Auviour Paris: So long and thanks for the cobbles

Evening all!

Lovely to see the old gang are still about. I'm feeling rather jealous as I have no spring marathon! Planning on one in Autumn but think I will struggle getting back up to the long distances again - having a spring ans autumn mara meant that my LSR didn't really drop below 10 apart from 2 weeks after marathon!  MMMM - need to get a tri booked in for a focus I think. Spin again on Friday and a swim session followed by 6 miles on saturday (further if I feel motivated in the cold).

Yayyy my christmas smileys have just updated

(If you can't see them - you need to clear your cache - under Tools/Clear recent history in Firefox!)

Back into skype-wife mode - loitering for Ben to call!

Did my slow treadmill sesh today. Interestingly my average HR has gone up week by week over the last 4 weeks which is not quite the desired effect!  Will persevere though cos I enjoy not half-killing myself every time I run!

Hello all

SB - Loving the Christmas smileys

BoD - enjoy the gym

Emma - great cross training there! I have been doing less running and more cross training lately, spinning is very hard work!

Having a rest today, did kettlebells and zumba yesterday, planning a run tomorow!

Is this Ten "Shergar"...........???
Minus 6 here as I drove in on four wheels. Too flipping cold to go outside today for me and it coincided with a rest day on the schedule so cant argue with that........
Feeding the birds on the window sill office with biscuits they love em!!! Happy Wednesday..........
Emma I have no spring marathon planned either think I need some of this......

Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.

SB - yeah, I discovered at bootcamp that I had been doing all my long runs about 2mins a mile too fast! It's good to take it slow once in a while!

BoDuke - Le Tiss was a legend - some of those goals he scored! I take it you won't be revealing the name of the boy-band member... haha (my firm doesn't specialise in libel law but I reckon you're alright so long as you only allege...  )

Emma - do you enjoy tris? I'm desperate to do one in 2013! Was thinking Hyde Park...

Hi Emma - good to see you're still training and progressing really well!

Celebrity name dropping:  I met BoDuke at Milton Keynes.

I've uploaded a photo!  I've chosen one that will be inspirational to me and remind me why I'm running in the first place.  I'll put a different one on Runbritain, if I can find a running picture of me that doesn't look like I'm about to collapse in a pool of sweat and mucus.

Last night I did my first official Spring 2013 marathon training run (18 week plan).  Eight miles in total: 2m warm-up, 4m tempo and 2m cool-down.  The tempo felt hard up to about half-way through, then suddenly felt a lot easier .  That's a good thing I guess.  I'm still finalising my training paces, but I think I have a decent set based on P&D, Jack Daniels VDOT, MacMillan, RW which have a rough consensus between them .  Last nights paces were 10:32 for the warm-up/cool-down, and 8:33 for the Tempo.  All fell well within appropriate heart rate ranges.  I'll adjust as training progresses, if I need to.

I'm finding that I'm no longer getting very much pain when I use the foam roller.  Thanks Reikki for all your encouragement, and to others who also recommended the ITB exercise.  I really do believe it helps now!  My knee feels really good today  (though I mustn't get complacent).

Today is a rest day, then tomorrow will be a 9 mile general aerobic session.  Slower than an LT run, but faster than a recovery run.  I need to do a bit more reading about this, because the P&D pace ranges look too slow for me to be in the required heart-rate range.  I might have made a mistake, since they are slower than I would expect for recovery.  unless my recovery pace is too fast.  D'oh.... confused, and not for the first time 

I'll muddle through.

Morning all...

Bacon Steve - do you want to join in our thread comp?  All you have to do is log next year's mileage on runBritain (are you already on there?) and do at least one marathon - the time of which will decide which category you go in (sub 3/s-3.30/3.30-4/4-4.30).  Most miles per category wins...

So far the players are:

me, mcs, oscarr, Em, Bo, Choisty, Ten, reiki, AC8

Ten - based on the mid point in my book (as your marathon time is 8 rows away from your 10k time - based on rB) - your training paces should be:

Recovery 11.05-12.25

Base 10.07-11.04

MP 9.33

HMP 9.15

10k 8.48

5k 8.29

How does that compare with what yours say?  According to mine - training at those should lead to a 4.10 mara

Update from me. Picked up another cold/cough and feel chesty. The XC has taken it out of me too - sore ankles and calf muscles - starting to feel a bit better today - but 3 days recover - its like a Half marathon!
I'm thinking about putting together a training plan - for the moment I just run when I have time and the inclination *grin*
Re entry for a marathon - waiting to see if I get the 1:1000 chance of a place at London through parkrun. If I don't get that likely to look at Milton Keynes or Paris... 

