Following Dublin Marathon last Monday I have done nothing but eat and bum around. I haven’t put anything on that resemble sports kit, very odd for me – I don’t recall a time since Xmas where I have done NOTHING, even after April I had to go out for a run.

I say nothing, that is technically a lie – a while back I got sent a copy of Just Dance 2 for the Wii to play and review, I guess it relates to the fitness side of the blog which I rarely focus on. It has been on my side waiting for an opportune moment to come and on Sunday afternoon it happened. Anyone who knows me well will be aware that I am a legend on the dance floor and this game is a little bit beneath my ability. Strutting my stuff around the living room to all of the best tunes ranging from Avril to Britney through to the Monster Mash (rather apt as it was Halloween). I’m pretty certain my dance coach would be well chuffed at my ability to hit perfect almost all of the time, he will be ringing me any time soon to add me to the Justin Timberlake backing crew I’m sure.

Anyway, if you have made it to now I’d like to think you have seen through my sarcasm, when it comes to dance I have two left feet and have learnt all my moves from the movie Hitch (make the pizza, chalk the snooker cue etc). Actually that’s a lie, that insinuated I would actually get up to dance in the first place, which I wouldn’t. However, I did play this game and when in ‘duet’ mode with Laura it was actually quite good fun even if she clearly tried a lot more than me (apparently you are supposed to move your legs even if the Wii doesn’t know this!) I can also see how it would be quite good for keeping fit. On a couple of dances, even with my limited ability, I was breaking a sweat. Most of my Wii games get played and go back into the draw. I think this one will be out for Xmas Day 2010 in all its glory – that gives me about 50 days to get good at it

Anyways, think I’ll stick to running in the future, I *think* I’m a little bit better at that!

How do I start…over the last few months I have had my own little secret and on Monday 26th October I managed to exorcise the demons that have followed me around since that day in April.

Following the Test Adidas place at the Thunder Run, where I had the fortune of meeting Gemma and Ath, I was given the opportunity of a place in the Dublin Marathon for myself and Rich (my Weds eve Serpentine training buddy). After a lot of soul searching, I decided that it maybe an ideal event to regain some confidence in this distance and took the place. This was back at the beginning of August and I have been marathon training ever since.

Obviously I had kept my miles up pretty high following London maintaining at least one 7miler a week and a couple of other runs but now I would have to build on top of that a 3 month schedule with 2 holidays in between. At this point the runs in Spain and the 10miler in Miami may make a lot more sense – not that I needed an excuse to run abroad!

I had blogged about 16milers but failed to go into details, I definitely didn’t blog about my 20miler following a day at work and come to think of it the evening after a work meal, I ran to mum and dads and it was this day I told them following enquiries as to why I was running so far! I think I managed a couple of 18′s, a few 16′s and one 20. It was certainly less than Jan-Apr but still consistent. Factoring at least one ‘fast’ session a week to help with the limited training schedule.

The negative split at the Royal Parks was deliberate to test my legs for the second half of a marathon. That weekend would typically be the longest run but having booked into the half months ago I had to take any opportunity I could from it but racing it so late would not have been a wise idea. What I failed to mention on that blog post was the fact at the end of the race we tacked on another 3miles to make it a 16mile session which one of my colleagues actually spotted me doing!

I have trained with Rich a number of times for this race, I have been up at silly o’clock in the morning to get long runs out of the way and whilst he isn’t massively faster than me, I suspect at any race he would beat me to the finish line! As well as this I have been out with colleagues who didn’t realise I was tapering with them and other friends including a jog in Manchester!

On Saturday morning at 5o’clock the alarm went off and Laura and I headed to Stansted. A few hours later we landed in a cold but sunny Dublin and headed to our hotel. We had to pick up our numbers from the expo on Saturday so after a quick bagel we headed over to the conference centre. Saturday was always going to be a non-sightseeing day, reserving those for the bus tour on Sunday (to keep me off my feet) and then Tuesday.

