Overdone it?

Skinny, won't be at all wise to do any quality this week, as you won't be able to race sunday at LSR effort, trust me, when the competitive juices come along, you won't be able to reign it in.

Therefore, sunday will be your quality this week, feel free to race it as hard as you like though.

Bearing in mind you have done 13 today, and sunday will be 15 with warm up and cool down, that's already 28miles, with your highest total mileage roughly 36 to date.

Therefore, i'd go for a mere  4mile at easy/recovery pace tomorrow night, and then 6miles with strides on Friday. (5x75m fast relaxed pace)

Making the full week

M     13m  (you did this already in lieu of yesterday)
T      4m easy/recovery  (slow as you like)
F      6m with 5x75m fast relaxed strides thrown in 
Su   15m (1m wu, 13.1m race, 1m cd)

the week after the race will need to be a bit of a recovery week, but we'll see how you are sunday afternoon.

Thanks - still plan to run first half slow (whatever you say) as don't want to spend what should be a very enjoyable run in running hell plus running on the sand and in the water might slow me up a bit anyway - we'll see whether you are right or I am but my competitive juices are really focussed on 1:34 on 7th October!

Based on what you have said and fact it is supposed to be my quality run for week I'm going to aim for sub 1:50 which should not do too much damage to next weeks training but with a slow start still gives me scope to stretch my legs.

Strides - is that a 75m sprint then once every mile after a mile WU or do I do them after more WU in a kind of concentrated effort spell?

Also some sort of idea of how fast might save me from myself!! I'm thinking about 16 seconds per 75m?  

See how you go, and drop a mail on here or to my pm sunday evening to let me know how you feel, we'll go from there.

Will probably be a good idea to give youa  3mile recovery run on the Monday, circa 9+ min miling to recover the legs a bit.

In terms of strides, don't worry about timig these, just keep it relaxed but at a good pace, not all out sprint by any means. You don't have to keep them in a regular every mile sequence, just get a good mile in, and do the 6 before the last mile. It's to tick the legs over before the race effort.

When i race, i do a run with strides the day before a race, but then i'm running 6 days a week, so you're ok as you are with this.

As this race doesn't sound like it'll give us any basis to go off for your target half, I think it would be a decent idea for you to race a 10k in 3-4 weeks.

Any flat fast 10ks you can find for that time? At worst, a 10miler?

Not a great deal of choice in Cumbria - not like down south - there is a 10 miler on 9th September but not really flat - don't seem to be any 10k's unless I go down to Blackpool which is about 100 miles away - I'd rather flog my nuts off on a run on my own and see how I get on - it's what I used to do once a week before you got involved!

 Fair dos...awkward bit of the country.

I've got a couple of real challenging sessions instead in the last few weeks...they will have to do.

But we need to try to make sure it builds progressively...so after this week's race, and the recovery, need to make sure the sessions are done to plan as far as possible.

good luck today Skinny...let me know how you did asap...

Hi coach - 1:51 ish - forgot to stop my watch and results not posted yet.

Time doesn't tell full story.

13.54 miles per my Garmin - distance is affected by route across sands.

3 mins to wade through waste deep estuary river.

But probably most telling factor was 10 miles into strong headwind with 3 miles of tailwind only. One way route across the bay.

Will be interesting when results are published to compare some times to peoples best HMs on RunBritain Rankings to compare them to recent HMs on road.

One person said 10 to 11 mins slower another said 20 mins slower so will need to wait and see how reasonable a time it was.

Also started right at back of field which was a mistake as my first half mile was 10 minute mile stuff as couldn't get past the moving barrier! After that tho it was brill coz just ran through the field - don't think anyone ran past me in whole race.

Achilles is a little sore tonight - about to ice it - but no worse than it has been.

Will post again when I have a bit more time tomorrow and I've seen results. Great fun race though, but zero PB potential!

Cheers, Skinny

PS found a 10k race in Scotland which is flat on a Wednesday night - 5th September - I think for my own benefit I need to do this to gauge where I am.

PPS You were right - once I was running and there were people in front of me no chance I wasn't going to race it!

good work, sounds a fun rampage rather than anything that will give us clues about the progress. Feel free to post your splits and any other details when you get them tomorrow.

