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.