To Hell In A Handcart

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 02:18PM

DocQismyJesus wrote: »

To put a finer point on it: I'm a considerably more experienced runner than you. I began training for a goal marathon in Jan. got injured. Ended up only being able to put in 550 miles between Jan and my goal marathon (all easy miles)

I dashed any hopes of a PB and decided to high five all the way around. Even with 550 miles under my belt I was pretty freaked out on the startline.

I jogged around it 40 minutes slower than my PB still even with a huge base of several years of decent races and marathons I won't lie, the last mile / mile and a half was pretty ropey.

So excuse the harsh tone but I agree with Yaboya; you cannot bluff a marathon.

Have you ever written an upbeat positive reply to anyone?
How many miles would you of normally done beforehand? 1000? It sounds like you done well to be 40 mins above your PB if that was the case?

DocQismyJesus · 07-05-2015 02:19PM

MKDTH wrote: »

So a 2:00:20 half marathon in early March meant that 4:30 was unrealistic? Surely double half marathon and add 20 giving me 4:20 would of been unrealistic?

With the sort of base you had and the fact that you had done very limited long runs - yes a sub 4:30 (over 1.25 hr PB if I'm not mistaken) would have been beyond unrealistic. Couple that with the fact that you were injured much of the last month and were using 10 min Dublin Bike rides as sessions and I'd have given up my first born son if that marathon ended in success.

I'm not trying to be mean but it is important to have at least some respect for the distance and unfair to be mad at people for pointing out where your approach was severely flawed.

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 02:24PM

Ososlo wrote: »

Absolutely!!!! Get yourself to Amphibian King or Run-Hub or similar asap!

So what's the plan (when fully recovered)? Target some shorter distances like 5 and 10ks for the next few months?

Buy new runners from Amphibian King, and listen to whatever advise Ecoli tells me in the morning. Besides that, time will tell although I will be moving back to England within the next two months so may have to look at more English races, but my other half is Irish meaning I can still aim at a few over here.

DocQismyJesus · 07-05-2015 02:25PM

MKDTH wrote: »

Have you ever written an upbeat positive reply to anyone?
How many miles would you of normally done beforehand? 1000? It sounds like you done well to be 40 mins above your PB if that was the case?

For a novice like yourself id say 600 miles would have been a decent amount to put you in with a good shout of a nice PB.

If it were me I would have been on the line at my Spring marathon with 900 or so miles with good quality to have any chance at a PB. But as I said I'm pretty experienced at this point.

Look I wish you the best but it just seems like you ignored any lessons learned in Dublin and repeated same mistakes. If I were advising you, I'd say bin the marathon for at least a year and work on putting in good consistent mileage building a base. Maybe target Dublin 2016 instead. There are some really good logs ?
( Pacing mule, davemcmahon Barryoneill) which show the improvements and base that can be built when shifting focus off endless marathons.

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 02:32PM

DocQismyJesus wrote: »

With the sort of base you had and the fact that you had done very limited long runs - yes a sub 4:30 (over 1.25 hr PB if I'm not mistaken) would have been beyond unrealistic. Couple that with the fact that you were injured much of the last month and were using 10 min Dublin Bike rides as sessions and I'd have given up my first born son if that marathon ended in success.

I'm not trying to be mean but it is important to have at least some respect for the distance and unfair to be mad at people for pointing out where your approach was severely flawed.

1:15 PB, but I take your point. I just saw it as a whole different ball game due to my knee being much better.
With regards to the Dublin bike thing which Yaboya also mentioned, it was just a case of this being cross training on a non running day. It was not replacing a day running.
Fair points, and I appreciate the better tone in your writing.

DocQismyJesus · 07-05-2015 02:36PM

MKDTH wrote: »

1:15 PB, but I take your point. I just saw it as a whole different ball game due to my knee being much better.
With regards to the Dublin bike thing which Yaboya also mentioned, it was just a case of this being cross training on a non running day. It was not replacing a day running.
Fair points, and I appreciate the better tone in your writing.

Cool. Yeah apologies again for harsh tone I've been around running a while though and can sometimes get cynical and harsh when I see the same mistakes ( I've made them myself) getting made over and over ( not just by you but by tons of runners)

Tbh I just want people at any level to do well and achieve their goals. All the best with injury feeling better and getting back out there!

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 02:44PM

DocQismyJesus wrote: »

For a novice like yourself id say 600 miles would have been a decent amount to put you in with a good shout of a nice PB.

If it were me I would have been on the line at my Spring marathon with 900 or so miles with good quality to have any chance at a PB. But as I said I'm pretty experienced at this point.

