Weeks 6 and 7

Week 6 was a fairly straightforward affair but took a bit of juggling (as usual!) and was mainly about putting in the miles. A total of around 32 miles for the week which included a new PB of 23:05 at Oldham parkrun and a super run over the moors at Marsden. The latter wasn’t really planned, I took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of nowhere but a 13 mile run with 1500ft of hills will stand me in good stead for next week.

Onto week 7 and for the first time, I can actually take Monday off as my rest day (and after yesterday’s adventure, I’m pretty glad of that). Tomorrow, I have some10 min reps with 4 min recovery planned. Wednesday will be a trip out with the OCL running club covering around 5 miles and Thursday will be a brisk 6 miles. Friday is designated a rest day as I head towards what promises to be a super weekend.

On Saturday, I will get to meet Jason from Leeds parkrun as he will be doing the tourist thing at Oldham. We have been corrresponding about anything and everything parkrun related for the best part of a year online but this will be the first time we’ve met. I’m looking forward to introducing him to our hills.

Following parkrun, I’m off to Blackpool for an overnight stay in preparation for Sunday’s Great North West half marathon. This will be my inaugural half, so it guarantees that I will have set new fast times for 3 seperate distances in 3 weeks!

Week 5

The best laid plans…etc…

Week 4 ended with a fantastic parkrun PB – 29 seconds off my previous! And then the snows came! As I set off for my LSR on Sunday, I was seriously thinking of turning round and writing it off after less than a mile! Trying to ‘warm-up’ in 5″ of snow, running uphill (over 15 mpm) was not a lot of fun. I carried on and was trying to decide which would be the best route to take (I’d already decided against Week 2s route before I set off). AS I reached the top of the first hill, I found that the gritters had done a great job and decided to go down a road which is notorious for being one of the first to close in wintery conditions. This really paid off as I encountered very little traffic and could run on the gritted surface.

Running conditions underfoot were not ideal, but I was wearing my shiny new Kanadia Trail shoes and they inspired confidence…even when the 4×4 a*holes refused to acknowledge the bright colours of the Sunday runner and forced me onto the deep snow! I finally found the conditions to slow me down! I still finished the 10.5 mile run at an average of around 10 mpm!

The conditions worsened by Monday, as snow turned to ice and I decided that because the weekend’s efforts had taken their toll (I was a bit achy to say the least!), I would take a rest day. Tuesday was no better and I did nothing then either. By Wednesday, I was determined to get some miles in one way or another, and headed for the OCL running club. If it was cancelled, I was going to hit the hamster wheel (treadmill, for the uninitiated). Conditions weren’t ideal and the planned extension to the route was postponed for a week as we stuck to the tried and tested route. Covered 3.65 miles at a good tempo pace.

I was out of the office on Thursday and Friday which meant that my running options were quite limited. The local hills were still ice-rinks and I had to settle for a couple of short (1.5 miles) ‘sprints’, leaving me seriously behind in mileage for the week. As I had the Mad Dog 10k racew planned for Sunday, I wasn’t too concerned.

I had planned to volunteer on Saturday morning for parkrun but on arrival, it was instantly obvious that we would be cancelling – there was ice everywhere! We stayed in the park til around 15 mins after the due start time in case anyone had made the effort and a few hardy souls indeed arrived (more in hope than expectation!) and were very understanding. After enjoying a post-cancellation breakfast, I headed off to Southport for the weekend.

I initially struggled to find the hotel as Google Maps suggested the location to be a few hundred yards away from where it actually was. As it was ‘out of season’, I ended up in a family sized room with a double bed and two bunks, ensuite bathroom and the usual complimentary brewing facilities. With a ‘full english’ thrown into the mix, it all came to just £30 for the night. The room was very good and the breakfast and service exceptional – next time I’m in Southport, in or out of season, I’ll be trying to book into the New England on Bath Street!

Anyway, back to the running…I decided to go out and have a jog around the block. It was quite chilly but nothing like as bad as the past week and there was no snow or ice to be seen! I headed towards the seafront to behold one of the rarest sites in Southport (as legend would have it) – the tide was in! I decided to not allow this spectacle detract from my excercise and continued on at good pace. After taking in a solid 2.7 miles I was feeling pretty good and decided to go round again! I don’t know if it is the sea air, the utter flatness or just the lack of miles over the last week, but I was enjoying it so much that I could have spent another few hours just running sround there. But I had a race to think of!

