100 up!

Fresh from my training half marathon covered in my last post, I appear to be getting used to running a higher mileage. Normally I only run around 15 miles at most per week, so taking it to 25 miles plus per week seemed quite a task. But gradually I have added the miles bit by bit and run distances and paces that suit me. Thankfully it has tied in well with the training plan - I do my fast hilly 5k, 2 lots of 5 miles and a long run at the weekend.

And so it has continued - I didn't get the chance to run at the parkrun pacer day, but that didn't matter as the following day, Sunday, I had my first go at running a distance longer than a half marathon - 15 miles at my target marathon pace. It had been a very hot week 25C plus most days and that day was no different. I started early at 7:30 a.m. to hopefully avoid the worst of the heat. Well my run only lasted 40 metres, because weighed down by a phone and a gel as well as the front door key, my brand new shorts were weighed down a bit too much for my comfort - so a quick return home and a change into a more sturdy pair of shorts was required.

My second attempt was more successful, a lot of the run was a completely different route too, so added to the interest. It did include an unfamiliar cross country section for about 2 miles, but it turned out to be unsuitable for running and the run became a run/walk - however it was good to go somewhere new.

The heat became very noticable after only 5 miles (thankfully I had applied some sun cream suitable for runners) and by mile 11 I had run out of water. Fortunately there was a couple working in their front garden and on the first sight of me at the top of the driveway holding an empty bottle, they did their good deed for the day and refilled it with pleasure.

I completed the 15 miles and so another landmark had been reached. I continued the rest of the week as before making the final run of May the session that took me over 100 miles for the month for the first time ever! Wow!

Into June and the running continues. But first a bit of a 'break' with another stint of volunteering at Brueton parkrun over the Jubilee weekend. A few of us embraced the theme...

To add some further variation to the week's running, I took part in a local fun run at Astwood Bank. As well as the 2.5 mile fun run itself I wanted to make it into a long run so ran to and from the fun run to make a combined total of 10 miles. The weather was very wet and the fun run was not that well attended, so I think I managed to sneak into a top 10 finish!

On the Tuesday, my usual hilly 5k was replaced with my first proper attempt at a build up run. An out and back 8 mile route, with the first half just under my marathon pace of 11 mins/mile, then turn around and do the next half at 10 mins, finishing with the last two at 9:30. I had tired legs at the beginning and was not sure I would be able to up the pace, but I did and went much better than the plan too. Happy days ;-)

Half way there... if only!

After last week's Knowle fun run, this week was about getting the miles in. Tuesday was the return the usual hilly 5k run - my legs still felt a bit tired after Sunday's fun run (understandable as I really went for it at the fun run), but I still put in a very good time of just over 29 mins.

Wednesday was a 5 mile plod at around my target marathon pace and in honour of Eric, I did a simple 5 mile pyramid run on Friday: starting at my target marathon pace of 11 mins per mile, then after 1 mile switching to a 10:30 pace, then to a 10 min pace for mile three, back to 10:30 for mile 4 and the last mile at 11 miles. It went surprisingly well, I'd not done a pyramid before really, but I managed to keep very close to the required pace. Will have to do more of those.

Saturday was my 100th parkrun - no plans to run due to forthcoming long run on Sunday (see below), so I volunteered for the 79th time instead as safety cyclist; it's a great role, don't know why more people don't come forward to do it?

I'm ahead of the training plan at the moment and the longer distance runs are yet to come, but with not doing a long run last weekend and hopefully running at parkrun next weekend at the Club Day pacer hunt, this weekend was ideal for the long run. The last long run was 10 miles long, so I thought about doing my first ever training half marathon. My half marathon pace was my guideline and it went great, 11 mins per mile for the first ten miles with little variation, but then I met a steep hill (Easemore Road) and this took it out of me and a slowed to 12:20 pace - then the remainder of the run was uphill. I managed to return to the 11 mile pace for the final mile, making my total run time 2hrs 26mins. Now, given my target marathon time is 5 hrs (minus 1 second), finishing the training session with a few mins to spare on the half way mark is a big confidence boost about the preparation. I can run at my target pace for half a marathon - just got to continue this for another half marathon - gulp!

It's all in the planning

Browsing through the internet, I have seen that there are many many marathon training plans available - even some marathons have their own training plans, typically with separate plans for beginners and experienced marathon runners. There are specialist plans by experienced marathon runners and others by running magazines publications too. The Runners World website has an interesting collection of marathon training plans as they are set for a goal of a range of finishing times and indeed there is one that covers my target time of 4hrs 59 mins 59 secs (well, it's a 5 hr training plan really - but I hope that the training required for one second less would not be too different!)

