London Marathon 2007

I have done quite a bit since my last post.

Last wednesday I started by doing the Woodnewton, Apethorpe, Nassington circuit. My legs were very tired as by the end I had clocked up nearly 35 miles in 6 days. Two of the sessions had been hard - the frostbite and the track session. This was followed by a Clive Tuke endurance session.

Therfore by Thursday morning I was very tired. My initial idea was to do the turbo session in the evening and not venture out for a run. However Thursday saw the worst winter storm for nearly 20 years pass over the UK. By 1:30pm the electricity had gone and I was forced to spend the afternoon reading. Had I not been so tired I think that I would have gone out for a run in the wind just to see what it was like. By the time the turbo session came around there was still no electricity, so it did not go ahead.

Friday was my rest day and despite the fact that I had done nothing the day before I decided to keep it as a rest day. Bliss!

Saturday started very early. D4 the dog started barking in the middle of the night, which woke me - 2AM. I was quite excited about the impending Rutland Water challenge and could not get back to sleep. I ended up listening to the world service until about 4:30am when I finally got out of bed. The wind was howling outside and the conditions did not seem ideal. Between Nassington and Apethorpe, the rain came down so hard I had to slow as the wipers could not keep up with the volume of water. Fortunately by the time I got to Rutland Water, the rain had abated a bit. Rupert was sitting in his Land Rover relishing the thought of doing something a bit off the wall. Robin turned up, followed by Jonathan and Julia. We all got togged up and started on our way. Jonathan, Julia and me on foot going clockwise round the lake. Rupert and Robin going anti clockwise on bike. The wind was sill very strong and the rain reasonably hard. Once or twice I had negative thoughts about stopping, but you just put the thoughts behind you and keep going.

The Rutland Water circuit is quite hard - up and down all the way. It's difficult to get into a rythm. After about 40 minutes we rounded the west end of the water and our direction changed. Also there were a few steady miles where the track was flatish. Rupert and Robin passed us just as we were about to cross under the railway line.

London Marathon 2007

Even though I thought that I was feeling tired on Monday, my run to Woodnewton and back was not too bad. I took things fairly steady and did a few high knees etc on the way back. In the evening I did an hours swimming. A reasonably hard set.

On Tuesday I went with Adrian to the athletics track in Peterborough. It's a great facility. We started with a warm up and then did a few drills and stretching. After that we did some sprints. I was teamed with Annette and Sam. 2x50, 2x100, 2x150, 2x200, 2x150, 2x100, 2x50. It was good to run next to Sam as she is a good sprinter and I found it very hard to keep up with her, especially on anything over 100M.

My legs are a bit sore, but at least it's only a couple of days before my rest day. This week is a hard week. I should have done about 35 miles + 2 hours of swimming. Next week is going to be easier.

However before next week comes I have been persuaded to go round Rutland water with Jonathan at 05:30 on Saturday morning. Yuk! It's somewhere in the region of 15 miles. Lets hope the rain and wind has abated a bit before then.

London Marathon 2007

Feeling tired after a lot of running in the last three days. Friday started with a progression run of 5.5 miles. The first part was very windy and hard work. On the return I pushed harder and felt quite good. I followed the run up with a Clive Tuke swim session.

On Saturday, I ended up doing slightly under 10 miles. I had a course change halfway round when I saw David and Bruce out with the novice cyclists, which meant that I came back over Southwick hill. I was very tired at the end - I am not sure if it was the fact that I eat my breakfast shortly before setting off for the run, the fact that it was hillier than I planned, or the swimming from the night before. Possibly all three contributed to making me feel very tired.

Sunday was Frostbite race 4 over at Ramsey. The sun was out and the ground was not too soggy. My legs felt very heavy. I went round with Carol with me leading most of the way. Not exactly sure what the time was, but even if I was slower than last year I will be happier as I had done quite a bit in the two days before the run and my legs were extremely tired. But to put things in perspective Carol had cycled over 65 miles followed by a three mile run the day before and come down on her bike from Peterborough to do the race.

One encouraging thing is that I have done roughly 29 miles running along with 3 1 hour swimming sessions in the week. Therefore enven though I am feeling quite tired this morning, I know that in a few weeks I am going to be able to cope with running over 40 miles in a week. I will probably have to cut the swimming down to 1 session a week and maybe introduce a sysle ride instead of a run session.

London Marathon 2007

So far this week I have managed to run on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was very windy which made the start of my run up the hill to Woodnewton very difficult.

Running wise Wednesday never happened as I got stuck in Stamford until 4pm so ran out of time. I did do a hard swimming session behind Clive Tuke. I managed to complete the full session bar 100m, an improvement on Friday. I did 3100M and don't feel too tired this morning.

I have also purchased a Navman R300 Sport Tool, which is a cheap (£50) GPS tracking device giving information about current speed, distance covered etc. It sits on your arm and is quite useful as an aid to make sure that you are running at the desired pace.

London Marathon 2007

The boy's rugby was cancelled so Defor had a bonus run which she was not expecting. We did about 5.5 miles. I pushed quite hard on the last half doing a few hard sprints towards the end. Things felt quite good and I remembered to do my stretching at the end. Stretching is something I often forget to do when I come in after a run.

London Marathon 2007

I have just done my first two proper training sessions of the new year. An hours swimming following in the bow wave of Clive Tuke and this morning a 40 minute run of around 4 miles.

I had planned to start my training earlier this week, but unfortunately I got the cold which is doing the rounds. I am just about over it. Hopefully it is the last of the winter.

I have worked out a training plan to get me to my target of 3:50. I have a three week build up before the plan proper starts.