Overdone it?

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  • MadbeeMadbee ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020
    Skinny, the bit we’re doing on Saturday is the last 16 - Ambleside to Coniston. It’s an organised recce so I’m hoping there will be people around most of the time... the whole route starts at Dalemain, then goes south past Ullswater, over to Haweswater, then to Kentmere, Ambleside and finishes in Coniston. 
  • SkinnyPart2SkinnyPart2 ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020
    Ah some of that will probably be on Cumbria Way me and Mrs Skinny walked last year. Have fun!
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    Muddy, where's this report?

    I have been winding down this week ready for Sunday. For once I am not spending race week stressing over the weather. It's forecast to be 6c, sunny, dry and 5mph breeze. Not often I get treated to such race day conditions.

    Few easy miles with some short bursts of strides over lunch and a rest day tomorrow.

  • kevin70kevin70 ✭✭✭

    Good luck with the 10k DT

    8mls easy on Wednesday and 6mls last night, 4mls at avg 8.07 pace. hopefully can build on this.

    Enjoy your weekend

  • Good luck DT.

    Have good weekends everybody.

    Cheers, Skinny

  • Good luck, DT!  Fab weather out there today.

    Madbee - I think I had to switch some of the sessions around since I'm racing next weekend.  So elected to do the 16 with 10 at marathon pace today.  It was a real treat doing it in sunny and dry conditions after the absolute soaking I got in my ten miler on Thursday night.  And it went pretty well.  More comfortable than the 13 with 8 session.  Although it's still not exactly a comfortable feeling pace (is it ever?!).  Came out at 7:35 for an average heart rate of 154.  The last session was 7:33 for an average of 160 and that was on a flatter route.  So moving in the right direction and good to have that one ticked off.  

    Recovery run tomorrow to finish off a week of about 44 miles.  
  • kevin70kevin70 ✭✭✭
    McFlooze, mp session nailed, recovery run tomorrow enjoy   B)

    18miles today 9.48 avg, cant seem to nail the pacing as it was all over the place, very icy this morning making it a difficult. 46 miles for the week. Need to look at some mp distance on the Saturday run over the coming weeks  :s 
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    Please make room at the top table for me....37.33 on watch today, just awaiting official results. 
  • Well done DT! How exciting. Also looks like lots of good running and racing by everyone else. I'm still quite slow but gradually starting to feel fitter as I've built my mileage up a bit over the last few weeks and am now up to 65ish mpw. I did the last East District xc league race in Livingston yesterday and was not quite as shit as I have been in the rest of the xc season (fairly even pacing in the mud, and managing to overtake lots of people). Not sure if anyone remembers Nikki (can't remember her username) that used to post on here, but I saw her there, though not to talk to, and she seems to be running really well these days. Then today I did 19 miles in some beautiful sunshine.

    I was down in Lancaster last week as thrillingly I am getting a civil partnership in the summer, but it turns out that you cannot do this in England if you live in Scotland (what with it being a foreign country and all), so we had to go and 'live' there for a whole week in order to be able to give notice of our intention to register a civil partnership. So if Pete is at a loose end, I think he can pop into the registry office in Preston and view our notices (and, presumably, object to them if he likes). There was lots of exciting drama while we were there as our dog thieved an entire slice of fruitcake and had to be taken straight to the vet to vomit it all up. He was already in disgrace due to having caught a cockerel the previous day. Sorry, none of that was running news (except for Sparky's very speedy chasing skills) but I thought you might like to know what I've been up to.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    Congrats, Lit, that all sounds very exciting! That is a strange rule though not to tricky to circumvent!

    Casually built the running up to 65mpw!!!

  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭

    A quick report on yesterdays event;

    So the concept is a no frills fast race. It was £10 to enter and takes place almost under the Severn Bridge (land side of course). I arrived good and early as I didn't quite know the set up and my satnav told lies about the journey time. The set up is great in that you have hq, parking and the start and finish within 20m of each other. This gave me a good opportunity to have a decent wu.

