At Last - a Plan
Following on with this Spring running season's theme of joyful chaos instead of a training plan, the end of April will find me at Bracknell Half Marathon. This comes 1 week before my target race for the Spring season - Milton Keynes Marathon - so would normally be a tapering run in any sensible training plan.
With a month to go before the marathon and having not had any structure to training, I decided to plan a couple of long runs (15 and 18 miles), hill sessions (4 to 5 miles) and a quick parkrun to get me into race trim before tackling Bracknell Half. Fortunately this fitted into the Easter half term holidays when I had a long week off. On the Monday before Easter I did the 15 mile run from Sandhurst, south along the Blackwater Valley path until it meets the Basingstoke Canal, then along the canal to Frimley Lodge park followed by a lap and a half of the parkrun course to make the distance to a nice round 15miles. Perfect. I felt great at the end of the run, met the family in the park and, after a picnic lunch and recovery icecream, had a kick around playing footy with Julia and the kids.
More bike riding, swimming and playing footy in the park with the kids over the next few days (aka cross-training) and then a hill session on the Sandhurst Joggers handicap course in Crowthorne and, with a day off on Friday, I was feeling fresh for a go at a quick run at Frimley Lodge parkrun. Most of my parkruns this year have been run with Elinor (8) and it has been great to see her enjoying her running and improving. However, since January I have attempted only 3 quick parkruns and managed to struggle round in a best time of 24:10, two minutes off my best from last October. So, I did a deal with the kids and told them I would run once a month by myself, once with Alfred and twice with Elinor.
Smashing parkrun
The Saturday of the Easter weekend was cool and sunny and the course was in perfect condition. I took up my usual start position wide on the left and near the front so I can get across the start line quickly but keep out of the way of the faster runners for the first right hander around the field before the canal section. Everyone's tactic for Frimley is to go like the clappers round this first field then settle into your race pace on the canal, hopefully not being blocked in by slower runners.
On the canal I could see Duncan Ball and Chris Peddle 30m ahead of me and decided to try and keep them in sight, which I managed all the way on to the 2nd lap, when I caught up to Duncan at about 4k and he urged me on with a call of "Go for it coach!" With 500m to go I could just see Chris 100m in front so tried to pick up the pace - he was still a target. All this time I hadn't once looked at my time, just concentrating on my breathing and trying to keep the pace even all the way round and I decided I wasn't going to make a grab for my watch until after crossing the finish line. When I did hit the Garmin it read 21:46 and I nearly hit the floor in shock - a PB by nearly 30 seconds and one of my goals for the year achieved (a sub-22 parkrun).
Not very long after Alfred and Elinor came in within a minute of Elinor's PB after running together, with Alfred saying how well little sister had run (will the aliens who abducted our son please give us the real one back?!) and then saying how proud he was of Dad's new PB. Brilliant, and topped off with Julia getting a new PB, taking another 30 seconds of her best time.
Heart Worries?
Banging out a PB like that is a great indication of form and fitness, I think, so it was a real boost to my confidence with a marathon coming up soon. Two days later and I was setting off for an 18 mile run and eventually learning an important lesson. 18 miles is a long way and you have prepare for a training run like that just as well as if it was a race. So a day or two carb loading, then a good night's sleep and up 3 hours before the run for a decent breakfast and drinks to get properly hydrated. Not this time - no carb loading, didn't sleep well and had a drink and a banana before setting off. Also, after my parkrun heroics, I felt like I had an allergy or flu, with sneezing and a runny nose for the rest of Saturday. I felt a bit weird and unbalanced for the first 3 miles of the run, then OK up to 10miles then completely drained for the next 3, so I baled out and called for a lift home - better doing that than trying to go another 5 miles and doing some damage.
Maybe I had had a 24 hour flu thing and this was nothing to worry about? The problem was that I felt strange the rest of the day and also back at work the next day. Even though I had been drinking and eating well, I felt a bit dizzy and off balance with a noticeably high pulse. Worryingly, every few minutes I was getting a strange "missed a beat" feeling followed by good old thump in my heart. That was something I've never felt before, so I decided to book a doctor's appointment to get checked out. The earliest appointment I could get was the next Tuesday (a week away!) and after a planned 10k training run at race pace followed by Bracknell Half.
Well, the 10k run on the Frimley Hospital route went well, as did Bracknell Half (more on that next time) and I went to the doc's feeling fine. I went through the symptoms and mentioned doing Bracknell Half and his first question was did I run a quick time? I suppose that would have to be a good sign that I had got over any illness and hadn't done any damage by running while ill. Blood pressure and pulse checked out OK and I learned some interesting things.
