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Good Morning...
Week3 is done and ended up being:
Mon: 5miles @ 10:30
Tues: 6miles @ 11:07
Wed: 7miles @ 10:46
Thurs: 8miles @10:35
Sun: 10miles @ 10:24
All in it worked out at 36.7 miles and 6.5hrs of running.
Early in the week it was tough enough but I came to the realisation that going slowly (sufficiently slowly that I feel a bit stupid) is actually good. From Wednesday on, I actually really enjoyed it, as in, I was just trotting around, taking in the scenery and making virtually no effort. It makes such a difference to be able to mentally 'switch off' and just run rather than constantly be pushing it, thinking oww my leg hurts/ oh no my pace has dropped must get back to xxx per mile / whatever else...
On Sunday I'd done the first 6miles in about 11m/mile then realised the sun was out, it was a lovely morning, I'd been on my feet for over an hour and I felt fresher than ever. I then sped up a bit and did a couple of miles at around 9min/mile just because I could. Once I started to feel like it was a bit of an effort, I slowed again.
I guess all this can be summarised by "I enjoy running again"...which is great!
My intention is to continue through week 4 and 5 covering the miles at the pace I feel comfortable with (week 5 is the 'gentle' week) then try to follow the plan properly, intervals and all from week 6. I'm already feeling like I'm getting back to some sort of fitness (at least compared to where I was a couple of weeks ago)
Week 4 will be:
Tue - 6, Wed - 7, Thurs - 8, Sun - 12 Total - 33...all at what feels comfortable - probably 10:30 - 11m/m
There should also be a 6 on Saturday but other commitments mean I can't fit it in. Maybe I should try harder but my current outlook of 'running is for enjoyment - missing the odd one really isn't important'
Meant to add... Records set last week (according to runkeeper)
Weekly distance - 36.7miles
Weekly duration - 6hrs30mins
Weekly Calories - 5,987 (however disappointingly gained 1lb!)
Weekly Elevation Gain - 1,867ft.
I'm well on the way to beating all monthly records too - only 5miles off distance and 10 days to go
Week 4....fail! didn't do a thing. I have various excuses as usual but none particularly good.
Got back to it today though 5 miles at 9:48 including the middle mile at 7:11.
This week is the lower mileage week so thought I'd follow it. 5miles on Tues,Thurs and Sat with 8 on Sun, all at 10:30ish.
Must do better...
Thursday 5miles done at 9:55 including 7:13 mile3.
I'd love to break 7mins for that mile but seemingly not possible at the moment. I'll give it 3-4 weeks and try again!
Just a 5 and an 8 at the weekend then plan to launch into full blown training plan at correct paces next week. Also my record month of July is finished, records broken:
Distance: 90.1miles
Duration: 15:36:41
Calories: 14,851 (or 59 double deckers!)
Elevation: 4,757ft
Probably not that impressive to most and to be honest I don't feel anywhere near where I was last December/January but another month or 2 like that (or much bigger if I stick to plan) and I should be right back to where I was.
Week 5 complete and even according to plan! Admittedly it was supposed to be a cut back week and it's actually been more build up but still! It was:
Tues: 5 @ 9:48 (inc a 7:11)
Thur: 5 @ 9:55 (inc a 7:13)
Sat: 5 @ 9:36
Sun 8 @ 9:56
Total 23.4 @9:49
Pretty pleased with that. It was all reasonably straight forward, maybe with the exception of the last mile on Sunday which became a struggle. It was also good to have a couple of quick miles earlier in the week but I'm a bit disappointed not to get under 7mins... some day!
Week 6 is a bit tougher:
Tues: 12 x 400 @ 8:30 (30 sec) plus 2 at the start and 1 at the end
Wed: 6 slow
Thurs: 5x1 @ 8:40 (1min) plus 2&1
Fri: 6slow
Sun: 13 @9:30-10:00
I aim to follow plan but I'd imagine Tue/Thur/Sun will all end up being a bit behind plan as I'm not sure I'm capable of that yet however if I do struggle, I'll aim to cover the distance one way or another...
12x400m intervals done!
Total run was 6.5miles at an overall 9:29m/m.
