420 miles covered, gallons of energy drinks consumed and several energy gels swallowed all in order to train for the one of the biggest marathons in the world.

This post maybe better suited following the run but I think the huge amount of training that I have done is easily lost in the glory (or not!) of the big day itself. Therefore, after 16 weeks of training unlike anything I have ever done before, and yes I did run the marathon last year, I am going to share my ups and downs since January 1 2010.

I was fortunate to get a place in this years marathon around September time, for the months leading up to the new year I knew I ought to go out for a run but I didn’t. Luckily, I still hadn’t lost fitness and on an initial ‘tester’ run I managed a half marathon distance, it was tough but a good footing for the months to come. At the beginning of the year I had an email from Runners World stating 16 weeks to go, so I decided this year I would take a schedule and stick to it…for 16 weeks!
» Continue reading “Virgin London Mararthon: Before…”

The last post I wrote had me complaining about having heavy legs following the 10k, since that point I did a fastish treadmill session in the gym on Thursday clocking up 6kms which was again felt heavy and on Saturday morning I went for my 3M ‘easy’ run around the block as a warmup. Fortunately the rest day on Friday seemed to go someway to help with the recovery of my legs and Saturdays run felt much better. However as a bonus I was booked into see Chris over at the sports clinic for a 20min session on my legs – perfect pre race massage!

The massage was excellent and left my legs feeling a lot better than earlier and with the added knowledge that I wasn’t showing any real signs of damage I left the clinic ready for Sundays run, although at that point I hadn’t decided whether to race or just take it as a training run, although Chris did say as I left – go and crack 1:45, i’m sure you can.

Sunday arrived and with all the negative press that Silverstone seems to receive I don’t think I was looking forward to it as much as I possibly should – reports of difficulties getting in and out of the course on top of a dull circuit filled me with a bit of dread on the 1 and a bit hour drive. Fortunately, as always, Laura offered to come along and do the driving as well as watch from the sidelines and take photos, this is always a blessing – to have company before and after an event is perfect as it stops me stressing and getting worked up, not what you need before a race!

We got to Silverstone at about 1015 ish, plenty early for the noon start. We pottered down to the start areas and had a look at the shops before I started the lengthy process of sorting out my kit. Gel belt, heart rate monitor, pre-race isotonic drink, toilet break, banana….this routine takes almost as long as running the race but I find it works so I may as well stick to it. At 11:15 over the tannoy we were ushered into the pens, so I left my hoody with Laura and headed in – bad move. It was actually pretty damn cold still and I realised at this point I would be hanging around for 45mins without a jumper – did they really need 45mins to enter pens? On top of this because I got cold my body decided it needed the loo but I decided to hold it, if I needed to go during the route I would grudgingly have to stop!

Bang on midday Martin Yelling started the race and we were off – as usual I set off faster than I had really intended on and found myself running with the sub 8min runners. I tried to take the pace down a bit but judging by my Garmin that didn’t really happen! I managed to maintain a sub 8min/mi for the whole course – averaging 07:43 min/mi and according to my chip time I came in at 1:41:52 a new PB knocking 6 1/2 mins off my previous PB of 3 weeks prior (Laura – you were right I did a 1:48) and amazingly about 20mins off my Half Mara time of last year. On top of that my 10k chip time was sub 45 mins @ 44:15 another PB for me!

Obviously as I hit PB’s the run was incredible for me – it was tough but it wasn’t a killer I’m not sure I had another half in my legs at that speed but that is to be expected really! Marathon training is going well this year All in all a great run, wide course with no bottlenecks which is perfect! Would I do it again? If i was chasing a PB again then possibly, if I was going for scenery then probably not!See 19Mile Splits

Chip Timer Splits
Split Time
5K 00:23:25
10K 00:44:15
15K 01:11:25
20K 01:35:07

place (total) 671
place (gender) 614
place (cat) 484
finish time 01:41:52
http://silverstone.r.mikatiming.de/2010/index.php?content=detail&type=&id=0000030F5ECC83000005416E&lang=EN&event=SVRM&ageclass=

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

On my last run I talked of a sore ankle, this was a bit of a concern for me – having up’ed my speed a bit introducing faster threshold runs I worried I may have damaged something. I decided to do the sensible thing and take the Thursday off meaning I would have a two day recovery period rather than the scheduled one.