If you are ill and you are feeling aches in joints and muscles, then definitely DO NOT RUN. This seems obvious, but runners are not normal people and will do almost anything to get their running fix. The aches in your muscles are due to damage that the virus is doing and, as the heart is a muscle, it can be affected the same way. Stressing your heart by going for a run can lead to much more serious and possibly permanent damage to the heart muscle. Try knitting or parkrun volunteering instead!
Your heart does not beat completely regularly and misses a beat and resets itself on to its regular rhythm and this happens often, maybe a few times a minute. Also, while the heart is not beating it is filling with blood, so if it misses a beat it fills up even more and the next beat back will be extra strong. Most of the time you never feel this, however, if you are an endurance athlete, you will have a larger heart than the average idle layabout and one that beats slower too, so these missed beats and reset pulses can be much more noticeable. This can be even more pronounced if you are ill or have been over-training when the extra stress your body is feeling raises your pulse.
So, the weird heart feelings were just normal. More importantly I know I haven't done any damage by training hard in the week and racing at Bracknell and I can go into my next marathon without worrying about keeling over in the last mile. Things are definitely looking up.
Running
Wednesday 30 April 2014
Friday 18 April 2014
How Not to Train for a Spring Marathon
Jumping straight into this one, let's compare January to April in both 2013 and 2014. December 2013 I found out I had a place in London marathon, I got a plan together care of Alison Lenaghan and then followed it obsessively, fitting in key races along the way:
- Wokingham Half fell on the day I needed to do a 13 mile long run.
- Surrey Spitfire 20 was just at the right time to a long training run in early March.
- Bolt Round the Holt 21k trail run was just right for a longish run during my taper.
Jump to 2014 and I had done Portsmouth Coastal Waterside marathon just before Christmas taking 20 minutes off my previous best in 4:14, then entered Milton Keynes marathon and did the following:
- Jan 12 - Winter Tanners 30mile trail ultramarathon - did this because I didn't have much on in January.
- Feb 9 - Wokingham Half Marathon (cancelled) so ran a 14mile training run with Alison (who did 20miles)
- Feb 16 - Bramley 20 miles road race - did this because it's a local race, I'd not done it before and I was sure lots of people I know would be doing it.
- Mar 9 - Surrey Half Marathon - the first running of this event, so I just had to do it.
- Mar 16 - Fleet Half Marathon - another local run that lots of friends would be doing.
- Mar 23 - Sandhurst Joggers Canal Run 20miles - a good long group training run timed perfectly for those running London (so not me then).
In between this lot has been a mix of parkruns (mostly steady runs with the kids), club handicap runs (mostly tough hilly and fast as I possibly can) and a few mid-week training runs with friends and family. So no plan or structure and just running events because it's fun or I haven't done them before, or both. Here's a quick run down of the events and how things went.
Winter Tanners 31 miles trail ultramarathon 8:30 (yes, 8 hours and 30 minutes! with 1hour standing still reading route instructions).
OK, it actually says 30miles on the course description, but there is a reasonable chance of getting lost trying to follow the route instructions. As I said in my last post, Kelvin, who I ran this with, has a blog post about this race (see Mr K's running blog ) so I won't repeat his race description.
This was by far the hardest run/jog/walk that I have ever done. 31 miles of mud and big hills. By the time we got to 10 miles I was thinking "I feel as tired as I did when I was 24miles into Portsmouth marathon, and I still have 20 miles of hills to go!" Desperate and negative thoughts then. If I hadn't been running with Kelvin then at best I would have baled out on to the 20mile course or maybe even quit. Just goes to show how much running performance is down to mental toughness, but it's runs like these where you learn about yourself and what you are capable of. If you finish, then no run is a failure.
Bramley 20 - 3:05:57.
This is an undulating/hilly 2 lap course mostly out in the countryside to the north of Bramley near Reading. It was a sunny cool morning and the plan was to do 9min miles all the way round. I set off with Alison and a couple of her friends who were running the same plan, but they pulled away after only 3 miles leaving me to run by myself. I was on pace until the start of the second lap when I slowed a bit.