Look I wish you the best but it just seems like you ignored any lessons learned in Dublin and repeated same mistakes. If I were advising you, I'd say bin the marathon for at least a year and work on putting in good consistent mileage building a base. Maybe target Dublin 2016 instead. There are some really good logs ?
( Pacing mule, davemcmahon Barryoneill) which show the improvements and base that can be built when shifting focus off endless marathons.

I did not ignore my issues as this time I had a decent Physio to help and who seemed happy enough for me to still run the Marathon.
I have entered London 2016's ballot and have no other targets before so if all is well, I may start some heart rate stuff over the next few months with no other goals right now. No decision has been made about running a Marathon in October though.

Pacing Mule · 07-05-2015 02:45PM

Hi M,

I've held off commenting too much as I wanted to give you a bit of time to digest everything first and speak perhaps when things weren't so raw.

I've read the log along the way and indeed read it back when Yaboyas comments was posted (I wouldn't say the comment was abusive tbvh but was certainly blunt and to the point) The point being that you were to be fair very under trained for this.

You went from a relatively zero base (coming back from no running for few months and knee surgery) in January and dropped straight into what I have always felt was a very ambitious plan for a novice marathoner. And by novice I mean anyone without a very solid base in the first place. The boards novice plan from last year jumps the mileage very quickly - too quickly IMHO for a real novice / someone coming off a weak base / recovering from injury. As early as March you were in big trouble with niggles left right and centre coming into play. Mileage increased too soon and it set the scene for the rest of the plan - a near constant chasing of your tail. Your half marathon race in Bohermeen was a solid run and gave you perhaps a little too much confidence. The training and mileage continued to step up and the niggles continued to get worse. You had to cut short / skip numerous runs. I don't believe you wussed out of it for what it's worth. Ultimately you went to the start line hanging together and it didn't work out unfortunately. I actually believe one of the biggest mistakes here was not going for a more beginners orientated training program in the first place. You only find out towards the end of the block if you got the original choice of plan right.

Hindsight is a great thing of course and it's easy for someone like me to comment in retrospect so take from it what you want !

menoscemo · 07-05-2015 03:09PM

Ok I will try not to be too harsh but I agree totally with yaboya. Yes I reckon he should have been more tactful and left it a day or two but the table below really backs it all up:

MKDTH wrote: »

Month|Mileage
January|90
February|86
March|79
April|113
Total|368

You averaged about 20 miles per week for the first 3 months of the year and that's just not going to cut it for a marathon. I have seen the boards novice plan and IMO you could not have been following it very closely. IIRC it has at least 2 20 milers and 4-5 runs per week? You did 1 19 miler I think and about 3 runs per week?
I do think you were making excuses for yourself btw. I saw a fair few references to not being able to run because of drinking/ having to work early/late etc. That just doesn't cut it for me tbh. Worst of all was you saying you wouldn't run for 3 days after a sports massage? This I just don't understand. I go to the same guy as you (ECOLI!) and he has never said this to me. I would almost always go for a recovery run after the massage and be back to running as normal the next day.

I think the mistake you made was to believe that you were going to do really well and set yourself an aggressive target because your training had gone better than Dublin. But frankly your DCM training was beyond a disaster so you shouldn't use that as as a point of comparison. I think the Bohermeen result backed up the positivity but there is a huge difference between a half and a full. I think in the full your central governor (brain) is always going to overrule your body and say 'there is no way you can keep this pace up for 26.2 miles'

When you look at other logs and see guys like Calvin Johnson not achieving his target despite logging almost 1000 miles in training in the same 4 months as your 368, it shows what it takes to run a good marathon.

Anyway I wish you all the best. I do think if you get the head down and keep up the training you will log some pretty good PBs over 5k-HM and give yourself a much better base for a future marathon. But I would leave that off for at least a year if I were you and in the meantime concentrate on getting to a point where you are running 35-40 miles very week as a norm.

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 03:25PM

menoscemo wrote: »

Ok I will try not to be too harsh but I agree totally with yaboya. Yes I reckon he should have been more tactful and left it a day or two but the table below really backs it all up:

You averaged about 20 miles per week for the first 3 months of the year and that's just not going to cut it for a marathon. I have seen the boards novice plan and IMO you could not have been following it very closely. IIRC it has at least 2 20 milers and 4-5 runs per week? You did 1 19 miler I think and about 3 runs per week?
I do think you were making excuses for yourself btw. I saw a fair few references to not being able to run because of drinking/ having to work early/late etc. That just doesn't cut it for me tbh. Worst of all was you saying you wouldn't run for 3 days after a sports massage? This I just don't understand. I go to the same guy as you (ECOLI!) and he has never said this to me. I would almost always go for a recovery run after the massage and be back to running as normal the next day.

