My first Marathon and first log log

marathon2022

That took longer than I expected.

Did an easy 4 mile today - the fresh air was stinging my throat

As an aside I entered the dublin mountain trail running festival 25k in June, will have to put some weekends in on the hills. No rest for the wicked

marathon2022

Just running

Wednesday - 6.5 miles easy - chest still feeling glassy

Thursday - 6.5 miles with some 7.30min/m - Chest a bit better, still slightly fatigued

Saturday - 15 miles - 7.45min/mile - mostly fine but really tired last coupole of miles - Did a similiar session just before covid when I had a HR averaging 142. This session exactly two weeks later the HR was averaging 157.

Sunday - easy 6 mile - tired legs - the cough is lingering but stops being uncomfortable once i start the run and only returns when I stop.

My thoughts this week are on the manchester marathon. Its three weeks away now so I'm excited. Loosing the two big 20 miles on the plan is neither here nor there as the plan was just something I picked at random. I have sort of decided to ditch the specifics of the plan for this week and then revisit for the final two week taper.

Ive dropped my MP from 7.30 to 7.45mile/min to allow for the 10 days off with Covid. If I dont feel a whole lot better after this week going into the taper proper I will drop it to 8.00mile/min or worse case not bother. It is what it is.

New plan - the next three weeks

Monday - Off

Tuesday - 10 mile (2 warm up, 6 x MP(7.45) with 2 minute walk/jog recovery, 2 mile cooldown)

Wednesday - 6 mile easy (8.30-9.00)

Thursday - Off

Friday 20 mile - 5 mile easy - 10 mile MP - 5 mile easy (this is fluid, I will run this on feel)

Saturday - 3 mile recovery

Sunday - 6 mile gradual easy to tempo.

Two week Taper

Mon - Off

Tue - 8 mile session (2 mile warmup 5 x 1k at 10k pace with 2 minute recovery, 5 x 200m at 5k pace 30 second recovery, 2 mile warmup)

Wed - 4 mil easy

Thu - Off

Fri - 10 mile session 2 mile warmup , 2 x 3mile HM with 1 mile easy between, 2 mile warmdown

Sat - 4 mile - easy

Sunday 8 mile easy

Mon - Off

Tue - 7 mile session 3 x 1200 MP 2 min rest, 4 x 400 10k pace , 2 mile warmdown

Wed - 2 mile - easy

Thurs - 6 miles - 1 warmup, 2 mile MP, 5 minutes recovery, 1 x 10k pace, 2 miles cooldown

Frid - Off (flying out at lunchtime)

Saturday - 2 mile easy in manchester, pick up number - eat pizza

Sunday - Race

healy1835

Just reading back over your training here, you've given yourself every chance at a good debut. Listen to your body over the next couple of weeks but don't sell yourself short either. You're clearly grappling with your targets atm and that's understandable, but let the body come around itself and don't sweat the finer details until closer to race day I would suggest.

The last week looks pretty meaty. From the Friday to Thursday there's 3 sessions in there and, granted the final one is just to sharpen up, that seems unnecessarily risky, given both your recent lay off and the fact your making the big debut ;), you might just see how you are after the 2 by 3mile @HM session and just take stock.

The main thing I'm picking up is that you're excited and that's the best energy to bring to the start line 💪⚡

Singer

Agree on those final few sessions, the 10k bits could be replaced with a few strides. The 2x3HM looks spicy too, though they all are around a good deal of rest and pretty short runs.

marathon2022

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118802632#Comment_118802632

Thanks, Healy1835, you've given me a bit to chew on for the last week. I do like the HM session intervals as it leaves me just puffing enough to enjoy the recovery mile and cool down. The lack of a clear decision on race pace is more down to my mad internal conversation and fear that if I say it I will **** it up. I had a chat with a friend earlier and he advised me to start easier than I want and then push late in the race if I think I have it in me. Otherwise, just enjoy it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118809608#Comment_118809608

I reckon I will swap the last week's 10k sections for some strides.

