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Now That’s What I Call…. Encouraging!

With five weeks to go to the Chester Marathon the week had been a good one once I’d fully shifted the cold I’d picked up and suffered over the weekend. Monday saw three hours plus in the gym: A virtual spinning session followed by 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, ten km of progressive running on the treadmill and a group spinning session to finish me off, all played out whilst outside torrential rain the like of which I’ve not seen in many years flooded parts of Grantham and the surrounding area.

Tuesday was an hour on the elliptical trainer in the morning then a run in the evening which I described euphemistically on Strava as Clearing the pipes, a term the legend David Duffield had coined earlier in the day watching You Tube videos of the 1992 Tour de France. The nasal passages were certainly cleaner once the run had ended, the run feeling very easy despite beginning on jelly legs, knocking out ten and a third miles in sixty four minutes.

Wednesday was a recovery day of sorts, a double spinning session at the gym. The air-con wasn’t working for the first session, which meant Malaysia-esque conditions were replicated for 45 minutes of hard cycling. Luckily the second session was cooler and easier, I pushed on the final rep to see how many watts I could generate. 568 was the result and a slightly tweaked right hamstring the reward.

Thursday saw a fairly painful massage in the morning, an hour on the elliptical trainer in the afternoon and a 13.2 mile GRC run in the evening.  IT was good to have a fair few out of there out running what is likely to be the last over the fields run of this summer before the nights start prohibiting where we can safely run. The run was leisurely but good in many ways to knock out some slower miles.

Friday could have been a rest day but I wanted to do something so I spent 75 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Saturday morning was a straight out of bed run, and for that reason was a bit harder than I’d hoped. There were plans of marathon paced efforts, but the first six miles just weren’t that comfortable, languishing at around 6:45 pace. Then something seemed to click and the last four minutes were closer to six minute miles, complete with a cheeky Strava segment steal I’d just missed out on a few days earlier. The section was only 90 seconds or so long, but the pace (5:01) indicated that the legs were in good shape. That evening I put in another easy hour on the elliptical trainer, lamenting the fact that the last 10 minutes were done in darkness out in the shed. Autumn is coming…

Sunday’s run was going to be a bike ride but the conclusion of the World Athletics Championships put pay to that. I woke at 6:30am to watch the Women’s marathon I’d recorded overnight. I was changed and ready to go for 9 o’clock but my wife was still sleeping, having put in a 17 hour stint working and not finishing until 3am. Plans were changed with the athletics due back on at 11am, I decided instead to run once the athletics had concluded in the afternoon.

By 2:30pm it was raining and not feeling particularly inspired I headed out on a 20 mile route I’d hastily put together and uploaded to my watch. Luckily the rain was fairly light and with the temperature around 18C, it was really rather pleasant to run in with barely a breath of wind. The first mile was comfortable at 7:05; the second mile through the town centre was a 6:28 and felt effortless. I stopped for a semi-planned pit stop at local conveniences and headed back on my run – Somerby Hill the first and main challenge of the day.

This four fifths of a mile climb only averages 4% because it has a long fairly flat section in the middle. The opening and final ramps though are relatively hard, certainly enough to usually fill the legs with lactate. Today though I was feeling fresh and fast, and although the heart rate climbed to near 170bpm, there was no sense of fatigue at all as I completed the climb in 5:45, beating the previous segment record on Strava by one whole second (Very pleasing as I’ve failed many times before to beat it). The third mile was 6:38. Strava GAP reckons it was worth 5:32 with the hill taken into account. I was concerned that that exertion could come to be costly later in the run, but for now it all felt very easy, the fourth mile an effortless 6:08.

Miles 5 – 12 took me on a loop around Ropsley, mostly on roads I’ve run on before, albeit not often enough for me to run without the guide of the breadcrumb trail on the Garmin. Therefore, short of splits, I had no guide to pace and HR. Still it all felt pretty comfortable, the quickest mile 6:09, the slowest, 6:24 on a long drag out of Ropsley towards the A52.

