Thursday, 9am, and I'm about to start the drive to Le Mans. Less dramas in the final fortnight than last time, so I'm not really worried about actually making the start line this time.
Just got to go and do the race now - feeling a bit mire positive than I was a month ago, but also still suffering from a persistent light cold that just won't sod off.
Got the race details through - 868 runners of which I'm vest 155. There's also a relay with 600 teams if 3 doing a lap of the circuit each, so there'll be a reasonable amount of participants. Although not from the UK. Spotted about 3 other British sounding names on my quick trawl through the entry list!
Here we go!
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Thursday 30 September 2010
Saturday 25 September 2010
OK, here we go...
Or, 1 week and counting...
So, in the finest traditions of not quite getting the final preparations right for a marathon (ref: Icelandic volcanoes), I have been busy not quite getting the final preparations right for this one.
The schedule 2 weeks ago was disrupted on account of various stuff happening at home (loft insulation, cavity walls, nothing exciting...), but contained a for-once decent tempo run at Scotstoun. The planned last long-run on the Sunday had to be abandoned though, as a result of waking up and feeling absolutely grotty - a cold building, sore sinuses, terrible sore head, that sort of thing. This was a royal pain in the ass, as the one thing I felt I needed above all else was one more really long run. Ummed and aahed, almost got changed, then thought "no, don't be stupid". So, that was me finished with the long stuff and officially tapering.
Unfortunately, the cold has lingered all week. Had a good run on the 8 mile loop round the bottom of Glen Fruin on Tuesday, pushed a bit and thought I'd sweated it out of me, but then it came back. Eventually decided that I needed to get out today and get one more decently paced run in, so went round the same loop at even more of a push - fastest time round there for 6 months.
An absolutely beautiful day to be out and about, and the gradual cooling of autumn is certainly helping my level of comfort while running. In good conditions, the Glen Fruin loop is absolutely stunning, as you can probably tell from the picture here, although it is pretty hilly - with over 500ft of ascent in the run.
The last few runs, starting a couple of weeks ago, have been the best in the whole training programme. I'm beginning to feel like I'm approaching a reasonable level of fitness, and I'm reasonable confident of a decent run.
On the minus side, I'm well short of total mileage - 280 in this 16 week programme compared with 450 at the same stage of London training. However, given the weeks I lost at the start and the general feeling of not particularly running well, I suppose I am in a reasonable place. Don't have the same level of tension that I did a week before London, but then I'm not stuck hundreds of miles away wondering whether the bloody volcano's going to pack it in and let me get home.
So, I leave home early on Friday morning, long, long drive down to Le Mans in one day, followed by some relaxation and collection of the race number from the Circuit on Saturday. I'll pop in here from time to time and provide an update.
One last thing. After resolutely refusing to set a target time for this race as a result of all the lost training, after the Great Scottish Run, I selected 8:30 miles as my target pace. This would give a race pace of about 3:45 which would be slightly quicker than London.
So, the target? Quicker than London. If I can do that, after all the problems I've had, I'll be ecstatic.
And, one last thing. It's exactly 51 weeks today since the "You're Running" letter arrived to say I was in the London Marathon. Today's run took me through 1000 miles of running since then. That's what I call a milestone.
Miles since entering Le Mans: 277
So, in the finest traditions of not quite getting the final preparations right for a marathon (ref: Icelandic volcanoes), I have been busy not quite getting the final preparations right for this one.
The schedule 2 weeks ago was disrupted on account of various stuff happening at home (loft insulation, cavity walls, nothing exciting...), but contained a for-once decent tempo run at Scotstoun. The planned last long-run on the Sunday had to be abandoned though, as a result of waking up and feeling absolutely grotty - a cold building, sore sinuses, terrible sore head, that sort of thing. This was a royal pain in the ass, as the one thing I felt I needed above all else was one more really long run. Ummed and aahed, almost got changed, then thought "no, don't be stupid". So, that was me finished with the long stuff and officially tapering.
Unfortunately, the cold has lingered all week. Had a good run on the 8 mile loop round the bottom of Glen Fruin on Tuesday, pushed a bit and thought I'd sweated it out of me, but then it came back. Eventually decided that I needed to get out today and get one more decently paced run in, so went round the same loop at even more of a push - fastest time round there for 6 months.
