Did you know I'm running 5 marathons this year?

What was a slight over-reaction to not being able to do my autumn marathon last year, meant I entered a few marathons... Within the space of about 10 days, when I should have been going through taper-madness, I went through taper-madness withdrawal and entered a few marathons, and then I got a ballot place for London.
When you're doing 4 in a year, you may as well do 5, so when www.stourvalleymarathon.co.uk organisers contacted me, of course I decided to enter that too.  And I might do another if I can get the timing right.  I bumped into an old friend when I only had 2 on the cards, Manchester and London a week apart, and she said with the craziness of that challenge, I ought to raise some money.  I've found it really difficult to consider raising money for a charity so closely connected with my dad's illness until now, and even when I was writing my plea for my virginmoney giving page, I had to stop a few time in tears.  So here it is, please if you feel inclined to give money, then please do, but if not, then spend some time learning about the charity's work on their website.

5 Marathons for Mesothelioma Research

Are you insane? Insanity Review

This post isn't really about running, but instead about the new workout craze by Beachbody: Insanity  A 60 day programme (well 63) that promises to turn you into a beach goddess.  Or the more official product description:

"Shaun T's Insanity workout is the best of its kind. No other workout can get you these types of results in just 60 days? Guaranteed! Shaun T's Max Interval Training techniques are a step ahead of every other fitness program ever designed. You get you a lean, muscular body in a short amount of time. The Insanity Workout is a difficult workout, but the results are phenomenal.

Brand New, Factory Sealed Box Set. Complete set includes a nutrition guide, calender to track your progress, and 10 intense DVDs that all contain a GREAT workout. You don't need exercise equipment. All you need is just a little space and a big heart!"

I was memorised by the adverts when I was at home in December, and through my studying have been learning why its so important to incorporate more strength and resistance work into my marathon training, to help me be a better runner, but the truth is, I can't think of any thing more boring than standing around in a gym and moving a weight through whatever range I'm supposed to.  I know it works, I know its good for me, but its just not my favourite thing to do.  I like more dynamic stuff, like kettlebells, so I have some of these at home to work with, however, I thought for a bit of research, I would see what this Insanity thing was all about, and I would start it in the new year, alongside my marathon training.

Nutrition Guide

As you can see from above, it comes with a nutrition guide - If I wasn't happy with this, I would send it back.  The nutrition guide modifies the macronutrient balance somewhat compared to what I would recommend to someone in marathon training.  They recommend a 40/40/20% ratio of carbs/protein/fat.  I would recommend something more like 60/15/25, or more accurately, make sure the carbs and protein were at a particular level according to my client's body weight.

If you follow the rules in the Nutrition guide, you get to eat 5 small meals a day, and to be honest, I haven't felt at any time like I was underfed - by doing the calcs I was still recommended over 2000 calories a day even for weightloss!  The only problem has come when alongside the long runs at the weekend.  The first month of the nutrition plan almost completely cuts out the complex carbs that are the mainstay of a marathon runner's diet - there are some meals that include brown pasta and brown rice, but the quantities were not sufficient for me when it came to running 14 miles + at the weekends, so I have been less stringent with the diet plan since the second week.

What is brilliant is in the plan, it has a table that categorises a wide range of foods into tables and recommends that if your diet consists solely of food from tables 1 and 2, you're doing really well.  Butter is in table 2, and with a caveat that if its unsalted and from grass-fed cows, it could be table 1! 

What appears in table 5?  Alcohol- spirits, cakes, cream cheese, pastries, frenchfries, coffees that are milky and come from those chain stores, bacon, and baked beans surprisingly - I guess because of the added sugar and salt, especially in the American brands (this is very clearly an american product).  

I have to admit, I've not been 100% pious, and have sneaked in a glass of wine or a creme egg from time to time, but what has significantly changed is that my consumption of fruit and vegetables is even higher, as is my consumption of eggs, and we now always have low fat cottage cheese, yoghurt and feta cheese in the fridge.  I'm not missing the cheeses I'm used to eating like camembert, brie, cheddar etc.

