Training, Planning and Running the DW Race

Finished here.

2010-02-23T14:29:00.001Z

This blog here once was about me and my training for the Devises to Westminster race but I hijacked it with all of the other sports I took up while preparing for the DW, so I have decided to re-invent the blog with a less specific name and a broader goal.

I am still planning on taking part in the DW but I am training for so many other things as well. From now on, I’ll be over here. http://just-another-race.blogspot.com/

2010-02-09T09:03:00.001Z

I have a 24 kilometre race in five weeks time and I haven’t been running for ages. I would need to check this blog to see when I was last out on the road. I have terrible shin splint pain again, though not in the same place as last time. I should rest but instead I am playing squash three times a week. This is not the way to prepare for a race and I got quite cross with myself last night.

With my cardiovascular exercise down I should cut back on my carbohydrates however I didn’t, so I have also gained a stone since the last time I weighed myself (admittedly that was before Christmas). This is also part of the reason I was annoyed.

I can’t run at the moment, I should be resting the shin. It is too dark and cold to be out on the bike after work at the moment, so instead I will be digging the exercise bike out from its current role as clothes hanger and will be putting some hours on the virtual saddle.

Five weeks to get race fit and loose a stone.

2010-01-28T09:18:00.001Z

I’m slow updating the blog this week, busy times… So going back to last Friday…

Back playing squash with my Dad again following the Christmas shutdown. First game I nearly won but after that I was soundly beaten. Two weeks off and the muscles were not expecting 40 minutes of dashing around and I was quite achy on Saturday morning.

Saturday I decided to shake out the squash aches with a run. This was the worst run I have ever had. I was out for a little over an hour and covered seven and a half miles but I didn’t enjoy it. My legs fatigued so it was laborious to move them, just underneath my toes started to ache, my shins were sore, and I found myself having to walk for stretches of the distance. Not happy about that really, I have less than seven weeks to go before the killerthon and I’m running like I did 12 months ago. To compound matters all of the above aches are with me five days later which has meant that I haven’t really been out there rebuilding my stamina.

Yesterday I played squash, this time with a mate from work. This is secret extra court time so that I get good enough to give my dad a run for his money, and certainly playing someone of my own ability I was able to win a couple of games, but it is a good all round work out too. Nearly a thousand calories are burned during a game of squash which seems to be more than pretty much any other activity.

I’ll have a rest day today and then another game of squash on Friday with a run on the weekend… I do get the feeling that I don’t know how to train for an race though. When I was training for the DW kayak race (which is still on my mind btw. I just need a plan of action) I was running and swimming. When I was training for a swimming event I was out on my bike and now that I am training for a distance run I am playing squash.

I do need to research into my sore feet problem though as it is quite a painful issue at the moment and quite demoralising knowing that after a run I am going to be hobbling around for a few days. The internet will find a solution for me.

2010-01-18T16:23:00.000Z

Last weeks training was a complete fail. The snow and ice was too much and in the end I didn’t head out at all fearing broken ankles. Saturday swimming was also a non event due to other plans, Sunday however was a nice day and I went out for my first run since the end of December. It was a five mile steady run with a burst of VO2 Max at the end because a thumping tune came on my iPod.

I have been suffering with wicked blisters, absolute killers. I had read on the web that blisters might be caused by too tight trainers so I tied my shoes less tightly and I didn’t suffer so badly. Next run out and I will tie them less so again and hopefully I will be able to get rid of them completely.

This week I am back into gear though. Honest. I have convinced a mate at work to start playing squash and now that the weather is back to pleasant I am sure I will be out running now…

2010-01-11T11:50:00.001Z

I’ve got nine weeks to go now before the killerthon and I have really got to get my training into gear. I have been using the Christmas period and the wintery weather as an excuse for doing little in the way of training for this race but I can do this no longer.

Sunday I got myself moving again with an arctic trip up Snowdon, deep snow, avalanche warnings, crampons and ice axe. It was actually one of the best mountain trips I have had for years. All the additional kit added to the weight hauled, and the deep snow and technical nature of the climbing meant that we were moving more slowly that we would have otherwise. Six hours on the mountain and about 6 miles covered. Absolutely knackered today though.

The people at the killerthon are sending out weekly training emails which are pretty comprehensive and very similar to my own drafted training plan, so I will adopt theirs as it gets emailed to me once a week and reminds me that I should be doing something. I will be following the intermediate schedule.

So this week I will be doing.
Monday Rest.
Tuesday – 30 minute easy run.
Wednesday - 4x 750m, 3x 500m, 3x 300m with 90sec recoveries
Thursday - 50 min relaxed or steady run
Friday – rest (actually will be playing squash)
Saturday – Cross train. (swimming)
Sunday - 1 hour 20 min long run

Monday rest, no problem with that. My PS3 is calling my name for that session.
Tuesday 30 minute easy run. Perfect, I have a nice 3 miles route just for runs like this, just need to wrap up warm and hope it doesn’t snow too hard.
Wednesday… Not sure about this one. I will need to work out some sort of plan with a running track or something. Not sure will have to research how to do this one.
Thursday 50 minute relaxed run. Again, no issues other than the cold weather.
Friday I will be playing squash instead of resting, but I don’t think that should cause too many problems. Different muscles get worked out on the squash court so I should still be resting the running ones.
Saturday cross training fits nicely with my Saturday swimming sessions that we were doing before Christmas.
Sunday big run. Again, not real issues with that, though I might substitute that with another expedition up a mountain while we have snow to enjoy.

2010-01-07T16:37:00.001Z

Well the Christmas went pretty much to plan. Too much food, too much drink, pretty much zero exercise and here I am with ten weeks to go before a 24km race not exactly in race trim.

I did have a guilt fuelled run on the Saturday after new year, a jolly five miler but that was all.

The start of the new year has now seen snow of epic proportions and although I have had every intention of going out for a run, I actually haven’t dared to venture out into the cold.

I’m going to have to do something though, I am feeling a tad unfit and have added some additional insulation to my midriff which will need to be shifted.

Probably the last post of '09

2009-12-22T12:13:00.001Z

Due to Christmas my 14 week training program has gone a bit awry with things getting cancelled so I can go out and be merry. Last week was all to cock with just a big run on Saturday to add to the road miles.

Problems are occurring though. Firstly I am getting hideous horrendous blisters in the arch of my foot. Really gory messy things which made running difficult and putting shoes on afterwards agony. One blister was just shredded skin by the time I had completed the 7.4 mile run and although sore, wasn’t as bad as the blister on my left foot which was still intact, it was about the size of my thumb and for some reason I couldn’t lance it, it resisted the needle as though made of rubber, so every time I put pressure on my foot, the fluid felt like it was about to explode out through the skin. Not nice. To make matters worse I had tried to protect the area with strips of tape, which were supposed to take away any friction that was causing the damage. The blisters formed anyway.

Then the other thing which is a new pain is my toes. My three middle toes hurt like hell, still do actually. The internet tells me that it is because I am landing too hard on my feet. I’m intrigued how I can land less hard on my feet, unless I learn rudimentary flight I can’t think how to go about it.

So here I am at Tuesday in Christmas week and I have zero plans now to add any more miles onto my tally, I also have quite extensive plans to eat and drink to excess. I think week 4 of the 14 week plan will see me having taken a back step from where I was two weeks ago. I might blog again before Christmas but don’t count on it, as there is slim chance I will have done anything meaningful to blog about.

Will continue in the new year.

2009-12-14T12:07:00.000Z

The great north swim was on channel 4 this weekend and for about 5 seconds I was on telly faffing around with my hat while someone in front of me was getting interviewed. I don’t know why he was getting interviewed, I was too excited about being on telly. Watching the swim over makes me want to sign up for it all over again though.

This Friday, me and my dad played squash for the last time in 2009. This Friday I have friends over and then it is Christmas and new year. I am finally able to play a game with a degree of ability. The ball now goes where I want it to go. I know my dad is holding back a lot of game winning shots because he pulls them out every now and again when I start getting cocky but I am starting to ask questions of his game. I think at some point in 2010 I will be good enough to give him a run for his money.

Saturday swimming was good. I put in 50 minutes or so, and about half of the lengths I swam freestyle. I am adopting total immersion teachings into my technique and I do think it is making improvements to my skill. I do still tire but I think it also has something to do with my breathing timing. Taking a breath every second stroke seems a bit too much and I sort of hyperventilate, taking one every fourth stroke sees me gasping for air and struggling, and I can’t do every third stroke as I find it off putting turning my head to the right for air. I am toying with a four, two, four breathing rhythm which might be working out for me. I’m off to some swimming forums later this week to find out if there is anything else I can try to improve my freestyle technique. I want to do the mile in 30 minutes next time out.

Sunday big run was out in the frost and was pretty chilly but it didn’t matter as I had my winter running clobber on. I wanted to run at a fast pace so pushed hard, every five minutes or so I noticed that I had settled back into a steady pace again and would then surge on, only for my high cadence to slow back to steady, which I would notice and on I went. It might have been cold but I was working hard enough for my sweat to steam off my thighs. A little over 7 miles in a little under an hour. Certainly the furthest I have run at that sort of pace, and although I was stuffed when I was done I think I can increase the distance at that speed over the coming couple of months. I did hurt my paws a bit with a couple of cracking blisters in the arch of each foot, and those rather than exhaustion is what made me glad to finally stop. Might need to research advanced blister protection too.

2009-12-11T09:09:00.000Z

Week one of my 14 week training program is finished, just about, game of squash tonight to be played yet.

The run on Thursday was cancelled due to lack of interest but I don’t think it is going to be too much of a dent into the training regime as long as I don’t skip sessions too often. I am also going to have to adjust the plan a bit as I haven’t taken into account Christmas week, week 4 is going to be a bit disrupted with the festivities so rather than try to stick to the routine and fail, I will adjust it to take advantage of the days I have free and write off the days I haven’t.

Tuesday run was good though. Cold, and I failed to warm up adequately so my calves locked up pretty quickly and made running a little painful. There was also a hint of shin pain again so I am going to have to be mindful of that for the next time.

2009-12-07T10:44:00.000Z

I now have a fourteen week plan which I am really pleased with, fourteen weeks because that’s when the Kilomathon is on. My training for the great north run was not structured at all. I would head out and run the distance that I felt like, and then get injured because I pushed myself too hard to quickly, then sit out for a few weeks while I waited for the pain to go away. This time I am going to build the distances sensibly. The plan itself is pretty straight forward.

Monday. Rest.
Tuesday. Pace run or hill run, alternating each week.
Wednesday. Rest.
Thursday Easy run.
Friday. Squash.
Saturday. Cycle and Swim.
Sunday big run.

The Tuesday run will either be a short 4 mile run with some high speed running thrown in, or I will tackle a hill. The Thursday easy run will be a nice casual jog with the wife (who also has a Owain devised 14 week plan, though her goals are slightly different to mine). Friday night squash is something different, using different muscles and exerting the cardio in a different way to distance running. Saturday morning will be a cycle to and from the swimming baths (about 6 miles) and then a 60 minute swim. And the Sunday big run will see me increase my mileage each week until by the time I reach week twelve I will cover the 16 miles of the kilomathon.

Last week’s squash was looking more promising, I have a few shots that are starting to test my dad and we are having more of a game of it now. I just need more practice, I am thinking in the long term I might consider joining a squash league.

The Saturday cycle and swim was surprisingly knackering. Riding to the baths was fine, it was all downhill. I then used the hour to work on my freestyle stroke. I am a convert to the Total Immersion technique, though it is going to take some time and practice before I have a strong freestyle stroke that will see me around a mile of open water swimming.
Cycling back out of town was slightly more arduous as it was pretty much all uphill and my legs were fried after the swimming. It has given me more of a desire to become a tri-athlete though.

Sunday big run. I was driven 6 miles away from home, and then ran back. It was really nice at 9am in the morning running through town. It was cool but I have winter running clothes now which made for a comfortable run.

Damage today? Surprisingly not much. I had achy calves from last weeks Wednesday run which were still tight for the squash, swimming and the Sunday big run, but I did stretch to warm down, and spent the rest of Sunday chilling my boots and today I am in surprisingly little pain. Feet hurt from blisters but nothing that time in the trainers can’t get rid of.

2009-12-03T09:48:00.000Z

I went running properly last night for the first time since the Great North Run all the way back in September. I have kept myself pretty active in the intervening eight weeks with swimming and squash while I waited for the doctor to give me the nod, but I can’t believe how much my running fitness has fallen off. The blisters I accept were likely as my feet have got soft but the deep muscle ache that I have this morning was a bit of a surprise.

This run was a bit of a get back into the swing of it run so I ran an easy pace, 4 miles in about 40 minutes about 6 miles an hour, I wasn’t really watching the clock this time so no exact mph’s today.

I have got to be more structured and set myself less damaging targets if I am going to avoid a recurrence of the shin pain, so I am going to put together a more strict plan with a less rapid increase in distance. My target is to be race fit for the killerthon in March, and my cunning plan is to work out a training schedule working back from 14th March to now, building in mileage increments and some tapering at the end. My goal to complete the 16.3 mile event in about 2 hours 30 minutes, that’s averaging over 6 miles an hour for the distance which is something I am confident I can achieve after doing the half mary at that sort of pace, and with some structured training this time I think I will manage the extra distance.

2009-12-01T10:32:00.002Z

These updates are getting later and later but I was waiting to see what the doctor said.

Friday night was squash night. 50 minutes and I was pretty knackered, it is less tiring every week I go and I’m not sure if it is because I am getting better at the game and am not running around the court so much or whether it is because I am getting fitter. Either way, by 50 minutes I was loosing concentration and was playing some awful shots. How long before I can give my dad a run for his money?...

Anyway, I finally went to the doctor last night to discuss my shonky shins and foot. The foot is a simple body part and there is very little to go wrong with it. In this instance my foot is probably bruised and it can take six to eight weeks to feel right again. So put up and shut up with the foot pain then.

The shin is not broken. There is no damage to the bones as far as the doctor can see and he is more than happy for me to start running again. He is convinced that I am suffering from Anterior Compartment Syndrome and it is something that I can train around, and with help and advice I can reduce the likelihood that I will suffer the pain again. He suggests joining a running club, which I am not sure about, and I have to warm up and warm down properly.

I have a couple of events that I will be taking part in for 2010 already booked. The Kilomathon on the 14th March, and I have now booked myself to take part in the Great East Swim which is 19th of June. (Talking about the Great Swims, they are being shown on telly at the moment on Sunday mornings at 8am on channel 4. Great North Swim is on 13th December so watch it and you might see me. Maybe.) There are a few other events I have espied and I might end up with quite a full event diary next year to make up for the fact that I won’t be taking part in the DW yet.

With events booked, and the all clear from the Doc, I am feeling the motivation to train again. Tonight I will start with a short street run to get back into it.

2009-11-24T11:23:00.001Z

I was saving my blog update for today because I wanted to write about what the doctor said… Only he didn’t say anything, at least to me. I missed my appointment like a feckless idiot. New appointment made for next Monday, so hopefully I will be unleashed on to the streets again soon.

Friday night squash was another thrashing. I’m getting better though and managed to score 4 points in one game. We played for an hour and it was pretty knackering. I have also started to develop a new injury which seems to manifest itself when playing squash. The top of my foot hurts like a bruise, and is really painful by the time we finished. I was going to mention this to the doctor but as I already said, I missed the appointment.

Swimming on Saturday was pretty half arsed as well. It was my birthday over the weekend so I wasn’t really in the mood for doing anything other than chilling out. I tried to master this Total Immersion Swimming technique but it’s harder than the book implies and I ended up doing some rather lame lengths. Next weekend I will give it a more thorough go.

2009-11-16T10:33:00.000Z

Another weekly report. I have slumped into a lack of training hole here at the moment. No direction, bad weather, dark nights and Modern Warfare 2 has seen my physical activity reduced to just two efforts a week.

Friday night was squash night, 40 minutes played pretty much. This didn’t hurt half as much as it did the first time last week and I don’t ache at all today. I also scored some points this week my best game I was only thrashed 3 – 9. I am thinking of sneakily hiring a squash court to spend the time practicing serving to myself as I give the advantage back too often despite some heroic play.

Swimming Saturday. 1.1 miles covered (54 lengths) in 50 minutes. But I think for the short term this will be the last session of just doing lengths for swimming’s sake. I have taken internet advice and have started investigating the Total Immersion swimming technique. I am only at chapter 2 of the book but it seems that I can swim faster and further with a different technique, so I think next week I will be focusing whatever drills the book suggests.

2009-11-09T16:09:00.000Z

My training has really become a weekend affair with the nights closing in and it getting colder and more unpleasant out. Also with my leg x-ray coming up I don’t want to start putting in long runs in on the off chance that I make something appear worse than it is. But that’s not to say that I am not doing anything and I have an ache today, the likes of which I haven’t experienced for a while.

Wednesday morning I woke early, and rather than lounge in bed watching breakfast news, I went for a run. My running is being kept to a minimum and I was only out for about half an hour.

Friday night will now see a new element being added to the cross training, Squash. This brutal game is the reason why every muscle in my body aches like agony today. My dad used to play a lot of squash a few years ago, and I played when I was at school too, so I thought it would be easy to have a semi-competitive game once a week.
Turns out our skill levels are separated by some margin and I spent most of the time thrashing thin air or hitting the ball outside the game area while my dad patiently talked me through some of the finer points on how to play.
No matter. I improved toward the end and was able to get some control of the shots, with a little practice I will be brilliant at this game.
Squash is not like distance running which is a sort of continuous load on the muscles and cardio systems. Squash is 50% standing around 50% explosive energy and I was knackered. I had worked up a massive sweat after ten minutes, and was close to fainting at one point. We played for about an hour and it really took it’s toll. My left hand (the hand with the racket) aches, and my left deltoid feels a little tighter from my enthusiastic swinging at the ball. But every other muscle in my body has been tight and yesterday I struggled to move at all.

