My normal weekend routine of a long Sunday run had to be switched round this week as a while back I decided to enter a new 10k run starting locally and heading into the Olympic Village. A few months ago I did a couple of sessions running along the Greenway and by the Olympic Stadium and love the fact that the olympics will literally be around the corner so decided this run maybe fun and unique.

A 10k run was not however helpful with regards to my training schedule so I had to bring my long run forward to the Saturday. 18miles was the distance required according to the schedule and on a blue sky morning I set off for a local 7M loop before proceeding onwards towards my nans flat in Kennington, 11M away and the other side of the river. Following Thursdays run to my dads office he suggested I run and keep my heart rate down which may allow me to push further as historically I’m not great at maintaining speed. Taking that into account I said my garmin onto ‘Heart Rate’ mode with a max H/r of 164 and a min of 155 (I think!). For the next 2hrs40 mins, bating the first mile or so stayed within the zones only dropping low whilst waiting to cross at traffic lights. The run itself went pretty well with every mile coming in at sub 8min 50, some by quite a bit. The 19th mile was a bit lethargic and slow but I think that’s cause I hadn’t prepared my brain for it! It was great to be out in the sun even though it wad still cold – I think that’s the first blue sky running I’ve done since this marathon training began! 19M conquered leaving only 3M more to do in training and 7 on the day with a few weeks to go. Amazingly this week I managed to run 55 miles at varying speeds and intensities, this was because I had to switch the days of the long run over otherwise it would have dropped down to 36 miles (guess next week will be less ) I find that incredible and I think that is the most I have run in a week.

See 19Mile Splits

Sundays 10k was a race and against my what my brain told me I should do I went for it pushed on by my male ego (plus I was running with a friend who I know wouldn’t go slow)! Another week, another race and another PB with my 10k time coming in at 46:07 taking off about 40seconds off my previous best – running 6Miles at a sub 7min32sec pace – guess you could call that a threshold run! Awesome stuff – think the next stage (sub 45) is a little way off, taking off 67 seconds over 10k is a big push – I would need to have a constant pace of 7min 15sec miles and none of my splits hit that – even the first one which felt mentally fast! Oh well, 10k’s aren’t really for now so back to the long runs! Well done for Soo on that one, incredible running coming in just behind me by about 10 seconds and also having the stamina left in his body for a 200m sprint at the end! Good Effort.

See Newham 10k Splits

Till Next time

The schedule has me doing an 8mile quick(ish) and and 9mile steady. In typical fashion I loosely followed this, I managed a 7 mile lunchtime run on weds at a fast pace. The garmin tracked the run at 8min mile av, however, that did incorporate a 1mile downhill which had I did in 7:40, clearly faster than normal and I could expect on a flat! No issues with the run, short and sweet which is the way I like it

Thurs morn was listed as a 9miler which I decided to do as a morn run towards work. Having pre-arranged giving my bag to my dad so the run was from home-ox circus. The run checked in at 11 miles and before starting for some reason I always thought it was going to be less, even though I have already run it a number of time. My run time was good, was deliberately trying to slow my pace down to race pace but was still up on that. Think I averaged 8:36 (race pace is looking to be sub 9). Calves felt a little tight at the end and on the whole my body fealt a bit tired but all good miles and it wasn’t a race!

Think on Saturdays long run I’m going to look at the heart rate function of my watch and set it to force me to run based on that as it may slow me down a bit, will spend some time looking at my garmin data to work out a race pace heart rate. Need to invest some time pacing myself and ensuring I don’t end up overdoing the first half.

As I just said, Saturday marks an 18miler, shifted from the normal Sunday run this is because for some reason I decided to enter the ‘Newham 10k’. It turns out this is completely unhelpful for my schedule but it’s local and I get to see and run round the 2012 Olympic Park which should be cool. Don’t intend on coming close to my pb on that as it is really going to be a recovery run following Saturdays long slow run.

Rest day tomorrow, wooo

N

I’ll be the first to admit my last few weeks of training, whilst banking plenty of miles, have not been to close to the schedule during the week. However, today’s run was spot on the requirement: 14*200meter intervals with 100meter recovery. Looking at the quick conversion maths I had to do to
put this in my Garmin I was slightly out in meaning I actually did 14*250meters and 115meter recoveries.

Today was the first time I’ve done an interval sesh like that off of the treadmill and it was tough! During the faster sections my heart rate went through the roof – I’m sure I saw 190+ at one stage! At the end of my road there is a straight path which is about 400meters long so I took myself over there and went back and forth like a yo-yo! I’m sure the dog walkers thought I was a loony! Obviously as it’s one path for over 3M there isn’t much I can report on regarding scenery, however, the sun was out but it’s still cold!

I have an 8 and a 9er tom/thurs so will be incorporating that into my journey into work somehow.

Till then.

N