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P&D spring marathon 2017
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I ran in our local xc last weekend where I typically dinish around 30th. The training must be paying off as I came 15th and went through 10k in 38 mins on a tough course.
This week has been tough but I managed 6 x 1200m at 5:40 pace on Wednesday and a 14 miler at 7:30s with 4 miles at 6:35s. It's nice to be entering the taper stage.
I have been selected to run for my club in the 12 stage relays which is 8 days before Manchester. I'm a bit worried it's too close to race but I'll hopefully get away with it.
37:47 for the 10K today. That's a 30 second PB so very happy with that! Especially as it was a small field and I was on my own for much of it, plus it was a bit breezy in places. That's almost exactly what Daniels predicted based on my HM, so let's hope the conversion works just as well going up a distance...
Tom, I'd advise against racing the half. By all means use it as an MP session but maybe ease off if it feels harder than it should.
Spoons, that's a decent 10k time. Off your recent performances and consistent 100 mile weeks, a sub 2:55 should be a given. I've done a 2:54 off much lower milage and less impressive PBs.
Macca, impressive 10k for a training run.
Ramjet, nice milage, I topped out at 79.6 last week. My biggest for 3 years.
Parkrun went off without too many issues, would have been a good week to run it as all the regular speedsters were away. 4+4 miles for the day. Now carb loading (beer) watching the rugby before tomorrow's long trail run.
Don't do it Tom. Not worth undoing all your hard work.
Nice training 10K Macca.
Did one of the toughest parkruns I've come across today. Parke on the edge of Dartmoor. Came a close 4th in 21:26. 2nd was 2s ahead & first finisher was only a minute quicker. Shame I wasn't able to fully trust the knee or I might've won.
Are you guys doing a mini-taper for the 10ks or training through it?
I'm having a tricky time fitting training in with life as of late. To keep mileage up this week my 22 lsr was followed with a 10+10 commute double & then hill repeats yesterday. Veering wildly off plan...
Impressive mileage Millsy and PR Jools. Sounds like a tough run of sessions Tommo.
No running yet from me but it is close. Did a big ride today, the Kennet Valley Audax and with the ride to the start and back it came to exactly 150 miles.
Tommo, I will be doing a mini taper for next weekends 10k, timing it with a recovery week. Will move / keep the Vo2 session to Tuesday. Max of 13 for the MLR, an easy run Friday and a rest day on sat. I don't do many road 10ks so would like to get a decent time in this one as my Po10 PB is a bit weak in comparison to other distances.
Glad things are improving Tom. Hope tomorrow goes well whatever you decide to do.
8 miles for me today with a progressive parkrun in the middle. Tried to go a bit faster each km. Lots of overtaking involved so good fun.
4 easy, 14 MP, 2 easy for me this morning. MP pleasingly nearer 6:30 than 6:40, ignoring an erroneous first mile. Good to get the diesel engine up and running! Especially happy with this given it was at the tail end of a new biggest ever week: 72.4M. Forest of Dean Half a week today, so I intend to taper pretty hard - firstly because I've done four big weeks in a row, secondly so I can give it a proper go. Whilst the course won't lend itself to a PB, I see no reason why it would add more than a couple of minutes.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone
Macca - great solo effort, those are worth plenty in the mental bank for the latter stages of your race.
Spoons - well done on a speedy new PB. Your performances don't surprise me anymore, you'll smash Brighton.
Ramjet - sounds like it was fun, I did an easy parkrun as well and it's nice to be overtaking people without any real effort.
Reg - fingers crossed you're back into the running soon, sounds like it is not far off.
Sorequads - great MP session and looks promising for London.
I did almost exactly the same run as you except it was 3/14/3. Pace was just on 6:50 for the MP part but it the second half was hard. I now know what starting with 3 miles downhill does to your legs when you get to small hills at 16 miles and it's not pretty. Also the heat was back today which meant there were some ugly miles in the second half. At least I now know that breakfast sits OK in me, that I needs gels every 5 miles when it gets hot and that I can run with 4 SIS gels in my hands (massive packets that just flap around when in my shorts pockets). Although the average pace was right it felt way too hard to be MP effort after a fast downhill start so I need to be super disciplined when it comes to race day. At least I'm on the home straight in terms of hard sessions.
17 miles for me this morning. 2 either side of Llanelli HM.
