I can do this!
Let's hear a woo, swiftly followed by a hoo!!!
You may have noticed that my mood rises and falls with the fate of my long runs. When my long run goes badly I feel like I may as well withdraw from Berlin now, and when it goes well I'm on the top of the world.
Well, today it went well.
My knee and hip have improved a lot with the new running shoes. My old ones are still OK, but not for long distance stuff. They did me really well in managing a 47 minute 10k and two half marathons, but above that distance they just don't have enough cushioning. But the new ones, yes, my knee and my hip like them.
So I was feeling a bit more confident, other than one fact. This week I was meant to be attempting 20 miles. The furthest I've managed before is 17.2 miles last week (it was meant to be 18, but I miscalculated the route slightly). And it was painfully slow after 8 miles. 20 is a big jump from that, particularly to do the sort of 20 that gives me confidence rather than knocking it. The last thing I wanted to do was to run 8 miles again and walk 12 instead of 9.
A new route was called for. And this is where I started to get scared. I like running along the canal because it's pretty flat. As Berlin isn't a hilly race I reckon I can get away without too many hills in training (although next weekend's 30k race is reputedly very hilly). My normal route does have hills, but for a bit of a confidence boost I wanted to try something easier.
My first thought was to do what I normally do, which is run half the distance out, turn round, and run back. There is one fatal flaw in that plan, which is what is to stop me turning round after 9 miles, or 8 instead of 10 if I just "don't feel like it". The race appealed to me because it gave me the incentive to carry on to the finish, and I wanted a route that would make me do the same.
So I took a deep breath and measured 20 miles up the canal. I got very scared at this point. 20 miles is, to state the bleeding obvious, a long way. As I kept on clicking my way up the canal on the internet route measurer thingy I started to realise just how far. The Gods smiled on me, and there was a town (with a station!) at the 20 mile mark. The problem is, that town is Keighley, and anyone with a passing knowledge of West Yorkshire will realise that it's not exactly on the doorstep of Leeds City Centre. Obviously not, it's 20 miles away. But when you realise it will take you over 20 minutes to get there BY TRAIN and you're thinking about running back, you start to wonder what sort of insanity has taken hold.
Anyway, I decided to take a deep breath and just do it. Apart from some incredulous comments from friends (you're doing WHAT?), it seemed like a vaguely decent plan. Flat all the way, other than a couple of short downhills at locks. Traffic free, off road, a more forgiving surface. It just involved running from Keighley to Leeds.
It also involved sitting looking like an idiot on the train dressed in my running gear as I got to the start of the route...
Luckily the train was the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle train so there were lots of active looking people on it with their mountain bikes and hiking boots, and plenty of Camelbaks on show. But still, I was sitting there in shorts, with my knee strapped up, looking scared.
The scariest moment was when I got off the train, looked at the map (it was about a mile from the station to the canal itself) and set off. That's the moment when I really wondered what I was doing, and whether it was remotely sane. After that it was surprisingly fine.
I had a gel/walk break strategy and stuck to it perfectly. I had 2 gels on me, and planned to have one at about 7 miles and one at about 14, taking a 2 minute walk break to get them out of the Camelbak and get them down. I took Lucozade sport from the Camelbak hose every 20 minutes or so, which broke the run down into more manageable chunks. Apart from a short unscheduled Paula stop in some bushes at about 9 miles, I just ran, at a nice steady pace, and didn't have any drama.
The only point where I started to struggle was at about 17 or 18 miles. I started feeling really thirsty. I'm not sure whether it was the liquid or the salts or carbs in the drink I was craving, but I felt like I needed something every 4 minutes or so at this stage. My legs weren't actually that bad, but I felt almost too thirsty to carry on running until I stopped, had a few sips and then started again. I managed the last 2 or 3 miles doing a run/walk strategy, but unlike last week it was far more run than walk, and the fact that the last stretch was down a regular route for me helped me to set landmark targets to run to.
I got back to the car, which I'd parked between the canal and the station, and while I was tired I think that on marathon day I could have carried on. If there was a medal (and free beer!) waiting for me at the finish I could have done those extra 6 miles. They might have been run/walk miles, but I'd have been able to do them. Not to mention that the night before the marathon I won't have been to watch a rugby match, slightly tipsy, then decided at 10.30pm to go to a late opening pub, walked a couple of miles in silly shoes, drunk a couple more glasses of wine and got in and watched tv until after 1am, so I should have more energy.
Overall I averaged almost spot on 10 minute miles, taking 3 hours 18 to cover 19.75 miles (which is close enough to 20 for me). The pace felt pretty comfortable throughout, so if I can run a minute per mile faster on race day (which seems to be what they recommend - that your long runs are a minute per mile or so slower than race pace), I should be in the ballpark for that 4 hour finish. Of course, it all depends on those last 6 miles, but at least now I'm confident that I can at least get to the start line to even attempt them.
