Running

@juanito and @hats thank you both for your donations! In the holding pen at blue start now. Been for a pee now just got to drop bag.

I'm in a ls red top with yellow st Peter's Hospice vest over the top, number 17738 if you want to track me.

The suns come out but it's still chilly here!

Following!

@Arducius Well done on the sub4 Andy!

All done. Knee held out. 3.15
Chuffed :)

What time did @PhilPub do?

3h bang on or he'd be in the RIP thread by now?

Woop, well done @duncs and @Arducius!

Great day out, feel really inspired, shouted "Phil!!" at every pacer (forgot what colour/time @PhilPub was), acquired a giant wig and then ate a pie. Top stuff.

Also, 02:03:05, wtf. So fast!

The 3:15 pacers were bang on. The first one passed me at mile 25 as I was flagging, last passed about 500 yards from the end. I finished in 3:15:19 and they were just up the road. Great work

Think I saw @philpub as the starting groups merged in Woolwich. Didn't see him again

Checking the Facebooks, friends have done between 2.25 and 5.57. Great work everyone.

2.25 though...

2:03:05! That's an average pace of 2min 55sec/km... By way of comparison I can hold that pace for all of 26secs, or 150m! In the women's race, Sumgong's average pace was 3min 23sec/km... I could keep up for just 1min 30sec or 450m!

Amazing.

.

Was down at mile 18 for the majority to see family and club mates. First time spectating, was going to shout Phil at the 3:00 pacer but realised I didn't know which colour pacer. Fantastic atmosphere must run some time.

2:59:00 (halfway 1:29:02) Job done! It actually felt a little harder than last year due to less mileage in the legs but I had a couple of spare gears if I needed them. Every time I do this I remind myself how far it is and respect everyone who races it all-out. It's a bloody long way!

Thanks for the left at ~21 miles, Run Dem Crew. Kept me going.

@Arducius - Great work, nice one!!

Am at the pub with run dem atm duncs and philpub i have photos for you need to upload

Best result to pop up on my FB feed so far is 3:42:42... for the Women's UK V70 record!

Well done everyone!

Thanks everyone. I am very tired. Pleased to go sub 4 but a bit annoyed I misread my watch and thought I was doing 9 min miles but was looking at average pace not current pace. Schoolboy. Probably couldn't have gone a lot faster though as I was dead and calf started doing this weird ripple of cramp from the bottom up to the top which would hit and then release really quickly.

Run Dem were awesome, as were loads of other people and groups. Cutty Sark too. Probably others I'll remember once I've had some sleep!

Too tired to do a proper write up, tomorrow maybe.

And well done everyone else who ran today!

Another and: I really hope the guy I saw on the floor around mile 21 or 22 surrounded by paramedics (one performing chest compressions) pulled through. Heal up runner.

Apols for the spam but if anyone is interested in a Massif Central Marathon print - here's the link:http://themassifcentral.co.uk/products/london-marathon-2016

Individually Personalised & Printed
A3
£26.20

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Tech-T Memento for anyone who ever finished London.

https://www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/en-gb/event-info/oneinamillion/

P.s. I'm Finisher #517354 apparently.

Entertaining day, watched at miles 15,18 and 25. All impressive, some were clearly battling through the pain, but I was particularly impressed by the bloke I saw carrying the washing machine on his back

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That guy was interviewed before the start, was going for the world record for 'carrying a household appliance' across marathon distance.

It apparently has to be over 25kg and he said it weighed 26kg which made me wonder if he was allowed to shave bits off or they had to remain factory standard.

He finished in 06:05:21!

Ok then. Who has the bomb marathon plan? I'm running Dublin on 30 October and want to start marathon specific training on 1 August. Until then I want to continue as I am now just doing about 30km a week because I want to spend the summer evenings cycling. Does that work?

Remind me to ask how you enjoy Dublin, I've been thinking about that for next year.

The more miles you can run the better, but you probably want to enjoy life (and cycling) in the real world, so I would at least try to segue into marathon-type training by gradually increasing a weekly long run, and ideally getting used to doing a mid-week longish run as well. Cycling will take the place of some easy running, but you will need tarmac-hardened running muscles to give the marathon a good go. Some plans get you starting on around 40k/week, so if you can get used to 40-50k at least in a couple of peak weeks, pre-marathon training proper, it'll be easier to slot into the schedule when it kicks off.

As for specific plans, it depends on what kinds of sessions you're used to doing. At the sharp end, Pfitzinger & Douglas "Advanced Marathoning" has some excellent tried and tested plans based on different training mileage, but there's a lot of quality, i.e. interval sessions/tempo runs, etc. A more straightforward approach (mainly easy running, some "race pace" practise but less interval work) can be found in Hal Higdon's beginner/intermediate plans.