April 2012 – Page 2 – Not a Jogger

This Week’s Summary is brought to you by Cadbury’s Mini Eggs

I feel nervous about writing this blog today. Superstition is taking over and I’m scared of saying how well things are going for fear that they will immediately go horrendously wrong. I once worked with a woman who used to say “horrendrous” when she meant “horrendous”. She was a real Geordie character. When things were stressful in the shop she used to say “Ooo I could slit me throat”, brandishing a big set of keys on a chain.

Back to running: this week is my last before the three week taper and I hope it will be my highest mileage week yet. I have my last long run – 20 miles – on Saturday. I am so desperate to get it over with that the weekend cannot come fast enough.

I need to stop fixating on the future, there is a lot to be proud of in the week just gone. I managed my second 42 mile week, made a hole in my newish trainers and got on to the fifth and final section of Our Mutual Friend. My feet are as tired as Bradley Headstone’s must be in the pursuit of Mr Eugene Rayburn.

On Sunday the plan said “Half Marathon Race”, so I set out to run a hard but comfortable 13.1 miles. I finished in 1:39, which made me happy. I’m trying to make 8 minute miles feel easy, in the way that 9 minute miles felt easy for my first marathon. They don’t, of course.

Weekly summary:

Monday: 5 miles (easy)
Tuesday: 5 miles (easy)
Wednesday: 7 miles (intervals)
Thursday: rest
Friday: 7 miles (steady)
Saturday: 5 miles (easy)
Sunday: 13.1 miles (1:39)

Total: 42 miles

The Time I Thought I Had Run a Six Minute Mile

I had not.

I am not a scientific person. When I run intervals I think, “ok, how fast do i think a mile at 10k pace should be?”, pick a number of minutes and run for that long.

I have no idea how fit or fast I am. Which is not a problem, as I’m going away for a weekend in the middle of the Olympics so someone else can have my place in the team. I am training for a marathon however, so it might make sense to have some kind of idea of how well this is going. I measured out a route containing 4 x 1 mile sections on mapmyrun, with rest sections, before I left the house. As it was a 7 mile run, I had to try to remember where each mile section started and finished.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just find a mile section and repeat it? Yes. Yes it would have.

The first interval was tough – lots of pedestrian dodging, uneven pavements, hay fever eyes, slight uphill. I finished it in 6 minutes 40. Hey! I thought, that’s not bad. I spent the next 4 minutes of jogging trying to work out what that would make my 10k time (as) if I could maintain that pace for 6.2 miles.

The second interval was kinder – a long empty downhill followed by a brief uphill and a flat bit. I approached the endpoint with my watch still in the 5 minute somethings. Oh my god! I thought, I’m going to run a six minute mile! I am so fit!

I was rapidly reassessing my next 5k time- sub-20 minutes, faster? Maybe I had been too hasty in giving up that Olympic place? Then came the next interval. It was mostly uphill but I still busted a gut. 6:30. Hmm.

The last interval. I’ll just take it easy I thought. I killed myself – 6:30 again.

Doubts were creeping in. Could there be a tiny possibility that I had got the distance wrong on my sub- 6 minute mile?

Back at the flat, I checked the map. Yes, I had missed out a section. Not a big section, but enough. I might have made it in 6 minutes 20. Which, over 10 k, would be a 39 minutes. Of course, I could only run it over 1 mile, maybe two with a fair wind.

The Olympic dream was over.

Easy Like Tuesday Morning

Yesterday morning I ran “five miles easy” in 43 minutes and it felt okay. This morning I ran “five miles easy” in 40 minutes and it felt exactly the same.

I had the same amount of sleep. I ate the same thing before I left the house (three foam banana sweets – don’t judge me). The weather was the same, I even listened to the same audiobook on my i-pod (okay, not the same part of the book). I ran the same route.

I expended the exact same amount of effort.

Easy is a relative concept.

Weezer and Chips

I don’t drink much coffee. In the mornings at work I sometimes have a cup of milk with a splash of filter coffee in it. A Diet Coke is a risk for me. On Saturday I had a caffeinated gel one hour in to my 18 miler and I was high as a kite for the rest of it. It contained 63mg of caffeine (a can of Coke has 32, Red Bull has 80).

By mile 10, colours seemed sharper and I was struggling to keep my pace down to 8:15, never mind the planned 8:30 a mile. By mile 15, I was bounding up York Way singing out loud to The Sweater Song. I gave up the pacing and ran home as fast as I could manage.

I paid for it afterwards. Caffeine + 4 beers + Doom Metal gig = massive headache. It was good to run long on Saturday, rather than Sunday, though. I went to a party, ate a massive plateful of pie, then went to the gig and ate an 11pm portion of chips.

Those gels are coming with me on marathon day, for sure. I’ll save one for mile 16 in the hope that it’ll carry me through the remaining 10. It and Weezer. And the promise of chips.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5.5 miles (short intervals)
Wednesday: 8 miles (at marathon pace)
Thursday: 5.5 miles (don’t remember)
Friday: 5 miles (easy)
Saturday: 18 miles (2:29)

Total: 42 miles