Sudden recent improvement

earlyevening

Does this happen to anybody else?

In the last nine days I've run my fastest ever 21miler, 16 miler, half marathon, 10 miler (during the half marathon) and twice beaten my 8 mile PB. Every time I go out running I set a new PB. I'm totally taken aback by it. Its great to see improvement when I thought I was plateauing but its a sudden and a big improvement so I'm struggling to understand it.

Is it the free Adidas I won recently? Is it ideal weather conditions? Is it all the training?

I'm starting to think I could approach a 3hr marathon all of a sudden. Mc Millan suggests 2:57 (on the back of a 1:24 half) but I never had any faith in his calculator.

Whats everyone elses experience of these sudden improvements?

Krusty_Clown

Consistency? If I had a 1:24 half, I know what I'd be aiming for!

shels4ever

earlyevening wrote: »

Does this happen to anybody else?

In the last nine days I've run my fastest ever 21miler, 16 miler, half marathon, 10 miler (during the half marathon) and twice beaten my 8 mile PB. Every time I go out running I set a new PB. I'm totally taken aback by it. Its great to see improvement when I thought I was plateauing but its a sudden and a big improvement so I'm struggling to understand it.

Is it the free Adidas I won recently? Is it ideal weather conditions? Is it all the training?

I'm starting to think I could approach a 3hr marathon all of a sudden. Mc Millan suggests 2:57 (on the back of a 1:24 half) but I never had any faith in his calculator.

Whats everyone elses experience of these sudden improvements?

I find the exact same thing happens to me after months of training improvment tends to show in veyr quickly , not sure reasons for it apart from ALL YOUR HARD TRAINING well done.

Pisco Sour

earlyevening wrote: »

Does this happen to anybody else?

In the last nine days I've run my fastest ever 21miler, 16 miler, half marathon, 10 miler (during the half marathon) and twice beaten my 8 mile PB. Every time I go out running I set a new PB. I'm totally taken aback by it. Its great to see improvement when I thought I was plateauing but its a sudden and a big improvement so I'm struggling to understand it.

Is it the free Adidas I won recently? Is it ideal weather conditions? Is it all the training?

I'm starting to think I could approach a 3hr marathon all of a sudden. Mc Millan suggests 2:57 (on the back of a 1:24 half) but I never had any faith in his calculator.

Whats everyone elses experience of these sudden improvements?

I'm sure the sceptics will be out in force now making accusations


In all seriousness though I'd imagine its a combination of those factors you mentioned. You've probably made improvements in your training efficiency (such as resting appropriately after long runs etc). Hard to know. I guess you'd know best though as to why things are starting to click.

Keep up the good work anyway.

RacoonQueen

earlyevening wrote: »

Is it the free Adidas I won recently? Is it ideal weather conditions? Is it all the training?

Could be all of these really. Is it a lighter shoe? I'm finding I'm running so much more comfortably in the nike lunarglides than I did in kayanos and the like, and they're not THAT much lighter. I don't want to get over excited about my time from the half at the weekend but that has McMillan predicting me for a 3:42 I'm not sure I have the endurance work done for a 3:42 but it has got me thinking that a little extra effort on the day may even get me a *whispers* 3:39:59.

osnola ibax

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Could be all of these really. Is it a lighter shoe? I'm finding I'm running so much more comfortably in the nike lunarglides than I did in kayanos and the like, and they're not THAT much lighter. I don't want to get over excited about my time from the half at the weekend but that has McMillan predicting me for a 3:42 I'm not sure I have the endurance work done for a 3:42 but it has got me thinking that a little extra effort on the day may even get me a *whispers* 3:39:59.

careful now! Anecdotaly, Macmillan is not the most accurate for a full. Just don't want to see it fall apart at the seams for you.

RacoonQueen

Oh don't worry. I changed my goal from near 3:45 to sub 4 about two weeks ago. :pac:

osnola ibax

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Oh don't worry. I changed my goal from near 3:45 to sub 4 about two weeks ago. :pac:

The very same as that

earlyevening

I had said 3:15 to 3:25 was my goal but I feel a lot more confident it'll be closer to 3:15 now. I may even have a quiet "in my head" time of sub 3:15 if all the planets are aligned on race day.

Its just the suddenness of my improvement that prompts my original post. Previous to that it was a slow constant improvement, maybe with liittle jumps in form.

I thought all the footscan lark was marketing tosh when they were selecting runners for me, but maybe there was something to it the last time. I had it done a few years ago too and was "prescribed" runners but that didn't produce any miracles.

Krusty_Clown

04072511 wrote: »

I'm sure the sceptics will be out in force now making accusations

I demand a gender test.

earlyevening

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I demand a gender test.

lol

Git101

The famous Gary Player (golfer) quote springs to mind. While being interviewed after winning a major the interviewer stated that he was lucky today to which he replied " The more I practice the luckier I get"

I guess the more you train (properly) the faster you get.

I know that I had an unexpected result in the Adidas half last weekend dispite a slight injury. When I checked afterwards I found that at the 10 mile mark I was faster than my time in the 10 mile race a few weeks previously.

There were a few miles and a lot of sweat in the intervening weeks that may have had something to do with it

RacoonQueen

Git101 wrote: »

I know that I had an unexpected result in the Adidas half last weekend dispite a slight injury. When I checked afterwards I found that at the 10 mile mark I was faster than my time in the 10 mile race a few weeks previously.

Few people said the same after the race. I was faster for 5 miles and 10 miles than I was for the actual races but it was flatter, on the other hand I put more effort in on Saturday than I did previously.

Git101

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Few people said the same after the race. I was faster for 5 miles and 10 miles than I was for the actual races but it was flatter, on the other hand I put more effort in on Saturday than I did previously.

