Sub 3h15

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Comments

  • GerardMGerardM ✭✭✭
    Good luck to G-Dawg this morning. Have a great run!
  • MsEMsE ✭✭✭
    Forgot to wish GD a good race.  Looking forward to the race report.... 
  • G-DawgG-Dawg ✭✭✭
    Sorry, gang, couldn't deliver what I'd planned at Abo. The wind got me big time today. It seemed to be continually in our faces or tossing us around. Fighting it wasted loads of energy.

    Scored 3.09, same as my PB but just a few secs over.  :/

    Report to follow but beers first.
  • JoolskaJoolska ✭✭✭
    Not good conditions GD so don't be so hard on yourself. Enjoy some well earned beer!
  • PoacherPoacher ✭✭✭
    edited October 2017
    Unlucky, wind means all bets are off but 3.0X is a good effort on a tough day. You’ve earned those beers.
  • PoacherPoacher ✭✭✭
    Or to put it another way, matching your pb in really cr**py conditions means you’ve trained well and become faster. So in many ways a very successful campaign.
  • MsEMsE ✭✭✭
    I always think wind is like running up a hill in terms of effort expended. So if you are matching a PB then you are definitely showing a massive improvement in fitness.  Nice work, GD.  You can't control the weather so you did a grand job.  Be proud.
  • G-Dawg - as others have said, matching your PB in clearly adverse conditions shows that you've made massive progress over the last few months and when the conditions are right you'll take a massive chunk out of it. Are you running London next year? In the short term, just make sure that you enjoy the beers!

    How's your recovery coming along MsE?

    19 miles for me this morning up to the top of Leith Hill and back - hard work but glad to have got a run in on tired legs and finish with a total of 60 miles for the week.
  • GerardMGerardM ✭✭✭
    G-Dawg - Super running, you should be proud of that effort. Don't get me started on the wind! I loathe running in strong wind especially racing but a marathon is a different story altogether. You did great! 

    Lorenzo - Great running and a nice weekly total too. 

    A few of my friends did some crazy 100 mile race in the UK this weekend, sounded horrendous. Not something I ever want to do especially in filthy weather. 

    The recovery is going well here. Did a nice easy 5k on Friday and then an off road 8 miler this morning. Wind, rain and cold as well but a nice satisfactory 59:xx outing without any discomfort in the foot. The legs still felt a bit stiff after last week but I enjoyed that run. 


  • BirchBirch ✭✭✭
    quick well done to G Dawg - I'm off to Scotland shortly ! 
  • Poacher said:
    Or to put it another way, matching your pb in really cr**py conditions means you’ve trained well and become faster. So in many ways a very successful campaign.
    Well said and great achievement GD.
  • Gdawg great result in the conditions ,I hate the wind too. 
  • GD - that's a fantastic effort and achievement. Still must be so frustrating, but you've clearly shown that a new PB is in the bag in the right conditions. Well done.
    Lorenzo  - good running on tired legs and nice mileage.
    GM - great to hear the recovery is going so well.
    7 steady miles this morning, including a couple of faster efforts, all without looking at the watch till the end. The 2 @ MP turned out at 7:15 and 6:48 so not good pacing! 
  • OO54OO54 ✭✭✭

    Well done G Dawg hope you reflect on it and see all the positives, 26 miles of wind is pretty bleak!

    Good start to the week Gul.

    More travel this week. Scraped 46 last week with 2 rest days. 

  • G-DawgG-Dawg ✭✭✭
    Abingdon was always supposed to be flat and fast. Over the years I'd heard about it, a flat, fast course, a small field, a real runners race. Let's give this a go.

    As ever, I didn't sleep too well beforehand, bed early, slept for 4 hours and then kept waking up every 45 mins. This is normal for me on race day so it didn't worry me. Up at 5.30am and picked up by a mate at 6.00am.
    An hour and 15 mins later, we arrive in Abingdon. The car park is a mile walk away from the start/finish. This allowed us to see the cheeky incline that I'd been warned about at the finish. I felt prepared.

    The start/finish is in Tilsley Park athletics track. A lovely facility with decent changing rooms and good loos. A benefit of being in a smaller event rather than the big city runs and the 'festival' toilet and changing experience.

    We put our bags in, covered ourselves in black sacks to keep warm and assembled at the start which was on the track. The wind was swirling and the bags were flapping around like flags on a mast. Not good. We knew we'd have to work hard to get anything out of the day.