Adidas and Lifestyle sports had set up a ‘Breakfast Run’ predominantly for international runners. Fortunately (and due to Laura’s great planning) this started right outside our hotel and on Sunday morning we headed down and I went for a v gentle 2mile run to stretch out my legs. The run was pleasant and after this we were treated to breakfast (hence the name) and they also put on a show of Irish Dance and Folk Songs. A perfect start to another gloriously sunny morning. After returning to the hotel to get changed we then headed to the bus tour and saw what Dublin had to offer. At about 4pm we headed back to the hotel and used the jacuzzi/pool and generally relaxed in preparation for the marathon.

The Dublin Marathon is on a Monday, this is because it’s a bank holiday over there. At 6am my alarm went off, my kit was already prepared so just put it on and headed for some toasty breakfast. At 730 Rich and I left for the start. It was almost time!

At 8am we met up with Ath, who had also decided to run it. It was certainly chilly and for the next hour we tried to keep warm whilst waiting for the race to start. The next thing I knew I was in the starting pen waiting for the gun!

The first few miles where slow, the route was quite windy with some sharp corners. As the pack was still tight it meant coming to a stop and walking in places. Looking at my garmin, the first mile is my slowest by some margin. It took about 3miles for the field to open a bit and then our times started to better. Laura and Liz had planned where they were to be standing and we spotted them at both locations but after 11miles we were on our own until 24/25 miles…

The first half went pretty well for Rich and I but Ath was visibly struggling and just shy of 12 miles he left us to do some stretching. He had helped hold the pace back and this was shown by the next few miles being a fair bit faster.

We hit 13.1miles in 01:56:33.

From halfway through until 20ish miles things were fairly uneventful. A common feature for the run were the inclines and once again we found more and more of them. Unfortunately the downs seemed short and sharp not really prolonging their benefit! At about 22m I first started to feel it in my right leg. Almost instantly I had a throbbing pain in my right quad. I took 20 seconds to head to a wall and stretch it out but didn’t want to hang around for too long incase I started to seize up elsewhere!

Forcing the pain to the back of my head I carried on with Rich not letting me quit. The pain went until someone stopped dead in my tracks and I had to vault a cone to avoid her. Not a good idea 24miles into a run! I was dragged along by Rich who seemed to ignore my sulking – in hindsight he was right too!

The final mile or so was a blur, I think it went by quite quickly but can’t remember it, just the seeing of the finish line and the end in sight!

3 hours 42 minutes. 52 minutes faster than my last completed marathon but more important than that confidence restored. It’s been a tough 6 months, there was a lot of doubt and concern in my mind but this has now been laid to rest!

A great run and a great experience all around.

Thanks to all those who have supported me and believed in me over the last few months I think it would have been a lot easier to jack it all in but right now as I finish this post I’m glad I didn’t.

Rest time

Race Stats

Overall Position: 3181/10700
10km Time: 00:57:19
13.1m Time: 01:56:33
30km Time:02:42:00
26.1m Time: 03:42:50

It’s Saturday and I am taking it easy this weekend. Perhaps will do a little plod on Sunday but nothing too strenuous to allow my legs to recover from last Sunday. They say it takes 1 day to remove a race mile from your legs so hopefully by Monday all will be good because technically we only ‘raced’ 7 miles of it!

Last night I was both fortunate (and in the last 5 minutes unfortunate!) enough to get a leg massage from Chris Domoney of the Sports Clinic Bluewater. Two years ago when I ran The London Marathon for Fairhavens we were introduced at the initial ‘pasta party’. Fortunately for me whilst he helped out in Southend he has a much more local setup in Kent. Chris is a top bloke and tends not to mince his words, if there is any issues he will send you onto Paul the Physio. I have yet to hear any negativity about either. Quite often Physios/Masseurs are quick to take your money but may not be specific enough to your needs or worse still be scaremongering. After-all if they aren’t involved in running they will often miss-advise or suggest to give up running entirely. Chris is a runner, if you head to his clinic you will see medals and numbers from marathons all around the world including all 5 majors (inspirational in itself…Chris I will have my own display like that one day!). Fortunately, I haven’t needed to see Paul the Physio but have close relations that have and have come back with glowing reviews – these chaps aren’t out there to rob you and if you treat them with the respect they deserve I’m sure the treatment will be top notch.