Thankfully only 100 meters or so was on the busy A road, I turned right on the quiet road to Welby. I found myself picking up the pace as I came to complete a half marathon in around 83 minutes, the 13th mile 6:08; the 14th into Welby itself in 5:57. Still it felt very comfortable, the form as good as when I’d started the run. The fifteenth mile was mostly uphill and not particularly pleasant as the rain intensified and High Dyke was busy, but when a slow mile was 6:18 you know you are running well.

Miles 16, 17 and 18 went through Londonthorpe and past Belton House. I allowed the heart rate to rise slightly but still 5-10 beats below my marathon heart rate. The mile splits were 6:02, 5:56, and 6:08. I beat my own Strava segment on five gates, one I’d clocked recently on an eight mile run. The nineteenth and twentieth miles were slightly uphill, that they were run in 6:08 and 6:05 had me almost disbelieving what I was seeing. This was an easy effort long run and I reckoned I’d just run twenty miles faster than I’d ever run them before!

I clocked 20.24 miles in 2:06:28, which is 6:15 pace. 2:45 pace for the marathon is 6:17 per mile. When I went through 20 miles at Rotterdam last year (on my Garmin) it was in 2:06:17. On this training run I went through 20 miles in 2:05:32. I’ve run quicker over 30km (Stamford 2014), by around 5 minutes, but there my average HR was 12 or so beats higher, so I was working much harder.

It was comfortably the best long training run I’ve ever done and arguably one of the best runs ever. I just now have to hope I can maintain  fitness for another five weeks. I know too well that fortunes can change in a moment, so I’m not going to take anything for granted. But I’m very excited about what I could do over 26.2 miles in a few weeks time.

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96 Days to VLM – Week One Training Summary

Last week I decided it would be a good time to start my London Marathon training. For last year’s marathon I created a plan – albeit a rather rudimentary one. This year I’ve decided not to. This isn’t to say I haven’t got a good idea of what I hope to be doing and when, it’s more that I’ve looked back at all my distance PBs broken in the past year or so and all bar one was set when I was training on a how I feel at the time policy. The marathon was the only PB set to a plan, but that plan unravelled six weeks out anyway through injury and I, through necessity, reverted to type and trained on a micro level rather than macro.

Week one is all about building mileage, as I’m not yet at a level I’d do on a normal weekly basis, let alone for marathon training. Monday night saw me join the beginners at Grantham Running Club, a rather amusing misnomer as between myself and a few other of the runners there, I estimate there was around 100 years of running experience. It was a gentle paced run with more time spent putting the world to rights. Before I knew it eight and a half miles had been covered, slightly surpassing the sum of my longest run, split into three parts two days earlier at parkrun.

Tuesday was my only true hard session planned for the week. It’s intervals night at the club, but I intend to do marathon heart rate runs until at least March as I think they are more beneficial and something I think I lacked last year come race day. With an eight mile run planned and five miles at marathon HR, I was curious, and a little nervous, at what pace I would find myself running at, bearing in mind my first marathon HR run of 2014 saw me average 6:16.

The first two miles were a warm up and the legs were stiff, the calves remaining fearsomely tight from when they first tightened early the week previous. The transition to marathon pace felt laboured and forced, but after a mile or two I settled into an almost familiar rhythm. The first marathon HR mile was 6:27, then a pleasing 6:09, 6;15, 6:28 and closing with a 6:16. It wasn’t entirely comfortable (especially with a dodgy tummy) and I couldn’t do many more miles at that effort but I was happy to see that the pace wasn’t too many seconds slower than last year, albeit with a HR that was far harder to keep under my 165bpm limit.

Wednesday saw me training once again with GRC, partly because I fancied the company and also because a severe frost that morning had left the roads and pavements treacherously icy, ice that only cleared an hour or so before we set off at 7pm. This was not a run I’ll treasure. Twenty five minutes out and back, the calves were so tight they felt like they’d snap, the pelvis ached and the strong, cold head wind on the way back made the seven miles covered feel laboured and unnecessarily tough.