The 12 intervals averaged at 8:36 (Target 8:30) so pretty pleased with that. I think Some of the timing was off too as runkeeper seems to think some of my 30second recovery shuffles were quicker than the 400m efforts... I'm thinking more and more about a watch but I do want to complete this plan first.
Generally I'm pretty chuffed, realistically it wasn't that tough a run but given that I've only been doing easy/steady for the last few weeks, it was the first 'speed' effort I've done in quite a while so it's really pleasing to have managed it 'reasonably' easily. One of the intervals even came in at 7:54!
Looking forward to just a simply easy run tomorrow though!
Serious running
I'm impressed. That's great work.
Thanks booktrunk!
So following Tuesday's effort, Wednesday was just a slow (10:47) 6.25miles which very possibly felt harder than Tuesday!
Then this morning was 'the big one'... 2miles warm up, 5x1mile reps(plan 8:30-8:40) with 1min recovery then a final mile back home. I was pretty sure that this one was going to be beyond me as it seemed like a big step up from Tuesday, however...I did it! In fact I was too quick!
The miles came in at 8:30, 8:23, 8:20, 8:11, 8:22
I certainly wouldn't say it was 'easy' but it didn't feel like I was at my absolute limit either (until the last uphill mile home!). This is probably the first time since I got back to running that felt like I was really making progress...I am well chuffed!
I did something similar in January which was 4x1mile, they averaged out at 8:58 (plan then was for 9:00) I commented at the time 'felt hard but do-able'. I guess comment for this time around is pretty much the same except there was an extra rep and they were 35secs faster...gotta be pleased with that.
As a slight note of caution though, the day after that in January turned out to be the day that my knee gave in completely and more or less put me out for 2-3months...note to self, a LOT of stretching tonight and go very easy tomorrow.
Best get on, just wanted to post as I'm feeling very proud of myself!
THAT IS AWESOME!!
I think you are probably running faster than I am now
i'm jealous. I've never been a speed person, just a plodder 
Next year i need to look at speed work, this year I'm just concentrating on distance stuff
I know what you mean about injuries, I find that it's speed work that causes 80% of my injuries, so I tend to stay away from it if I can 
but maybe that's partially lazyness.
Blimey, that's a good session. Make sure you recover properly this time though. I can't go another 6 months before the next thrilling instalment.
Maybearunner - reading your back story, it seems eerily similar to mine. I also started running in May 2013, progressed quite quickly and by December was doing long runs of 10 miles, weekly mileage of 30+ miles and had a parkrun pb of 21.03 and a 10k pb of 45.35.
Then first week of January, I was also struck by bad ITB pain on the outside of my knee, which (after a couple of aborted comeback runs in January) led to 3 months off running.
At this point our stories diverge - I came back slowly, only to suffer some PF pain(!), and have started another comeback last week after some more time off. I think I am perhaps a bit too cautious now with returning to running for fear of injury again (whereas you ran a half marathon off no training!). So am currently running very little and very slowly.
It is good to see that your return to training is going well, it gives me hope that it will come back for me too!
Can relate to the slow running is good (but you feel a bit silly running so slowly!) thing!
Have started my own thread called 'Starting Again from Scratch' over on the training forum. Not many followers currently though (although I must admit it doesn't make very interesting reading so far!).
I'll pop back to check your progress over the weeks
I've been meaning to post an update for the last couple of days but not quite managed I, so here goes...
I ended up skipping the 6mile Fri run last week as I am becoming increasingly tired but I did mange Sunday's long run. It turned out to be 14miles through the driving rain at an average of around 10:30/mile.
It was actually really comfortable, I only checked my pace and distance twice fairly early on, after that I just ran at what felt comfortable until the last 3 miles which I picked up a bit (only to around 10:00). I felt completely within myself and could easily have carried on...legs started to feel a little tired towards the end but only slightly and breathing was absolutely no issue. However....
Nipples! The rain meant that I was properly drenched which seemingly led to rubbing and ultimately 2 nice big streams of blood coming from my nipples! It was a bit stingy as I was running but not bad, if anything just enough to take my mind off any other twinges. Once I got in the shower though.... Holy **** it stung!!! Plasters on ever since and body glide ordered!
