Moraghan Training - Stevie G

All depends on how strong your system is really. Much quoted Sam round our way was so disappointed by something like a 2hr 45 marathon at London a couple of years ago, she went and did an evening 5miler.

So that wasn't even a day's rest! Let alone a month.

Dachs, are you planning Wokingham and then Gosport if needed for asub 1hr 15 go? Obviously November is ages away, but would be nice to do that this year after last years disappointment! Might be sick of long trips down there after Chichester, Eastleigh and Victory though!

A 1hr 15 is one of those benchmarks I've always considered a great "career" target.

I'd love to dip my toes into the 1:15:xx territoriy, even if it's just a second under 1hr 16

(ps eventually, not next time out )

SG - I think you underestimate yourself.  I doubt that you're as far off 1:15:xx as you think.

At the moment, I'm planning on my half marathon PB shots being Wokingham, Reading and Maidenhead, with the latter being a precursor to an Autumn marathon.  I'm not sure whether I'd want to commit to races immediately after the marathon after last year's experience - not only having to shelve one of them, but also putting unnecessary pressure on myself to return to training for the other - so Gosport is more iffy.  I'll assess later in the year but chances are I won't.

Working at home today, so managed a lunchtime run, which is a new experience for me.  Did 8 miles easy.  Had planned a tempo, but walking my son to school today he went flying on a centimetre thick sheet of polished ice covering almost the whole path, so thought I'd better postpone it til there's been a bit more thawing.  Most of the pavements are totally clear, but every so often there is a bit which is still under thick ice, and there seems to be no particular rhyme or reason as to why.

SG, if only you could rein back your start speed. A sub 76 min at Wokingham a given.

When I ran my fastest HM, I could have probably nailed the first mile in 5:15/5:20 if I'd tried to 'race' from the gun. I did a first mile of 5:45 and then found I could average a few seconds faster all the way in.

The following year I tried a first mile of 5:20 and then progressively tied up the longer the race went on. I was fitter but never recovered from the fast start. 76 minutes plus the result. And painful with it.

I'm thinking of the 5 miler I ran last summer. 5:45, 5:40, 5:42, 5:41, 5:40.

Now that was actually fast start, but with a difference. I was looking at the Garmin as I got going and at the same time as my lungs started complaining I could see the average speed going slower and slower. 

Somewhat disheartened to see the average pace dropping rapidly towards the sixes I sort of gave up and decided instead to just get around as comfortable as I could salvage. Didn't expect to go faster by easing up. But then again, I remember Mike Gratton saying that you can't get a faster time by forcing it.

Ric, I've always started faster than average pace of the race, and to be honest I doubt that will ever change. I did notice at CP this year that I did a slower start than last year, but averaged 8secs quicker. A much better pitched effort.

It's hard to measure, but I can only remember one race where I started ludicrously fast. Boiling hot day, MT 10k, when I didn't recognise any front runners. I rememeber doing the first 1km in something like 33min pace...as a 40min runner

Naturally the conditons and the start conspired to make it the most horrendous race experience ever, and I can still remember the taste of the grass that I collapsed onto after for 30mins afterwards.

I'll also never forget 2 particularly idiotic comments I received. One from a marshall at the finishing line, and one from a club "mate".

I still finished about 9th, and said to the marshall at the end, for some banter, "how do they do it (ie the 8 who beat me)

answer? "they're PROPER runners". Reasoning? Them wearing club vests. So the guy in 300th place was a proper runner on that logic?

Attempting some more banter with a cold clubmate after, saying "why do we do this" (ie racing), I got the warm "you don't have to turn up" response.

Great day

How do people like that survive?

Starting pace SG, always a gamble to some extent.

I go for perceived effort rather than attempting to hit some number. I trust my training will get me what I want. Also accepting the training will get you what you deserve is also a factor.

I suppose 'tempo' runs do have a place after all. Its about learning the optimum start pace.

I know a runner who was a 5 minute miler. Whenever he races, he goes flying off and promptly blows up. The problem he has is, that in his mind he still has the tempo of the 5 minute miler but his body can't manage that anymore.

Very much a case of knowing yourself.

What I know about myself is that in a race, I can generate a leg speed of 200 strides per minute. But the stride length is poxy. To go faster I need to increase that stride length which I'm working on.

Fractions are involved. Just one inch longer stride length would have resulted in over one minute faster at last years Cabbage Patch.

Tidy doubles Dean and Bus, let's hope we're near the end of the snowy stuff. For one thing I've noticed a few aches causes my smashing around in the XC studs!

Ric, I have an image of you running in a very busy but hardly moving style for some reason!

Rest day today, which is dull, but tomorrow is the 3rd and final post race double 1hour tempo.

After a 3x 10min HMP, 10min steady, and a 6x6mins HMP, 4mins Steady, tomorrow is an epic sounding 10 x 3mins HMP, 3mins Steady.

Bit awkward time wise to fit it in, but I'll do my best. I quite fancy this one. You can monster it for 3mins, and then relatively speaking relax and enjoy some scenery for 3mins

I won't really have any tactics for Wokingham. I'll just know the figure 5.57 per mile of my pb, and do my best to beat that each mile. Simples.

That's what I did at CP, where the pb figure was 5.50, and it came out as 5.42. Was glorious chalking each mile off nicely under the base line and thinking, this is really doable!

I'm still new enough to this game that target paces and pacing are something that I've just started to dabble with. For the last 2 Wokinghams it's been a case of see how it works; get out on to the first motorway bridge an keep the pace up.

For 5k & 10k it was always go out fast (relatively) and hang on.

I used to pick up the cadence to get faster, though the stride length does shrink when that happens. Strides and intervals have helped extend the stride when picking the pace up.