On Saturday, acutely aware there maybe a problem I took to the streets for the scheduled 3M warmup run – fortunately all seemed well no symptoms which matched Wednesdays run and it appeared that all was good

I’m a leap year baby so 28 Feb is when I opt for my birthday presents, according to facebook today is my birthday. On sat eve a load of my mates came over to take part in a murder mystery evening – whilst the food wasn’t entirely unhealthy I’m not sure the circumstances were the best pre-race routine especially the going to bed at 1am bit!

Sunday, my birthday and also the date of the Roding Valley half which I had decided to do as it’s rare to find an event where the start is less than a mile from home! On signing up, I realised the date, and new that I would be doing things the night before, howerver, I hadn’t predicted the wind and rain crashing into the window as my alarm went off – brilliant! I was so close to going, nah I won’t bother but fortunately I didn’t.

The race was wet and reasonably undulating couple of nice downhill recovery sections including a 1mile downhill to the finish line. The perfect thing about racing locally is the insider knowledge – I knew about the last mile, knew there wasn’t anything uphill so I think my final mile I clocked in a 7:40! Anyway, the finished the course in 1:48 according to my watch. The official race time came in at 1:50 but that doesn’t take into consideration at least a minute waited to get through a gap in a hedge as the main route was flooded!

I think 1:48 is a pb on my watch, and I actually think the official race time of 1:50 maybe a pb for me too from memory! The other positive thing was I still had more miles in my legs, wooo!

Haven’t seen the schedule for this week all I do know is i’m scheduled for an 18M on Saturday and I’m booked in for the ‘Newham 10k’ (completely pointless for marathon training). This run goes via the Olympic park which is always cool so looking forward to that!

Till next time.

N

Just before the 2008 I set up this blog to follow my training and push people towards my sponsorship pages. Back then I thought some people may find it enjoyable to follow my ups (and many downs) and learn a bit from it (I was also hopeful that people would get over the poor spelling, punctuation and grammar!) Over a year later I’m running the marathon again and still blogging – and hey here’s a new link to my sponsorship page of 2010…

Anyway for many months I suspect the readership of the blog was minimal, a few cursory glances but that’s about it, however in September 09 I published a blog post about my weight loss and general health. From being the kid in school who would use almost any excuse to get out of running I was now doing it of my free will and enjoying it! Just last week I was talking to a school mate and his brother (who is still at Forest – my old Secondary School) whilst out on my 4M warm up jog and said I bet if you told the teachers who you went out for a run with this morning they wouldn’t believe it – that’s if they remembered me! Anyway, I spammed that post over face book and Twitter and it actually got read a few times and it appears there is at least one person who read it and took notice of it.

A school mate is about to embark on a 50k trek and as is typical for every sponsored event I got the obligatory ‘Facebook Sponsor Me’ email. I had a squint as to what it was as it didn’t look like the typical race for life one plus it had a silly name! Anyway the challenge looked cool so I emailed saying I’d send money and he replied that day saying I had been a bit of an inspiration to him – he had read some of my blogs, gone out and bought a nike+ and was now running and had roped in more and more. How cool is that!

I don’t think he is alone in picking up running because of me, I’m pretty certain a number of my uni friends took seeing me run that 26 miles and realised that running is possible for anyone, I ran a 10k last summer with mates who I never expected and know there are others running 10ks this year too. I think people see what I was and think well if he can do it so can I.

I love the fact others are running and that maybe I have been an inspiration for them, I would love to reach out to others too and help get them the confidence to put a pair of trainers on and go for a run of any distance!

Keep running and this time next year it maybe you training for the marathon!

