The weekend saw two contrasting days of weather. Awaking on Saturday to a blue sky and the sun out (still cold!) I relished the opportunity to get out and go for a run. Saturdays run is only a short run at slow pace and I did a 5M loop up to my old school and back, used my new trainers again to try bed them in a little more as I’m not sure my other trainers will see me through to the big day.

The run was great, no issues and nice to be able to run with the sun in my eyes – makes a pleasant change to the previous runs I have done recently.

Sunday, on the other hand, was the opposite. Heading down to Southend to participate in a training run, I had to wake early and was greeted with rain hitting the windows and the hum of wind circling the building – perfect!

Leaving the house at 730 was a challenge, especially having had to rat and prepare for the 16 miler I was planning to do but eventually got out. My lovely girlfriend, perhaps foolishly, offered to get up early on her last day off and drive me down there so I got to ‘relax’ on the journey down.

As mentioned the plan was to do 16M, looking at the schedule this was to be done in 2hours 30 (a 9:20 pace) this was not going to be the case today it became clear fairly soon. Making the most of running with company I latched onto the shoulder of Neil D and another runner Ian, they had said they hoped to run at 8:30 also, after running about 4M I also found out they were going to do 18M rather than 16M.

11M into the run still maintaining a sub 8:30 pace I finally started to flag, clearly my body isn’t up for that quite yet- I dropped down and did a mile at 8:45 but then managed to get back to 8:30 for the final half marathon mile. Managed to run the 13.1M in 1:49:57 I think it was which considering I could still chat and wasn’t completely passed out I was pretty damn happy with. That said from 13 on things went downhill pretty badly, possibly because I was on my own my legs became lethargic and I slowed down.

I decided to call it a day at 16, my body didn’t need the extra few miles of which one of was all uphill. I wanted to be able to train again on Tuesday and didn’t want to risk injury. I had to get a lift back to the hospice but managed another rather slow mile to bring my total to 17M in 2:25 of which I’m thoroughly happy with 15ish – considering the final two miles were poor I still averaged an 8:37 run!

One of the things I’m going to have to work on is my pacing – there is no point running a 1hr50 half and then not being able to run the second half!

Cheers to all the chaps I ran with on Sunday, makes a change to get pushed which is brilliant!

Till next time.

N

Wednesday was to mark my first run with a combined work group for some while. It was nice to get out with the chaps as it provides a nice break from solo running, accompanying me on my run was Ad, Dan and Darren. The pace was to be quite slow which I was happy with there was chatter of 930 pace before leaving and I was down to run just short of 6M which was perfect for my schedule. Following a relatively slow start the pace soon crept up and I think by the end we were running a 9:10 ish average, which, following Tuesdays run felt quite refreshing

Thursday morning I met up with another colleague who wanted to do a Fartlek session as it turns out I think we only ended up doing a couple of sprints as he was complaining of calve issues so we slowed the pace to a 9:10 ish and ran the remaining mile or so slow. Possibly not the most helpful session to my training today but it was still some more leg miles in the bank. I did miss out on my hill session this week which isn’t ideal but nevermind – can’t have everything and to run with company is so much more enjoyable.

Rest day tomorrow I believe although may take some kit and do some core work in the gym…may

N

So yesterday was the first opportunity since starting training to meet up with another HavensRunner (Neil Dobson) and as he is a faster runner than me I was looking forward to doing a session at a slightly quicker pace. Before meeting up we had chatted about the pace I was looking to do and I’d asked to try run it at an 8:30 pace which should see me complete a sub 4 hour Mara.

He works about 2.5Miles from where I do so I opted to do a warmup on the run over to him and then follow it up with a faster run from Knightsbridge to Liv St where both of us would part, him back to Southend and me to Woodford.

From my watch it looks like the warmup was at the 830 pace I was after following that my intentions for a sub 830 were certainly achieved…

So pretty much straight away I realised this wasn’t going to be the run I’m used to, the weather was shocking the route was (in place) water logged so much so that my shoes are now out of service for today and also Neil is a lot quicker than me! Looking at the stats, we were a lot closer to 8min Miles than 830 which is incredible – that’s not to say I could maintain it as it was apparent in the final mile or so my speed was dropping but even during that mile it was an 8:20 which I cant grumble about.

My watch reported me as having covered 10M in 1h25 which includes waiting around at Knightsbridge to meet Neil. I was shattered as we got to the station but adrenaline was certainly up – ready for the next one now!
Mile Split
1 00:08:36
2 00:08:25
3 00:08:32
4 00:10:49
5 00:08:09
6 00:08:14
7 00:08:25
8 00:07:52
9 00:08:21
10 00:07:35

Slightly slower pace eve sesh with some colleagues today…

This weekend is possibly one of the first weekends since before Xmas where we had no concrete plans and intended on doing very little, mainly catching up on the hours of stuff we have sitting on the Sky+. This lack of plans made getting out for a run on both days pretty easy…

On Saturday I went out for a 4mile jog with a school mate and his brother. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem for my mate as he is always playing squash, cricket, hockey etc. Evidently, his body is cut out for short sharp sprints with recovery sessions and not longer slower runs. Anyway, 40mins later, I was running with his brother as we had been told to go on by my mate…hope he joins me again before the Mara – in 9 weeks if he wants he could get to half mara distance but 4M will do me Having company made the run fly by and the normal feeling of it being a pointless run didn’t seem to hold true today!

On Sunday I was scheduled to do a 14M run, I didn’t really fancy heading into London so opted for a local course using one of my dads routes as the main chunk of it. Not being in London this route is hilly! Heading into Loughton I started to make my way towards the roundabout at Epping but the final road aptly named ‘Goldings Hill’ got the better of me and as it was only going to be a turnaround point I stopped halfway and headed back on my way. » Continue reading “W6 D4&5 Warmup and long slow run”