The Middle Ground

Holla All, just back from a long weekend at Centre Parcs, not much running due to injury and I took two right foot trainers, doh!!!
I just bought two pairs of the same shoes due to a bargain online price (2 x Green Silence for £53 delivered) and I somehow got the pairs mixed up. So my only run was in a pair of sneakers/fashion type trainers! Anyway, Centre Parcs was great, it would have been a fab place to run but alas I didn’t feel up to it after a very tough run in said sneakers on Friday evening. Anyway more of that later, now for a catch up…..

Top bombing Bob!!!! Great report n’all.
Shall we open up a sweepstake to see who can predict how much Bob will take off his 10k time next time out? I predict a big crash through sub 45 taking another 1 minute 27 seconds off his best.

Alehouse – great to see you posting about a parkrun again, nice to put down a benchmark time to beat.

Good to see Dash properly out of the closet and into posting again, you big nonsense merchant!

Same to you Dr Dan, you are less of a nonsense merchant

Stevie – good work on the long overdue sub 17min 5k, sub 16:30 has to be on the cards with a bit of 5k specific work I would have thought?

Mr V – good to see you posting about miles again and a good bit of philosophy the other night.

Kelly – well toughed out the other day at XC, I am in the don’t quit unless injured or ill camp, don’t want to be setting those kinds of benchmarks. I have backed off and dipped into survival mode mid race before mind, I don’t see that as quitting though.

Top bombing at York Wardi!

Phil that MP session you posted the other day was immense, the mind boggles!!!! That 2:30 thread might need a read sooner rather than later if you carry on the way you are going.

Good to see Ratzer firmly in amongst the early morning miles, enjoy Russia, maybe you pulled the fat sweaty bloke

Curly – cracking progressive long run posted on Sunday.

YP – great parkrun / long run with MP combo, plenty training bang for your buck there.

TOM nice loot chasing,  enjoy plimsole shopping.

Bit of an injury update, I did see a physio last Thursday, he says I have wonky hips! There is a lack of flexibility on my left hip, this is causing my hips to rotate right (1pm on a clock face)when I run. As a consequence my left leg is coming over towards the right side when I step with that leg, the left glute isn’t firing, my left adductor is weak and the lower leg is doing all the work. To top it off, my right quad is bigger and stronger as that is doing a bigger proportion of the overall running load.
I have known for a while that my left glute doesn’t fire as fast as the right glute, but never knew it was because I am wonky!
The reason that I have started to get the pain in the back of the knee/hammie/calf recently is simply a recent increase in training volume and lower parts of my left leg are taking the brunt of that increase.
Physio has given me some exercises to remedy it and I am going back to see him again on Thursday.
He seemed confident that he will have me back in full training quite soon, I have to say I am not sure yet, but I will stick with the plan and hopefully I can run some reasonable miles this week.
4.05 miles tonight with some discomfort but not unmanageable, planning frequent short runs this week (physio agreed with this plan) and will increase the miles as the discomfort eases.

Hello all 

I haven't posted for about a year but have been lurking and watching your progress with interest. Got injured last March, and its been a long slow road to recovery, partly due to my own worries about pushing things too soon. I finally feel like I'm getting the fitness back I had last spring. Did the Devilla 15k trail race as tester but the ankle deep mud didn't make for a fast time but it was a good day out none the less. 

YD I had a big variation in the strength of my legs (I was diagnosed with 'crap biomechanics'!) But they are now almost even, the phizz did lots of work to release the muscles and I've been doing constant strength work, lots of clams with bands etc. 

Hello Vellooo, good to see you back and thanks for the insight into your issues. I get the impression that this kind of issue is quite common with runners. It would be interesting to hear how the problems manifested for you and how the road to recovery played out for you.

WHJ – monster PB!
Seems that the little wobble you had a month or so ago was just that. Does that mean you now have to go and chase other PB to get them in line?

Another 4 miles + strengthening exercises this morning, similar to yesterday really, some discomfort but I can run on it. I have my kit and foam roller at work today, so I might get out for another run at lunch or at least I will get some strengthening work done.

YD the good news is I was able to run (and race) for all but the initial month after the injury. Had to cut my mileage and speed down though and keep things on grass. It started with knee pain that I couldn't run through, and hip pain. I later got foot and achilles issues. My left foot collapses, I'm knock kneed, and my pelvis goes out of alignment. I had quite aggressive deep tissue work, and dry needling over a period of months, and have been building up my strength and stability. Last week I got orthotics... For me it will be an on-going process as I'll always being fighting against my biomechanics, but my legs and core are now stronger than they've ever been! 

WHJ well done on the fab PB!  

nice smash indeed WHJ.

WJH awesome pb there well done!!! Looking forward to the report

YD have you made a decision on your marathon yet?

