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spikyone

indesisiv wrote: »

Hope you get better soon.. I've not run since manchester due to taking time out to get my injuries better. But I guess that is what you get for training for 4 months with injuries instead of letting it get better.

I have no idea why they didn't release the GFA times before the spring marathons! So many people were ecstatic that they got the target only to suddenly miss out afterwards. My target time went down by 10 mins (after I had ran my event)
I still think that I will get in with my time as even if they reduce the time by 5 mins for each age group to lower the numbers I am still within that, I guess that is the bonus of being over 40, a bit of leeway. I'll be honest I probably would have missed the GFA time if I wasn't going for sub 3 as I was struggling so eased back to just get sub 3 (I was running 2:54 pace for the first 20 miles) but if I was just going sub GFA I would have eased back more as I thought it was 3:15 at the time.

Surely a change like that should have been made to give people time to train and change targets, and just be honest with it. At least you now know that the time may come down a bit if lots of people have the qualifying times. Just as an example Boston's GFT for under 40 this year was 3:00 but 2:57 was needed to actually get in. I don't mind that if it was done far enough in advance and I think that it will come down slightly further due to the numbers of people running those times. Likewise the female targets would come down if more than 3000 people had the times and chose run.

Thanks, I hope your recovery is swift too! 4 months of training is enough to take quite a toll on your body. I plan to run an easy half hour tonight, and if all goes well try some short (1 minute) intervals tomorrow - it's possibly a bit close to marathon day for that sort of thing, but I feel like I need a proper check that I can run without too much pain before committing to running on Sunday.

Agree that the London situation is incredibly harsh, and it's not the first time they've made this kind of change with zero notice. I can understand the annoyance that people would feel if they thought they'd qualified, only to find out that they haven't. Fingers crossed that your time is good enough, it looks like you have a decent margin. I'll be throwing myself to the mercy of the ballot next week!

indesisiv

Good luck at the weekend @Spikyone. Hopefully you will be fine. and good luck in the ballot for London too.
I am hoping to get back to running at the weekend as I need to start doing some miles as I have been selected to run for our club in our 10k race. (Normally club members aren't allowed to run it due to needing to marshal)
So I have 2 weeks to get back up to sub 38 10k pace if I want to get into the top 50-100 or so.

spikyone

Well I'm pleased to say I made it around the 26.2 yesterday. The knee was painful at first, but about 12 miles in I realised that it had stopped hurting - I was managing a comfortable 7:00/mile pace and all was good. As I passed the 14 mile marker I felt a twinge in one calf and then the other, and spent the last 12 miles battling cramp and losing a lot of time. 3:13:40 at the end, and considering I'd thought about pulling out altogether a week before and put in a ~1:42 for the second half despite the cramp, I'm calling that a good result.

I have no idea where the cramp came from either. 4 months of training, 3 runs over 20 miles and plenty of 15+ miles, and it's literally the first time that's happened.

indesisiv wrote: »

So I have 2 weeks to get back up to sub 38 10k pace if I want to get into the top 50-100 or so.

Good luck with that, it sounds like an insanely competitive event if sub 38 is top 50-100. The last two that I ran, that would've put you well inside the top 10! How are you feeling now after your marathon?
I'm taking a couple of weeks off before training for a couple of mixed surface 10ks in June, my next goal is a sub-90 half in the autumn.

indesisiv

spikyone wrote: »

Well I'm pleased to say I made it around the 26.2 yesterday. The knee was painful at first, but about 12 miles in I realised that it had stopped hurting - I was managing a comfortable 7:00/mile pace and all was good. As I passed the 14 mile marker I felt a twinge in one calf and then the other, and spent the last 12 miles battling cramp and losing a lot of time. 3:13:40 at the end, and considering I'd thought about pulling out altogether a week before and put in a ~1:42 for the second half despite the cramp, I'm calling that a good result.

I have no idea where the cramp came from either. 4 months of training, 3 runs over 20 miles and plenty of 15+ miles, and it's literally the first time that's happened.

Good luck with that, it sounds like an insanely competitive event if sub 38 is top 50-100. The last two that I ran, that would've put you well inside the top 10! How are you feeling now after your marathon?
I'm taking a couple of weeks off before training for a couple of mixed surface 10ks in June, my next goal is a sub-90 half in the autumn.