    Before we knew it we were running around the track and out of the stadium section onto the roads. A slow-ish start due to the number of people in a confined space but it soon stretched out. 
    I was hoping that the wind would be in our backs at some point in a nice trade-off with it, but Storm Brian obviously had the hump on Sunday and had a beef with runners.

    Despite the blowy nature of the first few miles, I felt OK. I was averaging 7.00m/m for the first 6 or 7 miles and felt comfy but I could tell the wind was making me run harder. That pace in training had been a breeze, indeed in some runs I had to rein my pace back to 7min pace as 6.5x was feeling comfy.

    The course is a double loop so we had that nasty sight of seeing mile markers for 15 to 23 on the first lap. Normally that doesn't affect me but I was being blown backwards (it felt) and the thought of experiencing this twice filled me with dread. I plowed on.

    As the miles ticked by I could see my average pace was slipping. I went through half in 1.32, this was good, I am a metronomic runner and can stay at a comfy pace all day. I usually have a positive split of only a minute or so, in Berlin it was only 3 seconds, however, in Abo I was workinhg hard and would need to work harder.
    I did a half in 1.26 in March and I'm quicker now so I know that the effort I was putting in was too much for a 1.32 HM in normal conditions. It was clear I had a battle on my hands.

    The miles ticked by and my average pace continued to slip despite the effot level increasing. The second loop began and the wind was still in our faces. It felt like I was continually running uphill. The roads are not closed, so running up and down kerbs and driveways wasn't great. I ran in the road whereever I could but traffic from behind was an issue at times.

    The lower part of the loop went through an industrial estate. There was some respite in one short road where the wind hit my back as we turned. On the second loop my legs had nothing left for me to gain back some time. I still had 7 miles to go and I was feeling very tired. In fact, there was one road where the wind literally blew me to the left side of the road, forcing me to check my step and then a seconed later it bounced me back across to the right. What the hell is going on!!??

    A quick systems check and I knew I wasn't going to 'wall' so I walked through the next water station to ensure I got plenty of liquid in and pushed on.

    About the drinks. Not as many stations as I'd have liked and they used plastic cups. Paper cups work much better as you can pinch the top to make a spout and get more drink in (I had those in Boston). They had two stations with plastic bottles, that was fine but the Lucozade station was a bit silly. They decanted the Lucozade into plastic cups, no good, and then I noticed it was the fizzy Lucozade and not Lucozade Sport. I swerved it!

    I really wanted a 3.05 from the day and was in the form to do it. However by 20 miles I knew that was gone. It was now all about rescuing something from the day, a GFA at least. My left hip and groin was playing up, a new injury? But I ignored it as much as I could but it did hinder the odd push here and there where the wind allowed.

    There are two sections of off-road on the course, I knew this would also slow me down. On the second time it trashed my legs. I had just taken my last gel and my stomach was not feeling good. then, completely out of the blue, I stopped dead and was vommiting into a bush...twice! My splits show this as an 8.11 mile, the only 8-plus in the set. It probably robbed me of a PB in terms of seconds but wouldn't have taken me to sub-3.09. I felt better and knuckled down for the last 3 miles. Tghe next mile was a 7.19, again windswept but I'd recovered well.

    I did some maths and worked out that I could equal my PB if I averaged 7.2x. A good GFA was in the bag but now I really wanted to break 3.10.
    I counted each mile down, "3 to go and I'm on the penultimate", "I'm now on the penultime", "yes last mile, wacth for that incline..."
    My legs were sreaming.

    Brian, however, had not finished, he turned the amp up to 11 for the last couple of miles. I was running harder and he was blowing harder too. As we turned for the final mile there was a blast of wind and I swore out loud at it. Weather reports said gusting was 37mph, no wonder I was knackered. I ran as hard as I could and started to pick-off those ahead of me, quite a few in fact. I hit the incline and was ready for it. Stormed up and turned into the park. A small ramp going up to the track and then one lap to finish. a PB, even by a few seconds was gone, could I break 3.10?

    I belted around that track for all I was worth (5.20 pace!), I ran just as hard at the finish in Berlin when a sub-3.10 was on and here I am a year later doing it again. I crossed the line and I'd done it! Official time of 3.09.55, just 14 seconds outside of my Berlin PB. A helathy GFA and at least something from an otherwise disappointing day.

