Sub 3h15

Wow - lots to catch up on. Hi everyone and thanks for the welcome (Barry B, Oslo N, MM, GD)

A.C - NY was AMAZING. i love the americans. lovely enthusiastic bunch that they are, 10 deep and going crazy at mile 24
Now you don't get that at Loch Ness do you Frazer?
last 5 miles i cant ever remember as i was legging it to the end with one eye on my watch in a world of my owm. it annoys me that i cant "enjoy" the place/ scenery/ high fiving my way along 1st Ave etc. as i'm too busy getting a PB. My friend actually stopped and took a pic on the verrazano bridge. its a cool pic but i'd not dream of doing that. none the less he's the one with the great pic in his loo and i only have the memory in my head.

KR - just off to do 14 miles along the grand union canal. (nice day here in london)
Pace - 7.45- 8 min miles
Have safari version 5.03 - still doesnt work so you'll not be getting any pics/ quotes boxes from me

Pipes - you are inspiring me to do pyramids and shorter speedier stuff. i do all my long runs alone at MP but am rather liking the sound of giggly long runs at 8.30 pace with my girlfriends. i may have to ask you more about that.

off for a 14 miler now

see you all later

Matchstick Man wrote (see)

Can't quote off this iTouch but I'm expecting some ribbing from the eagle eyed amongst you who noticed Pipes' 85min time translating to a sub 3.......

Yeah, but she's got a sub 1:22 to her name as well which helps

18 for me round The Great Park today - 9 with the group then a 2nd lap on my own. 2nd lap slightly faster, but not by much, and I really found the last couple of hills pretty testing - must do some more hill work pretty soon. Ended up with 18.16 miles in 2:29:53 which is 8:15 pace, and HR spot on at 149 average, but it was quite a bit higher the last 4 miles, and I wouldn't have wanted to go much further. I now predict a lot of sitting down for the rest of the day.

KK, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a 16 week schedule for VLM starts on December 27th.

Sue, I have my fingers crossed for you.

Report from today's trot will follow in a few hours after food and long hot bath.

Welcome aboard OsloNeil, Pipes and jane326! Great to see a few more peps joining in the fun.

I’ve finally decided on running the Belfast Marathon next year and targeting sub 3:10 as my goal. That’s only 3 minutes quicker than my recent PB but between 12 weeks and 9 weeks before the marathon I’ll be in Cuba getting married and eating and drinking waaaaay too much every day!

It’s 20 weeks to Belfast now so my plan is to run 3 x 20+ milers before Cuba and 3 after. I’m also considering running my last LSR before Cuba pretty close to MP so the first week of my ‘Marrymoon’ will be a recovery week. My rationale is to bring myself close to marathon fitness before Cuba, so I’ll have less fitness to recovery too after the inevitable drop due to the Cuban partying.

Has anyone else had a holiday 2 to 3 months before a marathon and still managed a PB? Any tips or advice would be appreciated.

Looking forward to the report Speedy, I like your reports

Badbark - no advice from me I am afraid but i did go to Cuba with Mr C before we were married (gosh - that's about 14 years ago now!) and loved the place so I am envious of you getting married there. Can you time one of your recovery weeks for while you are away to negate the effects of reduced training? I would think you would have enough time when you get back to regain any losses.

Jane - Do you do all your steady mileage at 7.45-8mm? That's not so far away from your last MP no? Even assuming a 3.15 marathon pace of 7.27mm, that's pretty quick! I just noted that you said you struggle to hit the faster paces, to be honest I would do too if I ran all my other miles at close to MP!! Typically, easy miles are run around MP + 60-90 secs per mile. If you slowed down, you would be able to perhaps cope better with the more intense stuff and more volume (if you wanted to)?

CC2 - Speedy Goth wrote (see)

KK, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a 16 week schedule for VLM starts on December 27th. Sue, I have my fingers crossed for you. Report from today's trot will follow in a few hours after food and long hot bath.

Ah, ok!

Damn!

Badbark - I was in Mexico for 3 weeks in August last year and then ran a 3 min PB (going from 3:16:30 to 3:13:30 give or take) at Abingdon in October. When I was on hols I was caught some kind of virus (swine flu?!) and whilst it didn't stop my enjoyment of the holiday for more than a couple of days, I didn't feel like running until the last week when I managed a couple of 6-7 milers.

I had a reasonably good base to work from having done London earlier in April and the Picnic in June, so I just concentrated on getting in some quality sessions (one long run with last 25% at MP, one speed session and one medium length mid week run per week) in the month or so between coming back and starting the taper. 

It sounds as though you're in good shape, so I wouldn't worry unduly about having the time off and two months is long enough to top up the base when you get back. Anyhow, can't you persuade the future Mrs B&B to let you take your running gear and you can at least fit in a few runs in between all the post wedding cross training exercise you'll be up to!

The most important thing is that you enjoy the wedding and don't fret about losing fitness - there are plenty of marathons to be run, but not too many opportunities to enjoy getting hitched.

BTW - I managed to find time for a bath and the Christmas cards - only a few more to go now!

