2013: A truly great year in Running

******caution, long post alert perhaps make a cup of tea first******

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for some time now.  A review of my 2013 and the goals I set for the year.  Its 5:27 am, and although I had planned to go for a run this morning, I hadn’t planned on being up quite so early.  I’ll need to wait at least an hour for some light, so am getting on with writing this instead.

January

Inspired by the winners of the Asics 26.2 competition, and one in particular, @mia79gbr, I properly set a goal that had been in the back of my mind for some time, which was to qualify for the Boston Marathon and I started this blog.  2012 had not been a good year running wise for me, and my times were a long way off what is needed to predict a 3:35 marathon.  At the start of the year, my pbs were: (5k: 24:01, 10k: 52:50, Half: 1:59:03, Marathon: 4:33:57) and most of these were set in 2011 or 2010, so I was even further away from the apparent goal.  The times I need to get to are in this post: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/past-races-and-what-ive-learned.html

February

Last winter was a long cold winter with snow on the ground a lot.  Marathon training last winter was certainly character building, and I’m sure had I not had this goal to focus on, I wouldn’t have gone out to run so much.  What I remember now is that I was still rehabilitating an injury I had sustained in 2012, which was a torn calf muscle.  One of my first long runs shows the struggles I faced with my ankle seizing up after the run from compensatory muscle use: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/my-bodys-trying-to-tell-me-something.html

March

This month saw my first races of the year, and a check on whether the new training regime was working.  http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/colchester-half-marathon-new-pb-and.html - Colchester Half marathon saw me a 3 minute pb, and a nasty blister.  What I can tell the difference from that race and now is how much better I recover after a hard effort.  I could barely walk after this one and certainly couldn’t jog, and had to be driven home, despite the finish only 1.5 miles from home.  I also did my first cross country race.  Typically cross country races are around 3-5 miles... this one was 15, and is generally known as one of the toughest cross country races there are, so while despondant about my position on the day, I probably should be proud that I managed to make the cut off and wasn’t the last runner: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/orion-15.html

April

Parkrun and a trip to France.  Many of my new found friends on the runner’s world forums had their target marathons in April – Paris, London and The Great Welsh.  They all did incredibly well with both @Malcbarbour and @mia79gbr achieving huge pbs.  Their success served to inspire me and I did my final 20 mile training run on the same day as the London  and Great Welsh marathons, but I was in the foothills of the Pyrenees staying with family, who lovingly planned a running route for me with some incredible views, and even joined me in the latter stages as a support crew: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/faux-training-camp.html  April was also the month we started parkrun in Colchester.  Something I’m very proud of and another source of friendships.

May

This was the month of my marathon, the Halstead and Essex marathon.  Some lessons learnt and a 15 minute pb.  It was nice to do a marathon that was local and not in the big city, and I certainly think the focus on local racing this year has helped with my achieving my goals: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/halstead-and-essex-marathon.html

June

I’d done road running, I’d done a tough cross country, so of course the next challenge was a bit of fell running... well true fell runners wouldn’t call this a fell race I’m sure, but to a humble essex girl, running up and down Latrigg fell in Keswick was pretty tough.  http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/karrimor-great-trail-challenge-22km.html But it did give me a chance to visit the Lake District, which is my favourite spot on the planet!

July

In July I achieved 2 new 5k pbs on consecutive weekends at parkrun, and a 10k pb, but what stands out for me is meeting all those folk from the Runner’s World forums who had become great friends:  @mia79gbr, @malcbarbour, @Tiggeradcock and @clivekelty amongst others.  We met at TR24, an even in which I ran in near tropical sunshine, a thunderstorm and a boggy mess all in the space of 24 hours.  We’re signed up to do it again in 2014, and I truly hope it becomes a permanent feature of my race calendar as a chance to meet up with these fine people each and every year: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/tr24-great-weekend-with-amazing-people.html

August

In August, I did a 100 mile bikeride, which although a nice enough event, the training for it and the faff of doing the race made me pretty sure I’ll be best sticking to running (although I still can’t quiet that voice in my head suggesting I do an ironman).  I had a less regimented approach to run training, focussing on sessions specific to the 10k, and I did a few double workout days as well.  However, I think the runs along the Essex Way in the humid heat of this summer are what define my August.  Its an 82 mile route from Epping to Harwich, and I have run on just over half of it.

http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/an-accidental-20-mile-run-kissing-gates.html

September

As I had to cancel my October marathon for family commitments, @mia79gbr took my place, September was my final month of road races.  The local race calendar turns to cross country after the autumn marathon season, and I turn to having a bit of a rest and some base building.    I did Bacchus Half this September and It really was a treat.  That and meeting Colin Jackson at the Ipswich half http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/ipswich-half-marathon.html

October

This is the month I felt the lack of autumn marathon the most as my friends did their own.  @mia79gbr in Bournemouth, and @malcbarbour and @tinyrunner85 amongst others in York.  So of course I went on a marathon entering spree, and received one of those congratulations magazines:

http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/marathon-withdrawal-madness.html

November

Whilst losing my running mojo a bit in November, what with the lack of daylight and stresses of the year, I did actually complete some pretty tough workouts in my long buildup to the Manchester marathon.  I’m quite proud of this one in which I did 2 mile repeats: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/quite-possibly-hardest-workout-i-ever.html

December

Well, its the end of the year and despite December being such a busy month what with Christmas, I have actually achieved my highest mileage month to date.  Garmin connect has me on 108 miles for December, and I’m currently sitting around waiting for daylight to take that upto 118, and putting me bang on 1000 miles for 2013 J At parkrun, I have met a group of runners called the Commando Runners, which is much more my type of running club, and pretty much involves lots of banter on facebook alongside runchat, which is great.  I look forward to connecting with them more in 2014.

And,  I’m giving back.  I’m a mentor for one of the Runner’s World forum threads for a lady hoping to achieve a sub 4:30 London marathon.

2013 has been a great year for my running achievements, as measured by my new pbs: (5k: 22:33, 10k: 48:05, Half: 1:50:20, Marathon: 4:18:42) but the best outcome has been the new friends I’ve made.  You know who you are and I love you!  Here’s to 2014 and beyond being even better than 2013.

Happy New Year

x

Everyone is stupid once in a while

So, I like to think of myself as fairly sensible when it comes to training.  Always erring on the side of caution if I fear illness or injury.  But, this cough that came in a few days when I'm so close to my 1000 miles in 2013 goal is just plain inconvenient.  Plus, surely my flu vaccination would see it off before it interfered with my training.

On the day I started to feel a bit sick, I decided that an easy 3 miles wouldn't hurt.  And they didn't I did them and all was fine.  The next day, I went to the gym and did a couple of miles on the treadmill before  resistance training - this illness wasn't going to take hold!  The next day I felt like staying in bed all day, and pretty much did that, although with a blanket in front of the tv.  I missed choir practise for the concert the next day in hope that it would save my voice, but I felt pretty bad on Saturday too, and singing in the concert meant a very very sore throat.  On Sunday, I'd had enough.  any hint of fever had gone, so I got on my trainers and went for a run, an easy 6 miles.  I told myself that the fact I had to stop every 1.5 miles to walk to catch my breath wasn't a problem, and it was just because  it had been so long (2 days) since I last run!  I got through the 6 miles, in reasonable time, then got home and shut down for a bit... due to not feeling well I hadn't eaten all that much in the last few days, so cue a bout of RUNger.

