I was feeling a bit down on my ability after running my usual Park Run route on Friday trying to keep to my race 6.30 / minute pace but failing miserably and pulling up after just over 2 miles.
I think if you've gotten your body used to running early evening, then going out at lunchtime and trying to run fast without properly warming up is not likely to end well.
So now it's 2 weeks before my main event I needed to do 1 last long run. As I've been training to 10 miles I wanted to run the full distance once, just to get 13 miles on the legs.
I went with a friend so I had an opportunity to go steady, otherwise I'd just go off too fast. At about halfway we decided to split up and I pushed on up the locks into Tardebigge, trying to keep around 8 minutes / mile. Recurring side-stitch was almost nowhere to be seen, left knee always seems to flare up on this route, but managed to run through it and it went off.
Anyway, came in for 13.1 miles at 1:44:26, which is actually 8 minutes faster than my previous Half-Marathon PB. And this was with a slow 1st half, and climbing locks on the 2nd half.
Great confidence building run and I reckon it puts me on course for a sub 1:35 Half-Marathon at the event. Sub 1:30 might be a bridge too far this time.
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Belly / Synchronised Breathing Seems To Work
After scouring the web for info on how to cure my side stitch, I realised that most people agree that it's from poor breathing, combined with pushing above your fitness level, or being dehydrated, or loads of others things you shouldn't really do when running.
I sought some advice from my sports physio brother-in-law. He said to exhale sharply as the right foot hits the ground for a right-sided stitch.
Another potential fix is to belly breathe. This involves not just expanding your chest while breathing, but expanding your whole torso to include your abdomen and move your diaphragm.
Finally I thought I'd try to keep my left leg a bit more straight by using a bit more energy and not allowing it to just flop naturally where it wants.
So I went out, started slowish, but still at a decent pace, concentrating on trying to breathe with my belly which just doesn't feel natural after getting into a high chest breathing habit and also getting used to just breathing how and when I need on demand.
Going up the hills I realised that belly breathing is a lot better for effort. I just seemed to zip up them without working too hard. It wasn't long before I got the side stitch threatening, but it kept as a niggle rather than taking my breath away. I then started to try and get a rhythm of of exhaling on the right foot landing, but that was very difficult to do at first because one breath was about 10 steps. Eventually I got it into a 4th step rhythm so it was
sharp exhale-----slow inhale--------------sharp exhale
right-------left-------right-------left-------right-------
This pace kept me strong for the last few miles and the frequency of the breathing was actually too fast for the pace I kept naturally settling into.
The left knee also held up with only a slight niggly feeling, but by 5.5 miles normally, I'd be really feeling it.
With how strongly I finished, I'm now confident of getting close to 1:30 for the Great Birmingham Run. 0:06:50 per mile is going to be hard to keep up but it's quite a flat course until about the 11th mile where there's a longish climb. By that time the race will either by on track or not anyway. I'm hoping a few KG off over the new couple of weeks + the final training +the event + the draft + the energy, caffeine and water, push me over that line.
I sought some advice from my sports physio brother-in-law. He said to exhale sharply as the right foot hits the ground for a right-sided stitch.
Another potential fix is to belly breathe. This involves not just expanding your chest while breathing, but expanding your whole torso to include your abdomen and move your diaphragm.
Finally I thought I'd try to keep my left leg a bit more straight by using a bit more energy and not allowing it to just flop naturally where it wants.
So I went out, started slowish, but still at a decent pace, concentrating on trying to breathe with my belly which just doesn't feel natural after getting into a high chest breathing habit and also getting used to just breathing how and when I need on demand.
Going up the hills I realised that belly breathing is a lot better for effort. I just seemed to zip up them without working too hard. It wasn't long before I got the side stitch threatening, but it kept as a niggle rather than taking my breath away. I then started to try and get a rhythm of of exhaling on the right foot landing, but that was very difficult to do at first because one breath was about 10 steps. Eventually I got it into a 4th step rhythm so it was
sharp exhale-----slow inhale--------------sharp exhale
right-------left-------right-------left-------right-------
This pace kept me strong for the last few miles and the frequency of the breathing was actually too fast for the pace I kept naturally settling into.
The left knee also held up with only a slight niggly feeling, but by 5.5 miles normally, I'd be really feeling it.
With how strongly I finished, I'm now confident of getting close to 1:30 for the Great Birmingham Run. 0:06:50 per mile is going to be hard to keep up but it's quite a flat course until about the 11th mile where there's a longish climb. By that time the race will either by on track or not anyway. I'm hoping a few KG off over the new couple of weeks + the final training +the event + the draft + the energy, caffeine and water, push me over that line.
Monday, 30 September 2013
1st Post: 3 Weeks Till Birmingham
I started this blog a couple of years back to document how I went from a couch potato to running a marathon in 6 months.
That was a long time ago. I did the marathon, although running is stretching it a bit far. I finished the Eden Project Marathon in 5 hours 12 minutes. I walked a good few miles of the 2nd half of the race because my body was just not up to going that far. My training allowed me to complete it, but very slowly.
