Lochaber Marathon Training week 13

Unlucky for some? well it could have been worse.

I have been on a high from Alloa all week. I still look at my time in disbelief.

Monday my joints were a bit sore on Monday so I decided to take a rest day. On Tuesday at work, the bit above my ankle started to hurt. It wasn't sore to walk on but i could feel it when i moved my ankle about. I was planning on doing the Merrys one of my favourite sessions. But after 2 merry hills, I was still feeling the effects of Alloa and my ankle. So I spent the night icing it.

On Wednesday the niggle was still there so, I took the night off and again ice all the way. I tried to do a circuit session but when I started doing press ups my shoulder got really sore. Week 13 syndrome! lol

Thursday all pain from everywhere had gone which was a relief and meant I could get back to running. Tonights session was one I was looking forward to for ages as I have never done it and I really enjoy the longer sessions at the club. So it was 3 times 2 mile reps although the reps are just short of 2 miles (1.93, 1.95 then 1.85). They do this all in a big massive 8.5 mile loop with 1/2 mile rest between reps. The first rep I decided with all the rest I have had to try and stay with the front of my group, it was a good turnout tonight and must have been more than 10 in the group. So I kept up with Sheila, Jo and Colin for the first mile which was 1/2 mile down then half mile up. Then the next mile was all down hill so they stretched out a bit in front but I wasn't too far back. For the second rep it was pretty flat, Colin bombed off in this one while the rest of the group stayed pretty close. The 3 rd rep I decided to go to the back of the group for the first mile as I wanted to save myself for the final uphill mile. The group was pretty tight again apart from Colin who again went ahead. I actually joked that he should catch up with the next group up as he seemed to be flying tonight. But just as the uphill started I realised that the others were falling behind and it was just Steven and myself. Then we started catching Colin fast as he looked as if he just blew up. So myself and Steven overtook him and were running side by side for the last half a mile or so but he let me go just before the finish. It really was a great effort all round as it was a beast of a session and it was nice of the group above to hang about at the finish to the final rep so we all congratulated each other. When I got home I had a look at my stats and I managed to run each rep at 6.52/6.53 pace! It is amazing to do a session that long and do reps so closely paced, I was well chuffed.

Friday I deservedly had a rest day. Then Saturday I decided to take a week off from Park run and have another rest day in preparation for my last long, long run on the Sunday.

Now this might sound stupid, but I read it somewhere and decided to give it a go. Basically instead of carbo loading before Sunday. The idea is to avoid carbs so your body is carb depleted which replicates what it will be like at the end of a marathon. So on Friday and Saturday I basically ate junk food!

So Sunday I got up in time for the club session despite the clocks going forward. Instead of the easy 2 miles to the club I just drove today. There wasn't as many as usual in our group today but Sheila, Dave, Derek, Gordon and Colin made it so there was still six. The first 3 miles I found tough and was wondering how far I would make it today. I was running at this point with Colin who was also struggling as he did the Nigel Barge 10K yesterday. Once we got to Waterfoot and turned left up the hill, Colin said to me to go on ahead as he just wanted to run at his own pace. I don't like leaving people behind but wanted to get a good run in and he wasn't bothered so I just went on with the rest of the guys. It was a nice hilly run up round Thorntonhall and the stiffness had disapperaed and I was running well. I was a bit concerned when the guys would up it back to the club, but they didn't until the last half mile and I just let them go. I forgot to charge my garmin which I have become so relient on. But luckily one of the other guys had one and informed me we had done 11.6 miles in 1 hour 43 minutes, so a good solid run at a good pace. I had a quick pitstop and tried to work out what I needed to do to make up the mileage as I was hoping to get between 20 and 22 but from now on in it would be guesswork. So I headed up the Ayr Road for 45 minutes and reached just after where the M77 crosses over. When I turned back I started struggling big time. By this time (although not knowing it at the time) I was 18 miles into the run and I had about 3 walk breaks which got shorter each time. After 19.5 miles i got myself together and started singing to myself repetively 'get to the next lampost' then 'get to the next bus stop' or whatever it was and it worked I didn't stop for the next mile and a half to the club!

