Cobbles & Red Wine - Sarah’s Paris Marathon Plan: Sub 3:35

Sarah,

Well done on the pb at the weekend and loved the pics on Twitter !! Hope you start feeling better, sure a day or two off will do you no harm

Afternoon Andy!

Yes – the time has gone SO quickly!! Hopefully my 22 miles on Sunday will be nice and uneventful ... no flooding, falls or getting lost this time! And definitely no loo stops!

If I get a chance I thought I might visit Braunstone for a parkrun this weekend. I’m not feeling very good still – the cough is still going strong – so I’m not expecting any amazing times although I’d like the time to stay in the 20s ... but I’m going to see how I feel.

Afternoon Mike,

Thanks for the congrats! Yes just carb loaded on the Friday for the Saturday race. I felt very full on the Friday, but felt fine on the Saturday and throughout the race – no loo stops required thank goodness!

I don’t tend to eat bread / pasta etc as my tummy doesn’t react very well to it – I get most of my carbs from vegetables although I’ve had a few gluten-free crackers this week. Do you up your food intake or do you just swap protein for the carbs?

Afternoon Sarah!

Thank you! Congratulations to you too for your amazing time at Barcelona!! I think I’ll be aiming to knock a minute or so off of that time at Silverstone if all goes well, but we’ll see. We were really lucky with the weather at Dorney so if it’s windy at Silverstone it might be a different story!

 I found the gels fine and didn’t struggle to maintain the 7:20 pace that I was aiming for although I found the sub-7 at the end harder work! I don’t know whether the gels made a physical difference or whether it was a mental boost ... but either way I’ll take it!

How are you finding practising with gels or are you sticking with the jelly babies?

Afternoon Angela!

Oh I wish I COULD take a midday nap every day – that would be AMAZING!! Used to LOVE Gladiators – I probably watched your sister’s show!! How funny! Seems a bit unfair her competitr got a bit of an advantage though! Grrr!

I’ve got Thunder Run 24 booked in and we’re looking at Endure 24 .. but these are mainly for fun rather than as races. I’m looking forward to the social side as much as the running! And as I’ll be running slowly hopefully I’ll be able to talk at the same time! Well ... for the first few laps anyway! I’ve also deferred a couple of obstacle runs I’d booked in for this year so I’ve got the Wolf Run and Rock Solid run to look forward to as well!  

Afternoon Buffy!

Sorry to hear you’re poorly too. There seems to be so many horrible things going around at the moment. We’ve all got it in my house at the moment – it’s like a cough chorus in there. Not good!

Get well soon!!

Afternoon Marathon Coach Steve,

Thank you. I think I’m going to be missing this evening’s session too unfortunately – I can’t draw a proper breath without coughing and I’m not sure I’ll be gaining anything from attempting it. Hope this is ok.

I don’t tend to be ill for very long so hopefully having today as a rest day will shake it off. Today’s interval session looked as though it was going to be a tough one and I was looking forward to tackling it. Do you want to change it with another or shall I carry on with the schedule as it is?

Afternoon Clive!

Thank you!! Glad you liked the twitter pics! It was such a fun day and just topped off with PBs all round. Just great

How’s everything going your way?

Thanks for the get well wishes Derrick and Sarah!

(cough, cough)

Food Diary

20th February

Breakfast: Porridge made with water, 2 tsp x sugar, dash of milk

Lunch: Small salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrot, red onions, cucumber and peppers and a small amount of tuna.

Dinner: 1 x salmon fillet, 1 x small courgette, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, 2 large mushrooms – all steamed. 1 x fresh beetroot, portion of cottage cheese

Snacks: 1 x crème egg, 1 x mini snack bar  

Drinks: 4 x coffee, 3 pints of squash, 1 glass of water.

Exercise: None (Bad cough and feeling ill so cancelled tonight’s run)

19th February

Breakfast: Porridge made with water, 2 tsp x sugar.

Lunch (at pub): 2 x chicken breasts with bacon and BBQ sauce topped with cheese and chips on the side.

Dinner: Mushroom stirfry.

Snacks: Banana, 3 x chocolates

Drinks: 5 x coffee, 2 x pints of squash, 1 x vanilla protein milkshake

Exercise: 7.7 miles run, 1 hour grocery shopping with energetic 3 year old!

18th February

Breakfast: Porridge made with water, 2 tsp x sugar.

Lunch: Portion of honeydew melon, 15g cheddar cheese, 2 x rice cakes topped with honey and nutella,

Dinner: 1 x salmon fillet, 1 x small courgette, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, 2 large mushrooms – all steamed. 1 x fresh beetroot, portion of cottage cheese, 1 x chilli butter portion, 1 x sweet potato.

Snack: Tablespoon of Christmas pud (couldn’t resist!), 6 x gluten free crackers and cheese dip.