Welcome to so many, looks like the stakes are being raised by some quality runners, maybe Jase won't be on out front on his own for long.  Some heroic treadmill efforts too.

Badbark - a hol 2-3 months before a race is not stg to worry about, tons of time to catch up when you come home.  Thousands of people run overseas races in places like NY or Boston and many are jet lagged/knackered/dehydrated from a long flight only a day or two beforehand - that's got to be much more debilitating than a holiday 8-12 weeks earlier. Have a great time, and an enormous fat cigar.

9m mostly on the beach this morning (Minni - it's perishing on the coast, must be worse up your way)

Good running from SBD,MM,Lorenzo,MSe, Gul, BOTF and OGL

4 recovery miles for me today, breaking in new shoes, feel fine. These will be marthon shoes as current ones getting close to 400 miles.

Badbark - Don't fancy some warm weather training then?  As others have said Cuba is a wonderful place.  If you 're staying in Varadero try and do the Catamaran day trip.

KK - I came back from injury in Spring and started with 6 mpw in June, so mileage was lower than it should be for my Abingdon campaign. In total I averaged 38 mpw inc 5 longest runs = 99 miles. Achieved sub 3.10, However I don't think it is simply a case of saying do X mileage per week and you will run X time.

MM - Congratulations on the highest weekly mileage week I have seen on this thread for quite sometime.  Why on the earth would you want to use the fitness from that sort of mileage to run a marathon?

SBD - Sounds like you are all motivated and excited to start the campaign then

Neil - Snow in southern Kent all gone (apart from very few hidden patches). North Kent still has snow on fields but roads all open. This week is meant to be cold again though. Whereabouts in Kent will you be returning to? If you join in the 10k there will be 3 of us requiring post event pints.

Like you Lorenzo, I hit the North Downs way today. Planned to do 18m, BarryB style (no food, gels, water, just breakfast as fuel). Not too worried about pace as I wanted to go up and down a few hills. In fact did quite a bit cross fields and through woods, as the mood took me. Remembered to lube up my nips and lips but forgot my tackle. Not normally a problem but the black pats I had on I thought were the running tight friendly version, but turned out to be the ones that look like running tight friendly, but certainly are not. A quick lower half strip tease in the woods removed them and commando running was totally fine.

Approaching home I realised the run was going to be closer to 19 miles, so took a loop to extend it to 20m in 2hr 39 mins (at least that what the watch said) However Sportstracks lowered that to 19.88 miles  A good progressive run with 5m split pace of 8.21 / 8.09 / 7.55 / 7.37.

If I am working on sub 3 as a target  (6.52 M Pace) are LSRs @ 8.01 pace to fast? 

Would love a bath. When I got home my wife was tearing her hair out with my youngest who has hit the terrible 2s. I've just spent 2 hrs in the garden and at the playground. Bob the Builder is currently carmly the situation temporarily

OGL - getting outside is still basically impossible here eh ! I hear it's due to get cold again mid next week too. Great effort in your garage today. I did a hills session at the gym. Fun, fun

Keir - presumably you've tried mentally breaking it up into chunks. I do 2 and a half minutes then have a mini reward of a sip of water (how totally tragic is that ??!!). Even more tragically I now know 30 seconds is about 42 steps so seem to spend the whole time counting under my breat. Have you seen the Running for Fitness website ? Lots of good calculators on there for converting speeds and stuff

Sue - keep the faith. Presumably you're doing loads of core strength work ??

Speedy - how was the (not a) race ?

Badbark - will your hol have lots of days travelling ? In some ways if you're in one site with whole days available it might work in your favour. I was away about 4 weeks before Loch Ness - hardest bit was finding somewhere appropriate to train. Presumably climate there'll be a challenge too

Jane - indeed - crowd support is not exactly a feature at LN ! Have to say the tranqulity when running suited me just fine though

Keep it up everyone !

 hello everyone and welcome to fellow newbies to this thread...

 really enjoying this forum, with its varied training ideas and different goals for 2011.

 Quite like the banter too, no offence Speedy but i bet you ran quicker than you originally wanted to!

Supposed to run a10k race this morning but because of ice on the course they reduced it to a 5mile, still a bit

slippery so no fast times...warm down by doing 7.58 av 6 mile afterwards.

TR - thanks for sharing about HIM/marathon training. I will focus on time on feet for now and have a mad panic about the HIM and whether I can float and not fall off my bike after VLM.

Sue/OneGoodLeg - thanks for tips on HRMs. Am definitely going to see if I can use this gadget to help me train more intelligently. Actually, as I have only done one training schedule so far (for my 1.33 half in September) despite running for years, I guess it is not really so late in the game for me as this training stuff is all new to me. Lots to learn!

DOGS. Can I talk about dogs? We have obviously decided that 4 kids and a horse are not enough and have been talking about getting a dog. I would love a running companion, in particular on those dark mornings before the sun is up. Can anybody advise on the types that can run marathon training distances which are suitable for allergic families living in a city with small children? Labradors and Boxers have been suggested so far and we also have been eyeing up German Shorthaired Pointers.

