Very quick catchup — did a simple 5K last night. I think I was a bit faster than my recent averages, but it’s hard to tell, as I added a timed walking warm-up to this, and RunKeeper still, annoyingly, doesn’t knock off the warm-up from its average speed pace calculations, so the five minutes of walking skewed the pace calculation.
Anyway. Enough wittering. This was just a quick checkin, as I’ve got a few busy days in a row right now…
After last Sunday’s disastrous couldn’t-even-run run, a happy return to normal this morning. I didn’t get out for a mid-week run — that plan got clobbered by a Flickr meet and going to see William Gibson at the Bristol Festival of Ideas. But I finally got out today, and did a very similar route to last weekend — just 5K up Bridge Valley Road, down Ladies Mile, and back to Clifton Village. Except this weekend I kept running.
So, who knows? Maybe I was tired, maybe I was dehydrated, maybe it was just Gyles Brandreth’s godawful performance on the News Quiz that I was listening to that put me off last Sunday. Whatever. I shall try to get out mid-week this week, as it looks like I’ll be too busy to run next weekend. So maybe I’ll do a couple of mid-week jogs if I can…
Well, that run was rubbish. In fact, it wasn’t even a run. For some reason, when I got to the top of Bridge Valley Road, I lost all motivation. It seemed partly physical, partly mental — I just gave up, really. I tried to push on and run again after I’d walked for a bit to get my breath, but it didn’t really happen. In the end, I alternated jogging and walking, and cut today’s route short at just over 5K.
I really don’t know why this should be. Sometimes, I’ve heard, you just have bad days — but this is really the first terrible day I’ve had, where I’ve actually given up and started walking. Looking back in the archives, even on a horrible day last year, I managed to keep jogging.
I found a couple of articles that talk about bad running days — one from HubPages, and one from Running Times. They cite possibilities including sleep, food, illness, hydration, shoes, mental health and the weather. And some of these are quite possible. I woke up with a bit of a headache this morning, feeling like I’d not slept that well. Plus my food intake’s probably been a bit excessive, and included a few more of the wrong things, since I went holiday. And who knows? Maybe I’m just coming down with something, or at least fighting it off — everybody around me seems to have a cold or flu at the moment.
So. Not much I can do about it, really, other than trying to live a little bit better over the next few days, perhaps cutting down on the caffeine a bit (another habit that’s crept back since the holiday), getting to bed early, and trying to wrestle my food intake back towards smaller, more healthy options. And hope my mid-week run goes okay this week. I’ll probably try Wednesday, but it’ll depend on the weather…
Just a quick 5K down the Portway for me this evening. After I got back, I signed up for one of RunKeeper’s new “virtual FitnessClasses”, which I’m hoping will give me a training plan to stick to through the winter.
My half-marathon speed was really quite rubbish — hardly surprising given that I’ve never pushed myself to go faster in training (and, of course, I’m quite lardy, and it was my first one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud and happy that I did a half marathon at all!) So I’ve signed up for the 17-week “Break a 2 hour 20 minute half marathon” plan.
I’m liking the idea of these virtual fitness classes, which I’m presuming will deliver plans straight to RunKeeper for iPhone to save me having to think too hard about what day I’m up to in the plan or what I should be doing on that day (though the blog post isn’t clear on exactly how it works.) The other nice aspect is the social one — I and a bunch of other RunKeeper users from all across the planet will be doing the training plan at the same time, and we’ll be able to see each others’ progress, too, which should give a good feeling of solidarity.
I don’t know how likely I am to increase my speed that much in seventeen weeks — bear in mind my time for the Bristol Half was 02:53:43, so I’d have to knock more than half an hour off! But hopefully the regular interval training that’s part of the plan will get me going a bit faster, at least. And it’ll be good to have a solid, three-times-a-week plan to take me through the winter.
One thing that strikes me as truly unrealistic about this fitness class: will I really get out for a 20km jog on Boxing Day? I’m pretty sure I’ll still be weighed down by turkey and stuffing from the day before!
Okay, my momentum’s pretty much disappeared recently. I’ve done very little since the half-marathon, though I did go for a little walk with my dad while I was on holiday, at least. And hey, doing a half marathon and then going on holiday for a week is a reasonable reason for losing momentum, I think 🙂
Still, time to ease back into it, so even though I was tired I forced myself out of the door to do a basic 3K in the last of today’s autumn sunshine. Because when you’ve lost momentum, I’ve found it’s helpful to start back up slowly.
Well, it’s been a very lazy month so far, in some ways. Today’s 5K jog was only the second bit of running I’ve done all month.
Of course, this was mostly because the first bit of running was the half marathon, and I decided to give myself a week’s break both before and after it, just because sometimes it’s good to give yourself a rest, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity.
But, back to normal now — well, apart from an upcoming holiday, where I shall probably be walking around bits of Crete with my dad rather than jogging — and I think it’s probably time to start working on my speed (or lack of it) to try to get a bit more “bang for my buck”, in terms of calories burned and endorphins produced. So, that might be my autumn and winter training — getting a bit faster.
I also want to drop some more weight, I think. I’ve used the half-marathon as an excuse to eat fairly disgracefully for the last couple of weeks — and frankly, I feel very little guilt about that! — but it’s probably time to start reining in the calorie count again…
Anyway. I’ll probably get out for a jog on Wednesday this week. See you then!
Today’s half marathon — my first — went pretty well all round. I was a bit worried by the amount of rain I could hear before I set out, but it turned into occasional drizzle for the race, which is perfect jogging weather, really — no need to worry about overheating.