Saturday saw the continuation of the weekend swim. I’m loving this at the moment. 52 lengths swum this Saturday (I intend to increase the number of laps each week) with more distance with the front crawl. I’m finding that I am running out of energy while doing front crawl after about a length, I sort of feel out of breath and my arms start to flail about a bit. I don’t know if it because my breathing technique is bad or that I don’t have enough stamina in my arms. Either way I am going to have to keep on putting the lengths in.

2009-11-02T09:33:00.000Z

I seem to be getting down to a weekly update rather than a daily at the moment which is a reflection on the slightly scaled back training I was doing. It is now going back up a gear because I have something to aim for.

Last week midweek (I think Wednesday… Quickly checks twitter updates… Yes. Wednesday) I was up early and went for a quick run. I convinced the wife to come with me as she is a little slower than me and would keep my pace to a slower which would be less damaging to my legs. It was only half an hour but it was nice, no strains or pains.

Saturday we went swimming again. I think this is going to become a regular thing as we are both getting a lot out of it at the moment. I wanted to swim a minimum of a mile while we were there so I set off counting lengths. I needed to swim 50 of them and had managed that after about 50 minutes. I don’t quite know why I was slower than for the Great North Swim, maybe I stopped more often than I thought to talk to the wife. I don’t know but I’m not going to worry about it too much, I have plenty of time to work up to the speed I want to achieve for next years great north swim.

The weather on Sunday was looking pretty atrocious so I shoehorned a kayak trip into the Saturday afternoon. An hour on the water was good, after the swim it was hard work on the arms and I really felt the aches in my back and chest muscles on Sunday.

I am now putting together a week long fitness plan for me and the wife that will be set in stone, with the condition that we will do everything set out on the plan each and every day and we had better have a phenomenally good reason for not doing each days plan. I had a plan with the Whitehouse gym that Fitness Stu put together for me ages ago, and I suppose I could go back to that, but that would involve actually going to the gym which was a pain in the arse after work mid-week.

The new race I have to train for. Someone I follow on twitter suggested a Kilomarathon. 26 kilometres (instead of miles as you would get in a normal marathon) which works out to be about 16 odd miles. I have just signed up for it so now I am pretty much committed to training. Minor worry about what the doctor said about anterior compartment syndrome but I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to run around the problem by March 14th.

2009-10-26T12:13:00.000Z

It has been so long since I have done anything energetic I was starting to wonder if I had permanently slipped back to a sedentary lifestyle. What with the doctor telling me I can’t run at the moment, the weather having a turn for the colder and no tangible goal to train for I have completely lacked motivation to get out of the house to do something.

After some persuasion though I was talked into going swimming at the local baths on Saturday morning. Nice and early at 8am we were there and it was filled with people who actually wanted to swim.

I did all of my swimming training for the Great North Swim in the pool at the Whitehouse, which although very nice was quite short at 15 metres iirc, and I seemed to be forever turning round and not able to swim at full power for very long. Shrewsbury pool on the other hand is 33 metres long, and with the diving boards it is very deep too. 45 minutes swimming and we packed it in. as far as pushing the boundaries of physical exertions go, this wasn’t a big effort but it was an important start again and I think this will become a regular Saturday morning thing.

Sunday saw me get the boat back out again. I can’t remember the last time I got the kayak out. It has got to be a good few months though and it told when I forgot my spraydeck. It wasn’t until I got into the boat on the launch and my hands tried to lock the deck into place with muscle memory, that I finally realised that I had forgotten something. I didn’t much matter though I wasn’t doing anything more exciting than taking in the sights of the Shrewsbury loop, and it was only when I paddled backwards that I took on some water slopping over my stern.

While out in the boat I had some serious thinking about my options for the Devizes to Westminster race next year. After all this is what I am ultimately planning for and this is one of the reasons why I update this blog every week… I still have over six months to get boat fit with a crewmate so it could be possible to be ready for the race but it would be hard work, and I always intended to do the initial boat work with a crew in the summer because the inevitable capsizes would be more bearable when the water is warm. The winter was then supposed to be about improving skill and honing race craft. But here I am looking at the winter season without having spent any time in a boat with another person. I blame myself for concentrating on other events and didn’t focus on this canoe race but it doesn’t change the fact that it will take an enormous effort to be ready now for 2010. My dad did mention on the weekend that Easter 2011 is as late as it can be and obviously a race later in the year will have more potential for being warmer.

So what’s this? Am I deferring the preparations for the Kayak race for a year?.. I don’t know. I think as far as the two man race is concerned though I probably have come to that decision even if I am finding it hard to admit it to myself.
But there are ways I can get into the DW race in stages. I could take part in the one man race which is staged over the Easter weekend with a stop every night. Or I could just do the build up races which take place through February and March to get an idea of sections of the course without going for the full blown race. The trouble with doing one man races, is finding a suitable boat (a fast and stable one man kayak). My current quest is to find somewhere that I can get a boat like my personal favourite Piranha Speeder either cheep enough that I can justify buying it, or maybe even find somewhere that hires them.

Whatever I plan on doing, I need to have a definite plan in place soon. Without a fixed goal to train for I am drifting in that fitness limbo where I don’t know what I should do and don’t have a motivation to do it.

Natural born sprinter

2009-10-13T09:50:00.001+01:00

It’s been quiet here for the last few days. I have had a lot of things I have needed to do in the evenings, and following last Sunday’s big run, I have had my leg pain back. Nothing serious but the ongoing pain in my legs and the fact that I think my left shin bone is swelling noticeably more than the right shin finally convinced me to go to see my GP.

The last time I went to my doctor I got the distinct impression he thought I was having a bit of a time waste so I have been quite reluctant to go back, this time though I was pleasantly surprised to find him sympathetic to my running troubles (I suspect he is a runner himself).

We had a long talk through the bio-mechanics going on with legs and running and it seems that with my toe running I am a born sprinter, not a long distance runner. This is a shame as I quite enjoy long distance running finding it quite cathartic after a long day at work, and I don’t have the discipline to be a successful sprinter. But anyway, toe running is protecting my joints from the pounding heel runners can inflict on themselves as the foot, ankle, Achilles, etc. acts as a great shock absorber for each foot strike. Where I am saving myself from one set of injuries, it seems I am causing others.

There is a part of the leg on the outside of the shin called the anterior muscle compartment, this is an area where muscle is wedged in between the tibia and a strip of tough gristle. When this muscle is worked hard it can’t expand and becomes painful and this muscle is worked hard by toe runners. This is a likely reason for my shin splints pain as opposed to all of the other things I have considered with self diagnosis on the internet. Pushing through the pain barrier with compartment syndrome can lead to gangrene however, so I can’t just ignore this one.

He isn’t wholly convinced that I have any additional bone growth on my left leg despite having a good prod about on my shin. If there is any change in bone density it might mean that I have caused a stress fracture and if that is the case running isn’t for me, I’m not a big guy and shouldn’t be stressing my bones to that extent. I am off to have a few X-Rays just in case.

As predicted my doctor has put a ban on running until I next see him (after the X-Rays have been done) and as long as nothing is thrown up with these X-Rays he is going to talk me through warming up and down exercises that can help, and he even mentioned the physio word. I am allowed, nay encouraged, to get out on the bike though so Sunday Big Run will now be replaced by Sunday Big Ride until I am given the all clear by the Doc.

2009-10-05T15:07:00.001+01:00

I am now trying to instigate the Sunday Big Run. I plan on running the big distances every Sunday, being driven to locations at increasingly longer distances from home, and then I run back. (I say plan but I already have other plans for this coming Sunday.)

This weekend saw me start the Sunday Big Run ball rolling with a 10 miler. I got there at about 8:30 in the morning, partly because the F1 was on early and partly because a large bulk of the route was along a pathless B road, so I didn’t what to have to dodge a lot of traffic.

All told I got home in 1 hour and 38 minutes which was about what I expected to complete based on the half marathon time. I have a couple of massive blisters in the arch of my foot have appeared again. I wonder why that part of my foot has suddenly started rubbing? And my shins are a bit achy again.

One concern on the shin front is the bone in my left shin. My left leg is the more troublesome, with more sever shin splint pain and more sever muscle aches. I have noticed over the last couple of weeks that the middle of the shin bone is getting denser than its opposite number on the right. I’m contemplating going off to see the doc but I fear he will 1/ call me a big girls blouse and 2/ will tell me to stop running on it.

when running goes bad

2009-10-02T11:04:00.001+01:00

I have been reading on peoples twitters and blogs about having a “bad” run. I’ve not had a bad run yet, I’ve had hard runs, and painful runs, and enjoyable runs. Last night I think I had a bad run.

I chose to do my preferred 4.2mile route around the back lanes I also decided to run with wrist weights on to work my upper body a little bit harder. It took me 45 minutes and was gruelling.

The wrist weights were a surprise load on my CV system and I found it a bit tougher, especially up hill but that wasn’t what made it a bad run. My legs felt like lead, muscle cramps and general all over pain made running a bit grim.

Getting back I found it difficult to warm down, and sleeping was made uncomfortable as I had terrible aches in the back of my legs and today I have very tight leg muscles.

I don’t know why the run went bad. Maybe it’s the weather as it has gone cooler over the last few days. Or maybe it is this trace of a cold that I have, or maybe it was the wrist weights adding to the load on my pegs, or maybe it is just one of those things that runners have to put up with from time to time.

2009-09-30T12:12:00.000+01:00

Went for a quarter marathon run last night. 7.1 miles in 1 hour and 2 minutes. Pleased with that sort of pace which is about the 7mph mark. If I could have kept that pace up for another hour (and there was plenty of running left in me by the time I had finished) I would have got my half marathon time under the two hour mark. I did slow towards the end though as several very unpleasant blisters had formed in the arch of my foot. These blisters are a testament to 1000mile socks that I was wearing for the Great North Run but had not got on last night. Must invest in more 1000mile socks.

I have decided to increase the distances that I am running because I have now set my sights on a full marathon at some point in 2010 and I have half a mind on tacking an ultra marathon at some point in the future too.

2009-09-28T09:04:00.000+01:00

I gave myself a full week off to recover from the Great North Run and by the end of the week I was starting to really need to do something again. I could almost feel my muscles starting to atrophy while I sat there playing the playstation.

Saturday was a light run with the wife. My old favourite route of 4.2miles took us about 50 minutes which was a slow pace but I didn’t want to push too hard straight after my little rest.

Sunday I got the bike out for the cardio. Went out for an hour and a half and covered about twenty miles. A week after a half marathon and my legs were not back up to full capacity, after about an hour I had burned through the glycogen stores, the last 5 miles home were slow and painful.

Over the weekend I also had a chance to chat with Nigel, my proposed crewmate for the DW, he is finding it hard to keep up with any kind of training regime with his workloads at the moment, and his getting married next year is putting further strains on his time and wallet so he has decided to pull out of any plans to take part in the DW next year. So what to do? Find a replacement? Do the single crew event? Postpone until 2011? I’m not sure at the moment.

I’m also thinking about changing the name and the URL of the blog (be warned that some day soon I might move). When I first started this, the only reason for it being was to chart my preparations to get ready for the Devizes to Westminster canoe race but now it has become more like a fitness diary. I don’t know what to change it to yet but I might even give the page a full makeover.

Great North Swim and Great North Run

2009-09-22T16:42:00.000+01:00

My Great North week, really was pretty great. Starting out with the Great North Swim and finishing with the Great North Run.

At the beginning of the week it was the Great North Swim. We were staying in a self catering lodge not far from Windermere to use as a base. All the advice on the day was to not drive and try to park at the event so we decided to walk the 3 miles to Windermere which proved to be a pleasant warm up for the swim.

We were there pretty early, time enough to mill around watching the organisers going through the safety briefings and things. I was in the first wave on the first day and I felt pretty privileged to be the first one out. It seems that most people in the first wave were all new to this outdoor swimming malarkey and after going through into the holding pen we all just stood around nervously, not sure what was going on. A couple of people dipped into the lake to acclimatise but most of us (including me) just nervously waited for the starters gun.

I wish I did have a pre-race dip into the water though because the moment I hit the water my breath was taken away, and for the first quarter of a mile my chest felt tight and I felt like I was going to drown. I didn’t though, and eventually I started to enjoy myself.

I’m a confident swimmer but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than breast stroke. It is my strongest stroke and when I was younger I won several races with it but alas, the front crawl is faster and over the distance people who I thought I might beat thrashed past me. Dr. Hillary Jones (of GMTV fame) was one of those people who went past me at about the half mile mark, I tried to keep with him but I couldn’t bring myself to front crawl.

In the end I finished in 00:41:43. A time I am pretty pleased with. When I was training in the pool I was covering the mile distance in about 45 – 50 minutes. I finished overall 2777th fastest person out of 4581 people who completed the swim over the two days.

I enjoyed the day, and the experience of the whole event was brilliant but the competitive side off me is not happy about finishing in the bottom half of the grid. I have already applied to do it again next year and vowed to have an open water front crawl I am confident with next time.

The Great North Run was at the other end of the week was something awesome, I have never taken part in anything so special. Fifty thousand other people all taking part in the same event was pretty amazing and I felt proud to be there.

Driving early in the morning to park the car at the finish line, my Satnav guided me down the route of the run. It made me really nervous to see the route that we would be running but it did help me visualise what was upcoming, where the water stations where, where the hills where, and most importantly where the finish was. Parking up we bussed back to the start to join thousands of runners and spectators all being whipped up into some kind of running frenzy by the announcer.

As I mentioned in earlier blog posts, I was in the green group at the back which was, (I’m told) almost a kilometre from the starting line, certainly it took me nearly twenty minutes to walk to the start line from the green zone pen after the gun had gone. The green group was not filled with the fastest runners in the world either and once we finally got underway I did get bogged down with slow movers who were not as keen to get to South Shields as I was.

My leg was a constant worry during the build up to this event, and I hadn’t really run on it for two or three weeks prior. The leg ached a bit in the morning so I made sure I warmed up thoroughly and also took the warming up short cut with lashings of Deep Heat slathered all over. The leg muscle tightened up during the first few miles but eventually I forgot about it and was able to do the distance without another twinge.

I was really surprised how many people were badly prepared for the half marathon. All the information provided by the great run people had outlined how hard the event was: Don’t run if you haven’t run any more than 8 miles, keep hydrated, don’t drink booze the night before etc. etc. (I have to be honest I broke many of the rules on being fit to run, and had I not been as stubborn as I am I might have not run this year) but at about the 3 mile mark people were already walking and it wasn’t much long after that there were fallen runners being tended to by paramedics. I remember one man who looked to be of a similar fitness, build and age to me stumbling off the road and into a tree completely delirious with fatigue or heat exhaustion (a pack of paramedics pounced on him so I guess he survived).

The final mile dropped down onto the coast and along the sea front and was lined by so many cheering people it was a real boost, I decided to go for a fast finish. I saw the “800 metres to go” boards and I stepped up a gear, and was running for ages before the 400 metre boards came up. I hadn’t really appreciated that 800 metres was half a mile, I had just got wrapped up with the joy of seeing the first sign that was in metres not miles. I nearly killed myself with that half mile sprint finish.

In the end my time was 02:04:57 which is a time I am happy with. I finished overall 14,244th out of 37,541 finishers. Top half of the grid is much more pleasing.

They also had several timing mats over the course and my times recorded were.

5k 00:28:41
10k 00:58:18
15k 01:28:14

Which means at the first mat I was doing 9.2 minutes per mile (or 6.5mph) second mat I was slowing and doing 9.38 minutes per mile (6.4mph) and by the third mat at 15 kilometres I was doing 9.46 minutes per mile (6.34mph). So much for trying to run negative splits. I am pleased I kept my speed above 6mph though because often during training I would trundle along at 5mph.

The experience was amazing. Going over the Tyne bridge with the sun shining, fifty thousand other people all doing the same thing, and the Red Arrows flying overhead, was one of those moments I won’t forget. It is difficult to sum up my feelings at that moment in words but it was brilliant and something I am going to have to do again.

Two days later and the aches have arrived. Nothing too bad, though it has taken most of the day for the seized muscles to cooperate. I’m going to give myself the rest of the week off and then I am getting back into the training. With a couple of half marathons under my belt it is probably time to set my sights on a full one.

2009-09-10T11:12:00.000+01:00

Right. This is it. The last entry on my blog before I head off up north to take part in the Swim and Run.

We are travelling up to Windermere tomorrow for the Great North Swim which takes place at the weekend. We’re staying in a lodge not far from the start line which should make life a bit easier on the day for me. I’m not too worried about the swim and I am quite looking forward to it in a nervous sort of way. I’m in the first wave on the first day with a shoal of other swimmers in our blue/black hats and by about half past ten in the morning it should all be over for me.

Then the following weekend is the Great North Run. I am more concerned about this one. I have an injury on my left leg which is causing me some concern. It could be anything from a stress fracture to a muscle strain but no matter what the cause of the pain, all advice is to not do the half marathon next week. All I can do at the moment is rest the limb and hope it gets better. Currently I am wearing a compression bandage during the day which may help and trust that it gets better. Currently I am pretty confident that I will be fit to take part but I think my push to smash a world record is in jeopardy.

