The Middle Ground

Oh well, I am sure BR will be along soon with his encyclopaedic race knowledge and a couple of suggestions for you Brian.

Looking forward to seeing you rising up the WAVA table Alehouse

Back to the HR thing we were discussing yesterday.
Phil, 86% does seem low, but from what you and I report and what Curly (Moraghan) and TR are saying it sounds entirely reasonable. I am choosing to look at it as a positive, it is showing what good shape we are all in

As for LT being such a good training pace for all distances, totally agree. Had this discussion with prf on Sunday. He thinks (and I agree) that this is why the progressive 10 milers are so good, in that you are driving down into HMP towards the end of the run.
I do however think that even paced tempos are also very good, and feel some of my recent fitness gains have come in part from running sessions like these: 4miles @ LT, 5miles @ LT+5 and 10k @ HMP.
Of course the increased mileage is having a positive impact on my running as well.

YD - I'm watching the football.  No spoilers please, I'm on ITV+1, forgot it was on!

Very nice stats.  Hopefully you're beginning to get to that satisfying stage where MP actually feels like MP, if you know what I mean?

7.3 easy but windy ones for me, 7:22/m, indeterminate HR/pace ratio cos I CNBA wearing the strap.  Then a YD-style stir-fry, as Waitrose had raw king prawns on special offer.  Lovely!

10 miles for me tonight with 3 @ mp which came out at a very pleasing 7:22... didnt find it too hard, but that is about 10-15 secs faster than I run normally for mp. Thought that since I was feeling good I should push the pace a little. Not my actual marathon pace of course...

Nice running YD and lol to Phil missing the start of the footy! Keep away from fb

Phil – enjoy the 2nd half and the king prawn stir fry!
Think I know what you mean, but I have only run two MP sessions, and they both felt pretty comfortable, it was 6:28/m a couple of weeks ago and 6:22/m tonight.

Good to see some good training from Curly and YP. Is that with Simons run group YP?

In other news, it looks like I am taking over responsibility for administration of the Thirsk and Sowerby Harriers website!

YD - Very nice indeed. A sun 64 10 miler after a 5 mile warm up on a weekday evening is a session and a half. You're going from strength to strength at the moment.

Curly - Another clearly feeling on top of their game at the moment. You must be looking for a sizable chunk off that marathon PB come Brighton?

YP - Sounds like one of my 'Go To' default sessions, 10 @8:30. Around Epsom I assume?

10,000m track race tonight - it was windy!! But I can now claim 3, yes 3, Uk No.1 rankings simultaneously . It will all get messed up when the others actually get out there and race but for now.............

PRF well the pb is 3:56 so quite a bit of wiggle room to play with

Nice work on the track race and the rankings! What was the time (I think you were hoping for sub 40 with Dewsbury and wind and miles as factors)?

YP sounds a good run!

Excellent training going on. And Top banana ranking stuff from PRF.

YD, was the 79% for the MP section? If it was for the overall run, what did the MP section come out at? Congrats on the webmaster status.

My 4M recovery at 8:25 pace fades in comparison.

Brian – yes it was the average for the MP section. I have got into the habit of re-setting the Garmin after my warm up for a tempo session so I have a stand alone record, makes it easier to do comparisons with previous sessions in Garmin Connect.  
Link here - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/270399588

Myrun at lunchtime will be a bit more sedate, that is for sure!

As I said on Keir’s thread, top bombing prf! Having a ranking is nice

YD, Is your max (195) accurate? I sort of had suspicions when the 10k came out at 86%. If that is accurate then your MP is a lot faster than you think! That is a cracking run all the same. The basis of my early Marathon training build-up is 10M at 80%. When this pace plateaus, or I reach 4 weeks out, I up this run to 83%. And what I have found by experience, is that my eventual MP equates to the 83% pace.

By my estimations 83% for you currently will be about 6:05 pace! 

YD, Theres no need to reset the garmin after the warm-up - just lap it.

YD, I've just noticed on your Garmin stats, you appear to lap every mile. I tend to lap after warm-up, then lap at half way (I do my ~mp effort on an outandback course), and then at the end of the effort. On the screen I have lap time, lap pace and lap HR.

I see why you reset it now....

Brian – My 10k HR was 90.xx% on Sunday, I think it was Phil who had 86%. I have hit 195 in races quite a few times and frequently go over 190, I even got a 198 reading at the end of a half last September (proper kitchen sink job that was!), but I wont use that as my max until I see it on another occasion.

