Dogs, hills, long runs and the London Marathon options (plus 100th post)

Dogs
I got a 10-miler in on Tuesday at a steady 10 min/miles.  One part of it is a long stretch of flat gravel path section that is used by runners, walkers, cyclists, dog walkers and runs along the back of a local racecourse.  Anyway, I use it quite regularly and there is one chap who has a small dog who I've seen a few times.  This dog isn't dangerous (in fact, it looks a lovely little thing), but it runs very quickly up and down this long path whilst the owner saunters along.  It was turning dark, and a cyclist was coming along at what I would have considered a sensible pace and had all the winter gear on.  The dog was legging it up towards him and unfortunately the cyclist ran over the dog.  There was a lot of yelping but the dog was fine.

I'm getting to the point, but the dog owner absolutely lost it with the cyclist ("If I see you here again I'll throw you over the f'in fence" type of thing).  The cyclist had stopped and I jogged up next to the cyclist and didn't say anything, but then the dog owner started having a go at me as well!  Something like "And you - you need to slow the f down as well!".

I initially felt a warm burst of pride that he thought I was running too quickly, but I quickly realised the chap was delusional!  I just calmly pointed out that it was a shared path and that I saw the whole thing with the cyclist and felt the cyclist was going at a safe pace.  The dog owner wasn't happy though!

In all seriousness, over the last 12-15 months since I've been running more regularly, I quite often see altercations between different groups of people.  On this occasion though, I thought the cyclist hadn't done anything wrong and the dog owner was very over the top in his reaction.

Hills!!
Wednesday night is the club night that I usually do and there is a choice of sessions to attend.  This week was one of my favourite sessions, known as Pitt Hill.  It's a hill-repeat session where you run hard up the hill (and also along a flat stretch) and then a long jog recovery.  We jogged from the club house and then did one loop as a warm up, and then 5 intervals.

I know these things are as only as tough as you make them, but I always feel like I've had a good work out on these sessions.  The instructions are to run hard up the hill and went it levels out keep pushing until a certain point.  When it levels out, you're absolutely knackered, your lungs are bursting, your legs feel like jelly and you really just want a little lie down, but it's only another 50m so you dig in.  There's always some friendly competition as well which helps, and then there is a long jog recovery (about 3.5mins), before the next effort.  The jog recovery for me is very slow, but that means I can attack the next effort which is the point of the session.

The times don't mean very much, but I pressed the lap button and the efforts were quite consistent which I was pleased with, and each effort being about a 1/4 of a mile.

1          1:51.9             0.24

2          1:48.2             0.23

3          1:51.5             0.23

4          1:50.8             0.23

5          1:54.2             0.24


Long runs
I did a 12-miler yesterday, going out at 10min/miles.  I often do something like this and the pace is always a close approximation but yesterday's session, according to my Garmin, was precisely 10min/mile over the 12 miles.  Little things!

London Marathon
This weekend is the first extra chance I have to get in to next year's London Marathon, following the failure to get in via the public ballot.  I am in the club's ballot for a London place, and the ballot takes place at this weekend's Xmas party, so I'm looking forward to that.

Also on Saturday is the last of the "run 8 parkruns in a row for a chance of a London place" promotion.  The odds of getting a place via that route are very slim though as they have 2 marathon places, but currently over 4000 people still in with a shout.

I have entered various other competitions (Lucozade, Holiday Inn etc) and this week Timex had a promotion, which I had to give a reason with no more than 100 words as why I wanted the prize, which included Timex's new GPS watch.  I wrote:

I am a regular poster to the Runner's World forums and a subscriber to the magazine.  The London Marathon and I also have unfinished business as the last time I did it (2010) I crawled around in 5:15, when the course well and truly beat me.  Some decent training, together with the Timex Ironman Run Trainer for extra motivation, will hopefully see me do much better.  When all my clubmates see my shiny new device and see me knock minutes off of my PB, I’m hopeful that they will all go out and buy the new Timex device too.

100th post on this blog
This happens to be the 100th post on this blog.  Looking back, I've waffled a lot, but I'm pleased with keeping the blog going.

