Weekly summary - 11 weeks to go

Well I did it! My highest mileage week ever! I guess it started badly and finished well in training terms, but my long run is one I'll want to forget!

I started the week feeling very tired, but managed to cope with a combination of good management - copious use of my massage stick on glutes, ITB and hamstrings - and sheer determination. As the week wore on I started to feel better, until the weekend when I felt ready for my 21 mile run.

The long run started badly the moment I left my front door and discovered that the battery in my GPS was flat, despite supposedly being freshly charged - maybe I left it switched on overnight? I had a fair idea of the length of the route, so carried on with HRM alone.

I met up with my friend at 8.6 miles, for a 5+ mile run with her. It was going well until we came to a busy roundabout. Having safely crossed the first carriageway, I ran out onto the opposite carriageway clear ahead of a lorry in the nearest lane, and with the far lane clear - a safe crossing opportunity or so I thought. However, an idiot in a 4x4 decided to overtake the lorry round the roundabout and put pedal to the metal. Even though he could clearly see me, he just kept on accelerating. I had one of those slow motion moments when I could see the bonnet of the car hurtling towards me. I was committed now, so sprinted on across the road. I actually thought he was going to hit me as I arched my back to try to put some extra distance between us. In the event, he missed me by inches. That's the closest I've ever come in my life and hope I never repeat that.

What was he thinking? At no time did he brake. He was accelerating right up to the point of near impact. Did he think his judgement was sound and he would try to give me a scare or teach me a lesson? If he wanted to scare me he failed, although he scared my friend who had stopped in the middle of the road, watching in horror. All he succeeded in doing was making me angry - angry with myself for putting myself in a position where someone could do that, and angry with him for being so irresponsible and having such a poor regard for the safety of others.

We continued on. I wasn't shaken, just angry. I left my friend at her house and carried on the run.

15 miles into the run, and the next mishap. I was eating (drinking?) an energy gel, and maybe not paying attention to the terrain. I caught a rock on the very rough surface of the bridleway and fell headlong. I managed to relax into the fall and perhaps not do so much damage as last time I fell, but even so I cut my knee and bruised it and my elbow quite badly. I don't think I'll miss any days running because of it, but it is very sore, and a little bit swollen.

I pushed on, the initial stiffness in my knee relaxed, and soon I'd forgotten all about it as I crossed the bridge, 19 miles into the run and 2 more to go. As I neared the middle of the bridge I became aware of something tugging at me. I couldn't see it at first but could feel what was clearly fishing line wrapped round my middle. I turned round in shock to find out who or what was at the other end of the line, to see a fisherman, down on the foreshore below the bridge, look up in surprise and drop the rod or reel he was using to try to haul me in. I reached round behind me to untangle myself, and to my horror a hook dug into my finger. There was a metal lure and hooks attached to the back of my shorts!

After 19 miles of running, you tend to be a bit tired and emotional - I had a hissy fit! With the adrenaline pumping I was trying to get the hooks out of my shorts without making more punctures in my skin. I soon got the lure untangled, and in what must have seemed a highly comic gesture to an onlooker (but not me!) threw the lure away, only to have it come straight back and hit me on the leg - it still being attached to the line around my waist. Now purple with rage I spun round trying to unwind myself and shouted obscenities at the angler maybe 100m away (how long are these lines?). I can't remember what I said, but I think it would just scrape in as family entertainment. I remember holding my blood spotted finger up to him!

I didn't wait to hear his reply. As soon as I was free of the line I ran on towards home and a tube of antiseptic, my heart rate and pace way higher than it should have been. I was so angry! I think the tiredness just made things worse. I hated everyone in the world. How dare people ruin my run like this!

Fortunately my finger was the only injury from the hooks, and it does not appear to have got infected. My shorts took the worst of it, with a few pulled threads.

21.2 miles completed. Very cross!

