London marathon training log/blog

Stupid_Private

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

For example apparently Maria McCambridge ran 100+ miles last week and still ran an amazing cross country race on Sunday.

I've seen her quoted as saying she's been doing 115 miles a week in training. Nothing about last week's training. I'd imagine she dropped that to about 60-70 miles for the race. Still a fair whack of miles but that should have left her feeling fresh considering the work load she's been putting in recently. Can't wait to see what she does in the marathon in a few weeks.

Abhainn

Stupid_Private wrote: »

I've seen her quoted as saying she's been doing 115 miles a week in training. Nothing about last week's training. I'd imagine she dropped that to about 60-70 miles for the race. Still a fair whack of miles but that should have left her feeling fresh considering the work load she's been putting in recently. Can't wait to see what she does in the marathon in a few weeks.

Yes I think Ian O Riordains report in the Times yesterday said she did 100 miles last week. And she looked fresh as a daisy

cfitz

Abhainn wrote: »

Yes I think Ian O Riordains report in the Times yesterday said she did 100 miles last week. And she looked fresh as a daisy

She's quoted as saying she didn't ease up much for the race anyway.

Racing Flat

I've heard Mark Carroll say he can't run well off less than 120miles a week...he also said he gets 70miles a week done on his morning runs:eek:

TheRoadRunner

Long run from Sunday is still in the legs, or should I say the hills from Sunday are still kicking the $hit out of my quads.

I did the 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 pyramid today. It was very tough. I was glad to see a training partner arrive just as I was warming up but he informed me he was only going to 3 minutes (1-2-3-2-1). I should have let him off on his own as he really pushed the early reps as he knew he hadn't the longer ones to do. The rain came down and I was left on my own but managed to get through the session. In terms of effort I eased off a little in the later reps but still managed to cover the same distance as last week (not very scientific but a bit of a bench mark).

Going to take it easy tomorrow and Thursday. Tomorrows run will be longish (13-15) miles but the pace will be about a minute a mile slower than normal. I'm using this as a conditioning run, i.e help burn a few calories without taking too much out of the legs.

Captain-America

Do you run with a club RoadRunner?

TheRoadRunner

Captain-America wrote: »

Do you run with a club RoadRunner?

Yeah I do indeed. Haven't ran a race for them this year yet but will be in the coming weeks including the road relays

Captain-America

Ahh, I see. I was just curious as to where all these running partners were coming from :P

TheRoadRunner

Running partners during the week are in the main work colleagues. I don't get down to the clubhouse that often and when I do there is usually a poor turnout

TheRoadRunner

stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid pace for yesterdays run :mad:

Plan was to hit around 7.40s and take it nice and easy relative to normal mid week pace as have a half marathon on Saturday. Don't want to ease back too much but enough to feel relatively fresh Saturday morning.

Average pace was around 7.16. Felt easy but should have been even easier and if Saturday is a disaster I will be able to blame it on this one run.

TheRoadRunner

8.3 miles @ 7.30 pace. Legs a little tired from yesterdays run :rolleyes: Will take tomorrow to prepare for Saturdays run.

Stupid_Private

I think the key words to take out of your Wednesday run are "felt easy". It's hard to run any slower than easy, so I wouldn't worry too much about the figures on the clock that day.

TheRoadRunner

Stupid_Private wrote: »

I think the key words to take out of your Wednesday run are "felt easy". It's hard to run any slower than easy, so I wouldn't worry too much about the figures on the clock that day.

True but I'm a little more tired today than I hoped I would be so might come back to bite me in the ass. Looking forward to a day off tomorrow anyway so hopefully I'll be close to 100% Saturday.

TheRoadRunner

I was in a moaney mood earlier regarding training this week but this has put things in perspective for me. A stupid toe injury could ruin months of training :eek:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/7927115.stm

Racing Flat

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

True but I'm a little more tired today than I hoped I would be so might come back to bite me in the ass. Looking forward to a day off tomorrow anyway so hopefully I'll be close to 100% Saturday.

Don't lose sight of the main goal. Can't train down too much for a half when hoping for 2.40. Also, racing a half when tired, while it may not produce a half PB it might make for good marathon training, as you will certainly be tired during the second half of London...

TheRoadRunner

Jesus I'm bouncing off the walls. Can't wait to race tomorrow. :):):)

Feeling a little tired now but a good night sleep will sort that.

SHAKE 'n BAKE baby

pgibbo

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Jesus I'm bouncing off the walls. Can't wait to race tomorrow. :):):)

Feeling a little tired now but a good night sleep will sort that.

SHAKE 'n BAKE baby

LOL

No doubt you will burn up the course. Best of luck with it. :cool:

Woddle

Best of luck, have you decided if your racing it.

TheRoadRunner

Yeah I'm going race so will go off at 5.45 a mile and see how I get on. This is a small event (more of a fun run really) so will probably end up running most of it on my own but will serve a good purpose in pace calculation and race morning preparation (eating, sleep etc)

Peckham

Best of luck tomorrow. You're sounding positive - you're going to rip that course up!

TheRoadRunner

Peckham wrote: »

Best of luck tomorrow. You're sounding positive - you're going to rip that course up!