That 10k sounds ideal as a good chance to test where you are before the big target race. We'll build that in.

Tomorrow, I think just 1x3miler will do you good....a recovery pace run, so as slow as you like. Tuesday will then be best set as a day off for full recovery.

We'll see how you are end of Tuesday before setting the rest of the schedule...

Feel little stiff today but no serious aches or pains - will do gentle 3 mile today as suggested and plenty of stretching - rest day tomorrow sounds good.

Race times now posted so can give more detail - but not got any splits - might plug in the Garmin tonight and have a look. Feel I need to give details below or you won't understand that 1:51 was actually not far off a target effort.

Finished 49th (Gun) 44th (Chip) out of 569 finishers.

Winning Time by John French was 1:32 but he has run a 1:13 HM on road. (he won by 3 and a half minutes!)

Greg Keynes who beat me Gun and I beat Chip ran the Wilmslow HM in March this year in 1:31 and has run other HMs in similar times. He ran the BUPA Manchester 10K in May in 40:56 so that is a fair (but sounds pretty hard) target for 5th September. 

Cheers, Skinny (PS I was a little disappointed myself with 1:51 even though I knew it was hard when running it so mighty relieved to find out how much slower other runners managed it too)

Sounds like you're on track from the other racers, although can never use that as a 100% guide, as you don't know if they raced it as a tempo.

if you feel suitably recovered by end of tomorrow, i'd see Wednesday being a 6mile easy, and then presuming all is well, a medium quality session friday, followed by a 13-14miler sunday.

However, i'll firm this up from your feedback by close of play tomorrow. Week after a race certainly not the time to smash it....that'd take us to the end of week 7

Week 8&9 will be full on weeks, and then your 10k race comes mid week 10. (5th Sep)

Hi coach - did the recovery run last night - curious as to what the point is?

I'm ready for a 6 mile easy tomorrow and then medium quality should be fine come Friday with the LSR on Sunday. I'm going to a funeral this pm so this is my 'end of tomorrow' feedback.

Really enjoyed the strides last week pre run by the way - think they helped on the run coz into the wind first 7 miles everyone was grouping with gaps between so I basically did strides between each group then slowed up, sheltered, got my breath back, then strides again to next group.

a short recovery run the day after a race helps the process of getting the waste materials out of your legs and getting the blood pumping again. Without one, you'll usually find you feel much tighter, and the recovery period is longer.

Ok, so 6mile easy on wednesday, then..presuming you're still feeling good and recovered, let's go

F   10m, 3miles easy, 3miles steady, 3miles MP, 1mile cool down
Su   14mile easy

(lightish quality on the Friday in light of your race on sunday....this Friday quality session will move back to Wednesay in future weeks...and ramp up in difficulty)

Then that leaves 7 weeks until race day.

I'd envisage splitting it ike this (*)

week 1&2 building on your last week pre race
Week 3 will be a light week with the 10k race midweek
week 4&5 peak weeks, biggest mileage/quality
week 6 some half marathon paced work
week 7 , light taper week ending with the BIG half Marathon.

Hope the funeral goes well pal, and we'll chat soon

*Just to check, was your trip to America in week 5 (commencing 17th Sep) or week 6 (24th sep). Either way we'll work around it.

Trip to America week 5 - fly Sunday back Saturday - investigated where I am staying and about 2 miles from a large park which looks to have some running trails in it so just need to shake off my US colleagues now and I'll be fine!

Report back Monday - cheers.

Hi coach - potential problem this morning.

Ran about 1.5 miles easy then suddenly felt pain in my Achilles, not run stopping pain but definite pain rather than discomfort or being aware of an ache.

Stopped and stretched my calves as they have been a bit tight last couple of days and my Achilles strangely have been fine. After a minute stretching started jogging again really slowly and seemed to have eased off so gradually built pace again over next half mile but then got pain again. At this point stopped and walked home. Not ideal because I was on a 6 mile loop! For most of walk it was no problem but every so often I got a stabbing pain that then went again.

I've iced it for 15 mins and stretched since got home and feels fine.

I'm thinking of going out and trying the Friday run as planned but doing it in 3 mile loops that way can stop as soon as get any pain and not too far to walk back - what do you think?