    So final toilet then to the start line. Remembering that this field was almost exclusively sub 40 runners I positioned myself about midway, banking on the fact that a big portion will be low 38s-40. No countdown, just a whistle and we were off.

    After Telford, I resolved to just go at this hard and not panic if I see paces beginning with a 5. The filed thinned out pretty quickly (there were only about 200 runners in total) and I was quickly in my stride.

    The course is a 2 lap course with each lap being an out and back so you can essentially break it down into 4 chunks of 1.5m plus the separate start and end straight. There was nothing spectacular to report for the race itself, I spent the time suspicious as to what was going on and wondering when it might go tits up. By 4m I had about 40s in the bank and felt reasonable so knew that even a blow up at that point would not lose me the pb.

    My splits were almost perfectly regressive but reasonably consistent at 5.56, 5.58, 5.59. 6.00, 6.06, 6.07 and 6.02 pace for the scraps giving me 37.33 on the garmin. Official results aren't out yet though. One point of interest for me was that I went through the 5m mark in 29.54 which is not only over a minute pb but also sub 30 which is one of those aspirational times I've wanted to break, sort of like sub 3 mara (albeit i'm less bothered by it) so I need to find an appropriate race now for that.

  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020
    Mile 5 was 6.02, not 6.06.
  • Well done DT - just over level 6 minutes.

    Although on the other hand.

    Beating my PB by 4 seconds DT you complete and utter bastard.
  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    Don't panic, Skinny, I didn't beat it by quite that much. The official provisional results have me at 37.36 so it's on 1s.
  • Brass Monkey 2020

    A notable thing about this race is that it's a major effort to get into. Huge competition for entries means that it figures large in your subconscious. You have to remember the date and time at which you can join a ballot system to enter, then wait for your slot in the several thousand strong entry queue to be allocated. I think the main reason for this demand is that it is a very fast, very flat course attracting many of the best half marathoners in the north of England. As an indie race, put on by a club at a scale few other clubs can get close to, it is superbly organised and marshalled. I can speculate, also, that its popularity is down to masochism. Real runners just love the prospect of a race in potentially foul weather, right ? ;)

    Once you're in, it's inked in firmly on your calendar three months away and you can't afford to miss it, because well, it was such an ordeal to even give them your money in the first place. Three months is also a nice timescale to prepare for a half marathon in January - lending you pretty much all of October, November and December to put it all together. In my case I was putting it together after an intermittent summer of running marred by urologist visits and copious antibiotics.  Still I shouldn't grumble too much as the summer holidays had been bookended by pbs at 10k and 5k and I arrived in October without a lot of running wear and tear, albeit with a couple of DNS marathons in the bag. 

    I was in decent fitness, but in the back of my mind, I felt like I was behind where I ought to be, which I guess is a common feeling most runners carry. In October and November I went with my usual mix of training which is a  bit of light vo2 max work, chunks of marathon effort, bit of threshold work and then hit the races to really put it all together through December:

    October


    November


    December


    January (taper)


    If the mileage is important, that went like this over the last 4 months, with a drop through the racing period in December, except for the Christmas break when I had a bit more time to play with.

    Time Period Total Distance
    1/6/20-1/13/20 36.90 mi
    12/30/19 34.15 mi
    12/23/19 49.66 mi
    12/16/19 34.09 mi
    12/9/19 33.60 mi
    12/2/19 38.18 mi
    11/25/19 50.57 mi
    11/18/19 41.80 mi
    11/11/19 52.40 mi
    11/4/19 56.13 mi
    10/28/19 36.04 mi
    10/21/19 42.38 mi
    10/14/19 43.16 mi
    10/7/19 36.87 mi
    9/30/19 21.17 mi
    9/23/19 3.97 mi
    9/16/19 13.05 mi

    So the result of all that was a return to early summer fitness including a resounding parkrun pb, matched by a good 10m pb, and finally a really decent 10k pb at the end of an overload period. With good conditions forecast for the race, the half marathon pb from Jan 2017 looked to be under threat at last.

