Shades Marathon Training

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  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Steve - that was a complicated long run, certainly keeps your brain busy when running.

    Big G - ha, ha at wanting to squeeze another marathon in ;) 

    OTB - that is a huge PB, well done.   Marathons aren't easy and you did really well.

    I'm sorry that you had such a tortuous time in the last few miles and then got carried off by the medics.    We've had long discussions on here about cramps as they are not always of an obvious cause.    Some on here now suffer a lot less from the cramps than they used to so it's definitely something that can be overcome.   Doing strength work on your legs will help or you can do a lot of hill work.   Doing trail marathons will help as they are usually well blessed with hills. Did you take any electrolytes on board during the race?   Not all gels (in fact very few) have electrolytes.  

    Ian -  I had just read the GFA changes, not fair that when it's within sight for you and Big G they move the goalposts.   But don't give up the idea as we're all getting older too.   It's expected that there was going to be a cap on GFA places as this year they've had more than expected and had to spread them over 2 starts but I didn't expect the equality of sexes to be implemented.   The GFA time for my age group is unchanged.    Good news that the date deadline is extended to 10th August, that's 6/7 weeks more than before and will give more runners a chance to get their GFA or improve on their current GFA time.
  • Hi Shades - thanks. I am very pleased to have a new PB.

    I did pick up one or two High5 Zero electroltye drinks on course.
    On the plus side I didn't get any cramps during my training runs this year so that is an improvement. Strength and hill work will become my next focus, especially as nearly all my routes around Portsmouth are very flat. 
    My next two races are both Trail events, so I'll get out and find some good trail routes to train on.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Regarding GFA, and I know we've discussed it on here in the past, I'm a bit confused by London's definition of equality. Yes, definitely equality in numbers, but not on effort/age grades required to reach the targets when comparing men and women, with the standard for men becoming even tougher. 

    Frustrating for me, but I've always said it's their race and they can do what they like. But personally, 3:05 is out!  I'm disappointed but I've kind of been expecting it, what with the recent changes to allocation of club places. It's obviously geared towards charity (and that's not a criticism). 

    At least now we know how many of the race is GFA, whereas before it was always a guess. 
  • JugulaJugula ✭✭✭
    Hi Shadies, I’ve had a look at the Callum Hawkins incident and it is a bit scary, when I collapsed in Bilbao 2 stewards appeared from nowhere or maybe I was lucky and chose a good spot to crash? Anyway they were excellent are insisted that I wait for paramedics as I was saying I’d be ok to carry on, I obviously wasn’t, an ambulance was there very quickly and the treatment I received was elite class, despite me being far from an elite athlete and not speaking a word of Spanish. 
    Sorry to harp on about bloody Bilbao! I thought it worth a comparison though.
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    OTB-A Pb is always great so congrats on that,as for cramp i know exactly how you feel,mine is always the hamstrings rather than calf though,until I nail it I won't get the times I should.
    Reg GFA it looks like they have set them about right for male and female,if you ignore the elites last year 1863 men went sub 3 and 1850 women sub 3:45,and 2347 men went sub 3:05 and 2212 women sub 3:50.
    I had a feeling they would make it harder but I was hoping if they went to 5 year gaps,then 45-49 would stay at 3:15 and 41-44 went 3:10.
    As for me well 3:10 will be very very tough but with 1:30 HM if I ever learn to convert well I have a slender chance.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Ian, there was an Age Grade %s chart knocking about one year (it was uploaded to a different RW thread one year), and from that perspective the ladies is/was easier.  But from a numbers point of view, as you say, it's about right.  They obviously don't want the field to be be male dominated, which is fair enough.

