Sunday 28 March 2010

Training Week 17 Recap

Hi all,

These training week recaps are starting to become a bit of an addictive habit. But it's even more problematic if you haven't got any training to report! That's right - I've done absolutely no running this week! :-)

The only recap I have to make is that I'm heading into a new direction in my training. After the Reading Half Marathon, I reflected on the experience and decided that I'd get a lot of benefit if I got a running coach who could put me on the right path. I joined the FP Run Club, which is part of the Full Potential coaching company. It's something I haven't done before or even considered in the past so I feel like I'm gambling or going all in here but, at this stage, anything is worth a try!

On Friday, I had a great conversation with George Anderson, one of the FP Run Club coaches, and in that initial coaching call he gave me a bunch of training ideas which I can incorporate immediately. After answering his questions, and also from checking up on my progress from my past tweets, he believes that I'm comfortable over long distance, but my threshold and strength could be developed further. Therefore he immediately prescribed threshold runs and continuous hills to build these areas up.

George also stressed quality over volume, and in saying that I definitely feel that the volume of running I've been doing lately has curtailed my other activities. Now that is part of being a serious runner, but I have a few other things going on outside of my running. Perhaps if I could cut back on volume and really (and I mean really) make every mile count, then I could strike a decent balance between training and my other activities. When I first started out on this journey, I was prepared to put in the volume. It's natural to commit to something fully when you start out on something new. But after I ran the Reading Half Marathon I concluded that the volume of running I was putting in wasn't bringing the desired results. I also felt that in those 16 weeks I didn't really have a life, and I couldn't really continue doing this for 26 more weeks. This is definitely not being defeatist - it's just a new approach to my training, which I am seriously hoping it will pay off in the long run!

I'm very excited with this new approach laid out before me, and starting this week I will be back into training.

Best,

Aaron

Friday 26 March 2010

A step in a different direction

Hi guys,

This afternoon I had the pleasure of chatting to George Anderson on the phone for roughly an hour, talking about my training direction and my focus. The conversation was very enlightening and George offered ideas that I probably wouldn't have considered had I been training on my own.

I recently joined the FP Run Club, which is an online coaching resource combining the experience of the UK's top running coaches. George launched the FP Run Club a couple of months ago to support marathon runners wanting to achieve their goals. He also offered two free coaching calls to his Twitter followers (ah, good ol' Twitter) if they signed up to the FP Run Club within a particular time. I quickly jumped to the opportunity.

On the phone, I told George about my goals, my training direction and what I've normally done in training. He also took note of the event I'm preparing for (Berlin on September 26th).

George commented that September 26th is still a fair bit of time away. What he was really getting at is that the running programmes offered by FP Run Club have a maximum length of 16 weeks! At the time of writing, I have exactly 26 weeks to Berlin. The 16-week running programmes are designed with time goals in mind, from just finishing a marathon to sub-3 hours which is what I want to follow. The rationale is that extended periods of training would more likely be more harmful than good, such as peaking at the wrong time, or picking up injuries as a result of prolonged training. This leaves me 10 weeks of running to no programme, so what am I to do?

On the phone, George recommended 6 weeks of hard running, followed by 2 weeks of taper prior to starting the running programme. Since I actually have 10 weeks to go, I'm going to make this 8 weeks of hard running, followed by 2 weeks of taper. George also recommended that I drop the long run and hard intervals entirely, and devote most of my focus on hill work and threshold runs. After noting down the pace and distance of my recent long runs, he suggested that I limit the time spent on my feet to around 90-110 minutes, instead of going as far as 150-180 minutes. The extra volume will most likely lead to injury, and since I'm already accustomed to running long distance, I'm already running to my strength instead of addressing my weaknesses. My weakness, which I've alluded to in my earlier post, is speed endurance (the amount of time where high speeds can be maintained).

I mentioned that my 5 km splits in the Reading Half Marathon were averaging between 22-23 minutes. George advised me not to look into it too deeply, but agrees that if I want to break 3 hours this year I would need to lower my 10 km time to around 35-38 minutes if I were to run a 10 km race. The only way to get faster over shorter distances is to increase the quality of my threshold and hill runs, and not focus on volume, which is something I've been guilty of (by association!) over the past couple of months.

