Category: Training Day

Double-decker

When I’m running to a training schedule, I try to fit the running in to my life, rather than the other way around. This sounds very sensible and non-Madonna-ish, but in reality it means I run at crazy times, carrying bags of stuff, with a hangover or, in today’s case, twice in 12 hours.

Yesterday’s commandment was “OFF, cross-train, or easy run of 30-45 minutes”. Today’s was “Easy run: 30-45 minutes”. I’m going out for drinks tonight so knew I would have to run this morning but, rather than take a fully legal day OFF, I hopped aboard the cross-train and went to the gym last night at 7pm like a loser.

Getting changed afterwards, I heard a woman say to her friend, “I couldn’t come more than twice a week, exercising more than twice a week is too much, it’s not healthy”. At 6.55am this morning, running up Crouch End Hill for the second time with my husband in the biting wind, I thought she might be onto something.

I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow’s run. It’s a “tempo run”, and I still don’t fully understand what they are… I think it’s when you run almost as fast as you can over that time/distance, but not quite. Which, over 4 miles with 1 mile warm up and cool down, at 6.30am with a hangover, is not going to be pretty. Eek!

New Leaves

Today I have turned over not one, but two new leaves. I have started a proper training programme and begun blogging every day. If I say it here, then I have to stick to it. Both leaves are now firmly turned over and stuck to the internet.

The first run in the programme was the snappily titled “5 x 800m at 10k pace; recover after each repeat for half the interval time”. In reality this translated as “leg it past frightened pedestrians at an uncertain pace for just over three minutes, panicking alternately that you are going too slow/fast, then wheeze along for two minutes hoping time has mysteriously stood still and you have a bit longer before the next sprinty bit”.

I was really surprised it was so hard, given that I’ve been running pretty regularly since a marathon in November. I think it’s because I struggle with the concept of 10k pace when not either a) running a 10k race, or b) on a treadmill. It’s difficult to judge how fast I am going when I have to dodge past dogs, stop for traffic lights and run up hills. I suppose I could use technology to solve this problem, but I have a feeling that it’s important to be able to judge how fast I’m running.

Apart from the uncertainty about pace, it was a fair start to my training, a 35 minute run home down some of Islington and Holloway’s less salubrious roads, listening to the new Radiohead album. I have a theory about that album which I’m hoping that future listens will bear out: I think it’s like the ‘lotus flower’ in the middle track – it slowly unfurls, starting out harsh and impenetrable, but opening out into something beautiful by the end.

5k trick

I went to the gym last night even though it was a Monday. Atonement for not running on Sunday.

I try to use the gym for cross-training as running on treadmills is boring and bad for my knees, so I tend to do 20 /20 /20 mins on cross-train/ run/ cycle. Then arm weights. I never do sit-ups – I used to feel guilty about this but now I don’t care. I do not own any crop-tops.

I’m going to try a new tack to prepare for the series of 10k races I’ll be running in the summer: starting slower, getting faster. Crazy! Last night on the treadmill I ran 5k in thirds starting at 13km/h, moving to 14km/h and finishing at 15km/h. It was tough, but I’m not in any kind of 10k shape, so I’m hoping I can get more comfortable, then up the speeds.

I’m aiming for a sub-42 minute 10k, which is only 75 seconds faster than my best. 75 seconds that is really a minute and a quarter of  heartbusting effort. 10ks are the worst kind of race, they’re high maintenance but they think they’re low-maintenance.  I wrote ‘thigh maintenance’ then, which I should probably have left in. I guess they’re good for something…