The workouts

The programme comes with a calendar which tells you which workouts to do on which day, as well as the DVDs which are the videos to take you through the workouts.  You do 6 days a week.  Sunday is your rest day.  So, to fit this in with running 5 days a week is pretty tough.  Its only the end of January, so I have done 4 weeks, and am in the sandwich rest and recovery week at the moment.  I will review month 2 workouts at a later date.

The fit test

The first disc you do is the fit test.  There are a number of moves that you see how many you can do in 1 minute, and record the number.  Shaun T emphasises form over number of reps, but you can't help getting competitive and wanting to beat the students on the DVD.  I did this for the first time shortly after Christmas and my sister's wedding festivities, so I wasn't in my most energetic of states.  To say I was dripping was an understatement, but even from this relatively short (25 mins) workout, I got a great big endorphine hit after.  

Plyometric Cardio Circuit

I love and I hate this workout.  The first time I did it, I couldn't keep up when it moves to Level 1 drills, which I think is a basketball thing, involving multiple pushups, then floor sprints, then jumping in stretching up then coming back down to pushups.  My spaghetti arms gave way, and I just couldn't keep up.  However, the first part has many variations of squat jumps.  I believe this particular workout has been to thank for my ability to complete 150 miles of running this January without injury, as well as increased speed when it comes to the quality run sessions.  What's more, it engages the abs and upper body, and so my form doesn't suffer as much in the later part of long runs, as I am overall stronger.

Cardio Power and Resistance

I would rank this #2 in the helpfulness to my key sport.  This one almost seems as if its more about sculpting, but again, its variation of moves across key body segments has lead to overall stength gains for me.  The toughie in this is a V-push-up, where you are basically doing a yoga downward dog, and then you do push-ups in that position, so its all shoulders, barely any chest.  There are a lot of tricep moves in here too, which I've always been quite weak on, so its good to have those in there.

Pure Cardio 

This is tough, and gets you sweaty if you're doing it indoors, but in terms of the goals of the workout, and its effect on my heartrate, I decided to scrap it from my personal programme after the first time.  The reason being, I get a far better cardio workout from my interval or tempo training I do in running, so for me, the risk/recovery balance of keeping this in my program didn't weigh up (for now).

Cardio Abs

An abs workout that promises no sit ups or crunches.  You spend a large portion of this workout in a position called a C-sit - you are bascially halfway up if you were doing a sit-up, and from here, you do various movements with your arms and legs to work various portions of your abdominals, all the while working the deep abdominals as you hold that position.  What's great is the focus on obliques, which is often missed.  I can see results in my physical appearance from the work on the obliques.

Cardio Recovery

I LOVE that this programme incorporates a recovery day.  Active recovery is so important and often people miss this out.  And not every PT is around telling people to do it too!  By doing some exercise that gets the blood flowing but doesn't tax you, you are sending the agents of repair in your blood around the body to do the work quicker, plus its really important in helping you get stronger.  This recovery day involves a few yoga and pilates type moves, which when I first did it, I would really struggle with balance, but again, I've stuck with it, and find it an incredibly uplifting workout, and I do it on my rest day from running.  Before I do it, I feel quite groggy, but after I'm restored.

Review

All of the above workouts are less than 40 minutes total, and that includes the warm-up, stretch and cool-down, so in terms of WORK, its not actually that much.  The cardio abs one is only about 15 minutes, although you usually do that after another workout.

Despite my modifications to the programme to encorporate marathon training, I have seen great results already.  I have lost 3kg in weight since the start of the year, and at my last weigh in, I was 200g off my target weight.  Whilst weightloss wasn't my #1 goal as I'm marathon training, I am pleased to see this has happened in the right way.  My body fat percentage has gone down from 30% to 25% according to my Omron fat analyser 

For me this is great, because being lighter because I'm not carrying excess fat means faster running times.  When I checked this calculator with my previous half marathon personal best, and the weight I was at the time, it told me that at my current weight, I could expect a time that's 6 minutes faster!  Not surprising as carrying an extra 3kg for 13.1 miles is sure to slow you down.

Based on my results whilst not following the plan 100% and only half way through, I am quite confident that if you do follow it 100% it will have impressive results.  

