Sub 3

Marigold - when your muscles are 50 years old things you'll find a very long morning run can turn your legs into useless wooden stumps. The theory behind that article makes sense. In fact, don't we really train for weeks/months in a state of general muscle fatigue? I think the question is at what point does more training have zero additional benefit.

I ran 8 miles at 9:30 pace yesterday morning (which is one of your recovery runs I would assume) after the long sunday run - with an eye on the Strava Greatest Runner in the World table. I am lying 10th at the moment with 3 monumentally hard days to go. There's five of us neck and neck for the coveted 10th place. 

I missed your birthday -- hope you're fully well soon ZaTTu. Yes, 2hr 18 not 1hr18!

LD -- " if your muscles are burning one supply and your brain is burning another, it won't really matter whether you are running or playing snooker. You'll get hyperglycaemic after the same amount of time?"

Ah, I think it's a bit unfair. Your legs steal from your liver/blood too when running, but your blood doesn't make use of what's in your legs (if there's anything left) -- well, I infer that from Noakes' conclusions, anyway. So no gels required for marathon snooker sessions, only marathons. And I think there is just a limit to how much sugar you can absorb while running, hence the gels and sports gloop don't help your legs much, even if they can use some of whatever gets into your blood.

The bathroom scales showed a worrying upward trend in the last couple of days, just when I thought I was getting over Christmas -- yet my legs were more sprightly, so I did 2M @ 5:57/M as part of my run to work, with 2kg rucksack of course, overall 5M @ 6:18/M. Maybe I'm adjusting to those recovery runs a bit (nice link Marigold).

15M for me; ended up averaging 7.58m/m but it took a while for the legs to get there - the first 4 miles were like striding through treacle (although obviously easier than Saturday's XC exploits!).  Thanks to Toro's mum, btw - not a day to be marshalling!

Charlie.. I always though weight loss took about 2-3 weeks to show up on the scales when you think your exercise is exceeding your intake.  I wouldn't take much notice of short term gains/losses meself.  Nice commuting BTW.

I rather like Mrs Padams' logic regarding keeping the kitchen clean.  Mind you if the house takes a few months to sell the pair of you are going to be noshing an awful lot of takeaways & eating out frequently!       Best of luck with the niggle Padams. 

TT.. belated happy returns, sorry you weren't in the best condition to enjoy it.  Good to see you are still getting the miles in though.

Jools.. nice midweek miles again.  BTW if you want a bit of encouragement have a look at this young lady.  She barely scrapes under 40 mins for 10k, can't quite break 90 mins for a half but runs 2:58.06 at Frankfurt last year!  Splits of 89:04/89:02 aren't too shabby either!

'when your muscles are 50 years old things you'll find a very long morning run can turn your legs into useless wooden stumps'.. thus spoke Dids - a good point well made, how very true.  I can add that at 55 years old the wood starts to rot.. 

4.2m on the treadie first thing, about 7m with the club later.

She came and spoke to me at the Tri Counties XC in December (to let me know that usually I beat her but that day she beat me); I didn't manage to speak to her after the SW XC in January to let her know that normal service had resumed

Padams - treat your calf to some hot water bottle. Have you told the boss it was her fault yet ?

TT - shame you felt carp on your b'day. Any reaction to the 18 ? yes, after about 5M of it, ha ha  ! But to be fair it was more sore after y'days commuting double. I'll do an easy 5 or 6M tomorrow and then I'll try another commute Friday. It was achy on the turbo today after y'day, Sunday it had the luxury of a zero but that wont happen very often as usually there'll be a long bike and some sort of longish run to a typical weekend.

Jools - did I read that you ran 70 miles the other week (might've been wrong)? You seem to be going well, what are you going to peak at?

TR - hopefully it won't come back like before.

5 for me on sunday and 5 yesterday. Rest today then a 6-7 tomorrow and go from there.

70 is my peak mileage, RS.  Any more than that and I get injured; less than 60 and I just don't seem to run as well.  It's a fine balance!

Daring treadie session OS!

Jools.. I thought you might have raced against her being in the SW.  Hopefully 2:58 nailed on for you then! 

Last 3m of club run in torrential diagonal rain and a strong wind, very soggy but didn't need gloves for the first time in ages.

RS.. priceless 3 points tonight!

ZaTTu - belated happy birthday, sorry you didn't have the best of days

Some big training going on...good stuff. I skim read the last 20 pages or so, I feel like I'm not putting anything like the required effort into my training...

I was in LA for a day and half last week, it nice (although somewhat a shock) to be running in 24C along the beach! Back out again in 2 weeks which will include my only race before London. 

Pleasing session tonight in a stiff wind (but at least it blew the rainstorm over us fairly quickly and dried us all off before the last rep!) 8 x 0.55 miles in 3.21, 3.16, 3.15, 3.15, 3.16, 3.15, 3.15, 3.13. Felt great and was keeping up with two folks who are normally a little way ahead. 