I was thankful that Thursday (15th Janurary) was a rest day, planned some time ago. It was the first day of rest since January 2nd. Friday was a beautiful sunny, crisp morning and I had it to myself so I opted to make it my long run day – which this week was 10 1/2 miles (The half mile more than ten a historic legacy of one of my favourite runs around Warwick University back when I lived in Coventry – which I always used to commence and conclude my marathon training long runs and measured 10.52 miles). For some unfathomable reason I fancied tackling the most fearsome hill (For runners at least) in the Grantham area, the relatively undiscovered Minnett’s Hill. It was as tough as ever, especially with some ice to add to the equation, but I made it to the top without even considering walking which I was pleased with. I was generally pleased with most of the run, although the pace was a touch slower than I’d liked (Average 7:06 per mile) and the last couple of miles were a tough affair. At least the calves were much improved – thanks to the hanging off the step calf stretch.

Saturday I’d left free to run to feel – be it short, another long run, some tempo or maybe even intervals. In the end it became a seven mile progressive run of sorts. After a gentle opening mile the pace gradually increased despite running up a hill and then facing a head wind. The right hip abductor, glute and groin were not that happy for much of the run. When they eased up in the final couple of miles the pace quickened accordingly, coming down to 6:26, then concluding with a 6:06 mile.

Sunday saw me enter the Clumber Park Duathlon in March – my tentative toe in the water towards hopefully taking part in Triathlons later in the year and beyond. This is why I was once again at the local cycle club, taking part in Witham Wheelers Reliability Ride #3. This weekly bike ride is a big diversion from my training of previous years. It’s a risk admittedly, but I’m hopeful that one ride a week won’t hinder the running – it may even help it – and a ride a week is the bare minimum required to be respectable at the Duathlon.

The overnight frost left conditions on the limit in terms of safety for the ride, which took in several of the hills found in the Vale of Belvoir. The start was amended but essentially it was the route as planned and it was more or less safe, save for some ice on the ascent of the final climb, which forced me to stay in the saddle, not an easy task when the ramp is around 14% and you’ve run out of gears. I was happier with this ride than last week’s – I prefer the hills to the flat and rolling roads and the pace was a little gentler too thanks to a merging of groups and the slightly iffy weather conditions.

After a quick sit down for tea, flapjack and some chit chat, I cycled home and quickly put on the trainers and headed out for the 5km (Plus a little bit) run I’ve done for the past couple of weeks as my attempt at training for the demands of transitioning from one discipline to another in Duathlon. The pavements were icy and the running felt ponderous and laboured at times but it was clear from the splits on the Garmin that progress is being made since the beginning of the year. 6:36 for the opening mile, I followed this up with 6;16, then 6 minutes dead, running 5:57 pace for the final quarter mile. I ran 19:25 for the 5k covered, which is a big improvement on previous weeks and left me pleased and encouraged.

For a first week it was generally positive. I’m not at the level I was this time last year but there are signs that the form I had back in September last year is not a million miles away. I also keep telling myself that I most likely peaked at the end of February last year and hopefully this slightly slower build up will see me peak at the right time near the end of April.

This coming week is hopefully a similar tale to last week, albeit with the mileage being upped a little here and there. The weather may have a little say on things but I’m optimistic I’ll have another good week.

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108 Days to VLM – A Mixed Bag.

The idea over Christmas and the New Year was to slowly build up the time running, so that I was running around 35 minutes on New Year’s Day. This should have been straightforward but this time of year for those with family and those who enjoy Christmas and all its excess will realise that rehabilitation, excess alcohol and rich, sugar filled food, not enough sleep, too much driving and unfamiliar beds is hardly likely to be a recipe for success.

The plan began well enough. I’m often banned from running on Christmas Day, but I was unlikely to be missed too much with just a three minute run – which passed without incident. Boxing day saw a six minute run a tenth short of a mile. The pace was fine, the abductors and groins feeling really tight. I managed an hour of high cadence on the elliptical trainer, which helped to burn off some of the Christmas dinner and Christmas Cake, and mince pies, and the fry up, and the bottle and a bit of champagne, and everything else consumed that most enjoyable of days.

Saturday was a day off from exercise as we drove down to my parents’ house in Minehead. As is customary plenty was consumed on our first night down. Heading to bed at around 1am, I woke at 5am parched and with a fuzzy head. Thankfully an emergency pint of water and numerous cups of teas later and I was feeling human again. Somehow I got out to run – the enthusiasm of beginning to run again helping no doubt. I went out for six minutes, nearly making it into town. The abductors in particular were fearsomely tight, so I did a full stretch before heading back, for a 1.67 run. The pace was pleasing but it still felt weird to be running as, though my legs weren’t quite used to what they were doing.

