2022 DCM Novice Thread

If it feels too slow its not a bad thing 😉Have you any races lined up?

Quoted below is a post that might have been already mentioned here, but no harm reposting it anyway. It's a post that I refer back to time and again when asked about an easy pace. Well worth sparing a couple minutes to read:

Good decision on the INSCYD test. I went ahead with mine last year not feeling 100% and it ended up being a total waste of time and money.

Good luck in your Tri

Firstly, good that you feel great after the 17km. It shows your adjusting to the different runs and building your fitness. Did you decide to increase pace based on how you were feeling ?I'm not sure what your using to measure the stats. It may or may not be accurate depending on what you're using. is it a garmin watch or strap?, .Time of day, heat, effort level etc all can influence that. Just bare in mind, time on feet and getting acquainted to longer distance is the key at this stage as opposed to pace. Nice work.

Thanks Lambay Island. It felt great to get my longest run ever ticked off yesterday morning. I was lucky to have a friend visiting for the weekend who joined me on the run. I found it a little bit tough at times in the drizzle, but overall not too bad and felt happy with a feeling that I had a little bit left in the tank if I needed it 😀

Completed my longest run in 2 years (16km) on Friday. My wife is away for the weekend so had to do it a bit early.

I had a late dinner and then went out running with a full stomach and honestly the first 3km felt awful, I was going to just do 5km and then head home but after a while I got into a good rhythm and just kept going. Pace was 6.20 per km which is roughly what I was aiming for so happy with that and stayed consistent for the whole run.

My long slow runs haven't been going to plan lately and I was getting disheartened thinking how am I going to do a marathon when I can barely do these runs but now I feel amazing and can see that the training is working 🙂

I'm currently doing the Hal higdon novice plan and I have a concern that there is only 1 20 mile run before the marathon, do you think I should mix up my long slow runs with thr boards plan so I'm covering more distance and get more familiar with longer runs?

A lovely morning for a half marathon in the park today.

it’s great seeing the groups getting bigger and slightly quicker each week.

Your all doing great,stick with it.

Not sure if it was mentioned earlier by the mentors about nutrition after long slow runs, but thought I would share some information on it after reading the latest updates. It is really important to get the right food into the body within 20 minutes of finishing the run. It helps with restoring the glycogen levels in your body (carbs) and also help repair muscles from the run (protein). There are a number of options available, some easier than others - here are a few and I'm sure others can add to this list

• Banana and glass of milk
• Chocolate milk (some brands are better than others for carb/protein levels)
• Peanut butter on a bagel
• Dedicated recovery drink

Also be sure to eat all around you during the day, your body will be craving and requiring lots of food. Don't worry, the weight will still drop off

Everyone's heart rate is different - 155 would be just above the easy zone for me but it depends on what your maximum and minimum HR is - I wouldn't worry about it for now, as long as you are running at a genuinely easy pace - how did you determine how fast/slow to run?

Your 10k time translates to just over 80 mins for a 10 miler. If you can break 80 mins that will be plenty of progress. Remember, the marathon is the main goal here - these tune up races are great for helping with motivation and race experience (if you need it) but as the training is based specifically on the marathon you will never be reaching full potential in any of the interim races.

Being on holiday made Week 5 of the Pfitzinger method particularly tough.

Big sessions were:

- 14km session with 8km at LT pace.

Feel like I'm running LT pace a little fast at 4:05 km, needs slowing down to around 4:10, so that's a focus over the next couple of weeks.

- 16km at general aerobic pace or around 5:00-5:10/km. Went well, but the drinking and poor sleep that usually happens with holidays away from the kids seems to have slowed recovery. Legs were surprisingly tired for a couple of days.

- 26km, with 16km at marathon pace (4.25/km). I was dreading this, because I didn't feel great after the few days of excessive food and drink on holiday, but it went surprisingly well. After the initial 10k at easy pace, I hit 4:20-4:30 pace fairly easily on a hilly route.

In total, 67km for the week. Target was 72km but one of the recovery runs was substituted for a hike.

Overall, fairly happy but worried I may be pushing a little hard. Injuries seem to be staying away though, and looking forward to a 'recovery' (!) week on the plan.

Week 5 done for me, got all the runs in as per the boards plan. Well done to everyone this week, it was great to see the amount of longest run ever on Strava messages. It really feels like this was a key week on the training with so many of us going into unknown territory.

My week looked like.

Mon: 7km @ 5:33km

Tue: 6km @ 5:57km

Wed: Light gym session.

Thur: 10km with 5 x 100 strides @ 5:58km

Sat: 25km @ 5:51 km

Sun: 5km @ 6:25km

I was a bit sore this morning, I've a long standing hip injury. Thankfully after doing a few sessions of stretching and foam rolling today it's eased off quite a bit.

One thing I did find on the 25km run was a felt pretty thirsty towards the end and had no water with me, I did have a couple of gels. Do people recommend carrying a hydration backback or a running belt or do they find these too much of an inconvenience to carry?

So week 5 done and dusted. Feeling fine and the body is holding up well at this point which is reassuring. Weekly milage is a little lower than last week as I only got in 5 runs but generally on plan.

Monday, probably a bit of a slap on the wrist for this one, was at club session and only 2 of us were there and we decided to do a steady session, 10k at 5/k, which wasn't on plan or the session which is normally intervals. In fairness we chatted the whole time and my HR didn't leave z2 but pace was between easy and pmp.

Tuesday and Friday off, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday easy and lsr of 25k today. Generally either running with my wife to keep paces low or HR kept well into Z2, I've been keeping the watch on HR to avoid looking at pace on purpose which might explain some of the erratic paces.

I did a bit of a marathon block during lockdown #1, just for something to do, so these runs are not my longest but enjoying them all the same.

@Laineyfrecks great advice on the strides, made sure to ease in and ease out of the stride which made them more controlled than I had done previously. Upper quads felt a little tight afterwards but went away the next day.

Funny @Treviso on the nutrition, I've been craving milk for the last 10 days and probably drank a pint after the lsr today. Mad how your body tells you what you need!

@masterK I got one of those soft flasks from decathlon, 25ml, and it's handy for a few sips as you go. Fits in ur hand with a loop to go over your finger and more comfy to carry than a bottle.

For next week looking forward to the session at pmp, tbh it feels, at the moment, that I'm missing at bit of pace work in the week.