nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

A Slow Journey to Faster Times

yaboya1

So I finally decided on Seville for my Spring Marathon. The date & costs suit me well and the race seems to be pretty well reviewed by anyone who's previously run it.

This is my first attempt at a training log so please go easy on me!

I've run three previous marathons (3:39, 3:35, 3:34). The aim in Seville is to finally go below 3:30. I've had various things go wrong on me in all of the above, so I think my target is pretty achievable. I haven't done any running since Chicago last month, so I plan to ease back into it gradually for the next month by doing a couple of short/medium runs during the week with a long one at the weekend. Then from the beginning of December I've decided to follow the 12 week 'Up to 55 miles per week' marathon schedule from the Advanced Marathoning book by Pfitzinger & Douglas.

My biggest problem in the past has been going too quickly on my long runs. There are 7 different paces in this plan. I have estimated what pace I should be running them at as follows:

MP runs: 8 min/mile
Long runs: 9 min/mile
Med-long runs: 8:45-9 min/mile
General aerobic runs: 9:30 min/mile
LT runs: 7:35 min/mile
Recovery runs: 12 min/mile
VO2 max intervals: 7 min/mile

If anyone has any comments/observations, I'd be delighted to hear them. Otherwise I'll be back as soon as I get back out on the road.

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

Killerz

Hard luck on that one. Could you have a temporary dip in race zest? Happened to me earlier this year - lost a bit of interest, especially where I had a few races in quick succession. Didn't lose the fitness or ability to record a fast time, just the mental push. Maybe a combo in your case though? Just a thought...

yaboya1

Killerz wrote: »

Hard luck on that one. Could you have a temporary dip in race zest? Happened to me earlier this year - lost a bit of interest, especially where I had a few races in quick succession. Didn't lose the fitness or ability to record a fast time, just the mental push. Maybe a combo in your case though? Just a thought...

I really don't feel like that, but maybe you're right? I've done little or no training since the marathon but it really hasn't been intentional. I want to be out there, but at the moment I've to choose between that and sleep. Sleep is winning.

yaboya1

Disappointing 18:38 at the Tymon parkrun this morning. I'm not racing another race/timed run unless I'm doing some sort of training. It's no fun

paddybarry

yaboya1 wrote: »

Disappointing 18:38 at the Tymon parkrun this morning. I'm not racing another race/timed run unless I'm doing some sort of training. It's no fun

Don't be too hard on yourself. That's far from a quick 5k.

tang1

paddybarry wrote: »

That's far from a quick 5k.

Cheap shot!! Say you meant slow.

menoscemo

tang1 wrote: »

Cheap shot!! Say you meant slow.

That is slow for yaboya. He should be running under 17 off his Marathon fitness but you can't just sit back and put your feet up for 4-5 weeks after a marathon and think you can automatically cash in.
Yaboya, get the finger out and start logging some training!! My 5 mile from Tuesday gives me a 18:4x 5k so If you don't wise up I'll be beating you in a race sometime soon :pac:

paddybarry

tang1 wrote: »

Cheap shot!! Say you meant slow.

Meant the course is far from a quick 5k.

pconn062

menoscemo wrote: »

That is slow for yaboya. He should be running under 17 off his Marathon fitness but you can't just sit back and put your feet up for 4-5 weeks after a marathon and think you can automatically cash in.
Yaboya, get the finger out and start logging some training!! My 5 mile from Tuesday gives me a 18:4x 5k so If you don't wise up I'll be beating you in a race sometime soon :pac:

Have to disagree with you there (respectfully of course!), just becuase you break sub 3 does not mean sub 17 is a given. 16:59, means you need to run 5.28 pace per mile or quicker and being able to run 6.50's for 26 mile doesn't translate into sub 5.30 mileing for 5k. 16:5X is fast running and shouldn't be taken for granted, it takes specific training, of which marathon training only provides a small amount of, ie providing a big aerobic base. Of course your point about no training stands as well.

menoscemo

pconn062 wrote: »

Have to disagree with you there (respectfully of course!), just becuase you break sub 3 does not mean sub 17 is a given. 16:59, means you need to run 5.28 pace per mile or quicker and being able to run 6.50's for 26 mile doesn't translate into sub 5.30 mileing for 5k. 16:5X is fast running and shouldn't be taken for granted, it takes specific training, of which marathon training only provides a small amount of, ie providing a big aerobic base. Of course your point about no training stands as well.