Route



I remember when I use to feel embarassed having walk breaks when out running but now I realise there is no shame in it especially with the distance I am covering. I am also pleased with how I recovered from it and managed the 21 miles.

So although the week started badly it got better and although I wanted to get more miles in, it was defenitley the better idea to err on the side of caution and still manage 33 miles. Whether the carb depleting work, I will find out on race day. But its definetley something I would only do once per marathon training schedule.

21/03/2010 - Alloa Half Marathon

WOW! What a race, this has to be quite easily the best race I have ever ran.

I headed up with a group from the club and we got there in plenty of time to collect our numbers and timing chip. I was excited just to have number 222! I'm easily pleased :-) We got changed attached our numbers/timing chips and before I knew it we were off on our warm up which was an easy 1/2 mile jog. The others then took off their warm up gear in the leisure centre then we headed to the start. This is where I lost everyone! But I wasn't too bothered as there was only a couple of minutes wait and it meant I was going to be going at my pace and not someone elses.

I didn't realise but I was quite far back compared to the rest of my club mates but as soon as it started everyone spread out quickly so it was easy to get settled. Derek from Giffnock past me after half a mile, then Jacqui who must have started even further back than me. I was expecting Jacqui's parter Steven to pass but no sign of him. The first mile is a loop which goes almost to the start/finish area then the route heads east then north east up to Tillicoutry which was about the first 5-6 miles. About 4 miles in I noticed a Giffnock vest in the distance which turned out to be Jim as I caught up with him just as we turned left at Tillicoutry. The first part of the race I would describe as undulating, the third mile was slightly slower due to a long gradual uphill but apart from that I was pretty steady.

Jim had done the race before and told me that the next stretch was pretty flat so I decided to push on and get as much time in the bank as possible before the hills at 10 and 11 miles which everyone was going on about. One guy I spoke to briefly at 8 miles was pretty much advising me to slow down now to save myself for these hills which at this point were 2 miles away! I just replied I had probably done worse in training.

In my head I had split the race into 3 sections. The 3 mile warm up. The 7 mile middle section. Then slogging it for the last 3 miles. So when I got to the turn to head back to Alloa it was just about 10 miles and I was feeling suprisingly good. The hill that everyone has been talking about came in to view. I took one look at it and fair enough it was long and a wee bit steep but I wasn't going to slow down! To show this I actually did my fastest mile of the race up to this point at 7.17. Did I slow down for the next incline between 11-12? - new fastest mile up to this point 7.08! The rest of the race I upped it again and was feeling so good!! So managed 6.49 in the last mile and then 6.30 pace for the final sprint to the line. I was so happy when I finished especially seeing loads of Giffnock vests right after the line where we all congratulated each other as the majority of us were celebrating good times/PBs!

Everything just clicked today and I just felt I could go on and on and it didn't even hurt which I was expecting from mile 8 but it just never happened. I am totally buzzing still as I thought before the race I might have a chance at beating my PB and if I ran really well I might be able to get 1.37.30 but to get 1.36.48 is just awesome! My old PB was 1.40.19 from 6 years ago and after 5 attempts of being nowhere near I finally conquered it which I have got a lot to thank my club for as it has improved me no end. I also wasn't sure whether to use the mile splits on my watch but I'm glad I did as it was something to look forward to at the end of each mile. Especially seeing the splits decrease all the way through.

I told some of the people at work I was doing this and the general response I got was that Alloa was a bit of a dump. After doing this I thought it was a really nice town and the route was really nice as you had the Ochills in view for 3/4s of the race and most of the race was in the countryside. There were water stations every 3 miles and the marshalls/police did a great job. The start/finish area was run like a well oiled machine and the leisure centre was ideal for coping with everyones stuff and changing/toilet facilities. Although there are a few uphills, you have to remember there are just as many downs. So if you did lose any speed on the ups you could make up for it on the long gradual downhills which in turn makes it a PB course as there were many PBs today from the people I spoke to after.

