Consolodation

Two weeks ago I continued my schedule as posted in the last entry. That schedule, as you will have seen, ends today. This last week has been a consolodation week. All the training times were reduced to give my body chance to recover and strengthen. Week 3, 2 weeks ago, went well. I managed another swim and some hill intervals again. I had the Saturday off I was on a Track Day, tearing my car around Elvington airfield. Hugely entertaining, scalping a Porsche GT3 was the highlight of the day I think.

Anyway, Sunday I only did 77 mins thinking it was my consolodation Sunday. When in fact, I should have done another 20 minutes. Today was my 77 minute run. Oh well, not to worry. Last Sunday was an enjoyable run. I took the opportunity to explore some areas close to me, little paths that I'd always wondered where they went. It's nice to find out and complete my local-area knowledge more. Gives me more options for future runs.

Tuesday this week I did a 10 minute endurance run down my "Hill". There I did 18 minutes worth of hill intervals. The hill is my usual one, very steep, takes 30 seconds to climb (when fresh). I managed the 18 minutes, my heart rate topping out about 175 at the peak a few occasions. The hill really takes a lot out of you. At the end of the set, I took a couple of minutes to recover. This was a bit of a mistake as my body temperature came crashing down really quickly. I'd left the house without my windproof jacket, hat and gloves, and it was deceptively cold. My body had generated a lot of heat from the hill climbs, but now in recovery mode, I got cold very fast. I started off at a jog to try and get my heat back in, and really struggled. Lucky I was only 10 minutes from home. When I got in I jumped straight in the shower. I couldn't feel the hot water for about 6 ot 7 minutes. I won't make that mistake again!

Wednesday I drove down to my gym and from there did a half hour run in the local area. After that I did a half hour swim. Probably no more than 20 lengths. I trying to improve my technique still, as well as cross train.

Friday was my usual gym strength session, which went well.

Saturday I was due to walk up Mount Snowdon in North Wales with a friend. However the day before, I'd got a mountain weather forcast and took a look at the webcam. The weather look terrible. Here's the information I emailed to my friend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/sites/webcams/pages/snowdon.shtml
Outlook for Saturday / Rhagolygon ar gyfer Dydd SadwrnAnother fairly poor day likely with further cloud and outbreaks of rain expected. It will be mostly dry through the morning but more persistent and heavy rain will spread up from the south into the afternoon. Again the cloud will be low enough for some pretty widespread hill fog.

We would have arrived around 11am. The clim takes about 3.5 Hours, the decent about 3 hours. We deciced that it would be a little irresponsible of us to walk that day. The web cam showed very low level fog. Walking up one of the UK's highest peaks in fog and heavy rain wasn't going to do either of us any good. We'll look again in about a month when the weather picks up.

Instead I went out for a 1 hour 50 minte walk. A little longer than I intended, but once again I went exploring paths and roads to find out where they went. As predicted the weather was awful. My waterproof jacket, turned out not to be as waterproof as I thought! I got pretty soaked to the point that I ran the last 1.5 miles home! I had also wandered into the middle of a Gypsy camp in an area called Ravenscliffe that I didn't know was there! Oops. I just wandered through and no one bothered me. The surrounding area was a real dump. The roads nearby were full of rubbish; tyres, clothes, wood, refuge, tarmac. You name it. One road was almost impassable to traffic becuase of the mess. Needless to say I'll avoid that area in future!

Today I did my 77 minutes. I ran form my parents house (Mothers day!) up and through Hanchurch woods. Really enjoyed it, never saw a soul in the wood. The rain died off 20 mins in the run so it was very peaceful and relaxing. Wasn't taxing at all, average heart rate about 138 I think, 7 miles.

Tomorrow is the start of the next 4 week cycle. Distances building up again over the next 3 weeks. Speak to you soon.

Beaches, Hills and Swims

Last week I was working away from home. I was working in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but I was staying in Whitely Bay nearby. Two reasons; I hate staying in the city, I like the hotel (mainly becuase of it's location - by the sea!).

I always run when I'm up there. I managed two runs in the 2 nights I stayed.

On Monday evening I ran an 2.5 miles overdistance (level 1 heart rate max 129bpm). The 2.5 miles is along the costal edge over grass and promenade, accross the causeway and up to the lighthouse. I always run right up the ramp and make sure I touch the lighthouse (as long as the tide is out). It makes me feel as though I've done it properly and not cheated. On the 2.5M way back I ran intervals. 1 minute at 70% effort, 1 minute recovery, all the way back. I've also been focussing and practicing my breathing paterns. I switched between 4x4, 3x3 and 2x2. The 2x2 (2 strides, breath in, 2 strides 2 breath out) when I am running at fastest pace.

I've had issues with breathing rythym for a long time now, so I'm making an effort to concentrate hard on it until it becomes second nature.

