The Wall Keeps Moving.

Dub13

Right looking for a bit of advice. I am a boards DCM14 novice graduate. As it was my first marathon I went mad for the getting the miles in and the LSR, I think I had from June to Oct six 20 mile runs and two 22 mile done. I did the BAA Intermediate and had 894 miles in the 18 weeks. Here is my race report.

The plan for me was to head out with the 3:50 pace group and stay with them till about mile 20/21 and re evaluate things then, to either kick on or hold onto them. The second time coming back into the park (about mile 9) I found myself a bit ahead of the 3:50 group, there was a lot more space just in front of the group so I decided to stay out in front. Then for some mad reason as I felt good I decided to kick on a bit. Looks like this was way to early.

I came through the half way point at 1:52:xx which is well on course for a 3:50 finish, had some time in the 'bank' or so I thought. Nearly all my splits up to 31km were on target (5:25 per km), I did not make one on target for the last 11k. Looks like I kicked on way to early and at about the 34k/35k mark the 3:50 group past me out. I just did not have the legs to stay with them, this is nearly the same experience I had at my first half that time with the 1:50 pace group. I learned from that mistake, and I will learn from this.

Anyway I loved the race and it will not be my last. I finished up with a time of 3:56:50.

So after DCM14 I was still motoring along, in 2015 I have averaged about 40/45 miles a week. About 7/8 weeks ago I decided to do the Belfast Marathon just to see where the fitness is and if I could maintain splits for the lot and not have a huge fall off. So I stuck in only two 20 mile LSR's the thinking been I could have over trained for Dublin.

So up in Belfast on Monday and nearly the same thing happened again, I was targeting 5:25/5:30 per Km. All was going to plan till the 27th KM then the drop off starts, in Dublin the drop off starts around the 33k mark. I ended up finishing in 4:02. In Dublin I came through the half point @ 1:53 so about 2 min up on target, in Belfast I was bang on at the half way @1:55.

So can anybody recommend something here, its good to get fresh eyes on your training so I am open to suggestions. I plan on doing DCM15 so my thoughts are starting to turn to that and I hope the same thing does not happen again. Maybe I am overthinking this and its just more experience I need. I am looking forward to working on the shorter distances till I go into another marathon plan in July.

Here are my stats for both.

Dublin
https://connect.garmin.com/activity/621799455

Belfast
https://connect.garmin.com/activity/765833352

Current PB'S

5k - 22:13
5 Mile - 37:30
10k - 48:02
10 Mile -1:17:21
Half -1:43:56
Marathon - 3:56:50

Ososlo

Absolutely delighted to see you start this Dub13!

I'm sure you'll get lots of great advice on your query from the experienced marathoners.
Well done on your recent marathon btw and best of luck with the log and goal this year!
Definitely a good idea to use the next few months to work on the shorter stuff.

Dub13

Ososlo wrote: »

Absolutely delighted to see you start this Dub13!

I'm sure you'll get lots of great advice on your query from the experienced marathoners.
Well done on your recent marathon btw and best of luck with the log and goal this year!
Definitely a good idea to use the next few months to work on the shorter stuff.

Cheers Ososlo, I am still an keen reader of your log and get great advice on it. But I think maybe its time to look for specific advice for myself. Looking forward to trying to get the 5k time down now over the summer.

Ososlo

Dub13 wrote: »

Cheers Ososlo, I am still an keen reader of your log and get great advice on it. But I think maybe its time to look for specific advice for myself. Looking forward to trying to get the 5k time down now over the summer.

Great stuff.
No harm to pop the pbs across all your distances onto your log so people can see what's what across the board and maybe a bit about your running background just to give a fuller picture.

adrian522

Congrats on starting the log, keep it up!

Why do you think you were overtrained for Dublin? If you feel you didn't have the power in the legs to maintain your pace I would have thought endurance may have been an issue?

Did you follow a plan for Limerick? What are you thinking about following for Dublin?

It seems to my uneducated eye that is a lot of marathon training which must be hard to maintain. Possibly a bit of time on the shorter distances could be beneficial rather than embarking on another marathon cycle in July. Or else just follow a 12 week plan, and do some speed work in the mean time.

I'm sure you'll get better advice from the more experienced guys here.

Dub13

Ososlo wrote: »

Great stuff.
No harm to pop the pbs across all your distances onto your log so people can see what's what across the board and maybe a bit about your running background just to give a fuller picture.

Just added them to the OP.

If anybody has a decent 5k plan again I am open to suggestions, I would like to get that time down. I have never trained for anything that short so its all new to me.

adrian522

Did you follow the Graduates plan? I thought that was pretty good for 5K improvements...

Dub13

adrian522 wrote: »

Congrats on starting the log, keep it up!

Why do you think you were overtrained for Dublin? If you feel you didn't have the power in the legs to maintain your pace I would have thought endurance may have been an issue?

Did you follow a plan for Limerick? What are you thinking about following for Dublin?

It seems to my uneducated eye that is a lot of marathon training which must be hard to maintain. Possibly a bit of time on the shorter distances could be beneficial rather than embarking on another marathon cycle in July. Or else just follow a 12 week plan, and do some speed work in the mean time.

I'm sure you'll get better advice from the more experienced guys here.

Cheers Adrian. I am not sure why I think I was overtrained for Dublin its the only solution I had as to why I faded so much. That's looking less and less likely now if the same thing happened in Belfast with a good bit less miles on the clock.

