Category: Magic carpet

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Keeping the pressure on

In the context of training for a marathon, I have wondered more than once whether running three miles on a Monday really gives me any tangible benefit.

As if to answer my question by analogy and knowing that I have no fee-paying projects right at this moment, one of my colleagues called me this morning to pique my mental faculty with some interesting thoughts and ideas.  These ideas might not pay the bills, but they keep my brain muscle exercised in the way that my little Monday runs do for my legs.

So even though my legs took me 15 miles yesterday, I had a quick 3-mile run on the machine this morning.  25 minutes 47 seconds.

Now to do the same for my head.

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Five on Friday

Strange to tell, but my legs are changing shape… I noticed this morning.  No, they’re not pear-shaped, although they may well be after the marathon, but there are definitely muscles developing that I’ve not seen before… at least on my legs!

So I kept up the pressure earlier with another lunchtime run on the magic carpet.  One and a quarter miles at 7.9mph, two and a half at 8mph and the final one and a quarter at 8.1mph gave me 5 miles in 37minutes 43 seconds and an average of 7.95mph.

This is 8 seconds off my PB on 3rd Feb, although that was an interval session and I was not even outside my comfort zone today.  I’m guessing that those new muscles could be quite useful to my running.

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Another Wedtensday

It was a beautiful bright, sunny day but fweezin cold outside, so I was glad that I was inside on the machine this morning.

There are days when the miles just whir past effortlessly, but this was not one of them… in fact, each quarter mile felt like a whole one and since there were 40 in total, it seemed to take an age.

Nevertheless, the run was in my schedule so I got on and did my best.  I started the belt at 7.6mph and focussed on not tweaking the tendon in my right hip/knee… not easy, but possible it appears.

At the 5 mile mark, which I reached in 39 minutes 38 seconds, I got off, had a quick slurp of water and increased the speed to 7.7mph.  At the 7.5 mile mark I got off, opened the door to let some much-needed fresh air in, had another slurp of water and reset the machine to 7.8mph.

I completed 10 miles in 78 minutes 18 seconds, which is an average of 7.66mph overall and despite the increases in speed, my heart rate was still below 170 at the end.

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Post run run

After yesterday’s run I expected to be quite a bit stiffer today than I was… the programme must be working.

Still, it wasn’t that pleasant running on the machine as my hip is still a little painful.  At least I know how to alleviate the pain now though and hopefully, with a little persistence, I can resolve the problem.

So three miles at 7mph, with a little break after a mile to stretch. 25 minutes 57 seconds.

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Life without broadband

The broadband went off last night and has only come back since about 4.30pm today.  It surprises me how lost I instantly felt without it, being suddenly without access to research tools, internet banking (admittedly, only paying bills), this site etc.

I have actually had quite a good day though, getting some off-line chores done as well as reading a little more of John Mullins & Randy Komisar’s excellent book Getting to Plan B… which, as far as I’ve read so far, is highly recommended!

I also managed to squeeze in my lunchtime run and in sharp contrast to last week, I was really looking forward to it.

My current general plan with my Friday short runs is to slowly push the speed envelope, so where I ran at 7.7mph last week, today I dialled in 7.8… not a whole lot, admittedly, but worth two and a half minutes across a marathon distance.

It was quite a comfortable pace and with my heart rate still sub-160 at the half-way mark, I increased the speed to 8mph for a negative split.  This was also quite easy to maintain (over this distance, at least!) and I wondered about upping it again, but I think the key at the moment is gently building consistency.

So 5 miles in 38.39, which is 37 seconds better than last week and way easier than the intervals that gave me a similar time on the 26th January.  As much as anything, the run left me feeling great… which is always welcome on a Friday!

