A real runner...?

Yesterday I ran 2 miles. Just 2 miles, but important ones. I ran the original "two bridge" run I first ran back at the end of January, six weeks after giving birth to monkey2.

Back then I was really pleased with myself because I ran all the way around, but clocked 22minutes.

This time I am so proud of the fact that I wiped 3minutes15seconds off my time for the route. That's a huge amount over such a short distance. It felt really good and strong, I was able to push when another runner overtook me, and was even able to "push for home" on the last straight.

I applied much of what I have learnt over the last couple of months - to increase my footstrikes per minute in order to both increase my pace and to reduce the force with which my feet land, to use other runners to push that little more, and to begin to gauge my pace.

I have my Garmin forerunner set up to beep with one pitch to warn me to speed up if my pace falls slower than 10:05, and with another pitch if my pace increases faster than 9:45 - throughout, apart from when I was climbing/descending steps at the bridges, it was indicating I was either within my specified zone, or more often, faster.

I resisted checking my pace until I uploaded the trace on the computer on my return:

The 3 peaks are the flights of steps and a short steep track upto the road where it is difficult to keep your pace up. Otherwise I maintained a sub-10minute mile pace throughout. (9:26 for 1st mile, 9.40 for 2nd).

Long run planned for this weekend, then some Fartlek or hill-running midweek.
Next weekend I'm going to attempt a 5k at sub-10 minute miling.

Clocks change tomorrow, affording me a wealth of new routes I can do in the evenings.

"Oh the hills!!!!!"

Did my first hilly run this week - just 5k - around Mummy and Daddy Penguin's neck of the woods... (Mummy and Daddy Penguin are what we call my parents...long story...)

It is a circular route about the market town of Cowbridge, and one we have walked many many times in childhood and a walk my parents still do on occasion now. It has many hills, up and down...and also very scenic.

First decision was which way to run around it - I chose clockwise on the basis that that was the direction we normally walk it, and it meant the biggest hill (at least the biggest perceived hill!) would be downward.

I was please with my efforts - the  hills, though tough, I coped with well, practising the shortening and quickening of my stride on the uphills, and trying not to lean back on the downhills...as I had read in magazines and book.

I clocked 33mins45secs - slow for a 5k but compared to my last flat 5k, and given the hills, not bad at all.

Interesting to see the plot of my pace against elevation...

I'm hoping in a month or so's time to run this circuit in both directions back-to-back to create a 10k hilly run. Now that sounds tortuous!!

Oh, and now that I look at the elevation, the perceived longest hill...? IS the longest hill!

Running for Japan

Ran just twice this week. First was mid-week, 4 miles, and an attempt to put into practise something I read in one of the running magazines Mr Taffi bought me - to start at a slow pace for the first mile, then run the next faster, then the next faster...I think my error was in setting off at the same pace I normally average, and then trying to run faster each successive mile, rather than to start rather slower...

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither can speed be built upon one single Fartlek session!!

Saturday's run was rather better.

After my midweek run my head was most definately saying NO! to my long run. But after some persuasion from Mr Taffi, I set off to do the same 5 mile route I had run just over a week before, or, if things were going well, to increase the distance by about 10% (I had an alternative route planned out after the mile 4 marker).

The run was going just about okay, but I didn't feel my legs had the extra distance in them, so up until just before the mile 4 marker decision point I was fairly certain to run just the 5 miles. Then I remembered two things I had come across on the internet this week:

1) an incredible video of the Japan tsunami arriving on shore within minutes of the earthquake,
2) a post by Paula Radcliffe promoting Run for Japan

And from that moment on my mind was resolved on running the extra mile. I ran 6.2 miles for the people of Japan, and there was energy in my legs.

The funny thing is that I can look at the pace-distance trace and spot that moment when the decision was made. And even though that was the furthest I had run by quite some margin since taking up running again, and probably equalled the furthest I have ever run, my legs were willing to push on.

I'm glad Mr Taffi persuaded me to go out for a run that morning ("Sometimes your best runs happen when you really don't feel like it").

Then I registered my run on Run for Japan, paid my donation, and felt very pleased with myself...

Amazing the difference that 3 days can make. Now I finally feel that I can achieve the distance required for a 10K and hopefully half marathon later in the year. And hopefully I will have gained just a little more pace by then too.

And, I have persuaded a friend to run with me in the May Race for Life.

AND, I plan to escape a house of chicken pox (Monkey2 now has it!) to run a few hills this week...

Fartlek

Traditionally the weekend run is the long run of the week. But, being on maternity leave, and the past week in particular, it was actually easier to do my long run on Thursday.

