The Running Thread Vol 2

[fiatpower]

wrencho said:

Birmingham Half Marathon on Sunday. 1.21.

Haven't done brum half for good few years since it started and finished on Broad Street with one killer hill in Edgbaston. Not sure if I prefer that to the two or three lumps along the way including one in the last 800m up past Moor Street Station

It's a mixed 10k/half course so you tend to have to dodge the 60 minute 10k'ers towards the end too.

I did it in around 1:41. Reasonably happy with that time as I hadn't really done much HM specific training due to having injury after injury for the past few months. I'd love to go sub 1:35 next time it's on. Interesting reading about people's warm up strategies. Mine is very much a quick 200-400m jog down the road with some stretches at the moment but will try tweaking it and see what results I get.

The Birmingham Half isn't usually a mixed course thankfully as it was quite annoying weaving around the 10k'ers at the end. No fault of their own and I understand why the organisers had to do it this year, just hoping they don't make it a regular thing. I didn't actually mind the 3 hills out near Bournville but that last one up past Moor Street Station always gets me

[wrencho]

fiatpower said:

I did it in around 1:41. Reasonably happy with that time as I hadn't really done much HM specific training due to having injury after injury for the past few months. I'd love to go sub 1:35 next time it's on. Interesting reading about people's warm up strategies. Mine is very much a quick 200-400m jog down the road with some stretches at the moment but will try tweaking it and see what results I get.

The Birmingham Half isn't usually a mixed course thankfully as it was quite annoying weaving around the 10k'ers at the end. No fault of their own and I understand why the organisers had to do it this year, just hoping they don't make it a regular thing. I didn't actually mind the 3 hills out near Bournville but that last one up past Moor Street Station always gets me

Good running. I sort of know the area so I knew I'd get them back straight away but I could have done without them!

I think warm up is so specific...I personally take an age to get my body feeling like its ready to "race" so I will do at least 20 minutes for a 5k and then progressively less for the long distances. Did 10 mins on Sunday.

[Martyn76]

wrencho said:

fiatpower said:

I did it in around 1:41. Reasonably happy with that time as I hadn't really done much HM specific training due to having injury after injury for the past few months. I'd love to go sub 1:35 next time it's on. Interesting reading about people's warm up strategies. Mine is very much a quick 200-400m jog down the road with some stretches at the moment but will try tweaking it and see what results I get.

The Birmingham Half isn't usually a mixed course thankfully as it was quite annoying weaving around the 10k'ers at the end. No fault of their own and I understand why the organisers had to do it this year, just hoping they don't make it a regular thing. I didn't actually mind the 3 hills out near Bournville but that last one up past Moor Street Station always gets me

Good running. I sort of know the area so I knew I'd get them back straight away but I could have done without them!

I think warm up is so specific...I personally take an age to get my body feeling like its ready to "race" so I will do at least 20 minutes for a 5k and then progressively less for the long distances. Did 10 mins on Sunday.

I was there too! 1:51:47, I was ok with the hills further out but that last hill at the finish was a bit harsh!

[Candellara]

Returned recently from Germany having completed Hamburg Marathon a week or so ago. What an event! Fantastic organisation and a brilliant event with over 200,000 spectators lining the route. Rock bands amongst other performers and in terms of refuelling - Water stations every few km, gel stations, banana stations! Coke, Red Bull, sponge buckets to wipe yourself down, toilets every few km. Highly recommended

[rastapasta]

Candellara said:

Returned recently from Germany having completed Hamburg Marathon a week or so ago. What an event! Fantastic organisation and a brilliant event with over 200,000 spectators lining the route. Rock bands amongst other performers and in terms of refuelling - Water stations every few km, gel stations, banana stations! Coke, Red Bull, sponge buckets to wipe yourself down, toilets every few km. Highly recommended

well done man. was the weather kind?? they do marathons well on the continent. ive done lucerne a few times now and they really try to make the route interesting by taking it into the oountryside and then back in through a football stadium. good you enjoyed it

[Candellara]

rastapasta said:

well done man. was the weather kind?? they do marathons well on the continent. ive done lucerne a few times now and they really try to make the route interesting by taking it into the oountryside and then back in through a football stadium. good you enjoyed it

Weather was perfect - blue skies and about 12 degrees. I wasn't running for a "time" as it was my Wife's first Marathon so wanted to run with her and get her round. 34km in and she was on for a 3.35 but then started having bad leg cramps so it was a bit on and off for the remainder but she managed it in 3.48 - which i though was fantastic for her first attempt.

