Training plan – the early weeks: resolutions and lessons learned

I am booked in to run the Edinburgh Half Marathon in May. There, I said it. As I started training properly, this was 3.1 miles further than I’d ever run before. 

I’m armed with a training plan. It’s a spreadsheet chock-full of detail, impending pain, and a few shivers. Can I really run a half marathon in under 100 minutes? I know I can run a 10k at about that speed, but this is more than twice as far. It’s quite daunting, but targets help, right? 

I suppose I better stick to the plan. First on the list, is a regular yoga session. This is to lengthen my stride as I tend to trot like a pony. I’ve never done yoga before, and it turns out I’m spectacularly rubbish at it. How come everyone else is so bendy? Did the bendy people notice me falling over at the back? Still, it’s the first form of exercise I’ve ever done where I’ve almost immediately felt the benefits. 

For your edification, here are some of the things I’ve learned or noticed so far: 

• Variety is the spice of training. I’m doing longer slow runs, shorter quick ones, hill reps, track sessions, and normal evening runs and track sessions with the Striders, in order to build up speed, strength, stamina and probably other things beginning with ‘S’. It’s been tough but never dull so far. 
• If you have a heavy cold or cough, it’s best not to run too much. It turns out breathing is actually quite important, and coughing while running wasn’t particularly good for my back, said my friendly local osteopath.
• It’s really difficult to swallow smooth peanut butter if you’ve been running for 90 minutes. 
• It’s hard to start running again when you’ve stopped for any reason. 
• I speed up when I spot a runner coming towards me. I need to stop doing that, as it’s knackering me out, and I’m not impressing anybody. 
• If you’re running loads, you can eat whatever you like. This is probably not true but I’m certainly eating shed loads. 
• If you say 'I can run faster than this speed, but I’m doing 4 miles straight afterwards' to people you’re running with at parkrun, they don’t tend to like it.
• If you head out before dawn on Christmas Day to go for a run, your in-laws may well think you’re nuts. They may be right. 

I’m only in my early weeks. I’ve already had two falls, but so far no submissions. I’ve had several occasions when I’ve thought I’ve broken my body, but many more runner’s highs to compensate. And my first rest week coincided with the snow and ice, which was a bonus. 

Plenty of training time to go. Bring it on! 

Richard Sved

‘A big thank you’ - great feedback for Get Started

There have been three Get Started courses at Striders since 2011, and at different points the Blog has heard from those taking part. But when the course comes to an end, what do people find they have got from it? After the last Get Started course participants were asked for their feedback. The results have shown the course’s value and effect: 

• Providing the motivation to keep running - ‘I never thought I’d still be running and would enjoy it so much but do, and this is not only because of the Get Started sessions but due to how welcoming and supportive Striders have been.’
• Demystifying track sessions - ‘To an inexperienced runner they are now less scary and understand that they are structured so that all levels can get something out of the sessions’
• Understanding more about the variety of training options - ‘I had never done hill reps – they were hard but now I know that, and it’s not daunting’ 
• Introducing Striders - ‘It provided me with the discipline to do something active and was the way into the club – without Get Started I wouldn't have joined’ 
• Getting to grips with being a club member - ‘The essentials session at the end of the course was really good and inspired you to keep going’

Everyone who responded said they would carry on running. Ruth, who joined in September 2012, told us more about her Get Started experience and her running plans for 2013: 

‘I really enjoyed the Get Started course, and thought it was a great and non-daunting environment for new starters to be included in the club, and make some acquaintances. 

'I started running 21 months ago to run the London marathon, which I managed in 5:30 in 2012. It was a bit slower than I hoped, because of a three week break with shin splints. 

Ruth, finishing VLM 2012 

'I joined Get Started hoping to help push my speed training. I wanted to join to improve my running technique and get training tips, and encouragement that I couldn't do by myself. I really love the track sessions - they are hard, but push me much harder than I push myself. 

'I liked not having to walk into a big club by myself and not know anyone or anything, a group intro was much better. 

'I’m running the London marathon again this year and I really want to get somewhere near 5 hours this time. I am doing the Silverstone half marathon in February. I did it last year, as well as being a great warm up for London its lots of fun to run on the race track!' 

So, a big 'Thank you' to everyone involved in helping with Get Started and in the Thursday night runs since then. Your support is really appreciated. More info about helping with the Thursday night run rotas can be found on the Facebook page and the Forum. 

The fine art of marshalling

Well, its early January and we are all making running resolutions for the year ahead, but right now, it’s time to highlight the fine art of marshalling. We may all hope that 2013 means a better pace, more miles, and new PBs, but we’ll struggle to get near this without the marshals. Ahead of the Fred Hughes on 20 January, it’s time to take a blog-style look at what can be involved in earning those 20 club champ points....

