Running

If you have a locker at work you can get away with taking surprisingly little in- I manage with a rolled up ironed (!) shirt, pair of kaks and socks= no weight

Cheers- think I'm addicted though, get depressed if I have to miss a run :( Have to stop looking at all the loons on strava consistently doing 140m/wk

Ooo.. Don't go to any trouble if it's a hassle finding it but if you do stumble across it let me know! I'll try and get the amount of stuff I need to carry down anyway, just need to see if I can persuade work to let me have a locker.

These things don't rub

http://www.salomon.com/us/product/s-lab-adv-skin3-5set.html

Any chance of getting the plate removed instead?

I don't think I'd be able to take myself seriously if I wore that. I only go at shambling pace.

I could have it out, but then operations and recovery and blah.

Cycle in one day a week to dump a new batch of clothes and take the old ones home. Still leaves the other 4 days to run in/home. Somewhere to store it all (e.g. a locker) is key though.

I do something similar (although I'm only in the office two days a week) and it means I can just carry wallet/phone/keys on the day that I run in, this would easily fit in a bum bag if required.

I got my run group to do a 3k vdot test last night, and ran with them despite being on a recovery week and still feeling very tired so didn't want to go all out, I was trying but nowhere near as hard as I usually do, but got a PB, I am confused...

I don't think I'd be able to take myself seriously if I wore that. I only go at shambling pace.

I could have it out, but then operations and recovery and blah.

most people who wear those are doing endurance training. so you'll fit in just fine with the other plodders. they are also amazingly comfortable. albeit very limited in space.

I literally just got mine back yesterday from someone who borrowed it for an ultra last year. if you want to borrow it to give it a go I'm based on london wall for work these days.

It's usually a pretty short recovery time for removal of a plate - 5 days for the wound to heal, and you're back in action.

Shambling pace = ultra shuffle pace. You'd fit right in.

Today's speed session was 4 x 1600m at 5:34/km with 120s recovery between them. Didn't hurt as much as I expected, HR peaked about 20bpm off max (as in max seen in a 5k race near the end knocking on the door of the vomitorium). I'm guessing this is about where I should be pitching the pace for these runs (and the 1000m intervals). (This is all based on the most recent 26:16 5k)

Next week it'll be 7 x 800m at 5:15/km (11.43kph as I have my Forerunner to show lap speed not pace) with 90s recoveries which won't be as fun. At least they're only 4 and a bit minutes long each.

Getting better at keeping HR down on my longer runs. Commute in today was fastest of recent commutes (still keeping it easy at 6:15/km) but HRavg only 156bpm and HRmax only 164bpm (usually I manage to spike it to 170+ running too fast at some point or when climbing the enormous hills such as Mont Chelsea Harbour or Col du Lambeth Bridge). Guess my body is getting more efficient.

120km for the month too with another 15k to do Saturday/Monday.

December calls for 165km as I've got two 15km long runs and a HM (extended commute in).

I'm also trying to do at least one HR restricted run per week, whilst slowly increasing distance week on week. Managed an 8km jog (5:13/km @ 150BPM avg), which included a large hill.
Did an 500m intervals/steps/hill run yesterday, with interval pace hitting 3:30/km.

I'm thinking if I maintain these sessions and then go for a long run on Sunday, with distance increasing slowly toward 23miles max then I should be sorted for a decent first marathon time.

Is anyone here a member of London City Athletics Club?

http://www.londoncityac.com

Any reason not to work up to running (well, plodding) 12km each way to and from work a few times a week? I did both ways today for the first time and it was fairly awful on the way back but it'll get easier, right?

Conscious with weekend running it'd put me over 100km a week which sounds like quite a lot :/

(Edit: have just googled 'is running 100km a week too much' and the internet does seem to think it is. Will reconsider.)

No reason, just be careful building up too fast. And it does get a bit easier (if you keep it easy) otherwise it doesn't get easier, you just get faster. (But if you want to get faster faster then you need to do more stuff easier, hopefully you'll see what I mean...)

I do my 12km commute once or twice a week, but at a lovely slow "easy run" pace (which starts off feeling easy but eventually feels vaguely uncomfortable).

The general rule of thumb is not to add more than 10% distance a week, and the vast majority of your miles are 'easy' runs (at aforementioned slow/shuffling pace).

Obviously you need some sort of base to start on (as 110% of nothing is nothing) but if you're doing 30k a week (if you've done 2 x 12k in a day I assume you're happy with at least 30k a week) then 10% a week adds up very quickly (starting with 30k/week you'd be at 200km/week in 20 weeks at a 10% increase a week). Don't push it too early otherwise you'll risk injury.

The pace calculators here: https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/ are great. I put in my recent 26:16 parkrun and it tells me I should be doing easy runs at 5:59-6:33/km and long runs at 6:00-6:47/km. I'm more than happy with this as it is very achieveable, if anything it feels too slow, but it's doing me good. My commute in today (just shy of 12km) was at 6:17/km and my main goal was keeping my HR down rather than pushing harder and going for a faster time. I am seeing my times go down, but also my HRavg is going down, so I'm getting fitter/more-efficient.

