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Last week including the cross country and the 10k race I did 34 miles. That was the start of tapering or as McMillan calls it 'peaking' (https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/dont-taper-peak/).
However I don't appear to have successfully peaked as this week I still have a sore throat and a sore head. At the moment I'm thinking damn, I'm not going to be able to do much on Sunday the way things are going. Looking at the Village Bakery half as a fallback option...
Still in the vain hope that I will feel better I'm following the usual routine with a very easy 10k planned at lunchtime, then rest and a shakeout run before the race on Sunday.
Yeah 8x1k @10k pace. Yikes, well done. I would fail badly at that session. I think when I tried doing that a while back, it came out 8 x 1k at marathon pace.
Ha, I usually do 10 x 1k off 60s at 10kp about 12 days from a race. This was comparatively nice!
That'll be a shame if illness intervenes! Village Bakery is a good alternative though.
Hopefully Mr Mad is in good shape. I seem to remember seeing him at the red start of London last year so I'm presuming he's good for a 1.25 or better pace ?
I managed a pb in the (really quite wet) Brass Monkey half marathon this morning .. 1:15.40 on chip. I tied up a lot in the last 3 miles, perhaps something to do with my ‘long’ runs not being much more than 10 miles the last few weeks. I’ve had a rotten week with illness so it was pleasing to be able to maintain a decent pace and not feel like utter crap, though I was very much baby giraffing it towards the baggage area post race.
Excellent muddy, great time and a sizeable PB too.
In less impressive news, I ran cross country yesterday. Nothing spectacular and a very similar time to what I always seem to run on this course. Legs were a bit beaten up today, so took up the option of marshalling rather than running in the XC event that we host.
Have managed to get a couple of decent weeks training in and starting to feel a bit fitter again now. More of the same for the next few weeks before Cambridge
Really pointing to a sub 2.45 mara...
Are you still looking at village bakery half?
Tommy, good time to start feeling fit. My club has a disaterous xc fixture yesteday finishing last and now find ourselves just outside relegation places with 2 teams being with 20 points, one being Telford who host next fixture and will have a good turn out. Therefore the all hands to the deck mesage has gone out which target a big group of guys like me at the club who are comfortably sub 40 10k runners and never do xc.
Decent week this week, a touch under 50m with an easy 14 today. Had an 8m tempo friday. Conditions were great but i was feeling quite tired so decided to make it a classic 160hr/mp session to see where i was. Came out 6.31mm average for 160bpm. Best ever return on that session for over 5m by far. Probably better than for over 3m to be fair. Negative spitted the second half marginally but main concern was keeping hr at 160 in last 2 miles.
Edit- just looked by eg- 5m at 6.45mm 159bpm 21st Feb 19, so a time i was in good shape and ultimately i ran london at 6.45 pace.
Taper week this week for speedway 10k.
Skinny if a table update happens for muddys pbs, i turned 44 midweek.
And congratulations on another PB for Muddy. Great work, especially if not feeling very well in the week.
Are you doing Cambridge half, Tommy? No marathons this year?
Been feeling a bit under the weather this week but had perked up for Saturday's XC which was all the way over at Park hall in Stoke on trent. It was another hilly one, partly on paths so I decided to wear trail shoes over spikes. Hayley Carruthers was also running it, always fun to see elites. Needless to say I saw her on the front row and she was probably showered and home by the time I got back! I felt terrible on the warm up but that often means nothing. The first mile went a bit downhill and I got a bit overexcited and started red lining too early. 6:30 pace! The second mile then has two big climbs with a short down in between which then pushed me over the edge lactate wise. At this stage I lost, ahem, quite a lot of places. Jelly legged and back into the downhill for the third mile I'd settled into a position but was really wanting it to be over but knowing the big climbs are back again in the fourth mile. These were pretty horrendous - no power left, head down shuffle up. Finally another little climb and then a little down to the finish. Managed to claw back two places on the sprint in which helped my bruised ego a bit! Came out 7:41 ave pace which was pretty average but hopefully a good training stimulus regardless.