After breakfast, I set off for the venue. I had deliberately picked a hotel a couple of miles away so that I could walk in a brisk pace as a pre-race warmup. I soon encountered the first signs that had been put out for the run and followed them all the way to the venue – so much easier than a map! It was also covering the route I had enjoyed so much the previous day!

If you are taking in just one 10k event in a year, I would highly recommend the Mad Dog! Brilliant organisation, marshalled every few hundred metres and seriously flat makes it an ideal race for PB potential. The race starts at Stanley school who kindly open up their sports hall and changeing rooms for use. This was especially welcome after the race as it is amazing how good HOT showers are after exertion! The sports hall was host to the Tech-T collection points – superb quality running tops and all sized specifically according to your individual request (on the application). Next to this was a small area with local sports shops selling their goods – and not at ‘captive audience’ prices but really good value-for-money prices! On the other side, free sports massages were attracting plenty of customers whilst the free bag-storage area was doing equally good trade. This was really well-organised and a credit to the Round Table!

The tiniest of inconveniences came along as the ‘Crazy Pups’ junior race was delayed for a few minutes as the roads had taken longer to close than expected but the Race Director kept everyone informed, going from one area to the next to make announcements!

Finally, race time! I decided to run from the back of the field as I prefer to be the one doing the overtaking. This also has the advantage of slowing me down for the crucial first kilometre where I have been known to wreck the whole race, going off too quickly. The conditions were ideal (better than ideal really as Run Britain gave it a -0.3 SSS) and I felt really good throughout the race. I made solid progress and even managed to pick my pace up after the drinks station (which I cunningly used to overtake the weaker ones who slowed to take on fluids! – hehe, only joking, but I didn’t feel the need to take advantage of the water station). I returned with negative splits and even mustered a strong sprint finish over the last 200 metres to finish in a personal best 47:45 – a good 2 minutes better than my target and almost 4 mins better than my previous best!

I’ll outline the plans for the week in another post later in the week.

Week 4

Week 3 went pretty much to schedule (albeit the revised one!) except for the long run on Sunday. I somehow managed to screw up a simple ‘out and back’ session and completed 10.5 miles instead of 12. I wasn’t too worried though as my Garmin tells me that I had almost 1000ft of hills to run up and down! More disturbing is the time – I was averaging 9:43 per mile which is significantly faster than the suggested ‘slow’ pace of my training plan.

I had to hide my trainers on Monday (of week 4) to make sure I had a rest day – and even then, I was chomping at the bit. By Tuesday lunchtime, I was wound tight and set out for a warm up/3 x 1000m with 3 min jog recoveries/warm down…and all went well except that the 1000m turned into 1 miles and I skipped the recoveries! Top and bottom, I ran 5 miles in total with the middle 3 at my normal 5k pace.

On Wednesday, I found myself trying to decide whether to do an easy 5 miler at lunchtime or go out with the newly formed OCL running club in the evening. Problem solved – I decided to do both…and of course, I ran far too quick on the ‘easy’ 5, running closer to 5k splits and then ran a further 3.65 miles in the evening even faster! The up side of all this is that I’m getting plenty of mileage and at good pace…the downside is that I’m still running too quick and I’m concerned that I may well ‘blow-up’ during the Marathon.

Today was ‘hill rep’ day – probably my favourite workout. With about a mile to the hill, it provides a good warm up and then I just let rip for 10 sprints up a fairly steep hill – breathing heavily at the top and jogging down to recover. I probably couldn’t have done many more at that pace but I felt good after. Nice steady warm down jog, back to the office to finish.

Another rest day tomorrow (helped by the fact that I’m out of the office!) before Saturday’s parkrun and a planned 10 miler for Sunday – I’m going to run the same one as in Week 2 but a little quicker.

I’m also signed up for 2012 in 2012 on Facebook – miles or kilometers is the big question! January’s total was 100.5 miles but I expect to be at least double that by June, so it could be interesting.

Week 3

Pretty good week last week ending with a faster than planned 10 miler.