Overall week 6:
Tues: 6.45 @ 9:29 (inc 12x400m at ave 8:36)
Wed: 6.24 @ 10:47
Thurs: 8.36 @ 9:30 (inc 5x1mile at ave 8:21)
Sun: 13.99@ 10:30
Total 35miles at 10:12
Week 7 has got off to a rocky start! So far skipped 6easy &strides yesterday and 8 steady today... my 'excuse' this time...I'm shattered! I will get back to it tomorrow morning though and aim to run thurs, fri, sat, sun menaing I'll catch up one of the missed ones on Friday however, we'll see...
AndrewD... thanks for your reply, it doesn't feel like there are many around at my/our sort of level...it seems that most threads are people either significantly better or doing c25k type things...off to check your thread...
PS 21min parkrun...I'm jealous! once I get the next 2 half marathons out of the way (Sept and Oct) parkrun will be my target for a bit, although I need to get to 23 and 22 before hoping for 21mins!
Thanks. I brought my parkrun time down from 24.29 in July '13 (my first park run) to 21.02 by early Dec '13 - think I probably paid for it with pushing training too hard. Not necessarily too many miles, but too many 'quality' miles and the easy running all too quickly. Seems this running lark is a fine balancing act between pushing yourself to get improvements and pushing too hard and getting injured!
So you'll get there too - just don't push it and end up injured in the process!
Good luck with the half's (and breaking 2 hours!). I do want to do a half, but probably not until at least the end of next year/early 2016! Want to build back base fitness then concentrate on 5k, 5 mile and 10k times next year.
PS - you'd find a set of similar runners (time wise) on the thread on the Training forum called something like "Aiming for sub50min 10k/1 hr 50 min half". There is even a leaderboard table on there to add a bit of competitive element to it if you are so inclined!
Slightly too much bleeding nipple information in that last update, but also if you are too knackered to do some of your easy runs, I'm not sure trying to 'catch up' with the plan is the best strategy. Maybe this plan is just a bit too much at the moment and you need to build up more gently? After all, it's not long since you weren't doing anything.
Morning...fair point on the 'too much info' although in fairness it was by far the most noteworthy part of the run!
Also good point on not pushing too much. In my defence I think it's lack of sleep and some other stuff that's going on that's mainly to blame for my tiredness rather than running. However even if that's true, putting the running on top can't exactly be helping.
I decided to skip today too and won't go tomorrow so will start up again on Saturday (with a long run as I'm swapping Saturday and Sunday) then will take it step by step from there. I do think I have a bit of a problem with just being a naturally lazy git too which means once I fall out of the habit of running it's much more difficult to get going again however the extra couple of hours in bed rather than a 9 mile run this morning was great!!
So, the weekend had been and gone and I ran 21 miles!
First up was Saturday which was meant to be 5miles steady, 3 fast, 6 steady. I therefore had the bright idea that I could do parkrun in the middle as my 3miles fast.
In the end I did 5 @ 9:49, 3 @ 8:34 (parkrun 26:30) 7 @ 11:23 for an overall 15 @ 10:18
As ever, my optimistic brain thought I could do better (was hoping to be 10-10:30 with a 25min parkrun...hopeful!!). I'm 'slightly' disappointed but at the end of the day, I ran 15 miles which is the furthest I've ever gone, including the first 10k in under an hour and the first 13 miles in something like 2hrs11 so I'm not exactly sure what I have to be disappointed about!
Sunday was an easy 6miles which I did at 10:35 which was relatively comfortable although legs are a little stiff still.
All in for the week: 21.1miles @ 10:23.
Back to attempting full plan this week, maybe with a couple of runs swapped over and possibly skipping one easy run depending on how I feel towards the end of the week. Schedule says...
Tue 7.5miles inc 8x800m at 8:30-8:40 (30sec recover)
Wed 6 slow
Thu 9 inc 6 at 8:50-9:10 (or 6 and 2mile warmup, 1 mile cool down
)
Fri 6 slow
Sun 15 @ 9:30-10:00
Assuming I do it all, over 40miles for the first time!! Wish me luck...
