Mental Toughness

If I'm going to push myself anywhere close to my potential, there's one challenge I'm going to have to face up to.

Call it the wall, call it my natural tendency to give up if things aren't going to plan, call it a 10 mile walk break, call it what you want. At Berlin my simple race plan was to run as far as I could and then do what it took to get to the end. It meant that I finished in one piece, and I got that medal, but it also meant that the second half of the race was very much a walk. Not the regular walk breaks all the way theory, a 16 mile run and a 10 mile walk.

One of my big things in training has been keeping running, however slowly, without taking breaks. That race plan was OK for a first marathon, but now I want to do myself justice.

Another thing has been trying to develop mental toughness when I want to slow down or stop, and making myself complete my runs. I'm not talking about running through injury, but just those runs when you reach a point where you can't be bothered any more and just want to sit down with a nice glass of wine and rest your legs rather than doing another 5 miles.

If I want the sort of time I'm aiming for I'm going to have to run until the end. I know that I'll be able to do the right pace for a good 15 miles, my training has made me confident of that. Almost certainly I'd be able to keep it up for 20. But can I keep it up for 26? I was pleased at Ackworth that I kept up the sub 8 minute miles right to the end to get the best time I could, rather than simply thinking that it would be a PB anyway, even if I slowed down a bit. The feeling in my legs on the Monday (far sorer than after any of the my other runs recently) reminded me how hard I'd had to work to override my "it hurts, can't I slow down a bit" instinct to race right to the bitter end. And if that was tough, it could be a lot tougher in Edinburgh.

I'm doing what I can though. Today I was aiming for 18 - 20 miles, but wasn't really enthusiastic about it when I set off. I got myself out of the door but made a potential mistake by heading for the local park. It's a nice park, don't get me wrong, but if you're trying to run round it for 20 miles you're going to be doing a lot of loops, and you're not going to be far from home when that "is that enough" though pops into your head.

So I was really really proud of myself that I managed to go round and round and round the lake for a grand total of somewhere between 19 and 19.5 miles. I lost count of the number of laps that I did, but I kept on persuading myself to do another one, and another, and with it being traffic free there was no excuse for even the slightest crossing the road breather. I just kept on running, round and round and round. I didn't let myself go home until my Polar showed roughly the right distance run, and I didn't let myself walk either.

I'm being tougher on myself this year. If I've earmarked a day for a long run of a certain distance, injuries willing, I make myself do it whether I want to or not. There's none of this "oh well, I've done really well to get from where I was to even be attempting a marathon" thinking in my head this year. This year I'm training, and I'm making myself do what I need to do.

3 little letters

Today I did something I said I wan't going to do. I printed off the RW sub 3:45 training plan.

I don't know what to do about my target for Edinburgh at the moment. It's no use pretending to myself that I don't want to get under 3:45 eventually. That's always been a long term goal. I was happy to put it off for a while, to let myself get more accustomed to marathons, but I know I want to shoot for it at some point.

BUT. I'm running well at the moment. Everyone at running club says I'm on fire. Not just from my times in races, but how I look when I'm running, my rapid improvement. I know that based on my recent form I should be capable of getting under 3:45 if I put the right training in. I also know that with just under 9 weeks to go, I still have at least a month to really make my training count.

I don't want to put too much pressure on myself, and I'm happier making a tentative decision now, having seen how the first part of training has gone, but part of me wants to seize the moment. Yes, I could leave it for Amsterdam, but I might not be in as good form then, or I might get injured. (And, despite my "there's no hurry mantra", Amsterdam would only give me a GFA time for 2009, not 2008).

Mainly I wanted to look at it to see how far off I am. If following the 3:45 programme would be a massive step up on what I'm doing, I'm not sure that I'd want to do it. If the 3:45 programme is pretty much what I'm doing, that's a confidence booster. If it just requires me to make small tweaks to my plan, then maybe I'd be prepared to make them. I'm not planning to follow it slavishly, but I wanted to look at how it builds you up, how far it has you running, how fast.

And I was pretty reassured. It wants you to get to an eventual standard of a sub 1:45 half - done. It suggests 20 mile runs in 3 hours 10 minutes - done. The weekly mileage seems to be roughly in the 35 - 40 mile range - done. There seems to be a bit more emphasis on speed sessions than I'm currently doing, but other than that my self-written plan doesn't seem to be too far off the mark. In fact, I could even be a week or two ahead at this stage.

