Sub 3h15

Philip_M_Jones wrote (see)

There is some sort of evil master plan to run 2106 from the championship start 

What is the wava score for a 140yr old? 

Keir wrote (see)

Philip_M_Jones wrote (see)

There is some sort of evil master plan to run 2106 from the championship start 

What is the wava score for a 140yr old? 

There you go, never post after red wine. The WAVA scores actually dive off a cliff at the high age groups: if you look at
http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/data/wavacalc10.xls
then you can see the 100% WVA score for a marathon is:
50 2:19:28
60 2:23:11
70 2:49:53
80 3:20:19
90 4:42:41
100 10:56:46

so up to 80 years old at 3 hours 20 WAVA 100% is hard, and 90 I'd say is still pretty hard, but if you are running a marathon at all at age 100 (as Fuaja Singh does) then you are way over 100% WAVA.

From 90 to 100 it runs:

4:42:41 04:57:34 05:14:34 05:34:16 05:57:19 06:24:36 06:57:30 07:37:34 08:27:35 09:31:42 10:56:46

so that is almost 90 minutes slower going from 99 to 100!

Newcastle is soooo not a PB course. It is in fact my PW and only marathon slower than 3.30. 

Off to XC round 2 in a mo. Looks like a lovely day out, but I'm not looking forward to putting my soggy, muddy spikes back on. 

15.5M for me on a similar route to last week, i.e. muddy and hilly.  Good for the leg strength, if not a bit tiring after yesterday's exertions.  Rewarded myself with my favourite granola and chocolate milk.

LB70 - so who are you in real life? Which club?

East Mids XC this morning was decidedly less muddy than yesterday's North Mids, but more technical underfoot and a ridiculous chicane up and down the same steep slope, which is mostly very uneven underfoot. I came 3rd this time though, so an improvement on the last one, mostly because a few fast girls weren't there (Sarah Harris for one) but also I started much nearer the front so as not to get boxed in as I did at Trent Meadows. I still got stuck behind slow folks on two narrow trails, which allowed the girl ahead of me to increase the gap significantly. I doubt I could have beaten her today though, my poor legs are trashed. A week of no running followed by 9 miles, 7 miles and yogalates, 12 miles and Body Pump, Parkrun and XC then another XC turns out to be a bit, er, foolish? 

However, I have a half marathon in 4 weeks, and while I realise I won't PB (it's not a  PB course at the best of times) it would be nice to at least manage MP on it. I need to claw back some fitness. 

Crap X-C race for me this morning: my performance crap and not the race itself. Last tear I was 12th overall, 3rd vet in a time of 35:37. Today 57th overall and a time 37:51. Bigger and better field this year, same time last year would have been 41st, but no excuses: just no fitness with just 100 miles in the last month and weeks of 42, 28, 10 and 10.

Have put the bike into the car so will cycle for a few weeks and hope the foot injury recovers: any hints and tips how to keep up running fitness on a bike? Uphill or flat? Fast or slow and long?

LB70 - my son runs for your club - he was at Kettering. 
Speedy - not so foolish - sometimes good to have an unstructured, "what the hell" kind of spell, if only for a mental break . . .
Got my letter y'day - Dec 6th for knee op; however 7 miles y'day & 6 today (albeit very slow)  with knee feeling absolutely fine leaves me in a bit of a quandary - shame I can't have another scan. 

Birch - will they not scan again when you go in for the op?

LB70 - I'm Redhill. Not sure if the East Mids are 'better'. They're shorter and far more technical. North Mids are easy courses and the speedsters run them, East Mids usually involve plodging or scrambling or hurdling, but the speedsters stay away on the whole. 

No, they put the arthroscope (camera) in, then do what's necessary. The consultant did say I needn't have the op if I felt things had improved between scan & op date (which it seems is the case), but I don't want to cancel op, then have a "relapse" later and be back to square one. (Maybe it's a "stitch in time" scenario).

It is indeed LB70. It's a nice run, but rather hilly. I first met Richard Whitehead there a few years ago. He beat me, naturally! Are you doing it?

Well hello

I feel like I can actually turn up at a marathon discussion thread once more. Not that I can confidently target 3:15 with my current lack of endurance. Weekly mileage is piss poor, due to other side tracking considerations but my focus is to try and remember to put in a good 20 miler every couple of weeks.

Friday, went out round the regular long haul route, met up with a mate after an hour and we carried on for the rest of it. A couple of detours added a little but DID SHE JUST YATTER ON? Especially as I hit mile 18 and started the 5 mile incline towards home. Through gritted teeth we kept the pace going uphill without too much lost. Total? Almost 23 miles at an average of 8:36m/m. Afterwards it felt like I'd raced it.

Saturday, 50 mile bike ride with folks from the dark side. The last 10 miles had uphill sections and the quads were on fire.

This had better all be worth it.

Birch - all the best with the op. Funny how the telly doesnt go on the blink once the man from Radio Rentals has been called out !

PMJ - you had a good year up to and including VLM, your PF issues might be a consequence of chasing shorter distance times and rankings straight after VLM. Hopefully if you are wise you can achieve your marathon aspirations in the next few years, but you might need to chase marathon relevant consistency and let the shorter distance rankings go for a while. Running hard and running fast are the two biggest risks and doing both is a risky business ! Good luck with the PF, Scott Molina said as much ankle, foot and lower leg stretching as possible worked for him, BUT you might be wise to have a few weeks/months totally off the running and now is the best time of year to do that. 

Blisters - 23M run in November, I thought you were training for a Sept IM ! Dont think there is a 23M run in any IM training plan esp 10 months out. I kind of like the madness of it though, my 12M run today felt similar after a few weeks of 5 and 6 milers.

TR
Do you think I've read any training plans?
I've got though Andy Holgate's inspirational book twice, without pausing.
I now own Going Long, and have got as far as "make the hard sessions hard and the easy ones easy".
I think that I need to be marathon fit at all times now if I want to claim to be a Pirate. In that respect I've advised the wife, in the way that any husband can, that:
- there is a local marathon on 20th January 2013...
- (waits for reaction before booking)
- as I didn't get my stupid head chewed off, I presume that's an enthusiastic approval.
- enter event and write the date down on the calendar so I can say "I told you ages ago".

I rather hope that I will not be needing to start taking walking breaks at mile 11 this time.