Although it was a (slightly) easier course I had been expecting something of a collapse because of slight injury and some missed training.

What actually happened was that I was faster for the 10 and my last mile was the fastest of the whole race by a long shot. I even felt good after the run.

I can only put that down to training as all other factors, nutrition, rest, drinking (a few pints the night before) etc. etc were not as they should have been.

hawkwing

I wonder after almost drought like conditions for the last 4 weeks is there some sort of extra spring from the road surface that makes it easier to run as 95% of people seemed to PB last Sunday.The weather was nice for last years half marathon too if slightly hotter and the course a bit hillier then but i find the amount of PB's with some of them massive (11mins myself) very strange.

kennyb3

earlyevening wrote: »

I had said 3:15 to 3:25 was my goal but I feel a lot more confident it'll be closer to 3:15 now. I may even have a quiet "in my head" time of sub 3:15 if all the planets are aligned on race day.

Its just the suddenness of my improvement that prompts my original post. Previous to that it was a slow constant improvement, maybe with liittle jumps in form.

I thought all the footscan lark was marketing tosh when they were selecting runners for me, but maybe there was something to it the last time. I had it done a few years ago too and was "prescribed" runners but that didn't produce any miracles.

Early,

you should defo be aiming for close to 3, if not 3 then 3:05 with that half time assuming you have the long runs done. you d be off your rocker to sell yourself short at 3:15. thats plus 25 minutes and more for the second half. i know you ll pace it more even but still.

unless its your first marathon, which im 99% sure its not, go for it!!

getfit

When training is going well you will always improve in "jumps" rather than steady progress. The usual cycle is 6 weeks. Many moons ago when I could train and rest to my hearts content I could pretty much hit 6 week jumps in fitness with german efficiency.

I've found over the years that the 6 week cycle is harder to hit for numerous reasons, such as
> not being able to train consistently for 6 weeks be it due to kids, work, family etc. When I say train consistently I mean training gets progressivley harder each week and no days are lost for any reason.

> Less time for rest and thus more chance of injury/missed sessions

> Training too hard in the 6 weeks and not giving the body time to adapt to the stresses. I think this can be a reason many people haven't experienced the 6 week cycles, even when they train solidly for 6 weeks. Rest is equally as important in the cycle as hard training. You must be pushing yourself and thus forcing adaption, but also resting enough to let the body adapt and improve and thus get faster.

Also if you go through a spell of good but intermittent training, such as 3-5 weeks of good training, a few weeks missed, another 3 weeks of good training and another break and so on for a few months with no major improvement there seems to be a "pent up" improvement waiting to happen. I've had spells like that where one day I literally went from 8 min miling for easy runs to sub 7.30 and the next day my tempo session goes from 7/7.10 miling down to 6.35/6.40 in one go (and runs feeling easier aswell as way faster). Such massive jumps in one go would not be possible in the 6 week cycles. More like 8 min miling down to 7.45 or 7.40 at best. When there's a pent up jump, Ive had massive improvements in one go.

Bottom line - Git101s quote from Gary player hit the nail on the head!!!!

dna_leri

Git101 wrote: »

The famous Gary Player (golfer) quote springs to mind. While being interviewed after winning a major the interviewer stated that he was lucky today to which he replied " The more I practice the luckier I get"

I guess the more you train (properly) the faster you get.
...

There were a few miles and a lot of sweat in the intervening weeks that may have had something to do with it

One of my favourite quotes too. When you make a sustained step improvement, it's never because of good weather, new kit, luck. Its always due to harder and/or smarter work.

The trick is to be able to look back on your training log (good reason to keep a detailed one) and figure out what you did right and repeat it in the next training cycle.

aero2k

Hi Earlyevening,

Great time - nice to chat with you after the race.
I think I've experienced the same phenomenon you and others describe above. Perhaps the body takes a little while to react to some of the training, and then decises to give all the benefit in one go. I know when I started doing "Tergat" sessions I struggled for about 4 weeks, missing pace goals, and often not completing a session, then suddenly one day I found myself cruising along at 6:20/mile, not easy exactly, but sort of comfortable.
I was a little slower than you in the half, but I'm going for 2:59 in the DCM. My PB is 3:17:46 so I reckon if it all goes pearshaped after 20 miles I'll still beat that.
aero

Krusty_Clown

It could be down to something as simple as raising your Vo2max, the results of which would be mean smoother/easier running at a range of paces up to 10k pace. Either that or your a hermaphrodite, with two sets of genitalia.

RacoonQueen

Did I hear you say you got married recently actually? That's probably it, nowt like a good woman to keep you in line. :cool:

earlyevening

Interesting feedback.
I guess it is just the heavy enough training load in the last few months producing the results. I've got to give some credit to the new shoes. They are lighter and have less height which makes it easier to run in.
I dont know about the suggestions about my genitalia. Yes I did get married recently and she hasn't seemed shocked or surprised about what she's seen down there. (Maybe she's just being polite):eek:

About DCM pace, I'll aim for 3:15 and see what happens. I wont push to hard too approach 3. That might be for next year or the year after. I'm nowhere near slogger or the other 3hr guys.

TJC

I reckon you should do as aero2k and go for 3 hrs (I have no marathon experience btw) but as he says, if you blow up in last few miles you will still get inside 3.15)
Best of luck with it anyway

depadz

i'd struggle to get much under 1.30 for a half. Have done last two marathons in 3:10. Hopefully shave a couple of minutes off that next month, but don't think I have a sub 3 in me.

If I had your time for the half, I'd definitely be going for sub 3.

rainbow kirby

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Did I hear you say you got married recently actually? That's probably it, nowt like a good woman to keep you in line. :cool:

Plenty of cross-training anyway :pac: