I have said time and time again that eventually that the next stage for running is looking at joining a club and running with others. This week, after two runs with the Serpentine club I finally took the plunge and joined.

The run I did on Wednesday is titled the ’3 Parks Run’ and I had intended on going out running an 8-8:30 pace. The chap I ran with I had spoken to the week before and he said he would run with me at that pace – this was not to be the case as I was soon to find out…Mile 1 – 7:17, Mile 2 – 7:04, Mile 3 – 7:11 and so it continued every split was sub 7:35 and my heart rate was through the roof. I struggled a lot but managed to hold onto the pace, at 3.5 miles I thought I would have to drop out as it didn’t look like I would be able to continue, especially not that fast, fortunately I pushed on and 3.5 miles later we were back at Speakers Corner having finished a tough but very rewarding run.

These challenging runs are why I wanted to join a club, to push myself beyond what I can do on my own. Perhaps this was slightly more than sensible to be honest as three days on my legs were still achey as I suspect I spent almost all of that run beyond my anaerobic threshold forcing lactic acid to build up and may explain the knock on effect to my legs!

Anyway, all in all a great evening and looking forward to the next one

N

This post is not one to review the unit, that will come in a few weeks time. Whilst I have had the device for at least a month now today’s treadmill run was the first time I really used it for it’s coaching powers.

miCoach offers real time audio coaching allowing sessions to be hooked into the device. The unit revolves around heartrate training (although I have read reviews to suggest pace based training will appear soon) and by specifying heart rate zones you can push your body accordingly. The sessions have audio to tell you to enter the zone and maintain that heart rate for a given duration.

Today I opted for the VO2 test, one that incorporates all zones. At it’s toughest the device wanted me to enter its ‘Red’ zone which is max heart rate for 2mins and at it’s easiest it was running at a pace just above walking. The session is designed to be tough and it sure was, my t-shirt resembled something straight from the washing machine and by the end of the red zone intervals I couldn’t have slowed the machine down any quicker!

I may have to play with the zones a bit though as I’m not sure it’s calibration is ideal – I suppose that’s fair enough considering I didn’t calibrate it! It was good fun though, reminded me of the Nike training tracks they did a while back which offered similar audio coaching.
» Continue reading “My first ‘proper’ miCoach run”

Obviously everyone who knows me is aware that the Sunday before last was a huge blow to me. Training for the London Marathon was a huge focus for me since the beginning of the year, but anyone that reads this blog knows that running has been part of my life for a number of years. After much reflection I realise it would be foolish to hang my trainers up for good.

Over the next few months I intend on pushing on. I have a 10km and a half lined up later on in the year and I will watch my training to see what else maybe possible to achieve in 2010. I want to spend time running with others, in particular those who have offered kind words of support over the last few weeks – you know who you are. I will also be looking at joining a club and seeing if I can get involved in some club running, hopefully helping me regain some confidence and learn where and what I am possibly doing wrong.

Before the marathon we had booked a relaxing recovery break in Tenerife for the Bank Holiday weekend. Having sulked a bit for a week Laura suggested I take my trainers in case I fancied a run. On Sunday morning when the sun was in (but temps still above 20) I decided to give it a go…
» Continue reading “The next chapter…”

When the music you are listening to is rubbish! However, as i found on my run on Sunday, if this is the case having the ability to turn the volume down without fiddling with my iPod is a great addition to the new Sennheiser range of sports earphones.

Almost exclusively since starting running a few years back I have been using Sennheisers. This pair is my third neck band pair following an incident with my first and a tree and my second set, whilst still functioning, have seen better days after being thrown numerous times to the bottom of the gym bag and squashed. I have always found the neckband earphones comfy and simple to use so when I got this new pair I had no real hesitations to ditch my old orange pair for the new black/yellow combination. » Continue reading “It doesn’t matter how good the earphones are…”