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That 14 miles @ MP is a key session... According to those more experienced than me (Ok, Murph), if you can nail that session, then you will nail the marathon at that pace. Proved true for me, looking good for you too! Should give you lots of confidence, especially now that you've figure out the gels too
Thanks Anna FD also mentioned that to me earlier this week, I'm starting to believe it!Looks like the maranoia is really kicking in! :pac:
Hopefully it's nothing, but either way rest sounds like a good plan. Go easy on the craft beers this weekend and rest
Eep I hope this is peak maranoia! Stocked up on vit C and manuka honey this morning anyhow, they must make a fortune on that stuff during DCM taper!Oh I wonder where you might have heard that before M
relax, do some deep breathing and yes get your diet & sleep sorted from now.
You'l be fine, you can borrow my race mantras to go along with belt, 'You can and you wil', 'Trust the Training' - give me something to jump up and down about next Sunday!! I'll do my best! must remember the race mantras, might write some of them on my arm.I'm just fixing that as otherwise aquinn will lift me out of it - again
Oops! Totally not that far a stroll I'm sure!
Turned off the light last night at 10pm trying to be good, couldn't sleep and had a look at strava at around 11 only to realise I had ran 199 miles for March. Briefly considered heading out for a mile to bring me up to my first ever 200 mile month but common sense prevailed.0 -
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Thanks D, A hope you are feeling better Anne! still a good few days to shake the niggly colds. I got 8 hours sleep Thursday and 9 hours last night, starting to feel right again. Today's 4 mile easy was the first run where I could detect a little spring in my step that I don't remember having in the past 4 months or so, just a hint of how I hope next week will feel.
Time I guess for a bit of reflection on the training. I used meno’s plan and it has been really brilliant. What follows is a bit more blogging than logging, I should really go and get my own website for this sort of brain dump rather than post here, but in the meantime it’s here for me to look back on in the future and possibly might be of some use to someone considering meno’s plan.
The Mileage:
I’ve ran 700 miles on plan to date, it’ll be up to about 724 miles by this time next week. I peaked out at 54 miles a week (there was a 66 mile week but that included a long run from a previous week, I’ve put those runs with the week they belonged in from the plan) and had 4 weeks over 50 miles. 7 weeks of the plan were in the 40-49 mile range, mostly towards the upper end of that.
(x: weeks y: miles)
In terms of the composition of those miles, 74% easy, 14%PMP, 7%HMP, 5% Steady. Over 100 MP miles run.
The Sessions:
The sessions felt varied to the extent that every one felt totally unique, I always felt like I was doing something for the first time. I’ve looked back over my log and over strava and there are lots of sessions I can’t remember doing, but I never felt bored or over them, they were always challenging but always manageable with a bit of effort. Did most of these on a Thursday night in Phoenix Park running by headtorch, it was actually bliss. I loved the way my field of vision would narrow to the cone of light, and blur with the condensation of my breath or the rain swirling around. I found myself mildly hallucinating frequently towards the ends of these sessions, seeing persistent patterns in the light. I’ll miss these evening dark fast runs, they’ve been one of my favourite thing about training for a spring marathon. The final, key session, 14 miles at marathon pace went very well, I finished strongly and happily and the pace felt manageable so that does bode well, as more experienced folk than me have been telling me!
The Long Runs:
I ran my first 16 mile run much too quickly, managed to correct this for most of the subsequent runs but in my mileage breakdown there are too many steady miles, and those are mostly the result of haring off a bit fast during long runs. The next two weekends had18 mile runs that went very well, the second I ran 13 miles with Tang1 which was great. Finished that off with 3@PMP for the first taste of running 8 minute miles on fatigued legs.
The first of the 20 mile runs was a challenge, sore toenails and HRM not working combined to turn this into a bit of a slog. Murph assured me I’d be amazed at how quickly the body adapted and looking back, he’s not wrong. My first 22 mile run was the last 22 miles of DCM (more or less), and this was an amazing run, felt completely wonderful. The rest of the long runs blend into one really except the most recent bonktastic 22 miles with stuff experience. I know the last 8 weeks the long runs have been more challenging than the sessions, with the sessions having fewer tempo miles and the long runs having increasingly more MP miles on tired legs. In terms of practicing race day strategy, I missed a trick here. I should have sorted my planned gel strategy sooner and practiced it on that 22 miles with stuff, I should have been practicing drinking while running (with the exception of possibly one run, I haven’t drank at all while running except for races).
