Monday, January 25, 2016

London Training 2016 - Week 4 - Back to Basics

This week was about going back to basics:-

  • Increasing training time regardless of pace.
  • Re-introducing drills and strides
  • Adding in X-training where necessary
As I said last week - the X-country was a wake up call for me to up my training time each week regardless of pace. Unfortunately that got slightly sidelined this week with two days quite ill with a very sore throat and horrendous head. Whilst that has improved over the weekend and I've gotten back training I'm still not perfect.

Despite this I've managed to run for an extra hour over the week which is a small step forward. I'm more pleased though with getting my x-training going properly with 6 hours worth of exercise biking helping me increase the volume of low intensity training without the injury risk of added mileage. My quads have been sore for a while as a result but generally this tends to help me.

I've done two (three?) significant periods of exercise biking before in my life - both leading to pretty good results.

The first was in the winter of 2008 when an achilles injury had put me out of action over the summer. When I returned to Oxford I knew I wouldn't be able to make the Blues or Seconds team that year but I was determined to at least run my best come Varsity.

Being a student I didn't have a lot else to do but train and whilst I didn't hit huge volumes I was supplementing my running with a lot of biking. This meant that when I returned to running I regained fitness at a very quick rate. Come the end of term I had moved up to finishing 2nd in the 3rds to a very strong Carl Assmundsen. Thankfully this wasn't the end though as I followed it up with a couple of 33:mid 10ks, a 9:17 3km and 26:19 5 miler in December and then one of my best XC races in January where I finished in the top ten at the Herts County XC despite wearing road shoes and taking a fall.

At the time those results all represented PBs or very near to PBs and more importantly my body was strong enough to race hard multiple times in a month!

The second time was in the summer of 2009. After picking up a groin injury following clocking a big 32:15 10,000m (split 16:15 / 16:00)  I was unable to walk let alone run. I then got selected to run for the South of England - one of my big dreams! Knowing I needed to run well on the day I absolutely hammered my exercise bike for several hours each day. I only started to be able to run a few weeks before the race but quickly found that I was still in reasonable shape. Whilst still unhappy with my performance in the South vest a small PB off of limited training showed that *something* had gone right.

So now with London approaching and myself definitely out of shape I'm going to pick up the cross-training and see if it helps me add some additional fitness and put me into racing shape. Whilst my total running time only increased by an hour this week the addition of 6 hours cross-training should represent a big bump as I follow the example set by Meb Keflizghi with his EliptiGo training even whilst clocking upwards of 100 miles a week of running.

This week the aim will be to get in about 2 hours / day of easy running including strides and drills and keep up with cross-training. If I feel good maybe a light session towards the end of the week.

Weight continues to come down - as someone that really struggles to lose weight this is good news.

Training Table Week 4

Week Commencing Mileage Time Running Average Pace Key Sessions Longest Run Most Efficient Run Sunday Weight
28th December 2015
55.4
6h 22m
6:54mm
Newport XC
9.1 miles
952 BPM
11 st 13.25 lbs
4th January 2016
54.4
6h 57m
7:40mm
15 miles / 7:21mm
995 BPM
11 st 13 lbs
11th January 2016
63.2
8h 20m (+2h XT )
7:57mm
16 miles / 9:12mm
N/A
11 st 10.25 lbs
18th January 2016
61.8
9h 30m
(+ 6h XT )
9:13mm
None
9.7 miles / 8:36mm
N/A
11 st
8.5 lbs

Monday, January 18, 2016

London Training 2016 - Week 3



So continued progress but also a bit of a reality check as to quite how unfit I am.

Monday: Steady run - quite a decent run with some low 6 minute miling at the end (9)
Tuesday: Track - 4 x mile off 2 minutes (5:34, 5:35, 5:36, 5;34) (11)
Wednesday: 6 recovery into work (6)
Thursday: Tempo 2 x medium lap at 5:52mm (8)
Friday: Rest - 5 hours Ski practice at Hemel Hempstead
Saturday: long wu + Surrey XC League 102nd at 6:19mm (12) + 2 hours x-training on exercise bike
Sunday: 16 with absolutely knackered quads around Richmond Park ~9mm

Total: 63.2

After last week struggling a bit this was an improvement and mileage has increased a bit but more importantly my total minutes run has increased substantially. This is often a better measure for me of my training than mileage or pace of runs.

I have however realised that my races over Xmas weren't just an indication of bad racing but perhaps a loss of full fitness - this should revert fairly quickly now I'm back to my plodding. It's counterintuitive that running at 9mm seems to make me faster than running at 7 but it genuinely seems to be the case for me (with attendant mileage increase and increase in total time running).

It is perhaps worthwhile at this stage to note that the body doesn't really record distance per se - it feels time and intensity. So in my first week fo training I didn't run many less miles but I was training (and inducing my body to improve) for 2 hours less. That's a big difference.

