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Day 70–Little to Report

This was a run to get up early and get out of the way to tackle the rest of the day. An early, for me, depart meant the first mile had legs that just didn’t want to work. They didn’t work that well for the rest of the run either but at least they ticked over, which they weren’t doing for the first ten minutes.

Other than being stiff and tired there was little of excitement on this run. The usual out and back to Dysart Park has been temporarily spoilt – a footbridge has been closed for repair, forcing a fiddly diversion that may see me try another route for the next few weeks.

It turned out to be the last run for my current Garmin Forerunner 910XT. After finally getting through to Garmin Customer Care (A mere hour and five minutes on hold) the man on the other end assured me that the problems I have with my watch are not typical of the model, despite what I might read on the internet, and suggested I send mine to Garmin for a replacement. So my Garmin is currently in the post and the old faithful 305 has been brought out of the cupboard and charged ready for a a return to service.

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Day 69–A Little Frustration But Pleased With The Run

I set out for the run a little later than planned, watching the bobsleigh on TV and reading about the controversy over in America with Nike/USADA disqualifying a Brooks athlete in the ladies 3000m in frankly ridiculous circumstances. If I moaned a couple of days ago about short track speed skating not having an appeal process and some baffling decisions, then athletics took it to a new level with Alberto Salazar appealing the appeal of an appeal and eventually getting his way when some Nike people had a closed door meeting with USADA officials.

I thought briefly about burning my seven or so pairs of Nike trainers in protest, but thought the better of it for when push comes to shove, for my feet anyway, they make the best trainers on the market. I just wish they didn’t, allegedly, have such a questionable influence on the outcome of elite sport.

With that injustice out of the way I drove out to Somerby to follow a route known as the Old Somerby 19  based on a Strava upload from a club mate which I downloaded and eventually managed to get it uploaded to my watch (a process that took way longer than it should have). As the title of the run suggests it was 19 miles and I wanted to run something closer to 22 miles, so I began the run with a loop of Somerby, stopping to return to the car and discarding the gloves which, despite the strong wind, were not necessary as the temperature was a balmy 12C.

The first mile was 7:09, which is quick for me for an opening mile. The second was 6:42, then 6:43, and the fourth in 6:28. Regardless of whether the wind was helping me this was swift stuff so early in a run. It was reminiscent of an 18 mile run I did back in October when, similarly to today, I hit 6:38 after the second mile and was pretty much able to hold that fairly comfortably for the rest of the run. The next four miles confirmed I was in that kind of form: 6:37; 6:23; 6:39; and 6:37.

Then things briefly went awry. My Garmin 910XT has a known issue where, when following a course, it is horribly prone to repeatedly telling me I am off course and then back on course (When I never left the course in the first place), delays in refreshing the course line and, worse still, random power offs. Ever since that happened mid run last November I now make a point of checking the watch frequently to the point of paranoia. That was justified today as somewhere around 8.2 miles the unit powered off randomly. It turned back on, took a while to find satellites and I continued running, but something wasn’t right – the distance didn’t appear to be increasing and the route I was taking on the course map bared little relation to what I was actually running.

I made the decision to stop and stop the following of the course. This had the effect of resetting the mileage and elapsed time to zero, something it doesn’t usually do. I powered the watch off and on again, was relieved to see at least my run was stored in the history rather than disappearing into the ether, and recommenced the run. It was ultimately no more than an annoyance, but for flagship watch it is unacceptable and Garmin will be receiving a phone call in the morning. At the end of the day my old 305 could handle courses near perfectly and this more expensive watch handles them badly to the point of it being nearly broken.

The rest of the run went fairly quickly as my mind mulled over exactly what I would be saying to Garmin in the morning. There were a few tough miles when I turned to face the head wind, which almost at times had me stopping in my tracks. By and large though the pace was relatively consistent and the legs remained good, albeit with a little tiring in the closing legs, which is only to be expected. At 7.6 miles on the new run the watch powered itself off again. I kept cool, gave it a few seconds and turned the watch back on. This time I was able to recommence without having to create a third leg to this long run.