  • muddyfunstermuddyfunster ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    As I've whinged on about already, race week was marred by swollen glands, a sore throat and tiredness. I ate a lot, and I slept a lot and started to feel better energy levels on Friday and Saturday so decided to make the trip up North. 

    Race day itself was not without its complications. An early start with me navigating the Premier Inn breakfast (if anyone from their marketing department is reading ... ;) ). Loads of coffee and toast for me. The little 'un can't get enough of the pancakes. Next step, dropping him off with my sister before an hour drive to the race, aiming to arrive 9.30-ish for a 10am start. 

    The drive skirting through the Wolds was as splendid as ever, shrouded in fog, with Wilco's 'Sunday morning' aptly chilling me out on the stereo. As York approached it started to tip it down and I parked up outside my sleeping York buddy's place half a mile from the race course and pondered my warm up options. I didn't fancy getting drenched and I remembered 2017's chafed toes experience in similar conditions. So in full view of a residential street I risked arrest smearing vaseline over all the parts of my body that might reasonably be expected to rub together. My warmup consisted of jogging the half mile to the racecourse, queuing for the loo, then jogging the 400m to the start in the nick of time as they rolled everyone forward to the start mats.

    A very quick race briefing ensued as the rain was coming down and we were off. The start is always comfortably quick sweeping down through Bishopthorpe before you hit the only steepness of note, a flyover. I have no race strategy. I feel a touch washed out but lungs, nose and head are clear. I do my normal thing - get the effort about right and see what comes out. I meet an old race acquaintance in my age category en route and he's looking good, aiming for sub 75. He drifts away from me but is mostly in sight for the first 5k. All is very comfortable to 10k, where a chap asks me how much time has elapsed. I try to mess with my watch to move off heart rate but can't oblige and shortly we are through halfway with the roadside clock bang on 37.30 as I get a first squint at it. Chap moans that he's going too fast. I remember feeling the same a couple of years before, but I don't feel too troubled by breathing and effort levels this time around.

    Appleton Roebuck comes and goes and I'm still feeling chipper and deviate from the racing line to high five a kids 'Power up!' sign on the way out of the village, heading back towards the racecourse. I can now see my sub 75 friend who was mostly out of sight, and so it's just a matter of reeling him in right ? On another day perhaps. The rain has eased off but I am feeling the race start to bite at the 9 mile mark. There's chafing at the toe level and everything is starting to tighten up. 

    I had felt that a pb was comfortably on at half way, but now I know it's not going to be so easy, especially with the slight drift uphill back to the racecourse so time to grit the teeth and not let things slip. Fatigue continues to bite and the strides shorten and even with the racecourse in sight I can't seem to push up the effort level. I'm grateful at this point for a younger chap a couple of strides in front and it's just a matter of not letting him get away from me. He's also tying up though, and with 400m to go he says 'go on mate' and I realise I've been keeping him going. A not so big sprint finish kind of fizzles out with a whimper and it's a bit of a trudge across the line - not in any great pain, but just dog tired for a chip time of 1.15.40. As I take granny steps back to my parking spot, I remonstrate with myself for not doing longer runs. I still think the wind affected half last year was my best half effort, in that I finished it as strongly as I've ever finished a half. Strava segments later show that I was slower through the last 5km this year, than last, but maybe that was wind assisted ? 

    The goody bag this year had a stainless steel flask style water bottle, very tasteful, eminently weaponisable and so straight into my sons packed lunch kit. It had a shampoo bar also which tasted dreadful despite the claims of it being made from coconut and almond.


  • Congratulations Lit on the partnership and the week long residence. That's really impressive mileage too.

    Great 10k DT, congratulations on the pb. It's a small field but really quick. The clubhouse for tea and cake afterwards was great as I recall too, and a track nearby for a pleasant cooldown.

    Well done on the mileage and sessions this week Kevin. You should choose a race before Manchester and see how you are doing.

