RW Forum Six – Sub 4.30

Emmy H wrote (see)

I know! Not everyone gets that.... The next thing you'll see is me on the cover on RW

Tried it, but your picture's too small - quality would be terrible. Plus it's got the watermark over it. Email me a decent sized one tho and I'll get cracking...

5.27 sounds like a good time to me - well done. Taking into account the weather and the sandwich disaster and the fact it was an LSR, it's a good one. Pacing maybe needs a bit of a look at. Could maybe make that the goal for your next two - to get a negative split, or even gradually decreasing splits. Nutrition wise I'm prob not much help - I just scoff a load of wine gums about an hour before, then take about three tubes with me and have a couple of bananas. I tried gels once but they're a bit yakky and fiddly to open (and expensive).

4.30's well within reach. You've got less than an hour to knock off yesterday's time. Plus you've still got eight weeks to go. Plus the crowds in Paris will help you round. Plus you'll have a three-week taper under your belt come April. Plus we've got this on record...

Emmy H wrote (see)

I always try my best and if I say that I’m going to do it – I’ll do this

Weedy - you're really too kind! Can you PM me your email?

RE: Nutrition - I've tried rolos but they're too gooey but not tried wine gums yet. The negative split/reducing split times sounds like a good attempt. I think I just need a right royal kick up the arse at mile 16

I will try my best. A friend of mine has recommended me Hal Higdon's Yasso's.

"They are called yasso 800 Hal higdon mentions them in his advanced plan basically its whatever time you want for your marathon you have to run 800m in that time so, if you want a 4hr 15 marathon then you do your 800 m in 4.15 minutes. Then 800m cool down."

Would I be killing myself to give them a go?

Emmy - under those conditions you should be proud of even finishing, never mind your time.

I find running on multiple surfaces really hurts, so I'm not surprised you are sore.

I'm experimenting with feeding at the moment. Tried Jelly Beans at the weekend and whilst they seemed ok - and were certainly tasty - the ingredients include Carnuba Wax. I put that on my car for a prolonged shine - who wants shiny intestines

Going to give shotblocks another go. I thought that they had caused me problems but recently saw an article  that said eating raisins for breakfast was a bad idea. What had I eaten...?

What do you do for recovery, anything specific?

The latest chat on the Paris thread seems to suggest a negative split would be difficult to achieve.

Carnuba wax in wine gums too. And, fun fact... extract of stinging nettles

Think a negative split's possible on any course. As long as you start off slow enough.

Re Yasso 800s, I've never tried them so couldn't comment. Anyone else given them a go?

@Orbutt - I wish that I could have taken a picture of the 1km grass section at the end of the marathon. It was a total mud fest and they put down a carpet to help but it just seemed to make things worse for me as I couldnt trust my footing.

Carnuba Wax in jelly beans AND wine gums?! Crickey... no wonder my doctor told me on my last medical that my insides were clean!

I've tried percy pigs and shot bloks and used them before for the VLM. I'd do the following: Gel, percy pig, gel, shot blok etc. So it really alternated the flavours and tastes.

My recovery is normally as follows:
- Finish Marathon: Stretch
- Drink a beer (it's got good electrolytes you know
- Get home: Shower and put cold water on my legs. After i've had a bit of a rest I'll then use my grid roller to do exercises for the hamstrings/quads/ITB band.

I watch videos' on youtube to get some different ideas for exercises and they always seem to help. If I can persuade Hubby - i'll also get a good massage with the tiger tail. This is really quite tough and hurts a bit but I always wake up feeling better.

I normally sleep in my compression guards and then go out for a recovery run the next day (4-5 miles).

I find the recovery run the best thing as it seems to help to get the blood flowing.

As always - i'm willing to share my humiliation at awful faces when running

Flowers with the organiser.

Another lap of anguished smiles!

Well done Emmy - what an effort Must have been lovely to have all those people singing happy birthday at you lol.

Thanks Khani! It was such a lovely surprise i'll admit! I've had an email from the organiser saying: "it was lovely to meet you... we have a 25km trail run in August "

OK - a 3.5 mile recovery run last night with hubby. He was cold (because he wasnt wearing enough layers) so pushed the pace and we did the run averaging in 10.13/10.15 pace.

I'm planning on 5 miles tomorrow and then it's the 50k on Sunday... One question - during the week for the next few weeks what should I be running? Should I see how I feel or try to actively run when tired?

E.g. I could fit in an 8miler tomorrow and then 5 miles friday in preparation? or should I remove the 8 miler? The same applies for next week. Any ideas or thoughts?

