15th-21st October 2012

so its now the second week post Chester marathon an it looks like things are dare i say it, improving. Not completely over the marathon though because a cold seems to of cropped up just to chuck an extra little spanner in the works. as a result of this i decided to take this week pretty lightly on the mileage front. MONDAY i decided to have a rest day today to try an shake the cold off ready for track tomorrow. sometimes the best training can be no training i think. if i`m under the waether i tend to let a days training slide. although i was dying to get out there so it really took all the self discipline in me to rest. TUESDAY Today i was down at the track for the first time since 2 weeks before the marathon so this was a massive shock to the system. was glad to of got through this session without giving up. last week i was all sore or D.O.M.S'ed (Delayed onset muscle soreness) as us runners like to call it. Sounds technical that way doesn't it, anyway my point is i was all "oh i'll not be able to train for ages" but in reality once i had lost the soreness i was able to do some good sessions. Todays session: 12x400m in 1:15(5min/mile pace) with 1:15 walking recoveries. we also did about 2miles easy before and after the session as well (warm up/Cool down) it was hard but a good quality session so myself an training partner were both happy with this session. Tuesday club run time of day-6pm running distance-9.52miles running time-----1:19:03 average pace-----8:18mm ave heart rate---143bpm on this run i tend not to go for specific paces because its really not practical because it depends who turns up really and i prefer it more for the social side anyway. WEDNESDAY time of day-5pm running distance-6.02miles - out an back running time-----51:20 average pace-----8:32mm ave heart rate---140bpm. this was really just a steady out and back recovery run today. still enjoyed though. seems weird to not be doing big miles at the moment aswell. i`m not used to stopping so soon into a run. THURSDAY time of day-10am running distance-9.53miles running time-----1:24:24 average pace-----8:51mm ave heart rate---139bpm today i was doing a proper HADD style run. i went out along the cycle path and turned round at the 40min mark. on the way back i had to slow the pace a fair bit to keep heart rate down below 140bpm (70% of max) but i`m hoping with each passing week this cardiac drift is minimised as earobic conditioning improves. Thursday Club Track Session this was my first club track session for several weeks so after the initial shock of tuesdays session this one felt alot better to be honest as the legs were more in the swing now. really enjoyed this session aswell. 2mile warm up 5x800metres in 2:37(5:14mile pace) 2.5mile warm down. legs felt great so enjoyed this session. FRIDAY Today the cold was making itself known so i passed on the morning run an saved myself because i knew the evening run with Ste an Mark was going to be a tough day at the office. i hadn`t done anyhills at all since before the marathon so when we started this run i thought it was okay for the first couple of miles because we were generally taking it steady on the flat, yep that was hortlived though because after about 3miles we hit a long hill which was NOT fun. mental note: practice hills more. thank god for that i thought when i got to the top. felt like me legs were gunna explode. time of day-4pm running distance-10.42miles running time-----1:22:20 average pace-----7:54mm ave heart rate---151bpm SATURDAY i just felt shattered so i was busy doing nothing all day today. cold wasn't helped by yesterday in all honesty. didn't want to sacrifice Border League race tomorrow either so just rested up. SUNDAY so today was the border League an i felt good, this could only mean one thing. i just had to go for a PB. no other way. we might have got there a bit on the early side though because we ended up going for a coffee at 9.30am in caernarfon. turned out peter had brought cookies to. so after half a cookie an a coffee we eventualy headed back to the car got in to running mode an headed off down the short way to the race start. the weather really picked up for the race aswell which was nice. starting the race as usual there was a fast pace so i had to let em go again an hope to hang to a maybe the top 10 which was going well untill about the first k. thats when my race started because i just got the stitch of me life. it just got worse an worse till about 3k so then i eased back an Ste caught me at 5k so i then ran with him for the rest of the race thinking if i can pull him along at 6min mile pace he may be close to a pb. i couldn't help looking at me watch though every time we passed a km marker because that stitch was unrelenting (bloody Cookie- Lesson learned there) the downhills seemed to compound it too. i was so relieved to get to that finish line in 37:18 though because that stich was just unreal. people seemed to expect me to be dissapointed with my run but i was actually made up really because i learned that if i really want to i can actually keep going when me heads telling, no DEMANDING me to stop. so it was actually a great run for the mental toughness i'd say.

basically i'm happy that i didn't just give up when it got hard. then i would of been annoyed with meself. so a good day really. week summary total mileage--67.55miles total run time-9:12:25 average pace---8:11 ave heart rate-143BPM overall an enjoyable week i'd say :-)

Flintshire 10k.

