Sub 3

Did you not believe me RS78? I have sources in the North East you know 

Wardi - no I most certainly did not bring back kippers. Eeew. 

Back to interval training tonight for the first time post marathon. It hurt. I am unfit. 

RS - we're doing the Chiltern League now rather than the Met League, so I won't be at Ally Pally.

12M for me last night - had hoped to just do a steady run but a couple of mates persuaded me to do some mile reps on the track. I only did 3 in 5:06-5:08, which was faster than I wanted to run but never mind (was just trying to keep up with the other two).

Padams: surely you're the right age to remember the Just Say No campaign??!!

CD: somewhat belatedly, sorry to hear things didn't quite go to plan for you.

RS: I guess all the confusion may have helped with adrenaline!  Well done, especially if not a 'fast' course.

5M into work for me this morning as part of a double (same thing home).

Jools - I only agreed on the basis that we would do them closer to 5:30, but they lied. And clearly once we started I wasn't going to let them drop me, so I had to run faster. But yes, I probably shouldn't be so easily manipulated!

Padams - persuaded into some 5mm reps, no-one could persuade me to be able to run that fast anymore.

Wardi - indeed, it was MtR that got injured sitting on a fat wallet, no chance of that happening here. But some CW* type research shows that sitting balanced and having balanced behaviours matters. It also showed that too high a bike seat might not help, and I've spent a bit of time raising mine in the last year, inc a bit more last week when i put the new one on.

*Not full on CW research of course, didnt want to talk myself into anything else.

MtR -- your session sounds very much like what I deliberately do in tapering! As I did this morning: 1M light, then 2M hard (admittedly at 5:25/M, but not up to Padams' standards), then 0.75M home. As I have yet another HM on Sunday. Tomorrow I'll just do 1M fast, then 0.5M Fri, 0.25M on Sat kind of thing. It did feel encouragingly comfortable today, and the top-of-thigh niggle seems to have faded away again. But I'm getting an annoying split in the skin under my 4th toe (err, sorry to share that). I'll use my patent blister-patching technology to stay out of trouble there in the HM.

LD -- I don't think I congratulated you on your birthday or race; nice one. I appreciated being beaten by a V45 or V50 in the GER, as if they'd been younger I'd have missed getting the smart little 3rd-place V40 trophy that arrived in the post yesterday...

TR/MtR -- I had the sciatica on my wallet side, and have permanently given up keeping it in the back pocket (it's quite thick but not because of bank-notes, unfortunately).

MtR - indeed, I dont reckon I'd have an issue if I wasnt running or biking. 28 days in a row is top notch, what sort of distances ?

CW - fat wallet, but no bank notes ? there's no bank notes in mine and its not fat ! reminds of the time I had to ask one of the dads at cricket for £3 to cover the match fees (the mum usually pays), he opened his wallet and had more money in there than I've ever seen !

trouble with starting to do stretches, exercises etc is that they flipping make things hurt !

MtR - thats decent frequency and as it all shortish runs then its good injury proofing. Should set you up well. I'm doing mostly 5ish mile runs myself at the mo, and its all ~8mm too.

MtR - good to see you're easing back into it. Sounds like you're being very sensible a la PP, and look how well he's going now.

Fun cycling session last night - 4 of our cycling group went to a lit 1.7M each way out-and-back (roundabouts at each end). 2 started in the middle and one at each end, all started together and did a 45 minute 4-way pursuit type thing. As it was out-and-back you can see if you're catching/being caught, so good for motivation! Really hard work, but that is exactly the sort of training I've been lacking.

Padams - good idea that session, good to have play mates to do that with too. Good turbo session bagged today, 10min w/u then 45mins of 1min big gear (~65rpm)/4min biggish gear (~80rpm) trying to push up towards 80%HR on the 4mins, then 5 min w/d. Good session as the 45mins was either grinding a big gear or turning a biggish gear, so no spinning to give the legs a break. Backed it up with a 20min MTB up and over the hill commute.

