26 October 2013 - Turning the dial to 18

This was supposed to be my first eighteen miler of the winter season, though by no means the last. I was up in Cambridge and due to timings ended up running Saturday morning. As such I'd only had 36 hours rest since Thursday's six miles, and due to the travelling hadn't eaten a full dinner the Friday evening.

Despite this I had a couple of gels and two litres of water on my back and so I entered full of optimism, planning to head out to Milton along the river for nine miles and then back along the same way. As per usual I went off far too hard, only about 7:45 but too much for a run that long. This wasn't the machoism of the previous weekend, I just couldn't keep myself under control despite feeling fairly laboured throughout.

Eventually I settled somewhat, and went on my merry way, heart rate at 180ish. I passed over a nice bridge somewhere near milton, exposing me to the wind that was already starting to build in advance of the storm to come a couple of days later.

At 7 and a half miles I turned back home, still trying to get the pace and heart rate down. I took my second gel at 11 miles, though managed to spill most of it down myself, badly enough washing my hands in cam water seemed a good idea. As I got closer to home I started to struggle, especially when the head wind hit, but seeing crews I knew on the river helped to pick me up and propel me back to the boat house.

Unfortunately when I got there I had only run 14 and a half miles but felt like I should be stopping. I motivated myself to head back up the river a bit, but with no clear idea where I wanted to head I lost a lot of motivation, and essentially ground to a halt at 16 miles.

Overall I wasn't too disappointed. Though this run wasn't as long as planned this was still my longest week for a while with a total of 28 miles. The pace and heart rate both need some work, but I'm getting there and it didn't leave me too broken the rest of the weekend. I need to make sure I eat well the evening before runs in future though to fuel the engine better.

Time: 2 hours 17 minutes
Distance: 16.08 miles
Pace: 08:33 min/mile
Heart rate: 177 bpm

6 October 2013 - Looped run in Cambridge

There was two aims for this run, the first was to build distance in preparation for the 20 mile trail race next weekend. The other aim was to get in some hill work. Unfortunately there only is one hill in Cambridge, and so I planned to do a four mile loop four times, ending each one at the top of Castle Hill. I'd tried to work out a loop on Google maps in advance, but it hadn't come together so I figured I'd just work it out on the ground.

I started off heading down Victoria road and then onto the roundabout by the Grafton centre. By this stage I realised I'd left the Camelbak in the house while trying to get out quickly. This meant I was without water or gels, not great when doing a 16-miler. From here I took a tiny detour down the wrong road before heading onto King street, and then down to the big crossroads.

Turning right here took me along to fen road, and from here round by Robinson to the bottom of Castle Hill. This was the focus of each lap, and the main reason I wasn't doing an out and back like usual. It was a bit of an anti-climax and didn't really challenge but it was the best option I had so I continued the planned loops. This first loop ended up being just under five miles, completed in 39 minutes 37 seconds. I had been aiming for 8 minute miles, and at the time thought I was a bit ahead so was happy enough.

I set off on the second loop still fairly comfortable, with it still being fairly cool. With a couple of adjustments the loop was cut down to 4.1 miles, by heading straight down the back of Kings rather than up to Grange road. Once again Castle Hill had pretty much no effect, and I was still at around target pace.

It was late in the third mile that things started to get unpleasant. The sun had now fully risen and the exposed parts of the run were heating up. This was particularly bad down by 'Spoons, where it mingled nicely with Saturday night's stale alcohol and vomit. I was starting to feel the lack of fluids, and my calf's were starting to tighten down the back from keeping on my toes.

I needed to focus on staying well onto my forefeet, as recently I've been settling back on my heels too much, which makes the inside of my calf hurt. 'Stand tall' was the mental call that seemed to work, and is one I'm going to keep using going forwards. When I didn't the ache from my left leg acted as a back up reminder.

By the time I started the fourth loop it was really getting hot, and I just wanted to finish. I started to push a bit more through the second half of this section, and headed straight up King's parade. This cut the loop down to 3.4 miles, as well as being the only loop where Castle Hill felt hard. This wasn't in the quads as planned but the lungs, probably as I was travelling uphill at 07:10 min/mile pace.

I felt off the rest of the day particularly on the drive back to Sussex, not just because of the lack of drink during the run, but also the lack of proper recovery, taking too long to take on proper fluids or food afterwards and not taking good quality food when I did so. Definitely not an experience I want to repeat and a mistake I won't make again for a while.

