Biscuitman Runs

Houston Marathon 2:44:21

2012-01-16T20:27:00.000+08:00

Split Time Diff min/mile mile/h
5K 00:19:28 19:28 06:16 9.58
10K 00:38:58 19:30 06:17 9.57
15K 00:58:21 19:23 06:16 9.59
20K 01:17:42 19:21 06:16 9.60
HALF 01:21:54 04:12 06:15 9.61
25K 01:36:54 15:00 06:15 9.62
30K 01:56:29 19:35 06:15 9.60
35K 02:15:51 19:22 06:15 9.61
40K 02:35:46 19:55 06:16 9.58
Finish 02:44:21 08:35 06:17 9.57

Splits and finish time above - race report to follow. Had a great race in perfect conditions.

Marathon training - one week to go

2012-01-08T22:25:00.001+08:00

99km this week. Mostly easy running but included 3 x 1600m in a 14km run on Thursday and also some strides after a couple of the easy runs during the week. Just 21km today @ 4.24/km. Felt very easy despite a bit of a breeze and I had to consciously slow myself down a couple of times.

We fly out tomorrow night, so I will get a run in tomorrow morning. We don't arrive in Houston until 4pm Tuesday and the sun sets at 5.40pm so I think I will be reduced to running on a "dreadmill" at the hotel. Rehearsal run on Wednesday will include 3km @ marathon pace but the rest of the week will be very much easy running.

From the Houston Marathon website:

Live Searchable Results & Map Tracking

Follow your runner(s) during the race by tracking their progress in real time as they move along the course with live, up-to-the-minute race results and an interactive map at chevronhoustonmarathon.com.

The race starts at 7am on Sunday (9pm Perth time) and I am bib number 1130 in corrall A.

We will be getting new SIM cards in the US so we won't be contactable on our normal mobile numbers after tomorrow. The best email address to get us will be mailto:biscuitman1871@hotmail.com%C2%A0 and I am also on Twitter @biscuitman1871

Rox and Ben will also be on Facebook.

Another awesome trailer for a US Olympic Marathon trials video

2012-01-03T15:16:00.003+08:00

2011 review and Houston training update

2012-01-01T21:17:00.001+08:00

With Strands closing on 3 December, it hasn't been as easy to pull out my end of year stats as the info I have put into Runningahead.com has been pretty basic. Simple summary is that I did approx 5,840km this year which is an average of 112km week (up from 4,400km in 2010).

I was also a lot more consistent with my running this year, putting together some pretty good streaks either side of the Perth Marathon (after which I took some days off and eased back into it over a few weeks)and introducing doubles as I built up my mileage after the City to Surf. I haven't missed a day since late August and my peak week in my Houston program was 168km.

Lot of good races, new PBs in everything from 5km through to the marathon. My best races were probably the Bridges 10k (35:54), Perth Marathon (2:49:07), Run for a Reason and Deepwater Point.

Also a few disappointing runs, most notably Lake Joondalup 10k, Run for Gold 10k and the City to Surf but illness and injury all contributed to those.

To update my marathon training, my last two weeks have been 146km and 125km (first week of three week taper).

On 20 December, I did a 5 x 1200m interval session where I averaged 3.33/km pace for each rep and backed that up with 25km @ 4:13/km pace the following morning. I brought my long run forward to Christmas Eve (Saturday) and did 35km with 16km @ marathon pace. Although I drifted off pace slightly from kms 11-15, I still averaged 3:54/km for the 16km in what were pretty warm and humid conditions.

First week of the taper I did a 5 x 800m interval session averaging 3:25/km per rep, a 21km medium long run and a 16km with 8km tempo on Saturday morning before running the New Years Eve 4km race with Sammie in the evening.

The conditions for the tempo run were pretty oppressive, warm and humid. I hit my target pace of 3:45/km for the 8km but it did feel a bit harder than I thought it should. I will put it down to the conditions and mark it down as a pass given that I maintained my record of hitting my target pace for every workout in this marathon training segment.

Sammie had a great run in the NYE 4km, much better than her run at City Beach - 6 minutes better in fact! She struggled a bit in the 2nd km when she got a stitch but was able to negative split the race by about 30sec, finishing just ahead of me in 27:37 so under 7:00/km. We then went to a NYE party where she was dancing and doing cartwheels until about 1am so it was no surprise that she slept until just before 10am this morning.

