End of the week

Distance: 6.5 miles
Time: no watch

Tonight's run was an easy 6.5 miles to take the week's total up to 50.5 miles. The same as last week, just with a couple of runs in a slightly different order.

Saturday: 4 miles
Sunday: 20 miles
Monday: 4.5 miles
Tuesday: 3.5 miles
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 12 miles
Friday: 6.5 miles
Total: 50.5 miles

Threshold

Distance: 12 miles
Time: 1:34:30

Tonight I did the same run as last week - 12 miles comprising: 3 miles easy, 6 miles of 5 min threshold, 30 second easy, 3 miles steady.

I think I was marginally quicker tonight but somehow managed to forget to start my Garmin until I was about 4 minutes into the run, so I'll just call it the same time as last week.

Fergus was asking about my long run route. Its pretty straightforward - starting from Meadowbank, run down Portobello Road, along Portobello Promenade, at the end of the Promenade follow the road down to Musselburgh, take a left to run past Musselburgh Pier and then along the shore-front, cross the bridge and follow John Muir's Walk all the way down to Prestonpans. The front door of the power station is exacty 9.5 miles from my flat!! And then all the way back of course....

I'm thinking about dropping my Sunday 20 miler and doing something a bit shorter this weekend. 2 reasons - I've had a little bit of tenderness in my knee this week (nothing major, but I wonder if my body is telling me to take an easy weak) and I have a 10k next week which I'd like to run on semi-fresh legs. I've done 4 Sundays in a row of 20 miles, so I think I'm entitled to miss one at some point....

Day off

Distance: 3.5m (Tuesday)

Yesterday I went for a lunch-time jog with a work colleage - quite slow and and just ticking over.

Today was my weekly day of rest. Tomorrow its time for a threshold session again.

Recovery miles in the wind

Distance: 4.5 miles
Time: 37 mins
Route: Arthur A

Tonight's run was at a fairly comfortable pace, but into a brutal wind once again for part of the route which made it tougher than a recovery run would ideally be. My legs felt OK after yesterday's 20 miler - no aches or pains, but they did feel a little "heavy".

My race number arrived for the forthcoming 10k.

What a difference a week makes

Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:02

Last week I ran the 2nd leg of this route into a gale force wind and suffered badly, limping home in a time of 3:16. Today, although there was a bit of a breeze, the weather was much kinder. I even confronted my demons head on by picking up the pace from miles 10-15 when I turned back into the breeze.

So the run worked out as 10 miles easy (circa 9.30/mi), 5 miles slightly quicker than marathon pace (circa 8.30-9.00/mi) and 5 miles easy to finish up (circa 9.30/mi). Needless to say, I feel much happier after this run than I did a week ago.

That makes 4 consecutive weekly 20 mile long runs, which I am very glad to have got under my belt. Next week I'll probably do another, and then go into a mini-taper for the 10k the following weekend. My mileage has been in the 40+ range for the last few weeks so I probably could do with cutting back for one week just to give the body a break. Once the 10k is out of the way, I think I'll be able to fit in two hard weeks of 50+ miles before tapering for three weeks for the big event on 11 June - one day I'll actually work it out aganst a calendar.

What a difference a week makes

Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:02

Last week I ran the 2nd leg of this route into a gale force wind and suffered badly, limping home in a time of 3:16. Today, although there was a bit of a breeze, the weather was much kinder. I even confronted my demons head on by picking up the pace from miles 10-15 when I turned back into the breeze.

So the run worked out as 10 miles easy (circa 9.30/mi), 5 miles slightly quicker than marathon pace (circa 8.30-9.00/mi) and 5 miles easy to finish up (circa 9.30/mi). Needless to say, I feel much happier after this run than I did a week ago.

That makes 4 consecutive weekly 20 mile long runs, which I am very glad to have got under my belt. Next week I'll probably do another, and then go into a mini-taper for the 10k the following weekend. My mileage has been in the 40+ range for the last few weeks so I probably could do with cutting back for one week just to give the body a break. Once the 10k is out of the way, I think I'll be able to fit in two hard weeks of 50+ miles before tapering for three weeks for the big event on 11 June - one day I'll actually work it out aganst a calendar.

What a difference a week makes

Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:02

Last week I ran the 2nd leg of this route into a gale force wind and suffered badly, limping home in a time of 3:16. Today, although there was a bit of a breeze, the weather was much kinder. I even confronted my demons head on by picking up the pace from miles 10-15 when I turned back into the breeze.

So the run worked out as 10 miles easy (circa 9.30/mi), 5 miles slightly quicker than marathon pace (circa 8.30-9.00/mi) and 5 miles easy to finish up (circa 9.30/mi). Needless to say, I feel much happier after this run than I did a week ago.