Two key workouts that George proposed include:
  • Threshold running
  • Continuous hills
I'm already familiar with threshold running, having done forms of it in training already. George defined over the phone what he believes threshold running is, and I'll be trying to incorporate that definition into my training.

Continuous hills is a whole different workout for me. Also known as Kenyan hills, which was popularised by the Kenyans, who are of course the world leaders of distance running. Looking back at my past training schedules, hill workouts have been very few and far between. So I'm keen to include hill training as a regular run in my training programme.

As to the frequency of training, George stresses quality over volume. I've already known this, but looking at my past training recaps, I've been emphasising volume over quality instead. For the 10 week period, George recommends at least a continuous hills session, a threshold session and a long run session, with some recovery runs thrown in. I'm not sure what's in store in the 16-week training programme, but the 10 week "preliminary period" is designed to get me in the best possible form to allow me to undertake the 16-week sub-3 hour training programme. Without the long run at this stage, I'm using these preliminary 10 weeks as a means of improving my times at shorter distances, and I mentioned to George that the kinds of running workouts in this period is similar to training for a 10 km race (just without the faster intervals).

Lastly, I mentioned to George that I'll be running the Rotterdam marathon in April and the Copenhagen marathon in May. These will be like my marathon long runs, so to speak. As I expected, George advised me to take these slowly and run for the experience.

Overall, this was a very fruitful discussion with a top running coach, who has given me something new to focus on. I can't wait to get started again.

Itching to get the running shoes on,

Aaron

Thursday 25 March 2010

A few days later.....

Hi all,

It's been a few days since I've had a run. These few days are to recover from the Reading Half Marathon on Sunday, to get many things done that I've neglected over the past couple of months, and to just put things into perspective. Having trained hard for 16 weeks I've more or less had to neglect a few things which kept building up over time. I've moved into a new house at the start of the month, and have just finished unpacking! And I've managed to complete a bunch of tasks on my never-ending to-do list. It's now more manageable, though when I start running again in a couple of days, it'll probably grow bigger.

I've had some time to think about the Reading Half Marathon and take in comments from many people, most of them being non-runners. I can honestly say that I gave it my best and that I'm happy to have set a new personal best despite not meeting my original goal. Goals are supposed to be ambitious, but also realistic at the same time. If the goal is too easy, then that could hardly be called a goal.

In saying that, my goal is to break three hours. I could reach my goal this year, but on the same token I might not reach it this year. But it is still a goal that I believe is realistic for me. And it is something that I'll continue to work towards whether it will take me one year or 10!

I've received a lot of supportive comments from friends, family, colleagues and others who have helped me look at things differently, and allowed me to refocus. One colleague told me that we only appreciate things that we achieve slowly or not at all. If we are able to do something quickly we lose interest. How very philosophical.

My office manager told me that I shouldn't always try to push so hard, and told me about the mail girl in another office who ran the Reading Half Marathon for charity and a couple of days later is now walking around in crutches! Bizarre! This reminded me of a runner I saw collapsed on the side of the road, just 1 km from the finish line. He needed paramedic assistance. What price for trying to beat 90 minutes? By the way, the mail girl ran for a charity and finished in over 2 hours, however since she's not a runner the stress of completing a half marathon took its toll on her body, so she's just taking things easy with regards to moving around.

I also got a text from my former housemate, who has no interest in running but knows how much I'm passionate about it. She simply asked me if I had a good time and if I was okay. Messages like that can be very uplifting.

And I've had many kind comments from others congratulating me on my new personal best, to learn from the experience and not to get discouraged. Thank you all for that.