Now, a sensible person would have written off the 8 mile run for maybe an easy 3 or 4, to give myself some extra time to recover.  But I really wanted to fit this session in called the magic mile.  It's from Jeff Galloway's book Boston Marathon: How to Qualify! , and involves running a mile as fast as you can after a warm up.  This should serve to predict the best marathon pace you can hope for.  I had a quick re-read of the instructions before I set off and noted the part where he says the magic mile should not be run with an injury, well it didn't say not to run it if you have had a cough for days and have asthma... I set off on my merry way.. The plan was a 2 mile warm up, do the magic mile, then make up the other 5 miles.  I should have modified this plan when I had to stop to walk through the warm up.  But then I often need to modify pace during the warm up as my body gets used to running instead of sitting around.  I did a large part of this warm up walking, stopping to do dynamic stretches from time to time (didn't want to risk injury after all).

Since I'm aiming for an 8:30 marathon pace, my magic mile pace should be around 6:32.  I set off as fast as I could, just going for it and not looking at the garmin.  by the time I was really tired, I looked down... I'd only done 0.22 of the mile and I was going at 6:48 pace... That was a bit demoralising.  I dug deep and told myself my body was just getting used to the faster pace, and would adjust soon.  I pushed harder, and the next time I looked at the watch I was at 6:38 and then 6:32 pace, but I was utterly exhausted. and could barely breath.  My lungs were BURNING!!!  AT 0.6 of a mile I stopped the garmin, and stopped running.  There was no way I was in shape to finish of the 8 miles, and I certainly should not have done this session.  Afterall, its a session to test where you are, not speedwork.  There is not really a relevant training benefit from running 1 mile at a fast pace.

I really should have known better.

So, that was me being stupid.  I completed a 4.38 mile run, and now I'm looking forward to repeating the session successfully when I don't still have a cold!!!

Christmas Gift for me

Yesterday I gave you some book related stocking fillers for your runner friends, all low cost, so that you had enough money left to get something for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
This:

Garmin Forerunner 620 GPS Running Watch with Colour Touchscreen Display - White/Orange

Can't wait until Christmas day ;-)
xx

Christmas Gifts for the Runner in your life

Hello people!

I'm getting rather excited about my first proper session with the Colchester Harriers tonight.  Even more excited than I get about Christmas!  But for those of you who read this blog, and don't know what to get your running friend for Christmas, I've put some hints and tips below.  As a note, I already own all of these, which is why I'm happy to recommend them, so they are not a Santa's list for me!

Running with the Kenyans  This tracks Guardian Journalist Adharanand Finn on his anthropological journey in Kenya.  A place where the top runners are as revered as football players here in the UK.  Its a great read, and if I learnt anything from it, it was the importance of recovering thoroughly from your runs.


Born to Run  Another classic and study of a tribe in Mexico who are amazing ultra runners.  This book made me want to run barefoot, and run ultras!  I tried the barefoot thing with some minimalist shoes and had a whole host of lower leg problems, but that's another story.  This is a great read, and I'm sure it will get some of you trying more scenic runs to try and capture the beauty of the outside world!


Advanced Marathoning This is a must for anyone going for the marathon!  I didn't read it until I was training for my third marathon, but it has the best scientific description of all the energy systems you are trying to train with each type of training session.  It also has some handy strength training and core training exercises that you can easily do at home with a swiss ball and a pair of dumbells.  I use this one Reebok Gym Ball .


Marathon by Hal Higdon.  This book is full of training plans from the complete beginner to the advanced marathoner.  I personally follow these plans, as the relatively low mid-week mileage suits me.  I am following Intermediate II this time, in preparation for Manchester Marathon.  I followed Intermediate I for Halstead in May this year and got a 15 minute pb, but more importantly, felt physically much better and stronger during the race.

I will post some more about other gadgetry in the next few days, but for some stocking fillers, you can't go wrong with these books!

Happy Christmas

Colchester Harriers here I come

Well I've had a lovely Few days of reeping the benefits of being a runner. I now have 73 miles to go of my 1000 mile challenge.

Those that follow me on Facebook and Twitter will know that I was First Lady in Colchester castle Parkrun on Saturday.  This was quite surprising.  I hadn't decided to race it until about 20 minutes before.  I had 5 miles at marathon pace in my plan and i figured I would be able to do that from home, incorporating the Parkrun as part of it.  For those overseas who don't know, parkrun is a free timed 5km run every Saturday morning in your local park.  I'm very involved in the Colchester Castle one, as one of the run directors there, however, I haven't run it as many times as I would like to, as I've had so much going on this year.  There are events in Australia, South Africa and Norway amongst others.  It really is a fantastic opportunity for all types of runners.  Usually many of the Colcheter Harriers run the parkrun, and so my best finish position has been about 7th lady.  I've noticed when volunteering that not so many of them have been around, so that I might be able to sneak in a top 3 finish.  

So, on Saturday morning, when I got out to run, I was just jogging a warm up before I would ramp up to 8:30 pace, but I saw a woman up ahead running dressed in bright pink and guessed she was going to Parkrun also.  She stopped to stretch and I caught up to her and we decided to run together.  We had a chat, running in at a very easy pace, so of course I was going to race the Parkrun now.  Smaller numbers for Colchester this week, and again I made the mistake of staring a bit too far back in the field which meant I was slowed down at the start.  I was running at what I thought was controlled pace, but I was actually at a 7min mile and feeling very strong.  If I kept this pace up, I was on track for a really big 5k pb, which given no speedwork since the summer was probably unlikely, however, a pb on the Colchester course should be within my reach.  The previous time was 23:08, so I wanted under 23.

As I went out along the river stretch, the pace began to settle around 7:06- there was no need to push it here as I didn't want to blow up on the hill.  My strategy was to keep it steady on the flat, but overtake both on the up and downhills.  I had my eyes on John, our event director, most of the way around.  He's usually about a minute faster than me, so I didn't want to go past him too quickly, but I passed him on the second long down hill and he gave me an encouraging "Well done Angela".  I could see a girl up ahead, but I didn't want to pass her too soon, as I didn't want a tiring fight on the hill.  I quite enjoyed the last uphill on this day as I had paced the course well, and I managed to overtake her, but I had that fear that she'd fight on the uphill and tire me out.  I overtook a couple of guys too.  I really struggle at the top of this hill the second time around as with half a mile to go, it's where I want to wind up the pace, but the effort of the uphill always means I'm a bit stifled for getting extra speed at this point. However, I seemed to recover it better than I usually do, and managed a really strong sprint (for me) finish.  That chap behind me has kicked me on the finish before, so really happy to stay ahead this time:

I thank the excellent race conditions and the extra resistance work I've been doing lately :). 22:41, a pb for the Colchester course by 27 seconds.

After the run, the lady I overtook congratulated me, and encouraged me to come along and train with the Colchester harriers.

On Sunday, I helped out at the Santa run in The park.  Very festive, but very cold standing around outside waiting for everyone to finish.  As such, I couldn't face staying outside any longer to do my run.  I did it on Monday instead.

