Moraghan Training - Stevie G

SS - YES! thats the sub 36 sorted, well deserved judging by the intervals you have been monstering of late. excellent racing too holding onto those paces for the 2nd half.  Superb!  With this form dare i say can you get rid of that HM PB and trade it in for some sleek with perhaps a 7 in it

Ric - nice work, the drop off in 10yrs is so small which must be a huge encouragement.

SG - Smart move, there is always another race

Seb - that course dry would be easy, very easy and very quick. But even on the map it has a section called "the boggy area" so im assuming its more often than not a nightmare!  Some very good runners lost minutes yesterday due to the conditions.  the ditch at lemington last week was tame compared to about 3 different sections being much deeper, muddier and followed by about 40-50m of sludge mud that you sank every footstep down over your ankle by about another 5cm.  and then repeat as it was 3 laps

Thanks guys,

Now that my missus has finished with yet another game of DX Ball (Bricks) I can get back to posting.

Ended up in 8th from nearly 300. 2nd V50 in race, but 1st V50 in the SCVAC 10 mile Road Championships. Riveting. I wonder if anyone else was in it? I think there might have been.

Time amended to 59:45. My rival did 58:45, so must have taken nearly 30 seconds out of me in the last mile and a bit.

Dean. Another outing in cow land then. Deep mud, multi lap. I've mentioned it before, start really fast, stuffs the ground up for anyone following.

As for my own excusions off road. I might just do a couple of XC this winter. One would be the Southern Vets, the other might be a Chiltern League at Slough. 

Slough would be a possible on account of the course being grass, flat and generally devoid of mud. And that the club is bloody desparate.

Ric - I'll be very happy if I can run a 10M within a minute of today's times in 10 years, so good racing.

Stevie See! Very well done, and very much deserved, as you've really put the sessions in of late! Must admit, I'm a bit peeved that you got there before me though  (asuming that I WILL get there that is!!)

Congrats to Dachs to - but want to see the official report before I get too gushing

Cheers Bus, how did today go, kill or cure?

Cure - thankfully! A bit on the slow side, but with a steady start, the sunshine and cold, fresh air soon shifted the hangover and got me back on track for a 51M week. (After 3 weeks of averaging 23M per week!). Got back to a full roast with all the trimmings too, so could just about accept the Mrs dragging me out for a walk with the kids after lunch!

That's very good of you Bus, I shall oblige in a second.  First things first though...

Massive congratulations to Stevie S - that's a big milestone to break, and done in style.  I like the way you knuckled down in the latter half of the race and cranked out those splits metronomic style.  Did you do a little dance for the ladies too?  36 is a good time to beat, as it puts you in the ballpark of sub 80 for a half and sub 60 for 10 miles as well, so you're well on your way.

Nice competitive racing from Ric, sounds like a f***ing nightmare being able to see the finish from that far away though.

Hard luck SG, real shame given you were in a position to smash your PB today.  I did keep an eye out for you around the race HQ, but once I hadn't seen you at the start it was clear you weren't there.  Best to make that decision now, and still be in a position to smash it at the next one rather than end up with another lengthy lay-off.

More fast-finishing action from Dean too.

And as for Warren and Seb, those are some scary paces being reported there!  Seems like a jump in fitness from both of you.  Seb, my 5K is 16:33 and I would really struggle to match the 1600 rep times you've done there, so you could well be looking at low 16s.

Running with a hangover Bus?  Hardcore.  Now that really is worthy of a retch or two.

So Gosport ...

Having wondered how to pace it today, I decided that, since I didn't really have a clue exactly what shape I was in, my best bet would simply be to run to feel rather than set off artificially fast or artificially slow.

Start is a bit of an odd one, they have a huge area for sub 1:10, when the results most years show only 3 or 4 actually run that.  So I was hanging round in the next bracket back, with very few around me, when suddenly there was a surge from behind and about 60 people were standing in front of me.  Having checked out previous results, I knew that wasn't the right place to be, so spent the first mile hurrying past people - consequence was a 5:38 to start.

Miles 2 and 3 done in 5:45 ish, still feeling reasonably comfortable, and onto the airfield for the first lap I quite enjoyed the novelty of it all.  Still felt strong and full or running, and miles 4 and 5 averaged 5:42, reaching 5 miles in 28:33.  However, mile 6 on the watch was 6:06, despite not appearing to slow down at all, so I imagine a previous mile marker was a little out of place.

