A new Personal Best, A serious training week

Those sweet words. A time marked by my own watch, and then an adjusted time on that email on Saturday afternoon.




Congratulations on setting a new Personal Best by 5 seconds at Richmond Park parkrun! Congratulations on setting a new Years Best time today.


It has taken me 2 years and 2 months to shave only seconds off my best time on this course.

Have I not tried hard? Yes and no. In the last few visits, however, I have learnt my lessons and have made some improvements - mainly, getting there earlier, not stopping and drinking the right stuff beforehand.

In fact the last week's training have been focused on the one big time robber - stopping. My last Parkrun I stopped twice, the one before I stopped once.

In the last week, my focus in training has been not stopping. With my new shoes (yes, finally! an asics gt-3000 as t-194n are phased out) and armed with my benchmarks lap and interval times at the park next to my office, I was able to make 2 sessions of this. No stopping around the big loop, slow. Then to and fro, and to again. I concluded that a 0.5 mile interval was probably too long to see improvements in results, but by doing 3 in a row, I am implanting
the effort I need to put in to get those few seconds off...
It wasn't easy given the general late nights and things on my plate recently. But I get the idea.

Now, for the second bit in the note..
You achieved an age-graded score of 55.06%. For an explanation of age-grading, please see the WAVA age grading overview

Very interesting to know that the world record holder at my age can run 45% faster than me!

A great race time predictor follows on from the link
http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/racepaces/rp

This shows that I'm really borderline to break my 2hour again in 13.1miles unless I pick up my game.

I have open a page from an old copy of runners world, a training plan for a sub-2. Halfway through the timetable I am, with 4 weeks to go.
This weekend, a long slow run of 10 miles @ 10:27min/ mile..

Tick, on the mileage but not the pacing. A very nice summery morning spent exploring the wey navigation with only the 3rd and 10th mile hitting close or below this target pace...all in the name of exploration..well, at least 2 more miles covered at this same time as my last long run 2 weeks ago at chobham!



Can't believe it's July already and the next race is only a week and a half away! And a performance at the office bbq on Thursday ..and then the next 10km on Sunday...and quarter-end at work..

Needing my quality sleep to cope with all this. Tomorrow will be a rest day, exercisewise.

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Chobham Common

A week of no activity - cooped up with squeezing every minute to get through my to-do's...is a bad idea.

A short run would energise - as inspired by a girl I see running outside my cul-de-sac most mornings when I'm at home. Not in my type of running gear, but she's our there doing it. In the evening, when I drove out, she was doing round 2!

I'm saying this as my only run last week, was on the Saturday, and I paid for it. In a good way, as we explored for the first time - Chobham Common, and getting lost meant extra mileage...




The sights however, were rewarding. That's what trail running is about - not watching time (too much) - being in touch with nature, and training muscles that one doesn't always use in road running or treadmill.




8.8 miles in 1:55 on my feet with frequent reference to my iPhone to get us back to the right track... I was exhausted and my right foot, imbalanced.

***
Thereafter, a week of some activity every day. Just over a month to Wimbledon half, need to start training. Kicked myself hard - intervals on the treadmill on Monday, cycling Tuesday, a brief lunchtime run on Wednesday (sunburnt on the back of my neck?) and now, another morning run to the station.

Feeling more energized, but its humid, and its not feeling easy at all. Will it get easier when it gets warmer in the next month? It just needs to be, with the extra mileage I'm putting in!
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Baguette and Chateau runs

Back from a week away in the Loire Valley and then a week of glorious sunshine at home - lots of time outdoors and less time to update...

Staying in a house in a 'remote' location for a week makes for perfect training conditions: less than 15 minutes cycling to the closest boulangerie for the group's daily baguette runs,




and an almost daily 'interval' jog around the hill where the house was - 2 loops is almost a 5k and rotating between running clockwise, and anti clockwise - to rotate the balance on the legs.

As there were no tall structures around I had every reason to believe the accuracy of the GPS maps and the consistently sub 9:45 min miles I have been churning.




But consistency is the key and I ran out time to perfect it.

The previous week had been one identifying baselines for interval training but struggling to find the balance between enjoying a sunny ride almost to home (20 mile cycle day on a work day!) or to get 290litres of soil out for a new raised veggie patch, or actually hitting out the miles.

Had a good hour in the park next to my office last week - 5k Parkrun and then a few intervals in few locations. So close - that I could go out again day after day after day. But... The morning traffic? The unending pile of work? Would an hour outside make the real difference or will it be one laden with guilt when deadlines loom :(

Over the weekend I focused on running slow and not stopping on my long run, 7 miler to old Windsor. I cannot run too slow at the start, but slowed down when approaching a turning point, except for the second last mile.

Maybe it is the mindset? How to be slow and steady?


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