Month: January 2012

On the Seventh Day, She Rested

In 6 days, you could get a lot done. You could read War and Peace. You could walk from London to Edinburgh. You could drink 12 glasses of wine and eat 51 KitKats (if you were a woman obeying UK guidelines). You could even create the Heavens and the Earth.

I couldn’t. What I could do was run every day and give my training plan a good kicking. A mid-week interval session gave me thigh burn of the first degree, but I pushed through it with two consecutive days of slow ‘recovery’ running and made it to Sunday’s long run feeling surprisingly fresh.

A summary of the week is below. Annoyingly, life might get in the way of this week’s running, making me struggle to get to 35 miles. I want to be running 40, but I do have 14 weeks to go, so think what I could achieve in that…

Tuesday: 5 miles (easy)
Wednesday: 6 miles (steady)
Thursday: 5 miles (with intervals)
Friday: 4 miles (slow)
Saturday: 6 miles (easy)
Sunday: 10 miles (slow)

Total: 36 miles

The Return of the Burn

My thighs hurt.

On Thursday morning I did not get up at 5:55am. I stayed in bed, took gym kit to work, and headed there at 5:55pm.

Running intervals in the gym is odd. I have no idea if I’m replicating the speed I would run them out of doors or not. The plan was to run 4 x 3 minutes fast, 2 minutes slow. A fairly easy interval session, which I sandwiched between 10 minutes each of warm up and cool down running, some cross-training and weights.

I’m not sure if it was the cross-training, the intervals or the weights, but my thighs were killing me as I attempted to climb the stairs out of the gym. Getting on the bus home for my mammoth three minute journey, my legs buckled and I had to sit down.

Did I push too hard?  I have no idea. When I run intervals outside I’m fairly good at judging the fastest pace I can run each interval and still finish them.  In the gym I have to pick a speed and hope I’ve got it right. Even half-way through the interval I just can’t tell if I’m running faster or slower than I should be.

There is no way to solve this mystery. It’s not like I could measure how fast I run the intervals outside, then choose that speed in the gym. Oh, wait.

Running Autopilot Fail

5:55 Tuesday. Get up. Feed cats. Brush teeth. Eat small square of kendal mint cake. Put on running kit. Leave house. Go back to collect gloves. Leave house. Start running. Run 5 miles easy in somnambulant state. Get back. Consult training plan. Realise I did the wrong run.

5:55 Wednesday. Get up. Brush cats. Feed teeth. Eat small square of kendal mint cake. Put on running kit. Leave house. Go back to collect tissues. Leave house. Start running extended 6 mile route. Get back to the house at 5.5 miles. Run around block twice like an 8 year-old. Consult map. Realise I went the wrong way.

There is a lesson to be learned here. If only I could stay awake long enough to find out what it is.

Steady as She Goes

My first week of marathon training is over and, despite minor ill-health, it went well. I ran 33.5 miles over five runs and it felt like a good ‘foundation’ or ‘base’ running week. Nothing too strenuous, no run longer than 8 miles.

I got scared on Thursday, listening to a Marathon Talk podcast about training, which assumed that ‘intermediate’ marathon runners start from a base of 40 miles a week. That’s before they really start training. I am aiming for that kind of mileage, but it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to get there.  I ran zero miles per week for most of November so I need to be careful.

Having recovered from my cold, I was able to make up for lost time on drinking front on Friday and Saturday, so both weekend runs suffered as a result. Saturday’s was worst: an evil headwind + hilly route + minor hangover = grim 6.5 miles. I meant to run 7 but confess to walking the last half.

Sunday’s was the best run of the week, despite a woolly head. The plan dictated a “steady 8 miles” and I obeyed. I love a “steady” run – which I interpret it as “how I usually run when not training”. I run fast, but make sure that I’m not straining to catch my breath and that my head is always up. I go easy on the uphills and swiftly on the downhills. Basically, I try to enjoy it, which for me means running quickly without killing myself.

The first 6 miles were great – my pace was at 7 minutes 20 per mile, the fastest I’ve run in a while. As mile 7 started, however, I could feel everything slow down and start to hurt, from my lungs to my hips to my feet. What had been easy became a struggle. At this point in my route there’s a slow incline – probably over a mile long. When I first started running around Crouch End I used to hate it, but I hadn’t noticed it lately.  Until yesterday. By the time I turned the corner onto Park Road I was exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. A week’s running had taken its toll and I had already run 32 miles – why not just stop?

I slowed down a little bit to catch my breath. I dropped my shoulders and shook my hands to get the tension out of my neck. I sped up past the shops. I ran very slowly up Crouch Hill, then pounded down the other side and made it home in just under 1 hour. My face was hot for the rest of the day – a literal glow of self-satisfaction.

Sick 6

As I write this, on Friday morning, the world is a beautiful place. The view from my office window may be a symphony in grey and beige, but there is a technicolour wonderland inside my head. I can breathe, I can taste, I can even smell (a bit). My cold has gone!

At least, I think it has.

Last night, however, it had not. I brought my kit to work in order to force myself to run home, knowing in advance that this was the only way I would do it. It is a good trick, particularly if you place said kit by your desk where people will trip over it, then tell all of them that you are running home tonight (for peer pressure). Then eat a large lunch and several biscuits (for guilt pressure).

At 6pm I headed home on foot with just a packet of tissues and a grimace. I had mapped out a 6 mile route winding through the depths of Clerkenwell and Old Street. After a day’s rain, night had descended cold and clear, clamping down on puddles with a black hand.