This doesn't mean I'll make 3:45, but I'm feeling happier that it's possible if everything goes right on the day (see Berlin for things that might not go right...). I don't want to lose sight of the fact that I don't need to aim so high so soon, and that something around 4:15 would still be a big PB, and a big achievement. But if I don't at least try I'll always wonder what would have happened.

Targets

Cast your minds back to January. I was ecstatic to make it under 1:50 for a half. And then in February I proved it wasn't a fluke, by going sub 1:50 again, and taking nearly two minutes off my time.

At the end of that post I vaguely mentioned having to re-set my targets for sub 1:45. However, I've not really thought about that goal. Having races of varying degrees of difficulty since then has focussed me more on long, hilly runs rather than on speed. I'm trying to build my endurance not my speed. So 1:45 was something I thought I might leave for another day.

Truth to tell, before this week's half marathon, I didn't have any particular plan. I thought I might be able to take another minute or so off that PB, although I was aware that the route was hillier than any of my previous halves (although nothing on Dentdale or Rhayader). I had a relatively easy week so thought I'd probably have some energy to race it rather than plodding it, but I wasn't setting targets for myself really.

I managed to get to the start, which was an achievement in itself with the clocks changing, and doing their best to confuse me about what time I actually needed to turn up. It was quite grey at the start, but it looked like it might come nicer later so I went for the capri and short sleeve t-shirt option with my vest. Spoke to a couple of people from running club at the start, and spotted Jenny and Adele lining up just in front of me.

I first saw them at Dentdale. They overtook me with about 2 miles to go, then I struck back and finished ahead of them. At Rhayader they overtook me with 2 miles to go and I just couldn't stick with them. One all, so was this to be the decider (as remarkably I'm not racing for a month now)? An interesting side issue to the main issue of the race.

We were off, and I noticed I was running faster than I expected. Sub 8 minute miles. That surprised me, given the difficulty I had trying to keep up with the 8 minute mile pacer at Blackpool, when I let her go very early on in the race. But I wasn't struggling as such so I decided to see how long I could keep it up for. I haven't run sub 8 minute miles over a sustained distance for a long time, so wasn't sure whether I'd pay for it, but I was feeling good, so why not?

One of the girls from running club overtook me at about 3 miles, but I expected her to be faster than me so I wasn't worried about that. What I was surprised to see though was one of the men not very far ahead of me, and running at a similar pace. In fact, if anything I was gaining on him. I didn't expect that.

I passed 5 miles within my 5 mile PB (admittedly I've only run 1 5 mile race), and was pretty close to my 10k PB when I passed that point. I was starting to wonder what was going on! Every time my watch took an autolap from my footpod it was coming up as sub 8 minute miles (apart from perhaps one up a hill at about 3 miles). And I was still gaining on the guy from running club.

By this point the sun was coming out and I was glad I hadn't loaded myself with clothes. I was certainly putting lots of effort in to keep me warm too! I felt like I was struggling a bit after 7 miles, but clearly not too much as I overtook Peter and he never caught me again. Still the beeps were giving me reassuring feedback about my speed. And I got to the 10 mile mark in about 1:18:30, again that would have been a nice PB.

I've never been too strong at mental arithmetic, so it was only at about 11 miles, and something around 1:25 and a bit that I realised that even if I ran 10 minute miles for the last two miles I'd be pretty close to 1:45. Now, 10 minute miles aren't exactly slow, but at the moment I'm running so well that I can't remember the last time I went that slowly. I also worked out that if I carried on at the same speed I was doing, I'd be a couple of minutes under 1:45. Considering I hadn't been aiming for that time at this race, I was stunned!

I pretty much managed to carry on at the same pace right to the finish. Coming round the last corner the clock said 1:42:50ish so I tried a sprint finish but just slipped over 1:43 to finish in 1:43:04. Still, almost 5 whole minutes off a PB set a mere month ago, and on a hillier course to boot.

(And I checked the results. Adele and Jenny finished in about 1:50 (one just over and one just under). 2 - 1 to me!)