Monday saw a big jump in distance, bringing it up to near as damn it 5k. The legs felt a little less stiff but the heart rate was quite high, The next day and before heading to the next port of call, I managed four miles in a minute under thirty. All was well until the final hundred meters when I felt the right thigh begin to cramp. It ached a bit for a few hours but the pain subsided.

New Year’s Eve and we were in Eckington, near Pershore, and after a reasonably early night, albeit fuelled with some more alcohol, I headed out on what initially was a glorious run under blue skies and rolling scenic countryside. The legs initially felt a bit better than they had, albeit with abductors still tight. The third mile and as I caught a fellow runner I was feeling good, running mid six minute miles. Then the left thigh began to cramp, as the right did a day earlier, but more dramatically and far more painfully. I pulled up and stretched, turned around and tried to jog home. I managed around half a mile, but, after stopping three times, I admitted defeat and walked the two miles back to base. It was a disappointing and painful way to end the year, but as the pain subsided over the course of the day I was resigned to it being just down to the excesses of the time of year and a severe lack of stretching.

New Year’s Eve was fun, plenty of alcohol consumed but not too much as to have me suffering the following morning. There was no running New Year’s Day as we drove back home and I let the left leg recover. January 2nd saw me head out on what I’d planned to be a 20 minute run. At just over a km I felt the left thigh begin to cramp up again and before I even had chance to ease up and assess the situation the wave of pain shot all through the thigh and left me temporarily doubled up in pain. I hobbled back home and licked my wounds – not the most auspicious of ways to begin the year’s campaign, although, once again, the pain eased somewhat over the course of the day.

It was not so painful that I couldn’t make it to the local Aldi where they were selling a load of books about things such as stretching, yoga, pilates and back care for £2.99 each. On the spur of the moment I bought six of them. That evening I ran through the book about stretching and it soon became apparent why the thigh was cramping – the hip abductors and just about every muscle, for that matter, were ridiculously tight.

The next day and I was back on the elliptical trainer, putting in an easy an hour as it could be considering the excesses of Christmas. The left thigh felt okay and so I decided to take part in Witham Wheelers’ Reliability Ride on Sunday Morning. What should have been a 32 mile ride was under severe jeopardy thanks to a perfect storm of daytime rain followed by clear skies overnight, which saw temperatures plummet to -4 Celsius and untreated roads turn to ice rinks.

I gingerly made my way to the cycle club on Sunday morning, my fingers numb by the time I’d ridden the three miles or so. It was decided that the vast majority of the depleted numbers who turned up would ride an altered course, slightly shorter and using busier roads which, for the most part, had been gritted. The plan had been for most to ride at 16-17 mph due to the conditions. In my cycling naivety I took off on the first hill out of Grantham which created a splinter group who looked set to average 20mph. I hadn’t planned to ride that fast but after a few miles and with no idea where we were heading I had little choice but to sit at the back and hang on as best I could so I could find my way home. I hung on until the final few miles, which were on lethally icy roads and I didn’t fancy a tumble. 28 miles at an average of 19.6mph wasn’t a bad effort under the circumstances.

Once I’d cycled home, I had planned to hit the elliptical trainer for an hour, but as the left thigh felt fine I decided to head out for a short run. To my surprise the legs felt pretty good, and I put in 5km at just over 7 minute mile pace.

Flushed with confidence, the following day saw me run 4.5 miles and heading slightly further away from home. Again, although I felt ponderous and as though I was plodding, the pace was pretty pleasing. Yesterday I couldn’t get out as I was looking after the children, so I put in a two hour session on the elliptical trainer, which saw me digging into my suitcase of courage in the final half hour as the legs ran out of energy.

Today saw me on the streets again, and from the moment I set off I felt the legs were finally running again. I went a little further than planned, at just under 10km, but the pace was good and it felt easy. More importantly there was little pain, the abductors happier after targeted stretching and the core feeling stronger after five sessions in the last six days.