I’m going to be away from the internet for 12 days so expect a fulsome writeup on my Northern exploits when I get back but I will almost certainly tweet my race times and things through the week so if you care you can still find out how I got on.

2009-09-07T09:51:00.000+01:00

I have had ten days of forced rest because of these bloody legs of mine. I have two weeks to go before this Great North Run and the shin pain has morphed into something more painful now.

My shin splints pain feels like the shin bone is going to snap. This pain has gone from both my legs, I am no longer suffering from this probably because I have rested. I now have a stabbing pain that is centred in the middle of my left leg (right leg is fine) deep in the muscle. It’s okay at rest but if I move the leg it really hurts and running is difficult.

I went off to have my gait looked at to see if this is the root of my leg problem. There is a specialist running shop nearby which have a treadmill/camera/laptop combo to analyse your running gait. One cause of shin pain is overpronation, where your foot rolls inward too much. My internet diagnosis had me suspecting that I might overpronate but after a quick jog on the treadmill in a pair of neutral trainers that was ruled out. I have a neutral gait and am a forefoot striker. The landing on my forefoot I knew about but I was pleased to see I have a good running cycle.

I have now invested in a new pair of trainers that cushion the forefoot and they have made a marked improvement in comfort while running. I went out for a light run (50 minutes) and was surprised with how much I needed cushioning at the front of my foot.

So now I am on countdown. 5 days until the Great North Swim. 13 days until the Great North Run. I am starting to get a touch nervous about both.

2009-08-28T14:53:00.000+01:00

I am left to work on my cardio at the moment as I cannot run because of my shin splints. So last night was a trip out on the bike.
I covered 10.4 miles heading down into town around the one way system and back again. It took a little over 45 minutes.

It’s frustrating that I can’t run at the moment but I have a new plan. There are several reasons why I might be getting shin splints and I have tried to adjust all but having my running gait looked at. I wonder if I have excessive overpronation (or underpronation) that is hurting me. There is a specialist running shop in town who, I have discovered, have a gait analysis machine. I am going to head on over this weekend to see if they can fix me.

2009-08-26T09:32:00.001+01:00

I think there might have been a false dawn regarding the shin splints.

Last night I went out for a quick run; a short 3 miler and I was out for not more than 35 minutes, but the pain in my shins is back with a vengeance.
To make matters worse, the change in gait that I have been experimenting with is putting pressure on other bits of me and I ended up with really bad back pain while I was running as well.

I’m at a bit of a loss really. Short term I am going to have to rest again which isn’t really good for the final build up for the Great North Run, long term I think I am going to have to get a professional to look at why this is persisting. Dr. Internet is not up to muster on this one.

2009-08-24T14:19:00.002+01:00

Last week when I was out on my bike I found a great launch point for the kayak, and with the weather looking good I decided to go for a paddle.

It was a solo effort and I focused on improving my paddling technique and in theory my overall speed. I had done a bit of research online about how to improve my stroke and wanted to put some of the pointers in practice. All told, I think I was paddling better.

The trip was 10 miles of river which I covered in just a few minutes over two hours. I probably could have been quicker but at the Montford Island I went down the wrong channel and ended up grounding on a shallow stretch that kept me busy for about 20 minutes before I was able to re-float. I did forget my iPod so I was going a bit stir crazy towards the end. This was a two hour stint and I was getting a bit bored, I’ll need a fully charged iPod for the DW race methinks.

Sunday was time for me to try out the Kinesio tape and see if this remedy really solves muscular skeletal injuries or is just a gimmicky dupe. The tape itself seems to be some kind of strong medical type, and the adhesive has swirls in it to encourage lymph movement and to courier away sweat. Whenever a product (especially applied externally) claims to encourage things like lymph transit, I get a bit dubious but my shin pain has been debilitating of late and I was prepared to give it a go.

For this injury I found a video on the Runners World website which shows how to self apply the tape. The tape wraps under the sole of my foot from the inside edge to the outside edge, and then up my shin to the point of the pain. A strip of inflexible duct tape is applied over the kinesio tape underneath to support the arch of my foot, and that’s it, done.

I have also been investigating running technique and it seems my tip toe running is ideal for sprinters, but puts immense pressure on the shin when running long distance. So I have now started to use my whole foot when I land, still touching down with my toes but letting my heel fall and take some of the impact as well.

The run on Sunday was going to be a half hour 3 mile jog to test both running technique and Kinesio tape. Three miles is usually enough trigger off the shin pain. I was feeling good about the run at the turn around point though, so I kept going. In the end I completed 6.7 miles in 64 minutes.

I did have a couple of twinges of pain in my shins while running, but nothing compared to the crippling pain I usually get and in the end it was joggers nipple that was the most painful injury I sustained.

I have kept the tape on. That seems to be the difference between kinesio tape compared with other therapeutic sport strapping, you keep the tape in place for several days. It feels a bit strange with support under my foot but I think it is doing some good.

There is an argument that this seemingly miraculous cure for my shin splints is placebo, or maybe it is because I have changed my running style and I am just attributing the improvement to the tape. One day I might test the tapes abilities more scientifically but I am going to keep using it in the build up to the Great North Run and almost certainly during the half marathon itself.

2009-08-19T14:43:00.000+01:00

Reading in all the information for the GNR it says that by now I should be able to run 8 miles with ease as part of my ongoing training program, and if I can’t do that I should consider deferring my place till next year.
If I was completely truthful about my ongoing training I would probably say that I should defer, I can’t recall a single training session which has covered 8 miles.
I don’t intend on deferring though. I know I can cover that distance without dying, hell I know I can cover the full half marathon distance in a satisfactory time, and I am a much more accomplished runner than I was way back in March when I completed the Ironbridge Half, my only problem is my shin pain the following morning after a big session and I am going to take steps to address this with Kinesio taping (when the tape arrives) and by adjusting my running gait (with some limited success so far).

With all that said though I do think I need to focus 100% on this half marathon now. Every email and press release I read that I should respect the challenge of the GNR, and so far I haven’t.

Last night after work I ran the Wrekin. This is the same route as I had taken on Friday night where I run around the back of the hill, up the steep side and then over the top following the main route back to the car park. The route is about 4 miles long and climbs up about 1,300ft. I wanted to nick a minute or two off Friday’s time of 43 minutes.

I set off at a solid pace and all was going fine until I hit the steep section. There were a couple of people climbing up that bit too and as I ran past them I knew I was doomed. This section reduced me to a walk last time, and I knew it would this time but now that there was an audience I ran for longer than maybe I should have. When I did finally have to stop running I was buggered. I felt a bit sick (I’ve never run myself so hard that I thought I would be sick before) and had a horrible stitch and as a result the people I jogged past nearly caught me up. More haste less speed and all that.

After I reached the top it was a quick jog back to the bottom and was relatively easy as gravity did most of the work. All in I did it in pretty much the same time as Friday. So much for going faster.

Great North Run Info

2009-08-18T09:04:00.000+01:00

My race information for the Great North Run was in the post yesterday, apparently there are going to be fifty four thousand other runners. I don’t think I have ever seen that many people in the same place before!

So now I have a race number and a starting zone and this is where I think I have made a bit of a mistake. The starting zone is based on the time you estimate to be able to finish the half marathon in. When I signed up for this gig I hadn’t run at all and wasn’t very sure of my abilities and if I remember correctly I put down about two and a half hours.

After having now managed a two hour half marathon, I think I can knock forty minutes off that guestimate. However my conservative time has put me in a zone somewhere near the back. The zones are alphabetical (and have a colour associated with them) from A to K with yellow zone A for the fastest professional runners at the front and K for the slowest runners at the back… I am in green zone I. I’m not too hopeful on being surrounded by my running peers all the way back there and I think I will be held up by the press of other people running at a slower speed.

I think my chances of besting my 2:01:32 time for the Ironbridge half is going to be scuppered by my zone allocation, but maybe I can get my green race number up amongst the white race numbers by the end.

It now dawns on me how close the event is though. Four weeks!
Actually, thinking about it, the Great North Swim is before the Run. I wonder when the Swim info is going to turn up…

2009-08-17T11:30:00.003+01:00

It’s been a little while since I did anything as far as the training is concerned, wedding anniversary and my ongoing struggle with painful shins has had me sitting on the sidelines a little bit. However I planned a weekend of effort to get me back on course.

Friday night I kicked off with a run around and up the Wrekin. From the gate, climbing slowly around the back of the Wrekin followed by the brutal uphill section that I attacked with gusto but soon reduced me to a walk, then to the top for 30 seconds to take the view in before a casual run to the bottom. All in, was 43 minutes and some seconds.

With my swim across Windermere looming large on the calendar I thought I should prepare for this a little bit for it. I’m a good swimmer, certainly I am a much better swimmer than runner. When I first signed up for the Great North Swim I could cover the total distance pretty easily in the pool and since my first initial swims I decided to focus on my weak event of running.
I did have a nagging concern that I haven’t yet swum outdoors, nor have I really swum in a wetsuit as I will be on the day.

So after some initial research into where I could swim outdoors I found Hanmer Mere. A beautiful lake about twenty miles away from home. The Outdoor Swimming Society said that the water was clean and free from boats and fishing. Sounded ideal.

We arrived at the sleepy village of Hanmer at about 7am, and after initially chickening out of the whole thing because I didn’t want to stroll around the village looking like a penguin sponsored by RipCurl, I did in the end step into the water.

Wading in there was some horrible weeds just under the water which tangled my legs to start with and that pretty much set me up for some paranoid swimming, I kept checking my legs hadn’t tangled some unknown object, and kept peering into the dark water to try and identify what unseen creatures were lurking below the water level.

The water was cold but the wetsuit took the chill out of it and I didn’t really notice the temperature while I was encased in neoprene (getting changed back into clothes on the bank was a shivery affair despite the sun though).

In the pool I have perfected quite an aggressive swimming technique plunging underwater and using every last muscle to whip my speed up. Outdoors, in a wetsuit, stalked by unknown aquatic predators, I lost some of my confidence and nothing above my chin went under water. Strange underwater currents sometimes took some of the power from my stroke (giving a feeling not unlike slipping off a kerb) and wind blown waves would slap me in the face, all of which made me a bit pensive.

By the time I was back on shore I was exhausted, the combination of physical exertion and adrenaline really wore me out. I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to the great north swim, though I am hoping the proximity of the other swimmers will alleviate my worries. I don’t think I am cut out for outdoor swimming as a rule though.

But wait, that’s not all. There was still Sunday. Keen to keep building on the weekends efforts I unloaded the bike and set off for a good solid ride.

I headed off to see the sights of Shropshire. I didn’t really have any idea where I was going, I just went where I fancied. I took in some of the most beautiful bits of this county and at some point dropped onto a section of the National Cycle Network route 81. I had no idea until now that this existed but it was great. Really nice roads, mostly free from traffic, the signs were easy to follow, and looking at the website there are loads of these routes all over the place. I covered 19.4 miles in an hour and a half and had one of the best outings for a while.

And finally, I was watching the World Athletics championships last night and noticed that one of the athletes had quite heavy strapping on their legs and wondered if strapping could help my shin splints problem that takes me out of training every couple of weeks. So as always I turn to Dr. Internet to see what I can find, and I discovered Kinesio Taping and also a strapping technique for Shin Splints. This tape is designed to breath and move and act like skin while at the same time supporting the muscle structure. It is designed to stay on for days at a time to aid in recovery as well as supporting during exercise. This shin pain is really annoying me, and if Kinesio taping is good enough for world athletes, I’m game to give it a go.

2009-08-04T11:04:00.000+01:00

I have had a couple of quiet days, my shin splints have come back a little bit and are making running a bit painful.

On the weekend though my car went into the garage and didn’t come back out again which then left me working out how to get into work on Monday morning. This time last year I would have gone for the soft option and got a lift, but instead I chose to cycle the twenty odd miles to work.

I gave myself two hours to get to work and timed it so I had a bit of time to get refreshed and changed before anyone else came in. In the end I covered the distance in an hour and a half and had plenty of time to get ready for a day at work.

My car then got better and was ready to be collected. My plan was simple. Blast back to collect it before they closed. The garage was four miles closer and closed at six, I finished work at five. So I had to cover sixteen miles in sixty minutes… My cycle computer claimed that I normally average about thirteen miles an hour, so for this to work I would have to go faster than my usual cruising speed.

The long version of this story has me battling with rush hour traffic, an incident with a red Audi and a white Transit van. There is also a bit where I blast past other cyclists as thought they were not moving and of me hitting thirty four miles an hour, but the short version of the story has me covering the distance in a couple of minutes under the hour and collecting my car with steam coming off my legs.

All in, I cycled 36.3 miles in the day. Now I appreciate that isn’t exactly Tour De France sort of distances, but they don’t ride with a rucksack of stuff for work, and then do a full days worth of work do they?...

Anyway, I slept like a log last night and I have those good aches when you know you have worked hard in my legs and my back and shoulders. I had to cycle to work out of necessity this time, but next time the weather is looking decent, I might well do it again.

2009-07-30T13:45:00.001+01:00

Another lunch time dash. Today I intended to go just that little bit further and just that little bit faster.

I let my mind wonder while I am running, it roams all over the place covering subjects like my workload, the playstation, the pain of blisters, and contemplating whatever might be on my iPod at the time. Whenever I get particularly involved in a chain of thought I tend to slow down. So today I tried to think about running faster, and whenever I realised that I had slackened my pace I would push a bit harder.

Net result, exactly 5 miles in 41 minutes and 19 seconds.

Going back to that calculator thing, at that pace I would be now doing the half marathon in 1 hour and 54 minutes.

Okay, so that is only a couple of minutes faster but it proves that if I don’t daydream while I’m running and just remember to run fast, I can improve my speed and time.

Anyway, while we are here, have the predicted times based on today’s effort.

1500m 6:58
the mile 7:30
3000m(3k) 14:31
3200m(about 2 miles) 15:33
5000m(5k) 24:57
8000m(8k) 41:04
5 miles 41:19
10,000m(10k) 52:01
ten miles 1:26:09
a half marathon 1:54:41
a marathon 3:59:07

2009-07-28T13:27:00.002+01:00

Just got back from a lunchtime run which I had to get in as I have plans for dinner tonight but still wanted to get some kind of exercise in today. I usually spend my lunch breaks reading a book but the run to the town centre and back was much more satisfying.

I did another 4.2 miles. It seems I am destined to run 4.2 miles. I didn’t pick a particular route, I just set off from work and ran and roughly aimed my circular route back to base at about the 15-20 minute mark, and 4.2 miles is the outcome.

The distance was achieved in 34.52. and then while trying to find out if that pace is any good I found this neat calculator on Runners world which tells you what sort of time you would manage different distances.

Here’s what I got.

1500m - 7:04
the mile - 7:37
3000m(3k) - 14:44
3200m(about 2 miles) - 15:47
5000m(5k) - 25:20
8000m(8k) - 41:41
5 miles - 41:57
10,000m(10k) - 52:49
ten miles - 1:27:27
a half marathon - 1:56:26
a marathon - 4:02:45

1:56:26 half marathon… Not very impressed with that actually. Although it is below my 2 hours and 6 minutes from the last time I did a half, this time predictor can’t be taking into account increasing exhaustion. I would say that at this pace I am slower than I was all the way back in March.

Must work on upping my speed… Come to think of it I need to up the distances I am running too.

2009-07-28T08:49:00.000+01:00

There is this app on the iPhone called Runtracker. I am all enthused about it at the moment. It uses the GPS feature to track the route, distance, speed, elevation, time, etc, that you travel for various sports and hobbies. So last night I decided to take it out and give it a test.

I took the bike out, tuned into the satellites (iPhone said it had poor signal) and set off for a blast around the B roads.

When I returned I and checked the Runtracker, had covered a hundred and fifty odd miles with an average speed of about a hundred and thirty miles an hour… I don’t quite know what Runtracker is trying to pull here, but I’m pretty certain I didn’t hit 130mph at any point while out on my bike. I think it might have something to do with iPhone getting poor signal from the satellites. I think I will wait till I have better satellite connection before using it next time.

According to google maps I actually did 9.5 miles, and I would think that I took about 40 minutes.

2009-07-27T12:16:00.001+01:00

I thought it was about time I got paddling again, what with this training supposed to be for a kayak race. I planned on a good solid 25 mile paddle to get all the muscles fired up and ready to go with kayak training in earnest. Nigel was not available so I drafted my dad to come along.

Unfortunately I have taken the racing kayak to pieces to get it into a state to be raced, so we took out our normal boats instead.

I have paddled this stretch of river a few times. The first time I did it in five and a half hours, I hadn’t even considered the DW at this point and used the trip as a nice jolly, sightseeing and a picnic on a deserted stretch of river bank. I have since paddled the trip with more gusto as a bit of training and achieved it in a personal best of four hours and forty minutes.

The speed at which you can paddle is largely dependant on three things; The motor, the length of the hull and the speed at which the water is flowing.

Now I am certainly fitter than I was last time I paddled this, though I don’t think muscle power is instantly converted into paddling speed. The river was flowing faster, maybe even as much as a mile an hour faster, but that won’t make much of a difference over such a short stretch.

I had my dad paddling with me though. His boat is a touch longer than mine so he was a little bit faster, he is also a bloody fit guy and was able to maintain a fast pace, every time I let my head drop a little bit, or I started to have a bit of a daydream he would carry on and the gap between us would widen. I would then have to motor hard to catch back up, and I was already motoring hard to keep up anyway.