Stats from the results - overall 269/598, Ladies Open - 41/167, Ladies overall - 66/287 (I think, blame my maths if it's wrong), Ladies team - 8th overall, I was second scorer out of 3.

Not setting targets is clearly good for me, but I can't help but wonder... According to the RW race time predictor that run says I can run well inside 3:45. The "take your half time, double it and add 20 minutes" theory doesn't put me far off either. My official target for Edinburgh is 4:15, but maybe, just maybe...

Take to the Hills (2) - Rhayader

So, week two of the hilly long run training came around. Last weekend I did a less hilly then expected (but still hilly) 14 miles at Dentdale. Midweek I did a 7 mile run and the Leeds half route. And then come Saturday it's time for a hilly 20 miler as part as my activity weekend away in Wales.

They sent out a programme with a detailed description of the course. I was mildly worried by the use of words such as "ordeal", "mountain" and "summit", so I went on the internet and plotted the route on a website that would give me an elevation profile (there's one on someone else's blog here). And then I got really worried.

Basically, there was a killer (and I mean killer) long hill up to about the 6 mile point. After that it didn't look too bad, although I knew the hill between 18 and 19 miles would be tough. I was advised on the RW thread for the race that the hills weren't awful but would add about 10 minutes to times compared to a 20 miler on the flat. But what to do with this careful research?

Well, for the first time pretty much ever it was time for race tactics more sophisticated than simply "turn up and see what happens. I chose the race partly so that I wouldn't be drawn into racing it. I'm more likely to slow down and enjoy the scenery if there is some scenery to admire. The other option was East Hull which is not only less scenic, but was also being run by a couple of people from running club, and I didn't want to start thinking about trying to race it so I could beat them/get closer to them/beat them by as much as possible. But just because I wasn't racing it as such, it doesn't mean that I wanted to go in underprepared. In the spirit of taking it gently I decided to go out and get up that first hill any way I could and then treat it more as a half marathon from that point if I still had the energy. Kind of counting on the hill to take the energy out of my legs so it wouldn't be one of my faster halves...

I did have a time target. To be on course for a sub 4 marathon, I wanted to do 20 miles in about 3 hours. But Edinburgh won't be as hilly as Rhayader and the Elan Valley, so I extended that by the recommended 10 minutes to give myself a 3:10 target. That target was well inside anything I ran before Berlin. My longest race before Berlin was an admittedly hilly and cross country canter round Derbyshire, that day I covered 30k in 3:45 ish. 20 miles is further than 30k... As another sign of how much I've improved, my 10 mile PB is 1:32:46. I say PB, but I've only run 1 10 miler, and I know I can run it faster having passed the 10 mile mark within my PB on my last two halves. So at the back of my mind was the fact that I might actually be able to run 20 miles in less than twice my 10 mile PB if I got under about 3:05.

Anyway, enough about the planning. What about the race? Well, I stayed in a hotel on Friday night and managed to eat my way through the breakast buffet. I'm not a huge fan of 1pm starts, it means that your eating through the morning (and indeed the rest of the day) is a bit messed up. I decided to go for a big breakfast with a lighter snack at about 11am to tide me over until I finished at around 4. Maybe hotels should say that distance runners have a limit on how much they can eat at breakfast... I then drove down to Rhayader and got there at about 11, registered, had my more snacky lunch and waited for the start.

As at Dentdale, these races tend to attract a different breed of runner. Around me people were talking about ultras, and about taking it easy because they'd done a marathon the week before. We're talking serious hardcore, and I threw the 20% target out of the window for this one. Let's call it a long term goal!

The weather at the start was pretty good. Bright blue skies and sunshine, so I decided to ditch my long sleeve top and just go with a short sleeve top under my vest, and no jacket. Definitely nicer at the start than at Dentdale anyway.

The first couple of miles were a couple of loops round the town. I always get nervous about getting lapped by the leading runners when anything starts off with two loops, but I managed to get round without that, which was good. Then to tackle the hill from hell.