I was also thinking of the Yasso workout but just need to measure out 800m as the track close to my house is only 360m 

Emmy - what Garmin have you got? If it's the 610 then I can teach you how to create a workout which will do the measuring for you.

Hi Orbutt -I have a 305 at the moment. Any tips would be great!

OK - I'll need to log in to Garmin Connect at home to get the step by step process. My works machine uses too much coal

That sounds familiar... I'm tempted to ask if i should pedal my work computer to speed it up!

The coal man has been

We'll build a Pyramid - as I'm not sure what the Yasso entails but you'll get the drift.
Log into Garmin Connect
Hover over the 'Plan' tab on the top line and a drop down will appear.
Select 'Workouts'
Click 'New Workout'
Give it a name (Not too big - like 'Pyramid' or 'Yasso')
Make sure that the Workout Type is showing 'Running'
Click 'Add Step'

To start with we will have a Warm up section. This will allow you to warm up as part of your session and will record your distance at the same time.
Under 'Step Type' select 'Warm Up'
Leave the duration at 'Lap Button Press' and the target as 'No Target'
Click 'Add Step'

Step Type 'Interval', Duration 'Distance' and set the distance to 0.40 km (or if you're set up in miles 0.25)
Target 'Pace' - you can now set the pace window that you want to stay in. For example, if you want to run at between 5:00 and 5:15 per km then you would enter 5:00 in the first window and 5:15 in the second
Click 'Done'

Click 'Add Step'
Step Type 'Recovery', Duration 'Lap Button Press', Target 'No Target' - Click 'Done'

Click 'Add Step'
This time add an Interval for 0.6Km at the same pace range.

Click 'Add Step'
Add another 'Recovery'

Carry on adding Intervals and Recoveries for 0.8Km, 1.0Km, 0.8Km and 0.6Km

Last step.
Add an Interval for 0.4km but this time, but dont add a recovery - I'll explain why later.

Once this last step has been added click 'Save'

You have now added a Pyramid workout which does 400, 600, 800, 1k, 800, 600, 400 with a warm up.

Make sure that your watch is linked in to your PC and click 'Send to Device'.
Presuming the 305 works in the same way as the 610. Garmin Connect will search for your watch, find it and then you can click send Workout.

To Use the workout:
Find it on your watch and select 'Do Workout'
Then start your Warm up run. Once ready - click the Lap button and run like hell.
When you reach 400m your watch will beep at you and you will go into recovery until you next press Lap - when you need to run like hell again.
Progress through your workout - if you run too fast or too slow, your watch will shout at you.

When you have done your last 400m, you watch will let you know you have finished your workout. The reason that we don't have a Recovery or Cool down here is just in case you lose track of where you're up to.
You can now just Cool Down in your own time.

Hopefully, the 305 will let you do all of the above - fingers crossed.

I prob wouldn't put many miles in mid-week at the minute Em. Someone much wiser might correct me, but they'll prob not be of any value in terms of training benefit.

I'd treat the mid-weeks as mini tapers between your marathons and maybe do a couple of shorter runs, 3, maybe 4 miles tops, but at a tempo pace. Like what you did last night. Or an interval session... If you bear in mind that the pace you went at last night is the pace you'll need to be going all the way round Paris to hit 4.30. The more you train at a pace that's quicker than last night, the easier it'll be on the day to maintain your target pace.

If you feel tired tho, just have a rest day.

Hi Weedy - Thanks for that. I guess I was a bit concerned about the recovery miles and not losing the speed fitness on the longer LSRs at the weekend.

I think you're right about training at a faster pace... I really need to persuade my husband to run with me more often to keep my pace higher! Yesterday evening - that pace felt quite unmanagable for a longer distance!

Emmy - it's not surprising the pace felt hard first time. It will get easier.

If it had felt easy then there would have been something wrong somewhere

One of us could run in front in Paris with a slice of cake and another run behind with a cattle prod  

Pace wise, Orbutt's right. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. You just gradually push the boundaries a fraction at a time, day by day, week by week, and before you realise it, the pace you did last night becomes easy.

I'm back..........

Sorry for going on the missing list, sometimes work gets in the way of my running life.

Will now spend the next hour reading back.

Quick answer on getting faster, we need to be very careful upping training speed. you can build in sessions like

18 miler

6 at 10.15
6 at 9.30
6 at 10.15

But trying to run all longer runs at a quicker pace will lead to injury.