Author: FosterRuns

Posted on

Just a second

I was just in the process of making a quick round of cheese on toast to eat at my desk when I realised that I was supposed to be running today.  I only had a 40 minutes window of opportunity if I wanted to have time to shower before I needed to be out the door, so the completed cheese on toast went in the fridge and I went on the running machine.

I didn’t even have time to put Kiss FM on to accompany me so I had to put up with the sound of my feet as I did some fast intervals… hardly intervals though, as I was only going from 7mph to 8mph to 9mph to 8mph and then back round again.

As I reached the 5-mile mark I was surprised to see the time… 38 minutes, 43 seconds.  One second faster than Friday last week.  I really do hate racing myself, as I DO like to win… which means that the task can only get harder from here on in!

BTW, the cold cheese on toast was hard to swallow while I was running around the house trying to shower & out earlier, but I’ve just eaten the other half of it now and it was quite tasty.

Posted on

The Sunday six and a half (people)

Cliff arrived late this morning with some lame excuse about having had a nose bleed… it looked more like one of the dogs had shoved a toy up his nose to me!  I have a picture if anyone is interested…

So the gang this morning consisted of stalwarts Andy, Nikki, Cliff and myself, plus Jane and a strange man with a headband who who had already run to Falmer from Brighton rather than drive!

For time reasons, we decided to run around one of the shorter circuits, but for a change we went around the other way… I’d say we went backwards, but that gag has already been well overdone.

We ran across the bridge and up towards the Downs.  With the addition of Pete, there was plenty of testosterone flowing and the pace was hot, so it was just as well that Jane is pregnant and needed to stop for a pee, otherwise I would have been knackered!

We turned right onto the South Downs Way before we reached the ridge and dropped down the hill to the Newmarket, taking the sharp uphill section in the middle in our stride and pretty much racing down the final steep hill to the by-pass.  Unfortunately this meant that we had to turn around and run back up the hill until we met Jane (after a second stop) & Nikki and then come down a second time.

Pausing half way up the other side (ostensibly for Jane’s third pee-stop, but probably more because we’re all starting to get old!), we were somehow persuaded by Cliff to do the plank.  More testosterone was apparent as some people showed off by holding only two contact points!

Then it was up to Newmarket Copse, out to the Falmer Road and back down the hill to the cars.

From last summer https://www.fosterruns.com/2009/08/five-go-to-falmer/ it appears that the run was only 7.25 miles and although some of us had an additional couple of hundred meters of hill-climbing in the middle, the average speed from our one hour 24 minute run was a heady 5.2mph.  At least it was an improvement on last week!

And then Pete ran home again.  Mad fool!

Posted on

Bravado

Bravado got the better of me yesterday and I foolishly volunteered to try to run 5km in sub-20.30.

As I started running on the machine at lunchtime, I finally worked out the speed I would need to do to achieve this: 9.4mph for 3.125 miles.  Eeeek!

I thought I had better warm up thoroughly, so completed one mile before increasing the speed.  After one more mile I can’t say that I felt particularly like doing 2.125 more at that speed, so I backed off.

So, Andy, the answer is no.   Unfortunately I forgot to check what the time was when I did complete the 5km, so I’ll have to try again next week.

However, as I reached 5 miles, I noticed that the time was 38.44, which is actually faster than earlier in the week.  This 7.74mph average speed would give me a 5km split time of just over 24 minutes.  This is faster than I thought, bearing in mind it included my first warm-up mile.

Posted on

VAT fuelled intervals

It took me longer this morning than usual to calculate my quarterly VAT return, in part because my accounting software doesn’t easily cater for the differential rates of the Flat Rate scheme, but mostly because the department that sold me on the idea of Flat Rate told me to do it incorrectly (using the net rather than the gross sales figure)… which meant that I had to go back today and calculate additional payments from past quarters.  And then work out how to record these in my accounting software!  Oh how I truly miss Maurice ‘Tigger’ Dawes!