I basically hate really hilly courses, love the more rolling gentle ones like Warley Woods last week. Team wise we managed to hold on to 3rd place masters so still in the prizes if we do ok at Newbold next time. Pleased with that given we only managed to get 8 runners to travel, only 6 of whom I'd put in the running competitively box.
The following day was long run day which is always awful after XC but managed 15.5 miles at 8:26 average which is ok. Luckily I had company as would have struggled otherwise. Finished off 36 for the week for a cutback week.
This week has the 16 with 10 at MP session. Always one to look forward to!
Skinny - if doing the TTT I'm 9st12lb now so dropped a bit of timber.
Cheers DT - good marathon tempo there to go with the 8x1k last week. You're a better recovering man than me - very sore today. I am possibly child free for the weekend of VB half so could do it as a marathon effort run. I don't fancy racing it . I think I need to go back to some mileage in the next month, then I have Wilmslow half mid March to consider for racing 3 weeks before Manchester.
Well done on making the long trip for the cross country McFlooze, it's all grist for the mill for your marathon training and for the club. I'm hill challenged too. I try to run even effort and let people come past me, but to my chagrin I don't seem to go past them on the level or downhill.
That 16 with 10 mp is a tough one to do on your own and so early on in proceedings when your marathon pace is not exactly known. I like to do it within a low key (read: cheap) half marathon.
Cheers Tommy, well done on the cross country too. How are you feeling about Cambridge ? Is it all coming together ?
TTT attached updated for
Muddy improving his 10k PB by 17 seconds to 34:09 in the Noses Race* in Barcelona on New Year's Eve.
*sounds better in Spanish (Catalan actually)
Muddy improving his HM PB by 51 seconds to 75:40 in The Brass Monkey* yesterday.
*el mono de bronce - sounds warmer in Spanish
DT getting a year older - happy birthday DT - next year more exciting when you jump up an age group.
McFlooze eating less McFlurries and as a result plummeting 8 pounds to 9 stone 12 (but in reality that was probably way out of date anyway). Well done though - make those muddy hills seem a little easier.
And to respond to DT (?) suggestion that Kevin should be on the TTT I can easily add him but I don't think I have any details.
Cheers, Skinny
Tommy in all that update stuff I seem to have ignored you but sounds like you've got your training head on and well done for marshalling in the cold.
My little update is that after 2 quick parkruns in 4 days wearing my racers my foot let me know that wasn't very sensible so I took it as the end of a training segment and took a week off. Ran 3 miles yesterday just to get started again and will plan another couple of runs through this week but may not get my 10 in on Sunday as away for 4 days for Mrs Skinny's birthday.
Have good week's everybody.
Cheers, Skinny
Tommy/McFlooze well done on the xc, I haven't done it before and going by your stories it wont be happening any time soon
Muddy, brilliant pb, good start to the year
DT, great mileage and as ever nailing some quality sessions, HB too
Skinny, wise to take the week off, enjoy your break away. Thanks for the invite onto the TTT, I will get some details over to you.
Managed 12mls on Friday, which came out as 9.35avg pace, also managed 2 sessions of 6mls at 8.00 avg pace and 4mls 8.02 pace this week. Possibly near hm pace on current form, hoping to see improvement on this over the coming weeks.
Good work Kevin, you are certainly putting in the miles !
sensible stuff, Skinny.
muddy, my recovery rate is simply down to the investment I have made in that wonderful array of gadgets and gizmos I tell you all about.
Were you not in the prizes yesterday?
Nice work on the 15, mcf. I don't think I could/would do that the day after a xc race. Fingers crossed you retain 3rd place in the last fixture.
Nice few runs there also, Kevin.
4m ploddy recovery over lunch which was well needed but unenjoyable.
McF - Good effort doing the long run on XC legs, I half thought about going for a longer run yesterday afternoon after marshalling but decided against it as I was feeling pretty beaten up, much better today though so will do a longish easy run with club tonight. Yes Cambridge half in a couple of months, no spring marathon, maybe one in autumn. To answer Muddy's question, feeling ok about it, just need to make sure I get some decent length long runs in over next month or so.
