First Marathon - Sub 3 - Better start a log!

lecheile

A thought struck me after the Adidas 5 mile in the park on Saturday (as I spoke to a seasoned marathon runner who finished a good bit ahead of me in the race and who has not managed to break 3hours for a marathon yet) that I may have set myself a very challenging target - so to help in making the target a little more achievable I decided that I must commit to a public training log! so here goes

Adidas 5mile race
I had not run this race before but was exepcting a PB given the work I have been doing recently. Previous PB was in Sportsword 5 this year (30:44). I ran in the BHAA 5k on wednesday evening so probably a bit ambitious expecting to run a PB 3 days later. Managed to finish with chip time of 30:50.

Splits as follows:
Mile 1 - 5:50
Mile 2 - 6:09
Mile 3 - 6:03
Mile 4 - 6:36
Mile 5 - 6:12

Happy with the first half of the run but some obvious work to be done on the endurance at speed.

McMillan says - Marathon time 3:01:33

lecheile

The calendar said it was Sunday so the plan siad it was LSR. Headed off at 8am to do what was a planned 18 miles at 8min mile pace. It was a perfect morning for a run it being cool and dry. Legs felt good after the race the day before - probably helped with the time spent in the steam room and the deep massage with muscle rub - must remember to do it more often. It was obvious from the start that there was more in our legs than the 8min pace so kept pace well under that and kept going.

Finished the 18 miles in 2:17.03 giving an average pace of 7:37 min miles. Really happy with the run and felt great afterwards .

Krusty_Clown

Great stuff Lecheile, best of luck with the sub-3 goal. Are you following a specific plan?

Abhainn

Good time on Sat lecheile, well done. You've set your self a good target so looking forward to your log.

lecheile

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Are you following a specific plan?

Hi Krusty - the plan I am following is a combination of different progammes including Jeff Galloway and Runners World. I am very lucky to have a training buddy who was seconds outside 3hour last year in DCM and who has paced London a number of times.

I let him do the hard work with the planning and I just turn up and run .

christeb

Good luck with the log, it's always great to see people progress who are heading towards your own, albeit aspirational for now, goals!

lecheile

Tuesday is Tempo run day which I do after the Junior Training session in the club. Tonight saw me trying to compete with junior high jumpers, not being one to pass up a challenge, I made my high jumping debut and took them on. Great fun but not the ideal preparation in advance of a tempo run - as if running was not introducing enough pains to my body!

Plan for tonight was a 35 minutes tempo run at 6:30 min mile pace with 10 minute warm-up and cool down. There were three of us running tonight so it made the going easier. Nice bright dry evening and we all go home happy with objective achieved.

Warm-up - 1.3 miles @ 7.22 pace
Tempo 35 minutes - 5.38 miles @ 6:30 pace
Cool-down - 1.42 miles @ 7:37 pace

Job done! - and lets see how the back holds up after the high jinx with the high jump.:)

asimonov

Good luck lecheile, i'll be following your log...I saw your post on the pacing thread. I'm definitely going to run a good section of the course as an LSR, village runners recommended doing miles 9 - 25 to me. Maybe we could hook up closer to the date to do that? All the best.

BeepBeep67

Good luck with the sub 3 lecheile, I'll be checking to see if you have any speed endurance tips!

lecheile

asimonov wrote: »

Good luck lecheile, i'll be following your log...I saw your post on the pacing thread. I'm definitely going to run a good section of the course as an LSR, village runners recommended doing miles 9 - 25 to me. Maybe we could hook up closer to the date to do that? All the best.

Sounds like a plan asimonov - are you planning on doing the Dublin half?

village runner

Best of luck with your training.
Def the 5km would have affected your time.
Will be following your log for sure it as i plan to break 3 hours in Berlin.

lecheile

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Good luck with the sub 3 lecheile, I'll be checking to see if you have any speed endurance tips!

thanks BB - will commit some of the endurance techniques to log when I figure out which ones are working

lecheile

village runner wrote: »

Best of luck with your training.
Def the 5km would have affected your time.
Will be following your log for sure it as i plan to break 3 hours in Berlin.

Thanks VR - look forward to also seeing your progress towards goal in Berlin.

lecheile

Wednesday is recovery day after hard tempo session on Tuesday. Wednesday is also the evening that I work with a meet and train group that we set up recently. It works well in that I get a few drills in, some good warm-up exercises (that I am quite lazy at doing on my own) and get to run with new and improving runners at a nice easy pace. Everyone is a winner .

Tonight I managed 4.85 miles at average 10 min mile pace - just what the body needed.

lecheile

I couldn't figure it out when I woke up on wed morning why I had such a bad night's sleep with a pain in my neck . It was only when I played-back the activities from earlier in the week that I realised how ill-advised it is to start a high jump career at my age, and worse without any form of warm-up or stretching. They saw that 'with age comes wisdom' - but I guess not in my case.:)

Note to self - no more experimenting with field events until after the marathon.

Went for easy run last night and did 6.11 miles at average pace of 7.33 Min/Mile pace.

Plan for today is another easy run for an hour at 7:30 min/mile pace.

lecheile

Finished off the week with two easy runs. On Friday I had the company of a running buddy and my son on his bike - which led to a combination of running at 7:30 min pace and run-and-push-bike at 7:30 min pace. All the same managed to do 8 miles at avg 7:30 min pace.