I hadn’t intended on this blog post being an advertisement for Chris but every so often it’s worth shouting out to the people who have helped out along the way. If you have used either Chris or Paul in the past why not write a quick comment or review below – I’m sure they will appreciate it! If you want to get in touch with either of them see info below (copied from elsewhere):

Chris works privately in Essex as well as having clinics in Surrey and Kent. He is on hand to reply to any running,dietary or general fitness enquiries being an Athletics coach and experienced personal trainer. If you would like to get in touch with Chris you can contact him on 07739 765587.

Paul Smith is a Physiotherapist and can be contacted on 07989 282237.

Thats all for now, till next week!

It’s Sunday evening and this morning I ran The Royal Parks Half Marathon in London. Having booked into this run at the end of March it seemed a long time coming and since that point I have done a number of other runs. My training has been pretty busy recently but today’s run was not about PB’s it was about enjoying the VERY scenic course and being in and around lots of runners in London.

Rich and I had decided during the week we would attempt to run a negative split today, this would be a nice challenge and also test to see our fitness levels. If we could run the first half at a reasonable pace but maintaining a low heart rate and then build up the speed to the end it would prove that our training over the last few months had been good. Having dropped our bags off and done the necessities we made our way to the start pens and made no attempt to go near the front. We were to set off at a 8:45 pace and we figured midway through this pen would suffice. The start was efficient and within a couple of minutes we were off, it was very difficult to force the speed slower and not be pulled along by the runners who set off at a faster pace. Fortunately, the Garmins came to our rescue – if I was going on how I felt no doubt I would have been running a 7min/mi from the start, as it turns out we went through the first mile in 8:30 so not too bad!

The first 6 miles of the course is lovely, taking in a large amounts of the sites of London, as we weren’t going hell for leather I looked up and enjoyed London in all its glory – especially with all the roads closed and lots of runners with huge smiles on there faces (it was the first six miles remember!) We maintained a pace of about 8:30-845 and entered Hyde Park at around 6 miles in 51mins. At 6 miles we opened up looking to increase our pace and hopefully maintain this until the finish. Not quite sure why we started at 6 miles, hardly half way! Anyway, from this point the splits went to about 7:30 average with the fastest being the last mile at a super speedy 7:07 – not too bad considering!

As we approached the final few hundred meters I think both of us thought we maybe able to break 1:45 and we were mighty close, coming in 9 seconds behind. Considering we set off for a 1:50 and the first 6 miles were at at 1:51 pace to reclaim 6 minutes in the second half is pretty good and to be honest those 9 seconds are irrelevant as it wasn’t a “race” for either of us.

Other than the cost, I was really impressed with the event itself and actually don’t have any gripes at all . The market was great and my goody bag is stuffed with treats which is a jackpot. The medal is lovely, and different to all the other ones I have. I would love to do it again but am not sure whether I would want to pay out quite as much for a route that I tend to run on a weekly basis with the Serpies anyway!

All in all though a cracking run, good to take it at a pace where we could have a chat and genuinely enjoy the day. As always, it was great to have Laura (and at the end Rich’s girlfriend Liz) out on the course cheering on, sorry to all those who may have seen me and I ignored, I know there were others out! Well done Soo on completing your first half marathon, hope you enjoyed it a little bit, a sterling achievement!

Gun Time: 01:45:09
First Half Split: 00:55:29
Second Half Split: 00:49:40
Difference between splits: 05:49
Average Speed: 8:00 min/mi
Average Heart Rate: 156bpm.

I have harped on about Marathon Talk countless times in this blog. Having picked up on it at it’s launch I have listened to almost all of Tom Williams and Martin Yellings thoughts, ramblings and musings on running.

Martin Yelling is husband of British Olympian Liz Yelling. He is a coach and is very very passionate about running and getting people into running. To add to the YellingGlobalRunningDomination™ he has added an Audiofuel Interval training design to his arsenal.

Following the same principle as the other audiofuel tracks the bpm derives your footfall and by adjusting this value it’s possible to simulate faster running. It adopts the same concepts as a Spin session at the gym. Martin has introduced his ideal 3 minute pyramid session. The track I have hits 180bpm but pyramids from 160->170->180 TWICE. Talking the runner through the session with verbal hints it forces you to push on where possibly you would give up.

