Auviour Paris: So long and thanks for the cobbles

oscar - woolly pants mate woolly pants.  Yeah - compeed are ok if you can get hold of the small ones and put tape over the top so the edges don't roll I find but the standard size ones are too big for any part of my foot and I end up cutting them up which makes them ridiculously expensive!  I have however found a blister pack from second skin (same sort of thing) which is going in my rucksac which has some really good (for me) sized ones... just in case! Kinesiology tape is apparently excellent for anti-friction layering (duct tape works brilliantly too apparently but isn't as smooth as KT) so I will see how my feet are as the miles ramp up. 

4 x 1mile efforts done! (1 mile each at 6.8, 6.9 ,7.0 + 7.1mph) I am officially across the 'do not train' line on my polar analysis tool (ha ha - don't care - I have crammed my week's training into the weekdays so as to make life easier this weekend) so by Monday I will be back in the 'safe' zone yippppeeee.  Felt about right for what is currently my 10 mile pace - doable but didn't get to be lazy

Ten - awesome - must find me one of those fields! Am sure there must be plenty of  em Make a note in yer diary will ya and declare your bronze, silver, gold goals about a week before so we can pitch in

Oscarr & mcs - don't envy you skywalkers this w/e! Stay safe and enjoy the after-glow...

RR - would love to hear the inside track on the Boost beasts when you have dirtied them up a bit

Psychic connection reaches telepathic levels as my next thought was whether Ten would humour us with a guesserama based on podium projections.

I started thinking about mine as well, don't really know where I am this year what with having made so many changes.

Just had a fab Tui Na after a steady 6 and strides.

SB good efforts.

Mike I did my track session on Wednesday in the Boosts, and they are interesting animals, a strange shape to me, and they kind of force a slapbang midfoot landing, yes with more bounce if you exert more force and play around a bit, but going with my usual light Dibabaesque gait, I am unconvinced in that department.

I was pleasantly surprised at the comfort though, considering the fairly narrow toebox, and although they look and indeed are quite inlfexible, this didn't seem too much of a problem on what was admittedly a shortish run, still nice and coasty for 8ish miles when I was recovering from the 20 Sunday and 6ish Tuesday is not bad she mused.

They do look a tad boaty, even if that is showboaty. 

Updates will follow.  

Thanks RR - it's not the showboating that I object to, it's the greasepaint...

Safe to say that the jury is still out?

Yep Mike, and partly it's the fact that I prefer to feel the road more.

NOt looking too good here, very misty and only three degrees very cold, I dont have a whistle or map hopefully they will let me run I live here!!!

Photographic evidence would be a bonus! 

A little hors d'euve while we wait for the Oscarr/mcs main course:

Today 364 days after my last parkrun PB, I bagged another: I spotted a young guy seriously studying his watch and moving through the field after about 600m.

Ah ha - target for today located. Shamelessly tracked him all the way until about 100-150m to go where he pressed the pedal a little harder than I could....result 9 secs off, and now down to 20:09.

For a while I was a little annoyed with myself for not going eyeballs out behind him on those last few meters but feel a bit better now because he didn't break 20:00 either! Instead he bagged 20:04 and there was no chance of me doing any better.

Anyway, we shook hands at the end and I think he enjoyed the pressure of me padding along behind him as much as I enjoyed the challenge of hanging on. I looked him up afterwards and I have two sons that are older than he is, so I feel much better now .....

Waiting for the drum roll from GG......

Good afternoon, mud removed, showered, rugby on feet up well almost. What an epic race/run that is. Wet, drizzle, sleet on Longstone Edge, clagging mud sucking the trainers off. Great organization and checkpoints loads of cake for those who wanted it.  Set off steady and enjoyed the first 2/3rds of the race, through Chatsworth felt awful at about 16 miles then my daughter was waiting with a bag of jelly babies which got me marching up the next mile of straight up ascent on to the Froggart Edge. Got cramp as I dont think I had drunk enough with it being so flipping freezing cold. Cramp in my thigh had me screaming and stamping I had used up all my water and could see 3.30 slipping away as I had to run walk along the Edge for the next mile or so. Then a guy caught me up who I had spoken to earlier in the run, with the biggest sideburns I have ever seen. We had a chat and  I got going again and then he fell over, his legs had gone, helped him up and we powered on!!! Well we plodded on and then I nailed it down through the woods for the last mile and sprinted over the bridge to cross the line. Forgot to stop the watch so dont know my official time as I had a rest in front of the finishers desk who were waiting for my dibber thingy. Soup and cheese cups of tea and more cakes brilliant event for £14 for the local school. Might do it again when I have forgotton the pain. Saw Oscar come in for his soup. He looked fresh and he behaved SB!!! Time for more food.

