Shades Marathon Training

morning all

unofficial emmy?

5km done last night in 24 mins 16.. i know i can get under 24.. i will do it!!

interval training with Shireen today.. trying to gear up mentally to the pain!

Hi Bootsie,

I keep getting confuse between you and Big G!

Have a look here. One of the RW team is running 12 marathon in 12 days and looking for people to run with. As London is easy for me - I thought about the last leg(s). Are you interested maybe?

Emmy - different shoes for day too, run easy and an out and back route for Day2 will help as you know once you've turned for home that you'll be fine.

Refuel well after Day 1

bootsie - I'm sure sub 24 mins is yours very soon

I'll tak e a look Emmy!

7 * 45 seconds with decreasing rest periods from 45 seconds down to 10 seconds then back up again so 14 all in ! managed 1.58 miles in 10 mins 42 seconds.. happy with that!

Another evening run for me today grrr and then i'm taking it easy until my first TWENTY mile run on Sunday! Eeeeeeek! Hope the weather is ok or it's going to be a miserable and very very long run

From next week I am going to run 5 days a week. I have not been doing the optional days so far. However, I love my food as you all know and on days I run I can eat more basically

I was toying with the idea of alternating between 1600m intervals (with 800m jogs) and hill repeats from week to week on my extra day of running. However, people are telling me that doing more easy miles will be a bigger benefit for me than intervals. What do you think Shades?

@Bootsie - if you're interested - it would be great to run with you.

@Khani - 20 miles already?! Woah - you're an early starter!

Emmy I can't!! i'm back in ireland from the 20th

Khanivore - you shouldn't be increasing the distance of your long runs and starting intervals at the same time.   So for now, focus on distance and improving your endurance and aerobic fitness.  There is plenty of time to do some sharpening later on by introducing some short speedy stuff.

eat to run/run to eat - lots of folk run so they can eat more or less what they want

mowzer - are off to Italy tomorrow?

I have to be at VR's house at 3.59 a.m. on Saturday morning as we have an early start

09.00   nubi sparse   12.8°   ESE 3 / max 8
debole - assenti - 12 °C13°C 92 %1022mb 10km
buona0.3 2680m0% 10.00   nubi sparse   13.8°   SE 2 / max 8
debole 13.5 °C14°C 91 %1022mb 10km
buona0.8 2740m0% 11.00   nubi sparse   14.9°   S 2 / max 9
debole - assenti - 14.9 °C15°C 87 %1022mb 10km
buona1.3 2820m0% 12.00   nubi sparse   15.8°   S 3 / max 10
debole 15.5 °C16°C 84 %1022mb 10km
buona1.7 3020m0% 13.00   nubi sparse   16.6°   SSW 5 / max 11
debole 16 °C17°C 80 %1022mb 10km
buona1.7 3110m0% 14.00   nubi sparse   16.9°

oh dear I was trying to paste the weather for Florence on Sunday but it's all a bit mixed up.

Best of luck to Shades, VR & Mowzer. The weather should be ideal and I hope you have a brilliant time. Italians will say "In bocca al lupo" which means good luck and you reply by saying "Crepi" and they'll be amazed at your knowledge of Italian

I'll be sat on the settee watching the race and hoping to catch a glimpse of you!

Enjoy yourselves!

I love Florence - lovely city. Haven't been there since I was a student mind  

Shades - i took on board what you said and am leaving interval training out of it. By the way I signed up for another half marathon. So, I am doing half marathon in feb, half marathon in march, and full marathon in April. They are all almost exactly one month apart

Evening all, hope you're all doing fine. I'm a tad chilly. Just back from reps, tough session of 5 x 1500 this evening.

Did the Fraserburgh half marathon last weekend Shades, and I'm delighted with my time of 1:48:17. That's not too far off my half PB which was set the month before my first marathon in 2008.

Race report:
Set off in the morning with my buddies, one of whom was running his first half marathon ever. In my usual style, i had enough kit to sort out at least another two runners - you can never decide what to wear until you get there (even if it is only an hour's drive away)! Anyway, it was pretty chilly when we set off, around 1.5 C. I had a mad notion of wearing shorts and vest.

A last minute decision led me to put on a base layer and gloves. Having had my usual raft of toilet stops I found myself near the back of the pack as the gun went off. A tad frustrating, I could hear Shades advice and reminded myself that pacing slowly at the start was no bad thing (and later felt smug as I passed and beat a guy I know who was aiming for a faster time but had overcooked it at the start).

So, out of the park and through the houses. Then along the road, off the main road and into the country. There was a wee section on the old railway line which was a bit muddy, but all relatively flat. As usual, I found myself running alone much of the time. I can never seem to stick with a pack. Pacing as follows:

8:25, 7:47 (making up for lost time), 8:13, 8:13, 8:15, 8:01, 8:22, 8:18, 8:21, 8:06, 8:34, 8:44, 8:11

I'd optimistically set my watch for 1:49 pace as this would give me a 4th club standard, having earned my short and middle distances earlier in the year. I thought I'd blow up earlier in the race, but went on the basis that it's the last chance this year. Struggled in miles 11 & 12, but think that was as much in my head as my legs. The voices in my head were swearing at me and telling me to hold it together as I could get the time. Really pushed it again in mile 13 and was so delighted when running the final straight to see 1:48 still on the clock that I was nearly in tears! Could hardly breathe on finishing. Totally delighted and feeling good about where I'm starting my marathon training from.

@Molly - I read crappy instead of crepi....I guess that shows my level of Italian

@shades/Mowser/VR - have a great time in Florence! I'm so jealous!

Also - if anyone is interested: 7th May - Luxembourg marathon. Cheap entry and if you come to Brussels - I can provide transport to the event and a place to crash (within reason...)

@Clag - what a great race report! I'm so chuffed for you. 1hr 48 is a great time.

@Khani - which half did you sign up for? Did you see the advert for fleet half mara being posted?

Ooh I missed fleet ad! When is that?

I have Brighton in Feb and Reading Mar. Reading was rip off expensive at ??33 IMHO but the timing is perfect for me.

Have a look http://www.fleethalfmarathon.com/

I ran it this year as VLM prep and it was perfect timing for me. this year its 17th March and bills itself as VLM prep race. It has a really lovely crowd and marshals and there's a pub at around the 10mile point and it was the best part of the race for me. Kids running around playing, jelly babies being offered etc.

The medal is a bit poor but it's better than some.

Argh it's the same day as reading and a lot closer to me than reading. Problem is, I've paid for reading now - just a couple of hours ago too. Bugger.

Btw - forgot to say that I agree about reading. I ran it in 2008 and it wasn't "my" race. Maybe I just had a bad day but it left me feeling like I had missed out on something. That was the year that they ran out of medals

You get to finish in the majeski stadium and that was great. I also would applaud the organisers. My elderly gran came to watch that year. She had cancer at the time and really quite I'll but wanted to come and watch me run. I put her in the stadium and asked if one of the girls nearby wouldn't mind keeping an eye on her until must mum arrived. An official overheard and assured me that she'd be looked after. My gran said that she was moved to one of the VIP boxes to keep warm and given cups of teas and biscuits by the staff! I've never seen anything like it before or since but it definitely made me appreciative of the organisers and marshals in the stadium. That little bit of human kindness did wonders.

@khani - can you see if you can transfer your place for reading? Maybe contact the organisers?

Since I've paid a lot for it, and they don't do refunds or transfers, I will just stick with reading.