The Annual Running thread – beginners/ultras/whatever

I have just entered the Manchester Marathon!

Bike fitness is good and I run occationally for around 1 hour.

I was thinking of doing a 12 week 1/2 marathon plan before Christmas – a break over Christmas itself – and a 16 week marathon plan after Christmas.

What are your thoughts on the Garmin Coach training plans, or would purchasing a plan on Training Peaks be better? (Which ones?) Luckily I have 6 months to train!

@dyls, I would consider either paying for a specific plan for you or just following a free generic online plan. The paid for plans on Training Peaks or Runna or similar seem the worst of both worlds to me.

I paid Chris Ford £50 for a tailored plan when I wanted to go sub-3 at London and it was money well spent. He wrote the plan around my current abilities, my time constraints and also what I liked and didn’t like. It worked really well for me and as it was built around me I was able to follow it much more easily than an off the shelf plan.

I’ve got a copy of Ben Parkes marathon plan that I can send you if you want a look at that. Drop me a PM.

Awful news from the GNR.

Going to a race and not coming home is just unthinkable.

I believe he was raising money for mind and his page has now raised nearly 11k.

@dyls – do you have a marathon time in mind?

What lunge said.

Thanks Lunge, £50 seems ok for a tailored plan – I’ll have a look at his website.

I have no time goal at the moment, cardio fitness is good from biking, but I need to transfer this to running now. The winter will help as its easier to run from your door than to cycle.

What would be a good time for a first marathon?

I found the Garmin Marathon plan worked for me last year. It just gave me a bit of discipline to mix up my running a bit. Combining that with some strength work and yoga/stretches seems to work out pretty well. Well enough that I won my first (and only) Ultra – in my age category.

What would be a good time for a first marathon?

@dylsm, how long is a piece of string? I reckon under 4 hours is a realistic target for someone who runs already and/has some fitness to build from. But even under 5 is a serious achievement.

Enjoyable (almost) 4km run this morning.

I’m working towards a 10km trail run on the 2nd of November, which is basically straight up, bit of a traverse then straight down again. Enjoyed it last year and hoping to prepare a little better this year.

Today’s run was deliberately fasted for the avoidance of stitch, I seem to need a very long period between eating and running!

How long can you realistically run on an empty stomach? I think at last year’s event I maybe had a banana for breakfast then a gel halfway round…

How long can you realistically run on an empty stomach?

You can go quite a long way at a low intensity. I routinely do long training runs on empty, up to 16 miles, but they low intensity, slow runs.

But if I’m racing, even if it’s just 10k, a light breakfast (porridge, bagels, etc.) at least 2 hours before you start and a gel on the start line works for me. I likely want take any food on in a 10k but will for anything more than that.

Has anyone ran/hiked Tour du Mont Blanc? I’m looking into a trip next summer to do it over 4 or 5 days, would be good to hear from anyone who has done it before.

What would be a good time for a first marathon?

Depends on a load of factors – I did my first (and only!) marathon 2 years ago. Only ran once or twice a week and only usually to about 1.5 hours. During my training I tried to up it but only broke the half marathon distance once during training about a month before the actual event but didn’t feel too bad afterwards. Wanted a sub 4h30m and got something annoying like a 4h31m but the sense of achievement was incredible. Would I do another? Maybe but I’ve barely done anymore running since until a couple of months ago when I entered a local 10k which I’d done before and enjoyed. Started training by basically going straight up to 10k again from the off but was finding it difficult to get up to my pre-marathon fitness in such a short space of time but did the race last weekend, aiming for a sub 55 minute plod and did a 53. Can’t comprehend how some people were doing 32s (5 minute miles!)…

Plan is to keep it up as its just easy exercise and once past the first mile or so, its actually enjoyable once you get into a groove…

What would be a good time for a first marathon?

Mine was 3:09, but I’d done a fair bit of running before that. Vague plan to do Seville next February, but not sure I CBA to do the road training needed to get the speed up. I’d like to do a sub 3 sometime in my life…

That’s where I’m at. I’m pretty sure I could get a marathon PB if opted for a road one but I hate running on the road. Even the training would depress me.

