18 weeks to the Lausanne Marathon.
16 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)
12 weeks to the Robin Hood Nottingham Half Marathon.
7 weeks to the Regents Park Summer 10k.
Today is day 1 of my 18 week marathon training schedule.
Last week I managed to log 40 miles in my training diary for the first time since my training finished for the 2000 London Marathon.
I also ran my first 15 miler since 2000. This was a "double" out and back along the Ridgeway and Phoenix Trails on a hot midday. My car provided me with an intermediate drinks station, an hour and a half into my two and a half hours on the roads and trails. Steve Runner's podcast no 49 on warm weather running was a most appropriate accompaniment to the last hour a run that ended with a black toenail; chafing sores on my thighs and inevitably the pink stains of "joggers nipple" on my white running vest. I recovered better than hoped for though and I think the supplements I am taking ARE having a positive effect on recovery. More on this later on.
... and I ventured bravely onto the bathroom scales.
I am not sure which one was the most significant step in my desire to become a "proper runner" again. I think it was the scales.
92.1 kg is a pretty frightening number for someone aspiring to run significantly "sub 4" in a marathon just 18 weeks away. At my height, that gives me a bmi of just under 29 and it needs to be 25. I need to drop 11 kgs in weight, to reduce my chances of injury and improve my chances of meeting my time goals. The running will certainly take care of part of it, but I am going to have to make additional adjustments to my "lifestyle" aren't I?
I think I'll cut out five things and see where that leaves me in about 6 weeks time:
1. Alcohol and any other drink containing sugar (except sports drink on long runs)
2. Dairy products containing fat.
3. Savoury snacks, confectionary, chocolate, cakes and biscuits.
4. Bread or toast at breakfast.
5. Any bread except wholemeal.
My running seems to be going well at the moment but I am well aware that work committments are likely to be at their most disruptive for the next 12 weeks or so and I will need to be extremely disciplined to achieve my training goals. Unless I get injured I am confident that I can get in shape, but I felt like this in late 2004 before I suffered a serious ankle sprain on a run through the woods at twilight in a pair of totally unstable cross-country studs. Like many runners before me, my own stupidity may yet keep me off the start line! This is one of the reasons why I intend to set some "intermediate goals". The main one of these is to try to get as near as I can to 1:45 for the half marathon, hopefully in Nottingham on September 10th. That is 8 minute miling - a dream at the moment!
My goal is to aim for a marathon PB in Lausanne of 3:45. That is 8.35 miling. I think my cureent long runs are about a minute per mile slower than this so I am going to be trying to hurt myself for the next 18 weeks....
I looked hard at several training schedules for my marathon and most particularly at those well-proven ones from Hal Higdon, but my irregular, but at times all-consuming work schedule means that I do not have the luxury of regularity. Some weeks it will easy to run 5 or 6 times - others I will struggle to do 3 or 4. I have thus written a schedule that hinges around 3 key sessions per week.
1. A long run of at least 10 and building up to 22 miles. This will be at 15-30 secs per mile slower than my intended marathon pace, ie. around 9 minute miling.
2. A "strength" run of 5 to 9 miles, usually hill sessions; fartlek on grass or mile repetitions with efforts at faster than half marathon pace, ie. sub 8 minute miling .
3. A pace or tempo run of 5 to 10 miles at about 15 -30 secs slower than my intended half-marathon pace, ie. 8.15 to 8.40 miling.
The rest will just be "easy" running. Ha, ha, ha ha!
Monday, June 19, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Training Report 5
19 weeks to the Lausanne Marathon.
17 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)
13 weeks to the Robin Hood Nottingham Half Marathon.
8 weeks to the Regents Park Summer 10k.
Summer has arrived in the UK and so has the World Cup on our TV's. The sight of highly paid professional athletes wilting in the heat and struggling to hydrate is a graphic demonstration of what all we runners go through once the temperature rises. We each seem to have a tolerance level which we hope edges upwards as the summer progresses. For me it starts at about 20-22 celsius and I can eventually feel comfortable in the mid twenties. In Australia in February, I could eventually deal with 28-30 degrees. Higher I think is impossible. And for me personally there's no alternative but to defer or scale back on my running. Certainly I have to be happy at a slower pace.