Thought yesterday was your 6mile run? When you're running only 4 times a week it becomes more key to run as per the designated day where possible...if you have some days to avoid let me know early and I'll work around it.

6 today, and then 10 tomorrow including medium quality would be too heavy going from your mileage...

If there's any pain on walking simply don't run tomorrow.

If it feels pretty good, try an easy paced run instead...won't be anything to gain from trying the harder session.

May well be the best case to rest for the rest of this week, with maximum rest, stretching and icing. This was only a light week post your race, so won't affect the overall picture.

Are you stretching the calf as well as the achilles? The 2 are massively connected. Do your shoes have plenty of life left in them?

Throughout the training I have sometimes swapped a night run to early the next morning but on this occasion problem was I slept in yesterday morning - as it happens probably wouldn't have got very far anyway. I will try and be more religious about the day from now on.

Currently no pain on walking but will elave any run till tomorrow night so I have full day of walking around to be clear on how it feels.

I will see how it feels and make a call on 6 mile easy or total rest.

My Asics Gel Nimbus 14s are only 2 months old and have done just over 200 miles so should be no problem there.

I understand link between two and am stretching both regularly every hour - am also trying rolling an orange round on my calf - am in meetings all day today and already had some funny looks!

Fingers crossed it will be back to normal by tomorrow.

Cheers 

Good work Skinny...it's always a mixture of the "Best" approach v reality of life and fitting the training in...in the main part, the subs you've made have been reasonable, but because we're nursing your achilles, recovery time is paramount.

From my experience of achilles aches early on in my running, I remember that the achilles is a tricky area as it's so thin, and gets poor blood flow. Therefore, it often starts off achey, but eases once flood flow strengthens.

All you can do is the 4 or 5 stretches between the 2 areas, and ice in the evenings. A physio appointment would be the next step.

Okay - after a day of stretching and rolling that flipping orange my left calf (its all my left leg) felt like a bloody rock.

Went home and got the massage oil out and spent an hour massaging the calf - the problem area seems to be the top of the calf on the inside - even after an hours massage it was still pretty solid.

Ordered a foam roller which will arrive next Thursday.

Overal the calf feels better today but the top inside is still sore and solid - I guess I'll just repeat the treatment today and see where I am tomorrow.

My understanding is that the problem is in my calf - my calf muscle is tight and that is making it difficult for the Achilles to stretch as far as it needs to - this is giving me some discomfort in the Achilles but nothing serious and if I can loosen the calf then the Achilles should improve (of course if I don't improve the calf then the Achilles will get worse) - is that roughly a correct desription of my problem?

If that is correct should I actually be icing the calf rather than the Achilles? Or both?

Finally I am concentrating on the bottom half of my legs as don't feel any similar problems above the knee - but is it possible that by not stretching my hamstrings I am putting pressure on my calves or does the knee separate these muscles?

If you don't know then I can post this on an injury thread - problem then is you get eight different opinions and one quite knowledgeable one is all I really need! Plus there are loads of similar threads already many of which I've read - hence the ideas of the orange, massage and foam roller which I'd never heard of before.

Skinny, it's key to develop a regime where you stretch all key zones.

Back, hips,hamstrings, calf and achilles should all be on your radar.

A couple of days rest would give you a chance to get the regime started. I posted a list of stretches a few pages back.

However, it may come to a point you need to see a physio. I'd recommend getting into your doctor's surgery asap...to at least get the ball rolling on an NHS physio...the wait will be longer compared to private, but you have the security of knowing that they'll do their best to heal you, rather than spinning it out for more cash.

I have misexplained myself - I have done those exercises once a day whether running or not since you 'prescribed' them (other than glute - sounds like a pain in the backside). What I meant was that I am hourly focussing on just bottom half of leg as that is where problem is and just wondered if I should also be doing hamstring hourly as well - after all work is only so important when you have 1:35 to beat in 7 weeks!

I do actually have private health insurance through work but not sure what it covers and you need to get referred by your GP before you can go so I'll make a GP appointment just to get ball rolling (I need a new blue inhaler anyway).

Thanks for advice - no running today and will just monitor Saturday and Sunday - if I do feel better by Saturday night do you think a 6 mile easy would be way to go for a first run back or should I try even shorter and check no reaction?