Monday, January 31, 2005

Weekly summary - 12 weeks to go

A mixed week, having started with excellent results from my cardiac drift test, but resulting in a strained tendon. After a few days of gym sessions, things seem to have settled down, so it's back to normal next week (fingers crossed).

MondayRest  
Tuesday9.5 milesDrift testGood pace, but strained tendon!
WednesdayRest  
ThursdayRest  
Friday4 miles equivCross trainerFelt good
Saturday5.5 miles equivGym sessionMixture of XT, row, weights and tready
Sunday14 miles equivMega gym sessionHot!
Total33 miles equivalent

Above mileages after Tuesday are gym equivalents.

Only 12 weeks to London. It's starting to sound awfully close!

Sunday, January 30, 2005

The gym session from hell

I'm a little smaller than I used to be. There's a pool of molten Susie lying on the floor of my local gym. Man it was hot!

I've spent the last 3 days in the gym. No, I didn't take my sleeping bag. As a result of injury I've been keeping things low impact, but trying to maintain my training effort.

After being concerned I'd done something quite serious to my soleus on Tuesday night - I was limping on Wednesday - things have turned out quite well. I had some physio on Thursday and things settled down almost immediately. I had a strained soleus tendon, but nothing appeared torn.

To play it safe, after resting Wednesday and Thursday, I decided to do my training in the gym for a few days. Friday's cross trainer session went well - no pain - so I did almost my normal Saturday gym session with 3 miles of treadmill - again no pain.

I had then felt that maybe I was OK to resume on the road, but realised a long Sunday run might be a little much with a dodgy tendon. The plan then was to do a long gym session, with treadmill running interspersed with short sessions of cross trainer and bike. The hope was that by keeping my heart rate up for over 2 hours, then I'd get the training benefit of a normal long run.

My mega session didn't start well when I had to queue for ages for the loos! I was queuing behind what looked like the Junior Priscilla Queen of the Desert Fan Club. Either there was a dance competition on in the main hall, or it was a beauty pageant for young drag queens (hmm, maybe they were boys?). I assume they had some sort of sponsorship deal with Max Factor. Don't their mothers realise they wouldn't look out of place in a seedy drag bar in Soho?

When I finally got in the gym I got a shock. It was packed. No treadmills or cross trainers available! The curse of the post Xmas rush. Maybe I'm a fitness fascist, but it was rather bizarre that on the 10 treadmills not one person was running! Are these people so unfit that a few minutes of walking is exercise? Harumph!

As I stood surveying the scene, a cross trainer became available so I grabbed it quickly. After 10mins, glancing over my shoulder I saw a spare treadmill, so quickly swapped.

Fortunately, with the time approaching lunch time, the festival of flesh decided that they had been away from food too long and the gym cleared. I was able then to choose the pattern of my session for myself. God it was hot though! With the extra bodies it was noticeably hotter than normal.

In all I had a total of 2 hours 25 mins of continuous aerobic work: 10mins cross trainer, 3 miles treadie, 10mins cross trainer, 2.5 miles treadie, 10mins bike, 2 miles treadie, 10mins bike, 1.5 miles treadie plus a treadie cool down. My HR averaged 119bpm or 68%maxHR. I'm counting this as the equivalent of a 14mile run, although in terms of calories burnt it was nearer 15miles. Result!

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Cardiac drift test

I talked about a cardiac drift test in my Cardiac Drift posting. Last night I redid the test, still at around 80%maxHR - 140bpm, but at the much faster pace I am now running at.

The plan was to warm up for about a mile, then run continuous laps of a neighbourhood circuit of 1.5miles, taking split times and average HR for each lap. It was very cold last night and it took me a couple of miles to feel settled, so my pace was a little off for the first lap. I soon settled at around 8:25/mile and 140bpm. There was a noticeable headwind for a third of the lap: I don't think this had too much of an effect, but may have slowed me from the 8:20/mile I had tried to run at.

As ever the HR plots are pretty but not as meaningful as the lap data. Here's the plot:
Drift test HR plot 25th Jan 2005
And here are the lap details:

1.5-mile continuous laps. 1 mile warm up/cool down not included
LapLap timeMins/milebpm
112:568:37135
212:348:22140
312:428:27141
412:408:26140
512:358:23141


So I can sustain 140bpm for well over an hour with no sign of cardiac drift! This means that my Maximum Steady State, or marathon pace, is at least 140bpm and may be higher.

The great thing for me is the pace I maintained. 8:25/mile feels really quick, but I can keep it going for a long time. This is much quicker than last time I tried this test, although I suspected then that I wasn't fully recovered from illness.

I shall now try training at a slightly higher heart rate and redo the test in a few weeks at a faster pace.


