Sub 3h15

So with all the niggles, knocks, pulls, and strains, etc. I thought I would post three beautiful pictures from my trip to Iceland. Enjoy nature at its finest.

Go careful out there. 

AR- urghhh

Moof- 46 old, do mer a favour...?

Minni- the hip not getting better or worse and it's managable. But I'm avoiding too much speedwork which is taking the edge off of my speed and race performance.

6.6 last night including hills and general plod. I'm planning a ten miler at MP tonight.  

Wow AR - that looks nasty! the other two pictures are wonderful though. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing the Northern Lights first hand.

Apart from teh fall I take it you had a great trip?

Moof - I took your talk of a smackdown literally!

DS2 - yes its was a fantastic 'trip'. Once the snow cleared on the roads  I had some stunning runs in amongst the walking and whale watching trips. Well worth a visit.

AR Great photos. Iceland now goes on my to do list.

Lorenzo  Cold weather and early start.

I feel shattered at the moment, so the obvious is to go for the 12 miles later. Neans I can sleep later tomorrow as only a 5 mile slow in the morning.

moof wrote (see)

Ha ha, Also-ran are you still planning on long commute (13+ ?) to the start and then a MP run?
Not too sure how I'm running it yet, providing the calf is fine.
Sensible option 1 and in keeping with the PD plan would be a 6 mile run from Caversham and run the race at MP for a 1.28 ish finish.
Or
(Not so sensible) Option 2, get the bus, 2 mile warm up and then go for PB glory.
Or
Option 3, if calf is still playing up....sulk!

I'm not sure as well Moof. I have dropped all ideas of a long run to the start, then MP around the course. My boring run to Reading and back put pay to that (no desire to see the A4 again !).  At the moment I am thinking a warm up before start, run somewhere in the MP - HMP area, and then cool down. Total 16 -18 as I want a light week.

No doubt I will end up having a go at your Option 2, but it is nice to pretend I can be sensible before the race.

Lorenzo - definitely cold weather affecting play on the last rep.

12.5 this evening. It felt tough mentally more than anything. Slightly wet and slightly cold which meant I ran it quicker than planned at 7:53 pace.

Interesting re the mileage and running fast being damaging etc I reckon that if you build up the freq and miles slowly that anyone can run easy every day and could even do doubles easy every day. I only run 4 days a week but 3 of them are weekday doubles, the other days are bike days cos of swim/bike/run. Running long and running fast are the two biggest risks out there, consistency beats everything. Also I find that my body is much more running tough the more often I run, what lets me down is the approx 100M/month from May to November, due to swim/bike/run.

Easy running has enabled me to keep this campaign on the rails despite my knee problem, but it is easing as the campaign goes on. I only have 3 runs with anything faster thann easy paced running in them and they are 3 midweek 13s that have each had 7 or 8M of ~MP in them. I will try to get in some of my 10x3min sessions, but they are only for a little bit of hurtbox and would probably only equate to something like HMP anyway (someone mentioned 5K pace so lots slower than that for me). I'm not interesetd in running reps hard to see how fast and hard I can run in a marathon build up, its got nothing to do with race day for me. Race day is about holding an easy pace for a long time.

Great pics of the Northen lights and Orca AR  And bloody heck that's a bit of an injury to the eye (think you said 10 stiches). Hope it is on the mend - Bio-oil for scars like that my wife tells me.

Re the speedwork debate, then it is the elasticity of the tendons and ligaments that start to decline with age, much more rapidly than the engine loses power.  The thing about speed work is that it demands more on elasticity side as the stride length is lengthend and there is more energy storage primarily in the achilles and hamstrings.  The energy storage cause recoil and the calf should come more parallel  to the ground and a higher knee lift.

So I don't think it is a case of avoidance, rather as other have said to workaround.  Strides train the body to have elasitic action.  Backing off the speedwork from maximum not only avoid injurys but speeds up recovery.  Other than that there is volume versus speed - I'm now nicely at around 60 mpw off 5 runs.  I do one hill session or tempo per week only if I feel up to it.  Otherwise it is mainly easy miles.

Speedwork for me today - 5miles in 33:28 (6:42 pace) - It was my Marathon Talk race 2s faster than I planned it and had to run a slower last mile.  It was backed off from max and my 14m MLR tomorrow can be comfortable.  It kind of means that I am a long way from the Silver Comrades medal I'd ultimately like to win as something (expert vary) below 32:00 to 30:15 is indication of the potential for that.

Ultrasound showed nothing.  In some way it is good as it means there is no obvious diesease.  So I need to go to the doctor for the full result of the blood test as well and see if there is some answer to these pains.

AR great photo of the northern lights. I was lucky enough to see them once and I could have stood there all night and watched them

In relation to speed work. I should perpahps calrify what "speed" work is for me, as it is all relative HMP is what I call speed work. 10KM pace is what I would call sprinting.  I also like to do one of my speed sessions on hills so speed for that session is definetly relative. Speed work on hills seems to cause less damage than falt speed work. It leaves my legs feeling more sore though

AR - get the arnica on that.  Great photos.  About 25 years ago we had a great display of the Northern Lights over Northern England.  I've never forgotten it - it was amazing.

OO - are you still going to do the Blyth 10k?  I haven't entered yet, must get it done.

14 miles for me tonight.  2 miles down the river with the dog, then met a few others who were doing 8 x 800 reps so I ran with them but just stuck to my easy pace, followed by 5 on my own.  I thought I'd struggle because I felt really tired but by the last few miles I felt like I could go on forever.

Scooby well done on the long run. You out ran me and outpaced me. I managed 11.5 miles at 7:58 avg pace. To be fair the first mile was well over 9 so the rest were much quicker. Feeling goosed now but very pleased with that.

Yes Minni I'm entered in Blyth. Last year I ran well and creamed most of my club rivals- got a feeling it's payback time this year. They are all lining up to crush me in the first big club meet of the season. Still hoping for a shot at the V50 prize though. After the race Mrs OO is dragging me off to a Nordic walking meeting, so I won't even make it to the pub    

Whenever I look at the photos of Aurora Borealis I struggle to visualise what it must be like in real life. I do agree that Iceland is a pretty special place though, our daughter persuaded us to go at this time of year. As it turned out we were just a few days ahead of THAT volcanic eruption. Did you realise that we have (or had) a daily thread forumite in Iceland? Lizzy B where are you now?

Today the sun shone and it was calm and dry, so I went for a run. T shirt and shorts seemed to be the order of the day. Hmm. 6 degrees meant that was a tad optimistic. Cold from the start so I kept the pace up into tempo region. HR never registered more than 32 bpm, as it was too cold for good contact and I never did break into a decent hot sweat. 6.5 miles later and a season's best around the rat run, at 7:16 m/m average. Even by the end of the run the finger ends were still frozen. A real endorphin rush.