Pconn you are taking me up wrong. I am not saying he should break 17 just because he broke 3 ( I reckon a low to mid 18 would be ok for me and several others I know to break 3).

The point I am making is that yaboya was running low 17 5ks just before his marathon (during marathon training) and had a goal of breaking 17 after the marathon. While recovery after a marathon is always important; not running a mile for 5 weeks except for turning up for 3 races is a recipe for going backwards. That's why I am telling him to get his finger out!!

pconn062

menoscemo wrote: »

Pconn you are taking me up wrong. I am not saying he should break 17 just because he broke 3 ( I reckon a low to mid 18 would be ok for me and several others I know to break 3).

The point I am making is that yaboya was running low 17 5ks just before his marathon (during marathon training) and had a goal of breaking 17 after the marathon. While recovery after a marathon is always important; not running a mile for 5 weeks except for turning up for 3 races is a recipe for going backwards. That's why I am telling him to get his finger out!!

Apologies, I misunderstood!

Notwork Error

yaboya1 wrote: »

Disappointing 18:38 at the Tymon parkrun this morning. I'm not racing another race/timed run unless I'm doing some sort of training. It's no fun

I'm not going to sugercoat it either but that's a poor run for you. The same thing happened after Berlin and Dublin last year and I thought it might be down to you feeling tired but in my opinion now, I think it's down to motivation because you don't lose that much fitness in such a short time and from your report, it came across like you didn't do much damage to your body this time around.

The reason I think this is that personally, I've had similar experiences after two marathons where my fitness just seemed to fall off a cliff. The thing I find about marathons is how mentally taxing the whole thing is from the first day of training to crossing the line. It's 5 months of training all aimed at one race and when it's over, it's a kind of shock to the system that it's all over and the motivation suffers and everything goes a bit aimless.

The only way I have found to gain it back is to pick a target race and train for it. Just getting out the door and running when you don't want to is what gets it back. The more you train, the hungrier you get in my experience.

My 2 cents on it, could be completely wrong!

yaboya1

paddybarry wrote: »

Don't be too hard on yourself. That's far from a quick 5k.

tang1 wrote: »

Cheap shot!! Say you meant slow.

paddybarry wrote: »

Meant the course is far from a quick 5k.

I know what you meant pb

But to be fair, it is slow (for me). That's not being derogatory to anyone else btw. I would imagine anyone running almost 90 seconds outside their pb over 5k would consider it slow.
What you say about the course may be true pb, but that wasn't the reason for my performance. My legs just haven't got the miles in them lately. Plain and simple.

tang1

Just to clarify, i wasn't having a dig, i know 18.38 is very slow for you and you should be running an awful lot quicker as menoscemo pointed out. By no means was i calling you slow.

yaboya1

menoscemo wrote: »

That is slow for yaboya. He should be running under 17 off his Marathon fitness but you can't just sit back and put your feet up for 4-5 weeks after a marathon and think you can automatically cash in.
Yaboya, get the finger out and start logging some training!! My 5 mile from Tuesday gives me a 18:4x 5k so If you don't wise up I'll be beating you in a race sometime soon :pac:

Completely agree with you.
Few pints on Monday with Murph & Anna and then I'm getting the head down again.

yaboya1

pconn062 wrote: »

Have to disagree with you there (respectfully of course!), just becuase you break sub 3 does not mean sub 17 is a given. 16:59, means you need to run 5.28 pace per mile or quicker and being able to run 6.50's for 26 mile doesn't translate into sub 5.30 mileing for 5k. 16:5X is fast running and shouldn't be taken for granted, it takes specific training, of which marathon training only provides a small amount of, ie providing a big aerobic base. Of course your point about no training stands as well.

I agree in principle with what you're saying but as meno said, I ran low 17s more than once in the middle of marathon training. My pb is 17:15 from a windy day on a tough course in Marlay (paddybarry will verify this). I'm certain I can go sub 17 once I get my act together, but like the sub 2:50 marathon it's only own opinion until I go and do it

.