The plan now is to continue increasing the mileage, to continue using the elliptical trainer as it helps with both the running and the cycling, and to cycle on the Sunday’s with Witham Wheelers with the intention of possibly running a Duathlon in March. That is a long way away yet, but signs in the last few days are promising.

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Project Sub 2:45 v.2 – 123 Days to Go…

As the last post correctly predicted, December has consisted almost entirely of sessions on the elliptical trainer interspersed with the odd bike ride and even the occasional brisk walk when all other options were exhausted. The elliptical trainer in particular became an exercise in extreme base training, with one a total of 28 hours completed on it, with last week seeing five two hour sessions in as many days – topped off with a couple of bike rides over the weekend.

Effort wise I think this exceeds what I’ve attempted when running. It seemed to help with the cycling – a club ride saw me strong on any hills we faced, then a ride to the In-Laws (Albeit wind assisted) saw me break my average speed record for a 2 hour plus ride, grimly attempting to keep in excess of 20mph when the final ten miles saw me hit a head wind. That headwind I had in spades yesterday when I cycled home for Christmas. Feeling grim anyway because of a tummy bug, the headwind or sometimes crosswind on the Lincolnshire fens made the going ridiculously hard and not a little dangerous, especially when lorries passed at great speed -seeing me blown all over the place and perilously close to the ditches looming by the side of the road. Totally lacking in energy the ride was pretty miserable and I couldn’t wait for it to end, which it finally did three hours after I set off.

Ideally I would have started running last week, but literally at the eleventh hour my long awaited physiotherapy appointment was cancelled until today (Christmas Eve). I had my bone density scan though last week and was awaiting the results. Fortunately I was able to get both when I saw the physiotherapist this morning (She has access to on-line records the GP seemingly has not). It showed that there is nothing wrong with my bone density, which came as a great relief. She put the fracture down to ‘One of those things’ and after some checks and some more core stability exercises to perform, gave me the all clear to commence running once again.

Not wishing to look to keen, I gave it an hour before I donned the running kit and prepared to head out for a run for the first time in over two months. The reality is it took longer for the Garmin to get a satellite lock than the duration of the run –  which I chose to keep at just one minute (Hopefully tomorrow I will run for 2:30, then 5 minutes, 10, 15. 20 then 30 and 10 minute increments up to an hour).

The minute went pretty quick, not really long enough to get into my running. Things felt stiff (more from the efforts of yesterday’s ride than anything) but fundamentally there was no discomfort in the sacrum area, so I could breathe a sigh of relief when the minute came to an end. I would have done a session the elliptical trainer but my body really needs a few days rest so a minute’s running will suffice.

The moment I’ve been waiting for for months had passed without fanfare or incident. There is 123 days until the 2015 London Marathon. The road to Sub 2:45 starts here!

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Trainer Obituary – Nike Free 4.0 V2 (Grey and Yellow) – 28 August 2013 – 20 September 2014.

Nike Free 4.0 V2 (Grey and Yellow)
Nike Free 4.0 V2 (Grey and Yellow)

Replacing a long succession of Nike Free shoes, the Grey and Yellow Nike Free 4.0 V2 were the first Free’s I’d worn that were more minimalist than the 5.0 or equivalent. Any initial fears over their suitability were quickly dispelled and they became a favourite and much worn pair of trainers – amassing 860 miles and just shy of 103 running hours.

Originally intended as a fast run pair of trainers, they proved so comfortable they were regularly used for long runs and recovery runs too. Their shining moment came at the end of July 2014, when, at the Lincoln Wellington 5k, they were a last minute substitute for the Nike Lunaracers that were aggravating an Achilles blister. They raced to a 16:55 PB and so currently hold the distinction for having the quickest average pace for a race I’ve currently run.

Making their swansong at the Grantham Running Club Handicap 10k in September 2014, and run in for the last time on an easy paced 10k run on September 20th 2014, they were retired for running purposes, to be replaced by a black pair of Nike Free 4.0 V2s. 

Despite being heavily worn and with the uppers beginning to fall apart, they are seeing a life beyond the running grave as they are being used on the elliptical trainer while I convalesce from long-term injury.