Drinks: 5 x coffee, 4 x pints of squash

Exercise: 1 hour walk

17th February

Breakfast: Porridge made with water, 2 tsp x sugar, dash of milk

Dinner: 1 x salmon fillet, 1 x small courgette, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, 2 large mushrooms – all steamed. 1 x portion of mushroom stirfry, portion of cottage cheese, 1 x chilli butter portion, 1 x sweet potato.

Snack: 30g of salted peanuts, 1 x crème egg, 3 x gluten free crackers and cheese dip, 3 x chocolates

Drinks: 2 x coffee, 2 x pints of squash, 1 x vanilla protein milkshake

Exercise: 9.5 miles run, 1 hour walk.

16th February

Breakfast: Porridge made with water, 2 tsp x sugar, dash of milk

Lunch: 1 x Apple, 1 x banana, 5 x tbsp mixed seeds.

DinnerFrankie & Benny’s) Chicken with bacon and BBQ sauce topped with cheese and chips on the side and 2 x onion rings.

Snacks: 1 x crème egg, Small amount of pick n mix sweets.

Drinks: 4 x coffee, 3 x pints of squash, 1 x vanilla protein milkshake

Exercise: Dorney Lakes Half Marathon, 1 hour walk

RRR

Hope you are feeling better very soon.

A lot of milk chocolate will have gluten/wheat in it so make sure you cut these out in the  few days before Paris. Also as mentioned before all extras including protein needs to be cut right down (cheese, fish, meat)  and bulky veggies to very small amounts  during the carb load days. 

After you have tried your fuelling this weekend on you 22mile and you are happy with it then I think we can conclude that this will work for Paris for you...which brings me onto to eating in Paris!

RRR

Over the coming few weeks the focus will be on Paris and the food challenges that may bring. The first challenge is the restaurant choice for the Friday & Saturday night. If you were going on a leisurely holiday I would suggest different a restaurant each night and of course to try the local food BUT you are here to do a marathon! So I am looking to seek everyone’s honest opinion on restaurant type. My thoughts are Italian as Parisian meals are not typically carb heavy, more meat based. Last year I picked out some Italian places to eat and then sent links to you all so that you could at least know what was available and if this would be suitable for everyone, so the plan was to do something similar. I am also thinking of RRR who does not eat gluten or wheat (we had a similar issue last year but there was other choices at the Italian we ended up choosing) so I would suggest we look for something that may be Italian but some non- pasta options?  Those that ate in the places I suggested last year could perhaps comment (choisty, Steve, Sam etc ) on what they think too?

RunnyRunRun wrote (see)

Afternoon Andy!

Thank you! Yes … I seem destined to have ‘interesting’ runs!!

I’d like to get another PB at Silverstone, but it’s the day after the 3rd bootcamp training day so we’ll see how it all goes. That being said, I’d be disappointed not to …!

I don’t know much about the advantages and disadvantages of gels vs energy drinks, but I find that gels are easy to carry (can stash 6 or 7 in my running belt if necessary) and just drink water. Whereas with an energy drink I’d either have to carry some the whole way or rely on the aid stations at a race carrying the particular drink I’d practised with. And hope they hadn’t run out when I got there!

Ooh I have never been to Bicester village for shopping although one of my friends raves about it! I’d definitely rather be there shopping than supporting at a race!! The queues out from Silverstone after the Race For Life were terrible – stuck in the carparks for a LONG time as traffic management didn’t seem to be working, but this may well have been sorted out now.

Andy

The main advantage with gels  over energy drinks is how much you need to drink to get the amount of carbs you need. For example, if you need 50g of carbs per hour (most runners have between 30-60g per hour) you would need to drink around 700ml of an isotonic sports drink per hour which is hard for many to do and too much fluid for most runners even in hot conditions.Hope this make sense.

Ruth

Evening RRR

Sorry to hear about the cough but good to see you're being sensible about missing training sessions.  I know when you're following a schedule it's easy to convince yourself that under no circumstances should you miss a session.

Make sure you are back to full health for Silverstone.  I don't want any excuses if you end up buying the coffees

Ruth

That makes perfect sense thanks

RRR - yes you have nothing much to gain by running when ill at this stage and in your current shape, you won't lose anything with 2 to four days off and rest should mean a quicker recovery, so hope you feel better soon.

Hi RRR, u better not forget Boston next spring . How's ur cold? Are you feeling better? I have lower leg issues- the one where I pulled my calf last year- calf is fine but the rest of the lower le keeps getting really tight . Supreme foam rolling this weekend- hope I can get out and train properly-have a 7 mile race pace run tomorrow and was hoping to do it at my half mara pace to give me confidence for the race.

I have a question for the forum and Steve marathon coach. In my plan the nxt few weeks long runs go up like this: 14, 15, half mara, 17... However due to timing of the race I wanted to do I've swapped weeks around so it goes like this: 14, 15, 17, half mara- that 17 week would also then be one of the highest mileage weeks of the programme- it this ok to do, as the half mara week steps back quite a lot for the race? Or do you think I should forego some of those miles for the sake of a better half mara?- I do want to race it rather than just run.