However, there is a big risk with doing a programme like this at home, in that there is noone to give you feedback and correct your form if you could cause yourself an injury.  This is lower risk, because it is bodyweight, but make sure you LISTEN to Shaun T's cues so you don't hurt yourself.

Recommendations

If following whist marathon training, like me, I would recommend the following modifications.

- Cut Insanity workouts from 6x/week to 4x/week

- Do plyo and resistance workouts on easy run days

- No insanity on long run days

- Do recovery workout on running rest day

- Do cardio abs after interval/tempo runs

- Modify eating plan to include more carbs, although follow the recommendation of sticking to wholegrain varieties with this.

Ultra Curious

So my running friends will know that I've been getting rather ultra curious this year.... I saw this event last year but it was the same weekend as my planned autumn marathon and by the time I had to cancel that it was way too late to train for such an event, but this year.... I have time

http://www.saltmarsh75.co.uk/2014/01/27/398/

I was looking for an event for October anyway, and would quite like to do the Chelmsford marathon when entires open, but this would be quite different to that, and provide a break from trying to hit speeds and paces.  Plus it's exactly the kind of thing my dad would have loved, although probably not in such an organised race environment.

One of my goals for running is to sea the world, and although this is in the county I live in, Essex is BiG, and I've only been to Maldon a few times, and certainly not the wilderness that surrounds it.... Already booked in me training races too with #tr24 and stourvalleymarathon.co.uk

Sooooo, should I do it.?

Vom paced repeats

I've been following my good friend @Malcsbarbour on the Runners world and Asics 26.2 challenge.  We met on the runners world forum last year and camped in a big group together at TR24, although he was a different team.  He's aiming for a sub 3:30 marathon having narrowly missed out by 3 minutes last year at the Great Welsh marathon which was a 26 minute pb for him.  With my aim of sub 3:45 I'm looking at taking a similarly significant chunk off my previous best marathon time of 4:18 in Halstead.  Based on advice from others, the fact that Manchester is flat versus Halstead's undulating route is probably worth about 10 minutes of marathon time.  So the other 23 minutes has to come from increased fitness and better race.  Which is still a big ask.  

I've been happily following my Hal higdon plan, but having already spent 10 weeks before starting that, I'd been starting to feel that I could afford to do some more interesting sessions than either running at easy pace, or marathon pace.  Plus, I have a half marathon coming up that I want to pb in.

So, I decided to do a session from Malcs schedule.  He happily provided me guidance on how to adjust the paces for my ability.  

The session was: warm up, 3x 2000m @ 7:17-7:30mm pace with 3 minutes recovery, then cool down.  Hopefully this would get me to a 7-8 mile run.  I decided to do all the repeats in Colchester Castle park, so I could use the imagination of running the Parkrun to get me up to pace.

Despite a 2 mile warm up, I still felt it was a bit tough to pick up the pace, but then quickly the garmin was bleeping to slow down.... I had almost reached the 2k point, but had reached the end of the river path and had to exit the park.  Not enough distance before a steep uphill, so had to turn around and eventually re-entered the park.  That was really hard, and I had to walk for a large chunk of the recovery section before I brought it up to the gentle jog again.

When I started the second rep, like always, it started off a bit fast with pacing well below 7mm, so I eased off.  About a third of the way through the rep, I was looking at the swans and wondering various thoughts and my pace began to drop off.  My tummy also felt a bit off, and like I might need to make am impromptu toilet stop.  I then remembered an article I had recently read in runners world magazine about mental focus in running, and how so much of the marathon especially is about what's in the mind.  Generally your pace slows because your mind is wandering.  I refocused and finished the rep faster than the first.  The slow rep was more of a jog to start with, but my Tum was still feeling a bit off and I did feel like I might vomit, so I eased off until the discomfort subsided.  Usually I recover quite fast and don't need the full time that's suggested for recovery, but not in this session.  In this recovery rep, I wondered about pausing the garmin so I could have another minute rest, but I got on with it.  The sooner I started the next rep, the sooner the workout would be done.  But I went for it.... It seemed dog walkers who were oblivious to the danger of a 7mm runner coming toward their dogs were out in force, looking to figure out the path I was going to take and making sure they obstructed it.  This resulted me storming past them on the muddy edge of the path to avoid them, mucking up my new trainers which I want to wear for the marathon.