Well survived mcs and Oscarr!

Congratulations mcs!  Sounds like "fun".

Awaiting Oscarr's report.... 

While I'm waiting ......

Ran 20m today  Target pace: 10:48 to 9:54 Actual Mile splits (pit-stop in mile 7 ): 

10:36/10:53/10:35/10:43/10:41/10:24/10:56/10:20/10:29/10:22
10:13/10:17/10:11/10:16/9:55/9:52/9:54/9:53/9:50/9:48

Felt tougher than usual, probably a combination of recovering from the half and accumulated training mileage, not to mention my damn cough 

Another 54m in the bank this week, which concludes the first three months of dedicated marathon training.  Just five weeks to go!  That's just two weeks before taper madness begins.

Grindleford Gallop is a fantastic course - if you like trail running with lots of hills, mud, multiterrain, lots of styles and wall steps and stunnung views then this is for you.  Even in the cold, wet and misty conditions it was still a very enjoyable outing.

I started out with Sleepy's instructions ringing in my ears so treated it as a training run with the plan to get round safely and not worry about the time and that's just what i did. 21 miles in 4:09 and it felt the effort equiv to a marathon.  Never struggled and took onboard 2 cakes and one caff gel.  Ended up by opening the legs a bit on the final section of Froggatt Edge before the decent through the boggy woods to the finish.  Immediate recovery told me i ran it correctly and the hot tea, soup and cheese plus loads more cakes at the finish was very welcome.  No injuries either so a good day all round.

Looked quite sprightly in the evening, least wise that's what the various barmaids in Bakewell told me.  Feel good today with only minor stiffness so will be ok to resume full training tomorrow.

First full week of Wall training now finished (16 week plan) with 42 miles done in 4 sessions.  The format of the plan is 5 sessions comprising a long interval session, a MP run, recovery run and 2 B2B runs.  Missed the recovery run this week to keep the mileage down a bit as i'm trying to ease up gently to the higher mileage.

Next stop Coniston in a fortnight 

GG results are up - 230th out of 350 starters (only 3 retirees) and 10th MV60 in 4:08:59.  Winner did 2:30ish.

Well done Oscarr - tough stuff indeed and an interesting account of a different branch of running and socialising.

Meanwhile, back in the plain vanilla marathon training I had a little 18m to contend with this morning.

Plan was 1st 9m in 9:00min/m then 2nd 9m in 8:30 min/m. Actual pacing was a challenge due to the hills and dips but this is how it panned out:

1st section: 8:50; 9:48 (inc stops for cars); 8:17; 8:18 (both downhill); 9:11 (pit stop); 8:24; 9:59 (stopped at turning point, left timer running as I took a gel & drink); 8:34; 8:47

2nd section: 8:28; 8:31; 8:27; 9:17 (inc transition outside my house- new drink bottle and a gel); 8:38; 8:31;8:38; 8:25; 7:55 for 18th mile.

I felt dead for a good part of this effort but I suppose that is the point - a long run on tired legs. So if we add in the 7m (inc 5k PB) from Saturday and the hills, then I am entitled to be tired tonight! The garmin suggested 3,000 ft ascent but that seems far fetched......

Monday? You guessed, a rest day

Looked quite sprightly in the evening, least wise that's what the various barmaids in Bakewell told me.  Feel good today with only minor stiffness so will be ok to resume full training tomorrow.

 

Awesome work and the proof is right there - sense of hunour intact!!!!

 

for your parkrun Mike and mcs for a tremedous effort!

 

2 days rest for me and some stonking carb loading - 90 year olds have the best brithday spreads!!!!

 

Another 4 x 1mile at 10 mile pace session for me tomorrow.  Another week of cramming my training into 5 days so that I can exhaust myself doing massage at the weekend. 

 

Really glad we chose the RW plan though - the one on the Wall would have use doing 15 miles this week!!!! Yes - total! Least we know we'll be on track if we keep our heads screwed on and train within ourselves!

Great run Oscarr, and a fantastic start to the Ultra training!  Have fun with the B2B runs.

Mike - another good run too.

Nice report there Oscarr, sounds ace.  Good luck with the wall training, all 15 miles of it!!!

I raced Salisbury yesterday and happy to report just under 2mins quicker than last year in 57:52, followed by a second lap in 67:00 to finish the day on 22M and week on 84M.  I'm looking forward to London at the moment as the training doesn't feel too hard.