Nice to see you back Vellooo sorry about all your injury woes.

Duck I'm stlll ignoring that at the moment... off to program my garmin for tonights club session. Run yesterday felt good which was pleasing after Sunday.

 - for WJH. You put your balls on the chopping block and it paid off. Well done.

Mr V - Thanks. Sub-45? Yes, please! Do-able I think given the problems at the start, and the obvious naivety with the pacing issues - no offence taken, TOM. YD, however - 44.13? Blimey. I make that close to 7:05 pace. Particularly as my next 10k is likely to be as soon as Easter Monday (and a slower course), that's a big ask! But yes, the Garmin cock up cost me between 10-15 seconds at the start I think, and whilst I was pleased with the relative consistency of the middle 4 miles (7:26, 7:26, 7:33, 7:34) definite room for improvement at either end that should enable the raising of the overall average - great though it was to look at the details of that crazy sprint finish (about 17 seconds for the final 100m I think I worked out last night), you'd have to conclude that suffering or not, there was more to dip into earlier had I tried.

YP - Ha! Guess you're right, though was still uncharted territory in terms of battling the pain for as long as I did, so had to be a little cautious as the fear of blowing up in the last mile was in the back of my mind. Next time I'll certainly have the confidence to put myself through more - and sooner - however.

Ratzer - yep, abso-bloody-lutely! And you're obviously a short-fat bloke magnet...

Duck - I'd love to have a crack at all the distances to test myself at some point, but I'd have no idea how to go about it at the moment. Where / how do you identify these 'open' races? (Not that I'd actually do one quite at this stage!) That's some impressive detail you've gone into for your own training by the way - much of it all Greek to me of course, but it looks impressive all the same. 

YD - good to hear the physio has spotted your problem - at least half the battle won.

WJH - Cracking effort! To get another big chunk off your PB at Llanelli to back up your 4 minute improvement in October must be hugely satisfying!

Good luck with your comeback trail Parkrun, Mr V.

Good also to hear that your legs are back in shape after the weekend's monster session, Curly. Just an easy 2.5 miles for me last night as a first venture back out there, and (for once) was very happy to keep it at over 9mins/mile throughout. The body and the spirit were willing and able.........but the legs were still fecking fecked!

Rest today as well I think, and will make a decision in the morning as to whether to make it a run day or dabble in a now rare spot of cross-training on the exercise bike. Priority this week is to get the aches out before a big crack at Saturday's Parkrun on the site of Sunday's 10k race, and then taking my long run on Sunday out by a further mile into the 8.5 to 9 mile range. Onwards and upwards. 

Bob – I think in all likelihood you will take big chunks of time off in your next few races which should be most enjoyable. Just remember you will likely hit a point after a few races where you hit a temporary plateau and don’t PB for a little bit. Then after a while you’ll get another breakthrough. I only mention this as a lot of runners on the early improvement curve hit that point and get discouraged. If you’re expecting it then hopefully you won’t!

WJH – Excellent work. I bet you are on a high after that one. You can start working towards a sub 1.25 now

YD – Good news that you’ve been able to get a diagnoses. At least you seem to be maintaining a reasonable amount of running so hopefully you can get away without losing much/any fitness. Hopefully things clear in time for your marathon. You have a backup marathon if you need to delay for a few week don’t you?

Only a week and a bit now until I head off to Portugal for some warm weather training. Counting down the days!

Curly – I am into my third week of the injury, so that gives me 7 and a bit weeks to Manchester. If I get back to training soon (i.e. next week) I should be ok to put in a few decent long efforts and some decent mileage to get myself to the start line in good shape. I need to decide by the 17th March (a week on Sunday) as I cannot defer my entry after that point.
If I defer I then have the Edinburgh Marathon option 4 weeks later or just bin the Marathon completely and just concentrate on getting fit and racing again.
The other option is to keep my Manchester entry and just jog it and use it as a long training run. That is assuming I am ok to run the distance but maybe am not race fit. That could fit with an Edinburgh plan, a full distance run @ MP+60 seconds 4 weeks out could be useful, but expensive at £50.

Vellooo – sounds like your issue was workable, I am also finding that now, so fingers crossed I can avoid losing too much fitness by doing frequent short runs. Hoping I don’t need to go down the orthotics route, I don’t think my issue sounds as serious as yours did. I will report back after my second physio visit on Thursday.

Your Portugal trip sounds grear Mr V, not jealous at all……
As for Marathon plans see my response to Curly

Bob – just run hard, you will be running sub 7 min mile 10ks soon enough.

Didn’t run at lunchtime but did some strength work, I will do a short run tonight + some more strength work.

YD, been there and done that - took two left shoes home for a 5k once - thankfully I had some spare pairs at home. Might have been a blessing in disguise though if the physio caught something.

