Keep Fit Club - ALL exercise types!

[k0pp0]

Cheers for that, think I'd be chewing my own arm off though..

[Adam Stone]

Managed to put on a few pounds, FINALLY.

Back to a healthy 12 and a half stone - but need to get back to 13.

Havent had time for gym for months - still paying for the damn membership, lol - but am using my bike and running often, yet not too much because i lose too much weight too quickly!

I'm doing my triangle pressups daily (at least three sets of 45 a day) and three sets of 25 pullups. been getting the wife and kid to sit on my back when doing pressups too, lol. Quite fun.

Do miss taking my running seriously though, was enjoying that.

[Taka]

Got the chance to meet Mo Farah this afternoon at one of his book signings. Lovely bloke, but I only had 2 minutes or so with him before I had to move on so I asked him to wish me luck in my sub-90 minute half marathon attempt this Sunday!

[Adam Stone]

managed 3 pressups with a 12stone dude sittting on my back.. at work lol

next week we attempt 5!

[Mr M0by]

Good luck with your Half-Marathon in the morning Taka. Whats this weekends course & weather like compared to your Cardiff race?

My marathon (Abingdon) has come around quick. I'm currently sat in my room at a B&B in Culham wondering whether I should set my alarm ultra early for a carb filled snack & then get some sleep again. Race is at 9. I'm thinking late night Hotline Miami wasn't really ideal preparation though.

Aiming for sub 3:10 (think that's my London Marathon 'Good For Age' qualification) and feeling reasonably confident I can hit my target times for the first 15 miles of so, after that I've no idea. Weather forecast looks pretty horrid for the morning which is bound to have a negative effect surely but still, the weather icon has gone from Dark Cloud & Lightning Bolt to just Dark Cloud & Rain, so it could be worse!

[Mr M0by]

And I'm done. Fast at the start (too fast even - surprise!), set PBs for 10k and Half-Marathon but the heavy wind & rain from mile 15 to 20 wore me out for the final 6.
My Garmin watch is both a blessing and a curse. I did the first 16.2 miles or so in under 1hr50 so worked out that so long as I hit 7:30/m for the last 10 I'd make sub 3:05 - I was hitting around 6:40-50 at that point so tried to keep that pace up, theorising that every 7:00-15/m mile I was hitting after that was 'time in the bank' but I just hit the wall at 20.5m and walked for around 0.2m. When I started again I felt more refreshed, pace was back to low 7 and I still came in sub 8 for that mile. But stopping after 20 miles is never a good strategy to make it to the end and 3/4m later I stopped again, my mind playing tricks on me telling me that based on my Garmin time I could afford to. Yeah right! I stopped to walk about 3 further times in that last stint.

I crossed the line in 3hr6something - 8 minutes faster than the previous best (Yay!) and achieved what I set out to do. Turns out that the GFA time for the VLM was reduced to 3:05 this year though! Thankfully I found that out this morning pre-race, it would have been really gutting to have discovered after the race.

I guess this just means I'm going to have to do another now... I mean if I can run 3:06 and that include a mile or so of walking, sub 3 is definitely doable! Not any time soon though. The 2.5m walk to find a train station after the race has left me with blisters on my blisters.

How did you get on Taka?

[Taka]

Fantastic effort there, M0by! Gutted you missed out on London GFA by a minute or so but still a big PB to be proud of. Nice little write-up and it was good to read what you were going through. Fingers crossed you have a smooth recovery.

A good buddy of mine did Abingdon today and finished in 3:05:05. A marathon PB but he feels dreadful that he missed GFA by mere seconds.

I ran a course PB in Brum of 1:34:45 (ran 1:45:22 last year) but it was tough out there. The rain stopped before we ran, but it left huge puddles and the ground was quite slippery. Brum is quite a technical course but they decided to add a new hill in exchange for a simplified final mile, which was previously flat but quite twisty. Despite feeling great the last few days, my legs were still full of my Cardiff half and mentally, I was tired too. I'll build up to a comfortable sub-90 attempt for the spring somewhere, probably the Silverstone Half.

[Mr M0by]

Took me 6 hours to get home in the end due to firstly having to walk 2.5 miles to the nearest village with a train station & followed by delayed & then cancelled trains. I'm not back at work until Thursday though, which is nice.

Anyhoo Garmin uploaded.