We blitzed the 25 miles in 3 hours 33 minutes which was a good pace. And I was pleased with that. I ached a little bit from the hard pace and pulled out of a long run that was planned for the Sunday.

Some concerns I have at the moment. That was just 25 miles and I was aching and had collected a few blisters on my hands. I am able to put the time in to train, and certainly my CV work is well on course but I fear not enough time is being spent in the boat, and Nigel isn’t putting in enough time with general fitness training at all. Portages haven’t been practiced, kit hasn’t been purchased. There are just 8 months to go and I have a growing feeling that I’m not going to be ready and will miss out…

2009-07-20T16:43:00.000+01:00

I think it’s fair to say that this Saturday training with my dad was the hardest I have done to date. Bearing in mind that I had run up the Wrekin on Thursday night I wasn’t exactly over the moon when I was told that we would be doing more hill work.

There is a flight of steps in the town park which are about 150 metres long. The steps themselves are spaced a little over a metre apart and each rise is a half buried railway sleeper. From the top of the steps there is a nice bow shaped, gentle slope down which takes you back to the bottom of the steps.

After half a mile run in we got to the steps. We then upped the speed and powered up the steps. They are spaced just close enough to be able to take each step in a bound but to be able to do so, you need to keep the momentum up so for the entire flight of steps I was at a near sprint.

I took the heart rate monitor this weekend and long before I hit half way up it started to urgently beep that my heart was about to explode (It still thinks that I am 70 years old so whenever my heart rate hits 170bpm or higher it panics) getting to the top on the first run my heart rate hit 220bpm.

We had a nice slow jog back down to the bottom, only for me to be told that we were going to do this five more times.

Second run up was hard, heart rate nearly as high legs starting to hurt.
Third run was a crippler, chest felt restricted, breathing was hard. Heart rate monitor was taken off to take the load of my chest. Legs agony. Jog down reduced to walking pace.
Fourth run I was hurting. I could no longer bound up the stairs one at a time and had to reduce my stride length.
Fifth run. Legs burning, chest hurting, short stride length needed a few minutes at the top to recover. The shin splint pain cam back and was forced to hobble for a bit.
Sixth was where I broke myself. I was reminded of the mile long portage in the DW race and I was spurred on for one last push. Full sprint, massive stride length, screaming agony. I got to the top absolutely fucked. It felt as though someone had replaced my lungs for molten lava, but that was nothing compared to the pain in my lower legs. The half mile run out was a horrible half jog half hobble.

I then rested for the rest of the weekend and my shins still hurt today, I might take the bike out for some cardio tonight but I’m going to not run for a couple of days.

2009-07-17T10:32:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I declared I wanted to beat my pb time of 0.35.50 from the gate at the bottom of the Wrekin, to the trig point at the top, and back again. The distance of the route is 2.7 miles climbing 1,335ft. I had actually set my sights on a sub thirty minute time.

The weather was pretty grotty, rain and close cloud, but it served to keep me cool so was probably a blessing in disguise. I set off, and remembered the first time I had run this there was the wall that we hit at two minutes of jogging, I was starting to tire at two minutes again but there was no wall this time.

At about 7 minutes I was past halfway house and although I was breathing hard, my CV was strong. My lover calves were suffering though and I was forced run at a slower pace all the way to the top. It took me 19 minutes to get to the trig point.

I had a quick 30 second breather and then set off as fast as possible to the bottom. Running uphill I was slowed by muscle fatigue, but for whatever reason all aches disappeared and I was able to run at full pelt, I had to put the brakes on a bit though otherwise I would have fallen.

Rounding the corner below halfway house (which according to google maps is 0.4 miles to the gate) I looked at my watch and saw that I was at 29 minutes. I threw all fears of a turned ankle to the wind, and sprinted.

Final time, 30m 55s. A new pb for running the Wrekin but even so, I was a bit disappointed. 290 days worth of training to shave off just 5 minutes from my time.

Getting to the bottom my calves were done, the back of them hurt as though they had been smacked a few times with a cricket bat. I blame the three days of running without rest as the reason for the total leg exhaustion. I also developed a bit of a hacking cough and am even now coughing up sticky spit. I slept like a rock last night and loads of muscles ache today, the run up the hill has all of my core muscles and my shoulders aching as well as the legs.

2009-07-16T12:16:00.001+01:00

Tuesday night went for a casual jog with the wife around the 4.2 mile route. It took a little over an hour as we walked and ran at various stages. It also started to rain at the end which was not so pleasant.

Wednesday night I did the same route, this time by myself. 4.2 miles in 38 minutes averaging 6.6 mph. happy with that sort of speed. That’s about the two hour mark for the half marathon.

Tonight (weather permitting) I am planning on running up and down the Wrekin in a revisit of my first training effort 290 days ago. (I can’t actually believe I have been going at this for 290 days). My first attempted dash up and back down the Wrekin with Nigel was achieved in 43 minutes and 20 seconds and the amount of pain involved made me realise at the time how unfit I was. I have since managed a personal best for the Wrekin run of 35 minutes 50 seconds and I intend to smash that tonight.

I have nine weeks before I have the Great North Run and I would like to get a couple of full 13 mile distances under my belt before then. I am planning on getting dropped off at a location 13 miles away from home and then running back back. Llanymynech is favourite at the moment being 13.7 miles away. Might go this weekend, other commitments pending.

2009-07-13T10:32:00.000+01:00

I went for Saturday training with my dad again and this weekends training word is Fartlek. It’s a training method devised for the Swedish cross country team in the 1930’s. It means speed play, and is a variation on interval training. Basically you go for a run, then at some point you increase the speed to elevate the cardio to bursting point and then slow it down to a normal run to recover. It was quite good fun, hard work but enjoyable. We ran for 28 minutes around a route that was in the region of 3 miles.

I hadn’t planned to do anything on Sunday, but after spending the afternoon at a barbeque with fantastic weather I decided to take the bike out for a ride. I didn’t really plan to do anything to exotic, just a nice 10ish mile route that I have taken a few times. I am already getting faster as my muscles get used to cycling, I can sustain a higher gear for longer and spend more time in top gear on straight roads.

Monday morning before work I chucked in a quick half an hour run. I was pressed for time as I didn’t decide to go running until I only had half an hour left before I had to get ready for work, so I chose a short route of 3.7 miles. I had half a mind thinking about Saturdays training with my dad and tried to push myself with this fartlek method. I would pick a couple of lamp posts and run flat out between them, and then run at normal pace to recover.
I don’t know if it was this fartlek running or the fact that I was running to a deadline, but I clocked in a healthy average speed of 6.9mph.

2009-07-10T09:00:00.001+01:00

Recovered the bike from Nigel’s as planned, last night after work.

The mission was a simple re-run of the Sunday plan, Nigel and I head to the Wrekin and then split up and head to our respective homes from there.

It was quite tough, the wind was in our faces for the duration and I was also carrying additional weight in the form of a rucksack with my work stuff in. I did make it up that steep hill that had both of us walking last time. Nigel got further up but he still couldn’t quite get there.

Nigel on his lumbering mountain bike had the pace slowed down (not counting having to stop for a phone call he got from work) and by the time we made it to the Wrekin the average speed was 9mph. Once we split up and I was able to get my head down and just pounded out the speed.

I don’t actually know exactly how long it took me to get home. It was an hour and forty something minutes. I do know that the distance is 22miles going that route, and because I was very conscious of getting my average up I noted that the average speed was 12mph overall.

2009-07-06T11:04:00.001+01:00

The weekend has left me pretty bushed.
Saturday it was early morning interval training with my dad. My dad is of the old school of training regimes. Whereas I like to try and find the latest scientifically proven techniques to get fitter, my dad quotes Roger Bannister’s training routine from the 1950’s. Basically it involves pain. We had a quick jog of about half a mile to the athletics track as a warm up, then ran 400m circuits in 90 seconds or less (which I think is about 9 – 10mph) which is pretty fast, not a sprint but close on. After a 400m circuit we had a couple minutes break, before doing it again. Sounds easy? I thought so.

400m is a horrible distance. Anaerobic respiration seems to kick in at about 200/300 metres so the final straight has everything hurting. Two minutes is enough to allow the breath and heart rate recover but the muscles don’t get back to 100%, so then the next circuit around is just that little bit harder, the thigh ache just increases each time round. It also doesn’t help that my dad seems to run faster than me, (and I also think we were racing each other a bit) so I was always pushing myself faster than I would have been comfortable with.

The plan was to do the same as Banister did when he was training to break the 4 minute mile (though he was doing his circuits in sub 60 seconds not 90s) which was ten circuits of the 400m track with a 2 minute break each lap. We managed four before we could take no more. I am going to do this again next weekend though (with five circuits in mind), it is something different to my usual training and everyone says that variety is the route to improvement.

Sunday I was going to go for a cycle but I had tickets to Silverstone so I cancelled. But then by the time I got back from the race track there was still plenty of light left in the day so I did take the bike out after all. I cycled to Nigel’s which is 21 miles away and it took me a couple of minutes over an hour and a half to get there which was a reasonable pace.

For old times sake I suggested we head to the Wrekin and then I had the intention of heading off home from there as it was a few miles in the right direction for me. (In the end, the day was running out and I feared some rain clouds that were forming so I got a lift back home leaving my bike at Nigel’s, with the intention of collecting it after work at some point this week).

There are some pretty cruel hills between Nigel’s house and the Wrekin. Slight gradients up for miles on end. I found it hard but glanced over my shoulder to see that Nigel was falling away. I hate having to re-start cycling uphill so I just carried onward to the top where I could stop, by the time Nigel caught up he was exhausted and the Wrekin was still miles away.

Heading up into a little village the road got so steep that we both had to dismount. Nigel was first to fail, but I didn’t make it much further before I could go no more. The thing was, in our youth we used to both be able to make it up to the top. Nigel blamed his advanced years, I blame lack of exercise. Getting to the top we were rewarded with some pretty exciting downhill sections though and this is why I love the Wrekin. Twisting technical tarmac roads all of which we sped at 30+ mph, exhilarating stuff.

The ride back to Nigel’s house was hard work, especially for Nigel. He had to stop a few times, and was complaining of pains down his legs that sound exactly like the Shin Splints I suffered with a while ago while running, he also complained about his thigh muscles hurting.

When I chose my bike I wanted it to be able to cover distances and maintain a high speed. These are things that Nigel’s bike isn’t designed to do. He has a mountain bike with high rolling resistance and little aerodynamic efficiency. Towards the end of the ride I did an experiment with both of us coasting downhill at the same speed, when I released my brakes I accelerated away while Nigel either was slowing down or at least not getting any faster.

To the Wrekin and back was 13 miles and I think it was a bit of a surprise to Nigel for how tough it was. It was always going to be harder for Nige on the mountain bike though. He did kindly drop me back off home and I have to admit that I was thankful for the save of the ride because my legs were tired too.

I also have a new injury. I’m going to sound like some kind of hypochondriac, checking online for any ache and pain and then coming back with some fancy name for my new injury but I don’t think I am one, I just sound like it.

This week it is ulnar neuritis at the wrist, or handlebar palsy. It is pain in my little finger and my ring finger. I was surprised to find that this injury is quite common. I thought I had knocked my hand or something and was going to find hundreds of different references when I did internet research on it. Instead I found quite a specific reference to pain caused by holding the outside of the drop handlebars of a bike (which is my favorite riding position). The fix seems pretty simple. Adjust my seating position, hold the bars differently, strengthen core muscles.

2009-07-03T11:18:00.001+01:00

Took the bike out for a spin last night. Nothing spectacular, just a jolly around the streets to enjoy the warm weather. I didn’t record the times, speeds and things. I did about 10 miles in about 45 minutes and it was just a pleasant ride.

This Saturday I am going to take my dad up on the offer for some running training. He is able to put in faster runs than me and has also joined a running club so hopefully some knowledge will rub off on me.

And then Sunday I am meeting up with Nigel to do some cycling (Ideal training for a kayak race!) which should be fun.

2009-06-30T10:31:00.002+01:00

I have loads of blisters on my feet today, at least one per toe, nasty ones, one is a blood blister! I don’t really know what caused them, I went for a run as normal, I was wearing the same clothes and shoes but something caused the skin on my feet to get abused. I might blame the temperature as it was the hottest day so far yesterday but I’m not convinced by that idea, maybe my feet have gone a bit nesh.

Anyway, standard 3.9 miles, covered in 42 minutes. Average speed of 5.6mph. This is also a concern. When I cycled to my parents my dad had just got back from a run and had managed 8 miles in just under an hour. That is the sort of speed I want to be doing if I am going to get anywhere near my target for the Great North Run. So yesterday I tried to push myself to go faster than I have been and all I managed to do is go slower than the last time I ran that distance. Why could I not go any faster? I thought I was pushing!

I could blame my blisters but they didn’t really hurt until the last half a mile. I could blame the heat I suppose but again, I didn’t really feel too wasted by the heat certainly not until the end. With that sort of speed though I would finish a half marathon in about two and a half hours. 30 minutes slower than I managed before I did any training. How wrong is that!

Actually I could blame the fact that I cycled 60 miles on the weekend. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I could do with a day off to recover. Though that doesn’t account for the blisters.

2009-06-29T14:12:00.000+01:00

The weekend was spent on two wheels.

After a lazy morning of doing absolutely nothing on Saturday I got my kit together for the afternoon and went out for a ride. It started out as a short 6 miler but I was enjoying my time on the road so I took a diversion and ended up clocking a little over 18 miles. I was out for an hour and a half and felt pretty good. A bit tired, but generally fine.

Saturday’s expedition encouraged me to go further a field. So I set my sights on Telford approximately 20 miles away. Sunday morning at about 10am I departed. I took the back route and headed into Ironbridge. It was hard work but nothing had prepared me for Buildwas Bank. 1.7 miles of increasingly steep road. It nearly was too much for me, I had run out of low gears, I was standing cycling until my legs were on fire so would then sit and pedal for a bit until I the speed was nearly washed off, and then have to stand again. I nearly quit and turned round about half way up but I somehow managed to keep going.

I made it to my parents house after 1 hour and 37 minutes covering 20.44 miles averaging 12.6mph. Two sweet cups of tea and a bacon sandwich later I turned the bike around and headed home. I was now completely bushed and hills that would have been easy before were tortuously steep. The return down Buildwas Bank was something I was looking forward to though.
Getting to the top I accelerated myself up to full pelt before tucking myself into the most aerodynamic shape I could come up with, then hurtled. I chickened out at just under forty miles an hour at 38.2mph. Hanging on at that speed for nearly two miles was surprisingly hard work on my upper body and I had also cricked my neck with the position I had adopted but it was fantastic fun.

I limped home just going as quickly as I could, which was not so fast now, I got overtaken by someone on a racing bike who breezed past me and there was nothing I could do to keep up. Once I got back into town there was this flock of elderly cyclists who were joining the main road I was headed down. I was so thankful when they didn’t go the same way as me because they would have overtaken me with ease. I finally staggered into the house, my legs like jelly and I was so happy to be off the saddle and on the sofa.

The total numbers from the cycle computer.
I covered 40.1 miles in 3 hours and 10 minutes with an overall average speed of 12.6mph hitting a top speed (down the Ironbridge byass) of 38.2mph.

Some things I learned. Smooth A roads are not that smooth when you have 1cm of rubber and no suspension to absorb the bumps. Cycle paths are more trouble than they are worth. Road cyclists wave to other road cyclists. And my saddle is not comfortable.

2009-06-25T10:26:00.001+01:00

After a couple of fun test runs of the new bike I decided I needed some kit before I went out again. The most important was the helmet as I did feel a bit exposed without one. Actually I felt quite exposed with one but at least I now looked the part. And then I wanted to look a bit more like a pro so I got some cycle shorts too. Along with the apparel I also got a cycle computer so that I could see what sort of speeds I was doing.

Last night I headed off with a 10 mile circuit planned (computer said it was 10.2 miles). I headed for a route that took me off the main roads as quickly as possible so that I could bomb about on back lanes. The first downhill bit on the Welshpool road I hit my maximum speed of the day at 30.4mph (the cycle computer is ace).

While I was trundling around the back lanes, quietly enjoying the views and getting my breath back I was overtaken by this bloke on another racing bike. He was clearly into road racing, his bike looked expensive and his legs were like tree trunks. A little bit embarrassed that this bloke had breezed past me I gave chase, I knew I wouldn’t catch him but I would keep him in sight for as long as I could. Hurtling down a hill I smacked into a pothole I hadn’t seen and nearly careened off into a church wall, and did an endo as I came to a halt. Lesson learned, look out for potholes.

Total time in the saddle was 44 minutes. I covered 10.2 miles with an average speed of 13.8mph hitting a top speed of 30.4mph.

2009-06-23T11:25:00.001+01:00

Early morning run before work today. The wife and I planned this last night, set the alarm clock early and then slept through it. We lay there for a while trying to motivate ourselves to get up and it was touch and go whether we were going to sleep in but with gargantuan effort we got up, warmed up and went for a run.

It was the standard 3.7 miler that we have been doing together for a week now and because we had dallied when we should have been out of bed we had to run pretty quickly.

I have to be honest I pushed her hard today and she was cussing me all the way round the route but it was for the greater good, we only walked for a couple of short periods and in the end managed to break the last personal best by just over 5 minutes.

Two Wheels.

2009-06-22T14:57:00.000+01:00

Saturday morning, bright and breezy the wife and I set out for a jog. I had that shin twinge again quite early on and rather than push it I insisted that we turned round. We managed a half hour run though but that was just a prelude to a good day. I have been planning on getting a bike for some time now to aid with the cross training and general fitness, and this Saturday was the day we went shopping.