I've more or less figured out why I ran how I ran on Sunday. Simply put, I wasn't fast enough (obviously). I got my split times and they are:
  • 5 km: 22:29
  • 10 km: 44:05
  • 15 km: 1:06:54
  • 20 km: 1:29:41
My average times over 5 km are nowhere near the pace to be achieving a 90 minute half marathon time. Between the 5-10 km mark, I ran the fastest 5 km with 21:36, but that is still too slow. Having run mostly marathons and halves, I've never really prepared for shorter distances which specialise in speed over endurance. I say this because I haven't really got a 5 km race time, so I don't know if I can run a 5 km race under 21 minutes. This is one area where I feel I really need improvement. Training from now on will need to incorporate a lot more faster running to build speed and maintain that speed over long periods of time. It's amazing to see what my split times can reveal.

Also I've decided that in order to take my running to a whole new level, and hopefully break three hours, I've decided to get myself a running coach and have approached George Anderson, the 1:30 pacesetter from the Reading Half Marathon and the guy I was trying to catch up to last Sunday. George is a running coach and strength conditioning specialist who has a wealth of experience. Before, I was my own coach but sometimes I went about things the wrong way. No doubt this was evident when I spent 16 weeks training for the Reading Half Marathon, and only managed to improve by 2 minutes. Having someone experienced like George to guide me along the way will no doubt improve my running. George is going to call me tomorrow morning (and it's for free too) to discuss training direction, focus and sub-goals I may have. Very excited!

So those have been the few days since the Reading Half Marathon. Just a time for relaxing, reflecting, and refocusing. In a couple of days I'll get back into it. And this time I cannot wait.

Excited about things to come,

Aaron

Sunday 21 March 2010

Reading Half Marathon 2010 - Race Report

Hi all,

Here's my race report on the Reading Half Marathon, as it happened. In writing this, it will also help me dissect my performance, and what I can address in future with regards to my marathon goal.

In summary, I ran a new personal best of 1:34:35, a 2 minute improvement from last year. But I failed in running a sub 1:30:00 time. I did the best I could on the day, but ultimately came up short. At the moment, I'm still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. And there's always the "what if's" that go through my mind as well.

I actually felt really good heading into the race. Having arrived at the stadium really early, I had ample time to find the necessary facilities, get changed and get to the starting blocks. The music was psyching me up as well, so I lined up at the starting block for runners finishing in 1 hour 30 minutes. I was hoping to stick to the pacesetter, George Anderson, as much as possible.

However, around 10 minutes to the start, I got a surprise when I found myself lined up with a pacesetter for runners finishing in 1 hour 35 minutes. Not to worry, perhaps I can catch up to George later on in the race. I couldn't see his pace flag as I looked ahead through the mass of runners in front of me. And believe me, there were A LOT of runners. The start felt really comfortable, but that was probably due to me being boxed in by the mass of runners in front. I tried weaving around them, which probably wasn't a good idea. Eventually the group of runners in front thinned out after around 2 miles and I was able to run my own race. At that point, I had already passed the pacesetter for 1 hour 35 minutes. I felt like I was working hard but I was confident that I would sustain the effort and reach George later on. Little did I know that I was going to be in for a surprise later on.

There were timing mats at 5, 10, 15 and 20 km this year. I managed to get to the 5 km mat in 22:29. I was over a minute off the pace, but I still felt strong despite feeling that I was working hard. Around the 6 mile mark, I saw George for the first time. He was running in the opposite direction after doing a loop on Kings Rd, so I figured that I was only about 400 metres behind him. I got to the 10 km mat in 44:05. Still a minute off the pace, but I was slowly catching up. Having managed to see George, I was about to pick up the pace.

Unfortunately the sun was high in the sky by then, and I started to get hot. I tried cooling myself by pouring water over my head, which relieved things for a bit. But I also felt myself getting slower in the later stages of the race. The Russell Street hill felt really hard for some reason. Every stride felt like an effort, and I tried not to stop or even walk for a bit. I got to the 15 km mat in 66:54, and the 10 mile marker in 71 mins. I did the maths in my head, and knew it was going to take something very special to break 1:30:00. My pace was 7.1 mins/mile, and I knew that wasn't fast enough. I would have to run the next 3 miles in 19 minutes, and I've never done that before in training or a race situation.

