Flavio - Scary how much toll the marathon has taken and is a familiar story to what Mark went through.  I guess the people on this thread with more marathons in the legs get back to normal much quicker, so I can expect a long recovery after my first in April, albeit with (I think) a conservative goal rather than your all or nothing approach.

Watson - Agree with piwi that would be a great effort after some of the bad luck you've had.  Keen my target is 1:29.24.  I don't know whether I will have A, B and C goals.  As long as the weather forecast stays as is, PR is a realistic goal I think.  If I miss but still go sub 1:30 I'll still be reasonably happy but I'm not sure there's much point having a B goal only 30 seconds slower than my main goal.

Piwi - I name you king of inventive cross-training for this week.

Marky_Mark - so what other artists have a catalogue that deep?  I have to admit that I am lazy and just find a DJ set or a live concert rather than building my own playlist.

Steve - I hope all of you ills clear quickly - that's certainly a lot to deal with.

Watson - looking good for the half!

Flavio - I'm sorry you're still dealing with the aftermath of the marathon.  Re: Steve's comment - I have quite a few marathons in my legs and carry higher mileage than some on this thread.  And yet I don't recover particularly fast from them.  In my case, it's generally less about injuries from the marathon, and more about generalized fatigue that takes a while to pass.

****

My week:

45 miles running, 4 hours pool-running, a bit of arc-trainer work, and 1000 yards swimming.

M: 80 minutes pool-running and streaming yoga.
T: 3 miles (11:28), an arc-trainer workout of 2x5 sets of 90 seconds very hard/30 seconds easy, and then 2 miles (9:41). Followed with leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.
W: 30 minutes pool-running and 7 miles easy (9:27), and then upper body weights/core.
Th: 30 minutes pool-running and 9 miles with 8 hill repeats. Followed with leg strengthwork.
F: 80 minutes pool-running and upper body weights/core
Sa: 20 minutes pool-running and then 14.5 miles progressive, split as first 5 miles averaging 9:36 pace, next 5 miles averaging 8:48 pace, and next 4.5 miles averaging 7:32 pace, and then leg strengthwork and 500 yards recovery swimming.
Su: 9.5 miles very easy (9:42) plus drills and 4 strides, followed by streaming yoga.

I ended up swapping to the arc-trainer on Tuesday since I felt so unsteady outside.   I may do that again this week - I can go much harder on the arc-trainer than I can while running, and it's nice to get a satisfying hard workout in once in a while.

I experimented some the rest of the week. a) doing a session of pool-running before running outside results in a better run.  b) doing really deep sustained stretches for the calves, hamstrings, and quads, plus the yoga pose "hanging forward fold" (which stretches out the lower back) also seems to help a lot.   It is a royal pain to try to pool-run before running outside, so on Sunday I tried just doing the stretches pre-run.  I think that may be how I go until I figure out what's going on here.

The earliest the neurologist can see me remains my original appointment on November 9.  Which is annoying, but I'm trying to take comfort in that apparently they don't think I'm an urgent situation that needs to get in sooner or have other testing done.

DW - you will remember I had a sense of instability for a few days back in August.

I never quite figure it out, and it returns at times, though much milder now.

My current theory is that it's related to something wrong in the back or neck.

You mentioned that stretching your back alleviates it a bit, does it make sense to go visit a PT for a session to maybe unblock your back, or check muscle tension in those muscles running at the side of your neck (from the trapeze to your ear)?

I guess it might be worth a shot while you wait for your majesty the doctor to dedicate a bit of time to your issue.

Jmac - you are having an incredible training block so far with that great 10k and now the half PR. Your marathon of 2h36 indicated a possible faster half.

I'm impressed, you've nailed down the training aspects, never going too far.

Piwi/Steve - I guess recovery is a very individual thing.

I've seen the guys on the sub 3 board are back on track like 1 or 2 weeks later, they just have a lot more longer base with weeks in the 70 to 80 mile range.

Whereas people like me and Mark have a lower base then try to raise the mileage simultaneously to adding hard marathon workouts, I think that's a key reason to getting burned out.

That and personal characteristics as well.

The fact is some of these people are freaks of strength/natural ability.

If you can earn a moose mug you're at least a one percenter.