    It'll be interesting to see what the actual qualifying times end up being, presuming they publish them - I'd imagine the qualifying times will end up being a fair bit quicker than those published, for many of the age cats.  We'll see.
  • JellyJelly ✭✭✭
    Doctor has referred me for X-ray she doesn’t think it’s the case but just to be sure, no major tear, didn’t say what it could be. Also been referred to NHS physio. Told Doctor I see mine regularly and she said that’s good but if I need to see consultant it would have to be through NHS physio. I hope Appointment is Wednesday as booked day off for my birthday or I will have to sort work.  Not so sore tonight. 
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    OTB - I didn't realise you used to get cramps in training too.   Most only suffer in races, so that is a step forward.   You might want to consider using electrolytes in your next event as the weather is getting warmer and that is likely to make dehydration worse which contributes towards the cramps.  You need to train over undulating routes and even some hilly runs too.

    How are the legs now?   Have you been out for a little gentle recovery run?

    Jugula - I'm glad you had such good and prompt attention at Bilbao.   I don't mind how often you mention it, I was only trying not to remind you if it was a bad memory.   Of course you went back and ran a very good marathon there so laid that ghost to rest.

    Jelly - I'm not surprised your doctor doesn't know what your injury is, they're not trained in sports injuries.   I've seen NHS physio once and he was brilliant but I had to wait a month for the appointment, I had been hoping I was better by then, I wasn't but he was really good and worth the wait.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2018
    Big_G said:
    Regarding GFA, and I know we've discussed it on here in the past, I'm a bit confused by London's definition of equality. Yes, definitely equality in numbers, but not on effort/age grades required to reach the targets when comparing men and women, with the standard for men becoming even tougher. 

    Frustrating for me, but I've always said it's their race and they can do what they like. But personally, 3:05 is out!  I'm disappointed but I've kind of been expecting it, what with the recent changes to allocation of club places. It's obviously geared towards charity (and that's not a criticism). 

    At least now we know how many of the race is GFA, whereas before it was always a guess. 

    I'm not quite sure what you mean about confusion about the definition of equality.   They, as I believe the other major marathons do, gauge the GFA times from their results.   Now they're capping the number of GFA entries at 3,000 for men, imagine how you would feel if you achieved the existing GFA time by a few minutes, applied for your place and still didn't get in, and that is still possible now with the new rules.   Running has seen another huge boom period and marathon running too and since London went online for entries it's been harder to get an entry via the ballot and cutting the club's allocation of places means more runners especially club runners have been targeting the GFA route.   The women's' times are calculated by their results, as more women get better times at London or they receive significantly more than 3,000 women's GFA entries then they'll tighten up the women's times too.

    London is a charity fun run with an elite race at the front.

    Don't dismiss your chances of getting a GFA, if that's what you want, look how much you've knocked off over the last year.   

    Imagine if it was New York, you'd have to achieve 2:58 for your age group there.

    I don't think we'll know what the actual qualifying times will be, unless they inform anyone that fails due to oversubscription, maybe they'll tell those runners that have the GFA time but are unsuccessful.
  • Cal JonesCal Jones ✭✭✭
    Well done, OTB - passing out must have been a bit worrying though. I hope you still remembered to get your medal!

    Jelly, yeah the NHS can be an obstacles course. I remember when I had my foot problem back in 2011 (mysterious searing pain in the ball of my foot). GP (a locum) sent me for an x-ray which showed nothing (despite me finding a funny lump), so I had to insist on seeing a specialist, so I got a podiatrist appointment, who then referred me to the ortho, who then wanted to see me again, and I finally had the surgery to remove the lump (which turned out to be a cyst) a year after the initial injury. I actually sat and watched the London Olympics with my foot in a big bandage.

    At least with my hip problem I got a specialist appointment within a month and she treated me on the spot, which worked, thank goodness. So hopefully you'll be lucky.

    Re: GFA, I'm glad my target is still 4 hours - that's far enough away already without them moving it further! (I might have a better chance of bringing it down to 4:05 over the next four years, then I can get GFA as a 55 year old!)