This last week it has been in the mid twenties most of the time and having run 38 miles last week, Sunday to Saturday, this week I was happy with 29. Right now I'm contemplating my first run this week and it is about 28 degrees and humid - oh well. Five and a half miles mainly on grass beckons.
I've added another "target race" to the list and have persuaded Lisa, my 22 year old daughter, to run with me. Lisa has been running casually for a few months now, mainly around the roads near to her flat in West London in the evenings. I am pretty sure Lisa has the "runner mentality" - she did a great deal of long distance swimming training when she was in her early teens and interestingly she told me that she has the highest lung capacity amongst her peers. (She's a med student and they get to measure that sort of thing I guess.)
Anyway we have sent off the forms today for the Regents Park 10k race on August 5th, one of a series of saturday morning low key races there throughout the summer. The course will be familiar to me at least. I did a lot of running in the centre of London in training for my 1998 London Marathon and Regents Park provides you with a great deal of relatively flat traffic free paths to run on. There's also the possibility to run hill sessions across the street on Primrose Hill, something that serious club runners from inner London clubs used to do in groups quite frequently on weekday evenings. I once found myself on one of these sessions with a group including a couple of sub-4 milers, under the whip of a "proper" coach! I suffered as can be surmised - it was a long time ago.
I hope I can help Lisa around this one and I may just push out for the last mile, just to measure my strength. We'll see!
The longest run this last week was on the sunday. I took an isotonic drink with me as I ran a hilly 9 mile road circuit through some nearby villages and listened to a couple of podcasts on my mp3 player, both of which unfortunately annoyed me (maybe I was in the wrong mood). One was a "podsafe" music show which contained some pretty good music called Accident Hash, I'm sorry to say that C.C. Chapman's interjections annoyed the hell out of me. The other one was a runner podcast to which the same applied. Both have now received the "thumbs down" unsubscribe in itunes on my laptop. This never happens to me with Phedippidations and once again I have to thank Steve Runner for having the best "Goofy Little Podcast" I have yet found. No. 48 about "becoming a good animal" helped me through an extremely sweaty 40 minutes last thursday evening. Thanks, Steve, for finding such fascinating material and treating all your subjects and correspondents which such humility and respect. Keep up the GLP's!
I have found another good podcast which appears three times a week and although they rarely last longer than 20 minutes, 3 together can make "a run". It features a series of interviews with endurance athletes which wll take your mind away from your own struggle with your cardio-respiratory system, as you marvel at what can be achieved with true dedication. Just click on this link to Endurance Planet.
I think this is my last week of running before I go onto a proper 18 week schedule for my marathon. These five weeks of "preamble" have given me more opportunities than I thought I would get to run at weekends and I have also managed several runs of 10 miles or more, which put me ahead of where most schedules start. For this reason (and my inability to run when I work at weekends), I may have to adapt a schedule considerably. Some thought needed on this during the week - probably while watching evening world cup games.
17 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)
13 weeks to the Robin Hood Nottingham Half Marathon.
8 weeks to the Regents Park Summer 10k.
Summer has arrived in the UK and so has the World Cup on our TV's. The sight of highly paid professional athletes wilting in the heat and struggling to hydrate is a graphic demonstration of what all we runners go through once the temperature rises. We each seem to have a tolerance level which we hope edges upwards as the summer progresses. For me it starts at about 20-22 celsius and I can eventually feel comfortable in the mid twenties. In Australia in February, I could eventually deal with 28-30 degrees. Higher I think is impossible. And for me personally there's no alternative but to defer or scale back on my running. Certainly I have to be happy at a slower pace.
This last week it has been in the mid twenties most of the time and having run 38 miles last week, Sunday to Saturday, this week I was happy with 29. Right now I'm contemplating my first run this week and it is about 28 degrees and humid - oh well. Five and a half miles mainly on grass beckons.
I've added another "target race" to the list and have persuaded Lisa, my 22 year old daughter, to run with me. Lisa has been running casually for a few months now, mainly around the roads near to her flat in West London in the evenings. I am pretty sure Lisa has the "runner mentality" - she did a great deal of long distance swimming training when she was in her early teens and interestingly she told me that she has the highest lung capacity amongst her peers. (She's a med student and they get to measure that sort of thing I guess.)