Sounds like a good run on Saturday. How did your legs pull up after that?
good luck with the schedule this week - sounds like a pretty solid week. Hope you had a good rest up yesterday in preparation!
Thanks. To be honest, legs were worse after Saturday's run than they have ever been before! I was like a 90 year old for a few hours! I was reluctant to go out on Sunday but eventually did which was almost certainly for the best, I even managed to speed up a bit for the last couple of miles.
Week 8 underway this morning with 8x800m. Still don't think the after effects of Saturday have completely passed but yesterday's rest was nice. I ended up averaging 8:27 per mile over the 8 intervals (target 8:30-8:40) so really chuffed with that although the final recovery mile back home was little more than a shuffle (12:30!)
I had a thought during that last mile though...I wonder how much of it is mental... for example, in the 30second recovery between the 7th and 8th interval I was thinking 'I'm knackered, I can't possibly do another big effort' then I did - 8:31 for the last one. Once the 8th was done and I was into my 1mile cool down, all I could think was 'I'm knackered - I just need to keep shuffling until I get home' which is pretty much what I did yet if there was a 9th interval I'm pretty sure I would have managed it.
Anyway, there's my dull ramble for the day!
Depending on how I feel this evening, I think I might swap Wed and Thurs runs and therefore run home from work tomorrow night to see if I can manage it better than the previous attempt of a few weeks ago (it can't be much worse!)
I think a lot of running is in the mind - whether than is pushing yourself on the hard training sessions, or holding yourself back on the easy ones when you are feeling good!
I often feel better after a short run on the day after a tougher session - it helps blood flow to the muscles and aids recovery (apparently!). I played cricket on Saturday and on Sunday I ached all over, but went for a short run on Sunday and felt so much better after it.
Anyway, have a good week. I can't remember without reading back, do you have a target race coming up soon?
I think I might be starting to understand the whole easy run after a hard run thing (although that seems very contradictory as I'm planning to do another hard one tomorrow!)
I do indeed have a target race although still a few weeks away - Brum half on 18th(ish) October. Not quite sure what the target is yet as I'll wait and see how it's going closer to the time.
I'm also doing Wolverhampton half on 7th Sep although I'm treating that as a training run. That said, my intention is to go for 9min/mile the whole way and therefore sneak under 2hrs and a PB
Woohoo that would be great.
Managed to run home last night - 9miles in total including 6 'fast' in the middle. It was supposed to have been around 9m/m for the fast bit but after my previous disastrous experience of running home a few weeks ago, I decided to make it much easier and went at just slightly faster than easy pace for this section, coming it at 9:58/mile.
Overall it was 9miles in 1hr31 which worked out at 10:10m/m so I'm reasonably pleased. I might push it a bit harder the next time.
I had intended to follow that up with 6miles easy this morning. I was actually quite looking forward to it, to see how I'd cope with another run less than 12 hrs after the previous. Sadly the alarm went off at 530am to get up and go... my enthusiasm deserted me completely so I skipped it!
I'll do 6easy tomorrow and the 15 on Sunday which is supposed to be 'steady'. I think I'll probably aim for 'easy' for the first 10miles then if I feel good, I'll try to hit steady for the last 5.
All in all, I'm reasonably pleased with how it's going at the moment although I do still feel like I'm just building fitness rather than building towards a quick half marathon. Then again, I guess that's pretty much exactly what I'm doing and in fairness, if building fitness is the objective it's definitely working. Maybe I just need to be patient, it's just a bit disappointing to feel like I am a bit one paced and not able to hit the paces that I could last year or in fact should be able to according to my training plan.
Hay ho, all in good time...
You can't build towards a quick half marathon until you have built the fitness - I say keep doing what you're doing and take it slowly!
So, update time...
Following on from the last post, I did a very slow 6 miles on Friday at 11:09 average. To be honest I don't really remember anything about it but given the pace I guess I must have been struggling a bit.
Then came Sunday... scheduled for 15miles steady (or 10 easy/5 steady). I should probably point out that I was away for the weekend and therefore wasn't familiar with the area. This combined with my astonishing lack of sense of direction meant that disaster was inevitable!!