Sammie digs deep near the finish of her 4km race where she set a new PB of 27:37

10am was when I headed out on my 27km long run this morning. I decided to take the extra few hours sleep over the early cooler start and although it was warm, the conditions weren't too bad for this run which was out along the river on the Rivervale/Ascot side and then over the Tonkin Hwy into Redcliffe before coming back the same way. 27.5km in 2:03 (4:31/km pace).

I am still travelling pretty well with my only injury/niggle concern being some minor plantae fascitis in my right foot. I am managing it with anti inflamms, golf ball massage and staying out of thongs.

This week will be 100km with only real session being 3 x 1600m @ 5km pace on Wednesday and then a 21km medium long run on Sunday which is the day before we fly out.

After saying that I would go to Runningahead.com as my ongoing online running log, I am now experimenting with Strava.com which Simon Elliott put me onto. It is similar to Strands in some respects but I haven't really worked out how to use it yet so am currently still maintaining dual logs.

Update including City Beach 8km

2011-12-19T15:00:00.000+08:00

It's been a couple of weeks since my last update on the blog.

I backed up my 168km week with another 164km in the week 5-11 December. Main workouts that week were 19km with 11km tempo on the Friday and just over 34km long run on the Sunday. The rest was pretty standard with 24km medium long run on Wednesday and lots of easy running with 4 double days.

The tempo was the same workout as the previous Friday except I did 4km warmup before getting into the tempo instead of only 2km. Ran to the Marathon Club and started from there and then ran along the river and up the Freeway before turning and running back when I got jack of running into the headwind.

Averaged 3:45 for the tempo that week which is 2 secs per km faster than the previous week so I was pleased with the progression over a short period of time.

On Sunday I didn’t get out until a bit later in the morning as we were at a party until after midnight and then we were woken at 6.45am by a policeman investigating a serious domestic that occurred in the units next door.

It was pretty warm out there but got through it ok with a few drink stops at drink fountains.

Main point of interest during the run was that I got swooped by the magpie that has been mentioned in the Inside Cover of the newspaper lately – that’s why my 18th km was 4:11!

I had read the stories in the paper without much interest other than to comment to Rox that "I run along there quite regularly but I have never been swooped ..." All the same I was a bit wary and was reassured by the fact that I had just been overtaken by a couple of elderly cyclists before we go to "the swooping zone". Excellent - they will draw any fire I thought. Nothing happened although I did hear what sounded like baby birds in one tree but run well past that without incident.

I had just relaxed when this magpie came down on me out of the sun like a Stuka dive bomber and nearly the same size too - well at least as big as a condor. And whereas magpies will normally give you a swoop and then do a big arc to check for danger before coming back at you, this thing swung around as quick as it could, looked me right in the eye and came straight back at me. At which point, I am embarrassed to say, I screamed and sprinted, which you would think is not easy 17km into a 34km long run but which I managed to do without thinking.

When I told my Dad about it when visiting later that afternoon, he commented that in the story in the paper, the guy who had been repeatedly swooped had said that if it was schoolgirls being attacked, the Council would have done something about it by now and that with my screaming, maybe they thought it was a schoolgirl being attacked. "A very foulmouthed schoolgirl" was all I could add ...

On the Monday, I felt very tired on my morning recovery run and with an 8km race coming up on the Sunday, I decided to make that week a recovery run and absorb the heavy training I had done over the previous few weeks. As a result, I only ran singles last week but still did a 5 x 800m interval session on the Tuesday and my medium long run on the Wednesday. With no long run, this meant that I only did 97km this week which is my lowest week since the week of the City to Surf back in August.

With the interval session, I had felt a lot better after skipping the previous day's PM recovery run and well rested. Legs felt good. Ran down to the Marathon Club (4km) and started my 800s from there. 5 × 800 with 1:30 jog recovery. First 4 reps were into a slight headwind, last one was with a slight tailwind. 2:43; 2:46; 2:47; 2:45; 2:42 so between 3:23 and 3:29/km pace. 6+km cooldown.

Saturday was usual pre race day routine - 8km shakeout and 6 x 110m strides.

On Sunday, Rox, Sammie and I went down to City Beach for the 4/8km races.

My Garmin crashed on me 6.71km/24:10 into the race and I think that combined with the headwind contributed to a bit of a fadeout over the last km and a bit. Stupid but it really distracted me and I lost a bit of focus.

I went out pretty hard and was actually in front for the first 250-300m. Rox reckons I was making up for the fact that Trailblazer wasn't there ...

No km splits due to the Garmin failure but hit 4km turnaround in 14:15 (3:33/km) and my pace was still 3:36 at 6.71km so it seems that the last 1.29 km was covered at 3:48/km pace which is a bit disappointing.

Don’t know where Roberto and Todd started but they did not pass me until close to the 1km mark. I was then in a pack of about 4 that was in 4th-8th position and stuck with that group until about 3.5km when I got gapped a bit but was back onto the tail of the group by the 4km turnaround.

Led by Tommy Lovekin the group picked up (or maintained and I slowed) the pace over the next 2km, the pack broke up and by the 6km turn I was running by myself, back about 25m from the next runner in front of me.

At about 6.5km I passed Sammie and Rox who were doing the 4km. Sammie hasn’t been doing any training lately but she was still keen to run but she struggled a bit today and was not very happy when I ran past.

I started doing so sums in my head as to what I need to do once I hit 7km but then my Garmin flashed low battery and then shut down completely.

I’ll have to wait on the results but I finished with 29:05 on the clock and I think I was 8th. 3:38/km is pretty similar to what I ran at John Gilmour for 10,000m. Even though this was shorter it was definitely slower conditions with the wind and the turns so I still reasonably happy with this as it is about 35secs faster than I ran on this course last year when conditions were better.

Clown was first male and second overall in the 4km and Roadblazer ran a solid 8km in his first race back. Great to see him out here and thanks for the cheer during the race mate! Good to catch up with Liam who was mashalling when Clown and I went for our cooldown and also with Sugar who was down spectating. Liam is looking like he has got himself in great shape for the Cadbury marathon in Hobart in January so hope conditions are favourable for a good run.

My Garmin is a bit of a worry and I have been on the phone to Highly Tuned Athletes where I bought it from and also to the Garmin's customer service centre.

When I first got it, the magnetism between the charger and watch was really strong. It almost jumped on to the charger. Now the magnet is much weaker and to get it to charge I have to turn it off before connecting to charger and make sure that it buzzes and starts charging.

Garmin would not just send me a charge cable despite my pleadings about needing a working unit before I depart overseas. They wanted me to send in at least the cable.

When I was packing everything up to send it off, I unplugged the USB cable from the plug charger unit and plugged the USB into our PC. The magnetism of the charger was back to how it used to be and the watch instantly started charging away. As a result, I have just sent the charger/plug unit to Garmin for testing and hopefully replacement. At least now it seems that I have a charging option even if I have to fully charge and then not use the watch until race day (and keep an eye out for USB charging oppotunities while overseas). Plus I still have my Garmin for my last few workouts (including a marathon pace long run this weekend).

Have to say that HTA were a lot more helpful than Garmin.

The very good news this week was that I got an email from the Houston Marathon Committee telling me that I have got a start in the front corral :-) It is not a seeded start so I have to get there early enough to get a good spot but it is reassuring to know that I won't behind thousands at the start and hopefully can get into my marathon pace relatively quickly as I definitely find that the pace I am running at after about 2km seems to be the pace that I find easiest to hold at the moment.

Congratulations to Epi on his second place at the 46km Six Inch Trail Marathon. Sounds like it was very challenging navigationally and probably psychologically. Any race where half the battle is trying to work out which direction you are supposed to be running in doesn't really attract me but it seems like everyone who does it has a great time.

US Olympic Trials promo video

2011-12-10T10:00:00.001+08:00

This has to be road running spectating heaven (or close to it). Loop course so multiple viewing opportunities. Can't wait!!

Farewell to Strands

2011-12-08T21:58:00.002+08:00

Unfortunately the Strands online training log and social media site is closing down on 30 December after only about three years of operation. It is a real shame as I thought the site had great potential but it seems that the business model was all wrong. How a site with hundreds of thousands of users (mainly in the US and Spain) could fall over within three years before it was even apparent how the site was intended to make money is bit of a mystery (to me anyway). The Strands company seems to have other products but they are products for businesses rather than consumers but there was no real cross promotion of these either.

As far as the Strands Fitness site was concerned, there was the Strands race/event registration service (which was only available in the US and seemed to have limited promotion and take up), the recommender service which appeared briefly and which recommended a limited range of products supposedly based on your interests and the sponsorship of the Strands Team athletes by initially by Puma and then by Mizuno.

I would have thought that Strands was perfect to complement a shoe company's online presence, attracting people to their website on a regular basis and creating a "community" and with it brand identification and loyalty. While the star of Puma as far as running goes is undoubtedly Usain Bolt, they have also invested in an ongoing video series around Delilah DiCrescenzo, a steeplechaser who although she finished 3rd at the US Nationals this year (because the runner in front of her fell at the last water jump), her main claim to fame/recognition seems to be that she is not bad looking and was the subject of a Grammy nominated song by a band called the Plain White T's a few years ago. Equally, Mizuno could have made a lot more of its association with strands and its sponsored athletes, so there appears to be opportunities there that were not taken. Basically Strands needed to show that there was a tangible benefit in the product and the community it had created but it seems to have failed to do so.

I am also a bit disappointed because I encouraged a lot of my friends to get onto Strands and now I feel like they have been left in the lurch. Even more though, I feel pretty bad for the guys at Strands like Seamus Nally and Mike Reneau who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

At the end of the day though it is a business and there are other options.

After a bit of research, I have decided to go with Runningahead.com as my online log into the future.

http://www.runningahead.com/

It has as many, if not more, logging functions and options as Strands but does not look as good. It seems to lack some of the social aspects which I loved about Strands but it does have a forum and the ability to set up groups or teams but I haven't worked this out yet.

It also has some pretty cool reporting and graphing functions. As well as importing all my Strands data, I have managed to create csv files of both my Nike+ runs (from when I started running after my 40th birthday) and the 5-6 month period between when I stopped using Nike+ and started on Strands (luckily my blog was pretty comprehensive as a log at that time). So I have pretty much my complete post 40 years old running history.

As an example of the graphing functions, here is the progression in my yearly mileage (kms) since 2007 (2007 is only 8 months May-Dec):

It also has widgets for your blog so I will be replacing the Strands widgets with Runningahead ones in due course. I am actually going to maintain dual logs for a short while until I am fully comfortable with Runningahead and find out how it all works.

Longest run - Biggest week

2011-12-06T14:14:00.000+08:00

Sunday - 39km long run in 2:55 (4:30/km). Longest ever training run to finish biggest ever training week mileage wise (168.5km)

Got out reasonably early in an attempt to avoid the heat. Wasn’t too bad until about 8am when the sun came out from behind the clouds. Strong easterly blowing which was a headwind over the last few km as well as on the way out.

Ran a steady pace/effort and apart from some minor twinges in my hammies my legs felt good throughout. 3 gel stops and one swallowed fly …

Will look to get a massage at some stage this week just to keep ahead of any niggles as I stiffened up a bit on Sunday afternoon and the first couple of days this week in the afternoon after sitting at work.

My other significant run this week was on Friday. Thought it wasn’t going to be too windy and that I could make the wind work in my favour – unfortunately I am stupid …

2km warm up (4:43; 4:23) then 11km tempo which was from Boatshed Cafe at Coode Street to Narrows then along the freeway bike path to Canning Bridge and then about two thirds of the way back again. I though I would have the easterly behind me up the freeway but it was a south easterly so I was running into it, combined with the headwind from the traffic. Was nice to turn around but I only really got about 3.5km with it coming across my shoulder.

Splits were 3:41; 3:48; 3:46; 3:47; 3:53; 3:54; 3:53; 3:50; 3:46; 3:47; 3:41. Total 11km in 41:46 (3:47/km average pace).

6km cooldown (4:32-4:55/km pace).

If I do this run again, I would definitely do another couple of km warm up so that the cooldown was shorter.

McMillan calculator gives the slow end of tempo pace range for me as 3:48 based on my 55:34 15km time so this is within the right range and given the conditions I will say that it was a marginal pass and just keeps me on track as having hit all the correct paces for my workouts so far this program.

I have taken it very easy so far this week to recover from Sunday's run. I have another tempo run scheduled for Friday and will see how I pull up from that before deciding what sort of a long run I will do this Sunday. I am keen to get some more marathon pace running in so may do 35km with 12km at marathon pace but won't push it if I don't feel like I am up for it.

