Thursday night was one of those times. I was ill prepared for a long run, at lunch I went to buy a pre-run energy drink but I got pulled in for a meeting and ended up not drinking anything after lunch. I rushed out of the meeting due to organising to meet with Rich at 5:10 grabbed a flapjack an chucked my kit on as quick as possible. Not the best preparation for a run!

I think the lack of fluid combined with an almost threshold run the day before and an interval session on the Tuesday all meant that this run was going to seem hard. I cocked up with my Garmin (again!) fortunately Rich now has a new watch so I compared information. I ended up doing 13-14 miles by the end, giving up with a stitch at bank station. Looks like we averaged 8:36 which as it turns out wasn’t too bad but during the run it felt like I was running through treacle! Not good.

On Saturday we headed to Manchester for a party. Sam, Laura’s friend is a runner and offered to accompany me on a gentle bimble. Knowing I wasn’t going to be running again till Monday I thought it fine to go for a plod. We hadn’t specified a pace before leaving but agreed to run at a comfortable talking pace. Once again the run didn’t feel easy but we went at a reasonable pace. I logged an average pace of 8:15 for just shy of 10k. Sure it was no pb pace but still tough given everything that is in my legs. All of the splits were sub 8:30 which was good and it was nice to run somewhere different with company. I think I will be back up there in a couple of months for a race in December. That will be interesting as apparently the course is hilly and gets icy, something I’m not used to!!

Sort of recovery day Sunday then trainers back out in order to get to work whilst the tfl go on strike! Fortunately there was a sort of service which meant over the day I only needed to run 6 miles split up over 3 segments. The morning segment was tough my cold is moving south into the lungs and I think that it was showing then. When I got in I took on fruitfruitfruit and fortunately by 5pm I felt much better and my runs were much more comfortable.

Intervals today I think, gentle 7-10miler tomorrow, even gentler shorter run on Thursday then Royal Parks Half on Sunday, this is not a PB race, this is an opportunity to enjoy London and the crowds the plan is to run an 8:30-845 pace which would mean a race time of about 1:50:155. I will be waiting till spring next to push my half PB possibly at Silverstone again! Currently my body is possibly in a better shape than back then with a much lower heart rate on the whole however my speed isn’t where it was back then so there is no point trying!!

Till next time.

N

Its midweek and since my long run on Friday night my running trainers have been sitting idle enjoying a rest. Obviously I was on my feet on Sunday for the Leadership in Running Course and I did do a spin session on Monday, however there has been no running.

On Tuesday I went out with my ipod loaded up with a new audiofuel track (review to follow shortly). This was a 43 minute stepped intervals session. After a 155 BPM warm up, you get 3 mins at 160 BPM, then a recovery, 3 mins at 170 BPM, then a recovery, and a 3 min sprint at 180 BPM, then a recovery. This pattern repeats twice. As you can imagine by the second time round things are getting tough and the final 180bpm pushed me HARD.

I tried to push myself equally throughout the run but with roads and crossing and evidently working on a gradient that didn’t turn out to be entirely consistent. That said I pushed my heart rate upto the high 160′s on 5/6 sessions so not too bad! At the end of the run I was suitably destroyed so I was happy!

Wednesday is “club” night and whilst we branched off from the club I still took the opportunity to use the routine of a run. I met up with Rich at his office in Horse Gaurds and having a quick tour whilst we waited for Ath. We set off for a 10miler at an 8:30-8:45 pace, heading around Hyde Park and the onto Sloane Square before heading back along the river. Looking at the splits at the end of the run it looks like we were certainly faster than the 8:30 average and baring a couple of outliers for traffic etc most splits were sub 8:15. Looking back to March time I seem to have done a lot more sub 8 runs however my heart rate now is a lot more stable and up until 8 miles my HR was below 160 in comparison to high 160′s from before.

Rest day today (Thursday) and i’m taking on lemsip to try to force away the cold that seems to be looming. Hope to go out tomorrow or the weekend and have a sports massage booked in for Saturday to get some of the rubbish out of my legs.

Till next time!

N

Rather unsurprisingly and just over one month after the release of the adidas MiCoach GPS app Nike have released an alternative. This morning I got an email from nike informing me as a nike+ member I should be the first to know about the nike+ iphone gps app and like a sucker to technology I went off to read all about it and check it out.

I was hoping that this would be the first of the two to join Heart Rate Monitor and GPS as I assumed the newer iphonescould interact with the device but alas, this still seems to be lacking from the build. Although it has led me to question whether the iphone 3gs/4 has Heart Rate facility? Answer in the comments below if you know! Anyway, over to the app itself – oddly they have charged £1.19, peculiar considering the Adidas one is free, I also would have expected some hype and fanfare over the app maybe free for ‘x’ days to get people aware of it, maybe that campaign is still to come however if you had paid and then they made it free I guess you’d be a bit annoyed!

