For a few weeks I had been somewhat looking forward to last week. The schedule looked on paper to be relatively forgiving baring the weekend LSR. There were no sessions scheduled for the Thursday and in fact every run had the word ‘Easy’ by it. Jackpot!

However, on Wednesday I was about to realise perhaps things were indeed easier but they were still runs none the less. The relatively short 5k I chuckled about as I took to the treadmill, simples I thought! However, 20mins later, sweating like anything it was actually bloody tough and I couldn’t have pressed the stop button any quicker.

Thursday was similar – an easy 6 miles scheduled so I jogged back from Stratford. As I was on the tube on the way to the start I was telling myself ‘yesterday was a blip -today really will seem easy’. From the first 100m I realised once again that wouldn’t be the case and it was going to be a more challenging than expected run home. To give me a little bit of credit I did have my camelback on which adds about half a stone to my weight which doesn’t help matters!

I entered the house feeling dejected. In what felt like a few short seconds my three easy days were over – and none of them felt easy. What was that about?! After a few texts with a woman in the know I was informed this was to be expected following heavy training. That said she also informed me I could be coming down with a cold. I tried to have an early night and similarly on Friday my allocated rest day.

Once again due to plans and arrangements my LSR was shifted to Saturday and I was scheduled to run 2hr15. I sorted my kit out on Friday night, gels etc. I’m trying to get back into the SIS Tropical gels having been suggested it possibly isnt the best idea to only take the caffeine ones as I did in Dublin. Laura had to do something for her school in Bromley so I decided to go with her and run towards my nan in Kennington from the other side of the river.

I was also fortunate to have Olly company for a portion of my run. I ran a few times with Olly last year, meeting him in Greenwich and once again we met in Blackheath and following a quick handover of wallet etc we were on our way to London Bridge. I am normally pretty meticulous with gMap Pedometer and plan my route out however today I knew that I was likely to come out short so would have to do laps at the end.

The south side of the river is much less enjoyable to run along than the north. On the other side there is a footpath that runs all the way from docklands with only a few deviations for new properties this is not the case on the south! Mental note to self there!

The run itself went ok. The 16 miles turned out to be 17 but mainly because I forgot to restart my watch at Blackheath. My heart rate was up on last weeks LSR and I failed to take on a third gel which may have helped during my final few miles and where I really did slow down!

As I finished and whilst consuming a recovery shake I started to ponder more about the week that had passed. Why had things seemingly been so bad? I think the problem stemmed from my brain giving the wrong message to my body. It was a recovery week NOT a rest week. For some this may amount to the same thing, for me I now know the difference!

Recovery week done, back to sessions this week and the likelihood of having to do some shuffling about due to another busy week of commitments.

Till next time.

N

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

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 had always intended on doing a long run this weekend as it’s been a good couple of weeks since the last one. I was undecided whether to do first thing Saturday or Sunday and ironically my laziness on Saturday turned out to be useful!

On Saturday afternoon I was over at Laura’s parents in Kent for a party. Whilst out in the car about 5pm I noticed a number of ‘Caution Runners’ signs and a 9 mile marker. I also spotted a road closure sign for the Sunday between 9-12. Returning back to the party I did a quick Google on my iphone to see what run was happening, where and when. That is when I found out about the Dartford Half Marathon on 11 July. They were accepting entries on the morning so at about 8pm on the 10th July I decided I would run in the event which started just down the road. Knowing nothing of the course or how my fitness would be as recently 7miles has been my distance cap.

About an hour after deciding to go for it I noticed a friend on facebook wish people good luck for a tough course. At this point I started to realise this wasn’t to be a ‘flat as a pancake’ Silverstone type race and there were to be hills…oh well, it’s just a group training run for me!

We were out of the house at 7:30 following a cobbled together breakfast and taking on some powerbar energy drink as that is all I had access to. Unfortunately my kit was also not my normal ‘race kit’ as I hadn’t intended on doing anything other than an individual long slow run, however luckily I did have all the necessities.

The race set off at 9. Fortunately it was quite cloudy so the worry of heat from the sun wasn’t so much of a concern. The race headed out of Central Park and into Dartford before moving onto smaller country roads and before long the undulating nature of the course started showing. To be honest the first few hills didn’t bother me as much as it seemed for others and once at the top there was plenty of recovery time down so all seemed fine.