The hill wasn't helped by the fact that there was an evil wind blowing straight in my face. Midway up I decided that while I probably could run it, I couldn't run it much faster than I could walk it, and that it was a more efficient use of energy to walk it. We're talking strategic walk break here, rather than giving up and wimping out walk break. Actually, the tactic worked pretty well and I overtook a lot of the people who ran past me on the hill in the rest of the race. Once I got to a point where it would be quicker to start running again, I ran and told myself that it wasn't an excuse to treat the race as a run/walk one. I gave myself permission to walk up the last hill I'd seen on the elevation profile, and any short steep ones in the meantime, but not to walk if it was flat, or downhill, or only gentle uphills. It's mental as much as anything. Once you've walked once, why not do it again?

The wind was horrible, but the scenery was lovely. It was a bit of a trek compared to Spen or East Hull, and the running was hard work, but I'm so glad that I chose to run that race rather than one of the others. It feels like you're spending the day enjoyably, seeing some stunning scenery, rather than just running because you have to. The weather got a lot worse during the race though. The wind seemed to be blowing straight in our faces until about the 15 mile mark, although it finally getting behind us in the last 5 miles was most welcome. Which is more than could be said of the increasingly icy rain.

After that big hill it wasn't too bad. I managed to keep running (other than water stations) from about 5.5 miles to about 15, when a short hill gave me a tiny break. And from there I kept running until the last hill, which had always been earmarked as a potential walk break. And then down to town and the finish.

In the end I finished in just over 3:03 which I'm really pleased with. I'm sure that I could get under 3 hours without those hills, which would give me an hour for the last 10k of the marathon to get under 4 hours. I even managed a negative split due to not having to do that hill in the second half. When I finished I was tired, but not spent My legs were fine and I managed to get back up the stairs in the hotel. I still have a couple of fueling issues that I want to sort out, but I'm getting there. The hills and the wind probably made the effort of that run more like 21 or 22 miles, so I'm fairly confident that I'm capable of 4 hours for the marathon. Depending on heat, time of the month, freak colds, anything else that screwed me in Berlin. I'd have preferred to run it all, but at least I know that the walk breaks that I took were planned, on schedule, and that I started running every time precisely when I told myself that I would. And in Edinburgh I won't have done two 13+ mile runs in the past 7 days either.

Hopefully the fact that I can do it on hills will give me more confidence going forward. I've now done two 20 milers and plenty of 13 - 15 mile runs which is a lot better than before Berlin. And next week I get a bit of a stepback week. It's only a half marathon!

Points don't mean prizes

A bit of good news following on from the race on Saturday. Apparently the club ladies team came 3rd overall! Helped in no small part by my participation (I'm not sure whether it's the first 3 or the first 4 who count, but I was the third from my club to finish so would count either way). We don't actually win anything, but it's the closest I'm going to get to winning anything anytime soon, so I'll bask in the glory for a while.

Incidentally, I was a bit off my 20% target and managed to scrape into the top 35%. Not too shabby, but not where I want to be. Although based on a conversation in the toilet queue that's not too bad for that race - we were discussing how normally at races you size people up and there are a fair few who will be slower than you, but at this one everyone just looked so fit - I don't think it's a race many inexperienced runners would dare try! (And looking at the results - only three unaffiliated women finished ahead of me as a sign of how "clubby" it was).

Take to the Hills (1) - Dentdale

During the week I made one of those stupid decisions. This time it was to do two scenic but hilly races this week and next week. So far I've only really done one proper hilly race, the Guy Fawkes 10 back in November. Other than that I've always tried to choose the flattest courses I can for my races. But on the basis that I wanted to do some longer races more for training than to get good times, I decided that some hills wouldn't be a bad thing. At least the scenery will be better than running round council estates in Hull, for example, and the hills should give me a bit of an incentive not to go off too fast and try to race it.

So today it was Dentdale which is, apparently, about 14.3 miles. It's not a standard race distance, just the distance it takes to get round the loop round the dale. A guaranteed PB! There were quite a few other people from running club doing it, which was actually almost a disincentive - when people I know are also racing it sometimes makes me run harder than I would do if I was genuinely treating it as a training run, because my pride won't let certain people beat me. But it gave me people to chat to before the start.

The weather was horrible. On the drive up there the dj on the radio was saying what a lovely day it was. Maybe in London, but in the Cumbrian corner of the Yorkshire dales it was grey, windy and rainy. Lovely. I suppose it was better than overheating. I took a rather scenic route along back roads because it look quicker on the map, I did wonder where I was going when I got to roads where you had to get out of the car to open and close a gate in order to drive through it. I also worried about the wisdom of the "scenic races" plan when I was driving up and down slopes that required me to change down to first gear. Luckily, those weren't part of the course...