    I guess in the next few days I'll enjoy that but I'm sore from what might have been. I'll take some comfort from the fact that the training I had done enabled me to battle away in the way I did but for now I'll be a little annoyed. Bl00dy wind!!
    I did, however enjoy my age cat position of 16th out of 107. This was my first event as a v50 and my best WAVA score for a marathon (73.43).

    Thanks for the comments, guys, it really does give me a boost, you guys are awesome!  B)
  • GD - that is an amazing run in that wind.  A real shame you had that wind but when you reflect on it you know you did well. 

    I must admit I was thinking about you when I was out for 17 miles yesterday...In some of the exposed stretches I felt like I was going backwards!  But I had no cares about the pace - it turned out only a little under 9 min/mile which is one of my slowest LSRs in a long time, but all good time on feet.

  • OO54OO54 ✭✭✭
    Also amazing if you vomited and lost time. The strong finish suggests much more on a better day. really well done.
  • Gul DarrGul Darr ✭✭✭
    edited October 2017
    GD - amazing determination - battling against the wind is so demoralising but you did a fantastic job. I reckon you would have been very close to sub 3 on a calm day. 
    Freemers - nice 17 miler in the bag.
    Poacher - how are you set for today? Hope you don't have to DNS.
    First of 3 days "holiday" yesterday and doing lots of strength work in the garden! 4 mile recovery run this morning. Nice to have a bit of a lie-in too.
  • Gdawg nice report of a tough day ,recharge now and you are one more decent campaign away from a sub 3 on an easier day .Its hard enough to get to the start uninjured without the weather throwing a spanner in !
  • OO54OO54 ✭✭✭

    A lie in Gul, what is the world coming to?

    Welcome to my world of slow LSRs Freemers, I'm often in the range of 8:15- 9 pace.

    I was out at 7am CET putting my boss through his paces in Paris. Unfortunately I had a Garmin issue so not sure the exact distance. Planning to run again this evening.

    Another foray into XC this weekend so need to get sharp.  

  • OO - hope you're enjoying the running in Paris - good prep for the XC.
    Final run with anything vaguely faster than easy today. So 5 miles with 4x400m @ MP; came out at 1:44. So a bit too fast, but they were very consistent.
    I hope no news is good news from Poacher?
  • PoacherPoacher ✭✭✭
    One down. And podium, on an annoyingly windy day, albeit in a pretty small field. Probably burned too many matches so today is going to be much harder.
  • Poacher - glad to hear you made the start and an excellent finish too. I presume by "small field" you were referring to the number of runners and not the venue ;) Good luck today (and tomorrow)!
  • GerardMGerardM ✭✭✭

    Poacher - What did I miss? What are you up to now??

  • PoacherPoacher ✭✭✭
    The only thing missed in my pain when trying to fend off a challenger for 3rd place (out of about 35 so not exactly like podium in the Olympics).

    Day 2 of 3 starts 0930. Note to self: DBS
  • GerardMGerardM ✭✭✭

    Good luck Poacher!



  • PoacherPoacher ✭✭✭
    Thanks. Bit odd racing on a weekday, got through in one piece. Small race, not much going on at the pointy end, but ridiculously and unjustifiably chuffed to get the win. Geddin!
  • OO54OO54 ✭✭✭
    Running in Paris last night with a young guy who works for me. He tripped on a log and had a bad fall and split open his chin. After a long walk home we spent 2 hours in Local A&E getting stitched up. May be the last time he runs with me. 
    Meanwhile I reach 1999 for the year so 2000 should come tomorrow 
  • Go Poacher!

    Work meetingin Birmingham today and no chance for a run. Currently stuck between Watford and Euston as there's been a fatality on the line. Could be a late evening by the time I get home. 

    Will get get out tomorrow as working at home. 
  • Poacher - woohoo! You're being very modest. To win a marathon after 3rd place yesterday is great going whatever the field. Trouble is you've peaked too soon; what are you going to aim for tomorrow? PB maybe ;)
    OO
    - ouch! Should have been 2000 today then?
    Freemers - sounds like a bad day. Enjoy your run tomorrow.
    Day 3 of 3 gardening finished with no sign of lasting damage although I feel like an 80 year old while working in the garden!
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