Sub 3

I'm with Dids TT, I've strained calves much later on and still made it. You've run plenty of miles recently and there's loads of time still. No rushing required. You might not get fit enough to bag your sub 2:30, but could still bag a 2:35.

WArdi - wobbling fields ! there's been a wet part of a country lane I've had to paddle through since Christmas whenever I've gone that way, but today there was a clear bit through the water, hurray ! the water might be retreating.

Sorry to see the bench filling up.  I hope you all heal quickly.  ZaTTu: I'm in the ditch VLM if you don't think you'll do yourself justice camp.  I hate toeing a race start line knowing my training hasn't been good enough, so get some decent base work in once the calf has recovered and then have a blinding autumn  AndyD: hope it's a niggle which goes quickly.

It looks like my legs really benefited from the enforced rest of over 48 hours caused by a sh!te work schedule, even if I did then do 8M this morning and 10M including the Prom Run this evening, as I am now the owner of a nice new 5M pb: 30.57 or thereabouts, which is a 49/50 second pb.  Actually, it's probably the red trainers I wore: the new Adios are *beautiful*.

Jools - I would say well done, but it's obviously the red shoes which did it, not you! Seriously though, that's a massive amount to take off a 5M PB, nice one.

ZaTTu - sorry to hear that. Personally I would run it anyway, either steady (e.g. keeping Dan A company), or just give it a crack anyway. If you can do some cross training in the 10 days (and it might be less than 10 days) you won't lose much. In 2009 I barely ran at all in the month leading up to FLM - had a go at the PB, failed miserably, but at least I knew that it wasn't possible, rather than not knowing.

Legs felt pretty trashed last night after a few hard days, so went with a slightly slower group than usual. 12.5M at about 7:40 average. Mrs Padams birthday today so will probably have a day off. Weather's not looking good for a long ride this weekend (again!).

Nice PB Jools, cant have been great weather for it, I imagine it must have been blowing a gale?

TT - That's bad luck but makes the decision for you.

TR - Nice double

CL - Hope the injury clears up. 

 Track last night and did't know what to expect following sunday, was pleasantly surpised - 3K in 9.30, 3 mins rest, 2K in 6.18 2 mins rest, 1K in 3.04, all pretty comfortable there was slight tightness in my right calf but nothing serious.  5 miles this morning, time to start the serious marathon training  ;-)

Jools- excellent, chuffed for you. If I had the power to grant someone a stellar day on VLM day...........

Padams - well timed zero for the b'day brownie points. Happy b'day to Mrs Padams. Agree about long bike weather this weekend. The nippers havnt played footy on a Sunday due to ice or waterlogged pitches sice Jan 6th, the U12s now have a revised schedule of games with 10 still to play, they'll never get them all in. He has two consecutive matches thsi Sunday morning, so I wont get time to run long this Sunday, but I'm happy with that I have 3x20 to 22 already, and missing a long run will save me a few matches. Half term means that I havnt swam or biked much this week either, so will aim for a 2hr beasting on the turbo early tomorrow.

SL - 7M here this morning, probably about time for me to make a more serious effort too over the next few weeks. 8 weeks to go means it the Coro 8 week build up !

Padams, 2009 is, and will almost certainly remain, the only time I've finished in front of both you and Coro - please don't demean my finest hour by describing your performance as 'failing miserably'.  You even stopped halfway up the Mall to milk the applause, so it can't have been too bad.

Run in to work this morning, I decided with it this cold I'll get more from that (especially the run home) than I would on the bike.  Last night's ride home was punctuated by drivers deciding that cyclists aren't worthy of dipping their headlights   Not great when the roads are as full of holes as these ones - my lights are good but can't compete with theirs on full blast.

SL: I would have said conditions were actually pretty ok.  There was a bit of a breeze but most of the time it wasn't something you had to work too hard to deal with.  Although to be honest, it was one of those days when I felt great so everything was pretty effortless.  Hope I get the same feeling on 21st April!

