@jam-bo not necessarily, my slow pace is about 8-9 minute miles.  I used to average about 7 minute miles for everything through a week, but it’s now much slower and I’ve got quicker!

@rollindoughnut my cadence doesn’t change much regardless of my pace, unless it’s balls-out in a race, it’s generally between 190-200, so shorten the stride to stay light on your feet.  If you observe the cadence of runners at a parkrun for example, you will generally notice that the slower runners have a much lower cadence, and a lot look like they’re over-striding, while in a race you will see the guys up front will generally all be close to in-synch.

This week however I’ve been enjoying some nice warm weather for running – 40° in northern France was lovely, although a bit nicer in the shade than the sun.  Managed a total screw-up on Wednesday though – had a 5000m track race in the evening, ran 6km to warm up to venue 1, discovered I should have been at venue 2, 10km away, with 25 minutes to get there :(  Bailed on the race to ran 8km to venue 3 to support some mile racing instead…

I used to be terrible at running slowly, felt like I was barely moving and would actually feel more tired after a slow run than a relatively brisk one.  However, I have learned to embrace the dawdle, and most of my miles are now accumulated slowly, with a distinct demarcation between slow and fast, and my race times have improved considerably.  Treat a slow run as active recovery, and enjoy the company.

My ultra nutrition strategy is a bit different from what has been discussed above, but perhaps my overall race goals are slightly different too.  For the South Downs Way 100 mile last month I had zero solid food, just 5 liters of McMaurten (my own proprietary Maurten-alike mix at a fraction of the price, hopefully almost as effective) and 2 Calippos.  No gels either, and was perhaps a little down on calories based on what my stomach could have taken (~30g carbs/hour), but no GI distress either.  This was a big contrast to what happened at the Thames Path where I aimed at 80g carbs/hour which I managed for the first half before the stomach emptied itself and then refused to take anything more… Also didn’t lose 10% body mass through dehydration either, which I’ll take as a win, which incidentally I also did :)

Maybe not :D

And now WvA sits on Pog’s wheel to outsprint him and deny him more bonus seconds…

Now the tables turned…

Oooh, nearly a highside for Vingo :O

Just back to the office after seeing them roll out.  Healthy breeze coming in off the sea, but they should be a good but more sheltered inland, I doubt there would be any echelons forming in the neutral zone along the promenade :D

Bradley Wiggins totally ignoring everyone as he headed from the busses down to find his motorbike.

I snagged a free banana and a TDF musette :)

I’m in Dunkerque most weeks, and it’s really buzzing at the moment – these are from a little potter yesterday evening

And then driving to the site this morning, saw what seemed to be the majority of the caravan – this was the first of a long train of trucks with all sorts on the back

Sneaking off for an hour or so to see them roll out along the promenade in a bit :)

@thecaptain personally I love running when it’s hot, and the more training you do when it’s warm will help you when racing, especially if it’s a warm day for your race.  Spending 5 years in India meant I couldn’t really avoid the heat and I got pretty well acclimatised, although I think that’s wearing off now

I’ve had some wires in our house for a while, and added when we did our kitchen extension recently.  Cable under floor of living room to cupboard under stairs, where I have a few devices and a switch.  1 cable up to loft from switch, another to kitchen.  Another cable goes out to the shed (CNC & 3D printer etc).  The primary wifi is in the lounge but doesn’t stretch very far, so I have 2 more access points, one in the kitchen, another in the loft, all wired.  Glad we took the opportunity to do so, and during the loft conversion and kitchen extension were the perfect times, cables under a solid concrete floor are tricky!

About 10k run to Kingston last night, 1500m race, then ~10k home again.

Given how much fatigue there still is in the legs from the 100 miler I thought a tactical sit-and-kick race would suit better than taking it out from the gun.  With 300m to go I surged to the front, and was surprised that someone came with me and pushed me hard to the line, but I still sneaked the win in a rather pedestrian 4:34.  Can certainly feel it in the legs today, a couple more easy days before I get back into the swing of things.

Dad’s race at daughter’s nursery on Saturday morning.  ~50m sprint isn’t necessarily my forte but managed to sneak a win by a hair’s breadth!

