RW Forum Six – Sub 3.30

My schedule for week three;

Monday; Netball training

Tuesday; 8 mile steady (@7:55-8:40) +/- 5 x 100m strides

wednesday; Netball match

Thursday; 5 miles easy (@ 8:50-9:30)

Friday; 3 mile easy pace  (@ 8:50-9:30)

Saturday; Rest

Sunday; Brass Monkey Half Marathon +/- 2 mile w/u

 Total Mileage; 29-31 miles

 

Thanks doc

Your more than welcome. I hope your running is coming along well. Will drop in on your thread as soon as I get chance this week.

It is thanks. I added some speed work last week which I've not done before and it went well. It was also the first time I have run on a track for many a year as I was running at Don Valley. So at the moment I am right on schedule Enjoy the Brass Monkey !

Glad to hear that its all going well Carter. Ive only ran on the track a few times but ive really enjoyed it each time. Can you believe that they may be knocking down Don Valley, I cant, its a stupid idea....the council should get their act together and use it for something to bring some money in!

Well netball training has been cancelled (im secretly please) so im hopefully going to do tomorrows run today instead to give myself more time to recover for sunday

I heard they were thinking of gettng rid of Don Valley, sarah. So much for the Olympic legacy!!!

Taking away good facilities like that makes no sense. Our local track closed but only because they developed a new facility at one of the Sport Centre's nearby. I'm sure it cost the council a lot of money but it's a beautiful facility, was used by an international team for the Olympic training and the schools now use it all the time.

It's helped bring more people in to the other facilities (swimming pool etc) and people are happy to pay just a little bit more than previously because it's so good.

With so much obesity in the world we should be building or improving more facilities! It must save the NHS money in the long run!

It's one of the problems in letting accountants make decisions and not entrepreneurs. All short termism! All about what we can save today.................there has to be a penalty down the line!

Anyway, off my soapbox now! The Pocklington story is true. His family date back centuries and the village gained it's name from his ancestors or vice versa.

Great week last week Sarah and your off road run sounds like fun.  Glad it was a slower pace!!  My off road runs are often around 10 m/m.

That's great if you can do your run tonight instead of tomorrow (allowing for a 3 mile recovery run tomorrow ).  Its really far enough away from the HM to do something of a little quality.  I know you want to be fresh for the weekend but how about adding some K reps into tonight's run, done at HM pace with longer recoveries?

Before I was coached I used to 'taper' before every race but now I don't.  My week this week will be around 50m including the HM.  I have mile reps to do tomorrow night followed by a 10 miler on Wednesday, 5 on Thursday and 6 on Saturday.

I have learnt that I don't need to taper for every race and in fact the marathon is the only thing I do a proper taper for.  Tapering takes time and when you're marathon training its all about the bigger picture rather than specifically targeting races in the build up.  We don't want to be losing days or even weeks of important running, which might compromise the marathon.  

I think its great you've booked another marathon later on in the year (babies can wait!) because you can use this build up for London to learn and experiment different things that you can then put into place in your Autumn schedule. 

Also, see this as the start of a year plan so you'll build on it and be absolutely storming by October!

Have you got snow?  Poor show here - snowed all morning but didn't lie.   Its my son's 13th Birthday today so great excuse for a meal out and a little jump off the wagon!

 

Sarah - if you ever fancy a Sunday morning run in a group, you're most welcome!  We start at about 8.30 mm and then as I said a few miles will be at own pace, but everyone will know exactly where to go and impossible to get lost!  Best bit is the coffee and bacon baps or similar after  Hope BM goes well!

Minni - enjoy your son's birthday! Hope BM goes well for you too!

sarah osborne wrote (see)

No idea how cyclists manage up there as we were having difficult with just running, however there were many cyclists...one who was filming there ride actually crashed into a stone and went over his handlbars....both my friend and the cyclist luckily had no injuries except to their pride! 