That makes 4 consecutive weekly 20 mile long runs, which I am very glad to have got under my belt. Next week I'll probably do another, and then go into a mini-taper for the 10k the following weekend. My mileage has been in the 40+ range for the last few weeks so I probably could do with cutting back for one week just to give the body a break. Once the 10k is out of the way, I think I'll be able to fit in two hard weeks of 50+ miles before tapering for three weeks for the big event on 11 June - one day I'll actually work it out aganst a calendar.

Round the meadows

Distance: 6.5 miles
Time: 54 mins

Yesterday's run was a steady effort round the meadows in central edinburgh which is popular with joggers and, with the better weather, people playing football, frisby etc.

50 mile week

Distance: 6.5 miles
Time: 54:30

Tonight was an easy/steady 6.5 miles. My legs were a little tight after last night's threshold session, but I got pulled along by the huge number of people out running.

This past week goes down on record as my first ever 50+miles week. OK, its only a figure, but it is still nice to reach such a landmark. All things being well, next week will be roughly the same, and I might do a mini-taper the following week which would take me up to my scheduled 10k on 7 May.

Saturday - 4.5 miles
Sunday - 4 miles
Monday - 20 miles
Tuesday - 3.5 miles
Wednesday - rest
Thursday - 12 miles
Friday - 6.5 miles
Total - 50.5 miles

What a difference a day makes

Distance: 12 miles
Time: 1:34:30

Yesterday I was late home from work, had to pick up an undelivered package across town, generally felt tired and needed to get some essays finished. So I took the rest day I had planned for Friday a little earlier.

Tonight was JD training schedule quality session two - 12 miles broken down into: 3 miles easy, 6 miles of 5 min threshold and 30 mins easy, and 3 miles steady to finish up. I felt much stronger doing the threshold runs than I have done previously and it was only in the last 5 mins of the 6 miles that I felt my legs begin to burn a little. I knew I was running strongly compared with what I'd done previously in training at that sort of distance, and sure enough tonight's time is a full 5 minutes faster than I've done on that 12 mile route before. In fact, it was probably about the same pace or marginally faster than I did my half marathon of a month ago. After Sunday's debacle I'm pretty pleased with the outcome.

Next two days are easy mileage days, with Sunday planned as yet another 20 miler (please, no wind).

Its now less than 2 months to go until the marathon!

Recovery miles

Distance: 3.5 miles

Today was my usual Tuesday run with a colleague from work - very easy and just getting the legs ticking over. Apart from a little general tiredness I had no reaction to yesterday's 20 miler, which is always a welcome phenomenon. I have a 12 mile part-threshold run scheduled for Thursday so tomorrow will be some more easy miles.

Another colleague informed me today that there is a 5k in Edinburgh in a week's time. I think I'll give this a go, although I'm not expecting too much from it as by then I'll have hopefully have had 4 consecutive 40+ mileage weeks and 4 consective weekly 20 mile long runs - OK, that's not exactly spectacular running stats in the grand scheme of things, but they're bound to be taking their toll on my relatively untrained legs. On the basis of my recent half marathon time, the Runnersworld website suggests I should be running at somewhere around 23:16 for a 5k, so I guess that's the target time taken care of.

20 miles

Distance: 20 miles
Time 3:14:44

Today's run was 50% brutal. When I started out it was a beautiful morning - sunshine, blue sky etc. - apart from one thing: the wind. My long run route is essentially out and back and today I had the misfortune of turning at 10 miles straight back into the teeth of a gale. The gusts were strong enough in parts to make progress difficult and I dropped a full 8 minutes on the inward half. The last two miles were done on tired, tired legs and I think if I ever meet wind like that in a marathon I'll cry.

Up the hill

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 34:30
Route: Arthur B

Personal commitments caused by the holiday weekend mean that I've had to reschedule my long run until tomorrow. So today it was up the hill and around Arthur's Seat - lots and lots of people out and about on a nice sunny morning. I ended up running at a steady pace - above easy, but below threshold - and felt pretty good.

Nano, baby

Distance: 4.5 miles
Time: 37:00
Route: Arthur A

I felt a bit lethargic on my run this morning - nothing serious, but I hope its not the prelude to a cold or something like that.

I decided to splurge on an Ipod nano yesterday after seeing joggerblogger's shuffle. Great piece of kit, but still undecided whether I'll just use it for recreational running or use it for running as well (I have an older mp3 which I can use and which I'be less worried about anything happening to).

As Mike says, 20 miles certainly gives your mileage total an early boost....This week should see me topping the 50 mark for the first time. I have another 20 planned for tomorrow and the JD training schedule calls for a semi-long midweek slow/threshold run. That, plus my usual running, should see me comfortably into the low 50s.