Mile Splits

1 Mile 7:26.16 7:26.16
2 mile 7:26.26 14:52.42
3 Mile 7:39.17 22:31.59
4 Mile 7:33.22 30:04.81
5 Mile 7:23.08 37:27.89
6 Mile 7:32.29 45:00.18
7 Mile 7:24.74 52:24.92
8 Mile 7:31.68 59:56.60
9 Mile 7:25.12 1:07:21.72
10 Mile 7:19.19 1:14:40.91
11 Mile 7:17.3 1:21:58.21
12 Mile 7:08.84 1:29:07.05
13 Mile 6:49.13 1:35:56.18
13.1 Mi 1:02.29 1:36:58.47

Offical chip time 1.36.48

A race I will be doing again in the future for sure. Now I just need to work out how to beat this time!

Lochaber Marathon Training week 12

An easy week before my half marathon tomorrow.

On Monday I was feeling it a bit from Sunday but managed a good solid circuit session which lasted just over an hour. Circuits are weird for me, I don't do them that often maybe once a month but i find it really easy until I do my super circuit at the end where I try and do as much of each type of excercise as I can. I don't know if I'm just not doing enough per circuit or I've plateaued or I'm just doing it right??

Anyway Tuesday my shoes hadn't arrived yet so it was out with the trail shoes. I realised quickly that my trail shoes are now gubbed. I don't know if it is because they are not designed for concrete or because I have done enough mileage in them in the past year. So I just did an easy 3 miles as I really did think I might get an injury if I did anymore.

Good news is I got my new shoes on Wednesday so plenty of time to break them in before Sunday. I did an easy 10k on Wednesday just to not over do it in my shoes debut appearance.

On Thursday club night, they were doing one of the hardest sessions they do. I was planning to just turn up see if there was anything happpening with Alloa then go on my own jog. But Shelia and Yvonne were doing the half marathon on Sunday too, so we just did our own run. They are both very good runners so their easy pace was not too far off my half marathon pace. So it really was the perfect run for me before Sunday. We did 5 1/2 miles and were doing pretty much bang on 8 minute mile pace which equates to a 1.45 half mara time. I felt really comfertable and felt I could continue easily at that pace. This was shown through even more with my very quick recovery.

I think every one of my posts on training have gone something like 'Friday rest day'. Not this Friday though! For sports relief my work were doing a charity mile round the grounds of my work which equated to a good fun 1.35 mile loop. One of the guys from my department Alex joined me and I agreed to run with him as I didn't want to go all out before Sunday. After half a mile easy warm up we got to the start line. I was suprised that there was only 30 people there as the offices must hold over 4000 people. But there was 2 other start times so more might have been starting later. I said to Alex to go slightly ahead of me so I wasn't dictating the pace. We set off and immediatley we were at the front. I had no intention of competing or winning as I say I just wanted a steady run. But everyone seemed quite happy to run behind us. Which we did then my watched beeped to indicate a mile (which we thought was the full distance of the race) but we still had a bit to go to get to the finish. Alex was struggling and if it was a mile he would have been fine. Alex was slowing so I slowed and a guy went passed and was off. After the guy got about 20 metres ahead, Alex saw the hill coming up and just told me to go. So I hammered off up the hill having no intention of catching the first place guy and just continued back at the steady pace. I crossed the line in 10 minutes which was maybe a bit faster than I wanted to run but it was comfertable. I also finished second but I don't count it as it wasn't really a race and more for charity and getting people to excercise. Alex was 5th and did really well. It was a really nice route and I am tempted to start doing an easy 2 miler every Friday lunchtime, especially if Alex is up for it.

On to today, Saturday. I managed to sleep in and get up at 9.05 with the park run starting at 9.30am! I texted Richard just to say I am coming and got there at 9.20 with 10 minutes to spare. This week I was marshalling the start with Shirley who although volunteers a lot too, this is the first time our paths have crossed. We also did Funnel Management together which was fun clapping all the runners finishing with the occassional shout to make sure people stayed in order. Just a half mile run to the Parkrun today and that'll do before tomorrow.

