54 days to go

Motivation is low right now, which is a shame cause I thought that with about a month and a half to go I'd be all gee'ed up and not need any extra motivation. Slept in Monday morning so had to run longer in the evening, slept in this morning too so brought kit to run lunchtime and will run long this evening to get a decent day in. Have finished the book I was reading (Bel Canto - read's like a Spanish soap opera, which I think might be the point, but I didn't take to it that well) - and have started The Greatest: The Haile Gebrselassie Story by Jim Denison - and I'm hoping all of the talk of him running himself into the ground will inspire me to get up and out and train myself silly for the next 40 or so days. London is so close. I really need to stop faffing about.

I also need to read the sections in the running books about peaking; which workouts I should be doing etc. how often I should be doing them; how much I should run myself into the ground and how much I should leave something in tank.

I was looking for a race for this weekend to try and make up for Sunday's poor showing, but there's nothing local. Looks like I'll have to wait until the St. Paddy's day 10k to try and make up for it. Hopefully I won't be rubbish there too. Gloom and doom. Whinge whinge whinge.

the week in review - on the up?

Right. Interesting week... at the beginning I was still fighting injuries, but thinking they were getting better. Now I'm carrying a couple of niggles, but I can run through it all as of now. Great workout on the track on Wednesday. Great workout progression long run on Thursday pm. Terrible race sunday morning. 115 for the week. Plan to hit 140 for this week. I've been short of 130's for the last three weeks now due to the injuries I was having to nurse. Can't complain, at least I could keep running in some form.

Anyway... 16 tomorrow early doors so I should get to bed sharpish. Left tendon into the top of the foot getting ice now, but hopefully it'll be gone in the morning.

56 days til London - last week's training

Mon, Feb 20 Early Morning	Easy	12	Reasonably solid run. didn't push it too hard. calves still tight. new shoes soon.
Mon, Feb 20 Evening	Hard	10	tempo run with josh and NEW SHOES! woo hoo! easy 15 minutes out and along c&o and then 15min tempo, 2 min rest, 15 min tempo... then back to iwo jima. hard work during tempo but finished the training session feeling strong and quite fresh and glad to have done it. icing left foot now but hope injuries are done at least until london is over.
Tue, Feb 21 Early Morning	Easy	6	really slow. just recovery run after last nights tempo... new injury. ah balls to it. right foot, the tendon where the top of the foot joins the bottom of the shin - just feels very tender and will probably respond to ice. i'm going to have to cut down my mileage cause these niggles are really getting in my way.
Wed, Feb 22 Early Morning		12	just a decent easy run. left foot still hurts, but right foot not so much. took last night off and just iced my feet a lot. left foot is definitely causing compensation issues - my form isn't as smooth and the foot is slapping against the ground - more sound than usual
Wed, Feb 22 Evening	Hard	12	tough workout. 20X400 w100rest. didn't think i'd get through the whole set of 20, but glad that i did. averaged 1:17 per quarter. would have liked to have averaged under 75 but I guess I'll have that as a target next time. 100 rest is quite short. ran with greg and scott and richard.
Thu, Feb 23 Evening	Hard	21	started off slow and then really pushed it during the back 10 miles. another solid workout, and on the back of the good track workout last night, i'm a little proud of myself. woo dee hoo and all that.
Fri, Feb 24 Early Morning	Easy	12	really slow plodding along just holding back and trying to make it as easy as possible but get in the miles. felt fine, but tired near the end. not surprising after last nights workout.
Fri, Feb 24 Evening	Easy	6	lar dee dar. boring easy run. just plodded through it without thinking and like that it was done. gentle easy pace.
Sat, Feb 25 Early Morning	Easy	10	strange slr. took it really easy for the first 8, and then squeezed the pace home for the last two miles. not too fast, just enough to clear the pipes. race tomorrow, legs heavy but nothing major bothering me.
Sun, Feb 26 Early Morning	Hard	14	2 miles warm up - columbia club championship 10 miler 58:03 19th - 2 miles cool down. did not feel it at all. crappy race. not happy. not proud.
		115

rubbish, i was - columbia 10 mile race

i wos rubbish. terrible race. didn't feel fresh at all and legs got really heavy. because nothing was going right I mentally talked myself out of it by mile 5 or 6 and now looking back it's just annoying. oh well. quite cold and bitter head wind at a couple of points... hilly too for a lot of the first 6 or so miles. really should have done better. but didn't. just not good enough. don't know final position yet, but 19th I think. 58:03 for 10miles. Should be much closer to 55:00, so very disappointed. going to go out and do 12 just to take my mind off of the race.