I was gradually hauling in runners ahead of me until about 15 miles when I came up to a woman called Polly who stopped in tears just as I passed her. I wasn't so desperate for a PB that I had to run on so I walked with her for a few 10s of metres and got chatting, then jogging. She said it was the furthest that she had run, but she hadn't taken on much water or any gels and the friend that she had been running with had left her on the first lap. Fortunately the next water stop was just round the corner and it had energy drinks also. That gave us both a boost and soon we were back to running close to 9min mile pace. Going up the next hill at about 16miles, we picked up another couple of runners and had a group going, chatting and running and keeping our spirits up.
At 17 miles Polly said she was going to have to slow a bit and urged me to carry on. I finished at a good pace and not far off the 3 hour time I was looking for. Polly finished about 10 minutes later. Next day she sent a very nice message of thanks through to Sandhurst Joggers' chairman, saying how grateful she was for the company and that she was sorry to mess up my race. I think I got just as much benefit from running with Polly and the others we picked up on route. I was quicker over the last 5 miles than miles 10 to 15 and got a new 20mile PB by nearly 20 minutes. A very good result all round.
Surrey Half Marathon - 1:49:55. It was the first running of this event on an undulating out and back course from the Spectrum sports centre on the north side of Guildford to Woking town centre and back. I met up with the usual crowd of friends form Frimley parkrun. I think the plan was that I would run with James and Duncan Ball at about 1:50:00 pace, but after dropping my bag off I couldn't find them at the start so I ran the whole race by myself. To start with it was a cool but sunny day. Nice conditions but could be getting hot later in the day.
The route starts off with a slight rise from the sports centre, then gets into a long steady downhill section over the next 1.5miles. At 3miles there is a hill then an undulating course out in the country lanes to Woking. I was hoping to get to 5 miles before being passed by the leaders coming back the other way, but i had only got to 4.5miles when they breezed by. Still, just the site of them got everyone around us running a bit quicker. Around Woking I spotted several Sandhurst Joggers who were out marshalling and on the route back, the out and back course came into its own, as I saw loads of other Sandhurst runners that I wouldn't have.
Approaching 10 miles you get back to the Mile 3 hill and the last water stop, again manned by Sandhurst runners and after a smacked bum from Vicky Horne (?!) I was on the run-in with just a 1.5mile hill to go. I was feeling really good after what I thought was a steady run so far and pushed on for the finish with the last 3 miles passing in 8:13, 8:00 and 7:33. Soon after the last hill you drop down towards the sports centre and turn off the main road onto a sandy track, which was a little tight and awkward to run on, before arriving on the athletics track for the last 300m to the finish line. My time 1:49:55 was a real surprise as I was aiming for about 1:52:00 and the only slight disappointment was I was just 2 seconds outside a PB.
For a new event, I thought Surrey did a decent job. Parking was OK, race village had plenty of toilets and an efficient bag drop. The course was a challenge, but quite scenic in the countryside and with good support in Guildford and Woking. Next year it's run in reverse and I've already entered. Check out the video of Surrey Half, with a great scene with Duncan Ball finishing and collapsing on the ground in agony after (about 2:30 in). A dead cert for a BAFTA darling!
Fleet Half Marathon - 1:49:28
After nearly getting an unintended PB at Surrey Half, 1 week later it was time for a proper attempt. Again, the Ball brothers had a plan that involved running with me as a pacer along with Chris Peddle and Abby Fudge. My plan was to do a progressive race in 3 sections with a target time of 1:49:00.
We set off as a group but that didn't last for long. Abby was feeling good for this race so quickly got bored of being in the crowds and picked up her pace. Duncan Ball and Chris decided to go with her and disappeared as well and so it was just up to me and James Ball to maintain a sensible pace. On about the first mile mark we came up to Ian Watson (a fellow Sandhurst Jogger) and we chatted for a while. Very soon after I got a shooting pain in my right calf that had me hobbling for a few paces. That eased off for a few minutes, then a different part of my calf got a similar shooting pain. I thought my race was over inside 2 miles, but I kept going for a bit longer to see if the pain would ease or worsen.
With the Fleet course you do a small loop around the town for about 3 miles before returning to near the start, which would be a good place to bale out. However, keeping up the chat with Ian and James took my mind off the calf pain, so by 3 or 4 miles it was a dull ache that I could keep running on. This seemed to help Ian keep a decent pace as well who was suffering from neck and shoulder pain. At 5 miles James had to slow down a bit, and by 6 I had left Ian as well as I went from my 8:20/mile to 8:10/mile pace sections. At about 8 miles I came up to Chris Peddle who was suffering in the heat and then at about 10miles found Duncan again and just ahead was Will Thrower (another Frimley Lodge parkrunner). We ran together for a while, but by now I was trying to step up the pace for the run in to the finish.