This was really good news last night, but it's tempered with the bad news that I've injured my left soleus muscle. It has been very cold the last few days and this may have contributed. I'm getting it checked tomorrow, so will try to reserve judgement till then.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Weekly summary

A week of ups and downs, as you can tell from my previous posts. After an awful start to the week, I recovered well to have a good interval session, gym session, and long run. The long run was my longest yet and it felt comfortable! Unlike last week my legs felt strong right to the end, although I had a few tweaks on the outside of my left ankle due to what I think is a tight peroneus longus.

A very good week!
MondayRest  
Tuesday9 milesSteady run at 80%maxHRBit tired at the end
Wednesday6.9 milesEasy recovery 67%maxHRFelt dreadful!
Thursday6.8 miles1.1mile repsFelt great!!
Friday7 milesEasy 68%maxHR 
Saturday6 milesGym session 2miles+4milesTreadmill /rowing/weights/ treadmill
Sunday16 miles9:48/mile 123bpm ave 71%maxHRUndulating and chatting so slower than last week
Total 51.6 miles


Next week I may add some quality to the long run - a few marathon pace miles towards the end. Other than that, maybe add a mile or 2 to the weekly mileage. It's getting tricky to see how to add to the mileage, due to time pressures, but I'll try to get more quality miles in my club session, which unfortunately means running on my own at the end while the others get changed!

Friday, January 21, 2005

Mile reps

I thought I'd share last night's interval session with you, as I haven't yet gone into any detail of the sessions I'm doing. I had hoped to report a drift test on Tuesday, but it was just too windy. After the extreme fatigue of the last few days, I had wondered about the wisdom of pushing on with a full work session, but I felt great! Oh the ups and downs of base training!

The session was run with my club. While the others were doing 800m reps, I was doing an extra lap of the road circuit making 1740m plus a jog recover of 90secs. For no other reason than I seem to like looking at HR plots, here it is:
mile reps HR plot 20th Jan 2005
Perhaps more meaningful, here are the lap details:

1.1-mile laps with 90secs recovery. HR limited to 144bpm 83%MaxHR
LapLap timeMins/milebpm
18:267:49135
28:237:46140
38:287:50140
48:267:48141


I felt so fresh, and could easily have done more. What a contrast to the day before!

You can't really microanalyse these sessions, but there are few observations:
  • These are the fastest mile reps I've ever done, despite the low ave HR - 80%maxHR!
  • I'm now comfortable only taking 90secs rest - I used to take 3 minutes, although my HR was a lot higher then.
  • My pace and HR are very consistent - lactate nicely under control
  • The pace was what I ran my 10k PB at 11 days ago - 7:46/mile

That last point is interesting. I'm improving rapidly, but there can't be much difference in only 11 days. This means one of 2 things: You should be able to run mile reps at 10k pace with an average HR of only 80%maxHR - I suspect not. Alternatively, I was a touch stale for the Stubbington 10k and could actually now go much faster - I suspect this is nearer the truth. What ever the case, these are all good signs of my continued improvement.

BT rocks!

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Things that go squelch in the night

Sometimes I'm my own worst enemy.

I've already seen how, while running 50 miles a week, a small change to my routine can make a huge difference to whether I can cope with the training. Over Xmas I saw that adding drinking and driving to my schedule (not on the same days I should add!), and I was barely able to cope. Now it seems, sleep is a major factor.

I've always needed 8 hours of sleep a night, but as the mileage goes up I appear to need more. Given this simple fact, why did I think it was OK to follow a 15 miler on Sunday with a late night on the computer doing quite brain intensive stuff (tax!) and then have a mug of hot chocolate immediately before bedtime? I was buzzing! No way could I sleep! I know I can't sleep if I've been doing brain work late at night, so I thought a half hour of tele and a cup of hot chocolate (which I think contains caffeine!) would calm me down and help me sleep. Doh! I was wrecked on Monday morning. Luckily it was my one rest day, so plenty of time to recover (I thought).

Monday night was better. I probably should have gone to bed earlier, but I felt reasonably well recovered for my 9 mile work session on Tuesday night.

Another factor that can affect sleep is if I eat late - after 9pm. A full stomach keeps me awake. Tuesday wasn't too bad as I'd cleared up by 9pm and had set myself up for a good night's sleep. With various bits and pieces of daily dysfunction still to do, it was 11pm by the time I got in bed. Not too bad, but perhaps a little late?

