After two or three weeks now of 50 miles max and just racing for workouts, I'm ready to start getting back after it next week. 'Coach' has been notified and we'll be formulating ideas the next few days.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty sore from the 5k. Normally I would have dragged myself out on the roads to get some recovery miles in but with this being my last down week for a while I made myself stay in and put the feet up. Easy running through Monday should have me refreshed and chomping at the bit to get back at it next week
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Elusive Sub 16
My battles with the clock continued last night as I ran the 5k in 16:00.36! Slightly frustrating as I went through the bell only needing a 75 to seal the deal but couldn't quite manage it. However, this was a solo effort right from the start and it was very hot so I'll take it. I ran through the first 1600 in 5:05 which was right about where I wanted to be and I was feeling pretty smooth, but the wheels started coming off around lap 7 and my splits starting moving towards 77-78. Mile 2 was 5:09, mile 3 5:08. I did take consolation from the fact that I was the only person in the race that didn't get lapped by Jordan who ran a solo 14:59!!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Elusive Sub 60
So this morning I headed up to PDS track for my weekly 400m attempt. I actually ran 6 miles before getting to the track as I wanted to get a head start on the mileage for the week. I did some barefoot strides on the football pitch before lacing up the spikes and running 60:56. So that’s three attempts, all within 14 100ths of a second of each other! Next week as the family will be out of town I will have more free time on my hands so plan to hit the track after work rather than 6 am. Should make a big difference!
On Saturday I actually ending up racing a trail 5k in Mcalpine. This was a very low key race but with $100 for the winner and the start being 2 miles from my front door I decided last minute to enter. So I rock up at the registration table with my $30 in my hand and who do I see in the line but friends and adversaries John Compton and Ben Hovis. Well that put the race in a different context right there! John has pushed Jordan close a couple of times this year and Ben usually beats me but is just getting fit again after injury. Whatever, I knew now that I was going to have to put a hard effort in just to get any money at all (it turned out they had only decided to enter last minute themselves and they were equally surprised to see me there!). I ended up running 16:35 for second and $50, John taking the W comfortably and Ben back in 4th. Interestingly (and somewhat unnecessarily we felt!!) the event timers decided to re-measure the already marked 5k course (that is used for the Footlocker South Regionals and the Wendy Womens’ Invitational each year!) so we started the race about 10 yards (6 seconds!) behind the ‘proper’ start line.
Sunday I ran just over 11 thoroughly enjoyable miles with Meagan, Jordan and Billy before they came to my house to watch the game. Lisa cooked up a fantastic ‘English’ breakfast and a few other people came over and we all had a good time, it definitely helped me get over the disappointment of England’s abysmal capitulation to the German team! This is a running blog so don’t get me started….
Tomorrow I am looking forward to a lie in, my first for weeks it seems! Even though I’ve been taking it easy the last few weeks, I’ve still been cross training on my days off so have still been up before 6 every morning. However I am skipping tomorrow morning’s run in advance of the 5k they are holding at the track meet tomorrow night. After relatively successful efforts at the mile and 2 mile over the past two weeks I am hoping to complete the hat trick with a sub 16 showing tomorrow night. It may even cool down a little for us….
On Saturday I actually ending up racing a trail 5k in Mcalpine. This was a very low key race but with $100 for the winner and the start being 2 miles from my front door I decided last minute to enter. So I rock up at the registration table with my $30 in my hand and who do I see in the line but friends and adversaries John Compton and Ben Hovis. Well that put the race in a different context right there! John has pushed Jordan close a couple of times this year and Ben usually beats me but is just getting fit again after injury. Whatever, I knew now that I was going to have to put a hard effort in just to get any money at all (it turned out they had only decided to enter last minute themselves and they were equally surprised to see me there!). I ended up running 16:35 for second and $50, John taking the W comfortably and Ben back in 4th. Interestingly (and somewhat unnecessarily we felt!!) the event timers decided to re-measure the already marked 5k course (that is used for the Footlocker South Regionals and the Wendy Womens’ Invitational each year!) so we started the race about 10 yards (6 seconds!) behind the ‘proper’ start line.
Sunday I ran just over 11 thoroughly enjoyable miles with Meagan, Jordan and Billy before they came to my house to watch the game. Lisa cooked up a fantastic ‘English’ breakfast and a few other people came over and we all had a good time, it definitely helped me get over the disappointment of England’s abysmal capitulation to the German team! This is a running blog so don’t get me started….
