Mark Threlfall: Right then, this is it, the final video, and check-in with Dan Lloyd before
he tackles his half marathon. That's right, in case you've missed it, we've managed to
convince Dan Lloyd from GCN to follow a nine-week training plan before doing a half marathon.
Now you can also follow along and find that plan by going down to the description just
below this video. Dan has actually impressively targeted the 'sub 1 hour 30' half marathon.
He's six weeks into his plan now so let's go find out how he's getting on.
Dan Lloyd: Final day of week three. I'll be a third of the way through the training program
by the end of this and look at the weather. How amazing is that? A bit slower over this
bit. 16K is easy on the calves today. Just strangely really looking forward to which
is a good sign I guess. I'll tell you what, it doesn't really get much better than this.
I'm incredibly lucky to live on the edge of the New Forest.
End of week four, I've learnt a valuable lesson, never let Mark Threlfall design your easy
run. I was in Bath today for work. I don't know it all that well around here for running.
I got bored of going up the Bristol cycle track so I asked Mark if he could design me
a nice route, blimming heck, I think I've gone through 138 gates. Up little dirt tracks,
steps. I'm on top of the world now, I think I've just done my first Everesting. My goodness,
I think I'm at the top of this hill now. I only looked at the map that he'd sent me on
Kamoot. However, this is the route. I should have looked at the elevation profile and the
surfaces. I think he's done this on purpose. Four hours later, I'm done. Not quite that
long but it felt like it. 1 hour 23, that's the longest run I've ever done in terms of
duration due to the severity of Mark's route but I felt good and comfortable which is a
positive. On to week five, I guess we're basically halfway through now really, arent we? Since
the last week is the taper week to the Half so yes, doing good. Well done, everybody,
who's following along. Mark: Right then, Dan, I am eager to find
out how the last few weeks have gone and obviously, how you're feeling ahead of the next few weeks
and obviously, the half marathon. Dan: They've gone well. I've ticked every
single training session that you've set off, which I'm very happy about and I've been feeling
pretty good. I'd say the last week, I'm started to feel a bit more tired because the extra
volume, the biggest volume weeks that you've set, they've sort of coincided with a lot
of volume of work as well. There's a lot of racing on at the moment I've been commentating
at the office a lot. It has ended up getting a bit tiring from that point of view but not
too bad, I'm absolutely fine with the runs. I don't feel exhausted at the end of each
one, although as you know but I'm about to let the viewers know, I have started to get
a little bit of pain in my shin on the left side. Nothing major but just enough that I
text you yesterday and said, "I think I might have shin splints."
Mark: Yes. Just to explain to the viewers out there, shin splints do range. You can
have very, very extreme cases where almost stress fractures and it's very painful, pretty
much 24/7. At the moment, it sounds extremely mild. You've let me know literally at the
first instance, which is really good. Essentially with shin splints at this point is where the
muscle, it's where the muscle, in very simplistic terms, is pulling away from the shinbone and
a very, very small amount. It's not completely ripped off don't worry. It's just important
that we probably ease off now and stop just for a couple of days. Hopefully, it'll ease
off. We'll make sure we ice it, just bring that
inflammation down. I think it's just better to nip it in the bud now rather than trying
to limp along for the next couple of weeks and then literally when we meant we're doing
the half marathon, finding that you're having to take a significant time off. Hopefully,
we'll be able to nip it in the bud now and be sensible with this. I'm going to advise
you don't run today and take the next day or two off.
Dan: Which is hard, isn't it? Because like I've said to you before, I've ticked off every
session and as an athlete, you just want to make sure that you hit every single thing
that's been set. You need somebody, don't you, to say, "Look, you're not going to gain
too much from just doing this one extra but you could gain a lot by not getting this shin
splint even worse and therefore losing weeks and maybe even the ultimate goal of the half
marathon." Mark: Yes. I think as you've highlighted,
this has coincided with you probably a very busy period of work and probably, sat down,
not stretching. Dan: I've been sat down a lot.