Oh my goodness this thread blew up. Anyways I have some suggestions on my strava that ya'll might be owed a Lady Gaga costume which is hilariously poorly timed as Halloween was yesterday. Anyways. I think you all saw but I wussed out on time trialing an 8k and paced a friend toward a sub-20 5k (she missed it but I ran 19:59.6 by GPS which is a damn good pacing job if I do say so myself). I just .. really really don't like time trials and frankly I'd spent about 3 days just dreading it which should have told me something. I'm different than many of you on here in that I think I actually like training more than I like racing though I can say that wasn't always the case. I'm going to hit these next two weeks hard, taper, race a Turkey Trot 5k and then probably shut it down for the year as I'm just not getting my usual enjoyment out of running.

A mere 37.5 miles

6x800 on Tuesday

5k in 19:59 on Saturday

Mark - I think the asterisk is way way more than sufficient for a PR.

My easy pace ... is getting too fast. I've run some sub 8 miles (sub 5 KMs for you metric people) and that works for a couple of miles but the HR inevitably shoots out of zone 2 if I keep it up. Unfortunately that's also the pace the pup loves to run and frankly I like running with her so I'll probably do a bit more of that but just try to stay more controlled the day before a workout.

watson - Yeah I guess so.  I guess I'm hesitant because I don't want to give myself an out.  5 day forecast now has the dreaded Northeasterlies but hopefully they stay light in the morning as they usually do.  The max temp for the day is now down to 17C.  Excellent.

darkwave - Thanks, I'm starting to feel much better and it was never too bad.  Sorry to hear about your issues and the time it is taking, that's much more to deal with than what I've had.

zebano - Flavio is the final judge on this but that time may avoid the Gaga prize, but then the DNF could change that.

CK - If it was concussion it must have been mild.  A few good sleeps seem to have sorted it, stomach is back to normal and now it's just a very mild sore throat.  The Covid is behaving at the moment which means the race is still on although it has been detected in the wastewater in unexpected places.  I really think it's out there around town but symptoms are so mild that people aren't being tested.  Looks like you nailed the big one in another massive week.  Sub 3 is looking good.

Flavio - There are definitely some recovery freaks around here.

Steve - Good luck!  Glad to see the temperature forecast is looking better, but I’m sure you’ll be happy to get to race regardless.

Me - Last week was very frustrating, especially since the weather was in the 50s/10-15 and perfect for the long or tempo runs that I can’t do at the moment.  I had to cut Wednesday’s run short because of intense soreness, almost pain, in my upper left hamstring.  After my off (swimming) day, I was able to do two easy treadmill runs at the end of the week taking brief walk breaks after every 6 minutes of running, which is the sort of thing my PT had me doing when I was coming back from upper hamstring trouble late last year.  (For what it’s worth, last year’s trouble was more in the upper right hamstring.)  

The treadmill Gallowalking is certainly better than nothing, but I don’t expect to be able to get back to fast running in time for the November 5K or the half that I was looking at.  Now I’ve caught a sore throat/flu-type illness that DW had last week so will have a few more days off to get out of shape.  I expect I’ll just start base work again, hopefully getting in occasional strides and short tempos if the hamstrings will allow it, and think about races early next year.  I'll also shoot for keeping my 2021 mpw average over 40.  Good thing I had the good 5K a few weeks ago.

Sun - off

Mon - 6.2 miles in park @ 8:25

Tues - 6.2 very slow on treadmill (72 minutes)

Weds - 2.6 miles, stopped w/upper hamstring pain, first lap @ 8:22

Thurs - ~32 minutes swimming

Fri - 6.3 miles very slow on treadmill (73 minutes) + 0:40 walk after every 6:00

Sat - 7.3 miles very slow on treadmill (84 minutes) + 0:40 walk after every 6:00

Total - 28.6 miles, 32 minutes swimming

Rapidly declining YTD average - 42.3 mpw

Zeb - sorry, you were too late to press the button so you’ve got to dress up. Also, we’re all curious to see Oreo Gaga

Keen - Yeah she did a deep massage on the back and a lot of passive stretching, which seemed to help a lot.

I’ll be going back there once a week now, cause there’s always something about to break down.

15 miles at MP sounds absurdly insane but it makes sense for you since you’re training to increase speed as you have infinite endurance.

Steve - you will likely beat your PR by 1 or 2 minutes, probably more. #nopressure

Mark - I’m excited to see how fast you can run the 3k. It’s a super fun race and you’re likely to run around 9:15.

James - yeah, it sounds like a week or 2 off of running would help you out right now, unless you need to keep running to keep sane.

Marky Mark: have you checked out Chevelle's new album released this year? Highly recommend!