Halstead marathon

Well done Angela on the P.B  

Not so good about the ride though 

Well I'm up early this morning partly from the noisey neighbours and part pooch needing toilet 

But all good news for me as last night was our running clubs championship dinner, bear in mind I've been part of the club now for coming up to 7 months.......I got an award for coming 3rd in XC this season  well happy.

Well done Angela on the PB less than a week after running a marathon - impressive stuff! Also, that's a solid ride. Nice going. You deserve to be a little sore!

Jason - congrats on the award. That's excellent news. Life isn't all about marathons.

Eldest daughter is 17 today! Had her first driving lesson. God, I feel old! Just ran a progressive 6 hilly miles at 7:21 average. Legs feel incredible. Was meant to be recovery run but lovely warm day on the downs and I felt so good I couldn't resist. Out to dinner this afternoon but hoping to get back early enough to get out for an hour on the bike.

Thanks guys I didn't put in the caveat that it was a parkrun pb- was 18s slower than my 5k pb but I reckon when I'm fully recovered that is easily smashed even though the park is a bit hilly

happy birthday mini ds2

its a lovely day to be out on the bike- I ha planned a 5 mile recovery run today, but rather tempting to ride instead, though something tells me saddle sore will put an end to that idea, that and I need to clean the gears and chain from yesterday...

That's rather speedy for one week post-marathon, DS2!  Just be careful not to get carried away on every run.  That's happened to me in the past - I've flown for a few weeks post-marathon then get to the point where I just can't sustain the speed.  You need to keep a few slower runs in there too - but I understand the need to reaffirm what you can do on your oldest child's 17th birthday!

Well done on the Parkrun PB Angela, excellent going.  A lovely day to be outside yesterday.  I did 10 undulating miles at 8:33 average pace and really enjoyed it.  Better still, my legs didn't even feel as though they'd been for a run afterwards.  It was nice to slow down and take in my surroundings for a change too.  I've run yesterday's route a few times at speed and didn't realise until yesterday that it goes past a pig farm - all the pigs were out rolling in the mud!

Well done on your award, Jason, you must have been chuffed.  Loving the photo - I think there might be a caption competition in there somewhere ...!

Nice recovery Minks!  I think I've overdone it on Saturday!  When I went for my run on Sunday it was like running thru treacle, and my heart rate was very high for such a slow pace for me.  I felt a bit fevery when I went to bed last night and now have a sore throat and slightly swollen glands, so I think that explains it.  I'll have another easy week before my races at the weekend.  Hopefully I'll be all better then!

Minks - 10 undulating miles is good only a week after a marathon!

I was a bit more sensible this morning and did 5 miles nice and easy at 8:13mm average. It actually felt like a jog.

So, how is everybody's post marathon recovery going?  I haven't run since Sunday Had a cold....

But I have a 10k to look forward to on Monday- decided I probably wont bother with the Westminster mile on Sunday given how I've been feeling and the faff it will be to get there...

Hi angela, cant report on post marathon . hope the cold didnt bother too much .

been training hard for the last week.

Tuesday 4 miles easy

Wednesday 6 miles with 4 miles consisting of 4 & 800m splits with 200 recovery (very good tempo session, sub 7m/m average)

tonight easy 4/5 with a friend, might add some miles race pace in there but see how i feel after work 

Saturday 5 miles steady with strides in between 

looking forward to HBO on monday now sub 40 here i come  

Haha Jason, you're telling me you don't need to recover from being 'that weirdo holding out vaseline'??? 

im still waiting to get a good talking to by some poor ladies husband on monday.

"you offer my wife vaseline did you?"   erm.....

I think I'm probably guilty of overdoing it - not sure I'm really in 'recovery' mode.  After Halstead I took Monday-Thursday off and ran Friday of that week, did 5 miles easy.  Then 10 miles Sunday, on an undulating route but I did take it at LSR pace for a change!  This week I did 7 on Tuesday (average 8:25) and 3 yesterday pretty slow (decided to explore a new footpath which was horrible - rutted, muddy and I turned my ankles constantly.  Won't be venturing down there again!)  Planning 5 tonight in the delightful weather and will probably do 10 again Sunday.

Then I think I'll work out some sort of light schedule for the next few weeks as I really don't like having no plan to follow, even if I'm not training for anything specific.

Minks - P&D have an excellent post marathon recovery schedule that gets you back up to 40 miles per week after 4 or 5 weeks. I've followed it so far (but ran a bit too fast most of the time). The week after the marathon I did 4 on Wednesday, 5 Friday and 6 Sunday all meant to be at recovery pace. (15 miles for the week)

This week I did 5 on Tuesday, 5 on Wednesday and I will do 6 tonight and 8 on Sunday - all recovery. (24 Miles for the week)

Next week is;

Tue: 5 recovery (8:30 - 9:00mm)

Wed: 5 recovery

Thur: Rest

Fri: 7 mile general aerobic (8:20mm) + 8 x 100m strides

Sat: 5 mile Recovery

Sun: 9 mile general aerobic

Total of 31 miles for the week.