I agree that last nights pace looks a bit soft, I am conscious that this is my first time at a Marathon and want to test that pace out at the end of some long runs before I start thinking about targets way below 2hrs 50mins. I know I am in good cardiovascular shape, but there are question marks about my leg strength and what will happen to me after 15, 20, 22 miles at MP etc

Garmin is set to auto lap, so yes it just easier to reset it for a clean record, easier for averages and what not.
I have three screens set up on my 405, I use different screens depending on what type of run I am on.
-HR screen with: lap HR average, overall HR average and lap average pace
-Overall run time, overall run distance and overall run average pace
-Lap time, lap distance and lap average pace

Having said all that, once I get into a rhythm on tempo runs I find I don’t need to use the Garmin that much, I just glance it after a lap beep to see what the split was. I do have a good out and back route but its not lit up, so it is a daylight route only as cars tend to drive quite quick on country lanes. This time of year I tend to do street lit laps, the problems of living in a small rural town…..

YD, Ah debut marathon - again apologies, so you are a virgin. Very commendable going for sub2.50 on your first attempt. You are quite correct, there are many more variables that come into play when talking marathon, not just basic speed, pace/HR etc. and some of these variables conspire against you.

I do most of my running at lunchtime from work, starting in Leeds Town Centre, making my way to the canal tow-path, meeting up with a few like-minded runners on the way. It looks like you do multi-laps of a ~1.5 mile block? Respect - that can be mind-numbing.

The bottom line is that you are in a very good place for this stage in your mara training

Curly45 wrote (see)

PRF well the pb is 3:56 so quite a bit of wiggle room to play with

Nice work on the track race and the rankings! What was the time (I think you were hoping for sub 40 with Dewsbury and wind and miles as factors)?

YP sounds a good run!

Plenty wiggle room, and the 3:56 was a trail race of course - I remember being in the middle of the 20 parkrun challenge when we saw that result come out of the blue. That was a real bit of stealth racing

Last night was 38:29, so it was Sun 38:12, Weds 38:29 with 34 miles crammed in between. I'm not overly bothered about the times themselves but I'm happy with the block of work in total

Cheers, Brian

Cheers Brian, I am certainly the fittest I have ever been right now. I realise there is more to this than just getting in good shape and blasting a pb like you can do with a 10k, I don’t really know what it takes to run a strong Marathon, I probably wont know that until I have a few under my belt. But I know I stand a better chance of not having a horror show debut by being circumspect in my approach and getting plenty of miles in my legs.
As for laps, I don’t mind them when I am tempoing, for me its all about getting into a rhythm and laps aren’t bad for that. Though agreed laps are mind numbing on easy runs.

Canals are great for sessions though, and good that you have some companions.to run with, helps a bit no doubt.

prf - ranktastic!  I'm just about to sign up for a 10,000m race in June organised by some quick chaps at Highgate Harriers.  The whole thing's based around facilitating runners to get a PB at a relatively rare event, so they're talking about identified pace groups, motivational music and all sorts.  Not sure where my head will be at immediately after VLM but that should be long enough afterwards to consider a few hard laps.

Curly - No pressure, but I'm pretty sure your next marathon will take PB-smashing to a new level. 

Re: laps.... Here's my favourite tempo loop.  4 x 3.34 = 13.36 miles.  I can feel a nippy half marathon coming on this evening. 

Phil, That seems a reasonable length of lap. I'm guessing those roads are pretty quiet, as well as flat. From home, I tend to do 1.6mile figure-of-8 loops, and these are undulating. But doing 10 or more is a pain in the backside! Tend only to do the loops if:

1. Gorra niggle, and feel I may want to jack it.

2. Weather dodgy, go out overdressed having the option to layer off.

3. Can't be arsed thinking of a route for the distance required (Do'h!) 

Brian - I don't know how well you studied the map but it's just occurred to me that we first met at almost exactly the 2 mile point on my route plot!    That's the top of Westferry Road, about 15.5 miles (?) into the VLM route.  Yes, being cut off from any real through-routes the roads are very quiet.  On a Thursday evening I'll often end up doing pedestrian dodging at the top end, with the tail end of Canary Wharf workers making their way home, but it's about as good as it gets in London - until the clocks go forward and I can do some evening sessions in Greenwich Park.