Juneathon – Day 25 – Cool of the night

As it’s forecast hot again tomorrow, decided to bring my run forward to this evening. And very pleasant it was too. Did just about the shortest two hill run I can do from home, still over 9km so a good workout. Up Stonebarrow, along to Chardown Hill, down the steep slippery bit, and then cut straight down to the coast path and rejoined the Challenge route up past Westhay Farm and up Stonebarrow again.

Nice and quite, nobody about, and not too hot. At various times disturbed a whole bunch of rabbits  plus a green woodpecker who was probably munching on a nice supper of ants before being rudely interrupted.

In pretty good condition when I got back compared to the state I was in after my long run last weekend. Recovered much quicker. Feel ok now (45 mins later) except the inside of my left ankle feels a bit sore. Probably just paranoia with only a week to go until the race.

9.16km,  1hr 2m 25s,  6m 48s per km average.  430m of ascent.

64 sit-ups earlier.

Spanish Omelette for tea of course. Past Bolognaise yesterday when Italy went out. Gets difficult now as it’s difficult to plan ahead.

Good Friday Run

Needed to get out for a think, so decided that today was a good day for a run. I’m still being cautious because of this dodgy thigh muscle, but I figured it’s six days since the last run and therefore time to get out again. Next run will hopefully be in five days, then back to twice a week.

Following on from my last blog, I decided that I would try and do a comparison run. So I drove up to Stonebarrow car park and did my old medium length training run. 7.22km but with just the one hill. ie. Starting from Stonebarrow car park, along to Chardown Hill, down to St Gabriels, then back along the coast and up Stonebarrow Hill. There’s a picture of the route somewhere on one of these pages.

It’s a fabulous run this time of year, loads of trees and bushes bursting into life, bluebells and wild garlic all out in flower. Sunny and dry, but not too hot yet.

Felt ok, but very consciously was not forcing the pace. Kept up a steady rhythm and never had to walk on the uphill bits. Did it in what felt like a reasonably comfortable 45m 52s, which when I looked it up was an amazing 1m 10s inside my previous best on this loop set last Autumn.

So what conclusions can I draw from this. Well I guess my overall fitness is improving which bodes well for completing the Charmouth Challenge. It also means that even though this inner thigh muscle is sore most of the time, and very sore for 24 hours after a run, it’s not actually hampering me that much. Interesting.

So that’s it, back out next Wednesday. Probably the same loop but will tag on the run up Stonebarrow Lane from home.

Juneathon sounds interesting. Might have to join in on that one.

The best laid plans of mice and men . . .

. . . oft go awry.

Or in other words things didn’t quite go to plan today. I was supposed to be repeating Monday’s run, but this time taking the Orbana energy drink before I set off to see if it improved performance.

Unfortunately, it had been raining all night and all morning. It eased off slightly around 10:30 so decided to knock back the drink and head out, suitably attired for the weather of course. By the time I got to the far end of Stonebarrow car park it was so misty that I could only see about 30 yards! What the heck. Set off anyway, but after about 10 yards of the first field I was up to my ankles in water . . . and this is at the top of the hill. So there was no way I could do any sort of normal route. The comparison run will have to wait for next week. Sorry Annabel.

Decided to just run back down the length of the car park, down Stonebarrow Lane, then turn round and come back. 5km in all, so a short run with a big hill. Total run took 32m 10s, but the important kilometer up Stonebarrow Lane took 8m 58s with 123m of climb. On the last occasion that I tried that climb it took 9m 55s. So am I getting better, or was it the Orbana. Impossible to say when I’m comparing two runs that are three months apart. And that’s why I need to do a repeat of Monday’s 9km route as soon as possible. Looks like maybe next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Just over six weeks to Southbourne 10k.

The Return of the Mud

Too warm for the forecast snow, temperatures here now around three degrees so we just had a bit of drizzle most of the night. The rising temperatures have thawed out most of the mud, so pretty mucky today especially near the end of my run. Still a bit of ice here and there, so mud is likely to get worse before it gets better.

6.96 km, 47m 50s, 6m 52s per k average, 312m of climb. All pretty average, but glad to have got out. Basically just did a loop from Stonebarrow, will do much the same at the weekend but include the loop round Langdon Hill and the climb up Golden Cap.

