DCM 2015: Mentored Novices Thread

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend!
By now, you will have reduced the intensity and/or volume of your training since Wednesday in order to be fresh at the start line. You will also have slept well this week For a Sunday race, sleep tonight is more important than Saturday's so early bed for you racers tonight....


TAPERING
If you are racing on Sunday (don't think anyone is racing Saturday?), you should rest at least one day in the three days prior to the race.
So you could have any one of the following:

Day|less experienced|intermediate|experienced
Thur| rest| 4 easy| 3 easy| 5 easy
Fri| 3 easy| 3 easy with strides |3-4 easy or rest
Sat|rest| rest|3 easy with strides

Don't worry if you haven't tapered exactly like this, it's just to give you a loose framework.

NERVES
You may feel nerves surfacing now and then. This is normal. Don't let them overwhelm you at this stage. Energy spent on nerves now is energy wasted. If you feel the nerves fluttering between now and Saturday, acknowledge them, then 'put them away'. I find visualising a box, putting them in and closing the lid works for me. Now is the time to find out what works for you It's a worthwhile exercise to practice now as you will need this tool in the final run up to the marathon. You really do not want to be wasting energy on nerves then :eek:

So, on Sunday, you can let these nerves out of wherever you may have put them but keep them controlled. You own these nerves, not the other way round. Got that? This is important. This adrenaline is the added ingredient that propels you around the course faster than you would in training but you have to use it in a controlled fashion.
Ososlo has passed on a really useful tip:
Breathe in for four, hold for four and release for four. Magic. Do that once or twice as required as you travel to the venue and warm up.

PAIN :eek:*
During the race, you are going to approach the pain barrier. This is where all your practice in training comes into play. Remember


?

Use the above throughout, but in a race situation, you need a little more...

We will go into this in much more detail over the coming weeks, but now I want to give you the best pain-management strategy I have ever learned:

Breathe as above. Run tall, as above. Stay relaxed, as above...and then,

Say hello to that pain.

Simple.

And when you do, let it in, don't fight it, don't panic.

Bang, it's gone.

You can locate pain physically - 'my thighs are burning' - but very often the physical sensation of pain has a knock on effect in the brain which causes the sensation of 'can't go on!' When you acknowledge that pain and accept it, your brain stops fighting it too which allows you to carry on as before.
Try it

Good luck and really looking forward to reading those race reports! These are a really useful tool for everyone, I have picked up lots of really useful tips from race reports here.

*just to clarify this is race and fatigue-induced pain and not to be confused with injury pain. Never run through injury pain.

libelula wrote: »

A triathlon coach once taught me something very similar about pain. She said, in an event when the pain appears, she says this to it:-

"Oh there you are, I knew you'd appear. Now let's play"

It really makes some difference mentally

Love this and robbing

diego_b wrote: »

Indeed, welcome to the pain!
For me running has been learning how to get used to that as much as anything, for me that is normal pain that lets you know you are doing the best you can!

I am racing tomorrow dubgal so today is a complete rest with just some foam rolling this morning and some more later. Went to bed about an hour earlier last night but not sure how well I slept as I had a mad dream in the early hours of the morning about my daughter needing a cat scan in a hospital for some reason and I kept meeting opposition to getting there....one involved having a Dublin bike somewhere down the country and was about to cycle it back to Dublin (I figured about an hour and a half away but least I would get there).
You don't do dream analysis as well do you?

Heehee yes I do in fact, this clearly says to me you are going to have a brilliant race :cool:

Phoebas wrote: »

Folks,
I be interested to know about people's experiences with foam rolling. Do you do it, how often, how, and do you find it beneficial etc?

I've got one, but I don't use it very often at all. (Basically, I need someone to tell me that I'm making a big mistake and that it should be my best friend.)

Myles Splitz, care to hop in here?

denis b wrote: »

Just a quick question, and sign of intent for the Fingal 10km race. I have never competed in a 10km race before but did run a few parkruns before Christmas. I am hoping to better a timed 10km run I did as part of a 5km training programme last autumn - 47:48. However I dont feel anywhere near as fast, not that I have tested myself (promise!), over the last few months.

Instinctively I feel that I should have a crack at beating the above time. Question is - is it advisable?

Best of luck to anybody else competing over the weekend and we will see you for the next race hillsiderunner.

Hi denis_b, hope you're not sorry you asked after reading this

Firstly, no reason why you shouldn't race all out BUT keep an eye on those Achilles niggles. At the first sign of trouble, assess and bail if necessary. See the pain assessment above from James Dunne, very timely

Here are a few figures to bear in mind re paces. What you need to do is assess how your fitness (not necessarily speed) compares to; last autumn when you did the timed 10k, last December when you ran the 5k PB and now. I've included your marathon target too as that indicates what 10k shape you would be in if you completed the marathon in four hours. I've used the McMillan calculator.

Distance|Time completed|M/mi|M/km|Predicted 10k|M/mi|M/km
10km Autumn 2014|47:48|7:42|4:46
5kmDecember2014 |21:00|6:46|4:12|43:37|7:01|4:21
42km To do |4h|9:09||51:09|8:14|5:08


So if you think your fitness has improved since last December (it certainly did on the 5k training plan!), go for it. A 45 min target would give you 4:30 per km, which lies between your timed 10k and 5k times. How does that sound as a benchmark to work from? Again though, monitoring the niggles is the most important thing.

As a footnote, don't worry about the discrepancy between the predicted mcmillan times. These predictors are generally more accurate the closer together they are, i.e., 5k and 10k are generally more reliable. Using a 5k race to predict a marathon time is not as useful or accurate.


Edit: of course bear in mind other factors such as rain, wind, hills, humidity, sleep etc which may require you to adjust nearer the race