It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Welcome back to my long-time readers, and if you’re new here, a double-welcome to you! I started this blog about 5 years ago when targeting a sub-3 hour marathon and kept it going through my many adventures of pursuing faster times, meeting runners of all backgrounds and enjoying the variety of races available.
“So why start it up again?” I hear you cry. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been re-inspired to take up training again! Having achieved a 17:07 parkrun 4 years ago, it had gradually grated in my mind that I hadn’t hit sub-17. I should have made more of a push when I was at peak fitness, but ah well. But with injury always a possiblity, it’s a goal easier to reach now rather than putting it off any longer. However, motivation isn’t always within; every now and then, it needs to be drawn from without. The cheers at the start line, the hugs when returning from a soggy long run, the kudos on Strava… knowing there are people watching helps to get myself out of the door on cold evenings, or to push that rep halfway through an interval session. Hence, the resurgence of the blog to share my progress and have the weight of expectation upon me.
For this endeavour I’ll be using runbritain’s 6-week schedule, having started it from January 1st. I’m not one for New Year Resolutions, but it was a suitable starting point; particularly as I managed to get back to sub-18 just a couple of days before the end of 2023. Given that I’ve only just gotten to sub-18, my intent is to go through the training plan to get under 17:30, then evaluate to see if going through the plan again would get me to sub-17. Hopefully, with the mileage not as high as that which was required for marathons, I can fit the sessions into an increasingly busy personal life. With that out of the way, let’s see how my week went!
Monday – 4 miles + parkrun
Best way to start a year? Probably not by waking up at 7:30am on 5 hours of sleep, to run around a cold park before running around that same park for parkrun! The hardest part (aside from getting to the start in time having miscalculated the jog distance) was trying to keep the parkrun to a jog, it’s always tempting to get caught up in the wave of runners. Nonetheless, it was great to catch up with some of my clubmates afterwards who had seen my sub-18 on Strava, serving as a reminder that people are watching…
Tuesday - 1 mile @ 10k pace + 400m rec + 5x(800m @ 5k pace + 200m rec) + 1 mile @ 10k pace
With the track potentially slippy from heavy rainfall, I spent a good deal of time attaching small spikes to my cross-country trainers. So much time that I missed the warm up with the rest of the club, but it gave opportunity to get a feel for the spikes on the track (if I’ve used them on there before, I don’t recall). As humbling as it is to be amongst the faster runners of the club while I’m still building myself back up, it’s a great motivator to push myself faster than I would do alone. Most of the reps went well with keeping pace with others, albeit the last rep had me flagging. Reps came in at paces of 5:34/mile, 5:28, 5:26, 5:27, 5:25, 5:28 ,5:52.
Wednesday – 6 mile jog
The frustrating thing about jogging the day after a training session; either my legs are like lead, or feeling superstrong! Through many efforts to slow myself down, it turned out I could only do it when playing Pokémon (which of course means my attention to pedestrians is reduced… can’t have it all!)
Thursday – 3x(5 min @ 5k pace + 3 min static rec)
Track or road? As much as I love running on the track, I couldn’t be bothered to drive there following a day at the office. So heading to a nearly-mile straight stretch of pavement, I put myself to the test. 4 months ago, I was struggling with even 800m reps at 5:45/mile pace. How would I fare with no race conditions, imperfect terrain, having only just returned home? The reps came in well (despite either repeatedly surprising or annoying a dog walker each time I ran the road back-and-forth!) at 5:27/mile, 5:33, 5:35, the distance being close to a full mile.
Saturday – 2x[8x(200m fast + 2 min jog)+5 min jog between sets
This looked to be tricky to sort out regarding how I’d upload it; set up an interval session, stop and start a basic run for 5 mins, then do the interval session again? Oh, I could set up the interval with 5 min cooldown. But the second set would be uploaded as a second activity; annoying. Then I had a Eureka moment; creating my own Garmin workout activity! Despite having my Garmin watch for ages (no thanks to TomTom unceremoniously stopping their sportstech division), I hadn’t tried creating a workout on it before. It was better than I expected, allowing for impressive combinations of time, distance, workout and recovery periods. Worked first time, and will be a function that’ll be useful throughout the programme.
This also marked the first time I truly felt commited to the routine; it was late evening by the time I was able to get out, and with the weather still cold, I could have forgiven myself for just staying in to watch the Barbie movie with the family. But with a routine I’m determined to adhere to, I got myself out and had a successful session.
Sunday – 10 mile jog
Cap? Check. T-shirt? Check. Long-sleeve? Check. Gloves? Check. Still cold? Yep!
A nice round off to the week, not concerned with pace. Slightly annoyed that the headphones had died just 1 mile into the run, but it gave me time to think about stuff.
Urgh, forget that. I’ll just play Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen in my head over and over again!
The Shorn Runner 