10 miles LSR- this was to be uneventful as I took my usual route on the Wivenhoe trail.  I couldn't mange to keep the pace as slow as I was supposed to.  Since I'm going for an 8:30 marathon pace, I really should be doing my long runs at 10-10:30mm, or even slower, but my legs wanted to run at 9:30 today.  Maybe because I was listening to music?  I only saw 1 other runner going in the other direction, and he was flying!  Once I was sure he wouldn't see me, I stopped to walk for a bit as I was experiencing stomach cramps.  But shortly after he caught up to me!  He must have turned around!!  We had some run chat.. Turned out he was a sub 3 marathoner and that he used to run with the Harriers... Encouraged me to join and said based on my running he reckons my GFA goal in Manchester should be achievable.., but what is it with these Harriers?? Are they sending stalkers out to find me now ;). Haha.  The mile or so I ran with that chap was sub 9mm I did manage to keep the conversation going, but this is certainly faster than I would usually run on a LSR.  

I do believe the universe is trying to tell me something, so I'm going to go along to their training session tomorrow evening and give it a go!  Wish me luck! :-D

92 miles to go

Those of you who know me well, will know I firmly believe in the power of writing things down.  In fact it was when I was living in Australia a few years ago and working for a company called APS growth that I wrote on my professional profile that I wanted to run a marathon by the time I turned 25.  I was 23 at the time and had no idea about all these local races, so essentially I was betting the farm on getting a place in London or New York, but hang on, I lived in Australia!  Well I wrote it down, and what happened? I ended up moving back to England.  I ran my first sub 2 hour half marathon but failed to get a ballot place for the London marathon... By this time i was 24, and with a July birthday, I didn't have much time...  I gave up on the goal and entered Berlin in the autumn.  At that time, you could just pay for a race entry.  About 3 days later, the charity who I had done a lot of running for in the past contacted me to say that for the first time they had 10 golden bond places, and would I like one?  With that, I completed my first marathon at the age of 24, 3 months before my 25th birthday.

This year, I wrote down I would run 1000 miles.  With 25 days of the year left, I have 92 miles left to run to reach that goal, and within that timeframe, I don't think I'm going to exceed it by much.  In fact, because I wrote down 'I will run 1000 miles' rather than 'I will run over 1000 miles', I think the chances of it going beyond that are slim, so:

Write down your dreams and goals, but be careful how you write them :)

Another dally on the Essex Way: energy gels? Or mulled wine?

On Sunday, the lovely @mia79gbr drove all the way to Essex to join me on a 17 mile run on the Essex Way.

I promised her 17 miles of running, mulled wine, pubs, and navigation.  I delivered on 2 of those promises.

She promised good chat, entertaining mishaps and expert lighting with her head torch!  She delivered on 2 of these too.  You'll have to read to the end to find out what.

We started at around 3pm... Yes, we are fast approaching the shortest day of the year.  And even though Sarah is speedy, she couldn't get me running at 17 miles an hour, so, we needed head torches.  They're at the ready- hers is much bigger than mine.  I have head torch envy!

Those of you who know @mia79gbr will know she has the trademark on luminous pink running kit, but not this time!!! Mwah hahahaha!  I posed like a gameshow host in front of the sign marking the start of our run, and instructed @mia79gbr of the way marks we were looking out for.  The poppies marking out the Essex way.

We got on with our running, and the light was fast leaving us.  Within half a mile I already took a wrong turn, but we found the path again easily enough.  We continued along the path and were noticing lots of twigs and branches underfoot that were down from storm St Jude a few weeks ago.  Then we came across this tree.  A chilling reminder of quite how strong those winds were

We we're happily chatting away and as usual when I'm running in the countryside, my head was rolling around like one of those nodding dogs.  I looked behind me, and caught a glimpse of this beautiful sunset.  iPhone photos don't do it justice, but I think this was the best image I got

For the next couple of hours as darkness continued to descend, we kept on talking about how long the sunset was taking, not realising that the red glow we could see in the distance was probably light pollution form Colchester, rather than the sun setting!

In the darkness, some of the ploughed fields were particularly tough to run, I was negotiating a tricky section, when I heard this whooshing sound.  It seems we had disturbed a flock of birds... @mia79gbr was nattering about what kind of birds they were whilst I was recovering from my mini heart attack.  I knew exactly what would help, and I'm pretty sure the vineyard was not very far away.  Dedham vale vineyard: http://www.dedhamvalevineyard.com was having a mulled wine day.  It would be rude not to stop really, wouldn't it?  David and I had been there on Saturday and we regularly buy wine from there. The Bacchus and Rose are particularly good.  Sarah and I stopped for a mulled wine each and we had a good chat about various running events with the owners.  Who did recognise me as that crazy girl who sometimes runs thru their vineyard :)

Here's a giraffe

 It was properly pitch black when we left the vinyard, and I realised at this point we didn't have enough miles left to make 17 miles, in addition the navigation from this point on was less familiar to me.  There were a few sections when we had to run through the woods.  Now I think about it, I can't believe how crazy we were, 2 girls of small size running about in woods.  As runners, our spaghetti arms wouldn't help defend us, but hopefully the head torches made us intimidating!

More darkness, and I was starting to fantasise about the pub dinner waiting for us.  This part of the run went passed some lovely churches.  Unfortunately you couldn't picture them very well in the dark, but we did see the cat guarding the church :)

Only about a mile and a half to go from here, and we were mostly on road, I stopped reading the route instructions so thoroughly and took a wrong turn.  So, we ended up in Sufolk! Plus, no so much short changing on miles.  By the time we got to our finishing point, my garmin read 14.78 miles.  Wasn't a good idea to stop now, was it!  We proceeded to run around the war memorial a few times, and then back the way we came.  David thinks we're both crazy.  I think he's right.

It was so great to have such an adventure of a night time run with a great friend :). So often on my jaunts on the Essex way, I'm on my lonesome.  It was great to be able to share the experience with Sarah, and can't wait to join her running some of the Thames Path in the new year :)

Sorry I've been neglecting the blog....

I apologise to regular readers for my lack of posts recently.  As I mentioned before quite a lot is changing at the moment, so before I post anymore about my running, I'll tell you about that.

For most of this year, I have been part time gaining qualifications in nutrition and fitness with the aim of becoming a personal trainer with specialisms in pre- and post-natal exercise and nutrition.  Yesterday I passed my pre and post-natal nutrition qualification with 100%. In addition, I already have the qualifications for nutrition for weight management and for sports and exercise, and have decided to start my own business now.

It's called Angela Isherwood Healthy Living.   I will be running weight management classes in Colchester and surrounding areas, and linking up with a local gym to start a beginners running club.  We will also be hosting a 'Preparing for your Spring Marathon' seminar on the 4th of January.  I can also offer 1:1 consultation on nutrition for weight management or endurance sports, in Colchester and in London.

This is all very exciting for me, and I'm sure you will support me in this.  I have a business twitter account which is @AngelaHealth and you can find and like me on Facebook.

This blog will remain my general experiences of having fun whilst I'm out running, or any other crazy sporting challenges I take on, as I get closer to my goal of a Boston qualifier.