At around 5am the sleep catch-up was going well when a noise - maybe the central heating starting - stirred me from sleep and I lay dozing. Then all prospect of continued sleep evaporated: a loud squelching sound frightened the hell out of me! It seemed like it came from within the house. It was one of those noises which you just can't place. It sounded like a heavy object landing on something soft. A bird hitting the window? I don't think so. An object falling off a shelf onto something below? Maybe, but I spent the next quarter of an hour searching the house and peering through the windows trying to figure out what it could be. Had my dozing brain been playing tricks on me? Had I imagined it? Something must have happened to trigger the cold sweat I was in, but what?

I eventually went back to bed, but attempts at sleep were futile. The source of the mystery sound remains just that: a mystery. The following morning I even typed 'Things that go squelch in the night' into Google, to see what came back, but nothing useful.

My Wednesday lunchtime recovery run, as a result, ended up as yet another survival run. As the afternoon wore on I felt dreadful. By the time I got home I was wrecked. I ended up going to bed at 8:30pm in a desperate attempt to catch up on some sleep. This morning I feel better. Maybe a touch woolly around the edges, but better. Another 7 mile work session beckons for this evening, but maybe I'll take it easy. And then bed! To sleep, perchance to dream!

2 weeks to go before my next cutback week. I hope things get easier!



(In case you're wondering, Google does come up with 2 direct hits for 'Things that go squelch in the night': one, the title of a lecture for the Cambridge University Chemical Society, and the other, a forum discussion on wee creatures trampled under foot. If you're really that desperate for the links, I'll let you do the googling!)


Sunday, January 16, 2005

Weekly summary

My first full 50 mile week!

MondayRest   
Tuesday9 milesEasy 115bpm 66%MHRRecovering from Sunday's race
Wednesday7 milesEasy 120bpm 69%MHR 
Thursday6.6 miles2 2-mile reps @83%MHR 8:00/mile Running very comfortably!
Friday6.7 milesEasy 119bpm 68%MHR 
Saturday6 milesGym session 2miles+4miles on treadierowing and weights between treadie sessions
Sunday15 miles121bpm ave 70%MHR 9:30/mile aveFastest pace yet for a slow run!
Total50.3 miles

I don't feel comfortable at this mileage yet, although having never done this sort of mileage before, have I any right to expect to feel 'comfortable'? I'll keep the mileage stable next week as I have a Tuesday work session which I missed out this week. If I can get to the stage where my 15-miler feels comfortable, then I'll add a bit of quality to it - a few marathon pace miles in the middle or towards the end.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Cardiac drift

I got the following from XFR Bear:



I was intrigued by your training. At first sight I just thought you were doing standard base training. I tried this but it drove me nuts - all that running slowly. I sort of follow the theory but it does my head in doing it, so I was hoping to combine it with some harder sessions, which seems to be what you're doing? How have you found it?

And also - I have a big problem with cardiac drift - how did you tackle this?


This question gets to the core of base training - It's not all slow running! The 2 parts of the question are also actually the same question, if you are following the methods laid out in the Hadd article, which most of us Base Trainers are doing.

Let's first look at the subject of cardiac drift. What is it? To answer that indirectly, it's the reason I got into base training in the first place. To answer it directly, have a look at the following heart rate plot of me at the 2003 Worthing 20. I ran the race at a steady 10:00mins/mile using my Timex Speed/Distance monitor. I tried to run as steadily as I could, to see the effects of cardiac drift over the course of 20 miles. Here's the result:


The steady increase in heart rate is clear to see, but is even more graphically (?) illustrated by looking at the average heart rate for each 2 mile section:
131, 135, 135, 138, 140, 141, 141, 142, 144, 146


I remember seeing in a book called "Training, Lactate, Pulse Rate" plots of heart rates of athletes and cyclists. They were all beautifully level. No sign of the increasing HRs I was getting. There was also advice that a particular race should be run at, e.g., 85% of Working Heart Rate. What did this mean? Should I start out at this rate? Should I try to arrange my pace so that I finished at this rate? Or should I try to average out at that rate? In some early races I tried to go off at the specified HR with disastrous results - total burn out - I slowed dramatically after only 2 miles. Even going off at a more conservative pace and trying to hold my target HR once I'd settled, resulted in a gradual slowing down during the race. What was happening? Heart rate monitors are rubbish!

I assumed that there was just something different about how my body worked. I kind of got used to the fact that I'd have quite a rise in HR and planned for it, so I could just about pace a race on HR, but it wasn't ideal. Some years later I found a reference to Cardiac Drift on the internet. It was only a definition, describing increasing lactate levels, but it seemed to imply that it was perfectly normal (I suppose it is!) and was simply how the body worked. I accepted that there was nothing wrong with me and kept training as normal - my club diet of fast anaerobic intervals and a couple of longer steady pace runs in the week.

