Category: This week in running

Woooah, we’re half way there

Week 4 of the 10k training plan = done.

This weekend included a tempo run on Saturday and a 10 mile ‘easy’ run on Sunday, taking the week’s mileage to 28. I meant to test out my speed with a timed 5k this week but failed I’m afraid, so I can’t report any effect yet. I’m not injured, or exhausted, which either means that the training’s going really well, or that it’s too easy. In either case, I’m patient (lazy) enough to wait four weeks until the race to find out.

As for the weekend’s running, well, in the words of Woody Allen, “I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with, I don’t. Would you take two negative messages?”. Both runs were terrible – the first because I was hungover, the second because there is no justice in the world. I’m ready for week 5.

10k Training: Week Two

29 miles in 5 sessions this week and it felt easy. I don’t want to over-think this, but either it’s a fluke or I am actually getting fitter.

It may be no coincidence that I haven’t been drinking much booze lately. Another thing I’d rather not examine too closely. I like a glass of wine, but I’m no Oliver Reed – two glasses and I’m drunk – so I would be quite shocked if my paltry booze consumption were impeding my running performance. I would also be  quite gutted. Pinot Grigio is my pal, Chardonnay is my chum. I’m not ready to let go.

Another party conference today and tomorrow, so the booze may be making an appearance, but I plan to experience Liverpool by pavement as well. The hotel has a swimming pool so I might have to experience that afterwards.  Marvellous.

10k Training: Week One

Another catch-up post.

Saturday was tempo run day. I had been both wanting and dreading it. Wanting it because I like the concept – it makes sense to run at the threshold of discomfort, to understand what that feels like and know you can cope. Dreading it because running at the threshold of discomfort has, in the past, been very hard to judge and has mainly involved running in discomfort. What does running at 85% effort mean? On Saturday, I think I worked it out. My tired legs meant I couldn’t run a 5k or even 10k pace, so the 20 minutes went by at half marathon pace, which felt about right.

Sunday’s 12 miler (as per plan) would have taken me to 33 miles, 10 more than last week, so I dropped it to 10 miles in the hope that would be enough to stave off injury. I know this still made for too big a jump, mileage-wise (apparently one shouldn’t add more than 10% per week), but I felt good so risked it.

It was worth it. Sunday was a beautiful early autumn morning and I made Mr N run a proper easy pace. We chatted all the way round, discussing the merits of the various dogs out for their Sunday strolls. We even managed to come up with a plan to save Arsenal’s season. I must pop in to discuss it with Arsene next time I pass the Emirates. I hear he loves that.

Weekend off

My name is Gina and I’ve just had a weekend without running. It’s been eight days since my last race. I feel the urge to make this confession in public and be absolved.

I made a brief visit to the gym on Saturday morning, but walked right by the treadmills on my way to the weights from the cross-trainer. On Sunday, I walked to Alexandra Palace and then got the BUS back home. Many runners passed me, looking hot and sweaty, but I felt nothing. No guilt, no envy, not even admiration. I was on my way to buy cakes and flowers and they were on their way to pain and chafing.

At 10am on Sunday morning when I would usually be running, I fell back to sleep and woke up to find a cat (my cat, don’t worry), sitting on my shoulder. He purred. I smiled. Neither of us was counting lampposts in order to get through the next mile without stopping to dry heave.

This is my confession. It is a dangerous one for a self-proclaimed running evangelist to make. Is the exception that proves the rule, or the thin end of the wedge?

(said cat)

20110516-140059.jpg

Weekly Rrrrrround-up

OOPS.

Last week marked the penultimate week of my half-marathon training, during which I managed to go running 5 times and write about it 0 times. In my defence, it was an odd week, bookended by two public holidays, with a royal wedding, a hen night, and a real wedding in the middle. I could and should have squeezed in writing about my running as well as running itself, and will promise to do better in future.

To summarise progress, one week from Race Day:

  • I ran 31 miles;
  • my pace is looking good, averaging 7-minute miles during Friday’s 6 mile tempo run ;
  • my health is looking bad, with a cold contracted mid-real wedding, which continues to gather its own pace;
  • the weather is still amazing; and
  • running  just before a Royal Wedding begins is a lovely, though quite lonely, thing to do.

Here’s a photo from my 10.30am run on Friday, looking down towards the city from Ally Pally park. I saw one other person in the park, he had a thermos of coffee and a stack of newspapers and looked very pleased with himself. He was not wearing red, white or blue.

20110503-131822.jpg

Weakly round-up

A weak pun for a poor week. It finished well with a 13 mile run on Sunday, but with only two other runs, and a total of 24 miles, it wasn’t the peak of the training schedule that it should have been. Three weeks to go ’til the race and I’m still not sure how fast I’ll be able to run it. I’d say a pb is possible, but unlikely.

This week’s plan calls for at least 33 miles and the tempo and ‘race-sim’ sessions look tough. The weather forecast looks sunny which is great for the soul, but bad for the hayfever. So my main prediction is that Kleenex will be making lots of money from me this month. I wonder if Paula Radcliffe carries a packet of tissues on every run like me – she could pop it down her compression socks.

Cherry cheer

I missed out last week’s update so let me  do that first: 4 runs, skipping Sunday’s due to hangover/tiredness/laziness*, managing 28 miles with two good hard sessions and one rubbish one. 

Tonight was interval day so i ran mine around Regent’s Park – 5 x 1200m at 10k pace with half time recoveries (5 x 5mins fast, with 2.5min recovs). It was ok, not great but not terrible, my legs were still tired from Saturday’s leap for joy.

At the risk of becoming a blossom bore, the cherry trees in the English Garden of the Reg are worth a glance or two. Like nature’s fireworks suspended briefly in full mid-air explosion. Catch them this week or miss out. 

* delete nothing- all three applicable

Dirty Dozen

12 miles today, by myself due to manflu. 1h 33 mins’ pounding the streets; a football game with no half time. The first 4 miles felt good, the tedium set in during the middle 4, but the pain didn’t really arrive until mile 9, at which point I was leaving Camden and just starting the slow climb north.

I haven’t had a really painful run since finishing my marathon training. When I was regularly running over 13 miles of a Sunday I judged my fitness on the time in the run that my hip joints started to scrape together like chalk on a blackboard. It was a temporary pain and I’m not sure how, but I knew it would go away once I stopped.

On the day I ran the marathon, the hips kept quiet until mile 19. This morning they were 10 miles short of that. It hurt, but I knew I wouldn’t stop running even though I wanted to, very much. I got through it by thinking about the sun, the song that was playing at that moment, the passing strangers who might judge me for stopping, my lunch. Anything, basically, other than the state of my legs or lungs.

It was a slog to crown a week of slogs. 32 hard miles, and I’m half way through the plan. I don’t know how fast I can go yet, maybe this week will give me a clue.

Whoop!

I am really happy to report that last week I ran a total of 32 miles, over 5 days, and that my final run of the week was the best of the lot.

We ran 10 miles as a ‘race-sim’, with 6 miles at an easy pace (for us, this was 8 minute miles), and 4 miles at race pace plus 20 seconds (which was supposed to be 7 and a half minute miles, but was actually 7m 15 secs). I am permitting myself an exclamation mark in the title in recognition of this pace. I am so impressed my legs managed to turn out that kind of speed without my heart feeling like it was going to burst. This is particularly notable as the 4 miles at the end of the run was mostly uphill.

Elevation

I’m not sure I even need to add the other good things about the run:

  1. no hangover
  2. sun was shining
  3. saw a heron in Regent’s Park
  4. blossom galore

It was such a good run, it’s made me want to ignore my day off today and go out again anyway. I won’t of course.