Again thanks for the input guys, that's the main reason I come here and of course to read some fantastic thoughts and experiences and find the odd gem that fits my madness.

This week I adjusted the adjusted plan

Monday - Off

Tuesday - canceled session - stomach bug (it's all happening this month)

Wednesday - 6 mile - (7.11,7.08,7.06,7.02,6.48 and a 7.45 to cooldown)

Thursday - Paddys day- nothing but parades

Friday 21 mile - 5 mile easy(8.30) - 10 mile MP(7.35) - 6 mile easy (8.02)

Saturday - 4 mile recovery

Sunday - 10 easy

Its mad the way things go, just before the c19 hit me I vividly recall thinking during one of the sessions how fantastic this winter training block had gone, I had missed one session in planned 15 weeks prior and was feeling great - booooom. BUT then as I sit here typing after a big feed of bacon and cabbage I realise how this minor blip would be like manna from heaven to some who have spent weeks, months, or even years getting back after horrible injuries or illness.

I'm going to try and stay focused and enjoy every minute while I can. enjoy the moment

marathon2022

1 week to go till Manchester, this time next week it will be done and dusted

Week 1 Taper

Mon - Off

Tue - 8-mile session (2-mile warmup 5 x 1k at 10k pace with 2-minute recovery, 5 x 200m at 5k pace 30-second recovery, warm-down)

Wed - 4 miles easy

Thu - Off

Fri - 10-mile session 2 mile warmup, 2 x 3mile HM with 1 mile easy between, 2-mile warm down

Sat - 4 mile - easy

Sunday 8.5 mile, 4E,3MP,1.5E

This week its more reduction in miles but keeping intensity - exciting times

marathon2022

Week 2 Taper- the downward spiral

Mon - Off

Tue - 7 mile session 3 x 1200/MP with 2 min jog recovery, 4 x 400 10k pace with 30secs jog recovery , 2 mile warmdown

Wed - 3 mile - easy

Thurs - 6.5 miles - 1 warmup, 3 mile MP, 1.5 miles cooldown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeERupuicHE

Well maybe 2 mile Saturday.

DeepBlue

Best of luck on Sunday! Hope it goes well for you and you enjoy it.

Unknownability

Best of luck tomorrow, hope it goes well.

Laineyfrecks

Very best of luck tomorrow, enjoy it😊

marathon2022

Thanks folks, just back from number collection . Time to chill and wait 🙂

This time tomorrow I hope to be in and around 25 miles. 🤞

Mr. Guappa

Best of luck tomorrow.

Singer

Have a good one! Don’t stop!

marathon2022

3.18.34

That was fun 😂

Wottle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118874422#Comment_118874422

Smashing run, looking forward to the report. Enjoy the high.

marathon2022

The report

This was a winter project so I will start at the beginning, way back in the November after a brief flirtation with parkrun and some shoe porn with Saucony and Nike carbon fast fast shoes I decided to take Murph_D s comment about having a crack at a Marathon pace that matched the short course gains I had made. With supernatural prescience he commented after a short parkrun report (I made on a 19.32pb) that I should be able to crack 3.20 at marathon distance. I may ramble during this ramble but one thing is sure as the day is long; small comments can seed big ambitions.

Being a bit cavan I went searching on t interweb for some free programs to help with my winter training and as normal I settling on the first one I found from the Boston Athletic Association- I proceded to start my Marathon plan.

The race was 22 weeks away with the paln scheduled for 20 weeks so I started anyway as christmas and covid was coming quickly down the tracks and I thought I might need a week or two spare for drinking or coughing. The BAA plan was fantastic, 5 days one week, 6 days the next, two or three good sessions, with long runs, hill sprints, intervals, and mini fartlet sessions built in. It was also clear on the pacing strategy for different potential finish times. As my enthusiasm was not waining at this stage I started out on the 3.15 pacing strategy with the 3.30 as a backup if I found it too hard. I didnt really.

