All posts by Armand

Juneathon, Running, Training

Running is like golf

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So Heather tells me. And I see it – after a mediocre weekend of running, this morning’s 5k on day 2 of Juneathon was a relative joy – I’m afraid Runkeeper is struggling, so don’t trust the data – but the 10 minute mile pace I maintained was invigorating. I’m still not sure if its possible that I’ll be able to work it up to 9 minute miles for the 13.1 miles of the New Forest half, but I’ll work on it.

It is odd to me that despite mostly the same warm-ups, prep, conditions, etc. something in me reacts differently on different days and the difference to my run is tremendous. How do I make sure that I’m on top race form when I come to do the New Forest half? Current thoughts:

  • Careful diet in the weeks preceding
  • Gentle tapering off of training, low impact only in the weeks immediately prior
  • Lots of gentle pre-stretching in the days before

Any other tips? I still need a training schedule (and probably a running coach…). Recommendations appreciated.

Also today: 2x 5.5km cycles, in and out of work – another 40 minutes of exercise on top of the 30 minute run. And probably more stretching tonight. Bring it.

Juneathon, Training

Warming up for Juneathon

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After this weekend’s disappointing running, I needed a gentle day to deal with the consequences of running whilst feeling ill, most of which manifested in stiff muscles – the extended run yesterday resulted in an aborting stretching session. So this morning’s wake-up call saw me 15 minutes of gentle stretching. I’ve blogged before about how tough I find it to embrace a stretching routine of any kind, so hoping people don’t see this as a cop-out… I know, it’s not the most impressive start to a month of daily exercise but – it was necessary, and I wanted to give myself another day to recover from the weekends stresses. More running / cycling excitement will kick off over the next few days, I promise.

I have a personal target to beat (as tracked by Runkeeper) – which is to exceed the 98 miles I ran and cycled in May – a substantial challenge given that last month saw me run the half-marathon distance twice (for the first time in my life), as well as a 10-miler and *many* 10k training runs.

16 or so weeks to the New Forest Half-Marathon. And a lot of work to do…

Update: As the day wore on the morning session of stretching as my first day of Juneathon action seemed inadequate, so I’ve reinstated the push-ups and sit-ups (at least today), with 30 and 60 of each respectively. Nowhere near the giddy heights I was achieving last year when I attempted (and failed) the 100 push-up challenge, but hey, it’s exercise. We’ll see how it goes as the month progresses.

LSR, Running, Training

Weekendathon-not-quite-attempt

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Inspired by the thought of doing “Juneathon,” I thought I’d end May  by doing a “Weekendathon” – running 26 miles across the bank holiday weekend. However, this didn’t happen for a number of reasons:

1) I’m fresh back into running after a week of irritating and moderately debilitating hayfever, and whilst the antihistamine levels have now come level with my O2 sats, I’m still a bit enfeebled.
2) I’m not completely recovered from the India bug I had, and my stomach is still going a bit mental

So instead of doing 26 miles in 3 days I managed a measly 15.7 miles (a 5k and two 10ks) – and not in any particularly good time either (30 mins, 68 mins, 75 mins respectively – although was feeling properly ill for the last one).

Still, any running is better than none, and I take some satisfacation from the fact that I now consider a 10k a “short” run – that’s a reference frame I couldn’t have imagined having a few months ago. The Runkeeper stats for these runs, I’m afraid, are a bit unreliable – I thought the iPhone was playing up but as I had to have it replaced due to a faulty microphone (27 days from the expiry of my warranty, phew!) – it now seems that the satellites are to blame. Goddamn satellites, the cause of all the problems.

In other news / dramas, Rach has an injury and may not run the New Forest half-marathon with me in September! Oh noes! Sensei Paul’ll still run it “with me”, but given that he’s likely to complete it in about 1h20mins (and I’m not likely to finish in less than 2h20, despite the lofty goal of a sub-2-hour half)… well, anyone else care to join?

Juneathon, Running

Juneathon

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I was blitzing my way through a bunch of new running blog subscriptions (you’ll see some new links in the blogroll) when I discovered Juneathon, a virtual challenge to the running community to run (or exercise) and blog daily throughout June made by Cathy at Jog Blog. Given that @jimbocoyle and I share the authorship of this blog, we figured we could go for a joint effort at facing the challenge! Sorry if this is a bit of a cop-out… but it’ll improve the chances of a daily post for y’all!

Here’s our commitment to enter on JogBlog’s official Juneathon page.

I still haven’t conquered the hay fever so the first few days could be a challenge, but I managed a cycle today (another new personal best, probably the last for a while, we an average 12mph pace for the 3.5mile cycle, London traffic notwithstanding), so that’s a contribution ahead of June kicking off!

Training

Training vs. hay fever

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I don’t know what’s going on with the pollen but I am anti-histamined up and haven’t been in any state to run since Tuesday. Hoping I can pick it up again going into the weekend and we get some rain to flush this crap out of the air. Horrible, back-of-throat-scratchiness. Yech.

It is better to run through the discomfort and sleeplessness? Damn pollen.

Running, Training

First attempt at Interval training

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It didn’t go so well. It turns out the longish gap since my last run (4 days), combined with 16 hours of flights, a mild stomach bug, moderate dehydration caused by the general hotness of the world and aforementioned stomach bug and the fact my last run was a half marathon distance meant I was a little stiff and slow getting started this morning.

Things didn’t start well when Runkeeper couldn’t get a GPS lock this morning – rather than having the dulcet tones of the Runkeeper automated trainer kicking off my running this morning I kicked in with some tunes and tried to do song-length intervals. This lasted all of 3 minutes, at which point Runkeeper kicked in and I realised that my hope of doing 3minutes ‘fast’ (5.30ish splits per km) and 2 minutes ‘steady’ (6m30ish splits per km) on rotation was a bit, well, optimistic. I forged on through the first half of the 5k run, my knees thankfully not causing me any issues whatsoever despite yesterday’s concerns, at a reasonable (if not quick) split of about 6m16 per km on average, and then it dialled back to about 6m30 by the time I finished the run.