Non-firing glutes appears to be a reasonably common problem, hopefully it's easily remedied then and you don't miss much training - I really want to see what you are capable of.

veloo - welcome back and hopefully your injury problems are now behind you.

WJH - great pb, one of those purple patch days it sounds  bottle the feeling up!

BBB - keep an eye on your local athletic club's noticeboard or something similar and they will have deatils. Or British Athletics as they'll have all the fixtures. 

First session of pre-comp today, good but a little optimistic with recovery times lead to 3*3*200 becoming 3*200 (4 min rec), 3*200 (6 min rec), 2*200 (reps w/45s rec) - I was dying with lactic acid come the end. Ran 29.9, 29.6, 29.6/29.3, 29.4, 30.0/29.3, 30.0 which is still very decent for the first session of the year!

In hindsight I should have upped rep recoveries to 60s & taken longer between sets so I could finish the session strong. The speed is most definately there but there is a lot of work to do in the speed/special endurance department - unsusprisingly, as it is only March. 

Afterwards I had a headache, my arms ached and my legs felt like jelly for the next 45 mins - god I've missed a good track session 

Hi, been away a bit and to tell the truth no real time to engage with the many posts, but just want to say hope YD's injury problems are sorted and allow his marathon!

As for me it's a long way back and not looking good.  Will pop in occasionally and look forward to reading some good marathon and other race reports in the near future.

Keep up the good work

Hilly, long time no see.  I hope you're seeing some results after all this time.  At least finding out what's up.

YD, muppet.

WJH, nice one!  I had similar improvement results at Cardiff followed by Llanelli a year past, and then a really enjoyable marathon!

Duck, you're mad on lactic.

Read a pop running book recently that looked at latest research.  One chapter had the whole VO2max non-responder thing, and waltzed out the old surmise that it's probably genetic.  Then another chapter went into some research that looked at the ill effects of sedentary occupations, and showed that even if you train hard, if you spend most of the day on your backside the bit on the backside is worse for you than the time on feet!  Just get up and walk around regularly, or fidget, and you don't have the ill effects.  Two hours sat is far worse than four half-hour sits.  Anyway, I thought, what if those guys in the non-responder test thingies were lazy asses who got back home and sat on their asses more than usual because "those lab blokes have got me doing hours on the bike!  Throw me another beer, love!"  Hmmm...

And in the practical world, 4m this morning, about 7 this evening with 4@MP as intervals - just getting used to the pace.  Tougher on Thursday.  Don't know what to do tomorrow about the long as I was hoping to get a few miles in early again.  Instead I'll be an hour and a half on my ass in a taxi trying to get across the city at rush hour.

Hilly, I don't like the sound of that  all the best is all I can say for now.

Ratzer, interesting. So difficult to test these kinds of things unless you kept test subjects like lab rats or somesuch.

Speaking of genetics, mum ran 10:55 for 3k on Friday and she now has a wava of 93.35%. This is off the back of 92.56% she got from parkrun less than a month ago (18'48). 

Hilly – thanks for the well wishes and same back to you. Hope you find some answers sharpish, you are due a turnaround in fortunes.

Harsh but fair Ratzer.
What’s MP for you this year? Or are you running Marathon effort?

The Duckinator wrote (see)

Afterwards I had a headache, my arms ached and my legs felt like jelly for the next 45 mins - god I've missed a good track session 

Mission accomplished then Duck  As for getting the recoveries right, that’s all part of the learning curve.
Kudos to Mother Duck

Babysitting for friends tonight. Ran a couple of miles on the way here, felt much the same as the other runs, a little discomfort but manageable. I will round this evenings aerobics up to 4 miles on the way home to make 8 for the day.

Duck - Your mum's bloody quick!  WAVA-tastic!  Speaking of quick, I still can't see me ever running half way round a track quicker than 30 seconds so, good session!

YD - Fingers crossed for you here fella. Plenty of time to get back on track, even if you need to call up the back-up marathon plan.

BBB - Excellent! Yep, you've definitely got a nice improvement curve to look forward to, and in the mean time you've demonstrated you're happy to go to the well. I hope to see your face appear in the "gurn gallery" some time soon! 

WJH - Impressive PB smashing.  Always nice to take a chunk off.

MrV - Ooh nice.  Hope the warm weather training is kind to the niggles.

Healing/recovery vibes to Veloo / Hilly.

I'm well into taper mode now for Saturday's duathlon.  Have already cut down to one session per day  and carried out 2/3 of this evening's track session, i.e. 2 x 2,000m w/ 2 mins recovery @ 5k pace (ooh eck!), which I near enough hit, with 6:21, 6:19.  I think that's done its job; short but sweet session a bit quicker than race pace.  Will be a final short exercise bike tempo session tomorrow and an easy run on Thursday and I'm done.

