Darren Roberts’ Home Baked Blog

Week ending 30/08/08

Link to training for week ending 23/08/08

Sunday 24/08/08

Name: Running 16.30
Duration: 00:59:55
Distance: 9.30 km
Avg.speed: 9 km/h
Calories: 645 kCal
Steps: 8668

Okay, today’s training for the new forest half marathon went really well. Following on the principles above of going easy at first, I went easy all the way to Branksome Dene Chine (nice to re-visit the site of my wedding reception) on the promenade, then back a little bit faster on the sand to save my old knees and ankles. It’s a bit weird running more slowly than I’m used to - I keep wanting to go faster, so I have to watch myself. It pays off though in the latter stages, definitely. Left it a bit late for a push, only 2 or 3 groynes and up the hill, but by buggery was I able to push then, really hacked it across the soft sand and up the hill by Boscombe pier, was great. That’s a nearly-10k-run under the belt, think I’ll do Tuesday if I can to Sandbanks then back on the sand, that will be a nearly-15k-run and get me within 5k of a half marathon.

Monstered lots of food when I got back - 2 dinners - leftover egg/prawn/broccoli/pasta salad, followed by another dinner of roast lamb, couscous and roasted peppers/shrooms. Oops, couple of glasses of the old vino…wife’s fault, she bought it. Still hungry. Need more calories. Starting to think of raiding the fridge. Tuesday I’ll have to hit the porridge hard a couple of hours before the run….stack up on the carbs a bit before I go! Crunchy oat muesli stuff and a banana didn’t really do it today, but it did hold off the hunger pangs for most of the run. Maybe smoking 20 a day isn’t the best habit to have at the moment….and those neat vodkas with our Polish friend Patryk at the bbq last night seemed like a cracking idea at the time, but now I’m not so sure…nearly came a cropper when I hopped over a groyne and had to hop a bit more when I saw a couple below me on the other side of it. Hopefully they weren’t swearing at me as I jogged on…I couldn’t hear with my headphones and didn’t look back!

Looking forward to Tuesday and Sandbanks, after that I’ll have to figure out where to go for a 20k run, Sandbanks is pretty much the end of the line unless I get the chain ferry to Studland, do a few K’s there, then get back on the chain ferry and come back again. Sounds a bit complicated to me.

Tuesday 26/08/08

Name: Running 20.02
Duration: 01:25:21
Distance: 13.70 km
Avg.speed: 10 km/h
Calories: 950 kCal
Steps: 12360

Okay, that went well. Race telemetry is now back in, having been analysed by the support team…tried the old ‘go slow at the beginning’ technique, and gradually built up a (little) bit of speed…

Set off at just past 8pm, so it was pretty much dark by the time I hit Sandbanks, coming back on the sand was getting dodgier and dodgier by the time I got to Durley Chine, sandcastles, moats, night fishermen, groynes that I couldn’t see…so it was back up onto the tarmac at Durley. Was really happy with the time though, I seemed to have it in my head that it would take about 2 hours, so 1 hr 25 was a surprise. Probably ‘cos I did most of it on the tarmac, duh!

Link to the map of the run on Map My Run.

Friday 29/08/08

Name: Running 19.42
Duration: 00:31:10
Distance: 5.28 km
Avg.speed: 10 km/h
Calories: 366 kCal
Steps: 4521

Different idea for tonight’s run - have read a bit about running fast then running slow on a few sites, so jogged to Bournemouth pier after work today, then jogged back, alternating between fast/slow pace. I think you’re supposed to do 15 seconds hammering it, then 45 seconds jogging / recovering, then repeat**. It certainly gets the old ticker and lungs going. And I’d guess it improves fitness pretty quickly…maybe I’ll try it again on Sunday, see how it goes. ** Update on that - see the Runners’ World article on Speedwork, there are lots of different approaches, all of which are supposed to give a big improvement to overall fitness, endurance and speed. Each approach giving better results for speed or endurance. I also read up a bit about ‘Fartlek’ training - link to Wikipedia’s page on Fartlek.

Link to this run on Map My Run.