Nice conditions for the race-a bit of rain but very little wind and I set out with the intention of seeing how I felt and to adapt accordingly. Found myself in the leading group of 6in the first mile but a few of them pushed on and I thought it would be best not to follow the pace ( 6:2x) so reigned back. Problem then was that I was running solo for the rest of the race which always feels harder in my experience. Course then went out and back along the estuary which was basically a gravel path so not the best for sure footing which was annoying as I was feeling ok. Not much else to report-bit of a dull race in all honesty but a very decent session in the circumstances as I held a consistent pace to clock 75:31 (unofficial) for 5th place. After the week I've had I'm happy with that.
Tom - that's an amazing session, well done! Definitely a wise decision to reign ir in, but you must have been tempted to push for the podium. Hope you manage to get back into the swing of things this week.
a couple of decent MP runs from John and SQ. They are extremely tough to outside of a race.
22 muddy, off road miles for me. Ankle deep mud in places so the main aim was to get home in one piece. That's my last "fun" long run of the schedule. All pace/ progressive road stuff left now. Looking forward to a recovery week in preparation for the Eastleigh 10k next weekend.
Nice work on the hard parkrun Jooligan, incredible mileage on that ride Reg, great MP efforts SQ and JohnOz, and a tough three days Tommo. That long run doesn't sound very fun to me Millsy! Glad you kept it sensible Tom, still a great session.
Tommo I tapered slightly more aggressively than Pfitzinger had in the plan (70 mile week vs 90 in the plan). I kept the key sessions (intervals and MLR) but dropped the recovery doubles and did the MLR a bit steadier.
Thanks for the support. Definitely feel like I’m cashing out all those miles I put in the bank over the past few months! After yesterday, I expected today's planned 18 miles to possibly be hard work. However my legs felt remarkably fresh, and I had one of those runs where you just feel like you are cruising.
I had forgotten to switch my watch back from kilometres to miles, so I didn't really pay attention to pace much and as I was feeling good just held a similar effort to my other long runs. I was quite surprised when the run uploaded and I saw I had averaged 7:05/mi, and a few sub-7/mi splits (and also ran 19.7 miles as my km->mile maths is rubbish!). I suppose the high mileage has helped make my legs pretty resilient!
Overall then a great weekend! I try not to read too much in to individual good runs (although always panic the second I have one bad one) but my runs this weekend have definitely been a big confidence booster. One final big 100+ mile week next week before the taper kicks in. Less than a month to go now
I tried it today and it worked and stopped me struggling to open the gels. There's a video on youtube if my post doesn't make sense.
I was racing at The Grizzly today from Seaton (hence being at Parke pr yesterday). Really pleased with the outcome as I paced it well so never blew up & in spite of the super muddy conditions I managed a 17 minute PB.
I was 138th at Mile 1, 113th at 9K & finished in 83rd of 1558 finishers. It's meant to be a very good indicator of marathon time & I finished in 2:58. I was nursing the knee a bit throughout too so never fully opened up on the downhills & fortunately it held out with no further damage done.
This is 150m after the start of the Grizzly - 800m of shingle beach
Great 10K Spoons and a big PB.
Be careful you don't overdo things with all that plan tinkering Tommo.
Great MP runs SQ and John.
Amazing HM time at less than 100% effort Tom. Hopefully next week will be better for you.
Well done on that off road 22 Millsy.
20 miler went well for me today. The average pace was a bit fast at 7:40 but the effort felt right and my legs were still working at the end. And now I can say that magic word... taper.
I'm at the front in the pic but probably about a hundred runners gone through ahead of me already.
Sorequads - thanks, I'm running Boston, which is very up and down and so probably not a PB course unless the wind is behind you. Interesting that you manage to fit your gels in your shorts. Which shorts & gel combo do you use? It used to be fine when I used Endura gels but as the SIS ones are isotonic they seem to be double the size.
Millsy - impressive muddy 22 miles even if it was meant to be for "fun". What do your progressive LRs look like?
Spoons - amazing pace, even more so the day after a 10k PB! At this rate you'll be aiming for sub-2:50 by the time of your race. Really shows the value of getting the miles in, and also your S&C work.
Mark - I like the sound of your tip, will look it up and try it out. Assume you have to pin them a certain way to make sure they tear in the right direction?
Jooligan - sounds like a hardcore weekend of racing, got to all be good for your flat & fast target race
Ramjet - enjoy the fruits of your hard work! Is now a good time to update the list of races and target times? Can't find the last version of it but would be interesting to see how everyone's progressed since Nov, provided we don't sandbag too much!