I’ve already moved this weeks scheduled hill session from Wednesday to Monday (and completed it). Tuesday will be a 6 mile ‘steady’ with some faster bits thrown in and Thursday is an easy 5 miles. I’m going to skip the scheduled rest days this week as I build to the Mad Dog 10k on Feb 12th. Wednesday, I am hoping to run out with a local running club and Friday will just be a ‘wait and see’ kind of day (probably be a reverse parkrun).

Saturday will be the regular parkrun and Sunday’s ‘long run’ will be a 12 mile affair. I haven’t decided on a route as yet but as usual, it will end with the 2 mile uphill finish. This isn’t strictly following the training plan which calls for a ‘faster finish’ but there is no way around it.

Marathon training is going really well, helped in part by the Jantastic event over at www.marathontalk.com to provide some motivation.

Week 2

Once again, my working week is looking like it will interfere with the training plan but I am aiming to get the mileage in and ensure the ‘long run’ happens. I started the week with a couple of runs, 3.5 and 4.25 miles yeaterday and today respectively and will be aiming for 4x3mins fast with a 2 min recovery between for tomorrow. I will be taking either Thursday or Friday as a rest day and putting in a 5 miler on the other day.

Saturday is regular parkrun day and with my usual warm-up/cooldown should add another 5 to 6 miles to the total. Sunday’s long run is scheduled to be 10 miles ‘slow’. This could prove problematic as I still have to master running anything slower than my normal training pace of around 9.5 mins/mile.

And so it begins…

First week ‘proper’ and already the training plan needs to be tweaked a little to fit around my working week.

Monday was supposed to be a rest day but I moved Tuesday’s 6 miler up. It didn’t go exactly as planned as I was supposed to start easy and finish strongly. I still haven’t quite got the hang of running slowly yet! Today’s session turned out to be Thursday’s 6 mile easy run…except that it was 6 and a half and ended up at around my target marathon pace of 9 minutes per mile. This wouldn’t normally be much of a problem but the course I was running was quite hilly and I certainly feel the effects now! Tomorrow, I am on my travels (which is why the scheduling needed to be juggled) and will be a rest day. Wednesday’s rep session will now be on Thursday before the second rest day on Friday (still with me? Yes? Do you think you could drop me an email and let me know where I am??)

The best part of this training plan is that every Saturday is a parkrun! So, I’ll be off for my usual weekly fix around Alexandra Park! Sunday’s ‘long’ run is a relatively comfortable 8 mile affair but the main problem is that no matter which way I go, it’s gotta finish with a 500 ft climb over 1 or 2 miles (depending on which way I go). I’ll probably take the longer ‘sweep’ at this stage over the short sharp shock!

Pre-marathon training week

My ‘official’ training starts on Monday 9th but I’m making sure I keep up with Jantastic (see Marathon Talk website). First run of the week was a relatively comfortable (pace-wise) 6.8 miles with a very testing 1.5 mile, 500ft elevation hill, strong wind-against into driving freezing rain and hail, towards the finish (that hurt!)

Very strong gusty winds today almost had me heading for the gym treadmill but I decided to go with something different and went out for a 2 and a bit mile ‘sprint’. First part is all uphill (but only a gentle slope compared with yesterday!) and then I cut across the fields…where running changed to some strange combination of wading and mud wrestling. Back on the solid surface and downhill, I picked up the pace again and added in a couple of small hill sprints at the finish for a short but varied session.

Tomorrow, I plan to go for a 30 min out/28 min back session which should cover around 6 miles at ‘easy’ pace.

Race Entries 2012

I will try to keep this list updated with entries and results.

12 Feb 2012 – Mad Dog 2012, Southport – 10k
26 Feb 2012 – GNW Half Marathon, Blackpool – HM
29 Apr 2012 – GM Marathon, Manchester – FM

First of 2012

I hope you all enjoyed the festive season and you are ready to face the next 12 months.

My goals for this year (apart from regular blog updates!):

52 weeks of parkrun including at least 3 volunteer duties
6 competitive races including 10k, half and full marathons
5 training runs each week
1000 training miles
Run 5k in under 22 minutes
Run 10k in under 46 minutes
Run a half marathon in under 1 hour 52 minutes
Run a full marathon in under 4 hours

Time for an update

My New Year resolution is to update my blog at least once a week. For those of you that know me, it is likely to be filled with news of parkruns and my training for the Manachester Marathon in 2012.