Junior parkrun on Sunday saw another 10 second improvement from last week.  I’ve worked out that at this rate it will take 36 weeks for Wilfred to beat the 2km world record :)

1500m this evening in the vets league, again not really my distance but should be fun

I initially read DrJ as DrP and thought

ooh, could there be a chance that this is connected to a new spur being fitted? 

:)

My vote would be for Earlyrider – really nicely made light and proper bikes.  My son is on his 3rd, while his sister is now riding his 1st.

@hot_fiat I have a fantastic EVOC wheely bag which used roller-blade type large softish wheels, rolls much nicer than anything else I have, maybe worth a look. This one

Interesting that GoPro is now apparently a generic term for any sort of action camera.  The footage clearly shows CYCLIQ at the bottom, from a post mounted light with integrated camera specifically to record this sort of incident.

Yes, not the issue, but it piqued my interest.

My strategy was to try and set a new course record, and not make so many of the mistakes that I did at the Thames Path last year – mainly setting off far too fast, taking on way too many carbs, puking everything up at halfway and crawling to the finish.  I also saw that the winner of the Thames Path this year held all of his kit in a waist belt, so wasn’t carrying anything on his back.  This looked like a great idea, and would leave the back exposed to dissipate heat, which if it was warm would be a great benefit.  I sewed a big pocket into the back of an old pair of Skins compression shorts which had lost the elastic from the waistband, so were pretty much useless anyway. They worked nicely so I could have my whole torso free, and while it wasn’t particularly hot ~20ish degrees, it was pretty sunny all do, so I think this made a difference.

What I hadn’t managed to do was get as many miles in during training as I would have liked, nor hills.  Commuting to Dunkirk (not famous for hills) most weeks this year didn’t help either, and lack of preparation became apparent fairly early on.  I had in mind a 13 hour goal pace, which was perhaps rather optimistic, but even 14 hour course record seemed unlikely at the halfway point.  I was doing plenty of sums working out how my current pace compared to what I needed to run, and I quickly reverted to trying to stay ahead of 2nd place, who was never more than about 3 miles behind.

Again I had crew who did an amazing job of keeping me fueled and also cooling me down with ice, and I had some pacers too who joined from halfway doing short stints.  Basically I worked on the marginal gains, but had neglected the core aspect of training, so I was very lucky to sneak the win, and it was my smallest winning margin ever, about 15 minutes, regardless of race distance.

On the fueling front though, instead of aiming for 80g carbs/hour, I just went with what my stomach could take, which ended up as about 5.5 litres of McMaurten (my own Maurten mix) over the distance, which worked out as about 30g carbs/hour, on the low side of what you might expect, but was all I could handle without any GI distress.  However, I was still peeing without issue all the way to the end, and afterwards, and only lost about 2kg of weight, rather than the 6 I did at Thames Path, so this wasn’t a complete fail.

Was it fun – not entirely sure.  It’s a long time to be running, even just the 1st half solo, morale improved significantly once I had a buddy with me, but of course the pain levels ramped up.

I walked all the uphills, probably more than I should have done, but it did mean I didn’t completely slow to a crawl at the finish, so the ups were a relief as a good excuse for a walk :)

This was my Saturday https://www.strava.com/activities/7292822633

I had meant to drop a tracking link here in advance for anyone to dot-watch had they been interested, but I was crazy busy last week and forgot… I can almost negotiate stairs again normally now, which is nice!

@rollindoughnut I’ve run the Bacchus Marathon a few times, in the spirit of the Marathon du Medoc, it’s now just a half and 10k, hilly, wine involved, most treat is as more a drinking than running event, but you can put more emphasis on one aspect.  https://www.run-bacchus.com/ Maybe not quite what you had in mind – the previous organiser had a bunch of excellent races starting at Denbies vineyard, but they went out of business and this was the only race which has survived under a new owner.

On the subject of progressing up distances, I wouldn’t rush, enjoy your running and extend the distance when you think you’re ready.  I’m more at the compete that than complete mindset, so I’ve wanted to be at the pointy end of the field, so you might be of a different opinion…

@rollindoughnut it’s the 11th June, starting at 5am in Winchester, aim to be in Eastbourne by around 6:30pm depending on conditions.  Event website is here if you want to read more about it.  These 100 mile races are quite something – last weekend I went to Reading to run with some of my buddies who were en-route to Oxford around midnight, almost like a festival atmosphere at times.

