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10k & half marathons
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I'd echo what Jen says about stretching - don't stretch on cold muscles, but if you do any at all wait until 10 mins into your initial warm-up jog when your muscles are warmed up before you start your main session, or else at the end of the run when cooling down.
My tapering before my first half mirrored Jens too, Heebijeebie - just a handful of very easy shorter runs to keep the legs turning over in the final week with some light cross-training - but as Aardvark says this will depend on your own mileage/preference.
You sound like you're running well Jen! Keep at it! I had a slight knock-back in having to miss a run this week so mileage fell back 5 miles from what I'd planned, but plan resumes next week!
I'm intending to do some hill stuff today, along the lines of 10 x 1 min running up a hill with walk down to recover.
Now, where I live a have quite a choice of slope so should I go for shallow, medium or steep?
Should I decide on the basis of how hard a session I want or is there a general consensus for hill work?
Any advice welcome ta
I like to do reps over a hilly circuit of about half a mile that includes both uphills and downhills. Learning to keep your form when you crest a hill is important for racing well.
Was afraid the words "hard" and "steep" would appear!! Today I did 5 x 1 min reps up a steep one then 5 x 1 min reps up a less steep one but at a faster pace.
Legs a bit like jelly now :0)
My long runs all incorporate hilly stretches 'cos of where I live so that probably helps too!
I will take your advice too and find an uphill/downhill short circuit too.
Thanx
This time I didn't hold back but still felt in control and my legs didn't feel like vulnerable twigs, they felt like they were actually supporting me! It was great! I presume this is because of the stregthening I have been doing so I just wanted to share this to promote strength work really as it seems to have made a huge difference to my technique down hill.
Am thinking about doing hill work myself (probably said this before - still hven't found a time to slot it in!) and am thinking of doing 100m sprints up a medium slope and see how it goes. Like Sam I have hilly regular routes anyway. I see the hill training as a way to boost my speed I guess. But also just to add variety to my running.
100!
As an early morning running nut I rarely take anything substantial the morning of the run. I will instead hydrate well the night before the early morning run and to some extent have a decent supper.
Also, start your early morning runs off very slow cos first thing in the morning your body is still in the land of nod and it does not want a good "thrashing".
One suit will not fit all but this works for me.
If you really want to test out your leg speed, try running flat out downhill. Concentrate on landing under your centre of gravity (ie don't overstride) and getting your feet off the ground as quickly as possible. You have to keep your legs going quickly, because if you don't you get to the bottom head-first ;o)
I love hills, especially when the grass is 6 inches thick and very soft underfoot! My husband and I do our Sunday run of 2 laps round the park, mostly uphill on grass and downhill on tarmac, about half/half. Going round the difficult way! Well we don't have any fancy techno aids such as GPS and I thought it was 10k as it was in about my 10k road time (I thought I'd improved - dream on!!!). Anyway, a bit of string and the map
I have made it known previously on other threads too that I don't like going slow. Here, I don't have a choice! Have I got it covered without being too structured? The rest of the time I do a variety of treadmill runs, 11k at 10k pace and some hill/interval programs. I don't really want to up the distance in the park (too tough to do another lap!) or on the treadmill (brain would mash.) I only do about 20 miles in all a week and have no plans to up that either.
With a race start of 10:00am work back from the start time.
10:00am race starts
09:55 make sure your running shoes are secure to your feet
09:50 finish warm-up
09:30 start warm up (have a longer warm-up if you are a Vet)
07:30 small bowl of cereal, toast and honey, cup of coffee
06:30 get up and get your gear sorted
(times have to be adjusted depending on how far you are traveling to your race)
The night before
10:00pm eat a hearty supper and hydrate well and go to bed early
For 10K races you want to be carrying as little excess weight as possible - you will run faster. The longer you are racing the heavier you can food load the day before the race.
I would not eat anything (except jelly babies) from 8am or 2 hours before a race. I would sip some water or sports drink.
After a race I will drink like a fish and eat my own body weight in non healthy food - well, I've earned it.
Mon: 6-7 miles at lunch time
Tues: early run in morning: cross training in evening
Weds: early morning run/rest?
Thurs: yoga at lunch time: speed training in evening
Fri: 2 miles easy before pilates in evening
Sat: Long run (12.5 miles at mo)
Sun: 4 miles and strength training
I don't really want to rest on the Weds unless I have worked hard so I might swap the Tues early run for Weds regularly. Not sure how often the Sunday session would happen either. Hopefully lots!
By the end of Nov my long run should be 13 miles and I will hopefully be in a routine that gets me 35-40 miles a week.
I went for a physio session today and it turned out that she only deals with injurys so I have a body massage booked for a week on Tuesday now instead. Really looking forward to it to give my muscles a bit of a release! However, the physio did say that stretching should be done for 30 seconds at a time for each stretch which means stretching should take about 10 minutes at least! So I will possibly be shortening my runs a bit to make sure I have enough time to stretch!
Looking forward to a 5am start tomorrow!
(Opens another bottle of vino)
The trick is to find a route that you know well and has a reasonable ammount of streetlights. It is well worth driving to such a location and finding a 2/3 mile loop.
I too am not a fan of running in the dark but if I am going to maintain my milage I really have no choice.
If you do find a route run it several times in daylight so as you know its geography also, its gets the locals used to you. Take a training partner with you if you can. Park your car in the centre of the route and effectively run round your car (you will never be more than 1/2 a mile from it).
The route I do is around the town centre and quite well lit. There is one bit as I am coming out of a supermarket car park though that was a bit darker and my imagination gets the better of me sometimes and it looked like there was a very menacing looking character by the bridge I was running towards!
However, I am running routes I ran early in the morning before September (when my early morning routine tripped, staggered and lay unmoving!) so I know there are no weirdos out round those parts at that time.
But crikey it was chilly this morning!!!!
This thread seems to be about sharing training ideas. An idea - how about people start posting some results so we can see the evidence that certain training really works?
September 03 - 1:30:31
October 03 - 1:28:**
(Both done off around 40m/week with two speed sessions)
Spent the winter building up to 70m/week then reintroduced tempo runs and intervals in January.
March 04 - 1:23:26
May 04 - 1:23:37 (White Peak Half, off-road, came 8th overall, best ever result!
Into marathon training through the summer, so emphasis on endurance training.
September 04 - 1:25:08 (but could have kept going!)
Lessons learned: I run faster half marathons off high mileage with a couple of months of sharpening speedwork.
Currently injured, so won't be having another crack at it until the new year
I'll post mine next week
Ok then, I want to do Deal in 35(ish) and Brighton sub 45. Be so gutted if I miss it by 1 sec. I think I'm that close, but it's gonna be tight!
It's just about fitting it into a routine. I often run to and from work, I generally go out twice a day, and do the longest ones at the weekend.
And so it goes on
I started the year as a 63minute 10 miler on 40 miles per week. I finished my serious road racing year at 59'21" for 10 miles on 80 miles per week.
I am currently training for my first half marathon in January. My weekly milage schedule will take me along with 40, 50, 60, 45, 55, 65, 50, 60, 70, 80, 60, 40 and race week.
At my age I have to plan carefully. I too will be running to and from work to gather up the miles. Target time is 78 minutes.
Need to do some mileage for the Nike 10k and would like to be around my pb of 48.30, but not sure if I will have done enough.....