Sub 3

Lord D, are you suggesting that men and women train differently? You seem to imply that men train long and hard and women train... short and easy???? 

Saw the Doc tonight and he couldn't be certain I have a broken rib - couldn't find any gaps so at worst it will be a small crack.  He offered an x-ray appointment, but reckoned it would only be for curiosity as it doesn't make any difference to the treatment.  I now have a prescription for a lot of Tramadol painkiller tablets, I will see how effective these are before trying to run again.  I am somewhat more optimistic as the pain has reduced dramatically in the last day or so without the pills.  The acid test - picking the cat up - I can now manage whereas on Monday this was impossible!  I can also numb any remaining niggle with Christmas tipples of course.

My plan is to get better more quickly than Charlie of course.   Speaking of which, I'm going to try CW's patented red wine treatment shortly!

Lord Dids – I have heard that before about Paula, that she was (maybe) the first female elite to train like a man. Up until that point, female elite Marathoners hadn’t run the mileage or the big sessions that their male counterparts were putting in. Crucially, she did the big miles and monster sessions and stayed injury free for a while. The rest is history.

Lord Dids - I am not a North West resident btw, just taking the opportunity to get a couple of races in over that way while I have other business on in the area.  Did you run that other 10 miler, Walsall was it?

Good news that the rib is feeling better Wardi, enjoy the vino.

12miles @ 7:56/m in horrid filthy cold, windy and wet conditions for me tonight. Didn’t enjoy that one bit!

TR - I agree on the need for slowness in the circumstances, but I'm confident that Y D has the control to do his 20s slow enough for now and it's all miles in the bank, which will stand to him.

Y D - sounds like a 'good to get done run'. Btw, look at Lidia Simon. She used to do some sessions that are 'Canova like' before they were, if you know what I mean.

LD - go to Letsrun.com and search for the Hadd, Cabral 2 different types of runner thread. It will open your eyes as to how training can (and should?) be different given a combination of runner and event. Additionally, I think, re: Radcliffe, Geb, etc, you need to remember that training is cumulative. What they do at any given point in time is as a result of everything that came before.

Sounds positive on the rib Wardi.

Me? I should know better than to open my mouth! I had a teenager step out in front of me yesterday evening. Completely accidental, yet it was so sudden that it involved me stopping and twisting which has hurt right through my right hip and the left side of my neck/shoulder. I took today off completely (and saveral hot baths to alleviate the pain), so hopefully, combined with a few relaxing drinks at my last Christmas do will see me wake up tomorrow pain-free.

Wardi - hope that rib heals soon, get on the bone deposit plan like CW.

TT - sounds like you need some healing time too

Got a busy weekend with a few partys (and maybe the odd Babycham) which might affect the early doors training, so as I had a day off work today I did 2 hrs on the Turbo earlier, which was supposed to be Saturdays training.

I remember when I was young, the talk was of top marathoners (men) running 100 miles a week.  That just sounded insane, but Charlie Spedding's book suggests that it was about his upper limit and he managed 2.08.  It was the quality & consistency that made the difference.

Paula was running up to 140 miles a week at her peak, which also seemed ridiculous and much more than her contemporaries but did the business up to 2003 until injury set in.  Then I heard a commentator say that Paul Tergat was running 185 miles a week in the build up to the NY marathon once (he came third).  Plus there are stories of Chinese & Japanese running 180-200 miles a week which only seems to result in burnout.  Dave Bedford was doing 200 mpw but at a standard that wouldn't raise eyebrows in todays landscape.

Think the point is that there is a law of diminishing returns once you sacrifice quality for volume.  Although if you want to be good at running fast for long distances, you probably need to practice running fast for long distances.  That was the Khalid Khannouchi approach anyway and was good enough for two WR's.

Good luck with the aches and pains, Wardi & TT. The question is, should it be the original merlot I used to train with a bad back, or TB's Rioja? And would that be Coe-style rapid sips from a small but frequently refilled glass, or occasional chugs from an Ovett-style bucket? A lot of careful experiments are clearly required...

Day 3 not running and my leg has barely a murmur -- probably just hypochondria. I'll go for a decent run tomorrow and see what happens. I read between the lines last time that if the bone gets aggravated, the problem is that it is either dissolving itself (when under stress) or reforming (when not), but it takes a while to switch, so it needs a good bit of uninterrupted stress-free time to beef up (and the purple Quality Streets of course). Hence my plan is to alternating some decent training for a couple of days with some solid rest days and see how it goes (which is how I kept training for VLM this year). I'm erring on the side of caution though, as I have no race coming up I want to be super-fit for.

None meant CW but that's Brilliant ! thats your best post yet. Might be hypochondria or could be your bones dissolving ! Not sure who diagnosed this ailment/injury, but how can rest days followed by "decent" runs help. Surely something like 5M a day, day after day would help the skeleton/tendons harden, or a few weeks on the bench drinking milk and taking Calcium.

sorry dude, like I say none meant, just made me laugh.

Dissolving bones sounds nasty! I have no idea about any of this, except that I would advise plenty of Quality Street (not purple ones though), plus alcohol.