So, Sunday, armed with new knowledge from The Complete Book of Running for Women, and after a long walk with a reluctant dog on Saturday to scope out suitable landmarks at approximately 200m intervals, I did my first bit of speed training.

There are many different ways of improving speed training (described in the book from page 283+):

• Fartlek - Sweedish for "speed play"...pick a landmark in the distance, run 'fast' to it, then slow to recover, then pick another...
• Pickups - more structured, and uping the pace for set time intervals (1min on, 1min off...) - can be combined with ladders/pyramids (increasing the times up the pyramid, then down again)...
• Intervals - upping the pace according to distance (400m on, 200m off)
• Tempo runs - sustained fast run for say 15mins (builds speed endurance) - a bit different from the above...
• Hill training - run up short or long hills - if your particularly masochistic then you can do hill repeats which is running up the same hill over and over!!!

I went for a slightly more structured fartlek - that is, I designed my run such that the landmarks were at 200m intervals - so a kind of "Fartlek interval run"! Ran for 2miles 200m on 200m off...results below.

You can see that I was running with an aim that my "on" periods were to maintain about 8:30minute miling (plus or minus 30s) and my "off" periods to maintain 10minute miling (plus or minus 30s). This I basically achieved (the 2 slow peaks are the turnaround point in my run, and towards the end when I stopped then decided to continue a couple more reps).

I think I need to double the "on" intervals, as per the book's description of intervals (400:200), rather than the 200:200 I did. This will make it easier to control my pace, as by the time I glanced at my watch a couple of times to check my pace, it was already time to slow.

The above graph was created with a new bit of freeware - SportTracks 3.0 - which I have not yet used in anger, but certainly lets me scale the plots (unlike the Garmin Training Center), and yet still allows plotting of a run over a satellite image.

In other news, Mr Taffi bought me 2 running magazines on his weekly food shop. I'll delve into those for useful snippits of wisdom too...

Runs this week - consolodate 5miles (more route planning to do...), another Fartlek/interval run, and hopefully a hill session (need to travel a bit to find some decent hills, but I have a few in mind!)

Building up the miles

Including the St David's day Run, I have already run 12miles this week - that's almost a half marathon...tho' eventually I'll have to put all that together at once!

I finally dug out my Garmin Forerunner watch...

Interesting to run with GPS - nice to know exactly how far you have run rather than rely on plotting routes beforehand and noting landmarks that signify the mile markers. It also means that you know your running pace at all times. The temptation of course is to spend your run with your eyes glued to the pace display, something I was keen not to do. Yet what I found amazing was how little difference there is in perception of pace between 9 and 11 minute miles. That makes it hard to judge my pace, and either run too fast and burn out (common in race conditions and something I did a few years ago on my only10K race) or to let your pace drift slower and slower. Hopefully I will get better at judging pace, and with the Garmin to keep me in check I should be okay.

I plan to go out with the Garmin soon and practice upping my pace in a controlled manner (say 200m 'sprints')

Tuesday I ran a 4mile street run (cabin fever from looking after a chickenpox'd monkey1 spilt over and I had to get out of the house at the first opportunity. Legs felt like lead after my race and long walk on Sunday.

Today I did a 5mile river run - what I call the "4 bridges" along the Taff Trail. That was better, and I enjoyed the distraction of both the Garmin and an audio book I purchased off the internet (Kathy Reichs' Grave Secrets in case you are interested!) - but WOW it was windy. I knew this, but went out for a run anyway as I had mum over to look after Monkey1 and Monkey2 and it was an opportunity for a midweek daytime run. Miles 4 and 5 were straight into gale force wind. Very hard and slow going. Still clocked my furthest distance yet, and only walked to decend a flight of steps from one of the bridges.

Uploaded my runs to the computer. I have some great software for this (Accuroute) but I've misplaced the disk and password so it might be a while before I can use this. So reliant on the far from perfect "Garmin Training Center". Not at all impressed with the basic interface which allows you to do very little. However, the ability to view your routes in Google Earth is great.

Garmin Training Center Pace v Distance

The inability to scale the Garmin pace graph is truly pathetic, though you can scroll crosshairs over the trace to view your pace at specific points.

So, what next? Consolodate my 5mile distance, and start properly attempting to increase my pace. To this end I have been reading my running book. More on this in my next post. :o)

St David's Day Run...

The British Military Training St David's Day Run was an event (albeit the 10K not 5K) that Mr Taffi was going to enter before he broke his toe... It was only on Thursday, when I discovered that there were both 5K and 10K events, that I had an idea of entering it myself. My half-marathon training App had a planned training run for today (Sunday) so I thought "why not?"

