According to P&D (the writers of my training plan) long slow runs are supposed to be run about 15% slower than your planned marathon pace. So doing my 16 miler at the weekend only 5% slower than marathon pace, two weeks before the marathon might not have been the best idea. However when I started my run my legs wanted to run at 7:50 min/mile pace by default and I decided to keep that pace going for the whole run. I guess the tempo run the day before didn't tire me out enough!
Luckily I am only scheduled to do four runs this week so I have re-arranged the runs to get two rest days in a row and then I will be fine.
Last week's training:
Tue: 6 miles recovery
Wed: 8 miles with Bramhall Runners including 600m and 1000m intervals
Fri: 4 miles recovery with strides
Sat: 10 miles with 10K at tempo (6:50 min/mile)
Sun: 16 miles in 2:05
Tuesday 24 September 2013
Tuesday 17 September 2013
20 Miler Conquered
Last week was the final week of heavy training before the start of the 3 week taper. It culminated with a 20 mile slow run - the last really long run before the marathon.
The forecast was for a storm to blow in at about 8.30 am so I set off at 6 am to avoid most of it. As part of the run I was testing my nutrition strategy for the marathon so had 3 Lucozade gels and 3 bottles of Lucozade Sport Elite to work through!
Just before I started I took my first gel and drank some sports drink before setting off on a 5.5 mile loop, carrying the bottle. The aim was to finish the drink during the loop before arriving back home to pick up the next bottle.
This went perfectly. I finished the bottle just in time to put it in a bin, strip off a layer and arrive home to discard the layer and pick up the next bottle.
Now for an 11 mile loop where I was to work my way through the bottle and take 2 more gels. I took the next gel at about 11 miles and by the time I got to 15 miles I felt on top of the world! The gel had caffeine in it so that was probably responsible for my "high"!
At the end of the loop I took my last gel, picked up my last bottle and finished off with a 3.5 mile loop.
I am not sure if it was the nutrition or the training or both but this run was awesome. I completed it in 2:43, 6 minutes faster than my previous best at this distance. I felt pretty good at the end and could definitely have done another 6 miles. Chester here I come!
My other training:
Tue: 10 miles with 4 * 1200m intervals
Wed: 7 miles with the club including hills and 1 Km intervals
Fri: 11 miles slow
Sat: 4 miles slow
The forecast was for a storm to blow in at about 8.30 am so I set off at 6 am to avoid most of it. As part of the run I was testing my nutrition strategy for the marathon so had 3 Lucozade gels and 3 bottles of Lucozade Sport Elite to work through!
Just before I started I took my first gel and drank some sports drink before setting off on a 5.5 mile loop, carrying the bottle. The aim was to finish the drink during the loop before arriving back home to pick up the next bottle.
This went perfectly. I finished the bottle just in time to put it in a bin, strip off a layer and arrive home to discard the layer and pick up the next bottle.
Now for an 11 mile loop where I was to work my way through the bottle and take 2 more gels. I took the next gel at about 11 miles and by the time I got to 15 miles I felt on top of the world! The gel had caffeine in it so that was probably responsible for my "high"!
At the end of the loop I took my last gel, picked up my last bottle and finished off with a 3.5 mile loop.
I am not sure if it was the nutrition or the training or both but this run was awesome. I completed it in 2:43, 6 minutes faster than my previous best at this distance. I felt pretty good at the end and could definitely have done another 6 miles. Chester here I come!
My other training:
Tue: 10 miles with 4 * 1200m intervals
Wed: 7 miles with the club including hills and 1 Km intervals
Fri: 11 miles slow
Sat: 4 miles slow
Tuesday 10 September 2013
Foodbank 5.5K
A new event in Stockport is the Foodbank 5.5K - a summer trail race in aid of the Foodbank charity.
The race is quite unusual in that the entry fee is £5 and a food tin of some sort!
The race has been held three times over the summer and has been a great success, raising over £1500!
I rustled up the money and a tin of baked beans in order to see what I could do at last week's edition. As the race is quite low key I had high hopes of a top 10 finish.
The first 2K of the race are next to a stream in Bramhall Happy Valley. After the initial sprint I settled behind a young boy and an older runner from my club who I was hoping to beat. I then overtook these two runners and settled behind an older guy who pulled me along at about 6:30 min / mile pace. After 2K you leave the valley, go up a short steep hill and then turn back along a road for a couple of kilometres before running back down into the valley and back to the start/finish line. During this whole period I kept the same place in the race - I had enough energy to keep up with the runners in front of me but no more.
I was happy with my finish time of 22:20 but this was only good for 13th place out of about 120 runners. If I had done the same time in the previous edition of the race I would have got fourth!
All in all a fun race. Hopefully it will be repeated next summer.