i guess my legs hadn't recovered from wednesday and thursday nights decent workouts. feel like a right plonker for finishing so far down the ranks. knickers to it all.

strange slr - tea minus 57

strange slr today. didn't do a stealth run, the usual suspects weren't there (exception being a joe). the pace was slow and the distance short. Only did 10 miles out and back on the C&O from Iwo Jima and it was over before I really got into it. Pushed the last two miles a little, but hardly all out. Legs felt very tight when I went to push it... good sign in that the workouts this week are tiring me out and pushing me to progress, but I wonder if I'll have anything in my legs tomorrow. 10 miles of racing is a long way on heavy legs. Won't know until mile 2 or 3 how it feels. what do I know? Anyway... didn't do a double today, and will try and double tomorrow after the race - maybe 10 or 12 in the afternoon as well? Thats probably a bit helpful, but my mileage is short this week and with 12 tomorrow afternoon including the race and warm up and warm down I'll only hit ~125 for the week when I'd prefer to be closer to 140. But it's good not too be overly concerned about injury right now. Left foot still has acute pain only if i prod and pull at it. Right tendon which connects directly along the bottom of the shin and on to the front of the top (top of the front) of the foot still sends me little signals, but more when I'm walking after running than actually running. No idea what that is. Ah well. I'll stick some ice on it now, and have some more toast. That'll help it. Right? Right.

t minus 59 - another great workout

just put in a very solid 21 - out and back down rock creek and then out on C&O. Felt extremely light headed for the first 3 or 4, and legs very heavy, but kept on all the same. Then pushed it hard from the turn and kept pushing until the end. Really quite solid and fast for the last 10... so I'm all chuffed. Easy runs now through to the race on Sunday. lar-de-dah. look at me. i did a good workout. whoop-dee-bloody-doo.. etc.

59 days to go - starting to come together

yep. starting to come together. hows that for tempting fate. couple of little things still bothering me but I'm all motivated and fired up after a fairly solid and successful track workout last night. Track is still fairly new to me. I didn't run in secondary school or at uni, so track workouts, and all of this speed business for a specific number of meters for a specific number of times is still, have i said it enough, new. Still fairly intimidated by running shorter distances being, what I would consider, more of a long distance type of runner...

There really is a slightly different type of pain from pushing yourself for another 400 meters compared to being at the end of a 20 mile run. More acute. More in the lungs and scrunched up in the face and the tightening shoulders and legs... less of a dull 'empty tank' feeling. Both feel like falling apart at the seems though. Didn't think I would make it through the 20X400 w/100 rest last night but I did... very much ably assisted by a greg and a scott and a richard. I'm pushing through the end of a heavy cold right now, but am still really chuffed this morning after the workout last night. Have to put in a long run this evening - something like 21 or 22 - because I want to attempt a false feeling of freshness, at least for the start, of the 10 miler on sunday morning in Columbia, MD. But, it'll be a 130 mile week so it's hardly tapering.

Enough grammatical errors for now. A bit more work, home, change, 21miles (i'll probably cheat a bit and take some mpthrees for company), shower, cook, eat, bed, read, sleep, 5am, alarm, change, out of door, 12miles on trails, home, drive to work, happy friday, run during lunchtime... etc. etc. blah dee bloody blah.

t minus 60 days

Easy 12 this morning. Left foot still hurting and causing my form to suffer a bit... but not enough to worry me too much. Iced it afterwards. Track tonight - 20X400 I think. 60 days and I need to start getting focused and motivated. I've keep telling myself it's time to get down to race weight but my weight is either going up or staying the same but it's not going down. Need to get under 150, 148 if possible... so there's less of me to carry around London. So I feel light and feel like I've been disciplined and made sacrifice etc. blah de blah. When it comes to discipline about food I'm rubbish. Always dipping into an extra bowl of cereal, or an extra PBJ on toast, or a cookie with my coffee. I've cut out the full strength Granola and yogurt in the mornings and replaced it with Weetabix with non-fat milk. I probably just need to eat more veg when I eat veg so there's less room in my tum persuading my mind I need more food. Sitting about at home also leads me to eat a bit cause I'm just bored.