Apart from not being able to pace faster intervals properly I was pretty happy with the plan, took a week of at christmas for eating and drinking and another week in February were I smashed my previous HM and 10 mile training times with a 1.31.38 and a 1.09. Feeling tip top at this stage and leading up to the last big two peak training even my Coros watch was telling me I was on for a sub 3.15.

As luck would have it the Covid was rampant during this period and four weeks out I contracted what was probably a moderate case- four days of bed with temperature, muscle pain etc then another week of slow recovery with a chasty cough and brain fog.

After the dose I started slow but ramped as quick as I could peaking with a 21 miler completed two weeks out to get at least one last long run into the legs. The taper was a taper. With the exception of a niggle last Wednesday I felt fine over the last week. Did my last run on Thursday and shut up shop.

The race(one or two of you might be say "about **** time")

Flew out Friday, train to the city centre, right beside a hotel I booked months ago only to be greeted with Fawlty towers twinned hotel, I could write a whole report on this place(Mitre hotel) but I have to get to the race. Didnt bother with the shake out on Saturday as I figured there is no gains to be had from running a two or three mile run the day before a race. Big overpriced plate of pasta the at 7pm, back in fawlty towers at 8.30pm and chilled.

My little brother was over mainly for a shakeout run during his Ironman prep so after breaking fast with a wholemeal bap and strawberry jam we got the tram to old trafford and did the usual bag drop(given number 42 at bag drop which made me smile), toilet drop, and reconoitter prior to heading up to the start in Pink A. The organisation was immaculate and if I was to order weather for the race I would have ordered what we got, bit nippy in the morning but the sun was out, no wind(except for ast the toilets) at the start and thousands of smiles with fidgety energy filling the air. I absolutely loved this, probably worth running the 26 miles just for this bit. Had my first gel 15 minutes before the race on the way up the road by old trafford and got into the Pink A start pen, great band banging drums as we stood waiting, a buddy of my brothers joined us and we stood there enjoying the moment.

The start

When the time came and I could see the front bunch moving away I whipped off the hooody and sleeves I had on case it was colder and threw them in the central medium with the rest of the ditched apparal, slowly moving toward the start line I was unusually calm, maybe having the brother beside yapping away with not a care in the world, enjoying the moment removed the nerves. Over the line we go, pottering along with the crowd, not bad, not so many headwreckers who should have been in later pens so the pace was generally good and as expected during the first mile, I was feeling good :-)

7.57min/Mile one, chating with the brother not taking any notice of the time, not even really thinking about the race ahead, probably taking the "take it easy at the start" advise too literally

7.25 Mile Two, after a quick shake of the head I put on the mantra..... In my case its "this is my pace-this is my pace-this is my pace" and so on and so forth"

7.32 Mile Three, just focusing on fixing any form abnormalities for my pace strategy

7.36 Mile Four, again just keeping focus on getting the body moving exactly how it should for 7.30-7.40 pace

7.48 Mile Five, took my second gel, drank some water and had my first twinge, the same place on my leg as the wednesday before the marathon, was a bit stressed as a couple of sharp twinges on my leg as I ran a flat piece of road but a slight hill seemed to knock it on the head- this seems to happen often during runs where niggles feck off when i hit a small incline or downhill. Also jumped behind a van for a piss as the toilets were full. More of a nervous piss than anything.

7.23 Mile 6, my form had straightened so now I started to take in the crowds and began to observe other runners. I seemed to be moving a little bit quicker than most with the odd person passing me so no worries

7.28 Mile 7, looking around at everyones kit, shoes, form and physic

7.24 Mile 8, feeling the twinge in my right leg again but not so bad

7.29 Mile 9, this was one of the easy miles with stride, pace and mind in perfect peace as I approached the 10 mile

7.33 Mile 10, took another gel and had a slight chest pain but nothing more. On the subject of Gels-- I use Decathlon brand gels generally and did so here, wasnt bothered with the SIS freebies on course as I never used them previous. I also carried a 250ml soft bottle of water even though there were bottles on the course every few miles. see mile 22

7.30 Mile 11, After 10 mile I had eyes only for the Half marathon distance

7.32 Mile 12, focused and feeling good

7.37 Mile 13, passed this by and got to the Half Distance sign, looked at my watch and seen 1.39.xx so the sub 3.20 was still on.