I think the mistake you made was to believe that you were going to do really well and set yourself an aggressive target because your training had gone better than Dublin. But frankly your DCM training was beyond a disaster so you shouldn't use that as as a point of comparison. I think the Bohermeen result backed up the positivity but there is a huge difference between a half and a full. I think in the full your central governor (brain) is always going to overrule your body and say 'there is no way you can keep this pace up for 26.2 miles'

When you look at other logs and see guys like Calvin Johnson not achieving his target despite logging almost 1000 miles in training in the same 4 months as your 368, it shows what it takes to run a good marathon.

Anyway I wish you all the best. I do think if you get the head down and keep up the training you will log some pretty good PBs over 5k-HM and give yourself a much better base for a future marathon. But I would leave that off for at least a year if I were you and in the meantime concentrate on getting to a point where you are running 35-40 miles very week as a norm.

I think I had a little more than just a Sports massage which meant three days were needed to let all of the toxins go due to work on my calves and hip. The one time I ran sooner, was about ten days before the Marathon, and I made my calves worse.
I think I missed one days running due to drink and didn't drink for the 16 days leading up to the Marathon. I have also cut back on alcohol in 2015 as a whole so you may of read about me drinking five days in a row about three weeks before the day of the race and assumed that this was normal for me? I tend to drink once or twice a month nowadays so you are well off the mark their.
I will seek advice in the morning and go from there, but points taken.

Ososlo · 07-05-2015 03:25PM

menoscemo wrote: »

Anyway I wish you all the best. I do think if you get the head down and keep up the training you will log some pretty good PBs over 5k-HM and give yourself a much better base for a future marathon. But I would leave that off for at least a year if I were you and in the meantime concentrate on getting to a point where you are running 35-40 miles very week as a norm.

If it were me, that's what I'd do too. Spend the next 12 months slowly building up to have a really solid base behind you before launching into another marathon programme. Have "fun" with the shorter faster stuff in the meantime whilst building the miles sensibly in the background. Look at the whole thing with a more long-term perspective.

edit: loads of us are waiting until 2016 for the Year of the Rising! Why not wait and join us?

kit3 · 07-05-2015 03:41PM

Ososlo wrote: »

If it were me, that's what I'd do too. Spend the next 12 months slowly building up to have a really solid base behind you before launching into another marathon programme. Have "fun" with the shorter faster stuff in the meantime whilst building the miles sensibly in the background. Look at the whole thing with a more long-term perspective.

edit: loads of us are waiting until 2016 for the Year of the Rising! Why not wait and join us?

2016 promises to be an interesting year - have you picked a marathon yet ?

menoscemo · 07-05-2015 03:47PM

MKDTH wrote: »

I think I had a little more than just a Sports massage which meant three days were needed to let all of the toxins go due to work on my calves and hip. The one time I ran sooner, was about ten days before the Marathon, and I made my calves worse.
I think I missed one days running due to drink and didn't drink for the 16 days leading up to the Marathon. I have also cut back on alcohol in 2015 as a whole so you may of read about me drinking five days in a row about three weeks before the day of the race and assumed that this was normal for me? I tend to drink once or twice a month nowadays so you are well off the mark their.
I will seek advice in the morning and go from there, but points taken.

I had niggles too and plenty of hard sports massages. Yes sometimes running the next day is sore but the following is much better again.
I still don't understand why you only ran 3 days a week and didn't do the 20 mile long runs but best of luck with it anyway.

MKDTH · 07-05-2015 03:48PM

I was honesty running FIVE days a week the majority of the time!
I was advised not to do the 20 plus miles due to missing ten days running about six weeks out so instead did a mile or two less.

Ososlo · 07-05-2015 03:57PM

kit3 wrote: »

2016 promises to be an interesting year - have you picked a marathon yet ?

Probably DCM maybe Antartica......

kit3 · 07-05-2015 04:09PM

Ososlo wrote: »

Probably DCM maybe Antartica......

Reckon DCM would be more of a pb course than Antartica for what it's worth

MKDTH · 14-05-2015 12:49PM

Tuesday 12/05

Myrtl routine

I will be doing this twice a week to assist in strengthening up my hip and becoming more flexible.

Thursday 14/05

1.31 Miles @ 11:28

My first run since the marathon just to get moving again and break in new runners.

Ecoli has given myself a rehabilitation plan with the aim being to build up muscular and tendon strength over a 16 week period.
A maximum of one race per month is permitted, and no races for the first three to four weeks. I will start this plan on Monday and will hopefully fully stick to it.

barryoneill50 · 14-05-2015 01:04PM

Best of luck!

MKDTH wrote: »

Tuesday 12/05

Myrtl routine

I will be doing this twice a week to assist in strengthening up my hip and becoming more flexible.

