Still here

For the past six weeks I have consistently run five times per week as part of my #Jantastic running and my build to the London marathon. Last year it all ended at approximately five weeks when my foot flared up with  a vengeance and at times it has seemed that my old legs might let me down again, but this time it's been my hamstrings and lower back which have been wound tight. However, last week, a funny thing happened . The aches went away. I was disconcerted, sure in the knowledge that my muscles were due to tear themselves to bits, but they didn't. I had my best week's running in a very, very long time. I can only put it down to my body adapting somewhat to the training stress at last.

An interval session, a 9 mile tempo run and a few easy 5 milers were capped off with a 19 mile run on Saturday morning. Up at 6am and on the pavement by 6.15 I  was expecting my legs to be tight and sore again, not liking the early start, but instead of the awkward hobble-shuffle I was pretty fluid from the off. Running to an easy rpe I took it steady for 15 miles and then picked it up over the last 4, mainly because that was what I had planned to do but also because if I didn't get to the loo pdq then I was going to have a lot of explaining to do. :-/   I covered those last 4 miles at around 7.05 pace which was good, but the real positive from it and the 18 miles I had run the previous weekend was not a hint of me running out of fuel. Yes, I was tired but not the king of tiredness you get from glycogen depletion. It looks like the speedwork and threshold work is really paying dividends on my long run. :-)

It was the Kingston Phoenix Awards Dinner on Saturday night. I was given a couple of gongs for some handicap wins last year while Simon didn't have enough arms for the amount of trophies that he won. It dawned on me I have not turned a pedal in anger in 6 weeks *embarrassed face*. I've got a duathlon to do next week. Maybe I should think about dusting off the Van Nic.

Winter running

I have had a really solid 2 weeks' training, albeit all of it running. #Jantastic is helping to get me out the door but actually my motivation has been very high anyway, desperate to get run fit again. Aiming at five runs per week, one of the reasons that cycling's taken a bit of a hit is that I am having a full rest on the other two days. Normally, there would be a relaxed bike or swim but for the time being I want to give my legs the chance to be as fresh as possible while loading on the training intensity and volume. I have started to discover again the sensation of running relatively fast while not feeling unduly fatigued. Turns out the training works.

I'm still getting used to my garmin, although I am enjoying using it as a training tool. On Thursday I went out for what was meant to be a marathon pace run for 8 miles. I am looking at 3hrs 10 at the moment which is 7.10 minute miling. The garmin 410 has a virtual training partner which can be set to a certain pace and you effectively race the partner. So, off I went with it set to 7.10. After a minute or so I checked the watch to see that I was too slow so I sped up. Another 30 seconds and still down; what the....? Before I knew it I was barrelling along thinking 'This seems a bit fast.' It was. All of a sudden I was 20 seconds up on the watch, running along at 6.50 pace. :-/  I was enjoying myself and it felt good, so I kept with it, slowing up slightly in the last 2 miles. 9.5 miles done feeling better than I have had in a long time. That contrasted somewhat with today's run. I had to be up at stupid o' clock to get my run in before the forecast snow materialised but with it being so cold, so early and so slippy, it was just about ticking off some miles safely. With 5 miles of the 14 to go I thought about upping my pace, but couldn't. My legs and in particular my hamstrings were still in bed.

The man dressed as a banana

I really enjoy listening the the Marathon Talk podcast. I have always found it entertaining and informative and I particularly like the interviews. I am usually plugged in when on the turbo while doing my lower intensity sessions or I listen in the evening before going to bed. During part of the podcast this week Martin Yelling was talking about having a reason to train and get out of the door and this was quite timely as one of my reasons for getting my head down and doing some hard work towards a spring marathon is the man dressed as a banana. I have actually been thinking about him quite a bit over the last week or two. Let me explain.

I have always considered myself a serious runner; not a jogger. Most of my runs have a purpose. I do a warm up, I run, I do a warm down. Most of the time I know what I am doing and I am confident in my ability to coach myself. I may not always do the right thing as my ego sometimes gets in the way, but in the main I know what I am doing. And when I race, I run as hard as I can. I may languish in mid-pack mediocrity but I try hard and enjoy racing when my body allows. So in 2008 when I last did the London Marathon,while it was my first attempt at the distance and my build-up had not been perfect I felt confident enough that 3.15 would be well within my grasp. I got it horribly wrong. The wheels fell off, the wall was hit, whichever metaphor you want to use, and while I was hobbling, walking and barely jogging the last 7 miles, that was when the man dressed as a banana overtook me.

I cannot even begin to convey the depth of my despair when this bandy-legged bloke, dressed as a giant fruit went past me like I was standing still ( I *was* virtually standing still). Me, a serious runner and for many years a club runner being left for dead by a comedy fruit. It was compounded some minutes later when another man dressed as a cannibal, complete with a giant bone through his nose and rubber spear went past, swiftly followed by a celebrity chef. (Gordon Ramsay, if you're interested, although he detonated himself some 3 miles later and I was able to overtake him at a walk just before the line)

So , the man dressed as a giant banana is my motivation. I really don't want to be behind any comedy running fruit or vegetable in April. I don't think that I could handle it and therefore my running motivation is high and running has been going pretty well. I am back on track after the blip of my cold over Christmas. I am mixing it up with some speedwork and longer runs, although still only at 10-12 miles so not excessively long. This morning I had a good ride out with Simon and I ended up doing 42 miles including 4x10minutes tt efforts with a 3 minute recovery. Simon and I took it in turns to take the front. I was quite weak when the road kicked up which is something that no amount of turbo work can improve.

