured miles yesterday, mid morning - couldn't sync breathing and leggage.   :(  Ambushed by a pair of West Highland terriers, chunky, white barrels of fur, determined to get my attention by climbing up my legs!
  • Swittle me beamish boy/girl. Here you go...

    Up and down the city road,
    In and out the Eagle.
    That’s the way the money goes,
    Pop! goes the weasel

    The City Road is real it goes from Angel down to Old Street tube
    The Eagle is a pub on the City Road. I checked proper and it still there in fact but very 'gentrified'. 
    Doubt anyone going in now ever had to 'pop their weasel' which means to pawn your suit or wool coat to get money as they drunk it all away.

    The whole nursery rhyme is basically about the East End working class life. Making ends meet, dodging the rent man and drinking to ease the grind.
    It would now be a song sung by the Libertines....ha so edgy me!


  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    Heh, Hazelnut...maranoia is in full flow now. I went to the cinema yesterday and my foot started complaining when I got back. It was still hurting this morning. Plus, I felt like I might have a cold when I woke up, but seems I was just thirsty and a bit dehydrated.

    I decided to do parkrun anyway. I chose Burgess this time, which is a nice fast course and a new one for me (plus it's only 5 stops on the tube plus a mile jog). Some of my clubbies were there doing their monthly speed test, but I also ran into a couple who were at the one I did last week, and had nice chats with a couple of people who had run The Big Half and a guy who'd just done the Barcelona marathon.

    After the crap run I had on Thursday I needed to blow off some steam so I went out hard. I didn't manage to maintain it quite as well as last week, but I think that was a marginally faster course and I still managed my second fastest 5K (25:34) so I know last week wasn't a fluke. Now to take it easy for the rest of the week!
  • Great perseverance, Hazlenut. Hope you're looking forward to your taper.

    Nice quick hillwork, Stephen and I like the images behind the weasel. 

    Swittle, long may the streak continue. A great 'day at a time' philosophy and the continuity obviously is good for your immune system. Do you ever get ill?

    That's a great Parkrun, Cal. Maranoia is maybe your way of ensuring your prep is tip top.

    I opted for my nice cross country Parkrun this morning at Colney. Great bunch of people there and lots of easter Parkrun tourists. I decided to try some tactics to see how my time would go. It's got lots of little hills, corners and a mofo of a hill that you have to scale twice, so I took the first lap a bit easy, letting my windmill style flail take me down the bumps a bit quicker. I had a bit in the tank for lap 2 and out-sprinted a 100 T-shirt bloke on the finish. A course pb of 26:08 too. Very enjoyable. Now to demolish a host of chocolate goods.
    I run, therefore I am.
  • 4.2 miles in the park, only a tad slower than yesterday which was stupid and a habit that I am really too experienced to still do. Pride you see, 'ohh look how fast I can run" Piffle! Still...got latest shoes proper muddy and wet through. They should be dry though for the mornings run as they are all flash and made of super light alien alloys or summit.  Now though another of my white socks are stained with mud and urban running muck. How do others keep theirs clean...or don't they? My experience has yet to stretch to keeping my kit presentable.
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    That's a good time for a hilly course, Will. (Well, relatively good - we can't compete with those sub-20 maniacs but you're about my pace so I know I'd be pleased with that).
    Stephen - I don't. I wore a brand new pair of ice blue Zoom Flys to The Big Half, thinking it would be fine as it was a road race, but they got splashed with filthy snow melt and I've not managed to get them clean again. I think the lesson is, buy dark colours where possible.

    10 miles today. Felt sluggish. Was going to do 12 but didn't really see the point of flogging myself with the marathon a week away. Time to recuperate now. (Had a hot cross bun for brekkie).
  • Cheers Cal and nice work on your 10. Having checked the Parkrun results, I discovered that the bloke I proudly overtook at the finish was in the 70-74 age group! He didn't look it.
    I run, therefore I am.
  • JT141JT141 ✭✭✭
    7km treadmill incline run yesterday. Today 12.15miles in just over 1hr28 so good pace. Rough conditions with persistent hail and bitter wind. Hands, arms and toes a bit numb when I got home. Took in a path between two isolated farms that appears on the OS map, but doesn't particularly exist in real life. Stopped for a pee.
    The hard work done this year by MLRs has been notable. Should pay off.
  • Nice parkrun PB Will including the windmilling. 