An absolutely beautiful day to be out and about, and the gradual cooling of autumn is certainly helping my level of comfort while running. In good conditions, the Glen Fruin loop is absolutely stunning, as you can probably tell from the picture here, although it is pretty hilly - with over 500ft of ascent in the run.The last few runs, starting a couple of weeks ago, have been the best in the whole training programme. I'm beginning to feel like I'm approaching a reasonable level of fitness, and I'm reasonable confident of a decent run.
On the minus side, I'm well short of total mileage - 280 in this 16 week programme compared with 450 at the same stage of London training. However, given the weeks I lost at the start and the general feeling of not particularly running well, I suppose I am in a reasonable place. Don't have the same level of tension that I did a week before London, but then I'm not stuck hundreds of miles away wondering whether the bloody volcano's going to pack it in and let me get home.
So, I leave home early on Friday morning, long, long drive down to Le Mans in one day, followed by some relaxation and collection of the race number from the Circuit on Saturday. I'll pop in here from time to time and provide an update.
One last thing. After resolutely refusing to set a target time for this race as a result of all the lost training, after the Great Scottish Run, I selected 8:30 miles as my target pace. This would give a race pace of about 3:45 which would be slightly quicker than London.
So, the target? Quicker than London. If I can do that, after all the problems I've had, I'll be ecstatic.
And, one last thing. It's exactly 51 weeks today since the "You're Running" letter arrived to say I was in the London Marathon. Today's run took me through 1000 miles of running since then. That's what I call a milestone.
Miles since entering Le Mans: 277
Sunday 12 September 2010
Taper, don't talk to me about taper
Or, 3 weeks and counting...
So, 3 weeks to go and supposed to be celebrating the end of the high-intensity training and reduction in mileage that the eagerly anticipated "taper" brings about. Not this time, though. Thanks to the well documented abbreviated nature of this programme, I find myself rather short of both overall miles and, more importantly, runs at the longer distances. So, I must plough on for one more week to get some more serious miles in and the final 22 mile long run. Then it'll be a 2 week taper, with a bigger mileage drop-off than usual to get the required level of rest in. This is when the old mantra "rest is training" comes in handy!
Anyway. The week. Slightly disjointed and not enough miles is a reasonable summary. Didn't make it out for a recovery run until Wednesday and that went a bit mad owing to some Twitter talk about the possibility of running up Ben Nevis (I know...). This led me to turn the part road, part tracks, part woods run round the opposite way and do 500ft straight uphill in a mile and a quarter. Suffice to say I won't be repeating THAT mistake any time soon. Thursday was a Scotstoun day. I've struggled more in getting the Tempo and Speedwork runs done this time than last - I've really not had a good run there for ages. Don't know why, but it just hasn't worked. Perhaps because of the bloody back-straight headwinds, which were out at their most severe on Thursday. For various reason's I didn't have enough time to do a decent run, so just banged in a couple of poor miles and did some 400m and 200m.
Today was the long run I'd cut short a couple of weeks ago - all the way from home to Dalmuir at 19.5 miles. And this time, it was perfect. Yet another warm, sunny day, although autumn is making the temperatures a bit more tolerable, with just a spot of cooling breeze. Anyway, I went out & ran at an almost constant pace of 9 minute miles, just focussing on form and trying to keep a steady pace. By the time I got to 18.5, I still had a little left, so I picked up the pace as much as I could for the last mile. Almost got tempted to add the extra loop to Clydebank in & knock off the 22, but I think I need another significant run in the legs.
So, an odd week with a great long run today. Suddenly, I feel that things are coming together and I have half a chance of a respectable run in Le Mans...
To matters musical, and there's only one song that's been providing inspiration this week:
Week's summary: 3 runs, 28 miles. Long run: 19.5 miles
Miles since entering Le Mans: 255
So, 3 weeks to go and supposed to be celebrating the end of the high-intensity training and reduction in mileage that the eagerly anticipated "taper" brings about. Not this time, though. Thanks to the well documented abbreviated nature of this programme, I find myself rather short of both overall miles and, more importantly, runs at the longer distances. So, I must plough on for one more week to get some more serious miles in and the final 22 mile long run. Then it'll be a 2 week taper, with a bigger mileage drop-off than usual to get the required level of rest in. This is when the old mantra "rest is training" comes in handy!
