The Middle Ground

parkruns are super well organised and I think seeing as Stevie has only ever run one and PRF has run hundreds and others including us have run close to a hundred, then I think the comment is a little unjust!  I have seen olympians at events and retired elite runners who still run pretty fast and up and coming fast runners and also loads of slow people, but each person will have their own goals and really if you want a fast time then there are many certified courses that certainly seem good enough for the likes of Marting Yelling, Steve Way, Andy Badley etc. 

Well done today parkrunners!    

Ooh, parkruns.  They're alright.

14.5 miles for me today, but I think I spent longer reading back.  Stitches and ribs and improvements abounding.

I had goose for xmas dindins.  Just thought I'd throw that in.  None left for sandwiches the next day, which tells you how much better it is than that American bird.

So nobody went with the (slightly wimpy) demand to stick down their new year's running resolutions, or whatever they might be.  Goals for 2013...?  Me:
Run a 10k race and get an official time, to replace the 48mins something I got a few years ago.
Get over 80%WAVA in a race (albeit a very short one, but I'm really going to give it a shot this summer).
Not complain too bitterly if I don't get sub-3 at VLM, nor immediately sign up for an autumn marathon.  (Maybe wait a couple of hours.)
Run more miles that I want to run, and fewer that I don't.
Run more for the club (this year has been fun!).
Stick to the plan, just not religiously.

people are loving the park runs!

Brolish...that's an excellent name...are you a mixture of Polish and  ex Leeds chubby footballer Tomas Brolin?

Viper - nice session.  You going to progress that to 12 reps eventually?  Is there any reason why you did not do 4*1 mile, as that sounds more race-specific to me?

Duck - congrats on starting coaching.  What would you say has been your main source of running knowledge to start coaching?

With regards to Park Run timings, they are as accurate as anywhere but a timing error stripped me of a pb. I timed 18:37, but offical results showed 18:43   Normally I find that my official results are one second slower than my own timings.

About 20-25 miles from me this week.  Although it is so hard to derive targets, given my last race was two comebacks ago, I am aiming for sub 18 5k and sub 35 10k next year.  Enjoying running, as always, but in the back of my mind I am a little bitter when I look at my pace and heart rate and think to myself that my HR is 20bpm higher than it should be.

Josh, can't worry about things you can't affect.

I see where your sub 18 5k aim comes from, but if you're entertaining the idea of a sub 35 10k, surely that 5k will need to be in the sub 17.30 territory as an absolute minimum, probably sub 17 to keep it in sync.

Stevie G . wrote (see)

people are loving the park runs!

Brolish...that's an excellent name...are you a mixture of Polish and  ex Leeds chubby footballer Tomas Brolin?

S

Stevie G . wrote (see)

people are loving the park runs!

Brolish...that's an excellent name...are you a mixture of Polish and  ex Leeds chubby footballer Tomas Brolin?

Steve- lol. You're right about the Polish bit but no, I have never heard about Tomas Brolin (probably because I'm Polish). It was a bit of a joke on here when I got my British citizenship as in- what does it make you and we decided on Brolish. I thought it had a good ring to it so left it as my forum name.

Just to add another spanner in the works can I point out that it is parkrun as in one word not park run or Park Run.  It is not an individual going for a park run as in a run in the park, but an organised event called parkrun  lol

What a pedant

Although a factually correct pedant it has to be said

Nice mileage. Mr V. I'm expecting to hit an all time mileage high this coming week. Those sorts of sessions can be tough in bad weather, so nicely done.

Ratzer, all good goals, but please condense them into a neat one line summary. I demand it.

Phil, nice session on a hangover. How drunk were you on the run home from Hackney?

Hi, Brolish.

I did 17.3 miles tonight, which is the longest since January I think. It's also about a week's worth of Asics marathon training. I doubt I'll go much further than that this year.

I will probably go for a park run tomorrow. Then a couple of parkruns on Tuesday. Anybody else getting two done on NYD?

Simon - we're doing a Netley Abbey/Southampton double header on NYD.

We're doing Bushy/Kingston and running between the two

Then going up in town to meet the post race Serpies 10k lot for some beers

18 miles for me today @ 9:11 rounds off a 54.5 mile week. Got Surrey XC on Saturday and a 20 miler on Sun next week, oh and a HMP session on Tues. 'citing.