Deepwater 15km

2011-11-29T22:17:00.001+08:00

Just before completing one lap (7.5km) at Deepwater Point
(Photo by Rox)

Race report:

Very happy with this race. Didn’t feel like I could run much quicker but felt pretty strong throughout. 3rd km is a bit questionable as I lost satellite signal under Mt Henry Bridge so hit lap when I hit the 3km marker (which came out as .89km) and have edited to bring up to 1km.

The lead pack (both 15km and 7.5km which started together) was too quick for me and I ended up running on my own in between the lead pack and the next pack of runners. Only really impacted on the stretch between the start/finish and Mt Henry Bridge although after the first 7.5km lap, I could only see one runner in front of me (Tommy Lovekin) even though I was in 6th position.

I was maintaining pace ok and went past the 10km marker in 36:33 (which is only 5 secs slower than I ran the 10,000m at John Gilmour although I think it may have been slightly off given my Garmon splits) and then kept it going up the stretch to Canning Bridge. Tommy started looking with about 4km to go but he had about 250-300m on me and even though I pegged it back to about 10 secs by the finish, I never got close enough to feel like a really big concerted push would get me up to him.

I would have been happy with anything under 56:30 so 55:34 is a great result especially given that it was a a bit windy.

Good to catch up with few people and it was nice to see Clown run well in the 7.5km despite his injury worries.

Below are my splits from Strands.com (the 4:26 at the end is just the last 20m as measured by my Garmin)