Anyway. The week. Slightly disjointed and not enough miles is a reasonable summary. Didn't make it out for a recovery run until Wednesday and that went a bit mad owing to some Twitter talk about the possibility of running up Ben Nevis (I know...). This led me to turn the part road, part tracks, part woods run round the opposite way and do 500ft straight uphill in a mile and a quarter. Suffice to say I won't be repeating THAT mistake any time soon. Thursday was a Scotstoun day. I've struggled more in getting the Tempo and Speedwork runs done this time than last - I've really not had a good run there for ages. Don't know why, but it just hasn't worked. Perhaps because of the bloody back-straight headwinds, which were out at their most severe on Thursday. For various reason's I didn't have enough time to do a decent run, so just banged in a couple of poor miles and did some 400m and 200m.
Today was the long run I'd cut short a couple of weeks ago - all the way from home to Dalmuir at 19.5 miles. And this time, it was perfect. Yet another warm, sunny day, although autumn is making the temperatures a bit more tolerable, with just a spot of cooling breeze. Anyway, I went out & ran at an almost constant pace of 9 minute miles, just focussing on form and trying to keep a steady pace. By the time I got to 18.5, I still had a little left, so I picked up the pace as much as I could for the last mile. Almost got tempted to add the extra loop to Clydebank in & knock off the 22, but I think I need another significant run in the legs.
So, an odd week with a great long run today. Suddenly, I feel that things are coming together and I have half a chance of a respectable run in Le Mans...
To matters musical, and there's only one song that's been providing inspiration this week:
Week's summary: 3 runs, 28 miles. Long run: 19.5 miles
Miles since entering Le Mans: 255
Monday 6 September 2010
Great Scottish Run
Or, 4 weeks and counting
Quick update on the Great Scottish Run yesterday. It's always a good plan to have a half marathon about 4 or 5 weeks before a full to get some race training in and look at pacing. Especially with the injury situation and the lack of a fixed target time, I'm still a little unsure about what my pace should be, so I needed to experiment and see how I felt. As with the Alloa half before London, the plan was simple - run at a set pace for the first 10 miles, then push harder for the last 3 - as close to 7 minute miles as I could. Out of nowhere, I plucked 8:20 miles as my target for the day.
It was an odd day - overcast and a little breezy before the start, but sneaky warm. A slightly new route this year, heading out of George Square up the north face of St. Vincent Street, before looping back round and attacking the Kingston Bridge from the west approach. After that, the usual trudge out to Bellahouston (passing several barely remembered sub-crawl hostelries), on to Pollok Park before heading back to Glasgow Green.
Was going about 8:10 for the first couple of miles, and feeling reasonable, but forced myself to ease back as I know that's not a realistic Le Mans pace. Gradually dropped it back to 8:20 and sat at that pace until mile 10. Started to push at that point, but found there wasn't really that much left in the tank - after a 7:12 mile 11, mile 12 was into a morale sapping headwind and significantly slower. Mile 13 about the same, and came home in just over 1:47 - a full 13 minutes behind last year's PB.
The lesson, then, was that 8:20 is a little fast if there wasn't much left in the tank - even though the conditions weren't ideal. So, I now have a target pace and therefore time for Le Mans - 8:30 miles which would be around 3:45 for the full race. That was all I needed out of yesterday's run, so job done!
Quick update on the Great Scottish Run yesterday. It's always a good plan to have a half marathon about 4 or 5 weeks before a full to get some race training in and look at pacing. Especially with the injury situation and the lack of a fixed target time, I'm still a little unsure about what my pace should be, so I needed to experiment and see how I felt. As with the Alloa half before London, the plan was simple - run at a set pace for the first 10 miles, then push harder for the last 3 - as close to 7 minute miles as I could. Out of nowhere, I plucked 8:20 miles as my target for the day.
It was an odd day - overcast and a little breezy before the start, but sneaky warm. A slightly new route this year, heading out of George Square up the north face of St. Vincent Street, before looping back round and attacking the Kingston Bridge from the west approach. After that, the usual trudge out to Bellahouston (passing several barely remembered sub-crawl hostelries), on to Pollok Park before heading back to Glasgow Green.
Was going about 8:10 for the first couple of miles, and feeling reasonable, but forced myself to ease back as I know that's not a realistic Le Mans pace. Gradually dropped it back to 8:20 and sat at that pace until mile 10. Started to push at that point, but found there wasn't really that much left in the tank - after a 7:12 mile 11, mile 12 was into a morale sapping headwind and significantly slower. Mile 13 about the same, and came home in just over 1:47 - a full 13 minutes behind last year's PB.
