Along with the cycling I’ve been trying to get the running starting again after the winter lay off. Not doing anything particularly huge at the moment. Have decided to spend January just doing Route 2 or something very similar. Pretty determined this year to try and take it easy and not end up with any injuries, so starting with a good base seems like a good plan. And I’m doing plenty more stretching this time as well.

It’s feeling better each time I go out. So hopefully next week I’ll start adding in some of the longer routes. Hopefully be back up to half marathon distance by Easterish.

Now changed from Running to Training as I’ve got cycling to add as well :).

02/11/2010 – Run –  6.72 miles – 56:03 – Modified Route 6

03/11/2010 – Run – 5.23 miles – 44:11 – Route 14

05/11/2010 – Run – 9.34  miles – 1:20:25 – Route 15a – New route which takes in the canal, River Trent, Nottingham University, QMC, Lenton and Forest Fields. Route plan to follow shortly.

07/11/2010 – Run – 5.33 miles – 41:47 Route 16  - Round Nottingham University campus and Wollaton Park.

08/11/2010 – Run – 5.23 miles – ??? – Route 14 – very wet – forgot to take my forerunner so no idea of time on this one. But I do remember it was pretty wet, rain all the way round, trainers full of water after hitting a larger puddle. And shorts were a mistake as well. Had to crawl into bed when I got back to try and warm back up.

11/12/2010 – Bike – few miles – 30 mins – Bike around mapperly park to get used to it. Plenty of hills, so there was probably a benefit to it.

12/12/2010 – Run – 9.81 miles – 1:21:31 – Route 15b – Slight variation on the route above. Slightly less traffic but goes off well travelled roads so might not be to everyone’s tast

13/12/2010 – Bike – 13:49 miles  - 1:11:46 – First real run out on the bike. Did the Big Track round the canal/River trent and then back on the road to home. Didn’t feel too bad, read end soreness was more down to not being used to it (hopefully). Bike felt good and handled nicely, though the stock tyres are a bit too squirrely on tarmac, but were good at the impromptu bit of cyclocross near Beeston Lock. Feeling quite comfortable with the clipless pedals as well, seems you don’t forget it all.

Getting a bit less brilliant at keeping these up to date, so here’s another 3 week catch up

11/10 – 4 miles - route 2 – took a bit of effort to get out after the half marathon and it was quite painful. Think another day of recovery might have been called for.

13/10 – 5.9 miles -canal route

19/10 – 5.6 miles -canal route – well not quite, went out a lot later than usual so didn’t fancy running along the towpath in the wet, so same route but using Castle Boulevard as a safer alternative

20/10 – 5 miles- forest fields, sherwood, mansfield road loop. Not got around to mapping this one out yet.

22/10 – 5.8 miles - canal route

25/10 – 7.2 miles – 2 loops of the Manchester city centre loop – First time I’d tried this route, so was a bit slow and bitty as I tried to avoid people and follow the route around.

27/10 – 7.2 miles – 2 loops of the Manchester city centre loop – Much more fun now I knew where I was going. Whilst most of my running is within Nottingham, dodging around the Manchester pedestrians and cutting through traffic certainly offered a nice new challenge

28/10 – 3.6 miles – 1 loop of Manchester city centre loop

30/10 – 5.8 miles – uni+woolation – Suddenly realised just how big all those hills on the Nottingham Half are while running this short section. Think I’d overdone it a bit the day before with lugging a heavy rucsac around and a late night watching Swans in Leeds. Very nice run with lots of wildlife running around.

Pretty happy that I seem to be able to just head out and do 6 miles at a reasonable pace every time now. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I’ll start pushing back up to 10 miles a go.

Course Profile:

(Route and Profile from my Forerunner)

So today was the 2nd attempt to run a half marathon, and the lucky city chosen to host this auspicous event was Leicester. Not too far from Nottingham (28 minutes by train) so seemed like an easy choice.

Getting down wasn’t too bad, we were at Nottingham Station for 7:20 to get the 7:28, in Leicester for 8:10. Then a little faff trying to find the start (The web site claimed it was going to be signposted, erm, nope. Luckily someone in shorts and singlet went past so we shouted and got directions). Wandered up to Victoria park, and luckily decided to join the queue for the toilets before they got stupidly huged. Quick warm up, changed down clothes and handed kit into the bag holders.

Klaxon went off and we were away. Bit crowded at the start so there was a bit of stop/start but soon got through that and headed down into the town centre. Went out the other side and along Belgrave Road and Melton Road, then onto the A607. This was a long steady stretch which seemed to go on for ages but at 6 miles we hit the split for the half and full marathons and the course got a bit more interesting. We came back through a Watermead country park which was a nice change. And then back in along the river, and then through a pretty intricate set of paths throught the city centre and back up to Victoria Park.

