The Road to Richmond

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Fantastic, Dan! Another month of that sort of running and you'll rip that marathon apart. Fantastic stuff!!

[marathondan]

Cheers mate. But I'm badly creaking all over if I sit down for too long. Like, seriously hobbling. These few weeks are going to be physically demanding, but I'm looking forward to it.

Dare I ask, how are things with you?

A postscript to the run - I delighted and appalled my girls in equal measure by taking off my shoes to reveal a blood-filled sock, caused by a little bit of sharp nail that had been digging into the adjacent toe for most of the journey. Fairly painless, but one more thing to keep an eye on.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Cheers mate. But I'm badly creaking all over if I sit down for too long. Like, seriously hobbling. These few weeks are going to be physically demanding, but I'm looking forward to it.

Dare I ask, how are things with you?

Basically, awful. I'll write a post about it soon... but I don't think a race any time soon is much of an option. Cést la vie.

[marathondan]

A couple more rain-soaked late night sessions to report. Turns out that being at home with the kids, the days are just as busy as being at work. But the evenings are free, so I've been out around the field for some nostalgic high effort laps after dark. My fondest memories of past sessions here are in the rain, so the running gods have obliged on both occasions, throwing down delightful summer bucketfuls till my t-shirt is clinging wet.

Interval session on Thursday, 90 sec sprint / 90 sec jog. To avoid having to keep lighting up my Garmin, I counted steps to time the sprints. Turns out 120 (double) steps takes me 90 sec, meaning my natural cadence of 160 hasn't changed. Then 9 miles tempo last night. These are the runs where I really feel progress in being made - when I'm running a hard session further than I could run an easy session a few months ago. I say hard - my times are not what they once were, and I'm sure I could have gone harder in both outings. But all grist to the mill.

Backpack is packed, and mp3 player loaded, for 18 miler tomorrow morning.

[El Gordo]

Excellent stuff, Dan. I'm even including the injuries in that, as no marathon campaign worth its salt passes without serial 'oh no, is this the end of the campaign?' dramas. 

[Geeky aside.] Sorry if I've missed the vital info, but what's your software of choice these days? Still Excel? (Once considered the height of geeky sophistication, now weirdly low tech.)

[marathondan]

Yes, still Excel. Though with fewer fields these days. I'm not even logging times - they're stored somewhere in the cloud, in the Garmin Connect database. Which I don't bother to access very often, as my watch seems to want to download my entire history every time. Wireless jobby, too clever for its own good. And if I'm running a known route at a standard pace, I don't even bother with the watch.

Good luck with the National Day Plod!

[Sweder]

Dan, I'm loving this minimalist approach, especially on the Intervals. There's a sense of nobility and freedom about ditching the watch. It also suggests you are nicely in tune with your inner runner. Good luck with the 18 miler. That would take me most of the day, these days.

[Charliecat5]

Not on your LBMB* it wouldn't

*Lazy Bastard Mountain Bike

[marathondan]

Costume confirmed: SCIENCE GUY

a) because that is what I am
b) to highlight the role of science in the fight against cancer
c) to reinforce stereotypes of scientists as people with bad hair and poor dress sense

Should be a bit sweaty and uncomfortable, but I've had worse!

Based on current plodding pace and a V40 PB of 3:59:62 (albeit 5 years ago), I reckon I will aim for about 4:20.
   

[Bierzo Baggie]

Excellent!
Will you be carrying a test tube and a bunsen burner?

[marathondan]

Excellent!
Will you be carrying a test tube and a bunsen burner?

I did ponder that. Glassware is out, for safety reasons, but I can get hold of a large plastic measuring cylinder.

[marathondan]

Arse. Lost a nearly complete post. Buggered if I can be bothered to type it all again. Potted summary:

Algarve
Red farm tracks
1.5 mile loop with 70m climb
Out before breakfast
Back to the Fens
Flat and cool
Mo & 2x4x100
10 miles round the field as midnight approaches

Thence to this morning's 19 miler. 4 laps round my nice large circuit, which takes in open fields, trails and woodland. Beautiful on a summer's morn. The run was completed without too much fuss, a little on the slow side, confirming that 4:20 isn't a bad race target to aim for. Doing a quick systems check now, quads are battered. That tallies with the run, when legs were definitely the limiting factor. This is no doubt as a result of not investing in new shoes; with the slightly straightened circumstances of my new career I resent having to splash out on a new pair for every marathon. So I will probably switch to an old pair from the loft, which should only have one year's miles on the clock, and do the best I can.