Following a foolish stumble out of the office door last night I am not able to get out and test this app with a run today as I may have liked to have done. Apparently the GPS on the iphone 3 is nowhere near as good as on the newer phones, however I guess it should be as accurate as the micoach review from before. I guess in order to get to the real detail with these reviews I need to get a play with the iPhone 4 but in order to do that the cost somewhat outweighs that of buying a new Garmin!

The install of the app was pretty easy, the user interface felt much like that I was used to from my Nike+ of old. Nike+ saw me through many miles and up until March time I used it almost religiously racking up over 1000miles on the system, however I stopped using it finding my Garmin a lot more usable and accurate – the GPS version *should* rectify this! Fortunately for Nike its website in my mind is spot on, funky and very neat. The graphs presented are clever, albeit a bit difficult to understand, they could show the results in a slightly more obvious manner. I always disliked the fact that it didn’t store information about what track was being played but other than that it did everything that could be expected from an accelerometer.

The iPhone app seems to mimic the colour scheme and feel of the website creating a simple to use experience. Within minutes I had logged onto my online profile and was ready to start the app going. I decided to “go for a run”, which actually meant walking back from lunch which apparently took me 0.2 miles just to see if it worked. The interface was good, allowing the phone to be locked whilst showing useful information, it also appeared that you can get information to be spoken to you in different intervals. Once i clicked stop on the app it seemed to upload it automatically and it appeared on my nikeplus.com profile.

Obviously have been playing with social media for quite some while feeding into twitter and facebook neatly and cleverly, something that adidas micoach to work on and also having a quick squint at the webpage I can get the information and build my own interface for it – Perfect!! Should be a good test when I next get out for a run. I’m sure it will kill my battery so its only going to get a 4miler or so and as mentioned already I’m not expecting too much from its accuracy due to the phone not the app. Update to feature soon when I have actually gone for a run!

Also when I get a few mins free time I think im going to dig out my API attempt last time to facilitate a wordpress plugin or sorts for it. If there is demand for this out there please comment and I’ll get it going sooner rather than later!

Till next time.

A few months ago I purchased the Long session Audiofuel track to use during my marathon training. I really liked the idea and think it worked pretty well. I actually used the track on my Silverstone Half and achieved a PB.

The concept is simple, using tracks with different bpm the pace can be altered by landing your feet on the beat. Much like with spinning classes you are in essence moving to the music. The long run session sets off at a slow pace and injects different bpms throughout, all with the intention of keeping you alert and pushing you through pain barriers. I didn’t realise how much a beat in a song affected my stride and cadence until getting this track.

I decided to then download a few of the other tracks and last week I used the intermediate interval coaching session. I loved it. I have never been a huge fan of intervals, finding them repetitive and dull. The track turned the session into something much more enjoyable. It was a pyramid interval track going faster and longer and then reducing after meeting the peak of 75seconds at maximum effort or 180bpm.

The songs are all unfamiliar but that didn’t seem to bother me. I’m starting to wonder how unhelpful some of the tracks on my iPod may be. If the bpm is low perhaps I’m slowing without even knowing!

The tracks remind me a bit of the Nike+ training tracks which used to be aligned with the footpod. However, Nike appear to have given up on this approach as I haven’t seen any new ones in some while which is a shame. The Nike ones tended to involve songs you would know and coached by big names like Serena Williams, the band OK Go all adding power and credence to the tracks but the marketing, at least in the uk has been poor.

Why not check out the tracks, if you run on your own but with an iPod I think most would like and benefit from them.

Click here for the Audiofuel website.

Last week I was fortunate to get a break from work and we headed away for our first (last minute) break of the school summer holiday.

We were off to Andalusia, in particular Marina Duquesa, a resort on the Spanish coast near to Gibraltar. It was to be a chilled holiday with few excursions booked so I took the opportunity to throw in my trainers and kit in the hope I’d get out once or twice.

On the day after arriving I kitted up for the first time. Opting for an afternoon jog i was soon to regret the choice. I think I set off at about 5pm and was running in a temperature of 30+ with the sun overhead and very little shade. Needless to say it was HOT. I ran along the coastal path for as long as possible whilst having to do detours around numerous dead ends. I called it a day at about 4 miles @ an average 8min/mi pace. I saw little point in killing myself in the heat.

A couple of days later I set off in the morning, aiming for 10 or so miles, I was out of the apartment by 8. At the start the temperature was manageable but by 830/9ish the sun was climbing and the heat rising. I cut my run short at 7miles. I figured that would make up for the missed serpentine 3 parks this week . My average pace was quite slow but I’m going to put this down to the heat again. Running in that temperature is certainly more of a challenge than our climate!

The final run I did was an interval session along the beach. Laura had packed her shoes and wanted to use them so I thought intervals would be the best idea. Whilst we wouldn’t be running together, at least we would be within a few hundred meters of each other. This time it was even later in the evening, about 730pm, fortunately the temperature was falling and running seemed easier. I set off doing interval lengths based on objects along the promenade we were running on. However after 15 mins of warmups, I decided to try out my new audiofuel interval track(review to follow). It was a brilliant session in the end. Heart rate tested and whilst only 3 or so miles were covered it was a great challenge.

