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Don't think it matters. There's not that much difference between a long run that is over 20 miles and one that is under 20 miles, so do it if it makes you feel better.
Thanks again!
I would like one of my runs to take 3 hours so that I have been on my feet the required length of time which is probably 21 - 22 miles so its good to know there is no difference
Setting up the 12000th post for someone...
..........thanks Pete
Just looked at WAVA calcs and notice there are 2015 ratings which significantly downgrade my %s - has there always been one for the current year or is this a 5 yearly update?
Been to the physio this morning as my niggles (feet and knees) were getting out of hand and I haven't run since Saturday. Good news though as despite my catastrophizing there is no serious damage, just some inflammation, and I should be able to manage it ok for the marathon. Plantar is inflamed but not yet Fasciitis and cartilage and tendons in knee ok but again some inflammation. I have some strengthening rehab to do for weak glutes and calf/plantar stretches and need to take a bit more rest when needed (and can replace with non-impact stuff) but am allowed to run sensibly this week. With my sensible hat on I probably need to can Sunday's race though
Mcf, NOOOO....we are travelling all the way to Coventry to smackdon with you!!
Now i am left with Muddy to say hello to at the start maybe, then watch cruise off into the distance.
Probably sensible though. Maybe Lou could run in your name
Still not run myself. I am probably being overly cautious, but desperately want to ensure i get there. Viral infections are having a go at me and am in the same boat as Muddy was last week. Fingers crossed that translates into a mediocre pb!
McF, sounds like generally good news - hope you can stay cautious and get yourself right. I'm having my first ever fizz experience on Friday as decided hitherto ignored niggles should probably get some attention.
DT, you're not having much luck lately, hope the infection clears up enough for you to have a proper go on Sunday.
Bob, that's a nasty foot, er... sorry, foot injury. Great run though, well done!
Skinny, do what lit says, she's generally right (except about the 7 @ LT run - you actually do have to do that one or your marathon is DOOMED). I wouldn't bother adding a 20 miler - the more you do the easier they get, true, but I think the benefits are largely psychological and if you can remind yourself of that you'll not need the boost they might give you.
I did not enjoy my 11 miles this morning. It's really bloody windy here again, and I was still a bit tired from Sunday I think. Aside from a couple of runs when I was really ill in January, I think that was my least enjoyable run during this training block. Happily this is a recovery week for me, though I do still have to do a 16 with 12 @ MP at the weekend as I did some shuffling around to accommodate Snake Lane.
Yeah, Lou can earn me a champs start place. Not suspicious at all. No sirree
Just like my last two marathons.
Annoyingly I can't ditch the 7@LT now if I'm not racing a half marathon around that time. I've entered Warwick half anyway so might race that instead of Cov in a few weeks. 5 weeks out from a marathon is fine, right? I might ditch the 7 on the grounds of rehab anyway
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Exactly lit. Total failure
Mace, you do some mad mileage! How do you fit it all in, do you work funny hours or just not sleep?
Mr V, have you done sunderland before? It was my PB course last year, but I remember thinking it wasn't as flat as had been claimed, and I really had to hang on for grim death!
McF, 5 weeks should be fine. I found 4-5 optimum last time round
Madbee- No I haven't though I did do the 10K a few years back and remember if being undulating in places. So do you reckon its not a particularly fast course then? I've heard mixed messages. You don't happen to have a garmin connect log of your run do you? Would be interested to see the elevation profile.
OK, found it. Clearly I am pathetic, looking back it does in fact look...flat. Do excuse the somewhat shameful pace - it is almost a year old
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/492929744
527 feet for a half - that's over 160m.
The Manchester Marathon has only 54m of elevation gain - now that's what I call flat!!
12 weary miles this morning at av 7:53 pace.
McFlooze take it easy - a very wise runner said to me something along the lines of 'better to be under trained than over trained'. Its very hard to find that sweet spot between the two.
Madbee- Thanks for that, very useful indeed. I’d agree with Skinny and definitely call that undulating. Though the garmin seems to add 100 feet of elevation at the start so I’m hoping the figure is a bit less than it states! Is that last mile and a half the climb back up to the stadium? Looks fairly gentle but probably a bit of a killer as the end part of a half.
Bit of a rubbish session for me last night. Was meant to be 50 mins at MP followed by a fast 10 minutes. However it was ridiculously windy and I was tired and couldn’t be bothered. So ended up as a steady run instead. I expect it was better to do that than force the issue anyway. Likely rest day tonight.
