Training Log Archive: murraystraining

(What turned out to be a) long run on the Clwydian hills - out and back on Offa's Dyke Way from Bodfari to Jubilee Tower. Quite wet (the cloud base was low on the Clwydian Hills).

Out to play in Frank. A bit of flooding on the cycle path but winds disappointingly calm (we encountered far worse on the A702 & M74 later).

Knee still sore so shorter run.

Festive Frolic. Not too silly score format. There were two classes on offer, 50 or 70 minutes, but just one course. I entered the 70 but set myself the challenge of trying to clear it in under 50. A couple of speed wobbles and a sore knee didn't help but I gave it a good go.

Hpsr medium size w/Houston. Nice morning and the miles just seemed to fly by.

Steady one round Cramond.

Run to fairmilehead via Capelaw, Allermuir and Caerketton. Refueled well afterwards.

Running away from work on the Frogston 10. Let rip on the descents.

Mojo-hunting on the Innocent 10. Went for the Cavalry Park Drive CR which kickstarted what could otherwise have been quite a trudge of a lunsjog.

Mid-winter mini-MASH. No torch. Not feeling like a runner of any sort.

SEDS Christmas Cracker #3: Hecpic long-o through Achlean/Inveruglas/Uath Lochans/Inshriach. Ran out of puff shortly beofre half way so called it a day. Longest terrain run/orienteering since April? Forest was in good nick though so enjoyed it.

SEDS Christmas Cracker #1 - planning ahead on Tomvaich. Gorgeous bit of wood I've not been in before. Technique ok, terrain legs weak.

SEDS Christmas Cracker #2: mass start loop middle distance on Anagach. Good fun - racing Coombs on the first loop (trying to drop Jess), chasing-passing-being passed by Haines on the second and solo on the third (slowed down a bit).

Grand Trotter Wassail IX. Usual good fun. Stopped after Al Hindle's as planned, but shin was randomly very sore too.

Potter along the canal to buy sausages & secret santa present at asda.

Back on the railroad with Jonny - ran with him all the way, although I wasn't inclined to run much faster.
32:30/29:00
4:22,14,22,08,3:58,43,45,46,50,47,35,36,33,31,35,10.

HPSR Christmas Santa Hat Special. Regular Size route with Al, Stevie and Milne.
Eight hours in the CSR afterwards undoing most of the good work.

East District XC Champs
The perfect cure for the post-marathon niggles. Still felt pretty achey beforehand so set off steadily on the first lap. This made for quite a fun race of always chasing down the next target while never completely gutting myself. Ended up 15th after working to catch Fallas on the last lap, Mackie was next in line but the finish came too soon. Good fun and body felt pretty reasonable.

Jogging.

Feeling pretty rough today. Ran to the Corstorphine Inn for a pint with the Edinburgh park escapees. Still feeling slow and achey - hoping that is more booze-hangover than marathon-hangover related!

First morgonjogg since WOC due to Christmas socials later in the day. Still tight.

Felt OK walking around on Tuesday but decided to experiment with a second rest day - a luxury I've tended not to bother with in the past. It didn't help much though, still felt horrendous as I pottered over Craiglockhart.

Malaga Marathon
So, first 'proper' (in a city/flat) marathon. Drags on performance: Lacksadaisical approach to training, bout of flu at key point and not many long runs.
Performance boosters: general good endurance, years of high mileage, decent vdot in G5 last week. Which would triumph - short or long term factors?

Set out with the aims of it feeling easy for the first 10 miles, going through 1/2 in 75 and seeing how it went from there, with the target of <2:30 by the end. (75/2:30 is 17:45 per 5km).

The pleasing thing about the start was lots of people went off faster than me - I was worried there would be a gulf between the africans and the also rans. Settled in behind two Polish guys and got rolling. The first 5km (17:29) were a little bit fast but also slightly downhill so nothing to worry about. 5-10km along the waterfront back to the start area was bang on target pace although I let the Poles slide away a bit here and ran on my own (17:47).

10-15km was away from town along the waterfront and I slowed a little to keep it feeling easy - meeting the first of my objectives. The turnaround at 14.5k gave a chance to check on Coombs - maybe 100m or so behind me?
Something about turning around gave me a bit of a refresh and the k's started to really fly by. Back to 20km in 17:41 and through half way in 1:14:50 - bang on target and feeling good.

I'd passed a few people on this stretch and had more in my sights, including one of the Poles I'd let away after 5km and a high cadence Spanish vet (HCSV). I maybe got a little bit carried away over the next bit, running my fastest 5k (17:24) and chasing them down. Certainly when we turned off the coast road at 26km things started to feel harder. Although my pace was still on target it did start to take a lot more effort. It was a fine balance between putting in more effort to maintian the pace but also holding something back to make sure of getting to the finish. I decided to keep the effort the same to 32km (20miles) and then take it from there.

Coming up to 32km I was actually starting to feel a bit better, so it was with perfect timing that Coombs came flying past just to crush my morale. He was moving at such a speed that there was no chance of hitching a lift. Sayonara Senor Coombs! (18:10)
From there on it was a familiar story of just grinding out the miles and once HCSV came past with 5km to go and I was powerless to respond there was little left to fight for. (19:23)

The last 2.2 (2.5 by my watch) wiggled through the old town, which I discovered was lovely later in the day as we explored the tapas bars and restaurants, but by that point I wasn't really taking much of it in. It wasn't a total collapse (only 1km slower than 4mins and it had a hill) but it was a pretty miserable end all the same. Not surprising, given the haphazard approach to training since the summer. Well chuffed for Coombs though, a big negative split and PB. Railway miles work!

K's for future reference: 3:28,33,38,22,28,29,33,35,32,38,37,36,36,38,34,32,33,32,33,31,28,27,29,29,31,31,32,34,32,36,41,40,36,35,38,42,51,55,4:01,54,56,49,(2:10)

C • Well done 4

Shuffling about in Spain.

Three lunsjog laps of the meadows. First two easy, third at MP.

Very wet in town turned to very snowy up on Frogston Road. A quite miserable run at times but worth it nonetheless. Just a couple of short runs now before Malaga.

Shortened railway progression w/iainw, jonny and coombs.
4:25,12,05,54,49,40,48,47,38,36,24,25. Windy on the way back.