N

ps please feel free to comment on this post – would be great to know who has read this all the way to the end

Saturday morning was the designated 4M slow warm-up jog in preparation for the Sunday run and following a rest day on Friday. Plotting a loop online during the week I took to the frosty streets. The route I chose was hilly to say the least, thinking back now I don’t remember more than 200m that was flat, however this did not come as a suprise as I had done stretches of the route before. Easy 4m under the recommended time, perfect!

Sunday was billed in the diary as the first ‘race’. Having not been able to find an organised run to enter at the required distance (10km) I realised I would have to do it alone. I was also very aware of how quickly I was supposed to do it and wasn’t overly confident of my own ability to meet the target of sub 47mins. During the last summer I ran the British 10k in 46mins so know I can do it, however it wasn’t to be the case on Sunday.
» Continue reading “W4 D4 & D5 – Gentle jog and ‘Race’ day”

According to today’s schedule I was set to cover 5Miles with 3 of them at a fast pace. As I’m not very good at doing fast sessions on my own on the road I once again headed to the treadmill. I think soon I need to try upping the pace on the road so I know that I can close to doing what I do in the gym.

The schedule required the 3M to be covered at approx 8:15/M as I write this blog my brain has kicked in and I’m starting to wonder whether I actually ran fast enough (I hope I did). I set off at 15km/h and throughout the 4.6km I did not drop below 14km/h. Was that fast enough? (Goes off to get paper and do maths…) Oh good, as expected, much faster than the required 12km/h – good good I guess that makes sense as RW define it as ‘brisk’ hopefully my changing it to a fast isn’t an issue!

That’s my 3 midweek runs done, at the weekend I have a slow jog in prep for a ‘race’ style event. Apparently by now I should be able to do a sub 47min 10k and tomorrow I will plot out my route and give it a whirl. I think this is going to be ambitious but who knows, I think in the summer I got a 10k to sub 46 so I know I can do it, it is just whether my body is ready for it yet. That said, I have booked in a session to see Chris at the Sports Clinic on Saturday which should hopefully see away the last knots and twinges I have in my leg from skiing!

Till next time…

Yesterday I had to finally admit to skipping on a days training. I’m clearly not 100%, feeling poorly and very heady. I had planned on getting up early and doing the 10k on the road as on Tues the ground was starting to look a lot less slippy. On weds I woke up to another overnight snow dump and coupled with my feeling ill I decided the rest day would be most useful for me.

Weds schedule was a 10km slow and today was a brisk/jog interval split. I figured the intervals may have been more useful for me so opted to skip the slow and go for the later:
1.6km @ 10.9km/h
3.2km @ 14-15.5km/h
1.6km @ 10km/h

True to tradition of a runner had some odd twinges in my left leg, going to put that down to the increased training I’m doing! Did use the foam roller today to massage my leg a bit when I finished to try remove the knots…

Tomorrow is the short warm-up to Saturdays ‘long run’ hopefully take it nice and slow and get me going!

Till next time…

Finally back inline with the schedule I set of to the gym for my allocated interval session. I always intended on doing a number of my interval sessions on the treadmill as I believe I can push the speed a lot more than I would be able to do on the streets.

The RW schedule is actually quite a toughy with the splits having a distance of 1.5miles armed with the worst case speeds I headed for a lunchtime gym session across the road from work. I have had to tailor these plans a little to fit into the hour that I’m allocated and have sacrificed the warmup and down distances to allow me a run of less than 50mins giving me 10mins or so to change and get back. The run today went as follows:
1km warmup @ ~10.5km/h
3×2.4km fasts @ 12-15.5km/h (800me recovery @ 10.5)
1km warmdown.

I really tested myself on the fasts today, breaking them into 3 sections 1km@ 15km/h, 1km@14.5km/h and 0.4km@15.5km/h. I’m aware none of these speeds are achievable on the street but it’s worth pushing myself and my heart rate! On the final interval I even put in a bit more raising the speed to around 17km/h but not for too long!

Good session today, worryingly I can feel a blister starting to form on my left big toe so need to watch that, but in stark contrast to yesterday. Did the 10k in under 48mins and baring in mind that includes a 1km warmup that’s not too bad!

6m slow run tomorrow, hopefully won’t be too bad, only concern is my lack of a rest day!