Once I caught my breath and jogged back I apologised, explaining that at that pace it's incredibly hard to change direction significantly, but they weren't too perturbed luckily!

The reps were done in the following times:

9:16

9:08

9:07

Or the following paces:

7:25mm

7:19mm

7:18mm

And luckily, I didn't ACTUALLY vomit...

Awesome running! Clacton to Walton and back.

I feel like I'm starting all my blogs recently with sorry for not writing recently.  The truth is I've had so many great runs recently that I want to write about all of them. S I will try to blog each day this week on my recollection of the runs so we can catch up :). It will probably end up being in reverse order until I can catch up with myself :)

Today, I did the longest run yet of my training programme, 17 miles.  One of the commando runners had arranged a seafront run long before today's weather had been forecast.  It was to be 14 miles, and I thought I'd easily be able to fit in an extra 3.  The temptation of a carvery lunch was quite a big pull, as well as it being a completely flat route, so a chance to get a long run on the absolute flat to emulate Manchester marathon somewhat.

A few of the boys had agreed to run 17 miles with me.  I was a bit apprehensive about this, as I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up with their sort of pace, especially with a marathon paced session the day before and an almost vomit inducing run on Wednesday in my legs.  Ian who had kindly driven me to Clacton promised to stick with me if the other chaps went ahead.

We started off at the Toby carvery, a short way from Clacton pier and were happily out front as we would have to go a bit beyond Walton pier to make up the 17 miles.  The wind was behind us, and runningn with others it was tough to stay slow.  I had thought, given the build up of miles in my legs in the last couple of weeks, that 10 min miles was all I could hope for today, but we had a pretty strong tail wind behind us and the miles flew by rather quickly:

Mile 1 - 9:24

Mile 2 - 9:17

Mile 3 - 9:14

Mile 4 - 9:10

Mile 5 - 9:09

Around here I stopped to have a gel, and was a little concernd about the pace we had been doing, and whether I would be able to keep it up..  I wanted to pull it back a bit, and Ian stuck with me whilst Danny and Michael continued ahead.

The gel gave me a little bit of a boost, and I think the wind was starting to build up a bit.  I thought I was slowing down, but the splits say otherwise

Mile 6 - 9:09

Mile 7 - 8:57

Mile 8 - 9:02. This mile did include a toilet stop with a paused garmin, and a decision to go up to Walton on the naze tower, meaning total run distance would end up at almost 18 miles.... We should have thought this through, given the head wind.  We lost Michael as we took a slightly different route to the tower as he was ahead.  Danny had dropped back to join us.  By the time we got to the tower, Michael had already gone, but we paused as it gave Ian a chance to buy some water and a twix, and we took a piccie to prove we were there:

Now it was time to head back.  I felt as if the wind had seriously picked up, and Danny went steaming ahead (relative). I was definitely going too fast at this point, as I couldn't get much chat out.  Had to pull the buff up over my face to protect it from the wind.

Mile 9 - 10:16

Danny dashed into the diner at Walton pier and we followed him and the cyclist who had come to cycle the route were having a break.  They said Michael had been and gone, as had the runners who were doing the slightly shorter pier to pier run and back.  We could all tell we were rather apprehensive at the prospect of running another 7 miles in that wind.  Half way between just wanting to get on with it, and wanting to give up.

From here we had to run on the promenade, so there really wasn't anything between us and the sea wind.  It was strong, and there was even some tiny hail at one point that stung my face and eyes and I screamed a little....  Various gusts scared me into thinking I might get blown off into sea.  I really didn't enjoy this section, and my attempts at drafting Danny didn't work, as he kept running through puddles then avoiding them by jumping up onto steps,whereas I went around the puddles, so lost him ahead.  I tried to draft Ian a few times too, which was more effective, but sometimes ended in me running slap into his back with the wind break he provided! :-D

Mile 10 - 9:57

Mile 11 - 9:29

Mile 12 - 9:17

I pushed to pass 12 miles as it meant only 5 miles left, however, in this headwind, that still seemed a really long way.  I started to drop back a bit, and Danny dropped back to, saying that he was torn between wanting to ease off so he didn't blow up at 15 miles, and wanting to get it done.

