Tonight's hill session meant that I've hit the first milestone of 2011. I've run over 100 miles since the start of the month which is putting me right on target for my goal of 1200 total miles for the year. Here's hoping I can keep that up for 11 more months!
I was making some amendments to my training program for the Lochaber marathon today to take account of some nights out and our upcoming holiday to Disneyland Paris (3 weeks today in case you're wondering!) and I was somewhat surprised to find that it's only 10 weeks on Sunday until race day. That means it's only 7 weeks until I have to start my taper!
To be honest this took me back quite a bit. It seems to have sneaked up on me somewhat. I'm happy to report though that training has been going really well over the past 4 weeks and if I can just maintain that for the next 10 weeks the hopefully I can post a really impressive time for the marathon.
Wednesday 26 January 2011
Sunday 23 January 2011
Lochaber Marathon Week 3 Round-up
So the plan for this week was;
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 Hills
Thursday - 6
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 7
Sunday - 15
Total - 39 Miles
What I managed was;
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4.20
Wednesday - 6.10 (8 hill reps)
Thursday - 6 (4 x mile repeats on the treadmill)
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 15.21
Total - 37.51 Miles
I'm really happy with how this week has gone. The weather is slowly improving so I've gradually been doing more and more of my runs in the big bad outdoors! My gym membership also expired on Sunday so unless there is another major downfall of snow then all of my runs from here on in will be outside.
I have to say that when I first ran on a treadmill I hated it. Absolutely hated it. The problem was that it was just so boring. When I decided to join the gym due to the weather conditions I decided that I'd need to mix it up a bit to break down the boredom. When I first ran on the treadmill I just set it for a distance or time and just ran. Now I always do some sort of interval or hill session so the pace or incline is always changing. I have to admit that over the past month I've grown to enjoy the treadmill. The quality that you can get from it for sessions like the mile repeats I did this week is incredible. If you think you're getting tired then the fact that you need to stretch your arm out and press the (-) button to slow down often means that I didn't. If I was trying that session outside I would probably have just slowed down a bit.
I know I was a bit short on a couple of the runs this week but I'm still listening to my body and I don't want to increase too much from week to week for fear of picking up an injury.
It's actually quite difficult for me to pick out a highlight of the week for this weeks training. The hill repeats on Wednesday and the mile repeats on the treadmill on Thursday were pretty good, but the top session for this week had to be my long run today.
I had no idea how the run was going to be today as today's was outside. The past 3 weeks long runs have been on the treadmill where there is no weather, cars, inclines, declines etc. to disrupt your run. I decided to split the 15 miles into a 10 and a 5 mile route so that I could take on some water and a gel. I also wanted to do some sections at race pace so in the first 10 miles I wanted 6 miles at race pace and in the final 5 miles I wanted 3 of them at race pace. I didn't manage that exactly in terms of pace but it was probably not far of a race pace 'effort' for the 6 and the 3 miles.
Splits: 7:51 7:33 7:14 7:28 7:07 7:04 7:02 7:16 7:28 8:48 7:14 6:50 7:20 7:14 7:31 1:39
(I should probably mention just now that I'm not really sure what my 'race pace' is going to be. When I do race pace sections in my long runs I'm looking for somewhere around 7:10/mile. After my long run in week 8 which is my first 20 miler I'll try to nail down a pace more accurately)
Mile 4 was pretty uphill, mile 10 included the water/gel stop and mile 11 was actually a lot faster than I wanted it to be and mile 12 was much much faster than it should have been! It was quite interesting around mile 13/14. I really felt like I was struggling but I though back to the Marathon Talk podcast with Prof. Tim Noakes. He has some very interesting theories and basically says that if you have two marathoners in a sprint finish, then one of them will 'choose' to come second. Well when it was feeling tough today around 13 or 14 miles I decided that I was going 'choose' not to feel bad. And do you know what? It worked! So that's one of my marathon strategies sorted!
Sorry for rambling this week, but it's been a good one!
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 Hills
Thursday - 6
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 7
Sunday - 15
Total - 39 Miles
What I managed was;
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4.20
Wednesday - 6.10 (8 hill reps)
Thursday - 6 (4 x mile repeats on the treadmill)
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 15.21
Total - 37.51 Miles
I'm really happy with how this week has gone. The weather is slowly improving so I've gradually been doing more and more of my runs in the big bad outdoors! My gym membership also expired on Sunday so unless there is another major downfall of snow then all of my runs from here on in will be outside.
I have to say that when I first ran on a treadmill I hated it. Absolutely hated it. The problem was that it was just so boring. When I decided to join the gym due to the weather conditions I decided that I'd need to mix it up a bit to break down the boredom. When I first ran on the treadmill I just set it for a distance or time and just ran. Now I always do some sort of interval or hill session so the pace or incline is always changing. I have to admit that over the past month I've grown to enjoy the treadmill. The quality that you can get from it for sessions like the mile repeats I did this week is incredible. If you think you're getting tired then the fact that you need to stretch your arm out and press the (-) button to slow down often means that I didn't. If I was trying that session outside I would probably have just slowed down a bit.
I know I was a bit short on a couple of the runs this week but I'm still listening to my body and I don't want to increase too much from week to week for fear of picking up an injury.