I haven’t ridden for ages. My last bike was a mountain bike that I wrapped around a pedestrian crossing in the fog more than six years ago. I was commuting to work at the time and I remember one day pounding down a hill at full pelt, really exerting myself and some bloke on a racing bike wafted past me with a friendly “Morning” while not even pedalling.
I couldn’t see myself chucking it down muddy banks anymore, I wanted to road ride at speed just like that commuter 6 years ago, so I was looking for some kind racing type bike. Actually I think they are called road bikes but I am pretty new to this riding fraternity. Either way, low rolling resistance and streamlined pedalling position was now what I wanted.

After some shopping around I was really pleased to find a bike which fit my criteria (drop handlebars, skinny tyres etc) and was within budget, because it seems this sort of bike seems to cost thousands of pounds usually. I am under no illusions, it is a budget racer and if I am going to start triathlons I am going to have to upgrade but it is perfect for me at the moment.

As soon as I got the bike home I was changed and back out on it for a play, heading off to bomb around the country lanes. Hunkering down to reduce wind resistance on downhill bits and standing up on the pedals and hauling the bike from side to side going uphill, I kept imagining a Peloton bunched up behind me, it was great.

I used to cycle 12 miles every day when I was commuting too and from work and I thought I was more than man enough to cope with a little half hour session. It turns out that six years away from a bike can leave some muscles not quite up to standard, by the time I got home I had no energy left in my legs. I did a quick measure of the route I took and was a bit dismayed that I had only covered about 7 miles. I had visions of covering larger distances than that before getting puffed out.

I had a new toy and was going to take it out on Sunday as well. The main mission was to get some average speed times so that I could work out what sort of range I could conceivably aim for on the bike. I discovered almost instantly that I was a bit saddle sore, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I covered 9.4 miles (though I only remembered to start my stopwatch after I had covered a couple of miles) at an average speed of 14mph. A long day in the saddle could see me cover 100 miles… When I am fit enough to spend a whole day in the saddle that is.

2009-06-19T12:54:00.002+01:00

Couple of quiet days training wise with no epic runs or anything to report.

At a suggestion from my Dad, I have acquired a skipping rope though. It is a really good one, leather rope with weighted handles. As far as ropes can be engineered, this one is the pinnacle of design.
I have rarely skipped. I have seen boxers doing it and they make it look easy, crossing their arms and everything. I got the rope going round at a fair speed after a little practice but the crossing arms thing resulted in a whip injury.
It’s bloody exhausting though, I spent no more than a couple of minutes leaping over the rope but I really felt my heart rate leap up. This is going to get added to my exercise regime I feel.

Earlier last week I started to work my upper body with dumbbells. This has now developed into two sessions, a quick one in the morning before work and then a longer session in the evening after work. This is already making an impact on the muscle definition.

I also played on the Wii Fit last night for the first time in ages. My fitness needs exceeded what the Wii could offer so it has sort of fallen by the wayside but it still has been keeping track of my weight and BMI. I haven’t done this for a while but I now weigh 70.9kgs with a BMI 23.15. The last time I weighed myself was way back in December and I was 69.9kgs, so I have gained not a lot. I seem to have reached a bit of a plateau.

This weekend has the potential to be filled with good solid training. Hopefully I will have much to report.

2009-06-17T12:46:00.001+01:00

Hit the road again last night this time by myself and keen to work up a sweat to make up for the steady jogging days I have had with the missus.

I extended my usual route a little bit and have a new 4.8mile route which is pretty nice country lane running. I pushed my pace for the duration trying to maintain a balance of speed but still holing back something to be able to complete the route. I did have to stop at one point because a greenfly decided to throw itself at my eyeball and I had to fish the flailing critter out from my eyelashes.

It was a warm and humid evening yesterday and I worked up quite a sweat and I was glad that I have taken to running with a bottle of water because I would have dehydrated quickly.

In the end I rolled back to my front door 42 minutes 26 seconds after I had set off feeling thoroughly knackered but happy with my effort. Working out my speed that’s an average of 6.8mph.

Schoolboy error though. I didn’t warm down properly so this morning my left calf, only my left mind you, is a bit tight. So I’m sort of trotting around like a horse with a stone wedged in a hoof at the moment.

2009-06-16T10:51:00.000+01:00

Dragged the wife out for a run again last night. the same 3.7 miles. Just a smidge over 50 minutes again. I enjoy running with company but the pace which we are able to run at currently is a bit frustrating, and although she is completely shattered, I am not elevating my heart rate much above normal.

She is now suffering from various fatigue aches, and the more we run the less capacity she has to run the next time out. I have prescribed for her some lighter exercise for the next few days to enable her to recover but still stick with the program. I will have a few days of solo running. Might even have a stab at some personal bests for some of the routes.

2009-06-15T11:42:00.000+01:00

Run again on Saturday morning with the missus. Same route. Same time. Similar stop start approach to covering the miles. She did feel better though and had more in the tank as far as cardio-vascular and muscle capacity. What she didn’t have was a decent pair of trainers and blisters and stunned feet forced us to walk the final part.

With that, we went off and abused the credit card for a pair of decent running trainers to suit her running style. There is a plan to go running Monday night though looking at the weather it will take some persuasion to head out into the torrential rains that seem likely to be in when we go after work.

2009-06-12T09:35:00.000+01:00

The wife declared that she was getting unfit so I suggested that she come running with me. Despite having not run since the time of school sports days she was game and last night after work we donned trainers and set off. I didn’t know how comfortable she would be running so I had several routes planned, in the end we took the shortest at 3.7 miles, though considering that she wanted to turn back after about half a mile we did well.

When we first set off she ran quickly but that soon came to an end and we did a form of interval training where I would bully her into running until she could run no more and we would walk for a bit until my incessant nagging bullied her back up to running speed.

Her aches and pains and complaints reminded me of my early days running. The horrible ache in the neck area, the metallic tasting spit, the raw burning pain in the calves, the blisters. It made me realise how far I had come in my running ability.

She hated running and probably me for pretty much the whole distance. But when we got back and she had finally crashed out on the sofa she claims she enjoyed it and in theory we will go for another jog on the weekend.

2009-06-11T10:37:00.000+01:00

Nothing major to report today. I have become aware that I have been neglecting the upper body so last night I dug out the dumbbells and worked through some of the exercises that Fitness Stu had given me when I was regularly at the gym. I did find the exercises pretty hard but I haven’t done them for a long time so these muscles have gone a bit floppy. No matter I will drag them back into shape no problems. I have to, I am going to be wearing a running vest for the Great North Run and at the moment I look a bit like that bloke on the Mr. Muscle advert.

Also other news. The racing boat is going to get a paint job next week, after that we are good to paddle.

2009-06-10T09:03:00.000+01:00

I have left the running for two weeks to let my legs recover from their painful shins and for the last couple of days they have felt fine so this morning I set off for a short run before work.

Setting off my legs gave me a twinge on the front of my shin but I kept my pace down and managed the wear on my legs.

4.2 miles completed in approx 45 minutes (I didn’t time myself but had half an eye on the clock to ensure that I was back in time to get ready for work) so averaged about 5 and a half miles an hour. I had not too much of a problem and I have to say, it is a joy running early in the morning when the air is cleaner and there is little road traffic.

I feel a bit of ache in the shins again though not half as debilitating as the last time. I will give it a couple of days rest before donning the running shoes again.

2009-05-28T15:14:00.001+01:00

I donned trainers and went running last night. My route was my 4.2mile short course around the country lanes. I didn’t really intend to push it, I just fancied going for a run.

Almost as soon as I set off I felt pangs of pain in my shins but I was too proud to just stop and turn around, I kind of assumed that the pain would dissipate as I got into the swing of it. It didn’t.

The shin pain is difficult to explain, it felt a bit as if the thin muscle that attaches to the front of the bone was tearing off. It didn’t get any worse really but just sort of slowed my pace.

I decided that running the full distance was not going to do me any favours after about 20 minutes… which was about half way and I was not in any really position to short cut my way home. I cut a few corners and stopped running once I got back onto the estate.

I ran 3.9 miles in 41 minutes with an average speed of 5.71mph. Pretty slow but considering my legs were screaming agony it was a speed I am happy with.

My legs ache today, and this weeks internet diagnosis has pointed the finger solely at shin splints. A painful condition caused by running on hard surfaces. Rest until the pain goes away, and then I will gently get back into the swing.

Fibreglass resin is everywhere!

2009-05-26T15:06:00.001+01:00

Nigel and I got together on the weekend to repair the K2. There were a few little holes that wanted patching, the cockpit conning had some chunks missing from it, but most severe damage was where the cable for the rudder was slicing through the boat each time a turn was made. I got hold of some fibreglass from work and with assurances that fibreglassing was really easy was pretty confident that me and my mate could do this.

I have taken photos of the before, work in progress, and hopefully will get some nice finished shots of the craft when it is all sprayed up to perfection. Because I can’t upload them at the moment I am going to ask you to imagine the before and after.
Before Imagine a dusty old scout boat which has generally been looked after, a couple of faded stickers here and there, rusty rudder gear and a couple of holes that could turn ugly if not attended to asap.
After Now you need to imagine a boat that has had all the stickers and the rusty cables removed, has been sanded where there was to be a repair, then had fibreglass inexpertly applied everywhere. There are runs of resin, and a spiders web of rock solid glass especially around the tricky fiddly bit at the cockpit conning.

I think I am making it out to be worse than it is actually. The bit I am most proud of is where the rudder cables will exit the boat, we have bonded in some trick metal eyelets that resemble F1 exhaust ports, and although we have made a bit of a mess in some areas it will tidy up nicely when we have to flat it during the prep for spraying. All in all a success I think. I need to source about 14 metres of replacement cable, and a few other little gromits that I don’t know the name of (I am hoping to be able to show it to a bloke in a hardware shop who will smile and tell me he has hundreds) and then we are good to go.

Bank holiday Monday was a chance to run off a bit of a hangover that had appeared as a direct result of the successful glassfibreing. The sun was shining, I was feeling fit, so I set off for 7.4 miles around town. Everything was good I felt fit my feet were blister free, I was even able to thrown down a couple of sustained fast running to elevate my heart rate whenever I came to a bit of an incline. I don’t think I have felt so fit or happy with my running yet and it was a good feeling. Unfortunately I wore the same shirt I wore for the Ironbridge half, and I developed joggers nipple again which made life a bit uncomfortable but apart from that it was good.

I must have been daydreaming or something as I came to the final mile or so because I suddenly became aware that I was getting overtaken by another jogger. It’s not a problem, he was clearly a fit guy and my ego was already preparing the excuses for why he was able to pass me with such ease (joggers nipple, already covered 6 miles etc.) but the thing was my competitive streak then kicked in. His pace was manageable and I held the gap between us. I was actually pretty happy that I had enough left in the tank to pick up the pace again. Crossing the main roundabout before I get home he had a break in the traffic, I did not and I waited for maybe 30 seconds jogging on the spot while my unknowing pace setter stretched the gap. Underway again and I was running really hard to close the distance and for maybe half a mile I was this side of full blown sprint speed.

I never did catch up with him. By the time I arrived at the turning for my house he was still a few hundred metres away. The sprint finish did zap me though, and once I was off the main road I paused to get my breath back and to let the stars in front of my eyes go away. I walked the final stretch stopping the clock 67 minutes after setting off.

7.22 miles in 67 minutes is an average speed of 6.62 mph. Not bad, and has pegged the speed from my previous (shorter) run which was 6.63mph.

2009-05-20T09:28:00.001+01:00

I did go for a run last night after work. I was a bit achy from the Monday run, but I was quite fired up for another smaller run. The rain held off so I set off on my usual 4.2 miler.

There are two hills I have to go up which are about a quarter of a mile long and I really stepped up the pace for these inclines pushing it to VO2Max. By the end though I was pretty binned and my calf muscles were agony.

It took me 38 minutes to do the distance, averaging 6.6mph. I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with that average speed as I thought my uphill sprints would make more of an impression on the speed.

By the time I was finished my legs were wrecked and I am having a rest day today.

2009-05-19T15:10:00.000+01:00

Long weekend away in London to wave the wife and sister off on the Playtex Moonwalk. 26 mile walk at night around London. They both completed it in about 9 hours, and judging from the blisters, muscle fatigue and sleep depravation, it was a tough challenge. My involvement was chauffeur and moral support but it did mean that I had Monday off.

Initially my Monday was booked off as we were going to make a long weekend of it, but as it worked out we came home Sunday. But it did mean that we had a day to put one of the cars through MOT. Rather than get the wife out of bed after covering a marathon distance the night before, I decided to run back from the garage.

6 miles through the heart of town from the garage to home according to google maps. Managed to cover the distance in exactly precisely 50 minutes, which is about what I expected, managing an average speed of (if my maths is correct) 7.2mph.

I don’t think I am a morning runner. I got all manner of stitches most notably in my right shoulder, and my throat filled with a nasty metallic tasting spit, though I am prepared to consider that the spit might be because of the exhaust fumes form the Monday rush hour traffic.

I think now is a good idea to endorse 1000 mile socks about now because they are wicked. 6 mile run = blisters. It is a simple rule that I have come to accept but not with these bad boys. Basically they seem to be two very thin socks magically attached to each other, the friction that would normally cause blisters happens between these two layers and your feet are fine.

I also should endorse warming down about now. My calves were in agony when I finally got home (there is quite a lot of uphill out of town to get to my house), it was the same pain that I managed to create in my legs a week ago that had me hobbling around for the rest of the week. Not this time though, there is a dull throb that lets me know that I ran the distance but I can walk and am considering an evening run tonight too.

Devises to Westminster progress hasn’t been going anywhere really. I am now a member of the BCU though, and am pleased to see that the Shropshire Union Canal is on the list of waterways we can use as a member. With this in mind Nigel is coming round this weekend to help me with repairs to the boat. Nothing major, just some fibreglass work around the cockpit, that sort of thing and then after that we are good to go.

2009-05-12T09:27:00.001+01:00

Right, finally. I have got back into the whole training thing.

I wasn’t going to mention it as it wasn’t all that much of a stint training but last Thursday I went for a paddle after work. Nothing major, just a slog upriver, muck about in the rapids and a blast back. It was enough to remind me that I could do with building more muscle though.

One thing that concerned me while making my way up the river was the lack of pull out points if we capsize. When Nigel and I took the K2 out and had a couple of sinkings we were near the launch point and were able to get back on the water without too much issue, but further up river beyond the power station there is nothing but steep banks and nettles.

I have just applied to join the BCU (a requirement to take part the in the DW race) and I understand that membership gives you access to quite a lot of waterways in the UK. I’m hoping that the Shropshire Union Canal is one of those waterways because at least canal banks are going to be easier to get out on.

Monday night I went a running. After work, got changed and just went. I didn’t take my usual stuff, no heart rate monitor, no camelback, not even a watch, just my iPod. And I discovered that it was a whole lot of fun without encumbering myself with the usual paraphernalia I feel I need.

4.2 miles of road and footpath according to google. It became 0.1 of a mile longer because there was a load of cows malevolently blocking a gate when I neared home so I had to go around them. I didn’t time myself because I didn’t want to burden myself with hitting targets or keeping to a certain pace I just wanted to put some road miles onto my dodgy knee.

I did commit the running crime of failing to warm up or warm down so my punishment today is aching calves. Apart from that I have no other ills to report, knee has held up to the rigours and though my broken toe reminded me that it is still there every now and then while running, it doesn’t feel any worse for wear today.

2009-05-05T16:22:00.000+01:00

Well that’s the end of April and I have done pretty much bugger all.

A holiday, a broken toe and a nasty cold have seen me out of action training wise for about 3 weeks and it has been a slippery slope of less and less motivation. This bank holiday weekend I decided to try and turn this around a little bit.

The weather was glorious and after the wife’s expression of interest of boating whilst on holiday I hired us an open canoe for the day. I have never canoed before and was pleasantly surprised with how much fun it is. I was also surprised how tiring it was. We paddled 13 miles at a leisurely pace which took about 4 hours, by the time we were done I felt fine (though the missus was bushed) but the next day, my shoulders really were achy. Good fun and I intend to do it again, I have considerably more respect for those doing the DW in an open canoe now as they are slow and heavy compared with kayaks.

Sunday was another nice day and we headed off to the beach with my sister and our dogs. The plan was to walk 15 odd miles as the girls are still preparing for their moon walk next month. Me and my dog went charging up and down the beach for a good hour or so but the mutt had lured me into the sea so I ended up with wet sandy feet. This sand then proceeded to grind away the skin on my heels to the point where they bled blood. I had to turn back having run/walked about 3 miles.

Today I have bloody heels and it is painful to walk. I am planning to be back at the swimming pool tomorrow morning and once the feet stop hurting when I have shoes on I will be back street running again.

Holiday

2009-04-20T11:13:00.001+01:00

I have been away for a week, having sailed the seas around Sardinia and Corsica for a bit of a holiday. I have managed pretty much zero training in this time and if anything I have put my training back with a new injury.

The weekend before we flew I did go for a bit of a paddle with my dad. Not in the racing kayak but in our play boats, just for a bit of a muck about on the river. The sun was shining and it was a really nice day, and I plucked up the courage to have a go at a roll.
The first ever time I took this boat out after buying it, it dumped me after a short period of time and despite frenzied flailing, I failed to right myself. Since then I have been a bit of a coward with rolling.
Despite the sun, the water was freezing but this time I managed to roll and with it I gained a new confidence on the water.

