Training update: Six weeks down

Three weeks ago, I acknowledged the fact that I hadn't been putting enough effort into training was the cause of a stall in my improvements. This post is intended as a review of the past three weeks since I stepped up my training, a look at where I am now, and a look ahead to where I'd like to be.

Training Review

Since the 3rd of June, I have missed a total of 5 days of running, all of which have been due to being away from home and without my running kit.

Week 1
I ran 16.6 miles. Not a great start, but not bad considering I missed two of those days because of being away from home. 

Week 2
Up to 26.6 miles in the second week thanks to a 10 mile run on the first day (Sunday 10th) followed by four consecutive running days, the first 3 above four miles. I could have run on the Friday but didn't since I was very achey and didn't want to pull anything and was going on a stag weekend until Sunday. 

Week 3
This week began on the final day of a Stag weekend so no long run. I did, however, find that, after pushing myself harder and having a rest to recover to my best, I had improved significantly. I didn't pace myself very well for the first run back and ended up running faster than I had ever run before, but had to stop after 3 miles because of a severe stitch. In the days that followed, I totalled 27.9 miles over 6 days, and did each run faster than I would normally, at or above my average pace for my last 10k race. 

Week 4, day 1
Since these weeks begin on a Sunday, I have already begun week 4 with my longest run to date. 11.33 miles, averaging a faster pace than the 10k race in Lymington. The first 10 kilometres of the run were in a little over 49 minutes during which I ran a negative split and, over the second half, got progressively faster. What I was most pleased about was the fact that I only dropped down below my 10k Lymington pace because of an incredibly steep hill that I had severely underestimated and being held up when trying to pass people.

Not all of these improvements have been made in the past 3 weeks, the first three will also have been crucial to see any benefit. The important thing to note is that I saw my improvement slow down towards the end of the first three weeks and have now seen a drastic improvement and am performing well above my own expectations.

My body had adapted to my standard 5k training run and just doing a long run on the weekends and Tuesdays wasn't enough to push myself. Even on these long runs I wasn't pushing myself in terms of pace, I was running them slow and easy. Upping my recovery run distance and running farther on my long runs has really paid off, both in speed and endurance. 10k no longer feels like a 'long' distance which makes a huge difference mentally when you need to overpower your body into doing what it doesn't want to do.

Where am I now?

As things stand, I'm confident of beating my 48 minute goal when it comes round in 13 days time. By how much depends on the next week and a half of training! I've passed the 100km in a month barrier and, at 92.5 miles, I will break the 100 miles in a month barrier very soon. My training pace has quickened from between 8:40-9:10 minutes per mile to 8:00-8:30 (even with the increase in mileage) I'm happy with where I am now in relation to where I thought I would be, but I would like to be faster and run further.

My running form has improved drastically too. I now run much more naturally and have a better "running economy" (how much energy it takes to do a certain amount of work) so it actually feels like less effort to keep my pace higher. My form could still do with improvement though, so I still look to improve with every run.

What about the future?

In the near term, my goals are the Great Birmingham Run and the Great South Run the following week. I was shocked to find that, based on my 11.33 mile pace, I was on for my target time of 1 hour 50 minutes for the half distance. This was even including the hills at the start and end which didn't help my pace. I would have loved to extend that run to 13.1, but I could feel my tank was empty and it would have been foolish to push any further and risk injury.

I have decided to go for a marathon next year and aim for a time under 4 hours. That seems to be the classic barrier for people to run for in a first marathon. Beyond that, I am sorely tempted to try a 50k, which would be an extra ~5 miles on top of the marathon distance and would put me (just) inside the group of people who have run an Ultra Marathon! If I can run a marathon, than I would certainly hope to be able to train to run 5 extra miles afterwards.

Somewhere amongst all this training I plan to keep an eye on my 5k speed. There is a Parkrun event in Worcester that I am very tempted to go to so that I can keep track of approximately how quickly I can cover the 3.1 miles. I would love to drop under 20 minutes, but that goal does seem rather far away at the moment.