Steady pace is 9:30-10:00 so I set off to be around the very top end of that scale which was going great. I did the first 13 miles in 2hr10min16seconds... ideal...
Sadly it was shortly after this, that I realised I wasn't quite sure where I was! Long story short, after a few stops to check google maps, probably the longest uphill section I have ever run up and several miles more I made it back!
In the end I did 20.74miles in 3:39:01 so an average pace of 10:34. This probably included 3-4mins of staring at maps trying to figure where to go next too so probably just under 10:30 in reality.
The good news is, overall I really enjoyed it. There were large sections through open countryside in the sunshine with no traffic, no people, nothing at all... it really was lovely. It's also proved to me quite convincingly that distance is no longer a consideration in runs. Admittedly I was down to 11:xx per mile over the last few but it was significantly uphill and I was far from my limit still.
As per my last post (and fair response from literatin), my only 'problem' is that I can't cover the distance at any great pace. 13miles at 10m/m followed by 8miles at 11m/m is one thing, 13 at 8:xxm/m is something else altogether. However, as per lit above, I can't have everything at once... I'm definitely getting there on the fitness/endurance...pace will come eventually.
Since then I've taken it easy, I had a slight pain behind my right knee after Sunday's efforts so don't want to push it too much. Tuesday was supposed to have been 8miles including 5X1mile fast but I figured that was ambitious while unsure how my knee was so I just did 3miles at around 10:30 which I hope was sensible (knee was fine). Today should have been 8miles steady but I only got back last night so sadly laziness got the better of me! Back to it tomorrow though...in theory 2 x 3mile reps at 8:50 plus warm up/cool down... I think I might either cut it to 2mile reps or maybe 1x3mile but will see how I feel...
PS, records set on Sunday/last week...
Single Run:
Distance: 20.74miles
Duration: 3:39:01
Elevation Climb: 1,267ft
Week:
Distance: 43.1 miles
Duration: 7:29:14
Elevation Climb: 2,484ft
Monthly records have all gone too but I'll wait for the end of the month to update them
Wow - 21 miles! Just a slight bit of extra mileage then! Good to know that you can do it though I expect, must make 13.1miles seem short in comparison! How have you felt this week after it?
With just a week to go until the Wolverhampton half, I assume you'll be having a cutback week/mini taper week?
Unfortunately my laziness continues to be the biggest problem for my training. After last weekend's very long run and (I think) sensible 3mile effort on Tuesday, I managed to do absolutely nothing until Sunday.
Sunday was planned to be 8miles, being the start of my 7day lead in to Wolv half. As it happened, I nearly didn't go but eventually forced myself out of bed although a little late. I wasn't sure how far I was going to go or at what pace but then after half a mile or so of gentle jogging, I worked out a mental map and suddenly found myself deciding that it would be a good idea to complete a run at around 9m/m as that's my intended pace for next week and 90% of what I've done has been much slower than this.
I therefore found myself speeding up massively to both get to a pace that I'm not used to running at but also to make up for the first 1/2mile of 11m/m. I found it tough a couple of times and had to slow for a couple of minutes but pretty quickly found myself speeding up again. Overall I ended up doing 6.8miles at 8:58m/m so ultimately achieved what I wanted. It was definitely harder than I might have hoped, I wouldn't have fancied trying to keep that going for 13miles. Then again, hopefully being in a race with plenty of others around will mean it's not far from reach. As ever my consistency of pacing was awful with miles 1 and 5 being 9:43/9:35 but miles 2 and 7 were 8:16/8:20 so I certainly didn't make it any easier for myself but on the plus side, I was able to get down to 8:20 for the last mile so still had plenty left if needed.
All in, week 9 consisted of a whopping 2 runs, 10.1miles and 1hr35 of running...poor!
My intention for this week is:
Tues 6easy @10:30
Wed 7 inc 3 @9:00 (the rest 10:30+)
Thurs 5easy @10:30
Sun 13.1 @9:00 (my aim is to stay within 8:45-9:15 but we'll see)
If I manage that, it'll be back to 30miles+ and ready to get into the last few weeks of Brum build of with a bit more dedication