60 days. That's really not that long. All those big words like Determination and Motivation and Discipline spring to mind. Need to be focused on preventing injury as much as I am about keeping to my training schedule. Need to be more disciplined about getting up at 5:15am and getting out of the door rather than fannying about.

What a silly life.

Need to put in a long run Thursday morning - crikey, tomorrow morning (starting at 5am) - because I don't want to do a long run the day before the 10miler this Sunday. Will stick to whatever the club slr is this Saturday rather than add on much mileage. I feel I'm repeating myself somewhat.

Things to concentrate on in the very short term...
26th Feb - Columbia 10miler
12th Mar - St. Patricks Day 10k
19th Feb - Ft. Hunt 10k
25th Mar - National Capital Half
2nd Mar - Cherry Blossom 10miler
taper taper taper bish bash bosh
23rd April - London

come on hugh.. stop being half-arsed.

61 days to London - niggles and little injuries

I've been battling loads of little niggles and it's getting to my motivation. It's quite hard to get up at 5am when everything hurts when you step out of bed.

Over the last week everything has been getting into trouble and calling for help. My left foot has progressed from hurting under the foot, to hurting on top of the foot. There’s also some pain under the ball of the big toe. The right achilles was not happy early last week, and then it was the calve, followed by the shin being really tight during track on Wednesday. Then it was the bone/outside of the right foot along the 5^th metatarsal that was calling out to stop. Now, as of this morning, it’s the tendon at the top of my right foot that joins on to the bottom of the shin. Getting a bit pissed off with it all really. I guess I’ve been training too hard for too long.

I’m in new shoes; I’m doing a lot of icing and taking a lot of ibuprofen. Trying to stick to trails. Cut back mileage to just over 100 miles rather than trying to hit 140.

Lesson’s to be learnt? Maybe my easy runs were getting a bit too fast? Maybe I didn’t replace my shoes quickly enough when the mileage crept over 450miles? Maybe I’m not at the point where I can train for a marathon for 26 weeks and should cut the next training schedule back to 18 weeks? Maybe I was just lucky I could hold on to that level of mileage for so long without these little things getting painful enough for me to notice? Maybe I need to lose about 5 or 8 lbs to that the impact on my system is less? Maybe I’m just going through a bad couple of weeks and need to buck up, take a couple of days off here and there, get some extra sleep and stop whinging about every little thing?

Maybe I’ve got to the point where my engine is finally stronger than my body so instead of my lungs or heart being the bottleneck, it’s my body that has to break… my easy runs were definitely speeding up considerably… I should learn to run like the Japanese and run my easy runs very very slow for the next couple of weeks to see if that helps… easy 10 tonight… I’ll try and take it as gently as possible and get off my land, stick to the path.

Boring boring blog.