Details

16.89 km/h

Speed

3:33 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:33.11

Duration

1 km 00:03:33.11

Partial

06:58 AM

Time

Calories

19.29 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

10.00 m

Ascent

17.00 m

Descent

16.41 km/h

Speed

3:39 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:39.43

Duration

2 km 00:07:12.54

Partial

07:01 AM

Time

Calories

18.89 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

18.00 m

Ascent

9.00 m

Descent

15.84 km/h

Speed

3:47 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:47.24

Duration

3 km 00:10:59.78

Partial

07:05 AM

Time

Calories

63.14 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

10.00 m

Ascent

16.00 m

Descent

16.73 km/h

Speed

3:35 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:35.20

Duration

4 km 00:14:34.98

Partial

07:08 AM

Time

Calories

27.95 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

14.00 m

Ascent

15.00 m

Descent

16.64 km/h

Speed

3:36 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:36.35

Duration

5 km 00:18:11.33

Partial

07:12 AM

Time

Calories

18.99 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

10.00 m

Ascent

15.00 m

Descent

16.11 km/h

Speed

3:43 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:43.46

Duration

6 km 00:21:54.79

Partial

07:16 AM

Time

Calories

19.91 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

18.00 m

Ascent

10.00 m

Descent

15.96 km/h

Speed

3:45 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:45.51

Duration

7 km 00:25:40.30

Partial

07:19 AM

Time

Calories

17.39 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

9.00 m

Ascent

11.00 m

Descent

16.19 km/h

Speed

3:42 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:42.40

Duration

8 km 00:29:22.70

Partial

07:23 AM

Time

Calories

18.95 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

9.00 m

Ascent

10.00 m

Descent

15.92 km/h

Speed

3:46 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:46.19

Duration

9 km 00:33:08.89

Partial

07:27 AM

Time

Calories

17.51 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

16.00 m

Ascent

18.00 m

Descent

15.31 km/h

Speed

3:55 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:55.18

Duration

10 km 00:37:04.07

Partial

07:31 AM

Time

Calories

18.29 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

8.00 m

Ascent

10.00 m

Descent

16.22 km/h

Speed

3:41 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:41.88

Duration

11 km 00:40:45.95

Partial

07:35 AM

Time

Calories

24.66 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

21.00 m

Ascent

17.00 m

Descent

16.30 km/h

Speed

3:40 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:40.86

Duration

12 km 00:44:26.81

Partial

07:38 AM

Time

Calories

18.60 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

14.00 m

Ascent

17.00 m

Descent

16.15 km/h

Speed

3:42 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:42.96

Duration

13 km 00:48:09.77

Partial

07:42 AM

Time

Calories

18.94 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

16.00 m

Ascent

13.00 m

Descent

16.20 km/h

Speed

3:42 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:42.17

Duration

14 km 00:51:51.94

Partial

07:46 AM

Time

Calories

18.22 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

14.00 m

Ascent

10.00 m

Descent

16.57 km/h

Speed

3:37 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

1.00 km

Distance

00:03:37.20

Duration

15 km 00:55:29.14

Partial

07:49 AM

Time

Calories

18.19 km/h

Max Speed

0 bpm

Avg. HR

0 bpm

Max. HR

11.00 m

Ascent

10.00 m

Descent

13.52 km/h

Speed

4:26 min/km

Pace

Easy Run

Activity

0.02 km

Distance

00:00:05.74

Duration

15.02 km 00:

Week summary: My mileage was down at 112km last week because I did a mini taper Thursday - Saturday. Early in the week was pretty standard except for skipping my PM recovery run on Tuesday. I had done a 5 x 800m interval session that morning.

This was the same session as last week but I went out harder this week and first rep was 2:35. Probably too quick and as a result recovery jogs were slower this week. Next few reps were the pace I was after at 2:43-2:44 but I died a bit on the last rep and only managed 2:50. Averaged 2:43 (3:24/km) pace but not happy with the fade out on the last rep which was a bit of a struggle. Certainly didn’t feel like I could do another one.

24km medium long run on a warm Wednesday morning with Simon Elliott and single runs for the remainder of the week including the regular Thursday run with Clown and my standard pre race day run of 6km plus some strides for some muscle tension.

Mileage will be back up this week and I am planning on running around 39km on Sunday's long run which will be over 3 hours.

Training in Kenya

2011-11-24T11:34:00.000+08:00

One day I would love to go to Kenya for a training camp. I have done a bit of research and it is not impossible logistically or prohibitive price wise - it's just a matter of timing and other responsibilities (and no doubt some negotiation ... ). Definitely not on the cards in 2012 with our big trip to the US and then tenative plans for Melbourne and Tassie later in the year but if I win Lotto (would have to buy a ticket first) who knows.

Here are some links and videos:

http://www.traininkenya.com/Iten_kenya/home.html

http://lornah.com/

Some of these are a bit long and you get the idea fairly early on but I have included them for interest. The third video has been distributed fairly widely (Flotrack, Lets Run etc). It's worth letting it load and going to about 18.30 in to see Asbel Kiprop getting right back to basics.

The very last video is the end result ...

151 km week (starting to feel normal)

2011-11-20T13:52:00.000+08:00

This week's 151km felt like 110km used to feel last year. I think I have adjusted to the higher mileage since I started this marathon preparation.

After a couple of 120km weeks, my mileage has been:
134km
136km
146km
147km
152km
134km (recovery week)
156km
146km (John Gilmour 10k race week)
155km
151km (this week)

Spent the first couple of days this week running very easy after last Sunday's hard marathon specific long run and main runs this week were:

18.5km on Wednesday which included 5 × 800m with a 1:30 jog recovery between.

Averaged 3:31/km for the 800s with the recoveries at about 4:30/km. I'm not that happy with the pace of these. First rep (2:53) would have been a couple of secs quicker as I slowed when the 5 secs to go countdown started as forgot about that Garmin feature. Maybe 10km is too far before an interval session. Legs didn’t feel that fresh this morning but still glad I did it as it provides a marker for future sessions. I did a proper jog recovery though not just a shuffle so I probably wasn’t fully recovered before the next one started so having the last one (2:44) as my quickest one is ok.

Friday I did a 26.25km medium long run in 1:57 (4:27/km). I couldn’t get enthused about running out to Tranby House and back for 24km so copied a run Simon Elliott did on Wednesday. Ran to the Narrows then I carried on down the freeway and around the Canning and Mt Henry bridges loop before heading back the same way. Ran a bit quicker from kms 15-25 at under 4:20/km.

This morning's long run was 28km in 2 hours 14 mins (4:46/km) with Clown from City Beach. Clown did 4km before I got there (a bit late as road closures for the Great Bike Ride made it a bit hard to get across the city from where I live) and then we ran 4km on pretty much the City Beach course and then into the city and back again along the City to Surf route.

Pace was nice and relaxed. Clown is still struggling with his hammie.

Finished off with a swim in the ocean at City Beach.