    Anyway, yesterday was lovely and sunny but I regretfully decided not to run as my pesky post tib was niggling and I figured I needed more rest. I did do some bum exercises and then went for a walk on the way to do some shopping, and later did my first Bikram class in several weeks. The class went OK - I worked around the hamstring as usual but the groin didn't like one of the other poses so I'll have to work around that too. On the plus side, I was knackered enough that I went to be before 10 and had a decent sleep for once (about 7 hours - I usually only manage 6).

    I went out today instead and had a better run than Sunday. Still pretty slow (not that I'm worried - I'm still recovering), but calves were fine. I could feel my legs are still quite tired so I added some strides to my 4 miles and rather enjoyed that.
  • Morning Shades

    Legs are not great. Stairs are hellish and i'm walking in slow motion. But I am up and about and been in work yesterday and today. So far I have only been stretching and foam rolling, definitely do not feel ready for a run. Quads are far too painful.

    Ian5 said:
    OTB-A Pb is always great so congrats on that,as for cramp i know exactly how you feel,mine is always the hamstrings rather than calf though,until I nail it I won't get the times I should.
    Reg GFA it looks like they have set them about right for male and female,if you ignore the elites last year 1863 men went sub 3 and 1850 women sub 3:45,and 2347 men went sub 3:05 and 2212 women sub 3:50.
    I had a feeling they would make it harder but I was hoping if they went to 5 year gaps,then 45-49 would stay at 3:15 and 41-44 went 3:10.
    As for me well 3:10 will be very very tough but with 1:30 HM if I ever learn to convert well I have a slender chance.
    Thanks Ian!  :) Your times are already very impressive. It is frustrating when you feel you could go faster if it wasn't for the cramps. Both my parents suffer from leg cramps. My Dad is a very keen cyclist, he can quite happily race 130 miles at 60+yrs old. But cramps do hinder him at times.

    Going forward I'm going to try cycling/spinning for cross training and introduce strength work down the gym rather than just running. Plus I am moving over to Trail racing for my next two events. So it'll be interesting to see if that makes a difference at some point. Near my work place we have a lovely country park which is part of the south downs trail, so it is very hilly. I'll start using that for training runs after work rather than the dead flat seafront.

    I will conquer this sub 4 hr barrier one day! 




  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Shades, I'm not passing judgement - it's their race and they can do what they like.  I really mean that, and I've always said it, wth ballot entries and everything else associated with the race.  Yes, I agree it's a charity run, and that is also not a criticism.

    But what I'm saying is that it's not "equality" in terms of effort, as it's a lot easier for most women to make their times (based on Age Grading).  As I said in reply to Ian, I agree that numbers in the categories are broadly the same and I do know that's what they base the GFA times on.  They want a broadly 50/50 female/male split, and that's fine - I have said many times, it's their race and they can do what they like!  We must be led to believe though, that there aren't enough women who could run the times if they were aligned to the men's (to be honest, I struggle to believe this for the younger age cats).

    I've just created this - stats taken from https://www.runnersworld.com/tools/age-grade-calculator


    I haven't worked it out the other way, but if the men's aligned with the women for the younger cats, I'd imagine the percentage of men achieving those times would be significant.

    Interestingly the 55-59 men's categories is the toughest, which I hadn't realised.  Also, the younger men/women in the 18-39 category have it (relatively) easy.

    But for me personally, it's demoralising as going from 3:15 to 3:05 is a significant change.  And of course if I'd scraped a 3:14:59 this year and then was subject to this change, I'd be even more demoralised, and I imagine there are lots of men in that situation.  For many people, including me and a few others just on this thread, chasing GFA is a motivator.

  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Cal - you seem to be recovering really well, last year you had a few niggles after your first marathon of the year but you're obviously getting stronger.

    It would be nice for you to get a GFA or even a ballot entry for London as after all it is your 'local' marathon.

    OTB - I hadn't expected you to get out for a run as your cramps were so bad, but you should certainly get out for a walk it will speed up your recovery.