Of course I will be starting a blog in connection with my business as well, and when that and the website is up, I'll tell you all about it.

Wish me luck!

Angela x

Quite possibly the hardest workout I've ever done

Ok, so the title is overstating it, it wasn't that bad, but it was a toughie.  First, apologies, I've been neglecting the blog lately, a lot is going on in life and I will divulge more at a later date, but for now, I'll update on my running.

Last week was a relatively low mileage week, then this week ramped up again.  I did 29 total, and have been adding in more and more resistance work, which is paying dividends in my running and my body shape :)

Tuesday was my 30 min easy run- I didn't bother with the cadence drills this time, mainly because it was so cold I didn't want the walking breaks between them.  Then when I got home I did resistance work that encorporated the strength programme in P&D as well as kettlebels.  I think I overdid it a bit on the kettlebels as my hamstrings were still sore on Thursday.  Suffice to say I didn't run on Wednesday.  Thursday, it was very cold again, so I retreated to the gym for a 50 minute hill session on the treadmill followed again by resistance work.  This was awesome, I had #willpower, will I am's album blasting in my ears, and was really pumped after.

Friday, I did the session I should have done on Wednesday, which was 60 minutes with 3 miles at marathon pace.  I felt really strong during the marathon pace section.  Really glad that I'm already encorporating race pace into longer runs.

Saturday, I had my gym instructor assessment and I passed with distinction for the preparation and merit for the practical :)

Today I did another workout form Jeff Galloway's book, which involved 2 mile repeats.  Galloway had a very complicated explanation of how he wants you to do this, but I simplified it to 2 miles at 8:10 pace , followed by 7 minutes rest.  The programme sets 2 or 3 repeats at this stage,  but feeling overconfident from passing my exams, I decided I would go for 5 repeats.  This would get me closer to the high mileage I was aiming for this week.

Reps were as follows:

Rep 1: 8:04 avg pace

Rep 2: 8:05 avg pace

Rep 3: 8:08 avg pace

Rep 4: 8:15 avg pace- this one felt like the first mile was all uphill and my leg muscles started to tighten considerably during this rep- ie fatigue.  I knew it wouldn't be sensible to push it any more, as I didn't want to get an injury, just for the sake of another rep.  My body was teaching me that lesson about not building up too quickly

Rep 5 ended up a jog walk at 10:15.  Still, I did 8 miles at faster than marathon pace, when all my training lately has been marathon pace or slower.  12.92 miles in 2:11:28, not bad given the 7 minute walking breaks!

Trumpeting elephants?

So, elephants are my favourite animal.  I even have a. Cuddly elephant with a lavender pillow belly that I can warm up to keep me warm in winter, so when I was planning my route for today's 15 mile run, and I read the route instructions about it passing close enough to Colchester zoo that you could hear elephants trumpeting, I was sold.

First I had to get to the starting point of the route though.  The route is here: http://www.essexwalks.com/walks/layerdelahaye.html#page=page-1

I figured it was about 3.5 -4miles from home giving me a perfect 14 -15 mile run.  When I got to Gosbecks road and saw this sign,

I assumed the starting point car park would be really obvious and on Gosbecks road.  I got my map out to try to figure it out an just couldn't see a car park, nor could I see it on my iPhone maps.  After much looking and trying to figure this out, a man came out of his house on the other side of the road and asked if he could help!  How kind!  I showed him the map, and he pointed me back to the main road.  I was only about 500m short of the car park.  He said that it was a lovely route especially this time of year with the autumn leaves.

I'd never been here before, but for a brief history lesson, Colchester is Britain's oldest recorded town and was a key settlement for the Romans.  As such there are many roman ruins in the town, and Gosbecks is an archeological site where a rather impressive fort, and amphitheatre were excavated.

I started on the run and took some pics.  Loving the crisp and brightness of the day:

In the next picture you can make out the tops of the buildings of Colchester Zoo.  I didn't hear the animals on my way out, but on the way back I certainly heard some exotic sounding birds:

I put the camera away and got on with following the route.  I passed a couple walking, sensibly in wellies and they told me it was really sloppy where I was about to go.  Having just passed through a muddy patch I thought it must be the same and nothing I couldn't deal with.  I was wrong though, this was the kind of mud that let's you sink in further than ankle deep and then tried to steal your shoes:

Had quite a few muddy patches to go though, and the route instructions were clear.  I gave in to the fact that those purple trainers I've had my eye on will now need to be bougt for my spring marathons and these relegated to just my winter training shoes.  I've probably already done 100 miles in them, and I tend to need to replace them at 300 miles anyway, so not too fussed.  At least they started off grey, so once cleaned, the brown they will become won't be too noticeable.

The route instructions were so good, they even described a path to the ruined st Mary's church, which is on private land, but obviously quite interesting.

From the Essex walks website: "The church itself is of Norman origins, with much of the north wall built during the 14th century. The upper part of the tower is Tudor. The church fell into disuse in 1598, and by 1768 was a ruin."

The next part of the run went to the Roman river and though the Roman River nature reserve.  Here I did indeed see some nature, I thought I glimpsed a weasel, then several pheasants, a heron, and of course a squirrel.  Nowhere near as tame as the ones in castle park though.

On the next part of the run, I got a bit lost.  I think the trees down from last weeks storm meant that obvious paths weren't so obvious, but I found my way back to the route, and ran past the pub they recommend as a refreshment stop:

Back through the reserve and back to Gosbecks park.  The sites of the amphitheatre and fort are marked out in the grass and there are signs up too:

Back to the car park and along the roads home.

This was a lovely run!  The parts in the woods and nature reserve were really muddy and so I had to walk quite a lot of it.  I managed to complete the 15 miles in 3 hours, taking on water and 2 SiS Go gels, one of which with caffeine.

29 miles run this week- it feels like I'm in marathon training :)

Becoming a fair weather runner

Lately, I’ve not been myself.  The stresses of life are getting a bit too much for me at the moment and the usual relief I get from running isn’t there as for some reason, I’ve recently become a fair weather runner.  After a fairly sleepless night, when the alarm went off this morning at 6am for a run, I turned it off and rolled over.

I’ve been thinking about this all day.  My goal of 1000 miles in 2013 is important as it means I can say yes to doing what I love, running, and say no to all those other things you feel you have to do out of obligation but have no interest in so doing.  So why the bail?  209 miles left to go and I want to make it a really tough challenge?

Who knows?  I have been getting gym envy recently.  I gave up my gym membership a year ago to help toward wedding saving.  When I spent the weekend in that lovely health club, it made me think about how I would like to be in that environment again, with the option to go for a swim, sauna or steam room for some relaxation.  What I really like about the gym is the ‘health club’ facilities, which is why I liked ROKO so much.  Unfortunately, the current nature of my working life means I only want to join a gym that has one near work and one near my home, which gives me a choice of LA Fitness or Fitness First.  How I would love to have a Virgin Active near my home.  I used to be a member of one a long time ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed the club- attending almost every day.

I’m curious about some of the classes.  I previously had thought they were for people who didn’t have any particular goals other than staying fit and healthy, and that they couldn’t be beneficial to my running programme, however, some extra muscular strength and endurance is surely only going to be beneficial for running a marathon.  Mo Farah’s recent string of success he attributes to being much stronger, so I’m going to try out Bodypump and see if it suits me.

