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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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Purposely a mix of steady and easy or a typo for steady? I'll take it as the former
I'll have to get the calculator out on those for miles per min later
Those 110% pace runs seem hard work
Given the investment in vaccines, I suspect the politicians will look to push a good news story and attribute the low death rate inevitable as we head into the summer as being down to the impact of the vaccine. That's not going to sell a lot of papers though so the media will probably still focus on cases, which due to the low prevalence will be almost entirely false positives during the summer.
Given the mess the politicians have made of the economy and mental health of millions, they may unfortunately want to stretch this out to justify the damage they caused. I suspect most races next year will start from about May but they will be in some pointless 'Covid safe' manner. Proper races will return in 2022 when anyone that thought lockdowns, masks and all this other nonsense were effective, discovers they were lied to and were on the wrong side of history.
Big bike mileage Pete: I’ve only once done 5,000, back when I was training for my 1st Iron Man(Tenby) in 2014
Huge bike mileage JB. Hope life picks up for you & KL this year. How’s your employment situation these days? You were going through a bumpy patch yourself not so long ago iirc.
Hope you find/maintain mojo/momentum in 2021 Scott. Sounds like you’re doing well to run at all with the health issues.
Do you monitor training HR Alex?
Here’s mine:
Run 3,706 miles with 298,500ft of ascent (so over 10x Mt Everest) which are both PRs by some margin. Average pace was around 8:30 min/mile even so.
I also cycled 1370 which is lower than average & for the first time since 2007 I’ve not swum even once (other than brief river/sea dips)
Races run - total/distances
21: 1x Marathon, 1x 10K, 1x 5,000m, 2x XC, 3x Fell (4K, 6K & 15.7K), 13x parkrun
I also managed 33 (not)parkrun ‘race’ efforts, a solo marathon in April & a couple of virtual inter-club relays: 1 elevation, 1 distance
Highlights of 2020 (try hard here!!)
Enjoying running again especially getting back to the local hills during the glorious lockdown weather.
My daughter joining me at parkrun in February & then a few more times for (not)parkrun over the summer.
Getting back to regular sub 20 5K parkruns.
My lockdown marathon in April: quicker than anything I’ve actually raced since 2018
Winning the MV50 elevation challenge in July.
Most missed races of 2020/Races in 2021 you're keenest to do
Parkruns: locally & as a tourist, Dursley Dozen, Cotswold Way Relay, XC season, Tri-X in July (better start swimming again soon 🤣)
Lowlights of 2020 - beyond the obvious massive one
Lack of social running & banter around races.
Yet another sub par marathon race performance: at IoW in October this time.
Couple of injuries in October & November, particularly the latter, which threatened to scupper my ambitious mileage goal.
Thread poster of the year
Got to be SG. Dedication to structure, minutiae, posting & positivity.
Poster you'd like to hear more from
Most of the regular irregulars provide useful insights & encouraging comments. Always good to hear more voices.
Prediction for when "normal" races will be back in 2021
I’ll go for an optimistic return to normal: Track meets in June/July with road racing returning in August/September
Ambitions for 2021
Race a decent marathon.
Return to sub 19 for 5K
Got out for 8.5M yesterday & 10.4M today with a parkrun effort in the middle on both occasions. A booze & lack of sleep compromised 24:00 yesterday & a better 23:15 today into a tough headwind along the beach in mile 2. I also picked up a few Seg PRs on the run home including 4th place on a 620m descent.
You're dead right about the reviews as well Reg - I'd almost forgotten your ride back from west of west Wales and Joe's epic JOGLE! 230M in one go is just completely insane, and my kids had to be force fed Joe's Strava feed before they would believe he did it in 6 days
I’ll give you the year 😆. But not the dodgy subtraction - I did run ten miles that day. Anything to try to uphold my reputation as a maths teacher 😆.
Imagine if you had stubbornly tried to punt out a 90miler on the last day
Bit of a climb to Holtspur then some country lane action and a bit of a wander around a couple of never before runs lanes/trails over a mere mile or so before back to where I recognised.
Out to Sheepridge Lane from the bottom and once behind the Crooked Billet pub trail, it turned a bit windy and the trudge up a couple of fields was a bit of a slog.
260 feet climb for that mile so no wonder 8.20 or so came out on the watch.
Flat road mile and then a nice couple of miles down some woods to finish - albeit not exactly fast bearing in mind that was a 200feet drop.
7.19 all in which is fine enough.
