October, 2009 | Matt Gets Running

The Tide Is High, I’m Holding On…

Actually, to be fair, the tide wasn’t high. My run took me along the Portway again tonight, next to the river, and it was very much low tide, with the steep, muddy banks of the Avon glistening on my port side.

But I was listening to Blondie’s Greatest Hits, so the song was in my mind 🙂

I’m surprised how blasé I’m getting about running now. When I got home, I quickly got my stuff together and got out of the door, conscious of the dwindling light, and just decided to do 5K.

So, a nice simple run, on the flat, tonight. It was fine overall, there was a good bit at the end. I was just coming around the corner on the way back, where the full width of the Suspension Bridge expands into view across the Avon Gorge, and the half-hour beep went off. So, I knew that if I could finish my 5km in less than six minutes, I’d have beaten my previous time.

So, I picked up my pace, just as Denis burst into my earbuds, and kept going fast for the last five minutes. In the end, I shaved a minute off my previous time, coming in at just a tad over 35 minutes. Here’s the full details where you can see my little tail-end burst of speed on the graph.

So, it’s all good. Think I’ll head up to the Downs again for the weekend’s jogging, so I can go when it’s nice and light…

Well, That Was Easier Than I Thought It Would Be

Wow! I just ran up Bridge Valley Road.

Well, I say “ran”; actual runners might take issue. But it was a definite jog, at least. I’d dug around for advice on teh intarwebs, and basically just started off the hill nice and slowly, with a shorter pace than my on-the-flat running. And I kept it slow and steady, and I just kept on going. All the way up Bridge Valley Road, from the Portway by the river to the height of the Suspension Bridge.

And then I just kept on going. The path I chose initially turned out not to be lit, damn it, so I plugged carefully away on that until I saw a chance to turn and head for the glowier Clifton residential area, which turned out to be about my halfway point anyway.

Then I jogged through Clifton, back down to Hotwells, and home. I stopped to take this photo of the Suspension Bridge (forgive the blurriness; the iPhone did a valiant job, but this was handheld in the dark), but apart from that I just kept on jogging. Given the warm-up at the beginning and a shorter warm-down at the end, I’d guess I ran a tad under 5km.

And I could have carried on. This is quite gratifying; it’s going to be a lot easier to get better at hills if I can actually run all the way up a decent one right now, albeit slowly. And it puts the Downs within my reach, with enough energy to do a half-decent loop while I’m up there.

Now all I’ve got to do is figure out which paths are actually lit at night! Might do a bit of digging with Google Streetview before I head out again…

Uphill Struggle

Just a quick check-in: I’m still alive.

My run today was a bit rubbish — I’d forgotten that bit of the A4 Portway between me and my target hill, Bridge Valley Road, was closed all day today. They’re doing rockface safety checks, basically making sure that no falling rocks are likely to kill any pedestrians or knock any cars into the river.

So, I got as far as the “footpath closed” sign and had to turn around. Instead, I tried to head pretty much straight from my place up to Clifton Village, which is a fair bit steeper, I think.

My route ended up looking like this on RunKeeper.com. Note the elevation graph — 80 metres upwards in about a kilometre.

I couldn’t keep going for long. I had to stop a couple of times for a rest, once to walk, once to stop completely and get my breath back for a couple of minutes.

So, I definitely need more practice on hills. But hey, it was pretty nice once I got up there, so I really want to get to the stage where I can run all the way up to the Downs and still have enough breath left to jog around them.

I think I’m just going to have to stick to my plan to run up Bridge Valley Road — making sure it’s actually open first — and try to get a little further up it without stopping every time. I figure the only way to get better at hills is just to keep on trying!

It’s All Uphill From Here

So, tomorrow I should do another run, if I’m going to keep up my normal pattern. And I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do.

It’s time to tackle something different. Something terrifying.

A hill.

Those of you who know Bristol know that it’s mainly hills, in fact. There’s not many flat bits, and you can rarely get from one bit of Bristol to another without going up or down a hill.

I’m lucky, being down by the harbour, that there’s a few flat routes I can take from my place. So I stuck to those for the C25K. One challenge at a time, I figured.

But now the hills are calling. Specifically, Bridge Valley Road, which the Bristol Running Resource calls “a fantastic hill”.

But then that was probably written by someone who can already run up hills 🙂

Bridge Valley Road runs from the A4 Portway, where I’ve been running recently, right up to the Downs, a huge area of pleasant grass with all sorts of nice routes for a runner. The only teensy drawback is that it also runs from river level up to the height of the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

This might be a bit more than I can chew, even if I take it in slow, bite-sized steps ((excuse my mixed metaphors)). Nevertheless, if I can eventually get good enough to run up it, then it’ll (a) make for some bloody good training, and (b) add the whole of the Downs to my potential running area.

So, tomorrow morning, I’m going to give it a go. If it goes well, I’ll report back. If it goes badly, please donate what’s left of me to medical science.

What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been

FX: Fanfare. Brrrrup-pa-pa-pa-pa-paaa-paaaah!

Whoo-hoo! Tonight was Week 9, Run 3 of the Couch to 5K. Earlier on, I made a decision about tonight. Instead of the time, it would be about the distance.

Because I don’t think, in all honesty, that you can say you’ve completed the Couch to 5K until you’ve actually, you know, run 5K.

So, for my final run I made the hard decision to put aside Get Running and instead dig out RunKeeper. Because while Get Running has been my steadfast companion, and while I still hugely prefer Clare’s voice and Ben’s fab user interface, Get Running won’t measure your distance, and RunKeeper will.

So I set it up to give me a five minute warm-up, a five minute cool-down, and two 2.5km stretches of running in between (so I’d know when to turn around at halfway.)

And I got running.

Tonight I went out along the main road on the other side of the river from my normal towpath route — a good choice, because it’s getting dark early now, and the towpath is unlit.

As I’ve noticed before, a rubbish night of struggling running, like Tuesday’s effort, is often followed by a nice easy run, and tonight was no exception. I just ran, and it felt pretty easy, and there was never any point at which I felt like I wanted to stop. I ran all the way out, I turned around when RunKeeper told me my 2.5km was done, and I ran all the way back. Job done!

So, I can now in all good conscience say that I’ve completed the C25K! And I’ve run 5K for the first time in my life. Yabbadabbadoo!

Anyway. Must go get my celebratory pizza out of the oven. More running to come on this blog at some point soon, but in the meantime, I’d like to say a quick thank you to Benjohn, Arline, Tiff, and anyone else who’s helped out, commented, or just been reading my running witterings as I’ve done this.

For posterity, here’s the route (including the warm-up and cool-down.) Hit the view details link for all the stats:

Chequered flag image by nionx, on stockxpert.com.