last week's training log - 61 days til London from today

Mon, Feb 13 Early Morning	Easy	13	Reasonably slow in patches due to ice. Tore my left leg up quite badly when i spun out on a patch of ice and landed on a load of refrozen cut up slush which was frozen solid and covered in sharp edges. A fair amount of blood dripping down my left leg. Must’ve looked well 'ard, ey? Left foot still hurts - mostly when not running. Right achilles felt a bit tight for the first time in many months.
Mon, Feb 13 Evening	Steady State	10	Meant to do tempo run but right achilles caused me trouble. Acute pain so i stopped after about 8minutes of tempo. Jogged and stretched it off. Did another 8min of tempo - same - stopped. then could manage a final bout of 10min tempo
Tue, Feb 14 Early Morning	Easy	3	Set off thinking of going 16... Achilles not playing along. Didn’t feel good at all, even jogging. Tried to stretch it out but didn't help. decided to cut my run, go back and have an ice bath and then give myself a rest day... a day off isn't going to hurt now, but making this a real bad injury is. there. I think i persuaded myself. Will see if it heals by tomorrow morning.
Wed, Feb 15 Evening	Hard	10	Track. First workout since my achilles started to give me trouble. Felt tight, especially in the shin - compensatory i guess. 2 X 15min tempo. First very solid... had to stop for 40seconds in the second to stretch - so that was disappointing. But first was solid.
Thu, Feb 16 Early Morning	Steady State	15	Just solid workout. Achilles started to tweak half way through. Calves very tired, tight, and sore. Left foot still hurting quite a bit.
Thu, Feb 16 Noon	Easy	6	6 miles - felt like i was trying quite hard, but didn't feel fast. Surprised by my time. Legs still thinking fast after track last night. or I've been getting the distance of the run wrong for 4 years
Fri, Feb 17 Early Morning	Easy	6	Tired and quite a lot of pain and tightness in my calves and feet. Calves really tight. Took it as easy as I could - really slowly.
Fri, Feb 17 Evening	Easy	6	Nice and slow run. left foot hurting a lot but glad to get a slow run in
Sat, Feb 18 Early Morning	Steady State	22	stealth 10 out and back on c&o canal (very slow 7:20's) - 12 in slr UPTON HILL - quite slow compared to usual - good group. Everything sort of hurting from left foot to achilles to calves. Need new shoes and more time on trials and less time on concrete.
Sun, Feb 19 Early Morning	Easy	14	Just went slow. Maybe not too slow but slow enough to avoid any more pains or the present pains getting worse. Hopefully this will be the end of a bad week and that is all.
		105

2 days lost...

First off... I had the day of London wrong on my fancy-smancy excel spreadsheet in which I track the number of miles per weekand per shoe (to track when they need replacing). I had London's race down as the 25th, but it's the 23rd, so I'm on 67 days to London.. erg.

Ordered two new pairs of DS Trainers today... will put a different colour of laces on each pair to try and differentiate them when I'm counting the miles on the shoes.

Have not run since yesterday morning. This lunchtime I spent 20minutes on an exercise bike and then stretched - stretching bores me... no wonder I don't do enough of it. Have track tonight so will hope that achilles doesn't ever call out for any attention whatsoever. Will warm up loads first and stretch lots before starting the actual workout - two bouts of 15min tempo work I think.

Booya.

Achilles trouble - 70 days to go

70 days to go and had to cut my run short this morning (from 16 to 3) due to my right Achilles. Ah nuts. I know it’s only just happened, so I’m probably making it worse than it really is, but damn it if this is a proper injury. I first felt a little something in the Achilles on Monday mornings long run (whatever it was went away). Then last night about 8min into my tempo run it escalated in pain from 0/10 to 7 out of 10 in about 5 steps… almost, as if, out of nowhere. No impact, no funny landing. This morning it just wouldn’t go away. Couldn’t stretch it off, couldn’t run on my toes and get rid of it, couldn’t get rid of the pain even slowing down to a jog. Can feel it walking around.

I guess I need, or at least deserve, the time off so I don’t feel too badly not to run the full 16 this morning. Don’t feel bad missing out a run this afternoon. And I won’t feel bad if I miss out on a run tomorrow morning (although I should go to the gym and put in 60 to 90 minutes on the exercise bike just to keep the engine ticking over and the blood flowing).

Everything is going so well that the risk of getting injured now is worrying me. I’ve gained so much in 100 days of increasingly hard training, and am feeling so strong with the exception of these little niggles, that I’ve got quite a bit to lose by getting injured. Only 70 day to go until London and I need to spend more time, as much time as possible, avoiding injury as well as getting the training done… and done well. Lots of races that are acting as training runs. Lots of track workouts… need to keep my body in good shape through to the tempo when all of the little things will have two weeks to fix themselves. 8 weeks until my taper. 5-6 races. 9 track workouts. 8 long runs. And a smattering of tempo runs on Monday nights. I think, in the interest of avoiding injury I’ll add a rest day and cut back the mileage to 110-120 and stop trying to hit 140 each week. Makes sense? What do I know…?