At 12 miles I came up to Richard Fyvie, a sub-21minute Frimley parkrunner, who was running his first half marathon, but was walking his way to the last hill. We ran together for a few hundred metres until we were most of the way up the last kicker of a hill. The run in to the finish sweeps downhill until turning left into the sports field with a new finish on a tarmac road instead of a grassy field (which was a sea of mud last year). The road is narrow and twisty so it's hard to see the finish until you are on top of it, but I managed to keep my final sprint going to the line for a new PB by about 20 seconds. As soon as I crossed the line my calf seized up and I could barely walk. Still, a very good result considering the injury, which turned out to be minor.
Canal Run 20 miles - 3:06:40
This is Sandhurst Joggers' annual canal run, set up to coincide with most runner's final long run before London Marathon. It's along Basingstoke canal and people get dropped off at 10, 15, 18, 20 or 23 miles away from Frimley Lodge park and run back, with a drink and feed stop at Fleet 10miles from the finish. I think there were around 50 of us running and it's a fun event, helped by the perfect cool weather. I planned to run this at close to marathon pace and the first 10 miles went by at a steady 9:00 to 9:10/mile pace. The countryside was pleasant to run in and the route all flat apart from the diversion around a landslip which took us down and back up a steady hill for 1 1/2 miles or so. I stopped for 5 minutes at Fleet for a piece of my (now famous!) flapjack and a top up of the drink bottle.
The next 7 miles I ran at about 10min/mile pace with Gabby Bassett who at 20 miles was on her longest ever run, just testing the waters to see if she has a marathon in her. She definitely has on this performance. For the last 3 miles I decided to pick up the pace and got back to 9min miles for 2 miles, finishing strongly at below 8:30 pace and a time close to a 20mile PB. Even better, I had no calf pain at all, just slightly aching feet from running on the stony canal towpaths. The next day was even better, not even stiff legs and I was out playing football in the park with Alf in the evening. The good recovery possibly had something to do with the post run gammon egg and chips with a bit of extra salt. Definitely recommended.
 |
| Typical terrain on this year's Tanners. Glorious Mud! Photo: Kelvin Gower |
OK, it actually says 30miles on the course description, but there is a reasonable chance of getting lost trying to follow the route instructions. As I said in my last post, Kelvin, who I ran this with, has a blog post about this race (see Mr K's running blog ) so I won't repeat his race description.
This was by far the hardest run/jog/walk that I have ever done. 31 miles of mud and big hills. By the time we got to 10 miles I was thinking "I feel as tired as I did when I was 24miles into Portsmouth marathon, and I still have 20 miles of hills to go!" Desperate and negative thoughts then. If I hadn't been running with Kelvin then at best I would have baled out on to the 20mile course or maybe even quit. Just goes to show how much running performance is down to mental toughness, but it's runs like these where you learn about yourself and what you are capable of. If you finish, then no run is a failure.
Bramley 20 - 3:05:57.
This is an undulating/hilly 2 lap course mostly out in the countryside to the north of Bramley near Reading. It was a sunny cool morning and the plan was to do 9min miles all the way round. I set off with Alison and a couple of her friends who were running the same plan, but they pulled away after only 3 miles leaving me to run by myself. I was on pace until the start of the second lap when I slowed a bit.
I was gradually hauling in runners ahead of me until about 15 miles when I came up to a woman called Polly who stopped in tears just as I passed her. I wasn't so desperate for a PB that I had to run on so I walked with her for a few 10s of metres and got chatting, then jogging. She said it was the furthest that she had run, but she hadn't taken on much water or any gels and the friend that she had been running with had left her on the first lap. Fortunately the next water stop was just round the corner and it had energy drinks also. That gave us both a boost and soon we were back to running close to 9min mile pace. Going up the next hill at about 16miles, we picked up another couple of runners and had a group going, chatting and running and keeping our spirits up.
 |
| Bramley 20, looking fresh, so must be the first lap. Photo: Colin Brassington |
Surrey Half Marathon - 1:49:55. It was the first running of this event on an undulating out and back course from the Spectrum sports centre on the north side of Guildford to Woking town centre and back. I met up with the usual crowd of friends form Frimley parkrun. I think the plan was that I would run with James and Duncan Ball at about 1:50:00 pace, but after dropping my bag off I couldn't find them at the start so I ran the whole race by myself. To start with it was a cool but sunny day. Nice conditions but could be getting hot later in the day.
