Running

Pretty rapid still, with your base from the ultra that time will drop quickly with a bit of 5k focused work.

I didn't realise you were going for a full marathon. Sounds like you were improving so I hope your football injury doesn't knock you back.

My prep for Sunday - meh. Did some intervals last night in the rain, painful. I am already planning where to bail out of the HM early. I may end up doing 21km but ending at home rather than Greenwich.

But I'm feeling better about running in general now. So Hackney Half should be good.

Was that you peering out at me from the group of stretching runners in the carpark? I'd forgotten the bloody nutella and was sent to go and get it. I think you're making a runner of ms alias btw

Anyone else motivated by seemingly arbitrary numbers?

Absolutely. Full saddo here - wear a hr strap for even the most mundane commutes. I keep tinkering with my hr zones based on various algorithms and I've ended up with a situation where my 'fitness' scores are pretty hard to go up - I've got a pal who's in the hundreds and I ride more than him and I'm in the 20s. Keeps me entertained though.

I've not used a HR monitor since I left my chest strap in a pub many years ago, but I think the thing I miss the most was the "beats per mile" metric on fetcheveryone.com. It showed a pretty useful correlation between my hear rate efficiency at various paces, and my race times. And if you were trying to monitor improvements in fitness it prevented you being tempted to increase the pace of your easy runs whilst trying to kid yourself you weren't working any harder.

Foot after last night's 6.5 mile run: all good.

Monday @ cwp? Don't remember peering at anyone - although with my aging eyes peering is default these days! We binned off group stretching as we'd been in the hailstorm so everyone was too cold to stand about (instruction was to stretch once home).

Glad Ms A is enjoying it, she's approaching things sensibly & making good progress :)

fetcheveryone

I've just 'followed' you on there... not sure what that does.

Useful training log, mine goes back over 10yrs now.

Which club do you run with? I'm looking for one in Manchester which does a mixture of road/ trail and fell, I am relatively new to the sport.

Which side of MCR are you on? S.MCR I'd say Chorlton Runners or Sale Harriers. If you like swim and bike there's Man Tri (my club).

A buddy joined Swinton recently & is enjoying their setup.

Thanks! I'm Levenshulme so will probably check out Chorlton runners as I cant swim very well.

Ohh, which HM are you doing? I'm running in the Paris one on Sunday, hoping also to get around 2:15 - last year I did 2:17, although I have to say I'm not sure I'm as fit as I was last year!

@Greenbank ah crap, just saw your later post, which probably nullifies my last one. Hope your leg gets better soon and good luck with the London marathon in April. I'm doing the Paris one on the 14th and not looking forward to it!

Talking of which, quick question for all the experts out there... when training for the marathon, in terms of the long runs, is it time on your feet or distance which is more important? That is, when I'm increasing my weekly long run, should I be trying to go X miles further each week (currently, about 3 miles) or increasing the time (e.g. 30 minutes longer each week)? Probably too late to actually be asking this question as I'm already up to 17 miles (3:20 last Sunday) and there's not that long to go, but it's a question I've been pondering for a while now...

Thanks! And happy running all :)

They probably equate to roughly the same thing, so I wouldn't sweat it. Everyone says for longer than a marathon just focus on time on feet but for some reason marathon is X miles. It's easy to get caught up on the long run and how far you've been and how that's still not as far as the marathon, and how long was someone else's long run? Etc.
One interesting thing I read in the Hanson's marathon book is that long runs of between 2-3 hours are good for promoting the physiological adaptations required for running a marathon. So they alter the distance of long runs based on time (if you run faster then you'll do more miles in 2 hours than someone running slower).
General opinion is stick to the 10% rule when upping distance and you'll do great.

You're already up to 17 miles though, which is awesome. Regular ish runs of that distance or there abouts will see you right.

Thanks very much for the advice. I feel good and bad... Last year I did my first marathon, partly as an attempt to give up smoking. 5:10:24 and was very proud, although would have liked to crack the 5h mark actually. Friend egged me on to do it again this year with her which I stupidly agreed to. Kept up running for a bit but then relapsed on the smoking over the summer and was pretty heavy with that up to the beginning of this year; needless to say, I didn't do any running during that time! Started off the year ok with some fresh determination, spurred on by another friend who encouraged me to do a 10k in Rome with him towards the end of January. 60:00:26 which I was extremely happy with as I was expecting more like 70 minutes - especially given the fun times I'd had over the winter period! Anyway, have increased rapidly since then, probably way more than the 10% rule (anyway, is that 10% distance per week, or per long run, or what?!). Hindrances have been work (24h shifts every once in a while) and holidays (diving!) whereas help was the glorious - but scary and unseasonable - weather recently. The HM this weekend will be an "easy" week after the 17m last weekend (and a planned 18-19 the week after), then one more long run after that and looking forward to the taper before hoping the weather warms up again a bit in early April. Aside from that, just planning on doing some intervals if I can fit them in - but all depends on "outside" / other committments.
Anyway, great thread (like so many others on this forum) and love picking up tips from reading even if I don't post so often. Thanks to all!

Talking of which, quick question for all the experts out there... when training for the marathon, in terms of the long runs, is it time on your feet or distance which is more important

There is a useful vid on this here:

https://youtu.be/EO1hQ_kplgo

Cool. Their Sunday runs are v.popular, and they have a Fell group called the Black Sheep. I've been using their track sessions of late, have been good.

Monday @ cwp?

Nope! Good luck on Sunday in any case

Ta! Guessing you were passing The Bowling Green then? I haven't made it to any of those sessions yet.

Thanks. I just watched the video - and have to say it makes a lot of sense! Training for a 10k and you do 2 miles a day.... Training for 100m and you do a max of 30m. And then, training for 26m and you have to do 20m?! I'm convinced :)

NOOOOO! I’ve only owned these shoes a few months, but the heel has started splitting and it’s gonna cause me serious pain on longer runs.

They’re the best shoes I’ve ever run in, but I guess they’re more of a race shoe and not designed for loads of miles.

Any repair suggestions? Are they goners?

1 Attachment

What model? How many miles done? Where bought from?

Nice one, I think it is good advice too.

Salomon Sonic Pro.

I've probably only done 200 miles MAX in them. They looked brand new when I got them.

Got them secondhand, so not much I can do.

Edit: they were only £40 posted, which helps with the pain.

so you found out a type of shoe you like and it didn't cost you much, providing they are still for sale, id take this as a win!

in related news shoes seem to be getting silly expensive these days, struggling to find anything i like to run in for less than £60, all the big brands seem to think people want to spend £200+ on shoes now.... judging by wokingham half marathon and the number of nike 4%s it seems that they do...