The Middle Ground

DASH RIPROD wrote (see)

Curly, great effort but surely if you are finishing at that pace ( at 5k) you could go faster to begin with?

oh sure - it wasnt a race, I was just testing my legs. First mile 7:17 and wound it up from there. Didnt get time to warm up and have cold so was just testing the waters for effort level = pace output. Effort level was about 5-6 building to about 8-9 at the end.

I'm in about 20:40 shape according to mcmillan which seems a little optimistic, but something around 21:20 or so feels about right for the next race.

I wont get a chance till after cabbage patch though so just wanted to get a feel for where I was.

Curly - nice finish!  May I ask why you chose to only go at it for the last 0.15 miles?  Was it just to know you had to go hard after 3 miles?

Great training week for me here 89 miles for the week.  More detail if anyone cares http://imageshack.us/a/img838/883/20121007201838.jpg

i was squinting a bit to read that Josh, not having the skills or botherment to enlarge it...but is 8.15 the fastest you run in the week?

Saturday looks like I did 8 miles at 8:10 min/mile.  Really, really happy given how comfortable my runs feel and given the overall milage.  Just come back from 2 recovery weeks, which have obviously helped.

Simon – the rest week between the two marathon training blocks will probably be a cut back, with no training planned other than tick over miles. As for the week after the Brass Monkey HM in Jan before the start of Mara specific training, I may have a complete week off, it may just be 4 or 5 days off with a couple of short runs during the week. I will decide closer to the time.

Kelly – great progress, I hope you hit a nice steep improvement curve now! You deserve one.

Curly – ahh he’s a lovely chap that coach of yours

Duck – I knew Aberdeen was ‘fast’ but always windy, so not really. Anyway, it looks like good progress.
Next race for me is the Lancaster Half on Nov 4th, followed by the Abbey Dash two weeks later. There are a couple I could fit in before, but not sure yet.

Dash = Shandy, I knew it!

Stevie – good run and an excuse laden report, standard fare from you…………  In all seriousness, if you can run that time in less than perfect conditions you have to fancy a crack at 34:xx before long.

Ratzer – good to see you getting stuck into some XC races, should help bring you on, however long or fast it was.

22miles @ 7:35 per mile average with a budy this morning. Chatted the whole way round (well not so much in the last mile as my legs were hurting by that point) so pace was in the right zone.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/230781626

Looking forward to prf's report now.

YD, i even managed to leave out a bizarre stitch that came on and lasted the last 3k!

I would say I've made the mistake in the past, of almost composing excuses on arriving at a race based on the weather. Today I definitely raced it as hard as I could, and then put together the BS after

CP might be tricky to wheel the excuses out though, with so many witnesses, so I best run well!

epic long run from you..22miles! Sheash man.

Josh, i may be being a bit rude, and the experienced illumni will tick me off, but 8.15-8.45 paced running for a guy of your capabilities sounds incredibly slow pal. I've done 200metre reps and recovered at 8min miling....you must have a cigar on

Josh Bedfont isnt a fast course and I have a cold so I wouldnt have been able to run a fast time anyway, but I just wanted to see how fast I could go at the end

Good week from you in mileage terms!

YD he was very sneaky about it too! cheeky man making me take time off. I am trying to get a run tomorrow

Great long run from you. Wow. Bet your legs hurt a bit tomorrow...

Stevie G - aye I agree it is slow.  But I am just happy with progress - it should also be considered that these runs are done on hilly routes: see today's run for typical elavation profile http://connect.garmin.com/activity/231071999

Additionally, do not forget that I started training from scratch in late February, after a 9 month injury, during which I became overweight and lost all fitness.  Sometimes I question my rate of progression - would others here consider this slow improvements?

the hilly nature would make more sense for sure.

As long as you're enjoying it, staying injury free, and feel you're progressing to an end goal, that's all that matters.

It's harder to monitor your progress without race results. You either need to do it on heart rate monitoring, how you respond to huge mileage, or the more flimsy "how you feel".

My HRM is broken atm, but comparing this week to previous weeks when it was working my AM runs would be about 138/9bpm and PM runs would be around 135bpm or lower (as in 12Xbpm)

Chester Marathon

A very enjoyable day out to Chester today.

2:55:36 was the final outcome off splits of 1:26:22, 1:29:14

My approach to today was just to roll along with whatever the course threw up for the first six blocks of 5K and ensure that there were enough resources to then attack the 7th and 8th blocks of 5K.

This was by far the most enjoyable marathon I have completed and the best executed without question so very happy indeed. There are also several reasons why the time is worth a good bit more than the raw figures:

1. As can be seen from the comments on the Chester Marathon thread, and as Dr Dan will confirm, the course is far from being flat with some challenging hills at quite tricky points of the race.

2. The race included pretty much a full mile on soggy grass, ie the racecourse, 1200m at the start and 400m at the end.

3. The second half was tougher than the first half.

But regardless of those things it was the fastest marathon for 19 years and it is just amazing to me that I am now able to run a marathon without going through any bad patches along the way. Something is now working that I just couldnt work out in the first 20+ marathons.