Monday we flew and all thoughts of swimming, running and weight training was out of the window, replaced with French wines and sailing.

At some point while sailing between Sardinia and Corsica I broke my toe. I wish there was a heroic tale of battling with a mizzen sail in a gale but I basically stubbed my toe on a door bulkhead while getting changed below deck. Though as we were hours away from medical attention I was forced to perform surgery (splint my toe), John Rambo style, on myself.

This toe injury is going to make running difficult for a while though as of today I am no longer limping.

I did manage to get a little canoeing in though, in an inflatable Spree 2 kayak with the wife. This thing looked pretty good when it was inflated and despite being disappointed with its mediocre performance when we paddled it, (I was unfairly comparing it to the weekend paddle in my Dagger) the experience did convince the wife that she wants to take up kayaking. This is great news, I can now justify getting a new boat so she can inherit my current craft.

I have also discovered the joys of sailing. I have a mind to take up some kind of dinghy sailing. There is a racing class called the Fireball Dinghy. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

All in good time though. First of all I have a swim, half marathon and the DW race to complete.

12 months to go!

2009-04-09T09:39:00.000+01:00

It is practically Easter with tomorrow being the start of the holiday, which means the 2009 DW is happening this weekend. I kind of wish I had aimed to be ready for the ‘09 race because I feel ready to take part (certainly by myself in a K1) but lack of a boat back in September made me hesitate. Ah well. I hope the weather is good for the racers this year.

Anyway, This is my last post of the week as I am heading off to the Med for some spring sun. I have had a quiet week of training as I have still got a painful knee from the Saturday run, this painful knee I have diagnosed via the internet as Chondromalacia which is not an uncommon injury and will probably not develop into anything worse. I just need to rest it and once it stops hurting I need to start building the muscles around my knee in a more moderate fashion (shorter runs!)

I did slip in 45 minutes of swimming on Wednesday. I took it easy for a little while but quite a few people came into the pool and I couldn’t help myself and I raced them up and down the pool for the final 15 minutes.

Lake Vyrnwy

2009-04-06T11:03:00.000+01:00

This Saturday my sister, my wife, our dogs and I went to Lake Vyrnwy, a picturesque reservoir not too far from where we live. The plan was for me to run around it while the girls walked around, all of us in training for our respective charity events.

11.1 miles of smooth roads with barely a gradient change for the entire route. I set off with the intention of taking it easy to preserve my knees but despite the sun it was a pretty chilly day so I had to pick up my pace to generate some body heat.

I have discovered that I usually run on my toes, my heel barely ever touches the floor. For over half the distance I ran in my usual tip-toe style but after about 45 minutes of running my left knee finally began to protest. I decided to adjust my gait and began to run leading with my heel and allowing my foot to roll to my toes. This did seem to alleviate some of the pain in my knee but the damage was already done.

I competed the 11 miles in 1 hour 56 minutes. The girls walked around with the dogs in 3 hours 45 minutes. So all in all we did quite well.

Sunday was going to be a session back out in the boat but Nigel had commitments in the afternoon and I had commitments in the morning so it had to be postponed.

This morning I hit the pool again for a 45 minute session. The knee was agony and I was really struggling to kick with it but it loosened up through the swim and by the end I had thrashed out my limp.

Once the knee stops hurting completely I am going to carry on running but I think I am going to have to cut the distances I am doing down to build strength but reduce the damage.

2009-04-03T08:58:00.000+01:00

Couple of days of just swimming in the morning. Rather than supply post after post saying, 35 minutes swimming. 45 minutes swimming etc, etc. I thought I would just put them all in one post.

So. 2nd April, 35 minutes swimming.

3rd April, 45 minutes swimming.

I guess the above proves that a dull post added to a dull post, do not add up to an interesting post.

The weekend should have a touch more excitement though, on Saturday (provisionally, based on the weather) I am going for an 11 mile run while my wife and my sister will be walking the route, as they are preparing for a 26 mile walk for charity in May. And then Sunday should see me and Nigel taking the boat out again for a more prolonged test.

So hopefully I will have something more interesting to blog about on Monday.

2009-04-01T09:22:00.001+01:00

Despite the surprisingly painful knee, I went swimming this morning figuring that the low impact exercise would be good for the ailing joint. And I suppose it was as I can move about more freely now, though it did hurt a little when I kicked with my legs.

45 minutes swim. I didn’t count the number of lengths as I was considerably slower with this knee and was not going to break any distance personal bests.

As I didn’t really have anything to think about today my mind wandered across loads of things, and one thought that has been playing on my mind was the Great North Run. I am looking to smash my last half marathon time but when I signed up to take part in the GNR I was asked to estimate what sort of time I would finish the race in. I guestimated 2 hours 30 minutes, which at the time seemed bold but now I realise was underestimating my ability.

When I started the Ironbridge half, I found myself having to walk for the first 100 yard or so before the pack stretched out enough for me to up the speed. Now that was a race with only 800 or so starters. The Great North has thousands of runners and I have a horrible feeling that for the first 10 minutes or so I am going to be at walking pace with the other 2h 30m competitors. How am I going to P.B. if I have to muscle past the slow pokes at the start?..

2009-03-31T09:13:00.002+01:00

New injury today. Runners knee!

Went for a run last night after I had finished work. It was my 7.4 mile route that I last ran in February.

It was a really enjoyable run. More comfortable trainers, good music, and a confidence from having completed a half marathon meant I positively bounded along. I didn’t really suffer too much, a bit of pain in my knees and a couple of pressure spots on my feet that were developing into blisters but I have inflicted worse on myself. I ran the route in 1hour 4 minutes so was a smidge slower than I ran the distance a month before but I was no where near as fatigued.

A few hours later my left knee began to feel a bit bruised under the kneecap. There is no swelling or obvious sign of injury but this morning it feels like someone has booted me in the kneecap. Stairs are mild agony and standing for periods of time begins a dull ache.

Internet diagnosis has identified Runners Knee. There are several causes of this, most of which I can identify with, overpronation, weak inner quads, a job which involves sitting for long periods of time… Not good news. So now I am back to resting the joint, and avoiding stairs. I am hoping that it will be fine for the weekend as I have a nice run planned.

2009-03-30T12:24:00.002+01:00

Another morning swim for me and again I was running late, this time because of the clocks going forward, so I had only half an hour in the pool.

When I swim at full power I create a bit of a bow wave, and because the middle lane was in use, I decided to use the open part of the pool so that I didn’t swamp the lady using that lane. As I had all of the rest of the pool to myself I decided to do circuits instead with the sole intention of not touching the side. I did find myself having to take longer to recover after a burst of speed while continually swimming and I suspect that when I am swimming lengths, even though I stop for the shortest amount of time, this pause is enough to recover.

I have also invented a new breast stroke today (actually it might not be new, but it is new to me) where when my legs are fully extended and I am applying an arm stroke, I give a butterfly kick of my legs. This additional propulsion has sped my breast stroke up quite a lot. I gauge my speed on other people in the pool, and I was able to keep up with someone who had a fast crawl with my new improved stroke.

[EDIT]
I went off to find out if I had found the secret to a world class breast stroke, and it turns out I haven’t. However I seem to have accidentally stumbled upon quite an advanced level of this swimming stroke.

From Wikipedia.
"This much faster form of breaststroke is referred to as "wave-action" breaststroke and fully incorporates the whip-kick."

It seems that you can only downward kick once when swimming competitively and an upward kick will have you disqualified, I don’t know if my technique will contravene Olympic race rules but I don’t care as I don’t think I am going to be at London 2012 somehow.

The Great North Events.

2009-03-27T11:05:00.000Z

As most of you know, I am taking part in the great north swim and run this year. I have decided to compete in both of these events for charity and have chosen to raise funds for the local RSPCA Animal Centre at Gonsal Farm.

This charity-run Animal Centre occupies a 186-acre site that sits amongst the hills of the Shropshire countryside and provides a safe haven for animals that have seen cruelty or have been given up. Here, they look after dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, various small mammals and horses, and at any one time they are caring for over 150 animals.

It costs the RSPCA over £2,400 a day to run Gonsal Farm Animal Centre but the RSPCA receives no government funding so they rely entirely on kind donations from people like you.

Please visit my Just Giving web page http://www.justgiving.com/greatnorthevents anything you can spare will be gratefully received. Thank you.

2009-03-27T10:45:00.000Z

Early morning swim was nearly aborted because I slept in late but a burst of motivation and some quick driving got me to the pool only ten minutes late.

Being late did mean that I wasn’t going to have enough time to complete the mile distance so instead I decided to work on my technique and did some interval work at VO2Max. †

† I have heard the phrase VO2Max a few times and wanted to use it here on the blog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Exercise_zones.png Really basically it is working at full maximum power.

I swam for 40 minutes and can feel that I have worked hard today. This is the last bit of effort before the weekend. Next week should see me get back into running in the evening.

2009-03-25T09:08:00.001Z

The aches and pains have taken a couple of days to wear off but I am mostly fighting fit again. I have a plan to soon start the day with an hour swim in the morning and then an hour run in the evening but with my feet still a bit blistered I am going to save the running bit till next week. Didn’t mean I can’t go swimming though so 50 minutes in the pool this morning saw me complete the mile distance. It was hard work though, I was slow and was exhausted very quickly. My muscles still haven’t recovered and I haven’t refilled my energy stores.

Ironbridge Half Marathon

2009-03-23T15:04:00.004Z

Arriving at the Arena in Telford with 700+ other racers all warming up and chatting calmly I began to assess the competition working out who I would and wouldn’t beat. Everybody looked fit though, and I regretted not training harder. The weather was nice though, it was cold as we stood about but once we started running it was a welcome chill.

Once we got underway I used my dad as a pace setter. He run the course and had more of a plan as far as timing strategy was concerned than I.

I had to make a quick pit stop when nature called. It was the longest I have ever taken to empty my bladder, and was dismayed to find when I had rejoined the pack that I was amongst people I had spent the first 40 minutes overtaking.

I was feeling fine by the time we got to Ironbridge. There was a large crowd of people there and their cheering really did give a boost to the confidence but after crossing the bridge there was a single track slog where the only thing I had to focus on was the runner in front and the knowledge that every footfall from this point onward was further than I had ever run in one go before.

I hit the Wall. I have never hit the Wall before but I had run out of fuel. My leg muscles had nothing left and I was struggling. I did have a plan though, I had a lucozade gel in my pocket, and there was a water station coming up. This water station I was going to walk through and actually drink the water rather than jog thorough sort of splashing myself in the vague area of my mouth. My supporters were also at this station and were quite unsupportive though, all I could hear was my sister and Mum laughing and exclaiming that I can’t stop and had to keep running!

This was the last bit of flat ground before the long uphill grind out of Ironbridge and it was brutal. This was the first stretch where I could run no longer and had to walk. For the whole of this hill I alternated between running and walking, and every time I started to run again I found my legs had seized up just that little bit more.

The final 3 miles was a long flat stretch of footpath I know well from my childhood so I knew where I was and roughly how far I had yet to run, I sort of shut down and just ran as fast as I could (which by now wasn’t very fast) focusing on each foot in front of the other. There were quite a lot of club runners who had a more comprehensive strategy than me and had saved themselves for the final push. I was overtaken by so many people who had something left for the final mile, I had nothing, and it was quite demoralising being overtaken by people who I had waltzed past earlier on in the race.

I crossed the finishing line in 2 hours 1 minute and 32 seconds. Finishing 427 out of the 660 people who managed to complete the race. (Race Results.)

I had a couple of targets set, I wanted to finish in no more than 2 hours 30 minutes as I knew this was achievable. Anything longer and I would have to re-evaluate whether I was up to this whole thing. And then I had a mind that I might be able to complete the half marathon at about the 2 hour mark if I can get my head down and just grind out the miles and I was 1 minute and 32 seconds shy of that. So I am happy with my performance.

I am most proud of my dad though, after leaving me for dust when we got to the hill out of the gorge, he finished 293rd with a time of 1 hour 53 minutes. If I am half as fit when I am in the Veteran Men category I will be more than happy.

As always I am feeling the pain today. I have joggers nipple, and a really sore right armpit where my skin was rubbing on the t-shirt over the 2 hours. I have a collection of small blisters on both of my feet which are nothing compared to blisters I have had in the past. My knees are really sore though and they are the reason why I am hobbling around today.

I am however really happy with my performance, it has given me the confidence that I can finish the Great North Run in September with a decent time and as long as I can keep on top of the training I am going to see if I can knock 15 minutes off that time.

2009-03-20T10:23:00.000Z

Today was probably the last bit of exercise before the Ironbridge half. Obviously in preparation for a running race, I went swimming. 50 minutes, alternating moderate swimming with some lengths at full power.

My reasoning for swimming instead of running is sound enough though. I haven’t trained enough for this race. It snuck up on me while I was waiting for the weather to get more pleasant for outdoor running. And the two or three occasions when I have gone out for a dash I have spent the next week nursing sore limbs. So instead of wearing myself out before the race, I am going to save it for the day.

Next post will be race report.

2009-03-18T09:41:00.001Z

I couldn’t help myself, I ended up going to the pool again this morning. I wasn’t going to and I had a big internal debate about going or not and in the end the draw of swimming was too much for me.

45 minutes swam. I think I hit my one mile target but I lost count of the lengths I was doing a few times so I could be a few metres out.

2009-03-17T09:35:00.001Z

My legs are still aching from Sunday’s run. Concern is my main emotion, I only ran 5 miles and my legs are still aching…

Today spent 50 minutes in the pool. I guess I must have swum around about the mile mark, but I consciously didn’t count how many lengths I achieved instead I focused totally on my technique. I had studied a few youtube videos on efficient and fast swimming techniques and tried to tweak my style to maximise my speed.

This is all for today. I’m going to give the pool a rest tomorrow and have plans to go for a run in the morning instead.

2009-03-16T09:07:00.001Z

Six days before I run this half marathon and I have finally got a pair of trailers which are going to carry me the distance. I took them out for a test drive on Sunday, just a quick 5 mile run and found them so much more comfortable. I did get blisters again but this time I think because my feet are a bit soft and not used to running.

Talking tactics with my dad in the afternoon he pointed out that I have as yet, not run the full half marathon distance… And it’s a fair point. Yes I can run pretty quickly, and I have adequate cardio vascular performance for an hour or so of endurance work but can I keep it up for over two hours? I just don’t know. I think the generally accepted pre-race preparation is to scale back the distance you run a week or so before, so I suppose the first time I run the full 13 miles is when I don my race number.

This morning before work I swam 1.2 miles in about 50 minutes. I’m not yet swimming faster, I didn’t really expect so after only 4 sessions in the pool, as the mile still came round at about the 40 – 45 minute mark but pleased that I was able to keep going for a few hundred more metres.

3rd morning swim

2009-03-13T11:09:00.000Z

3rd morning swim in a row is starting to break me, my body is reporting aches from all over the place and it feels like I have some kind of permanent stitch. I did manage the 110 lengths which is just over a mile in the 45 minutes but it was hard, and I was feeling the ache from the moment I started out and it was a slog all the way to the end. I do enjoy it though and I feel fresher and more ready to take on the day after the swim.

I also received my fundraising pack and vest from the RSPCA last night. Despite advice to the contrary, I opted for a vest rather than the T Shirt, in medium. I have always been a medium, whenever I have ever bought any clothes I am Mr. Medium, only it seems that I might have put on a bit of mass on my torso and this loose running vest (in medium) was a bit too tight. It looked as if I had borrowed the Wife’s crop top.

Anyway, onward. This weekend I am planning on getting some running shoes so that I can run this half marathon next Sunday in a little bit of comfort. I am also thinking of having a reconnoitre of the half marathon route just so if I do lose the rest of the runners I will at least still know which way to go.

Further by 150m

2009-03-12T12:49:00.002Z

Another morning swim for me. I have a very simple plan to increase my strength and stamina. Increase the number of lengths I swim every time I put in a 45 minutes session. (I have a vague desire to be competitive, so I need to be able to manage about 300 lengths in 45 minutes by September)

Today I added 10 to my 110 total from yesterday completing 120 lengths or 1,800 metres in 45 minutes.

I am pretty knackered physically today, arms shoulders and back ache the muscle ache and after just five minutes in the pool they started to protest but it’s all good.

Now the more observant people in the audience might notice my complete lack of run training for this half marathon that is just 10 days away. My reasoning for not running is pretty straightforward. I don’t have any running shoes that don’t inflict vicious blisters on me at the moment and pounding the streets could well do more harm than good. And I suppose that I have been pretty lacking in my training to date, and 10 days worth of running will make little or no improvement to my performance even if I were to get out there and run. I am going to spend the weekend sourcing a pair of shoes that are good for me, and then I might have a couple of runs to get me in the mood during the week. I am kind of hoping that my general level of fitness will carry me through. I don’t hold out much hope for my success for this HM.

2009-03-12T12:49:00.000Z

110 lengths

2009-03-11T10:45:00.000Z

I have been slacking a little bit for the last few weeks, part of the reason for this was not enough time in the evenings to train. Today saw me try something new. Going swimming BEFORE I go to work. The pool opens at 7am, so I can put in 45 minutes of swimming first thing.

I swam continuously for the duration, with mostly breast stroke which is my strongest stroke, and every fifth length I would do a length of crawl, which I’m not bad at but I can’t sustain it for very long.

