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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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Time for the round-up:
Nice long run with that fast parkrun finish Joe.
Brilliant cross country Reg and Pete, and really sorry to read about your wife's illness Reg and hope it can be managed.
I did county champs cross country on Saturday. It was very handy as it was in the woods at the top of my road. Even warming up I felt things were off, and in the race found I was well behind runners I'm normally in touch with. Still, about 3 mins faster than the last time I did the same course in 2018. I had a twinge of mild embarrassment for clubmates claiming a 10k pb (course advertised as 10k but was 5.4 miles) but don't want to piss on their bonfires and suggest they add on another 6 minutes to make it right.
I assumed (apart from being shit at xc) that my performance was affected by fatigue from the 10k on NYE but then woke up Sunday with swollen glands and a sore throat. I guess that's the risk of confined air travel with multiple others - it's not the first time I've gone down with something after a flight. So skipped the long run on Sunday in favour of rest and recuperation. Throat still sore, head still foggy but I'm hopeful it will clear before Sunday's half marathon.
Cheers for folks having some confidence in me continuing to improve 👍
You do especially well with what seems a constant set of health issues! Are you an office guy? Can be bloody hard to avoid whatever is going around as I can testify! Pretty likely my vertigo and chicken pox years ago was due to "office" bugs!
Bus - not sure what the exact distance was, but it was pretty dry. My performance drops dramatically as the mud level increases!
Jools - I thought I raced a lot (SG - Please take note
)
Muddy - As if anyone has a xc PB
it's hard enough to get the distances the same every year for xc with subtle course changes, let alone dry/muddy years also. Its' amazing how much a really muddy Southern at Parliament Hill mucks the usual state of affairs about. I usually look through the results going 'How the HELL did he come 90th! etc etc..'
3 minutes better than 2018 is nothing to be (pardon the pun with your lergy) sniffed at!
First "structured" run of the Wokingham campaign today. 10k with middle 4 miles at (hopefully!) lower end of tempo scale (6:25). Happy enough with that as a place marker to build on over the next 5/6 weeks.
Your longest race in decades has been about 5k hasn't it
Says me, racking up loads of miles and 5k last year
Nice one Bus.
Just getting out for my "lunchtime" run now..3.20pm!
I've definitely felt a step up in fitness recently, today's was around 7 pace too, and it's not like i'm suddenly gunning the effort. Hopefully i can have a decent spell of racing this year.
Spent WAYYYY too long on the group chats and mailing people yesterday for the 12 stages tho...so much so that I had one of those never quite getting to sleep, sleeps. Gotta watch those!!
Will aim for some sort of Dorney tempo tomorrow..see if the easy improvement pace shows itself on a threshold tempo.
Stevie - Both an office dweller (with a single shared loo
Simon - alas, as much as I was looking forward to getting a whipping in the Surrey League, coach has determined that with a view to future weekends away and no access to a bike, this weekend needs to be more bike heavy. So I'm no longer there on Sat! However, I'm 100% confirmed for my annual turn out at Parliament Hill for the Southerns..
Muddy - Sounds like a decent turnout considering you were probably sick before running. Hope you shake it quickly.
Nice tempo that, Bus.
Had a progressive commute this morning, 4 miles easy, followed by 4 miles averaging 6:40. Felt alright, nothing special. Got a bike session tonight, 4 x 8 mins.
Very promising stuff SG.
Muddy, I've said it before and I'll say it again - Echinacea! I swear by the stuff and take it regularly over the winter, increasing the dose at the first sign of any trouble. Since doing so, I've gone from having constant lergy and sniffles, especially when training hard, to very rarely getting anything. Even with last week's lergy, I was knocked out for two days but back fighting fit shortly after that, whereas my wife and those around me at work who had similar were out for a week or more!
Best deal I've found is in Waitrose, where I get 60 Echinaforce tablets for a tenner.
