Monday, July 29, 2013
A bit of a disappointing parkrun. There's always another one coming up soon though!
I got a parkrun in on the weekend, but ended up being disappointed with my time of 21:43 (PB on that course is 21:29 from 2 weeks ago).
I was really "up for" the event and had kind of planned the training week to be in fighting form for the Saturday morning, hence why I'm a bit disappointed. I did 1.5 mile warmup, with some short blasts at my 5K race pace and I toed the start line feeling good. I don't usually do this type of warm-up but I'm sure the warm-up wasn't the issue for my disappointing time.
Unfortunately, I did the classic beginner mistake and set off far too quickly and got slower as the event went on. Splits were 6:31, 7:00, 7:18 and 52secs for the last bit. I glanced at my watch in the first mile and saw I was doing 5:45 which is just stupid and I basically struggled from then on. I can't really explain it except to say I got caught up with a bunch of quicker runners in the first half a mile or so and so I didn't run my own event (I'm being careful not to call the parkrun a race....!)
Maybe it's misplaced, but I'm convinced I've got a 20:XX in me, even if it's 20:59 which is what I was hoping for on Saturday as the conditions were perfect and, like I say, I was feeling good. This would be 6:45 min/mile pace. I'm basing this on what I can do 5x1K intervals in, with each interval being at 6min/mile, sometimes quicker. Am I deluded that I think I've got a 20:59 in me? I hope not!
I'll tell you one thing. The pain from a fast (for me) 5K is a whole different kind of pain compared to a marathon. Not worse pain, just different. I genuinely thought I was going to throw up at the end!
Nevermind - there's always the next one.
This week is a fairly standard week, and it has cooled down. At the moment though there are some very sharp showers so that may be a shock to the system, but I prefer that to the blazing heat.
Monday, July 22, 2013
20 mile LSR, a personal weekly record and marshalling at the Haytor Heller
Long run, and a bit of a look back over my training
I mentioned on my last update that I was hoping to get an 18-mile LSR done on the weekend, and I'm pleased to say that I actually managed 20 miles. I started at around 7.30am and it was much cooler and more pleasant than earlier in the week, but I still drank 1.5L of water on the run as well as making sure I was well hydrated before the run! For long runs, I always run with a 750ml bottle of water/TorQ Energy on a waist belt, and this time I parked my car on the route with another 750ml stored in the cool boot. It wasn't a particularly inspiring route but I'm pleased I got the miles in.
I was a bit worried about how the long run would go because since my marathon at the start of May, I have only done one 16 miler. I've done lots of 10-13 mile runs (and lots of shorter runs) but I was getting worried that I wasn't getting in enough long miles. However, it seems I still have some fitness as the run itself was fine (apart from the amount of water I needed) so I'm pleased. Also, since the marathon I've been consistent with the sessions I've been going as I've clocked up nearly 350 miles over 48 sessions since 7th May.
The main reason for pushing on from 18-miles to 20-miles was due to the fact that I knew this would take me to a new personal weekly mileage record of 45 miles in a week. The majority of these miles have been in very hot weather and I am hoping training in the hot weather will stand my in good stead for when the weather starts to cool again. This was off of 5 sessions a week, which I've now been doing for 4 weeks. The fifth run per week is effectively the parkrun, which although only 5K is a good run out each week.
Below are my weekly stats since the marathon:
I think that is pretty consistent, so I am really pleased with that. The two "3-sessions per week" weeks are due to a) the week after the marathon where I reduced the mileage and did a recovery week and b) a holiday week, where I was just pleased to get any running in at all. The w/c 17th June wasn't 5 sessions because that was the week of the Torbay Half Marathon where I had a lighter week in the run up to that event. I've included the "Calories" column just as a matter of interest really, as I don't know how accurate those numbers are, but it is interesting non-the-less.
There are two things that I think I need to work on, or at least keep in mind, in the run up to the October marathon I have lined up. Firstly, I need to incorporate some hill training as part of my longer runs. This is because the Dartmoor Vale marathon is quite "lumpy". I am hoping that after the summer season is out of the way I will be able to get a long to a few Trotter weekend social runs where there are often some hills thrown into those sessions.