I highlighted the word twice during the previous paragraph as when I did it, it was the second time that pushed me hard. Giving all I had in the fastest 3mins at 180bpm I only had 3 minutes to recover and go round over again – this time knowing exactly what to expect!

18 minutes later I was jogging back to the flat, exhausted and covered in sweat. I didn’t really fancy going out for a run beforehand but when I returned I was buzzing and I had only been out for a relatively short time!

Love these audiofuel tracks, they are great for individual training as I tend to get bored of my standard playlists and these offer a unique edge to what you would expect. Can’t wait to get my hands on the hardest bpm track although will make sure the hospital is on speed dial on my phone before going out on that one!!

Rock on with the next track AF, or maybe I should just stick to the current ones a few more times!

N

Whilst I may not have done any LONG runs this weekend has been very running based!

On Friday evening I made my way to Oxford Circus on foot via the longer diverted route. My watch again seems to have played up, however it appears to have logged at 6.4m and I reckon there is a chance of 1/2 mile extra. I got a little bit ‘lost’ once again, failing take the correct left turn I ended up at Fleet St before doubling back on myself. It was a good run, respectable pace and all felt good.

Saturday morning was to be one of those hard runs. After about 6 miles my brain started to tell me to give in, call it a day. Niggles appeared in my right knee, left knee in fact there seemed to be pain wherever I thought about, I got slower and slower and just wasn’t enjoying the run. At 8m I decided to throw in the towel and head back home for the final mile. 9miles eyes bloodshot, I didn’t look or feel good but at least I got a jog in!

A few months back I put my name down to be involved in one of the drinks stations at Nottingham Robin Hood Marathon. Organised by Tom Williams and Martin Yelling of Marathon Talk we were to take the mile 19.5 drink station and turn it into ‘The Motivation Station’.

We left for Nottingham Saturday lunchtime, the chaps had organised a BBQ at the campsite that night, this was a good laugh and great to meet some other marathon talk’ers! There was to be a morning jog on the Sunday and as it was promised to be a slow one I joined. At 7 we left the campsite to start a new route. Heading along the River Trent and into Nottingham we passed the Notts Forest ground before heading up and crossing the finish line. We then plodded back and ended up doing a 7mile jog at av 9min/mi, hardly a recovery run but hey it was enjoyable to be somewhere new with different company!!

After we packed up the tent we made our way over to the National Water Sports Center and started unpacking crates of Lucozade and Water, our volunteer work was beginning and about 2 hours after arriving the first of the runners would start trickling through before the peloton finally arrived, at this point the runners came through thick and fast. The point of the station was not just to supply fluid it was also to help push people through the hardest miles of the marathon and I think we may have done that, as people came through the station they left with a huge smile, impressive especially so far into the run!

I had a cracking day, it was good to be able to give something back as I’m normally the one taking the bottles off of people. It once again made me think how much organisation and preparation goes into something like this! Fortunately the weather was kind for us for both days which made the camping experience all the better. Sometimes it’s nice not to be the runner and be the spectator

Till the next time!!

Neil

It’s been a while since I wrote my last blog post mainly due to me being out of the country! Anyway before going straight into a post about running in Fort Lauderdale I should quickly mention my 14miler with Rich.

On the Sunday before last I met Rich in Kennington following a quick meetup with nan and we ran back to my flat via the Olympic Park. The run went well although quite tough. The pace was reasonable, a talking pace for the most, averaging 8:30min/mi for the distance. The run was in reverse for me as I normally run from the flat to nans. It turns out it’s a bit trickier the other way as after Mile End it’s predominantly up hill! Promising nonetheless and the run was rewarded with a pub lunch straight after.

Two days later we jetted of to the States. Like with Spain I packed my kit but wasn’t sure I’d have quite as much time to run. As it turns out I managed 2 runs. The was first early on in the week. Leaving the hotel at about 7am I crossed the road and ran on the pavement along the coastline. Beautiful. One long road runs parallel to the sea for miles in either direction. I headed along for 2miles before turning back. It was very humid but even still I ran just over 6 miles and returned back to the hotel pleased to have got out.