Nice tempo Bus though I'd've thought you could go a fair bit faster given your recent performance at LFotM
After a light couple of weeks over the holiday period I was determined to properly get going this week. Yesterday was 8M with 8x200m efforts to finish. The whole run was considerably faster than before the break & the strides were far quicker
Snotted some lovely yellow yack out today, but all good (why don't we get ladies on here anymore?
Jools, I reckon the simple equation for you is way less races = faster results
I'm a scientist like that innit.
In my car at 5.10 tonight, key in ignition...didn't start. Must have done it "wrong" I thought...tried again...ugly whirring noise...same again...then the exceptionally worrying "engine malfunction".... followed by a heck...this could be bad...a few weeks before potentially shipping this car off
RAC...long story short, battery had gone, reckons it was still on its original 2009 battery and had lasted very well (!), and no way to know It was on way out.
Left at about 7.10, a mere £100 ish down (plus £2.50 for a bulb that'd gone too...!) rather than the fear of proper engine stuff!
Ho hum...first RAC call out in 17 years of car ownership, so can't complain guvnor!
Tha drive felt sweet though, we do take simple stuff for granted!
(ED ….save it for carloversworld.co.uk son)
It's the old "race day magic" Jools
To be fair, I was aiming to start building the distance and keep it at the slower end of tempo, and probably could have gone a bit quicker. Although. also to be fair, by the 4th mile it felt hard enough
Now, those 80% + numbers are impressive but not jaw-droppingly so. People on this thread sneak into the 90% range from time to time.
Our primitive ancestors reached maturity and died younger and over time we have changed those natural phases and imposed some artificial boundaries so you get some girls getting their periods from as young as 10 years old (so sexually reproductive) but no sex until 16. Now we are seeing a reverse of some of those attitudes so Curtis Jones (I am a Liverpool FC fan) scored the winner vs Everton aged 18!
If you look at the WAVA tables, then a 14-year-old woman gets a 0.95 factor. That is 1 from 20 to 33 (open) and then drops back down to 0.95 aged 40, so a race between a 14-year-old and a 40-year-old is fair.
Muddy - My comment stands, but it was mainly aimed at the two mates you mentioned..at least you know the score
Joe - shame...PMJ - funny isn't it., I thought my 9 yr olds 23.30 PR would have a higher age graded than it is..Aren't the older women's WAVA ratings too high?
Really tough session in the sticky muddy grass of the rugby club last night. No bounce in the ground at all. 6 x 1400 (one loop with the ridge of doom, then another loop without) started on a 5.10 and got them down to 4.52 to finish. To make me feel slightly better, Kimpton had them measured at 1480m. Really hard work.
Dorney Lake tempo today, 6miles, obligatory windy one side.
6.11 average. Best one of these has come out - same sort of effort level as the other ones.
Without wheeling out the Blagger calculator, it's not unreasonable to think that could be a few secs quicker per mile without wind, and even quicker on the track, so am definitely getting there.
Last half mile was back towards the exit (to avoid a long cool down) and a little bit of wind, so the effort had built up by then a bit.
Enjoyed a little sit down and look at the splits, and a kind driver came through, checking I was ok. Nice gesture, but had to assure him I had just run fairly hard...honest
Simon - Decision mainly based on the fact that I didn't want to embarrass you as I demolished the field, storming to victory.
SG - really decent tempo there, always tough on your own with the wind. Glad the car got started, and good result for United only losing 3-1.
Two lots of 5 x 1 min hard, 1 min steady this morning. 1 minute hards were coming out at around 5:30mm (I never was, or am going to be, much of a sprinter). Effort certainly felt really hard and didn't help that it was pitch black and couldn't see my feet.
I've done a little training/racing summary if anyone's bored on their lunchbreak;
https://spragginsblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/08/2019-review-racing-training-summary/
Will check your magic later.
Looks like I'm up north 3 times this month minimum! One of them I can at least link a work Nottingham trip in with footy! But could be a busy one. Will have to watch the rest and recovery in between.
