Planning Week 14

After 20 miles yesterday this is a step back week.

Monday: cross train (I did a 6 mile bike ride)
Tuesday: 5 mile easy
Wednesday: 5 mile
Thursday: 5 mile
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8 mile run
Sunday 14 mile LSR

I can't run Saturday and am doing east london half marathon on Sunday, so I think I'll do 8 on Wednesday, perhaps an easy 5 on Saturday and I'll do the half marathon at marathon pace.

First 20 miler

Sunday morning ready for my first 20 miler of this campaign. Did it as race prep, so up at 7am for porridge with banana, beeple and a cup of tea followed by 500ml Sis go and generally getting ready to run at 10am, the same time my race will start.

The 20 went really well- I think chia seeds are the key. I've found shorter long runs a lot harder without chia...

I set easy pace as between 10:15 and 11:00 and marathon pace between 9:30 and 9:45. The second marathon pace section was harder but still manageable, and I think my pace came down a lot in the last mile as for the first 3 the garmin was constantly beeping at me to slow down. Anyway, this is how I ran:

Miles 1-6 10:29
Miles 7-10 9:32
Miles 11-14. 10:34
Miles 15-18 9:33
Miles 19-20. 10:42

The last 2 miles were pretty tough but I think this was becaus I was nearly home and knew I was nearly done. Certainly at mile 17/18 I was feeling exceptionally good and like I had the stamina to run 26 miles. I did this in just under 3:23. This would give me 1 hour 10 minutes to do 6 miles and still come under my marathon pb. That being said this run has given me confidence that my starting pace should be 9:33. Whenever I was n a MP section the garmin was beeping at me to slow down. If I can maintain 9:33 for the first half and allow myself to fade, or even hold on, I'll be more than comfortable with my 4:15 goal.

What's more with my recent half marathon time I think I just need to do some more of these long 20 milers to get under 4 hours in the autumn.

It was a lovely run along the river Colne toward the coast. I came off the river at Alresford where I grew up and did a run around the playing field and the rest of the village. It's amazing, when I was little it was huge and I would have to get on my bike, or beg my parents to drive me to go to the local shop... Probably took me about 3 minutes to run that distance on Sunday. It was really nice to run along the Wivenhoe trail in the sunshine. I spent a lot of time thinking about my childhood and all the walks/bike rides I would do with my dad back then. It really was a lovely day for a run! The proof is in the pictures :-)

I'm such a klutz!

So I set off on my 8 miler in London tonight, I was a bit cautious given my last few runs, and my bruised knee. Less than half a mile into my run, my phone flys out of my bumbag because I forgot to zip it- now it has a gazillion scratches on the screen. Carried on, and was going at marathon pace, rather than easy, but it felt easy so I didn't mess with it. A few miles in, I started to feel the familiar tightness in my lower legs which was quite worrying. I focused on my form- I've been a bit rigid lately, and so I focused on running, even if it was too fast.

At about 3.5 miles looking ahead, it looked as if the path was ending, but I figured I could find the extra half mile, then, my toe hit an uneven paving stone and I was mid air. It happened in slow motion and I thought this fall could be the end of my marathon campaign, especially after falling off my bike. I hit the ground, braking my fall with my hands. My water bottle went rolling across the road, and I banged my knees. There were 2 or 3 other runners around me and they just continued on their merry way, as did the cyclists on the cycle super highway. It was like that catwalk show in sex and the city where Carrie falls on the runway and the other models step over her. If that happened around here, someone would have stopped to help, but in London, all out for themselves. I'm glad the warmth of the London marathon redeems them!

Having banged my knee I was worried to continue, so I waited a few minutes for it to settle. Eventually, it did. This was the turning point in my run, so annoyed that I'd tripped, I concentrated on picking my feet up so I didn't trip again, this seemed to help.

I hope the rest of my runs this week are completely uneventful...

I thought cross training was supposed to prevent injury?

