Training Day – Page 3

No News is Good News

I’ve been running twice since the weekend. On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning I put my trainers on, left the house, did some running, stretched a bit, had a shower and forgot about it.

Martin Yelling says you should be “floating” along during your taper, and perhaps that is what I’m doing. I’m certainly not expending any major effort, contracting any major injuries or in fact experiencing anything that is in any way interesting to anyone else.

Sorry.

I have nothing to say. May this continue for the next ten days.

Q: When is a Taper not a Taper?

A: When you’re a week into the “taper” and still running the same amount.

A: When your running’s going so well you don’t want to run less.

A: When you tell everyone you’re tapering but really aren’t.

A: When you fear rest and avoid it at all costs.

A: When it’s a tapir.

A: When you really need to get a grip and STOP RUNNING GINA.

I ran 6 miles this morning. In my defense, the plan said 7. In accusation, I could easily have done 4.

My plan seems to have a 2 week taper, rather than a 3 week one. Is this ok? I feel good, but I know I need to slow down. There are 31 miles in the plan for next week, then 10 the final week. Too much? Help!

6 x 800 Metres = Ow

Got to love those intervals.

I left work at 5.30pm in the rain, got home in the rain, got changed (not in the rain) and headed back out for a run. In the rain.

I ran slowly over to Tufnell Park Road, which is straight and about a kilometre long. In an uncharacteristic fit of organisation, I had measured out an 800m section in advance. Of course on one of the intervals I stopped at the wrong cross-street and wondered why that interval was 30 seconds faster than the others, but you can’t expect miracles.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to wear my cold weather fleece to run these intervals. I ripped it off after the first one and decided to get soaked instead. 800m intervals are quick. In my case, between 3 minutes and 5 seconds and 3 minutes and 19 seconds (for the last one). If I had done all 10 Yasso 800s, I reckon I would have averaged 3 minutes 20 seconds, so I now have absolute cast iron scientific proof that a 3:30 marathon is possible. Maybe.

In hamstring news, I tried the tennis ball (thanks Holly) in the absence of The Stick (thanks Robinson), but I’m sure I noticed any improvement. My contortions did keep the cats amused, however.

Hamstrings of Doom

I’m not categorising this post as “Injury Time”. I’m not injured. I repeat. I am not injured.

I have a thing. A hamstring thing. It’s not painful, it’s not pulled, it’s… I don’t know. It’s basically tense. Like I’m tensing it all the time. And I suppose I am, but I’m trying not to. Though the more I think about it the tenser it gets.

Argh.

I asked the physio about it on Friday. “Should I get one of those foam roller things everyone has?”, I asked. “No”, he said, “they’re no good for hamstrings”.

So, there’s nothing I can do. I’m stretching it but, short of crouching at my desk or touching my toes mid-meeting, I can’t stretch it all the time.

I’m giving it a whole 36 hours between runs, to see if that helps. 6 miles yesterday morning were uncomfortable, verging on unpleasant. Intervals tonight, and hard ones at that (6 x 800m). Oo, I think these might qualify as Yasso 800s.

Hamstring heaven or hamstring hell? We shall see.

TWENTY MILES

Last week I was assailed by a massive wave of tiredness. It had been building for a while, but running 8 miles before breakfast on Thursday was the final push the wave needed to knock me out of my boat and leave me beached on the shores of exhaustion.

I had to take a day off on Friday. I also had to get a massage. My hamstrings have been getting gradually tighter over the last couple of weeks, to the point where I now can’t do my glute exercises (which are supposed to take pressure off my lower back) because the hamstrings won’t let me isolate any other muscles. 13 weeks of training are now setting off a muscular domino effect. Everything is over-compensating for everything else- it’s like a midlife crisis of the legs.

The massage was great, by which I mean horrifically painful. On Saturday morning I was ready for my last long run before the big day- 20 miles. I made it round in 2 hours and 47 minutes and it was fine, even brilliant, until the last 2 miles. Even the massive hill (see below) which took up 3 miles in the middle was fine. Fine, fine, fine, until 18 miles when it felt like my pelvis had caught fire, and not in good way.

On Sunday I had another rest day, so I suppose the taper has begun. No more “long” runs, but I did run 8 miles this morning, so I suppose long is a relative concept.

Weekly summary:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 6 miles
Wednesday: 6 miles
Thursday: 8 miles
Friday: rest
Saturday: 20 MILES
Sunday: rest

Total: 40 miles

Hills, Hills, Hills

HILLS. They are now all I am thinking about.

I am such an idiot for not doing every marathon training run on the hills that are on my flaming doorstep. I now regret every easy 5 mile run around the flipping flat streets of Archway, which could have led me up sodding Muswell Hill.

This morning I had to run 8 miles and I took the hilliest route I could. Up Crouch End Hill, up again to Highgate, down to East Finchley, up to Muswell Hill, down then up to Ally Pally, down then up to Hornsey, down to Crouch End, up Ferme Park Road, down to home.

It was Hill. I mean HELL.

0 to Terror in 60 seconds

I was relaxing at work after lunch yesterday, checking my gmail (for research purposes only), feeling a bit sleepy, when I noticed a ticking time-bomb in my inbox.

The final instructions for my race had arrived, together with a link to the course profile. I hadn’t quite taken on board the amount of hills. I have not done enough hill training. I have no time to address this. I am frightened.

The instructions themselves are lovely. It’s a small race and they say things like “the race takes place in beautiful country side” and “please allow 5 minutes to walk to the start” – five minutes! I love small races.

Best of all, is this list of what each water station will have. Melon!

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.