Looking at doing this week's 15 Friday morning pre work
Pele was winning the world cup at 17, some Olympic swimmers had retired at 17!
The second time round is always harder of course, but instead of doing two full laps, I tend to get to about 5.3 / 5.4miles, then turn back on myself so there's only half mile to the car, rather than the first time I did it, over a mile
Probably worth sucking up the wind, to get used to less than ideal conditions.
Similarly Simon/Joe. Quality reps I'd settle for the 5:10 1480m Simon, even on firm ground, let alone that being the slowest on a sticky field!
Dead legs today! Shame, as it double day today and plan is for a lunchtime 8M tomorrow at, what I've now discovered is probably best called "steady state". We'll see!
What is the equivalent age factors for a man racing a boy Philip?
Definitely nothing new there but the money does mean they are a lot more common.
So for men, the 95% is 15 years old (so as expected, a girl matures a bit quicker) and then the open standard is 20 to 34 and then early 40s (42, 43) before it is back to 95%.
A couple of people i know had this recently and hopefully a quick in and out bug job...
As getting ill after dorney lake is becoming a habit now!
Doesn't compare to vertigo though..that was something else!
Bloody hell SG, you do seem to get all the bugs. For me I'm trying to get more sleep - I'm up to the heady heights of 6.5 hours! Cheers Bus, hope the leg improves.
PMJ - My make is a classic maths whizz and he is always moaning about the older women's WAVA rankings too!
So first run in the £9.99 Kalenji from Decathalon. Loads lighter than they looked but pretty good on first outing. Look like an absolute bargain!
Still some decent mileage there Jools; even if a bit haphazard even the xc club intervened!
Good to see you can still run 1500 reps on a quagmire faster than most runners do 1k on a track Simon
Just did some research based on a small sample to explore PMJ's WAVA theory. Picked 6 parkruns where I knew I was pretty high up the all time WAVA's (so generally newer or less busy than average ones!) and found the following;
parkrun Bracknell Homewood Maidenhead Woodley Woking Upton Court
my WAVA position 5 3 18 13 10 13
women above me 4/4 2/2 12/17 7/12 7/9 7/12
Women >50 above me 2/4 2/2 9/12 5/7 6/7 7/7
Not a massive sample but I'm sure with such dominance of women its probably still statistically credible. About time WAVA got downgrading those older women (but please not the old blokes too
I've looked at Kalenji trail running shoes as they seem a bargain, but they don't do half sizes.
Good work on getting the double in Jools, even if it (literally!( ended up a bit messy...
First "steady state" of the Wokingham campaign today. First mile in 7:18 (bit quick for a warm up), then average 6:50 for the next 7. It was all OK, except that mile 4 is up a sizeable hill, so it was difficult to try and not overdo the effort while watching the pace slide downwards! Rather soberingly, I was doing the same route, but with an extra two miles, at similar intensity before Wokingham in 2018 and it was coming out as 6:40 pace! Legs were unexpectedly mashed toward the end, even if everything else felt OK. A few weeks to build though.
Although parkrun is well stocked with female runners I don't see this balance reflected in other races - especially those aimed at the speedsters. EG Speedway 10K next w/e has 176 men entered but only 32 women!!
Ta folks - definitely going back to work tomorrow which says it all I think... have a hope of being able to "Jog" on Saturday, but we'll see! Hopefully the exact opposite of vertigo in being very quick in and out, and pick up the running where we left it very soon!
Obvs scrapped Saturday's intended trip to Manchester!
Mixing the paces and distances up recently Jools - looks good.
Sounds a decent step into a Wokey build up there Bus.
I noticed Dorney have a half on at the end of Jan. I think it might be the less than superb local rep F3 events though...so it'll be expensive, poor quality field, and a bit of a lack of arrangements. They often mix in other distances too, just to diffuse the quality even more. You can imagine can't you, get into a good battle with someone, then they drop out at the end of lap 2, leaving you in no man's land!!
Also, 4+ laps of Dorney could be a tough ask, especially if there's the usual windy stretches!