Secondly, I am aware I haven't really been doing enough speed work. This is at least partly due to the hotter weather, where it's harder to get the speed in without feeling quickly drained. On the positive though, I am at least getting a parkrun in which is a good, quick run out and they are enjoyable too.
Haytor Heller marshalling
The other thing I mentioned in my previous post is that I was marshalling at the Haytor Heller, which is put on by my running club (Teignbridge Trotters). It was a brilliant event in hot weather, and it's great to be a very small part of the running of these events. The winner again did the event in under 40-mins which is just mind boggling and equates to around 6.5min/miles on what is very tough terrain.
I had a great marshalling point which was in a shaded area where the runners come down a path, over an old granite bridge and disappear up through the trees before a very steep incline. After the event, I went back to race HQ where I had my complementary burger which went down very well indeed!
I mentioned on my last update that I was hoping to get an 18-mile LSR done on the weekend, and I'm pleased to say that I actually managed 20 miles. I started at around 7.30am and it was much cooler and more pleasant than earlier in the week, but I still drank 1.5L of water on the run as well as making sure I was well hydrated before the run! For long runs, I always run with a 750ml bottle of water/TorQ Energy on a waist belt, and this time I parked my car on the route with another 750ml stored in the cool boot. It wasn't a particularly inspiring route but I'm pleased I got the miles in.
I was a bit worried about how the long run would go because since my marathon at the start of May, I have only done one 16 miler. I've done lots of 10-13 mile runs (and lots of shorter runs) but I was getting worried that I wasn't getting in enough long miles. However, it seems I still have some fitness as the run itself was fine (apart from the amount of water I needed) so I'm pleased. Also, since the marathon I've been consistent with the sessions I've been going as I've clocked up nearly 350 miles over 48 sessions since 7th May.
The main reason for pushing on from 18-miles to 20-miles was due to the fact that I knew this would take me to a new personal weekly mileage record of 45 miles in a week. The majority of these miles have been in very hot weather and I am hoping training in the hot weather will stand my in good stead for when the weather starts to cool again. This was off of 5 sessions a week, which I've now been doing for 4 weeks. The fifth run per week is effectively the parkrun, which although only 5K is a good run out each week.
Below are my weekly stats since the marathon:
| Time Period (w/c) | Number of sessions | Distance | Elapsed time | Calories |
| 15/07/2013 | 5 | 45.19 | 07:45:11 | 6,288 |
| 08/07/2013 | 5 | 36.63 | 05:37:15 | 5,186 |
| 01/07/2013 | 5 | 34.04 | 05:06:00 | 4,851 |
| 24/06/2013 | 5 | 32.44 | 05:11:08 | 4,652 |
| 17/06/2013 | 4 | 29.92 | 04:13:30 | 4,279 |
| 10/06/2013 | 5 | 36.18 | 05:36:59 | 5,153 |
| 03/06/2013 | 5 | 38.9 | 06:19:31 | 5,524 |
| 27/05/2013 | 3 | 23 | 03:28:40 | 3,521 |
| 20/05/2013 | 4 | 31.96 | 05:02:00 | 4,945 |
| 13/05/2013 | 4 | 22.37 | 03:25:19 | 3,369 |
| 06/05/2013 | 3 | 14.1 | 02:15:19 | 2,183 |
| Summary | 48/77 | 344.75 | 54:00:53 | 49,950 |
I think that is pretty consistent, so I am really pleased with that. The two "3-sessions per week" weeks are due to a) the week after the marathon where I reduced the mileage and did a recovery week and b) a holiday week, where I was just pleased to get any running in at all. The w/c 17th June wasn't 5 sessions because that was the week of the Torbay Half Marathon where I had a lighter week in the run up to that event. I've included the "Calories" column just as a matter of interest really, as I don't know how accurate those numbers are, but it is interesting non-the-less.
There are two things that I think I need to work on, or at least keep in mind, in the run up to the October marathon I have lined up. Firstly, I need to incorporate some hill training as part of my longer runs. This is because the Dartmoor Vale marathon is quite "lumpy". I am hoping that after the summer season is out of the way I will be able to get a long to a few Trotter weekend social runs where there are often some hills thrown into those sessions.