Then, in a discussion thread on the Runner's World website, I commented that someone was getting cardiac drift, and it appeared to be perfectly normal, when up popped a super-hero kinda guy called Pantman, to correct me. Pantman seemed to be saying that you could train away cardiac drift. It was simply a symptom of poor aerobic conditioning. He pointed me at the Base Training thread, and my training style was changed forever.


So why do we get this steady increase in heart rate or cardiac drift?

Put simply, it's a steady build up of lactate in the muscles. Muscles don't like the acidic environment that lactate (or lactic acid) creates and so the efficiency drops and more blood needs to be pumped to keep the work rate up. Eventually the muscles get poisoned and stop working when overloaded by lactate - feeling the burn.

I used my words carefully there, because some people seem to regard lactate/lactic acid as a poison - a toxin that stays around in the muscles and causes you to ache the following day. This is simply untrue. In fact the muscles can actually use lactate as an energy source. This is the fourth energy system which I hinted at in my Base Training summary posting The Lactic Enemy.

Your aerobic energy system can use the lactate produced by your anaerobic system as an energy source. At slow speeds/HRs this works quite well. In fact, when you start to run slowly your lactate levels can initially drop to a level lower than the natural lactate level when resting. Your aerobic system is saying "Give me what you've got" and mopping up any lactate it can find.

As speed increases, your anaerobic system starts to produce more lactate, which your aerobic system happily burns, but lactate levels start to rise slightly as the balance starts to shift a little. Up to the point where your system can mop up the lactate completely, there is no increase in the level of lactate, and you can maintain the same pace and HR for quite some time.

Eventually though, a pace is reached where any faster and lactate levels and HR start to rise steadily - cardiac drift. This point is known as the Maximum Steady State or MSS. (I believe this is also known as the aerobic threshold, but will need to check this.)

If you are seeing symptoms of cardiac drift, then you are running at a pace above your MSS. How long you can keep this up depends on the level of drift. Clearly though, if you intend to run a marathon, you need to minimise cardiac drift. Your MSS is effectively your marathon pace. For those who aren't going to do a marathon though, stick around. You still need to minimise cardiac drift if you are to get the best performance. The lower the drift, the higher a pace you can sustain for a period of time, be it short distances or long.

I should mention there is also something known as Maximum Lactate Steady State, MLSS, but this involves a laboratory protocol checking lactate levels, and because it involves 20minute treadmill sessions, and a rest, apparently comes out with a speed 3% higher than marathon speed. Unless any of you have a laboratory handy, I suggest we ignore that one!

What we all need then, marathoners or not, is good aerobic conditioning. By developing our aerobic systems to the max, we can mop up all that lactate causing the drift, and sustain a good speed right to the line.

So how do we get good aerobic conditioning? Base training of course! Lots and lots of aerobic running!


So that's just endless days of slow boring running then? No! Definitely not!

There is no doubt that lots of slow running will have an effect on your aerobic conditioning. You will get faster as your running efficiency improves. Some people on our BT thread have shown remarkable improvements with very little quicker running. However, if you re-read the Hadd article, you will notice that there is an amount of faster, but still aerobic, running mixed in. Why?

Suppose your MSS, or marathon pace, is currently 140bpm (mine is at least this, as I'll discuss shortly). One way to improve your marathon time is to simply get faster at 140bpm. BT will probably do this with lots of slow running. I say probably - we are all different and some may not progress as quickly as others in the absence of faster running.

Another way of getting a faster marathon time though is to try to raise your MSS up a few beats. At 145bpm you will naturally be running faster. Provided you can do this without accumulating lactate, then this is a good route to a faster marathon time. Hadd reckons that you can get your MSS up to 20bpm below max, which for me is 154bpm - lots of scope for improvement!

This, then, is where work sessions come in. I've not seen any evidence to suggest that slow running won't raise your MSS, however, the overwhelming amount of literature suggests that to be truly effective you have to be running at, or above, your MSS. It seems sensible to me, that if you want to train your body to efficiently control lactate levels, then stimulating it with an amount of lactate would be a good course of action.

We are still talking aerobic running though! We are not talking about speedwork here! Remember that running anaerobically is to the detriment of your aerobic system (see my posting The Lactic Enemy).

There is some difference in opinion as to the best approach here. Arthur Lydiard in 'Running with Lydiard' appears to have lots of daily running at around MSS pace in the conditioning phase. Remember though that he is talking about advanced runners who are doing 2 sessions a day. The other session would be easy jogging. For most mortals, daily MSS runs would be too much I think.