DT - sounds like you're in a very good place based on the HR/pace correlation. Will you be turning out for the club to rescue them from relegation? In contrast, our senior men had our best ever result, we won Saturday's fixture (not that I had anything to do with it), which is pretty remarkable for a club of our nature in this league where we are up against the big established athletics clubs in the region.
Skinny - sensible decision to rest and recover. Enjoy your weekend away.
Kevin - decent miles. I'm quite fond of cross country so would recommend you give one a go! However, by this point of the season they can be a bit of a chore, so I 've deliberately not done every race to try and keep the enthusiasm for them going.
Tommy, that is a cracking result!
I am not sure, I was comparatively rubbish at xc when I was doing it regularly so no reason to believe I will in fact add anything to the team. I am just a bit nervous about rocking up for a one off run out, doing something that left me battered for days when it was happening regularly, 8 days from a target half. Plus Saturday afternoon is the only time we all sit down together at home and watch a film and have a rest etc and I don't want to lose that for something I don't particularly want to do.
Tommy, sounds like you have some good sensible plans for the year. I keep meaning to focus on half training again, then remember that it means loads of LT work and I hate it. When is Cambridge?
Kevin, great miles at a good solid pace - good to see some easy miles, I seem to remember you feeling a bit jaded by too many slightly too fast runs last time I was around, sounds like you've got the effort/recovery in a good balance now.
Skinny, that sounds both sensible and positive. Hope the foot is behaving better again this week.
DT, good tapering, and best of luck for the weekend. Are you aiming for anything in particular after Speedway?
McF, glad you are feeling perkier. XC is always great training, even when not exactly comfortably paced
Solid week training again for me last week, LT last Tuesday was much better than expected, though felt a bit knackered by the weekend, so a lacklustre 11m MLR with the buggy on Sunday turned out to be a better choice than attempting to join in the Brass Monkeying. Groundhog day today, as just done another 11 miler, though without buggy this time. Off to the Lakes on Saturday for a LL50 recce run in the dark - questioning sanity a little...
Madbee - Legend in my own lunchtime perhaps
Madbee, yes, after speedway the VMLM training will kick off. I have the slight distraction of the Village Bakery half mid February, but after that it'll be 10 uninterrupted weeks training.
Looks like you're getting the miles and sessions in. What's the LL50?
Muddy, legend in this thread at the very least
Ran 5 this morning - no worse than before Christmas so hopefully my good sense has kept me in the game.
You may be surprised at how hard navigation is in the dark. One of my colleagues did a night leg recce for the Bob Graham with a friend and going up the side of a mountain on a path that's quite obvious in the day they got lost and had to abort and turn back. A couple of months later he did complete the round though so the recce paid off.
Which part of the Lakes are you running?
Muddy when I read your comment about struggling the last 3 miles I presumed you had continued running at the same pace but just found it hard.
What was your 10 mile split? At that point had you been aiming for sub 75?
Madbee good couple of days mileage wise for you, I think it is great seeing runners with buggies until I get overtaken
Ran 9mls last night with 6mls avg 8.18 bit slower than last week but will blame Brendans wind
, out tonight for 4mls easy.
I was going to put together a race report and a little look back at the last block of training, if you'll all indulge me ?
5:43 first 10 (and to halfway), 5:55 last 3 and a bit. Not really a dramatic fall off but maybe felt like it.
You can of course write what you want, reading is not compulsory
but it would be quite interesting to see what it looks like (try not to make it too HR heavy or keep all that in a separate paragraph 
)
In my head you're always ill when you're training and ill when you're racing and the weather tends to be really bad when you're racing. Then I get to the end and it's a PB - your race reports have always been the same.
You had to go and spoil it for the others !
Anyway the last three miles felt pretty bad as I was tying up, breathing was fine but muscles were seizing up.