My issue with training plans is that they assume quite a bit about the runner and appear to be quite rigid. Monday do this, Tuesday do that - which is fair enough in some respect, but there is a lack of flexibility to the regime. From talking to some runners I feel they get too obsessed with the plan, they don't look at the bigger picture of how they are currently feeling and what impact the training is having on them. The obsessed have a day off from training, but then feel guilty for it. For me, that seems like taking the enjoyment out of it.

I know I'm not going to follow a plan rigidly, but would benefit from an influence from a training plan; after all I am after a goal to complete the marathon and within my dream time if possible. The My Asics Plan is a good compromise - it's more dynamically driven by requiring more up front information about the runner and devises a tailored plan accordingly. Unlike the other plans I have seen, it starts off by asking for gender and age - I think that means the younger ones can get away with less training and get a bigger improvement in performance. It then asks what running I can currently do - I may be new to marathons, but I do have a few half marathons under my belt and surely that must count for something in working out what I can achieve and the level of training I can/need to do. So I declared that I can do a half marathon in 2hrs 15mins. At this point I should declare that I do have a lifetime ambition of a sub 2 hour half marathon - I've seen it done and I want one, but that's for another day (idea for a new blog? One's enough thank you!).

The plan then asks what my target time is and I duly specify 4hrs 59 mins 59 secs - it's quite satisfying that it does allow me to specify this time exactly, knowing how important it is to me!

The plan then asks how many days per week I wish to train. The minimum I could specify is 3 days - I have a lot of improvement to make here, so it just doesn't seem enough to do 3 days. I've run 4 days a week pretty happily in the past with 5 days being too much for me to recover from, so I think 4 days it will be. And with consideration to the busy lives we lead, it finally asks on which day I will have the most time to do a long run - Sunday.

I clicked the magic button and hey presto - a training plan, just for me is presented. It starts off with a week of conditioning, then a month of 'getting faster' then quite a period of running further distances, before tapering off for the big day itself.

Where I will differ from the plan is the execution of it. I can agree with the plan that Sunday is generally my long run day with the distance gradually getting longer, so that's OK for me as the plan has Monday as a rest day too. I know from experience that if I do run the next day after a long run, problems occur. I can squeeze a couple of short runs before I leave for work, but that means starting the run by 5:45 a.m.. I generally cannot do Tuesday evening, so Tuesday morning can be my hilly 5k (mentioned previously - it is tough, but I do really benefit from it - read on to find out why!). Wednesday and Friday evenings are my best bets for a 'mid-distance' 5 mile or 10k required by the plan.

As for this week's running, an opportunity for me to run at Brueton parkrun arose this week; so I grabbed it with great anticipation - my last Brueton run was in late March and although a slower one for me, was significant in that it confirmed my pain free return to running. So this time, with a few of those now famous hilly 5k's behind me, I hoped to show some improvement (maybe sub 27 mins?) and instead of starting as usual at the back, I was two thirds of the way down the huge field of 182. Off we went (still on the Winter Course) and I ran at an ambitious PB pace to start with and managed to hold on to it until lap 2's rise up to the tennis courts where it all started catching up with me - for the last 500 metres I was able to recover the pace before finishing in a confidence boosting 26:02 on my watch - only about 20 seconds off my Brueton parkrun PB. Magnificent!

My legs certainly felt the parkrun effort, so I turned Sunday into my rest day, opting to do my long run on Bank Holiday Monday. Plan was to do 10 miles. Whilst my speed is clearly returning to my shorter runs, my longer distance running is still way off - so a great opportunity to have a go at running closer to my target marathon pace (11 mins or so per mile). I haven't ever planned to run at this pace before, so I do need to get used to it. I did the first 5 miles at 10:30 - 10:45 pace and the second 5 miles at 10:45 to 11:00 pace. I did it, but certainly knew that 10 miles was my limit that day.

I did a couple more 5 mile runs during the week, before the highlight of May's running calendar, the Knowle Fun Run. It went brilliantly for me; I ran consistently and posted a time of 41:25 which is a massive 10 mins off my time from last year's time of 51:11, but sadly the course is about half a mile shorter this time (about 4.67 miles compared to 5.2 miles)!

Mud, mud, glorious mud!

April 2012 will probably go down as one of the wettest months in history and it's important to still keep running during adverse conditions - especially for me at this time, I'm still coming back from injury with a way to go and interruptions to the schedule are not welcome. So this week was an exercise in sticking with it.