McF, I hope the exercises and stretches entertain you adequately while Nature takes its course
Madbee - I'd call that undulating, too, but then I am a southern wimp. I bet the physio says you have weak glutes and tight hip flexors. They always say that. Maybe it's always true. What's 'marathon pace' for you now? Or are you paceless, running everything on hills and bogs and to feel?
MrV .. it'll come
Skinny - well done - weary is 9m/m and slower!
I swapped the 6x800m for 10x400m last night off 45s recoveries. I tucked in behind someone who said he'd be aiming at 90s per lap (quick for me as it was meant to be 5K pace, so 92s), checked watch after 2 reps and had been running 80s. But it felt OK so did the rest similar except two 85s in the middle when I held back. Several times I started a rep thinking 'This time I will genuinely try to run at 5K pace' but after the first 100m a fiend whispered 'bored now, let's go'. I am feeling much stronger than 2 weeks ago. Time for an injury or some flu.
I don't have weak glutes but I do have insanely tight hip flexors. The last time I went to a physio she said 'hahaha you walk like a runner'. That sounds like a good session, marrows. You can't do 400s at 5k pace; it isn't possible.
My edition of the book had 6x 600 instead of 6x 800, which was fine by me, especially after xc at the weekend. I could definitely tell that I'd lost some top-end speed since the summer when I trained for 5k specifically. The last two times I did marathon training I didn't have top-end speed, so that got faster along with everything else. This time I will have to believe in the specialisation!
Well done on the long run this morning Skinny.
Mr V - I had a similar rubbish session. Was meant to be out with the club earlier on in the evening but ended up missing that and having to go out after 9pm while still digesting dinner. Managed about 3.5 miles of mp before calling it quits and did the rest of the run as cool down with strides. Hopefully will fare better at lunchtime.
As for the rest of everyone's comments, I won't bite except to say Lou is being especially unkind as I've not partially jogged a race because I "couldn't be bothered" but I have tried to ease myself back from a hamstring strain with a cautious first half of a 10k one time.
You can have the no show Lou (which reminds me I got a full refund back for that dodgy phone finally about a month ago). Just let me know when and where your next race is
(and I'll no show for that too 
)
McFlooze - Sorry to hear that Cov is off but seems eminently sensible not to race with such issues lurking.
Astonishing mileage Mace. I dislike the use of the word 'smash' but if anyone is going to do that at the moment, it's you.
Marrows – As a sports massage therapist I agree and find most runners I see have super tight glutes. Which isn’t really surprising since they are the main muscle you use when running and people rarely bother to stretch them. Hip flexor problems are also common, especially amongst women. Usually the bits people complain of i.e. calfs, quads and hamstrings are just tight and not the actual cause of problems. So you usually have to do a bit of digging to find where the true problem lies. Sounds like an impressive session there for you. Obviously feeling strong and running well at the moment.
Yeah - meant to say: my glutes are not weak but they are tight as f***. Though I do stretch them properly ever since the first time they caused me problems with calves & achilles and now they do not give me any trouble.
Mr V - I am a woman, but I have teeny little hips like a 12 year old boy. Is this likely to make my tight hip problems better (hips not really woman-shaped) or worse?
As any of the P&Ders will tell you it was only a 'medium-long run' - they rename the runs because otherwise you would think they were mental. On Mace's plan they probably call them 'short runs for wimps' so they can persuade him to run 20 miles at MP pace the next day.
Re undulating or flat - I wasn't really saying it was undulating but Manchester is super flat - its about 20m flatter than Berlin. In fact if you look at the elevation profile it looks like there is a mountain to climb in the middle then you realise that it just looks big because the elevation scale is so large.
The best thing about this is that I have had to find really flat routes to practice on as recommended by my friends P&D.
EDIT: Mr V that just sounds like an excuse to go around massaging women's bottoms?
Mr V, you are most welcome to massage my bottom if it will remove the niggles... You are right, the end bit is up to the stadium, if I am remembering correctly (and it's unlikely given how bloody knackered and brainless I was at that point), there is a longish gently uphill stretch about mile 11 which was what really finished me, and a ridiculous little hump over a bridge with half a mile to go. That is a fairly small elevation scale to be fair, so it looks flatter than it felt.
lit, interesting... I know I have tight calves and I often get problems with my left hip, as well as an inside left ankle niggle which I think is related, but I'm not sure which causes which. Perhaps it's neither, and in fact I am just a tight arse.