Mark: Yes. I know you used to do some yoga and stuff like that so perhaps it is a case
of things just got really tight and then you're suddenly trying to cram in a run at the end
of the day and it's just not limber already. It's worth, once it's sort of settling down,
starting to try and get back in that routine, obviously, around your busy schedule but obviously,
that was helping before. Dan: Yes, I'll get back into it. I have been
just, as I said, sat down either in the car on the way to the office or in the commentary
box for the most part and then squeezing the run in at the end of the day. I did the 18K
run, that's the longest run I've ever done in terms of distance, it was just dark by
the end of it. I set out from Bath, here, at about six o'clock, I think, got back at
half-seven but I was pleased with that because I did 9Ks out on the Bath to Bristol bike
track turned around and I was able to fairly comfortably increase the pace on the way back.
I was pleased because I was getting down to sort of 4:20, 4:10 towards the end and it
didn't feel too bad, to be honest. Mark: That's brilliant. I was literally just
about to ask how you feeling about the pace because you are literally obviously hitting
your target half marathon pace there at the end of a long run which is brilliant because
you obviously under fatigued, not just from the run but also cumulatively your week's
volume of training as well. That's really good. Are you feeling like perhaps that original
4:05 to 4:15 per kilometer is perhaps too easy? Maybe you're going to--
Dan: I definitely think I can nail 4-minute Ks on average the whole way. It's tough to
know beyond that though because I haven't really done any kind of testing on this before,
I've not even done a flat-out 5K, or a flat-out 10K so it's hard for me to know what I should
set out at because in my head, I might think, "Oh, 1 hour 20 minutes," and that's 3:47,
I think you said, but what I don't want to happen is get 13Ks through at 3:47, absolutely
blow, and maybe not even get in the hour and a half. It's quite hard to know what I should
set out on that day because equally, if I set out at 4 minutes and I get to 14, 15K
and I think, "Well, I can really up this, I've got a lot left" and I miss out on 1 hour
and 20 I'd also be disappointed. How do I even know where to start really well?
Mark: Going by what I've seen from your training and how comfortable you have been a 4-minute
per K, I'd say we should actually start looking at something around 3:55 per K and as you
say, perhaps get to halfway through the run and assess where you're at. Then it may be
a case you bump it up but we haven't had a huge period of time here to do a 5K, do numerous
tests to check where you're at. You are obviously improving every week you go on and we've kind
of got a pluck out what we think is the right number for you. I'm going to sensibly say
3:55 and then we could potentially build from that during the run. How do you feel about
it? Dan: Well good, yes, but then I said, I'm
going to be gutted if it's 1 hour and 21 because it's a lot.
Mark: It may well happen. Dan: If you start at 3:55, I've got to build
up a lot from that pace to then get to an average of 3:47 for the 1 hour 20, haven't
I?. Mark: Yes, for anyone out there, if you are
going after a sub 1:30 half marathon, it works out, roughly speaking, around 96% to 98% of
your threshold heart rate or threshold pace. If you are trying to work out some calculations
that's sort of what you would go by, obviously we don't know your exact threshold pace, so
we're trying to be well-- Dan: Just judge it. Yes.
Mark: Yes, exactly. Now, in terms of on the race day because we are going to be doing
this essentially solo. I'll obviously be there, helping and pacing you.
Dan: Keeping me out the wind. Mark: Yes, exactly, with blocking the wind.
We're probably going to end up doing this maybe on the Bristol-Bath cycle path as you've
done for your training. Have you thought about the race day in terms of your pacing, nutrition,
or is this--? Dan: No and I will admit to you that in no
run in my life to this day have I taken out any fluids or any nutrition at all. I know
you advise me to do that but as I said, I've kind of been squeezing it at the end of the
day. I haven't got any gels near me or whatever and I've just also haven't felt like I've
really needed them. My slight worry is that obviously, the weather is turning a bit warmer
now and by the time that we do the actual half marathon, it could be a bit hot at which
point, I will need to take on fluids and I've not got any practice in doing that.