Secondly, I am aware I haven't really been doing enough speed work. This is at least partly due to the hotter weather, where it's harder to get the speed in without feeling quickly drained. On the positive though, I am at least getting a parkrun in which is a good, quick run out and they are enjoyable too.
Haytor Heller marshalling
The other thing I mentioned in my previous post is that I was marshalling at the Haytor Heller, which is put on by my running club (Teignbridge Trotters). It was a brilliant event in hot weather, and it's great to be a very small part of the running of these events. The winner again did the event in under 40-mins which is just mind boggling and equates to around 6.5min/miles on what is very tough terrain.
I had a great marshalling point which was in a shaded area where the runners come down a path, over an old granite bridge and disappear up through the trees before a very steep incline. After the event, I went back to race HQ where I had my complementary burger which went down very well indeed!
Friday, July 19, 2013
A hot week!
Everyone is enjoying the prolonged nice weather, including myself. However, it's not good for running, but I'm doing my best to keep going. I'm drinking plenty of water each day and I've completed each session so far this week.
Wednesday, was the "reccy run" of the Haytor Heller event which is put on by Teignbridge Trotters. It's 6 miles on a tough trail course; I would say it's unrunnable for large parts of it, with large boulders/stones, very steep inclines/declines, a small river crossing etc. However, I had a look at the course record, and it is under 40mins, which is actually quicker than I can run 6 miles on a nice, flat tarmac course which is a bit humbling. The group that I was in ended up being the middle group, and we did stop a few times to let people catch up etc, but we took 90 minutes to do the course! This was on a pleasant, dry evening, if a bit hot. I can imagine it would have easily been 30mins longer if it had been raining heavily.
Generally, I don't like the offroad stuff but I did enjoy it last night even though it was very much a shuffle/walk/climb strategy that I adopted. It was made even better that we all ended up at a hotel owned by a fellow Trotter near Haytor, which we had a meal and a couple of shandies.
I'm marshaling the event on Saturday so I hope I don't send the lead runners off in the wrong direction! I can imagine it would very easy to do in the middle of nowhere on Dartmoor.... Below is the trace of my "reccy run". The trace has gone wrong slightly, as the straight line shouldn't be there and is from the end of the route back to the hotel.
Thursday I did a 10-miler after work and it was extremely hot, but I'm pleased I got the miles in. Also, I happened to find a crispy fiver on the floor, which helped give be a boost! Tomorrow I'm planning a parkrun (plus the marshalling duties) and then I'm hoping to 18 on Sunday. I think the only way I'm going to get 18 in is if I get up early on the morning when it'll hopefully be cooler, so we'll see how that works out!
Wednesday, was the "reccy run" of the Haytor Heller event which is put on by Teignbridge Trotters. It's 6 miles on a tough trail course; I would say it's unrunnable for large parts of it, with large boulders/stones, very steep inclines/declines, a small river crossing etc. However, I had a look at the course record, and it is under 40mins, which is actually quicker than I can run 6 miles on a nice, flat tarmac course which is a bit humbling. The group that I was in ended up being the middle group, and we did stop a few times to let people catch up etc, but we took 90 minutes to do the course! This was on a pleasant, dry evening, if a bit hot. I can imagine it would have easily been 30mins longer if it had been raining heavily.
Generally, I don't like the offroad stuff but I did enjoy it last night even though it was very much a shuffle/walk/climb strategy that I adopted. It was made even better that we all ended up at a hotel owned by a fellow Trotter near Haytor, which we had a meal and a couple of shandies.
I'm marshaling the event on Saturday so I hope I don't send the lead runners off in the wrong direction! I can imagine it would very easy to do in the middle of nowhere on Dartmoor.... Below is the trace of my "reccy run". The trace has gone wrong slightly, as the straight line shouldn't be there and is from the end of the route back to the hotel.
Thursday I did a 10-miler after work and it was extremely hot, but I'm pleased I got the miles in. Also, I happened to find a crispy fiver on the floor, which helped give be a boost! Tomorrow I'm planning a parkrun (plus the marshalling duties) and then I'm hoping to 18 on Sunday. I think the only way I'm going to get 18 in is if I get up early on the morning when it'll hopefully be cooler, so we'll see how that works out!