The lesson, then, was that 8:20 is a little fast if there wasn't much left in the tank - even though the conditions weren't ideal. So, I now have a target pace and therefore time for Le Mans - 8:30 miles which would be around 3:45 for the full race. That was all I needed out of yesterday's run, so job done!
Thursday 2 September 2010
Out of sequence again
Or, 4 and a bit weeks and counting...
Cutting the training week at this point, as Sunday is the Great Scottish Run half marathon in Glasgow, which I'm running as pure race preparation. First 10 miles at target marathon pace (8:30 miles), then last 3 at as fast as I can manage.
The training this week included a first. Harking back to my old Saturday afternoon hobby of refereeing, I was asked to ref a Charity match between SAIC (ex-employers) and Accenture (to whom most people I worked with transferred after the loss of our major contract). Suffice to say that after a few seasons exclusively running the line, it's something like 4 years since I refereed. A fact those unlucky enough to be taking part must have recognised pretty quickly. I did manage to have an excuse to wear my luminous yellow kit, though. As a training exercise though, it was very interesting. Stuck the Garmin on to see what sort of effort I put in - the result is here. Basically just over 6.5 miles of running at a constant sprint / stop. Completely different from a normal run - different muscle groups, intensities, etc.
Fun though it was, the legs were tired and sore in some odd new places for a couple of days afterwards, resulting in Sunday's planned 20 miler being cut short at 13, especially with a slight tweak in the calf.
A decent recovery on Tuesday, done at a slightly higher pace as I'm aware that I haven't really been stretching myself. Today was supposed to be a Tempo session at Scotstoun, but with the race imminent on Sunday and the weather scorching, I decided that something a little lighter was in order and took myself off round the loop at the bottom of Glen Fruin. It's been an absolutely stunning day here, about 24 degrees and despite my aversion to heat, combined with the hilly nature of the route, this was a great, great run. Not awesomely (or even slightly) fast, but just a wonderful day to be outdoors in unbelievable scenery doing something I'm gradually learning to love again. One of the best runs since London.
In such circumstances, the only possible music choice is my favourite running song. There's something about the way the music (carp pun, sorry) swoops and soars and crescendos that makes it perfect, and on days like today, the "Yeaaahhhh's" get serious laldy. Life affirming. Used it before, but make no apology for using it again.
There may be a short race report on Sunday...
Week's summary: 4 runs, 33 miles: Long run 13 miles
Miles since entering Le Mans: 214
Cutting the training week at this point, as Sunday is the Great Scottish Run half marathon in Glasgow, which I'm running as pure race preparation. First 10 miles at target marathon pace (8:30 miles), then last 3 at as fast as I can manage.
The training this week included a first. Harking back to my old Saturday afternoon hobby of refereeing, I was asked to ref a Charity match between SAIC (ex-employers) and Accenture (to whom most people I worked with transferred after the loss of our major contract). Suffice to say that after a few seasons exclusively running the line, it's something like 4 years since I refereed. A fact those unlucky enough to be taking part must have recognised pretty quickly. I did manage to have an excuse to wear my luminous yellow kit, though. As a training exercise though, it was very interesting. Stuck the Garmin on to see what sort of effort I put in - the result is here. Basically just over 6.5 miles of running at a constant sprint / stop. Completely different from a normal run - different muscle groups, intensities, etc.
Fun though it was, the legs were tired and sore in some odd new places for a couple of days afterwards, resulting in Sunday's planned 20 miler being cut short at 13, especially with a slight tweak in the calf.
A decent recovery on Tuesday, done at a slightly higher pace as I'm aware that I haven't really been stretching myself. Today was supposed to be a Tempo session at Scotstoun, but with the race imminent on Sunday and the weather scorching, I decided that something a little lighter was in order and took myself off round the loop at the bottom of Glen Fruin. It's been an absolutely stunning day here, about 24 degrees and despite my aversion to heat, combined with the hilly nature of the route, this was a great, great run. Not awesomely (or even slightly) fast, but just a wonderful day to be outdoors in unbelievable scenery doing something I'm gradually learning to love again. One of the best runs since London.
In such circumstances, the only possible music choice is my favourite running song. There's something about the way the music (carp pun, sorry) swoops and soars and crescendos that makes it perfect, and on days like today, the "Yeaaahhhh's" get serious laldy. Life affirming. Used it before, but make no apology for using it again.
There may be a short race report on Sunday...
Week's summary: 4 runs, 33 miles: Long run 13 miles
Miles since entering Le Mans: 214
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