Mile 13 - 10:01

Mile 14 - 10:03

Despite the cold, I really was starting to feel quite thirsty now and could do with a bit of fuel, so I stopped at 14 miles to drink the rest of my SiS electrolyte drinks and also mentally prepare for the final 3. We chatted about how this run would go down in folklore... How it was basically running in a tornado with a coyote following you. After a few hundred metres walk, wwe started running again, and one of the cyclists caught up to us to tell us the others were catching the train home instead of meeting us at the carvery.  It would have been even harder cycling in these conditions- would have been colder and thrown about more in the wind! But still amazing it had taken them 5 miles of our running to catch up to us.  At this point we all decided it was a Parkrun home, and that certainly made it easier,  we could see Michael ahead, and my end of race stalker instinct kicked in.

Mile 15 - 11:02 (including walking so once running clearly upped the pace

We caught Michael, and I felt like pushing it a bit more, and Danny ran with me.  I wanted to see if I could wind up to marathon pace in the last mile:

Mile 16 - 8:57

Mile 17 - 8:43 so not quite, but did you see the headwind?!?

It was great to have Danny running with me here.  He had got 19:30 in Parkrun yesterday and an incredibly strong runner, so it really helped me to push the last two.  I could start feeling my hamstrings tighten, and it was great to keep going on legs that feel like they are in the last stages of the marathon.

We waited at Clacton pier for Ian and ran the last part back to the carvery.  My legs had seized a bit from the final push, so I couldn't keep up for this part

0.63 mile, avg pace 9:20

Overall an awesomely exhilarating run with a rather simple route:

A total of 17.63 miles in 2:46:58 with an average pace of 9:29.

Thanks to Ian, Danny and Michael for keeping me company, and motivating group solidarity when it got hard :)

What's so good about round numbers anyway?

Apologies to regular readers for my lack of blog posts recently.  I used to write them on my train journey to or from work, but now I'm based at home, I don't have this time which would otherwise have been useless.

I've managed to create my website www.aihl.co.uk. And there is a blog on there with more serious running advice, so if anyone is looking to get into running it's probably a good place to have a peek.  Also have started a beginners running club and am taking people for 1:1 nutrition consultations.

What's great about this new lifestyle is that I am able to follow all my advice, about eating well and often, and fitting in all my training.  I've run 96 miles so far this month/year.  I did think about waiting until I'd got to 100 to post, but decided against it.  Us runners are a funny bunch.  When we're hooked up to our garmin and we have a 12 mile run in our plan, if the garmin says 11.84 miles as we get near our front door, we will run right past it.  We will do exactly the same thing if we've got back to our car and there happens to be a war memorial to circle.

Yesterday, I said no to this obsession.  Saturday had been a lovely 14 mile run at Pitsford water with @mia79gbr.  My plan had a 16 and an 8 mile run at the weekend to make it up to a 40 mile week, so clearly I had to go out for 10, but it wasn't a nice run.  I actually hadn't followed all my advice for pre-run preparation, the most important perhaps being to go to the toilet PROPERLY before heading out for a run any longer than 5 miles to avoid the runs.  Low and behold, my lower abdominal area started grumbling about 4 miles into the run.  I didn't want to extend the run by 2 miles in search of a toilet in Wivenhoe so instead turned back a bit early to find one in Castle park...  I felt much better after this and the last 1.8 miles of this run were certainly the best.   Completed the run at 9.8 miles after detouring around the development to get some extra distance in.

Got home had a bath, got into cozy clothes and slippers, and checked on garmin connect to find I had run 39.72 miles this week.... D'oh!  

How annoying is that!  I told Facebook and had several encouragements to go for a little jog, but I chose not to.  This week's plan has 41 miles, so I'm sure I will go over 40 this time.  And although I didn't last week, it's still the most distance I've ever run in a week, which included 2 tough training sessions.  12x400m @ 5k pace (mine ended up faster) with 90s rest, and the 14 miler with Sarah, which ended up quite a bit faster than I've been doing my long runs, and included a mile at marathon pace and a mile at half marathon pace- good going after 3.5 hours of driving!