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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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blimey CC, that's comfortable! Well done.
nice lunchtime racing pete and CC. 3 secs difference between your time and the officials must be first! thats about 15m!! Great PB and going sub!
Well done on the call-up Simon. The rest of you are miserable buggers.
Didn't run in Florida. Too dark in the morning, too hot later. And we were busy busy busy.Sore throat etc didn't help either.
Then my day off on Thursday was cancelled due to some hurricane so I had to fly out Wednesday evening.
On the plus side I saw dolphins, went jet skiing and have sorted out next year's cycling tan in one day. And I got the 2 pairs of Asics GT-2000 I was after. Bargain.
You must still have some youthful exuberance left, SG. I just set my PB at 40, the same as yours, so I think you have plenty of time to get that down further.
Good work CC, less kudos for your stopwatch skills.
Come on SG, need a 4 page report.
Quick one form me, picked up an anonymous thread member and headed off to Cannons Park parkrun inaugural. Nice 3 lapper in a park, split between tarmac paths and nice crushed stone with a very small grass segment each lap. 19:31 for 4th place and first MV50 so the age category record as well, though missed out on the WAVA league to a VW60 running 25:16. All credit where credit is due, but over 5.5 minutes slower seems to be a big handicap: I'd need to run 18:32 to hit the same WAVA which is 6.5 minutes: basically one lap!
Well done Phil (and I suspect SG). I'm with you completely re WAVA: it is very biased in favour of the more senior females. I coach an L65 and she regularly runs over 80%: in fact today she ran 24:28 for 84.13%. I would have to run close to 20 minutes for 80% or 19:12 to match 84.13. Unlikely to happen!
Ran at my 20th different parkrun venue today. Only another couple of hundred to catch up with the most travelled runners.
I regularly get beaten for 1st WAVA at Bracknell pr by a v65 lady who I almost lap. She runs about 27 to my high 18's so over 8 mins difference!
Anyway took a break from the hills of Bracknell today and moved up the A329 a bit to the fast tarmac of Woodley. Makes a big difference as did 18'14 there, my joint 2nd fastest parkrun ever. Only 8th there though which shows the quality they sometimes get at the top end, as that time would have won about half the local parkruns today it seems.
Nice Parkrunning peeps.
Club ride for me with about 20 miles extra getting to and from.
Clocked up 64 miles @ 20 mph and was home by 11:15 feeling smug.
I think WAVA depends on the distance - 5k seems very easy for women (and all my best scores are from 5ks though not my best race performances). But my 58 year old female clubmate recently ran a massive PB of 3:13 at Chester, which is outstandingly impressive in my opinion and does seem to deserve the 90ish%.
I'd have to run 2:36:21 to get 90% WAVA on a marathon so 37 minutes faster: so still a chunk but not quite so bad in proportion. It just seems to fall off very quickly for women: In local races I have raced the first lady a bit this year and it seems reasonable that sexes with about 10 years age difference are graded about the same. To score the same as a man running 3:13 I'd have to be 74.
That's WAVA though folks, and is why it shouldn't ever be taken too seriously.
Chris, one day my man, one day! Though the last thing this brother needs is something to produce even sillier starts
Apologies, I literally only was just able to haul myself up after the morning's festivities, and haven't eaten since 7am, so this is going to be a long haul, writing an epic out, while eating...
While it's a bit of a gag about huge reports versus tiny races, it's sort of become traditional now...and it's expected...
so let's go!
Gently arranged with the boy Phil to have a little sortie off to the inaugural Canons park parkrun. Sort of lost track where exactly it classes as being, but somewhere in the Harrow/Barnet/Edgware sort of mixer.
Midweek the coldy feeling came on a fair bit, throat at first, then temp, then feeling cold, but hope an F OFF, would sort things out. Went to sleep early last night, dousing everything with olbas oil, but all this achieved was me waking up at about 2am feeling like I was in a swimming pool, absolutely obliterated by sweat, meaning I had to change clothes and try and get back to sleep!
Anyway...there was no way I was going to ruck up Phil's day, with the trip organised, so I told myself we'll see how it is when we get there, whether I do some sort of underpar/jog, or just watch.
Felt knackered on the drive, and after dealing with the local Parking mafia, I was feeling pretty certain i'd just watch. I even stepped out with my hoodie on for a jog around so sure I was.
Checking the park out, it wouldn't be like some that are good for viewing anyway I thought. An interesting little park where you have probably a third of a lap on this strange little gently undulating sandy gravelly section, fairly narrow, with a tree branch to avoid at 1 place, tiny little grass section, and then a nice firm path section and the slight down.
Went back to the car, and at least ditched my hoodie, but when I race I do it in a vest, simple as, and I still had a skin top on, a sign I was still thinking I needed layers for a watching brief!