I kept jogging from the start line all the way around, with a few-minute interlude queuing for the toilet right at the end of the Portway section — this may be Too Much Information, but frankly I’ve always had a bit of a shy bladder, so weeing in the bushes as 10,000 other people jog past is quite difficult for me. Shame there weren’t more portaloos, really, I could have done without hanging around in a queue for as long as I did…
I felt fine through the whole Portway section, and only really started flagging when we got to around the eighth mile, at the start of Cumberland Road. I grabbed a Lucozade thingy from the helpful army people handing them out around there, though, and also ate half my Mule energy bar thing as I trogged down Cumberland Road and into town. I don’t know if that really helped — frankly I’m not keen to try a control experiment of doing another half marathon without them!
The city section was definitely the hardest. My thighs were starting to become a bid leaden, plus you have to jog within about half a mile of the finish line, but go past it and on a circuitous route around Queen Square, through Redcliffe and around Castle Park and back. That last hill up Wine Street was a bit of a killer.
Still, the good thing about the city section is that there are people here there and everywhere cheering you on, and reminding you that there’s only three miles left to go, then only two miles left to go, then finally you’re on the last mile and you know you’re going to finish.
I kept jogging all the way to the end, though I didn’t have anything left for a final burst of speed. It was all I could do to keep standing up, frankly.
I saw a few familiar faces, mostly from Twitter, on the way around, meeting @jorence on the way to the start, waving at @mikeotaylor on the way past the starting line, and apparently @parryphernalia saw me coming through the finish, though I was too intent on just keeping going without actually dying to notice… Apologies if you saw me and waved and I carried on oblivious; I was trying to stay vaguely aware of my surroundings, but it’s quite easy to descend into “tunnel vision” as you go along.
Looks like my time will be somewhere around three hours; my RunKeeper log suggests 3:03:38, but I did set it off a little in advance of hitting the starting line, so I can’t be sure whether I’ll be over or under 3 hours. But frankly, who cares? I just ran my first half marathon!
EDIT: whoo hoo! Just checked the website, and my official time is now in. I must have set my timer off a fair bit in advance of the start, as it turns out, as my time was… 02:53:43! So, comfortably under three hours, and I’m very happy indeed with that.
Of the non-Twitter people, the ones I was expecting to see didn’t let me down. My friends Mike and Jess were there near the finish to cheer me on, and picked me up afterwards to walk me up to Rocotillos and buy me one of their utterly deadly milkshakes — this time I had a cookie dough milkshake, extra thick, and I think that pretty much replaced all of the 2,362 calories I’d just burned off, according to the RunKeeper log.
So, a success all round! No injuries, no blisters. Some fairly serious aches, though. I’ve just emerged gingerly from a very long Radox bath, and I’ve taken tomorrow off work so I don’t have to do much more than lie around on a sofa watching telly, which is probably all I’ll be good for…
Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. Looks like I’ll end up raising more than £500 for Cancer Research, once my company matches the donations, which is fantastic.
Anyway. I just mentioned a sofa and a telly, didn’t I? Sounds like a good idea right now…
I was going to get out mid-week this week and do a little run, but it rained for pretty much five days solid, and especially heavily on Wednesday, which was otherwise my best running option.
Luckily the weather seems to have cleared up a bit for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I nipped out to Leigh Woods this morning and did about 9km. Or pretty much exactly 9km, in fact; that seemed a reasonable enough point to stop running and walk the rest of the way back to the Suspension Bridge. Don’t want to overdo it!
Today’s photo was taken from the northern ridge of Leigh Woods, looking towards Clifton and the modern spire of Clifton Cathedral.
Anyway. This time next Sunday, hopefully, I’ll have finished my first half-marathon. I guess the main thing to do this week is to get lots of sleep, eat healthily, and give my legs a bit of a rest…
Just back from a jog, for the first time since the Wednesday before last. Giving my hip a bit of a rest seems to have helped. Today I ran pretty much all the way around the entire green bit on the map — must make sure I include that last little triangle next time, just for completeness’ sake — for a total of 8.88km.
While bits of me still ache a little, I’m not feeling as bad as I felt last weekend. Cycling is clearly a good enough “rest” for when I’ve overdone the jogging or walking, which is good to know.
So, two weeks to go to the half marathon, and I can definitely run almost halfway 🙂 I think, assuming the weather is neither blazing hot sunshine or a complete downpour, that I should probably be able to get through 21K the Sunday after next, if I take it steady.
Which is a good opportunity to plug my JustGiving page again, where the donations to Cancer Research currently stand at £100, thanks to you, dear reader, and some of the lovely people on Twitter.
I think I can raid the generous pockets of people at work with an actual paper sponsor form as well, to help me get to my target of £250 (because my company will match donations up to £250, it seemed like a good target.)
I think I’ll go out for a couple of short runs in the next seven days, then give myself a complete week’s rest before the half marathon…
Cycling up Bridge Valley Road, to be precise. Steep.
Although it’s clearly not all the same muscles that get used by cycling and running, at least the aerobic fitness from running is transferable. I could never have cycled up Bridge Valley Road this time last year. Today, on a nearly 9K-cycle ride that took me up and around the Downs, I managed it without stopping. Albeit slowly. Maybe I’ve learned to pace myself a bit, too…
It didn’t feel like as much exercise as running even 5K, but at least it was some exercise, and it doesn’t seem to be aggravating my hip.
I’m going to give myself a couple of days’ rest and probably try a little jog at the weekend, just see how things are feeling.
