Reluctance and progress...

The weather has been fantastic, and that, and a long holiday weekend spending time in the garden with the family meant that I had a severe case of run-reluctance.

But I eventually forced myself out on my "dress-rehersal" 5mile run in advance of the Tata Steel Cardiff Bay 5 mile event I want to enter next week. And overall I was very pleased.

I clocked the 5miles in 50mins46seconds, frustratingly close to the 50minute target. Looking at my pace chart...

And comparing it to the satelite plot...

...you can clearly see that the slow section was as soon as I crossed the river and headed back upstream. It was windy, upriver means gradually uphill, and that side of the river is exposed to the wind. Oh, and it is the second half of the run and the legs are tired!. Once under the cover of the trees again back on the north side of the river, and my pace improves.

I believe I could have broken the 50min barrier had it not been for the wind - my average was only 10:09 minute miles after all. :-)

Gotta love Sporttracks for analysis - and free too (there is a paid version with more features, and I have to say I am tempted!) - it satisfies the inner-geek...

Shorter with more pace

After my 9.5mile run the other weekend I decided upon a week of shorter runs with more pace. Thus my last two runs have been the same 5km route, first as intervals of 1/4mile on/off and then just as hard as I could maintain and finish.

The first, much like the one a week before but significantly faster - about 32minutes compared to almost 36 - I can't be too precise about my time as my Garmin forerunner ran out of battery charge after the first interval! (again my fault!!), so I resorted to the time on my mobile phone which was given only in minutes and was thus anywhere between 31 and 33minutes.

The second, watch fully charged and set to beep at me if I ran slower than 10:15 minute mile pace, was completed in 30mins33seconds - my fastest 5K. Annoyed that I couldn't break the 30min barrier but my overall splits were sub-10 minute miling which is great.

I'm also pleased that I was able to build up my pace after the first mile, running my last half mile significantly faster than my second. You can also see this in the pace v average plot below:

Overal a good run, that improved as I went (I started off feeling that running that evening was a mistake, and finished pleased that I had made the effort).

But today my legs hurt almost as much as they did after 9.5miles!

Frustratingly slow progress

I think I am being a little hard on myself. I did my 2-bridge, 2mile run again an finished it in exactly the same time as previously. Now since I had only about a week before set this time (which was in itself a vast improvement on the previous time I had run it) I think it was a big ask that I could run it significantly faster already. But I am frustrated all the same.

What I am pleased about though is the pace graph which shows how I maintained sub-10 minute miling except where I had steps to negotiate.

My longest run yet, by far...

I'm playing catch-up with my blog posts, so this run was about 9 days ago.

I ran down to the centre of Cardiff, around the back of Central train station, zig-zagging around the paths of Llandaff fields, up past Llandaff Rowing club, through Hailey park and around the rugby clubhouse and back down Llandaff North highstreet.

I was aiming to run about 8 1/2 miles (a little over a mile further than before), then worked out that 9.3miles would be 15km. In the end, due to my Garmin Forerunner watch stopping for a few minutes (my fault, not its!) I ran 9.5 miles in 1hour45min53sec. I was pretty pleased with it overall, not my fastest splits, but a consistent long run that pushed the boundaries of my abilities and allowed my to build upon my stamina.

(the one blip is due to my watch stopping briefly)

I now also feel confident that I could, if forced, continue to plod along all the way to a half-marathon distance already. I'm not ready for it, it would hurt, and be slow, but I really feel I could do it!

And I will get faster. My aim at a minimum obviously is to finish a half-marathon. My next aim is to run sub-10minute miling - thus a 2hour11minute half-marathon, and my ultimate goal is to do the half-marathon in sub 2hours. But that last goal would require a split time of 9min15, something I can't yet maintain over a 5K distance.

I'll update my gmaps pedometer links on the right with this route in due course.

Intervals

I had another go at intervals, this time over a longer distance (5K), and using the intervals feature of the Garmin forerunner so that my intervals were measured at 1/4mile on, 1/4 mile off. I'd previously been running 200m on/off intervals and I felt that the added distance would be more beneficial to improving pace and to recovery, and make for more consistant analysis in SportTracks afterwards.

A good run, with relatively consistent differences between my 'on' and 'off' pace even when one 'on' pace differed from the next. You can see from my 1/4 mile split times below that I was also able to gradually pick up the 'on' pace as I progressed over the 5K distance.

My pace-time graph is also smoother than it has been too (within the confines of performing intervals obviously!!) - and a line drawn at 10minute miling also shows how I was trying to achieve sub-10 minute miling for the 'on' periods.

Overall I am pleased with my progress, and feel that I can improve my pace over the next 6 months to the Cardiff half (and I am now feeling more confident that it will be the Cardiff Half and not just the Swansea 10K that I will be aiming for...

Putting in the miles...

Three runs since I last blogged.

My long weekend run was the longest yet - 7.25miles down the Taff Trail to Cardiff Central train station and back, taking in the Riverside Farmers' market (tempted to stop for french crepe but I resisted!) and Llandaff fields along the way. I passed a 5K charity run and wished I had known about it (lovely yellow t-shirts!). There was an element of ad-libbing in the route I took, especially as I had planned only to run to the castle and back. It felt nice to realise that I am starting to enjoy it enough to add that little extra rather than just run the distance and get home...and I still had energy in my legs for a huge sprint for home at the end.

My midweek run was going to be some fartlek, but for one reason or another that didn't happen, so it was a Friday hilly road run instead, 5.25miles around Fairwater. A fairly good run for a hills-newbie like myself.

Sunday I did a variation on a run I had planned in my head a long while ago - up to Coryton roundabout (M4 J32) and down the Taff Trail - 10K on tired legs after the hilly run on Friday. No energy left for more than thudding along for the last km.

I'll hopefully add these runs to my other gmaps pedometer runs on the right hand side of the blog soon.

My ambition is to combine the two weekend runs ultimately and thus run up to the M4, all the way down the Taff Trail to the castle, and back to Llandaff Weir. That (doing a quick calculation in my head) should make a half marathon!

(my two successive weekend runs combined to form a tentative half marathon!)

But I have a long way to go before I attempt that...