4 weeks of Anaerobic Training starts now

Everything is feeling fine (ish) after my down week. I definitely noticed the extra energy and bounce in my legs during SLR. I also keep catching myself doing my easy runs a little too fast. I’ve not had an ice bath in a couple of months and hardly stretch at all so I wonder if this is going to come back to bite me in the form of an injury. My feet have been crying for attention for a couple of weeks now… just really tight in the ankles and sort of painful walking about after I’ve not stepped on them for a while (after having my feet up on the couch for example). But I don’t feel it while I run… lack of circulation in my lower legs? Poor (worn out) shoes? Might book myself in with a decent sports massage type person next weekend to work on my calves and hamstrings and Achilles tendons… treat myself as it were.

Am adding in a tempo workout Monday evenings. The aim tomorrow is 40minutes tempo work. Track on Wednesday is 15 tempo – rest – 15 tempo. This coming weekend there is the GW Marathon – the plan was the run the relay but that might be scuppered now. Might look for another race, or might do it and just do the first 15 or so miles (it’s three loops so I could cut out after the second loop).

Also going to add in a couple of lunchtimes at the gym to spend time on non-impact type things… stretching, and core stuff.

Well, that’s the plan. For what it’s worth. And that’s not much (insert boring comment about paper it’s printed on).

Week goals – 135-140 miles – Mon Tempo 40min – Wed Tempo 15min + 15min – Sat 22miles – Sun race/tempo -2X core workouts & stretching.

New Rule – never run less than 5 hours after Chips and Beans and Eggs from the lucky bar…

Summary of the past week - 72 days 'til London

Mon, Feb 6,	Evening		10	too fast - but felt easy. have to watch my easy runs getting too fast.
Tue, Feb 7,	Early Morning	Easy	16	only did archibald X2. felt easy. didn't push it, just toodled along to get the miles in.
Wed, Feb 8,	Early Morning		10	lar dee dar. just put in the miles. wanted to keep it very easy to save myself for track tonight. also it's a down week so must concentrate on consolidating gains rather
Wed, Feb 8,	Evening	Hard	9	5X1000 - 03:10.0; 03:10.5; 03:13.7; 03:14.7; 03:12.8 - including 24min warm-up and 15min cool down. didn't push it too much it being a down week. mainly with mike, but scott was up ahead, and the other fella whose name I don't know whose 39 and damn fast and looks not a day over 28. and he's damn fast. than pushing myself. push myself again starting saturday at slr when i'm gunning for a 23 with fast last 13.
Thu, Feb 9,	Early Morning	Steady State	13	reasonably easy run. Solid, and not too slack. felt great. legs very bouncy... felt myself rising to my toes a lot.
Fri, Feb 10,	Early Morning		12	easy run. sort of slow and not paying much attention. left foot hurts again but on the top of the foot not under the arch. still can't clench toes 100%. mornings slr. too close to lunch and had bad heartburn. not fun. no more chips and eggs even if I'm watching liverpool in the pub. until after London. Which is a shame.
Sat, Feb 11,	Early Morning	Hard	22	slr - stealth 8 miles in fairly solid pace - ross drive via lovers lane with a really solid group of 4 or 5 of us by the end. felt great... tough on the hills but recovering almost completely and quickly - kicked for the last mile which also felt fine. solid slr - probably because it's at the end of a down week
Sat, Feb 11,	Afternoon	Easy	8	put in easy run to loosen up my legs after the
Sun, Feb 12,	Early Morning		10	lots of snow but rock creek path had been cleared almost completely so just wet and cold. started a little fast then told myself steady and just put in an easy 10miles. thighs tight and unresponsive after yesterday’s long run/hills.
			110

rested up after an easy 'down' week - 74 days to London

This week is a ‘down’ week. Having spent the last 4 weeks holding myself together through 135-140mile weeks, I get a week where I take the mileage down (~105) to consolidate the gains, as it were. Mentally and physically take a breather before picking up the mileage again a week later. The hope is that I’ll avoid mentally burning myself out and that the rest will avert any injuries that are sneaking up on me (and give the little niggles I’m carrying on the trails a time to heal).

