Moraghan Training - Stevie G

was probably some value in that as a session, but looking back at some of the sessions, it was definitely "fun" over "Improvement".

There was one Halloween ish session, where the coach stood about 300metres away in a field, and let some fireworks off.

When they went BANG, you had to sprint towards him, hoping the firework he'd just set off (probably illegally, surely you need a permit) wouldn't come down into your face

It would've made more sense to shoot the fireworks at you and make you run away.

That wasn't even the most dangerous session.

That honour went to an icy day where we were doing flat out efforts. Sprinting around blind bends. In the pitch black.

Odd run today. 8miles, with 8x75m strides thrown in throughout.

Midway through the run I went up a steep hill, that's fairly narrow, to discover some lovely chap had massively flytipped it with building materials, allowing just enough room for a car to get past.

If you were coming down the hill though, there's a nasty blind bend just before it.

Thinking about that, and a story locally where a motorcylist was killed by an errant stone in a road the other week, I drove back up there with a pal, and we, along with 2 other motorists who had stopped because we were blocking the road clearing it, cleared the lot. There was stacks,doors, wood, stones, backs of bricks, gravel!

Definitely wouldn't have felt comfortable just leaving it there, knowing someone driving a bit too fast would have a nasty situation!!

Yeah, very nasty that Daws Hill lane thing. Made me think about my push bike rides home in the dark. ther's one fast section downhill into a bend that is covered in trees that have been known to shed branches when its windy!

Good work clearing that lot - very public spirited. Did you report it as well? Where was it? Might be some CCTV /ANPR of the muppet beforehand.

Last minute change of plan today meant I managed to run from home at lunchtime. Good run - 12M on road, with a handful of hills thrown for the Marlow half build up. Coincidentally it was almost exactly the same time as Marlow last year 1:21:51, giving an average 6:49, with a bit of progression from 8-11 (6:37, 6:25, 6:19, 6:13) before easing up for the last mile. Quite pleased with that, as my legs were pretty heavy throughout, thanks to a hard tempo yesterday and a double on Monday. Two rest days to look forward to now before a loosener on Saturday and a race on Sunday.

went onto the council site and got the fly tipping page up, but it seemed to need names and vehicle registration etc..i have neither, and I'm at work, so thought I'd leave it at least knowing the road is now safe at least.

was the hill we did on our 10miler the other day...nearer the top.

Sounds a good run, sooner you than me with Marlow! I think i'm going to swerve the whole event this year. Am 90% likely to have driven to Manchester the day before too.

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Session am. I didn't believe the results on the Garmin. I'm not as fast as that!

Fair enough Stevie - you certainly did your bit anyway.

Garmin does give some weird results occasionall! Usually, but not always, at the start fo a run. I tend to check where it thinks I was on the map if I get any dodgy readings.

Oh, just checked the Ridgeway entry list.I can't expect as easy a ride as last year - a couple of very good vets from HX who will be way ahead of me (Frank and Trevor (yes he's back!) plus two guys who were just behind last year that I know will be in front of me this year if there recent performances are anything to go by!

Mind you, they do give prizes up to 10th, and this can stretch to 12th if the V40 and 50 finish high up, so there's still hope for something!!

bus...just reported it on the council site now too...to clear this up 100%

Off for a 4miler now...hopefully just about the running!

Good to see Big Trev back. He won't be full old level Trev, but he'll still be in the mixer Im sure.

DT2 wrote (see)

i was being lead out down horse guards parade and down the mall by my very own lead bike with a field of 12500 behind me! Couldn’t help but smile and think ‘this is what it must feel like to be an elite! A very profound moment indeed, and made me realise the last 3yrs of hard graft, the 5.30am runs in  the cold, dark wind and rain are all for moment like this!

Have to say that is one of the most moving parts of a report I have ever read on a forum. Bottle that feelign up and sell it to people on cold, dark, wet winter mornings.

Dachs wrote (see)

I thought that at the least it would enable me to stalk Dean or Phil from the comfort of my home, as opposed to what I usually have to do, i.e. sit outside their houses in an unmarked van.

Of course Dachs is joking about the van: any vans on the estate and the gamekeeper sets the dogs on them.

Week looking a bit better, 8, 7 and 10 for 25 in 3 days and then plan on Friday is to pop out to the gravel bit of Cabbage Patch for a bit of a check up and report so that will be 14 or 15 miles so the week shoudl be my 50+ since the end of June.