Since then I've ran a few half-marathons in varying times with my fastest being 1 hour 52 minutes at the Great Birmingham Run 2012, and my slowest being 2 hours 15 minutes at the Birmingham and Black Country Half-Marathon 2013 where I limped to the finish with knee pain.
My next challenge that I came up with a few months ago is to get really fast. I want to see just how fast I can get. I started at just over 15 stone and worked out I needed to lose about 3 stone to get to a decent running weight. I thought that a 1 hour 30 half-marathon was a huge but realistic target for me. 22 minutes faster than my PB, but with a lot of weight loss and heavy training I might be able to do it.
Now it's 3 weeks until my targeted event, the Great Birmingham Run on 20th October 2013 and I'm almost there. I've run Stratford's Big 10k (just under half the distance of a half-marathon) in 0:43:28 which equates to 6:59 per mile. To get a 1:30 half-marathon I need to run at 6:50 per mile so 9 seconds off each mile over twice the distance.
Since then I've been doing 5k park runs, the most recent of which I did in 0:20:25 which is 6:32 per mile, almost 20 seconds quicker than I need to be, but less than a quarter of the half-marathon distance. In the next 2 weeks before tapering I hope to lose a couple more pounds on top of the 3 stone I've already lost and get a bit more distance on the legs. The longest recent run was 10 and a half miles a week ago where I ran 7:46 per mile.
So I should be almost good to go.
Apart from suddenly suffering from side stitch and my left knee isn't getting any better.
The side stitch seems to be from not breathing correctly during my runs. I've never had it before and I think it's because I'm going faster but keeping my diaphragm too still. I'm breathing hard very high up on my chest because I've forgotten to belly breathe.
The left knee is troubling. It all seemed to start when I started cycling again. Since then it starts hurting after about 5-6 miles during every run and it's worse on bigger hills. My gait is utterly terrible anyway, I'm not sure if I supinate, overpronate, if I'm neutral etc. because I'm pigeon-toed. It doesn't seem to be quite the curse it could be but I'm never sure if I should use energy forcing my feet straight, or just let them fall in their natural position. Since starting running I've done the former, now I'm getting faster I'm doing the latter and I'm wondering which way I should go with it.
Anyway, I'll keep this blog updated with how I get on in the next 3 weeks. Hoping I can resolve these couple of issues in time so I don't get 6 miles through the run and have to slow right down so I can make it to the end.
 |
| After 26.2 miles of jogging and walking |
 |
| Eden Project Marathon 2011. 5:12:24 |
Since then I've ran a few half-marathons in varying times with my fastest being 1 hour 52 minutes at the Great Birmingham Run 2012, and my slowest being 2 hours 15 minutes at the Birmingham and Black Country Half-Marathon 2013 where I limped to the finish with knee pain.
My next challenge that I came up with a few months ago is to get really fast. I want to see just how fast I can get. I started at just over 15 stone and worked out I needed to lose about 3 stone to get to a decent running weight. I thought that a 1 hour 30 half-marathon was a huge but realistic target for me. 22 minutes faster than my PB, but with a lot of weight loss and heavy training I might be able to do it.
Now it's 3 weeks until my targeted event, the Great Birmingham Run on 20th October 2013 and I'm almost there. I've run Stratford's Big 10k (just under half the distance of a half-marathon) in 0:43:28 which equates to 6:59 per mile. To get a 1:30 half-marathon I need to run at 6:50 per mile so 9 seconds off each mile over twice the distance.
 |
| Stratford's Big 10k. 43:28 |
Since then I've been doing 5k park runs, the most recent of which I did in 0:20:25 which is 6:32 per mile, almost 20 seconds quicker than I need to be, but less than a quarter of the half-marathon distance. In the next 2 weeks before tapering I hope to lose a couple more pounds on top of the 3 stone I've already lost and get a bit more distance on the legs. The longest recent run was 10 and a half miles a week ago where I ran 7:46 per mile.
So I should be almost good to go.
Apart from suddenly suffering from side stitch and my left knee isn't getting any better.
The side stitch seems to be from not breathing correctly during my runs. I've never had it before and I think it's because I'm going faster but keeping my diaphragm too still. I'm breathing hard very high up on my chest because I've forgotten to belly breathe.
The left knee is troubling. It all seemed to start when I started cycling again. Since then it starts hurting after about 5-6 miles during every run and it's worse on bigger hills. My gait is utterly terrible anyway, I'm not sure if I supinate, overpronate, if I'm neutral etc. because I'm pigeon-toed. It doesn't seem to be quite the curse it could be but I'm never sure if I should use energy forcing my feet straight, or just let them fall in their natural position. Since starting running I've done the former, now I'm getting faster I'm doing the latter and I'm wondering which way I should go with it.
Anyway, I'll keep this blog updated with how I get on in the next 3 weeks. Hoping I can resolve these couple of issues in time so I don't get 6 miles through the run and have to slow right down so I can make it to the end.
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