So, I slept in Monday morning, and slept in Thursday morning… Thursday I even managed to get 10 hours worth of sleep which felt like an age. Whenever I fail to run in the mornings I feel like I’m slurring my way through to at least lunchtime. Just bouncing off the walls and looking through Perspex glass at the world. Not as bad as when I’m going through a big and tough week when (to steal from Fight Club) I feel like the volume is turned down on the rest of my life – waking up tired, going to bed exhausted. I stole that last line from a quote too… plagiarism is alive and well and living etc. blah de blah.

Track on Wednesday was alright. Didn’t push myself too much and did 5X1000’s. As per usual, just started with a couple of guys and watched as they pulled away from me. I should work harder to keep some sort of contact with them so that I get more from the workouts. Obligatory report card comment - Must do better. Because I only started adding track stuff this past summer, this was actually the first time I’ve ever run 1000’s. Quite a decent distance for a workout. Tough, and long enough that there’s a little pacing involved, but short enough that the end is upon you right after you’ve started. Right, well, that makes sense to me anyway.

Thursday morning slept in. Glorious it was. Ran a fairly solid 13 through Rock Creek and down past Lincoln and the Monument and the mall and the Capital and then up through town home. Probably too much concrete but the trip through town is more interesting than just looping back up along the dark trail of Rock Creek – busy getting my night vision eroded by the headlights.

12 this morning down through rock creek out on C&O and then up through Glover and cut across.

Pains? My right foot is bothering me more and more. A week or so ago it was a problem under the foot, and now it’s a problem on top of the foot. I’m concerned because I want to avoid the dreaded stress fracture – cause stress fracture = no running – but I landed funny on it a couple of times on the trail, and it’d didn’t send much pain around and about my system. More like a dull pain when running that comes and goes. I guess it’s just a tendon or muscle on top of the foot that probably just wants a bit of attention. I’ll just do my laces up a bit lose and think about it every now and again until it goes away (or something else worse replaces it).

No race this weekend. 22-23 long run tomorrow morning. Snowstorm on the weather forecast… at least it’ll feel like winter after such a mild January. Snow during the run? That’ll make it fun I guess. Oh, shut up.

Plan and the goal - London - 75 days to go

As of right now, the goal is the London Marathon on Sunday April 23rd. I'm 15 weeks into a training plan that began the week after the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington DC. The aim for London is to run as close to a 2:30 marathon as possible. That’s holding myself together at 5:45miles for 26.2 miles. As of right now, I'm gonna need some sort of magic taper for my body to suddenly find that easy enough to do for it to be a reasonable goal. I still have 10 and a bit weeks of training to go, 75 days, and a collection of long runs and races and tempo & track workouts so it's not like I'm running it tomorrow. But then it's not like it's getting any further away...

I've had a bunch of things (acting mostly) in my way during the evenings which have now cleared as the show I was in has closed. Therefore I have more time to sleep and more time to run in the evenings rather than desperately cramming a run into an elongated lunch hour.

Short term - I'm going to focus on getting the miles in, adding a tempo workout, speeding up the second half of the Saturday long run (slr). I'm always motivated enough in a race situation to push myself so those are always good workouts. I care significantly less about where I finish and more about the time I finish in(that sounds like a cop out - okay, I suppose I care about both but I'm hardly going to win the Olympics so it's who turns up on the day isn't it...).

What I'm looking at over the next couple of weeks - 22-23miles run this saturday, tempo run monday night on trail, tempo run wednesday night on track, GW Marathon Relay next sunday (I think I'm taking the last section which is ~10miles).

I dislike the present dot based blog format. I'm not too sure why I writing a blog except to record all of this rubbish so I can look back when I'm older and wonder how on earth I was running that much.

Large entry that last one... but at least it's all down there. what am I doing? going to bed. that's what I'm doing. I'll think about this blog thing again tomorrow.