All these goals are going to be hard to achieve and will likely involve a lot of painful times but if it was easy, I don't think I would do it. The point of all these very hard and potentially painful goals is because they are hard and painful. If it was easy, why bother?

I think Haruki Murakami summed it up best when he said this:

“Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive--or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself.” 

If I ever get asked "Why?" when I talk about these ambitions, my reply will likely be the same as the reason George Leigh Mallory set out to conquer Everest.

Training update: Three weeks down

I've known for a long time that the way to get better at running is to simply run more miles. There are always other things to help improve aspects of running, like interval training for instance, but these alone won't get you anywhere without teaching your body to run.

In the weeks leading up to my first 10k, I was convinced that I was running a lot and easily covering the distance (even though I had only run that distance twice before). I was sure that the hours of running I'd put in would be more than enough to break the 50 minute barrier, though I did feel as though I had stopped improving as rapidly as when I first began running in earnest.

Looking back at my weekly totals on RunKeeper, I was shocked at how little I have run over the past five months. Prior to beginning my training, the most I had run in one week was 13.9 miles, all the others were less than 10 miles. Out of the full 19 weeks before May 13th I ran in 10, with 5 of those weeks having less than 4 miles covered.

Knowing all this, I can see why my improvement seems to have stalled. I wasn't just avoiding all exercise on those days, but general fitness activities like weight training, squash or circuit training just won't help me get any faster without running.

In the first two weeks of training, I was fairly relaxed about following my schedule and happily went to circuit training instead of doing some of my runs. Beginning my fourth week of eight, I have decided to be much more strict with myself. Except for those weeks where I am away (at work, for example), I will make sure I do the following:

• Run at least four miles every day, unless my schedule calls for intervals
• Run at least ten miles every weekend, working up to a ten mile long run, plus additional four or five miles on the other day.

Eventually, I'll get around to going swimming to cross train but until then, I'm enjoying bouldering on Saturdays. I would love to be able to run for two hours every Saturday or Sunday and feel as good as I did after an hour today and keep my weekly total above a minimum of 30 miles. Hopefully I'll get to that level by the end of the year; the only thing stopping me at the moment is a fear of injuring myself before the race.

Lymington 10k: Race Report

On Sunday 13th May 2012 I competed in, and finished, my first race. Excluding school sports days.


I probably over-prepared for the race, making sure I had a breakfast of cereal, plus an oaty cereal bar and brought an energy drink (rather than water) with me, into which I'd put a dissolvable tablet supposed to help hydration. Looking back, this was almost certainly overkill. It's 6 miles, not 26.

One Eight Three

A couple of days ago, I received my first ever race number through the post: 183. I tried to think of any sort of significance for that number to me and have, so far, failed. The best I could do was find that if you sum the digits, you will get 12 which is the day of my birth in May and the day before the one on which I will actually race.


The number doesn't have to be significant other than the fact that it matches the number for the chip included in the pack the race organisers sent (it does).

Giving page set up and new RunKeeper widget

I've now got my giving page set up for the 10k run in July. As I mentioned in my first post, I am running the 10k in support of Open Doors who are a charity for persecuted Christians. I won't go through all my reasons for supporting them again since I've already covered that in my earlier post and on the giving page itself.

It was a bit difficult to decide how much money to aim for, having never done anything like this before. I think £500 is a reasonable stretch target, since I don't plan on doing any proper fundraising other than just asking friends and family for money.

Once upon a beginning

I've decided to enter some races this year for the first time.
   
I've never done anything competitively before, so this is all new ground for me. It seems like the sort of thing that would be good to blog about, if nothing else than for my own interest further down the line.
   
I've set myself a lot of goals; some short term, some long term and some that I may never achieve. All my serious goals are restricted to running, though I have thought seriously about entering a triathlon. I'm a very poor swimmer and haven't cycled in years, but I think competing in the short sprint distance would be an interesting and very difficult challenge.