I am really looking forward to Alloa for a couple of reasons. Half marathons at the moment are my favourite distance as having done 8 I getting quite experienced at them. Another reason is because this is my first half representing Giffnock and because its a club championship race for the women there will be a fair number of Giffnock Northers there. Including my Lochaber buddies, Steven and Jacqui who like me are using it as a warm up race for Lochaber. It will be interesting to see how they do and how close we'll be at Lochaber. The last reason is because I think this maybe the time where a beat my PB of 1.40.19 from 2004. I am not going to put pressure on myself though as I realise that there will be plenty more opportunities later in the year or years to come. As I say that run on Thursday indicates I should be able to do a 1.45 which was my season best last year, even if I beat that I'll be delighted. But there is always random factors and I've just got to keep an open mind and try and run at a pace which is comfertable but maxing it for the distance. Easiser said than done! But we'll see...

Lochaber Marathon Training week 11

This was meant to be another hard week, but due to a couple of things it ended up being an easy week.

After last Sundays 21.5 miler at record pace for me, Monday i decided to have a rest day. On Tuesday I was still feeling it but by the time the evening came for my run I felt ready to go. As soon as I started though I realised my shoes had, had it. I was thinking this on the Sunday but it was confirmed that night. So I decided to cut it short to 3 miles as didn't want to risk injury at this stage.

I ordered a new pair but has not arrived yet so I am currently using my trail shoes which seems to be ok. On the Wednesday night I did my 10k. Then Thursday night at the club it was surprisingly quiet. Our group ended up being only 6 people. Apparently the reason for this is because the sessions are now up on the website and people don't really like this session. Some say its too short, others feel they get enough speedwork at the track on a Tuesday night. As we were doing 6 times 600 metres. The first half is uphill, second half downhill. I was pleased with how it went and averaged 2 minute 15 second pace which is bang on what is expected for our group. Friday I had a rest day. Then Saturday I helped out at the Park run doing the timer. In the afternoon I went for a 4 1/2 mile jog.

And so to Sunday. I have been debating with myself all week whether I should be going to the club long runs after last week. I was thinking that they do between 11 and 15 mile runs where I am doing 20 -22 mile runs so they are focusing their pace on doing that mileage rather than the my mileage. However I had a thought about it and its the only way I am going to get faster so I'll just see how it goes. I was pleased to get up early enough again to do the club run. The first 2 miles to the club were hard as my legs were really heavy. But once I got going with the other guys I was fine. This week we did the Parks run which was Pollok Park, Maxwell Park, Queens Park, Hampden Park (they count it, lol), Kings Park and Linn Park. When we got to the top of Linn Park the guys started hammering it down the hill and we were going 7.30 pace and didn't slow down much on the hill back up to Clarkston road. When we got to Sainsburys my Lochaber amigos and myself decided to do an extra loop from there so we didn't get caught up in the sprint back to the club. Towards the end of the loop I started to struggle and when we did the extra Braidbar mile loop, Steven and Jacqui upped it and I had no intention of even trying to keep up. When we got back to the clubhouse, I looked at my watch at it was 16 1/2 miles. So I had a loo stop and thought I only had to do another 3 1/2 miles and that is me. I did and went round the tolls this time by myself as Steven and Jacqui had done more miles before this time. I struggled even more but kept running until the watch said 20 miles and stopped. Even with the gutting it out I still finished in 3 hours 3 minutes which was pleasing especially with all the pace pushing in the middle! Plus it was a lot hotter than last week which no doubt contributed.

This is the first long run in lochaber training that I have used shot blocs and NUUN again which seemed to work. Also I used my new waist pack to carry the shot blocs and I didn't notice it at all which is good so will probably use it in the race if i'm not wearing my rain jacket.

