Sub 3

MtR, I do indeed recall meeting you, and have always sought out the likes of Wardi and Jools once over the finish line. They were usually waiting for me.
2007 was 3:12:55 fo me, after having done 3:06, 3:07 etc. I was comfortable in that bracket, so decided to re-write the training programme. That year I hit PBs in every single distance I ran 5k to 50k, with the exception of 42.2k. 2008 was better, filling the blank.

So reading between the lines.... 

Well done's to DanA on winning the battle of the shorts, LD for sporting black socks - I wear non running socks often because its old skool innit (well done on the sub 80 too btw, congrats on a vest to my old mucker Speedy Yay! (Yes I wonder too about the 'others', hope your cold pisses off, congrats to Jools on some nice mud wrestling and well done to all the long runners of the world... especially to ES on a day-boo 20 miler *sniff* proud moment that 

Nothing to report at my end sadly as I leapt head first off the couch and onto the bench in a little over 10 days... that'll be the famous runners patience kicking in right there eh Wardi?? 

A rather sore achilles tendon which will need a little rest and some ironing out I suspect. As per I tried a little waltz tonight but sacked it after 3 minutes of light maneuvering. 

I'll be back! Some new trabs usually helps the mind games too. I'd convinced myself, yet again, that my old shoes were good for another 1000 miles... Does anyone else repeat the same mistakes over and over is it just me?? 

I always do the 100 cals / mile thing. Although if I set my Garmin watch up to be an uber athlete it comes up something like 45 cals per mile... pretty sure that's Haile territory. 

Disappointingly I went away to look up my marathon training history a la MtR only to discover I only have 2 of the campaigns logged on Garmin Connect. The other 3 are lost to the ether in training books or other now defunct online logs. I wish I had kept my  £2.50 WHSmith diaries going. 

So, I have nothing to compare really other than I have never done more than 50 miles per week average and in the two years worth of data I have - an increase of 7 miles per week average resulted in worse performances over HM and Mar times by a whopping 39secs and 51 secs respectively: 

2009 Lochaber
41mpw
HM 1:19:12
Mar 2:57:15 

2010 London
47.5mpw  
HM 1:19:51
Mar 2:58:06 

Excellent XC racing from AW, CC2, Jools, CW, LJ, Al_P, Padams, PP.
Nicely done on the 1/2M Dan, good one from LD too. 

Black socks are the business, won't hear a bad word against them, then again I love marmite and that seems to divide opinion too, in fact as I was running past a bunch of ramblers on our group 20 miler last Sunday, proudly sporting my Marmite vest one of them yelled "I hate Marmite", not the first time I've heard that 

With all this talk of mileage and marathons I couldn't resist digging out my stats:

Race - Mileage Total* - Avg. MPW - Finish Time
Cal International '95 - 336 - 22.4 - 3:54:50
Avenue of the Giants '96 - 423 - 28.2 - 3:34:11
Napa Valley '97 - 373 - 24.9 - 3:27:24
Rocket City '97 - 413 - 27.5 - 3:27:31
Chicago '98 - 488 - 32.5 - 3:29:26
Kiawah Island '99 - 537 - 35.8 - 3:17:50
Las Vegas '01 - 503 - 33.5 - 3:09:57
Boston '01 - ? - ? - 3:24:25
London '03 - 480 - 32 - 2:56:57
London '04 - 870 - 58 - 2:52:13
Berlin '05 - 1083 - 72 - 2:43:59
London '08 - ? - ? - 2:34:27
Berlin '09 - 1229 - 82 - 2:31:08
London '12 - 1063 - 71 - 2:41:37

*Mileage totals and average mpw are all taken from the 15 weeks leading up to and including marathon week.

Boston in '01 was just done at a steady pace as it was not long after Las Vegas so was not run as an all out effort. The numbers for London '03 are slightly misleading as this was the only time I incorporated a couple of bike sessions per week. I didn't keep a log for the '08 campaign but if memory serves total mileage and mpw were midway between Berlin '05 and Berlin '09.  

nice to see MtR - he beat me good and proper when I paced him to that 2:51 !

LD - I dont count calories, but I know that I need fuel more when I cycle outside than when I turbo, its the strength component thats burning the calories, I guess on an exercise bike (or turbo too) its easy to spin and not push a big enough gear. Outside the terrain, weather etc means you need to push, plus I always push the pace outdoors.

I'm late for a turbo appointment - that waking up cup of coffee has cost me a few soem time !

LD -- I have a sneaking suspicion that the Garmin calc of ~95 kCal/mile run for one of my weight (still set at pre-Xmas 8st11) is a bit of an overestimate; I got a 5% performance increase by improving my style a couple of years ago, and it can't possibly know that. But I'm happy to accept it's probably in the right ball-park.

BUT cycling is all about aerodynamics, which varies hugely by bike and rider. 18mph on my commuting bike (heavy MTB with road tyres + panniers + mudguards) is hard -- let's randomly guess I burn 800 kCal/hr like that. Now put me on a gleaming blade of carbon fibre time trial bike with a pointy helmet, and 18 mph would be dawdling. My calorie burn per hour may well be halved. Unless your gadget has some calibration to take that into account, it's going to be pretty hopeless at estimating. A crank power meter would get it right (multiplying up to allow for 15-20% muscle efficiency etc).