Saturday presented the challenge of a tired body, too much food for dinner and a glass of wine consumed (second one poured) and only for the fact that I knew I had to update a log entry, I would have succumbed - so with log entry in mind the second glass was abandoned and I went for another 7:30 min paced run of 7 miles.

Really happy with the week's work and hope that the body holds up to the increase in mileage and pace

Weekly Summary
Sunday - 18m @ 7:37 min pace
Monday - Rest (although could have done without the long lunch:p)
Tuesday - 8.1m with 5.38 @ 6:30 min
Wednesday - 4.85m @ 10 min pace
Thursday - 6.1m@ 7.33 min pace
Friday - 8m @ 7:30 min pace
Saturday - 7m @7:30 min pace

Weekly total - 52 miles

asimonov

lecheile wrote: »

Sounds like a plan asimonov - are you planning on doing the Dublin half?

i was planning on doing it until i found out yesterday that it clashes with the annual extended family golf outing. They're sceptical enough about my running at the best of times, if i missed that i think there would be an intervention.

lecheile

asimonov wrote: »

i was planning on doing it until i found out yesterday that it clashes with the annual extended family golf outing. They're sceptical enough about my running at the best of times, if i missed that i think there would be an intervention.

Best not to give family any reason to think you are any more crazy than they alredy do

lecheile

Sunday is normally LSD and usually we get out early in the morning, but due to other commitments we had to reschedule to the evening. So preparation, after a frantic day, involved two pain-au-chocolat, a roll with hot pallet-burning chicken and a pint of water as I searched out running gear and got dressed. Not ideal preparation but required to get me out of the house before more jobs were found.

Plan for the run was 18 miles with 10 of those at Marathon Pace. It was a windy evening and I did not relish the prospect of running for more than 2 hours. But put the head down and kept going – this is where a training partner is really useful as each can encourage the other to stick to the programme (or in the case of two pig-headed, extremely competitive, testosterone filled males – goad each other on! ). The session consisted of

Warm-up – 4 miles @ 7:29 min pace
Marathon Pace – 10 miles @ 6:44 pace (MP 6:52)
Cool-down – 4 miles @ 8:24 pace

This was one of the most difficult sessions I have done in a long while. Probably a combination of the effort, the time of day, and the heavy week last week. That said, the 10 miles at under MP, if it was a race, would give me a PB (although it’s a long while since I did a 10 mile race) over the distance – I suppose that something must be coming together .

I really struggled over the last 4 miles of the cool down, which unfortunately coincided with climb back from 52ft over the hills from Lucan to Leixlip back up to 332 ft – not good when you are suffering.

Today is a very welcome rest day – I may even have a glass of wine this evening, and hope that my legs will be up for interval session tomorrow evening.

Sunday – 18 Miles

mloc123

Hey lecheile, what are your typical running routes? Will keep an eye out for you... do alot of mine on the Leixlip/Celbridge link road.

GoHardOrGoHome

lecheile wrote: »

The session consisted of

Warm-up – 4 miles @ 7:29 min pace
Marathon Pace – 10 miles @ 6:44 pace (MP 6:52)
Cool-down – 4 miles @ 8:24 pace

Sunday – 18 Miles

That's a super run LeCheile. Intervals the next day! Yikes!

lecheile

mloc123 wrote: »

Hey lecheile, what are your typical running routes? Will keep an eye out for you... do alot of mine on the Leixlip/Celbridge link road.

Hi mloc, I´m sure we´ve passed on many an occasion - and I hope we`ve been civil

here is a regular route that we take around Leixlip / Celbridge / Lucan for LSD here

there is generally at least two of us doing runs and interval sessions, if the timings and distance suit you - you are more than welcome to join - the more the merrier. Although at the moment , and for the next 2 weeks, I´m struggling to find a LSD that is possible from here

lecheile

GoHardOrGoHome wrote: »

That's a super run LeCheile. Intervals the next day! Yikes!

Thanks GoHard - Intervals were on the tuesday evening - which reminds me I never updated the log! must be the heat - Did I mention that its over 110 degrees here

lecheile

I was very glad of the rest on Monday after Sunday`s marathon pace session. We regularly do an interval session on the track and this Tuesday there were three of us ready to take on the challenge of 6X800m at sub 6min mile pace, with 400m recovery.

There were three of us for the session which gave each of us the opportunity to lead and maintain pace twice. This is another benefit of training in a group as the responsibility of leading the group to pace can make you quickly forget the pains and the runbling in your stomach. It was a hard session but we put the effort in to keep pace well below 6min pace.

The last rep of 1200m came about as we agreed on the last lap to run 100m beyond the finish, got around the bend and said `why not go to 200m mark?´and were feeling so good that we agreed we should just finish the lap - something you would probably never do when alone, but proof that there is always a little left in the tank when you can find the motivation to release it.


Warm-up - 1 mile
Rep 1 800m - 5:38 pace
Rep 2 800m - 5:33 pace
Rep 3 800m - 5:33 pace
Rep 4 800m - 5:46 pace
Rep 5 800m - 5:48 pace
Rep 6 1200m - 5:45 pace
Cool-down - 1 mile

Total Distance - 7.3 miles

Abhainn

Nice rep session there