ILX running running thread

200-mile month is awesome, Jeff. I think I'm going to hit 60 this month? If I go running tonight, I'll have done 24 runs in 8 weeks, which I'm really pleased about... getting into the habit of three runs a week no matter what, slowly building mileage. Once I get to 20 miles a week, I'll start doing some speedwork. My goal is a sub two-hour half marathon in January.

i'm doing my first ever 50 mile race on saturday. pretty terrified - every time i think about it i get palpitations and feel like i'm going to be sick. it'll be round the trails of suffolk, which will be good cos it's supposedly mostly as flat as a pancake, plus i've never been there before so it'll be nice just soaking in the feel of the place. it goes round aldeburgh so maybe i'll be corny and stick some britten on my ipod. weather looks good and my legs feel okay-ish, so my plan is to just plug away at 10 or 11 minute mile pace for as long as possible and just try to hang in there. hope there'll be a few other people going slow so i've got someone to talk to and keep me going. oh, and to stop me from getting lost. arrggh! brrrrr! ho-leeeey fuck!

damn yo that is very far!

im sure u will have no problem finding people going very slow fwiw from what ive heard abt these things

you're almost definitely right but i guess my worry on that score is it might be a tiny field and everyone gets strung out really quickly. it's the first year this particular race has been run, so i don't really know how many people to expect.

obv. i'm focussing on the negative though cos of ye olde creeping ~terror~! i need to stop that

eh whatre u gonna do, once u get there u just run regardless

sounds like quite the experience, good luck!

once u get there u just run regardless

well run, vomit, crawl, weep most probably, but just keep moving forward and try not to die, that's my mantra

thanks seandalai!

Very cool - I'd love to skip the marathon and try one of those but, man, the amount of training to build up to that distance is daunting. Good luck!!

I'd love to do a 50 miler one day. Not going to happen for many years though, I see ultra's as something I'll dabble in when I'm in my 50's and too old to marathon PR anymore. I can't even imagine it at this point. I know how I've felt after every marathon I've completed, to essential have to do another one right after it seems daunting.

Have fun NickB. One foot in front of the other, repeat many times.

oh I still want to run a marathon pb jeff! will give that another go in the spring and what i'm hoping is that the volume of running I've put in lately will be a good base to do it off. not that i've been doing a crazy amount of running, but I have been doing it consistently for about 4 months so far. weekly mileage is probably about 55-65 miles, but that includes one run of about 25-30 miles every weekend, so I'm only running about 4-5 days per week at the moment. whether i'll be able to pick up some speed again over the winter is another matter - I've got very used to going along at a comfortable plod now.

ok ive gone back to the watch, armband/phone is no cool

i guess if u listened to music itd be cool

NICKB, How'd the race go?

ok ive gone back to the watch, armband/phone is no cool

I just carry my iPhone in my hand. Totally cool by me

damn that would drive me up the fin wall

realized ive never used my garmins heart monitor whats some good stuff i can do with that

Race went super well! Lots of awesome trails in a really pretty part of the countryside, half the time i wasn't even thinking about running, was just enjoying being out there. Amazing day for running too, kind of a hazy late summer day, warm but not hot and no real wind at all. Was a really tiny field though, there were only about 20 people doing it. This was the first year this particular race has been held, but it was put on by a team who have done similar events elsewhere, so it was competely pro organisation and support all the way round, all clearly marked and everything. Most of the trails were nice dirt tracks through woods and across farm fields and nature reserves. There was one mile section along a shingle beach near Sizewell nuclear power station which was pretty rough going, but that was as hard as it got. Managed to keep running the whole way at a nice steady pace, started right at the back just chatting with people and then when those folks slowed down I just kept plodding on having a super mellow time by myself, singing away, looking at the trees etc. It was nice, you have lots of time to just focus on looking after yourself and making sure yr eating and drinking and keeping relaxed. No pressure to go for any sort of time, so it was pretty stress free. Started passing a few folks and that was a good boost, not as a competitive thing but it just made me feel like i was staying strong, and it was also nice to chat with folks for a few minutes too. Finished in 8 hrs 20 mins, came in 5th place but like i said it was a tiny field! Best thing was i didn't feel too trashed afterwards, barring a few foot issues. Have been running around today playing football with my kids and feeling pretty good. So yeah, a really good experience!

I'm not visible in this shot cos i'm hiding at the back but you'll see what i mean about how small the field was:

https://twitter.com/eightpointtwo/status/508146548707188736

That's awesome. I'm pretty sure a 50 miler would put me out of commission for 6 months. But I'm not sure I would have the restraint to try and run it at 10 min/miles.

nice 1 dude!