@alanf the course record is 14:03, the race report makes for interesting reading and obviously things have moved on in the past 8 years, but I want to knock a substantial amount off that, and off my 13:43 from last year.  I’d certainly be very happy with ~13:30, but it could depend on conditions on the day.  If it’s scorching, a conservatively paced win in a slow time would be better than course record pace for halfway then DNF.

I generally go pretty well when it’s warm, probably something to do with being scrawny so having a good volume to surface area ratio and little excess insulation.  The ‘warm’ London marathon in I think 2017 or maybe 2018 I thought was perfect while others were wilting, but 4 times the distance is a slightly different matter.

I’ll try and remember to stick a tracking link in this thread for everyone to watch me blow up spectacularly!

First post on here for quite some time, good to see progress from so many folks.

My A race is coming up on 4 weeks, South Downs Way 100, aim to learn from the mistakes I made in the Thames Path 100 last year and improve.  The main one was nutrition, I’ve been doing quite a lot of my runs taking on fuel as I go to match my intended race plan, to try and get the stomach accustomed to it, hopefully I won’t have a massive puking session and corresponding energy bonk at halfway like I did previously.  It was fascinating to watch the Thames Path Race a couple of weeks ago, and see the winner absolutely dominate the event with a margin of almost 2 hours over 2nd place. He used a waist bag for his compulsory kit, the advantage of this being that the back isn’t covered up, so it can be used to dissipate sweat.  As a June race, I would anticipate the weather being nice, so being able to cool down effectively is going to have a big impact.  I’m going to make a new race vest, but without any pocket on the back, this will just be to hold soft flasks on my upper chest.  I’ll sew some big zipped pockets into the back of my shorts to carry everything else.

Training has been relatively consistent, but haven’t hit the volume I was managing last year – working in France for 3 days most weeks has an impact, and I think I’m probably on average at least 90 minutes down on sleep every day…staying awake on the M20 to and from the Eurotunnel is my biggest challenge :(

Hopefully it’ll go to plan, the plan being as ever quite ambitious :)

@lunge I’ll be there.  First time ever running the Nationals – raced at Parliament Hill a few times, London champs and Southern champs, so looking forward to lots of rolling terrain and mud!

Unfortunately the last round of the Surrey League XC has been cancelled today due to lots of damaged trees and dangerous branches at the venue which is disappointing.  We were looking to claim the title for only the 3rd time, and with a crazy lead in the points it was going to be emphatic, so a bit of an anticlimax.  Went out for a 20 miler this morning instead, and for the first time since Country to Capital took fluids, which I threw up after 16 miles… Clearly need a bit more practice, don’t want that to happen during the 100k race in April :o

Stick some Hope seals in a pot of mineral oil or Shimano seals in Dot 4/5 and it should become clear what the issues can be.  IIRC from my days of fiddling with brakes with Dave Culimore during my Middleburn days, that mineral oil causes typical seals to swell up a huge amount which would cause havoc with the sealing properties.

I’ve been a big Tiny Rebel fan for a few years, their beer advent calendar was full of absolute bangers.

I recently discovered Drop Project, who produce some absolutely delicious beers, my particular favourites are the NEIPAs and TIPAs.  They are quite strong, but that’s fine as I generally only have 1 of an evening.  The Vortex 10% TIPA is a smasher :)

We have an extension being built currently – was supposed to be finished by Christmas….

This is what I’m paying:
<div>Chemical Toilet £25+vat Per Week Per Toilet (minimum 4 weeks hire)</div>

<div>£25+vat Delivery</div>
<div>£25+vat Collection</div>

<div>All Toilets arrive steamed cleaned, serviced/cleaned weekly and come with the following inside:</div>

• HSE Compliant Forearm Sink
• Hand Soap
• Air Freshener
• Mirror
• 2x Toilet Rolls

I ordered some Nike ZoomX Invincibles reduced from £160 to £98 the other day which arrived this afternoon.  Not run in them yet but they are super squishy, so looking forward to seeing how they fare on long runs and if they leave the legs very fresh afterwards.  Got a couple of days in Austria now where there is snow on the ground, not necessarily the ideal testing ground!

