Sub 2h30 Spring Marathon - The Quest For Amateur Glory Rides Again!

2 in each hand, held on with a couple of rubber bands. Can still take drinks, no faffing trying to get them out of pockets, etc.

Tyler_Runs_Lifts wrote:

Question of the Day: Where do you keep fuel with you during a marathon?

Do you pin it to your shorts? Do you carry it? Do you have half tights with pockets (I am in the market for some and would love to hear some suggestions)? Do you have a FlipBelt or SpiBelt?

I pinned them during my second marathon (Rocket City) and carried them using rubber bands in Boston last year. I am debating on how to do it this year in Boston.

I did two in the back pockets and one per hand. I thought it would bother me more than it did but it felt fine!

With half tights it's pretty good to pin gels by the top tab onto the outside of the waistband of the shorts, then fold them over so their inside the shorts. They dont flop around, and instead of mucking with a safety pin you just untuck, tear the tab off (stays on the shorts), and eat.

I've got some Tracksmith Reggie half tights with a decent pocket in the back. I'm totally happy with them but they have this dumb flap on top of the pocket that I cut off. The first marathon I wore them in, my fingers were numb and I got into a panic because I couldn't get my gel out at mile 20. Now, they are pretty much perfect.

I haven't tried the rubber band thing, but putting them inside cotton gloves works great. I've always been terrified of pinning gels, so never tried that... don't the packets chafe you like crazy?

Hey, man, when you hit 2:30, make sure you go out and do a sub-11.00 FAT 100m within the same week.

???

Congrats on your HM!! I’ll see you in Chicago :) got into ADP too with my 2:33 in Valencia.

Hopefully I’ll have gone sub 2:30 before then in London though hehe

Had a promising workout today. 12mi tempo alternating 2mi @ MP and 1mi @ HMP.

Finished the 12mi in 5:33 avg with the MP bits averaging low 5:40’s and the HMP bits about 5:18-5:20/mi

BigRoundNumbers wrote:

I've got some Tracksmith Reggie half tights with a decent pocket in the back. I'm totally happy with them but they have this dumb flap on top of the pocket that I cut off. The first marathon I wore them in, my fingers were numb and I got into a panic because I couldn't get my gel out at mile 20. Now, they are pretty much perfect.

I haven't tried the rubber band thing, but putting them inside cotton gloves works great. I've always been terrified of pinning gels, so never tried that... don't the packets chafe you like crazy?

I pinned 6 gels for Valencia under my split shorts. One of them was chafing a bit so I took that one first. The rest didn’t bother me at all.

They were longer than my shorts though, so I bet it looked pretty dumb to see some gels sticking out below my shorts

BigRoundNumbers wrote:

I've got some Tracksmith Reggie half tights with a decent pocket in the back. I'm totally happy with them but they have this dumb flap on top of the pocket that I cut off. The first marathon I wore them in, my fingers were numb and I got into a panic because I couldn't get my gel out at mile 20. Now, they are pretty much perfect.

I haven't tried the rubber band thing, but putting them inside cotton gloves works great. I've always been terrified of pinning gels, so never tried that... don't the packets chafe you like crazy?

I just checked out the Reggie half tights online. It says it has two pockets in the back. How big are they? Can it easily fit gels in there?

Yeah, plenty of room, you could easily get four back there and not notice them. I'll try to post a photo, but not sure if this will work:

https://imgur.com/a/RshlkDq

DietBacon wrote:

Congrats on your HM!! I’ll see you in Chicago :) got into ADP too with my 2:33 in Valencia.

Hopefully I’ll have gone sub 2:30 before then in London though hehe

Had a promising workout today. 12mi tempo alternating 2mi @ MP and 1mi @ HMP.

Finished the 12mi in 5:33 avg with the MP bits averaging low 5:40’s and the HMP bits about 5:18-5:20/mi

Just signed up for ADP this morning. There's only 25 spots left so I'm hoping I got in in time.

I would imagine so. I got my answer within a couple days, so I don't think there's a backlog of requests. The spot counter should be relatively up to date.

BigRoundNumbers wrote:

Yeah, plenty of room, you could easily get four back there and not notice them. I'll try to post a photo, but not sure if this will work:

https://imgur.com/a/RshlkDq

Thanks a lot for posting this!

I might have found my new marathon half tights!

@beersandmiles & @DietBacon - Looks like we can have a nice lil group in Chicago eight months from now!

@Tyler_Runs_Lifts no worries! Just pay attention to the little flap at the top of the pockets. Like I said, I carefully cut that off so that I could easily get in there. But yeah, all around, they are really nice shorts.

@BigRoundNumbers - And you've never been irritated by the gels sticking out like that? Or do those tuck in even further? I can't tell.

Oh, haha, I just realized that. They totally tuck into the pocket so they wouldn't touch your skin.

Here's my breakdown for this week. It was pretty damn cold toward the end of the week and snow really screwed up my workout during the middle of the week. Had no way of being able to get any traction. Achilles was aggravated a bit because of the snow but nothing major at this point. Been on top of my rehab stretches.

M: Off

Tuesday: 10 miles, 7:05 average, 145 bpm

Wednesday: 12.20 miles, 6:39 average, 161 bpm. 3 miles easy, 5x 3min on/90 seconds off, .5 mile jog, 4x 1 min on/1 min off, 4 x 30 seconds on/30 seconds off, 3 mile C/D. 3 min: 5:41, 5:50, 5:45, 5:52, 5:58, 1 min: 5:05, 5:36, 5:27, 6:02, 30 seconds: 5:40, 5:46, 6:02, 5:55. When I said there was no traction, I mean there was no traction. Curves were impossible to hit without almost coming to a full stop. This sucked.

Thursday: AM: 4 miles, 7:29 average, 150 bpm, PM: 12 miles, 7:08 pace, 156 average, all on treadmill.

Friday: Easy run, 8:05 miles, 7:23 pace

Saturday: 17.22 miles, 6:40 pace, 168 bpm, 7 miles easy, 6 miles @MP (5:44, 5:43, 5:37, 5:30, 5:28, 5:25), 3.22 miles easy

Sunday: 12 miles, 6:52 average

75.5 miles for the week.

I feel pretty solid. I feel like it's taking me longer and longer to get fully warmed up but when I do I cruise pretty well. After the workout on Saturday I finished the last couple miles of that long run in 6:30s. Really surprised that it felt so easy. I don't really feel like I've done much.

Tyler_Runs_Lifts wrote:

Question of the Day: Where do you keep fuel with you during a marathon?

In two marathons last year I had one gel in the little pocket inside the back of my racing shorts, then two that I actually stapled to the waistband inside the back of my shorts. It worked out really well.

Tyler_Runs_Lifts wrote:

Question of the Day: Where do you keep fuel with you during a marathon?

Do you pin it to your shorts? Do you carry it? Do you have half tights with pockets (I am in the market for some and would love to hear some suggestions)? Do you have a FlipBelt or SpiBelt?

I pinned them during my second marathon (Rocket City) and carried them using rubber bands in Boston last year. I am debating on how to do it this year in Boston.

Go looking for trail shorts. The NorthFace Better Than Naked ones are great and can easily carry like 8 gels without being too annoying, for example. I guess this doesn't apply perfectly if you want half tights but there are certainly trail half tights out there. A quick use of Running Warehouse filters gave me this list with pockets...

The adidas supernova short tights have a rear zipper pocket and 'lateral stash pockets' for $50.