As I returned to Somerby the watch was showing around 12.5 miles on the second leg of the run. The maths wasn’t too great at this point of the run, but I reckoned I should do another lap of Somerby to ensure the run was over twenty miles and hopefully nearer 22. It ended at 13.3 (Half marathon completed in 1:28) which mean a total of 21.7 miles, both segments averaging 6:41. The pace was unarguably consistent

This also meant a new record mileage week of 86.5 miles, which came as something of a unplanned surprise. There were very few quick miles as I spent most of the week recovering from Stamford, but today’s run left me in no doubt that things are coming together very nicely – as long as I stay fit and healthy!

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Day 68–Missing Out

By rights I should have been lining up for the National Cross Country Championships at Nottingham today. I was entered, paid up, ready to run. Then a couple of weeks ago it not only transpired to me that I was covering the Bahrain F1 test that day, the time difference had changed making it nigh on impossible to be able to make it to the race. I vainly hoped for a sandstorm to postpone the testing; that didn’t happen and I was resigned to missing out on one of those special races which don’t happen within an hour’s drive of where you live very often.

As it was I got out to run at 4pm, an hour after the Men’s Senior race began and hopefully sometime after I would have completed the 12km course. I’d mapped out a local run which took in some roads I hadn’t been down before. Unfortunately I had issues trying to upload the course to my Garmin (I think they are mucking around with things ahead of a big revamp of the Connect site) so had to run the course from memory.

I made a pretty good fist of it, only taking one wrong turn. Legs were still quite stiff, I need to pay attention to the right calf which is sending occasional creeping aches down to the foot. I don’t fancy another dose of plantar fasciitis thank you very much… The main objective was to tackle a new hill on me, one that has a Strava segment in need of a new KOM. Job done, but only just, it was a bit of a toughie.

I screwed up a bit with the Garmin, forgetting to restart the watch and losing a third of a mile. When you are going for record mileage, every metre counts. Twenty or so is planned for tomorrow, the weather doesn’t sound too promising mind you, so who knows what may happen.

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Day 67–Easy Running

Day three of the Bahrain F1 test I am covering – I cannot decide whether the most exciting action of the day was breaking the news to the world (via a third party) that Jenson Button had proposed to his now fiancée Jessica Michibata, or revealing to the world that Lotus tested an exhaust that is off centre at the rear. It was that exciting.

Hardly surprising then that I was keen to get out for a few miles running, more so after watching the apparent injustice in the short track ice skating with our disqualified British skater (cannot understand how a sport can have a judge seemingly penalising athletes at will without the need to explain themselves nor have any grounds for appeal. It seems ripe for corruption – not that anything like that would ever happen in the Olympics…)

The burning embers of injustice barely stoked the boiler in the opening mile or two, the legs feeling decidedly stiff. Somewhere along the run though I forgot about the achiness and helped somewhat by the wind blowing behind me for the closing stages, was able feel much better in the final miles – a successful recovery run.

I’ve got my eyes now on a record mileage week. I shouldn’t let myself chase these meaningless targets, but it is tempting…

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Day 66–Long and Slow

Another early start and a full 12 hours sat mostly at the desk. I was finished though in time to do my regular long, slow, Thursday club run. I was though really tired after only around 4 hours sleep. Strangely though when I was running I didn’t feel too bad; it was when I stopped I felt insanely tired.

First off it was 3.5 pre miles before heading off to the club, rather tragically choosing a hill to run up purely to create a segment for Strava later in the evening. There was a good turnout at the club, many of whom had run at Stamford on Sunday. This meant that there were still plenty of tired legs and quick running was not on the agenda.

I was happy with that. Totalling 16 1/2 miles, nearly all ran at a really easy pace, save for one stretch where I just let the legs tick over for a bit. There was few problems, the right groin a bit sore late in the run, otherwise fine. Once I stopped though the legs certainly stiffened up. Hopefully there’ll be a good night’s sleep before another early start. Looking forward to Sunday and a lie-in!