Paris marathon 2013 here we go! A.W's Sub 3 attempt!

That's quite an effort A.W. Don't tell Ady - he'll be gutted if he knows you managed to lose weight over Xmas without even trying!

I'm thinking I might jump on the bike on the turbo in the garage tonight for an hour and sweat it out a bit.

Hi Ruth,

Thought I better post this reply separately as it may be quite long!! First of all thank you for your help you'll be giving me, the other four and everyone else over the comming weeks.

My eating patterns can be a little erratic due to my work schedule, but I might as well start with yesterday as an example.

Breakfast was at about 6.15am (that's normally the same during the week), I had Special K with skimmed milk (I will normally always have either Weetabix, Bran flakes, Special k or Dorset Cereal berries and cherries with skimmed milk! Sometimes I have a mix! Usually about 50 grams.) I always have a strong coffee with breakfast again with skimmed milk.

I will normally train sometime in the morning between 9.30 and 12 depending on my schedule. Yesterday I trained at 10.30am until 11.30am. I then had an apple and a couple of handfuls of grapes before going back to work.

Lunch was at about 2.15pm. Because it was late I had something quick and easy to get so I had bran flakes (about 60 grams) with skimmed milk.

About mid afternoon (4pm) I had some braised apples and pears with a bit of honey. I guess about 100 grams worth - about 2 apples and a pear?? and also a Muller light Greek style yogurt.

After work I just had beans (1 tin) on 4 rounds of toast (granary bread no butter) with some cheese grated on top. Some garden peas too! It sounds a bit of an odd day but I've been trying to use up some stuff I had left over. I had this at about 8.30pm

I didn't drink hardly anything yesterday, and looking back on it I now realise I should have had more water - I normally have a few glasses of water throughout the day.

My diet is normally a bit better! I don't have cereal every lunchtime it was just a case of what time I had yesterday. Evening meals will more often than not be pasta with a homemade tomato sauce or risotto with some veg, I'm not vegetarian but I don't eat a lot of meat as my other half is vegie. We do eat a lot of veg, beans and pulses though.

I have cut out alcohol completely as of New Year until after April 7!

I'm normally up at 5.45-6am and try to be in bed by 10.30pm during the week, at the weekend I'm normally up about 7 or 8 and in bed by 11-12pm.

I think that will give you a starting picture of my habits!

On to today's training session!

I had a progressive 6 miler scheduled. total run time was 41.05 at an average pace of 6.50 a mile. I did 4 of the miles progressive with the other 2 easy. My splits for the progressive section were 7.26, 6.46, 6.24 and 5.51 (sorry Steve may have got a bit carried away and gone too quick!).

It felt a bit of an effort to even get out the door today and I felt a bit sluggish to begin with but once I got into the second mile I felt ok. Day off tomorrow which I'm sure will do me good and then into my 12k XC on Saturday afternoon!

That's good progression - ending up at sub-6 is fine and not too quick if you felt in control. Stange sometimes how bad you feel at start of session but it ends up ok. Enjoy the rest day.

Obviously Ruth will come back with the nutrition feedback but clearly you need to up hydration and drink more water/ sports drink during day.

AW, I hope all is well on the training. How the calfs. AW and Steve (Coach) is there no strength and conditions within AW training. I havent seen it mentioned or have I missed it. 

Strength and conditioning seems the centre of most sports now a days. Like it was in the 70's. 

Great read so far and very interesting. I have never done a Marathon and I am not from a Runners background either. So it is interesting listerning to the training methods and systems. ( I am though a new runner) and I am doing the Greater Manchester Marathon. It funny how I am interested in your training and not the other training programs (is it my ego) lauhging 

HI Alex, just found your forum on sub 3 Paris and finding it very interesting as I myself am running Paris again this year with sub 3 being the target.

What running events have you entered in the build-up? Good luck and will follow your progress with interest. Barney.

Hi Traveling Runner, glad your enjoying the thread so far.

I do some strength and conditioning work a couple of times a week. Its something I have done for quite a few months as part of my rehab after a knee injury last year (2011) and have carried it on and progressed it in line with my fitness. The sessions at the minute are short (only 15 minutes, but no rest between exercises/sets), but a high intensity.

Steve has told me I can continue with this, but need to be mindful of its scheduling so I don't leave myself drained for the running sessions.

Hi Barney, Good luck with your own training for Paris.

I have a couple of races set in stone, the Maxifuel 10k at Dorney lake in January. I then go to Wokingham half marathon in February. I will probably do a couple of cross country races, 5k's and parkrun's too over the coming months but these will be lower key.

I have a couple of other races booked for March (a 20 miler and another half), but need to look at them and see if they fit ok with Steve's schedule. I think the half will probably go as I booked it before I knew about getting this opportunity to run Paris and it falls a little too close I think.

Alex - you're probably one of the few not to have put any weight on over Xmas! Interesting diet, I'm sure Ruth will be a great help as she was with me last year - very knowledgable (Hi Ruth! ). Nice progressive session. I am a convert to these starting off steady and building up the pace. I believe it gives good physical strength as you are increasing the pace on more fatigued legs and also a mental boost, knowing that you can do it too.

Shame you are under the weather DS2, hope you can sweat it out on the turbo!

Blimey Steve, a Parkrun then a 10k bike ride, then another Parkrun - Hardcore! Mattress was only the wire frame & rusty! DId a 5 miler (av 7.30 pace) last night and felt better, so went out and did a progressive 8 miler tonight with a 6.32, 7th mile and last mile as a warm down - so feeling a lot better/confident now.