Distance: 16.49 miles
Time: 2 hours 11 minutes
Pace: 07:56 min/mile
Heart Rate: 169 bpm
Map: Here

Running for 2 hours (almost)

Hi all,

I know this update is 3 days late but as I only did the actual run yesterday I couldn't really update sooner. This probably isn't going to be an uncommon occurrence but I'll try to stick to the plan as best I can.

Anyway, today was the first time that I've run for over an hour and a half, the plan was just to start a one hour timer and then see how far I got, then turn round and come back. The idea is that as well as helping to improve my endurance it will also force me to pace runs. In the end I turned around 3 minutes early and got back 6 minutes early, so I'm pretty pleased with that. In addition the whole run felt very sustainable, so hopefully if I'd tried to maintain the pace it would have been possible for a little while at least.

Having just mapped it, it's actually only 13 miles, which explains why it felt so sustainable. Obviously I need to be able to cover that sort of distance in about an hour and a 40 minutes by the time it comes to doing the actual marathon. Map here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/39396704/

Next run will most likely be in Cornwall, probably on Monday.

Keep donating,
Nick

2nd Run: The Re-Run

Run: 2 times round the Coton loop, 1:10.

Hi all,

As planned I went for my second run yesterday. In order to get some sort of comparison I did the same route as before but managed to finish 4 minutes quicker, despite stopping for a minute to try and tell some tourists where the Embassy School is (I still have no idea), so clearly not all my excuses were just being wingey. As this is currently my standard run in Cambridge it's probably worth going into a little more detail on the route.

From 6 Adams you go up the cycle path towards the vet school, over the bridge and almost to coton. You then turn left across the park and follow the path round to the second overpass. From here cross two fields and then turn left when you reach the main road. The fields are possibly the hardest part, in summer you're directly exposed to the sun for it's entirety. In winter it's worse as the ground turns in to solid clumps that stick to your feet and add extra weight. The first time I did this run, with a couple of other rowers, we had to stop for five minutes when we reached the road to remove the clods of dirt. Following the road will bring you back into Cambridge and then to where you started. Overall this is about 5 miles.

---------

Okay, so I've just checked my old mapmyrun routes and it's actually only 4.3 miles. Which is a little annoying as it means I'm further off the pace than I thought. However as someone pointed out to me this week that a marathon is 26 miles not the 36 I thought before (Thank you Simon) I'm probably still up overall. Map available here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/13246448

The most important thing that I learnt from today was that if you keep going eventually things get easier. As I turned onto Grange road for the first time today I got a pain that seemed to be too high up to be a stitch but too low to be cardiac. Point is it hurt and I had a choice: keep going or stop, that simple. Obviously I went with the former or I wouldn't have a time, though there were steps when I started to slow to walking pace. The main method of motivation at this stage was telling myself that it would fade in another few paces or at the next big landmark. It actually disappeared when I passed the turning for the vet school, but that's not really the point. 

The point is that it did stop, and I managed to complete a run that I probably wouldn't have done this time last year. I don't know if what I felt was the infamous 'wall' runner's talk about, or just the effect of too many cookies that afternoon (probably the latter). What I do know is that is that it's possible to endure much more than you think, and that knowledge can be used to push yourself further.

On a related note I'm considering adding a list of body parts that tried to kill me during each run. This already seems to be a theme of this blog, but we'll see if it becomes necessary in a few more posts time.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was hills. Although Cambridge is notoriously flat this particular route uses two overpasses, which involve going up and then coming down again (obviously). On the other hand Brighton is incredibly hilly, though I don't know if it affects the marathon route. As a bit of a geek (alright a lot of a geek) I was wondering if any experienced runners could tell me how best to deal with changes in elevation. This probably won't make any real difference whatsoever, except to make me feel better, but I figured I might as well ask.

The plan for next time is to do a slower, but longer, run on Monday morning. I'm currently thinking I'll set a 45 minute timer and then head out towards Baitsbite lock. When the timer expires I'll turn round and come back. Will try to let you know how it went later tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to donate to the NSPCC,

Nick

First Run

So this morning I went for the first run in preparation for the marathon. To sum it up in two words: not great. After about two miles my calves started to hurt, at 8 or 9 my shoulders, back and core were all competing to see which could be worse. There are all kinds of excuses I could give: hadn't eaten, bumps last week and the blazing sunshine top among them. The main point though is that I need to do a lot of training to get to where I want to be.

At the moment the goal is to beat Alex Massey, a friend in the year above who ran the Paris marathon this year, in 3:42. Based on this morning I'm not quite there yet, taking 1.14 to cover about 10 miles. Plan is not to run again until Saturday and instead recover, may balls on Wednesday and Thursday may also play a part.

Nick