One more day off work after a nice little 2 weeker. Always tend to try and take that period off including the first Monday of the new year - it's a day that is peak bleakness in people's mentalities. Although clearly only the most stubborn or big dog managers are going into offices at the moment.
14.6 miles for me of - guess what? Hills and mud, mud and hills
14km (just short of 9m) easy today over a mix of roads/trails/hills. Followed by drills & 6 x 20second accelerations to open the legs for tomorrow morning's session. This evening have done the usual core/stability work for 30mins. Usually do this 3-4 times per week interspersed with mini plank type work after some morning easy runs.
Equally cannot wait to log on tomorrow morning. Contemplating how many times i'll have typed 'happy new year' in my opening response by the end of the day
Have kept it well switched off since!
Have had 2 single days in the office since March. Truly madcap really.
Before all this happened I hate the idea of WFH and rejected the chance to do it once a week.
I dare say it'll be a good 6 months until it gets anywhere near doing more days in than out again.
Certainly makes getting the runs in easier in one way - when it's only a morning 6 you have an extra 45mins to play with.
Feels equal with quality sessions I still have to drive back from - only difference is I can slam some shorts on and not worry about the mess my 16 weeks without a haircut is
If you want to do well at the other distances (so the shorter stuff including sprints) or the longer stuff then you do need to do specialist training but my theory was that if you run about an hour most days then ou can race about an hour. My eldest daughter was regional sprint champion at 100m and 200m and she could empty the tank over 100m and be flat out for 5 minutes or so and retching.
Also, as you say, there is no better race preparation than racing itself. I did my 10k PB at Silverstone 10k as part of the East Midlands Grand Prix series and that was about 8 races over 2.5 months so realistically 3 races every 4 weeks and if you get the periodisation right that is a great way to reap the benefits.
Especially at Wokingham where you get the payback for the slight down first 5k.
I can still taste the burning lungs of my single 400m full on effort in 2011 so I can only guess how horrible a full on sprint feels like after.
ps 10 years go that Sandhurst track day....I remember getting Moz sign off to go and even then he said don't go mad and "remember your age"
I was thinking about 80% WAVA grading and there is a common interpretation of WAVA that is endorsed by World Masters Athletics that puts class to WAVA grades and has been bandied about on many other forums and sites:
https://world-masters-athletics.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Road_Age_Standards_WMA_2010-Explanation.pdf
- Above 90% World Class Level
- Above 80% National Class Level
- Above 70% Regional Class Level
- Above 60% Local Class Level
Now, its a matter of fact (and not opinion) that I have run at 80% WAVA but am I on the boundary between regional class and national class? There are many on this thread who are much higher graded than I and deserve those labels (and have world masters medals to prove it) but I wouldn't class myself anywhere near that high. I have county medals in my drawer but they were won when others were not there and I'd rate myself as somewhere between local and county level and I'd say regional was a level above county (so e.g. I live in Bucks but that is in the south-east which is about 9 counties).Also, I assume that around 80% isn't too hard to get to. I recall a TV programme (was it Tomorrow's World?) where they took a presenter (Kieran Prendiville?) and tested him over various distances and he showed the best aptitude for 800m so he then spent a few months training for that distance and ended up with a decentish time.
In any bog standard parkrun there usually are a few over 80%, often by quite some margin, and so 80% can't be national standard if thousands are (or were
It does stand to reason that reaching 80% should get easier as you age (and/or if you are female!) as the pool to compare against narrows and even the competitive end becomes amateur. That should be reflected in the interpretation, as a 30 year old guy getting 80% is clearly a way better relative athlete than a 70 year old lady.
To illustrate the above I did a quick bit of research on what is needed to get 80% WAVA over 5k (using the calc. chart on Fetch) and got the following;
Age Male Female
30 16'16 18'27
40 17'08 18'57
50 18'26 20'39
60 19'57 23'10
70 21'50 26'23
You can see what I mean from those numbers; 16'16 is a very good athlete in anyone's books but still not National Class (no way would you run for England if you couldn't break 16). However 19'57 for a 60 year old male and 18'26 for a 50 year old are nothing special at all in a national context. For females it is even more stark; don't get me started on how easy it is for older ladies to get very high grades on WAVA, which the parkrun age graded results tables used to show quite clearly every week!
Funnily enough no-one then went and beat that in the race
Like you once said Phil - it's a bit of fun and nice little extra for people to aim at.
At least it's based on maths and a percentage is factual like you say. Unlike the county champs example you mention. I know a few people slower than me who've racked those up - they can be the age old game of who turns up.