Long long training log of every run since MCM (Oct 30th)

Mon, Oct 31 am Easy 6
Tue, Nov 1 am Easy 12
Wed, Nov 2 am Easy 8
Wed, Nov 2 pm Hard 11
Thu, Nov 3 am 6
Fri, Nov 4 am Easy 12
Sat, Nov 5 am Steady 19
Sun, Nov 6 am Hard 18.2
92.2
Mon, Nov 7 am Easy 6
Tue, Nov 8 am Easy 12
Tue, Nov 8 pm Thres 12
Wed, Nov 9 am Easy 10
Wed, Nov 9 pm Easy 12
Thu, Nov 10 pm Steady 6
Fri, Nov 11 am Easy 12
Sat, Nov 12 am Steady 22
Sun, Nov 13 am Steady 13
105
Mon, Nov 14 am Easy 12
Mon, Nov 14 pm Easy 4
Tue, Nov 15 am Steady 10
Tue, Nov 15 pm Steady 10
Wed, Nov 16 am Hard 10
Wed, Nov 16 pm Hard 5
Thu, Nov 17 am Steady 12
Thu, Nov 17 pm Easy 10
Fri, Nov 18 am Easy 18
Sat, Nov 19 am Steady 22
Sun, Nov 20 am Steady 12
125
Mon, Nov 21 am Steady 12
Mon, Nov 21 pm Easy 8
Tue, Nov 22 am Steady 18
Tue, Nov 22 pm Easy 6
Wed, Nov 23 pm 2
Thu, Nov 24 am Easy 3
Thu, Nov 24 am Hard 5
Thu, Nov 24 pm Easy 12
Fri, Nov 25 am Easy 12
Fri, Nov 25 pm Easy 14
Sat, Nov 26 am Easy 16
Sat, Nov 26 pm Easy 6
Sun, Nov 27 am Steady 21
135
Mon, Nov 28 am Easy 18
Mon, Nov 28 pm Easy 6
Tue, Nov 29 am Easy 18
Tue, Nov 29 pm Easy 6
Wed, Nov 30 am Easy 12
Wed, Nov 30 pm Easy 8
Thu, Dec 1 am Easy 14
Thu, Dec 1 pm Easy 8
Fri, Dec 2 am Easy 12
Sat, Dec 3 am Hard 18.1
Sat, Dec 3 pm Easy 6
Sun, Dec 4 am 21
147
Mon, Dec 5 am Easy 18
Tue, Dec 6 am Easy 18
Wed, Dec 7 am Easy 12
Wed, Dec 7 pm Easy 8
Thu, Dec 8 am Easy 6
Sat, Dec 10 am Steady 17
Sun, Dec 11 am Hard 12.2
91.2
Mon, Dec 12 am Easy 18
Mon, Dec 12 pm Easy 8
Tue, Dec 13 am 13
Wed, Dec 14 am Easy 14
Wed, Dec 14 pm 11
Thu, Dec 15 am 18
Fri, Dec 16 am 13
Fri, Dec 16 pm Steady 9.5
Sat, Dec 17 am Hard 17
Sat, Dec 17 pm Easy 6
Sun, Dec 18 am Easy 12
140
Mon, Dec 19 am 18
Mon, Dec 19 pm Steady 10
Tue, Dec 20 am Easy 18
Tue, Dec 20 pm 8
Wed, Dec 21 am Easy 12
Wed, Dec 21 pm Hard 11
Thu, Dec 22 am 18
Thu, Dec 22 pm Easy 7
Fri, Dec 23 pm Hard 10
Sat, Dec 24 am 14
Sat, Dec 24 pm 10
Sun, Dec 25 am Steady 20
Sun, Dec 25 pm 9
165
Mon, Dec 26 am 10
Mon, Dec 26 pm 14
Tue, Dec 27 am 14
Tue, Dec 27 pm 8
Wed, Dec 28 am 12
Wed, Dec 28 pm 10
Thu, Dec 29 am 18
Thu, Dec 29 pm 4
Fri, Dec 30 am 10
Sat, Dec 31 am Steady 17
Sat, Dec 31 pm Easy 6
Sun, Jan 1 am Hard 13
136
Mon, Jan 2 am Easy 17
Tue, Jan 3 am Easy 18
Wed, Jan 4 pm Steady 12
Thu, Jan 5 pm 14
Fri, Jan 6 am 12
Sat, Jan 7 am Hard 13
Sun, Jan 8 am 23
Sun, Jan 8 pm 8
117
Mon, Jan 9 am 18
Tue, Jan 10 am Easy 19
Tue, Jan 10 pm Easy 7
Wed, Jan 11 pm Easy 10
Thu, Jan 12 am Steady 13
Fri, Jan 13 am Easy 16
Fri, Jan 13 pm 8
Sat, Jan 14 am 22
Sun, Jan 15 am Hard 18
Sun, Jan 15 pm Easy 6
137
Mon, Jan 16 am 19
Mon, Jan 16 pm 10
Tue, Jan 17 am 19
Wed, Jan 18 pm Hard 15
Thu, Jan 19 am Easy 10
Thu, Jan 19 pm Easy 7
Fri, Jan 20 am 12
Fri, Jan 20 pm Easy 6
Sat, Jan 21 am Hard 21
Sat, Jan 21 pm Easy 6
Sun, Jan 22 am Steady 14
139
Tue, Jan 24 am Steady 16
Tue, Jan 24 pm Steady 13
Wed, Jan 25 am Easy 12
Wed, Jan 25 pm Hard 11
Thu, Jan 26 am Easy 15
Thu, Jan 26 pm Easy 5
Fri, Jan 27 am 12
Fri, Jan 27 pm Easy 7
Sat, Jan 28 am Hard 21.5
Sat, Jan 28 pm Steady 10
Sun, Jan 29 am 12
Sun, Jan 29 pm Easy 6
141
Mon, Jan 30 am Easy 16
Mon, Jan 30 pm Steady 9
Tue, Jan 31 am Steady 16
Tue, Jan 31 pm Easy 6
Wed, Feb 1 am Easy 10
Wed, Feb 1 pm Hard 10.5
Thu, Feb 2 am Easy 13
Thu, Feb 2 pm Easy 6
Fri, Feb 3 am Easy 12
Sat, Feb 4 am Hard 12
Sat, Feb 4 pm Easy 6
Sun, Feb 5 am Easy 6
Sun, Feb 5 pm Hard 11
134