Would have been fun to have had some snow, but being right on the coast in West Dorset we’re pretty sheltered so it’s unusual to get more than a dusting, although to be fair we did get a few inches last March. It did get cold enough for the river Char to freeze over this time, there’s some photos of it on Facebook on the Charmouth Appreciation Society page if you’re interested.

Mid-week training run

Short run today, and tried to make it quick by adding in a few sprints in the first 2km. As a result I was 30 secs quicker at that point compared to the longer runs I’ve done on the same course. Explains why I started to run out of puff near the end. Finished in 32m 57s, which is 2 secs inside previous best.

Showing the numbers below this time rather than the picture. Apparently I briefly reached 17.9kph on one of the downhill bits. Well slow on the uphill though.

Not sure what sort of training I should be doing really. I still need to work on leg strength, stamina, and heart/lung as far as I can tell. Looks like I’m going to be reading the Runners Handbook again, but I know that will say I should run more than twice a week. Maybe I should listen.

Will run again on Saturday. My overly ambitious plan is to do 90% of the Charmouth Challenge course. In other words, my normal long run, but start at the school and run up Stonebarrow Lane too. Target time 1hr 30m.

Gadget data from short run

Damn I’m Hot!

Long run this morning, and it was hot. 25C according to the display in the car, and it felt like it too. Found the run really hard on the way back to Stonebarrow, got really hot, ran out of energy and had to walk quite a few short steep sections. When I got back to the car I was feeling pretty shot. Took me a while to recover and felt very wobbly for a while. Guess it shows I’m trying, huh?

Did it in 1hr 7m 16s, so not my best, but happy with that given how hard it felt. Wore the Garmin so have a wealth of data on the run, some of which I’ve shown below. Average speed over the run was 8.1kph, best kilometer was 5m 13s, the worst a feeble 10m 5s on the way back up Stonebarrow near the end. The blue line showing speed has a lot of dips in it, they’re not all walks! Most are stiles and gates. I think the value in the data will be to compare it run to run.

The green elevation line makes it clear what the character of the run is like. Starting on Stonebarrow, a slow climb up to Chardown, then down to St Gabriels Wood, up Golden Cap, back down the other side, another bit of up and down, then the long climb back up Stonebarrow.

Garmin log from today's run

Wednesday warm-up

Did my usual short Wednesday loop down Stonebarrow and back up again. Wore the new Triax’s which were fine, just need to learn how tight to lace them so that they feel right. Not so good with the Garmin. Tried to do the course that I had downloaded into it, but didn’t seem to work. Maybe I missed the start point or something? Anyway, the run felt like hard work, so I know it wasn’t very quick. Would have been nice to have the data though.

So, Golden Cap loop on Saturday morning. This time I’ll not try and use a pre-loaded course. I’ll just set it going at the start, stop it at the finish, and see what I get!

Where did the time go?

Did my short Stonebarrow loop this morning. Got round in 33m 29s which is about the same as last week, but half a minute down on my best.  So where have I lost that half minute? I put in a few short sprints, worked hard on the hills, generally felt good.  So where did it go? No idea. It was a bit slippery after two days of mist and light drizzle, so maybe some of it got lost on the muddy bits or being careful on the downhill slopes. Not sure.

However, I have a cunning plan. I’m gonna get me one of those new-fangled Garmin GPS wrist thingies. That’ll tell me. Been chasing various Forerunner 305′s on Ebay recently, not got one yet so might have to up my budget a bit. There’s a few more coming up in the next few days, so I’ll keep trying! Then I should be able to work out from one run to the next where I’m gaining or losing time.

On the racing front, looks like my next race will be the Ilminster 10k on November 1st. It’s all on tarmac, so I need to get out in my new Nike Triax 12′s to break them in. (Bargain from simplyrun.co.uk!)

Thursday short run

Was supposed to go out yesterday, but it was so horrible I couldn’t face it. Gale force winds and driving rain. You expect that in the winter, but not first week in September!

So went out first thing this morning instead. Did the short Stonebarrow loop in 33m 20s. Didn’t feel anywhere near as good as the last run. Seemed a bit of an effort. Didn’t do any sprints, just tried to keep good form and work hard on the hills. Maybe my body hadn’t got going, it was early, went out before breakfast so probably a bit short on energy.

Assuming I recover quickly, I’ll do the long run on Saturday. But not too early!

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.