Guess who broke wind?

6 days to London Marathon

Todays run was a very easy 10 miles. I was expecting to run about 66 minutes.
We took 66:30.

Mark has been accompanying us on our long runs for a few weeks now, and today Hayley (Mrs Milly) also came along too.






Mark laughs, Milly and Hayley get a waft.

Boring post. Full of data. No Pics

11 days until London Marathon

Reps
800m - 2:43
800m -2:33
400m -1:17
400m -1:09

5 minute walking recovery

800m - 2:40
800m - 2:30
400m - 1:17
400m -1:10

Only three miles of reps last night, and with a super long rest between the first and second half, which was supposed to allow me to run the second set perhaps faster than the first. This worked OK for the 800s but the 400s were 1 second slower.

Mystery training partner quiz

14 days to London Marathon

I didnt really take todays run seriously. I didn't eat my usual high carb meal at tea time last night. I didn't get up early enough to eat a big breakfast and have it mostly digested before running. I didn't properly plan the route or put out drinks. I forgot to wear my watch and just wasn't generally in the same mindset as most for most recent Saturday runs.

The weather was fantastic. Warm and bright sunshine with scarcely a breath of wind. I say fantastic but if this was the weather for the marathon I would be concerned. Still - fantastic for sitting around in the garden post run.

I didn't want this run to be too hard or too easy, just a moderate effort throughout, which is exactly what it was. From the outset I could tell it was speedier than our usual long run pace, but it never felt as tough as the marathon pace effort of a Tuesday evening run. To learn that we had ran the 16miles at 6:37 was a little bit disappointing to be honest. I thought this effort would net a result nearer 6:30. Not to worry though, I am still confident for London.

Only a very small prize for guessing the identity of todays training partner

Milly didnt have a great run. He lost a stride length to me every hundred metres or so during the final 2 miles, had tight calves and is still struggling with getting his gel intake right. this is a minor worry for me as I want him to run a good marathon just as much as I do myself. For both of us now though there is very little we can do to improve our fitness so what will be (on 25th) will be. We intend to race a hilly 6 miler this Wednesday at Keswick which will be the final hard run of any distance.

Track session

15 days until London Marathon

Thursday - Reps on the track with Milly

1k - 3:35
1k - 3:20
800m - 2:36
800m - 2:34
400m - 1:14
400m - 1:11
400m - 1:10
800m - 2:36
800m - 2:38

The first 1k was merely a warm up because I was late and had only ran one lap easy prior to that. I had worked out that 5:30 per mile was 3:24 per k so that was our target pace. Perhaps too easy a target since we easily beat it.

The 800s were well paced with me and Milly taking turns into the strong headwind on the first bend/back straight.

The 400s were a huge surprise to me. Milly had posed the question what pace to run them at? I suggested 75 - 80 seconds (5:00 to 5:20 per mile). This proved to be a very poor guess indeed. Fantastic!

Tomorrow sees us off on a brisk 16 miler. Saturdays have been sub 7 pace, Tuesdays have been sub 6:15 pace so I have made the executive decision to run tomorrow at 6:30 pace. Fast enough and far enough to be a decent training effort but not so tough that it will take more than a day to get over it.

The nearly man

19 Days to London Marathon

I'll not pretend that tonight's run was a normal marathon pace run as we have been doing most Tuesdays. Last week it more or less was but tonight I must admit that I ran pretty damn hard from the outset. I wanted to be inside 61 minutes and actually, secretly, I was hoping to dip inside the magic 60 minute mark. Sub six minute miling. Over Ten MPH. Alas, it wasn't to be. On the way out there was no detectable wind and I was just a few seconds inside those magic figures. Not feeling the wind did not mean it was not blowing though, and it was troublesome on the return leg, meaning a loss of pace and a sub 60minute run became extremely unlikely. Three miles to go, less than 18 minutes until the hour passes. In a last ditch, all out effort I did in fact manage to run 6:00 pace for this last part, and that was despite a headwind, a gate, a busy main road to cross and a two minute climb out of the park.

Without any photos pertinent to todays post I decided to take this one

to indicate my actual time for the Ten miles. Certainly can't complain about that time (but without another hard 10 miler before London I am not going to 'beat the hour' in training until the faster, sharper, summer training.)

Mike Scott said

3 Weeks until London Marathon

Originally I was going to run my interval session 4/11 x4 around the 10mile circuit, followed up the next day with three laps of Talkin. Mentioning my plans to my good pal Mike he suggested that may be too much at this late stage and I should instead do the intervals around the first two laps of Talkin, then jog a third lap very easy to make up the distance.

I have always held Mike opinion in high regard and so didn't hesitate to take his advice. As I arrived at the church in Talkin where I always park I was amazed to see two runners get out of the vehicle in front of me. Chris bunker and Claire Burrell are two people I often see training at gelt. I think they may have been here today due to the motocross meeting which takes over one of the fields on the Gelt circuit. I waited to begin my run until they had so as to allow me to take this photo. I have received constructive criticism suggesting I add pictures to my posts, and although originally and still primarily a training log, I may as well attempt to improve the experience for readers.
Lap one was 42:25. My best time this year. I felt great as the lap was completed so carried right on with lap 2 which took me two seconds less. Thus far I had completed a half marathon including 1200ft ascent inside 85 mins - not bad for a training run , especially considering that 24 minutes, (over 25%) of that time was jogging very easily in the 6 recovery periods between the 6 efforts. I considered running lap 3 at a decent effort in a bid to get a good time for the whole run but decided it made more sense to take it easy as Mike said. 48 minutes was a slow lap 3 but I put no effort in, and am very happy with the run overall. Anybody who trains regularly will know that doing 'running recovery' intervals over a circuit is unlikely to give as fast a result as a steady/hard effort so I'm chuffed with 6:50 pace for 19.5 miles.

I only ate one gel during this run but I didn't get lost at any stage. Afterwards I asked for a free coffee in the village pub. They looked at me funny and asked for one pound thirty!

I hope to include more photos in the future. I don't usually take a camera with me running but always have my iPhone which is OK for impromptu snaps. I have recently purchased a Canon DSLR and am trying to learn all about it's various settings. It's a whole new world to me, ISO, shutter speed, focal length, changeable lenses etc. For now though here's another pic to keep the critics happy.

This is Scamp, one of my two dogs.

Training on a Friday?

Usually Friday is a day off but with things being mixed up this week and not being at work I thought I may as well go running. I decided it might as we be a worthwhile run so I ran the 10 mile circuit at an easy pace. I had in mind that it would take 65 minutes but with a mild headwind my time at halfway was 33:30. I was mindful of keeping the effort the same all the way home but think I may have gone a bit too easy at times. It would have been easy to run progressively harder and acheive 65 mins but that wasn't my idea for this run. In the end, 66:16 was quite acceptable. On my final Sunday run prior to a marathon I always run this exact 10 mile circuit at an easy conversational pace. It gives me an indication of my fitness and can be compared to previous years.