It meant a bit of planning - preparing feeds for Monkey2 in my absence (it shouldn't have meant more than 2 hours out of the house but a grouchy monkey is not a happy monkey or a happy Mr Taffi, so best to be prepared), tracking down all my running kit the night before, and an earlyish start as I had to register immediately before the race.

I took with me my latest internet (Amazon, my fave shop!) purchase: new drinks bottle...

(I really did buy the two, though the green bottle got an outing today, and the blue one stayed at home!)
...my iPod Shuffle complete with Mark Kermode's film reviews, and my entry fee.
I also wore thin fleece gloves as the weather was lovely, but bitingly cold (very glad I did).

I left Mr Taffi home with a chickenpox'd Monkey1 and a sleeping Monkey2, and walked the 3miles or so to Bute park, and registered with the other late entries at the registration tent. A smaller turnout than I was expecting, but I think the larger entry was for the 10K.

I pinned on my entry number...

...selected my podcast, stretched a bit, and set off for the start line.

Once they'd freed a couple of trapped 5K entries from the portaloos we were off.

The route is all around Bute park, so fantastically flat and traffic free, and it was a lovely (if cold) day for it.
I can't say it was the best run I have done in recent weeks, but as Mr Taffi says, the experience is good - learning to run in a crowd, coping with waiting around in the cold to start, having to travel to the start line rather than set off for a run practically from the front door of home...and learning the hard way that I should have been to the portaloos myself before the race started!

I completed the race in 31mins18secs - not fast, but actually faster than training runs, and my km splits were fairly consistant. I averaged 10mins4secs minute miling (a stop to fumble with a detatched iPod shuffle tipping it over the 10mins mark...). All in all, a good baseline race from which to improve.

A good race, well-organised, good value (still only £11 for on-the-day entry) - and you get a medal and T-shirt (the latter a useful extra layer for the 3mile walk home!). The only criticisms - (1) not so much as a cereal bar in the goody-bag (a little sweet lolly does not count as food!), but luckily I had just enough money for a St David's day welsh cake from the coffee stall to keep the hunger pangs at bay until I got home...(2) a (nice but) generic medal without the event name and date...

Please see the panel to the right for an addition to my "planned events" to include this one (even though I could hardly call it "planned"!) and the gmap-pedometer route (which strangely comes out at 5.4km).

If you happen to stumble upon this blog, please comment and say "Hi" just to let me know someone out there is reading...!

Onwards and upwards...

Gadgets and widgets...

I've added a couple of Blog gadgets to the right ------->

First is links to runs I designed on Gmaps pedometer that I have already run.
Second is a list of the runs I plan to do (the list might grow!) - I will cross them off as I run them.

I will also shortly dig out my Garmin Forerunner watch so that I can track my runs with GPS and upload them for analysis (speed, pace, inclines, etc).

And I have already fished out a book I bought a couple of years ago when I had a rather more half-baked idea about running. It shall be my running bible...

The Complete Book of Running for Women by Claire Kowalchik

Tomorrow's run is supposedly a 50minute 'long' - and I have a plan...

The going's good...

Two mid-week runs this week, as per the training app for my iPod. The training program called for a 40minute 'pace' run on Wednesday, followed by 20minutes 'easy' on Thursday.

I'm still not entirely sure what a 'pace' run is...Mr Taffi says it helps you increase your baseline running pace through short bursts of higher pace running. He also went on to describe how you do this - either increased pace for set distances (say 500m), set times (5mins) or increasing your pace to reach a higher heartrate and then maintaining for a period.

Anyhow, I settled for a very unscientific 'push on the legs' for an unmeasured distance/time.

Felt good.

I decided that my planned 4mile run, after scoping it out in the car earlier on Wednesday, was a little too isolated just after the 2nd mile point for a nighttime run. So I decided to run the first 2 miles, turn around, and run the same in reverse. Benefit. - all uphills become downhills, and vice versa. Also very good way of comparing times for what must be precisely equal distances. In reality I misread the two mile marker and ended up with 2 middle 'miles' of 0.8miles each, so my overall run became 3.6miles, but I felt really good, kept a steady pace without slowing for the last mile, didn't feel wrecked after it, and actually got a stitch in my right side not the usual left (is this progress?)

Thursday was something approximating the run I did the previous Thursday ending at the chippy - which I did again (habit...bad!) - just a shade further as I ran from a different starting point - the Polling station.

After placing my vote in the Referendum for increased law-making powers in the Welsh assembly, I set off on my 'easy' run - another really good run, and my pace was faster too.

I feel that I am starting to get somewhere now. I really do have the bug.