Alas, I wasn't able to dig any deeper and by the time I reached Green Park, I knew that the dream to finish in 1:30:00 was dead, and I have to settle on beating my current personal best as much as I could. I didn't realise how far off target I was when I saw the 1 hour 35 minute pacesetter a few metres behind me. How did he catch up? In an effort to outrun him, I tried pushing the pace one last time. It was pretty much agony as I just didn't have anything in my legs to go faster. On the way to the stadium, I saw paramedics tending to a fallen runner, wearing an oxygen mask in the recovery position. I'm thankful that I didn't suffer the same way. A few minutes later I crossed the finish line with a new PB, but also with shattered confidence.

After that, I managed to get access to the adidas VIP area for a free massage and food. I was pretty disappointed with the massage; I felt as if the masseur went too softly. Or maybe I was too angry with myself after that run to notice. But the food was great and I managed to help myself to two plates of delicious pasta.

I'm trying to answer what went wrong on the day. The weather did feel quite hot actually, so perhaps I could make excuses about the weather. I also lined up in the wrong starting area; maybe if I lined up in the correct starting area, I would've had an easier time coping with the masses of runners in front.

But if those split times are anything to go by, I think that I'm finding myself quite comfortable running at a certain pace. My 5 km time was 22:29, which is average but not that great. In my 5-10 km split I ran 21:36. I've never pushed myself to run a 5 km time faster than 21 mins. Having run the majority of my races over marathon and half marathon distance I haven't really been tested in shorter races, which emphasises speed over endurance. Maybe that is my current weakness, I don't know for sure. I'm sure that I have the endurance base, but maybe the speed and lactate threshold isn't as high as I would like them to be.

Looking at my overall performance, I went to McMillan Running Calculator to see the equivalent performance for a marathon based on my half marathon time. It gave a time of 3:19:29 which is pretty disheartening. My current PB in the marathon is 3:22:45, and I felt on the day of the marathon that I was on track for a sub 3:20:00 run if the weather was a little cooler. If I were to have any chance of running a sub 3:00:00 marathon time, I need to be consistently running around or below 1:25:00 times in a half marathon, and despite my best efforts today I failed to get even close. So the question is whether I'm able to break 3 hours in a marathon this year. Do I have the goods? Do I have enough time? Should I be revising my goal this year? Questions are ringing out like alarm bells.

Today feels like a setback, but this is a personal best so I'm happily going to take that. On a positive note, one performance doesn't make or break a season, so I'm going to take what I can from this and apply it in training. Physically, I'm actually feeling rather good at the moment, but that may be a different story when I wake up in the morning. I'll be taking things easy next week, and will get into proper training after that. It will be interesting to see what will change in my training as a result of my run today.

Weary, but still positive,

Aaron

Training Week 16 Recap

Hi folks,

Well I'm pretty sure you want to know about the Reading Half Marathon. All I can say is that I set a new PB of 1:34:35 in the half marathon, but I didn't meet my target time of 1:30:00. I'll write a report on the race once I've articulated my thoughts a little better. But first, the week's training recap.

Monday
Type: Intervals
Time and Distance: 40 mins, 7.4 km.
Detail: 15 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 6 x 1 min at 17.0 - 17.5 km/h pace, with 90 secs recovery at 8 km/h pace after intervals. 4 x 30 secs at 18 - 20 km/h pace, with 60 secs recovery at 8 km/h pace.

Thursday
Type: Intervals
Time and Distance: 35 mins, 6.45 km.
Detail: 15 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 75 secs at 16.0 - 16.6 km/h pace, with 2 mins recovery at 8 km/h pace after intervals. 4 x 30 secs at 17 - 18 km/h pace, with 60 secs recovery at 8 km/h pace.

Sunday
Type: Half Marathon
Time and Distance: 94 mins 35 secs, 21.1 km.
Detail: Splits: 5 km: 22:29. 10 km: 44:05. 15 km: 66:54. 20 km: 89:41.
Time between splits: Ran 21:36 between 5-10 km. Ran 22:49 between 10-15 km. Ran 22:47 between 15-20 km. Ran 4:54 from 20 km to the finish.
Average pace between splits: 5 km: 4:29 min/km (13.34 km/h). 10 km: 4:19 min/km (13.88 km/h). 15 km: 4:33 min/km (13.15 km/h). 20 km: 4:33 min/km (13.17 km/h). Finish: 4:27 min/km (13:47 km/h).
Slowed down in the 2nd half of the race.