Just have a quick browse through your thread and saw your run here. Absolutely love mountain biking around Ladybower reservoir. That bit down to cutthroat bridge is a rocky cracker. Its definitely challenging running terrain and actually much easier on a bike.

Also re the Don Valley stadium, darn shame. Mind you they closed the QE2 stadium in Enfield a few years ago and it was the place where Seb Coe trained in the early years. Luckily they have since reopened it and restored it to its former Art Deco glory.

Hey Sarah. It seems like your training is going very well so far. Good stuff! Good luck in the Brass Monkey Half. Do you have a time in mind you're aiming for?

I think that's a very interesting point made by Minnie regarding tapering. I've always tapered for warm-up races (even if just for a day or two) but I see why this is just missing out on training runs for the main event. I won't be doing this in future now 

Hi DS2...I think I finally believe you...that is quite impressive to have a village named after you, and its quite a sizely one too!

I completley agree with all your saying about Don Valley, it makes me so angry as it has so much potential, if only the pen pushes would advertise it and make something out of it. You would think with the Olympics and Jessica Ennis they would be building more and developing exisiting sporting facilities. I use to work for international venues which owned pondsforge and Don valley. They use to have business meetings, partys and rugby league (shef eagles) there but that was it....most of the time the majority of the stadium was unused. It was such a shame. They could hold concerts or athletics training for school or locals there or bigger sporting events! Im not happy and I have no idea what will happen to the eagles, if they play all their games at one of the football grounds it will ruin the pitches!

Minnie that's interesting re the taper, I have never really tapered for a half but I was wondering whether to take it a bit easy this week, so now I won't either, I'll do the club run or a shortish tempo run.

I felt tired tonight but not exhausted, and kept a good pace on the hills, there are some young lads there who go like the clappers for the first sessions then tire rapidly towards the end. Rest day tomorrow, probably just in time after 3 consecutive runs. Then plan is 8 miles at Nara pace on Wednesday.

Pocklington...we buy paper sacks from a firm on the old airfield, the rep is a keen runner, it's obviously a hotbed of running activity.

Hi Minni, your a machine....all those miles this week and then BM on sunday....and you will still be way ahead of me!

I know what you mean about not tapering too much for any races scheduled during marathon training. I know I didnt taper last year when I did any race whilst training for VLM. On two occasions I did my long run (around 15-16 miles) two days before the race and still got PBs (no idea how...i must have not been trying hard enough before). This year I felt like I needed to have a reduced milage week this week, due to greatly increasing my milage for the last few weeks. After the reduced mileage I can then look at increasing it again and further. I added in some km reps today as you suggested and really enjoyed them. Think my legs actually felt fresher afterwards and more loosened up!

Haha, I hope your right about York Marathon, would be nice to do well on home turf!! Like you said babies can wait (just dont let chris hear me say that).

It snowed really heavily here (the reason why netball training was cancelled) but it didnt really settle. When I left work everything was just slush. Where did you go for your meal? Hope you had a nice meal and your son had a happy birthday.

Sorry iPad can't spell.

Thankyou Hilly, thats really kind of you. I might end up taking you up on that offer one day...the bacon butty sounds very tempting!!!!

Hi Ant....that was the bit where my friend and the cyclist did their stunt acts. Im just so glad that when my friend did her "belly flop" (as she called it) it was a very muddy patch with no stones as it could have been quite dangerous. Your so brave cycling around there...although all the cyclists we past had a huge grin on their face and looked like they were having the time of their life. Fingers crossed they will do the same with Don Valley.

Evening Ady, thankyou for the good luck. Im still going to do a bit of tapering but not as much as I would normally do. I feel I need a bit of a rest/reduced mileage week before I start upping the mileage again next week (although my weekly mileage will still be more than my normal pre marathon training amount). I still did 8m tonight with some km repeats....something I certainly wouldnt have done 6 days before a race if I wasnt training for a marathon. I would like about 1 hr 33 but we will see. It will all depend on the weather on the day. If its anything like today then I will probably take it more steady as it was slippy on the slush....I dont want to risk any injuries! I kept meaning to come on your thread over the weekend but I kept running out of time. Didnt you do another park run this weekend? how did it go?