Do I become one of those runners though?  I know that so much of what I get from running is about being outside in nature.  The sunrises, sunsets, rainbows, squirrels, changing leaves, rivers, other runners enjoying the country side.  Can I get the same from running on the spot on a machine that despite making it easier by having a moving belt beneath your feet actually feels much much harder because you don’t have the air rushing by you to cool you down??  I’m starting to think that the incentive of a swim/sauna/steam room after a run on the treadmill might be a much nicer experience than my mid-week runs in London after work have been.  Will the treadmill provide as many benefits in terms of fitness gains as the outdoors would though?

I need to change my training schedule

I'm already finding the transition back to GMT quite tough.  Last year, I perfected my training schedule so that it was very difficult to 'cry off' running because I didn't feel like it, whilst still being able to have a life.
It looks roughly like this:
Monday: X train and strength
Tuesday: Easy RR in the morning
Wednesday: Longer run or speedwork in London after work
Thursday: Easy RR in the evening after taking the train home
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Race pace
Sunday: Long Slow Run

I think it worked as I started the schedule at the start of December, well into the transition.  My rationale for scheduling it this was was that if I was going to miss a run, it was likely to be an easy run on a Thursday night.  At the moment, my Thursday runs are starting to get quite long at 55 minutes.

Right now, I'm contemplating the 55min run that's on my schedule for this evening, thinking it isn't going to happen.  Still at work, looking at the tall buildings of the city against a pitch black sky, that will only get darker (is that possible) by the time I'm home in about 2 hours.
At the moment, I don't have planned running on Saturdays, though I was planning on fitting in a parkrun when I can.  Perhaps I should accept that Thursday night runs aren't going to happen for a while, and jig my schedule around.

Or perhaps I should just get over it and get out there and run?

An update on week 4, and the plan for week 5

I didn't get 100% on week 4, but I was pretty close.

The long run on Thursday was perfect.  I set out in the morning in leggings, a t shirt and sunglasses and did the same route I had done at the weekend, so I only did 12 rather than 13 miles.  This time I consciously kept it slow and steady until halfway.  At halfway I sat on the same bench I had lamented on on Sunday. Well it wasn't the same bench, the same bench was covered in dew, so I sat on the one opposite it that was undercover, and I took an SiS Go energy gel.  I didn't hang around too long before I got going again, just long enough to take the gel and put the wrapper in the bin.  Then I started on my merry way back.  I had got to 6 miles in just over an hour, so hopefully should be able to get back in the same time.  By mile 8, I was really running well- when I looked down at my garmin I was doing 9min mile, so I decided to push it to marathon pace to see how I coped with it within a long run.  Although this route is flat, it is on a trail most of the way, so although I hit the pace, I wonder whether I would have found it easier on road.  When I did a 2 mile marathon pace section the day before it did sit faster than I needed it to be, although not by a lot.

I'd put the long run on Thursday as I had a gym instructor course over the weekend.  Based in a gym but with no time to work out due to the long train journey was a bit off! But in learning all the equipment I suppose I did do a fair few weights over the few days.  I could certainly feel it in my arms and shoulders by the Sunday.  On Sunday I drove, which gave me a little more flexibility on when I could leave.  We finished the course a bit early on the Sunday, so I did a treadmill run and some weights.  Only did 30 minutes but that incorporated some 1 minute hill reps.  So a shorter run than was on the plan, but better than nothing.

Week 5 looks to be a step back week- only 18 miles scheduled:

Monday: strength- I practiced some of my dumbbell exercises

Tuesday: 30 min run CD - easy run cadence drills at 44. 46 and 42 (strange the last one was less, maybe my leg turnover deuces as a I get tired)

Wednesday: 40 mins- some at pace.

Thursday: 50 mins Acg and hills

Friday: rest

Saturday: stretch and core - might do a Parkrun too

Sunday: 6 miles with 5 hills.

I'm writing this on the train into work and have just realised that although I've packed my kit, I forgot my garmin, which makes doing pace work pretty hard.  So I'll either do the 50 min run in London tonight, or come home to do the pace work at home- only problem being it's quite hard to run at pace in the dark, even with a head torch!

Week 4 of marathon training

Thankfully, I have this week off work.  I thought this would mean lots of extra training sessions, a few doubles etc.  the truth is, after my abysmal long run at the weekend, I'm trying to take it as easy as I can, and will only do what's on the plan.  I've jiggled the plan around a bit, as I have other commitments all day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so the adjusted plan looks like this:

Tuesday: 30 mins with Cd. (I also did a core circuit in the evening)

Wednesday: 40 min Acg with pace

Thursday: 13 mile LSR

Friday: rest

Saturday or Sunday: 55 min, Acg 

Given the run malfunction at the weekend, and my intention to do a long run tomorrow, I'm going to do a carbo load today, and hope that will see me through the run, which I will carry a couple of gels on just in case.

As I was conscious of the build up for the marathon, and my laissez fare approach to training over the summer. I've been putting goals into garmin connect.  You can see a week of illness really hundred my progress:

For marathon training, these are all relatively low mileage weeks, so they shouldn't be showing less than 100%.  I'm not going to beat myself up just yet, but when I'm on the 18 week to go plan, I expect a lot more yellow bars.  (The bottom half of this picture shows the last few weeks of my build up for Halstead Marathon).  Many people do multiple 50+ miles training weeks for the marathon, and it looks like I didn't even get 40+ in my last campaign.  I will be doing at least 1 more 20 miler this time, so I think it might be good to set some other goals in the plan/build up, so I don't get bored just slogging out the miles. Perhaps a 50 mile training week.

Anyway, yesterday, I did the 30 minute run with cadence drills.  I still felt a bit slow compared with how I've been running recently,but trying not to dwell on that.  For the cadence drills the first one was 44, then I hit 46, 47, 46, 45- an unintentional pyramid.  I didn't stop to walk between each one like the guide says, though I did walk between 1 or 2 of them.  They also varied between flat, uphill and downhill.  In fact the highest cadence was set on the uphill.  This is good as it shows I was shortening my stride running uphill, which is what you're supposed to do :)

Week 3 - the wall already?

I managed a couple of runs mid week.  30 mins easy on Tuesday with Cadence drills: 3.16 miles average 9:30 pace, then I did 45 mins on Wednesday in London with 2 miles at marathon pace:

Mile 1: 9:12

Mile 2: 8:28

Mile 3: 8:31

Mile 4: 9:57

4.75: 12:12 - bloody traffic lights and road crossings.

Unfortunately, I think pushing to mara pace in the polluted city set me back a bit.  Felt a bit fuzzy headed and phlegmy on Thursday morning.  So I decided to take some extra rest from running- no run Thursday or Friday.  My HR did get pretty high in the Marathon pace section, however, it did feel much easier to do than the last time I did that run.  I also managed to sit at a more even pace througout, whereas lasttime I did a lot of setting off too fast, and then slowing down by the end of the mile, only to have to pick up the pace in the second mile to remain on pace.  I think next time I do this workout, I'll set up the average pace mode in my garmin for it.