Anyways - a reality check of a track session on Tuesday where I really struggled at the start and although I improved through the session I was still a long way from where I would usually hope to be. Thursday's tempo run was definitely an improvement with not much of a slow-down for continuous running feeling good.

The Surrey league was perhaps not quite as bad a race as I thought it was but it demonstrated a quite significant decrease since November - which looking at my overall training load is perhaps not surprising. Some crash (and cross) training between now and the next fixture should get me fighting fit. When the night is darkest the stars shine brightest and all that.

Obviously I was annoyed I'd let myself get unfit so promptly hammered a cross-training session that evening.

My Sunday long run was back to my usual shuffle - I think returning to the shuffle for a while should sort me out. For those interested in this approach it's been really quite well set out in this blog post:-
https://canute1.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/the-training-of-ed-whitlock/

Ed Whitlock ran 2:54 as a 73 year old - not bad!

Good progress on returning to racing weight this week although that is probably more spread over the two weeks than it looks.

So - increased volume and slower pace for the next couple of weeks.

Training Table Week 3

Week Commencing Mileage Time Running Average Pace Key Sessions Longest Run Most Efficient Run Sunday Weight
28th December 2015
55.4
6h 22m
6:54mm
Newport XC
9.1 miles
952 BPM
11 st 13.25 lbs
4th January 2016
54.4
6h 57m
7:40mm
15 miles / 7:21mm
995 BPM
11 st 13 lbs
11th January 2016
63.2
8h 20m
7:57mm
16 miles / 9:12mm
N/A
11 st 10.25 lbs







Monday, January 11, 2016

London Training 2016 - Week 2



So an interesting week.

Monday: Rest - had to WFH as couldn't walk on foot after XC.
Tuesday: 6 easy home - really quite painful
Wednesday: 4 steady at lunch - still quite unbalanced; 6 steady home
Thursday: 6 easy in with Simon; Tempo 3 x medium lap off a minute at 6mm
Friday: 7 recovery in to work - legs absolutely dead.
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 15 easy with Gaby and Chasers Marathon Club.

Total: 54.4 miles

This week was all about managing and mitigating the impact of my strained achilles / heel following the XC. Basically wearing the minimalist Innov8 Bare Grip seems to have been a bit much for my achilles and whilst I run the race I was in pain for most of the week. Walking was a struggle until it warmed a bit up and I was definitely off balance whilst running.

As a result of this I've been increasing my foam rolling and also some more balance work using a balance board.

A consequence of the foot injury is that when I did run I was off balance and this noticeably affected me later in the week as the various muscles were being used in slightly different ways to normal.

Tempo on Thursday I felt surprisingly good so eased into a bit of 6mm running whilst trying to keep it so it wasn't flat out. My legs on Friday then let me know I'd done a bit too much and I really struggled as they felt leaden. A day of recovery work on Saturday made sure I was in good nick for my long run which was a classic long run which I didn't include many of in my last marathon build-up. Hopefully a few more will make the difference this time around.

So - back to running pretty normally by the end of the week but not quite the progress I hoped for. This week should be better!

Also please see below a few photos from the XC last week!

Training Table Week 2

Week Commencing Mileage Time Running Average Pace Key Sessions Longest Run Most Efficient Run Sunday Weight
28th December 2015
55.4
6h 22m
6:54mm
Newport XC
9.1 miles
952 BPM
11 st 13.25 lbs
4th January 2016
54.4
6h 57m
7:40mm
15 miles / 7:21mm
995 BPM
11 st 13 lbs




Thursday, January 07, 2016

London Training 2016 - Week commencing 28th December 2015

So with the new year starts another round of training as I try and firstly get back to my Abingdon shape and then push on!

Each week I'll update my training table below...

This was a pretty good week - I carried on recovering from my minor calf niggle with some good paced runs and reasonable volume. I was disappointed with the time of 35:34 in the NYE 10k but it was very windy, I paced it badly and my legs felt shocking from the outset so I'm not overly worried at present.

The Newport XC went much better with a cheeky win. I followed the early leader who broke away after about 400m and died off about 400m later. I then kept up a strong pace of about 6mm over some very muddy terrain.

I've started measuring HR as well which is definitely interesting. My lowest beats per mile came during the race which is perhaps expected with the "next" most efficient run being 1028 BPM.

Lots of hilly running this week - perhaps that's why my legs felt heavy at the 10k!

Training Table Week 1....

Week Commencing Mileage Time Running Average Pace Key Sessions Longest Run Most Efficient Run Sunday Weight
28th December 2015
55.4
6h 22m
6:54mm
Newport XC
9.1 miles
952 BPM
11 st 13.25 lbs

Bryn Running

Training diary and musings on running in general.