Thanks. All this bravado will probably come back to bite me in the ass :rolleyes:

I'm just looking forward to a race. I'm not a fan of training. I only train so I can race, so this feels like a treat.

TheRoadRunner

Plan for today was to run 5.45 per mile and that is exactly what I did (-1 second ) averaging 5.44 per mile.

Got up at 6.40 got some carbs in via bagels and jam. Shels picked me up at 7am and we were in Carlingford for 8.30 am. We got registered chatted with a couple of people and got a decent stretch in before the race. I was happy to see a couple of lads I recognised as the three of us would all be of similar standards so I knew we could help each other out around the course.

First 5-6 miles were perfect, course was flat and little wind I averaged pretty much 5.45 every mile give or take a couple of seconds. The next 4 miles were a little tougher with a wind in our face by the sea and also some horrible little inclines which together managed to slow our pace back to about 5.55 per mile. At this stage I was in race mode and didn't care about the pace but was just trying to stay with the other lad who was leading with me. Once we got by ten miles the wind died down and we had some good running. I through a 5.30 in in an attempt to get away, but my running companion threw another 5.30 mile in for mile 12. I decided to go for bust on the last mile and put the hammer down and managed a 5.15 mile. This was enough to get a gap and my finishing time was 76.18. The course was slightly long at 13.29 miles but the mile markers out on the route were spot on.

Overall a nice half marathon and a nice course. Organisation was pretty good considering it was a small local race put on by a local school to raise funds. This is my first win of the millennium :P I know it's only a small event but I'm glad I had the bottle to hang in when I was hurting at mile 8-10. As I said to Shels, I have finished second in a number of races over the last few years and I should have won a couple of those but blew it mentally.

The only downside of todays race was some mad fecker nearly knocked me down at mile 11 and I only survived by jumping into a ditch !

With regards to my training this race has highlighted a couple of things to me and I will need to look at these and carefully plan my training for the next 6 weeks for a proper attempt on 2.40. I think I'm on the right track and good planning and good luck should make it a realistic target.

Total miles for today 15.

Woddle

So pints are on you next weekend so
Congrats on the victory and a great race

Stupid_Private

Well done on a great race. A good time and a victory to boot... nice.

I wanted to wait until after you'd run before saying my take on RFs theory of racing on tired legs as preperation. In some instances I'd agree with that but more so for shorter distances. If you want to race a fast marathon you're going to want to race fast over the half and 10 mile distances. There aren't going to be many oppertunities to do that so you have to take them when you can. I'd be in favour of making the most of races and using tempo runs for getting used to running on tired legs. Today you got your fast time over the half, so all is well. Congrats again

donothoponpop

Well done on the win, great report to read. Congrats too on winning the mental battle, it must be tough looking for those extra 15 secs on your fast last mile.

TheRoadRunner

Stupid_Private wrote: »

Well done on a great race. A good time and a victory to boot... nice.

I wanted to wait until after you'd run before saying my take on RFs theory of racing on tired legs as preperation. In some instances I'd agree with that but more so for shorter distances. If you want to race a fast marathon you're going to want to race fast over the half and 10 mile distances. There aren't going to be many oppertunities to do that so you have to take them when you can. I'd be in favour of making the most of races and using tempo runs for getting used to running on tired legs. Today you got your fast time over the half, so all is well. Congrats again

Cheers SP

Yeah was a decent enough time all things considered and I reckon with a few more weeks training I could go quicker than my current half PB.

Cheers for the comment. I wanted to run fast today but didn't want to taper too much so I think I managed to do what I set out to do. If today had of been a larger half marathon in terms of participants and quality I probably would have tapered differently.

Good luck tomorrow hope you have a good one.

Peckham

Great run, and sounds like a great battle for victory!

Jumping into a ditch too! Good story.

Slogger Jogger

Great race, fab time, brill report - a hat-trick

Racing Flat

I'd love to win a race. One day.... .

Sounds like you were nice and strong. So you've '8 minutes' to play with (2x76 + 8 = 2.40). That makes it tight enough tbh, but with good endurance you'll have a good shout. Good luck with the rest of the training. Nearly there now!

@ SP, I agree, it's mice to have one or 2 full out races at 10mile/half marathon prior to a marathon. I only made the comment that running the half on tired legs might be good prep to make the best of a bad situation as he was tired going into it and there was nothing he could do about that at that stage, so trying to pull the positives out of the situation.

TheRoadRunner

Racing Flat wrote: »

Sounds like you were nice and strong. So you've '8 minutes' to play with (2x76 + 8 = 2.40). That makes it tight enough tbh, but with good endurance you'll have a good shout. Good luck with the rest of the training. Nearly there now!

Yeah it is tight. On the plus side I have roughly 7 weeks to go so that breaks down to 5 hard training weeks. I reckon by then I could possibly knock 90 seconds of yesterdays time and 2.40 should be a bit more realistic (hopefully).

I need to put careful planning into the longish marathon pace runs in the coming weeks as these will give me an idea how close I am.

How did you get on with your race today ? Did you hit your planned finish time ?