SB - I wouldn't base anything on my marathon times.  They are well out-of-kilter with my other race and training times.  Hopefully I'll do myself better justice in the next one - unless it turns out I'm just not cut-out for faster marathons (Noooooooo!).

I'm basing my training around more recent half-marathon 1:55, and hilly 10k 54:50, plus parkruns 24:24.  I'm also taking into account my heart rate records.

I had made a mistake in my speadsheet  - which is why my GA session times looked too slow (they were!).  I will also reduce the speed of recovery runs to a slightly more conservative level - to ensure I can complete the quality runs.

So far, I'm pretty happy with:

Recovery: 10:55 (5.5mph)  

GA: 10:20 (5.8mph)  - I know my heart rate is well within tolerance at this speed

LT: 8:20 (7.2mph) - based on estimated 15k pace (Jack Daniels).  This is a smidgen faster than I ran last night (7mph).

LR/MLR - TBA but probably in the region of 9:54 - 10:48 (P&D)

MP 9:00 - based on recent long runs, and of course targeting a sub 4:00 marathon.

Ten - just a quick observation - think your initial target should be to get your half time below 1:50 if you want to achieve sub 4 hr at a later date.

Ah ha - so the books are pretty much all the same... based on a 1:55 - mine puts you on for a 3:59 and training at

recovery: 10.39-11.59 / Base : 9.41-10.38 / MP 9.08 / hmp 8.50

I'm looking forward to my half in February - then I'll work off that pace band until my 10k in April and revise from there...

It's exciting - all this data ain't it...

All I want for Christmas... is a picture of Ten, a picture of Ten, a picture of Ten...

I have the same book as Sleepy and whilst i agree with most of it the one thing i am at odds with is the small difference between HMP and MP - in Ten's example it is 8:50 to 9:08, only 18 secs per mile.  To give confidence that the marathon time can be achieved i would target a bigger gap by trying to get the HM time down a bit until more marathons are run to give real-time feedback.  Just a suggestion.

SB that would be great, thanks  count me in! I'm not on Run Britain currently - I'll have a look into it.

What books are you all working from? Any recommendations?

Bacon sarnie - i like Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.

oscarr wrote (see)

Bacon sarnie - i like Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald.

LMAO @ first bit + same book here!

Comp wise - you're in!  Tell us when you've registered and we'll look you up!

Heard anything yet?  Hope they're not on lunch!

Hey oscarr !!!

Hmmmm now - Ten - looks like you've just become the hypothesis-testing subject!    18 seconds can feel significant me thinks...

BoDuke wrote (see)

Oh and I saw a member of famous boy band wacked out of his face on coke and/or E at a M people gig as part of a famous festival... *checking libel laws*
Back to the guy tomorrow, got a plan to cover the next 11 days. Then no more gym.

Would that have been Rob E Williams?

Adding to the debate a bit - some rules of thumb folk quote for HM to Mar are - double HM + 20mins or, double HM +10%. Using both of these gives 4 hr for a HM of 1:50.

I am a bit of an enigma wrt this - for Abingdon this yr did 4:05 on the back of a fast HM of 1:44 about 5 weeks earlier - this equates to double HM +37 mins or HM +18%. I am not representative of the norm as my 5K/10K/HM times are all exactly as you would predict but haven't cracked the pace for 26.2 yet.  This illustrates that you have to know you own talents and limitations when setting target paces and if you haven't done many races at a new distance than going cautious until you have is probably a good way to go.

Tend to agree with O on this subject. Ok SB what are my training speeds please as you seem to be the thread scientist, coach etc. My HM time in Sept is 1.42 my Full Mara is 4.08 in May. Any suggestions appreciated. I find it hard to run much slower than 9.15 min miles unless crawling up the hills round here.  I think my build means I aint going to get a fast mara time. Too tall and lean, or is that an excuse. HM is defo my fav race. The Ultimate schedule I am following is saying 9.07 for my easy pace running.