Total Weekly Distance: 34.95 km.

Comments: Nothing much to say in this week. This was the 2nd week of taper before the Reading Half Marathon. I'll write more on the Reading Half Marathon in a separate post.

Improvements: For the whole of next week I'll be taking it easy. Strangely enough, I actually feel like going for a run now, but it'll probably be a different story when I wake up with sore muscles in the morning! When preparing for Reading, I haven't really given the Rotterdam Marathon any thought, and it's in 3 weeks time! Thankfully it's only going to be a glorified training long run, and not the real thing.

I'll start writing up my race report for the Reading Half Marathon right now. This is one report you don't want to miss.

Best,

Aaron

Saturday 20 March 2010

The Day Before Tomorrow

Hi all,

There's only one day left till the Reading Half Marathon, and I've been busy running around trying to get everything into place. When planning for a race, getting the logistics correct is so important as it can make or break a performance. Right now, I've mostly gotten everything done, and have a bit of time writing this blog entry and cooking dinner before I have an early night tonight, hopefully all fresh for the big day tomorrow.

The biggest worries for me are transportation to the start line, some uncomfortable niggles in my feet, and race morning in the few hours prior to the race itself. I live quite far away from the stadium outside of Reading, and public transport on Sunday isn't that frequent. There are free shuttle buses from Reading station that will take runners to and from the stadium. The first train to Reading station from my house starts at 8:40 am which is far too late. Buses near my house start around 8:00 am, which is also unacceptable. After looking at public transport schedules for nearly an hour, I found that there is a bus service that runs at almost all hours of the day, but I have to walk around 25 minutes from my house to get to this bus stop. At least it beats walking to Reading station, which would take me over an hour. And I'd rather not waste my energy doing this on race day. Sometimes I wish I lived closer to the stadium or in Reading itself, then I'd have one less thing to worry about!

As for the uncomfortable niggles I have in my feet, I've just developed a blister under my right foot, which will no doubt be uncomfortable when I run. I think my current pair of work shoes may have aggravated it. I've had many blisters and, normally for me, they heal quite fast. I also have a slightly sore spot under my left heel, and I'm really hoping that it's not a serious injury, or Plantar Fasciitis. If they don't come right by tomorrow morning, I'm willing to run through the pain!

And there's the dreaded routine I need to go through early on race morning. I'll have to get up early (maybe around 5:00 am), have a good breakfast, go to the toilet, do some stretching and warm-ups, ensure I have everything in my bag to carry to the start line (at the moment I just realised I needed to buy Vaseline!!!), and make sure I wear my timing chip around my ankle and double knot my shoelaces. With my current pair of shoes, I've had many problems with shoelaces becoming untied during a run. Things like an untied shoe lace, or the urge to go to the toilet in the middle of a long race, is something that every runner dreads.

So there's the logistical headache and other anxieties that runners need to contend with, some more so than others.

My goal is to run under 90 minutes in the Reading Half Marathon. My personal best is 1:36:40, which means I need to run 18 seconds per km faster than last year to reach my goal. With regards to my training preparation for this event, I have had 16 weeks, 48 sessions, and ran approximately 570 km. The training volume was slightly higher than last year's preparation where I logged around 450 km. Overall, my preparation hasn't been perfect; there have been missed sessions and bad days that I'd rather forget. I got sick during the taper period, which took out half of my planned sessions. But I'm feeling good, and I feel that I can beat my time from last year. The things that I have got going for me this year are: increased mileage, more training experience, more race experience, knowing the course really well, extra motivation with regards to breaking three hours in a marathon, and the "extra" expectation to do well now that a lot of people know my sporting goals and dreams. 90 minutes is not going to equate to a sub-3:00:00 marathon time, but it's the first step in the right direction.