It's actually quite difficult for me to pick out a highlight of the week for this weeks training. The hill repeats on Wednesday and the mile repeats on the treadmill on Thursday were pretty good, but the top session for this week had to be my long run today.
I had no idea how the run was going to be today as today's was outside. The past 3 weeks long runs have been on the treadmill where there is no weather, cars, inclines, declines etc. to disrupt your run. I decided to split the 15 miles into a 10 and a 5 mile route so that I could take on some water and a gel. I also wanted to do some sections at race pace so in the first 10 miles I wanted 6 miles at race pace and in the final 5 miles I wanted 3 of them at race pace. I didn't manage that exactly in terms of pace but it was probably not far of a race pace 'effort' for the 6 and the 3 miles.
Splits: 7:51 7:33 7:14 7:28 7:07 7:04 7:02 7:16 7:28 8:48 7:14 6:50 7:20 7:14 7:31 1:39
(I should probably mention just now that I'm not really sure what my 'race pace' is going to be. When I do race pace sections in my long runs I'm looking for somewhere around 7:10/mile. After my long run in week 8 which is my first 20 miler I'll try to nail down a pace more accurately)
Mile 4 was pretty uphill, mile 10 included the water/gel stop and mile 11 was actually a lot faster than I wanted it to be and mile 12 was much much faster than it should have been! It was quite interesting around mile 13/14. I really felt like I was struggling but I though back to the Marathon Talk podcast with Prof. Tim Noakes. He has some very interesting theories and basically says that if you have two marathoners in a sprint finish, then one of them will 'choose' to come second. Well when it was feeling tough today around 13 or 14 miles I decided that I was going 'choose' not to feel bad. And do you know what? It worked! So that's one of my marathon strategies sorted!
Sorry for rambling this week, but it's been a good one!
Sunday 16 January 2011
Week 2 Round Up
The plan for this week looked like this:
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 (hills session)
Thursday - 6
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 13
This is what I actually did;
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 5 ( treadmill hilly)
Wednesday - 7 (treadmill interval session)
Thursday - 3.88
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 4.67
Sunday - 13 (treadmill, inc 2x4 miles @ 7:04 mins/mile)
I didn't quite manage to hit the mileage for every run but for the first time in what seems like forever, I've managed to run 5 times in one week. I think a couple of smart decisions I made to cut the runs on Thursday and Saturday short have helped with this. Although training has been going ok over the past 3 or 4 weeks, this is the first time I've run over 30 miles in one week for a long time so I didn't want to push it too much. I was actually feeling pretty tired before I ran on Thursday and decided then that I was going to cut the run short. I think it's really important to listen to your body and if you feel like you need extra rest or need to cut a session short then you shouldn't be afraid to do that.
Highlights of the week were the treadmill interval session on Wednesday and the treadmill long run on Sunday. I really quite enjoyed these runs in a strange sort of way and I'm beginning to worry that I'm growing to love the treadmill too much! Will I be able to run my 15 mile run next Sunday outside???
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 (hills session)
Thursday - 6
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 13
This is what I actually did;
Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 5 ( treadmill hilly)
Wednesday - 7 (treadmill interval session)
Thursday - 3.88
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 4.67
Sunday - 13 (treadmill, inc 2x4 miles @ 7:04 mins/mile)
I didn't quite manage to hit the mileage for every run but for the first time in what seems like forever, I've managed to run 5 times in one week. I think a couple of smart decisions I made to cut the runs on Thursday and Saturday short have helped with this. Although training has been going ok over the past 3 or 4 weeks, this is the first time I've run over 30 miles in one week for a long time so I didn't want to push it too much. I was actually feeling pretty tired before I ran on Thursday and decided then that I was going to cut the run short. I think it's really important to listen to your body and if you feel like you need extra rest or need to cut a session short then you shouldn't be afraid to do that.
Highlights of the week were the treadmill interval session on Wednesday and the treadmill long run on Sunday. I really quite enjoyed these runs in a strange sort of way and I'm beginning to worry that I'm growing to love the treadmill too much! Will I be able to run my 15 mile run next Sunday outside???
Thursday 13 January 2011
Delayed Blog
I've been trying to make this post all week but have been having difficulty copying and pasting my training program from Google docs to here (if anyone can help with that it would be much appreciated) I was planning on posting a copy of my training program and comparing it to what I had actually managed.I've finally given up on that idea and will just tell you now what I had planned and how I got on against that plan.
Plan
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 (hills)
Thursday - 6
Friday - rest
Saturday - 5
Sunday - 11
Actual
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4
Plan
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 7 (hills)
Thursday - 6
Friday - rest
Saturday - 5
Sunday - 11
Actual
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - no running but 9.32 miles on the exercise bike
Thursday - 5.55
Friday - rest
Saturday - 0
Sunday - 11
Up until just now when I've been looking at these figures I was quite disappointed with last week's performance. I only ran on 3 days instead of 5 and instead of running 33 miles I only managed 20.5. However I did cycle 9.3 miles and I couldn't run on Saturday due to Helen's dad being taken into hospital. (he's ok now!) So all in all in wasn't that bad a week.
One of my aims for 2011 was to blog a bit more and one way I intend to do that is by doing a weekly round up of my training. For this week and for coming weeks I am going to try to get a round up done for Sunday evenings, so stay tuned!
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