Yup absolute w*nkers. They were going for the car, but I managed to hang onto the keys!
Bloody hell, sorry to hear that Sam. Really hope you are not to badly hurt. That’s gotta shake you up!
5 weeks yesterday. Although it’s really only 2 more key training weeks, and I’m looking at those as only 4 more key run sessions left to go. The two listed above for this week, and then a final midweek MP tempo (aim is more than 25k) and then a last, steady 20 miler. Then it’s beginning to wind down.
I have a 10k race pencilled in 2 weeks out in Battersea Park which would be nice to have a proper crack at, leveraging the endurance base I’ll have built. I managed 36:37 off my VLM build in the spring, with no real speedwork, and that was lumpier in Hyde Park, so might try and see if 3:36’s are feasible for a 35:xx.
That’s bloody shit. Sounds like you’re ok with is good to hear. Shaken up I imagine? I had a fairly lengthy chat with my gf and my mates wife at a wedding on Saturday about the perils of being a women, and it made me realise how little respect I pay to these risks. I’m constantly running in some pretty dark and secluded places. Battersea Park isn’t so bad as it’s full of runners almost all the time, but some of the routes home I take through Hyde Park are really rather exposed to being jumped.
That’s terrible Sam, hopefully nothing other than a black eye as it could have been a lot worse if they had a knife.
Good luck for the sub 75, some of your track sessions have been brilliant.
Jeff
Jesus @trisam, thats awful, really sorry to hear and hopefully you can draw on that a little and smash that 75 barrier.
One of the reasons we left London was my wife was getting more and more concerned for her and our daughters safety, from what I could see London seems to be changing for the worse at the moment.
Like you Stenard, I gave little regard to where I ran, though I didn’t run along the canal in the dark over winter, but that was more about being hit by a bike than being mugged and I avoided Finsbury Park, (except when drunk) at night. Other than that anywhere was fair game.
Having said all that I will probably get done in Auckland tonight!
@stenard, that is pretty solid running, way more than I could ever imagine doing
38k is exceptionally high for long runs, especially with over half at MP. I think Grifter and maybe Noah (Oregan), (remember him) were occassionally guilty of running too long too fast in training and being too fatigued come race day.
I take most advice with a pinch of salt and always w.r.t myself do things that are not recommended, so as you have a good base and are clearly a fit guy you should be good. I would make sure that last week you taper very hard however!
I am sure you have mentioned before, but what is your target time?
It is strange the way we think about this stuff. Mrs FP was very violently mugged at a train station in Sydney and kicked to the ground in the pouring rain, not a soul intervened. (this was before I knew her). We were burgled twice in Sydney.
Touch wood, we have had a crime free experience in the UK. However, when we decided to move here, there were two absolute non negotiable conditions. Neither of us to work or live in London.
But you’re right, it can absolutely happen anywhere.
Yeah, it’s certainly a mammoth session. Much more intense than anything I did during the build my coach put together for London. But then I’m strangely running less frequently in terms of number of sessions, as there’s some of the turbos in there. I think that’s leaving me a fraction fresher. OK, I got ill before London which screwed everything, but the whole thing felt like a drag. This time I’m still nearly 5 weeks out and only have 4 hard sessions left.
So yeah, there will definitely be a pretty robust taper as I’ll be cutting quite a bit of volume from 3 weeks out by the looks of things. I’ve found my coach tends to be pretty conservative on the volume side in the last weeks before big races. I often do very little. His standard is 3x1k at 5k pace in the middle of the week and then a shakeout easy 20mins with a few strides the day before.
That said, my best tri performance of the year was Nice where I did the whole bike course on the Tuesday before the race, and I biked really well (for me) so for triathlon I might try and argue for more volume going forwards. Cycling is a lot easier to recover from of course.
Time wise, it’s all about Sub3. In the spring I was thinking of 2:50ish on a good day, but I now just want the monkey off my back. I did 3:04 in my first ever marathon, but that’s nearly 4 years ago now, and I’ve still not done it. So I’m going to just head out at 4:05-4:10/km and play it safe. He says
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Gosport Half Marathon - 1:14:14.
The only goal here was to run sub-75 for a London Marathon Championship spot, anything else would have been a bonus!
So despite being mugged at knife-point and spending much of my taper week in the police station (they’ve arrested 2 guys and I had to give statements, do ID matching and offer up my help with CCTV analysis), I did it!
Prep for the race otherwise had been really good, with some solid threshold work being the main difference since my last attempt. I had a great run a few weeks back where I did 13km at HMP around the track which was a real confidence booster. The weather conditions on the day were absolutely ideal. I necked a Beetroot juice, laced up the Vaporflys and was full of confidence going into the race.
Possibly too much confidence…
I started off in a decent group bang on target pace, which I based off the 13km HMP session and felt really comfortable. Someone put a little dig in after just 3km and I decided to go with the group rather than risk being isolated. We hit 5km in just over 17 minutes and continued to press on to hit 10km in 34:20, dropping a few on the way. By 12km the pace was beginning to bite and I felt myself slipping off the back of the reduced group. By 16km (the 10 mile marker), I was solidly in a world of hurt and the pace was beginning to falter.
In typical race fashion, all that was going around my head was how slow I could run the last 5km and still go sub-75 for that all important London slot. I had just over 19 minutes, so I necked a gel and forced myself to press on.
I got overtaken with less than 800m to go, and hung on for as long as I could. I was ecstatic to see 1:13:xx as I was heading down the long finishing straight so I put the head down and pushed as hard as I could. 1:14:14 for a 46 second PB and 11th place, which is irrelevant really in the grand scheme of things!
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#fastAF!
Well done.
Good man!
Awesome!
Super fast! Congrats.
Amazing run, especially after your week
Class TS, I could see on Strava that the pace from 16-20 was a tad slower, I assumed you were in a world of pain at that point, but in some ways that is the point of racing!
Of course you could have done it the easy way and just run a 2:45 marathon somewhere 
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Brilliant result and well executed! That’s a very nice sounding pb and a qualifier for London as well
So ran and bombed at NYC marathon 2 weeks, have just entered another (Philadelphia) this weekend.
Haven’t done anything except eat and drink (and 2 x short easy runs) since the last race, wondering how much ‘training’ I can get away with this week to give me a chance on Sunday! 
(I’m thinking a bit of a tempo with ~30 minutes at MP tonight to remind me what it feels like, then on Wednesday maybe do a final session of 3 x 1 mile at MP, and 1 or 2 very easy runs slotted in the middle of now and race day
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1.14 !! Bloody hell, it’s like a different world, well done Sam.
Nice running and well done for finally slaying that monkey!!
Thanks all. Not sure what the aim will be for London, got to see how the winter training goes!