runography

With a new occupant in the whitehouse, a new era of world politics dawns. It’s been a long time coming, there’s a lot of hope on the shoulders of Barack Obama, I’m optomistic he’ll handle it well.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep on running. Gearing up for the marathon was a bit harder than I expected. I had been smoking after my runs and although I was increasing the distance/time I was still struggling with breathing. Pretty obvious really.

What happened last week? After my initial flurry of activity I managed another 2 runs, I managed a 7 mile run on Friday 9th, and a further 7 mile run on Monday 12th. My average pace for my January runs has been 8:51 min/mi, something that should come down as the year progresses. This was also my average pace in June/2008, so it’s not so bad considering I did my first 10k that month. 

I then played 5-a-sides on Tuesday 13th, at lunchtime, then I got a call from my brother to play at night too. I thought I’d be exhausted but I gave it a go anyway. It turns out I was exhausted, also, my feet were like ice blocks for the first 10 minutes. I think my circulation is suffering, 90% sure that it’s related to my smoking. Remembering that 5-a-sides has been a no-contact sport for me for the past 8 years, I was rather surprised to be cracked in the ribs with my very first run with the ball. This sent me flying and was rather painful. I’m still feeling the effects of it a week later.

So, although I was in pain, on Thursday I decided to give football another go, but this was a shortlived idea. On my way downstairs (in the house) with my football gear in my arms, I tripped over my 1 year old daughter and flew down the stairs, almost taking my daughter with me. A nasty bruise now resides on my right buttock. Not impressed!! Daughter has a slight graze on her back, but otherwise unharmed. The thoughts going through my head as I took the tumble you would not want to know.

Up until today then, a week after my first painful incident, I haven’t done any exercise. This afternoon I played 5-a-sides, and apart from a twinge on my ribs when I saved a shot with my arms straight out, I felt reasonably ok and should be able to start running again tomorrow. I need to get my distance up before the 16 week marathon program kicks in, I want to increase to around the 10 mile mark if possible. Around the 8th February I believe.

My total running for January is sitting at 29 miles, with 11 days left in the month if I can get upwards of 45 miles I’ll be happy with that for the month.

I also stopped smoking today, coinciding perfectly with the end of an era in world politics. Looking forward to my next run already.

It’s been a long time since I wrote about my running progress on here, a lot has been going on since the Great Scottish Run, and since I haven’t been training for a particular run I hadn’t much to say on the subject of running, or at least that’s what I thought. I have been doing minor maintenance runs, only just keeping myself active. I haven’t gained weight but I’m sure I have swapped a number of muscles with reformed fat.

My weight at the end of last week was 12st 4lb.

My problem has been to believe that since I haven’t got a run to train for, I have no goals. It was a real struggle after the GSR to motivate myself to put in a full training plan. It was easy for me just to do a maintenance run here and there, provided I could still run 6 miles I was happy enough, even if those runs were becoming fewer and further between. I also slipped back into regular smoking and believe me, smoking before going out for a run is no easy thing, in fact more often than not this was an excuse not to go out at all. I would normally wait until after my run before having my first cigarette of the day. What a mad way to live!

To summarize my demise since September lets consider where I was:

May/June/July/August I ran 80+ miles each month, with a record 94 miles in July. By the time I got to September I considered myself to be pretty fit. The night before my 1/2 marathon though I thought it would be wise to go out for 4 beers with an old mate and in the course of that night I smoked, even though at that point I hadn’t done so for weeks. It’s a sort of self sacrifice I think, I can’t see any other reason for it.

After the race I reduced my milage and covered only 49 miles in the whole of September, this included the 13.1 miles of the 1/2 marathon. Similarly, in October the mileage halved to 25 miles, with another 50% slash in November, down to a paltry 12 miles. I managed another 12 miles in December but as my weight was not increasing I was reasonably ok with not having to run.

It was around this time that I started to notice my leg and stomach muscles were not as strong and I was starting to feel that if I left it any longer I’d have to start all over again. So starting on Friday January 2nd I was training again with the goal of running at least 3 times a week. I didn’t expect to be able to do it on my first week back though. So far I have run

Friday 2nd Jan – 6.2 miles ( long run )

Sunday 4th Jan – 3.4 miles ( recovery run )

Tuesday 6th Jan – 6.2 miles ( long run )

These runs weren’t easy, but I can already feel the benefits and notice my leg muscles getting stronger again.

I now have a plan. For the next 4 weeks I’ll build up my distance, getting myself back to running 10+ mile long runs.

Then it’ll be time to start a 16 week training program for the http://www.edinburgh-marathon.com/ that’s right folks, a full Marathon.

“From Marathon Eater to Marathon Runner“, that’s been the caption at the top of the site, it’s time for it to be realised.

Race Day: Sunday 31st May 2009 -  9am

Charity: I’ve decided to run this for charity, and have chosen The Scottish Society for Autism – Once I get confirmation I’ll get sponsorship links setup for those who wish to sponsor me.

I ran the GSR 1/2 marathon in 1:47:33, not as fast as the target I’d set myself of 1:45:40, but pretty close. I held back a little when I could probably have gone a bit faster, more through a fear of coming up short near the end.  A bit more experience and I would have known that I could manage the end without the worry. I also seemed to not want to have a fast finish, I was quiet happy to go slightly faster, but wasn’t for pushing it.

My splits were pretty good,

Mile 1: 8:25

Mile 2: 7:49

Mile 3: 8:04

Mile 4: 8:11

Mile 5: 8:23

Mile 6: 8:07

Mile 7: 8:11

Mile 8: 8:04

Mile 9: 7:55

Mile 10: 8:15

Mile 11: 8:14

Mile 12: 8:02

Mile 13: 8:13

Mile 13.1: @ 7:27 min/mi pace

My start was a bit slow with the congestion, so that lost me a bit of time. All in all a good days running though. Highlight was warming up pre-race with all the pro-runners, running up and down from George Square past John Street and back again. There were only a few pro-runners and me doing this I always do a 10 min easy run warmup before the race. Reading too many magazines I think.