Pete Pfitzinger/Scott Douglas' approach along with most of the others I've read calls for tempo runs: medium distance runs containing middle sections of 3 or 4 miles of faster running, at paces nearer half marathon to 10k speed. This though is training of the Lactate Threshold, another laboratory determined and rather arbitrary level, which is difficult for us ordinary folk to monitor. It is the pace you can sustain for an hour, or more precisely the point at which blood lactate levels reach a specific level (4mmol/litre). It is desirable to have this threshold as high as possible, but it is very difficult to monitor progress. Tempo runs at the paces described may be effective sessions, but I find them too much in the context of daily running.

Hadd's approach for me seems more intuitive, in that he is targeting the MSS, which is far easier to monitor. He has 2 work sessions per week apart from the long run, one at around MSS, and the other a little higher. I do the first session as a steady run at a pace and HR I can sustain for the duration (MSS). The second session I do as either long intervals - repetitions of 1 to 2.5 miles with 2 or 3 minutes recovery at HRs a few BPM higher than MSS - or I do a tempo run of 3 or 4 miles at a pace above MSS, but lower than that recommended by Pfitzinger. Currently my steady run is at 80% maxHR (139bpm for me) and the tempo/intervals at 83% maxHR (144bpm for me).

The key to Hadd's method is the softly softly approach. Keep plugging away and be patient. Once you are able to run for 10 miles at a constant pace (I think for us slower types it could be less than 10 miles - let's say 1 hour at least), then, and only then, consider moving up in heart rate.

So this is how I am interpreting Hadd's approach: I am starting to do regular 'drift tests'. For this I get up to the speed/HR I am doing my steady runs at, and then run laps of my 'hood recording the time and average HR for each lap. I like to run at a constant pace using my Garmin Forerunner, rather than constant HR, as I find it easier. You can try running at constant HR if you prefer. I record my time for each lap, and so I know my times are accurate and not subject to the vagaries of GPS reception.

For the last test I did, the intention was to run at 80%maxHR 139bpm. Unfortunately it was too soon after my chest infection, so my pace was way down on what it would normally be. I was running at 9:00/mile rather than the 8:30 I should have been capable of. For this reason I will have to redo it to make sure I still have no drift at the higher pace. However, the results serve to illustrate how the test works:


Drift test: Table of paces and HRs for each 1.5 mile lap
LapMins/milebpm
19:05131
29:03138
38:57141
49:02139



I had already run a mile warmup, but even so it still took the first lap for my heart rate to stabilise. From the results I think you can see that I have no drift! The higher figure of 141bpm could even simply be the slightly faster pace of that lap. Of course this test was only 6 miles of effort. My next one will be 5 laps of 1.5 miles. Provided I can run that at my fully fit 8:30/mile and 139bpm, then I will be ready to move my training paces and HRs up slightly. I'll try just a few % initially and see how it goes.

Remember: "Protect what you've got before reaching out for more" as they seem to say a lot round here!



Finally, the usual caveats apply: I think I have all the facts right, but if I've got anything wrong, please tell me!

Happy base training!

Monday, January 10, 2005

Weekly summary

A cut back week with a mini taper for the Stubbington 10k on Sunday. A 6 day total as I included the Bank Holiday long run in last week's summary.


Tuesday Rest 
Wednesday6 milesEasy 70% maxHR 121 bpmLegs feeling tight after last week's efforts
Thursday5.8 milesEasy 67% maxHR 117bpmJogged the club interval session
Friday Rest 
Saturday3.2 milesGym - treadmill onlywarmed up on cross trainer, but no weights or rowing
Sunday7 milesStubbington 10kHuge PB! 48:46 official time. 7:46/mile running pace (ignoring start delay). 154bpm average HR
6 day total22 miles


Next week I may take it easy on Tuesday, to rest my legs a bit more, then back into it, but probably not a full 50 miles. I'm glad I had a massage before Sunday's race as it seems to have done my poor calf muscles the power of good!

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Stubbington 10k

Today I did my first road race since last year's London Marathon. Such is my devotion to the 'no speedwork' maxim of base training, I haven't raced full on, ie anaerobically, since a few club cross country races in the summer. This presented a problem. I felt I was in the shape of my life and capable of a huge PB, but I didn't have any races to base this on. For reasons I will go into later, I felt I could run at 7:40/mile, but here's the thing that will have the speedwork aficionados shaking their heads in horror: I have not run even a step at that speed in the last year, and I have never run further than 400m at that speed in my life.

So I reckoned 48mins was possible - 3 minutes under my PB of 51mins. Something I was discussing on the start lines with my friends.

I want to make this a personal account rather than a race report. Trouble is I know that my friends will read it, but here goes anyway.

Let me tell you something about who I was standing on the start line with.

Firstly there's 'B'. I train with her and it seems we are fairly matched. She has a 47:40min PB, so although on PBs she is over 3 minutes faster than me, as I've mentioned, I feel that maybe I can keep pace with her.

