Category: Magic carpet

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The other 3.25 miles

As per the last few Mondays, I did a short run this morning to take the edge off yesterday’s long one.

What was instantly surprising was that, beyond a slight initial stiffness in the legs, I felt no other after-effects and happily increased the speed, varying from 6mph initially to between 7 and 8.5mph.  In fact, I whizzed along very comfortably, the only negative sensation being one of hunger that developed after about 2 miles.

For the sake of balanced reporting, I should mention that yesterday afternoon and evening I had a series of temporary headaches and backache and was very pleased to finally turn my lights out at bedtime!

I am also glad to report that Spring took another step forward and that the door was open from the off this morning… although  we do have the benefit of a secluded South facing aspect!

So 3.25 miles in 26.40 which equates to an average of 7.3mph.

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Fiveday again

I’ve not much to say for myself this morning.  The thought of running outside briefly crossed my mind before I climbed aboard the machine… would that the Bok was here to force me out!  I varied the speed much like Wednesday and finished five miles in 39.24, average 7.6mph.

There was no drama and the only frisson came from hearing the leader of the FSA, on Radio 4, mention that they had built up a buffer that would now allow them to be proactive rather than reactive.  I’m not certain how a government department should be able  to build up a financial buffer and isn’t it strange how everyone is suddenly thinking about how to do their job better (properly) ahead of probable budget cuts?

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Ten on the tenth – part three!

Yesterday was always going to be a bit of a rush, hence my delay in posting.

I had a really interesting meeting in London late morning, spent the afternoon reading HBR and networking in the Alumni lounge at London Business School and then participated as a Judge (a pseudo potential early-stage investor) in a Trade Show by LBS MBA students in the Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunities core course.

This is well worth mentioning further.

390 students, working in 65 teams, had identified opportunities which typically focused around resolving a real customer or stakeholder pain.  They then distinguished between mere ideas and more valuable opportunities, confirming their hypotheses by observation or primary customer research.  Finally they contextualised the opportunities to ensure that they represented distinctive, fresh ways of creating value  in the face of incumbents, and thought through the value chain for delivering the solution.

The Trade Show last night was one of the last parts of the course, where they opened up their ideas to peer review and pitched their ideas to a range of Alumni judges including me.  I have to say that the standard was extremely high indeed, phenomenal really, especially bearing in mind that this is a core MBA course rather than an elective.  It was a real privilege to see their work and full marks should go to the students and the tutors involved!

Of course, in advance of this fascinating day, I had to sneak in a ten mile run, so it was a bit of an early start.

Once again, for time reasons, it was a magic carpet run, but at least that enables me to make a direct comparison with the last two ’10 on the 10th’ runs.

January 10th: 10 miles in 82 minutes, heart rate sub 175, slight post-run staggering, upstairs bathroom in progress.

February 10th: 10 miles in 79.35, heart rate sub 170, scant post-run staggering, bathroom complete.

March 10th: 10 miles in 78.47, heart rate in the low 160’s, no time to stagger afterwards as I had bolt down some breakfast, run through the shower and get to the station!

For more interest (beyond Radio 4) I varied the speed of each quarter mile, warming up at 6 and 6.5mph then cycling thr0ugh 7, 7.5, 8 and 8.5mph until the end.

This certainly made the task more bearable and I definitely feel as if I’m progressing… which is useful bearing in mind that there are only 5 training weekends left before the marathon!

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Late lunchtime

This morning Bill Faust and I had volunteered to be part of a Career Speed-Dating event for year 9 students at local Oathall School, which turned out to be a really fun event.

As a result I didn’t get a chance to do my normal Monday morning short run, so instead I took a late lunchtime and ran then instead… I’ve just jumped out of the shower!

I started at 7mph, but after a mile increased it a little, and then a little more until I was running quite happily at 7.6mph.

3 miles whizzed by with little effort in 24.47, an average of 7.27mph.