110 lengths at 15 metres a pop saw me complete a little over a mile in the 45 minutes. Not bad, at least I can swim the required amount to be able to take part in the Great North Swim with ease.

Wondering then what I would need to do to be able to compete with the world class swimmers on this event I looked at their time last year. About 17 minutes for the guy who won apparently… I am going to have to get faster, three times faster, if I am to be in with a chance of winning.

First paddle

2009-03-09T10:43:00.008Z

The training for the DW took a massive and important leap forward this weekend. We not only collected the boat but also managed to take it out for a test drive.

Saturday we drove up to Warwick to collect the boat that I had won on ebay from the 2nd Warwick Sea Scouts. It was in pretty good condition having been stored inside for the duration of it’s time with them. Everything seemed in order, overstern rudder worked, and pretty much all of the dents and holes had been well repaired.

On Friday I called in a favour or two and had a 7ft long cradle made up to carry the boat home with, but loading the boat onto the roof proved a trial, with my straps being too short to fasten it down. I had to get creative and in the end my knot work learned in the scouts 10+ years ago was holding the boat to the roof. The drive home proved quite a trauma with gusting winds snatching the 21ft long boat like a sail. The boat made it home in one piece and all was well in the world.

Sunday morning I collected Nigel and we headed off to Ironbridge to test the boat out. It was the first time either of us had been in a 2 man boat, it was also Nigel’s First time in a slender racing boat and we both knew that a swim in the river was on the cards.

After some initial problems floating the boat we were underway. My role in the front was pace setter and driver, all Nigel had to do was keep his strokes in time with mine.

Steering was proving to be a steep learning curve for me. In my normal kayak I can turn on the spot with a couple of strong strokes on one side, or maybe a back stroke, or even by leaning over. The 21ft long racing boat does not respond to paddle input really and steering is achieved with a rudder the size of half a dinner plate. The rudder is controlled with a joystick type affair with my feet and it took some getting used to, essentially move it to the left, steer left. With a boat this long it took a few boat lengths before input with the rudder took effect so I wasn’t sure if it was working so I was waggling it to the left and to the right in increasingly severe angles. I am going to take full responsibility for the first dunking we had as I had the rudder hard over and the severe angle just caught us out.

After we had emptied the boat and re floated we set off again, with more cautious use of the rudder and both Nigel and I relaxing a bit the boat became less tippy and we were able to get some good speed.

Turning round was a worry for me as I couldn’t envisage how to do it, but with the rudder hard over and me applying a low brace, while Nigel paddled on one side we managed quite easily. Returning back to where we launched we paused for a moment to talk through what we had learned so far, and I boldly declared that we had mastered this staying afloat malarkey. Within a couple of strokes of setting off for a second charge upriver we were dumped unceremoniously into the water again. Second dunking we have no idea what happened, I can only assume our cockyness was our undoing.

Undeterred we emptied the boat and tried again. This time the lessons we had learned were all starting to make sense and we successfully made it back to the bank for a dry departure. It did take us too long to manoeuvre close to the bank and this is something we are going to have to practice a lot if we are going to successfully manage the portages.

I was pleased with the session in the boat, it wasn’t very long but a lot was learned. Nigel surprised me with how instinctively he was paddling, even when I made it hard for him to keep in time by dropping a second stroke on the same side (a naughty habit from my playboat I am going to have to drop). Having always relied on my own abilities in a boat I didn’t know how we would work as a team but I now know that I can trust Nigel 100%.

The boat is now off the road for a little while, there are some minor repairs to the fibreglass that need to be looked at and the rudder could do with a bit of a service but she should be re-launched better than ever just after the Easter holidays.

In the afternoon we went ice skating. This sport, on reflection, is not something I should be doing with a half marathon coming up and kayak training that must be pursued. The boots have near crippled my ankles, and a bad fall has damaged my left hand and wrist, where even changing gear in the car is now painful.

And then because there aren’t enough endurance events in my calendar this year, I have entered myself into the Great North Swim which is a 1 mile swim across Lake Windermere in September.

The K2.

2009-03-04T13:53:00.004Z

Great news to report today. I have sourced through the power of eBay, a k2 racing kayak. I have to be honest I don’t know much about it, looking at it’s dimensions and the profile of it’s hull it will be a tippy craft and I know full well that I am going to be spending some time getting to know the flavour of the river Severn while training in it.

The boat is also a little tatty looking at the moment, though it has been stored inside and looks in pretty good knick. Skilled application of some fibreglass around the cockpit and a lick of paint should make this boat look half decent.

I’m planning on collecting the boat on the weekend so will know more about it’s condition and amount of work that will be needed to be sea worthy then.

And then onto other news. One of those races I entered myself into this year, the Ironbridge half marathon, emailed me on the weekend to tell me that my race number was 176.

I had sort of forgotten about this race what with the Great North Run and all that eclipsing this 13 miler. A couple of things have dawned on me since receiving that email though. The main one being that it is a 13 mile race in 18 days, and so far I have not exactly done much in the way of marathon training. In fact, I have only been running twice and the combined mileage is a meagre 11 miles.

I remember a friend of mine training every day for months before he did a half marathon, and after all that training he still complained that it was a tough event.

Well there isn’t much I can do about it now, I will have to get what training in that I can and hope that it is enough.

4.2 miles

2009-02-27T08:50:00.002Z

This week has been pretty poor again. The quest for athletic perfection has been a victim of circumstance again, Monday and Tuesday I was work-tied, and on Wednesday I went to wave middle sister off to China. To ensure that this blog didn’t become another week of excuses I was going to do something on Thursday. Nigel was working so I dropped the gym in favour of going for a run. I have a half marathon in a little under a month to prepare for, and so far I have been running once, so I thought I had better.

I planned a shorter and more scenic route this time, 4.2 miles of country lanes around my house. Get away from the traffic I thought.

I set off at about five thirty at night. This is the time that commuters looking for a short cut bomb down these lanes like BMW encased demons. I enjoy a good bomb as much as the next man but holey moley I nearly had car grill knee surgery a couple of times. See, the trouble with country lanes is that they don’t have paths. The next run I plan will have paths.

So 4.2 miles, shorter than that last run I ran, where I managed an average speed of 7.4mph. I fancied myself to have run home averaging something in the region of 7.8mph, in my head I even had a half hopeful eye on an 8mph average. Time actually achieved. 38 minutes. Average speed, 6.6mph.

I don’t really know what went wrong, I ran at a similar pace, I got a stitch again (apparently this is caused by your internals bouncing putting strain connective tissue when you eat and/or drink too much) I got blisters again. I can only assume that all of the diving into the grass verge every time a car passed slowed me down a tad.

I prepared for blisters this time. A blister is where the skin is subjected to friction. Eliminate the friction, stop the blister. The answer was obvious, I took some electrical tape and protected the area of my foot that got the blister. I knew exactly where the blister formed last time as it has nicely scarred but despite my preventative measures, I got another blister in the same place anyway. And to make matters worse, I got some new additions too (which I think may have formed because of my blister protection).

All in all a good run but every time I go out I become more and more convinced that my trainers aren’t right for me. I am going to investigate what would be a better shoe for me.

On other, more DW related news, I have seen a boat and I am going to buy it (probably). This time next week I am 99% certain that I will be planning the first session in a K2.

Week 21

2009-02-24T14:38:00.000Z

I decided last week to move my end of week report to include the weekend.

So starting with last Sunday I went scrambling up Tryfan. It isn’t really the standard training regime for a kayak race, but the balance and upper body strength needed as well as the cardio vascular work out you get cannot be a bad thing so I’m going to keep this sort of activity firmly in my summer list of exercises.

Mid week I actually went for a run. This is the first proper road run I have done since signing up to the pair of half marathons, one of which is a little under 4 weeks away now. The run was good, I had a good average speed and there was more left in the tank by the time I had finished. It was marred by the mother of all blisters on my right foot, but I know where it will come from next time so reinforcing my flesh with plasters is the plan for next time.

And then when everyone starts to think that I’m training for everything but a kayak race (and although the half marathons are to take place sooner, they are mere aperitifs next to the DW race) I took to the water with my dad for a cruise up river. The paddling was pretty hard going as the river was in full flow but it was much needed.

This week hasn’t exactly started brilliantly for me though. Stuff on my desk had me working late last night (and will probably have me working late again tonight) so I haven’t done anything exercise wise. Wednesday night I have mentally pencilled in another run, and I have also provisionally booked an upper Severn paddle with my dad for the weekend, so I should get things back on track by the end of the week. We shall see.

A quarter marathon

2009-02-19T12:37:00.000Z

The weather has warmed up a little bit and it has been dry for about a week, and what with getting onto the Great North Run I decided to skip the gym and actually go for a run.

Setting off from home I had planned a route that I thought would be about 6 miles. A loop into town and back that I guestimated would take me about an hour. I got all of my tech on, heart rate monitor, iPod, Camelbak, petzl head torch, and I set off.

Quite quickly, maybe about a mile into the run I got a stitch that had me contemplating a shorter route or maybe even turning around. I remembered a cross country race at my primary school when I set off like a rocket and was in the lead most of the way round, at some point a stitch crippled me and I ended up limping home blaming some fake leg injury for me coming in last. The shame I have carried since that day was self motivation enough to make me carry on.

What is a stitch and where does it come from though? I’m going to google that later to find out how to beat it.

Just past the point of no return I developed a bitch of a blister in the arch of my right foot. It really hurt (still hurts now) and despite adjusting my trainers and sock, the damage was already done.

I arrived home exactly 61 minutes after I left, the heart rate monitor reported that I had been maintaining a rate of 179bpm before the pain of the blister slowed me down and a rate of 172bpm after the blister developed. With an average of 177bpm for the full duration.

The heart rate monitor was beeping a warning that I was at 99% heart rate capacity and had over done it and might blow my heart up. I was fine and I think the little computer brain was being over cautious due to me incorrectly inputting my year of birth as 1940 when I first got the thing.

I mapped my route on the internet this morning and am quietly pleased that I actually completed 7.4 miles in my 61 minutes of running. To make the maths easy I’m going to knock off a minute (to account for the 30 seconds it takes me to leave and get back into the house) so I averaged 7.4 miles per hour over this quarter marathon distance.

Until the final jog down my drive I had more in the tank and could (baring that blister) have carried on for the same distance again but as soon as I turned down my road fatigue hit me and I walked the last few yards.

Street running is so much better than running on the treadmill, fresh air, ever changing scenery, I really enjoyed myself. There was also no chance of getting tired/bored and heading off to the Jacuzzi instead of finishing the route.

I have a limp this morning. My left hip aches. I am certain that this pain has been caused by the blister on my right foot making me adjust my running gait so I put more strain on my left leg.

All in all though I am really happy with how it turned out and am going to throw a couple of running session into the training mix every week from now on. Though as a priority I am going to have to invest in a really good pair of marathon running shoes that suit my running gait and feet.

No Stamina.

2009-02-17T10:36:00.001Z

I can’t believe how quickly my stamina level has dropped. I had been away from the gym for a little under two weeks and I could not sustain the levels of activity I was able to before my little hiatus. Admittedly it is off the back of a hard day on the mountain from Sunday and I still have a bit of a cold but I was still surprised.

Rowing machine 5 minute warm up.

Lat pull down. 3 sets of 15 at 39kgs. No problems really.

Cable row. Should have been 3 sets of 15 at 10kgs but turned out to be a set at 15 and two sets at 12 reps.

There were a couple of other exercises I should have done but I was getting tired quite quickly so I moved onto the cardio bit on the treadmill. I set the clock to 20 minutes and wound the speed up to 7.6mph. This speed is good and I can manage a good comfortable stride length. I increased the elevation every five minutes but 15 minutes in and I was done in.

I headed off to the pool, aiming to have a good long swim but there seemed to be something up with the water, it was sort of murky… So I showered and headed home. Not the most hardcore session in the gym but at least I am getting back into it.

Tryfan and The Great North Run

2009-02-16T14:39:00.004Z

A lack of any physical activity for the best part of two weeks I decided to kick off this week with a jaunt up a mountain again (Due to the river being unpaddleable at the moment). This time out it was the tricky North Face of Tryfan.

Weather looked good when we set off and we (me and the Wife) spent the best part of 3 hours hauling ourselves bodily up this jumbled rock face. At around 1000ft we came to the snowline which was a pleasant surprise, and were also met by the clouds, which was not so pleasant. Visibility dropped to about 10 metres and the wind speed picked up too. By the time we had got to the top of North Gully at about 2500ft the conditions had become dangerous so we turned around.

Descending, the cloud closed in and we actually got lost. At some point we went left instead of right, and very quickly we found ourselves dropping onto increasingly sheer cliff faces. Vertigo finally kicked in while hanging over a drop from a bit of heather so we desperately climbed back up to firmer footing. We back tracked upward for a while, and after deploying the storm shelter (for the first time. I have carried this thing around for years and on Sunday we finally got to use it.) for a chance to get warm, get something to eat and check the map and compass, we found the route again.

6 hours on the mountain with some serious climbing has left me with aching thighs and back muscles, a scratch on the side of my nose, whopping bruises on my left knee and a large bruise on my right thigh, and I split my hiking trousers. Bloody brilliant.

And then other news. I received an email this morning confirming that I did in the end get on the free ballot for the Great North run. I am really pleased. I had decided to skip this event if I couldn’t get in on the free ballot as I didn’t want the added strain of having to raise X amount of sponsorship when this is not going to be the main event. It does however mean that I am now very much committed to training for two very different races, requiring both leg endurance and upper body endurance as well as cardio vascular capacity.

Week 20

2009-02-13T10:56:00.002Z

I have written this week off completely. I managed zero training this week, a lazy start was finished off with a disease that has rendered me full of snot and wuzzy headed.

I am a bit disappointed with myself I have to be honest but rather than trying a half baked session in the gym which would be motivation less I wrote the week off aiming to fire back into the rhythm.

Some exciting things planned for the weekend as long as the weather holds fast to get me back in action, will report on Monday.

Sessions per week. Week 20

Owain SPW = 2.75
Gym 48 kayaking 4 other 3

Nigel SPW = 1.10
Gym 19 kayaking 2 other 1

DW equipment

2009-02-10T14:26:00.000Z

Brian Greenaway has written a cracking little guide to the DW race (Which I can recommend. Although on face value it seems a little flimsy for it’s price the depth of knowledge and information he imparts is well worth it) and in reading this I have realised that I need considerably more kit that I imagined.

First off there the boat that I have been stressing about since the start of this whole idea. Understandably so, it will certainly be the most expensive single purchase for this race. But in the grand scheme of things the personal kit is going to be the biggest strain on the credit cards I think. I have quite a lot of kayaking gear already but there is only a small amount that will be used or will be suitable.

And then there is all the kit that will be needed for food and drink and other bits and pieces that will need to be carried by the support crew and kit that is mandatory for the race, water bottles, waterproof containers, spare paddles, spare clothing, boat repair kit, torches, night glow sticks, survival bags, spare clothing…

I’m going to put a list on the blog and as items come into my possession I am going to start crossing them off.

Week 19

2009-02-10T09:41:00.001Z

Abysmal. Extreme weather events (that's what the media called the snow), illness and a trip to London saw me managing only one session this week. One! That’s almost as few as my crew mate Nigel was able to put in. I am pretty disappointed with myself as up until now I had been pretty consistent with my physical conditioning.

Sessions per week. Week 19

Owain SPW = 2.89
Gym 48 kayaking 4 other 3

Nigel SPW = 1.16
Gym 19 kayaking 2 other 1

Training Fail!

2009-02-10T09:40:00.001Z

I haven’t blogged for almost a week now and I have probably trained less. I feel pretty crap about my lack of effort and I have had to give myself a good stern telling off about it.

First of all last week it snowed a lot on Monday so I evacuated Telford before I got snowed in. Tuesday was a similar story so I aborted any ideas of working out and fled home again.

Wednesday I had booked a day off work as there were a few things I had to get done in the afternoon. I did however have the morning to myself so I headed in for a post breakfast session.

It was as good as a week ago (must remember to keep this blog updated) so I can’t really remember what I did exercise wise but I do know that I didn’t really have the stamina for a heavy session in the gym and after about an hour of hauling weights around I gave up and headed for the pool. I did have a good hour long swim though.

I have tried to work out a few times in the morning and it just doesn’t work for me I don’t know if it is too close to breakfast or my body isn’t really prepared for working out in the am but I do seem to get more done in the afternoon.

Since Wednesday though I haven’t done anything at all. illness took me out of action for Thursday and Friday, Saturday we had a collection of small domestic disasters which saw us emergency shopping several times (though dashing around Sainsbury’s at one point I did get gifted a free Gillette sports water bottle which is going to get christened at the gym tonight) and on Sunday the wife and I went to London to take in a show, that was a long 20 hour day by the time we got back home, which meant that Monday I was shattered and had an early night.

Here I am at Tuesday now ready and keen to get back at it. I am going to get myself back into the routine though so I will have a good session tonight, Wednesday I will have my prescribed day off and then back at it Thursday Friday.

My ankle also no longer aches so I am going to try the treadmill again. Gently.

Friday and Sunday.

2009-02-02T10:28:00.000Z

Internet diagnosis (which I appreciate is a flawed form of medicine) has identified the cause of my sore ankle as either under or over Pronating. My running gait is at fault but can be corrected with gait analysis and shoe inserts… It sounds costly though. It’s a good job all this training is for a canoe race, rather than a running race.

I have also come across a kayak that seems to tick all my want boxes. It’s also a fair bit cheaper than other boats I have seen. It is still the best part of £700 but is my preferred option at the moment, all I would need to do is find 14 people who are prepared to lend me £50 quid and we are on the water.

