Last run before Southbourne 10k

Took it easy, did a couple of laps round Langdon Hill. Not quite as muddy as last time.

Didn’t feel great, legs felt very tight especially right hamstring. Probably to do with humping lots of boxes around the house getting ready to move next week. Seems like a good excuse to take it easy over the next couple of days and let my wife do most of the hard work!

Forecast for Southbourne 10k on Sunday is cold, but more worryingly windy. That could make it hard work setting a PB.

So, as I’ve said before: Initial target is my recent PB of 51m 29s, hard target all time PB of 51m 01s. If it was warm and calm I’d be aiming for the mythical 50m barrier. Guess I wait and see what the day brings.

Will report back Sunday night providing PC is not in a box. Otherwise no idea when as broadband takes ages to sort out.

Langdon Hill

The gales are back, so as I was looking for a short run today I decided to do a couple of laps around the woods on Langdon Hill. On the plus side, the trees provided some shelter from the wind. On the downside, all the trees meant that my Garmin lost satellite reception halfway round the first lap. That was a shame as I was keen to monitor my pace today and try and get used to the pace I need to run on Sunday.

I want to beat 53m for the Boscombe 10k, so my plan is to try and run at about 5m 10s per kilometer pace. That’s pretty fast for me, and I’m not sure if I can sustain it. The course looks fairly flat, just one hill after about 6k with an ascent around 30m or so. Shouldn’t make too much difference to me after all my hill work. Even my normal short run contains over 250m of climb. More worried about the conditions. Looks like the forecast is wet and windy again. Need it to blow through quicker than forecast, just like Ilminster.

I said somewhere before that I couldn’t remember my 10k PB. Well did some digging and found that at the Heanor 10k Xmas Pud run in 2005 (we all got Xmas puds at the end instead of medals) my official time was 51m 1s. Can’t get close to that at the moment, but we’ll see how it goes in the Spring.

Wish me luck. I’d tell you what number to look out for, but I haven’t received it yet. Hope they’ve got one put by for me on the day.

Sunday long run, new PB

Glad to say, looks like I’m still improving. Did the longer run today 9.15km with two big hills (total ascent on the run according to gadget is 438m) in 1hr 5m 4s, That’s just under two minutes off the time I did four weeks ago when I last did this loop. Have to say that like Wednesday conditions were ideal; cool and almost no wind. Didn’t even have to pass any dogs. Plus I wasted about 30s sat on my backside sorting out my trainer and sock. I think I wasn’t laced tight enough and that caused the sock to ruck up round my toes coming down from Golden Cap. It was really hurting so I had to stop and sort it out.

The two areas where I gained the most time were on the first halves of both climbs, if that makes sense. It’s like I can maintain a good pace for further up each hill before I run out of strength and revert back to the slower hill climbing pace. Looking forward to more improvements before next summer and The Challenge. Definitely on schedule I think.

Met an interesting guy yesterday at the Charmouth Literary Festival, John Bryant. He’s written a number of  books about the London Marathon, the history of the marathon, and the quest to break the four minute mile. He was also coach to Zola Budd! I think he’s run The Challenge in the past, have to tap him up for some coaching tips if I see him again.

Two weeks to Ilminster 10k, five to Boscombe 10k. Target for Ilminster is still 55m. If I can do that I’ll count it as a modern day PB on the grounds that I can’t remember my true PB from about eight years ago other than it was about 52m 30s!

I swallowed a fly, perhaps . . .

Yeuch! You know what it’s like, bounding along, gob wide open like a Formula One air intake, and a particularly adventuresome gnat takes a liking to your larynx. It’s to far in to spit out, all you can do is give it a big gulp and try to forget it. I did briefly consider looking for a spider to go in after it . . .

Anyway, apart from that, the medium Wednesday morning run went well. Clocked it at 7.19km on the Gadget, 47m 2s, so 5 secs off my PB. I actually thought it might be more as I felt it was going so good. Interesting.

Counted as I went round: 2 cattle grids, 1 gate, 16 stiles and 5 other misc constrictions that slowed me down. No wonder the speed readout on the Gadget readout looks so wiggly.

Decided that my weekend run will be a bit different. Going to find some flat tarmac and see what pace I can keep up over 7 to 10km.

St Gabriels Loop

Hot run, but quick

Did the medium St Gabriels loop this morning, and this time remembered to take my stop watch/heart rate monitor! Warm morning, so got pretty hot. Might have started off a bit too quick as the second half was hard work up the hills. Did it in 47m 7s, about 5 minutes quicker than the last time I timed this run! But that was in bad weather and when I was really unfit. So this time is more realistic, and I’m really pleased with it.

Also had a result on the Garmin front. Won an Ebay auction this morning for a two year-old jobbie at £81. If it turns out to work ok, then it’s a bargain. New and nearly new ones on Ebay go for £120+, and the price on Amazon is £144. Should arrive some time next week, so will have to figure out how to use it before doing the Golden Cap loop next Saturday.

Thursday Short Run

Did the short Stonebarrow run today. Still not fully fit after time off and rib still a bit sore. But I pushed it a bit and was rewarded with a new PB of 32m 59s. Made an effort to keep the pace up on the flat, did a few short sprints. Tried to attack the hills but soon reverted to the normal trudging jog!

Really nice day to be out there. Warm, not too much breeze, not too slippery even though we had a lot of rain yesterday. A good day to run. Will be back out on Sunday morning to do the medium length St Gabriels loop.