That’s where I’m at. I’m pretty sure I could get a marathon PB if opted for a road one but I hate running on the road. Even the training would depress me.

Can confirm. I did my sub-3 earlier this year and the training was dull and hard work.

It its when it’s Sunday morning and all your mates are off on a nice, slow social run around the the trails and you have to go out solo for a long road run with a pile of work at goal pace. Dull, dull, dull.

I get the road running training thing. I try as much as possible to do a mix during my runs – got an old tarmac railway line near me I use to get some easy distance, a nice few miles off road on a flood bank by the river and some nice quiet country lanes with decent footpaths alongside I can use. What I can’t get my head around is the people who do laps of the racecourse near me – 3ish km tarmac loop inside it littered with dog walkers and kids on bikes and you see loads of people lapping it. Definition of mundane – I like to treat my running like my rides and see some scenery!

I know a guys who’s entire marathon training is done on a 1 mile lap round a park. He’ll do 22 mile long runs with efforts round there, will be going round the same circle for 3 hours.

Saying that, I also know a fella who did the same on a track. Though he did change direction every 10 laps apparently.

I’m obviously weird because I enjoy road running and even training for a marathon. It probably helps that the roads are wonderful round here. I even go back and forward on a particular 2.5km flat stretch when I want to do proper work at effort/pace, roughly once a week during marathon training. Once or twice I’ve done as much as 20km at marathon pace there, 4x up and down the same stretch. But that’s still a lovely bit of road through a flood plain with birdlife and views into the hills.

Quick question for the runners who have done 50K events, How do you know when you’re good enough?

I’ve been hoping to get a 50K run done for most of this year and did have one pencilled in for May but unfortunately I ended up with an injury and had to shelve it, however I’m back to being injury free and have been running well (for me) for the last few months. Previous to my injury the longest run I had done was 32km and since being over the injury the longest run I have done is 25km, both of these were hilly trail runs, not particularly fast but consistent.

I’ve been running consistently for about the last 3 1/2 years, as in at least twice a week, and I know I can do a half marathon with relative ease anytime I feel like it

I’m running 4-5 times a week at the moment, a mix of plodding 10k’s hilly 10k’s and intervals on the treadmill (I have the use of one at work, it wouldn’t be my first choice) and trying to get one long run in a week (aiming for 30k this week). The event that I’m looking at is about 6 weeks away, is this doable? Should I just throw caution to the wind, enter and see how it goes?

Since no-one else has replied to you @Bazz!

“Good enough” is so, so dependant on what your aim is: If you’re just aiming to finish within the cut-off times, you’re probably more than ‘good enough’ already, you just need to know your body and pace yourself. If you’re trying to win, or aiming for a specific time target, only Smarties have the answer! ‘Not particularly fast but consistent’ is exactly what you need most of the time, longer events are as much mental as they are physical, if you can keep your head right, keep feeding yourself and keep moving forward, you’ll get the job done.

Maybe as evidence of that, I ran ‘The Lap’ Ultra in the Lakes a few weeks back – 75km with 2,800m of ascent round the summits surrounding Windermere. Not my first Ultra, and not the longest or hilliest I’ve ever run, but still a distance where completing isn’t a certainty but can still be a decent bet if you’re sensible about it. I’ve been running well recently, over shorter distances at least, and while I would have liked to have clocked up more long runs in the build up, I went in pretty confident that I’d get round even if it wasn’t that quick. Max finish time is 24hrs, I’d set a loose target of sub-18, I ran/jogged/fast shuffled far more than I was anticipating, managed the physical issues I had pretty well (knee pain on descents from about 45km onwards), pushed a bit harder when I could and cruised when I needed to, and finished well inside my target in 14:41:41.