End of another week

Distance: 6 miles
Time: 48:30
Route: Portobello

Today I ran a 6 mile route of 2 easy, 2 threshold (round about 7:30's again) and 2 easy. That gives me 47.5 miles for the week, another new high (but not by much).

Saturday - 4 miles
Sunday - 20 miles
Monday - 4.5 miles
Tuesday - 4.5 miles
Wednesday - 8.5 miles
Thursday - rest
Friday - 6 miles
Total: 47.5 miles

Very slow

Distance 8.5 miles
Time: 1:20

Tonight I met up for a run with a friend from work who does the odd bit of running, but who was just wanting to go for a slow jog on this occasion. That was fine by me after yesterday's hard effort, and since I had to run two miles there and back to meet up I ended up with 8.5 miles for the evening which was a little more than I had bargained for.

4.5 miles hard

Distance: 4.5
Time: 31:45
Route: Arthur A

I currently have an itch to run my three main standard training routes at a hard pace to see how my times compare with the last time I tackled them - which averages out at about 6 weeks or so ago. My runs since then have been easy/comfortable, with the odd threshold session thrown in here and there - essentially following the Jack Daniels marathon training programme.

I'm not sure what good these runs will do me on a physiological level, but I personally feel a definite pyschological benefit in raising the lactate level now and then to see if all the easy/comfortable paced high mileage training (relatively high for me at least) is resulting in better times. I think mini time trials such as these are fair enough every 6 weeks or so.

Anyway, tonight it was the turn of my old faithfull Arthur A route and I shaved off 2.5 minutes from the time I set at the end of February. The first half of the run was a little uncomfortable, being both into the wind (I'm definitely in the Duncan Larkin camp on hating the wind) and uphill, but once I navigated past that phase I was able to hold a reasonbly good pace all the way home without running out of steam.

So, that's Arthur A out of the day. I'll probably try and pick off Arthur B and Portobello one at a time over the next couple of weeks and then wait for the next itch....

Tomorrow it is back to the easy mileage.

Recovery miles

Distance: 4.5 miles
Time: 36:30
Route: Arthur A

I had the rather surprising, and very welcome, experience of waking up today and having no aches or pains to suggest I'd run 20 miles yesterday. I was a little tired during the day, but nothing out of the ordinary, and very glad not to have the usual niggles I experience after running a very long run. I'm guessing the lack of soreness was down to the relative slowness of the run and the fact that I'd done an 18 miler, a half marathon race, and a 20 miler in the preceding three weeks, rather than my body having suddenly developed an ability to absorb long mileage punishment. Whatever, it made a pleasant change. Having said that, I now fully expect to wake up after my next long run in agony!

This evening was 4.5 miles done at a comfortable pace with not much to report other than that I felt OK. I may be tempted to run a threshold run tomorrow around one of my standard routes just to scratch the itch I have to stretch my legs.

20 miles

Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:05 (ish)

A pleasant morning for a run today, and I managed another 20 miles at a deliberately easy pace. I'm not sure what my exact time was as I had temporarily abandon my run for an emergency toilet break. I'll spare people the details but this highlights one of the drawbacks of running running an out and back course at this sort of distance.

Overall I felt OK and I was able to run 9:15-9:30 splits very easily, and much more consistently than last week (when they were a bit up and down). I'm sure I could have picked up the tempo slightly if I 'd wanted, but I don't want to push too hard on such a long run. I was inevitably a little tired in the last couple of miles, but it doesn't help that they are uphill.

Some recover miles tomorrow.

Up the hill again

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 35:45
Route: Arthur B

I've settled back into my routine of running the Arthur B route, with its ugly hill, on a Saturday morning. The route works out roughly as 3/4 mile flat, 1 mile up hill, 1/2 mile flat at the top, 1 mile down the other side, 3/4 flat back home. In the past couple of weeks I've noticed that while its still not an enjoyable task getting to the top of the hill, my legs don't feel fatigued at all on the flat section at the top, whereas a month or two ago they definitely did.

Most of my standard runs have been done at a slowish pace of late so that I don't overtrain or injure myself when doing my two weekly quality sessions. However, I am itching to have a hard run at each and might do one a week over the next month just to see what progress has been made - they're 4 (Arthur B), 4.5 (Arthur A) and 6 (Portobello) miles respectively so its not as though I'll be trying to run harder at silly distances.

Tomorrow will be the same 20 mile route as last Sunday all things being well. Last week I ran for three hours without mustic - not sure if I'll manage that again!

Rest

A day of rest. I've just noticed from reviewing last week's running that this was my first rest day in 9 days. Funny, it doesn't feel like that.

Also a new high mileage week, which is slightly false because of the very long run on Sunday. It was nice to get a long run, some slow runs, and a semi-long run with threshold done in one week without anything interfering.

