20%

I have a new running goal. Apart from marathons and PBs and such like.

Having counted through the results from Sunday (yes, I'm that sad), I think I came 77th out of 357 women (and 526/1096 overall). That means that my result was in the first 21% of women. That's pretty darn good actually, but it gives me a nice goal to aim for now - to be in the top 20% of women when I race. Obviously it partly depends on the quality of the field (I might be a bit further down when I run in the Yorkshire half marathon championships - eek!), but the nice thing about a 20% goal rather than purely looking at times is that it takes account of the couse and the weather as well as just the amount of time from beginning to end.

PBs are still nice, of course, but that 20% figure is something nice to aim for. I'm also suspecting, although I've not worked it out, that being in the top 20% would be roughly equivalent of a GFA time. Damn, I said that I wasn't going to use those letters this time round - but using the RW calculator from Sunday's run it comes up with a prediction of 3:44 over the marathon distance, so you never know.

I'm not racing for a couple of weeks now - apart from cross country on Sunday that is. There's a 20 miler I might do if my long run this weekend goes according to plan, if not it's the aforementioned half mara championships. Having spent the past 6 weeks or so getting comfortable with the 13 - 15 mile range it's time to up the mileage. I'll see how I feel on Saturday, but I'm very tempted to try an 18 miler. And this year I'm far more confident I'll be able to run it, rather than just finishing it.

Another Sunday...

...another half marathon.

I wasn't really sure how to approach this one. Brass Monkey was the one I targetted for a new PB (which I duly achieved, and made it sub 1:50 for the first time), this was more a race I did because it was my first half last year, and because it's an excuse to go over and see my grandparents after the race.

All weekend I've been unsure as to how I should use the race. Should I go all out even though I haven't prepared specifically for it? Should I use it as a training run, and add a couple of miles onto it as a warm up, accepting that I'd go slower because of that? Should I just turn up and see what happens?

The third one turned into the plan, so much for stunning race tactics!

There were pacers, but I wasn't convinced I'd use them. There were 8 and 9 minute mile groups, but my last half marathon was at 8:20 pace, and I thought that taking 20 minutes per mile off in 6 weeks would be a little challenging. But I also didn't want to drop back to run with the 9 mile group particularly.

I started out ahead of the 8 mile group, but once they got into their stride after about 2 miles they caught me up and passed me. I tried to keep up for a while, but decided it wasn't worth flogging myself early and then feeling like death on the home straight. They were running faster than 8 minute miles at this point, trying to make up for the slow start, which added to my reluctance to try to keep up with them.

So I just ran my own race, and it was surprisingly straightforward. I didn't feel like the distance was a struggle, and even though my HRM said that my heart rate was 110% of my maximum at one point (eek!), for most of it I felt like I was pushing myself just hard enough to be able to sustain it for the distance, but not too hard that I'd run out of steam too early.

After Brass Monkey I was pretty pleased with my time and felt like it was a PB that it would be challenging to take much time off. It was on a flat course, and I felt fantastic on the day. I might shave a second off here and there, but I didn't expect a huge improvement for a while. This would explain my shock when I came up to the finish and realised I'd managed to knock over 90 seconds off my time.

So I will now sit here happily shining a nice shiny and new PB. I'm now very definitely sub 1:50, having come in at 1:47:47, the only worrying thing is that soon my thoughts might turn to how to get under 1:45...

Attitude

I've come to the conclusion that the success and failure of my runs is far more mental than physical. If I think I'm running well, I run well. If I have a couple of bad runs I start to crumble mentally, and they get worse and worse.

Last year, this manifested itself in the walk break. I knew that where I started from, finishing a marathon at all would be an achievement, however I managed that. I let myself have walk breaks, but not in a structured way. On long runs I'd get to a hill and walk up it to get my breath back. Nothing wrong with that as such, but I noticed that I started thinking of certain hills as "walking hills", even on short runs, and even though I knew I could run up them perfectly happily. And as I started running slower, I thought "well, at least I'll finish", and didn't make the effort to try to maintain any speed. On the day itself, the dodgy stomach wasn't the only problem. There was also the fact that my race plan was effectively "run as far as you can, then finish", and once I started walking, it was hard to run again. OK, it hurt, but it wouldn't have hurt that much more, and the pain would have gone on for less time...

This year I want to run the marathon. OK, there might be reasons why I can't on the day, but I don't want to take walk breaks in training. They disrupt my rhythm and they mean I set my standards lower than they need to be.

The past two days have been perfect examples. Yesterday I ran home from work at lunchtime to let an alarm maintenance guy into the house (having considered my options I worked out that the fastest means of "transport" to get home would be to run, on the basis I'd be going back into work later anyway so I could pick up my stuff). It's just under 5 miles, but coming home it's almost entirely uphill. Going to work would be far more pleasant! About half way back I really wanted to stop and get the bus (running to a bus stop on the route and then getting the bus would have been quicker than running all the way, even if running all the way was quicker than walking to the bus stop). I had to really tell myself that I could run that hill, I took it bus stop by bus stop and was so happy when my bus went past with me on the wrong side of the road and between stops. I knew then that if I waited for the next one I may as well run the rest of the route home. And I did, without any problems. My mind was telling me to stop even though my legs were clearly able to cope with it.

The same again today. Yesterday I actually ran 8 miles, with my normal treadmill speed session on top of the run home, and that's a lot before a long run (but equally, doing a long run on Sunday isn't great before club night on Monday). I went out today with the aim of doing about 15, but after 5 I hit a hill and was struggling mentally. I ran exactly the same hill last week on my long run, but today I just wanted to pack it all in and try again tomorrow. Luckily I was in the middle of the countryside nowhere near a bus route, and would have to run a few miles to get back to somewhere I could get home from, so I carried on - and promptly ran another 10 miles, including a hill I've never managed to run all the way up, and slightly faster than my 15 miler last week. Again, I was capable of the run, but my mind was telling me it was too hard and it wasn't worth it.

I think for the shorter runs, success depends on natural ability, and speedwork and stuff like that, but for the longer runs there's far more time for your mind to get involved. Particularly when your mind is telling you that you're not a natural athlete, and that this is a really stupid idea. What's wrong with walking part of it? It's still more than most people could manage.

I've noticed how the confidence at Brass Monkey really helped me in club runs since, and I'm trying to find a way to turn off the whingeing, why can't I give up now, part of my brain and just go with the motivated, I will run all the way part. At least I know who I'm listening to now, and I know that if I can ignore it for 5 minutes, or for 10, it will go away as soon as I hit a downhill or an easier stretch. But as anyone who examines my eating habits would be able to tell you, I'm still often tempted by the stuff my inner fat girl puts in my mind, and I don't want her to mess up my marathon.