7.32 Mile 14, Feeling good here

7.32 Mile 15, take my 4th gel and plow on, was also a bit confused here, in my mind I was thinking there was 10 miles left

7.37 Mile 16, realised I was calculating wrong and had a good old laugh at myself, this coincided with the beginning of the main niggle- my hip. This is an old malody and has been dropping in and out of my running life for a while.

7.27 Mile 17, Had a chat with a randomer about loud shoes (I was wearing the alphafly, I reckon the tinitus from my SFX/Top hat anthrax/slayer days has gotten worse since I started wearing those noisy ba$tards)

7.37 Mile 18, I doubt anyone here remembers my log from my only other Marathon, DCM 2019. In that race I found some runners who looked like they know what they were doing and followed them for 10 miles :-) which was a great help for my sub 4 attempt -- well you wouldnt believe it but I pull in behind these two guys mozzying along at my pace and one of them seems to be pacing the other at exactly my pace so in good irish fashion I sneekily decide to blag a free pacer for a little slip stream action. The wind had picked up and was sideways or headways and the guys were just the right size to keep me safe

7.29 Mile 19, still following the two runners,

7.32 Mile 20, again still following the runners, took my fifth gel, a CAFFIENE gel, the big guns are out.

7.34 Mile 21, at this stage Im not sure if my following them is keeping them in pace or the other way around

7.34 Mile 22 , still following them but it looks like the pacer is having trouble keeing his buddy on target, the dynamic is awkward, my shoes are loud and the wind is picking up.

7.30 Mile 23, hip killing me- the water seemed to have dried up along the course, may have missed one stall but my handy soft bottle came to the rescue, cue second caffiene gel-

7.28 Mile 24, hip in flitters -this is were it got strange, the guy I thought was intentionally pacing for the other guy starts to move of as the paceeee(is this a word?) is really struggling

7.33 Mile 25, the pacer is gradually increasing the gap and we leave the pacee behind but I know it just bravado, or maybe his tinitus was playing up with my slipstream action.

7.26 Mile 26, This was hard, the Manchester course is a lovely for the most part but it has a sting in the tail. Not hills, not ground, CORNERS with no relief. The amount of times I went around a corner expecting to see the finsh and didnt was tough.

7.41 Bit at the end, seen the finish and low and behold every fecker in the race decides to sprint. I dont because I'm too cool for that nonesense(in fact I cant because im broken)

Tale of the tape- 3.18 finish time(sTRAVA 3.17)

7.35 per mile

40 minute PB

Negative split

Position- 2467 out of 14170

2270th out of 9790 men

310th out of 1245 in my age group

At 10km I was in 3548th position which means I passed over a 1000 runners in the last 32 km

Go me-

$$$most of the stuff I wrote above may not be true- its all relative

Runster

Well done, great time - 40 minute PB. Wow.

Sub 3 this time next year!

I remember seeing Kreator and Death in the Top Hat, great gig.

Murph_D

Wow. Hopefully that early advice included the words "if you train appropriately...", which you obviously did.

What a fantastic result. Hats off.

Many congrats. 👏👏👏

Singer

Very well run. How'd your brother do, sounds like he was just there for a jog?

marathon2022

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118882508#Comment_118882508

A 20 minute PB 👌, he loved it.

Although I haven't done many marathons it's hard to find any fault with this one. I would 💯 recommend Manchester for anyone wanting a fast time with no hassle. Great organisation and can't think of anything that I would have changed to make the day better.

Dubh Geannain

Great run. Big congrats! 40 minutes PB. Sheesh.