VIRGIN LONDON MARATHON 2011 ACCEPTANCE LETTER AND THE IMPORTANCE OF POST MARATHON RECOVERY

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Today I receive d my 'Good For Age' acceptance letter:]
I hope all you guy's that entered got in, if not, hopefully your get a club place.
My BIG aim is to smash 2.45 and win a championship start for 2012.
To be able to line up behind the elite would be awesome!
I feel it may be my last big chance.
Following the 100 day plan got me a 4 min improvement on last year and a one min improvement on my old P.B. set back in 2003.
POST MARATHON RECOVERY
I paid the price at The Langdale marathon with a sub par race due to missing out Marius's recover programme, after running London this year.
My eagerness to race again meant I ran a 15k trail race, only a week after the April marathon, then got straight back into hard training, result I ran well through May-June, started to go a bit flat in July and really stalled in Aug!
End result tired,flat empty legs on race day!
This time I've learned my lesson well and have now started the recovery plan.
I asked Marius for advice and this is what he said;

Hi Rick, good to hear from you. No worries at all, the way to "freshen" up your legs again is this :

1) take the recovery weeks of the 100 day plan and follow them strictly the next couple of weeks.

2) take the intro weeks of the 100 day plan and to these thereafter.

This will give you about 4-6 weeks of perfect recovery but at the same time smart training.
MARIUS

After this i plan to follow the 5K-10K part of the marathon plan working on building speed and getting the sharpness back in my legs.

Interview - Bruce Fordyce


There is a very interesting interview with 9 times Comrades Marathon winner Bruce on Marathon Talk.
He talks about the importance of doing your longest runs very slowly and easy and the most important thing is to work on your speed.
Marius stresses the importants of what Bruce says and I am now starting to think maybe I pushed it to much on some of my 3 hour hill runs this summer.


The Liverpool Marathon could be back next year and I plan to run it if it goes ahead as planned in Oct 2011 READ HERE

ACTIVE RECOVERY
Mon; REST
Tue; Very easy sand trail run with Tess = 47 mins
Wed; 30 mins level one with 5 x 20 sec at 1/2 marathon pace [ Marius says these short bursts help get back the elasticity in the muscles and increase recovery quicker than just steady runs].





Went to see my Chiropractor [ Scott fullwood] today to work on my sciatic problem.
Will be adding some new core training exercises to work on strengthening my hips, as my hip tends to drop and allow my foot to rotate inwards as I run.
This is very evident on my race photos and may well be the root of my problems.