Right then, I'm fed, watered and clean so here goes:

Following a bad night and a really disconcerting dream I had great difficulty dragging my carcass out of bed this morning, resulting in rushed breakfast of porridge and coffee but no caffeine free liquid. Programmed the GPS and set off. I did think it was taking me in a funny direction, but I trusted it. Until it said I had arrived when quite clearly I had not.

Some reprogramming later I was back on the road, but worryingly short of time for the cut-off at the transfer desk (it's one of those races that fills up in 2 days in September, but they do allow official transfers until 9.30am on the day). Finally I arrived somewhere I recognised, parked up and leapt on the transfer bus to the start. Leapt off it again and pegged it to the transfer desk, arriving 6 or 7 minutes after it was supposed to have closed. Luckily for me the folks working on there didn't appear to be aware of that! So my number experienced a gender transformation and changed it's name from Paul to Catherine.

(Sorry, this could be long)

Hurriedly went to the loo, changed into running kit and deposited bag in the kit store after a couple of slugs of Lucozade. Hmmm, dehydrated much?

Then it was time to head to the start line already. Bliddy GPS. Grrr.

MsE - We've got three German Shepherds. One of them would happily run along with me but of the others one is a too old and rickety and one likes playing too much he'd be hopeless. I have to say I'm never quite sure if they like just running along for very long. Maybe works for a few miles but not sure anything long is really what they want out of a walk - seem to prefer snuffling about, chasing things and interacting with other dogs.

If you get a biggish breed like a GSD or lab or retriever don't forget you're not supposed to over walk them til they're one cos it csn mess up their hips. What about a collie ??? Would he be on his own during the day ?

continued...

I had located Pete, who wanted sub 1.45, so I said I'd run with him. Helen from club was also with us, she's been cycling but not running lately so was just going with the flow. Pete insisted on starting quite far back for some reason so we spent the first two miles weaving in and out of people, then the first big hill came and we basically mowed them all down. You can easily spot the ones who don't live and train on big hills like the ones where we run.

Somewhere on this hill (it's about a mile long) we caught two more Redhillians but without realising it, Helen and I had slipped away leaving Pete and the other two behind us. We were having a nice chat, so we just kept on going. At 5 miles we caught and passed another one of ours.

It's quite a scenic route and mostly enjoyable, but for about 3 miles from 6 to the hill at 9 we had a heavy breather behind us. We were most relieved to hit a hill and leave him behind! Somewhere along the line we passed another clubmate, I think it was around 10 - 11 miles.

I wasn't paying too much attention to what was going on, we were too busy nattering. Oops. Anyway, we got to mile 12 and there's a mighty downhill for three quarters of a mile, followed by a fairly evil climb to the finish. We attempted to finish together, since we'd run the whole thing together, but the finish line was only one person wide.

And the comedy gift this year? A stop watch. With a turkey printed on it of course!

Watch time 1.38.14, gun time 1.38.29. So actually that's faster than VLM 2010 M Pace, and not too far off hoped for VLM 2011 M Pace. Mostly it felt comfortable, only the last hill was really problematic. My lungs aren't quite back yet.

continued....

Splits (oddly they don't reflect the hills at all)
1) - 1m - 7:59
2) - 1m - 7:09
3) - 1m - 7:36 Hill
4) - 1m - 7:50 Hill
5) - 1m - 7:25
6) - 1m - 7:39
7) - 1m - 7:27
8) - 1m - 7:38
9) - 1m - 7:11 Hill
10) - 1m - 7:19
11) - 1m - 7:32 Hill
12) - 1m - 7:28
13) - 1m - 6:58 Mostly downhill but last quarter mile uphill.
14) - 0.16m - 1:03(6:42/m)

Those of you on Facebook can laugh at my dreadful heel strike during that last downhill in mile 13. Someone has, ahem, kindly tagged a photo of me.

Kier - I'm pleased my children have passed that stage

Sue - I remember you having specific coaching after the SSix; are you continuing for this training or following a generic schedule?

TR - I would agree with training on the flat for a flat marathon.  Unfortunately, I live in a hilly area and all my runs involve hills.  Sometimes I find this hard in London with the course being so flat.  

MsE - I have a lab.  She'll be three in January and she is my running companion.  She's great company but I don't tend to take her on the roads unless its a short one.  She's great on the long off road runs. 

Jane/Fraser - I've not done Lochness but have run some of it during a relay team and cycled some of it during a duathlon.  I've heard nothing but good reports about the marathon.  They do loads of events up there, running and cycling.

Poacher - I went in the hills today and it was grim.  The air temperature wasn't too cold but underfoot was a mixture of snow (still up to my thighs in places), ice and water.  The coast has been colder than us of late although we did reach -17 last week!   

CC2 - Cross post.   Thats brilliant.  What a great confidence boost after your illness and a great way to start your marathon training!

Thanks for the advice people

Keir  - good luck with the terrible 2s, been there, done it, got the t-shirt. Twice!

MsE we've always had GSDs, great breed. We#re going to rescue a dog in the new year, I've got my eye on collies or a collie x this time, specifically as I want it to run with me.