Then there's 'R'. Someone I rate as another good runner. I've never run with R, but she seems to be an improver and I'm unsure if I'll keep pace.

'A' is someone I've always looked up to as a fine runner. She represents the club at a lot of races and always puts in a good performance. As we are sizing each other up at the start, A says "You and I are about the same speed Susie". What is she basing that on? "In my dreams maybe", I thought.

Finally there's 'M'. M is a legend. She holds most of the club age group records and is a powerhouse of athletic and organisational ability. The club owes so much to M. M is 14 years older than me. In the past this hasn't made a jot of difference, but recently I've wondered if the age gap might mean that one day I would finally beat her. She's had a few injury problems recently so she isn't on top form. Could this be the day?

I knew M and B had both run cross country yesterday. I later found out that R had too. I'm competitive, but it's rare I ever have a chance to run equally against others I know. My races are usually solo affairs against my own PB, or social occasions having fun chatting away at the back of field (how many men reading this have just gone "tut"? - be honest!). Maybe today was a chance for a real race!

We didn't get off to the best of starts, having positioned ourselves too far back in the 1000-strong field. It took 30 seconds to cross the line, and then there was a mad scramble to jump round or through the slower runners to establish a more realistic position in the field. I swear I didn't injure anyone in process - well not too badly anyway - the local hospital could probably cope - provided they had a few spare beds - and intensive care wasn't too busy ;-)

Eventually we settled down with A,R,B and myself in a group, with M up ahead, her experience paying dividends at the start.

I've described elsewhere in this blog how I run with a Garmin Forerunner and a Polar HRM. I've been described as having good pace judgement, but I suspect a lot of people think that it is simply the electronics doing the running for me. In my defence, you have to have some idea of what pace you can run at. If I followed the electronics blindly, they might hold me back, or run me too quickly. There is a certain amount of human judgement you know! Today was just such a day. A was dashing off into the distance, and I felt that I needed to hold back a little. Soon though R and B were also pulling away. I was a little down on the pace I'd imagined, but I felt I was running the right sort of pace. I know that people often go off too quickly and I hoped I might be able to catch the others later, trusting my pace judgement.

The gap opened up a bit more as we turned onto the seafront and met a stiff breeze. The others pushed on, but I didn't want to burn out fighting the wind, so again made the judgement to conserve a bit of energy. As ARB pushed on they passed M, and soon I was right behind her. Wow! I can pass my hero! (I apologise if M is reading this, but I figured I'd give a true account) I had a small moment of doubt, wondering if my pace judgement was sound, but thought I may as well take my chance. We were only 3km in. Would she sit behind me and take me on the line? I promised myself I would always look ahead and not be concerned with what was going on behind so with mental blinkers on I sped past M and tried to concentrate on ARB ahead.

Soon, we were coming up to the drink station at half way, and a small incline. I remember 2 years ago this seemed more of a hill. Signs of improvement! Now it was A's turn to be passed. Again a small moment of doubt but I felt good and had to go with what I felt, despite a fairly high reading on my HRM at this point. A wished me well. I'm not sure if I replied. Serious case of blinkers!

My half way time was a little disappointing at around 25mins. There was the 30 seconds delay at the start and we had just had the fumbling of the water station. I felt confident that I could do the second half much quicker. Time now to try and catch some ground on B and R who I could occasionally see up ahead.

It took me till 8km to catch B and R. R sounded relaxed in her breathing, but B was breathing a fair bit heavier than me. She later commented how relaxed I sounded. I did feel good! I pushed on past them and started the push for home. Could I hold them? No looking back!

The motorists so far had been reasonably well behaved, but with about a mile to go I saw an act of unbelievable stupidity. A car with caravan overtook me and snaked down the road, admittedly slowly, weaving in and out of the runners. The car overtook a girl ahead of me, only allowing a foot or so gap between her and the car. Thing is, the caravan is considerably wider than the car. The girl hadn't realised there was a caravan in tow. She screamed as it got within millimetres of her and caused her to stumble out of the way. That was a major shock for her! My reaction was to utter an anagram of a major UK clothing brand. I've been knocked off my bike in a similar fashion. Based on my experience, I doubt if the idiot even knew what he'd done!

Soon though, that was all forgotten as I concentrated on keeping my pace, against the slight head wind into the finish. Don't look back! Don't look back! A quick glance at my Garmin told me I had a healthy pace, but also that I didn't really have too much more to give. I was glad to see the finish! 48:46 official time, 48:15 on my watch ignoring the start delay. Officially a PB by over 2 mins.

I felt good about the fact that I had nothing extra at the end. Unlike a lot of races I had no big sprint finish. My pace was fairly even, I didn't slow, I did a negative split (second half faster than the first), so I'd judged my pace fairly well right to the end. My pace prediction was pretty good: 7:46/mile of actual running.