On the tuesday evening it was very cold and very wet. I'd guess a few degress below 0 with wind chill. Never one to be accused of being a fine-weather-jogger I dressed for the occasion, complete with hat, gloves and windproof jacket and set off on the same route. However this time I got the urge to drop down to the beach. So I did and ran on the hard packed wet sand, pebbles and boulders. This run was an endurance run both ways (139BPM max heart rate). On the way back it was tough to keep my heart rate under target as I was running into a fairly strong headwind. However, I did enjoy the run on the sand and i'll do it again next time I'm up there.

On Saturday I did a walk as usual. I walked 9 miles accross Apedale to Silverdale and back. I've been running through what I thought was an abandoned industrial estate in Silverdale for a couple of years now. All the buildings have been levelled and there are just concrete footings left. I took a slightly different route through the ruins and spotted a caged off mine-shaft entrance. I then realised that this was of course the former Silverdale Mining Coliery site. How stupid of me. I should have known this as I'm fairly local and i've run this route many times. Of well you live and learn, and i'll keep and eye out for deep holes when I run there in future!

Sunday I stuck to my training plan and did 1hour 40 minutes overdistance. Wearing my Raidlight back pack it is very hard to keep my heart rate down to below 129. I have to jog very slowly (about 4.9 - 5mph average). As a result I only covered about 7.5miles. This seems awfully slow, and I feel guilty but I stuck with it.

Tuesday this week I did a short overdistance (1.5M) run down to Apedale. There I found myself a very steep grassy hill. It's steep, but you can just about run up it without loosing footing too much. I then did 20 minutes of hill intervals. Wow, did this beat me up. I launched at the hill, about 70% effort and it took about 20 - 30 seconds to climb, I then jogged slowly(or walked) down to the bottom and repeated. I guess I did about 9 reps (but it felt like a hundred). I reach 175BPM by the peak which is over 95% heart rate. I worked hard and it really took a lot out of me. I then jogged back, but I was worn out so I had no chance of keeping my HR down to 129. It was above 140 most of the way, mainly becuase it was all uphill on the way back... erm.. I think some better planning required for next weeks hill intervals.

I sat thinking on Tuesdsay night. I was a little concerned that all of my runs (apart from the intervals) were at level 1 or 2 heart rate. This makes for very slow, very easy runs. The book says that this is fine, it is building my base fitness etc. However, I just had a nagging feeling that I was loosing my speed. I've never been a fast runner anyway. A 10K undulating trail race before xmas took me 52 mins. Granted I had an injury and had to address my foot problem a few times during the race and stop. anyway... I decided that instead of 50 minutes overdistance I was going to do 50 minutes at pace. I picked an undulating (very long steep hill involved) road route that ended up being 5.1 miles. I completed it in around 41 mins. Average 7.3mph, 8:10 minute miles. I was pretty happy with that and I've not lost my speed. I'll drop in the odd pace run during the next few months of base training, just to remind myself to run quick.

I also managed a swim tonight too. First time i've managed it, but I'll get it in regulary now as I like the idea of a little cross training. I'm not a fantastic swimmer. I can swim lengths of the pool, but with no finesse at all. No technique, head above water all the time etc. I'm starting on the blue (stage 2 of 3) training cards at the gym. Stage 1 is too easy, even for me.

Todays swim consisted of 22 lengths of the 25M pool using various strokes and also a pull buoy to imobilise my legs and make me focus on arms. To be honest I wasn't that good, my technique was still rubbish. I'll keep trying at it though!

Next week is week 4 of my first 4-week cycle, which means consolodation. All my running times take a dip to allow time for my body to repair and get stronger. I've posted a picture this weeks and next weeks schedule up there on the right.

Speak to you soon...

Training change for another challenge

On the training front, this is my plan from the last 2 weeks. Explanation as follows.....

I've had a rethink on training over the last couple of weeks and formulated a new training plan.

A few things prompted this. The previous schedule would have put me on course for a Marathon in little over 7 weeks. Since I’m not actually running a marathon then, I though, there’s no point in training so hard for one. Then during one week I caught a bit of a cold. I took this as a sign of overtraining so I took a few days off to be sure. In the meantime I read a book ‘SERIOUS training for Endurance Athletes’. Once I’d got over pages of needless graphs (The authors are American – I know how they love their statistics!) I used to generate a new plan. The methodology to creating it is pretty complex, it took me 6 worksheets of an Excel spreadsheet, all cross-referenced, to churn it out!

In a nutshell the year is split into 13 x 4 week blocks. There are 4 main stages during the year.

Base – Building a base fitness
Intensity – Increasing distances, building strengths etc
Peak/Race – The season you are building for, during which you run in all the main events.
Recovery – About 4 weeks of very light training to recover.

I’ve built a plan to have me hitting the peak/race sector at the beginning of November. This is not by accident. My next piece of news is that I’ve got a guaranteed entrance into the New York Marathon. Being a non US competitor it’s possible to get guaranteed entry as long as you book flights and race-entry through authorised travel agents.

So, I’m in, my seat on the plane is booked. Now I just need a hotel, ideally within staggering distance from the south end of Central Park (the finish line!). Any recommendations?