On Saturday I did park run and decided to run it with my fiancé.  I still wasn't feeling tip top, so didn't want to push it.  Need to develop some patience though.  I found it incredibly challenging to run a hilly 3 miles where the first mile was done in 8:30, my marathon pace, and the last mile was over 11 minutes.  Our time was 31:47, a personal worst for me.

Today I went out for 12 miles, I had spent the morning tracking my friends who were running the Yorkshire Marathon.  An extra special mention to @tinyrunner85 who completed her first ever marathon in 3:32:15.  As an Essex gal, I'm 'well Jel' she achieved a Boston qualifier and London good for age all in one.  I however, went out for a 12 mile easy run and managed to hit the wall at 6 miles in!?!?  I can only explain it in that I didn't eat all that much yesterday and had had a flu vaccination that had made me feel a bit woozy, added to which I had an asthma attack in the night, so didn't get the best sleep.  I almost didn't do my run at all, but was feeling inspired by the York marathon runners.

Really glad I got out for it, but after 6 miles I sat on a bench outside the pub in Wivenhoe and had to fight the urge to go in for a coke.  Then at 8 miles I just wanted to walk, so tweeted.  Got some support from @mia79gbr, which was lovely, but I was already out of fuel and started to think about what the reasons could be. At 9 miles I was almost going to ask David to pick me up, but then I saw a couple out power walking.  They were of the larger variety, and it made me think that they were probably on the start of their journey to health, and if they were out doing it in these conditions, then I shouldn't give up.  That got me to 10 miles, then I switched the garmin off.  I really had nothing.  Then it started raining and I managed to run another half mile, then I really had absolutely nothing.  Walked the rest of the way home, and about 5 minutes after I got in, it started chucking it down!!

Feeling a lot better now I've had a home made beef Wellington adm some yummy red wine, which makes me think it really was a fuelling issue.  Still, 22 miles done this week, so I'm happy.

An update

Well, I'm now in week3 of the long marathon buildup, having unfortunately missed 5 training sessions through illness.  I had a very nasty flu that even pretended to be better to the extent I went out for a run.  The run resulted in a very high heart rate and laboured breathing- only 2 miles at 10 minute miles.

The aftermath of the flu means I still require a lot of sleep so my attempt to wake up before work yesterday to do my 30 minute run failed, and I instead had to fit it in in the evening before my sports massage.  This did mean I tried out my new Saucony kit that was given me by Women's running magazine after I did a race review of the Bacchus half.  It's a half zip bright pink top with an attached led light, and it was amazing! My new favourite piece of kit for sure, and even better that I didn't have to pay for it.  I think it retails at £50, which now I've tried it, I can say that is well worth it.

Missed training sessions:

Week1

Sunday: 5 miles with 3 hills

Week 2

Tuesday: 30 min CD

Wednesday: 45 min Acg/CD 2.5-3 miles at pace

Thursday:45 min Acg/ hills

Sunday: 11 miles LSR

I did put in a 2 mile run on Friday last week which means missed mileage is in the region of 26 miles.  I do want to make this up, mindful of my 1000 miles in 2013 goal, but not all at once.  I think I will add in a few park runs, and then perhaps where I have Sunday runs that are below double digits make these up to 10 miles.

Week3 plan:

Tuesday: 30 min CD - done

Wednesday: 40 min Acg/ cd 2 miles @ pace

Thursday: 45 mins Acg/ hills

Sunday: 6 miles with 4 hills

Hopefully I can modify this by adding a Parkrun on Saturday, and taking Sunday's run upto 10 miles

Marathon withdrawal madness

Well, it's been a few days since I *should* have been running the Bournemouth marathon.  It was supposed to be my first legitimate attempt at a sub-4 hour marathon.  @mia79gbr ran it in my place and got a fabulous time, however, her feet are looking a little worse for wear.  I also have a couple of friends who did marathons last Sunday who's times were far from what they expected.  This reminds me to respect the marathon.

I've been off work for the last 3 days with a horrible cold.  Although I now know this is athlete's flu... A strain far more potent than man flu.  Seriously, I have to be extra cautious.  Last year I had a few of these uRTIs and one was so bad I thought I'd developed pneumonia.  Such is the risk as an asthma sufferer that I'm entitled to a flu vaccination on the NHS, which was scheduled at my surgery for this weekend, but another wedding, so shall have to go to another one next week.  Neither would have been in time though, and it probably better that I have a bit longer to recover from this athlete's flu before getting a vaccination.

Naturally, as I've been ill, I haven't done any running for a week now.  It seems I always tend to get sick after taking a little break from running.  So, in response, I have of course entered a couple more marathons! The Lakeland Trails one around Coniston water in July - a beautiful mini break for my birthday, and hopefully a chance to test out my camping kit (once purchased) ahead of TR24.  And the Bacchus Marathon in Surrey.  Entries opened yesterday, and I entered as soon as I knew.  I had such fun doing the half last year, and this time I will definitely do it in fancy dress.  I was thinking of going as a bunch of grapes, but if anyone has any more original ideas, I would love to hear about them.

So, it would be great to know who is doing the marathons I have planned for 2014:

Manchester - 6th April

London - 13th April

Coniston water - 6th July

Bacchus - 14th September.

Happy running people!

Week 1 of Marathon training: the Wednesday run

This run is diligently written in my training schedule as '40min CD Acg/p'.... Clear as muck isn't it?

Well CD is the cadence drill described yesterday.  Acg stands for acceleration glider drill, which I will describe below.  p denotes that a section of the run is done at marathon pace.  Jeff Galloway, you are lucky I bought  the book! Usually I would see a run as complicated as this in a training plan and decided not to follow the plan as its too complicated.  However, I'm sure I will get used to this,  as the sessions repeat every week.

So, copying from the book:

"On Wednesdays, run 2-4 miles at race pace.  After an easy warm up, run 4 Acgs.  Then run a mile segment at 8:30, and run a second mile with a total time of 17:04, and continue at the same pace per mile for 1-2 miles.

This drill is a very easy and gentle form of speed play.  By doing it regularly, you develop a range of speeds, with the muscle conditioning to move smoothly from one to the next.  The greatest benefit comes as you learn how to 'glide' or coast off your momentum."

Instructions:

"1. Start by jogging very slowly for about 15 steps

2. Then jog faster for about 15 steps - increasing to a regular running pace for you.

3. Now, over the next 15 steps, gradually increase the speed to your current race pace.

4. OK it's time to glide, or coast.  Allow yourself to gradually slow down to a jog using momentum as long as you can.  At first you may only glide for 10-20 steps.  As the months go by you will get up to 30 and beyond... You're gliding!"

He then goes on to describe key concepts that will help this drill, but I'm not going to type them out- perhaps get the book if your interested, however,the overall purpose is to improve your form, as you will be learning to move at your marathon pace whilst using as little energy as possible.

For me, this workout was a bit much after a fairly gruelling few days at work.  As I try to do for marathon training, Wednesday is my 'sorta long' run day, and to allow my adequate time to eat/ stretch and recover as well as going to bed at a reasonable time, I do the run in London straight after work, and get food to eat on the train home, so that my run+dinner time results in my arriving home not much later than if I had got home and gone for a run and then eaten, however, it does allow me a crucial extra hour to 'come down' from my run so that I can get to sleep, and I slept exceptionally well last night, so it must have worked!  