PRF will netley be on? It was seriously waterlogged on the first event and it has been a LOT wetter since!!

Good mileage Mr Viper you are storming along at the moment.

Hello Brolish no finlised Brighton target as yet. Currently working on three things:

c) a pb (sub 3:56)
b) a GFA time (sub 3:50)
a) a sub 3:30

But races recently hve been surprising me so if (big if) this continues and if (second bg if) I can carry my fitness through into the longer distances then I may think about something a little faster. At the end of the day though this will be my first raced marathon. There is plenty of scope for a good pb at least.

What about you?

Nice long run Simon!

Simon Edward wrote (see)

Ratzer, all good goals, but please condense them into a neat one line summary. I demand it.

Ratzer wrote (see)

10k race and over 80%WAVA, sub-3 at VLM, Run more[. P]lan, just no.

Nice long run, btw, but not long enough for ASICS - you've got too many miles left over to spend on the rest of the week!

Drunk Phil, nice mileage.  But you remember it...

Curly, a raced marathon?  I'm intrigued.  Who are you racing?  Magpie?

Ooh, gym for me tonight and a few recovery miles.  Gym first time in months and it feels like it!  I'll consider why I'm back in the gym in another missive from Planet Ratzer...

WJH wrote (see)

Park runs to me are a bit like Weatherspoons pubs. You get a bit of everyone going to them!

Love it WJH and I agree 

I think parkruns could possibly be the best things that has happened to grassroots distance running in Britain in recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next 10 years or so if we see the next Mo Farah claiming he discovered his love of running after trying a parkrun as a kid before moving into the club scene.

Well ground out at parkrun Duck, and excellent work on the coachee. I might have my own coachee on the go pretty soon…..

Simon cracking long run, you must be feeling on the way back to form if you are throwing miles in like that? I got and tested a new headlamp, on the same night as you, spooky, and it was spooky. Running through woods a night freaks me out

Mr V – impressive training seems to be the norm from you these days, nice one.

Ratzer – loving the running resolutions, especially the plan and running more miles than you want to ones.

Hi Brolish

Phil – pisshead training, like it

Stevie G – he’s a vacuum cleaner salesman now.

Curly – nice hedging of your bets, I reckon 2013 will be good, you seem to be onto a good formula now.

I binned the 10k race I had planned yesterday, didn’t feel like racing and conditions were pretty grim. A quick look at the results on PO10 seems to justify the decision, not many PBs or SB times about on a course that usually provides a PB fest. So in lieu of racing I got a decent long run in, 18m in a gently progressive style. 10m at 8:00/m with a couple of clubmates then one dropped off and two of us did another 8miles with a few 7:30s dropped in. HR was higher than it should be for the effort and the whole run felt a bit too much like hard work. So I think the decision to drop the race was a good one, did a bit of strength work last night as well, legs a bit sore today so any running I do today will be slow and not very far, Marathon training proper starts tomorrow

oyuu

Curly- VLM is next for me for the first time. The target at this stage is to improve on San Sebastian so anything under 3h26. We'll see how the training goes. When you say you haven't raced a mara before what do you mean?  Did you pace someone or just did it as a training run? I'm also doing the Surrey xc on Saturday- do you know what distance it is? The 7.5m last time almost killed me.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Brolish – San Sebastian Marathon you say, what was the race like? I went to San Sebastian a few years back and loved it, especially the pintxos and Vino crawl we did

Its 6km for girlies, 7.5M for men. Luckily as Lloyd Park is a beast 

I did London in 09 when I hadnt been running long and since then have run one self guided with tea and cake checkpoint over distance (circa 27 miles) "marathon" and one as a long run in the summer, so I've never raced one before as in been fit enough to run at a set pace all the way. Although this is in theory my 4th marthon this is the first time I have felt really like I might do the distance some justice.

I'll more than likely be at VLM at the start helping out

Good long running YD if the weather is anything like down here then not racing seems very smart.

Nice session WJH - what sort of pace does that represent? 5k or 10k? Hope you arent too tired out today as that is a lot of quality in one session!

5m @ 9:11 for me today. Urgh its orrible out