Sub 3

MG3 - I'm afraid that I have no idea what your original question was.  Looking at yYour schedule (and I'm aware that it's a one week sample so possibly not wholly representative).  Overall the schedule looks like a reasonable jack of all road races plan but not very specific to the demands of the marathon.

• the Wednesday run could do with being longer to build endurance
• I wonder at the pace and purpose of the 400's on Tuesday
• I don't see any marathon pace runs there - in fact I don't see much of anything that's close to marathon pace if you're looking for 2:45.

Just my 2 cents and as the slowest runner who posts on this thread feel free to ignore

I don't think that running part of a marathon as a training run is unheard of - it's just not usually someone with Mo's profile.

Wardi - nice parkrun.  I suspect it was the gels every kilometre that did it for you.

HR - Sorry to hear your news.  There's only one CRAB though!

Marigold - Good luck tomorrow.  I know it's not flat but might you just eke out a PB?

JH1 - Get well soon!

Jools - I'm really looking forward to seeing how you get on at Bath - this could be your year!

Zattu - That's a really interesting translation of Lydiard's paces to Canova's ones.  I've always wondered what the equivalent was.  Had thought at one stage that 3/4 would be close to HM pace but then thought it might be a bit tough even for the elites.  Some suggest that Lydiard would have had marathon runners doing VO2 type work in the last few weeks leading up to the marathon whereas Canova would focus on speeds just above and below the target marathon pace.  I've read the presentation that Nobby put together that is floating around the internet but I've never seen a specific schedule that Lydiard put together for somebody training for a marathon so I can't really compare the two approaches.

The (very nasty) lurgy I picked up towards the end of January still hasn't fully gone and family stuff has also got in the way of my feeble attempts to train. I tried a hard 5 mile run today (think the frustration just got the better of me).  7:09, 7:26 and 7:50 followed by an early stop because of a sore right hip tells it's own story.  Think I'll return to being sensible for a few weeks.

That is not a bad pacemaker to halfway....publicity stunt, rather than disrespectful in my book.

Good luck to those racing today (still tomorrow with me). I'm doing a half in LA tomorrow....nice weather for it. I sat next to will.i.am on the flight over, it must have been the highlight of his day...

Look like Coro has out done Dids on the name dropping, see if you can get Will.i.am to introduce me to Fergie will you ?

Lat week I did 20M on 2:41 up on the hill, today I did an extra climb and made 22M last 2:46. SHame I wasnt a bit wiser to make it last 2:5X, I think I was a bit quicker as I borrowed Pete Jacobs session of doing a stride approx every mile after about 5M, felt a bit strange doing strides after ~20M though.

I've been off here for a couple of days, but good luck to today's racers and nice long run there TR.

I tried out my new candidate VLM shoes on Fri, the New Balance MRC1600, and they were fine -- did 2x2M @ 6:08/M within an 8M commute to work, to give them a bit of representative speed at least (generally a bit weary last week though -- total 64M, another big week by my standards).

And as I raced last weekend, I wanted to do a proper LSR again this weekend. 27.6M @ 7:23/M average, including 18xCastle Hill, then the full course of the Cambridge half in 1hr35 (doing that in 3 weeks), and a bit extra. Marathon split was 3hr13 so not pushing it at all, but pleased that the last mile and a bit was still 7:26/M and while I was feeling a bit light-headed at the end, I was still running on pretty normal legs.

Mo mania! I'm sufficiently lightweight that I'll enjoy peeking at the back of that bald head and telling people I'll be lining up with him this year -- and it will be very interesting of course to see what he can do when he does it for real. So I'm with marmite & Marigold -- bring him on.

Nice long runs TR and CW!

Nice with Will.I.Am coro!

Nice parkruns Wardi, CD and LD.

I think it's sensible for Mo to run a bit of one if he's got the opportunity. It's an easy way to rehearse race morning prep under race conditions.

18m this morning in just over 2hrs. Felt frisky after covering the first 4m @ 7:39, so covered the next 14 @ 6:26 feeling nice and relaxed. Amazing the difference a week makes. Fingers crossed for more of the same over the coming weeks!

Will read back in a tick, but quick Bramley report: 2.24.37. I can claim 5s for getting stuck behind the sodding sweeper van (it was at 9.5M, I was at 19.5M before the wisecracks start...) but the main thing I learnt is that running races progressively is really fun. 7M @ what was supposed to be 8.05s but came out a bit faster; 7M at what was supposed to be 7.25s but came out a bit faster; 6M at what was supposed to be 6.45s and came out pretty much bang on (the good news had to end somewhere). Overtaking all the way And thanks to whoever it was (Stuart, maybe?) who shouted 'chick him, Jools' at 19.9M. Naturally, one obliged

Sorry I didn't hang around to say hello to anyone, but I realised I could make the 1.14 train as I'd finished 4 or 5 minutes earlier than planned, so I made a swift exit. Nice to catch up with SL briefly at the start and hope everyone else had good runs!

Pretty nice day out there for racing today, Hope people involved in Bramley and elsewhere have had good runs today.

