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OK, I entered this.  Thinking a monkey onesie...should keep me warm!

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments.  I have passed your views back to him and will see where he takes it.  He had mentioned how his sleeping pattern has been shot for a while so maybe it is all some psychological life issue that is just presenting itself through his training.  Fingers crossed he will bounce back fairly soon and things will pick up.  He signed up for the Brighton Marathon (his first marathon) so I am sure that is also playing on the back of his mind a little too.  I will see about getting him focused on getting back in to the swing of things over worrying about future races.

Stephen - Great link (The McMillan one).  Thanks for posting that.

Cheers,

Sy.

Hi BDB,

 I have dropped him a text telling him to go back to basics on the general consensus so far.  See how he gets on.  He trains with a Garmin 205 so no HRM, but I have one on my Garmin so may get him to train with mine for a while and see how he gets on. 

I do agree that maybe a trip to the docs to get a once over is probably well worth mentioning to him though as it is a significant drop in a very short space of time.  I know it is frustrating him enough that he is talking about giving up, but I know he doesnt want to, just that he cant work out why he has suddenly hit the downward spiral.

Thanks for you comments guys.

Hi Phil,

He has been running for a little under 2 years.  We realistically arent that competitive on the training runs, last night was because he had wanted to do a faster run to see what happened after he had a few days off and wanted to do an early 40's 5 mile run as he used to regularly do this time last year and because he has booked himself in to a 10K in September and wanted to see where he realistically is.

Generally as a whole, I would say the first mile he does when with me or alone is around the early 9's and then I leave him to dictate pace when I run with him.  We only run together twice a week as I have been concentrating on speed and have some longer (HM distance) races coming up so generally have been running with him more on the slower ones. 

I really dont understand how he has lost so much speed so rapidly which is what confuses me though.  I did mention to him to start going back to the start and just enjoy the runs again, but I think he is so frustrated with it that the current 3 bad to 1 good run ratio he worked out he is on is really getting him down.

Hi all,

I have a training partner who was always a little slower than me, but would generally keep up until about the last mile when I would open up and he would generally stay within about 30 seconds of me.  In January after enduring constant leg pain I decided to hang up the shoes and quit.  He continued to run.  In April I started again, a few stone heavier (it was a fun few months off!) and lacking fitness.  He was able to run a 5 mile at a 8:20 average quite comfortably at that point without pushing himself.  As the months have ticked by, my weightloss regime has kicked in, my mojo has returned and his has literally left him for dead.  We have started doing more faster runs, but by 3 miles he is game over.  Last night we went for a 5, but 2 miles in he was puffing so hard I was ready to call an ambulance, but were only doing an 8min/mile average and hadnt set off blisteringly fast (first mile 8:09).  We had to stop at 2.5, a few minutes break and started again.  By mile 4 we hit a 9:30min/mile and he was finished.  This has happened fairly rapidly in the last month and a half.  He took some time off for a week and rested, took a different approach (less miles, not run 2 days in a row etc) and is not heavier than he was when we used to run, but for some reason his ability has left him for dead.  He was able to do a 46 min 10K at Brooks Brighton last year. This year if he managed a 54 I think he would ba amazed.  He hasnt been overtraining and has been running more on his own the last month.  Has been doing intervals once a week etc to work on the speed but nothing.  Nada.  Nout.

Any ideas, anyone gone through it, anyone got some mojo I can steal from them and give to him to get his legs back in to a working motion?