[rastapasta]

Candellara said:

rastapasta said:

well done man. was the weather kind?? they do marathons well on the continent. ive done lucerne a few times now and they really try to make the route interesting by taking it into the oountryside and then back in through a football stadium. good you enjoyed it

Weather was perfect - blue skies and about 12 degrees. I wasn't running for a "time" as it was my Wife's first Marathon so wanted to run with her and get her round. 34km in and she was on for a 3.35 but then started having bad leg cramps so it was a bit on and off for the remainder but she managed it in 3.48 - which i though was fantastic for her first attempt.

good for her. Interesting point you raise re the cramps, I'm on my fourth marathon and Ive never seemed to be able to shake the cramps at that same point as your wife experienced them. The last marathon I did I literally chucked in a paracetamol and an ibuprofen which helped to a degree.

[joshcowin]

TyrannosauRoss Lex said:

I don't want to jinx it, but things SEEM to be going OK for the time being. If I ignore my week out with covid I've had 9-10 weeks of injury-free running, just building up the miles and incorporating strength work into my weekly routine (1x "knee bias", 1x "hip bias" and 1x "upper body", plus some additional mobility and running prehab stuff too - all 3 of those sessions also involve some core stability work too).

My trainer has said to introduce some tempo/threshold work so after the 10mins went fine yesterday I just did 2x10mins today off 90secs jog and averaged 6:12/mile and felt OK. Working (probably a BIT harder than threshold) but far from max. Considering (again!) how little running I've done, I'm confident that if - and that's a huge if - I can stay injury-free and get a solid few months of training I'm fairly confident I can move my threshold pace a fair bit.

The plan is to do 3 harder weeks and 1 easy week (I was doing 5 weeks hard, 1 week easy but kept getting injured). Nothing faster than 6:00/mile for about 6-8 weeks, just build up time spent at threshold first. I was also going up to 50M/week (my longer term goal is 50-60) but the plan for now is the build the 40/week and hang at that for a 3 week block rather than continuing to build.

All being well I should be able to do more 5-10k speed work in July, then some harder stuff in August. Whilst my desire to race has shifted from 5k and 10k (and the odd HM) to 10k to HM the ultra speed stuff isn't quite as important, but it still plays a key role.....but only if I can stay injury-free!

I think the strength work will help, it's expensive, but I'm doing 1:1 coaching with these guys

https://www.themovementblueprint.co/1-1-bespoke-co...

Regards my running training, I'm doing that myself, and I have my coach to help with that, this guy is just for the strength work. The idea of the sessions are to get me working without absolutely killing me. So far I think it's helping. We identified a number of flaws in certain specific movement patterns which we are addressing and I already feel a bit stronger (currently on week 6 or 7 I think).

Sorry for the essay

Great to hear! FINALLY.

Hope you can get to those longer threshold efforts to really build some strength and endurance.

Keep us posted

[VEIGHT]

pubrunner said:

VEIGHT said:

I help out at a casual running group (70 members) and we are looking to become affiliated with EA.

Has anyone here done or are involved in this that I can ask a couple of questions. Just looking to see what the best way of going about it is!

I have done exactly this in the past and in my experience it isn't worth the time, trouble and expense . . . unless you intend for your club to become involved in County athletics. With EA, you have to provide certain personal details of your members - DOB, address etc. There's quite a bit of bureaucracy involved.

I formed a club that was a member of EA for 7 or 8 years; after this, we joined the Association of Running Clubs (ARC) and found the issue of paying subs and membership to be MUCH easier and considerably cheaper. There's also MUCH less paperwork than with EA.

You have most of the benefits of being a member of an EA club - such as insurance cover for members and for races that you might wish to put on.

In a nutshell, look into EA membership, look at the costs and what is involved in setting up a club and then look at the same for joining the ARC. Joining ARC is MUCH easier, cheaper and almost certainly all that you require to meet the needs of your club.

Take a look at this link :

http://www.runningclubs.org.uk/

To join the ARC, it would cost your club (for 61-80 members) a total of £99, which I think is very reasonable - it would cost far more to become affiliated to EA.

Edited by pubrunner on Tuesday 3rd May 08:25

Thank you Pubrunner for all of that really helpful info! I'll have a look into that now! We were looking at Runtogether to at least get the insurance cover but ARC looks good! Thank you!

[wrencho]

rastapasta said:

good for her. Interesting point you raise re the cramps, I'm on my fourth marathon and Ive never seemed to be able to shake the cramps at that same point as your wife experienced them. The last marathon I did I literally chucked in a paracetamol and an ibuprofen which helped to a degree.

The cramps could be due to lack of electrolytes. Although its generally cool for marathon season you will still sweat quite a bit, and you could become depleted during the later stages of the run. I was put onto Precision Hydration products by a friend who does Ironman.

https://www.precisionhydration.com/

I use the PH1500 tablets for a couple of days in the lead up to a marathon and then sip about 500ml the morning of the run, stopping about an hour or so before.

They are pretty salty but contain way more electrolyte than the typical High5 tablets.