Anyway, Friday night saw both me and Nigel in the gym, the first time for a while for Nigel.

Rowing machine. We both went for 5 minutes. I was secretly having a race with Nigel, keeping an eye on his time and distance and when we were done I was quite public in “noticing” that I had rowed 110 more metres than Nigel. We did row the same number of reps though so we suspect it is down to my technique pulling more of the rope.

Nigel then set off around the gym doing the same exercises that he had been working on for the last 18 weeks.

I was working on my arm muscles so it was Concentrated curl on the cable machine, 3sets. 15reps. 2kgs. And seated dumbbell curls. 33 sets of 15 reps at 10kgs. I also did some (can’t remember how many) abdominal crunches, but it was Friday so I wasn’t wholly in the mood.

Onto the treadmill but 5 minutes in and the ankle let me know that it also wasn’t in the mood for running. Cardio was finished off in the swimming pool with 30 minutes.

Sunday we were back at the gym. Nigel was working but joined us eventually.

I had completed my warm up on the rowing machine and was messing around with the free weights when Nigel made his way in. After he had also warmed up Nigel wanted to play with the dumbbells too.

Seated curl with dumbbells. 3 sets of 15 reps at 10kgs. For both me and Nigel.

Shoulder press with dumbbells. 3 sets of 15reps. I used 12.5kgs and coped. Nigel used the 10kgs. He did struggle but it was the first time he was using these muscles with this exercise.

Chest press with dumbbells. 15kgs. 4 sets 15reps. I did an extra set as Nigel distracted me when I first started. Nigel had a go at this exercise too, opting for the 12.5kg weights. Again he struggled, this time with his balance rather than the weight.

Cable row. 10kgs. 3 sets of 15 reps. No problems now, and the gripping muscles in my forearm don’t seem to fatigue as quickly.

Concentrated curl with the cable machine. 3 sets of 15 reps 2kgs. Nigel had a go at this one too and quickly could see why I pull my constipated face by the time I am up to the last rep.

Weighted abs crunch. 8kgs. 3 sets off 20 reps.

Cardio. I joined Nigel over on the cross trainer (treadmill is off the menu for a while for me) and we set off for 20 minutes. Nigel was working intervals at a moderately tough level 7. I set off on manual setting increasing the level every five minutes up from a starting level 6. I have to be honest, I got bored towards the end and aborted with a couple of minutes to spare.

I wanted to swim lots but the pool was pretty packed so after only a few lengths I went off to the steam room. Nigel closed the top vent which was great and filled the room with a lot of steam but we all nearly cooked like cabbage.

Week 18

2009-01-30T14:17:00.003Z

Steady progress forward this week.

I think I can say that I am fitter than I have ever been in my life (and there have been occasions where I have been pretty fit), and it’s only taken 18 weeks of moderate dedication to bring me up to spec. There are still another 60 odd weeks to go as well which should see me more than ready physically for the DW race.

The ankle is a worry though. With another twinge of pain after only 15 minutes of moderately hard running yesterday has me unsure if I should do any kind of marathon. I might go and see the doctor again (though last time he made me feel like I was wasting his and everybody else’s time with some frivolous self inflicted and probably made up injury) or better yet, maybe I should have a go at internet self diagnosis.

I also haven't got any kit yet, predominantly and most importantly a two man kayak. I am going to put together a list of things that need to be acquired for us to take part in the race so that I have a better idea of how much this is going to hurt my wallet.

We also haven’t put any useful time in on the water yet. Admittedly it is too cold for any real paddling at the moment but I know I’m not stable enough in a racing boat yet and Nigel isn’t stable enough in any sort of boat, The day we both sit down into a K2 I know will be a day spent swimming, so the sooner we can get practicing the better.

Sessions per week. Week 18

Owain SPW = 3
Gym 47 kayaking 4 other 3

Nigel SPW = 1.22
Gym 19 kayaking 2 other 1

Thursday 29/01/09

2009-01-30T09:29:00.000Z

Rowing machine. 5 minutes. I thought I would try and make the rowing machine a bit more interesting by making a note of how many metres it claims I will have covered in the 5 minutes and then trying to beat that distance each time. Sadly, I have forgotten how far I went. I know it was a little over 1000 metres.

Chest exercises but without the pectoral fly machine as it was still broken.

Dumbbell bench press. 12kgs. 3 sets of 15. Is tough at the 9th rep but all three sets were done to completion.

Dumbbell shoulder press. 3 sets of 15 at 10kgs. I was supposed to do this exercise today and chose a weight I can actually lift this time out. All three sets to completion.

Twisted sit ups. 2 sets of 20 on each side. Twisting my body to the right I get some good crunches going but I can’t seem to get it right on the left had side and end up struggling.

Situps with the medicine ball. 1 set of 20. Stomach crunching over, I was feeling the pain by now.

Cardio time. I was heading back to the treadmill. I programmed in 30 minutes at 7.2mph. I increased the elevation a couple of times and managed about 15 minutes of running before my left ankle began to throb again. I aborted save doing myself some stupid injury.

Cardio was finished with 30 minutes solid swimming.

Wednesday 28/01/09

2009-01-29T12:08:00.000Z

I had a day off on Monday (because of how hard a fitness session I put in on Sunday) so it didn’t seem right that I should also take off my new designated Wednesday rest day off too. I wish I had though, The gym was the busiest I have ever seen it.

The Pectoral fly machine has been broken for a couple of days so I have avoided my exercises that accompany that machine. So it was the turn of the back muscles last night.

Warm up Rowing machine. 5 minutes today I couldn’t face spending any longer on this accursed machine. I’m going to have to speak to Fitness Stu the next time we update my plan to see if I can have another more interesting warm up.

Cable Row. 3 sets of 15. 10kgs. My forearm muscles were stronger last night and I was able to carry out the sets to completion so now my trapezius muscles on my upper back are pretty achy.

While on the cable machine I did the weighted crunches, targeting my abs. 3 sets of 20 at 7kgs.

Lat pull down inverted grip. 3 sets of 15. 39kgs. Pretty easy. I might even try upping the weight a notch next time to see how it feels.

Abs again. Twisted sit ups. 2 sets of 15 on each side of my body.

And then sit ups with the medicine ball. 2 sets of as many as I can do… Which was about 20ish.

Cardio. Cross trainer 30 minutes. Increasing the difficulty every 5 minutes… Only I didn’t manage thirty minutes. I did ten. I was feeling crowded out so resolved to finish my cardio session in the swimming pool. This was also a mistake as the pool was packed as well. I sat in the steam room for 20 minutes instead and got jolly hot.

I am thinking my ankle is fixed. It no longer aches when I drive and the bruising seems to have gone. I am going to have a go with the treadmill tonight and see how I cope. I might alternate treadmill and cross trainer for a little while so the joint isn’t subjected to 30 minutes of pounding ever single day.

Tuesday 28/01/09

2009-01-28T14:33:00.000Z

I had a bloody good thought while I was on the cross trainer last night. Currently I am struggling to find a suitable two man kayak. There seems to be nothing on eBay and the cost of a new boat is too much. This year I had already planned on going to Devizes to understand what will happen. Well I’m thinking of asking around (maybe with a leaflet campaign) to buy a boat that won’t be wanted after the 2009 race. There must be some people paddling the DW who are planning on getting rid of their craft or have a spare 2 man loitering in their garage. Here’s hoping anyway.

I have also been looking around on the internet to see who else is blogging their progress. I have found some goodun’s where I am going to keep up with their efforts, and I have found some absolute shockers. One of which made me chuckle. Within the space of two weeks this guy decided he was going to do the race, started a blog, did a bit of training and the ditched the whole enterprise.

For the last couple of weeks I have been wondering how I am going to shift the few inches of spare tyre that I have, in discussions with Fitness Stu his advice was simple. Cardio. So with that in mind I have been pushing on.

6 minutes on the rowing machine. I did the additional minute just for the additional 60 seconds of cardio. Still boring, made worse because the TV below the rowing machine didn’t have the text subtitles on so I had no idea how much that antique they found in the attic actually sold for.

Doing all of the exercises on Sunday turns out to have been a bit of a mistake as it messed up my routine, I started again with the arm exercises though.

Concentrated curl. 3 sets 15 reps. 2kgs.

Seated curls with dumbbells. 3 sets. 15 reps. 10kgs.

Shoulder press with dumbbells. First off I’m not sure if I should have been doing this exercise at all this day but I couldn’t remember what I should have been doing. I also couldn’t remember what weight I should have been doing and as I didn’t want to keep getting up to have a look at my card I guessed at 12.5kgs. I only managed 2 sets of 10 reps with the sudden realisation that my usual weight with the exercise must be much less.

Weighted crunch. 7kgs. 3 sets of 20.

Cross trainer cardio. I had to dig deep with this one for some reason last night. Started at level 6. Made my way up to level 10 (incrementally pushing it up a notch every five minutes) nearly burst a blood vessel and then wound it back to 6 for the last 5 minutes. The only thing that kept me going was the Fitness Stu’s words about cardio and the increasing worry that I’m not going to be physically able to complete the 125 miles of the race.

Food glorious food!

2009-01-27T09:58:00.008Z

A Christmas present from my little sister was a book called Food for Fitness by Anita Bean. This is a book that takes food and fitness and mixes them up with some science and a smattering of maths which I think is a brilliant combination. It tells you what you should be eating before after and during training how much you should be eating and what is good and bad.

The trouble with the book is that it requires some working out what quantities you (or in this case, I) should be eating and this takes a little bit of time. I have however finally sat down with pen, paper and calculator and tried to make sense of what she is telling me.

Eating well is about eating the correct amount, in the right proportions of the different food groups, and the first step is to work out your calorific needs.

Start by working out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) this is how many calories your body needs to sustain itself. Working out my BMR, I expend something like 1690 calories while I am doing absolutely nothing, just sitting around chilling my boots.

Then you need to identify your PAL (Physical Activity Level). This is just a way of putting a number onto your levels of physical exertion. I plumped for “Moderate activity” Which I think is fair.

By doing some maths to your PAL and BMR you work out your calorific needs for a single day. I need something like 2366 calories per day to keep up with my pace of life.

These calories come from different sources as the body needs different compounds for its upkeep. With some percentage based maths I worked out I need 345 grams of carbohydrate (1380 calories). 90 grams of protein (360 calories) and around about 60 grams of good fat (monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and Omega-3) (590 calories).

The rest of the calories are discretionary which I can have in the form of rich sugars and alcohol. As my discretionary calories amount to about 35 calories a day even if I stop taking sugar in my tea I’m not going to get very drunk.

Actually, while talking about alcohol, in moderation is a good thing and can raise HDL cholesterol (the good stuff), red wine even has stuff in it which lowers bad cholesterol.

Anyway. I made a note of everything I ate and drank yesterday, it is a pretty typical weekday fare.

Drink.
1 cup of coffee. 1 sugar. Semi skimmed milk.
5 cups of tea. 1 sugar. Semi skimmed milk.
2 glasses of water.
2 glasses of white wine. Chardonnay. (Jacobs Creek).

Food.
6 ham and cheese and tomato sandwiches.
1 packet of Doritos Tangy Cheese crisps.
Parma ham wrapped chicken breast with cream cheese and pesto with fresh Tortellini with spinach and Ricotta.

Before I started this I was convinced that I had a good healthy balanced diet (with maybe the exception of the packet of crisps and the glasses of wine. Both of which were exceptions to my general weekday consumption) but on paper it doesn’t look like I am eating to my best.

Mondays totals worked out at 2,566 calories. That’s 200 calories over my daily limit. This equates to a weight gain of about 0.2kgs per week which does fit nicely with my observed weight gain. This isn’t so much a bad thing, as I am happy to put on a bit of weight however I still have a couple of reserves of fat sitting on my obliques (my love handles) which I want to deplete first so I might try to eliminate 200 calories from my diet for a couple of months.

Added up I consumed about 165 grams of carbohydrates. That is 180 grams less than recommended. This is not so good actually as carbohydrates are the first source of energy that the muscles turn to and I seem to be well short of what I should be eating.

Protein 139 grams. I should have about 90 grams of protein in my diet, so I am eating 49 grams more than recommended.

Added up I had 91.2 grams of fat in my days eating, which is 31.6 grams more than is recommended. I didn’t look deep enough into my diet to see if the fats are the good fats or bad fats but where possible I try to use olive oil in my cooking and I try to avoid sources of saturated and trans fats.

I didn’t really go into the minutia of the foods composition, which carbohydrates are high in GI, what vitamins and minerals are in each item, how much salt is in each dish, etc. But that will be my next task over the coming weeks. I’m not too worried about those things yet as I haven’t got the proportions of carbohydrates, fats and Proteins balanced yet.

I am going to go away and devise a brand spanking new diet based on my recommended numbers and will post it here in the near future.

Weekend

2009-01-26T11:16:00.002Z

Friday afternoon was the turn of my arms.

Concentrated curl on the cable machine. 15 reps. 3 sets. 2kgs. This builds the depth of the bicep.

Seated dumbbell curls. 3 sets of 15. I have upped the weight on this from 7.5kgs to 10kgs as I have been finding it easy for a few weeks. It makes me smile to think back when I first started this and I was barely able to lift half of this weight.

Triceps pull down. 3 sets of 15 at 5kgs. The triceps tire really quickly for some reason. First set no problem. Second set pain. Third set can’t finish.

Cardio. Avoiding the running machine I put myself onto the cross trainer. 30 minutes. Increased the difficulty level every five minutes until my heart was going to explode.

I had 20 minutes swimming before heading home.

Saturday morning we took the dogs up Pontesford hill. It was a leisurely hour long walk but my ankle was really sore again afterwards. I can’t blame it on the trainers this time as I was wearing my hiking boots which usually offer all the support I need. Rules are simple, I need to rest the joint until the swelling and bruising go down.

Sunday was another mission to the gym, this time accompanied with my other half and I did everything. Every single exercise that fitness Stu had on my plan I worked through.

I was struggling with fatigue though. My body seems more comfortable exercising at 5pm rather than at 2pm. I don’t know but I suspect that it has something to do with the level of food still making it’s way through my system, or it might be because I am in the throes of a cold at the moment (I’m not going to make a big thing of this cold as it isn’t very debilitating. I have a sore throat and I am sneezing a lot, that’s all).
Because I did everything I can’t actually remember the reps sets and weights from Sundays trip, I know I am pretty achy today so I worked hard (or this cold is getting worse).

Week 17

2009-01-23T12:36:00.001Z

I really feel like I am getting somewhere with my level of fitness now, almost to the point of wishing I had a boat so that I could have a pop at this years DW race, and the competitive spirit in me has me looking all over the place for various races and things that I can enter into.

This week has also seen me spending an unhealthy amount of time in front of the mirror. I have burned off most of the fat I accumulated over Christmas and new muscles are popping up all over the place. :)

Its a shame about the ankle injury though. various sources seem to be pinning the blame for it firmly on my trainers (or more specifically the left trainer as my right foot is fine). They're either not offering enough support for the type of running gait that I have or I have the laces done up too tightly. I'm going to research some more and may come back with some more info.

Sessions per week.

Owain SPW = 2.88
Gym 42 kayaking 4 other 3

Nigel SPW = 1.38
Gym 19 kayaking 2 other 1

Thursday 23/01/09

2009-01-23T09:23:00.000Z

I can’t seem to do a full week. I ran out of steam on Wednesday. Partly because of the ankle pain but partly I wanted to spend a full evening at home. So from now on rather than planning on training and then letting myself down, from now on Wednesday is a rest day.

Warm up. 5 minutes. Rowing machine made slightly more tedious with no iPod, as I have neglected to charge it up until now.

Lat Pull down. Inverted grip. 3 sets of 15 at 39kgs. My gripping muscle in my forearm is where I feel the most burn and the third set is a killer.

Erector spinae on the ball. Basically lying on the ball and arching my back upwards, keep going until I can do no more. I feel quite self conscious doing this one so that I probably stop before I have reached my limits.

The cable machine was occupied so I moved across to work on the abdominal exercises for a bit.

Twisted crunches. 2 sets of 20 on either side. This looks a little bit like I am doubled over in agony and the last couple of crunches really do hurt, with a sort of white agony. No pain no gain though.

Sit ups with medicine ball. I quite enjoy these, in the same way I feel really daft doing the erector spinae things on the pilates ball, I feel really quite cool doing this. Kept going to failure which was about 20 or so sit ups.

Seated dips, working the triceps. I upped the weight one notch to 42kgs as the 36kgs has been very easy for a while now. 3 sets of 15.

Cable row. 10kgs, 3 sets of 15. again my forearm muscle which engages my grip was the part of me that began to feel the burn before any other muscle group. Managed to complete the sets though.

Weighted crunches to work the abs again. I upped the weight to 8kgs (from the 6kgs I started with a week or so ago) as I was finding it too easy. 3 sets of 20. No problem.

Cardio. I was conscious that my ankle was sore so I took it easy. 7.2mph planned for 30 minutes. 10 minutes in I had to stop though as my left ankle was starting to hurt a little bit.

I moved across to the pool and finished off the cardio with 20 minutes hard swimming instead.

This morning the left ankle was red, sore, and swollen and has me limping around. I am changing my cardio from the treadmill to the cross trainer so that I can keep the effort up but I am aware that I am not running, which is not great preparation for a half marathon. And more crucially, is my ankle strong enough to take the 13 miles of street pounding in this coming Half in March?