Chris
What a day…
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008Well what a day! Crispy cold, bright sunshine, no underwater bits and best of all, most of the mud was semi-frozen. The water and smiles at the check points were nice too. The finish looming out of the darkness was even nicer, especially as I had a well meaning mate bawling on the phone saying, ‘you’d better be running boy’, ‘where are you?’ and ‘you can get in under 12 hrs if you try’.
Well I fell into Kathy’s arms (figuratively speaking) in 11:59, just 4 minutes inside my predicted time of 12:03 and nearly 2 hrs inside my original finishing time. Woo, hoo. I ain’t no speed runner but this was a good time for me (a PB) and all achieved with a mega blister and a dopey right leg. So was this vast improvement down to my having invested some of my cash in a personal coach? I like to think it was. Certainly my endurance and pacing was much better and even though I walked some, my fitness was still much improved.
Great day all round. Got the gong and the obligatory mug. Even the T-shirt fitted. Medium Steve, not large like you tried to give me.
Comments OffLong weekend at an Algarve training camp
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008Just got back from a long weekend training camp in the Algarve. Nice weather (with a dash of rain thrown in on the last day), nice people and good quality training. Okay, perhaps this training mainly focused on those who were there to boost their marathon training but I found it useful and informative never the less, especially so as far as pacing is concerned. Pacing, as in pacing my self over 54, probably wet miles, is vital if I am to give myself a chance to improve my finishing times. That’s if I finish at all! 2 years ago (2006), my Thames Meander finishing time was 13:42. Last year I ran the Thames Path 50 mile Ultra in 11:12:40. That finishing time extrapolated to 54 miles indicated that I would have reduced my Thames Meander time to around 12hrs and all because I did not linger at the CP’s nor did I get caught up in a group as the day/miles went by. So ‘all’ I have to do to improve this year then, is to do the same as last year plus make sure that my pace remains more constant. Hmm, we’ll see.
Note: The training camp was organised and run by Full Potential.
No Comments »Training at altitude and at other places along the way…
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Unlike Paul who spent most of December 07 roaming the Himalaya’s, last week I spent 7 days in Davos, Switzerland participating in a winter fitness training camp. This little trip came about because last year I discovered that running training does not necessarily mean more of the same.
Prior to last year my race preparations consisted of running further more often, which sometimes included back to back running. This where you run say 17-25 miles on a Saturday then run 12 miles on the Sunday, the idea being that your legs get used to the pain! Last year though the light dawned. It dawned at my first taste of a spring warm weather training camp in the Algarve. Here we ran to a structure; 8AM 5-6 gentle miles both on and off road before breakfast. 3.30PM Yoga or stretching prior to some track work and cross-country hill loops. Here I came across words such as time trials, strides, thresholds, Kenyan hills, recovery runs, easy runs etc. This was a new language to me and with came the realisation that I had never actually ‘trained’ for running, let alone train for races. Wow! Anyway, to cut a long story short, following this revelation, I decided to invest in some personal coaching which led me to another, this time Autumn, warm weather training camp in Provence, a 4-day international challenge in Cyprus at the end of November and then on to the winter training camp in Switzerland. See how it goes? Get the bug, spend your money. Or as they say in Bali ‘No money, no honey’. Oh no, sorry, that’s for another type of activity altogether.
So my training now consists of following a professionally prepared weekly schedule that includes all those funny words above, gym work and now altitude training using cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and Nordic walking to improve my fitness. The underlying philosophy of this training is, by the way, the belief that to improve your game, you need to improve the quality of your training, not just run more of the same.
It remains to be seen… on the 16 Feb 08 I guess.
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