Like last week, my schedule is for 4 runs a week - Tuesday is now an early morning hilly 5k; the character building run through the Headless Cross and Webheath districts of Redditch. This is a constant up and down - a kind downhill at first, but then your energy is taken away from you as the steep uphills come in succession. Then its a final 1 mile final slog uphill all the way back. The challenge is to complete the route without stopping - and that I did, with a time of 29:00 being an excellent result.

Wednesday evening was a 4 mile run in heavy rain and Friday evening was a 5 mile run in rain, leaving the worst till Sunday - the finale of the Centurion Grand Prix. This is a monthly 5 mile run around Babbs Mill from November to April. Today was the worst of the lot - the rain had turned sections of the route into mud and water had collected into various ponds too with some having no route around. The wind was strong and the rain was still coming down too. Skipping around everything in a tentative manner at first bacame a waste of time, my feet were wet through anyway and so I eventually ploughed through everything to record my slowest time of the season - I'm not worrying about times, it's not important.

Inspired

The great thing about running is that you are inspired by the people around you; those who you know well and the stories of others who have run - their efforts give you momentum to achieve too. Today was London Marathon day, the biggest of them all. So I sat down and watched the day unfold on TV and on the internet and what a day it turned out to be!

The story of Jane Tomlinson is one that has always stayed with me; she had terminal cancer and spent the last years of her life raising huge amounts of money by running marathons, triathalons and the like. Her determination to succeed was amazing and when the TV showed library pictures of her in tears in awe of the support she was getting whilst running the London marathon brought a lump to my throat. So off I went and did an 8 mile run - the furthest I have run for a long time; it wasn't a good time at all, but it's the distance that matters at the moment. My total mileage each week is now increasingly nicely - up to 17 miles now and split across 4 days per week. Friday's session was a hilly 5k run - it is a challenging one (a killer in fact) that I have always felt has benefited my running the most. I'll be doing this run once a week from now on and use Sunday as my long run - 8 miles today is progress from my 10k last week and it will be good to be able to do 10 miles + again soon.

Back at the London Marathon, I arrived home from my run in time to see the elite women's finish - I was looking out for Liz Yelling, friend of Brueton parkrun and VIP guest at Brueton parkrun PLUS in June 2011. Her comeback from injury 12 months ago in attempt to make the Olympics didn't quite happen today - but the way she was in the final stages of the Marathon waving and smiling shows her underlying character. When I had the privilege to have a night out with her and some others from Brueton parkrun last June, her message was clear, it's about enjoying running more than anything else. Respect to you Liz, I was so impressed by how passionate she is about parkrun and how important she believed parkrun is to running and the health of the nation - certainly puts the Brueton parkrun critics to shame.

A fantastic feature of the London Marathon is that runners progress can be tracked online with 5km split times. So the next few hours were spent watching progress of a group of people I know from parkrun and most of all Eric Robathan who was running his first marathon and I have been following his training progress all the way through. It's down to Eric to give the full story of his experience, but the excitement, anguish and final sheer joy whilst I tracked Eric certainly made for a rollercoaster experience, even though I was 100 miles away. Eric, to pull it back like you did in the final stages of the run to post a time under 4 hours is awesome. And all that after falling over 9 miles into the run. I found the whole experience of following Eric and the others truly inspirational. Even though these runners are far better than I am or ever will be, they made me feel that my own marathon can be achieved if I do put the work in and play it right on the day....

Which comes to the most important lesson of the day for me - pacing. Eric had a pace in his mind to follow and that's what I need to do; to find my marathon race pace and learn how to run at that pace too. Browsing through the split times of some London Marathon runners, I could see clearly how they went off too fast and exploded on the way round - that 20 mile wall that you hear of I suppose. Yet I saw others who kept it steady all the way and posted some great times. One person, who's name I forget ran around 11 minute mile pace all the way and although at half way may have appeared slow to some came through to post a time around 4 hours 50. My aim for Chester is simply to get round, yes and on the day anything can happen. But I need to have something to work against in training and on the day too, otherwise I could have a great first half only turn to disappointment by the end. In my mind, I always seem to settle on the figure of 5 hours, well 4:59:59 really. I don't know if I can achieve it - only the next 5 months can give me some indication on that. I did read somewhere that if you can do a half marathon in 2:15, you can do a 5 hour marathon. Well, my half marathon time is 2:14, so could it be possible? For now, I have to say yes and believe that I can and will do it. Thanks Eric.

Get out of the way, fast runner coming through!