But that's the same for every event that doesn't require qualification.
Not sure what to think about "national", "regional" etc in the WAVA standards. I ran around 87% at a few distances in my twenties and was certainly never regional never mind national standard. In fact wouldn't have even been in the top half a dozen in my club! Did run for my county a few times but only ran in the British League for my club when others cried off.
Not sure that I would agree with Pete that 16:16 "is a very good athlete in anyone's books". Decent club standard but way off national class (as Pete says). I ran under 15 minutes a few times and as I say, was never regional, never mind national standard.
I like WAVA as it is something to aim for, but whilst I found 80% relatively easy in my much younger days I have yet to achieve it in recent years. Think 20:50 aged 62 gave me about 78% and seemed to be harder than 80% when younger.
Was going to say something agreeing with Phil about training when younger but that will have to wait: need to both listen to the Prime Minister and as a Leicester fan hopefully watch Liverpool drop some points.
Needed to stress how mad a 99.x% was at that race you rightly reference. And over 100% is just bonkers!
I'm never too bothered about all this "standards" talk to be honest.
We can do what we do - and be relatively competitive in local level fields. That's most of our limit and that's fine - it's still very enjoyable seeing what you can get out of yourself.
But again I can see why the Women And Vets Adjustment scale (WAVA) has it's merits.
Although it's more the idea of some pot hunts at low key stuff that interest me. Just hope anything is back by the summer to pot hunt at!
Oh and as a Utd fan we also agree on what we want to happen at St Mary's; I see Soton are off to a good start🙂
Agree completely, SG. Plus at 67 it is just good to be getting out there every day.
And I see Southampton are doing quite a few teams a favour at present. Probably speaking too soon!
In terms of the "new" lockdown it doesn't affect me much - already working from home - can still exercise etc - but have to feel sorry for both kids and their parents.
Imagine having a key year of your education totally wrecked like this - especially first year Uni people.
And the parents who can't necessarily work from home having to deal with their kids. Nightmare all in.
Think I was a bit super optimistic about distanced races being back in Feb! But who knows - mid Feb is still 6 weeks away and 6 weeks to ease the Christmas infection rates with the new lockdown and hopefully a few million getting vaccinate starts majorly moving things back the other way.
Knew it'd be hard work the second I got to the track and felt the wind
Half of a lap was very windy and half was still - so when it's like that you have to just suck it up and get through it.
Was turning over 1.33/34s instead of what I expect would have been 2-3secs quicker a lap otherwise.
Had originally planned 6m and "finish harder" and kind of did this by a 1.31 lap taking me to the 24th lap, then deciding a 25th lap for a rounded 10k was more sensible than previous nonsense of doing 2secs per mile to make up for the mile shortfall of 4 laps per 1609
1.28.54 last lap - but then last lap is always easier isn't it
10k in 38:56 so that's 6:16 pace - which is 1sec above the slow end of the zone anyway so I'll take that with the windy half lap. You feel that over 25 laps
Unmotivated slog this morning of 7.7M. "guidance" says one form of exercise a day, but given I won't see another soul when I run in the woods tonight I'm not going to feel too guilty about a double.
Think I'll be keeping it to singles to be safe.
It'll be harder than the first lockdown.
Firstly that was furlough so I had all day. And it was summer. And it was new and different.
Winter, with work is a different prospect. But many do high mileage as singles, so am sure I'll adapt!
May not get hung up on 10milers every day though. 8.5, 9, 9.5 etc will all be fine.
Don't blame you for doubling up.
No messing about SG. Decent session.
Been a bit slacker this week. Just the 4M on Sunday & 9M yesterday. It's beautiful out today but I'm lacking motivation
The advantage of a winter lockdown (I guess!) is running in the evening, off-road, means I encounter no-one, whereas last summer it was actually probably busier that on the pavements on the local trails!
Just wish I'd taken the opportunity to move to Cumbria last Easter, as I could have worked just as well from there, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing!
We just have to suffer up the last few months of this for now. It'll all slowly get back to normal after that. And it'll all feel superb when it does.
Good to see the governments needless and continued vandalism of the society and its economy continues unabated. On the plus there has been no excess mortality in the South East since June last year. Six months of normal mortality and yet people accept with apparent alacrity the removal of their civil liberties. People this easily brainwashed would have voted for the Nazis
Nice run SG, please do your doubles!
13 for me on the weekend and 6 today, getting bored of the cold now.