Mark: Well, in fairness for a lot of your longer runs, which have been over an hour
in length, they've been relatively mostly steady which is fine so you're not like churning
through the carbohydrates so you are probably okay. Obviously, on race day, you're going
to be going for over an hour at a very high pace and essentially, after an hour, you're
potentially going to have depleted your glycogen stores. I would advise taking a gel or something
similar, whatever you're comfortable with. I assume you're, from your racing days, pretty
happy with gels. A quick source of carbohydrates into the bloodstream there. I am there as
your mobile feed station. Obviously, if you were doing an organized half marathon, there
would be, potentially, feed stations and drink stations there. I can carry water for you
and hand that to you. I do think that's important. It could well be a hot day.
In terms of the actual pacing itself, and this is really important because it can be
very, very, easy to get so carried away at the start. Even if you know, "Okay. I've got
to hold 3:55 per K." The adrenalin is pumping, you're super motivated. I would say, to a
degree, you want to use that, but at the same time, you don't want to overdo it. I'd say
for that first half a kilometer to a kilometer, cap it at around 3:48 or something around
that region, so you're going a little bit above pace, but after that half K, a kilometer
in, drop it straight down to 3:55 and settle into that pace and try and relax nicely. You
just don't want to be going too hard in that first K to 3:40, 3:35 and you start going
into the red and start doing some damage. Then settling down, and as we just said, perhaps
assessing at 11K in whether you can start building on or perhaps you want to leave it
until later, maybe the final 3K or 4K. You go, "Right. I'm comfortable, but I'm going
to build up, now." That would be my usual tactics. In terms of fueling during the race,
I'd say, you probably want to take that gel on somewhere around 11 to 12K in. It will
be just before the hour mark, I'd imagine. Dan: Are we going caffeine gel?
Mark: If you want. If you can stomach that, yes.
Dan: I should probably try this before we get to the day.
Mark: I would, especially with the toilet issues we were discussing last week.
Dan: What I don't want to happen on the day is what happened when we were filming for
that last video where I was doing intervals and Mark had to go over and said, "I'm just
going to run ahead of you during this interval, so that can get some extra shots." It's a
bit demoralizing, to be honest. Mark: I'm sorry about that. We got some good
shots though. Dan: You did, yes. I was there thinking, "Yes.
He's probably finding this quite tough himself," to be honest.
Mark: I was. You were running really well. One final thing in terms of the weeks leading
up. We've kind of touched on this before. We are obviously, going to be dropping the
volume down a couple of weeks before the event. There are still some sessions in there, and
that's still really important if you are targetting an event and doing your own half marathon
back at home. You want to still have some intensity in there. It can be easy, if you
start to drop off the volume and ease off, you just become quite flattened and quite
lethargic. Having little bits of intensity in there, increasing the recovery though between
them, just allows you to feel fired up and ready and still dialed into that pace that
you need for the day. Dan: This is definitely something I had when
I was racing. I spoke to you about this before off-camera. I quickly discovered in my career
that if I had a week very easy and didn't do any opening up or anything whatsoever,
I'd feel very, like you said, lethargic and like I had no power at all on the day, heart
rate sky-high, breathing right up there straight away. I used to end up doing almost a reasonably
hard 2-hour ride the day before a major race just to open up. I normally felt better doing
that. Mark: Any final questions?
Dan: No. I think you've covered it all. Mark: Good. We are super excited for the next
video because it will be the final video, the half marathon. I hope you guys have tuned
in, you've got involved yourself. If you haven't, you can still find that plan down below, and
just start it now, even if it is a little bit late. There we go. I hope you guys have
enjoyed today's video. If so, please do give it a Like, give it a thumbs up. Don't forget
to follow us over on social media and give us a subscribe just down below.
[00:13:38] [END OF AUDIO]