Training Day – Page 7

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:

In 2010 I ran 3:55, this time I want 3:30.
I trained with Mr Notajogger last time, in 2012 I’m on my own.
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.

Sticking it to the Plan

I haven’t been sticking to the plan. I missed my interval run session on Tuesday, kept to the steady 5 miles on Wednesday, but wasn’t sure what to do yesterday. Should I run the stipulated ‘5 x long hills’ or do Tuesday’s 8 x 600m at 3k pace instead?

I left the house undecided. I’d mapped out a 600m section of road, but it started at the bottom of my ‘long hill’, so I was still keeping my options open. At the end of my mile warm-up I finally made up my mind and plumped for the intervals.

On the second interval, it dawned on me that the first 100m of the interval was straight up a hill. It was like a mini-hill session in itself. I was getting tired. Maybe I could count this as a hill session too? Was there therefore any need to run the full 8 intervals or could I possibly run fewer? Maybe I could run only 6. Or even 5?

I ran 5. Not enough for an interval session, not enough for short hill session, but enough for my tired legs and lungs. Take that, plan.

Birthday present?

On Thursday I was 36. Hard to believe, what with my youthful good looks and poorly dyed hair, but it is true. I can’t say I’m a fan of the inexorable march of time, but I still love birthdays.

When I was young, my parents used to plant presents at the foot of our beds to surprise us in the morning. Now that I’m older, and a little bit taller, this might result in smashing, so Mr N waited until I had drunk a cup of tea before breaking out the swag. It was a good haul – this is what comes of circulating a list in advance.

Terminally sensible, I took the day off and worked out a day of lovely things to take my mind off the ticking clock. It included a run, of course. Sadly I wasn’t in charge of the training programme and its birthday present to me was “tempo hills”.

Tempo hills are like regular hills designed by Satan. In a regular hill session, at the top you jog gasping back down like a deflated balloon slowly filling with air. In a tempo hill session you get to the top, turn right back around and run down fast, not pausing to recover your breath.

I demand a refund.

Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”)

At work I have been asked to come up with a set of KPIs for my organisation. We need them so that we can proactively check progress towards our goals going forward, to make sure we’re not just picking the low-hanging fruit on a case by case basis, and that we are operating where our locus is. Or something.

It has occurred to me, whilst I attempt to come up with statistics that describe what a difference we are making to the quality of life in the UK (yes), that I am just not very good with numbers. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has watched me trying to split a bill in a restaurant, or played scrabble with me when I attempt to keep score. These things are what modern technology was invented for.

So why, when running, am I still calculating distance and speed using only my few brain cells? Last night, according to the plan, I ran 5 x 1200m at 10k pace. What I actually did was run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 5 minutes, wheeze for a minute, run for 4 or 6 minutes (not quite sure which), wheeze for about 2 minutes until I remembered it was time to run again but then forget which interval I was on, wheeze again, and finish it off with 4 minutes of sprinting.

I have no idea whether any of these 5 minute session was run at 10k pace, or was 1200m in length. I really need to measure a proper route, remember it and stick to it. That or I need a shiny new piece of technology to do it for me.

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.

Short Circuits

This week is billed on my training plan as ‘recovery week’. Apparently recovery begins with a killer session of 8 x 400m at mile pace (1600m pace, for fans of consistency).

Hmm.

I found this session much harder than the longer, slower intervals of previous weeks. I managed 30 seconds of each set before praying for it to be over. I don’t think I was going too fast, I just don’t think I can run fast over short distances. My 10k time is nowhere near as quick, relatively speaking, as my half-marathon one and never has been.

Sitting here on my sofa writing this at 10pm, three hours after finishing my run, my face is still hot and I feel a bit sick. I hope this is doing me some good in the long term, because the short term effects are not fun.

On the positive side, I discovered that the Emirates stadium is a perfect place to run circuits, and the lights of the Hornsey Road were a welcome sight on the way back home.

Loooooooooooooong Hills

This morning I ran up Crouch Hill (the long Finsbury Park side), from bottom to top, five times. 5!

I used to live near the top of the hill and have always struggled to run all the way up it without walking. This morning I discovered that I could run a full 1 minute 50 second ‘long hill’ session at 10k pace from the junction of Shaftesbury Road to the big tree at the top. Not only that, but I could do it five times in a row. 5!

I also discovered that 1 minute and 50 seconds is a long time. Particularly the last 50 seconds. After the second rep I stopped looking at my watch until I was nearly at the top and that helped a bit. The fourth rep was the hardest. I gave everything I could to the final one, much to the amusement of the builders blocking the pavement at the top. Sod them, I have walked up so many hills this year that nothing could rain on this morning’s little victory parade.

I’ve no idea if these sessions will make me faster over 10k, but if they stop me walking up every hill of a morning, that will be enough.

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.

Short Hills

Last night I ran the first ‘short hills’ session in the plan. I didn’t check exactly how short a short hill was, so ran 10 x 45 seconds up the hill, jogging back down to the bottom. Turns out it should have been 50-60 seconds, oops. It did feel a bit too easy. Maybe I didn’t push hard enough, as the ‘long hills’ session was so difficult and I feared running out of juice.

Next week looks tougher, but if I’m finding it easy as this week I’ll switch to the 35-40 miles a week version of the plan and get more reps and miles in.

Get me!

I’m looking forward to this weekend’s running, a short tempo run tomorrow followed by an easy 10 miles on Sunday. I’m going to leave that run until after I’ve watched Paula Radcliffe’s return in the Berlin marathon. I really want to believe that she can come back on top form. She’s a role model for 30-something female runners everywhere. No pressure then, Paula.

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.