I'm really excited about tomorrow, and I know that the Reading Half Marathon will deliver in terms of atmosphere and crowd support. Today being the 20th March, 2010, it's been 6 months since I last ran a race (the Berlin Marathon in September) so I'm keen to get out there and run as hard as I can. The extra adrenaline from racing will carry me through. I know a few friends in Reading so hopefully they'll come out and support me and the other 18000+ runners pounding the Reading streets.

On a final note, I've just learned how to tweet from my Nokia 3310 mobile phone (an old school mobile, but I still love it). If you want to follow real time updates from the race, you can follow me on Twitter! I'll try to tweet as soon as I can from the finish line, but I definitely won't be tweeting during the race itself. Tweeting during a race sounds like a great idea, but I'm going to put 100% into my run and will happily concentrate on the running instead of the tweeting.

I'll most likely be buggered after tomorrow's race and would rather be sleeping instead of typing on a laptop, but as a means of showing my commitment, you'll still get a comprehensive race report and Training Week 16 Recap on this blog by the end of tomorrow, I promise!

Wish me luck,

Aaron

Friday 19 March 2010

The Reading Half Marathon 2010 Playlist

Hi again,

I've just finalised the 22 songs that comprise the Reading Half Marathon 2010 Playlist. The playlist is approximately 91 minutes long. There's an ongoing joke that if the music stops, then I stop running. But hopefully I'll cross the finish line by the time the playlist finishes.

I've been trying to put all the songs using iMix in iTunes, but unfortunately not all the songs appear in the resulting playlist. So instead, I've listed the songs here in playing order, and I have also added links to the almighty YouTube.
I've ordered it in such a way that I have left the big power songs near the end, which will hopefully give me that extra kick in the dying stages of the race. What do you guys think? Would these songs suit you?

Enjoy!

Aaron

EDIT: I've managed to get iMix working, so I'm including the playlist in this blog entry. Not all songs can be included, because they don't exist in the iTunes store. So that's why I resort to YouTube instead.....

New Addition to My Running Family

Hey guys,

I am proud to announce the latest addition to my running family. She was born today, Friday 19th March, 2010, at 12:57 pm. And she is an absolute delight to her proud parents.

Here's a photo of the beautiful newborn.
Named Azza's ShufflePod, she is the newest addition to the family. The perfect accompaniment to her big brother, Azza's TouchPod. She weighs in at 10.7 grams, and measures 45.2 x 17.5 x 7.8 mm. She can hold up to 1000 songs and play for 10 hours. But the best thing is that Azza's ShufflePod is very gifted; she can already speak at birth. The song, the artist, the playlist - with her new and unique VoiceOver feature she can say them all!

Here's a picture of brother and sister side by side.
And a picture of the back. Unfortunately, being 2 years old, Azza's TouchPod is already looking a little worn!
Azza's TouchPod will be calling time when it comes to playing music during those training runs. From now on, his little sister will be the main music player for those long runs and other exercise sessions. One of my concerns when running with Azza's TouchPod is that it can get wet from perspiration, rain, or just throwing water on my body when it gets too hot. Azza's TouchPod wears a protective sleeve whilst in use, but as you can see from the above picture, dust, dirt and moisture can still make it dirty. Azza's TouchPod is more than a music player; it also runs cool applications, browse the internet, play YouTube videos, stores contacts and calendar information, and so much more. It's time for Azza's TouchPod to step aside from the rigours of playing music during those long training runs.

Smaller, lightweight, and so unobtrusive, Azza's ShufflePod is the perfect music player for running. Unlike Azza's TouchPod, you won't notice her clipped to your shorts. The headphones that come with her are awesome. Because Azza's ShufflePod has no screen, the headphones can control playback, song selection, volume control and even the VoiceOver feature that is so unique to Azza's ShufflePod.

This doesn't mean that Azza's TouchPod will retire completely as a music player. But in order to ensure longevity, his younger sister will take over as the main music player for running.

Azza's ShufflePod does not have much time to get into action. Her first assignment is the all-too-important Reading Half Marathon, where her parents are hoping she can deliver the listener a sub-1:30 target time. But she's so gifted, and so good looking, her parents are confident she is up to the task.

