Running

Partner and I were running through the woods by the Lea on Hackney Marshes yesterday when we heard an almighty cracking, and an enormous solid tree crashed down across the path about 4m in front of us. There was a couple and baby who were incredibly close too. It was bloody terrifying. We all just stood there shouting oh my god before thinking that we should probably get out of the woods pronto.

It was such a strong, solid and rooted tree – snapped clean in half by the wind. Wild. Stay safe out there, folks!

Sounds fun!

I love running the Taff trail.

I love running the Taff trail

I didn't really enjoy a lot of it tbh, just felt like endless flat cycle path running along behind endless estates that all looked very similar for the second half (Merthyr to Nantgawr). I prefer to be off road so the first half was more enjoyable despite the weather being far worse earlier on.
Maybe there are normally great views across the valleys but we missed out those.
Toward the end I was struggling to up the pace but when I left the trail and went down a short hill it was enough to get the legs turning over again and I maintained a better pace for the last mile or so to the finish. I think I'm just used to more undulating terrain.

First 50km week for 3 months. Feeling good, hopefully over injury and time to get head down and improving times.

Running Club - If anyone fancies RP lap(s) after work then it's now about light enough to manage this.

Signed up for the Edinburgh marathon at the end of May. This’ll be my first ever marathon and I’ve done no real running up until now (I was supposed to start training in January but hey-ho).

Currently running x3 10km’s a week. Two of them I’m trying to improve on time (currently 10km in 50 mins), and then the third run I am going to increase the distance of every week by a few km.

My gut feeling is that this is an ok plan. Is this an ok plan or am I an idiot?

By aiming to get faster over 2 of the 10km's you're just building fatigue which won't help after a while.

Concentrate on building your distance covered (or time on feet) at a comfortable pace as you describe run 3 to be. Run the other 2 x 10k's slower, and sometimes shorten these runs.

Set a faster 10k goal for sometime after the Marathon if that is important to you.

Enjoy!

Also... consider some S&C stuff too, as you're going from low miles to Marathon that'll put pressure on bits of you that aren't used to the impacts involved.

Sounds like sound advice - thank you!

Strength and conditioning? I’m doing yoga twice a week as well as some body weight exercises (planks, squats blah blah blah) for this, anything else you would suggest?

If you like watching fast UK athletes over 5k it is the brooks Armagh 5k tonight. 8.30. I'll post a link once I find it.

women's 3k live now. https://www.facebook.com/pg/armagh5k/videos/?ref=page_internal

mens 5k live now.

run 16.50 in a 5k race and come last. decent standard field.

Friend was running the 3km

How did they get on? Did they enjoy it? The atmosphere is supposed to be amazing.

No idea, you just reminded me, sent him a text to see how he got on

This could be Epic...

http://live.opentracking.co.uk/wwra2020/

60th in 9:31 - that’s the time he was going for so fair play

Just looking at that makes my legs ache!

Running news: Not much progress on actual running this week other than a couple of jogs to the gym and back. Bit of a cold earlier in the week. Oh and I forgot to tell Brighton Marathon that I hadn't planned on another pacing job this year but the new pacing organiser got in touch to check on my t-shirt size so I thought, why not, hopefully my foot injury's recovered/recovering, and I can get some decent mileage in over the next couple of months. So if anyone's doing Brighton and looking for sub-3...

Rowing news: Feeling like the cold had gone I got back to the gym and had another go at a 10k TT today. Aiming to get under 37 mins and felt good: 36:48.2 (Pace 1:50.4) Yay! Just 21 secs outside my PB , so I'll have a go at this in another month or so after a few more interval sessions.

Good work.

Lfgss runners:
Next week. Parkrun? South north east west. Hold tight. No hats no trainers. Etc.
.anyone?

I can't do a London one next week because of the Nationals but can do the 29th.

Highbury Fields if anyone is interested

I've found this running plan for a 1:45 HM.
https://www.runningfastr.com/half-marathon-training-plan/145-half-marathon-training-plan/
but it's not really what I am looking for. Looking for a proper detailed 12 week plan (in km pacing) , from that one I'm not sure when I should be running.

Any suggestions?

How about one of the Hal Higdon HM plans? I used HH for my first marathon and thought it worked well. I like the fact he doesn't get too prescriptive regarding pace for every run but there's enough quality in there and he guides you through a sensible mileage build-up over 12 weeks. I also like the relatively heavy-training weekends, with race pace runs on a Saturday followed by the Sunday long run, book-ended by cross-training or rest Monday/Friday, which I think is good for getting you used to running your long runs on tired legs.

Caveat to any training plan is that it should be doable compared to what you're used to, i.e. don't jump from 2/3 days of running to 5 days, and/or big increase in either volume or quality.

At the moment I do three days per week. Do you think it would be possible / safe to ramp up to four for the first six weeks, then five for the last six?

Yeah I think that would be a good progression. Make each introductory run an easy one, and keep everything else the same before ramping anything up by way of either length of long run or additional tempo/race pace/interval session. IMO the key to managing a HM if your usual day-to-day training isn't very high volume is to increase the mileage rather than smashing fast reps, and I think the other plan you linked has too much intensity and not enough easy running. HH has a good balance I think.