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Moraghan Training - Stevie G
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I could do. But i'd probably go into race folklore as "that idiot not from these parts"
The race venue is the top of the hill, so the down is merely the warmup to set the scene.
Clearly the race part is only the uphill! As otherwise it'd be a lot softer a challenge!
As I dribbled up Marlow hill today, 5miles into my run, seeing the average pace on the 8s and 9s I did wonder about the genius of this.
However, by the end, 13.5miles and sub 7 I'd come back to thinking it'll be fine again.
I did notice a 20% (1 in 5?) sign down one particularly steep hill today, so we'll see what 1 in 8 comes out as in 2 weeks.
Sooner you than me with a marathon! You'll get round comfortably for certain, we know that from your MK one last year and recent(ish) part of back to back efforts. Sub 2.45 is a big challenge though, but at least it's easier than 1.15. (Probably)
And sooner Matt than pretty much anyone who runs with a 96 mile week.
Mine came out 54.5 in the end, which'll do, as the first half of the week was recovery mileage to see the dead leg off, had only one run longer than 6 and a light track session.
Made a couple of attempts to put a competitive team together for tomorrow's 3x1mile Battersea park relays. ie a male team that would have me as the slowest member at sub 5 for a mile, or the "softer" approach of 2 reasonable guys (not necessarily me the slowest) and a sub 6 woman, but nothing doing.
Nothing lost.
Bus, check you out on one of those fancy aeroplanes! At least a super long drive is avoided as those never help any aches!
Don't quite see the appeal of long offroaders. But then I've never been a particular fan of scenery, super slogs up horrible hills, the risk of getting super lost and irregular footing.
I can see the benefit in strength though. Just need to look at the Sikora's of the world! Having seen how soft the Wycombe half results were last year (1hr31 for 4th!), i'd wrongly presumed there wasn't much competition at the sharp end this year beyond the obvious big 2.
However, he saw off our occasional contributor TippTopp, a previous runner up on the old Wycombe half course, and a very tasty runner, and Charlie May too. (Charlie "Mary" in the results!), so he's a machine the more horrible a course gets.
Had to take a second look at the "pull out special", as clocked one of the Datchet fast boys in the pic. Seems they just bundled in some photos of last year. Maybe to increase the perception of how well attended it was?
By the way Matt, come to this part of Ireland if you want cheap beer; less than English prices in the pubs at about £3 a pint
In fairness, the list merely listed elevation, rather than suggesting it 1)meant anything, or 2) was necessarily any relation to quickness.
Reg, myself and a running pal once had a website where we actually sought out "scenic" races.
Before obviously realising that scenic generally means bastardly hard
SG, you'll be fine running up that hill. Only a hill, innit. You should do the Jungfrau marathon. A marathon up a mountain. It's on my list, but I'm saving it until I'm shit.
AG, can you be on the champs start with TVT? Are they affiliated?
Big stuff as usual from Matt.
Pace was intended to be 73s all the way through, but settling to the back of the race saw a couple of 72s, which is clearly a bit nippy for me at 15 flat pace. 3:02ish at 1km. Settled a bit after that, but was still moving along quite nicely, and hit 2km in 6:05.
From about halfway I found myself isolated (not quite at the back though), struggling and the pace slowly but surely falling off. Held together reasonably to 3k (9:10), but after that I was just wishing for that finish line to come. Just thinking lap by lap now. With 600 to go, a Bournemouth vest comes past. Rally at the bell, and give it everything I have, but someone still comes past down the home straight. Across the line for a narrow PB in around 15:25 on the watch. Not last, and not lapped.
Formal results not up yet, but the provisional ones without the fractions confirm 15:25. I do think there's at least a 15:19 in the tank, but guess we won't know. Anyway, PB makes the trip worthwhile, but have a hell of a job finding some dinner on the way home. Who closes a Burger King in a motorway services at 10:30?
Generally an excellent event, but the women's A race was an odd affair, featuring one competitor and a pacemaker. It's not like there had been a shortage of quick women, with Charlotte Arter, Lauren Deadman and Emma Stepto plus various others featuring in mixed races. I can only guess that she needed some kind of standard that would only be valid in a women only race, and the others didn't want to change. Still, unusual to watch.
Grass session yesterday morning, 8 x 800, one steady, one fast. 80 secs between sets and 30 secs between steady and fast. Steadies in 2.50 and the fast ones were 2.29, 2.25,2.23, 2.18. Pretty happy with that lot. Horrible 12 this morning with my crap Supernova Boost boats, 7.15's on a hilly course. I'm with SG here, long runs are painful and boring tbh. Unless it's somewhere new or foreign. Love getting lost abroad running.
Went shopping to MK today and popped by a nearby village to catch some cycling. It was pretty cool, a national women's series event, 17 x 4 mile loops.
I'm not saying scenery has to be totally off the menu. For example, this time of the year the Thames path upstream from Marlow is pretty flat and fast and you have a good 10-mile stretch upstream to Henley to play with or you can do a structured run so maybe 10 miles scenic to a point where you know a 5 mile route back which you can do 3@HMP and 2 recovery.
Simon, yes, I was vaguely aware that I had snuck in front of your PB. Apologies for my rudeness. No, it wasn't McT, he was there but was ahead of me the whole way. This was a younger fellow, who I've certainly raced against in the XC league. Didn't realise you raced all the way out here. I was trying to remember whether I'd raced there when I was a kid as part of west country track leagues, but think I probably didn't.
