An approach I can appreciate, plus some physio

I have mentioned a few times on here that I read a lot on the Runner's World forums and I enjoy the banter and posts by a lot of people.  From a running point of view, I think it's fair to say that there are a lot of differing opinions about what is the right or wrong approach to training and I guess it's also fair to say that I am guilty of confirmation-bias!  I.E., I seek to read stuff about running that broadly confirms what I already think....

Over the last 18 months or so, I have come to the firm belief that running the majority of training miles at a steady pace is the way to get faster overall.  I am not saying speed session aren't important because they are, but overall I think running steady is what has helped give me my recent improvements.  By "steady", I mean 60-90 secs per mile slower than marathon pace; I think many people mean steady as marathon pace (or even quicker!), which I think then means people get very tired, which can lead to injury and under performing on marathon day.

Anyway, as part of this confirmation-bias I came across this on Runner's World from a guy who in his time was a very quicker marathon runner.  It is an interesting idea!  He is contactable on Twitter via @gobi_one

When marathon running I peaked at 130 miles a week. 

A simple reality is miles make champions otherwise Paula/Hallie etc would all do 30 miles a week with perfect sessions and be brilliant. 

Here is one for you:
- Benchmark by running 5kms HARD
- Run 40 miles a week all easy with NO speedwork
- Run 5kms HARD
- Repeat until you stop getting PBs
- At this point you have to decide, do I have time to run more?
- If yes repeat the process on 50 miles a week
- If no then start looking at "icing" (intervals/tempo/progressive/alternates) 

It is a journey

Anyway, I have been suffering a bit with sore achilles so I decided to take myself off today for a sports massage which hurt.....A LOT!

Generally he thinks I was in reasonable shape, but suggested some ideas to help:
- cutting down the top of the heal of the shoes I run in to prevent excessive rubbing.
- lots of massage with a golf ball on the sole of my foot.  This will hurt.
- doing a stretch to help with the front of my lower legs/shins, which are connected to the achilles.  I forget the name of the muscle he used now, but I'll look it up.  Basically, the stretch involves kneeling on the and sitting directly on my heals, and then leaning back to stretch out the front of the lower legs.

He did imply that he wasn't overly concerned about my achilles themselves as he couldn't feel much scar tissue there.  In fact, he commented that he would have expected more bearing in mind my age etc.

Other than that, he again reiterated stretching out my hip flexors to help with perceived tight hamstrings:
- squats
- stretching out the quads (lifting heal to bum, holding foot, and pushing out hips).

Hopefully I'll be in shape to run Bideford Half Marathon this weekend.....we'll see,

Bideford Half Marathon, and a PB!

I ran the Bideford Half Marathon today and I'm pleased to say that I got a PB, so I am absolutely delighted.  Unlike the Exeter Half that I did 3 weeks ago (which overall I was disappointed with), this one couldn't have gone better.

My wife and I decided to make a weekend of the event, so we booked a B&B in Bideford, which was literally less than 2-minutes from the start line.  I'm not trying to put Bideford down as it looks a lovely place, but after a quick wander around the town it became apparent I wasn't going to get a decent evening meal so we jumped in the car and drove to the nearby Barnstaple where I knew they had a Prezzo restaurant and I continued my carb loading there.

On the morning of the race, we had breakfast (shredded wheat, coffee and toast) and as the owner of the B&B was also running the event we had quite a long chat about the funny little ways each of us has when it comes to running.  Unfortunately, I saw the owner at about mile 9 and he was limping in the wrong direction.  I later found out that he had hurt his knee so had to pull out.

I was incredibly nervous in the morning, but got to the start line in good shape and I was feeling fairly confident.  The disappointment I had in Exeter was still clear in my mind and I had a strategy which was to really try and negative-split the race to see if I could sneak under the 1:45 target.  I wrote after the Exeter Half the following:

 I must stick to my plan, get to half way more or less on target (not under target) and reassess how I am feeling at that point. 

I'm really pleased to say that I stuck really well to this plan.  I knew I had to average under 8 min/mile to get under 1:45 and I wanted to run the second half faster the first half.  I purposefully held back a bit in the first half of the event and I got through mile 7 in 57min 03sec.  I found that I was feeling really good so from there I purposefully tried to step it up and I did it quite comfortably.  From mile 7, no other runner overtook me and I must have overtaken between 50 and 100 people myself.  At mile 9 I was on target for 1:45 and I'm delighted to say that I managed 1:42:02, so which ever way I look at that it's a strong PB....5mins+ quicker that my last effort at Exeter (which was also a PB).

