2010 was a year of improving, in almost every race I entered I beat previous personal bests and on the whole I have become fitter, faster and lighter. I have had lots of highs and thinking about it now only one real low. I have taken my running to new levels and running has now become such a huge part of my life.

If I ran a lot in 2008-2009 it was nothing in comparison to 2010. Over the course of the year I have entered:
- Two 10kms (Newham, Bluewater*)
- One 10m (Stockport*)
- Four half marathons (Roding Valley, Silverstone*, Dartford, Royal Parks)
- One 24hr relay event
- Two Marathons ( London DNF, Dublin*)
( *denotes Race Personal Bests)

Over the year I have run at least 1100 miles. After a bit of google’ing this is equivalent from running between London and Gibraltar! Most, but not all, of those miles were covered in London. However, I did run whilst on holiday in Spain, attempted to run on a treadmill whilst skiing in Andora and even went out with a Running Club at 6am whilst in Fort Lauderdale. In May I joined Serpentine RC and through good fortune I managed to bump into Rich and Jim on my first night and since then Rich has joined me on a number of races including dragging me around the Dublin Marathon! Cheers Rich…

I have also managed to get an article in Runners World magazine about this blog and have been contacted by a number of people who have somehow stumbled into my little home on the web. I think this is pretty cool – the subject matter is pretty dull to most, I’m no record breaker and I say it like it is however I still get visitors and I hope this will continue on into 2011.

At the beginning of 2010 I was an 8:30-9 min/mi runner, an 8min/mi was a tough session – however, on the final race of the year I managed 10 hilly miles with an average pace of 7:25, substantially faster! Luckily I think I still have more to give, a more focused schedule in 2011 structured in a way to build my speed should hopefully see me setting more PB’s.

At the moment I am still unconfirmed of my race plans for 2011, it’s possible I will head back to Silverstone again and take on the 1:42:44. I have entered the Dorney Lakes Half and it’s also likely I will run a Marathon in the spring and, depending on how that goes, also in the Autumn. Hopefully, if Rich doesn’t continue to get quicker and quicker maybe we will head abroad somewhere for the Autumn one, possibly Berlin…?!

Bring on 2011…!

N

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.

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

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.

I’m going to start this post with what would normally be a conclusion but I wanted to ensure you all got the point before getting bored and leaving! The Adidas Thunder Run 24 is a team relay lasting 24 hours with laps of 10km. This weekend was possibly one of the most enjoyable running experiences I have had since starting back in 2008. It’s not down to personal bests or any of the usual highs associated with running but instead it’s due to being able to join forces with a bunch of lovely people and have good fun. Sure, I may not have been as good as 75% of the team but by the end of the final lap it didn’t seem to matter. The run itself was incredibly well organised and perhaps because it was still a relatively small event the atmosphere was buzzing from 11am Saturday, when we arrived, until 3pm the following day when we said our goodbyes. The small group of spectators who lined the course, most likely fellow team mates or friends and families, cheered on everyone no matter what speed or size because after lap 2 or 3 it was impossible to know what lap they were on! Fat, thin, fast, slow, male, female it genuinely didn’t matter on this event, if you were prepared to stick at it you could be admired by the hundreds of people who were at the event. As the tag line of the event says ‘Impossible is nothing’.

Anyway now it’s time to go back to how I ended up getting involved in this event. About 2 weeks ago I got contacted by a Digital Agency working for Adidas asking if I’d like to be involved in an event and test out some of their kit. I said I’d do some research and also asked if I could invite some other runners. I got an affirmative to the later question so on top of asking my colleagues who were all busy I contacted my running partner Rich from the Serps who gave the answer ‘why not’. I confirmed and double checked we would be entering a FULL team of 8 and said to go for it. I know I can run 12 miles with my training how it is at the moment and in my calculations we would end up doing about 24 laps or 18miles tops…

Setting off bright and early on Saturday morning we made our way to Catton Park in Staffordshire. Rich and I had both looked on the website a little but as neither of us had considered training there was little point getting too worried about what we had signed up for. As we turned down the final road to the entrance of the park I clocked a running path that swung left into a forest up a pretty sharp hill. This was the moment I wondered whether it was such a good idea!

Other than a few emails a couple of days before the event I had no idea of who would be on our team. We had been put together through the agency based on being previous triallists or bloggers. For some unknown reason I had been nominated as captain and the agency chose to call us the Lock and Loaders. About 30 mins after Rich and I arrived most of the team was formed and after a brief introduction we started putting up our tents and pulling on our ‘test team’ kits.

I’m going to be fairly blunt here and say that at a normal running event or running club I don’t think any of our team mates would have talked to us. They were all much faster runners with very impressive PB’s to match. Rich and I have chatted before about the better/best runners all sticking together, which to be honest is perfectly acceptable – afterall they have no reason to run with us! But here we now were with a group of runners who win events or if they don’t they are close runners up. Not like mid-pack Rich and I! Within the first 20 minutes of meeting I made a rather big slip up in their eyes by saying “we are here to enjoy this, not to win it” – the looks that greeted this from some of the team were priceless and I suddenly realised that I was in company that ran to win.

After a shakey start we had constructed our initial list of runs. For some reason, I don’t no why, we wrote a plan based on 1hour laps. After the third runner had gone out we realised we were way off, sub 40,sub 40,sub 40 I think it was!? It was about now I realised how incredible the runners on my team were. Our expected 60mins per person was thrown out of the window and by 8pm we were back to the pad reorganising things, not before my first run though….