Monday	10 miles	Tempo run - middle 5 at 85%MHR
Tuesday	13.7 miles	Slow run
Wednesday	5 miles	Easy recovery
Thursday	10.7 miles	Slow run
Friday	5 miles	Easy recovery
Saturday	21.2 miles	Slow run	Eventful - see above!
Sunday	0 miles	Gym session - weights, rowing, cross trainer, cycle
Total	65.6 miles

The schedule

Having read a number of marathon books, the following seemed to offer the most sensible schedules in terms of what I now understand about marathon training:


The schedule I'm following is the 18-week 70 miles or less per week schedule.

I can't really reproduce the schedule without violating copyright, but I guess I can describe it in more qualitative terms.

The schedule answers the problems I've found in past years with other schedules:
The weekend long runs have always been such a large proportion of the weekly mileage, and so much further than the other runs of the week, that they take a lot out of me - far more than perhaps they should. The schedule addresses this by adding fairly long runs midweek: I'll be typically running 14 or 15 miles on a Tuesday and 11 or 12 miles on a Thursday, after a 20+ mile run at the weekend, whereas in previous years my longest midweek run was only 10 miles.

Also on the subject of long runs, I've never felt I've done enough of them. Mike Gratton offered advice that the total of your 5 longest runs should add up to over 100 miles. The schedule does this.

The speed-work in this schedule seems far more sensible, in terms of it being oriented towards aerobic development. In previous years I've tried following the Runner's World schedules, which included 400m reps at 7:00/mile pace - I found this way too fast. Mind you, I think the RW schedules were aimed at someone with poor aerobic conditioning: someone capable of 7:00 miling, yet only capable of a 4hr marathon, in other words a big difference between paces at increasing distances. By contrast, my paces are far closer across the distances: 7:30 10k pace, 8:15 marathon pace, I think because my aerobic condition is far better from all the base training.

The speedwork is almost absent in the early weeks of this schedule, and only really kicks in in the last half, involving occasional VO2 max sessions, more regular Lactate Threshold runs, added to the regular aerobic conditioning steady pace runs. This is far more in line with my idea of how a marathon schedule should be.

Finally, here are some details of the long runs and weekly mileage in the remaining weeks:

Weeks to go	Long run	Mileage
11	21	69
10	20	66
9	15	66
8	15	59
7	22	70
6	18	68
5	17	70
4	18	63
3	20	68
2	17	56
1	13	46

Piano practise

I thought I'd share my thoughts on playing the piano, or rather practising it. I'm sure you'll see the relevance!

I have a piano lesson each Saturday morning. It's at a time which interferes with my running, particularly during the summer. It's OK in the winter when I'm not too fussed what time I run, but in the hot weather I'd like to go out early before the day heats up, but have to wait till after the lesson. Last Saturday I didn't finish my run until 1pm. Man it was hot!

Motivation to keep up the piano practise can be tough with all the time pressures. That Saturday morning lesson provides me with just enough motivation. I know I have to have at least 1 or 2 practises during the week or I'll turn up at the lesson looking pretty bad - I want to impress the teacher (I always was a swot). Most weeks I manage to get some decent practise in. Some weeks I manage more, and regretfully some weeks I don't manage any. That lesson gives me enough short term motivation to keep me going.

Still though, I feel I ought to be doing more practise. I need a longer term goal. I've thought about doing an exam, but I'd have to do LOTS more practice and I know deep down I'd never find the time. I look back to the golden days when I was learning the Moonlight Sonata. I love that piece of music. Despite my devotion to Underworld, Goldfrapp and Coldplay, I still have time for a piece of music written 200 years ago by a total genius and which has never been equalled by another solo piano piece - feel free to disagree, but I adore it! I will never be able to play the third movement - if you've not heard it, I recommend you seek it out - it's very much a virtuoso piece - but I made it my goal to learn the first movement, which is well within the grasp of any grade 5 player.

I so much wanted to be able to play the Moonlight Sonata, that I'd spend time every day learning it. It took maybe as much as a year, but I did it. I even committed it to memory. Show me a piano anywhere, and I'll sit down without the music and hammer out 7 minutes of heaven - well at least for me anyway - you'll have to excuse a couple of errors along the way probably.