Thursday 14/05

1.31 Miles @ 11:28

My first run since the marathon just to get moving again and break in new runners.

Ecoli has given myself a rehabilitation plan with the aim being to build up muscular and tendon strength over a 16 week period.
A maximum of one race per month is permitted, and no races for the first three to four weeks. I will start this plan on Monday and will hopefully fully stick to it.

MKDTH · 20-05-2015 01:43PM

Friday 15/05

Myrtl routine

Saturday 16/05

Rest Day
(I'm not sure what I am resting from!)

Sunday 17/05

10 Mins on a Dublin bike

Day 1 of my new rehab plan

Monday 18/05

15 Mins Easy @11:25 pace covering 1.32 Miles

Tuesday 19/05

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.
(I have to do 20-3- mins walking on each day that I do Myrtl routine).

Wednesday 20/05

20 Mins Easy @10:37 pace covering 1.88 Miles
This was my 'long' run for the week! I blame my lack of exercise/freshness on this being quicker than the easy bracket of 10:45-11:30 that I have been set.

Can't wait for this plan to be over already! Just the 15 weeks and 4 days left!

MKDTH · 01-06-2015 10:10PM

Thursday 21/05

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.

Friday 22/05

15 mins Easy @ 11:07 pace.
1.35 miles

Saturday 23/05

Rest day

Sunday 24/05

60 mins on the exercise bike level 5,

MKDTH · 01-06-2015 10:22PM

Week 2

Monday 25/05

20 mins Easy spread over two runs due to the toilet calling.

the first run lasted 14:36 mins @10:33 pace measuring 1.38 miles.
the other 5:35 mins @ 10:04 pace measuring 0.56 miles.
Quicker than easy pace should be!

Tuesday 26/05

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.

Wednesday 27/05

25 mins Easy @10:58 pace measuring 2.28 miles

Thursday 28/05

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.

Friday 29/05

20 mins Easy @ 11:08 Pace measuring 1.80 miles

Saturday 30/05

60 Mins on the exercise bike, level 6
Brought forward a day as I would of not got the chance on Sunday.

Sunday 31/05

Rest day

MKDTH · 01-06-2015 10:34PM

Month Miles

January 90.00
February 85.89
March 79.14
April 113.08
May 27.98
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Total 396.09

kit3 · 01-06-2015 10:46PM

I see on your update you have 'week 2' - are you following some plan & what are you aiming for ?

eldiva · 01-06-2015 10:51PM

I'm guessing by the 15 weeks left you are aiming for Dublin. Have you a goal in mind? I'm not sure if you are coming back from an injury or what your story is but 6 miles as a weeks training seems a bit odd.

MKDTH · 01-06-2015 11:22PM

Its a 16 week plan that Ecoli has put together for me which has taken out all long runs as I need to build up muscular and tendon strength before getting into any training plan with a goal race in mind.
I can do races of 10k and under in this period, but only one race per month.
Once the 16 weeks are out of the way, I assume I will aim at a Marathon next April/May.

barryoneill50 · 01-06-2015 11:24PM

It's in post 288

eldiva · 01-06-2015 11:30PM

I saw the rehab programme being mentioned but didn't think the mileage would have been cut to 6 miles a week. Most runners do it coinciding with the general mileage

eldiva · 01-06-2015 11:43PM

MKDTH wrote: »

Its a 16 week plan that Ecoli has put together for me which has taken out all long runs as I need to build up muscular and tendon strength before getting into any training plan with a goal race in mind.
I can do races of 10k and under in this period, but only one race per month.
Once the 16 weeks are out of the way, I assume I will aim at a Marathon next April/May.

This just baffles me to be honest. You can race 10k or less once a month even though you might only be hitting 2 miles in one run? How do you expect to have the fitness to run do these races off such little mileage and effort. Just seems very odd

MKDTH · 09-06-2015 09:30PM

eldiva wrote: »

This just baffles me to be honest. You can race 10k or less once a month even though you might only be hitting 2 miles in one run? How do you expect to have the fitness to run do these races off such little mileage and effort. Just seems very odd

The plan will slowly build up with me starting in 5k's.

MKDTH · 09-06-2015 09:39PM

Week 3

Monday 01/06/15

20 mins @ 11:15 covering 1.78 miles.

Tuesday 02/06/15

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.

Wednesday 03/06/15

30 mins @ 11:01 pace covering 2.67 miles.

Thursday 04/06/15

Myrtl routine and 30 mins walking.

Friday - Sunday

Driving a van to and from Dublin to England, followed by flying to England to finally move home after four and a half years away! This meant that I had no time for Friday or Sunday's scheduled plans. My girlfriend is Irish, so I still plan to take in some Irish races in time.

To Hell In A Handcart

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