runography

No posts for a few days, been very busy at home, various things going on, including Hamilton Accies winning the league.

I had this to do on Fiday:

Long Run
Dist: 7mi
@9:59 min/mi

So accompanied by Roddy, I did my longest ever run, completing a 7-mile course that took me from Broadwood Stadium, up towards Croy, along the railway track to the back of Dullatur, then around towards the canal and back up through Croy, returning to Broadwood.

The route varies from long flat stretches, e.g. along the railway line, to some rather hilly sections coming back up towards Croy. It was a nice challenge though, and we managed to complete it in 1:07:20 which was not bad going. The time wasn’t the big thing here, just getting the distance in was important. Nevertheless, my splits were:

• Mile 1 – 9:55min/mi
• Mile 2 – 9:39min/mi
• Mile 3 – 9:06min/mi
• Mile 4 – 9:18min/mi
• Mile 5 – 9:10min/mi
• Mile 6 – 8:23min/mi
• Mile 7 – 8:43min/mi
• 0.38 Miles – 8.11min/mi

Average pace 9:07min/mil

Not to shabby and over varied terrain, getting faster even though the distance is getting longer.

I didn’t do any training over the weekend, I had got myself ready to go out on Sunday morning, but I had forgotten I’d lent my car to my Mum, and I had left my running shoes in the car. There was no way I was going running in my astro-turf trainers, so that was that.

So, todays session, one that I was dreading as I had gone a bit overboard during the weekend, what with Hamilton Accies winning the league and all, a little celebration was due. I’ve been following them for the last 5 months home and away and was delighted to see them win the First Division title and get promoted to the Scottish Premier League (SPL).

My target for today was:

Tempo Run
Dist: 6mi, inc
Warm; 4mi@8:30; Cool

They are starting to get a bit harder now, but then that’s what I want. The harder they are the fitter I become, provided they don’t get to the point where I get injured.

I was going solo on todays run, Roddy has damaged his achiles and has to rest up for a while. So I went out with me and my Garmin. My mate David came along for the first 500m but he’s doing a different training program so when we got to the start of the blackwood housing estate he went off on his run around Broadwood loch and I took to the streets. The route I took is basically the same as the 5 miler I did last Monday, but this time I’d have to add another loop of the woods at broadwood loch on the way back, to make up the distance.

The first mile was done at a nice easy pace, then it was time to get some speed up and get these 4 miles completed in under the 8:30 average required. I knocked off the first lap fairly quickly, but then hit some hilly sections which took slowed me down a little. By the time I got to the woods I was making good progress and willed myself on to up the pace another notch to get the 4 miles done in a good time. My final lap of the tempo run was excellent and although I was knackered I felt happy that I had managed to pace myself well enough to do a faster final lap. The cooldown lap was quite tiring, by that point my knees were starting to feel the pressure. My splits were:

• Mile 1 – 9:39.24 min/mi
• Mile 2 – 8:05.51 min/mi
• Mile 3 – 8:25.49 min/mi
• Mile 4 – 8:17.12 min/mi
• Mile 5 – 7:44.50 min/mi
• 0.97mi – 9:21 min/mi

Time for (almost) 6 miles – 51:16. My 50min 10k target is within reach if I can just keep up the training and avoid injury. Compare this to 67:20 for the 7 mile run and it’s not hard to see what a difference a tempo run is to a long run.

Average pace over Miles 2-5 was 8:08 min/mi which was well within the targetted 8:30 pace. In fact, it’s well within the tempo pace for all future tempo runs in this 10k program. The fastest I have to achieve is 8:14 min/mi, so I’m pretty happy with my progress. I’m not changing the program again though, I’ll stick with this for now.

Weight in Gym: 13st 0.5lb (post run – so probably add 1lb)

Almost reached the 1st lost mark. Maybe get there by the end of next week. I could get there sooner if I reduced my calorie intake, but I’m happy enough with the way things are going.

nb: When I get the time I’ll dump the images and get the google map API working Until then, you just have to deal with images.