To add injury to insult, the culpable department still think that they are correct, which meant that I was forced to call the ‘automated queuing’ helpline and endure 15 minutes of a message repeatedly saying that it may be helpful to look on our website while your waiting.  I persevered and finally got a real person who confirmed that both my accountant and my colleague in RiVO were correct.  Strangely, she didn’t seem to care that one of her colleagues was advocating an incorrect treatment of the figures.  I suppose that that a little misinformation in the system could make life more interesting life for some people?

Anyway, fresh from this frustrating and monumental waste of time, I climbed aboard the magic carpet and ran my little legs off.

The downside of having run five miles in each of my sessions last week is that to do three and a half seems half-hearted.  So I was forced to do another five and I did it as intervals: slightly faster, elongated ones.

I warmed up at 6mph then alternated largely between 7.5 mph and 9mph , with short segments of 6mph or 7mph.  A couple of the the 9mph segments were 800m long which helped to increase the average speed from last week.  So five miles in 39 minutes 7 seconds, an average of 7.67mph.  And one very sweaty me!

Posted on

Cliff’s treat

Having sat on my drive under a blanket of snow for a couple of weeks, it was probably expecting a little too much of my car to fire up properly this morning.  Which is a real shame because I was looking forward to driving it… and now the guys at the garage are probably practising sucking breath in through their teeth!

Kim kindly lent me her car and I set off into the first gorgeous sunny morning for ages: destination Falmer.  It felt mild, despite the layer of ice on the pond that suggested otherwise.

The stalwarts, Andy, Nikki, Cliff and myself, were joined by Neil who had finally bowed under pressure from Cliff to come out with us.  BIG mistake!

It was really hard work to start with.  I had expected the first hill to be waterlogged, but I was pleasantly surprised… it was still probably frozen and to make it more interesting, there were mini snow-drifts set at irregular intervals.  I managed to reach the top of the first rise with the Clifford vanguard but I was also very pleased to be able to stand and catch my breath until Neil caught up.

We ran out to the Newmarket Copse and then Cliff announced that he would rather like to have a closer look at a white blob  (half way up the photo below and one third in from the right) on the edge of Lewes in the distance.  As a result we ran up to the top of the ridge and headed East.

It was a great day to be out, with only the occasional snow-drift and the ice on the path down into Kingston to remind us that it wasn’t yet Spring.  When we got to the blob, it was (as Cliff had suspected), a rather lovely windmill in the making.

This section was Cliff’s treat to us… a path I’ve not been down before, with some stunning vistas.

We dropped down into Lewes and jostled up the sharp hill to the prison, before heading on up to Lewes Racecourse, where there were yet more views to be had… as well as a different view of the new windmill.

Poor Neil had already not been this far on a run for an age, so we had the luxury of stopping to catch our breath on more than one occasion.  The photos below show the others trying to emulate Superman at one of these breaks and… well… captions are welcome!

Our route then took us up to the top of Blackcap, before we started to descend back down the first path back to Falmer.  I got back to the cars again at 2 hours 18 minutes, followed closely by Nikki.  Andy limped in shortly afterwards, but it took Cliff another ten minutes to catch up… sign of advancing ears, probably… and Neil had very kindly hung back to keep him company.

Neil may have looked knackered, but he did good indeed to be able to cover 10.95 miles.

You’d have thought from the time taken and all the photos that I’ve posted that it would be a greater distance than that, but hey!  Not such a hot speed for me (4.76mph!), but a hugely enjoyable run nevertheless… or maybe that should read ‘as a result!’

Posted on

Sneaky Friday

At the back end of Friday and before Kim got back from work, I managed to sneak in a quick run.

It was my intention to run three miles.  This started out badly, as the two Hot Cross Buns I had wolfed down mid afternoon refused to budge and I hence ran the first mile with the stitch… and gasping for breath.  I stopped for a moment for a sip of water and to turn the fan on and I felt much better from then on.

Inevitably, when I reached three miles, I decided to carry on to 30 minutes… and then on to 4 miles… and then, by the time I had slowed down to recover for 400m, I thought I may as well run on to 40 minutes so I increased the speed again… and then I was almost at 5 miles so I thought I may as well carry on to there!