Well run at Bramley Joolska.

Nice runs TR, CW and ZaTTU, and well Parkran Wardi, CD and LD.

After the disappointment of being ill and missing Wokingham last week, I've actually had a decent weeks training. Total of 67 miles - biggest this year, including a good set of 10 x 800's, a nice progressive and fartlek session and a fairly comfortable 22 miler today in 7.39m/m.

Well into the second half of my schedule for Paris now, so just another month of heavy stuff and then into taper.

Wardi: I think it's the cumulative effect of everything you tried which worked.  Do the same again next week for another guaranteed improvement.  After all, the front page of the RW website is offering a link to an article entitled 'think yourself thin', so why not kid yourself fast with cod science?  Seriously, nice improvement.  Good to see you back on track.

Hope Marigold had a good run and now possesses a 10M pb which is faster than MP.  Even I can manage that

Well run at Bramley Jools!

Nice week AW.

Clearly - forgot to respond earlier; if you want to see what the original marathon schedule looked like drop me a message with your email and I can send it onto you. Fingers crossed you feel better soon.

Great stuff, Marigold - looks like you're coming into form at the perfect time.  9 weeks to go

CW - I still think you're crackers doing ~30mins extra time on feet but I know you like those runs, for confidence so well done.

Marigold - nice one, impressive win there.

Jools - are you happy with that ? You must have a build up race planned as a race soon for a marker ?

Cheers TR

Lets hope not too early Jools!

Weekly Summary now up http://www.steveway.co.uk/?p=915

TR: plan is to ease back for the Bath Half in 2 weeks' time, although stupidly I didn't go for a reserved entry with a start pen right at the front (available for sub 90 ladies) so will have to ensure I get a decent starting position in the first main pen if I'm to have any chance of a decent time on what can be a congested course.  3-4 more big weeks after Bath (65-70M) and then taper time.  Pleased with today's run; brings up 68M for the week including a hill session and a hardish 20M.

Awesome 10 mile from Marigold; looks very promising for VLM so far.

Top bombing today at Bramley from SL & Al_P, plus from a few semi-regular and former posters too.  Well done Jools - was expecting you to come up to my shoulder during the last 5 today.

Bad day at the office for me at Bramley.  Six consecutive weeks of 70-100 miles plus a half PB last week finally caught me up.  Plan was to run 2.10 in 4 lots of 34, 33, 32, 31 min  5-milers, but ended up 33, 34, 33, 36 for 2.16.  Six mins slower than target and a full 14 mins slower than last year.  However, 20 miles at 6.48 avg isn't the worst training run ever.  Just need to take the hint, let the body recover and be in top mara shape in 4 weeks time.  (in 2010 I dropped out of Bramley at 10 miles after a good race the week before, then ran a 2.45 mara three weeks later, so it's not without precedent).

After a two mile warm up I stole Jools' paces for my progressive 30k. The first 10k was supposed to be 8.05s but came out distinctly faster due to it being largely downhill with a tailwind and having company to chat with. The middle 10k was supposed to be 7.25s,  I may have been a tiny bit slower on average though, it's all very up and down in the middle and it's difficult to gauge the effort level. The final 10k is essentially the first 10k  in reverse - so all uphill and into the wind. If I work out the average pace over that full 10k I'll probably be there or thereabouts, but none of last 6.2 miles were actually AT marathon pace. One was probably as slow as 7.15, while the last 1.2 were under 6.20. A painful ploddy cool down gave me 22 miles for the day. Beautiful sunny day for a long run in the countryside, even it it was a hilly one!

That brings me to 79 for the week and a cutback to absorb it all in next week. 

Wow, Speedy - awesome run at the end of a big week.  Sounds like your course was much tougher than Bramley; I did chuckle when I heard some people describe it as undulating.  OK, it's not pancake flat, but the inclines aren't enough to really affect pacing!

Sorry to hear you had a tough day at the office, DanA, but you seem to have a pretty good idea of the cause, so enjoy your taper.

Ooh.. if that is a 10m PB for you Marigold well done indeed & congrats on the win.  No arse kicking is good news too!

Charlie.. wow, 27m is a long morning out!  Out of interest did you have any brekkie before that sort of time out?

A W.. that's a good week of training after illness, good to see you are still on track.

DanA.. sorry it didn't quite go to plan (still a good time!) but you do seem to have a sensible plan re. recovery. 

CC2.. cracking 22m today, nice final section.  79m for the week is very good too!

Jools.. nicely run at Bramley, that looks like a very decent progressive run.  Thanks for the encouragement, I'm not training for anything particular at the moment so the lack of pressure is nice.  Good luck with getting a flyer at Bath, you're the right size for getting through gaps!

6.66m club xc race today.  A bit of a quagmire after Weds/Thurs melting snow & rain.  Pleased enough to average 7:15 on this sort of terrain given the fact that I ran the Parkrun flat out yesterday.  Gorgeous day for it, stuck another 4m on afterwards to enjoy the weather.