It's a good job I didn't look back (I think?), as R was only 4 seconds behind me and B just behind her. I had no idea they were so close! A and M were a bit further back.

Very pleased!

I said I'd name check the physio who gave me a pre (and post) race massage. Thankyou Lisa Brown of LB Healthcare, you loosened my calf muscles a treat!


Let me emphasise that in my entire life I've never run more than 400m at 7:46 pace. At no time in the last year have I run at that pace at all. Speed in distance running is mostly about aerobic conditioning, and that is what I've been concentrating on. I'm not saying you should never do speedwork. In fact, if I'd prepared properly for the race I would have done some sharpening work involving fast intervals, and could probably have gone quicker (providing I didn't do the speedwork to the detriment of my aerobic condition). The point is that speedwork is the icing on the cake. You do it once you have fine aerobic condition. I still have a lot of improvement to go, but I will do that by aerobic base training (BT) until I feel I need to do speedwork, having gone as far with BT as I can.

Now here's how I thought I could do 7:40/mile without ever running at that pace.

I described my pace plots in The 4th mile plot - a spy story. I suspected that based on the average heart rate I have done past 10k races in, I could simply extrapolate on the graph to get an approximate 10k pace. Taking my 4th mile pace is simply a way of ensuring a steady state reading. My HR for a 10k race would be steadily climbing - hardly steady state, but I reckoned the average figure would be a reasonable comparison. I knew from past races that 154 was my average HR for a well run 10k. By extrapolating from recent runs it seemed that 7:40/mile was the target. This is an increase of 40seconds/mile for every 10bpm increase in HR.

Here's an updated plot. You can see today's pace - the green square at the very top of the chart:

The pace is right in line with December's red diamonds (I was rather tired last week so January's data so far has been slower)

Stats! Luv 'em!

Friday, January 07, 2005

Parkour

I windsurf. You probably guessed this from my name. Years ago, before the marathon bug took hold, I used to windsurf a lot. I competed in windsurf events around the world. The elements of windsurfing I love most are the 'free' aspects - wave sailing and freestyle, aka trick sailing - see below.

This expression side of the sport is the one with the tag of 'extreme' and the one linked in spirit to the other freesports of skate boarding, bmx etc. I love watching extreme sports and so was delighted to see a documentary last night on Channel 4 called 'Jump Britain'.

The documentary featured a relative new-comer to the world of freesports called 'Parkour' or 'Free-running'. It's amazing to watch. Imagine a sport akin to skateboarding, but without the skateboard. Athletes with acrobatic skills moving through an urban landscape, using their environment as a stage for expression of freedom and movement. Bollards, walls and fences are no longer barriers, but pieces of equipment to be jumped, hurdled, somersaulted and climbed. This is running in 3 dimensions.

The program focussed on Sebastien Foucan, the French founder of the sport, and his new band of British followers, who took up the sport after seeing the previous documentary 'Jump London' in 2003. We were treated to Sebastien and co putting on a fantastic display using national monuments such as the Giants Causeway, Edinburgh Castle, the Millenium Stadium, and the Birmingham International Conference Centre (the roof is Parkour heaven!), amongst others.

In the preamble, we were treated to Sebastien back in his French home-town, running up a vertical wall onto a roof (!), leaping from building to building, and jumping down from great heights, rolling out of the landing, and straight back upright to carry on into the next dazzling array of stunts. This guy is an amazing athlete (and what a body!) We've seen stunts like this created in films such as The Matrix, with the aid of wires and CGI, but he does them for real!

Back on British soil, we were treated to some of the antics in the gym trying to perfect new moves - the cat leap with somersault - very entertaining, before Sebastien and crew descended (or rather ascended) on the monuments of Britain. The sight of Sebastien leaping the gap between the two halves of the Millennium Stadium roof was spectacular. The whole display was beautifully filmed.


On the windsurf racing circuit we used to have a lot of downtime waiting for wind. We developed an interest in circus skills - my favourite being unicycling (I kid you not!). I suppose it was the balance and coordination element that complemented windsurfing well. Another favourite downtime activity of mine was running along the tops of the bollards on my local stretch of seafront - very Parkour! On the water, the elements of conquering your fears and mastering the environment links my love of wave sailing back to the same elements in Parkour.

I love watching the human body in motion. Athletics, gymnastics, kung fu movies - bring it on! Parkour combines all I love about running and windsurfing. I hope they put more of it on TV.

You won't find me doing it though.Too bloody dangerous!

For more information about Parkour go to the Urban free flow website.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Does my foot look chav in this?