No idea if Garmins etc allow for hills when estimating calorie burn either -- does it think I'm dawdling if I am doing 10 mph but gaining a lot of height? Does it think I'm burning loads of calories at 30 mph even if I'm freewheeling down a monster hill?

So I'm pretty sceptical of cycling calorie burn estimates from cycle computers.

CW - I didn't know you were so light, I'm weighing in at 11.4 at the moment.

TR - Hope the turbo went well, ignore the knee pain e.t.c it's marathon training!

Nice to see Selbs popping in

SJ - I'm certainly guilty of repeated mistakes, or laziness (lack of core work, foam roller e.t.c), hope you're off the bench sharpish.

Marmite - You've done some amazing marathons, which has been your favourite?

Training is going well, diet isn't, everywhere I turn there's shortbread and chocolate, I'm working my way through it with ease though so by the weekend the house should be clear of such temptations. 

5M easy with a work colleague last night and down to the last box of truffles on the Christmas chocolates front.

Hope you are back running soon, SJ.

TR: turboing at 6.30am.  Nice...  I guess!

Welcome back MtR and Mmmmarmite (I'm afraid I'm in the loathe it camp).

I hope I'm due a good year, Selbs, but I'd get rich quick off the predictions people make of me having a good year.  It's been a while.  You're due a good year, too; hope the rehab is progressing and the little one is doing well.

SL - indeed, keep calm and carry on. Give it a few weeks and I shoudl be adapting well.

Jools - thats 30mins late, start time is 6am, but I let myself have a cup of coffee as I was a big sluggish, answered a couple of emails...........

nice to see marmite - running in a vest in training ? I wear a vest one day a year !

Jools - seems like your training has got off to a cracking start which has set you up nicely

SL - yeah Xmas is deadly for naughty foods isn't it, lol

Selbs - how's your injury and moreso the baby?

TR - You're more than likely going to be under 2.55 than over it

PP - well done in the XC

Sticking my head back in - leg is finally sorting itself but picked up another minor niggle in my right hip flexor. I did run pain free on sunday though for 3m so that's a start. Going to start again this weekend and go from there. Still swimming.

If injuries stop me getting going properly for a good bit yet then I'm considering binning off London and doing Windermere marathon instead on May 19th. If I get started again soon I'll probably scrap Watford half in favour of an LSR and just do Bath in March, no need to do two halfs a month apart when long runs are needed.

Will see how things go the next week few weeks....got plenty on with study/exams so to be honest I'm not stressing about running really. May just end up sticking to general training, half, park runs etc and aim at some fell running in the spring.

SL - We're exactly the same weight! And I'm still getting through the Christmas cheese...

I'm probably gonna start eating more mmmmarmite because I got a bread maker for Christmas, and I'm sure I'll get bored of raspberry jam soon.  (Top of the raspberry jam survey at the moment: Bonne Maman.)

I've cobbled together a rough VLM training schedule.  I wasn't going to bother but then I realised I had quite a few races planned so it made sense to provisionally schedule some of the more key long runs and MP runs around this.  There's a lot of yellow, which looks a bit scary but I certainly won't be hammering all the races, particularly some of the XC still to come which will definitely be trained through to some extent.  "Intervals" is likely to be 10 x 1k every fortnight or so, and where we do shorter stuff on the track it will still be reasonable volume, and the marathon guys will probably tag on some MP around it when we get to the business end of Feb/March...

So mileage doesn't get too menthol, but this is assuming, in a good week, probably 4/5 gym sessions on top, including spinning/tempo sessions on exercise bike and core/weights. 

PP, what's up with 6th March?  You're half a mile short.  Otherwise you're right, that's pretty scary!

CD - well spotted!  I'm not being completely OCD about the difference between 6.5 and 7 miles, the 6.5 just indicates a particular lunchtime route from work as opposed to my usual easy run in the evening, i.e. I don't envisage doubling up with a gym session + easy run on that particular day.  Right, I'm off for a non-spreadsheet gym session!  (Easy on the squats and lunges, 10 x 800 this evening...)

PP - some of those MP thursday's look tough. Some of them are considerably more than 10M of MP, is that possible in training ?

RS - Ode has run Windermere, theres a swish prize for the winner. I'd take the 2:54 (or 50) this year, and save the 2:59 for when I'm a V50.

I'd post my training schedule up, only I dont know what it is !

TR (and others) - Given I may be starting my schedule later than planned for London do you reckon I could get away with 7x 20+ long runs for london if I made them all atleast 21 and if I was knocking out a medium midweek run of 13-15?

Afternoon all,

I have just spent too long trying to catch up on recent postings to this thread.  I am in a similar position to ES in that I am a marathon virgin having not run beyond HM on the road before.  I'm interested in seeing what other people do to go under 3 hours although from reading the postings there are some seriously quick people here.

Anyway....permission to come aboard?