Over the moon,

Azza

Monday 15 March 2010

Training Week 15 Recap

Hi folks,

I've had a very easy week. I mean that in terms of running output. In terms of being sick and having to travel for business while being sick, then I guess I had it pretty tough. No doubt this has affected what I could manage for the week, but since it's taper week I suppose the highly reduced mileage isn't going to hurt me too much. Well, I hope!

Saturday
Type: Easy
Time and Distance: 70 mins, 12.5 km.
Detail: Steady pace throughout, with a faster sprint finish in the final 500m.

Total Weekly Distance: 12.5 km.

Comments: My only run this week. There's really not much to say about it, apart from being a sightseeing expedition around Reading, playing tour guide to my good mate and fellow runner Shaun all the way from New Zealand, and scouting the Reading Half Marathon course, which I'm very familiar with. Hopefully this will stand in good stead on race day.

Improvements: More taper. Will continue to do faster, shorter runs to keep the legs fresh and ready for race day.

Well I don't know what to make of this week. It was supposed to be a taper week, but I "tapered too much" if you see what I'm getting at. It doesn't help to be sick at any stage of training, so I'll have to take better care of myself. Nor does it help going away for a few days on business, but these things are part and parcel of work. C'est la vie!

In other news, yesterday I was pretty lucky to witness a piece of history. I went to the All England Open Badminton Championship finals in Birmingham to watch the very best players in the world playing for the All England title, which is like the Wimbledon of Badminton, or the unofficial Badminton world championships. Having indirect ties to Malaysia (my parents hail from Malaysia), I was rooting for top seed, Lee Chong Wei, to win the Men's Singles final. Lee didn't disappoint the thousands of screaming fans (including me) as he went on to win the final, becoming the first Malaysian to win a singles final since 2003! Here's a picture of Lee celebrating his achievement after hitting the winner (excuse the arms of those pesky Malaysian fans!).
Badminton in Malaysia is comparable to Rugby in New Zealand, or Football in England, and the amount of noisy Malaysian fans in Birmingham's National Indoor Arena cheering for their national hero made me feel like I was in Malaysia! To Malaysian badminton fans, Malaysian badminton players have the same standing as a Dan Carter in the All Blacks, or a David Beckham in the England Football team.

Badminton is one of my favourite sports having played regularly a long time ago. Unfortunately I was never really good at it, and it doesn't feature in my sporting schedule at all, which is currently dominated by long distance running (surprise surprise!). However, it's good to get away from running once in a while and just enjoy the other things that I used to do before I became a serious runner. Good times! Here's me standing in front of a montage of all the All England champions, pretending to be a champion myself! I'd need such a positive mindset and attitude if I want to break three hours this year.

Relaxing (but not really),

Aaron

Tuesday 9 March 2010

200 Days To Berlin

¡Hola a todos!

As you might gather from the greeting, I'm now in Spain for the week. Not a bad place to be in the first week of the taper period leading up to the Reading Half Marathon. Unfortunately, it's not all fun and games as I'm here on business, plus the fact that I've fallen sick right after my hardest training period. At this stage it's best that I stop running and try to recover as quickly as possible, before I start to do any running this week. Hopefully this won't put me off the roads for long! Here's a picture of Castell de Bellver in Palma, which is where I did quite a lot of my running when I was in Spain before.
I had a look at the timer on my blog, and noted that there are 200 days left until the Berlin Marathon, which is the marathon I'm focusing on to break three hours in. It does sound like a lot of time, but if you factor in the off-days, e.g. taper days, easy days, missed training days and sick days (like now!), then these things can eat a huge chunk of time out of your available training days. In an earlier blog post I mentioned that I had 259 days left, so up to now, over 8 weeks (a fifth of my training period) have passed. I always provide training recaps every week, but it's also good to recap over several weeks as I'm interested to know how much I have progressed since then.