Nice to see a sense of public duty and pride their SG, sadly lacking in many people these days. That good karma will hopefully come round and catch you up at the CP!

Nice 7.5 yesterday and 9.5 today. Every run is 2 miles less then normal this week to give the legs a slight rest after 4 weeks of 70 miles. It's nice looking at my Nike+ site and it saying I've done 286 miles in the last 30 days! I am beginning to miss doing sessions though, but I need to see the base phase through to reap the full rewards in the long term.

some big mileage there Stevie. I managed about 2 1/2 huge weeks in spring, but then got niggled, and had to build back up!

Can be a balancing act!

How are you structuring the base period? Just easy paced stuff? Or are you doing strides, and MP sessions? At one point in my base last year I was doing stuff like diagonals, or short sharp light track stuff, like 3x75m at different paces.

Basic week is long run Saturday (17-19), 2nd long run Wed (12-13 miles). Easy mileage of around 8-10 in between. I've made sure I've done an 'effort' session nearly every week, be it an XC race, an MP tempo or a 20 min HM tempo. I read after 4 weeks it was a good idea to make a slight reduction on mileage and this is a good time to do a race instead of a long run (but not to expect anything time wise). So a 10k this weekend and no long run.

I haven't been doing strides as part of my easy runs but I'm going to start including them as I've also read they can really be helpful in maintaining some kind of leg speed.

Jeez Stevie - that's a good stretch of big miles.  My biggest  was before VLM last year with 2 around 73 sandwiched between a 63 and two 50's.

Philip - reading that bit of Dt2's report again, you are spot on.  I think Dachs my need ot get the Bentley out for his stalking efforts.

Stevie, was just brave enough to update my mileage for the year and the biggest month I did was 260 so you are way ahead on that count. I am just shy of 1500 for the year so will need 3 solid months to top 2000 which has to be a minimum aim for the year. I was ahead of last year for ages but 65 and 21 in July and August killed all hope of 2400. I agree that you need to take an easy one every so often and 4 weeks hard is long enought to have a back off week.

Heck of a regime Stevie, do you see a benefit of 17-19 rather than just upto 2hours (16miles max) for your target distances? I'm told that kicking on beyond 2hours gives more risk than benefit unless you're training for a marathon.

Quick example of runbritain nonsense.

It has Finchley 20 as my second best event with an SSS of 1.0 and my vSSS is 0.0. That means the course is supposedly difficult on the day. How do they determine this? If you look at a few of the athletes then e.g. Jason Harris finished in 2:07:11 (about a minute ahead of me) and then ran VLM in 2:44:57 so over 45 minutes ahead of me. His pace for Finchley was 6:22 and for VLM it was 6:18, so obviously Finchley was a hard course and so I did well.

Well no: everyone knows that a 20 mile race is a training aid for a marathon and all sorts of people run them differently so I know from the sub 3 thread that Jason ran the first 10 miles easy and then the next 10 at MP so he came past me at about 15 miles: even did the same at Wokingham when he ran an even paced 79 a month before racing 76 at Fleet.

There is no way you can accurately get a comparison between races just by looking at finishing times. At best you can get some clue but there are so many unknowns it is a guess and then you use these guesses to make a table!

Massive mileage from Mr See there ...

Got back to the track last night, 10 x 2 mins with 2 min recoveries - i.e. just over 600m.  Didn't go full pelt for most of it, but was still quicker than I had intended, given that I was supposed to be easing myself back in gradually.

However - since Sunday, I have developed some soreness in the top of my foot.  It comes and goes, and seemed to be worse when I have shoes on, so makes me feel like it's either some kind of bruising or swelling, but I may be wrong.  Seems to be spreading to my shin now.  I can run on it, but it hurts.  Amateur diagnoses welcome...

So I will have to take 2-3 days off and see if it goes away.  If not, I'm a doubt for Cabbage Patch, which would be a shame, not only for the thread meet-up, but also as I was hoping to use some of that marathon fitness.

By the way, I have been terribly rude - welcome to Steven, and congrats to DT2 on his storming incognito run - sounds like a fantastic experience.

hard to say with that one Dachs. Ice, rest and see if any bruises or swelling comes out. Hopefully just a few days thing, bound to get those every so often on our mileages and intensities.

DT2 is THE man. Half for the running capabilities, and half for something myself and Bus will reveal in the coming weeks.