Did you do that the year I did it?
When it snowed. And hailed?
I was so hungover 
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No, it was a lovely bright, November day. 2011 I think. I really liked the 3 laps with the cheeky hill halfway round.
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To be fair if I was running through Luton Id be running fuck fast also.
Have your trainers nicked if youre too slow.
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Interested to follow this, have you raced recently to have an idea of current starting place?
Don’t think I could commit to another go but I am thinking of a go at 3:10 if I can stay injury free.
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No mate. Last stand alone was Luton in 2011 and ran 3:17 on 3 runs/week. In 2013 I was training for London and all my numbers were indicating a good sub3 attempt but then got a back injury 7 weeks out. Ended up doing nothing for 5 weeks and then ran 3:45 to get round. Most recent race was Hampton Court half in 2020 and ran 1:27. No doubt that sub3 is a stretch goal but with a good level of consistency, I should be there or there abouts.
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Week 2.
3 runs 
Tuesday - easy 3.5m at 8.57 min/miles
Friday - very easy 4.5m at 9.00 min/miles
Saturday - 8.5m as 1.5m warm up / 5km parkrun / 5km easy run. Hit the parkrun a bit harder as very steady for the first 1500m then worked my way through and finished in 21:50, over a minute faster than last week. Think I was just about running 6:30min/miles at the end and was blowing out my ar$e, so a long way to go to run another 25 of them! Legs and feet ok, but need to do a really deep stretch and core session, this weekend. I’m on holiday next week, so I’ll try to do a fourth easy run, as it will be at least a week before a rest the week after.
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This may be an un-popular view, but if I was thinking of targeting a sub 3 in 6 months or so time, I would want to get either those paces down a bit pretty sharpish OR add in some more ‘quality’ (whatever that means for you…)
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I must admit I was kind of thinking similar 
Hi mate. Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, I appreciate these are not many runs at the moment and there’s no real quality in there. Just with my injury history over the last few years I don’t want to go from nothing to full on sub-3 training in the blink of an eye. But I absolutely hear you about the quality sessions, and I promise you they will come!
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I have entered Lucerne Marathon again. It’s in 2 weeks, and for a change I am not injured. Would be nice to go sub 3 again. I feel in great shape, and probably as fit as I was when I did Zurich in 2:54 earlier this year
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Week 3
3 runs
Tuesday- 6.5m as 1m warm up, then 6x3mins with 2mins recovery. Warm down jog home. Those intervals were hard. Just not used to turning my legs over faster. Need to focus on my running form and not slouch.
Friday- 4.5m steady at 8.5min/mile
Sunday- 12m at 8.45min/mile. Just some time on my feet. Did a good, deep stretch before setting off.
First time over 20 miles for a week’s running in a very long time.
Rest week, next week! 
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Week 4
3 runs
Tuesday - 5miles which included 3x5mins. Felt the first twinges of some discomfort in my left foot so dropped the last interval and jogged home.
Thursday - 3 miles very steady at 8.55min/miles. I could feel my foot but not Uncomfortably so.
Saturday - ParkRun. 22:30 started slow for the first 2k then ran through for the last 3km. I was meant to do 10k as 5 k progression run then 5k slow but binned the second one as I could feel some discomfort after the first one. My foot’s been very sore since, so will need to focus on it, this week. My next run is scheduled for Tuesday so will have to get some rehab going. I was going to up to 4 runs a week, but I’m going to have to put that on hold.
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Lucerne Marathon today. Plan was to go for a 2:55, and planned to maintain 4:05 pace. First half, hit my plan, with a 1:27:25. Second lap started well, however, there are 2 climbs each lap, the first 45m the second 80m. I pushed too hard up the climbs and then destroyed my quads on the descent. To rub salt in, the course was actually 43km, I finished in 3h4m, 6th in AG
I’m actually more tired than when I finished Kona… Marathons are tough
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Good effort all the same @Matthew_Spooner 
Thanks, 7 mins faster than last year
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Well done Matt, descending is tough on the legs, especially on tarmac
As Matt posted, I may as well…
Firstly welk done Matt.
I ran Auckland marathon (again) this weekend, was hoping for another for another sub2:40 crack, despite the harder course, but build has been very up and down with illness and hamstring issues, so new that was off, but was not sure what was on.
It was forecast torrential rain and heavy wind, so that sounded fun, as it turned out, wind was ok and the rain eased…
So 6AM start running off in the dark and rain questioning life choices, all my gels slipped out my tri belt, first time that has happened, managed to save 4, so 1 every 30 minutes was the new plan there.
As for the race, first half I was pretty rubbish, went out around 4’s, but then must have slipped as various groups and people over took me, half way at 1:27 I think.
Then around 24k a girl I know overtook, not sure why, but she irks me for no reason at all, but I used it as motivation to push on, so from 24k to 39k I ran 4s and under, pushing and quite enjoying the marathon ‘pain’, around 35k this girl was leading the women’s race and had gapped me a little, but I had second on my shoulder, so I really pushed to try and drag her up to first, failed, told her I was about to blow, she moved on and I plodded in after 29k at 4:15’s.
In January I ran Auckland that was postponed from the previous October within 5 seconds of yesterday, but yesterday was harder which basically suggests I have gone backwards this year!
But this was my 21st consecutive sub 3 (that I have finished and not pulled out through injury) and given Wednesday I did not think I was going to be able to run I should be reasonably happy.
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Even more annoying when it looks from strava like like there was a small out-back bit, presumably only there to make it the right distance.
Top work @YKK. Seems like the whole of Oceania is not the place for nice running at the moment with this la nina
They added the out and back this year. The turning point used to be just before the finish line, however, rather than a mass start, they went with a staggered start, earliest at 0830 and latest at 1130, as a result there would still be people starting when the Marathon runners started second lap (which would be chaos), so the moved the turning point 1.5k down course and added the out and back (which wasn’t nice). Seems totally ridiculous that it was long