    40 something miles of mostly recovery-ish running for me last week. I did a session around parkrun on Saturday morning. 2x10 mins threshold plus a mile fast was the plan, so I just did 18.30 for the parkrun a bit slower than threshold as it was icy, then the fast mile turned out to be kind of threshold-ish too as there was a lot of traffic to negotiate. Long run was 90 mins over mud, for a change, covering 10 miles or so at a very easy effort.
  • kevin70kevin70 ✭✭✭

    DT brilliant pb, all your quality sessions certainly paid off and a good boost for your marathon training.

    Great news lit :) and weekly mileage.

    Muddy, did skinny not want hr information too. Might look at a race too.

    Hopefully i will get out for 9mls tonight with some speed work.

  • I think he expressly forbade me from that sort of thing Kevin ;)  But as you asked, av hr was 159 and threshold is 162 (from recent 10 mile race), so judged the effort fairly well I think.
  • Tommy2DTommy2D ✭✭✭

    Great news, lit, congratulations! 65 mpw sounds like you're properly back in to the swing of things too.

    Interesting summary, muddy. Great report too.

    Awesome stuff, DT! Sets you up perfectly for your marathon campaign. Hard work paying off. I reckon you need to do a 5k as well as a 5 mile as your PB for that also look soft in comparison to your 10k.

    More good miles Kevin. As muddy says, get a race entered and see how you go.

    Bit of a rubbish week running wise for me last week. I'll call it a cut back week. Hopefully a bit more volume this week with the fun of the Midland XC champs on Saturday.

  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    Tommy, I am not convinced I could pick it up that much for a 5k. I did 2 parkruns at xmas both 18.37. In fact I think I went through 5k a shade quicker than that on Sunday. I would really need to tough up a bit that's for sure.

    Where are the Midlands this year?

    Nice read that, Muddy. Well toughed out in the final stages. I recall last year we were wind assisted in the latter stages but by then I was beaten.

    Few weeks training then the Village Bakery half id February. After that it's just training through to London.

    4M very slow recovery last night. 11 mile mlr planned tonight.

    Just looked, final results now up for Sunday. I ended up with 37.34 so should be on po10 later today. I Wonder if that'll improve my wava best as well.

  • DT - what you need is a 1500/mile race to make 5k pace feel more comfortable.  Not really the season for it but it works!

    Have fun at the Midlands, Tommy.  I elected not to do it and doing Not the Roman IX instead.  Classic 12k distance in Stratford but will nicely sub for a LT run.  

    Congratulations, Lit! That's so exciting and must be keeping you busy but that is some excellent mileage as well.  Are you doing London this year? 

    Epic race report, Muddy.  

    10 miles with club last night. I was leading the easier of the two long groups and managed to go slightly faster than advertised at an ave of 7:53. Oops. Genuinely felt easy/comfortable though so think fitness is much improved.   And the group didn't moan so all good.  Going to try and get my long run in midweek this week as racing on the weekend so may do that tomorrow and then just easy miles until Sunday.  

    Excitingly my work had a fire yesterday and we are all working from home for a few days which opens up a few running possibilities, especially as the servers are also down.  


  • kevin70kevin70 ✭✭✭

    DT, how are the legs after your 11mls.

    McFlooze, fitness and mileage is coming together nicely for your marathon.

    Tommy, good luck in the xc this weekend.

    4mls easy last night and out tonight for 9mls easy pace.

  • literatin said:
    Well done DT! How exciting. Also looks like lots of good running and racing by everyone else. I'm still quite slow but gradually starting to feel fitter as I've built my mileage up a bit over the last few weeks and am now up to 65ish mpw. I did the last East District xc league race in Livingston yesterday and was not quite as shit as I have been in the rest of the xc season (fairly even pacing in the mud, and managing to overtake lots of people). Not sure if anyone remembers Nikki (can't remember her username) that used to post on here, but I saw her there, though not to talk to, and she seems to be running really well these days. Then today I did 19 miles in some beautiful sunshine.

