12 Marathons – 12 Months

Boxing Day Burn

Finally the roads are clear! I’ve been itching to get out and do some proper training for days – as opposed to hopping and skipping around the roads and pavements avoiding the snow, slush and hard packed ice. As luck would have it though, my long run fell on Boxing Day of all days (could have been worse) so it was hard enough lacing up the shoes, let alone going out for a 16 mile run. However, I did manage to get out of the door and after the initial stiffness of the first mile or so I loosened up and started to enjoy it. My 16 mile route has a couple of fairly mean gradients though and I really felt them today – especially as one of them is that type of hill that never seems to crest because it’s made up of several steps! You can view the GPS log here but it’s a route you will have seen before.

Anyway, it wasn’t quite as bad as I was expecting and the hills were noticeably easier than than the first time I did this route but the last couple of miles were harder than when I did the 20 mile run to Tower Bridge the other week – probably a combination of this being the first long run in 2 weeks and secondly the over indulgences of yesterday coming back to haunt me. Oh well, lesson learned there I think…

Merry Christmas

No running today but itching to get out & do some miles as this snow & ice has really been holding me back this week. Managed a couple of reasonable sessions however. Tomorrow has a 16 miler planned so that should blow out any remaining cobwebs and hopefully negate the excesses of today too! Cheers everyone and hope you all have a great day

Snow Running

After giving up on yesterday I decided to go for it this morning and was pleasantly surprised. The light snowfall during the night had left a nice layer of powder and being out relatively early meant there was still a fair amount of undisturbed snow on the pavements. This provided a surprising amount of grip as my trainers had something to bite into and so it felt pretty sure-footed the whole way round. Where possible (and safe) I used the roads as they had been liberally gritted and gave me a few bursts of speed as running in the snow is not particularly quick – sort of akin to beach running!

The only downside really is that the uneven surface under the snow was a bit punishing on the ankles so I’m expecting a few sore tendons later… If this doesn’t clear soon then I think it will have to be the treadmill after all.

Garmin Connect - Activity Details.

Time for the Treadmill?

Ho hum, looks like the next few days will have to be on the dreaded treadmill as it’s simply too icy to safely run at the moment – especially at night. I might give it a go in the morning before the traffic gets going when I can get away with running on the roads but failing that it might be up to the gym. Oh well, at least I can watch telly while I’m running I suppose. I’m hoping the gym has treadmills with ANT+ so they will upload their data to my Garmin 310 but I think that might be a little too optimistic…

It’s Snowtime!

Well after Wednesday night’s somewhat cold and slushy run I was expecting a turn in the weather but not to the extent that greeted me this morning – i.e. about 4 inches of fresh snow!

I think I’ll be taking it very slowly and carefully on Saturday – I might need spikes by then unless the gritters have been out!

For the record – I’m supporting RATM!

Let’s shake it up and have a real race to the finish and finally we might see some dry land in this sea of pop mediocrity… Ok so it’s a bit off-topic but if you don’t shout nobody will ever hear you!

Easing up a bit – but not for long!

Nothing special this week, just a trio of easy paced 7-milers and no long run at the weekend. I thought tonight’s would be quite tough after Saturday but it was surprisingly leisurely and quite difficult to actually keep the pace down. I’m certainly feeling the difference on the hills now – early on they were a battle of will over fatigue but now I seem to get a burst of energy that just keeps coming. I knew the speedwork sessions must have some payback eventually!

As always, a link to my Garmin data is below. I upload every session but I may not blog them all as it might get a bit “samey” this week…

Garmin Connect – Activity Details

From Home to Tower Bridge!

Today was my first 20 mile run which is a big milestone as it’s the furthest distance I will run in training from now on. The next few weeks will be a mixture of short, medium and long runs as I approach the first marathon event towards the end of Jan.

Bit of a Trek!

Actually, today’s run was 21.06 miles to be exact – I’d had to take a couple of minor detours from the calculated route and all the fences at road junctions that force you to go a little way up the road to the crossing all added up. Hence my Garmin clocked up 20 miles on Victoria Embankment just as the top of Tower Bridge was coming into view but the bridge was my goal so I pushed on and went the extra mile to get there – also, I had the added incentive of deliberately specifying Tower Hill station as my Oyster top-up point when I renewed it on-line the night before, so no matter what I had to run to the end in order to get home!! The actual GPS track along with timings and stats is on my Garmin Connect page if you are interested and according to that I burned up around 3,100 calories too so a couple of beers this evening felt well earned

I’ve been getting a bit bored with big loops around my local area lately so I thought that a point-to-point would make this a bit more interesting. Apart from getting over the big hump that is Stanmore Hill which is unavoidably in the first 4 miles of the route, this was overall a descent to sea level from a starting altitude of 287 feet – though it didn’t feel like it in places! However, as you crest Stanmore Hill at 4 miles (on a clear day) you can see the London Skyline including the Eye, the Telecom Tower and some of the City which is a great sight and gives you a sense of scale of the next 16 miles…

Eyes on the Prize!!

I thought this would certainly be the time I would find out if the so called “wall” was as bad as everyone says but to be honest, I’ve either still not hit it yet or it came & went! Having said that, I was starting to struggle a little bit as I was passing 18 miles and so I had one of the SiS Smart-1 Energy Gels that contains a serious shot of caffeine with the carbohydrates & stuff and I think it probably gave me the push I needed. After 19 miles it all went away and suddenly I was running like I was back around mile 5 but that could have been the fact that I knew it wasn’t far to go! Most of the Embankment is pretty flat but I made the mistake of staying close to the river and as I approached TB I started to come up against all the little wharfs and inlets that require a sudden stair climb to get around – which wasn’t what I wanted at 20 miles plus but running onto the riverbank courtyard of the Tower of London opposite the bridge was a fantastic sight at the end.

My next long run is in 2 weeks time – Boxing Day to be exact! Fortunately it’s only 16 miles but I’m sure it’ll feel like more. The next three sessions are all 7 mile easy runs (no speedwork this week) so aside from Monday’s which will probably be tough after today I should have a nice easy week.

Thanks for reading

Thanks again!

Running total to date: £584 in donations + £143.56 gift aid.

Thanks to all who have donated so far, my targets don’t seem quite so far away as they did last month

Tempo Run

Just a normal 6 mile tempo run last night: 1 mile warmup, 4 miles @ 8:05 and then a mile to wind down. Split times were just about spot on so that was pleasing and that last quarter mile of the 4 which is usually uphill wasn’t bad at all so that’s a good sign! It was a nice surprise however that I’d assumed this was a 7 miler up until I re-read my schedule so you could almost regard the 1 mile discount as a birthday treat

Garmin Connect – Activity Details for Tempo Run.