Grim faces hid behind collars and brims. Crouching lanes of traffic crept up behind me, bicycle brakes screeched and bus queue backs blocked my way. Every step seemed to be uphill, my neck craning to stay upright. At Sainsbury’s on Stroud Green Road, I finally stopped and stepped out of the dark into six feet walls of shiny packaged propaganda. I was trapped in a video game, a virtual world of consumerism, collecting points and scanning items. When I had inserted my card into the chip and pin device, I was deposited, shivering, back on the stiff concrete to walk home with the spoils.

Into Intervals

I can’t bear to talk again about my C word, so I won’t. Please bear in mind that it is still in progress and judge my performance/mood  today in its light.

Day two of the training programme called for 7 miles containing 10 x 1 minute fast, 2 minutes slow. That’s half an hour of intervals but, more importantly, nearly a whole hour’s running before work on a Wednesday. In the rain.

Thankfully the arctic temperatures of yesterday had receded and I was able to run my warm up without resembling the Hunchback of Tufnell Park. I could also wear my regular running gloves rather than the enormous ski-mittens I’m now sporting on extra-cold days. They may be warm, but they look ludicrous.

I can’t say it was good to be running intervals again, but it did make me feel like a ‘proper runner’. You’re no-one until you’ve pelted past a pedestrian at breakneck speed only to have them wander by you moments later, laughing.

So It Begins

Let the marathon training commence! The North Dorset Village Marathon is now 16 weeks away and my training for it officially started this morning at 6.15am with a 6 mile run – starting slowly, finishing faster. I completed it, despite my and the cold, and it felt ok. Not spectacular but passable. Solid. Fine.

I’m using the same training plan I used for my last (and only) marathon. It’s aimed at 3:30- 4:30 finishers, over 5 runs a week with no mid-week run longer than 8 miles. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I think I enjoyed the training in 2010 so I’m looking forward to tackling it again.

 Marathon Schedule_May2012

There are three key challenges I have to face this time however:

  1. In 2010 I ran 3:55, this time I want 3:30.
  2. I trained with Mr Notajogger last time, in 2012 I’m on my own.
  3. Last time I trained in the sunlit summer and autumn, now it’s dark and cold.

I’m not so worried about 2 and 3, but 1 is going to be tough. Probably too tough. I would be happy to finish under 3:45, a ten minute PB. I do want to run 3:30 this year though, and I think I can do it this time. I don’t want to set my sights too low and regret not pushing hard enough.

3:30 marathon, you are my goal and I will have you.

Things I have learned in the last week:

  1. Tiredness may not be due to running, it might be the start of a horrid virus;
  2. Chocolate oranges do not offer the same immunity benefits as actual oranges;
  3. Films featuring small dogs in a central role should win Oscars;
  4. Skipping two days’ running in favour of lying in bed is good for the body but not the spirit;
  5. Running with a mild fever helps counteract the effects of icy weather;
  6. Though really isn’t to be encouraged;
  7. I mean that, stay in bed folks;
  8. Kendal mint cake is the new running gel;
  9. Just because you can run 10 miles doesn’t mean you’re cured;
  10. A hot toddy is the answer, no matter what the question.

Burning the Candle

I’ve only just started increasing my mileage for this year’s marathon effort, but yesterday I was starving all day. This morning I felt so exhausted I had to force myself out for a run. Suddenly it all came flooding back – how I felt all the way through the 16 weeks of marathon training in 2010. Isn’t it funny how one forgets the general life that goes around the training, and only remembers the runs or injuries?

I am enjoying the hunger, though I need to be wary of it. I suspect that my body is is really craving protein, not KitKats. The tiredness I am not enjoying. Last night I stayed up to watch a terrible film (He’s Just Not That Into You) and hated myself for it. Why was I propping my eyelids open with Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck and the weedy guy from Entourage (not even the good-looking one!) when I had to get up again at 6am to run? To make myself feel marginally better, I did my ironing while watching it. It didn’t help. Nor did it help me understand why Bradley Cooper is considered to be attractive.

There’s not much to say about the run. I stuck to the flat 5 mile route and 8 minutes a mile pace. It was tedious but it’s another 5 in the bank. I will try to get an early night tonight but I’m seeing another film (The Artist) so hopefully I will be able to wait until afterwards.

I’m Running up that Hill

Last week I ran four 5 mile runs, using two different routes: one flat, one hilly. I didn’t fancy either route this morning, so I left the house without a plan. I ended up zig-zagging around Crouch End for 6 miles over a mixture of hills and flat bits.

Over Christmas a friend expressed surprise that I, Not A Jogger, would ever give in and Walk during a Run. He was right, I’m always advising people to “run really really slowly but never walk”. In my defence, I’ve lost fitness and it’s really hilly, but that’s no excuse. As I was struggling up the first hill this morning I remembered something I had heard in a marathon talk podcast over the weekend. On the show, Tom and Martin had a ‘training talk’ segment about hills and how to tackle them in races. Tom discussed how, during his best ever race, he decided to run hills with an even heart-rate – not going above 162 on the way up, and not below 158 on the way down. To do this, he had to run very slowly on the way up, and really fast on the way down.

I don’t have a heart-rate monitor, but I decided to give this a go based on how out-of-breath I felt.

It worked!

I ran solidly for the whole 6 miles and managed to feel good at the brow of each hill instead of struggling to get my breath back all the way to the bottom. I also loved pelting it as fast as possible on the way down.

Highly recommended.