The route starts off with a slight rise from the sports centre, then gets into a long steady downhill section over the next 1.5miles. At 3miles there is a hill then an undulating course out in the country lanes to Woking. I was hoping to get to 5 miles before being passed by the leaders coming back the other way, but i had only got to 4.5miles when they breezed by. Still, just the site of them got everyone around us running a bit quicker. Around Woking I spotted several Sandhurst Joggers who were out marshalling and on the route back, the out and back course came into its own, as I saw loads of other Sandhurst runners that I wouldn't have.
 |
| Surrey Half: Post run Frimley Crew team photo |
 |
| Caught in the act. Running for the line. Photo: Rachel Davis |
Fleet Half Marathon - 1:49:28
After nearly getting an unintended PB at Surrey Half, 1 week later it was time for a proper attempt. Again, the Ball brothers had a plan that involved running with me as a pacer along with Chris Peddle and Abby Fudge. My plan was to do a progressive race in 3 sections with a target time of 1:49:00.
We set off as a group but that didn't last for long. Abby was feeling good for this race so quickly got bored of being in the crowds and picked up her pace. Duncan Ball and Chris decided to go with her and disappeared as well and so it was just up to me and James Ball to maintain a sensible pace. On about the first mile mark we came up to Ian Watson (a fellow Sandhurst Jogger) and we chatted for a while. Very soon after I got a shooting pain in my right calf that had me hobbling for a few paces. That eased off for a few minutes, then a different part of my calf got a similar shooting pain. I thought my race was over inside 2 miles, but I kept going for a bit longer to see if the pain would ease or worsen.
With the Fleet course you do a small loop around the town for about 3 miles before returning to near the start, which would be a good place to bale out. However, keeping up the chat with Ian and James took my mind off the calf pain, so by 3 or 4 miles it was a dull ache that I could keep running on. This seemed to help Ian keep a decent pace as well who was suffering from neck and shoulder pain. At 5 miles James had to slow down a bit, and by 6 I had left Ian as well as I went from my 8:20/mile to 8:10/mile pace sections. At about 8 miles I came up to Chris Peddle who was suffering in the heat and then at about 10miles found Duncan again and just ahead was Will Thrower (another Frimley Lodge parkrunner). We ran together for a while, but by now I was trying to step up the pace for the run in to the finish.
At 12 miles I came up to Richard Fyvie, a sub-21minute Frimley parkrunner, who was running his first half marathon, but was walking his way to the last hill. We ran together for a few hundred metres until we were most of the way up the last kicker of a hill. The run in to the finish sweeps downhill until turning left into the sports field with a new finish on a tarmac road instead of a grassy field (which was a sea of mud last year). The road is narrow and twisty so it's hard to see the finish until you are on top of it, but I managed to keep my final sprint going to the line for a new PB by about 20 seconds. As soon as I crossed the line my calf seized up and I could barely walk. Still, a very good result considering the injury, which turned out to be minor.
Canal Run 20 miles - 3:06:40
This is Sandhurst Joggers' annual canal run, set up to coincide with most runner's final long run before London Marathon. It's along Basingstoke canal and people get dropped off at 10, 15, 18, 20 or 23 miles away from Frimley Lodge park and run back, with a drink and feed stop at Fleet 10miles from the finish. I think there were around 50 of us running and it's a fun event, helped by the perfect cool weather. I planned to run this at close to marathon pace and the first 10 miles went by at a steady 9:00 to 9:10/mile pace. The countryside was pleasant to run in and the route all flat apart from the diversion around a landslip which took us down and back up a steady hill for 1 1/2 miles or so. I stopped for 5 minutes at Fleet for a piece of my (now famous!) flapjack and a top up of the drink bottle.
The next 7 miles I ran at about 10min/mile pace with Gabby Bassett who at 20 miles was on her longest ever run, just testing the waters to see if she has a marathon in her. She definitely has on this performance. For the last 3 miles I decided to pick up the pace and got back to 9min miles for 2 miles, finishing strongly at below 8:30 pace and a time close to a 20mile PB. Even better, I had no calf pain at all, just slightly aching feet from running on the stony canal towpaths. The next day was even better, not even stiff legs and I was out playing football in the park with Alf in the evening. The good recovery possibly had something to do with the post run gammon egg and chips with a bit of extra salt. Definitely recommended.
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