    My white socks only get rare outings Stephen, most of mine are black as I generally go through rather than round mud and puddles.  I do like my red ones as well though, definitely faster.  Favorite brand is Falke.  Last a long time and I rarely have blisters with them.  Pricey though.

    Take it easy this week Cal. 

    Fast outing JT.  Paths and maps often don't agree I have found.

    Last pre mara 20 miler for me this afternoon in just over 3 hours.  Dull grey sort of day and few people out.  Saw a swan take off from the river.  Impressive running and flapping before it finally was airbourne.  Had to ford an ankle deep stream too wide to jump so quick break to take off and replace socks and shoes as I didn't fancy soaking shoes for the last 5 miles.  Very refreshing it was.  Good run, physically tired at the end but my mind would have been willing to do more.

    Off to eat a chocolate duck now..
  • Hazel you carry spare socks and shoes on your runs or did you go home and restart? I speak as someone  who has carried on a run more than once with gashed and bleeding hands due to tripping and trying to break my fall. I just hate. I mean really hate to stop on a run. I will stop for traffic, small children, the elderly and to go to the toilet. I won't though actually find a toilet ( I leave the rest to you imagination)

    Still....this evening after work 10 miles mostly flat at 8:45 min/mi pace. Makes 35 miles for the week and day 4 of my current 7 day streak. Its a thing I am doing trying to see the effects of running 7 days in a row and  then taking a day off. It does mean I have to cycle to work a couple of days less than before, but I hope as I get stronger that will change. It has to as I like to do a bit of track cycling in the spring/summer. I will hold 35 miles for another week then up it by the usual 10% if I can.

    As summer comes there has to be some proper stamina stuff then the track work will come and some strength training in the park.

    I expect to break....
  • swittleswittle ✭✭✭
    Will, I'm rarely even off colour and would like to think the daily run supports this.  

    Time to rest those busy legs, Hazel.  That goes for you too, Cal.  ;)

    Swift progress in adverse conditions, JT.

    Last night, darkrun stretched to 11 miles on a moonless, breeze-free night.  Slight alarm when sand at sea wall got a little *too* soft.  Switching to the prom, I heard voices [am still taking the tablets ;) ] but no people until two speaking an eastern European passed by walking down the beach.
  • JT141JT141 ✭✭✭
    Glad you weren't eaten by the beach swit.
    The weather is bloody awful. 9.6miles in the cold and wet amongst drab suburban streets, trading estates, and briefly a lake. Got wolf whistled but assume it was ironic.
  • swittleswittle ✭✭✭
    There's precedent, JT.   :o   Did you have snow too?  One reason I darkrun is to avoid the more outré outpourings of the urban philiosopher!
  • snewma00snewma00 ✭✭✭
    20 miles completed on Friday - rained pretty much the whole way :-/
    Did 32 mins of sprints yesterday - 1km @ 16, 2 mins of walking (repeat x5)
    Another 19/20 this Friday at MP and then two weeks of tapering/eating!
    Hope everyone had a great Easter!
  • swittleswittle ✭✭✭
    Productive training, snewma00
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    I had a full rest day yesterday (lounging, computer games, one walk of about 2 miles, then food, a movie on TV and a nap) and felt a lot better today. Ran just over 4.55 miles, which comprised of 4 mile easy/steady plus 5 strides. No unusual sights today but I did get some smiles back from the other runners I encountered. I didn't run until 9.30am and I notice that runners are more friendly once it gets a little later in the morning. No one smiles much before 7am.
  • Nessie73Nessie73 ✭✭✭
    Cal, excited for you!
    Hazel, nice 20 miles
    Nice parkrunning Will, beach running swit, pissing rain running JT and just pissing running Stephen ;-)
    I had a lovely restful and greedy weekend on Mersea island, with a little running ( a 9 mile loop of the island and a 4 mile sunset trot), and lots of nice family time.
    Today saw my final 20 mile run, which was fine although my legs definitely feel heavy and tired now, and I am ready to taper. With the way my week has fallen, I've done 46.5 miles in this final "full" week of marathon training. Plus I figured I've done a 17 miler, 2 x 18 miles, 1 x 19 and 3 x 20.  So I reckon I'm ready :-)
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    You are, Nessie. Enjoy the taper and try not to freak out. :grin:
  • Stephen E FordeStephen E Forde ✭✭✭
    edited April 2018
    Todays morning run. 5.5 miles at 7.47 min/mi pace. No cycling into work today as I also ran last night and i want to rest. Last night was 4.5 miles at 8.45 min/mi pace. Ah yes there is method to the madness. All those minutes count.
    This is day 7 of my 7 day streak but....i am going to run tomorrow for reasons of social appointments. Distance and pace undecided.
    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2016/apr/21/sub-3-marathon-data-strava-london
    Found this snippet. Who would have thunk it eh? Run more and you get faster? Its almost as though there is a method to the madness....