On the positive side, hips, knees, hammies, calves, achilles, ankles, heels and soles are all tickety-boo. Also, races aside, I've never run this far in the morning before, always just before bed. So I'll see how things are in the morning.

And so into a new week. This week's long one is another step-back, then just the 20 miler to go and it's taper time.

[Sweder]

marathondanArse. Lost a nearly complete post. Buggered if I can be bothered to type it all again.

Oh I HATE that. What a gyp. I always mean to type long posts into Word, but they don't always start out as long posts ...
The good news is, you're back on track and getting some good miles in.
Keep it going, Dan!

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Yep, I learned the hard way, too many times, about not typing long posts directly into the forum. You'd think a science guy would know that?!

That aside, great work on your part Dan, sounds like you're well on track!

[marathondan]

As Sweder says, they don't always start out as long posts...

[marathondan]

12 mile step back LSD this morning. Have decided this is my favourite run of the entire training programme. Nestling between 19 and 20 mile long runs, it's a distance that would have been daunting 4 months ago, but now the prospect of it provides pleasant relief. And so the run proved to be, a calm and measured morning trot around damp fields and woodland, comfortably around race pace. As it happened, I ended up completing exactly a half marathon, due to some lap miscounting. On the audio was the second half of the Keep On Running piece, which turned out to be excellent. Worth keeping on the hard drive and trotting out again in future I think - three-hour radio programmes on running don't come along very often. I have an mp3 if anyone would like it.

And so I enter Peak Week.

[marathondan]

Peak Week: done

A total of 37 miles for the week, which is about as big as it gets for me. Culminating in the 20 miler, which is always a bit of a landmark as it's the last long run before taper time. As I've basically followed the same training plan for all 6 of my previous marathons, and have blogged about it fairly diligently, it occurred to me that I've probably got a writeup for each of the previous 6. And so it proved:

2005: http://marathondan.blogspot.co.uk/2005/0...ed-20.html
2009: http://www.runningcommentary.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=68&pid=16403#pid16403
2010: http://runningcommentary.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=1837&pid=19498#pid19498
2011: http://runningcommentary.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=1959&pid=20653#pid20653
2012: http://runningcommentary.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=2145&pid=22699#pid22699
2015: http://runningcommentary.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=2390&pid=26940#pid26940

Some went smoothly, some were a learning experience of things not to do on the day, but overall the feeling seems to have been job done, and a sense of anticipation as race day approaches touching distance.

This morning's was a corker. From the off I paced carefully at 10 minute miling, and it was a truly comfortable run, really the most comfortable (non step back) long run I can remember. As I entered the last of 4 laps, I had to check my watch several times to make sure I hadn't miscounted and was actually 5 miles behind where I thought, so good was I feeling. In the last couple of miles I was still having to hold back the pace, and for the first time ever in a training run, I really think I could have done 26.2 today.

10 m/m will be a little too slow on race day - I will have to start a touch faster to offset the inevitable decline in pace - and I will of course have the costume, so the effort level will be a little higher. But the race day pixies will also be there to help me.

TAAAAPPPPPEEERRRR TIIIIIMMMME!!!!!

[marathondan]

PS - today is the day that I achieved an average of 2 miles per day for the year - 480 miles in 240 days. This was the motivational target that got me up and running this year. It took until 29th April for me to get to 119 miles in 119 days. Hopefully post-race I'll keep up 7 miles a week.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Very useful to have clear records to refer to and compare. I'm trying to dig mine out at the moment but they are all scribbled down in notebooks! 
Best of luck with the taper... all looking good at the moment. Any updates on the wacky costume?

[marathondan]

Best of luck with the taper... all looking good at the moment. Any updates on the wacky costume?

It is as per the photo above... not planning to do a test run as it's quite basic. The wig has already been through a marathon (London 2009) so not too worried there. Main concern is probably armpit chafe from running in a standard cotton work shirt.