Hit multiple traffic jams trying to get home due to the road closures. Now I know how it must feel for people who live near the City to Surf route on the day that it is on … still it is only one day a year.
Not sure what my total for this coming week will be as I am going to do a mini taper over the second half of the week in prep for the Deepwater Point 15km on Sunday. I'd like to go into this feeling as fresh as possible as it is my main tune up race for Houston given the lack of half marathons in the last quarter of the year.

I am putting together some videos for a mid week post which I think most people will enjoy.

New Kinvara 2s

2011-11-18T12:08:00.000+08:00

I just ordered a couple of pairs of the new Kinvara 2s to get me through to past the marathon. I have been getting through some shoe rubber over the last couple of months.

Can't wait for these to turn up!!

2011 Noosa Bolt Video (Collis Birmingham, Ben St Lawrence with Mona commentating)

2011-11-17T09:42:00.000+08:00

I said I would try to come up with a video mid week and here it is ...

155km and another marathon specific long run

2011-11-13T16:34:00.000+08:00

155km this week. I would have cracked 160km if not for the crappy weather on Monday when I cut short my afternoon recovery run because there wouldn't have been much recovery going on running into a 40km headwind.

Training this week was:
Monday 10.5km/2.5km
Tuesday 16km + 6 uphill strides/6.2km recovery
Wednesday 24.2km @ 4.12/km with Simon Elliott
Thursday 14.7km with Clown/8km recovery
Friday 24.2km @ 4.23/km
Saturday 16km @ 4.21/km
Sunday 32km inc 19km @ 3.55/km total avg 4.10/km

Really happy with today's long run as I definitely was not feeling like it this morning. A bit windy out there and felt tired and not much pop in the legs over the first 11km. First up I ran to Belmont Park and back which was 11km @ 4:28/km

The one big (ie new Narrows) and one small (ie old Narrows) laps of the Bridges to cover my 19km. Started at bottom of Hurlingham and finished the 19km at Coode Street. 2km jog home from there.

Pace slowed to 3:59/4:00 at times when I was running into the wind on the city side and over the Narrows but I made up for that on the other side although the only time when it felt like I had an actual tailwind was between the Swan River Trust building and the Causeway.

Took an SIS Go gel before starting the MP section and an SIS Smart1 gel at about 12km into it.

Averaged 3:55/km which is right on MP for the 19km. I didn’t think I would be able to hit this one today so this is a good confidence boost.

My other decent runs this week were the medium long runs on Wednesday and Friday. In particular Wednesday's run with Simon. I had felt a bit flat earlier in the week but I think that was very much due to the wind which I hate. This morning conditions were perfect and we quickly slotted into a pretty tidy pace despite the fact that we were still having chat. We went through what would have been a half marathon in 1:28 and if if you take off the 4.45 first km and take the next 21 it was even quicker.

So at the end of another week I am feeling pretty tired but also pretty pleased with how things are going. I start to add some speedwork in this week with a 5 x 800m session which I will do on either Tuesday or Wednesday depending on how the legs are on Monday and Tuesday morning. At this current point in time, I am thinking Wednesday is probably more realistic.

Turns out I was 11th at John Gilmour and first M40-44. Results are here http://www.wamc.org.au/results/results_2011/WAMC2011resultsJohnGilmour.pdf

No video today but I'll try and find something good to post mid week.

146km including John Gilmour 10,000m

2011-11-08T22:08:00.001+08:00

Mileage was down a little last week as I only ran once on Monday (Halloween trick or treating prevented me from getting out) and Thursday (didn't want to run twice the day before the race). Still got up to 146km though, largely due to a 24km medium long run with Simon Elliott on Wednesday and a solo 36km long run on Sunday. Rest of the week was pretty standard.

John Gilmour 10,000m - race report: I was pretty pleased with this run even though it was slightly slower than I thought I might run. I hoped to go under 36mins but just missed this due in part to a bit of a headwind in the front straight, running on my own for much of the race and that I have a lot of kms in my legs without any real speedwork.

36:28 by my watch – family says they think I came 13th.

Apart from the first 400m and the last 800m, my fastest lap was 1:25 and my slowest was 1:30. I felt OK running at that pace so although Epi, Jockster and couple of other guys got a bit ahead of me in the first few laps I was able to slowly reel them in over the last few kms (apart from Jockster who pulled out around 3km just after I passed him). Got to Epi at 8km and opened up about 10m over the next few laps and then a little bit more over the last lap as I finished pretty strongly.