I struggled to get the hang of the acceleration gliders- part of this was because there were so many people on the streets of London that I had to be cautious about maintaining momentum in case I bumped into them.  I managed to do 2 of them working off the end of a cadence drill.  It might be worth swapping Acgs to a day that I don't run in london to save from fear of bumping into people.  However, what I did succeed on was running at pace.  This was tough as I had some tightness in my left leg caused by a knot in my glut, so I wasn't running very smoothly, but paces for the run were like this- mile 1 is always a bit off, as I'm coming from the city down to the river, so the tall buildings always mess with my garmin.  There's no way I was at that pace in my warm up!

Mile 1: 8:17

Mile 2: 8:26

Mile 3: 8:31

Mile 4: 9:54

Mile 4.37: 14:43 (traffic lights take a very long time to change in London!)

All in all, I'm quite happy I managed marathon pace for 2 miles, but I'm exceedingly happy that I have 6 months to work toward maintaining that pace for 26.2 miles in Greater Manchester.  What was good to see is my heart rate was fairly steady at the rate I would expect it to be during a marathon,  so I'm confident that if I execute the training well, I can do this pace.  Just have to believe! :)

What is a cadence drill?

Hello, well, I said my training would be quite technical to get started, but also promised to tell you what the technical aspects were, so that you weren't left in the dark.  This morning was a 30 minute run with a Cadence Drill; a workout taken from Jeff Galloway's book, Boston Marathon: How to Qualify

These steps are copied verbatim from the book:
1. Warm up by walking 5 minutes and running and walking very gently for 10 minutes.
2. Start jogging slowly for 1-2 minutes, and then time yourself for 30 seconds.  During this 30 seconds count the number of times your left foot touches
3. Walk around for a minute or so
4. On the 2nd 30 second drill, increase the count by 1 or 2
5. Repeat this 3-7 more times, each time trying to increase by 1-2 additional counts.

Galloway then goes on to explain how this drill will cause numerous adaptations that make you a more efficient runner, which is perfect for me!  I've built up my speed, as demonstrated in my shorter races, now I need my endurance to get my desired marathon time.  Part of this is increasing fitness, which is a given with any training program followed correctly, but the other, is running more efficiently.  Not wasting energy.

If you are a running book fiend like me, the popular 'Born to Run, by Chris McDougall' wont have escaped your notice.  Whilst it is known for promoting the barefoot running movement, something I was sucked into quickly upon reading, tried it, got injured, and stuck to what I know, which is cushioning!  The other important factor he talks about is running form.  Many studies show that the running cadence of elite athletes is typically around 180bpm.  So if they followed the above drill, they ought to get a count of 45.  I did the drill 5 times, and got the following counts:

42, 45, 45, 47, 48

What I found when trying to increase my cadence is that my stride shortened, and a lot more of the effort came from the area around my pelvis: strong hip flexors.  If we are trying to increase efficiency, surely this makes sense.  It will take a while for me to explain this succinctly, but if we think of levers for a moment, in using my glutes and hip flexors to provide more energy to move my legs, I am applying a force very close to the pivot (my hip), and thus creating a greater outcome at the other end of the lever.  Essentially, the extra effort in the pelvic region is allowing me to increase the number of steps I take.  If I get used to this, imagine what a difference 12 more steps every half a minute in a marathon can make (the difference between my lowest and highest cadence above multiplied by 2 to take account of the steps of my right leg).

Anyways, enough of my babbling.  Galloway recommends doing this drill at least once a week, although I have it in my schedule twice per week.  Best to do it on an east run day, when you're not going to be bothered about stopping to walk in between the drills.

Why not give it a go?  Tell me how it works out for you...

Marathon Training begins

Today is the start of my 28 week training campaign towards the Greater Manchester Marathon.  After almost a week off, I'm full of enthusiasm to get into my training plan.  Regular readers will know I'm doing a combination of plans.  Jeff Galloway's 3:45 plan from his book How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon, and Hal Higdon's Intermediate 2 plan from his book Marathon, and also freely available from his website.  Together With this I will incorporate strength work and stretching from P&D, as well as creating my own strength program using kettle bells.  There are many technical aspects to Galloway's plan, so I will try and get on here each day this week to explain the sessions, and as new ones come up later in the schedule, I will explain those too.

Here is the plan for week 1:

Monday: strength work/cross train

Tuesday: 30 minute run including cadence drill

Wednesday: 40 min run including cadence drill, acceleration glider and pace

Thursday: 45 minute run including acceleration gliders and hills

Friday: rest

Saturday: rest (usually would include strength and core workout)

Sunday: 5 miles with 3 hill repeats

You'll notice the lack of long run.  This is because during the early weeks of Galloway's plan, the focus is on form and building strength, and so the long runs are on alternate weeks, with hill work in between.

So, today was a rather pathetic attempt at a kettle bell circuit, with only 7 exercises.  I did 2 sets of 8-12 reps depending on the exercise, then I did some core work.  The good thing about kettlebels is that some of the functional exercises really count as cardio too, so I find it a bit more fun than regular free weights...

The eve of my marathon training run - 10 miles inc Essex way

Tomorrow, I officially start my training schedule for Manchester and London marathons.  It's a combination of Jeff Galloway's plan to train for a 3:45, and then switches to Hal Higdon's intermediate 2 when there are 18 weeks to go, but keeping in the technical aspects of Galloway's plan.  More on each in a future post.

Today was for a fun run.  I had had the last week completely off running, trying not to think about running and eating whatever I felt like too, which lead to some poor choices, but today, I just wanted to get out there.  I think the good weather helped with that.  Given Manchester is a flat course, I think most of my long runs will have to be on the flat, so that I get used to fatiguing the flat running muscles, so rather different to my training for Halstead.  I had initially planned to run my usual long run route along the Wivenhoe trail, which largely follows the river Colne out toward Brightlingsea, but given today I didn't need to worry about pace, I thought it would be fun to do a more exploration type run.

I decided to do part of the Essex way, but in the opposite direction of the relay race, so I didn't bother with taking the printed route instructions.  I  took a look at the local map and saw that the Essex way crossed many footpaths in the area I used to go on walks with my dad, in the fields behind my parents' house.  I could then find my way back home on the roads, hopefully making an approximate 10 mile loop.

I jogged along to meet the Essex way near west Bergholt church.  Took a little while for me to find it, but I'm getting used to navigate by waymarks.  I looked out for one, and eventually found it at the entry to a dark overgrown alley, and away I was.  After a few hundred metres, it opened out into a field, and lush countryside:

There were a couple of direction changes that were obvious, and then I came out onto a clearing with a ruin. The next part wasn't so clear, and there wasn't a way mark, but there was an arrow, so I went with it.

Eventually after a couple of miles on the footpath, I started to recognise things, like footbridge to the cow field 

And Fordham hall estate

I was concerned about when I would meet the roads I knew, I thought it was very close to my mums house, but then I saw this sign, and knew exactly where it would meet the road:

Continued on and saw another runner, a walker and a man walking his dog, so clearly I was getting rather close to civilisation now, and another sign to assure me I was on the right path:

Eventually, I got out onto the road, and the pub, which unfortunately shut down a couple of years ago. A shame, as my parents and I would often take a little stroll to have a pub lunch there.