Next 20mins were various assorted disclaimers to Phil about either not doing it, or dribbling round. But he told me you can't come all this way, especially on a 1st event and not do it, so I agreed, and was bandying around all sorts of crazy numbers. 22,23,24 mins etc.
A few 250 parkrunners about, and a general nice little buzz about the place for my first inaugural. Probably 100+ there In the end.
5mins to the start, and I'm still wondering if just kipping round the back of the clubhouse is a better idea, but sod it, we're doing this, if only to rack up the event/different course.
Anyway, I line up a few rows back, and just thought i'll see how it goes.
Guy in parkrun gear in purple goes off, guy with a hat and a few others including Phil do the same.
I find my legs insisting that I get involved, so I go and overtake the lot, no idea if it'll be sustainable or not.
Purple guy seems to be one of those irritating fellows who has to sit 1cm off the back of you whatever pace you do, despite repeated attempts to shift.
Half mile in, I get out the way of a random the other side of the narrow path, then instantly move over, and Purple almost ramraids me as if he's trying to break into a jewellery store, somehow taking my evasive action as some kind of mind games.
Brief little chat, where i'm sure he says something along the lines of "if you want to make this competitive that's fine, we'll have a race", then he asks my pb, hears how pony it is and monsters off
Some guy with a hat steams past, and i'm in 3rd, which I've no issues with at all today.
Starting to tap into a "comfortably hard" position and really enjoy the course, so I can tell we're not working at full beans today, understandably so.
Spent the next couple of laps sitting about 5-8metres off the front 2, wondering if they might come back, but to be honest even at full capacity they'd have probably just eased up a gear themselves. Plenty of earlier lappers to keep interested by.
Hat was steaming the intensity up in the
the last few hundred metres and probably could have had purple, but instead stopped at where the signage was about laps 1 and 2 take a left and after lap 3 take a right. I passed, and shouted back about finishing the course, but it seems he was a barcodeless wonder. Therefoe, I upgraded into 2nd.
Today, I was very pleased with that, and to just keep into the 17:xxs, even if it was a 17:56 final.
5.46,5.59,5.53 tells its own story there.
I felt coming away that i'd have probably lopped 15-20seconds off at full capacity, but looking at those now I reckon it'd have been plenty more.
Purple gave the impression he had a couple more gears to play with, so may not necessarily have won another day though.
Phil checked the results earlier, and it seems he's 3rd in the all time rankings for U23 1500 sc, and has history albeit 10 years back of 15min 5ks, 32 10k, 69min halfs, 2.28 marathon, so plenty of good stuff, and very much in keeping with the feeling he had gears available.
parkruns on file this year look a bit sketchy, but clearly uses his local one for a little tempo, and does his finest stuff on the road. Made me and Phil chuckle when he said he only does courses once as you can't improve on 1st. That and clearly not looking interested, looking around for a better option to chat to when speaking to him was comedy too
Anyway, pleased Phil helped me make the right choice to turn out, and that's 8 venues racked up now. With that slight smugness at doing one very few others have.
Well done on the 20 Aley, that's my short term aim! just to join the facebook group! Will have to do one up your way when United have a sat morning game.
In the meantime, hopefully future efforts are feeling better than today, but it shows that perhaps you're not always as bad as you think you are, and I wasn't by any means in Rob's state last week!
Just checked, I have done 13 different parkruns and 136 in total. Well off most records for those there today but reasonable. Closer to 250 than 0.
117 finishers today, 18 brand new to parkrun so 99 old lags.
Hadn't crossed my mind at all when urging SG to run round slowly that he has a 16-0 winning streak against me on po10. Started out well but then he came flying past me like a whippet with diarrhoea.
Nice pb CC. I must try a 3k sometime. Good work on the mile too Pete.
Well done for persevering with the cold SG for another sub 18. And well done Philip for persevering with an SG with a cold
. Not sure I'd have let him in my car 
Big ride that AG...
Off out for the Ridgeway Run in a moment. My 10th time, but last done in 2012. It's a tough race - close to 10M and 800 ft) and I'm not sure two hours of ice-skating (falling!) yesterday was ideal prep as my legs feel shocking this morning
Quiet on here today?
Anyway - here's my report....
Arrived at Tring way too early, so sat in the car keeping warm for 20 mins before heading off to race HQ. Bumped into a few blokes I know, which gave us all the opportunity to get our excuses in early, then collected my number and went for a warm up run to the start. After a bit of faffing to let an idiot car-driver through the 600 of us, we set off fairly quickly. The first mile or so along a mainly tarmac lane, then off-road after a road crossing. It was very good running conditions, but some overnight rain led to a few slippery sections underfoot.