Those daily sessions did so much to improve my playing. It wasn't just the Moonlight Sonata I achieved - my general playing improved so quickly. Having that long term goal really kept me at it, practising consistently.

Since then progress has been rather less spectacular. I practise a couple of pieces at a time. When I've just about learnt to play them, I get bored and discard them, moving on to other fresh pieces. My repertoire, in terms of what I can play well on demand, is still just the Moonlight Sonata.

So I've decided I need to get CPE Bach's Solfeggio in my repertoire. I can play it through slowly with reasonable accuracy, but it needs to be played fast as it's a delicate toccata piece. Simply playing it over and over will produce some improvement, but if I am to get some real speed going, I'm going to have to practise it in small chunks. I need to break it into bits of one or two bars and practise these at full speed over and over until I can play them accurately. Once I can play it fast in small chunks I can put it all together and play the whole thing at that speed.

Does this sound familiar?

How about this then? Setting aside 30 or 40 solid minutes is tricky - I can usually only manage this on a Wednesday. However, far better than one long practise per week would be lots of short practises. Far better to practise daily, even for only 5 minutes. It's far easier to slot in the time - an ad break during CSI for example (or dare I say Big Brother?) - whereas scheduling an entire 30 minutes just means it gets pushed aside. Little and often is the way!

Then there's the technique. I have a habit of stiffening my wrists when playing at speed. I need to keep relaxed in order to play properly. I've heard that one elsewhere too!

I could devote pages on the mental side too. I get very nervous playing in front of people. You have to give yourself 'permission to fail'. Aiming too high can have adverse effects. Enjoying your own level of mediocrity can produce better results, than aiming high and crashing and burning.

So there we are - the world of piano practise. Not a million miles from running!

Weekly summary - 12 weeks to go

A recovery week, but it didn't feel that easy as I had the week off work and so didn't have much chance to get some decent rest! Why do my non-work weeks always seem so tough? I'm sure I've had less sleep than a normal work week too! How come?

The main feature of this week was the extreme heat. Due to my various family and social activities of the week, I was rarely able to keep out of the heat and often ran during the heat of the day. My Saturday long run was particularly uncomfortable. Looks like I should get a few days now of cloud cover, so hopefully can start to feel a bit more comfortable.

I should now be feeling fresh, but I'm not. I confess I'm not looking forward to next week, which is quite a high mileage week - over 60 miles. If I can get through the planned mileage, it will be my highest mileage week ever. I have some sore muscles, but (hopefully) nothing too serious. I hope I can keep the motivation going!

Monday	0 miles	Gym session - weights, rowing, cross trainer, cycle
Tuesday	12.5 miles	Slow run
Wednesday	5 miles	Easy recovery
Thursday	10 miles	steady run	Hot - felt really tired after a long drive back from family
Friday	5 miles	Easy recovery
Saturday	14 miles	Slow run	Forced to run in the heat of the day - ouch!
Sunday	Rest		Rest, but my second late night in a row, plus alcohol!!
Total	46.5 miles

Weekly summary - 13 weeks to go

Another mixed bag of a week. I started off feeling great, but got hit by a stomach bug mid-week. 24 hours of feeling crap, 24 hours of getting my strength back, and I was OK again.

I delayed my long run till Sunday (I've been tending to do them on Saturdays) to make sure I was fully recovered. The result: what a great run! I did 21 miles - my longest training run ever. I set out at 6:40am (yes!! - 6:40am!!) so that I could run 8 miles to meet up with my friends for their usual 7.5-mile run. It was a beautiful run along South Downs footpaths, if a little tasking for the middle miles of a 20-miler. I was a little concerned that I was then 8 miles from home having already run over 15 miles, but an extra mile over the 20, and a lift back from a friend's house and it was job done. I can't believe how good I felt in the last few miles (if a little hot)!

It's going well. I hope I don't regret saying that!