I've never had a problem with cramping since.

[Candellara]

For anyone who's interested, a link to the recent televised coverage: (in English)

[wrencho]

Does anyone have experience of this...or similar....

https://apexrunning.co/events/ultratrailsnowdonia#...

What level of fitness is required?
What level of experience running in the mountains is required?
What kit is required? (type of shoe/walking poles etc)

I'm really tempted to do something off road and not massively dictated by pace and time.

[Smitters]

wrencho said:

Does anyone have experience of this...or similar....

https://apexrunning.co/events/ultratrailsnowdonia#...

What level of fitness is required?
What level of experience running in the mountains is required?
What kit is required? (type of shoe/walking poles etc)

I'm really tempted to do something off road and not massively dictated by pace and time.

Ideally, lots, lots and lots.

The 14 hour limit for 31 miles is a big hint at toughness. That's ~2.5mph.

I would definitely encourage you to do trail ultras, but even the 50k is definitely a deep deep-end. That course will require significantly more than a marathon plan and a bit of hills. You'll need to be proficient with a map and compass, confident you can make good decisions if you have, or see an accident and have enough kit to keep you safe if you end up having to wait in one spot.

I'm not saying "don't" in any way, just trying to be honest.

Definitely watch 47 Copa to get a taste of Snowdonia too...

[wrencho]

So maybe not one for a first time trail marathon then!?! :-)

[fiatpower]

wrencho said:

Does anyone have experience of this...or similar....

https://apexrunning.co/events/ultratrailsnowdonia#...

What level of fitness is required?
What level of experience running in the mountains is required?
What kit is required? (type of shoe/walking poles etc)

I'm really tempted to do something off road and not massively dictated by pace and time.

I'm looking at that as my ultra for this year has been cancelled and I would like to apply for the UTMB ballot one year but need some UTMB running stones apparently. I already have the pre-requisite races and times completed but the stones is a new requirement.

[egor110]

If you did a marathon this weekend then had a 50k start of july how would you train for it ?

Would you start a marathon plan or 50k plan , would you start from scratch again or jump in half way thru ?

Would you do back to backs for 50k or just follow the marathon plan but make the long run nearer full marathon distance?

[rastapasta]

Smitters said:

wrencho said:

Does anyone have experience of this...or similar....

https://apexrunning.co/events/ultratrailsnowdonia#...

What level of fitness is required?
What level of experience running in the mountains is required?
What kit is required? (type of shoe/walking poles etc)

I'm really tempted to do something off road and not massively dictated by pace and time.

Ideally, lots, lots and lots.

The 14 hour limit for 31 miles is a big hint at toughness. That's ~2.5mph.

I would definitely encourage you to do trail ultras, but even the 50k is definitely a deep deep-end. That course will require significantly more than a marathon plan and a bit of hills. You'll need to be proficient with a map and compass, confident you can make good decisions if you have, or see an accident and have enough kit to keep you safe if you end up having to wait in one spot.

I'm not saying "don't" in any way, just trying to be honest.

Definitely watch 47 Copa to get a taste of Snowdonia too...

+1 the man speaks the truth. A neighbour ran in a 60km version in Baden the other week and out of the 70 that started only 20 in her category finished and she ended up placing. I was wondering what she was up to as her runs on strava were becoming very extreme. Not one to be taken lightly this, I would build up to this race for a couple of years, to be able to enjoy the experience if nothing else.

[egor110]

wrencho said:

So maybe not one for a first time trail marathon then!?! :-)

Why not do a endurancelife/trail events Snowdon race ?

Then you can dip your toe in the water and do either half or full marathon and see how you get on .

[Smitters]

wrencho said:

So maybe not one for a first time trail marathon then!?! :-)

Possibly not - depends on how fit you are now, how experienced as a hill walker and so on.

There are loads of less extreme trail marathons to get you started. Unless it's a very fast course, even a trail half can easily see you out and about for 2 1/2 hours or more. There are many popular events in the Brecons and even without big elevation, lots of trail events are very challenging purely because they're just never flat, or over difficult terrain, or have a million stiles.

They also vary a lot in organisation level. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but you can go from full corporate mega-events like Race to the Tower/Stones etc, and you pay plenty, but get great support and infrastructure, or you can go low key and be told there is only water at checkpoints.

One thing in guaranteed. You definitely don't worry about your mile splits...

[RizzoTheRat]

If you're after a longish trail race take a look at Man v Horse. 22 miles in the Brecon Beacons. Quite a few people dropping out and offering places for transfer via the Facebeook page either as a solo or a 3 person relay

I did the 3rd leg of the relay a couple of years back and it was the most fun race I've done. Was supposed to be doing a relay this year and my wife soloing but we've had to pull out and sold our places.