I went into the first climb in 11th, just behind local runner David Maisey (who ran 2:47 at London) and just ahead of xc rival Owen Byrne, so feeling OK at this point. David's lead grew a wee bit over the top of the first hill, but not massively. At about the halfway point though, I was overtaken and suddenly felt like I was going backwards. A quick calculation on the watch promised a slow time overall.
The next couple of miles were a hill-top slog through woods, trying to avoid dog-walkers and D of E teenagers with massive rucksacks, before we turned off the ridge for a greasy downhill, where a couple more overtook.
We then approached Pitstone Hill, the last uphill of the race, and I managed to fend off a small group closing quickly until after the summit. After that though, a couple more overtook just before we entered a wood for some technical, downhill single track. I held my own here - mainly by making sure there was no space for them to overtake - but when we came out of the wood and the path levelled another runner squeezed past. All hill and off-road done, we then crossed a road for the lane back to the finish - further than on the outward leg, so about 1.7M to go. This section just seemed to go on forever, and even 6:30 pace was hard to keep up. I kept waiting for Owen to overtake, but instead the giant of a man that is Richard Watkinson (runs qucikish marathons, but looks like a body builder!) did, instead, apologising as he has done this to me several times! Those ahead were not coming back to me either. On the basis of a 9.6M race distance, my time was going to be rubbish!. Hey ho - press on - just the last bit on a cycle path now. I just managed to hold off the guy behind who had crept up from no-where just before the line (just as well - he's a V60!), to cross it in 21st and 1:03:23. This is actually less than a minute down on my last time in 2012. The trouble is, the watch is showing 9.45M, and I'm guessing the 0.15M difference is down to a slightly revised bit of route on the the first off-road section.
Bit of a mixed bag overall . I beat some people I normally lose to and lost to some I would have expected to beat, but really felt it was down on where it should have been. Feel pretty knackered this afternoon too!
Nice one Bus. Can't imagine many on here would have the enthusiasm to be doing offroad races of that distance, I know I wouldn't have at any point!
10mi lumpy XC race? No thanks. But well done Bus, sounds just like your cup of tea.
Put a 10miler in, which seemed plenty following the 5k/coldy mix, and a 7.04 job plus knowing I could have done more was good. Then a day of sleep, and early night coming soon, and that hopefully gets things back to norm,
Logging yesterday in the anorak stats sheet, that's race 7 this year, all in the last few months, which is getting it back on track versus my lowest year tallies.
Last year was 9, which was basically a decent spread of stuff from 3k to 3xhalfs, but then clearly stopped abruptly and at the risk of a permanent stop at one stage(!) post July.
But 2014 is easy to forget that wasn't a great turnout either. Just 6 races, all first half of year, as the hamstrings being locked prevented any thoughts of racing, as just easy running was doable.
Therefore, while racing, albeit at parkrun level is enjoyable, looking forward to racking up a few more of these this year, and an Ealing 1miler if work will allow my split hours scheme. Then in a month or 2 have a few options for a "proper" numbered up, road race job. If that came off with no problemos, i'd really be back in the mixer.
Nice Parkrunning chaps and another epic report SG.
I'd typed a big report of yesterday's national 6 stage but lost the bloody thing so went for a run earlier. A bit more concise-
Targeted a sub 19 as all of us are pretty well matched with no superstars who can get round Sutton park in 17 mins. Spotted SC on leg 1 and gave him a shout and also Dean when I was on my leg.
I took it far too steady up the hill in the first mile, 5.22, as I just sat behind another runner. I was wary of blowing up as I struggled when doing a long leg at the 12 stage last year.
Managed to pass a few on the long stretch to the dead turn but was also passed by a couple myself, Matt sheen and Chris Farrell. Second mile was 5.12 and the 3rd was 5.10. On the long stretch towards the last couple of hills a runner who I'd passed seemed to then sit on me all the way back and we ran neck and neck.
Kept the effort up and opened a gap on him and ended up running 19.14.
Last 0.67 was at 5.08 pace and we ended up 34th. Not bad for a club with 200 members and the town is the size of a bloody village.
Set off far too slow and I was our slowest runner. Not much between a few of us but one teammate who I beat at the northers took 20 secs out of me and another teammate with blood clots on his lung also kicked my backside.
With the relays being afternoon races I've tried a couple of miles jog in a morning beforehand. Added another 2-3 miles warm up and I'm not sure it works for me but that could also be the kebab and chips I had the night before the race.
My really well thought out plan for Leeds Abbeydash is in full swing. I entered yesterday and realised it about 2 weeks earlier than usual so I've 3 weeks to train for it. Bollocks.
Nice one Matt, great result for your boys and a good leg. We were well down, but our team was pretty crap for our standards..although we've never been up there before as such. Thanks for the shout out too, shame didn't get chance to have a chat. Saw Dean before and after his leg.