Reg - saw your ride. absolutely f***in mental. no other words.
SQ - great long run. rest up for the weekend - look forward to hearing how you go. great run too John.
Tom - that's another astounding running considering the week you've had. just make sure you don't push it too hard before London now, you're in amazing shape.
Millsy - trail run sounds like great fun. get a good taper in for next weekend and you'll be flying.
Jooligan - great picture and sounds like a really tough race!
Ramjet - nice 20 - enjoy the taper and all the madness that comes with it!
Decent weekend of training for me. 60ish miles on the new TT bike around windsor and back on Saturday - it was such a great morning for it, didn't even need gloves!
Sunday I was the 1.30 pacer at the Surrey half. Most fun I've had in ages. Playing Mr. Motivator the whole way round (whilst trying not to be too annoying), and the number of people that were thrilled with going under 90 for the first time at the end was awesome - everyone was so grateful, it was really rewarding. 2 miles before and 4 after made 19 for the day. Another positive was that 90 minutes felt comfortable, so I know I'm in ok shape going into London.
Having a easier week this week myself, tapering right down for the Hampton Court half on Sunday, where I'm hoping I might (finally) go under the 80 minute mark.
Some great racing over the weekend. Spoons, Tom, Jooligan - Top stuff. Good pacing Joe. Great MP LRs from John and SQ. Great training 10k from Macca. Nice trail run Millsy and lots of respect for doing your parkrun duties (I feel guilty for not helping out at jnr parkrun but my daughter won't run by herself yet). That's a big ride Reg, impressive.
For gels I just put a rubber band around my hand and tuck them in there. Not done it heaps of times but haven't lost any.
Did a 16 mile trail run on Friday and had a bit of a sore quad afterwards, settled down with and easy couple of days (Sat - 4 miles easy with my son on his bike, Sun - nothing, too wet for kids to want to do parkrun). Will have a solid few days before taking it easy Thurs-Sat prior to the Coventry Half on Sunday. Maybe I can run it as fast as Tom's training runs.
Jooligan - very jealous as wanted to do the Grizzly but decided against it. I have done it a couple of times, most recently in 2015 when I finish in 3:30 and have to say it is one of the toughest runs I have done. Great effort getting finish in under 3:00.
SQ - I have the Ronhill shorts and the pockets are brilliant for gels. Tried the loops in a training run before and the gels fell out so don't trust them either.
Nice long run Ramjet - I'm looking forward to getting this weekends 20 done and letting the taper commence!
Sounds tough Millsy and not surprised you are aching.
Great 10k spoons.
I did 17 yesterday at a relatively comfortable 8:19 pace. My right ankle/calf is still a little funny and taking a few miles to warm up but hopefully get through this week and then can work itself out during the taper.
Spoons – cracking 10km followed by that long run. You’re flying at the minute
Macca – brilliant 10km on your own
Tom – well done on 5th place and another cracking time!
Millsy – 22 miles with all that mud sounds like really hard work!
Ramjet – looks like you are in great shape when your easily knocking out 20 miles at that pace
Well done to everyone else banging out the long runs – really not long to go now for most of us!
MP run went really well at the weekend - ended up doing 18mi with 13mi at MP (was supposed to do 17mi w/12@MP but was feeling good). Averaged 7:40/mi for the MP miles but finished much faster than that so could probably shave a few more seconds off that next time round.
Trev & AWC - also great running. Not long to go now? (We need to dig out the race calendar).
You can tell I'm not very busy at work today, this weeks slice of racing life is already up on the blog (mainly for Tom to be able to read tomorrow lunch);
https://spragginsblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/surrey-half-marathon-12032017/
Thanks everyone-Good Afternoon.
Sounds like a brutal race Jooligan-rather you than me! Well done for surviving it and glad the knee held up.
Nice pacing job Joe and pleased to hear that you feel in good shape. I think it's about time you dipped under 80 minutes for a HM effort so fingers crossed you get good conditions in your attempt at the weekend!
Very encouraging Long runs from Ramjet, Trev (and others who I might have missed) and AWC's MP run jumps off the page-excellent stuff!
Last couple of weeks training suggests you are bang at it again so a very swift time in Coventry is certainly on the cards HA.
Legs felt reasonable this morning-certainly creaky but not like the soreness the day after Wokingham-and 6 miles @ 7m/m loosened them up nicely.