The following week is 36 miles and 41 the week after. How does that sound?

if you like it, I'll post up the next two weeks schedule.

Jason - good going there. If you can run sub 40 for a 10k, with the correct level of endurance work you should be looking comfortably at Sub 3:15 marathon. I couldn't get near a sub 40 10k at the moment. I'm trying to get to that stage this summer! I bet you get there first!!!

Angela - take care there. it's very easy to pick up something nasty straight after a marathon when your immune system is low.

DS2, thanks for that.  I have the P&D book and was looking at the recovery schedule.  I'd have to jiggle the days around to make it work for me but might be do-able.  I was considering using the 18/55 schedule for next year's Halstead but I know when I looked at it before I thought it would be a struggle because key sessions seem to change days from one week to the next and I can only run on certain days.  I always think if you mess around too much with a schedule you're no longer following it, but I need to take another look and see whether I can tweak it a bit to make it work for me without losing the essence of what it's trying to achieve.

Have you used it before?  What did you think?  Been lurking on the P&D thread (and in fact just posted today) and a few folk seem to have dropped the recovery runs in favour of rest or cross-training, which might be a more workable option for me to allow me to get the key sessions in on the days I can manage to run.

How did you work out the various paces?  I was never sure what they meant by 'general aerobic'.  Although I was guilty of doing pretty much all my training too fast for VLM (and Halstead), I don't want to end up going too far the other way and doing everything too slowly.  One constraint is that the only day I can do the MLR is Tuesday, two days after LSR - I'm a bit concerned that's too soon?  Also not sure when to get in the faster stuff given the way my week ends up being structured (basically I'm always too tired to do the fast sessions!)

Oh yeah - I forgot about your difficulties in the structure of the week. Before I answer that, I'll give you my thoughts on P&D.

This marathon was the first time I've run a negative split in my 10 marathons and I would put that down to being stronger than before (ie. more endurance). I think I can directly attribute this to the number of long and medium long runs I did. The downside of that was the training felt hard work,  and plodding (like you) has never been my strong point. Consequently, half way through I felt quite stale.

I missed a number of the speed sessions and managed only three really in the whole 18 weeks. I think this proves that, at the speed we are trying to run at, endurance sessions benefit us more for the marathon.

The sessions I got most out of were the tempo runs, typically 9 miles with 4 or 5 in the middle at HMP. These were hard!!! And the LSR's with a portion at Planned MP. I usually ran the MP part at the end to mimic running at that pace on tired legs. I actually found these harder in training than I did on the day.

I have found a new love of the taper. I really think it prepared me well. I did do that 17 miler 12 days before but I think I would do that again but probably 14 days before. I did 5 mile warm up, 7 at MP and 5 warm down. It was good for confidence.

My overall feeling is that P&D has some good ideas but I didn't like following it religiously. I tried to do the 55-70 plan but abandoned it after 7 or 8 weeks.

I would do this next time. I, actually, like doing similar sessions on each day of the week, so:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 9 miles including 5 at Tempo (alternating with a MLR fortnightly)

Wednesday: 5 miles recovery (alternating with a MLR fortnightly)

Thursday: Intervals (eg. 6 x 800m or 4 x 1 mile)

Friday: 5 miles recovery

Saturday: rest

Sunday: LSR (with a number 5-10 at MP every other week)

I don't know if you could incorporate this into your diary. I think the MLR is probably more important than the intervals so perhaps you should try to do the tempo session and the LSR every week. I found I could do an MLR and a LSR within 2 days if I rested in between.

Would this work?:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: MLR (11 - 16 miles)

Wednesday: 5 miles Recovery

Thursday: Tempo or recovery

Friday: tempo or recovery

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: LSR (including 5-10 at MP every other week)

I think you can get away with doing 2 of 3 key session each week. That is, 2 of MLR/LSR and Tempo.

If you want to PM me your email address we could discuss it further. I hate this view on here and can't remember what I've said! Hope this helps.

Just realised I didn't talk about speeds

Recovery is at 9mm for me, although I would often run at 8:40mm

Tempo miles are at HMP so for me just inside 7mm. Warm up and down for these runs at 8:30mm seemed about right although if the first one was slower I didn't mind!

MLR & LSR. First third at 9mm, second at MP + 20%, third at MP + 10%. So finishing at around 8mm- 8:10mm. Staying slow was hardest!

LSR's with MP was 8:30-8:40mm with the last ones at 7:30 or quicker!

General aerobic was MP + 15% (about 8:20mm).

I never felt I would be able to run fast enough on the day because of all the slow miles but people kept saying trust in the training. It seems they were right!!!