Hi Mr P. Last time I made it to a training session with knavesmires the coach did say that its all about maintaining your speed on your reps, that you will improve so much more better if you can do that rather than doing one rep really quick and then the rest at poor effort. It does sound like you need a nice rest day tomorrow before your next tough run at MP. It is so nice out pocklington way...loads of open spaces for you to explore! which race do you have planned?

Training Diary for forum 6 sub 3:30 (VLM)

Week 3, (Day 15). Aim; cross training (netball training)

Actual: due to the snow netball training was cancelled so I decided to bring forward my run from tomorrow. Minni suggested adding in 4 x 1km at HMP with 2-3 min recoveries. This was so that I still got an effective training run in, but so I didnt do as much as the previous weeks to allow me a little taper for the brass monkey.

Due to the slippy slush I went to the gym to do the (now) mini speed session.

I started off with resistance training and warm up stretches inbetween reps for the first 45 mins.

My run; km splits
0-1 km: 9:00 min/ml
1-2 km: 8:20 min/ml
2-3 km: 8:00 min/ml
3-4 km: 7:08 min/ml
4-4.5 km :8:20 min/ml
4.5-5.5 km: 7:03 min/ml
5.5-6 km: 8:20 min/ml
6-7 km: 7:03 min/ml
7-7.5 km: 8:20 min/lm
7.5-8.5 km: 6:58 min/ml
8.5-9 km: 8:20 min/ml
9-10 km: 8 min/ml
10-11 km: 8:13 min/ml
11-12 km: 8:20 min/ml
12-12.5 (ish km) 8:50 min/ml

Total milage; 7.98 miles

Great session Sarah!  And I bet those 1k reps felt nice and short after doing the miles ones?

Re York marathon - I always goal set ahead.  Last Autumn I was thinking ahead to London (and I still am) but already I'm thinking towards my Autumn marathon now and thinking along of the lines of London will hopefully bring a pb, which (with smart training) and I can then build upon for the Castles marathon in October.  Consistency is key and I think the biggest improvements come when we just keep at it, week after week, month after month.

Snow has arrived   Boy is now 13yrs 1 day.  

Good morning minni, thankyou. The km felt easy compared to the mile and 2 mile reps, I didnt actually feel out of breath whilst running the faster paces and felt quite comfortable. I didnt get the urge to clock watch either ready for when I could reduce the speed. I know I enjoyed it far more than if I had just ran it all at a steady pace aswell so thankyou for suggesting the reps.

Its nice to have goals to aim for, no matter how far away they are. I am liking the idea of doing an autumn marathon, especially doing the training over summer! All my life I've had academic aims which usually are at least a year ahead, running has thankful replaced those since I qualified to keep me busy and striving for improvement and achievements.

Doesn't look like we had much snow last night but it looks cold out there, can hear ice crunching under tyres! I bet its quite emotional watching your children grow up and reach those milestones. Hope you had a lovely evening celebrating with your family.

Minni - on the tapering issue. Would you take it easier the week after to make sure you recover from the race? In particular around issues like paces of tempo runs (or even doing speedwork at all) and also whether you would attempt a 20 the weekend after? I know we had a bit of chat on the forums around this last year when people picked up injuries doing a 20 the weekend after a half mara.

Ant P wrote (see)

Minni - on the tapering issue. Would you take it easier the week after to make sure you recover from the race? In particular around issues like paces of tempo runs (or even doing speedwork at all) and also whether you would attempt a 20 the weekend after? I know we had a bit of chat on the forums around this last year when people picked up injuries doing a 20 the weekend after a half mara.

good memory - and a very good point - there were at 3 people of picked up niggles/ injuries attempting a 20 the week after a race