You may have noticed that my mood rises and falls with the fate of my long runs. When my long run goes badly I feel like I may as well withdraw from Berlin now, and when it goes well I'm on the top of the world.
Well, today it went well.
My knee and hip have improved a lot with the new running shoes. My old ones are still OK, but not for long distance stuff. They did me really well in managing a 47 minute 10k and two half marathons, but above that distance they just don't have enough cushioning. But the new ones, yes, my knee and my hip like them.
So I was feeling a bit more confident, other than one fact. This week I was meant to be attempting 20 miles. The furthest I've managed before is 17.2 miles last week (it was meant to be 18, but I miscalculated the route slightly). And it was painfully slow after 8 miles. 20 is a big jump from that, particularly to do the sort of 20 that gives me confidence rather than knocking it. The last thing I wanted to do was to run 8 miles again and walk 12 instead of 9.
A new route was called for. And this is where I started to get scared. I like running along the canal because it's pretty flat. As Berlin isn't a hilly race I reckon I can get away without too many hills in training (although next weekend's 30k race is reputedly very hilly). My normal route does have hills, but for a bit of a confidence boost I wanted to try something easier.
My first thought was to do what I normally do, which is run half the distance out, turn round, and run back. There is one fatal flaw in that plan, which is what is to stop me turning round after 9 miles, or 8 instead of 10 if I just "don't feel like it". The race appealed to me because it gave me the incentive to carry on to the finish, and I wanted a route that would make me do the same.
So I took a deep breath and measured 20 miles up the canal. I got very scared at this point. 20 miles is, to state the bleeding obvious, a long way. As I kept on clicking my way up the canal on the internet route measurer thingy I started to realise just how far. The Gods smiled on me, and there was a town (with a station!) at the 20 mile mark. The problem is, that town is Keighley, and anyone with a passing knowledge of West Yorkshire will realise that it's not exactly on the doorstep of Leeds City Centre. Obviously not, it's 20 miles away. But when you realise it will take you over 20 minutes to get there BY TRAIN and you're thinking about running back, you start to wonder what sort of insanity has taken hold.
Anyway, I decided to take a deep breath and just do it. Apart from some incredulous comments from friends (you're doing WHAT?), it seemed like a vaguely decent plan. Flat all the way, other than a couple of short downhills at locks. Traffic free, off road, a more forgiving surface. It just involved running from Keighley to Leeds.
It also involved sitting looking like an idiot on the train dressed in my running gear as I got to the start of the route...
Luckily the train was the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle train so there were lots of active looking people on it with their mountain bikes and hiking boots, and plenty of Camelbaks on show. But still, I was sitting there in shorts, with my knee strapped up, looking scared.
The scariest moment was when I got off the train, looked at the map (it was about a mile from the station to the canal itself) and set off. That's the moment when I really wondered what I was doing, and whether it was remotely sane. After that it was surprisingly fine.
I had a gel/walk break strategy and stuck to it perfectly. I had 2 gels on me, and planned to have one at about 7 miles and one at about 14, taking a 2 minute walk break to get them out of the Camelbak and get them down. I took Lucozade sport from the Camelbak hose every 20 minutes or so, which broke the run down into more manageable chunks. Apart from a short unscheduled Paula stop in some bushes at about 9 miles, I just ran, at a nice steady pace, and didn't have any drama.
The only point where I started to struggle was at about 17 or 18 miles. I started feeling really thirsty. I'm not sure whether it was the liquid or the salts or carbs in the drink I was craving, but I felt like I needed something every 4 minutes or so at this stage. My legs weren't actually that bad, but I felt almost too thirsty to carry on running until I stopped, had a few sips and then started again. I managed the last 2 or 3 miles doing a run/walk strategy, but unlike last week it was far more run than walk, and the fact that the last stretch was down a regular route for me helped me to set landmark targets to run to.
I got back to the car, which I'd parked between the canal and the station, and while I was tired I think that on marathon day I could have carried on. If there was a medal (and free beer!) waiting for me at the finish I could have done those extra 6 miles. They might have been run/walk miles, but I'd have been able to do them. Not to mention that the night before the marathon I won't have been to watch a rugby match, slightly tipsy, then decided at 10.30pm to go to a late opening pub, walked a couple of miles in silly shoes, drunk a couple more glasses of wine and got in and watched tv until after 1am, so I should have more energy.
Overall I averaged almost spot on 10 minute miles, taking 3 hours 18 to cover 19.75 miles (which is close enough to 20 for me). The pace felt pretty comfortable throughout, so if I can run a minute per mile faster on race day (which seems to be what they recommend - that your long runs are a minute per mile or so slower than race pace), I should be in the ballpark for that 4 hour finish. Of course, it all depends on those last 6 miles, but at least now I'm confident that I can at least get to the start line to even attempt them.
posted by YP at 4:09 PM
1 Comments:
absolutely amazing.
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