Pretty happy with a Gun time of 1:55 and from my forerunner a time of 1:53

Quite a nice half marathon, though some bits were a little badly thought out. There wasn’t really anywhere for family/friends to actually watch runners come through the finishing arch. Quite a few of the roads were only half closed so there was traffic not far away. The different tables for water/energy drink weren’t too obvious (took me 2 water stops to work it out). And on the run back through the city centre there was quite a lot of very sharp turns with bollards lurking just around them, luckily the pack had thinned out by then so I didn’t see anyone actually clobber any of them.

On a personal not I did find the long drag back to the finish hard work, but that’s just my lack of training (See the profile above, pretty sharp).

Most worrying moment of the run was watching a blind gentleman being led by his dog down the middle of the oncoming runners on a narrow park path. Luckily everyone saw him and was filtering to either side giving him plenty of room.

All in all a pretty good morning’s running. So now to try and get a bit faster

20/09/10 – 3.7 miles – 32:07 – Route 10
22/09/10 – 5.8 miles – 50:16 – Route 6 – Bit of a break after this one. But I’m counting carrying sofas up and down stairs helping a friend to move as interval training.
27/09/10 – 7 miles – 1:02:25 – Route 12 – Bloody hell this was hilly, but I thought I recovered pretty quickly once back on the flat which has to be a good sign
29/09/10 – 4 miles – 33:00 – Route 2 – Quick dash before work as I was going to the pub straight after work.
02/10/10 – 10 miles – 1:19:50 – Route 13 – Happy with this as I’d wanted to do it for ages. Found it quite hard going in places, almost cutting the last 3 miles off, but glad I kept on going.
05/10/10 – 5.9 miles – 48:17 – Route 6 – Quite happy with this one, think this is going to be a standard run from now on. Though could have done with some less annoying drivers on the roads.
07/10/10 – 4.3 miles – 36:48 – Route 2 with a slight change to avoid the Goose Fair – Didn’t feel too bad, though I felt like I was roasting which can’t be right for October in shorts and T-shirt can it?

And that’s it until Sunday when I try the Leicester Half Marathon. Still don’t think I’ve done enough training, but no time to do any more. Hoping to do 2 hours or just sub. But whatever happens I just hope I do better than the Nottingham half a month ago where I ended up having to walk. This time I’m not going to be jetlagged, and I won’t get whisky drunk on the friday night either.

So a bit of a recovery week, but also trying to get some good training in for the Leicester half  in 4 weeks.

15/09 – ~3.5 miles – 35 minutes – Did about 3 laps of the forest rec, very hard as my muscles were still hurting from the Nottingham Half.

17/09 – 6.5 miles – 54:28 minutes – Slightly modified Route 6 to extend it to 6.5. Went out in the evening rather than the morning. Did feel different, but think it’ll probably be more use to get used to running later in the day. Felt reasonably hard all the way round, but pretty happy with the pace

19/09 – 5 miles – 41:07 – Slightly shortened version of Route 11 by cutting up the path by Kings Wood nature reserve and down lenton lane to rejoin the canal. Slightly faster pace than Friday, but didn’t feel too bad, though I don’t think I’d have kept it up for too much longer.

Heels and Plantar problems seem to be gone (touch wood). Hopefully I can keep this up for the next 4 weeks. Though a weekend of helping a friend move to Edinburgh next week may interrupt that, unless I pack some running kit for the evening, though I expect it’ll help with upper body strength

Well it’s all still been a bit light on the running front. Did about 20 minutes on a treadmill, and managed 1 run of 3 miles and 1 of 4 miles while staying in Orlando. Running in Orlando was interesting, the humidity is a real killer.

Managed to go swimming a couple of times a week as well. But again in Orlando was restricted to a hotel pool which was a bit small for anything serious but it did keep the shoulders moving.

So the 12th September was the Nottingham half marathon. And as you can see from the above I’d not really trained enough for that. Add to that the fact that we’d only flown back from the states 48 hours beforehand, and I’d over indulged in the whisky  on Friday night, and not had a brilliant nights sleep beforehand it was never going to be a fun day out. Stressed getting to the start as I couldn’t find my good shorts and then got caught up in all the traffic, so ended up running a mile and a half to get there, then having to vault into the starting pen. Felt good as we set off and as the miles passed, but completely blew up at about 8 miles and then ended up slowly run/walking to the finish. Completed with a gun time of 2:30:20. Bit annoyed as I was going well at that point, got overtaken by a mate who did 2:10 and then the pacer for 2:15, though strangely I finished before the 2:30 pacer.