A few weeks before heading out I googled ‘Fort Lauderdale running clubs’ and the GFLRRC website came up. I thought if they would let me run with them running with company would be nice and fortunately they welcomed me with open arms. So at a ridiculous hour in on the Saturday morning I met them in a mall car park nearby and went for a long run.

At 6am I set off with a group of people, my aim was to do 10 miles at an 8:30-9min/mi pace. I knew from the heat the days previously I wasn’t going to achieve anything quicker especially over that distance. With our group we had a couple of chaps new to training but marathon hopefuls and 2011 Miami Tri wannabes who were running 6miles, an 8mile regular who was pretty nimble on his feet and the coach who would be my guide for the day. Robert, originally from Belgium, took me on a Tour of Fort Lauderdale which was lovely. Some coastal running then heading into the city and running by the canals. He was a great runner, from memory I think he said he was in his late 60s and very very good for age. Much like with Des, from our Thunder Run team, I was in the company of one of the top 50 for age runners in the world.

10miles is normally a challenging run but today it seemed more than that, the humidity really affected things and we came in at an average pace of 8:43. However, if you looked at my clothes after you would have thought someone had pushed me into the sea! My tshirt could have been rung out and my shorts resembled swimming trunks! Having run for about 3 years I can safely say my kit was the wettest it has ever been and that includes running in the rain! I think that should probably highlight how warm it was out there!!

Anyway 10miles is 10miles and it felt bloody brilliant to finish and have some Gatorade and the GFLRRCs Iced Capri suns. I had a brilliant run and was so glad they let me join them for the day. Robert made the run fly by even when I was battling with dehydration

That evening, rather aptly but not planned we headed to Bubba Gumps and sat surrounded by Forrest Gump merchandise. I love that movie and rate it as one of my favourite films even if it does bring back memories of this years marathon…

Now I’m home it’s time to get back onto the road and build up some consistency in September. Let’s hope it doesn’t get too cold!

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.

Keen to actually try this out and see how well it worked I went out for a gentle ‘recovery’ 4 mile loop during my lunch break. After the weekend race my legs were in no fit state to try the coaching sessions so I put it to free mode and started my Garmin. How would the two compare…

First run result shows a pretty massive discrepancy in my opinion, the Garmin which tends to be pretty damn accurate showed the route to be 4.14 miles whilst the Micoach fell short at 3.74 miles. Almost half a mile is quite a difference over such a short distance.

It also seemed way off with it’s pace calculations. I’m not sure how often that updates but it’s possible it’s doing some maths wrong somewhere!

However, it’s not all negative feedback. It seems the device stores the tracks you listen to (although I appear to have broken that by breaking out into iPod mode). It was set to give feedback every 10mins which was nice even if it seemed incorrect – I definitely wasn’t running at a 5min/mi pace like it suggested at one point!

Just some insight I am testing this on an old 3G so it maybe an unfair test ad perhaps it just not powerful enough to do all it needs to. The music did jerk occasionally suggesting the phone was being tested. I also used up a third of the phones battery life for a sub 40min run. I don’t think I’ll be running a marathon with this on my phone!

It would be interesting to know whether battery drain and distance calculations were ok for others using newer iPhones/Blackberrys. I’m aware that most people who use this don’t have access to a Garmin or gps so can’t easily compare however you could compare to a plot on gmap pedometer or similar!

I will give the device another go possibly with one of the audio coaching tracks selected. That said my phone is to heavy for my short pockets meaning I have to hold it which rules out the sweaty sprint stages

Please comment below if you have any experience or issues with the iPhone Micoach device.

A very short blog post today as I’m about to dash out of the door and go fishing

On Wednesday evening I did the perimeter run of the 2012 Olympic site. This time I had the pleasure of company from two colleagues, who both trained (and completed!) this years London Marathon and since then have continued to run.

It was a nice run, whilst the grey clouds loomed overhead the rain stayed off which was a bonus. I got to give the chaps a running commentary of Stratford and the Park, whether they wanted to hear it or not. I love running round there as every time I go past it something new has popped up or some path has been changed. Its constantly evolving and in 6 months time it will look completely different. Its a very exciting place to be able to run around and live. I can’t wait to see what Stratford will look like this time next year and ultimately in 2012

N