I have a lovely black patent leather handbag (you runners out there, particularly the men, stick with me for a moment). It was a Christmas present a year ago from my Aunt. I really like it. Trouble is, amazingly, I would not be allowed into certain nightclubs with it. You see it has a slender strip of beige tartan cut into each side of it. This makes it Burberry, but far, far worse still Faux Burberry!

In some people's eyes this makes me a touch chav. What worries me though, is the thought that in some people's eyes I might be a touch chav!

(If the more sheltered among you are wondering at this point what chav, or a chav, is then I refer you to this site.)

Well, just as I was getting comfortable with my level of chavness (I think I made that word up - my dictionary hasn't caught up with the 21st century yet), an attack was launched on the Nike ID site, by a thread on the Runner's World forum. (Now we see where running comes in!) It was suggested that wearing shoes customised in your own colours with your name embroidered on the side smacked a bit of chavishness(apologies again). This was just after I'd already gone to the aforementioned site, and ordered a pair of Air Pegasus in my club colours to match the rest of my racing 'outfit'.

Well they arrived just in time for Xmas (well done Nike!), and I'm once again uncertain as to my level of chavosity (ditto). Am I sporting a stylish pair of shoes which help me stand out from the crowd? Or am I really just a closet chavette?

Nike Air Chav
Comments, as ever, welcome!

Monday, January 03, 2005

Weekly summary

I've summarised the last 8 days, as I moved the long run to the bank holiday Monday to give my legs an extra day of recovery. Next week is a cut back week, in preparation for the Stubbington 10k, and I don't want to include a 15 mile run in the total. (Am I cheating my own stats?)


MondayRest 180 mile drive!
Tuesday8.9 milesSteady pace 80% MHRUndulating/hilly
Wednesday7.3 milesEasy recovery 66% MHR+180 mile drive
Thursday7.0 milesTempo run 4miles @83% MHRTired! Trouble getting HR up
Friday5.8 milesGentle 70% MHROff road social run - hilly
Saturday3.5 milesrecovery 68% MHRCut run short - worried about legs
Sunday4 milesTreadmill 70% MHRGym session including rowing and light weights plus treadmill
Monday15 miles9:38/mile 71% MHRReasonable pace, but not my best - feeling stale
8 day total51.5 miles



A tiring week with all the Xmas activity, but a landmark in that I hit a 7 day total of 50 miles on Thursday. Glad I delayed the long run a day, as I was concerned about the state of my legs.



p.s. Technical note: I can't figure out why I get a big gap before the table. If I can fix it I will. Stylesheets?


Saturday, January 01, 2005

Listening to my body

I "did the right thing" today, and cut my run short, although I'm not really sure why.

This week has been tough. It started with a Boxing Day run of 14 miles having imbibed a few too many champagnes the previous day (actually Jacob's Creek Chardonnay Pinot Noir - lovely stuff). I was knackered. My rest day was a 200mile drive up to Shropshire. Tuesday was a hilly 9 miles work session, pushing the pace along. Wednesday was the drive back followed immediately by a 7 mile recovery run. Recovery? Hmm!

So by Thursday I was feeling rather tired. I should have canned my Thursday work session, but I had a go at a tempo run. I had a real problem getting my heart rate up. By the end of 4 miles of effort I had finally got my heart rate up to 145bpm, 83% of max. My pace was quite respectable, but I was drained. That session was significant though, because it took my mileage in the previous 7 days to 50 miles! A milestone, but perhaps more a millstone, as I've always said I'm not going to chase mileage for the sake of it.

Friday should have been easy, but it was our club New Year's Eve social run. We all met at a pub and ran a lovely off road session around the local country park. I kept my heart rate down most of the time - good. It was soft under foot - good. It was however very uneven and hilly - bad, in terms of recovery. After a nice cosy meal in the pub I went home and snoozed for over an hour. Have I already used the word knackered?

I thought the Xmas hols would be a chance to recover, but I've found myself more tired than ever. It's amazing how a few small changes to your routine can really upset the apple cart when you are pushing the mileage up.

After a good night's sleep, I felt better today. I set out and felt generally settled. My pace seemed OK, although it was difficult to judge as it was quite windy. So why did I can the run only half way round? There was something not quite right with my legs. They weren't hurting, and weren't particularly tight. There was just something which said to me that I should take it real easy today. They say "listen to your body", but I think I was receiving psychically, as it wasn't saying much you could hear.

My weekly mileage will now not be 50 miles. It may be a lot less as I may move the long run to Monday to give me an extra day of recovery (in the gym probably). It's almost like I had to prove to myself I wasn't chasing mileage for the sake of it.

I'm not sure why I cut the run short, but I know I did the right thing.