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Ten on the tenth… part two

So far this week we have seen three very interesting movies: Synecdoche, New York and 500 Days of Summer thanks to Karen and Avatar thanks to Jason.  Synecdoche was supremely hard work to trawl through, but highly rewarding in that the point is worth getting, even if, as in my case, it was right at the end!  500 Days of Summer, which could easily have been a trite chick-flick but thankfully wasn’t, also had some worthwhile points to make and in a surprisingly similar vein.

Meanwhile, Avatar… well if you are not at all bothered about seeing this, as was I, you should just go see for yourself.  It was not at all what I expected and aside from this… well let’s just say that the days of 2D films must surely be numbered.

I did manage to get my planned longer run in yesterday and it was reassuring to see progress in at least some areas since the same time last month, not least that whilst both days had snow on the ground, it’s at least a lot thinner this month!

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.

The increase in speed was due to 1) not waiting 800m to increase the speed to 7.5mph and 2) running a slight negative split by increasing the speed to 7.6 for the second 5 miles.  40.11/39.25.  The decrease in heart-rate is the exciting thing for me as this seems a better indicator of fitness.

As to the bathroom, where once it was Orange:

Now it just is:

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New splodge and a change in training tempo

Kim and I both bought new splodge during our visit to Run on Saturday and it was the inaugural outing for my pair today. I say outing, but as my plan is to use them only on the running machine for the time being, I should probably say inning.

Also, although my head has been in marathon gear for several weeks now, I have only just realised that both my mileage and the number of times I run each week should be higher.

Hence this gentle little 3-mile run today to stretch my legs out after yesterday’s long-un.  I clearly warmed up for too long before dialling in 7mph, as the average speed at the 3-mile mark was 6.92mph.  25 minutes, 53 seconds.

I’ll probably see what the result is when I wake up tomorrow morning, but rest assured that there will be more runs coming!

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21 seconds

I didn’t really want to run this morning (there’s clearly a theme here!) but I knew that I had to, so I jumped on the machine and set off to be a bit quicker than my Friday run last week.  This involved warming up for a nanosecond before dialling in a speed of 7.7mph and hanging on!

I counted down the 20 circuits in order to pass the time, even though they seemed in no particular hurry today… the only usual benefit of running faster is that the run is over sooner, but today I could have been running at the speed of light and the circuits would still have taken their time.

So, 5 miles in 39 minutes, 16 seconds… a whole 21 second gain on last week for a WHOLE lot more effort!

Still, the speaker at the lunch event I attended was Tim Hutchings, who is the man behind the Brighton Marathon, so at least I was able to bask privately in the knowledge that I’m keeping up my training schedule!

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Failure to average seven-point-something mph

This morning I ran the intervals that I didn’t run yesterday, legs still a touch stiff from Sunday, but in a nice way.

I started at 7mph and increased this by 0.5mph for each 400m lap until I got to 10.5mph.  By this time my legs and particularly my ankles were causing me discomfort.  Also, I wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad sign that my heart rate peaked at 175 and went no higher.

I dropped back to 7mph for a breather and built up again to 9.5mph.  Finally I alternated between 7 and 9.5/9/8.5 until I reached the end.

What is really frustrating is that I had hoped to come in close to last week’s personal best of 38.43… but now I’ve gone and beaten that by over a minute, passing 5km at 24.04 and reaching the 5 mile mark at 37.35… an average of a tad over 8mph.

I hate jumping over ever-higher bars… you know that there will come a point when you just won’t make it!

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Slow down Sally

I had quite a thoughtful run on the machine this morning (Friday), the subject of which I will come back to some other time… right now my ears are ringing from going to a brilliant Soul Katz gig!

But while I remember, I was focussing today on keeping my heart-rate down slow, by trying to run and breathe as efficiently as possible.  It was mostly sub 160 until after the two mile mark, then sub 165 until three miles and apart from a couple of blips, I managed to keep it sub 170 until the end.  Not bad considering I ramped the speed up from 7mph to 7.6mph in the first 400m and kept it right there for the rest of the five miles.

So five miles in 39 minutes, 37 seconds.