Who am I and what on earth am I doing?

Me, you ask?... 28 yr old British fella living in Washington DC, ran 2:39 in Chicago this year. Have only been running seriously for a couple of years, but keep getting more and more serious about it year by year. Always just went from one marathon to the next, not committing to running, but started to commit to it about two years ago, and now starting to get more competitive (if anything, with myself) and thus cutting down on marathons and letting running take over as my primary goal - I'll admit that.

Since Chicago I've been following a form of the Arthur Lydiard plan/system/call it what you will.I got through about 10 weeks of base training, holding onto 130-140 mile weeks (doing three weeks at that, and then back off to 100 for the forth week)... my body held up fairly well to this - previous mileage going into chicago this year was averaging just under 100 / week if you include tapering and recovery weeks in the average. I’ve been very careful, and sticking to trails, sleeping more, eating well, and using lighter performance trainers instead of clog like stability shoes. My goal race is London in April, already have my place through the 'UK athletic championship' qualifying requirements, and want to get my body in a position where I have a serious and reasonable chance of running 2:30. I have just finished a phase of hill based workouts in Jan and after this 'down' week (the goal is to just shave the top off of 100 for the week)... I'll begin 4 weeks of anaerobic stuff to take me through Feb...

According to the plan, that'll take me through to a phase of Conditioning in ~March, and then tapering through to 23rd April. I've scheduled a bunch of local DC-based races between now and then as great excuses for tough tempo runs. A couple of 10ks, a couple of 10milers, a half marathon...

Where to start?

I was going to hold off creating a blog to track my training until the the present training cycle had ended. But why wait... What is the purpose of this? to track, for me and whoever else cares to read along, the progress of my attempt to step up from being an okay club runner to a semi-elite long distance runner. I should start off with something longer and more "this is who I am - this is what I'm doing" but lets keep it short for starters, ey?