Tomorrow I am looking forward to a lie in, my first for weeks it seems! Even though I’ve been taking it easy the last few weeks, I’ve still been cross training on my days off so have still been up before 6 every morning. However I am skipping tomorrow morning’s run in advance of the 5k they are holding at the track meet tomorrow night. After relatively successful efforts at the mile and 2 mile over the past two weeks I am hoping to complete the hat trick with a sub 16 showing tomorrow night. It may even cool down a little for us….
Friday, June 25, 2010
Cross training
My slightly weird training schedule continues apace. Yesterday I headed to the JCC for a spin class! as I was told i had to pick up my 'pass' a half hour before the class, I had some time to kill so what better way to kill it than run 30 laps around the indoor track that encircles the basketball track. I am still leaning left two days later!
Then on to the spin class and it was brutal! Never having done one before I didn't know what i was letting myself in for. I must have been increasing the resistance too much when we were 'climbing' as I just couldn't complete the hills. I spent most of the hour just pedalling on a low gear trying to recover while everyone else just worked out merrily! The thing I couldn't believe was the instructor who was apparently doing the workout with us just talking away and telling us what to do, barely out of breath!
Then today I ran to the JCC, did my 1000 yard swim and ran back home. My own duathlon if you will!
Big weekend of football ahead!!
Then on to the spin class and it was brutal! Never having done one before I didn't know what i was letting myself in for. I must have been increasing the resistance too much when we were 'climbing' as I just couldn't complete the hills. I spent most of the hour just pedalling on a low gear trying to recover while everyone else just worked out merrily! The thing I couldn't believe was the instructor who was apparently doing the workout with us just talking away and telling us what to do, barely out of breath!
Then today I ran to the JCC, did my 1000 yard swim and ran back home. My own duathlon if you will!
Big weekend of football ahead!!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Good news all round!
Ran 9:55 at the two miler and England and US advanced to the next stage of the World Cup! The US actually have a decent shot of getting to the Semis having won the group. Let's just say that one out of the US, Ghana, South Korea and Uruguay will be World Cup Semi-Finalists! For England to get to the same stage they will have to beat Germany and likely Argentina, but we like doing things the hard way!
Now that all the games are so important now, the World Cup is really hitting its stride! Add the drama of today's 4 matches to the ridiculous epic battle at Wimbledon which will go into a THIRD day tomorrow and you get in a nutshell why I love sport (and why I probably had about two hours worth of productivity at work today!)
Now that all the games are so important now, the World Cup is really hitting its stride! Add the drama of today's 4 matches to the ridiculous epic battle at Wimbledon which will go into a THIRD day tomorrow and you get in a nutshell why I love sport (and why I probably had about two hours worth of productivity at work today!)
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Jus' runnin'
So another week has passed since my last update and I’m continuing to enjoy this phase of unstructured training.
The Tuesday night track efforts ended up being highly satisafactory, a 4:37 effort in the mile followed shortly after by 10:16 in the 2 miles. The mile effort was particularly pleasing, helped no end by my ‘rabbit’ for the evening, Jordan, who being instructed to run laps of 70, took me through in 1:10, 2:20, 3:30 before kindly stepping off the track and I closed with a 67. I was pretty heavy legged for the 2 miler but gutsed it out on my own clocking 77/78s throughout. Tonight I’m just going to do the 2 mile race and I’m going to wear spikes, the intention being to get as close to 10:00 as possible. It will be 90+degrees and lots of solo hard work but that’s what it is all about, right?
The rest of the week saw some easy running, a swim, another workout with Jay and Spada and then a fairly epic 20 plus miler on Saturday, my longest run since 12/12/09 (T Road Marathon!). I wasn’t particularly beaten up by this run which was pleasing but reflecting on the week it doesn’t really read as one of someone who is taking some ‘down time’ so I really am going to chill out the next couple of weeks, with no more than one or two intense workouts per week and certainly no more 20 mile runs!