1. Dress for the occasion - Layer up. It can be cold out there.

Marshals, warming up

2. Assume an air of polite authority - For some this comes naturally, for everyone else there’s the high vis jacket. It's an essential part of marshalling, and without it you blend into the background (be that a hedge, a row of houses, or spectators). With it you acquire authority - people stop you and ask questions, while it may be going too far to say that you may assume Jedi-style powers, remember the force may be with you...

3. Know your left from your right - This is especially useful when directing runners, supporters, cyclists and drivers. Seems obvious while you read this, but in my experience, in the heat of the moment.....

4. Choose your words of encouragement carefully - It can be hard to choose the right words at difficult points in life. There have been times when I am running when I've found 'you're nearly there' to be the worst thing I could possibly hear. So, keep it simple, take your cue from the club vests on show, and try to resist the temptation to remark on how close they are to the end, or how surprised you are to see them so soon. And if words fail you, keep clapping.

5. Be diplomatic - The chances are you'll encounter people who are less enthusiastic about the race than you. They might be driving a car, walking the dog, or running in the other direction. Diplomacy and a smile should see you through. 

More marshals, ready to marshal

6. Enjoy the spectacle - And finally, try to soak up the atmosphere! Personally, there’s something particularly inspiring about watching a race up close, and seeing club mates’ training plans come together. And who knows, it might help with setting some goals for the next 12 months.

See you there! 

Jack's Marathons - October and November 2012

My 298th marathon was on 30 September 2012 leaving me just Preston Marathon to complete on 28 October before heading out to the USA for marathon number 300. This left me an ideal opportunity to squeeze in some races at various different distances. A suitable challenge for October seemed to be to see if I could complete a 10k, a 10 mile race, a half marathon, a marathon and a cross country league race in a month. 

I started with the Standalone 10k on 7 October (40:58) and then ran the Oxford Half Marathon on the 14 pacing a friend round in 2:08:25. Next were the RAF Henlow 10 mile race on 17 October (1:22:30) and the Chiltern League 9k cross country race at Oxford on the 21 (where I was surprised to come 3rd out of 8 in the vet 60 group). 

Preston Guild Marathon: 28 October 2012: Every 20 years Preston holds its Guild Celebrations and for 2012 the city introduced a marathon to coincide with these. This was to be my 299th marathon and, as with most new marathons, I was slightly apprehensive about how well organised the event would be. It turned out that the only thing I should have been worried about was the Lancashire weather. 

Every aspect of the race had been carefully pre-planned with efficient and fast registration and baggage facilities, a warm and commodious race HQ building, ample toilet facilities with very short queues and tremendous drink stations with huge supplies of gels available just at the right locations. It was raining at the start and the downpour continued throughout the race. In addition there was a strong northerly wind and in one spot the leaves being blown from the trees hit us like bullets. Throughout all of this the marshals and drink station volunteers (who must have been frozen) remained cheerful and supportive and it was amazing that so many members of the public braved the weather to support runners along the course. 

The route was undulating, but mainly traffic free and once we left Preston we ran over the River Ribble and through some pretty countryside before returning to the finish outside Preston Guild Hall. I had a good run finishing 361st out of 1132 and 4th out of 20 in the 60-64 age group. I returned to St Albans to news that many flights to the USA were being cancelled because of Hurricane Sandy, which didn’t bode well for my scheduled flight out via Washington DC on the Thursday. 

300 up!

City of Oaks Marathon, Raleigh, North Carolina: 4 November 2012: Thankfully my flight out was not cancelled and Raleigh had not been affected at all by the hurricane. The race organisers had promised to let me have running bib number 300 to celebrate my 300th marathon and I had remembered to pack the convict outfit that I was intending to run in. I’d run this race two years previously and whilst the race director had advised that he had altered the route to cut out some of the worse hills local runners were telling me that there weren’t any flat stretches anywhere (which proved to be true). However, my main concern was that I had not done any practice runs in my outfit and that on the day the trousers seemed quite loose. I had visions of me ending up with them around my ankles. As it turned out the main problem I encountered was being too warm and by half way I found myself wishing that I’d not worn a t-shirt under my costume. 

Once we got going, my anxiety vanished and my attention was diverted early in the race to a model cow half way through the showroom window in the Wells Fargo offices in downtown Raleigh. I then started to notice spectators at regular intervals holding signs proclaiming ‘Run like you stole something’. I was indeed trying although one lady succeeded in apprehending me at around the 24 mile point so that I could be photographed with her kids beside their sign. She thanked me profusely as I assured her that this time she had convincingly apprehended her man. 

Over the weekend we’d had a policeman from NYPD staying with us and at a turnaround point close to the finish I noticed that he was catching me up quite quickly. Consequently we had a real ‘cops and robbers’ style finish to the race. My time was 4:06:52 and I won an award for being 3rd in the 60-64 age group. 