Monday, July 15, 2013
parkrun PB, plus a busy week planned.
I mentioned in a recent post that Barnstaple parkrun looked flat and fast. My wife and I fancied a weekend away and we like the North Devon area so we decided to book into a hotel in Barnstaple with a view of doing the parkrun on the Saturday AM and relaxing the rest of the weekend.
I mentioned in that post that I thought Barnstaple would be fast and mentioned getting a 20.xx time. Unfortunately, I was some way off of getting this time but I did manage a PB of 21:29. It was only a 3-second PB, but it still counts. It's interesting though as I genuinely though that Barnstaple would be significantly quicker than Killerton but it turns out I was wrong.
The splits were:
1 6:39.3
2 6:48.8
3 7:01.2
3.14 1:00.2 (Avg Pace: 7:04), with an overall average pace of 6:49.
I mentioned in that post that I thought Barnstaple would be fast and mentioned getting a 20.xx time. Unfortunately, I was some way off of getting this time but I did manage a PB of 21:29. It was only a 3-second PB, but it still counts. It's interesting though as I genuinely though that Barnstaple would be significantly quicker than Killerton but it turns out I was wrong.
The splits were:
1 6:39.3
2 6:48.8
3 7:01.2
3.14 1:00.2 (Avg Pace: 7:04), with an overall average pace of 6:49.
Disappointingly, you can see that my second and third miles were significantly slower than the first mile, so there is something to work on there. I would definitely do the Barnstaple parkrun again though, and I hope to keep chipping away at my time to see if can get that elusive 20.xx time. To do that, I need to average around 06:45 for the 5K, although Barnstaple was very slightly long (according to my Garmin) which could be a slight issue for me.
Moving on to this week, I have got a slightly unusual week planned. I am marshalling at a club event (the Haytor Heller) on Saturday and there is a "reccie run" on Wednesday which I am attending also, so I'll be doing 6-7 miles around Dartmoor on Wednesday evening. It should be good, but I expect it's going to be quite hot and I don't love the off road stuff. A fellow member owns a hotel near Haytor so we'll be going back to there for some food afterwards.
Other than that, I have the usual mix of sessions planned with an 18 miler planned for the weekend. We'll see how that goes, as I haven't really been enjoying this warmer weather from a running point of view.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
5x1K session
I was due to do a 5x1K session with the club last night, but there was a last minute of change of training route to one I don't especially like, so I decided to do my own session on a course I know. I did a 5x1K session by myself with plenty of recovery in between (plus 2 mile w/u and 2 mile c/d). It had cooled a bit, but it was a tough session and the stats for the efforts were:
Time Av pace
4:09.7 6:41
3:58.0 6:25
3:56.4 6:21
3:54.5 6:18
3:59.7 6:23, which is an average pace for the 1K efforts of 6:25.
I'm relatively pleased with that as I felt strong on the run, but also disheartened as I did the same session on the same route (the only difference being that it was with the Club and not by myself) back in March and the average pace then was more or less the same (6.24), so I seem to have plateued a bit
Looking back through my training log, I'm pleased that I've kept the consistency going with a mixture of LSRs, speed sessions etc (I've done 300 miles since my marathon at the start of May, covering 41 training sessions) but it seems I need to tweak something if I want to improve. Not sure what yet though....
Rest day for me today as I've ran 3 days in a row this week.
Time Av pace
4:09.7 6:41
3:58.0 6:25
3:56.4 6:21
3:54.5 6:18
3:59.7 6:23, which is an average pace for the 1K efforts of 6:25.
I'm relatively pleased with that as I felt strong on the run, but also disheartened as I did the same session on the same route (the only difference being that it was with the Club and not by myself) back in March and the average pace then was more or less the same (6.24), so I seem to have plateued a bit
Looking back through my training log, I'm pleased that I've kept the consistency going with a mixture of LSRs, speed sessions etc (I've done 300 miles since my marathon at the start of May, covering 41 training sessions) but it seems I need to tweak something if I want to improve. Not sure what yet though....
Rest day for me today as I've ran 3 days in a row this week.