Monday	8 miles	Tempo run - middle 3 miles at 85%maxHR	Got up at 6am - first ever work session that early
Tuesday	13.5 miles	Slow run	Felt OK so soon after a work session
Wednesday	Rest		Bad diarrhoea & fever!
Thursday	Rest		Feeling better but still recovering
Friday	10 miles	Slow run 70%MHR	Bit tired but OK
Saturday	5 miles	Easy recovery 66%MHR
Sunday	21 miles	Slow	V hot, but started early so not too bad
Total	57.5 miles

A cautionary tale of bottle hygiene

It always seems that whenever I post something upbeat like 'A New High', then I have to post something downbeat a few days later. For the second week running (not for the first time I use that pun) I've missed 2 days training due to avoidable causes. This time a stomach bug laid me low for a day, and I needed another day to recover while I got my energy levels back.

I think I have the reason.

I am very careful that I always rinse my water bottles out after use. Note the word 'rinse' there, and not 'wash'. They do get washed every now and then, maybe once a week or fortnight, and more occasionally get sterilised with Milton. This is usually enough.

So what went wrong?

I leave the bottles to drain, and they usually dry completely before the next use. I gather that allowing them to dry fully is another safe guard against bacteria. If I'm running in the evening after work, I pour dry powder into the bottle, and make up the drink just before running, so that I don't have a nice sugar rich solution festering away during the day.

On Tuesday morning though, as I left for work, the bottle I usually use for my Go Electrolyte drink hadn't dried out. I only realised this after I'd tipped some powder into the bottle and saw the paste that had been created at the bottom. I figured it would be OK, and left for work, but of course I had a nice moist and bacterially charged paste in the bottom of the bottle, festering away for the rest of the day.

That evening, I added water to the bottle, and had 500ml of instant stomach upset to sip on the way home.

I think I will be using Milton a bit more often in future!

A new high

13.5 miles tonight, which is a new first: the longest mid-week run so far as part of a normal week with a long weekend run. This is after a hard 8 mile tempo run yesterday, which made the last few miles tonight really tough, but I'm glad I managed it, particularly after what happened last week!

I felt tonight warranted a nice bath, sorry, an ice bath. Trouble is, I can't get the water cold enough! The only ice was the contents of my fridges ice box - about 4kg. Being the summer, the temperature of the water from the tank in the roof is not that cold, unlike in winter. Add this to the fact that I didn't have time to run my ice machine, unlike at the weekend when I can sometimes get a whole cool box of ice from a day's ice machine activity, and it all adds up to a bath of a mere 14 degrees. Positively balmy! I think it still has some effect, but I'm going to have to figure out how to get my bath colder!

Weekly summary - 14 weeks to go

I missed only 2 days last week when my back went, so not too bad really. It's still not 100%, but it's no worse than it's been in past months, and so I don't think it's going to stop me from running. I shall push on and hopefully make this coming week my highest mileage ever. Fingers crossed.

Monday	7.6 miles	Steady pace run @ 80%maxHR with 8 alactic sprints	Ran at lunchtime - v hot!
Tuesday	6.5 miles	Slow run	Aborted due to back problems
Wednesday	Rest
Thursday	Rest
Friday	5 miles	Easy recovery	Back feeling better
Saturday	18 miles	Slow	Hip a bit sore from physio, but felt good!
Sunday	0 miles	Gym session - general weights plus rowing, cycle, cross-trainer
Total	37.1 miles

Back a bit better

I ran 5 miles tonight. Not much, but it's the first since my last post. 2 whole days of rest!

I had physio on Wednesday. I'd pulled a muscle in the middle of my back, and my spine had locked solid causing pain further down. At first the physio seemed to make things worse, but gradually things started to settle down. Today, I finally stopped walking like John Wayne, so tried a run. Apart from a sore hip (maybe from the physio - ouch!) I was running freely with none of the stiffness earlier in the week.

One thing I've noticed is how tired I've felt the last few days, like I was coming down with something. I suspect I may have overdone things last week and my back couldn't recover between runs?

Whatever the reason for this episode, hopefully I'm now back on track.