TR - why they don't invest in loads of all weather pitches, so the kiddies can play all year round, I don't know. I've stayed with friends in Newcastle and their local all weather pitch is continually open to the public .... and it's continually used. My mate, aged 51, and/or his teenage kids just wander up there and join in with whatever spontaneous game is going on as everyone is welcome. It's like Brazilian kids on the beaches of Rio. Crappy grass is a shit surface for playing on, unless you are a big clodhorse.

Better to invest money like this than give it to lazy elite athletes so they can stay in bed.

Padams - I'd always run London if I was capable of getting round. I've paid my money and it's a great occasion to be part of. I've never run since 2007 in a state of full fitness, but always got something out of it, whether it be an heroic collapse over the last few miles, or just exceeding expections of what I thought I could do. 

Maybe an age thing though - never knowing if the next London Marathon may be my last!

TT - Harsh luck, but I can fully understand your decision if you're sticking to it. Slightly different situation but for a couple of my F/VLM DNS's I ended up getting to race day being pretty fit, but had no regrets about not toeing the line, because I preferred to get back up to full fitness on my own terms, not feeling like I was playing catch-up.  Marathon training is hard enough without that sort of pressure.

Jools - fantastic PB!  I reckon 8 seconds down to the Adios, 2 seconds to the spangly laces and the rest down to hard graft.  So the shoes are still worth a good minute or so over the marathon. 

SL - VERY nice paces!

I'm saving my next big (13.1) MP run for next week but managed 15 incl. 10 @ 5:54/m (59:00 exactly) last night on tired legs, with the National XC to come on Saturday.  HR was actually a few beats lower than recent MP runs, most likely due to the HM still being in the legs, so I was pleased to still hit a good pace.

...edit... BTW, my Brooks Green Silence gave me grief for the first time in Brighton, I think my feet move around too much in them.  So I tried out my old Fastwitch last night (v4 which I prefer to v5), and they're looking like the VLM shoe of choice at the moment.

Dids - lots of colleges and even some schools now have artificial ptiches that they hire out for training, so the nippers do get to use them, but they never play league matches on them. Not sure if the rules say grass only. Soon be time for rained off cricket matches, my youngest has played once or twice at least all winter as cricket has been indoors, that'll soon stop when it goes outside !

PP - I ordered a new pair of scoobies too, as my current ones might be a bit tired by VLM time.

Very nice training paces by SL and PP. Agree about Fastwitches, very nice for a marathon - that reminds me, must order some new ones when the tri club puts an order in.

CD - it was a 10 min positive split (by far my worst), and I'd smashed my HM PB about 6 weeks earlier, so it was very annoying to get injured between the HM and M. I'd forgotten about the cramp on the Mall - I'm not sure if I was closer to laughing or crying at the time!

Sorry to hear about people's injuries. At least most people are looking to delay and wait for later in the year.

Meet my new best mates. Tiptoed between these sleeping beauties this morning on the way to work. They have agreed to be my guardians of the hill and guard my Penshaw Hill strava segments records for me

TT - That's rotten luck, it's really not going your way this spring  . having only done 1 marathon/yr for the past 2 years, I'm waiting to see if doing two this year turns out to be a good plan or not....

SL - Tasty track running, was going to say hi at Bramley on Sunday, but the only Chippenham vested person I bumped into turned out not to be you! 

