After a month of recovery and a month of base training the party is over - back to marathon training!
This time I am doing P&D up to 70 miles a week schedule. I don't think the 55 miles a week schedule had enough 20+ miles long runs so hopefully this schedule will help me not to die on the last 6 miles.
Most fellow runners look at you with a mixture of awe and disbelief when you tell them you are running 70 miles a week. I guess most casual runners consider 30 miles a week to be a lot so I am interested to see what this schedule is going to do to me. There are a few runners in my club who train a lot less but are currently faster than me so it will be interesting to see if I go up the pecking order a bit by next April.
Two weeks into the schedule my legs are already feeling sluggish and I haven't done more that 55 miles a week yet! However I think fitting the runs into my lifestyle may be harder than completing the sessions. No slouching on the sofa watching Christmas movies for me!
I do sometimes wonder what sort of runner I would be if I had spent my teenage years running rather than playing computer games. Oh well, let's see what sort of an (almost) middle aged runner I can be on 70 miles a week!
Happy Christmas.
Sunday 22 December 2013
Friday 13 December 2013
Stockport 10
My races since the Chester Marathon in early October have all been poor to middling performance-wise so I had no idea how 7 minute/miling for 10 miles would feel going into the race.
I certainly could not complain about the weather - dry, about 7 degrees C and a light wind. Perfect for fast running really.
As a warm up I jogged the four miles to the race - a bit far by most standards for a warm up but as I didn't have the car there was little choice!
The race started with one and a half laps of the track at Woodbank Park and then does a loop around Offerton and Bredbury before finishing back on the track. Hills at halfway and near the end make things interesting!
I started off at a steady 7 min/mile pace which felt ridiculously easy! After the field settled down I slightly increased the pace and worked my way through the field.
During the big hill at halfway I increased the effort and overtook a whole bunch of people. Then I pretty much chilled out again, gradually overtaking people one by one until the famous New Zealand Rd hill at the 8.5 mile point. This hill isn't actually that fearsome (a gain of about 140 feet) but as it is near the end of the race and keeps going on for longer than you expect it does cause some suffering. However I had enough in my legs to increase the effort and burn some people off.
From the top of the hill it is just half a mile to the end so I kept the effort up and ended with a fun sprint finish over the last 100 metres.
I certainly could not complain about the weather - dry, about 7 degrees C and a light wind. Perfect for fast running really.
As a warm up I jogged the four miles to the race - a bit far by most standards for a warm up but as I didn't have the car there was little choice!
The race started with one and a half laps of the track at Woodbank Park and then does a loop around Offerton and Bredbury before finishing back on the track. Hills at halfway and near the end make things interesting!
I started off at a steady 7 min/mile pace which felt ridiculously easy! After the field settled down I slightly increased the pace and worked my way through the field.
During the big hill at halfway I increased the effort and overtook a whole bunch of people. Then I pretty much chilled out again, gradually overtaking people one by one until the famous New Zealand Rd hill at the 8.5 mile point. This hill isn't actually that fearsome (a gain of about 140 feet) but as it is near the end of the race and keeps going on for longer than you expect it does cause some suffering. However I had enough in my legs to increase the effort and burn some people off.
From the top of the hill it is just half a mile to the end so I kept the effort up and ended with a fun sprint finish over the last 100 metres.
I finished with a time of 68:13 and every mile was under 7 minutes.
This is exactly how I like to run races - start steady and then overtake for the whole race. While this approach may not get me the absolute best time possible it sure is a lot of fun!
It is fair to say I was pretty chuffed with this run. Finally I noticed some concrete benefit from the marathon training in the summer and it looks like my next half marathon should be under 90 minutes.
Now let's see what up to 70 miles a week marathon training for 18 weeks does to me!
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Base Training
It is not even Christmas yet and it is time to start thinking about training for spring marathons!
The London marathon is in the middle of April next year so if you do an 18 week plan for that training starts next week! Yikes.
In preparation for the P&D schedule I have been upping my mileage: over 40 miles two weeks ago and over 45 miles last week. Included in that was a tempo run and a 15 miler including hills so I should be able to cope with the first week of the schedule.
This Sunday is the Stockport 10 (miles.) There are two decent hills on the course: one at halfway and one towards the end so I am not confident of doing it in under 70 minutes but hopefully everything will come together on the day.
Tomorrow I am going to attempt 10 miles with 5 at 7 min/mile pace. If I can pull that off then I will feel confident about doing that pace for 10 miles in a race.
Now to try to get an early night for that 6 am run tomorrow!
The London marathon is in the middle of April next year so if you do an 18 week plan for that training starts next week! Yikes.
In preparation for the P&D schedule I have been upping my mileage: over 40 miles two weeks ago and over 45 miles last week. Included in that was a tempo run and a 15 miler including hills so I should be able to cope with the first week of the schedule.
This Sunday is the Stockport 10 (miles.) There are two decent hills on the course: one at halfway and one towards the end so I am not confident of doing it in under 70 minutes but hopefully everything will come together on the day.
Tomorrow I am going to attempt 10 miles with 5 at 7 min/mile pace. If I can pull that off then I will feel confident about doing that pace for 10 miles in a race.
Now to try to get an early night for that 6 am run tomorrow!
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