Actually, it wasn't that bad. There was a nasty hill in the first mile, and a couple of nasty stretches in the last mile. Other than that it didn't do much more than undulating a bit. OK, it was constant undulation, but none of the hills were particularly nasty taken on their own. I found myself settling into a pretty decent pace, about 30 seconds per mile slower than my half marathon pace from Blackpool, but for a slightly longer, much hillier, race that I wasn't meant to be racing I was pretty happy with that. If I could run the marathon at that pace I'd be a very happy girl indeed.

At Brass Monkey one of the things that made my day was beating the main co-ordinator bloke from running club. I know he's not the fastest runner at the club (the bloke who is the fastest runner came 9th overall!), but he's also not bad, and he's a useful measure of my progress. His girlfriend is faster than he is, so he tends to start with her at a faster pace and then fade towards the end particularly on the longer runs. They overtook me in the first mile (on the hill, in fact), and I didn't spot him again until the last mile. When I first saw him I didn't think there was enough time to catch him before the end, but with a couple of nasty hills that I coped with better than he did, I managed to just about catch him, and overtake him, on the last corner less than 100m from the finish. Good job! I was also pleased that I beat one of the girls who is doing FLM. She's kind of what pushes me on from behind. There are people who I want to be as fast as, and there are people who I don't want to catch me. If she improves during her training for FLM, I want to be improving by a similar amount. It's nothing nasty, she's really nice, but I need motivation running behind me to push me on. Anyway, I finished about 7 minutes faster than her, so I was pretty pleased with that.

And at the end there was free food. A cheese sandwich, a scone and a slice of fruit cake. Better than a t-shirt any day!

Now, bring on the Welsh hills next Saturday. And 6 miles more of them too...

I lied

OK, when I said no walk breaks, I didn't mean to include cross country in that. There are times when walking is absolutely essential...

Although, I'm just proud of the fact that I managed 5 miles cross country the day after a 20 miler. In road shoes, through thick and very slippy mud. It's no wonder I had to walk parts of it, to be honest, the surface just wasn't runnable in parts without studs, and it was definitely the toughest course of the races I ran.

And I still managed to get the 3rd scoring spot for my club, beating my two previous runs where I came in 4th. Even though my overall position was lower, maybe it was just a bigger field this time? I found that on the bits with a decent surface (mainly the same bloody canal towpath I ran down yesterday) I was overtaking loads of people, but on the slippy bits people with proper shoes would overtake me, then I'd get stuck behind them on narrow bits where I could run faster, but just couldn't overtake. So next year, some proper shoes and hopefully I'll be flying.

Did I just write a sentence that implies that I'm looking forward to the next cross country season?!

Best Long Run EVER

I ran 20 miles (well, just under 20 miles) and I RAN ALL THE WAY!!!

I'm so proud of myself. I managed to do the run in 3:02 too, which is only a bit over 9 minute miles. Possibly quicker than I was aiming for, but I felt OK so I kept on going... and going... and going.

This was the route of my best long run pre-Berlin, but that day I took walk breaks to take gels, and I did a fair bit of walking in the last 6 miles or so. And I was over a minute per mile slower too. Even better, this time I feel like I can still walk, and I might even drag myself along to cross country tomorrow if my legs feel up to it.

But the big thing is that I ran every step of it. Last year my training seemed to start disintegrating once I started adding walk breaks into my runs. Mentally that gave me the attitude that the important thing was finishing, rather than running the marathon. Now, I'm not knocking walk breaks, and just finishing a marathon IS a bit achievement. But based on my form over half marathons (even my form back then, let alone the times I'm knocking out now) I know that I'm a better runner than that, and I should be able to make a better go of running all the way. So once my legs recovered from Berlin I made it my aim not to take walk breaks in my runs, and to build up my runs so that I ran all the way every time. Of course, if I pick up a niggle I'm not going to be anything stupid, but if I come across a hill I'm going to run up it slowly rather than walking up it and re-starting at the top. I am a runner and I will run, not walk.

And if I can run all the way in Edinburgh I'll be a very happy girl indeed.