There are lots of things I can improve on from my previous marathon cycle. It's up to me to go and do that now.

yaboya1

Notwork Error wrote: »

I'm not going to sugercoat it either but that's a poor run for you. The same thing happened after Berlin and Dublin last year and I thought it might be down to you feeling tired but in my opinion now, I think it's down to motivation because you don't lose that much fitness in such a short time and from your report, it came across like you didn't do much damage to your body this time around.

The reason I think this is that personally, I've had similar experiences after two marathons where my fitness just seemed to fall off a cliff. The thing I find about marathons is how mentally taxing the whole thing is from the first day of training to crossing the line. It's 5 months of training all aimed at one race and when it's over, it's a kind of shock to the system that it's all over and the motivation suffers and everything goes a bit aimless.

The only way I have found to gain it back is to pick a target race and train for it. Just getting out the door and running when you don't want to is what gets it back. The more you train, the hungrier you get in my experience.

My 2 cents on it, could be completely wrong!

I agree with you. Although what I would say is that it's probably less down to motivation and more down to feeling I deserve a break after a tough block of training. The problem is I take it a bit too far :P

yaboya1

tang1 wrote: »

Just to clarify, i wasn't having a dig, i know 18.38 is very slow for you and you should be running an awful lot quicker as menoscemo pointed out. By no means was i calling you slow.

Cheers tang.
I know that

I'll be honest though, I would like a bit of criticism from time to time. Running the time I ran today (and in Enfield) considering my pb doesn't really deserve anything else (especially not congratulations) imo.

tang1

yaboya1 wrote: »

Cheers tang.
I know that

I'll be honest though, I would like a bit of criticism from time to time. Running the time I ran today (and in Enfield) considering my pb doesn't really deserve anything else (especially not congratulations) imo.

To be honest i checked the results of Enfield while i was in France and was surprised to see the man that finished a place ahead of you beating you. Hes a great runner, but i would have thought you would have finished comfortably ahead of him. Time to take the finger out after Monday as you said.

yaboya1

tang1 wrote: »

To be honest i checked the results of Enfield while i was in France and was surprised to see the man that finished a place ahead of you beating you. Hes a great runner, but i would have thought you would have finished comfortably ahead of him. Time to take the finger out after Monday as you said.

If you want me to be completely honest, I don't think anybody that passed me after the 1 mile mark in Enfield should be beating me. Maybe that's arrogant/cocky whatever, but I don't care. It's what I honestly believe. I was watching people streaming by me from that point thinking 'I shouldn't be letting this happen', but the lack of training meant I could do nothing about it. Hence why I'm not going to 'race' again until I'm in some sort of reasonable condition. I don't like running in races without doing myself justice.

tang1

Nothing arrogant or cocky about it, i'd feel the exact same if i were you. And regarding not racing until you feel you can do yourself justice, i'm doing the exact same thing after tomorrow, not planning on racing again till mid-July.

Killerz

Hey P -Don't want to bang the drum on this one again, but I do think as I mentioned in a post a while back that part of the difficulty is too many races and trying to get that sub 17 . I'm no expert but can my speak from experience and I'd echo what some others have mentioned, take a few weeks off racing, get the training in order, get the hunger back and nail it then.

Itziger

Just to add my tuppence worth. There are people here, Krusty being a prime example, who can train and race and race and train week in week out and don't seem to suffer any side effects. But that strategy is most certainly not for everybody. Bigger picture folks. Put in a good base and the times will come. Whether that be this year or next year or 5 years time, they'll come.

In fact, some would say that the quicker you progress and achieve those times, the quicker you'll burn yourself out afterwards. I always seem to be ticking you off on here. Sorry.

yaboya1

Itziger wrote: »

Just to add my tuppence worth. There are people here, Krusty being a prime example, who can train and race and race and train week in week out and don't seem to suffer any side effects. But that strategy is most certainly not for everybody. Bigger picture folks. Put in a good base and the times will come. Whether that be this year or next year or 5 years time, they'll come.

In fact, some would say that the quicker you progress and achieve those times, the quicker you'll burn yourself out afterwards. I always seem to be ticking you off on here. Sorry.

I actually think I can take a lot if training/racing too. It's only when I ease off/stop that I encounter problems.

Anyway, don't apologise. I welcome feedback/criticism/honest opinions on this log.

yaboya1

I don't feel like I've been entirely transparent with my training recently. Basically if I didn't have it recorded on my Garmin I didn't count it, but thinking back I've really been working hard and should probably log it.