Hi Travelling Runner, I'm doing the Manchester marathon too. What sort of time are you targeting?

Agree strength and conditioning is important but I am focussing more on the running training and will leave Alex to do what he feels comfortable with and is used to. Incidentally Sam has some good exercises she has illustrated on this website and i can recommend those.

http://hikaridesign.com/other/running-specific-circuit-nov-2012.pdf

Good to hear you are feeling better KR. Two parkruns even with a bike ride between wasn't really noteworthy as the runs were at a pace much slower than what i used to do my long slow runs at!

AW - 20 should be fine if controlled but the Half-marathon I think was the week before so not such a good idea.

Knight Rider Happy New Year. I had a look at your profile very impressive. I would love those times that for sure. 

I started running on the 17 June 2012 (Freckleton Half Marathon) time 1 hour 47 Mins at the age of 50. I know its a bit late. The day after I joine a running club. I started to train reasonably steady now. Averaging around 20-25 Miles since October. I am hoping by the end of Jan I will leading up to 50 Miles per week. Most runs are steady at 9 min pacing. I feel I can do a 10k in 45 Minutes but not yet done one. 

So I have set my timing like this really Knight Rider. under 4 hours is a bronze for me, under 3 hours 45 mins is a silver and under 3 hours 30 is the gold for my first one. 

I hope you are chasing the under 3 hours Knight Rider with your impressive timings. 

How long have you been running and what your training program/ 

or are you following AW training program to see if that would work.

Been running for about 10 years Traveling Runner. This time round I'm aiming for about 3.05 and hope some of Alex's schedule will be of use to get me near that. It's good you have some goal times and a Half marathon in Feb or March should give you a good indication of a marathon pace to follow on the day.

Is it a rest day for you today AW?

Yes rest day today KR, feel like I needed it as well. Legs a little tired today. On yesterdays run, I too like the progressive type run. On most unstructured runs I find naturally that I need to run really quite slow for the first mile as I warm up, probably 8.30-9.30 min mile pace, I then like to get quicker and quicker as I get warmer over the course of the run.

Looking forward to my mud bath in the cross country tomorrow!

I thought the half might need to go or be a more controlled effort Steve, its on the 17th March, the 20 miler is on the 3rd March - the day after the second training day.

Another post for Ruth!

Thought I would post today's food as its probably a bit more typical of the normal (apart from the cheese)!

7.30am - Special K (50g) with skimmed milk and a coffee with skimmed milk.

1.45pm - 2 rounds of bread with apricot jam, 1 apple, small slice of fruit cake. 1 cup of black coffee.

4.30pm - 1 apple and a cup of coffee with skimmed milk.

6.30pm - Graze box - the herb garden punnet, sugar free lime jelly. Big glass of water.

8.30pm - Vegetable stir fry (broccoli, bok choi, sugar snap peas, onion, pepper, chilli, ginger) homemade sweet and sour sauce with wholegrain rice (100g dry). Then some brie & cheddar cheese (50-60g) with 3 ryvitas with some quince jelly. Glass of water.

9.30pm - handful mixed dried fruit (30g).

How does that sound!? Probably better than my last post for you!!!!

Hi AW, that looks a very healthy day's food. Are you vegetarian? Just one observation. That gap between breakfast & lunch seems a big gap without any food, is it normally that long or is it work dependant. I'd be fainting from hunger by 12. And also, when do you do your running in relation to when you eat?

yes that looks healthier but agree with KR with the gap between breakfast and lunch.

The 20 should be ok if controlled and no faster or slower than marathon pace. I think the half may not be worth the risk.

Good luck in the cross-country. I don't see a problem in racing flat out.

I'm like you too in struggling when I start most runs. First mile, i felt I had to put a burst in last 400m of it to get below 10 minutes! I gradually picked up and did eventually get one just below eight in my fourth mile but that felt like a six.

I don't usually have music on but had it on shuffle (with about 800 possibilities) and while I was struggling, No distance Left to Run and Stop were on successively then when I decided to stop and do some strides on came The Kick Inside and  I get a kick out of you on successive tracks. I felt better after the attempted sprints and a track later on came Born to Run! 

Not Vegetarian KR but don't have meat very often as my other half is. The gap in the morning is where I normally train, I will normally follow this with a snack of some sort but yesterday I didn't stop all morning so didn't get a chance to eat anything mid morning.

I like running to music Steve, I mostly have music on for speed work. I like to pick a track list though so I can control the pace of what comes on. It sounds like your ipod is psychic!!!!

Middlesex XC Championships at Wormwood Scrubs was my session for today. If I'm being honest I didn't really feel up for it today, but once running the competitive juices started flowing and all in all was quite happy with how I ran.

I started quite steady, as everyone else steamed away! Then started to work my way up the field. The course was reasonably flat with a little bit of undulation and the ground was quite soft and muddy in parts. I was mindful of the extra 4k distance to the normal 8k we do over the XC. My pace stayed fairly consistent, dropped a bit for mile 6 & 7 but I felt strong and controlled the whole way, I wasn't passed once and picked off plenty of other runners over the course 3 laps - 1 shorter lap and 2 longer laps.

Splits were 6.31, 6.29, 6.39, 6.41, 6.25, 6.57, 6.49 and about 3 for the last bit - I forgot to stop my watch. My time was around 49 minutes about 6.40 minute mile average.

Some pictures from today!

Wow, AW - I think I eat about as much as you, and I'm a 5'2" girl!

As a sub-3 aspirant I am lurking, but I'm afraid rarely posting.  Glad to see your training is going well.