I thought I had beat my 10k time but I didn't, that remains at 40:18.
New Half Marathon PB of 1:26:28 beating my previous best of 1:28:28. Both previous PBs were set in training this year. Mental note: There really is no need to set Half PBs in a full marathon!
Marathon chip time: 3:06:36
Looked at the mile splits & I was fine until the 22nd mile when it just broke me. I went from 7:13, 7:13, 7:27, 7:25 to 7:54, 8:11, 8:37, 9:23 & 7:51.

I entered the Silverstone Half (2nd March) & the Colchester Half (16th March) a few weeks back as a means to giving me something to focus on in the new year. Plus it'll be interesting to follow a Half schedule were I'm probably likely to fulfil the mileage requirements. I've ran both before. My first ever Half was at Silverstone in 2010 & I ran 1:30:17 & the Colchester one was in 2012 with 1:28:28 - coincidentally the same time as I set earlier in the year.

Your buddy must be understandably gutted. I feel for him. What are your own plans for the race/run plans for the rest of the year? I'm going to take a week or two off & then try & get a couple of Park Runs completed. I don't expect to do many more this year though. I manage a hmv store & the hours at work can get a bit hectic from now 'til Xmas, so I'll endeavour to try and get at least 2 runs a week in and look to pick it back up in January.

[Taka]

Add me on Garmin Connect if you want - mrandyyu. Are you on Run Britain Rankings at all? Very motivational handicap system like on golf to push you to get your times down - Andy Yu.

I love the Silverstone Half, which was my second half marathon several years ago. The 12pm start means you can avoid an overnight stay and it's cheap as chips to enter. No real distractions out on the course either so you can just knuckle down with the task at hand if you're having a great race; bad if you're not. The flat course also allowed me to shave off 14 minutes for a mahoosive PB back then on less than perfect training.

I have a 5k race in New York in 2 weeks. It's marketed as the last 3.1 miles of the New York Marathon; the girl and I thought it'd be rude to be there and not run it since our hotel will be overlooking the finish in Central Park! I'm not in great 5k shape right now where I seem to have swapped my speed back to endurance, so I'm hoping to get around the progressively uphill course in sub-20.

Would like to dip under sub-19 at Parkrun by the end of the year, but I don't think it's likely to happen without some focused interval work, which just isn't safe with the wet and dark conditions right now.

For next year, I'll most likely do Silverstone as my spring half marathon and also have the Reading Bramley 20 scheduled as a 20 mile training run to prep for the London Marathon. I'm praying that my 3:20 estimated time I put down for my ballot entry will bump me up to pen 5/6 or better after my pen 8 start this year pretty much blew my chances of a faster finish.

[Mr M0by]

They do take your estimated time in to consideration. I can't remember what pen's I was in but the first time round I estimated 3:45 & the second time 3:10 & I was definitely further forward. The first year I think I worked my way further up front just by ducking under the pen ribbons & wasn't told off for doing so.

[Kit]

Just tried one of those protein bars.

****ing hell...

Disgusting.

Declaring war on the gym during the week. My aim is building muscle. I've kicked the smokes (never understood how people get hooked tbh, I find it easy to just give up) and am going to tweak my diet.

Might make this a week project. See how much improvement I can make.

Max fat you can lose in a weeks is 4lbs correct?

What about the amount of muscle you can put on?

[fishbowlhead]

Ban request for taka, the guys too dam fit and shouldn't be allowed to post in here anyore, it's depressing, you hear me taka .

Only kidding of course. Good luck in New York too, sounds like great fun. Let us know how you get on.

[charlesr]

25% off at www.adidas.co.uk today only "friends" at checkout.

[Taka]

Ban request for taka, the guys too dam fit and shouldn't be allowed to post in here anyore, it's depressing, you hear me taka .

Only kidding of course. Good luck in New York too, sounds like great fun. Let us know how you get on.

M0by, Adam and Charles are faster than me! I wouldn't even make the podium if the 4 of us raced together.

I'm actually thinking of taking a small disposable camera with me for the 5k in New York just to capture the experience. We Brits are quite reserved as spectators and I've been told by several sources that the Yanks really know how to cheer us runners on. It'll be one year on from the hurricane which cancelled last year's New York Marathon so I think it'll be quite a special homecoming for runners.

[charlesr]

Off to adidas tomorrow evening for their 2014 range preview. Photobomb to follow.