At the end we had a group photograph taken of me with three of my most eccentric friends. These were (1) Matt Jenkins, who runs all his marathons barefoot (2) Peter, the NYPD man who had almost caught me at the finish and (3) Rich Holmes, who had run his 200th marathon at the same marathon in Nashville where I had run mine. 

Jack and friends

I had a great time during the race and the encouragement I got from both spectators and fellow runners was unbelievable. However, the convict outfit is now safely packed away and I have no plans to race in it again.

Richmond Marathon, Virginia: 10 November 2012: After a week of sightseeing around Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown we made our way to Richmond. Richmond Marathon was a well organised, but busy race as they’d increased their permitted numbers by around 1500 to allow entrants from the cancelled New York Marathon to compete. The course was gently undulating, but it did start getting warm quite early on and I made the mistake of setting off with the 3.45 pace group. I stayed with them until 17.5 miles, but then had to let them go as the heat got to me. I struggled over the last few miles and finally crossed the line in 4:01:41. Curiously all 4 of us who were in the previous week’s group photo ran faster times at Richmond than at City of Oaks and Matt, Peter and I crossed the finish line within 2 minutes of each other. 

Jack Brooks

Chiltern League XC 1, Oxford - I'd been here before…

Cross country is back

Shotover Park, November 1981. Oxford vs Cambridge second team, tortoises versus spartans. I was too rubbish to make the first team. The first teams raced in Richmond Park, we lesser mortals had to battle it out at Shotover, a hill a few miles to the east of Oxford. Back in ‘81 we had to start at the top of the hill, hurtle downhill, wade through a muddy bog, then struggle back up the hill. We did this three times, seven and half miles in all. Great fun. I cannot even remember if we won or lost. That probably means we lost. 

Shotover Park, October 2012. St Albans Striders versus the rest of the Chiltern League. Probably our strongest team yet in the Chiltern League? Certainly the best turnout since the St Albans fixture last December. How would we fare? 

The course was more challenging than Verulamium Park. Granted the Start and Finish were something out of a school sports day: a pancake-flat field with not a hint of mud. Even the grass where we dumped our bags was mud-free, a welcome change from some of the alfresco changing areas, aka quagmires, I have sunk into (Hillingdon, Alexandra Palace, Parliament Hill). There were changing rooms indoors, but the weather was too nice for those. 

After a lap of the nice flat sports field we had to exit the field via a ditch, 10 foot wide, two foot deep with a foot of water in it. There was a bridge about the width of a railway sleeper to help cross this, but it had sensibly been roped off to prevent the race being too easy. 

The ditch

The ditch itself was jumpable, I managed this three times in the warm-up without getting my feet wet, but the ditch was sufficiently wide to interrupt your running rhythm, i.e. you came to an abrupt stop whilst you regained your balance on landing. Surrounded by other runners in a race, you would not have much time or opportunity to choose the best landing spot, so I decided in the race I would take the alternative route through the ditch on the right hand side, where you could take two steps shin-deep in the water and keep running through and out the other side. Two wet feet, but momentum preserved. 

It was a good plan: I did not lose any time at the ditch in the race and could look forward now to the joys of the rest of the race. Unlike 1981, when we started at the top and ran downhill, in 2012 we started at the foot of the hill and made our way upwards, a long twisting climb, slightly reminiscent of the Ridgeway Run. At the top of the hill, it flattened out nicely into a broadish plain, with plenty of opportunities for overtaking. To my surprise, I caught a couple of slightly younger Striders here and then embarked on the descent. 

The descent was a blast. A twisty, muddy, rutted, quite steep path down through deciduous woodland. For some reason, I suddenly seemed to have no fear and started overtaking the sensible, timid people, who had started faster than I had and who did not fancy a reckless charge downhill. One wrong step and it would be a twisted ankle. At the bottom of the slope we took a sharp left into more woodland, which had a generous carpet of mud throughout. At this point, I surprisingly caught up with Ed, who I later learned did not have his spiked shoes with him. 

I was also gaining on the guy who has run every London Marathon in less than three hours. Did I dare catch him? Could I catch him? It would have to wait until lap two, which we were soon getting almost literally stuck into. Once more uphill. Several of the people I had overtaken on the downhill caught up with me again, Ed included. But I was just biding my time, getting ready for another bout of downhill madness. Four miles done with a mile and a half to go we hit the downhill again. I caught Ed and Mr 30+ Sub-3 marathons on the helter-skelter descent. I was not going to get caught again if I could help it. 

Dodging an impatient motorist at the foot of the hill, I turned left into the muddy woods for the second and last time. A few more bogs to negotiate, then it was a dash for the finish. School sports day all over again. Well, it felt something like it. 

I had just scraped in as eighth scoring Strider. The fast guys had had a good race, taking us to top of Division Two, and ahead of many Division One clubs. A great start to the season. Definitely more memorable than 1981. 

Colin Braybrook