@lunge the first Speedgoats were a strange shoe but some people liked them.  The 2nd version was universally hated, far too narrow, various other flaws, which put people off them. I think I have the 2nd version which are well past their best, but have been ok, if narrow for me.  The 3rd version is supposed to be way better, and folk who have hated the 2nd, have liked the 3rd, so might be worth trying on a pair.  Good cushioning and grip, assuming they’re the right size for you.  I think I ran the Red Bull Steeplechase in them, yes, checking the photo I did

@onzadog I was taught a fantastic stretch by the XC captain at university, many years ago when I was having issues, I’ve mentioned it a few times in this thread and seems to have helped a few others, so hopefully will do for you too.

Stand with you feet shoulder-width apart, and try and lift the inside of each foot upwards as much as you can so you are just standing on the outer edge of your feet.  I’ve always done this wearing shoes.  Hold for 20s or so before your run and you should hopefully see benefits.  Do it before each run for a couple of weeks and you should stop having to do so.

@piemonster I like my OMM Kamleika.  It’s lightweight but soft, comfortable and waterproof, so with some layers underneath should be sufficient for winter running exploits.  It’s my default shell for training when it’s chilly or cool & wet, with varying amounts underneath depending on temperature.  Thumb holes for keeping sleeves over gloves, a nice peaked hook.  Either smock of jacket, I have a smock.

Wordle 223 5/6

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Was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get it, lucky guess at the end

I wear my Garmin pretty much full time which has wrist based HR measurement and records 24/7, so I have a lot of data available

Pretty fit here and my HR drops to high 20’s normally when I’m sleeping, but glad to report than I can chug a beer straight after a run without fainting :)

I got started on Technic lego about 35 years ago now, really liked the pneumatic stuff, and seeing how differentials worked etc.  My dad posted a large box of my old leg down to me, about 2 cubic feet of it, and it never arrived, courier lost it.  The £100 it was insured for was a fraction of what it was worth I’m sure :(

My 6 year old has just finished his Christmas Lego – cat for scale

@oikeith that’s exactly what I had when I used to swim, worked really well for me. That shuffle has since died, but I’m sure things have moved on now, this was about 12 years ago.  Really like my Aftershox bone conducting headphones for running, so if I was looking for a swim solution now I’d probably investigate them

Vets AC XC Champs today.  It was a cool afternoon, but not as cold as when I ran a course recce on Thursday morning to determine the most appropriate footwear, when it was frozen underfoot.  I decided that trail shoes would be quickest overall, with the majority of the new route being on hard stony paths, so the small sections where spikes would be advantageous would be outweighed by where they would be slower or less comfortable.

Having listened recently to an interview with the great Dave Bedford, his tip was if you have the legs, to go out very hard from the start, and press on.  I made the mistake of taking it too easy the last time this race was held, and despite being quite fresh at the end, didn’t have the finishing speed to clinch the win.

With Dave Bedford’s words in my head, and earlier experience, I did indeed take it out hard from the off, and had company until around halfway around the first of 2 laps, where the course drops down to do a lap of a small lake.  I made a gap on the descent and this grew gradually to around a minute by the finish.  I think the guy who was with me for the start of the race regretted going with my early pace as he was reeled in to finish 3rd.

Now to arrange engraving on the cup for the 3rd time in 4 outings!

My advance it to make sure that your training is polarised – easy is really easy, hard is really hard.  The exception to this can be the long run, which is harder by nature of the length.  Very easy to do the majority of your training in the middle ground where you get tired but don’t get a particularly significant training impulse.  I’ve been guilty of this in the past, but seen significant improvements by running much slower for my easy runs. I had a major breakthrough over 5k late last autumn where I had done almost exclusively really easy miles, and a few hard track races which constituted my only speed work.

Just realised that there is a new Garmin scale.  My comments were for the original which I’ve had for a few years now, I’m assuming unless Garmin have f*cked up, the new ones will be even better

I have a set of Garmin scales and like them.  Multiple users – all you need is a Garmin Connect account and you can add people, it guesses who is on the scales based on the weight, but you can scroll through users by tapping your foot if it’s got it wrong.  This is normally because your partner has weighed themselves and told the scales that they are you!  Easy enough to spot a rogue weight on your graphs and delete that data point.  Does more than just weight, body fat, hydration etc might not be 100% accurate, but gives an interesting metric to compare trends.