So I went for a cross training bike ride today... Cycled to a friends parents for lunch- hadn't seen her for a few months and her parents for years! They're both into running so it was good chat, however, was quite disappointed that they were only 3 miles away, so not much of a ride. We took a different route home, which involved a cycle down north hill- top speed 25 mph. Even if a silly 4x4 driver cut me up after making such a point of over revving at the top of the hill to overtake us. It bothers me when drivers are that silly- don't they know that bike brakes aren't as strong as car brakes and even so, a car going into Another car is a lot less dangerous than a cyclist going into a car... I yelled abuse at him and shook my hand... With only the half a mile climb to go before we got home we were stopped at a traffic light and the road was uphill. I tried to stay in my toe clips, as its such a faff getting them on, especially uphil... Yippee the light turned green, I could peddle, so i did, but my front wheel was turned such that I couldn't peddle any further..... BANG, I fell onto the road! Very hard.... Grazed knee, grazed elbow, and totally bruised hand... Now sitting here with ice on everything hoping it doesn't affect my running this week!
But, it was quite funny! Both times I've fallen off my bike have been from completely stationary! How dense am I?!?

I miss my dad

So I went out for my 13 mile run this morning. All my runs this week had been pretty tough as I still have my races in my legs, but this one was particularly hard. It's Easter today, and last year Easter weekend was the last time I spent with my dad before he was taken into hospital for his final days, just on the Wednesday after. It was a wonderful day, we had all sorts of family visiting us, and we all watched a very memorable boat race together - almost everyone else was cheering Cambridge because they had closer family that went there or lived there, so I was almost all alone cheering Oxford, and well they didn't win, but for a magical couple of hours we all forgot that dad had cancer. 6 days later he was gone.

This morning I went out for my run, and this was all I could think about. The boat race is on today and I'm scared to watch it. About 2 miles in, I sat on a bench and just cried. My calf was hurting too. I walked back home, had a bath... Hopefully I'll pull myself together and can go out later today instead..

Recovery is tough

In the last couple of weeks, I've done 2 races 2 weekends in a row.  A Half marathon with a pb, and a 15 mile XC.  In between the two I barely managed to run, and certainly was not recovered going into the XC.
Now I'm suffering the consequences.  Yesterday, I went out for a 5 mile recovery run.  Usually with my RRs, it takes me 2-3 miles to start feeling like normal again.  Yesterday, the run was difficult the whole way.  My legs were just sore, and wouldn't do what I wanted.  Added to that my shin tightness is back.  Looking forward to another sports massage in a few days to release that, along with some easy running.
Let's see how tonight's 5 miler goes.

Planning week 12

Well I've done two races in the last two weeks, but have also been a bit lax on the other training. The Orion 15 has left me with a minor groin strain, but am hoping when all my other muscles have loosened up I'll no longer notice it. I've just slathered my legs with deep heat to help them- smells a bit medical around me now. The prescribed plan ends with a 13 mile long run- I should have been upto 18 already- did the 15 mile XC with 3 hours on my feet count? Anyway, perhaps since it's a long weekend I could consider doing the 20 miler this week instead of next?

Anyway, the plan says this:
Monday: cross train (I WILL do weights and core- been lax on this too)
Tuesday: 5 mile run
Wednesday: 5 mile run
Thursday: 5 mile run
Friday: rest
Saturday: 8 miles pace
Sunday: 13 mile LSR

Total: 36 miles

I'm looking forward to seeing what marathon race pace feels like after my recent races. Hopefully they will have contributed to making a 9:44 min mile pace seem easy. The success of my half marathon has had me questioning my marathon time aim. Double the time and you get 3:52. Most race calculators say 4:02 and common sense tells me to ad another 10 mins to that, making it 4:12, which over 26.2 miles isn't all that different to 4:15. I should stick to my guns and pace a good race, with the goal of running throughout. I know what this feels like from my half, and in the past, it's stopping to walk that has really really held me back. Now all I need is some weather that will be more like race day. At least I have a semi training camp in France, with some mountains nearby-hopefully that would give me a good training kicker as well :-)