Cheers everyone. Still really satisfied to have achieved one of my key targets for the year!  I'm glad to say my balls survived the chopping block David Falconer! So here is a race report...will try and keep it to the point as much as possible

Splits were - 6:41, 6:39, 6:34, 6:32, 6:31, 6:31, 6:39, 6:34, 6:45, 6:50, 6:48, 6:52, 6:33  and 1:19 (for the last 0.2 miles recorded on my Garmin). 

Conditions were pretty ideal to be honest although hovering around freezing to start with, climbing 3/4 degrees by the time I finished....the first mile was a bit edgy as I started a little bit too far back in the pack and I think this is where I gained a little extra on the Garmin (1.10 miles by the time I reached the first mile marker and never got this back after trying to overtake the crowds over the first quarter of a mile or so). I think this could have led to more problems in a race with thousands of runners (congestion, etc) but luckily this wasn't the case. 

Instead I was more concerned at thinking I had started off too quickly since each mile passing was faster up until the 7th mile whereby I had already made the turn back on the out and back route. However, I still felt reasonably strong by this point stamina wise and I put the slower splits between 9 and 12 miles largely down to a bit of a breeze along the exposed shoreline on the way back and a little bit of fatigue setting in! Even so, I was still very pleased to be hitting sub 90 minute HMP thereabouts or just under! I had thought that 88 minutes was the best I could achieve up until the last quarter of a mile or so...however, I realied sub 88 was on about a quarter of a mile from the end largely due to an everything but the kitchen sink last mile! Turning the bend back towards the finish at the front of the stadium I knew sub 88 minutes was in the bag and crossed the line feeling very happy - then threw up almost right away  but as I say, all worth it that's for sure! Something does seem to be going right at the moment and it's just simply due to the higher mileage and losing a little bit of weight and taking ideas/tips and advice from many of you on here! 

I'd never have thought of breaking up training sessions in chunks (i.e. MP/HMP efforts, etc before joining the thread). One session in particular left me confident of a decent time a few weeks ago whereby I did miles 9-11 of a 12 mile run at HMP with similar splits to what I got on Sunday! I guess running the Netley Parkrun has also been good for adding to the overall stamina with it's varied terrain and undulations.

Anyhow, that's done now and it's time to look forward to the next challenges! 

Further to my last post...

YD - It definitely would be good to line up my other distances with the Llanelli half result and the more I look at Lliswerry, the more I realise it was an off day after a mild virus (if I was to have worn a HRM that day it could have given interesting readings perhaps?). Hopefully I will put my 10k time in line with the half PB at Eastleigh in a few weekends time! After this, it's the Brighton marathon although I would just be looking to get round after previous marathon experiences! I won't change my intended target there of 3:30-3:40 even if my half PB shows I could possibly hit sub 3:30...with that I guess the next few weeks or so will be key with a few key long runs planned (I am taking your idea Curly of running a progressive long run and I think this will also be important in helping to further determine MP for Brighton! ) I do need to think of entering a fast 10 miler - Cabbage Patch could be a possibility later in the year (also managed a 10 mile 'PB' yesterday in just over 66 minutes!). It would also be good to perhaps target 5k PBs more specifically over the summer? Hopefully the worst of your injury setback is behind you now and can carry on with your marathon plans! 

Mr V - I think that sub 85 minutes could potentially be achievable in the autumn although I appreciate this would take a lot of hard work! I was initially thinking of entering another marathon later this year (Amsterdam) but now think an autumn half would be more realistic...possibly the Cardiff half again! Hopefully the worst of your recent injury problems are getting behind you too! Enjoy the warm weather training in Portugal! 

Thanks BBB! Impressive 10k debut from you there too! I'd give advice but at the moment I am more at the stage of listening to others than giving it out. The only thing i'd say is more miles is paying off! 

Ratzer - thank you...that's encouraging to hear that you managed a similar improvement? ! I do think though that a distance like 10 or a half suits me as it allows me to get into a groove...I also tend to take a long time to warm up! I really enjoyed the Llanelli course and would like to do it again one day! 

Well done on the V40 first vet Tom and congrats on the sub 17 Stevie G! I have read some of your thread (ok lurked! ) and it looks encouraging that you could knock a fair bit off that with more specific work! 

Also noted the impressive training continuing from Duck and YP at different ends of the running spectrum! 

Good luck with the duathlon on Saturday Phil. Some of the monster sessions you undertake leave me feeling dizzy just reading about them! 

Hope things improve soon Hilly too. 

Lastly, hello from me to Dash and Vellooo!

Appreciate that this is a very long double post and sorry if I have missed out anyone   - I have a fairly busy week now so will just lurk about from time to time and post again when I can!