Onwards.

*Not* a good end to the year

'What could possibly go wrong?' I spoke too soon.

A fab Christmas day with the olds and the Outlaws was followed by waking up on Boxing day feeling utterly rubbish with a full, streaming head cold. Also, while playing around with my new Garmin 410, my gps watch that I had bought for myself that Mrs Wheezy dutifully wrapped up for me to open at Christmas, I only went and dropped it into a mug of tea while I was playing around with it. I could not have done it if I had tried. Thankfully I fished it out fairly quickly and it seemed to work ok. My ineptitude knows no end. So I am necking vitamin C like it's going out of fashion in the hope that I can be healthy enough to start the Marathon Talk #Jantastic Spring motivation challenge again. The good news is that up until my cold, running was continuing to go well with some half decent speedwork sessions. So it looks like a few days off while I let this cold run its course and then I will ease back into some regular run - bike stuff.

A good end to the year

A much better week feeling back to normal. I'm just bloomin' loving running at the moment. The rain and wind's been lashing down but it's been so good doing some regular running with a bit of confidence. Mid-week I even did a fartlek run. Nothing too heavy and I was sloshing through a waterlogged playing field, slipping and sliding about in my trainers and the very soft ground lent itself to staying relatively injury free. Perfect. I think that I have finally got the better of my feet but I guess I will not know until I start to do some harder and longer speed work. But at the moment it's all good.

I suppose I should look back at this year and see what went right and what didn't. What did go right was the DW. I'm glad Adam and I nailed that one on the head. The culmination of a lot of hard work and effort and still a great race to do. The other thing would be my 10 mile tt best time coming down completely unexpectedly. Still nowhere near fast enough for my liking but a pb's a pb. I Also got an e-mail to say that I had won a total of £18 in race winnings during Phoenix tt races. That makes me a professional athlete, right?  ;-) Other than that, this year's been pretty poor with my foot injury colouring everything and I think that led to the major mojo dip which other than the few tt races saw me not competing at all. I am pretty confident that next year will be different.

So, what about next year? I guess I need to nail some targets to the mast.

1. Marathon PB. Currently 3.18. Realistically, sub 3.10 should be doable, sub 3 on a stellar day, sub 3.15 for a London marathon 'good for age' time as a minimum.

2. Olympic tri; sub 2.20. Qualifying for the World's is very unlikely but sub 2.20 may well be within my grasp if I can....

3. PB my 10 and 25 mile tt times. Ideally 23.30 for a 10. I'll probably need to invest in some aero help to achieve that, but you can never own enough bikes.

Ultimately, I just want to race a bit more and be fit enough to do so. I know I was pretty much saying the same thing last year but I don't have an excuse now. I've sorted my feet, I'm enjoying my training and I've entered some events. What could possibly go wrong?  ;-)

Last week managed to turn itself from a potentially solid week's training into a very mediocre week. The bubbling stomach that had given me some discomfort during #turbovember showed its true colours. On the first weekend  Little Wheezy had her second dose of the vomiting bug going round and then four days later Wheezy Junior had a dose which had him off of school for 2 days. With a guaranteed  inevitability, on Saturday afternoon I started to feel more and more crappy until I eventually had my head down the porcelain telephone and then it was a solid 24 hours in bed feeling r.o.u.g.h. So a weekend long run with Simon and  a turbo session was obviously canned. I feel so much better now than I have for a couple of weeks though and I don't think I realised just how much I was fighting off. I still managed 2 turbo sessions, 2 short runs and a swim so  it was not all lost but hopefully I can kick on a bit towards Christmas. And my feet are still behaving themselves.  :-)

Speaking of Christmas I have bought myself my present. Sue didn't see any point in going out and buying it as she was worried about getting the wrong one so I was allowed to buy it for myself and I got one of these;

Garmin 410

I have not run with a gps watch properly before. I have used Strava to record my runs in the past but it only gives a record post-run. I want to be able to run my intervals, marathon pace runs and long runs at the correct pace to get the maximum training effect and use heart rate zones properly. No more guessing and running by feel; it's time to get scientific and hopefully this small investment will take me a step closer to sub-3. The only problem is I've got to wait until Christmas day before I can use it, so between now and then it's more steady running building leg strength.

I've also entered another race, the Watford Half Marathon which I'll use as a gauge to my marathon fitness. Onwards.

#Turbovember Day 25

I had a lovely run this morning, pootling around the bottom of Boxhill then Simon and I took in the climbs up to the farm at the top of Young Street then through the back of Denbies vineyard before looping around Ryker's cafe for home. We started too fast and I had a bad patch for a couple of miles before settling in for the rest of the run. Aching like a SoB now, but in a good way. I'll put in a gentle 30-40 minute spin this evening, but unfortunately I don't think that I can count it as a brick session with an 8 hour gap between.