The Tune Up Races:
Trim 10 mile was my first 10 mile race, set an arbitrary-ish target of under 73:30 and ran 72:12, that was very positive. For the Kinvara half I set an over-ambitious target of 1:36:xx, chased that to my detriment strategically during the race, suffered, recovered and finished strongly with a PB of 1:38:22. I’m hoping the experience of suffering but hanging onto a group will be good for Rotterdam.
The Injuries, Illnesses, and Niggles:
I’ve been very fortunate in this category, no illness (yet, I have some possibly taper related symptoms that I’m sure will develop into full blown man flu at any minute), and relatively little injury. I had a bit of a scare after the Trim 10 mile, very very sore feet, convinced myself it was PF or something worse. Physio ruled these out and told me to run slowly for a while. I missed one session and ran my second 20 mile run slow instead of including some steady miles, and really didn’t do very much faster running between Trim and Kinvara, haven’t had any issues since. He gave me a bunch of S&C exercises to do for which I bought a medicine ball and then promptly forgot about. It’s something I do want to incorporate into my running for sure but we’ll get through Rotterdam first!
The Planned Pace:
I’ll probably write another post about this, as it’s a topic that’s consumed a massive amount of thought and flip-flopping and agonizing, etc. On MP runs my internal dialogue dithers between aiming for 3:30 or 3:40, which is worse, to run your best effort and risk a fade or to leave it out on the course and wonder, etc, etc. It took me ages to post my goal time on the Rotterdam Marathon event thread as that felt sort of like nailing my colours to the mast. Anyhow, I’ve ran all my training runs PMP for a target of 3:30, there are no 3:40 pacers, and another reason I’ll think of later to bring it up to three reasons; I’m going to try for 3:30 with confidence that on a good day, that should be achievable based on my training. That confidence is based on very little really, other than other people’s experience of this plan. Those other people were probably running longer than 10 months when they used this plan, and probably not running their first marathon, but still.
The Goals:
So the AAA goal is sub 3:30, B goal is sub 3:40, C goal is sub 4. When I entered Rotterdam I put 3:45 down as my target time (no memory of doing that!), that would also be fine. I'm obviously going to be delighted just to finish so that's my D goal. Some other non-time related goals, I want to remember my running mantras wot I got from Firedance. I tend to forget the power of these, I wish I had remembered in Kinvara and I might not have had as torrid a mid-race section. These will be going on the arms in marker along with the 5k splits. That’s my other non time goal, to manage my own pace and keep track of my 5k splits.
That’s it for the training, it’s done, it’s dusted, nothing left but to enjoy the rest of the taper, continue sleeping well, eating well, clipping my toenails, checking the weather on an hourly basis, worrying over niggles and coughs and chest tightness, spending hours writing introspective and obsessive posts, losing fitness, losing speed, losing my mind, etc 0 -
Best of luck, if you nailed the 14 mile PMP run, you're looking good. Don't forget, you've only one 'first marathon' so put 'enjoyment' on the goals too
In many ways, your first marathon is like a dress rehearsal for all your subsequent ones.
Don't be afraid to pull back a little if you're not feeling comfortable early on. Pulling back in time will save a world of pain later on.
Breathe, Run tall, Relax....and Smile 0 -
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Thanks guys, I will be going for it but doing my systems checks and backing off if needs be. Enjoyment added to goals, thanks DG.
Breathe, Run tall, Relax....and Smile added to I can and I will, and Trust the Training
Add another one, we will be stalking you back home :& sending positive vibes! You'll be fine 0 -
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Great writeup of your training Mark! I think all the PMP miles you did will pay off on the day.
I found this post on the novices thread by FBOT a useful way to think about pacers - it could be worth sniffing around for some more info about the pacing quality and strategy at Rotterdam (another thing to obsess about over the next week ).
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=96645224&postcount=30910 -
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Best of luck getting to the starting line, enjoy the weekend and have a great race! You've done enough to give you a great chance of hitting your goals, all you can do now is relax and get into the racing mindset. It's gonna be one of the best races you'll ever do. Looking forward to following you on the tracker 0
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