I followed the DCM 14 Graduates plan till the end, then I just kept it going and added on a few longer LSR. I was doing a little longer than the plan had most days. I have no plan in mind for DCM15 YET.

adrian522

Have you run a 5K recently? Maybe worth getting out and doing one to see where you are. I just concentrated on doing the club sessions with easy miles on other days and a long run and that has worked well for me.

Dub13

adrian522 wrote: »

Have you run a 5K recently? Maybe worth getting out and doing one to see where you are. I just concentrated on doing the club sessions with easy miles on other days and a long run and that has worked well for me.

No, I have not ran one in a while.

Larry Brent

Dub13, the fade you experienced is pretty normal for a newer runner and a typical sign that with more endurance this will improve. To gain endurance the first step is to run more. If you've been running one year, run 2 years; if you run 4 times a week, run 5 times a week; if you run 40mins a day, run 50mins a day etc.

You could also look at how you distribute your miles per week. Looks like you did about 50miles a week. This could be done:

M 6
T 6
W 6
T 6
F 6
S 20
S Rest

or

M 5
T 10
W 5
T 10
F 5
S 15
S Rest

The 2nd way would be a much better way to improve general endurance (and then you could up the long run if training specifically for a marathon).

I would suggest the following - don't worry about pace, miles or splits for now, but try to build to 2 workouts a week and a long run, for example:

M 50-60mins easy
T Workout 1, up to 90mins
W 40-50mins recovery
T Workout 2, up to 90mins
F 40-50mins recovery
S Long Run up to 2hours
S Rest

As it says build to, the workouts might initially just total 60mins, easy runs 20-30mins and you can gradually add 5-10mins a week to those. But of you can get to the stage of doing 2 80-90min runs a week and a long run, you'll be very strong.

Workout 1 can just be a continuous steady/tempo run. Warm up for 20mins, then pick it up to steady pace for 20mins (initially, gradually build over the weeks to 50mins), then warm down for 20mins. By 'pick up to steady' simply increase from your warm up pace to something slightly faster than a jog. Don't worry about pace (you can always check it afterwards just to see, but don't let it influence the run itself). So just go a little faster than easy, so that you can feel you are moving faster but you are well in control - it is never uncomfortable, just strong running. It'll probably work out something like 20-30s/mile faster than easy pace initially but week by week for the exact same effort it will gradually creep up to maybe a minute faster than easy pace without you even noticing.

Workout 2 is fast running. Run like you are 10 years old on school sports day. Just go very fast for about 30secs and then go very easy till you are ready to go again - maybe 90secs or so and repeat a number of times. Run the fast sections for a bit longer each week, aiming to eventually get to something like 20 x 1min fast, 1min easy. So 20mins warm up, 20 x 1/1, 20mins easy, an 80 min run in total.

That kind of simple plan should see you very string and good for 5k to HM and then a small bit of tweaking and you can get ready for the marathon.

Best of luck.

Murph_D

Hi Dub13. Did you follow the novice plan last year? I'm guessing maybe not considering the number of 20 mile runs. What kind of pace were you training at? Agree with Larry that the drop off could be all about endurance and experience - it took me 3 marathons to achieve a fairly even pace throughout. But could also be related to how you're getting the miles in.

Dub13

@ Larry Brent, Cheers for the advice. Its good in a way that fading is pretty normal as this means I was not doing much wrong or over training as I naively thought. I think I will give the second way a go for a bit as the first one is what I was pretty much doing for a year or so.

I have also been thinking of starting to run in and out to work a day or 2 a week. Its 9k door to door so 18k a day, would splitting a run like this have any positive or negative effects..? I get long breaks in work so could maybe even get a short session done on the treadmill some days.

@Murph_D I did the I did the BAA Intermediate.

Ososlo

Hey Dub13 how's the training going? Will you/have you take(n) some of Larry B's suggestions on board?

Dub13

I actually forgot I started this and found it while searching for something else. So I suppose its time for an update. After I started this thread I spent a few weeks working on my shorter times by doing intervals and a bit of hill work. The local club Rahney have a summer 2 mile league and I have done them all so far, I am really enjoying them as its something very new to me I am not used to racing such a short distance.

I am also well into my DCM15 plan, I am doing the Pfitzinger 18/55. It can be hard to fit the summer league and the odd race into the plan but I have been doing it. My times are falling aswell, since my last update I have done a PB at the following distances... 1k, 2 mile (a few times), 5k, 5 mile & 10k.

So something is working. I am actually running a bit less than I was this time last year but have more 2 give on the speed/tempo runs.

Summer League 2 Mile
Some good progress been made here, the first week I did not know it was on till I seen a post on facebook after lunch and already had 12k done. I went down anyway, the next week I went down having fresh legs and was 20 seconds slower. Not sure what to make of that. Anyway, these are on a Tuesday night and I am now doing doubles on these days. Doing a handy easy 8/10 k on my break and then going down to the club and doing about 7k including warm up and cool down.

Week 1 14:06
Week 2 14:25
Week 3 13:53
Week 4 13:54 (was on the stag the weekend before,surprised this is not way down)
Week 5 13:38

Other races since my last update.

ParkRun 5k
23:02
22:47
22:10

Raheny 4 Mile Mid Summer
29:34

Races Series 5 Mile
37:26

Race Series 10K
45:44

So that's it, the shorter times are coming down maybe not as fast as I want but at least they are going in the right direction. I have one more 2 mile race on Tuesday then I am off to Salou on Thursday for a couple of weeks. I hope I don't lose much fitness over there, I plan on getting out at least very couple of days.