As expected I started to run out of juice at about 9 miles. This was probably partly due to lack of fluid as drinking from paper cups whilst running is almost impossible! I nervously approached the hill at mile 10, I had no idea what to expect but had overheard a lot of natter back at the start about “Gore Road”. That was not a hill for running, in fact contrary to what I would normally do I decided walking was the better option. As people started going pass me I was a little bit upset – for the last few miles I had stuck my position and no-one had over took me. As it turns out I had nothing to worry about – at the top of the hill all of those who had overtaken me seemed to come to a complete halt, they had spent all the energy getting up and had nothing to get back down. At this point I was feeling fine so enjoyed the downward run back to the finish…

The last mile was also a toughy, entering the park the route was very bendy and it was one of those places where you can see the finish but are detoured around the houses to add a few more meters to make up the distance. Very demoralizing end to the race, but fortunately that was the end before a 350m lap of a running track and coming over the finish line!

Ignoring the huge hill this was a pretty well organised run – plenty of marshals out on the course which was a bonus – there were quite a few spectators sat in their drives which was nice. No real goody bag but they are normally a disappointment anyway! I had a good time and it was a great little impromptu run!

N

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 sun is out! On Saturday I have planed to run a gentle warmup for Sundays run and then go for a swim with Laura. The local pool is 3 or so miles away so it made sense to have a very gentle jog over to her before jumping in the pool for a few laps. Shorts finally out and it was lovely to run in the sun. No real issue on Sat but then again it wasn’t far! Good swim and then off for a relaxing afternoon, and some garden nursery time!

The schedule lists 18M for Sunday, and fortunately, Oliver, who I have run with before on a previous long run had volunteered to accompany me for a portion of today’s run. I had planned to meet him at Mile End and head round the 2012 Park and back to the flat, unfortunately things don’t always go to plan! At Mile End I saw Olly and he was already a little out of breath – thanks to TFL the route was to change, the central line was out between Liv St and Leytonstone and he had run down to meet me from Tower Hill! He had already covered 2.5 Miles to meet me and obviously I didn’t want to send him off on a 12 mile run! We doubled back towards the Olympic Stadium and I took him along the Greenway, hogging the side of the park.

My goal was to end up at Leyton as I wasn’t sure if it was planned engineering or a disruption to service, unfortunately it was the former and we had to carry onto Stratford where he would be able to continue on National Rail. I think it was hit Stratford after about 10miles for him (inc his first bit) and he seemed happy. He’s a good runner, wouldn’t take much to push him through a fast half marathon I don’t think! At Stratford, we parted ways and I headed home. I was 13 or so miles in so new the route home would cover the remaining 5 miles perfectly.

The run was certainly hot – the final two or three miles where a bit of a challenge as I’m not sure I had drunk enough – that said I followed my plans and run at a 9min/mi average pace so hopefully recovery time this week should be shorter! Lets hope that the temp falls a little bit otherwise we may have the same as last year on the big day!!

See mile splits

Woo that’s the last serious distance covered and it went well so brilliant! Rest day tomorrow

Till next time

The schedule had me down for 11 miles today which meant I had to request a late start to get in the distance in the morning without having to be out of the flat before 7.

Route was as usual heading towards Oxford Circus station, via Hackney, which is as my Garmin informed me today bang on 11 Miles. Having not properly prepared myself right at the start of the week I had to take a pair of trainers and jeans in my bag alongside the water and other normal gibbons. Much like yesterdays run my legs felt heavy and today my splits proved it. I was slow based on my recent norm adding a couple of splits in excess of 9 min miles but the last few miles with a new lease of life the speed increased. Annoyingly I know why I go slow, my stride gets shorter and heavier and hence I get slower and it seems to get worse. It’s only when I actively think about what I’m doing and lengthen out a bit do my splits get better with no real perceived increase in effort. I suspect that is why maybe the audiofuel help as they regularly make me consider my stride!

Anyway, 11 miles in the leg bank which brings the tally over the last 5 days to 37, with my long run scheduled for Saturday it’s going to be another LONG distance week. Tomorrow is a well deserved rest day which I’m looking forward to. 20 miles scheduled for Saturday so will be on my feet for best part of 3 hours. Its gonna be a toughy!

Oh as a final discussion point, when I got to the gym to shower this morning I decided to weigh myself with and without my backpack to see what I was lugging around. Turns out it weighed nearly half a stone and that was with an empty water container. No wonder my legs feel heavier during the week they are carrying more weight!

Till the long run…!

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.

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=