The vest thing made be laugh. I think it's more noticeable at XC - the pointy end, up and comers and grizzled vets are in vests and short shorts regardless of weather whereas the BOP seems to be strictly longs, t-shirts, gloves and hats.

My usual comment about 2km in is "We do this for fun?".

Perceived effort is tricky in races - the first mile always feels too easy, the next few are spent getting into a rhythmn at a comfortably hard effort, then the last few just hurt!

SG - 5:57 target to beat per mile! Yeah right.....

Hoping the mild and wet weather Saturday and into Sunday will make a nice pacey, long road run possible!  I've enjoyed the snow, but it's buggered up the quality! 

I'll do my best Bus, it might be too optimistic of me, you know what I'm like

Iron, kit is a funny old game. I remember doing the Marlow half early in my racing days, turning up in some random t shirt and big shorts. I can still remember being on the start line yawning (!) thinking, "this'll be comfortable", before utterly obliterating myself.

The Pineapple Juice they gave me after that race tasted like pure magic.

These days it's generally a vest for anything 10k and under without even a second of consideration.

I suppose you have to give it a little thought if it's a 10-HM on a freezing cold day. You can soon find yourself turning into an ice block!!

I looked back and I did Gosport Nov 2010 in a skin and vest on top. That was a very cold day!

Kit can be tricky. I get very wam when running, but I guess like most of us here I suffer from the cold before and after.

I've only once ever raced in anything other than a shorts and vest once - Berko, 2005 - sub zero, but was still too hot! That includes some Cliveden XCs where its been well below freezing and Coledale Horsheoe last year where I was being pelted by freezing hail stones! Mind you, that last one was just daft, especially as I had a windproof in my bum bag!

A pair of gloves is just about acceptable on occasion...

That said, just recently I've been feeling the cold a lot more and have been training in clothes I would have considered complete overkill not so long ago...

Another hill session today, planned session was 'iced' off so we hit a pyramid type hill session with increasing rep lengths, was only about 20 mins in total. 8.5 miles for the session. 40 for the week, 233 for the month thus far.

Nice session on a treadmill there Dean, not too many indoor runs though, don't these southern types thinkin' we're soft like them!

SG the 10 x 3mins sounds better to me, think you'll find that quite manageable, what's the rec?

Stevie, it's an hour continuously, so the recovery is actually the 3mins at steady (6.30+) after each 3mins at HMP.

Got into work at 7.45 to pile through some work so I'm free to smash what will be a longish session at lunch!

Bloody miserable run in this morning! Tried the new shoes, which actually worked pretty well on ice (though very noisy on tarmac!), but for some reason were really uncomfortable! I think its because the lacing is different from other Inov-8s and they are more supportive, I had to do them too tight - they actually seem to need breaking in. So, foot pain for most of it, combined with really badly rutted, semi-frozen snow/mud mix on very tired legs meant painfully slow progress. To cap it all, with 1M to go I vaulted a gate, as I've done 100 times before, but my hand slipped on the wet post and I came crashing down on top of the the gate - cut my leg, massive lump on top of my shin, twisted my shoulder and bruised my arm. What's more, as I was so slow, I had very little time to catch my train so had to carry on running as fast as I could, in a twisted, hobbling kind of way, showering expletives in every direction!  Still pretty sore now. Bit ironic given all the ice and snow, that I injure myself slipping on a wet gate post!

Hey ho, 7.5M done and dusted I suppose...

Bus, I'm becoming concerned.

You're beginning to sound as if you've hit by a Bus.

Bus, apart from all that how was the run?

got out and did a hilly 10m in 6.56 ave pace today. although its still icy, the roads are clear so wore trainers rather than trail shoes which was nice!  Forecast shows 10cm of snowfall tonight so im sure i will be back in the trail shoes tomorrow.

Enough already with the snow!

Bus, sounds a bit of an arse of a run, but that's the kind of tricky one that builds mental strength and goes to the next pb.

Dean, fast and long, we expect no different from you old son! Nice work.

Had a cracking run, which I'd geniusly arranged time slot wise. Aimed to have my HMP at 5.50, and steady is 6.30+.

3m warm up (trimmed 1/2m off for time purposes!!), and 9.62miles in the hour. Felt really nice.

The thing that shows how fitness has come on, is that's an average of 6.14 over 9.5+ miles! 1 second quicker than my MP zone.

I remember 8miles at MP feeling along effort last year, and now this is coming out longer and more comfortble, with half of it a reigned in effort.

On the downside, the hip on one side and ankle on the other were tight/achy.With joints I think it's a case that they to some extent seize up with rest, and then you add in the really cold weather and the effect is doubled.

roll on the warmer weather!

SS - nice hill session.  Carry these hills on and you'll develop a natural forward lean.

Bus - is it bad that I laughed a bit?  Sorry.  Sounds like an unpleasant one, but if you will go out into the wilderness...

Working at home again, and the pavements are now clear, so pulled my racers on and went out for a 10K tempo at lunch (plus one mile warm up and one mile warm down).  Well, it was a bit of an eye-opener.  Did the local 10K race course as usual, but didn't look at my watch until the end, as I wanted to do it on feel not an artificial pace.  It turned out I'd done it in 35:36! Km splits were 3:37, 3:37, 3:37, 3:35, 3:31, 3:33, 3:35, 3:31, 3:24, 3:31.

I would actually have been almost within sight of the time I ran on the same course in the actual race last May, when I first broke 35.  I ran 36:01 on the same course as a tempo just before setting my current 10K PB.  On that basis, I am starting to feel very optimistic indeed.

SG, given that it was less than 2 weeks ago you beat me by a decent margin, even allowing for XC/course experience, I think you can be pretty optimistic about your current form too.