Whilst my knees caused no problems, my left shin (which has never really given me problems in the past) stayed stiff most of the way through the first 4.5km, only beginning to loosen up towards the end. Am giving it a good stretch today and will try another gentle run tomorrow (and hopefully intervals again on Thurs) before a couple of LSRs this weekend in an attempt to restore normality.

Run record (edited to make up for Runkeeper GPS issues) is here.

Injuries, Training

Knee injuries and running

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I’m not injured. I don’t think. It’s hard to know. A few of my friends, including Matt the Inept and JKB tell me of injuries or injury-proneness, but since I sorted out my flat-footedness with orthotics (sorted out for me by this guy) and lost the weight that was triggering shin-splints, I have largely been injury free. I think.

The strange thing has been, between the India trip (it was 40 degrees C in Delhi) and coming back to an uncharacteristically hot London (28 degrees here, crazy I know!), I’ve been uncertain as to weather the heat has caused some swelling in my knees, they’re still recovering from the 21k I ran last Thursday, or… nothing, and this is how 30-year-old-run-on-a-lot-knees are supposed to feel. Not hurting, exactly, but popping a bit and feeling a little tender (this discussion suggests minor patellar tendonitis, damn self-diagnosis…)

Needless to say, the Internets holds a variety of “wisdom” – stretching, improving hydration and knee braces are things I should consider according to this dude, this discussion on MapMyRun suggests running on grass to reduce impact, icing the knees, reducing mileage, taking painkillers (surely that’s mental)… and dietary supplements. But that said, most of the people with these “problems” experience real pain rather than minor aches. I’m on a 0 or 1 out of 10 on the pain scale (where ten is agony and 1 is nothing at all…)

I’ve always believed (though not always acted) on the guidance that you should “listen to your body” and I’m just not sure what my body is telling me… “work harder, keep building strength”, or “be careful, injury’s not far away.” I’m hoping it’s the former as tomorrow morning I try my first Runkeeper guided interval training session. Wish me luck.

Any thoughts from other runners out there?

Also: still looking for recommendations of additional (UK?) running blogs to follow, guidance appreciated – and links will follow in the blogroll!

LSR, Running, Training

Half marathon distance training run no 2

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Ouch. I keep forgetting how far 21km is. It’s far.

This morning, ahead of a trip to India for a family wedding I ran the ridiculous distance again – hoping to improve on my previous 20k+ effort. And I think I did – maintaining a split of 6m30 per for the duration of the 2h19 minutes I was running (that’s a LOT of running). The run data is on Runkeeper here.

It was tough going though – the first 10.5k were OK but the return trip got fairly gruelling. I’d foolishly opted for no vaseline as my new running shirts had arrived (needed to apply it mid-run when I hit the 12k mark) and my endurance began to flag then too – having maintained a target beating split of 6m16 per km on the way out, the return trip saw me lose a second or two per kilometer until I finished with the final average split. The voice prompts in Runkeeper continue to be an excellent motivating force.

I crossed the 13.1m barrier (21.1k) after 2h17 minutes or thereabouts – which means that the road to the sub-2-hour half marathon is pretty steep – need to shave a minute off my splits, give or take. But I’ve got time, and am planning on dialling some interval training into Runkeeper to help with my speed training.

Any tips from anyone out there? I’m continuing to subscribe to Sensei Paul’s school of thinking that any miles under my belt will help, even if the training is slightly haphazard, so pleased that I managed to achieve the distance again.

LSR, Training

Long Slow Run in the countryside – 16 May

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The weekend’s training was a bit of a mix – first a relatively gentle 10k on Saturday (although my quickest since I started recording runs with Runkeeper) – and then, whilst staying with Amanda’s family, a 10 mile country ramble on Sunday.

The 10-miler was challenging and entertaining for a number of reasons.

First; hills. My leisurely London route doesn’t really have any. My Hampshire ramble? Did. Very much so. Yowza.

Second; jogging with JKB, my brother-in-law, for the first 35 minutes, was good – but meant I wasn’t listening to the audio prompts from my new £6 purchase of Runkeeper Pro – resulting in my early pace being relatively slow (about 6m50 per km). I also need to warm up better – if not stretch – as it took about 35 minutes to work out the tightness in my shins.

Third; Runkeeper paid edition gave me audio prompts for the remainder of the run, pushing me to hit a target pace of 6m30 per km – great motivation, and will be invaluable in training. Looking like £6 well spent. I made it up to 6m33 by the end of the run – with some decent splits for me for a 10-miler. Overall, though, it was a slow run – 1h50 for the 17k (10.5miles) that I ran. I will need to up the pace significantly to beat the 2 hour target for the half marathon (either that, or get to a point where I can run the final 4k in 9 minutes!).

Fourth; I overlapped with the Hook Fun Run for about 5 miles of the run, which meant a lot of confused marshalls when I first ran the wrong way, and then ducked off on a “wrong turning” around mile 6. Accidentally ran two races last week, ish! Still, running as part of a “race” (even though I wasn’t racing) helped with the motivation and the pace.

I survived the run happily (fitness improving!) and only slightly stiff the day after (although a headcold/hayfever has held me up for a day or so). Hoping to get back into training tomorrow but the rest of this week’s training will likely be minimal as heading off for a cousin’s wedding this weekend (in India!). See if I can find an air-conditioned gym for a treadmill-based run whilst I’m out there…