    You know that if you can sort the cramps you'll easily nail that sub 4.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Big G - xpost.  Re GFA it's not meant to be equality of effort between the sexes.   That table is really useful as the age graded are much closer than I thought they would be.  If you look at marathon results there is still a much higher % of men than women,  (excluding big charity events) same with the number of runners in your club, especially if you whittle it down to marathon runners within the club.  So if you  have 50 male marathon runners in your club and only 10 female marathon runners, logic will say that there is more likely to be higher graded results in the men than the women.

    Women are generally less competitive too and some might want a GFA time but I have at least 5 female friends with good GFA times and they don't want to run London, or have done so and don't want to run it again.   

    Your age group seems to have been penalised the most, maybe because your age group is probably the highest % of marathon runners generally
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Big G - Just looking at your table interesting that in the 3 oldest age groups the trend is reversed and the men are behind the women in age graded performance!
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Shades, sorry, I'm really not trying to repeat myself but I do know how it works at London :)  However, I still think the age grade % differences are at least worthy of note.  Also, sorry to disagree, but I think it is a significant difference - a 39 YO woman and a 44 YO woman have approx 25mins leeway, based on age grading.  

    Regarding the oldest runners and the way it flips, I'd imagine that is demographics - i.e, men generally die younger than women.  But of course I do not know this for sure.

    I'm not trying to get into an argument about it as really I just think it's worthy of note!

    For me, and I hope any serious runner, the fact that it's harder for men wouldn't put people off of marathons (it certainly will not in my case, anyway).  And if it encourages more women into running, racing or striving for GFA, that's a great thing.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2018
    Big G - I didn't say it wasn't a significant difference in times, I thought it would be more so the difference was less than I expected.

    I don't think it will encourage more women into trying for GFA, why would it, the times are not significantly different.

    Trying to achieve GFA times only became a big issue when other methods of entry, ballot and club places became much more difficult to obtain.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    I just meant that by keeping the GFA for women more achievable (as opposed to aligning them to men), it may continue to encourage more into running/racing.   

    Anyway, I'll leave it there :)  
  • Cal Jones said:
    Well done, OTB - passing out must have been a bit worrying though. I hope you still remembered to get your medal!


    Thanks Cal.

    Just about, although I was strapped down on the stretcher, they brought it over to me along with the goody bag. Gutted I didn't walk over to collect the medal myself. An experience I wont forget quickly  :/  
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    OTB - that was good of them to remember to give you your medal and goody bag.


    Big G - did you see Boston Marathon yesterday, it's worth watching?   I've never seen the elite field of a big marathon wear jackets for the whole event.   Horrendous conditions.   Great to see Yuki Kawauchi win, they couldn't stop saying how he'd run 76 sub 2:20 marathons and 12 in the last year.   One in the eye for those that say you should only run one or two a year.   He wasn't wearing a jacket though, the Japanese are tough.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Shades, I'm going to check the race out today.  I'm saw Yuki won it - I'm a fan of his, mainly because of the Marathon Talk podcast as they love him on there :)  It's on iPlayer so I'm going to watch it a bit later.

    Talking of goodie bags, the Welsh Marathon one was quite good, although there were 3 sachets of "Lo Salt" in there, which was a bit random!
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    OTB-Glad you are ok after collapsing.
    Shades-Just watched Boston on i-player,really good race to watch,Kirui faded so much at the end but Yuki was brilliant,great face at the finish when he realised what he had done.
  • tiny tiatiny tia ✭✭✭
    edited April 2018
    Hello all
    Lots for me to read through, hope everyone is doing ok