Running in Spain was great, whilst I may seem to be complaining about the heat I don’t think it would take long to acclimatise out there. It was great to put on a vest and shades and run with the sea right next to me. I love running abroad as it’s totally different scenery and I find I see places I wouldn’t normally go. It’s not long till my next abroad session which I’m really looking forward too!

As I write this post it feels like my week has been relatively quiet Having missed out on a long run last weekend and most likely will again this week I have had a relatively low mileage month-as the stats box on the right shows! However, whilst I haven’t done any long runs I have managed to get out and do some shorter distances, a couple of which were at high tempo.

On Monday I had the day off work as I was traveling back from a weekend break. Arriving back at the flat at about 2pm I took the opportunity to grab my shoes and go out for a 10k. The weather was HOT and I was running at the warmest part of the day. I had forgotten basic rules of fueling up having only had a couple of cups of tea all day – I would soon learn to regret this. Setting off at a fast pace I had intended on pushing myself and my Garmin suggested I was doing this, however I ran out of energy about 4miles in. My mouth dried up and I seriously needed liquid. From a sub 7:45min/mi average I dropped to 8min/mi in the last mile. Still a respectable time but considering the effort factor vs result it didn’t feel that great a run.

Tuesday morning, as routine, saw me head to the pool and so some weight work beforehand. Nothing substantial just trying to work on my core muscles a bit more to help with the running. I also went out with a colleague for a jog during the lunch break. As always was a nice plod for me at a very comfortable pace – I think during these runs my heart rate is below the +80% meaning I am in the fat burn zone as opposed to lactic zone.

Wednesday was an unexpected rest day due to unplanned circumstances so on Thursday I headed to Shep Bush Fitness First for a long gym session. I was unsure at the time whether to head outside for a run in the sun but eventually opted to push myself on the machines. First off the treadmill – I pushed myself for a sub 20min 5km, I don’t think I have done that before. Setting the base speed at 15km/h this would see me hit bang on 20mins. However, I opted to push myself even more adding half mile intervals ramping up to 18-20km/h. Needless to say this was tough and a challenge but not wanting to stop my session after 20mins I moved to the rowers. I had decided 10mins on these. As it turns out I did 2.5k in slightly over 10mins. Still heavily perspiring from the run I looked round the gym – what next? May as well do a mini tri and jump on the bike. Only a short stint on that racking up 10km. I don’t like exercise bikes as the mechanism seems so clunky and unsmooth. By the end of this ride I had formed a small pond around the bike and looking at my kit it looked like I had jumped into it too! Felt good though so guess that’s what really matters.

As I said at the start unsure when my next run is. I will be out with the serps next Wednesday as I have missed the last two runs. I need to start putting the miles in a bit more as I have been a bit naughty!

Till next time.
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”

Today I was listed as doing a relatively short interval session. I opted to hit the dreadmill to control the intervals so during lunch I headed to the gym. 8x400m with 200m recovery was all that was listed today and after 20 or so my run was complete. Stayed on the treadmill till 5km was completed then I treated myself to 10mins in the sauna.

4m jog listed for tomorrow. Will try get that done in the morning or if not during lunch again. Also off to the expo to get my number – it’s almost time!!

Till then.

N

Still slightly concerned by the ‘niggle’ on my left knee I decided to take it easier today. The schedule had it listed as 1M warmup 3×1.5M intervals then a cool down. Instead of risking anything I did the distance and added a few hills but did not do them as intervals.

Something is definitely up with my leg but I’m not too sure what as it’s not painful just…different. Anyway the run went as well as to be expected, trying to fit it in before heading to the tube at 740 meant an early start but I managed to fit in 5.7Mi with an av pace of 8:36min/mi which isn’t too shabby considering I planned on taking it easy!

Resting the leg throughout the day and will ice pack it again this evening.

Till next time.

N

Having had a recovery day yesterday I was actually fairly keen to get out on another run following the success of Sundays half. Having to be in work for 9 and also as I had my laptop I was forced into an evening run. The schedule listed 7 miles as a Fartlek session so I headed on the tube to Mile End jumped off and ran home from there. According to the Garmin I logged 7.2M so all good there, the run whilst a little heavy wasn’t too bad, obviously slower than Sunday but that was to be expected – however, I couldn’t muster up the strength to do many Fartlek intervals, deciphering the data I did about 5 of them throughout the whole run – PATHETIC!

Having looked at my splits I ran faster than I planned to – averaging an 8:30 pace. It was odd doing that route because it was technically the reverse of a route I do regularly. I have never run it backwards and the usual milestones I had to count down the distances were obviously reversed and this seemed to make a difference. Anyway, home by 7 no major issues with my legs so quick stretch and warm down then a relaxed night before the morning 6miler…

Till next time.