So overall 39 miles this week, not what I had planned but still pleased with how things are going. Next Sunday it is my race for March - Alloa half marathon. I am looking forward to it and will be interesting to see how close I can get to 1.40 or even beat my PB. I do think its a possibility. So even though I had an easy week this week, I am going to do another one this week with maybe a wee bit more mileage during the week but it will all be at an easy pace and hopefully I'll have some new shoes too!

Lochaber Marathon Training week 10

WOW!!! What a week, after a toughy last week mentally. This week pretty much every step was a pleasure.

After having done my long run on the Saturday last week, meaning Sunday off, I was rested and ready to go on the Monday. I did an easy 10 3/4 miles, The Mearns still had a bit of snow on the pavements so that made it a bit more challenging. But overall a very comfertable run and a good start to the week.

Tuesday's run I was both nervous and excited about as I have never done a tempo run longer than the 12.9 miles the previous week and this week I was going to attempt 15. Due to the snow and other limitations, I wanted a route that avoided the snow as I was going to be going at a faster pace. I didn't have a set route but I had a good idea of where I wanted to go. I decided in order to get the mileage up I would do loops every now and then, these ranged from 1/2 a mile to 1.5 mile and I think I did about 5 of them all together. These really helped breaking the distance up and meant I was only focusing on the loop I was on or where the next loop I was going to do. Overall this was an absolutely brilliant run and I thought I could have gone on. In the end I averaged 8 min 15 second miles and the last 2 miles I upped it to well below 8 minute miles. So I managed 15 miles in just under 2 hours 5 minutes.

Wednesday not surprisingly I was a bit stiff, so I just did my 10k loop. To my surprise I found it really easy! At the end of it I felt like I did when I was starting which was encouraging.

Then Thursday's club session which was Davieland hill reps which is 320 metres up a gradual ascent. We did this session in January and I was amazed by how much my group had improved and myself. Last time I was averaging 1.34 minutes per rep with a best of 1.29 and pulled away from the group in the last 5 reps. This time we were all together the whole time which was great and so motivating to push myself even more. This time for the first five I averaged between 1.25 and 1.30. The second 5 average was 1.22 with the second last rep and last rep being 1.20 and 1.18 respectivily. The last rep is equivalent to 6 minute 15 second mile pace! I found my tactics really worked. I positioned myself at the back of the pack then try and catch up with the two fastest in the group Steven and Colin by the top of the hill. Which I did for most of the reps except the last one where they both ran out there skins and must have been somewhere between 1.10 and 1.15!

Friday was my day off, then Saturday I parked outside Pollock Park and just ran the half mile in and out of the park run where I handed out the numbers this week.

Which sets the seen nicely for Sunday's epic! For the first time ever I actually managed to get myself up in time for the long run with the club. I ran the 2 miles up to the club and got there with 10 minutes to spare. When I got there I was the only one there and I wondered if I was going to be running alone again. But gradually everyone came and there must have been between 10 and 15 of us. There is an in joke in the club about doing the dams route which is the hardest route they do, so they always say stuff like 'dams route this week'. But this week it really was! So 15 miles and its pretty hilly but a very beautiful route as the snow still covered the fields and the resoviour was still iced over. I got chatting to quite a few folk which made the miles fly by. When we finished the dams loop we still had 4 miles to get back to the club but it was all down hill. This is where everyone took off apart from Steven, Jacqui and myself. They are both doing Lochaber too so wanted to get a 20 miler in. I was happy with this as having all ready done 2 miles that would give me 22. So we took it a bit easier, had a toilet break at the club which by now I had done 17 miles. Then set off on the last loop which is also the club handicap route. My legs were feeling tired but at the same time I felt like I could keep going. In the end it was about 21 1/2 miles but that'll do nicely!

The thing that was even better about this run was the pace is slightly faster than running on my own and I ended up doing 21 1/2 miles in 3 hours 10 minutes. This is sub 9 minute mile pace and Sub 4 hour marathon pace. To put this into perspective last week I did 20 miles in 3 hours 20 minutes.

So overall I am absolutley delighted with this week and it will be interesting to see how I recover from this long run. This is my highest mileage week ever at 62 miles and that was cutting out miles to make sure I didn't over do it.