I reached 5 miles at 41.55 which is an average of 7.14mph and even with a cool-down lap, the final 5.25 miles averaged 7.08mph.

Posted on

In-lunch-terval

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was to run five miles today.  In tervals.

I tried to get out of it by clearing the snow from the drive into a small pile…

… but I really didn’t think this was going to carry any weight as an argument, so I set to at lunch-time to perform the required intervals.

It was always going to be tougher than normal: firstly because I was knackered from shovelling snow; and secondly because I only normally do about 3 miles when I’m doing intervals!

I started at 6mph and alternated between this and 7.5mph, plus half a mph for each time around, until I got to 10mph at the 3-mile mark.

I then ran at 8mph until my heart-rate rose to 176 and dropped back to 6mph until my heart-rate fell to 164.  And repeated until I reached the required distance.

The result, 5 miles in a very sweaty 42 minutes… an average of 7.14mph.  There are easier ways to get to this mean speed, but apparently intervals is what will give me more speed overall, so it’s well worth the effort!

Posted on

Pretty amazing

As Kim and I were walking back from the town laden with groceries last week, we chanced upon a young lady with no clothes on.

She was reclining comfortably in the snow… and she must have been frozen stiff!

I think that the sculptor below, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten,  should get marks for form and for originality (the closest thing of any creativity I saw around here was the small but well formed igloo that appeared down the road from us)… and additional marks for the temperature he was working in!

It wasn’t finished at this stage and I think I have now missed my chance to see it complete, but Bravo indeed!

Posted on

Pretty pics

The glory of the snow is starting to fade as the thaw gets underway, but I took the enclosed photos when it was still fresh last week.  Enjoy!

And my favourite, for its sheer broodiness…

Posted on

Ten on the tenth

I took Cliff’s advice and got out into the snow yesterday… to help my neighbours clear the road.  Having spent three hours shovelling snow, pushing wheelbarrows of grit and spreading it around, I didn’t feel the need to get out there again today in my shorts and t-shirt.

Instead I climbed aboard the magic carpet and set about catching my brother’s drift (see comments on previous post https://www.fosterruns.com/2010/01/running-on-the-spot/).

My initial aim was to complete one hour running at 7mph but as I warmed up over the first 800 metres I changed my mind to try to run 7 miles in one hour… it may sound like semantics, but this meant that I had to run faster than 7mph to catch up on the time lost warming up.

I set the carpet to 7.5mph and got on with running as efficiently as possible.  This involved focusing on my footfall, making it as steady and controlled as possible.  At the same time I remembered what the Bok taught me and relaxed my upper body, arms and jaw and kept breathing steadily.

Actually it was a surprisingly comfortable speed.  This was evidenced by my heart rate, which stayed under 160bpm for something like 5 miles.  Inexorably it did climb higher, but for the most part it was still under 170bpm.

I think that I passed the 7-mile mark at 58 minutes, but by this point I had recalibrated my goal.  Unsure of the exact distinction between a short and a long run on www.FosterRuns.com and unwilling to be accused of only putting in a short run… as well as being a namby-pamby for not running in the snow… I had decided to complete a third of a marathon, which is about 8.7 miles.

By the time I got there however, it seemed churlish not to continue to a nice round ten miles.

I was relieved that by the time I reached ten miles, I did at least feel the effects of the speed I was running… otherwise I may have been forced to revise my marathon target time down even further!  Whilst it’s true that I did stagger a little to get across to the study where my camera was, it was nowhere near the level of staggering that I experienced after the early sessions on the machine in August or  September.  Ergo, despite the sporadic nature of my recent runs, I must be getting stronger!

My heart rate hovered between 170 and 175 for the last couple of miles, but I covered the allotted ten miles in 82 minutes… an average of 7.3mph.

We’re in the process of turning our orange bathroom white and one of the by-products of this is that the shower downstairs is now more powerful… which is one reason that I stood under it for a small age once I had replaced some of the 1276 calories I had burned up.