At mile 6, a car ignored a marshall and just pulled into a side street, almost slewing into the 2 guys just ahead of me.  I mean, for f***'s sake, if you're going to ignore the marshall, at least wait for a gap.  Bloody cretin.  As I ran off, I could hear them f-ing and blinding at each other.

Mile 7 was 5:50, but I could feel that the strength in my legs was waning a little.  Kept it together for a 5:49 for mile 8, but after this point it suddenly felt a very long way to the end.  However, doing a second lap of the runway and having the joy of cutting through all the people still on their first lap kept me going.  Miles 9 was 5:52, and mile 10 was 6:03, hitting 10 miles in 58:15.  This left the long stretch back along the seafront promenade, fortunately with only a very light wind.  At this stage I knew I was on for a PB if I kept it going reasonably, so finished with a 5:50, 5:59 and 5:52, crossing the line in 1:16:36 for a shiny new PB.

Well pleased with that, to be honest.  A couple of weeks ago, I really didn't think I'd be seeing any more PBs til the new year, so it's great to take 47 seconds off, albeit that this was pancake flat compared to my hilly previous PB course.  So, very happy, and this gives me something to build on.

2 clear lessons from today:

• Tempo running will be key - the slowdown towards the end was about not having the speed in my legs that far into the race.  If I can get that sorted, I can mount a strong assault on 1:15 early next year.  Even without recent injury this is a weakness, as my 10K to HM conversion is comparably poor.
• Don't park in the car park which is accessed from the finishing straight, because you won't be able to get out of it for about an hour and a half after you finish.

Dachs,hi there.

Looking on the map, the finish is in sight almost from the nine mile mark. You get to the top of the hill on Epsom Lane and then can look right across Epsom Downs to the main stand. The finish is on the far side of that.

If my eyesight was good enough I would have been able to see the winner from where I was.

And from what I hear, if you had been there today the first time you would caught sight of the winner would have been when washing your hands back at base, in a mirror. Well done that man.

Good race indeed Dachs, I'm quite envious, as although it's all "could have beens", it could have been a good little race between us. Certainly before you get back up to full potential!

There's that little slight uphill in the last 2 miles, very brief but unwelcome, but then a lovely mile of views across the sea.

That car park is quite handy though, but must be soul destroying for back markers, watching 100s of cars stream out as they're still finishing. Felt really sorry for anyone running 2:30+ last year, squeezed onto one side of the road, car fumes in their faces for the last stretch.

Damm...roll on recovery and racing again!

Ric, great racing buddy. I thought I had to tough seeing the finish from 400m never mind a mile out. Torture! But a great time and encouraging performance.

Dachs - what a time! Bet you were well happy there was no wind down the sea front! Is that your best overall performance? I'm in the scary boat of havoing to adjust training times to very scary reps times. Tempo 5:53  But yeah my predicted times have all come down so gives me a lot of future targets.

My RunBritain only rated this 50 second PB and best overall performance as my 7th best performance and my handicap has back gone up! I ask you...

Same as SG and Deano now, it's all about XC!  SG when you back in the mix? Enough time to let the back, glute hamstring tightness sort its self? Maybe another sports massage is needed? You have coshed it the last few weeks!

Stevie, how on earth did Run Britain manage to do that? Poxy site that one. How can a pb possibly put your handicap up?! Anything to do with it unfairly penalising it for being a pb course?

At the end of the day, in years to come, noone will give a toss about profile/run britain/rankings etc, people will ask your best time  so not to worry. Anything else makes for (interesting) anecdotes.  I'm sure I'll be taking the "Ric F role", probably  on some future keen runner's training thread giving it plenty about the time I was in pb form, and had to cry off at Gosport

When the back stops twinging I'll be back for some easy paced stuff, could be tomorrow, could be a week, can't tell right now.

Tomorrow I'll go through the process of doc appointment booked, get back on the NHS physio list.

I've learnt that although it feels like you want urgent action with niggles, and are tempted to go private, in reality it's best to save your money, wait for the NHS, and the be content that you're in the system until you're fixed.

There's nothing as unsatisfying as whacking a stack of cash down, and then the same niggle the next week

Although no race is the end of the world to miss, I'll be disappointed to miss next Sunday's xc, as it's probably my fave of the series, put on by my host club, and I missed it last year with a niggle!

The physio actually recommended me doing it back then, but he was a very pro, "yeah just go and carry on" type. He'd have probably said go and smash it today

SG - sorry to hear of your DNS. Reading what you say about that last mile brings back memories of how much I enjoyed it in 2009. Back then I'd only just started taking this running stuff seriously and I remember thinking that the 1:30:XX I had run was me blowing my best chance ever of running a sub 90 half! 