Saturday - 4 miles
Sunday - 20 miles
Monday - 4.5 miles
Tuesday - 3.5 miles
Wednesday - 4 miles
Thursday - 10 miles
Total - 46 miles

Two options for next week: (i) taper slightly after increasing the mileage slightly for the past 2 week, or (ii) more of the same. As things stand, I'm probably more inclined to do the latter.

10 miles with threshold running

Distance: 10 miles (ish)
Time: 1:19:24

Tonight's run was 2 miles easy, 6 miles of 15 min threshold with 3 min easy, and 2 miles easy. I had a bad start with my Garmin refusing to pick up the signal properly as I hung about outside my house in the freezing cold. Then I had to run my usual out and back long distance route with a gale force wind behind me for the first half, and against me for the second half. My splits were therefore all over the place because of the wind and an unhappy Garmin, but a couple of my threshold mile splits are showing up as been between 7:00 and 7:30, which sounds about right. This was the first time I've stretched my legs in a training run in quite a while and there was a noticeable difference in terms of lactic build-up (or the lack of it) at a quicker than easy pace. The last time I did this route with a threshold session included it took me just over 1:22.

So, a decent 10 miler spoilt a bit by the weather. I think I'll give myself a day off tomorrow after another high mileage (for me anyway) week.

I'm planning another 20 miler on Sunday. I had thought about doing 22, but the literature suggests that as it takes me just over 3 hours to do 20 anyway there isn't much to be gained by doing the extra 2.

Early morning

Distance: 4 miles (est.)

Working away from Edinburgh overnight, so an early morning easy run (estimated slow pace of 9 minutes per mile) of somewhere in the region of 4 miles. Starting to feel tired now, so off for an early night. Tomorrow brings the JD quality session 2, 10 miles including some threshold pace.

Easy miles

Distance: 3.5

3.5 easy miles yesterday with a colleage from work.

Recovery miles

Distance: 4.5 miles
Time: 37:30
Route: Arthur A

After yesterday's 20 miles, the order of the day was recovery miles. Actually, my legs felt remarkably fresh today - so much so that I had to deliberately keep the brakes applied. I think that just reflects the fact that I have almost three months steady mileage in my legs. I dread to think how I'd have felt had I tried 20 miles at the beginning of January.

For the next couple of days I plan some more relatively easily mileage, to be followed on Thursday by the JD 2nd quality session of the week - 2 miles easy, 6 miles of 15 min threshold, 3 min recovery, 2 miles easy. I'm looking forward to it already.

Current music I'm listening to: All sparks by Editors

20 miles

Distance: 20 miles
Time: 3:09

This morning I went for a Long Slow Run of 20 miles, which once again increases the distance of my longest ever training run. I deliberately ran this slowly, averaging about 30 seconds per mile slower than I hope to do on marathon day (i.e. 9 minute miles on marathon day would take me just under the 4 hour target). I had to run into the wind for the first 10 miles and then wind assisted on the way back, which explains my relatively stable inward half in the splits below. The run was pretty comfortable, although in the last couple of miles my lower abdominal muscles were getting a little sore - but nothing particularly worrying. My route took me through the finish of a local triathalon, and despite clearly not wearing a wetsuit or anything which could be mistaken for one, a few of the crowd clapped me along....

Tomorrow will either be a rest day, or a few very slow recover miles.

1. 8:43
2. 9:01
3. 9:34
4. 9:30
5. 9:41
6. 9:52
7. 10:02
8. 9:48
9. 10:00
10. 9:39
11. 5:33 (Garmin went wobbly at the same point in last week's half)
12. 12:12
13. 9:50
14. 9:20
15. 9:59
16. 9:22
17. 9:16
18. 9:17
19. 10:22 (uphill)
20. 7:48 (.9 of a mile on the Garmin)
9:29/mile

Up the hill

Distance: 4 miles
Time: 36 minutes
Route: Arthur B

This morning I ran my Arthur B route, which is basically a nasty steep hill around the back of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. I took it reasonably easy after a relatively long week of running and felt OK.

Joggerblogger was asking about the Jack Daniel's marathon training programme I am following. The title of the book is Daniels' Running Formula and I'd recommend it as a solid purchase to anyone who is starting out on running and looking for a bit of guidance. It covers the science of running, different types of training and their benefits and it provides a variety of programmes from the middle-distance track stuff all the way through to advanced marathon training. In short, there's something for everyone in it. Not sure how much of it is available on the web though. With regards to speed, I expect you'll see this come as a natural consequence of regular running. I've found that solid mileage has clearly been increasing my aerobic capacity and that my cruising pace has just got gradually quicker. Its all relative though...