Category: Magic carpet

The proximity of the running machine makes it pretty tempting to use, even on days when I could easily run outside.  But it is unlikely that I would venture out for only half an hour and if I did I would have to run around the local roads.

Today I paused in the work I was doing, ran, eat lunch, showered and was back at my desk pretty much in an hour… well okay, just over an hour then.  But I did start working at about 6.30am this morning!

So my aim was to replicate the intervals of Wednesday, but increase the speed a little.  In 30 minutes I managed 3.6 miles… 7.2mph.

According to Kim, these short interval sessions, mixed in with my normal runs, are a sure-fire way to build up the speed necessary to run a three and a half hour time in Brighton… and in my dreams, beat Cliff and Pete.

Of course, what might also help me in this latter regard is the fact that, thanks to the goading of the BIG man, they have entered a 50 mile race a couple of weeks before!

Either way, watch here for more interval training!

I was reminded last night that I’d not done any speed work for a while… so I took the opportunity at lunchtime to go on the walking machine.

I’ve already given up on the idiosyncrasies of the in-built programming, so I opted for a set of  manually adjusted intervals, based around the visual 400m track that appears on screen.

I warmed up at 4mph for 400m, lap 1, then ran at 6mph or 6.5mph for all the even laps, whilst incrementally increasing the speed on the odd laps.  For example, lap 3 consisted of 200m of 7mph and 200m of 7.5mph.  The penultimate odd lap was run at 9.5mph and 10mph, the final just at 10mph.

I then cooled down on lap 15, slowly going down from 5mph to 3mph.

Overall I managed 3.48 miles in the 30 minute (pre-cool-down) session, which is an average of just under 7mph.

By the by, it is my understanding that someone, who will remain nameless other than to let on that he lives in Brighton, went out for a quick run yesterday and got so lost that they ended up in Eastbourne of all places.  This 5 hour detour took him 26 miles and he was forced to catch a bus home, DUH… not the kind of person you should ever trust with your navigation, methinks!  Come to think of it though, this is not actually a bad marathon time bearing in mind he went over all the hills en route.

After returning late from a party in London and crawling into bed around 3am this morning and then getting up just after seven, I think it’s amazing that I even thought about going out for a run.  But I sleepily climbed straight into my running gear to help me prepare mentally, thinking that despite it being a bit chilly outside, at least the sun was shining cheerfully.

Then the sun went in.

So instead of going out for a run in the cool overcastness of the fresh air outside, I opted to visit my friend’s running machine.

It started gently enough, but realising that Radio 4 could keep me going only so long this morning, I dialled up the speed a little and settled for a shorter time-span.

Short of recounting what I heard on the radio, I’m afraid that there’s not a whole lot to report, although this will no doubt please Cliff.  Once you’ve realised that the initial gentle warm-up pace meant that the first mile took over 10 minutes and that the speed indicator now shows 8mph, most of your focus is required for merely staying on the whirring narrow band of black beneath your feet.  While the rest contemplates the philosophical meaning of the only scenery there is within sensible eye-shot, pictured below.

So 7.5 miles in one hour, which if I could keep it up would give me a marathon time of three and a half hours.  This is great until your consider that my closing heart rate was over 180bpm, which is too high to sustain.

So, more training required…. much more!  And now I come to think of it, more sleep too!

I wish that were true, but it’s not!

A local girl friend of mine has a running machine and she has agreed to let me use it whenever I like in exchange for a small charge to cover running costs.

So since I’d not had a midweek run this week I tried it out this lunchtime.

The view above was not as inspiring as my normal runs, but the result was 6.2 miles in one hour and this should be a useful facility in order to help me add an extra run to my current two a week… especially as the winter training push starts to kick in ahead of our April marathon.

Who am I kidding… I’m only trying find ways to get ahead of the Pac-Man in the local men’s fitness league!

Right now though I need to replace the 336 calories I used up, along with about a gallon of sweat… I’d forgotten how warm you get when you’re not outside!