Also, benefitting from the fitness accrued for and from the Ultra, after a good week and a bit of recovery, I’ve run a 5km PB and 10km PB in the past two weeekends, both on relatively hilly courses – 22:21 for 5km and 46:30 for 10km 🙂

Thanks @Pyro for your response. Well I thought sod in the end and entered, it’s the Beat Box Hill 50k in Dorking, Surrey, starting/finishing at the top of Box Hill as the name suggests. My only real goal is to finish and with a cut off time of 10 hours that should easily doable, I could probably walk it in that time, that said i’d like to finish in 6-7 hours. I had a great training week last week with a 32k run in 3h 30m a days rest then a sub 2 hour half marathon and a couple of slow 10k runs after a couple more days rest.

2 and a half weeks out now and I’ve had to reduce the volume a little now as I can feel a couple of sore bits creeping in where my last injury was and I don’t want this to get any worse so I’m hoping the work is basically done.

Fingers crossed!

If you can do 32km, you can do 50. As @Pyro mentioned, beyond a certain distance it’s more mental than physical. Just make sure you’re eating and drinking regularly, and (ignoring injuries due to falls or whatever) you’ll be fine.

Bleurgh. Got the Great Eastern Run this weekend (Peterborough 1/2 marathon, basically).
Training has been going OK and am aiming for 1hr 55 or thereabouts – so around 5:30 pace.

But, my old friend sore IT bands have raised their ugly head in the last few weeks. I’ve kept on with some training and some times that aren’t really flaring up and other times they are pretty sore from the off. It’s been an ongoing issue I have had for years, but has not been an issue for the entire training build-up to this run.
I guess it started to become a problem as the weekly mileage increased.

Just hoping to get round it now & not have to stop. Sometimes I can keep running through the soreness, other times it almost makes my knees give way – so will see how it is on Sunday.
Planning on just doing a lot of stretching this week & no proper running. Might do a few km on Wed to keep my legs moving and then a short run on Saturday too.

OK. So, I got the Great Eastern Run done, as posted about above.
I was aiming for 1hr55 and did it in 1hr51m35s, which I was pretty pleased with.

Predictably, my IT bands were a pain in the ass (hmmm, pain in the knees I suppose) from just over 5km onwards. It wasn’t ever bad enough that I needed to stop and it kept coming and going. Once I stopped though at the finish, I could barely get going again. Knees still sore 2 days on.
If they hadn’t been playing up, I feel that I could have got much nearer to 1hr50.

Now need to work on strength & flexibility to try & solve this IT band issue, which has hung around like a bad smell for over 20 years now.

Congratulations on hitting your target. Hope you recover well. Well done!

@Bazz – you’re in very much the same position as I was last year. I’d entered my first (and only?) 50km and just slowly built the distance up. I think the longest run I did before the event was 37km – and that was 3 months before my Ultra. I just maintained that level of fitness by doing shorter runs. The Ultra was a success and, if anything, I could have carried on further. Although my goal was only to finish the run, my time was actually 5h42m. I hope this gives you some encouragement/confidence.

In other news – I’m helping with the Dramathon on Saturday. I’ll be at the food station in Aberlour should anyone be doing the event and want to say hello. 

Thanks @scotroutes and @mogrim that is exactly the sort of encouragement that I need. Just over a week to the event and I’m feeling relatively confident, I’ve been running every other day for the last week and a half with a couple of sessions on the elliptical trainer and some resistance leg work on the other days and in this last week i’m going to basically rest and recover with just a couple of short runs (5k ish) and some yoga to keep me flexible.

I’ll report back next Sunday.

markr88 – my normal climbing partner did TMB over 5 days in September.   I’ve done quite a lot of the stages.  What do you want to know – he’s not a great runner but is strong,  i think it would be a really good experience ( unless the weather is horrible)

I’d kind of assume 2000m of sleep vert a day – thats more scary than the distance i think

For reference, I’ve never thought of eating for anything up to an hour, 75 mins, though I’ve been caught out a few times at the longer end of that range.

@Scotroutes – might see you at Dramathon. My missus is running and I’m taxi/photographer so will be running that way myself.