After the success of my run at the St Patrick's Day Brueton parkrun, it was important to not get carried away and increase the mileage too soon. So instead I introduced some rowing and cycling into the week. I got the opportunity to run at Brueton again the following week, this time's incident involved an important pre-run matter meaning I didn't change into my trainers until 100 metres into the run! I stopped my watch whilst changing them and the final result was a very pleasing 27:21.

With the clocks going forward later in March, it meant that the mid-week post work 'Freedom parkrun' could be restarted and I've done three of those now already. At the end of the month I had another chance to run at parkrun whilst away in London to watch my fellow Chester Marathon runner Larry Chambers run at the Olympic Park Run (Note two words for Park Run with capital P and R). London is full of parkruns, with more opening all the time due to funding from Boris Johnson's office. I chose Mile End parkrun which was only in its 9th week and being on the tube line en route to the Olympic Stadium. Larry volunteered as photographer and Trish ended up self appointing herself as Event Director when the volunteers encountered problems with the stopwatch. The Mile End parkrun is in a small long and narrow park and has a unique feature in that the middle of the park is lifted up on a bridge over a road - you have to see it to believe it! It makes for a very undulating course, so this was a parkrun for hill training. 25th position out of 47 finishers and a time of 28:54 was a great result.

OK, so all this proved that I can do 5k distances pain free, albeit at times a few minutes off my best. Now to increase the mileage - my first training 10k followed at Easter, followed by a 10k race soon after - the fabulously named 'Wright Hassall Regency 10k' in Leamington Spa. This is a very popular and highly acclaimed race that actually incorporates the Leamington parkrun route (run in reverse direction). 2000 runners took part and with narrow paths for a large part of the first 5k, I got caught up with slower runners and held up by walkers in groups 2 or 3 abreast. I became concerned that I would be expending a lot of energy trying to get past people and indeed it felt at times that a lot of effort was required. I reached 5k at around 31:20, so not within my target of an hour for the whole run, but with the route moving from park path to road, the opportunity to up the pace was there to be taken. In order to still finish within the hour I would have to run the last 5k at a near to parkrun pace and with nothing to lose I decided to give it a go. All went fairly well, but at 5 miles it was looking a bit too tight, and a further increase in pace for a sixth mile at 9 minutes followed by a 7:20 minute pace sprint for the final 0.2 mile meant that I made it to the finish in 59:45 for a really, really good result. Super, smashing, great.

The Comeback Continues: A Pain Free parkrun

The third trip to the physio mid-week confirmed that I am now able to start running again, albeit a gentle reintroduction. College was unexpectedly cancelled on Thursday evening, so what better than a cheeky 2 mile assessment instead to see how things where. The two miles turned out to be quite tough going. I tried to keep a steady sub 10 minute mile pace and found it difficult on the return leg of my route back up the incline. But I did it and that was the main thing.

So Friday night came along and with a healthy looking volunteer roster, Saturday would be a parkrun day for me! Number 3 of 2012 - target for this year is 18 parkruns (compared to just 7 in 2011). Martin Hancock was the day's Run Director, so my job beforehand was to make sure that the finish team were up to speed. Target today was to complete the 5km route in one piece (and not lose my St Patrick's Day hat or choke on my newly acquired ginger beard). A steady pace would be required and a sub 30 minute time would be a bit too much for me at this time.

Photo by Kev Baldry

The run began with me at the back with a slow start. Once the 1km marker appeared I then thought about upping the pace a little bit, looked at my Garmin and no display - it had died on me. Oh well, not to worry, I'm not after a time anyway. So off I plod at a comfortable pace. All was going well until I got to dodgy corner on lap 2 - a car was working its way through the runners en route to the Parkridge Centre. The driver looked rather worried, so I stopped running and marshalled him through, costing me 60 seconds on my time. Anyway, off I went again, thanking the marshals as I went through as a good parkrunner does. With 400 metres to go there were about half a dozen people only 25 metres in front of me, so I started to pick up the pace a lot more and then at 200 to go turned it into a full sprint and took the lot of them - very satisfying (sorry!).

Overall a successful run, but no idea of my time. I thought it was about 32-33 minutes, but the official result was a surprising 29mins 28s. So I am very surprised how well I did - I felt really good on the run and felt no discomfort. Hours later there was no after affect or sore hip to notice. A great day indeed - the comeback continues.

With the success of my parkrun on Saturday, Sunday had the temptation of another run. But that would be too much too soon, so to satisfy my need to do something a trip to the bottom of the garden and a 500 stroke row on the rowing machine was the non-impact exercise to keep me going.