Sub 3

Dachs, that's abominable, though your best one yeti...

... welcome back, and 6th in the XC sounds rather good.

Snow so far here has been a skim of gritty stuff that made the pavements a bit slippery, but the roads are still fine. So tactically running rather than biking wasn't particularly helpful, with ~4kg tonight as I wanted to bring a laptop home (inadvertently testing your more baggage == more niggles theory, TT). Seemed Ok though.

TR - actually my mate volunteered last minute some years back as they didn't have anyone to do it.  His PB was 2.58 and he wasn't in top nick.  Got them to 20 miles and had to bin the job and leave them to it.  Even had to turn his "pacer" t-shirt inside out as it was too embarrassing as he hobbled down the embankment 

A repeat of last year's Gloucester marathon that I ran with Ode would be ideal.  Halfway in 1.29 and finished in 2.59.50 - sure the train would appreciate the 6 min/mile sprint in mile 26 to make the cut 

Great 12.5 trail run after work in the snow. Strava is implying I was a touch slow, but felt like I was working consistently. Last 4 miles were done at MP +15% with same effort as the hill sections so hopefully ok. 18 to 20 miles at 07:00(am not miles per min ) tomorrow. Which is mostly uphill to the half way point and mostly down hill after that My plan states that I should be running 70+ mile weeks, but only managing to fit 55 miles for the last couple of weeks.

Not sure I am getting enough speed work in, but my plan does have some quicker runs next week. So hopefully the snow and ice will be be gone by then. Starting to get twitchy that I promised myself I would run my first  5km in February.

It is sort of motivating seeing all these great training and racing times. But also a little off putting for someone who is a scraper 3 hour runner. Hopefully I can put in some times I dare post when the conditions improve under foot.

Dan A - fairplay, lol You should get TR on board for that, he'd be good at leading the charge! I might even hitch a ride, got a feeling my VLM campaign is going to be a short one and a lets see what happens on the day anything under 3hrs will do the way things have been going recently. Still a fair bit of time I suppose.

Loads of snow and ice up here in the frozen tundra of the north so I can't run outside anyway plus I've got a proper good old cold that's come on today. Don't feel as bad as I could do if Newcastle don't put Reading away at home tomorrow as I'm back in the Gallowgate

DanA/RS - fear of failure (as a pacer) would be quite motivating I guess, but I'm only 2:5X good, so couldnt afford an off day. We have some of that frozen tundra too, not a bad time to be on the (running) bench ! Plenty of time indeed for both of us, I missed 9 consecutive days of running at the start of March last yr and 10 days in January before my first VLM, they are my two fastest, so I'm pretty cool about it. I have a number for a 10K Sunday that I cant do now cos of my knee issue, so if it gets re-scheduled then I might dip in !

TR - I'd be no good pacing at London with my 3.00.16 and 3.00.31, hahaha. Now that would be pressure for me to take the job on!!!! I'd be running scared all the way There's loads of my lot from Heathside running and a few from Heaton Harriers up here. I think I'll treat it more like a party, day out and enjoy all the hoopla that goes with it rather than obsessing about times/mile splits. I'm actually more interested in nailing a really fast half and a 35.xx 10k. A decent marathon performance would be good though. I agree I'd rather go into London bang on rather then get injured closer in the build up. Hope your knee sorts itself out mate but still plenty of time like you say - it may be a "Coro 10 week build up" job for me.

RS - agreed, plan to enjoy the day as you never know what it's going to throw up, so its pointless spending too many matches planning/stressing over what might or might not happen from now on in as you can only control the controllable. I wasnt planning on bagging a 20 until mid Feb, so I still have tons of time. I'll try a test run Tuesday, that'll mean I'll have given it a week. If its ok, then a week or two building back up gets me to where I need to be by mid Feb.

TR - obviously I've missed something; what did you do to your knee?

Dan - sorry, but that's brilliant

CW - I was thinking bodyweight, rather than accessories. I don't even like carrying a phone if I run to work.

Nice to see Marigold, you obviously copped a bit less snow than we did, we dont usually get much though.

TT - dont know, I've done something to stir up the knee I damaged the medial ligaments in a few years back (possibly a DIY related injury or maybe I twisted it), it had been a bit achy (no big deal) but it was really moaning running up and down the hill on my commute Monday (hill is compulsory) so I've stopped for a while. Hopefully its ok again soon and I can run commute again, otherwise its a very low mileage campaign ahead. But early days so we'll see. Shit happens, buts its small potatoes at the moment.

Marigold, a new avatar is definitely required. You look like Postie Postie. Marigolds are rubber gloves, yes?

Padams - Enjoyed the blog.  You do make it sound quite a bit easier than it must actually be.

DanA - Targeting a VLM PB then?

CW - great photo!

Nice to meet Al_P at training last Tuesday.  I did a tempo rather than the session which tells me that my current tempo pace is 7:35.  Plenty of room for improvement.

My basic plan is temo on Tuesday,  marathon pace on Friday, long on Sunday and as much else as I can fit in without getting injured.  The slush Marigold mentioned got in the way of marathon pace running - at least on my side of the town it was too risky to go much faster than a jog. 

My attempt to be responsible and not run on the snow and slush was rebuffed because apparently it wouldn't be safe for me to use the local council run gym unless I had an induction and I couldn't have one then so I ended up sliding my way around the local parks for 5 miles or so.