@wbo at present just getting my head around how to break up the legs. Most guides I can find tend to be based around 10 days.

Also seems like there’s some legs people use buses or ski lifts?

@Pyro – I’ll see if I can spare you half a banana.

Argh, despite being very tentative with my training I’ve still managed to pick up some sort of tendinopathy in my right calf.

Only really sore when I sit still for any length of time then move again. Once up and walking about it eases off.

So with that in mind and my 10km event next week, do I continue to rest up, or do one short run tonight and one short run mid-next week in order to keep fitness up?

Had planned a 10km at race pace this Saturday but now think that’s a bad idea 🙁

Has anyone ran/hiked Tour du Mont Blanc? I’m looking into a trip next summer to do it over 4 or 5 days, would be good to hear from anyone who has done it before.

Bit late to this, but I did it on a bike in 4 days last year and it was a real challenge (had a sizeable add-on on 3rd day tho).

Met some British lads running it in 4 or 5 days, and I was full of admiration for them. Running uphill would undoubtedly be quicker than pushing an enduro bike, but the heat is a big factor and there are limited opportunities to re-stock with food and water (and Switzerland is extortionate), so you’ll possibly be carrying a heavier pack than usual too (or hungry/thirsty).

Downhill and flat sections (not many of those) would be much harder on foot obvs.

We met thousands of people hiking it (10 days seemed average), maybe a dozen riding it and just that one group running it.

Okay, so I’m just back from my first 50k event. I got round no problem, finished in 6 hours and 1 minute, slightly annoyed to not get in under 6 hours. Conditions on the North Downs was a bit of a mixed bag, generally not too bad but a few areas were properly sloppy and some of the exposed chalk was like ice.

My legs are toast, by about 35k going uphill was more comfortable than going down hill! Quads and hip flexors are gonna ache in the morning.

Aye, but are you smiling? Was it a good day out on a decent autumn day?

Am at Jedburgh today, providing medical cover for the 3Peaks ultra. It’s been beautiful here almost all day, sunny, colourful and enough breeze to stop anyone from overheating. Plus the trails are nearly dry. It’s been a lovely day and there are loads of happy runners milling about in the post -race social.  Happy days.

Hi, some return to running advice.

I broke my collarbone 3 weeks ago. Clean break so no op, it is being left to heal itself.

Recovery is going well, I have been Zwifting for a couple of weeks now to keep fitness ticking over.

Any STW advice on returning to running. I think I am probably 3 weeks away from running, however if any previous experience to share that would be great.

My legs are toast, by about 35k going uphill was more comfortable than going down hill! Quads and hip flexors are gonna ache in the morning.

Yeah, that’s pretty normal. People who haven’t done that kind of event assume uphills are the bad bit, but if you’re not used to it the downhills are far, far worse.

On Saturday I went under 20 minutes in a Parkrun for the first time in almost five years. It’s not actually meaningful, and my local event has many many faster runners, but it feels satisfying nonetheless to have ticked off this little target again.

Well done, 20 on a parkrun is usually a pretty decent effort, they aren’t generally the fastest of courses. A while since I have done that! (just checked, Jan 2023!) I’m around 21-22 currently but hoping to work it down over the next couple of months. Ribble Valley 10k should be a sub-40 target if I get my arse in gear.

Big recommendation for Beachy Head marathon. Completed it over the weekend, 3:45 and sneaked into the top 20.

But what a course and what an event. Stunning scenery, brutal climbs, mud, great support, just a magnificent event. If it wasn’t so far from the midlands I’d definitely be back next year.

If any of you like trails then it definitely needs to be on your list.

In the manner of the all-round trainer question, is there an all-round winter trouser?

I’ve been looking at the likes of OMM and invo8 but they tend to fall into either warm or waterproof/windproof.

Ideally I’d like a close fitting trouser that’s windproof and waterproof. I’m guessing the best compromise would to wear warm leggings underneath?

Thanks