    I was down in Lancaster last week as thrillingly I am getting a civil partnership in the summer, but it turns out that you cannot do this in England if you live in Scotland (what with it being a foreign country and all), so we had to go and 'live' there for a whole week in order to be able to give notice of our intention to register a civil partnership. So if Pete is at a loose end, I think he can pop into the registry office in Preston and view our notices (and, presumably, object to them if he likes). There was lots of exciting drama while we were there as our dog thieved an entire slice of fruitcake and had to be taken straight to the vet to vomit it all up. He was already in disgrace due to having caught a cockerel the previous day. Sorry, none of that was running news (except for Sparky's very speedy chasing skills) but I thought you might like to know what I've been up to.


    65 miles a week sounds like a good level to approach a proper marathon attempt so well done for getting back to that mileage.

    As for your impending civil partnership obviously I'm heartbroken as that candle I've been holding all these years has finally been snuffed out and to read it on here in a public forum is just hard to bear. Nevertheless I can understand you have your reasons for resisting me and would like to offer my congratulations. As the summer draws nearer will demand more details.

    I was in Preston yesterday on the way back from Sheffield on the train - the journey was supposed to be Sheffield to Manchester to Carlisle but due to a cancelled train it became Sheffield to Manchester to Wigan Wallgate, walk across road to Wigan North West, to Preston to Carlisle. From a running point of view this is relevant as my 10 mile run was then in the dark rather than the daylight.

    That makes it 21 miles in 21 days so far this year so I'm hoping the graph curves upwards from here.

    PS Muddy I have booked next week off as holiday to enable me to catch up on your latest posts but note with amusement Kevin's request on my behalf for HR information. 

  • DT19DT19 ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    Great news re the fire, mcf…..

    Skinny, it's a pain trying to run these longer ones in the dark.

    Kevin, quads were a bit sore and I was glad it was no further! Enjoy tonight's 9.

    I good my headtorch out and plodded yesterdays 11 at 8.23mm. Due to other commitments I then had to get out before work for todays 8 which was even slower at 8.26mm.  Hoping with no running until tomorrow evening, I should eel more recovered by then.

  • I expect the news will come as a relief to Mrs Skinny.

    Hi McFlooze! Yes, I'm doing London.
  • Tommy2DTommy2D ✭✭✭
    DT19 said:

    Tommy, I am not convinced I could pick it up that much for a 5k. I did 2 parkruns at xmas both 18.37. In fact I think I went through 5k a shade quicker than that on Sunday. I would really need to tough up a bit that's for sure.

    Where are the Midlands this year?



    Yes, you do. That 5K time is similar to my PB and my other times are a fair bit slower than yours! Suppose your focus has always been on longer stuff though.

    Midlands are at Prestwold Hall, Loughborough this year. The route is different to when we've done it there previously but it should still be pretty runnable, 12k is a long way over XC though.

    Track session on the ice with Bob last night; 5, 4, 3, 2, 2.5, 1.5 mins of effort with 90 seconds recovery. I ended up in a decent little group with 4 others of the same pace which helped to keep things honest. Efforts came out between 5:45 and 5:50 pace which is about right I think. feel a bit stiff legged today, will try and get out for an easy run later on.

      

  • literatin said:
    I expect the news will come as a relief to Mrs Skinny.


    I knew that was the issue - we could have talked about it - we still could. Mrs Skinny might even be up for something more open? All of us could get involved?

    I just think that it's a big commitment for you without me being a part of it and I think you just announced it on here so publicly as a way of proving to yourself that you meant it for real and there was no way back - but there is, there is - we haven't even run along St Andrews Bay splashing through the surf together in our white gym kits holding hands yet???

    The future just looks so bleak now...…….. 

  • we haven't even run along St Andrews Bay splashing through the surf together in our white gym kits holding hands yet???


    We can still do that!
  • Oh okay that’s fine then B)
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