As Hilly will confirm, since I have been telling her for the last 2 or 3 weeks, my only real aim today was to win a prize. It might seem like quite an abstract thing but for me that is one thing that I had never thought was even vaguely possible, winning a prize in a marathon, historically my worst distance of all.

Well, I didnt! I missed a prize by 29 seconds but was so chuffed with the fact that I was racing for positions throughout the second half and quite prepared to have battles when previously I would have been thinking survival.

I'll keep this short because I'll blog about it tomorrow but suffice to say I am looking forward with even more enthusiasm to next year's VLM now that two successive marathons have gone pretty well.

I'll catch up later but have only really just got in due to a BR character trait.

The key question about today's marathon is ... where are the bliddy keys?

Yep, definitely not a course for a negative split ... great run!

Lots of good running gone on - well done guys and girls!

Kelly - good positive progress being made to get back to where you were. Hopefully it'll all come back nice and quick.

Was good to watch Chester Marathon today, with some of the key runners from our training group.  Talking of keys...£240 poorer and a bit of a long wait to get home from Leeds after a certain someone lost the car key 

I did Graves parkrun on Saturday and was first finisher for the women.  Not a fast time, but it's a tough course, questionable if Barnsley or Graves is the tougher - BR says Graves.  My main aim was to see if my leg coped with harder running and it did and I'm ready to go back to training now.  So this week will see me do some slightly longer, but easy runs.  When I say longer I mean over 3 miles

Nice brief report PRF and well executed race by the sounds of it!

Silly BR for losing the car key

Hilly that sounds very promising indeed.

Not sure if I am going to be allowed to run today Feel okay (better at least) but the snot is working its way out now so am still not 100% obviously. At least now is better than next week when I would be fretting about doing CP!

YP glad the move has happened and the niggle has disppeared with rest

Nice race StevieG

Kelly - good to hear you're on the come-back.

Curly - I hope it's not the lingering Leeds snot bug.

Hilly - good news on the leg. Keep calm and don't nip off for a 20 miler!

Good mileage  Josh ... sounds like you're building a great base.

Nice long run again YD ... I think you'll eat up the Lanacster course.

Okay, so I was feeling a bit down due to missing Chester yesterday but today is another day and it's time to move on ... and today is the start of the 6 week campaign to conquer the Leeds Abbey Dash. Bug seems to be virtually gone - two nights of no coughing and, finally, some decent sleep. Still don't think I'd like to race a marathon today but hopefully a return to training is going to be okay. So, I'm going to look back at my 2010 Abbey Dash campaign and use it as a basis for the next 6 weeks of training. That race is till my top WAVA run to date and gives me a nice target to aim for.

PRF – Brilliant effort and great that you’ve finally cracked the distance. Look forward to your full blog report.

SG – Good racing there. A hefty round trip often brings a good performance I find as you want to make sure it was worth your while! Sounds like your PB will be under threat shortly.

Duck – Nice effort with the prediction there. I was less than a minute out as well. I guess its testament to PRF consistency rather than our skill though

Curly – Promising parkrun there.

Ratzer – I like the specifics in your race report!

Josh – Once you get back racing it will be easier to observe how much progress you are making

YD – tasty long run there. You are itching to do a marathon aren’t you

Dan - Just think you haven't got that pesky marathon recovery to contend with now.

Hilly - Great news re the injury.

Itching is a good way to describe it Mr V, love it or hate it, I will enjoy the journey.

Josh – your handwriting is almost as bad as mine!!!!

Good news you are settled into your new pad YP, should mean there are plenty of new run routes for you to explore.

prf – great run yesterday  looking forward to the blog report.

Good news Hilly, take it steady now.

Dr Dan - good that you are feeling better (sods law you feel ok the day after Chester!) Fingers crossed for a some consistent consistency for you.

My legs are a bit sore today, not surprising really as yesterday was my longest ever long run. I am someway from the 20 milers feeling like shelling pea’s stage.

Not surprised about the sore legs YD ... sure it did you a lot of good though.

5.4 miles for me today - just an easy easing in run as the legs weren't really working too well. It didn't feel terrible but, all the same, I'm very glad I didn't run yesterday ... I think it would have been a car crash.

I have a 6-week schedule on the wall and am raring to go now.

Duck - Very impressed with you predictive powers, put them to good use and make yourself rich

And you are clearly feeling strong at the moment running a 10:30 3K with a significant portion of it into the wind and also picking people off in the later stages. And then to back that up with the 18:51. Very promising.

Dr Dan - After seeing the course yesterday it would have been unwise to tackle it when not feeling 100% so your decision was absolutely the correct one.

Josh - I just see Ben at a lot of races, hence the comment.

Wardi - Strong V55 debut.

Dash - What are your thoughts towards GER? Optimistic?, scared shitless?, Other?

Kelly - Nice to see the fitness building back up again.

Stevie - You cant run PBs every race, even when in PB shape. So congratulations on an excellent effort.

YD - Steady on, you're in danger of becoming a long distance runner with that sort of behaviour. Great effort though, possibly a touch quick if anything so not surprised the legs were feeling it towards the end.

YP - A celebratory McFlurry was indeed consumed but scandalously I was unable to obtain my planned pre-race one, they dont serve them at 6am apparently!

The Week 10 Chester Marathon Blog