A running-related update

A quick update
I haven't blogged for a month or so, but I'm still keeping things ticking over.  I did pick up a bit of a cold so had to take it easy for a week or so, but since my last post I've done the following which isn't where I wanted to be, but it's not too bad.

w/e 22nd September: 38.53 miles
w/e 29th September: 18.15 miles
w/e 6th October: 32.98 miles

Next up for me is still Dartmoor Vale Marathon and I'm still hoping to do it.  I've been considering dropping back the half marathon but at the moment I'm still planning on doing the race.  If I do it, the target time is 4hrs to 4hrs30mins, so we'll see how it goes.

Since my last post many thousands of people have had the disappointment of not getting a  ballot place on 2014's London Marathon and unfortunately was one of those people.  I do still have a chance of a place via by club (I've marshalled at 4 events, which ensures I'm eligible for the club ballot) but obviously that's not guaranteed.  My sister-in-law is talking about doing the Edinburgh marathon (which is a fast one!) to get a GFA time for London 2015 but I can't commit to that yet as if I do get the London place I'd prefer to do that one.

P&D for me?
Even though I haven't got this marathon out of the way yet, I'm thinking ahead to the spring already and (reluctantly) find myself revisiting P&D again.  I'm again looking at the 18-week 55-mile plan and think I should be able to start it in reasonable shape mileage-wise.

P&D is quite technical (I'm quite a simple soul at heart....) but I have come up with the below based on my current Half marathon time (1hr42) with a view of getting into the sub-4 category next Spring.

- Long/Medium Long runs-  10:21 to 10:48min/mile.  This is based on 15-20% slower than MP).
- Marathon Pace runs.  9min/mile.
- General Aerobic runs-  10:21 to 11:15min/mile (15-25% slower than MP).  11:15 is slow, even for me.
- Lactate Threshold - 8min/mile.  P&D says between 15K and Half pace.  I've never ran a 15K but 8min/mile is 1hr45 for a Half.  My PB is 1hr42 on a fair course.  P&D say that people on this training plan should be at the slower end of the range for these LT sessions so I came up with 8min/miles.
- VO2 max -  7min/mile.  This is very slightly slower than my 5K average PB on a flat course and looking at the schedules, the VO2 max sessions are interval sessions where I think I could do this pace (or slightly quicker for the shorter intervals).
- Recovery - P&D doesn't really specify the recovery pace, although it says it should be the slowest session of the week.  Slower than the 11:15 GA pace seems very slow though....

I do these paces anyway in various sessions, with the exception of the GA run which is slower than what I would do currently and I think I'd do the LSRs at 10min/mile pace.  However, it's the mileage increase that is a concern for me in terms of tiredness.  The most I've done for this marathon is 45 miles in a week but I've done several high 30s and a couple of low 40s.

The other big difference compared to what I do now is the amount of miles at Marathon Pace that are in the Medium/Long runs, but I can definitely see how this would improve my chances of getting the sub-4.  I think if I can do these it will be a confidence booster, if nothing else.

Sub-4 should be within my grasp based on my Half PB (probably not in October though).  Some predictors even say 3:45 but I'm well off that currently with my PB currently at 4hr08.

Another concern with P&D is the stories I hear of people getting injured.  I'm still not sure yet on if I am going to follow the plan.  I may follow it loosely with a view of getting some more miles in as I think that is what I need to do if I want to see sub-4.

A couple of specific session that I enjoyed

5K individual time trial
For one reason or another I haven't done a parkrun for a few weeks so I decided to go out and time myself on a flat loop I know.

There's an industrial estate near me that my running club use for various interval sessions as it is pancake flat, and it's very quiet when everything is shut (evenings and Sundays), apart from the odd learner driver.  It's 2 miles from my house, so I jogged down there and warmed up.  I had set my Garmin up to count down from 5K so altough I know it's not 100% accurate the Garmin read 21:38 for the 5K effort.  My PB at a flat parkrun is 21:29 so I was pleased with my effort, and then I jogged the 2 miles home.

6x600m with the club
Last night I did a 6x600m session with the club, with 200m recovery, in one loop.

Interval     Time       Dist         Av Pace
1        2:29.4 0.37         6:39
2          2:35.0 0.38         6:53
3          2:34.6 0.38         6:48
4          2:33.3 0.37         6:51
5          2:33.5 0.37         6:50
6          2:28.0 0.37         6:35


It's not a measured course so it relied on me clicking the lap button on the efforts but 0.37 of a mile is 595m (according to Google).  I'm pretty pleased with that; it's relatively consistent and I finished strong, although I was gasping at the end which I suppose is the point!