I do two 'quality' runs a week:

• 40m tempo run (according to the bupa marathon training schedule) which I actually do a 5k parkrun (in ~26 minutes, aiming for ~22mins eventually) on a Saturday, and the extra time is the warmup/cool-down (which I do cycling to/from the parkrun)
  
• 40m speed session on a Wednesday (based on the suggestions from PhilPub somewhere up above; 800m, 1000m and 1600m intervals slowing building up and paced based on my most recent 5k parkrun; 800m at about 5k pace, 1000m/1600m at a bit faster than FT pace which you can work out from 5k pace
  
  

One 'long run' a week

• Currently just ~10k, but this soon builds up to 14, 15, 19, 21, 23, 15, 19, 23, ... 35k, before a two week taper and then the marathon.
  
  

The rest is 'quantity' at an easy pace, and it surprised me just how easy this pace is. No bonus points for pushing faster as that would just adversley affect my long or quality runs. These are the runs you want to add to if you want to bulk up your week, don't be tempted to add anything else that's fast.

If in doubt post your plan and let someone far more experienced/qualified than me comment on it. Doing so certainly helped me.

That is incredibly helpful, thank you. I have sort of started following this though am only on week 2: http://cdn.running.competitor.com/files/2012/11/46_nat_r1.pdf

I was considering doing the to and from work runs in place of the tues-weds-thurs runs but that would probably make it difficult for me to do any kind of 'quality' running. There would be lots of miles but all very slow.

I am going to a festival in North Wales this weekend where the forecast is for rain and 50mph winds so that may result in a cut to my Saturday mileage...

^ can you store a bike safely at work for couple of days? Needs two bikes, but ride in run home, ride other bike few days, run in ride home.

Alternatively run full route in then run part route home finish journey on public transport, double seat assured once you're sweaty post run.

I find it hard to run twice a day as I end up with mountains of laundry, especially now it's a bit colder and there are more layers for me to sweat through.

Ha, right. Here's me who has only ever done a slow half marathon giving advice to someone on a ultra plan.

But I'll try anyway! That plan follows the typical good advice for quality/quantity. There's an intervals run (mixed with the hilly runs) on a Wednesday. There's a long run (Saturday) and a tempo-ish run on a Sunday, and the rest is easy and optional easy runs (plus some cross training and core work).

Those plans are great if you can fit them straight into your schedule, but as you're finding out they don't often do that. I took my plan (an intermediate marathon plan from the bupa website) and rejigged it to fit my schedule as I work from home a couple of days a week, work in the office two days a week and have school drop-off/collections to fit in too, plus I didn't want to lose so much family time at the weekends.

Looking at that plan the key things seem to be:

• A long run followed the next day by a hour tempo-ish run
  
• An easy run followed next day by a hilly run or hill intervals, followed next day by another easy run. These are separated from the long and tempo runs.
  
  

As long as you keep these key features then you should be able to rejig it to fit your schedule.

The long run has to remain a single long run, splitting it up between commute in and commute home won't have the same training effect as it won't have you running on the right level of fatigued legs.

The problem with Tue/Wed/Thu for your easy/hilly/easy runs is that I guess it's hard to make a Wednesday commute hilly, or do hill repeats, so, what about moving the whole plan 4 days forward (i.e. the long run on Saturday you now do on a Tuesday):-

• Tue: Long run (extend your commute into work or home from work), reward yourself with the train/bus/tube/boris-bike the other way. Can be an early start but extending my commute into a HM really works for me (once a month or so)
  
• Wed: 1 hour medium effort run (in to work, extend your commute if required, or recovery jog the remaining distance after the hour is up if it's longer than an hour), easy run home
  
• Thu: easy run in, possibly easy run home if you're up to it or get public transport home
  
• Fri: 45-60 min easy run
  
• Sat: Hilly run or hill repeats (this was Wednesday)
  
• Sun: 1:15 to 1:30 easy plus core
  
• Mon: off or easy swim/jog
  
  

Will take some rejigging near the end of the 16 week plan in order to taper correctly, but as long as you're only adding easy runs as extra runs you should be fine (assuming your legs/mind can take it).

A 20+mile long run on the way in or home from work may take a bit of willpower (as opposed to having the whole of a Saturday to do it) but if you can do it and shift the plan by 4 days then it leaves you loads of nice recovery time over the weekend as you'll just have two shortish (in ultra terms) runs to do on Saturday and Sunday.

I find running to/from work to be a nuisance because of carrying shit.

I find running to/from work to be a nuisance because of carrying shit.

Sure, but that's why two journeys a week not running allows you to bulk lug all of the crap you need for the week to work (and the previous stuff back). If the plan above was mine I'd use public transport on a Monday morning to take it all, then run home. Run Tue/Wed/Thu and Friday morning, and then public transport home Friday with a big bag of stinky stuff. A suitcase left under a desk can work in lieu of a locker (depends on workplace though).

When I run in to work I only have to carry wallet, phone(s) and keys. Easily fits in a bum bag (I use a cheap 6L hydration rucksack[1] in case I need to carry something else I've forgotten) or, at a push, one of those arm band things.

1. http://www.mountainwarehouse.com/running-cycling/running-accessories/hydration-packs/circuit-hydro-bag-6l-p12596.aspx?cl=RED and only need the bladder for 20km+ commutes
   

I hate running with a backpack. Bad memories innit.

Why don't you try a clutch bag?

Snap, well - apart from the bad memories, it just annoys the hell out of me to have a bag that swings back and forth.

I'm now approximately the size of the Moon and weight a bazillion kg so running is going to feature in my commute shortly, my intention is to try to alternate, so cycle in Monday morning with two ironed shirts and ancillary items in a bag, leave in locker and run home, run in next morning, cycle home etc.

Trail vests are a little more forgiving than a full bergen.