Archive for May, 2008

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Treadmill – fast session before pilates

Just time for a half hour session on the treadmill this evening before my Pilates class.

I made it as close to a tempo sessions as possible… and so ended up doing about 3 and a half miles in the half hour – which included a very slow 5 minute warm up and cool down.

The pilates class was great and really helped me stretch out my legs.





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Recovery run – 3.68miles, 8:51mile/min

I’m not going to get a chance to go out running Wednesday, Thursday or Friday this week, so I had to go out for a run before work this morning. The alarm went of at 5:55am and I managed to get out of the door at about 6.25am.

I was pretty nervous going out this early, as last time I had a very early morning run my achilles tendons were pretty sore for a couple of days afterwards. So, I started off pretty slowly, but I also began to feel loose pretty quickly too. The first mile or so I felt a tad breathless – but having only been up for a half an hour I guess that wasn’t too much of a surprise.

I made sure I had a good stretch when I got home and a recovery drink before my normal berry smoothy and peanut butter on wholemeal toast, before setting off to work at 7.45am.

I’m looking forward to sleep now!

Long run – 6.32miles

A big step today.. my first 10k run since coming back from my stress fracture!

It wasn’t the easiest of runs in some ways, but in others it wasn’t too bad at all.

The negatives were the heat (it was supposed to be raining this afternoon – but instead it was baking!) and tired lower legs. I started off with quite tight calfs, but after about a mile they started to settle down. My right achilles felt a little bad as well at one point, but then I just adjusted my form slightly and it seemed to clear it up.

Now for the good parts… my heart and lungs seemed to be handling the work pretty well. I ran faster than I’d planned – at a pretty consistent 8:55 mile/min pace, but even up some tough hills my heart rate only reached 163. The average rate was 150 – which is my normal base training rate.

So all in all a good run.

It’s 3 weeks today until my first race of the year – the Bluewater She Runs He Runs 10K. I’m still undecided about how I’m going to approach it though. Should I treat it as a simple training run, or should I go for a decent-ish time? I’m going to see how I go over the next couple of weeks.

Training this week could be tricky, as I’m going to be out Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – so I may have to force myself into some early morning sessions.

Treadmill – 24/5/08

Another 3 miles on the treadmill today at the gym. Im planning on doing a long run tomorrow, so I just did a gentle 3 miler at base pace.

Threshold intervals – 3.4miles

Had a good run tonight. It was my Pilates class at the gym at 7pm, so I went out at 6pm after a good stretch.

I started with 0.8miles at what felt a very slow 8:31min/mile pace. After that I did 3 sets of half a mile at about 7.40 mile/min pace with a quarter of a mile recovery in between.

It was the first time I’ve done a really serious speed session on the road since my stress fracture, and it felt good. It was great to get up on my toes pushing the pace.

I think I could have gone further too… but Pilates was calling!

Pilates was good but painful. A lot of the exercises were focussing on the hips and outside of the legs, so these started to get a bit sore as the hour session ended. It was good to end with some real good stretches though (and then the obligatory swim and sauna!).

Treadmill – 20/5/08

I was in Sheffield today on business and forced myself to go to the gym for a run.

I did about 30minutes (3 miles-ish) at base pace with a few minute bursts of speed thrown in. It is a bit hard to fartlek on a treadmill though… there’s just not enough lamp posts to run to! It was even harder as I knocked the emergency stop button as I went to a fast pace!

The new shoes don’t seem to have had too bad an effect

Well, it’s the day after my first run with my new Asics Gel GT-2130′s (without my orthotics) and I can still walk OK!

My ankles feel slightly stiff on the inside but other than that I think all is OK. The pain I’ve been having inside my calfs over the last few weeks has also subsided – so on the whole I’m feeling pretty good.

I’ve just spent about an hour stretching and using the foam roller so I should be good enough for a run tomorrow. I’m up early tomorrow to go on a business trip, so I’m going to have to dig dip to force myself on to a treadmill in the hotel’s gym tomorrow night.

Long run – 5miles, 8:45min/mile, 150avgHR

My first run without my orthotics since before Christmas (6 weeks ago), and with my brand new pair of Asics Gel GT-2130′s.

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New shoes – Asics Gel GT-2130 (no need for my orthotics!?)

I feel I’ve been making good progress with moving from a heal strike to midfoot strike recently, and my impulsive nature took control of me yesterday as I decided to go to a local Sweatshop to take a look at the Saucony Fastwitch 3 performance shoes. However, the purchase didn’t really end up as I thought it would…

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Normal service will be resumed…

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that there haven’t exactly been many posts recently! To be honest I’ve just been so busy with the day job that I haven’t really had the time to commit to updating this site. Also, I was forced to have about 3 weeks off of running as I continued to have my sports massage sessions to try and get rid of my painful achilles tendons.

Taking 3 weeks off just as I had got back to a regular routine was very difficult, but what with the daily stretch routines in the morning and evening, and the weekly massages, I’ve certainly noticed a real difference in the state of m lower legs.

I got back on the road 2 weeks ago now, and it’s been going well. I’m now back to about 15 miles per week – over 3 or 4 runs. So, the regular training log posts will start again… and I’ll return to posting other articles too.