So I was on first leg. Was very concerned warming up as this was the first time with
Iighter shoes after hurting my bum and it was pretty stiff. First couple of downhills were a bit painful, but as I made my way up the first big hill it eased off a bit. Not too breathy at the top of the hill, I think the couple of Primrose Hill sessions had helped a bit. Didn't really know many in the pack, although I did notice the big Oxford City guy Aaron who beat me at Southern relays. Suppose it wasn't that dramatic, tough as ever and was pleased to get past Aaron on the way out to the turnaround. Managed to keep my form pretty well, the second from last hill is a little bugger too!
As always got done on the last hill up to the finish, but happy with the 19.06, just a bit slower than my best ever 19.04 from 2013. Dean had a good run as usual, but I will let him fill you in on the details. We were well down team wise.
Nice 11 miles along the Greensand ridge today from Woburn to Ampthill park, what a stunning morning for a run. hoping to get back proper training this week.
More good parkruNing and sounds like a good race bus....though as SG says no chance of me racing an event like that...too hard!
Good parkrunning and relays chaps.
14 miler for me on Saturday @ 7:26 pace ave. Longest run for a while and was feeling it in the legs towards the end. Cumulative fatigue I think rather than a 14 miler being hard. But it was fairly undulating as well.
Was hoping to bang out another 8 miles or so on Sunday but family life just took over so I was down to 42 miles for the week - lowest for quite some time, but I wasn't overly bothered. My legs probably appreciated it.
10 this morning with the middle 6 @ "MP". Seems my 9:57 3k has translated my MP to 6:16-6:21 pace according to the coach! That seems quick... That's a 2:44 - 2:46 marathon, which I'd take your bloody arm off for! Plugged my time into a few predictors and it seems to range from 2:42-2:52 depending on which one you use. This morning was fairly comfortable after I got the first couple of miles done - thought it was going to be a hard one when the second mile clocked at 6:25 (down to dodging a few dog walkers and running a short section through the woods in total darkness...), but the splits were 6:21 / 6:25 / 6:19 / 6:18 / 6:18 / 6:19, so the average was fine. Running another 20 at that pace seems like a big ask, but then it is 6 months away.
As Matt and Simon said I did the national 6 stage relays on sat. We had 3 drop out with sickness on the day we knew as a team we would struggle. 2 of the lads not running was a 14.10 and low 15min 5kers so any team would miss that. I had been feeling sick a few days before but with the other lads dropping out I loaded myself up on lemsip and got out there.
First mile I pushed it but I was getting passed by so many and they just dropped me. Made me feel like I was standing still. I was 4.53 pace at one point and loads flew past. I convinced myself they had overcooked the start and I would reel them in later. 5.16 for the first mile with the big long hill in it. Though everyone else's garmin beeped way before mine so it was probably much quicker. Next mile flattens out....more people fly past me So I try and go with them. I working hard but my legs feel empty from the recent sickness. 5.18 mile. Next mile I push hard. I start passing people, a 5.11 mile. I have a big gap to the next in front but have about 7 vests on my shoulder. I decide to hold what I have but kick the finish hill. we turn hard and all start sprinting. I take off and destroy them according to strava I have the 7th fastest sprint finish on the course of all time and only 1s off being 1st. Though I take that with a pinch of salt.
Finished in 18.48
managed a quick catch up with Simon, but couldn't find matts camp though did give him a shout out on his leg.
Was great watching olympians like butchard and other proper fast types too. any race where jonny davies is about 8 th fastest shows the calibre.
spent all day Sunday ill and I'm suffering from sickness now. Looks like a few days off!
Bloody good effort Dean - especially when you're under the weather. It must be cool at a "low key" race like that with some of the top stars. Think it was Matt's facebook post that said he was sitting next to Andy Butchart's tent. That guy absolutely rocked the Olympics FFS!! Awesome stuff.
I remember thinking it was unbelievably cool warming up on the same stretch of road as Steve Way at the Edinburgh Marathon and seeing him coming back the other way in the race itself, but that's a relatively big event!
Nice relaying chaps, looks like JD was 5th fastest.
Just an easy 9 miles for me yesterday, feeling a bit kike I'm on the cusp of an injury so i'm not running much. Probably need to spend some time sat on a tennis ball. Ouch.
Nice racing Bus, sounds like fun
I've probably pissed in the same woods as Andrew Butchart more than once, if we're doing celebrity athlete connections... His club Central managed to send 6 runners down to the relays and still win silver in the east district xc relays the same weekend, which was quite impressive. I mostly spent the weekend eating cake.
Reg, get one of those spiky massage balls.
My daughter has a blue spiky ball, it may be a bit too soft but looks just like what I think you're talking about.
I already have a balance thing, swiss ball and a fascia roller, all of which don't get used much. Apart from the balance cushion thing, when we have visitors it provides lots of entertainment, watching near 70 yr old relatives trying to balance is highly amusing.