after what some would call a disater at the chester marathon i decided that the day after i would stop dwelling on it with me little tantrum an GET OVER IT. There will be other marathons but in the meantime i want to recover from this one an then take a fresh outlook on the way i train an race. kinda like a fresh start. so i first wanted to have a good run as soon as i could somewhere at any distance, dont particularly care where, but since it was the Flintshire 10k the sunday after Chester i decided to enter on the day. this was my chance to really GET OVER IT. Saturday 13th today i did a 5k in gwersyllt wrexham in Alyn waters park because i wanted to know what kind of state me legs were in before the sunday race. so at the start i went off at a comfy pace arond 7:45-8:00 to get going. legs felt really good though so i very soon increased the pace to go through the first mile in 7:29. legs felt okay up to now so i kept the pace the same to go through the second mile in 7:31 (getting nicely warmed up by now). naturally though this was arace and i was getting itchy feet, glanced at the watch, oh look at that 2.5miles, if i go now, an really shift i could be at the finish in 3mins. Bang. instinctively i just went, FLAT OUT. the garmin reckons this mile was done in 6:29 apparently 2.75-3.00mile took 75secs BINGO this was the confidence i needed for my effort at Flintshire. i finnished the 5k nice an comfy in 22:30. JOB DONE. SUNDAY 14th so today it was the Flintshire 10k. an i felt strong, well....in my head anyway. so race head went on. by the time i got there i was well psyched up. i hurried to race entry, was last person to enter the race before entries closed. pheeew. got changed got warmed up got on start line this was it, the weather was perfect for it to. 3.....watch started, check 2.....number on right, check. bit late though anyway if it wasn`t. 1.....feet behind the line GO....an were off jesus how fast are they starting on the oother side of the road. i had hoped to beat some of them qiuck lads really. off the deeside ac lads went though anyway. i didn`t worry though because i thought some were bound to slow once we got to the hill starting at the mile marker. quick count an i was in 10th, happy days. half a mile in some guy tried to pass me. Not happening sunshine. i aint givin up that easy, although neither was i-pod man just a few metres ahead running with the deeside lads. Low an behold they pretty much all cracked on the start of the hill one by one. so at 1mile (5:35) i now had a person to constantly work towards. first up, i pod man, now i`m 9th next, two young deeside lads, good now i`m 7th. at the top of the hill round a bend i noticed a fairly decent gap to the next man. a hard chase through 2miles (6.07) and i was on the on the shoulder of 6th an 5th naturally i carried on the effort. coming toward the end of the third mile i did start to slightly panick thinkin "oh god i`ve gone to hard" then 3miles came (5:26). i was hurting now alot. i knew as i went passed the crowds at the halfway stage that this was now a hang on for ride job. so onwards i went through 4mile (5:53) i was motivated now by just the sight of one runner ahead although by the time i got near i had caught sight of the 5th an 4th man so no rest yet. another hard effort yet again an by 5miles(6:05) i was in 4th. this was getting better position wise with every mile. however i was hurting now, not just midly, EVERYTHING. legs sore an lungs burning. i happened to see the 3rd man but the idea of making this any more painfull was to much. so i carried on as best i could through that never ending sixth mile (5:36) to see the finish, oh thank god for that. over the line in 35:25. so much burning in me legs. that was a true 100% effort there. so i was well happy with that. motivation to train again. CHECK. JOB DONE. 2nd senior male. happy days.