PMJ, it was indeed the Fast 5000s. Not sure to what extent it owes a debt to Highgate, as there are certainly other events like this about, but yes, a similar format.
Anyone up for Watford Wednesday? I know the Denmark crew will be gearing up for that, but anyone else?
When I do my run in the Hambleden valley it's definitely just a nice run first and the training benefit second. I run it fairly hard on the downhills so I find the downside is the muscle damage probably outweighs the training benefit. Hence I only do it when I am feeling strong or I don't have anything important coming up.
With running bureaucracy trust me...don't leave anything to chance!
Another pb Dachs, still going great guns, even after years at a quality level.
Should really get a Watford in, but can't quite fancy it right now.
SC, you make that 800 session sound a walk in the park.
6&4 today.
Options tomorrow are getting back on the MP tip on the track, or some sort of hill reps. There's a nice progressive few hundred metre section i could use to thrash up and dribble down.
What do people reckon? MP, or hills?
First extra-corporeal shock wave treatment on my Achilles this morning was an interesting, and shocking, experience. More to come!
Whilst lazing around afterwards was looking at some old results and was reminded of the day in June 1975 when I broke a world record. Ok, with 99 others: 100 x one mile. Club did 8:05:24.8. I contributed 4:40, disappointingly, but it is hard work running solo. Average time for the 100 legs was 4:51.25. I wonder how many clubs could field 100 runners below 5 minutes now. I know mine couldn't.
See AWs 5/7/75, p3 and 9/8/75 p22. Sale's fastest was one of my training partners, Laurie Reilly with 4:08. He too was disappointed, I recall!
I wonder if it's going to take another 7 years of this thread before people stop with the "marathon pace, you don't do marathons" line
It's merely the base period build up of tempo running, a "theoretical" MP based on other times, that serves to start a progressive build of pace, culminating in peaking for stuff between 5miles to half. It's been the building block of every set of pbs I've had on this whole thread's history. But I think we've been here many a time.
(not promising there's any more pbs in me now though!)
I've had my fun fooling about with 5k sessions for long enough, so probably time to get back to the "hard" stuff.
The section of Farnham Road i'm thinking would fit Aley's recommended session isn't particularly steep, but should allow some monstering that would make me feel it. And remind me how to start this mile race 2 Friday's time!
Hope the Achilles feels better.
Thought that record was literally 100 runners sub 5 for a minute rather than an average sub 5! Imagine the pressure on anyone borderline...when some poor sap puts a 4.59.xx and gets rounded up like I did at Ealing!
Ok, so it's hills tomorrow, but i'll be coming back for some tempos I'm afraid.
Aley, what does the treatment entail?
Decent start to the week. 14 miles with 11 @5.52 pace in the middle. On the canal towpath so the usual run in with moronic dog owners. The berk watched me running towards her so I stopped as she tried to get the dog on the lead but then she just gave up and watched it try to dive all over me.
"Get your stupid dog on the lead if you can't control it"
Matt- Love your dog 'tails' (see what I did there). The most eagerly awaited weekly update since Karl Pilkington's diary...the 800's? I like the 'steady/hard' set, just seem to find them quite 'easy' (wrong word) to do. All sessions are knackering, just some are worse than others I suppose!
Like the relay tale Aley, 100 runners under 5! SG - stop flirting with a marathon and get it ticked off in the 'I-spy book of running'. Bloody hard but a good piss up after..especially if you go abroad.
Took Aley's advice of the 12x30secs, on what i'd describe as a steep slope, rather than a steep hill!
Basically covered 0.1m per rep, average pace 5.09, although whenever i looked it was mid 4s to sub 5, so must have eased off at the steepest part at the end and trundled to a finish rather than smashing to the end like on 200 reps.
Good work out, called just right by Aley. Took a bit of a random recovery each time, anywhere from 55secs to 1min 10, as 90 seemed to include too much hanging around, so maybe that's something to firm up on next time
Simon, best 10k sessions I ever did were along the lines of your steady/hard idea, building over about 4 weeks to become 4/5 laps 10k pace, 1 lap steady! x4 or 5! Phew.
Physio report: a particularly good and interesting session with someone that I hadn't seen before, but comes highly recommended. And a runner, which helps! And I got to run for 5 minutes, and pain free at that, although there is a slight catch as it was on a gravitational treadmill, so the bottom half of the body is sealed into an air chamber and I was able to run at 70% gravity, then 80%, without issue. All sounds quite weird...but it was even stranger than that! To continue with the Alfredson's protocol exercises, with slight modifications, plus general stretching and as much gym work as I can manage. Progress...just hope there are no set backs! No real after affects from the shock wave treatment either. Two links: one to the shock wave, and the second is a surprisingly good article in RW about Alfredson.
http://www.shockwave-therapy.co.uk/
<span>http://www.runnersworld.com/stretching/eccentric-calf-strengthening-achilles-tendinopathy-five-years-later</span><span><br></span>Noted Aley, in a base sort of period i could imagine hills 2 or 3 times, but not too often after that?
Back to the Wednesday 10 today. 6.54 job. Not too bad. There are a couple of options of 5miles out and backs, but i tend to stay closer, and end up doing 2 of my shorter routes. Just need to ride it out once you're back near work and only halfway!