Anyway we have sent off the forms today for the Regents Park 10k race on August 5th, one of a series of saturday morning low key races there throughout the summer. The course will be familiar to me at least. I did a lot of running in the centre of London in training for my 1998 London Marathon and Regents Park provides you with a great deal of relatively flat traffic free paths to run on. There's also the possibility to run hill sessions across the street on Primrose Hill, something that serious club runners from inner London clubs used to do in groups quite frequently on weekday evenings. I once found myself on one of these sessions with a group including a couple of sub-4 milers, under the whip of a "proper" coach! I suffered as can be surmised - it was a long time ago.
I hope I can help Lisa around this one and I may just push out for the last mile, just to measure my strength. We'll see!
The longest run this last week was on the sunday. I took an isotonic drink with me as I ran a hilly 9 mile road circuit through some nearby villages and listened to a couple of podcasts on my mp3 player, both of which unfortunately annoyed me (maybe I was in the wrong mood). One was a "podsafe" music show which contained some pretty good music called Accident Hash, I'm sorry to say that C.C. Chapman's interjections annoyed the hell out of me. The other one was a runner podcast to which the same applied. Both have now received the "thumbs down" unsubscribe in itunes on my laptop. This never happens to me with Phedippidations and once again I have to thank Steve Runner for having the best "Goofy Little Podcast" I have yet found. No. 48 about "becoming a good animal" helped me through an extremely sweaty 40 minutes last thursday evening. Thanks, Steve, for finding such fascinating material and treating all your subjects and correspondents which such humility and respect. Keep up the GLP's!
I have found another good podcast which appears three times a week and although they rarely last longer than 20 minutes, 3 together can make "a run". It features a series of interviews with endurance athletes which wll take your mind away from your own struggle with your cardio-respiratory system, as you marvel at what can be achieved with true dedication. Just click on this link to Endurance Planet.
I think this is my last week of running before I go onto a proper 18 week schedule for my marathon. These five weeks of "preamble" have given me more opportunities than I thought I would get to run at weekends and I have also managed several runs of 10 miles or more, which put me ahead of where most schedules start. For this reason (and my inability to run when I work at weekends), I may have to adapt a schedule considerably. Some thought needed on this during the week - probably while watching evening world cup games.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Training Report 4
21 weeks to the Lausanne Marathon.
29 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)
15 weeks to the Robin Hood Nottingham Half Marathon.
Well this was a pretty good "week" all in all. An easier work schedule decided by some pretty torrential rain meant that I could fit in a couple more runs. In seven days I managed an eight miler, a four miler, two sevens and yesterday an eleven miler - that's 37 miles! Far too much in a week on the state of my fitness, but until yesterday afternoon, I was really feeling no ill effects.
Right now I'm reaching for paper tissues every 30 seconds or so and have just succombed to some of those "night and day nurse pills". Yes - I know that a dramatic increase in mileage stuffs up the immune system and I got plenty of colds back in the eighties when I was a more "serious" runner. I have suddenly taken a much more active interest in the nutritional aspects of increased training loads and the other day re-discovered a weighty tome on my running bookshelf that I had purchased in a sports bookstore in Virginia in 1998. It is Dr Michael Colgan's book on Sports Nutrition. At the ripe old age of 50 and with several years of neglect to my running body, I thought I might need a bit of help this time around. In particular with the pounds beginning to slough off, I don't want to lose more muscle mass than I need to - so the Glucosamine Sulphate and Omega 3 Fish Oil for my joints have now been added to by a Chromium and l-Carnitine supplement and some Probiotic Multivits. Goodness knows I've never been a pill popper, but with the cold cures I've just counted 9 pills today before 2 in the afternoon! There remains considerable controversy about the value of these supplements and I have an open mind at the moment. We'll see how it goes for 6 weeks or so with this and I will try to increase the complex carbs in my diet, particularly fresh and raw fruits and vegetables. Wish me luck!
I think my comfortable training pace is now up to around 9 minute miling and although much of my running is based on guessed distances, I do run on a couple of measured courses around the village. My challenge is going to be to run long runs slower than marathon pace as I build mileage. I've glimpsed at the Hal Higdon programme I intend to start following in about 2-3 weeks tim and I see the long run each week follows the "hard" run - a cunning device to ensure lsd is just that on the long run. Long, Slow and Distant! I'll be shuffling around on dead legs I'm sure!