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And Five on Friday

Lately I seem to have been becoming a more reluctant runner and a conversation with the Big Man (Mr DP) yesterday highlighted to me the reason why.  Where once the running used to be about fun and socialising, it now has a clear purpose.  And since each of us has our own running program, mileage targets, time constraints and other variables including at least two different race dates, it’s not so easy to run together.  Realising that I feel a lot happier… I know that there is a peak of fitness to achieve at a certain point in time and then I’ll be able to use that extra strength to enjoy myself even more than I used to before!

Even so, after ten icky miles yesterday and slightly achy knee joints this morning, I was not raring to get on the machine.

But on I did get and after the distances I’ve recently endured, 5 miles seemed pretty straightforward.  42.26 is not fast by the standards of previous weeks, but I’m still being sensible after last weekend’s 20-miler and with the average at just over 7mph, it’s okay.

One other thought from the Big Man is rattling around in my brain though… why am I not outside.  I run on the machine for a series of reasons:  monitoring heart rate, getting used to running at a particular speed, avoiding the ice & snow in the winter, lack of pleasant local pavements to run on, time available and so on.  This has definitely had a positive effect on my long-distance running ability, as witnessed in the consistency of speed in my Woodingdean runs.

But Spring is upon us and that’s my favourite season for running outside so whilst I may continue to do some training on the machine, I will hopefully find time in the next few weeks to do some of my old cross-country routes too.  And since the Big Man is back in town for a while and there’s a rumour that the Bok has overcome some of his back problems, maybe there’s even a chance of the odd social run too.  Just the thought of it has made me smile!

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Icky ten

Kim has been in NYC for a week and having collected her from Heathrow early yesterday, I drove into London and didn’t get back home until late.  Hence my Wednesday 10-miler got turned into a Thursday 10-miler.  Based on my run earlier this morning though, I don’t think I like running on Thursdays!

Maybe it was as simple as allowing too much time to elapse between runs, so my legs had a chance to stiffen up, but I didn’t feel great on the machine this morning.  Maybe it was also in part that I listened to Radio 4, where I’m fast coming to the conclusion that the BBC is actually the LBC… The Labour Bias Corporation.

This morning’s Conservative target was Lord Ashcroft.  Maybe I’m an oddball for believing that Government is stronger for having real, global businesspeople within its ranks, rather than anodyne, career politicians with little or no business experience.  And maybe I’m also odd for believing that global business people should pay taxes back into all of the communities around the world that they derive income from, not merely some Colonial master.

But my real beef here is about the timing of these so called revelations… rather conveniently for Labour in the run up to the election.  The BBC/LBC was fast to interrogate (a better verb might be to hector) Conservative ministers about how long they have known about the situation.  But presuming that the tip-off came from within the Government, to whom the Cabinet Office reported at the time the initial agreement was reached, they were curiously silent as to how long Gordon Brown has been keeping this quietly up his sleeve.

Anyway, suffice to say that by 10 miles I was feeling decidedly queasy, despite having jumped off the machine to open the door to clear my rage and swig some water after 8 miles.  Despite also only having set the machine to 7mph or thereabouts for most of the way.

84 minutes, 32 seconds of mostly uncomfortable running.  And all in the knowledge that I must climb aboard again tomorrow to do yet another 5 miles.  Ugh!

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More?

After running 20 miles on the machine yesterday, I was unsure how I would feel about getting back on it again this morning.

But after the inclemence of yesterday,  the day that dawned was beautiful and with sun streaming through the window it was hard to feel anything other than upbeat.  With a hasty espresso to wake me up and a banana for sugar, I got straight on with it.

I started the machine at 6mph to give my legs a chance to warm up but quickly realised they actually wanted to go faster… I kept running onto the front board.  I increased the speed to 6.5mph and while I’m sure I could have run faster still, I thought prudence was well advised.  I actually experienced no discomfort at all, so the training must be having an effect.

I regretted not putting the fan on though… the combination of the heating, sun and my activity quickly brought me to a hot sweat, but I didn’t want to stop so I just had to endure it.

After yesterday’s Kiss FM session, this morning I opted for Radio 4 and endured some politician getting a browbeating from the presenter.  It was clear that the presenter just wanted a percentage number that could be used later in the news, but the guest was having none of it and managed to get away clean from the more telling elephant in the room.