    I managed to run without significant issues last week re:Achilles, taking things on day to day basis still erring on the side of caution with any niggly pain.
    I ditched this mornings run at 2miles as I managed to turn my ankle in the muddy trail, I’ve been avoiding pavements thinking less impact on trails but the recent rain has really caused some major rutting on the trail path.
    I watched the Callum Hawkins video and found it bizarre for help not to have gotten to him sooner regardless of his toughness to try to continue.
    Also, watched Boston marathon on catch up last night after work, awful weather but good to see the winners tough it out regardless.
    Sad, to have missed my original target race of Brighton Mara pass me by but I have many more stacked up that I ‘may’ be able to partake if Achilles behaves!
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Big G - the Lo Salt is useful for all those fish and chips when travelling to races ;) 

    Boston has never really appealed to me although it's on most marathon runners 'wish list', but after seeing those conditions yesterday it will never make my list.   I know in the USA they have very variable conditions, they have had 37C (96F) for that race before.

    Yuki cried through his interview, he was so happy :) 

    Ian - it was a really good race, women's and men's in the latter stages.   Great to see that the winners won because they ran the best on the day, not necessarily the fastest in the field.
  • SHADESSHADES ✭✭✭✭
    Tia - xpost.  Hope that ankle is OK, easily done.

    Shame to miss your marathon at Brighton but unfortunately these things happen.   So pleased to hear you've got other races lined up to do.  
  • tiny tiatiny tia ✭✭✭
    Shades- I’m a prolific race enterer, I try not to be but enthusiasm and bloodymindidness are my middle names? My husband shakes his head at my plans but I don’t see anything wrong with having events to look forward to.
  • Big_GBig_G ✭✭✭
    Tia, it's great having an active race diary :)  For me, it gives me events to look forward to and plan towards.  Do you have a future marathon you're aiming for?

    OTB, just reading back a bit (I couldn't easily yesterday as I was out and about).  Sorry to read you had a bad time at the end, but good news that you got your goodie bag etc.  I used to suffer with cramps badly - I remember I did 4:01 one time, and was hobbling at the finish due to cramps.  For me, it has eased a lot, and I'm not totally sure of the reason why.  I think for me it's possibly just that I've done more running and so have gained strength in my legs from that.  But you did really well and a PB is a PB.  Also, you may find with a trail race that it reduces any pressure a bit (presuming you're not going for a PB) so you may find that enjoyable.

    Shades, that's another thing the MarathonTalk podcast love.  They often talk about "racing" being more exciting than "world records" and I can see what they mean.  It is exciting seeing the tactics, the surges, seeing who was best on the day, etc.  Sometime seeing a 2:10 finish in a hard fought men's race can be more exciting than seeing a 2:04 finish for example.

    In Paris, they did manufacture it a bit, and I'm still not sure what I think about what they did.  They started the women a set time ahead of the men, with the hope that the men would catch up the women close to the finish, in order to make it seem like a "race".  It was exciting in some ways (asking "will she stay ahead?"), but it's not a "race" is it?  Also, the lead women did end up getting overtaken very close to the finish, and I think there's a strong argument that the elite women and men should start and finish separately.  In other races, you can see the elite women running with very good club male athletes, which I do think can detract from the women's elite race.
  • 1SteveMac1SteveMac ✭✭✭
    Interesting changes on GFA, but expected as London gets ever more popular. It's a shame for those that ran Manchester etc, with GFA in mind and now they won't get in!!

    It will be like Boston now with you needing to run under the GFA time to qualify I guess.
  • Ian5Ian5 ✭✭✭
    Tinytia-Glad your achilles is getting better.I'm in a similar position that I missed my spring target due to my achilles problems.

  • tiny tiatiny tia ✭✭✭
    Big G- I had Southampton Mara lined up but deferred a month or so ago,Shakespeare( dropped to half hopefully), North Dorset (cancelled)and Dorchester Marathons. I’ve not ran a mara since 2010 taking 6 yrs off to do weight training gym stuff before getting the run bug again late summer 2016. 
    Realistically Junes’ Yeovil mara is out, and after a few half’s the target would be Salisbury 54321 in August...seems ages away?
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