24 degrees C? Naaah, far too hot. The temperature here was perfect tonight (out of the wind if such a thing were possible). 

charliew - been googling whilst I should be doing my tax return. I reckon that the carbs you get from, say, lucozade gets into the bloodstream pretty quickly, and then used or stored by muscles pretty quickly. And, I'm guessing that because the brain does not need much carbs that most will be available to muscle or liver (which, in turn will be made available to muscles when running). Not sure where else it would go in fact.

If you consider a cyclist who might be going full pelt for 5 hours and burning 5,000 cals, then if it's not possible to get a lot of that from ingested carbs, where else is it coming from.

Therefore, eating/drinking quick burn carbs between runs would surely be used on the next run even if it was shortly afterwards?

Interesting to know what race you have planned, Coro -- good luck.

LD -- yes, I think Noakes' point was that you can't possibly absorb enough carbs from your gut to make much difference to your legs while exercising hard. The main place it comes from then are the glygocogen stores in the muscles themselves -- a hefty local cache of energy -- but those we almost fully deplete in a marathon. And you must turn to fats as the glycogen runs low.

However, of the sugar you do ingest while going, yes some of it will be burnt by your muscles. And if you're excercising more gently, then you should be able to make better use of ingested energy, because your digestion will keep up better with the lower power demand.

Nice reps CC2.

Wardi - we did eat in last night, but are continually cleaning up afterwards!

TR - didn't mention it was her fault. She was already stressed getting the house sorted, so I think that would have pushed her over the edge!

CC2 - nice session, very promising. I'd prefer 24C myself, but I like the warm.

Turbo last night rather than the normal running interval session to give the calf a rest. Tried a 40 minute section "hard" - I decided early on that 260W would be difficult, but got through it at that power without pushing too hard, so I'll go for a higher target next time.

Calf feels fine this morning, although I'll probably be cycling again tonight anyway (pursuits on the road), so tomorrow evening will be the next run.

Nice miles Jools.

lol TR. A Sunday zero sounds like it was the sensible approach.

Nice dreadmill work OS.

Sounds much better than the conditions here coro. What length is the race you're doing?

Nice repping CC2.

Good luck with the house selling Padams.

I've asked to change to the 10m from the 20m at Bramley, so hopefully they'll allow that. I figure that a LT effort would be much more beneficial to me in my current (lack of) condition than a slower 20m, especially as I've got another 20m booked in at the start of March.

An easy 6/15 double yesterday and today is long run day, though looking at the wind outside at the moment I suspect it'll be a simple easy one, rather than with anything quicker.

Good luck with house selling Padams. I remember that feeling of cleaning (and in my case clearing most of our stuff into a storage unit to make the flat seem bigger) frantically for the first viewings. Worked a treat though, sold the flat to the first person who looked at it for the asking price. Keep the photos, just to remind yourself how great the place can look (although seeing as you don't have kids yet I suspec your place would be pretty smart all the time).

Loads of good training going on.

I think if sugar gets into the bloodstream then it will be used to fuel your effort. The issue is that as you work harder your gut absorption rate reduces. But even if you can only absorb 500ml per hour of fluid, at 7.5% carb (as per sports drink), that's about 75g of carbs, or 300 kcal per hour. Of course, at 6mm, you're burning more like 1000 kcal per hour.

My best marathons have involved consumption of 4-5 gels, which is about 500 kcal. Of course, I was also at my fittest for them, and when things go pear-shaped I tend to stop eating gels out of annoyance, so I'm not sure about correlation.

Double day yesterday with a 10k commute each way. Didn't fancy the run home after a decent day at work, but really enjoyed it in the end.

Medium long run home planned for this evening, 10-12 miles (depending on route).

Need to get some faster miles in. Saw that Wokingham is only 11 days away, and I'm not in any shape for a fast half. Plan at the moment is run a progressive race with a very conservative target - maybe only 1:35 or so.

Weight is still a problem, but at least it's starting to come off. Started Jan at 186lb (13 st 4lbs). Down 10lbs this month to 12 st 8lbs. Still a long way to race weight of sub 11st.

Just moved upto ninth place in Strava's Greatest Runner in the World Ever in January competition with just a day and a half to go. Trouble is these bloody yanks are a few hours behind and have the advantage of knowing how many miles I've run. I'm thinking of not uploading my last few efforts til late tomorrow night. Or maybe holding back tomorrow morning's run to lull them into false sense of security.

One Canadian who leapfrogged me yesterday with a 34 mile run entitled "-17 C, Snowing the entire time, breaking trail". Took him close to 6 hours to do it.

Done 403 miles for Jan so far - just bloody wish I wasn't so drunk on NYE. Started the month with a big fat zero. Cost me dear.

well done Dids, hope you can stay top 10. Maybe load up the morning's run as normal but sneak in another run later that you don't load up till late at night?

LD/CW - in my one and only marathon I sipped Lucozade for maybe 15 miles then switched to water as I didn't want to feel sick. Anyway I exceeded all expectations, made me wonder that maybe drinking it early on allows glycogen to get to your muscles in time for the latter stages of the race, whereas drinking it later on wouldn't have time to help with race performances. What do you reckon?

On course for a record smashing 67 miles this week 12.5 this morning, 11 yesterday inc. 5 fartlek and 2 "brick" on Monday.