CHESTER-DNF

where to start on this one, well you could say it started off the minute i crossed the finish line at the Manchester Marathon which in itself was laughable (if any one wants that story feel free to leave a comment). anyway to get to the point i wanted to get my first SUB-3 so eager as ever i proudly stuck my entry in for chester many months in advance. so after the brief hiccup of a shortlived niggle/injury in June i got back into training seriously in July and it was all in, 100% effort with 100mile weeks an more. i did enjoy the training because of how well it went. for this marathon i decided to have a shorter taper so rather than 3 weeks it was to be 2 weeks. my body just seems to shut down with 3 weeks you see so i had to keep moving to a bit later this time so as not to get lethargic. Unfortunately it didn`t really go to plan though at all. i did my last quality session 14 days before Chester, in the form of a easy 2.5mile warm up then a half marathon distance effort with my marathon training partner then a 2.5m cool down, that was okay on the sunday, but things just went down hill after that. i felt really unusually tired on the monday(rested up) thinking i`ll run tomorrow, nope tuesday i felt rubbish (head aches an loss of appetite) then wednesday tonsillitis started and that basically was it till 3 days before the Marathon. so with 3 days to go i started to be able to eat again but it was to late. 10 days pre marathon i was 11st 4lbs and 3 days before the marathon i was 10st 10lbs so i was just cramming calories (carbs and protien) in to try to regain strenth an i thought with less than 24hours to go that i was good to go. with 24 hours to go i was back up to 11st so i thought great, things might work out after all. so i managed to get a solid 10hours deep sleep the night before...... MARATHON DAY So finally the day had arrived, it might as well of been D DAY the way i had banged on about it to the unfortunate souls that are my family. only runners choose to get up at 5:30am for breakfast then going back to bed for a sleep setting a second alarm so that we can make a fine art of of not sleeping in. I seemed to get it just perfect actually, getting up at 0715HRS packing the basics in a small backpack then setting of at 8:00am with me dad on the short drive to Chester getting parked up at 8:30am (perfection) just enough to go to the loo get into our running stuff then jog very easy to the start. so 8:58am i duck the barrier to get in my pen at the start (sub 3) 9:00 town crier gives a bit of a speech. 09:04 WERE OFF you could feel the tension in the atmosphere. thousands of runners all as fit as and prepared as they could hope to be given all there various circumstances, and here they are stampeding down the turf at the racecourse. it was exciting to be running through those first few minutes enjoying the crowds cheers and company of other runners. however after the first 5 mins the novelty does wear off and it really settles down now to relax and ease into the run ready to be hit with the reality of what i was attempting to do hear. the first mile seemed to pass in seconds, i just cant believe that first 7:01min/mile went in what seemed like a matter of seconds. at this stage it felt like i`d just been sat in armchair it was that easy. then on through the main street in the city centre with some good cheers from the crowds up to the 2nd mile in 6:51, it was slightly downhill though for most of this mile after a short climb at the start of the 2nd mile. then before we new it we were at 3rdmile (6.53mm)marker. it seemed to get serious now because we were all headed out of the city so from here on in were only going to get pockets of support in each of the villages but that was okay because there were plenty of them. 10k came round bang on schedule in 42:42 so 3hours was what i was headed for. just after the 10k point the runners around me slowed up slightly as i looked at me watch at about 8mile it said ave pace 6:54 so at 9mile i started to just pace myself up to one runner at a time, and this worked nicely because it reduced my average pace about a second every other mile so i went through halfway in 1:29:40 and by 17 mile the average pace had gone down to 6:49 which was nice because i wanted to have about half a minute leeway because there were a few undulations in this course which could derail a sub 3 attempt. i was feeling tiredness creeping into the legs now but kept pushing, at 18mile the legs began feeling sore although it was just 8miles left, i could do that surely, its only about an hour. unfortunately i was wrong i couldn`t do it because at 19miles in 2hrs 4mins 57secs i started to feel light headed, so at 19.5 miles or thereabouts (bang on for sub3 hours aswell) i started walking or swaying down the road as the guy marshalling told me so i began to worry at this point how i was going to make it to finish. then i just stopped at the road side because me brother just happened to be at 20m and he asked me if i was okay but i couldn`t think staright to answer so he just sort of helped me to the floor so i could come round. and that was it MARATHON OVER. gutting to be honest at the time because i was all in, nothing more to give. lesson learned do not start a marathon if unwell in the weeks leading up to a marathon or if not 100%. in future i will just save it for another day i think. very valuable experience though. thanks for reading.

The first mile

Wow, after 10 days off running, I have managed to run a mile. Its not much but its a start. By god it felt good to get out again to simply stick one foot in front of the other even though it was only a mile. After being in bed for a week with a near death experience they call tonsillitis, okay maybe not near death but it was tonsillitis and it did stop me in my tracks as my mum would say. During this time I did do alot, no a heck of a lot off reading and one thing I spent several days and nights reading about was a style of training called "Hadd Base training" and I decided to give it a go because a fair few people said its a good source of motivation when you see yourself steadily getting better all the time. So today I decided to start as I mean to go on as they say and so as a modest start I did the following run:
Distance:    1mile
Total Time: 8:43
Ave HR:129
Max HR: 142
Beats/mile: 1142
Hopefully over the next few months I'll be able to lower that pace for the same heart rate (effort level) therefore becoming more efficient and better at racing. Please feel free to comment below on this, post, blog or anything you think may be of interest, thanks for reading by the way.

Gotta love a rest

well hear goes then. this is the diary of a lazy runner, rather fitting today as i am doing literally nothing, zilch, nadda, bugger all. i dont normally do nothing but today is that day when you wake up at 10am and apparently never even heard your alarm go off. and after all those weeks of high mileage a day off should be deserved shouldn't it. So its plenty of this today. Ready for a hard session tomorow. Not bad eh.