Jools - Nicely PB'd 

PP - Very good MLR with a sub 60 10M

Dan - performance 'boosting' or not is very much open to debate IMO, There's a good piece on the rather optimistic marketing approach here, also Amby Burfoot has looking into the research behind the new shoes here, (the claim is 1% decrease in O2 consumption!). The thing that struck me was the claimed durability of the new TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) material, which Adidas reckon will out-live EVA by some mileage. TPU was the material of choice for the shock absorbing 'spring' elements in early mountain bike suspension  forks (and still is in very cheap forks). It was known/cursed for a couple of things; firstly it was very springy, you push down and the fork rebounded back up very fast, so has good energy return (but zero rebound control properties) but it lost that springiness over time as the material was subject to repeated compressions. How the extra bounce might translate into performance changes is pretty questionable, but hopefully  last much longer than EVA before needing replacing (a good thing at $150 a pop). I suspect it's destined to be a niche high end gimmick unless there are plans in the pipeline to reduce the price, ie they can manufacture cheaper or the price has been pumped up a bit for the launch to recoup the development costs early of the back of the wave of enthusiasm drummed up by the launch....

Right quad is improving day by day, put in a 1M swim this morning and will be going out for another 5-7M easy run at lunch. I'm shelving my planned LR with alternating slightly above/below MP 1k's tomorrow in favour of another easy run and then, if all is good, a longer affair on Sunday. Like PP I've got an offroad half a week on Sunday which I plan to do (mostly, mud depending) at MP.

By chance I went and ordered a pair of Fastwitch v5's the other day, been meaning to get them to try for a while. Start Fitness currently have them on sale for £50 as they're being replaced by a v6 model now. Got another 10% using the RW discount code up the top of the page of the right too  Going for a spin in them at lunchtime

So sorry TT, that's a real shame. You've been doing big miles though -- any chance of milking the Zatopek effect and finding it's still worth a casual attempt at least at VLM?

Very well done on the PB Jools. Looks like Blisters was right to worry about whether you'd find the handbrake...

Nice training SL and PP.

Last day of my running week today (I start it on a Sat so it doesn't matter which weekend day the long run is), and it will be a new record of 76M or so, as I decided to plod 4M to work in my 8:15/M TR armchair. Not sure if there was any point but at least I'm trying something new. But I'll change tack over the next fortnight leading up to my HM, starting with a day off tomorrow and then a long run (a mere 20 or 22 or so) with some quality on Sun, assuming my legs are a bit fresher by then, and generally more speed and fewer miles for a bit. Hey, I might even dig out the HRM strap I've not worn for about a year.

Very very nice pb Jools! Congrats! As TR said re: VLM....

PP - good work on the 10m! You're in great shape. Funnily enough, I think the latest incarnation of the Green Silence are just fractionally wider. I've noticed the same with mine.

SL - very nice track work.

Big mileage CW! It will be interesting to see how it pays off for you on race day given what you've done off of lower mileage in the past.

Jools/PP - you've both hit the nail on the head. I don't see the need in rushing to achieve a below par performance, especially as I've spent the last few years pushing hard in the last few weeks before marathon just to get in shape. It's time to slow down and just get in proper shape before looking to run a mara hard.

That made me lol Dan. Very good!

TR - I agree I could probably make 2:35 if I were to push myself once this has cleared, but I don't see the point in thrashing myself to run 5mins slower than pb going all out. I really have had enough of trying to run spring marathons now. I'm going to stick to just autumn ones and target a shorter race in the spring from now on (as, even if I have little niggles like this, there are more around, so plenty of possibilities if something interrupts training for my target).

Jools - a quick McMillan, and you need to be looking at a 5 mile time of 30.38 for a sub 3.  Nearly there in the middle of an 18 mile day bodes very nicely.  Well tapered and with a number pinned on, you look well on course for something tasty in April.

ZaTTu - used that line to shoe-horn a joke in tbh.  More seriously, aren't you interested in jogging round VLM (perhaps to help a slower clubmate), just to savour the crowd & atmos, and to join a few of us for a beer in the Red Lion afterwards.  I've had some slow runs in my time (not always deliberately!) but have never regretted any of them.  You might find it a good fun experience to take in more than if you were busting your ass for a quick time, without jeopardising any future training.

2 of the 3 race predictors on runningforfitness reckon the time I ran was good enough for sub-3, DanA, so I'll focus on them