I can see I may have to invest in some form of exact measuring / pace indicator / hrm device before too long so I can track progress. The idea is forming in my head that I should really be aiming to better my marathon pb of 3:46 in Lausanne, even if I have to back off on the day based on conditions. In particular the altitude (about 350m) and the rolling hilly course may be something I will underestimate the effect of until the half way mark. Obviously running without injury and illness and dropping quite a lot of weight will be key to running this type of time, but my long runs are more promising at this stage than I had expected. Yesterday's 11 miler was admittedly on more or less totally flat terrain around Spalding in Lincolnshire, but it was cold and windy and I had few difficulties keeping up a good pace. The self-awareness of slipping "into the zone" after about 45 minutes was a nice sensation. No niggles, no soreness, no twinges - just the common cold flooding my system hours later!
I see the Steve Runner's podcast is on vitamins this week. No run today, but I think about an hour with the headphones in on friday afternoon would be good to clear this cold from my system, don't you?
29 weeks to the Phedippidations World Half Marathon Challenge (at Henley on Thames)
15 weeks to the Robin Hood Nottingham Half Marathon.
Well this was a pretty good "week" all in all. An easier work schedule decided by some pretty torrential rain meant that I could fit in a couple more runs. In seven days I managed an eight miler, a four miler, two sevens and yesterday an eleven miler - that's 37 miles! Far too much in a week on the state of my fitness, but until yesterday afternoon, I was really feeling no ill effects.
Right now I'm reaching for paper tissues every 30 seconds or so and have just succombed to some of those "night and day nurse pills". Yes - I know that a dramatic increase in mileage stuffs up the immune system and I got plenty of colds back in the eighties when I was a more "serious" runner. I have suddenly taken a much more active interest in the nutritional aspects of increased training loads and the other day re-discovered a weighty tome on my running bookshelf that I had purchased in a sports bookstore in Virginia in 1998. It is Dr Michael Colgan's book on Sports Nutrition. At the ripe old age of 50 and with several years of neglect to my running body, I thought I might need a bit of help this time around. In particular with the pounds beginning to slough off, I don't want to lose more muscle mass than I need to - so the Glucosamine Sulphate and Omega 3 Fish Oil for my joints have now been added to by a Chromium and l-Carnitine supplement and some Probiotic Multivits. Goodness knows I've never been a pill popper, but with the cold cures I've just counted 9 pills today before 2 in the afternoon! There remains considerable controversy about the value of these supplements and I have an open mind at the moment. We'll see how it goes for 6 weeks or so with this and I will try to increase the complex carbs in my diet, particularly fresh and raw fruits and vegetables. Wish me luck!
I think my comfortable training pace is now up to around 9 minute miling and although much of my running is based on guessed distances, I do run on a couple of measured courses around the village. My challenge is going to be to run long runs slower than marathon pace as I build mileage. I've glimpsed at the Hal Higdon programme I intend to start following in about 2-3 weeks tim and I see the long run each week follows the "hard" run - a cunning device to ensure lsd is just that on the long run. Long, Slow and Distant! I'll be shuffling around on dead legs I'm sure!
I can see I may have to invest in some form of exact measuring / pace indicator / hrm device before too long so I can track progress. The idea is forming in my head that I should really be aiming to better my marathon pb of 3:46 in Lausanne, even if I have to back off on the day based on conditions. In particular the altitude (about 350m) and the rolling hilly course may be something I will underestimate the effect of until the half way mark. Obviously running without injury and illness and dropping quite a lot of weight will be key to running this type of time, but my long runs are more promising at this stage than I had expected. Yesterday's 11 miler was admittedly on more or less totally flat terrain around Spalding in Lincolnshire, but it was cold and windy and I had few difficulties keeping up a good pace. The self-awareness of slipping "into the zone" after about 45 minutes was a nice sensation. No niggles, no soreness, no twinges - just the common cold flooding my system hours later!
I see the Steve Runner's podcast is on vitamins this week. No run today, but I think about an hour with the headphones in on friday afternoon would be good to clear this cold from my system, don't you?
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