He pointed out that there has been a 45% increase in public spending within local authorities since 1997 and that councils would easily be able to create efficiencies without cutting front line services.

Whether or not this is the case, this is like saying that ‘we think they’ve been pouring money down the drain for a number of years but we’ve not previously done anything about it because… ‘

Slightly hot under the collar, for more reasons that one, I completed 3 miles in 28.24, average speed 6.3mph.

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Jump Start Sunday

My plan had been to run the ten miles from Woodingdean to the old Shoreham power-station this morning.  And then to run back again.  But the forecast was for extreme inclemence, consisting of North-Easterly gales and heavy rain… and for once the forecast turned out to be right.  The thought of running the second ten miles into driving rain was not exactly appealing so I decided to stay home and listen to Martin Archer on Kiss FM, with his 3-hour Jump Start Sunday programme.

Of course this left me with a slight quandary: what to do while I listened.  I’m not exactly one for sitting down & listening to the radio whilst doing nothing and it’s difficult to play guitar or to read a book, so I decided to have a gentle run on the machine.

Beyond this, there’s not a lot to report about today… except that I ran for all-bar one minute 36 seconds of the programme and covered 20 miles.

After a three or four mile warm-up, my heart rate stayed around 155 before passing 160 around the 14 mile mark and  slowly creeping up to 165 by the end.  The machine reckons that I used 2659 calories.   I’m not quite sure exactly what to eat to replace these… I don’t think the shops sell anything with this many calories any more.  I had to demount at the half way point as the machine only counts to 99 minutes, but despite my bladder faking that it required attention, I ignored it and only walked to open the door before getting back with the programme.

Two curious things:  Firstly, I set the machine to 6.7mph for the whole duration, but the time shows that I managed to average 6.726mph… I don’t have enough calories left for my brain to work that one out.  Second, somewhere in the combination of man-made-material running kit and a lot of movement, I always manage to create a little static… I was doubly shocked then,  when I managed to earth out via the leaf of the plant that hangs expectantly over the machine!

Alas, I have no landscape photos to share with you… this was all I could see!

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Slow and early

It’s late now, but when I climbed aboard the magic carpet to do my Friday run it was only just light.  More to the point, I was hardly awake… and maybe I just dreamed that I ran.  Who knows?

Because it was early and I was half asleep (and also because I’m building up to a long run Sunday), I couldn’t bring myself to stress my legs by making them do 8+mph, so I pootled along at 7mph for the first 10 quarter-miles and then increased to 7.5mph for the balance of 5 miles.

Although I really sweated it out, my heart-rate stayed below 165 and I finished in 40minutes 49 seconds. .. average 7.35mph.

It makes me tired just thinking about it, but maybe that’s because it’s late!  Zzzzzzz

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Wednesdix run

Once again, the prospect of a ten-mile run on the machine was not a welcome one.  I had planned to get it out of the way really early on this morning, but this didn’t happen because I sat up watching Deja Vu last night… and thus found it hard to drag myself out of bed!

Following the emergent pattern of my training, I started off at 7.7mph and celebrated each quarter-mile that I ran closer to my goal.  My heart-rate climbed slowly to 170 by about the 3-mile mark and at 5 miles I paused for a slurp of water, a stretch, some jelly-babies (I had skipped breakfast and eaten only a banana) and to open the door for some fresh air.  To be fair, this took 3 minutes, but I’m sure you won’t hold that against me!

With the machine now set to 7.8mph, my heart-rate took another mile to get from 124 back up to 170 and it stayed there until the 7.5-mile mark when I increased the speed to 7.9mph.  Between here and the end my heart-rate hovered around 172 to 174 which is higher than last week, but still acceptable given the pace.

What is interesting is that the simple stretch that Andy/Marina showed me has resolved the issue with my hip tendon, at least over this distance… although I was aware of it hovering in the background towards the end.  My focus in these runs is on making a positive and steady footfall, training my legs and my mind not to waiver, which has also helped overcome little niggly pains.

So 10 miles in 77 minutes 12 seconds (ignoring the break) is a speed of 7.77mph, which I think is a PB for me over this distance even though I wasn’t racing.