Sub 3h15

Conditions OK for the club GP. 3.6 miles in 6:01 pace. I've gone a lot quicker in the past but this at least is progress.

Poacher - great cheers. Have put it on my wish list.

Hats off those who managed 6:0x pace today. I might have just about got there in the middle of my 100m strides but not for any longer. 

My knee still feels a bit sore so I'm going to give it a rest for the next couple of days. Might mean I fall short on Jantastic this month. 

Bike It - like the layers thing although I personally go for running vest, t-shirt & long sleeve top and now I'm manning up & dropping the vest!

Good steady weekly mileage Carbloader, Getting past 50 for the first time is a great milestone to achieve.

I don't know how you get speed work done at pre 6.30 i the morning's Gul. A good set of reps and consistent times, you must be feeling more confident with a session like that.

Nice consistent rep times Ant. Miles done after them always feel easy. Hope you enjoyed your day off.

Sounds liek a great training run BOTF, if I was near Windor I'd be there.

Mennia, I always think a race number pinned on your vest pust you in a different frame of mind & body. Is that the pace you are aiming for in your half?

Good consistent reps Fraser - just got to build on the 4 up to 13.1!

OO - fast paced 5k+ run. How did that place you with your Clubmates?

Lorenzo - Hope the knee eases up with a bit of rest - bigger picture and all that is better than trying to fulfil Jantastic.

Ventured down the track tonight partly filled with a mixture of popcorn (from the cinema, Wreck it Ralph with the kids) & a  few pancakes - and they stayed in me! 6 x 1000m reps with a 200m walk/jog recovery in 3.38, 3.39, 3.34, 3.37, 3.39, 3.37. Pretty consistent and happy with that, but they felt tough after Sunday's 18 miler.

Must sign off and go to bed before Gul sign's in!

Lorenzo Hope the knee sorts itself

Carb It is strange when you feel good but it just doesn't happen. Log it, move on. Lots of varibles in this running lark.

OO Very quick miles.

KR I agree about early morning speed work being a lot harder. Nice reps, especially with the pre carb loading.

15 miles this morning in 8:02 pace. All very nice apart from 6 miles in I got low battery warning on my Garmin, then is was a case of constantly checking pace/distance for mind calculations in case it went. It lasted 14.4 miles, so not too bad to work out.

The rivals I was beating last year all seem to have passed me at the minute. But I'm coming back . There is a nice 10k in early April which should sort things out.

Good workout indeed Scooby

FINgers - what sort of effort are the 6-8 (or 10) x 3mins supposed to be?
PMJ - is the Town Moor mara your new 'A' race for the year?
AR - sounds like a pretty grim time at the gym.
Ant - loops of the town park for me - no snow here for a while now, thankfully. Very tidy set of reps from your good self.
BOTF - good to hear from you - hope you'll be off the bench very soon.
Mennania - good running.
Frazer - I'm trying to avoid doing the same on race day. Pacey stuff from you too - I'd be very happy with that pace for a parkrun let alone a HM!
SD - nice recovery run.
Blisters - no, sorry, I haven't got a clue.
CL - one of those days, as you say.
OO - good progress - hip OK, I take it?
Lorenzo - we'll miss your points but sensible move. Hope the knee is improving.
KR - excellent reps - you are flying. I'm convinced that I would struggle to do intervals in the evening after a long day - give me first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep any day!
SD - another cracking early morning run! I had a lazy day and didn't get up till just after 5:30.
That still gave me plenty of time for a 3 mile recovery run - but not enough time to post before breakfast!

Hi all,

Thanks to Gul for his consiered daily round-up, I have a 3m recovery run on my list but its snowing hard here, hopefully the promised rain will sort it out this aft.

KR - Would love to go 1.23.xx on sun but realisticly that  pace is my tempo training pace or a little slower than HMP if that was my A race. Will start slower on Sun and see where I am at after 3 or 4.

Lorenzo, good luck with the knee. I have been pushing on with a slightly iffy left knee for several weeks. Thinking of seeking out a physio for an opinion. I had something that felt exactly the same 5 years ago and I ran through it successfully with physio help (squats, stretches etc. as I recall), but on much lower mileage.

So I completed P&D's (sub 55) mesocycle 1 "endurance" last weekend. 227 miles done over 6 weeks; the plan has 233. I missed one recovery run, and 2 miles of LT pace on a bad day. Happily on monday I managed 10 miles with 5 at LT, so I feel on track. The next few weeks look a bit scary though. Long runs are planned as 18, 20, 16 (12 at MP), 20, 13 (Reading HM). Gulp, three of those are further than I've ever run before! Will my knee hold up? Can I ramp up the mileage without something else breaking ... ?