Dachs - great work on the PB. I'm sure a sub 75 is in the offing soon if you can do that off an interrupted buildup.

Stevie see - great work on hitting that big milestone. I had a look at the results and it was unbelievable to see the depth of the field. Is it the most stacked 10km field in the country, what with 170+ finishers inside 35 mins or are there more stacked ones?

Ric - good effort on the 10 mile race. If I can get to 51 and still be running those sort of times, I'll be very happy.

Dean - 6:11 pace when running through knee deep mud is some going. Sounds like a pretty good effort.

Warren, sometimes remembering other good racing moments can bring sweet solace in the bad times! I did a bit of power of 10 stalking, and didn't realise (or had missed it amongst my constant witterings taking too much forum space) that you;d won a marathon in 2hr 45. Now that must be amazing feeling, the adrenaline of being in the mixer for that long!!

I've experienced winning very low key races of up to 4.7miles (don't ask), and that felt stressy enough, but 26.2miles! phew!

Warren I've just been thinking the same. It was stacked last year but this yearwas spomething else, the top 80 all under 33 mins! First 6 under 30min... minus Jonny Mellor, for some reason he didn't run. And like you say 175 under 35 mins. My 'modest' 35:51 gets you 232nd!  Don't know of a race that comes close depth wise, not even the Great Manchester 10K.

SG - yeah, I think we would have been in similar territory today, maybe you just a bit ahead.  We've missed a couple of head-to-heads at CP and now Gosport, so we shall have to sort that out soon.

SS - RunBritain does some odd things, but it doesn'tgive you a worse handicap off a race - most likely is that one of your older races is now counting less because it's more than a certain amount of time ago - kind of like the way older matches are given less weight in the FIFA world rankings.  Whether the RunBritain scores being comparable with the FIFA rankings is a good thing is another matter of course ... But yeah, it does seem ridiculous that breaking that milestone doesn't count as one of your 5.

Since they changed it, RunBritain's website now crashes both my home and work computer, so I can't check my handicap even if I wanted to.  I was at 0.2 a couple of months ago, but I imagine it's declined.

My best pound for pound race in my view was 34:19 at the Yateley 10k, but that's not UKA, so isn't on RunBritain.  RB rates it as my previous HM PB, 1:17:23 at Frome, which I'm inclined to agree with, as that was a tough course.

Dachs, I might have to swerve that one if I'm facing much time off, or it could be embarrasing, and I might look back to the days it could have been equal. That or retire off my 2-0 record now

Stevie, 80 under 33mins?! What on earth. High quality races are the way to go though. None of this pot hunting nonsense in bootleg races. I'm learning that now.

Just looking at Leeds' results, something unique must occur there, as even the superstar runner who was very briefly in our area last year took 40+ seconds off his pb.

now down to 30.02 for a mere 9th place!!

Brilliant stuff Dachs - a great time, even without it coming off the back of your recent injury woes. Very promising for what is to come! 

Sub 36 and not even top 250? That is some class field there Stevie! Takes nothing away from your own time mind - bet you're walking on air tonight!

SG - do you think you need some down time and to write off next week's xc, or just some proper physio care to get to the bottom of it? Only you can make a judgement on how bad the tightness and twinges are though....

Great runs from everyone, getting more pissed off with being benched but things are definitely feeling better and this time I will be patient for a full recovery.

Dachs wrote (see)

RunBritain's website now crashes both my home and work computer, so I can't check my handicap even if I wanted to.  I was at 0.2 a couple of months ago, but I imagine it's declined.

Yep, 0.3 now, have to race faster Has Gosport down as your 8th run.

At the moment trying to work out an adjusted plan for the rest of this year and next year. Wokingham Half on Feb 10th should be OK as an early target but I am in two minds about Finchley 20 on 17th March.

Phil, hope you're back soon, and hope to join you at Wokingham to make up for yesterday!

Bus, back feels a fair bit better today, might try a gentle 3. Clearly "might" have a jog is a lot different to racing a half flat out, so no regrets over yesterday in that sense.

Will up the strengthening. Had booked today as a holiday anyway, so have plenty of time for some of that type work.

Dachs - bearing in mind the build up to gosport a PB is mighty fine reward. Congrats. your tempos from the mara training were fast so im sure a 100% dachs willl nail them.

Stevie see wrote (see)

Same as SG and Deano now, it's all about XC!  

are you doing Leek ?  Nice flat one it ease you back in