Rotterdam Countdown - 11 weeks to go

Starting to feel stronger

• A good week’s training done (51 miles) and feeling good
• 6 week rolling-average weekly-mileage now standing at 47
• Another good marathon HR-effort (10 miles), generating an encouraging average pace of 6:29
• 16.5 mile run on the Sunday, easing down a little ready for another 20+ effort next weekend.  Happy with 7:08 pace for this, given low average HR and awful weather!
• Promising 5k-pace workout (2.5s/mile quicker than same session on 3rd Dec)  

Click to enlarge

The graph to to the left shows a comparison of my 2010 preparation vs 2014 (to-date and planned).  Due to illness (and perhaps doing too many 20-mile+ runs too soon) mileage peaked around 9 weeks before the race rather than 3 in 2010.  Hopefully (as projected in the graph) this time will see me peaking at the right time with a higher mileage.

Rotterdam Diary - 12 weeks out

3 weeks down, 9 weeks to the taper

Hotel and flights booked!

• Average mileage for first 3 weeks = 48 (45,45,56)
• A 16 and a 20 miler completed (7:00 and 7:13 mile pace - both at average HR of 134)
• 2nd long-run established and these have included 5.5, 6.5 and 8 mile sections at marathon HR (150 bpm - 83% of max) at around 6:30 mile-pace
• A 10k and a tempo session included

3 Counties Cross-country MV50 Champion 2013-14

It's official

4 wins in the 4 qualifying races - a nice match with last Summer's Midweek Road-race League!   Sadly, the trophies were not handed out at the end of the final race due to some computational issues, but I look forward to receiving my large glass-ornament in a few weeks time.  I'm not the world's biggest XC fan (as I point out often to anyone who'll listen), so this represents quite an achievement for me, especially as there were around 60-70 competing in my age-category in each race.
 

Rotterdam Diary - 13 weeks to go

Revisiting my debut marathon - 4 years on ...

I'll be posting a weekly diary here during my preparation.  I'm on a 15 week training-schedule and am just into D-day minus 13 weeks.  I am feeling good and looking forward to the training challenge.  Broadly, the plan is as follows and is based on my successful preparation for the 2010 race.

• The 15-week plan commenced with an established long-term base of 40 miles/week
• At minus 13 weeks, weekly mileage is now at 45
• Planned peak mileage at race-day minus 3 weeks is 65-70 miles
• I aim to complete 6 runs of 20+ miles (max 2 hrs 45 mins duration)
• Regular 2nd long-runs will contain ever increasing chunks (up to 13 miles) at my marathon heart-rate.  These will replace one of the weekly Club sessions.  So far, I've done 5.5 and 6.5-mile marathon-efforts as part of 10 and 13 mile runs.
• Regular 10k and tempo sessions.  Possibly the odd 5k-pace workout
• Tune up races (half-marathon 6 weeks out and possibly a 10k)
• 3 week taper into the race (reducing mileage by to about 75%/60%/40% of peak).  In 2010 this actually worked out at 77%/55%/34%.

Dunstable XCL

Less is more

I really didn't feel in the mood for this one!  Having managed to get myself there and to the start line, I resolved to run it as a sub-tempo training run - for once, I actually followed through.  My average HR for the run was only 158 (88% max), which for me is more high-end marathon effort.  Surprisingly, I was only about 6 places below-par (36th/398) and still 1st MV50 on the day. This is a very interesting outcome and suggests I was setting off too aggressively in the other 4 races.

The leaders approach "Heartbreak Hill"

So that's 4x first and 1x second MV50 positions in the series and, as only the best 4 count, that gives me a perfect maximum (or I should say minimum) score of 4x1=4.  This is very pleasing and makes all the effort (in a discipline which is not my strong point) feel worthwhile.  It also meant I have now completed 20 races as a Vet 50, finishing 1st in twelve and 2nd in the other eight.

The course was run anti-clockwise this year.  I think I marginally preferred it this way.

Final league table for 2013-14 season >>>

NHRR finished 4th overall on the day and 4th overall for the season of the 13 competing clubs.   For the season, the men were 4th and the Ladies 7th.  We've been used to winning this league and have not been outside the top-3 for a good while.  However, given we struggled to get our best runners out regularly, this was a respectable outcome.

Dunstable XCL Preview

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