Well done, that's a great effort considering the cramp not to drop any more time. Running with cramp is a horrible experience (I once ran the last 20 miles of a 36 mile event with cramp)
I am actually working on something to help cramp at the moment, unfortunately I can't actually test it until a race where I get cramp so its going to have to wait until the end of May for me to try it.

Good plan with the rest, get everything better before returning to it,and good luck with the half later in the year, I'm aiming for a sub 1:30 in September to complete my aims from when I first started running 2 years ago. Sub 20 5k, sub 40 10k, sub 1:30 HM, sub 3 Mara.

Good luck with your 10ks, I find that they have the most competitive fields out of any distance. I ran one in Oct last year where sub 38 got me 15th. However the one I have in a couple of weeks is a big field of 1500 which looking at the entries will be won in around 32. I can see at least 8 people who are capable of running sub 34 in the starting list.

sha0907

“Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.”
— Oprah Winfrey

indesisiv

indesisiv wrote: »

However the one I have in a couple of weeks is a big field of 1500 which looking at the entries will be won in around 32. I can see at least 8 people who are capable of running sub 34 in the starting list.

I was close .. 7 people under 34.

I had to have another week or so off due to a virus, so didn't have the run that I wanted, but I made it round in once piece, and have now managed to start training this week.
I just made it into the top 80 with a 39:26, which I am happy with it considering a) the lack of training and b) the recovery from the virus

spikyone

indesisiv wrote: »

I was close .. 7 people under 34.

I had to have another week or so off due to a virus, so didn't have the run that I wanted, but I made it round in once piece, and have now managed to start training this week.
I just made it into the top 80 with a 39:26, which I am happy with it considering a) the lack of training and b) the recovery from the virus

Been a while since I dropped by here. That's a great 10k even without the circumstances, congratulations :T

Since I last posted I've been under 20:00 at my local parkrun every week I think - it seems to have been very fast lately, with 24 people running sub-20 the last two weeks.

Last night was the first of my two planned 10k races; I ran the same event last year in 44:07. It's a mixed course, uphill from a grass start onto tarmac, before heading downhill for around 1.5 miles along a dirt path, a 1.5 mile loop on tarmac, and then back up the dirt path again. It's about 160ft from the lowest point to the highest, with a total 300ft of climbing. I ran 40:27 this year, which beat my pre-race target by some distance

The second 10k is next Wednesday. Hopefully it'll be cooler than the 30-degree heat we ran in last year, even the pacers struggled. It's a theoretically faster course and there will be a 40 minute pacer, so I can only have one goal in mind.

indesisiv

@spikyone sounds like you are not far away from a sub 40 10k.
Good going with the sub 20 5ks, I always thought that sub 20 was always mental. Since it took me about 6 months to get sub 20 I have only ever been above that once (and that was in fancy dress)

Sadly sounds like the weather is getting back to being hot again! So good luck with the 10k.

I dropped out of my 37 mile race the other week due to the heat after 13 miles and not wanting to do any damage to myself. But I shall try again with a 55k race in a couple of weeks.

spikyone

Sorry to hear you had to drop out of the 37 miler. It's always a difficult decision, but not worth making yourself ill or aggravating an injury. Running's supposed to be fun after all! How long til your next one?

It turned out there wasn't a 40-minute pacer at my 10k last week, they started from 45 this year. Possibly unrelated, but last year the 40-minute pacer ended up finishing in 47 minutes due to the heat! I went out possibly a shade too fast and finished in 40:10, 21st out of 647. Slightly disappointing to miss the sub-40 by such a fine margin - I had time in hand for the first 7km - but I was happy to improve my PB even further and I know 40 minutes is achievable.

To finish off the week in style I also ran my fastest ever parkrun, in 19:41. This was at my local event rather than the faster one where I set my previous PB. :j I'll be visiting family again in a few weeks, so will be near to the faster one. It's pretty tempting to see what I can do there now...

indesisiv

Good efforts @spikyone its always tough to run at this time of year with the heat.
I am sure once it cools down sub 40 will be easily on the cards. Good luck with the parkrun, I went back to my old local one which I last ran just after I started running in 2016 and took 1:50 off my PB on that course (still 15 secs off my overall PB) but its not the flattest.

I have another attempt at a 55k race in just under 2 weeks, but looking at the weather forecast its going to be tough again so I am not holding out hopes of a good time, and will probably just go out with the aim of run/walking around and just surviving it tbh.

Next serious races are in September with a 10k and a half marathon.