Of course, the only real way to know that I have made improvements is by racing (assuming nothing goes wrong during the race), so by peaking for the Reading Half Marathon I'll have a general indication of how well I'd perform in a marathon. According to the McMillan Running Calculator a 1:30:00 half marathon time would equate to roughly a sub 3:10:00 marathon time. It's not sub 3-hours, but it's a step in the right direction. The calculator isn't going to be accurate for everyone's performance, but for me it seems to be giving close enough times.

Looking at the training schedules, I'd say that I'm running as hard, if not harder, than I was when I did Berlin last year. At this stage, I've already put in more miles in training than last year's preparation for the Reading Half Marathon. I'm feeling confident that I can set a new PB in the half marathon, but I won't dare to be bold in saying that I'd go under 1:30:00 on race day. But let's hope that I do, so that it gives me the reassurance that I'm heading in the right direction, and that I can finally update my personal bests section on this blog!

Hasta pronto (see you soon in Spanish),

Aaron

Sunday 7 March 2010

Training Week 14 Recap

Hi all,

This is the week, the final week of hard stuff before the mandatory two-week taper period before the Reading Half Marathon. Mileage, pace and even exertion have been pushed to newer limits. I don't think I've worked this hard since Berlin last year, or maybe even ever before! Let's see how this week unfolded.

Monday
Type: Easy with strides
Time and Distance: 30 mins, 5.65 km.
Detail: 20 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 10 x 100m strides at 16 km/h pace. Last stride at 18 km/h pace.

Tuesday
Type: Intervals
Time and Distance: 95 mins, 20.3 km.
Detail: 15 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 3200m at 13.6 - 14.0 km/h pace, with 90 secs recovery at 8 km/h pace after intervals. 2 x 1600m at 14.5 km/h pace and 15.5 km/h pace, with 90 secs recovery at 8 km/h pace.

Wednesday
Type: Easy with strides
Time and Distance: 30 mins, 5.72 km.
Detail: 15 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 10 x 100m strides at 17 km/h pace.

Thursday
Type: Progressive tempo
Time and Distance: 40 mins, 8.4 km.
Detail: 15 mins at 10.5 km/h pace. 10 mins at 13.5 - 14.0 km/h pace. 10 mins at 14.0 - 15.0 km/h pace. Recover for 2 mins at 8.0 km/h, followed by 90 secs at 15.1 km/h pace.

Saturday
Type: Long
Time and Distance: 164 mins 31 secs, 33.3 km.
Detail: First half (14.6 km) at 76 mins 50 secs. Second half (18.7 km) at 88 mins 41 secs.

Sunday
Type: Easy
Time and Distance: 44 mins 6 secs, 8 km.
Detail: Recovery run after Saturday's long run.

Total Weekly Distance: 81.37 km.

Comments: My biggest week in terms of mileage and effort, especially the Tuesday run. I don't think I've covered 20 km worth of intervals before! The Thursday tempo run was intended to be a longer session, but unfortunately I had a training mishap so I had to cut it short. The Saturday run was intended to be just slightly longer than half marathon distance at a faster pace, but since I've done two days of hard running this week, I decided to do a slower, longer run. Actually the pace of my long run was a shade below 5 min/km, which, for me, is quite fast for a long run, so hopefully this will benefit both my half marathon training and marathon training at the same time. For all my easy runs, I've been adding 100m strides in the run, just to mix things up and add a bit of zip to the legs. I'm going to include this in all my easy runs from now on.

Improvements: There will be no more weeks of harder running in the two weeks preceding the Reading Half Marathon. This two week period is the taper period, which will allow me to be at, or near, 100% on race day. I would need to be peaking at that time since I'd like to run the Reading Half Marathon in less than 1:30:00. The taper period involves reduced volume and intensity, so it's goodbye long runs, tempo runs and fast mile repeats for now.

Well I managed to put in a mega week of training. It's nowhere near the mileage and intensity that the elites put in, but I'm happy with this hard effort. I'm still injury free at this stage, though I sometimes feel the odd niggle which hopefully will not lead on to anything more serious. Let's hope I can get a new PB, and break 1:30:00, in two weeks time!

Putting my feet up (for now),

Aaron