That's a great feat and I love the pic. Congratulations!

i ran five miles today and felt like 50 but also the sun was shining on me which i cannot abide by so thats prob why

similar feeling here - had to take the past 3 wks off to (I hope) finally get rid of shin splints and PF. did lots of swimming during this off time which is great but i'm totally out of the running groove. have run a couple of times over the past week and all of a sudden it's a chore to finish off 6 miles. wasn't that long ago that I had been consistently hitting 35 mi/wk in spring and early summer. the feet and shins felt a lot better during a short run this morning but sore, sore, sore this evening. ugh

all this makes NickB's 50 miler sound so impressive and so unreachable.

the trails in that 50 miler sound amazing... glad you had a good race!

ok ive gone back to the watch, armband/phone is no cool

all this makes NickB's 50 miler sound so impressive and so unreachable.

this isn't false modesty here, but i really think that most people who can comfortably run a half-marathon can probably run a whole lot further just by slowing right down, being patient, managing yr body by eating and drinking and trying to run as softly as possibly. definitely choosing the right course and lucking out with the weather really helped out too. things never really got grim at any stage - have definitely run marathons that were much, much more painful.

100 miler next?

um, yeah - six weeks time! that's a whole new level of scary, not sure i'm going to be quite so perky after that

well done NickB!

hey thanks! :)

Are you going to have any pacers in the 100?

i think you're allowed to have someone run with you for the last 50 miles but i wouldn't really know who to ask so i haven't bothered. my dad's coming along to crew for me... kind of worried about that too cos every other event he's been at he's been really full-on excited and all COME ON NICK!! DIG IN!! YOU CAN DO IT!! and sometimes i just need someone to calm me down and quietly tell me everything is going to be okay instead. i'm sure on the day he'll be great though and i really appreciate him giving up a night's sleep for me.

Fly me out there and I'll pace you for 20 or so miles!

it'll be the middle of the night but maybe with the jet-lag you'd be raring to go?

As long as I can work in some HMP bits into the pacing, I'm there! Or not.

Speaking of, the last several workouts I've been trying to lock into HMP. It shouldn't be easy, but I feel like I should be more comfortable with its uncomfortableness at this point.

Some key workouts over the past few weeks:

20 min tempo @HMP
4 x 1200 @HMP
4 x 1600 @HMP
14 mile long run with miles 9 to 12 @HMP

I've hit all my paces, average around 7:00-7:06, but it's been hard! This week I have a 3 x 1.5 mile with the first two intervals @HMP and the last 1.5 mile 10 seconds faster than HMP. I think that one is going to be brutal.

Fly me out there and I'll pace you for 4 or so miles!

lurker on this thread, pretty new to running regularly - just have to come out of the shadows to say congrats to NickB! 5th place in a 50 miler! So amazing - and inspiring to hear how much you enjoyed the experience.

Ran 19:32 in the Dogfish Dash 5K yesterday, a PR by 43 seconds. Faster than I ever thought I could run. Also got this awesome action shot, maybe my best race picture ever.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3843/15379393231_a0ecb62c42_z.jpg

literally flying! great run jeff!

oh, and thx brio2 :)

if you'd allow me to dork out for a minute, this is what my training since may looked like...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/training.jpg

~1200 miles in five months, pretty happy with that. that's by far the most consistent i've ever been at running and i think the secret was (1) having a major goal to aim for, and (2) running really slowly most of the time. there's a bit of a blip in july, mostly cos i was trying to up the mileage a bit and throw in some speedwork too and my body just crashed for about 10 days. after that i spent about a month trying to get back to where i was before, so i could have probably saved myself a bunch of time and effort there - pretty sure i know where my limit is now.

damn yo

You're spending A LOT of time on your feet. I can't even imagining making that much time to run. I'd probably have to get a divorce.

Here's mine over the same time period. October has sucked so far, mostly due to travel, I just haven't gotten going this month yet.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5606/15284208209_f1f3cb7605_o.jpg

it certainly has been a major time-eater - lots of early morings and a few all-day jaunts here and there. my wife has been incredibly supportive it must be said, but luckily we're at the stage where our kids are a bit more self-sufficient and can occupy themselves for a few hours at a time, so that helps a lot. actually quite a few of my long runs have been with the kids tagging along on their bikes. those have been nice trips and my wife's had some time to herself, so probably a win all round. my allotment has been the real loser - it hasn't had a look-in for four months and now looks like a total jungle. expecting to get a letter about that any day now tbh...

consistent trend towards faster average running speed each month there jeff, bodes well for the next marathon i think?

quite a few of my long runs have been with the kids tagging along on their bikes.

― john wahey (NickB), Tuesday, October 7, 2014 3:29 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw nice

Hope so. Although I can mostly attribute it to training for a half next month, I've definitely been running faster stuff and not going any longer than 16 miles on my long runs. I expect if I was marathon training, those averages would be higher.

man, half marathons are really good to train for i think. a perfect distance really