  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    Those numbers seem quite low, actually, Stephen - I'm in the 4-5 hour bracket and I peaked at 40 (2 weeks at 41 and 1 at 42). A lot of the fast peeps do 70+ miles a week. Some even do over 100.
    I guess I'm more of a grafter. I don't have much physical talent but I work hard. Those people who can equal my PB on half the training would be a lot faster than me if they did my training.
  • JT141JT141 ✭✭✭
    Good streaking Stephen. I've never really understood the taper.
    18.1miles today in 2hrs19. No real plan to it. Lot of crisscrossing my route and zigzagging about. It's was a 9miler which became an HM (at which point it categorically pissed it down which was all too much for a passing cyclist who had a sweary outburst) which became a renewing "may as well do another mile".
  • Looks like excellent prep work, Nessie - nicely done.
    Same goes for Stephen and Cal.  I'm sure it will all pay off.
    The usual grit and grind from JT. 

    I had an unplanned 3 days of rest, mainly due to chocolate and a general feeling of demotivation. Not sure why. Anyway, I got back on the horse yesterday evening and certainly paid for those extra calories , which have turned into extra pounds. A tough run and definite signal to reign in the diet. 45 mins at HM pace. Will not allow myself to slacken off without good reason again...unless I do.
    I run, therefore I am.
  • Bit behind on posting as life, work and fortunately going running got in the way in the last couple of days.

    Stephen, I just waded through the stream barefoot - the water was clear so I could check for obvious nasties.  I generally have no issues with taking a break on a run - another reason to stop is for navigation if I am trying out a new route and need to check the map (on my mobile) or sometimes for relaxed eating or drinking on an LSR.  I don't like having to stop on a tempo effort though as it takes time to get back into it. I plan those routes accordingly.  Good weekly mileage btw and your plans to increase it are sensible.  I have only done 7 days in a row a couple of times whilst not doing specific training and found it surprisingly hard work.  At the moment I need my days off (2 a week).
    I'm hoping that the more mileage = faster over the marathon distance as I have been following a P&D schedule which has seen my peak mileage at 55 mile weeks rather than my standard 40-45.  I will see in just over 2 weeks if it has worked.  No sub 3 for me though!  I'm "only" doing the baby plan though, there are ones with much higher mileage.

    Don't be swallowed up by the sand swittle.

    Have a good 20 miler tomorrow snewma.  Nice speedwork session there.

    JT weren't you talking about a "look at me" T-shirt a few posts further up?  Were you wearing it maybe to get the wolf whistle?  Nice rainy running (much better than rainy cycling).

    Sound's good Cal.  I'm not sure I would be up to smiling before 7am either.  Here you are expected not only to smile but also to heartily greet everyone you meet.  
     
    Good to hear you had a nice break Nessie.  Excellent work on the long runs.  I am looking forward to you having a good run in London (if everything goes well on the day of course)

    I wouldn't worry too much about the break and the chocs Will.  

    For me:  a 6 mile recovery on Tuesday evening, for once on my own rather than with my group as I wanted a flat route.  Tired legs before, less tired legs after so it seemed to do the job.  Yesterday, 8 miles with 5 x 600 intervalls.  Reasonable session with more or less even results - I will blame the gusts of wind from the rapidly approaching rain for the slower pace on number 5.. ;-)  
    This first week of the taper is still quite intense although the mileage is going down (a bit).  Will see how it goes.  Rest day today.

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