Last week's training:
Tue: 8 miles with 5 x 600m
Wed: 11 miles slow
Thu: Foodbank race
Sat: 11 miles with 7 @ half marathon pace. (The schedule called for a race so this was instead of racing.)
Sun: 17 miles slow
One more week before the taper!
The race is quite unusual in that the entry fee is £5 and a food tin of some sort!
The race has been held three times over the summer and has been a great success, raising over £1500!
I rustled up the money and a tin of baked beans in order to see what I could do at last week's edition. As the race is quite low key I had high hopes of a top 10 finish.
The first 2K of the race are next to a stream in Bramhall Happy Valley. After the initial sprint I settled behind a young boy and an older runner from my club who I was hoping to beat. I then overtook these two runners and settled behind an older guy who pulled me along at about 6:30 min / mile pace. After 2K you leave the valley, go up a short steep hill and then turn back along a road for a couple of kilometres before running back down into the valley and back to the start/finish line. During this whole period I kept the same place in the race - I had enough energy to keep up with the runners in front of me but no more.
I was happy with my finish time of 22:20 but this was only good for 13th place out of about 120 runners. If I had done the same time in the previous edition of the race I would have got fourth!
All in all a fun race. Hopefully it will be repeated next summer.
Last week's training:
Tue: 8 miles with 5 x 600m
Wed: 11 miles slow
Thu: Foodbank race
Sat: 11 miles with 7 @ half marathon pace. (The schedule called for a race so this was instead of racing.)
Sun: 17 miles slow
One more week before the taper!
Tuesday 3 September 2013
14 Miles at Marathon Pace!
The Sunday after Woodbank parkrun I felt weary so I did the 17 mile long run on Bank Holiday Monday instead. This went well, being completed in 2 hrs 20 mins.
On Tuesday I did 5 x 1000m intervals. I did them all in just under 4 mins which is a bit quicker than my 5K pace.
Wednesday was some more speed work with the Bramhall Runners, Friday was 12 miles slow and Saturday was 5 miles recovery.
Then it was time for the dreaded... 18 miles with 14 at marathon pace. (Aagh!)
This is possibly the toughest workout in the entire training schedule based on how shattered you feel afterwards.
Once again I did most of the fast miles on a park loop so I could just concentrate on running without worrying about hills and traffic.
I started with 2 miles warm-up and then it was time to start running at 7.30 min/mile pace. The first 7 miles were fine and then the pace gradually started to feel harder and harder. I starting having to speed up on the last 100 metres of some miles in order to complete the lap in time.
For the last 3 fast miles I was practically sprinting the last 100m to get under 7:30 minutes! However I managed to do all 14 miles faster than 7.30 pace (most were at 7:25 pace.) I was pretty chuffed about this but then...
The 2 miles warm-down were awful with me trudging along at about 10 min/mile pace. After a tempo run I find my energy levels start to rise again after about one mile's warm-down. No such luck this time. My legs had had enough of running and weren't going to be told otherwise.
When I finally got home I spent a large part of the next 3 hours sitting on the sofa shivering with a blanket around me!
However I eventually started to feel hungry (a sign that the body is starting to function again) and after a lot of food and a sleep I was more or less OK the next day.
I am not sure what possesses me to put my body through such gruelling sessions but it seems to cope! And no more long marathon pace runs for me until the day itself!
On Tuesday I did 5 x 1000m intervals. I did them all in just under 4 mins which is a bit quicker than my 5K pace.
Wednesday was some more speed work with the Bramhall Runners, Friday was 12 miles slow and Saturday was 5 miles recovery.
Then it was time for the dreaded... 18 miles with 14 at marathon pace. (Aagh!)
This is possibly the toughest workout in the entire training schedule based on how shattered you feel afterwards.
Once again I did most of the fast miles on a park loop so I could just concentrate on running without worrying about hills and traffic.
I started with 2 miles warm-up and then it was time to start running at 7.30 min/mile pace. The first 7 miles were fine and then the pace gradually started to feel harder and harder. I starting having to speed up on the last 100 metres of some miles in order to complete the lap in time.
For the last 3 fast miles I was practically sprinting the last 100m to get under 7:30 minutes! However I managed to do all 14 miles faster than 7.30 pace (most were at 7:25 pace.) I was pretty chuffed about this but then...
The 2 miles warm-down were awful with me trudging along at about 10 min/mile pace. After a tempo run I find my energy levels start to rise again after about one mile's warm-down. No such luck this time. My legs had had enough of running and weren't going to be told otherwise.
When I finally got home I spent a large part of the next 3 hours sitting on the sofa shivering with a blanket around me!
However I eventually started to feel hungry (a sign that the body is starting to function again) and after a lot of food and a sleep I was more or less OK the next day.
I am not sure what possesses me to put my body through such gruelling sessions but it seems to cope! And no more long marathon pace runs for me until the day itself!
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