Marrows, I like the sound of your fiend. The fiend that mainly gets me is the one that asks if it really matters if you hit that pace, and why not slow down a bit... MP is roughly 7:30 I think. I was looking at 7:40 or just under to hit a 3:20 marathon, but I remembered that actually that puts me slightly over 3:20, and the next logical step was 7:30. I think Sunday's time probably confirms that this is about the right pace, though it still sounds a bit daunting...
Muddy, I wouldn't be surprised if your 5 miles effort on top of illness added to the post-dinner malaise yesterday - no harm in having an easy day.
Skinny, I think that only just makes it into MLR territory
I found the 'GA' the most entertaining - it sort of tricks your mind into thinking you're doing a very easy recovery run. For 10 miles.
I keep being bemused by all the interval sessions going on, as I don't have any for about another fortnight, but I think I probably ditched them from this week on the grounds that I was racing on Sunday and will have to do the MP run this weekend, which I thought was probably more important. Bloomin hate intervals, and also have no idea what my 5K pace is, having not raced one since August, which now looks a bit slow...
Well, you have done a race recently so you can just work out a 5k pace using McMillan.
I like 10 mile runs (it will surprise no-one to learn). So much so that I accidentally ran 10 miles instead of 9 today for my session, due to a miscalculation. I did think that the cool-down seemed longer than I was expecting, but did not realise my idiocy till I was half a mile from my house thinking 'why have I run 9.5 miles?' Oops.
Um. I'm a bit scared to look.
You should race one then!
Ok, I am about to go off on my own mid-week medium long something or other but the post just dropped through the front door and it turns out I did win a prize for 2nd vet on Sunday. It is very apt given the course and conditions, being a voucher for a 30 min midweek tobogganing session for 2 at the Tamworth Snow Dome.
Madbee - Yeah I did a 4m recovery at lunch yesterday too so that probably didn't help. I was conscious of not having done the staple MP session for a couple of weeks so thought I'd give it a crack. I am front loading the mileage this week so I can have a reasonable mini-taper for Coventry so that is also a factor.
Mr V - Funny how Saturday has left different impressions on different folk. Far from putting me off like your gf, I'd say before Saturday I felt I was unlikely to run the National XC again next year, I just wanted to get one at Parliament Hill on the record. I enjoyed it so much however, that provided the logistics work (the venue is yet to be announced but likely to be 'oop north) I hope to be making the Nationals a proper target race next year. From Connect, it looks like a good session from you in the conditions last night despite your gloom.
I don't know how you stay in one piece and can't get my head round your training, Mace! Some excellent, if slightly more mortal, running from you other marathon types too, but sorry to hear about the niggles nobbling your Coventry race, McF. Cracking session on the track, marrows - now that I can definitely relate to.
Good restraint, DT. Hope you come up fresh and firing for Sunday.
Skinny - Re: WAVA, yes, looks like they've been revised. See the link for more details, you'll need to scroll down a bit. http://www.runscore.com/Alan/AgeGrade.html
Was still a very decent 3.5m though, Muddy. Congrats on the unusual prize!
Lit - I find it quite reassuring hearing you feel that a winter of endurance and XC has knocked off your top-end. Makes me feel a bit better about my slightly frustrating parkrun, and more optimistic that I might still have the decent 10k in me that I'm hoping for this spring. The speed should come back with some spring and summer specificity.
Not sure, my decent 10k will come this Sunday though with wintry showers blown in by gales being forecast. FFS.
Will still do the planned 5 x 800m tune up at target pace tonight however. Also had a check of RHR last night before pilates - now down to 38.
Lit – Yes as a crude rule of thumb I’d say slimmer hips are less likely to lead to injury. Though of course biomechanics are all interconnected so you can’t really take things in isolation. If your hips are tight I’d suggest getting a spikey massage ball and using it to get into you TFL. I wouldn’t be surprised if your lower back is tight as well. That often has an impact on hip troubles and again is an area runners usually ignore.
Skinny – Ah no you’ve caught me out. It seems I mainly get hairy men though so maybe I lose.
Madbee – Sounds win, win to me
. Yeah I think that end section is the same or similar as to the 10k end section. I didn’t much like that though I remember there being an awful head wind that day which probably made it seem worse. Re the little niggles I wouldn’t be surprised if the cause is somewhere on your right side. More often than not you will get tightness and or soreness on the opposite side to the cause.
Muddy – Impressed by the choice of prize! Makes a difference to the usual vouchers!
Bob – Yeah indeed it is – one thing is for some I’m certainly not tempted! I’ve managed to avoid all cross country this year but have been guilt tripped into doing the final one of the season just to score some points.