Monday, July 08, 2013
parkrun PB and some inspiration
My wife and I went and did a parkrun on the weekend, and we both got PBs which is great. I finished in 21:32 and was 27/142 with an age grading of 62% which I'm really pleased with. This time is nearly 90seconds quicker than my first attempt on 8th June and nearly 30 seconds quicker than my previous official PB of 22:05 on 15th June. I do have my eye on getting a 20.xx as I think I should be able to do that on a flat course, and I under Barnstaple parkrun is flat so I'm thinking of heading there soon to see what I can do there.
I have recently finished a great book; Running with Kenyans, by Adharanand Finn. It is a great book, but I wanted to blog about one particular section. I know that runners are often asked "Why do you do it?"or "What's the point?" and I think a couple of paragraphs in one section of Finn's book really stand out for me to help explain this.
I have recently finished a great book; Running with Kenyans, by Adharanand Finn. It is a great book, but I wanted to blog about one particular section. I know that runners are often asked "Why do you do it?"or "What's the point?" and I think a couple of paragraphs in one section of Finn's book really stand out for me to help explain this.
"As humans, on a basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run. Just watch small children left unsupervised to play. They can't stop running. It is part of what makes us human."I'm not sure if I should directly quote much more but it is a great book, and Finn was interviewed over two recent episodes of marathonTALK which I also think is definitely worth a listen.
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
A bit of an update
I haven't posted since my win over my sister-in-law in the Torbay Half Marathon, but I've been keeping the training going.
I did a parkrun (my 3rd, at Killerton) on Saturday and went for a medium long run with a couple of club mates on the Sunday which helped me towards a weekly mileage of 32.44 over 5 sessions following the half marathon. This was about 5 miles down on my original weekly plan, but I was feeling quite tired last week so decided not to do the planned 15 LSR but settled for around 10 instead.
This week I've got around 40 miles planned including an 18 mile LSR, but I'll see how that goes. I did a 6 mile easy run yesterday and felt fine, and today I've got an 8 mile with 5 at half marathon pace planned.
For the run up to the Dartmoor Vale marathon I was looking around for a fast half marathon and have settled on Bridgwater Half Marathon in September. It's not the best timing as it's a bit too far away from the Dartmoor Vale marathon but it will be a good test to see where I am with my fitness and general speed. Looking at the course profile (although the course has changed since last year) I will be looking for a PB, but as always, it depends on so many things leading up to the event as well as what happens on the day itself.
My wife and I are also looking at doing an "away" parkrun and may travel up to Barnstaple for a couple of nights. Barnstaple is where we visited prior to my PB at Bideford half marathon but I expect I won't be quite as careful regarding food (and, importantly, drink!) for a 5K. We happen to know of a decent cocktail place in Barnstaple where I hope to be sampling a few drinks on the Saturday evening.
I did a parkrun (my 3rd, at Killerton) on Saturday and went for a medium long run with a couple of club mates on the Sunday which helped me towards a weekly mileage of 32.44 over 5 sessions following the half marathon. This was about 5 miles down on my original weekly plan, but I was feeling quite tired last week so decided not to do the planned 15 LSR but settled for around 10 instead.
This week I've got around 40 miles planned including an 18 mile LSR, but I'll see how that goes. I did a 6 mile easy run yesterday and felt fine, and today I've got an 8 mile with 5 at half marathon pace planned.
For the run up to the Dartmoor Vale marathon I was looking around for a fast half marathon and have settled on Bridgwater Half Marathon in September. It's not the best timing as it's a bit too far away from the Dartmoor Vale marathon but it will be a good test to see where I am with my fitness and general speed. Looking at the course profile (although the course has changed since last year) I will be looking for a PB, but as always, it depends on so many things leading up to the event as well as what happens on the day itself.
My wife and I are also looking at doing an "away" parkrun and may travel up to Barnstaple for a couple of nights. Barnstaple is where we visited prior to my PB at Bideford half marathon but I expect I won't be quite as careful regarding food (and, importantly, drink!) for a 5K. We happen to know of a decent cocktail place in Barnstaple where I hope to be sampling a few drinks on the Saturday evening.
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