The run itself was unlike anything I have ever done before. For a start it wasnt on a road! Starting off on a nice little bit of green path it didn’t take long before a sharp right up and into the forest! Weaving through the trees on uneven surfaces and narrow trails – this was no PB territory. After 5 or so minutes of sharp turns and bends I exited the forest onto a wider trail and back past part of the campsite. From this point on I can remember bits and bobs and patch things together, a couple more inclines, one lasting a fair while some more between the tree running, one short but very sharp drop etc etc. About 46 mins from the start I found myself almost at the finish line with one more incline to go. My team mates, Laura and her firend Megan were there to cheer me on. From this point on it was down hill and time to hand over our “relay batton” to Atheer and away he went!

My first 10km was over and with only 2 more runners in our group left to run it wouldn’t be long before people started their second laps. It was now time for me to eat and refuel and get off my feet before I was scheduled to go out again about 6 hours later…

» Continue reading “The 2010 Adidas Thunder Run 24″

Today was the first competitive run since the Marathon and to be honest after what happened back then I was a little bit aprehensive about how the run was going to go. I know that I can cover the distance easily at a reasonably fast pace as the serpentine course on a weds is over half a mile longer and I have covered that over the last few weeks pretty quickly. However, I was aware of my heart rate and the stresses that my body may have been going through so I talked about it with caution to friends and family.

Heading to Laura’s on the Saturday evening so we could have a 15min journey to the start it meant I could get up as late as possible at 6:30 for breakfast, a shower and to start taking in my energy drink. Out the door by 7 and on route, it was quite cloudy but the rain looked like it was staying away. I think we got there a lot quicker this year as I don’t remember having to wait around for the start for as long but nevermind – i was warm enough so it wasnt a problem.

I was hoping to do a sub 45 but wasn’t sure whether this was realistic – at Newham I made 46:07 and I had a sub 45 race which I had achieved as part of the Silverstone Half. I headed to quite near the front of the pack so I wasn’t caught up having to spend most of the race overtaking people – fortunately I don’t remember being overtaken too many times so I couldn’t have upset too many people!

The race set off fast – once again, the Virgin pacers got it completely wrong, trying to stick with the 45min pacer was almost impossible and looking at my stop watch after the first mile it was clear why – she was running faster than 6:40 pace, or a 41:25 10km…too fast! After about 2-3km I overtook her as she clearly couldn’t maintain that pace, but I would be intrigued to know if that was her strategy fast start then slow down, but that’s hardly “pacing”. Anyway, as with last year the course can by no means be described as flat – it’s referred to as undulating on RW forums and I remember reading someone describe it as a ‘fun’ challenge.

The first 2 miles were mostly downhill and amazingly I managed splits of 6:41/6:48 respectively – following that came the uphill. The garmin indicates an elevation incline of 40meters over 1mile or alternative a 2.5% incline. Needless to say this was tough and I dug in as much as I could. Fortunately Bluewater is 4meters above sea level and at the top of the hill we reached 40meters so between mile 3.5 and the end we would have to come back down again, but not before a couple more hills. The mid miles I had 7:14/7:26 splits. On the road back home I managed to get my times back below 7mins again. Putting my head down I dug in till the finish line with the final 100meters being another hill just to tease you right at the end, although I had nothing in me to even think about sprinting!

As the title suggests this was a new PB for me – taking about 5mins off of my time for last year and a couple of mins from my time at Newham. I’m well chuffed as I have certainly broken the 45min barrier with that time and it was a hilly course – would be interesting to see what I could pull of on a flat, but will save that for a bit – time to enjoy the moment, let the recovery barby sink in and chillax…Whilst I remember I want to say how well the Bluewater 10km is organised, the goody bags are spot on and probably the best I have ever got as well as that they give out a technical tshirt that is actually quite nice. Well worth the cost of the event…

Edit: since starting this post the race results have come online, there was only one female virgin active pacer even close to the start of the group and she came in at 50:13, me thinks she blew up…

Also the field was obviously very strong this year, in the 2009 race my time would have seen me secure a top 100 finish out of 2000. This year I came in at 189/2092 although today it did feature the Kent County Championships and Kent Grand Prix so I wonder whether there were some faster runners out there! It doesn’t really matter though

Click here for the Bluewater 10k Results.

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=

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

Following a disruption to my weekend schedule as I was heading up North to
visit some of Laura’s friends in Manchester I headed once again to the dreadmills in Shepherds Bush fitness first and set the speed to 10.4km/h as per the schedule.

I think I have the early symptoms of a mild cold as recently I have struggled to sleep and suffering from some aches, a runny nose and other ailments associated with a cold and today was no different. Following a poor night sleep I still got up and ready as I didn’t want to miss a run even if I didn’t completely do the distance. The run was really tough, for such a slow speed I was feeling tired and getting aches in places I don’t remember experiencing before. Hopefully, a good night sleep tonight coupled with some fruit maybe my savior as I suspect with my skiing hol next week if I follow the schedule I won’t have a rest day until Sunday – not ideal.

Tomorrows run is my interval day which should push and challenge me if my body is up for it! At the moment I’m spending a lot of time on the treadmills which I’m not really enjoying but the pavements around home are far too treacherous to go out on – not the best start to the training schedule!

As an aside, after my skiing I think I will spend some time focusing on my diet, increasing the amount of fruit and veg I intake as well as cutting out the chocs and sweets, the problem is the sweet cupboard is still fairly full from Xmas so may need to palm that off to others soon – any takers?

That’s it for now until tomorrows run – 1.5m fast intervals…