Here's my last week anyway:

Monday 25th May

Interval session - 2 x (2 x 400m walks to the bus stop)

Up early for this one. No official times, but using my phone clock as a guide.

Rep 1 - I reckon I did the first one in about 2:30. A little bit disappointed with this as it was mostly downhill.

Rep 2 - 1 hour recovery due to the bus journey, rep 2 was a completely flat and completed in a similar time. Should be slower I suppose, but the body would have been more awake by then.

Rep 3 - 12 hour recovery due to work shift. Same route in reverse as rep 3. Probably closer to 2:00 as I ran the last bit to catch the bus. Annoyed with myself about that. Shouldn't be racing my training sessions!

Rep 4 - Rep 1 in reverse. All uphill and less of a recovery due to the lighter late evening traffic. Probably about 3:00+. Not that disappointed with the time tbh as I was sending texts and speaking on the phone throughout, so a slower interval was to be expected.

Tuesday 26th May

Rest day.
Knackered after yesterday's intervals

Wednesday 27th May

0.8m Easy.
Divided this into a series of tea runs at work. Sometimes I had 4/5 mugs to carry, whereas other times it was only 1/2, so the pace varied. Can't be getting annoyed about that, especially as I had pushed a little too hard when running for the bus on Monday.

Thursday 28th May

4 x 100m @ 50k walk pace (including 2 x 10mins on a dublinbike)

Was up half the night worrying about this one, but in the end I nailed it

.

Rep 1 -Kept a steady consistent pace to the dublinbike station, before grabbing a bike and upping the effort (level 23). Jogged the 100m recovery after depositing the bike. Delighted to have the whole day to wind down afterwards.

Rep 2 - Needed to up the pace an the way to the bike station, as there was only one bike left and another guy had his eye on it. I accelerated and swiped my card before he got there, meaning he had to wait on someone else to drop one back. I managed an evil laugh to myself as I cycled away :pac:. Effort level was only 31 on this one as I hadn't got a lot left, having taken plenty out of myself to secure the bike. I think I only managed 100k walk pace on the return afterwards. Solid session nonetheless.

Friday 29th May

Rest day.
Could barely get out of bed today, never mind do any running.
Training is hard!

Saturday 30th May

Double day today

A.M.

Disappointing Tymon parkrun in 18:38.
Having originally thought I hadn't done enough, reading this back makes me think I may have done too much?

P.M.

Drove 200+ miles in the car. Feel like I need to build up my right leg now as the left leg did all the clutch work. Will probably join a gym and specifically do weights with my right leg to balance out any driving I do.

Sunday 31st May

10k walk @ various paces

Walked a couple of dogs around some country roads. It was a rolling route, meaning the pace was far from consistent. Probably the ideal recovery after yesterday's double.

Monday 1st June

Strength & Conditioning

Spent most of the afternoon in the pub. I alternated arms every time I lifted my pints to ensure neither side would be favoured. Wasn't going to make the same mistake as I did while driving on Saturday

I am a bit worried though, as I started each pint with my right arm. This obviously means my left arm wasn't making as much effort due to the slightly lighter glass on each lift, consequently getting less of a workout.
Will this affect my running??

tang1

And you could only manage 18.38 over 5k after that SERIOUS week of solid training........ Shame on you.

davedanon

Dude, you seriously need to buy a left-hand drive car, to correct that serious imbalance in your resistance workout.

RacoonQueen

davedanon wrote: »

Dude, you seriously need to buy a left-hand drive car, to correct that serious imbalance in your resistance workout.

But the left hand gets a good workout from the gear stick, handbrake and controlling the radio/air con that the right hand does not

tailgunner

Even reading about the dublinbike session was exhausting. Well done for toughing it out.

tunguska

I feel though that you're being unfair to yourself, I mean surely you should be including the energy expended whilst brushing your teeth, cooking meals, laps of the veg section in Aldi, carrying shopping bags.......surely you should be tracking it all and posting it up on Facebook? #workinghard

kit3

Really interested in your theory on the driving - I did two such training sessions over the weekend - found my right leg was a bit wrecked after the first leg (Saturday) but I seem to be ok today after yesterday's leg ! Would you put that down to building muscle memory on the first leg ??