Bt I was now on the main road that goes through the village my mum lives in.  I stopped in to see my mum and refill my water bottle.  She insisted I had a look at the apple tree:

And take some with me, but I could only fit one in my bum bag.  I also looked in to say hello to the guinea pigs:

They're very camera shy.

I went off on my way to take the road route home.  On road, my pace was much quicker, but when I was up to 8 miles, I could really feel my legs were getting tired.  This surprised me, but I guess I hadn't eaten all that much this morning, and I have raced every weekend in the last 3.  Also I usually use my compression socks on a long run.

Paces:

Mile 1: 9:45

Mile 2: 9:59

Mile 3: 11:07

Mile 4: 11:38

Mile 5: 12:56

Mile 6: 10:51 (on road but uphill)

Mile 6.18: 9:13

Mile 1: 9:18

Mile 2: 9:27

Mile 3: 11:22 (as well as tiredness a few major roads to cross)

Mile 4: 10:01

Marathons are like buses

It's been a few days since Ipswich half. My last race of the 2013 season (unless I enter any others, which is unlikely due to many wedding related commitments).  I've been going around like a grump as I thought it would be a good idea to have a week off running, but have also been plotting a crazy challenge of a marathon a month in 2014, or at least entering a few more than 2, although only planning to race Manchester.  The tentative plan is that many of the others would be off road, or themed in some way so that the pressure to get a good time wouldn't be there.

I've even devised a tentative race calendar which looks like this:

March: Colchester half, Essex 20, Orion 15

April: greater Manchester marathon

May: Halstead and Essex marathon- enter on the day if I'm recovered, and need something to take my mind of impending nuptials

June: Wales trail marathon (unrealistic as I won't have enough holiday and Wales is far)

July: TR24

August: Thames Meander marathon

September: Bacchus marathon... New Forest? Loch Ness?

October: Norfolk Ultra

November: Cyprus International 4 day challenge.

I haven't committed myself to any of these, though in my mind I'm definitely doing Bacchus and the Cyprus 4-day- excellent fun holiday with @mia79gbr, and of course Manchester, which I entered last week.... 

Today, one of these arrived:

One of the reasons I entered Manchester before waiting for this is the date of the 2014 London marathon is 1 day before the 2 year anniversary of my dad's death, and I thought it would just be too hard to do myself justice to try and get a GFA time with the emotional state I may be in...  But then this arrived.  I told twitter and Facebook, and I now think that doing the race for fun (bear in mind I find running pbs fun too) might be ideal.  London is such a great marathon, the best in the world, and I feel very lucky to have got a place for 2014.  Plus it's in reserve for racing if anything happens to stop me from racing Manchester.

So, I guess I'll be running London (*slowly)... Who's coming to watch?

Ipswich Half Marathon

Firstly, for the benefit of @mia79gbr, here are my new shoes:

I know what you're thinking, bad idea to wear new trainers in a half marathon, having only run 2.5 miles n them on Wednesday- but I had a few more bad ideas up my sleeve.  A terrible headache all day yesterday and not managing to keep anything down until after lunchtime probably wasn't the best state to go into a half marathon, nor setting off too fast, thinking this was a flat course.  Here is the logic:

East Anglia is flat.  Ipswich is in East Anglia.  Therefore, Ipswich half marathon is flat.  Right?

WRONG!

Toughest road race I've ever done.  I should have stayed at the start area for 3 hours bouncing on this:

Given the early start, David didn't come with me, he would never have known.  But since I've decided to have the next 7 days off running, I figured I better get a race in.

I actually woke up feeling as if I had enough sleep, which was an unusual feeling at 6am- incidentally, this is the time my alarm goes off on weekdays too, but it's usually followed by my rolling over to have a snooze.  I got up to prepare the breakfast of champions.  Porridge!  After eating half of it, I'd had enough, but then I remembered 13.1 miles is quite a long way to run, and I better fuel up.

Now, Ipswich half marathon had organised free parking in the NCP car park.  Awesomeness- 10 minute walk from the start.  I wish more races did more for decent parking.  I've found the local races exceptionally good in that matter.  

I didn't expect to see anyone I know, but the beauty of Parkrun is that I did see a bunch of people I recognised and a couple I know.  Most Essex based runners were doing the Pleshey half today, as its part of the Essex championships.  I thought that Pleshey was hilly and Ipswich flat.  So I chose to do Ipswich.  D'oh.  Turns out my geography degree does not extend to knowledge of geography of my local area.  All of this rambling is to avoid reliving the experience of this race.

Here is the course profile:

It looks as if the last mile is predominantly downhill.  It didn't feel like that.

Here's the course map:

Not how I would plan a half marathon course, lots of twists and turns, some really sharp, back on yourself and uphill.  Really really tough course.

My fastest mile was mile 2- 7:52

Slowest was mile 8- 9:26. I had given up at this point.  I managed to get through halfway in 1:49 pace, and then considered I could slow down a lot to get a pb.  This was bad, I was meant to be racing even paced, or negative split, but what's so great about a negative split if u get the time you want.  I was going to defy sports science and get a positive split... Yeah, it was all my choice, not that I was getting tired and it hurt.  Another lady runner caught me walking and encouraged me.  This got me going again and I kept her within my sights.  Now, during the hills, I had remembered an article I read recently about hill running technique.  Both on the up and down hill, it was important to shorten your stride and increase leg turnover.  It worked, and both ways I overtook people doing this, including this girl on the last downhill.

However, the uphills in the park around mile 10-11 really got me, and I stopped to walk again, she overtook me, but not for long.  No matter what the race, I can always get myself going again when there is less than 2 miles to go.  I did. But I couldn't get any pace.  12 mile sign, and downhills, yippee! But I was suspicious, I remembered seeing the 13 mile sign on a distinctly uphill portion of path, and I was right, with half a mile to go, uphills started appearing, and I just had nothing to push with.  800m to go, and I was 1 min 30 under 1:50... If I could just get some pace, I could do it.

O no! Another steep uphill bit with a turn back on yourself corner! Seriously, this was silly.  It was gone, all these twists lost me so much pace.

Eventually I crossed the line in 1:50:20, and I just felt relief.  A pretty purple medal and downed a bottle of water.  I went over to watch others finishing. And saw a casualty happen, a man tripped and fell literally 5 metres from the finish line, but then he didn't get up.  It was quite scary.  One of th spectators got him into the recovery position as we were all calling out for first aiders.  It was quite scary, but thanks t the course, there was no danger of anyone managing a sprint finish.  I get quite squeamish, and there were so many people helping him at this stage, that I didn't want to watch, I just hope he's ok now.  I turned to look st the finish line, and omg, there was a celebrity there, but damn, my phone was n my bag, which was still in baggage drop.. Did I go and say hi, or did I go for getting my phone and what I really wanted, which was a photo.  Well, I picked the latter:

What a great Sunday morning... A half marathon pb by almost 6 minutes, and a photo with Colin Jackson, who looks like he's trying to be cool despite the smelly mess standing next to him... :)

And now, to hang my trainers up for a week...