My Forum

Hi Hadders, I've not posted for a while because was on marathon training and I've not really read back too far.  Welcome to newcomers and congratulations Chick.

I think Sunday at VLM I saw the benefit of building a big aerobic Hadd base which I did for about 10 weeks prior to doing the intervals, LT etc. for the remaining 12 or so weeks.  Interesting that I was up to 50 miles a week on Hadd without a hint of injury and then got various injuries once I changed routines.

The injuries gave me doubt that my sub 3h dream was still possible and in the preceding days changed plan from 'cautious sub 3h10' to 'go for it and risk gallant failure' and back again.

By 10 on Sunday morning it was go for it mode and after 3 miles of settling into pace I managed to maintain 6:51 pace pretty much all the way round to come home in 3:59:20.  Obviously delighted and I'm pretty sure the Hadd base was a seriously important part of my preparations.

What did surprise when I downloaded my stats was that I averaged about 91-92% max HR and in the final 1.2 miles I was at max.  This seems high, but even if I've got my max wrong by a few beats then it would still be over 90%.   I was expecting maybe 85-90% for the whole race. What sort of %max has anyone else seen during a marathon?

Brian, sorry to hear about the calf. Hope it clears soon.

VT, interesting theory about the 1 wk away from inury thing and also a bit depressing.  I am struggling with a groin injury which started showing shortly after I had recorded how well I was running, and looking back on last year's diary had calf problems just after some of my best weeks of training.

Am just trying to get mileage in at sub 75% until I've confidence to push on a bit.  I will never again tell myself I am in really good shape.

VT I'm intrigued how you got 'creative to survive the return loop'.  Did you mug someone and nick their clothes?  Running at those temperatures sounds challenging.

It seems to have gone quiet on this thread, doesn't it?

I managed 20 miles yesterday at about 8:05 average with HR at 73% for 7, 76 for 9 and 78 for 4.  The pace which had disappeared last weekend and at the beginning of this week was getting back to something like it had been 2 weeks ago. Not sure if it was the slightly milder weather that caused the improvement but it is a bit frustrating to see swings and not week on week progression. 59 miles total for the week is another PB so happy overall and I'll keep plugging away.