As expected, not much training this week due to having to drive to Bristol and back yesterday (5 hours in the car), and the wife has been ill so felt I should stay in and have dinner with her rather than do some late evening training.

Another work Xmas party in a couple of hours, so went for a run this morning at Gobi+1 o'clock in the dark and rain - not very enjoyable. 5 days off from Saturday at least, so should be able to do a decent amount then.

Zattu - with a feeling of dread, I shall have a look at letsrun. My prejudiced attitude being that I shall just read a load of anecdotal, unproven gumpf.

The only people that I generally take any note of are the likes of Tim Noakes and Hadd. Noakes tends to look at things scientifically and doesn't ram a particular training model down your throat, although I very much do not sign up to his central governor theory. Hadd was a complete eye opener when I first read it. Well, the simple premise that high-miles breeds an efficient change in blood capiliaries etc.

This thing about "you need to remember that training is cumulative. What they do at any given point in time is as a result of everything that came before." is, I'm afraid meaningless to me.

Am I to read into this that an injured athlete, who has, say, been out for a year will never catch up an uninjured one? Nah, that's bollox surely. An established runner like Hailesellaise could be injured for a year, recover for a few months and then do a three stage base, strength, sharpening plan over 6 months and bobs your uncle.

Anyway.... letsrun he I come.

Goth  - apologies for the sexist overtones.

I'm hoping that, 1914-stylee, a truce will break out on Christmas Day and you'll all play nicely...

Brilliant marmite. I couldn't have put it better 

LD - a lot of basic things seem to be "meaningless" to you. I suspect a lot of it is just that you like being argumentative for the sake of it, but that probably means I need my head examined for responding to you!!! It would have been great if the thread I referenced hadn't said that the two coaches in question were Hadd and Cabral, as I'm sure you would have come back and denounced it as bunkum.
P.S. I'm pretty sure the ex-Ethiopian emperor was never an "established runner".

Oh, and hip and shoulder are feeling much better today. Medicinal power of alcohol and loads of hot baths. Giving it an extra day before running again though to make sure all the tightness is gone.

I'm quite glad I haven't got dissolving bones like CW, though it's lucky that chocolate and red wine seem to be the cure

Well I'm still debating whether it should be the Coe-style small box of Quality Street or the Ovett-style big tin of Heroes.  Although anecdotally, on no scientific basis whatsoever, I'd say that Celebrations trumps the lot.

Half mile intervals lunchtime, very wet but no wind so actually quite good.  Almost had a TT-style altercation when avoiding a reversing van only to find a small lady laden with shopping bags in my path with me at full tilt.  Managed to manoeuvre around both with muscles, ligaments and bones intact.

Marmite – I clarified my assessment of Hadd with “Well, the simple premise that high-miles breeds an efficient change in blood capiliaries etc.”. I read Hadd as someone who was running 50 miles/week under the impression (from the deluge of other bollox I’d read) that speed was the important factor. Hadd happened to be the first article that put forward the counterintuitive argument that to run faster you train more slowly. I always believed the athlete he was talking about was an example. I have absolutely no idea what else he wrote, and obviously what he was saying was not radical. It’s just that it was simply put and if anything led me to the realistion that 95% of stuff I’d ever read on running was total shite.

Zattu – Haille Sellaisse indeed! Well I had a good read, and as I have admitted I didn’t approach it with a completely open mind so can rightly dismiss the view that follows if you like. However, I can assure you it’s not just to be argumentative. I passionately despise the mystique of the guru in the same way I despise alternative medicine, fortune tellers and celebrity TV dieticians.

My impressions are that it was all common sense stuff (eg, “run at three different paces”) unsurprisingly dressed up with page upon page of waffle. They are coaches, and as such rely upon fear, uncertainty and doubt to make a living.

If I was a coach and I had five different young athletes I may be able to put them on the same tried and trusted training plan and they all get peak fitness and run to their potential.

On the other hand, I could tweak things for each, claiming that I was doing this from some magical coaching insight. I would use percentages and unusual splits. I would use words a bit differently. The end result, of course, being the same as the above since they are all doing the requisite mix of fast and slow in disguise. However, I can now claim greatness as a coach.

It’s the same with homeopathic medicine – it is seen to work because people get well given time NOT because of the medicine but because it is so mysterious dumb people fall for it. Same with religion – it’s just complete brain wash because we fall for it.

I’ve been through an MBA, (and loved it), I’ve been through crank Quality Improvement programmes that swept the globe in the 1980s. All those teachings are commonsense that is often missing in organisations. Nevertheless, it is ONLY commonsense that is overdressed with bubble charts, models and the like by people looking to make a living out of it.

The reason I am being argumentative is that, despite such fine words and insight from these coaches no-one in the UK is capable of putting them into practice. The UK runners of the early 80s ran their times before any of the dubious research we have had since, before the rise of the celebrity coaches, crank potions or detailed training schedules. Surely there would have been JUST ONE runner since who would have run a half-decent marathon time with all that black magic at their disposal?