Scooby - I won;t ask what time you want out at. Maybe your Garmin thought it was too early to run! I think a good feature to have on the Garmin would be a screeen that syas the acutal percentage left when you turm it on/activate the satelite. I've been caught out a couple of times too, but usually have a vague idea of how far I'm going.

OO - At least you know you can beat them and a good bench mark on your come back is how much you can catch them/beat them.

Gul - A lie in, are you feeling okay .

Mennania - Same here, going to start off steady and see where I am at 5 miles. See you Sunday.

Lunchtime - Good you have completed first cycle of training. I'm sure although daunting, the next few weeks will be a good block of training. I guess you'll know the signs if something isn't right with the knee. Don't forget to listen to your body.

Nice work to all those who been training at 6:xx paces.  Good running Lunchtime - nice when a plan comes together

A question to the greater forum:  I'm currently running 2x MLR of 10 miles and an LSR plus other shorter runs to 50-55mpw. My goal is to build base miles with the emphasis on endurance and not necessarily speed.  My A race is Comrades for which the main training need is lots of endurance.

I remember previous advice that an MLR should be at least 1:30 long and mine are taking 1:20 or so.  Does anyone see a particular problem with what I am doing?  Am I going to get the endurance development I want?

Bike It - you'd probably get more of an endurance benefit if you increased one of the MLRs to eg 15 miles but 2 MLRs of 10 can't be doing you any harm.

Tasty reps there KR.

LR - the second phase is more fun, just go easy on the recovery runs.

Very early doors Scooby and a solid mid-week 15.

15 miles for me today as well but a lunch-time run.  Struggling to motivate myself but felt fine once I got out there.  The second half of the run was in to a snow blizzard - very atmospheric but I was beginning to wish I'd brought the hat and gloves

Bike it - I'd basically agree with SBD, while the 2 MLRs of 10 miles might be doing you no harm they also might not be doing as much as you'd hope. IMO they might fall into the junk miles category, they'll look good in the weekly training total but not stretch you enough to get the improvements in the endurance.

Change one to 12 to 15 miles and lower the mileage on the other and do something different with it.

In previous campaigns I did a lot of 9 milers along with five or six 20 milers, I now think that the 9 milers didn't do very much for me. This time around my training has been based on two 13.4 mile runs a week, with the intention of making one of them longer to get the five or six 20s done as well.

SBD - Did you enjoy the blizzard?

GUL - your summaries are a great help.

BOTF - Nice to hear from you again.

Sorry I can't do a GUL and comment on everyone.

Got my first 20 of the campaign in, in a blizzard naturally, but I had enough layers on to stay warm this time. Legs were very tired by the end and fading badly to record an ave pace of 8:40mm.

Dehydration might also have been a factor as I'm now lighter than I've been for the last 30 years or so. Just have to keep at this "race" weight now.

Bike it - a long run and 2x10s is nice, if you could add another couple of miles on to make one of them 12 then great. I havnt done any MLRs yet, although I have a couple of 10+5 commutes. Personally I think that 12 or 13M is enough now, I wasted a load of matches doing 16s and 17s one year.

OGL- bloody hell dude, it looks like I'm doing all junk miles apart from my long runs, its a good job I'm not the nervous type or you'd have me worried. ha ha, none meant of course. My weekly running is entirely built around commute running, not ideal but suits me.

Nice blizzard running by some hardy types

OGL - just avoid drinking any fluids at all for a while - simples 

Bike It, as the sages say, why not lengthen one of them; if I may say so IMHO 10m doesn't count as MLR distance for an ultrarunner. How about (time permitting) 13+8 or some other unbalanced pair. As the training goes on, maybe 15+10 if it doesn't interfere with the proper long ones which must be your A sessions given the target race.

Day off today, too busy so binned running. Got an email saying....can you go back to Algeria 

As you were

PMJ - you'll be fine for Newcastle.  If I hear of it filling I'll let you know.  There might be a lot more interest in it this year with it being a Champions race but there's a new one here on the same day that I know a few of the regulars are going to do, myself included.  I hope I don't live to regret it.  I love the TM and would love to run it as an A race one day - I'm convinced I could run a pb there.

I've been resting since Sunday with a bit of a niggling calf following the xc on Saturday.  I'm sure its nothing much to worry about and would have gone to my first ever track session tonight had it not been cancelled due to snow, so instead taking the chance for an extra day off.

Will be back to normal tomorrow.

xpost Poacher. Don't go!  You've got other commitments - training for VLM being top.  Do they not realise who you are?