The splits are below:

Split	Time	Cumulative Time
1	08:25.0	00:08:25.0
2	08:04.8	00:16:29.8
3	08:20.1	00:24:49.9
4	07:57.2	00:32:47.1
5	08:06.5	00:40:53.6
6	08:07.2	00:49:00.8
7	08:02.6	00:57:03.4
8	07:27.5	01:04:30.9
9	07:24.0	01:11:54.9
10	07:21.8	01:19:16.7
11	07:18.7	01:26:35.4
12	07:26.1	01:34:01.5
13	07:18.1	01:41:19.6
14	00:45.0	01:42:04.6
Summary	01:42:04.5

Looking at them is really interesting.  You can see that for the first 7 miles all but one of the miles was over 8 min/mile, and from then onwards I didn't go above 07:30.  This is a huge negative split, where I ran the second half of the race a full 4 minutes quicker that the first half.  I'm not actually sure if this is the best way to do it, but I do know for sure that I feel a lot better finishing strong as opposed to what happened in Exeter.

So, all in a great race.  There are no more halfs for me until June, so now the attention firmly turns to building up the LSRs for the marathon in May.

Running Royalty delivered, plus considering the Bideford Half

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been in touch with Amby Burfoot about getting a signed copy of his book.  We exchanged a couple of emails, and he posted the book out to me and it arrived yesterday, with the below message.

I must say, I'm really gobsmacked by this as Amby Burfoot did all the correspondence and posted the book out himself (his signature was on the postage label).

The book arriving put a little spring in my step on yesterday's run.  I did just over 8 miles in target half-marathon pace and felt good.  I purposefully "held back" a little bit at the start and finished the run strongly which is what I am really hoping to do at Bideford.  The splits were:

1  8:10.7
2  7:50.7
3  7:49.4
4  8:06.2
5  7:56.6
6  7:56.8
7  7:51.5
8  7:44.8

I've been trying to find a reliable profile of the Bideford Half Marathon course that I'm running this weekend, but I've been struggling a little bit.  I haven't noticed this before, but I've found a few courses on the Garmin Connect site of last year's race; however, the profiles seem to vary quite wildly for the same course.  It seems the profile feature on some watches isn't that accurate; certainly the second diagram can't be correct unless the person was swimming the course and then climbed out on the 10-mile mark!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/154859150

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/154828856

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/154918112

Diagrams 1 and 3 do seem fairly similar, with Diagram 1 being a "smoother" profile, which is similar to the profiles that get generated from my own watch, whereas Diagram 3 seems more "jagged".  I wonder if the differences are to do with how often the different watches measure the elevation?  There are still some differences though, particularly around mile 7 where diagram 3 shows a steep decline and the incline at mile 9 on Diagram 3 seems a lot steeper.

Broadly, it looks like I'll be keeping the below in mind:

- take it easy until about mile 2.8.

- there is a hill at around 2.8-3.2 mile, with the corresponding descent from 3.4-3.8 mile

- from about 4 mile to mile 10 it is fairly flat, with a hill at 6.2 miles.

- there is a descent from mile 10 to 11

- it is fairly flat (but tending to an incline) from 11 to the finish, with a small hill at about 12.2 and 12.4 miles.

I got an email from the Bideford Half organisers...apparently, there are 34 Teignbridge Trotters that are currently in the race!

A quick 5-miler

After a strange week where I haven't really overly enjoyed my running, I had the final session of the week which in my plan was down as "5 mile easy".  I took it relatively easy yesterday and although I did have a couple of beers yesterday I wasn't feeling too bad this morning and was "up for" a run.  However,  it was very cold and there was even some light snow in the air, so the signs weren't pointing towards it being a particularly great run!

I covered my Garmin and decided to go for a quick tempo session to see what I could do.  For the 5-mile effort, I managed 07:30 min/mile which is pretty good for me.  So, all in all, I've finished this week's running on a relative high so I'm pleased.

I am due to run Bideford Half Marathon next weekend, and it's billed as another quick course.  I think there are around 30-40 Trotters attending the event, and I am secretly hoping for another PB but it will depend on how it goes on the day (as always!).  As I have been so tired this week and little bit "off" the running, I was thinking about playing the training by ear up until the half and I'm still going to do that.  My plan currently has so I'll see how that goes:
- 10, including some tempo
- 2 lots of 5
- 13.1 on race day.

I did have to move things around a bit on my plan, because the Half Marathon next weekend didn't fall in with the planned long run that weekend for which a 20-miler is scheduled.  That is the reason I did 20 on this week's LSR as I knew I wouldn't be able to get that mileage in next week.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had been in touch with Amby Burfoot with regard to him sending me a signed copy of his book.  Well, he has emailed me saying that he has posted the book, so hopefully that will be with me soon!!