Yesterday I headed up to the track to repeat last Monday’s efforts and this time I was a whole 0.02 seconds faster than last week! So the sub 60 remains elusive for now
Other than that I had a really fun Fathers Day with a bit of swimming, Five Guys and World Cup action and continue to be engrossed with developments in S Africa, in spite of my country’s turgid efforts to date. Hopefully the US and England can both win tomorrow and advance to the last 16 but I am not holding out too much hope for my team!
The Tuesday night track efforts ended up being highly satisafactory, a 4:37 effort in the mile followed shortly after by 10:16 in the 2 miles. The mile effort was particularly pleasing, helped no end by my ‘rabbit’ for the evening, Jordan, who being instructed to run laps of 70, took me through in 1:10, 2:20, 3:30 before kindly stepping off the track and I closed with a 67. I was pretty heavy legged for the 2 miler but gutsed it out on my own clocking 77/78s throughout. Tonight I’m just going to do the 2 mile race and I’m going to wear spikes, the intention being to get as close to 10:00 as possible. It will be 90+degrees and lots of solo hard work but that’s what it is all about, right?
The rest of the week saw some easy running, a swim, another workout with Jay and Spada and then a fairly epic 20 plus miler on Saturday, my longest run since 12/12/09 (T Road Marathon!). I wasn’t particularly beaten up by this run which was pleasing but reflecting on the week it doesn’t really read as one of someone who is taking some ‘down time’ so I really am going to chill out the next couple of weeks, with no more than one or two intense workouts per week and certainly no more 20 mile runs!
Yesterday I headed up to the track to repeat last Monday’s efforts and this time I was a whole 0.02 seconds faster than last week! So the sub 60 remains elusive for now
Other than that I had a really fun Fathers Day with a bit of swimming, Five Guys and World Cup action and continue to be engrossed with developments in S Africa, in spite of my country’s turgid efforts to date. Hopefully the US and England can both win tomorrow and advance to the last 16 but I am not holding out too much hope for my team!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
400m challenge
A few weeks ago, Tim put out a call to arms to a few of his running buddies. As this fits in well with my 'training on the hoof' outlook for the next few weeks, Monday morning I decided to head up to PDS track to make my first attempt at the challenge.
The other reason I did this was to get a feel for wearing spikes again as I intend to wear them at Tuesday's track meet. Since I left England I must have worn spikes about twice! Two years ago I purchased some brand spanking new New Balance LD spikes and within a 1000m of wearing them I blew my calf out and swore I'd never wear spikes again! So hear I was on Monday morning just getting a feel for running in spikes again.
I jogged up to the track, put my spikes on and ran around the track for a mile trying to get used to them. After the mile I did some 100m strides and decided I was ready to go! A minute later and I had posted a time of 60.44. I had hoped that I would sneak under 60 seconds but I was probably a bit tentative- I certainly didn't tie up in the final 100 meters. I plan to do this at least once a week for the next few weeks so we'll see what I can get my time down to. Try it yourselves and see how fast you can run a quarter!
All in all it was nice to put the spikes on and I am looking forward to lacing them up again tonight when I do the mile. I would like to run close to 4:40 but know whatever happens it is going to be very painful! Especially with the ridiculous heat we are enduring at the moment. If I survive that race I will try out in the 2 mile race a little later too- that is more my distance and I'll probably end up wearing my flats for that one!
The other reason I did this was to get a feel for wearing spikes again as I intend to wear them at Tuesday's track meet. Since I left England I must have worn spikes about twice! Two years ago I purchased some brand spanking new New Balance LD spikes and within a 1000m of wearing them I blew my calf out and swore I'd never wear spikes again! So hear I was on Monday morning just getting a feel for running in spikes again.
I jogged up to the track, put my spikes on and ran around the track for a mile trying to get used to them. After the mile I did some 100m strides and decided I was ready to go! A minute later and I had posted a time of 60.44. I had hoped that I would sneak under 60 seconds but I was probably a bit tentative- I certainly didn't tie up in the final 100 meters. I plan to do this at least once a week for the next few weeks so we'll see what I can get my time down to. Try it yourselves and see how fast you can run a quarter!
All in all it was nice to put the spikes on and I am looking forward to lacing them up again tonight when I do the mile. I would like to run close to 4:40 but know whatever happens it is going to be very painful! Especially with the ridiculous heat we are enduring at the moment. If I survive that race I will try out in the 2 mile race a little later too- that is more my distance and I'll probably end up wearing my flats for that one!
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