The good news was that with some taping the heel/plantar pain appears to be controlable.

Now I’ve got 4 weeks to try and get fit again so I can put in a decent time at the Leicester Half on 10th October.

Bit lighter this week as I was still trying to rest my heel and hopefully stave off impending Plantar Fasciitis.

17/08 – Swimming – As a change from running I decided to try swimming for the first time in about 20 years (many moons ago I used to swim twice a week with an amateur swimming club and have a tracksuit covered in badges to prove it, but then discovered climbing, Venture Scouts and Canoe polo/marathons instead). The spirit was there, but the technique and fitness certainly aren’t. Could barely manage 2x25m using front crawl. Main problem appears to be with my breathing. So some work to do there.

18/08 – 2.7 miles 30 minutes – decided to go for a short slow run on grass to try and keep the legs turning over. Didn’t feel too bad and no real pain from the heel during the run. Tried to concentrate on forefoot running rather than heel striking.

20/8 – 3.5 miles, 32 minutes – slightly longer run. But still trying to be careful about heel striking.

21/08 – swimming – Tried a slightly more structure approach this time and took a float/pullbouy with me.  Did some drills to practice breathing, kicking and arm pulls. Seemed to make an improvement. Also managed about 8 consecutive lengths using breast stroke. Biggest problem was trying to get the speed matched to the right lane. Not fit enough to keep up repeatedly with the fast lane, faster doing crawl than the breast strokers in the slow lane.

This week I’m going to add some trips to the gym into the mix. Hoping that some time on bike, cross trainer and rowing machine will help to keep cardio up till I can restart running again.

Also reading around I think I’m going to have a good look at my running style. A lot of reading around seems to point that forefoot running (wether through barefooting, POSE, Chi or others) is a better form of running. Seems to make sense from a mechanics point of view.

9/8/2010 – 4,4 miles in 37:55 – Modified Route 8 by  finishing straight up Alfreton road to get some hills in.

11/8/2010 – 6.69 miles in 58:19 – Went out for Route 10,  but then diverted down portchester and along the canal, then up maid marian way into work. Felt pretty good, even with all the hills, slowed down a bit on the uphills, but I seem to recovery reasonably quickly at the top.

13/8/2010 – 9 miles – Not a good run. Went out to survery the  middle 8 miles of the Nottingham half marathon course that go through nottingham University and Woolaton Park. The run didn’t really feel right from the start, but by about 3 miles I’d settled down. At 6 miles some heel pain had started coming through, and by 7 miles I’d missed the turning into woolaton park and the heel was really hurting. Managed to walk/run back to the QMC where I decided discretion was the better part of valour and got a taxi home. Reading around the pain seems to fit the classic Plantar fasciitis, so I think I’m going to have a couple of days off running. BTW, this part of the course is a lot hillier than I’d expected

14/09/2010 – 8 miles walking – Not the best recovery, but went for an 8 mile hike up and over kinder scout. Good fun romping through the heather and peat, and scrambling over lumps of rock on the edge

15/8/2010 – 10 miles cycling – first time I’ve been on a bike for about 11 years. We hired a couple of bikes and went around Derwent Reservoirs with some friends (we hired the bikes from the Fairholme centre, and they were crap, but that’s another post). Was a very nice ride through some very pleasant scenery. Unfortunately marred by the naff bikes

Monday – 4.37 miles in 38:46 – Modified Route 2

Wednesday – 6.21 miles in 58:38 – Little modification of Route 7 to arrive at work rather than home. Bit wet, but not too bad. Investing in a cap has paid off nicely. Discovered a problem with iPhone and wet fingers. Might have to consider resurrecting the Nano with it’s physical controls for the wet days. Was surprised it went so well as we’d been to see The Sisters of Mercy in Leamington Spa the night before, so I’d only got about 5.5 hours of sleep, and shoulders and arms were knackered from building pyramids and general jostling.

Friday – 10 miles in 1:36:04 – Pinched this route from Nottingham Harriers. Nice to run somewhere completely different. Couple of hills I wasn’t expecting, and was fun to have to pack an OS map to keep checking the route. Think I’ll do that one again.

Sunday – 3.4 miles in 28 minutes. Took a quick pre breakfast run while away with the family in Hereford. Tried to concentrate on a good pace and foot placement rather than distance. Pretty fast for me, and didn’t feel too bad at the end of it

So that’s a total of 23.98 miles for the week. Not too shabby.