MtR - Good to see you at it.  Hopefully you and the pup can get fit at a similar rate for a while and provide motivation for each other.  Rub your legs with raw meat for that extra challenge. 

TR - I'll probably borrow back my turbo at some point and start getting ideas from you on sessions.  On the basis that I've got more improvement potential on my weaker discipline I think I need to start getting some more power in my cycling legs, and a bit of grinding sounds like a good idea.  I like the sound of Padam's session as well, but in my part of London the only way to find a stretch of road which is traffic-light free is to get on the A2!

All I've managed since Sunday is a single spinning session.  Calves have taken a while to come back to life (quads absolutely fine), and simply CNBA yesterday, but getting back to it today with an easy one and some long stuff planned for the weekend again.

sorry, this is a bit boring but Athens being a hilly course seems to have wielded some strange results.

If you don't know the course, you pretty much run flat for 6 miles, then uphill 14 miles to the 20 mile point (2% incline), then run downhill (2%) the next 6 miles. In some respects, it feels like doing two separate races. Even if you reach the top well knackered, you are then starting afresh using different muscle fibres. So:

1. my legs have never recovered quicker from a marathon. In fact, they were barely stiff afterwards. Why? Is it because they were not just subjected to a flat 26 mile pounding, or because of point b below?

2. As a result of a slight cramp in my calf, I could not (dare not) run as flat out as I'd liked in the last 6 miles. And yet, my average heart rate was as high as it's ever been for a marathon (154 bpm) despite being 5 years older than when it used to average 154. Sure it would have been higher apart from the cramp.

So, what does this all mean? I have this theory that running with different muscles engaged may mean that you can possibly get more out of your body? Can you, therefore, change running style during a race and get better results?

I assume not, but can I still write a best-seller off the back of it?

PP - no probs, just send me a mail when you want some ideas. I mostly do 60mins, but do the odd 90 or 120min session. I will try to put in a midweek 90 or 120min once a week after Christmas. would be an early start and I dont fancy doing it at the mo !

Definite bestseller there LD, just need to come up with 80,000 words of padding around the idea you've succinctly expressed above. If you model a muscle as an engine with a bolted-on fuel tank (glycogen store), then swapping to another muscle when the first one is running low on fuel has to make sense. I retrained myself to run with a lower cadence and longer stride, but a threatened calf cramp in Abo 2009(?) made me run in my old style for a couple of miles, which put more load on my quads and less on my calves -- I was still absolutely jiggered after that race, but maybe if I'd done half of it with altered style it might have been a revelation... Problem is only having one set of muscles that do the optimal job of efficient running I fear.

Interesting/impressive bike training, Padams & TR.

Still tuning up for my half, so 1M w/u, 1M @ 5:14 and then 0.75M home this morning. Even less tomorrow...

LD - I seem to recall reading something a while back, possibly on this very thread about a theory that changing pace drastically (i.e. MP to 5k) actually had some benefits in terms of engaging different muscles/fuel stores. Difficult to envisage how a stint at 5k pace in the middle of a marathon would be helpful, but it seemed vaguely related to your suggestion.

To flesh out the book idea properly however you need to track down a remote ethnic group who employ this method successfully. Definite bestseller material!

Good luck on Sunday Charlie & Al P, nice to hear that the weather might behave!

Top work on the Turbo & MTB TR.  Good 'hours of darkness' biking session from Padams too.

MTR.. sounds very similar to my gentle comeback training in June.  Might be worth slotting some Parkruns in soon.  The results for my first 2 or 3 didn't look pretty but I started knocking 10-15 seconds off regularly which inspired confidence - currently 2 mins difference between June & Nov.  BTW if you want different advice to PP try rubbing lemon juice onto your lower legs, that should stop Muttley knibbling your ankles!

I had a fattish wallet in Turkey, £200 worth of low denomination Turkish lire is a lot of bulk.  Didn't want to risk the back pocket so carried it in my rucksack.  11m @ 7:48 pace today, nice day for it.