Had a slight cramp in my left calf when I finished but it went away and was ok when I ran my cool down.

Felt pretty strong tonight but didn’t feel like I could run much quicker. Perhaps I ran a bit too comfortably in the middle of the race but on reflection, I do have a fair amount of kms in my legs and will be running 35km long run on Sunday so this is an ok place to be at this stage of my marathon training.

Approx 18:06 for first 5km and 18:22 for second 5km. I think I was first M40-44.

I didn’t get a split every lap so this is a mixture of 400m and 800m splits:
1.22
2.53
1.25
2.54
1.27
1.27
1.28
1.26
2.56
2.58
1.30
1.29
1.28
1.28
1.30
2.54
1.28
1.30
2.47

A great night put on by the WAMC with commentary by Evan Kolbe. Roberto Busi won in low 32mins after stopping early in the race to re tie his shoelace. Cody Angell was second and was giving a encouragement to lapped runners which was very nice of him. Good to see him get a PB in what was a high quality race at the pointy end of the field.

Sunday long run: After a recovery run around the bridges on Saturday, I did 36km on Sunday. Legs felt a bit stiff when I started off. Probably a combination of Friday evening’s race and being on my feet all day yesterday at the fete.

Got caught up behind the John Hughes’ Big Walk on the way back which was a bit of hassle especially when there were cyclists coming the other way (despite signs saying path was closed to cyclists). I didn't say a word ...

Two gels on this run which was pretty evenly paced. First 16km and second 16km both took 1:13 and the second was back into the wind, especially in South Perth. Ran up to Mends Street on the way back before running home.

Managed to get a nap in today before watching the NYC Marathon on Sunday night.

New York City Marathon: Fantastic run by Geoffrey Mutai, not such a great race by Mary Keitany who I think would have won easily with a better paced race. The English Eurosport commentators were a massive improvement on the American Universal Sports and ESPN ones we normally get. Coverage was good this year with much more use of split screens so we didn't miss what was going on in the men's race while the women were finishing.

My mileage will be back up again this week. I've felt a bit flat so far this week but this may be because of the weather so far. Don't mind rain but I can't stand this wind, especially down at the river.

Found out today that only the 5km at the Peninsula Run is a club championship race so I will give that a miss and go for a long run instead. Next race for me will be Deepwater Point 15km on 27 November.

Back up to 150k+; 2011 Frankfurt Marathon video and New York City Marathon form guide.

2011-11-02T09:43:00.002+08:00

156km last week. Main workouts were 3 x 3km interval session on Tuesday, 21km medium long runs on Wednesday and Friday and a 32km long run on Sunday.

Really happy and quite surprised with how well the intervals went.

I joined in with Simon Elliott’s BT RunClub interval session and we did 3 × 3km with 2 min walk/standing recoveries between.

Drizzly rain wasn’t an issue but it made the path very slippery especially as I was wearing Fastwitch5s which have quite a hard sole so I stuck to the concrete path where possible. There was a bit of a swirling wind which hit at us at times but again it wasn’t really much of an issue.

I did a 6km warm up before meeting up, then Simon and I did a couple of strides (not timed/measured).

We went 10:32; 10:37; 10:42 for the three reps and it was only really a 3:38 middle km on the third set that blew that time out otherwise we were very consistent. Makes a huge difference running this type of session with someone else as there were a couple of times when one of us was lagging and the other would drag them through. We finished within a metre or two of each other on each rep (although my Garmin seemed to measure slighty longer than Simon’s and also the measured km marks).

Pretty happy to have averaged between 3:30-3:34 for this session as I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to run it out. Fastest running I have done for quite a while.

2.7km cool down home.

Medium long runs were at 4:20/km pace and average pace for my long run was 4:25/km so I am maintaining a decent pace on these fundamental runs which should give me a good base as I increase the more specific work at marathon pace as I get closer to the race.

I am going to run the John Gilmour 10,000m on the track this Friday. I am basically training through this so don't expect a fantastic performance but I would like to have a good solid run and finish strongly. Furthest I have ever run in a track race is 3000m so this will be a totally new experience.

Here is a video of the last 10mins or so of the Frankfurt Marathon where Wilson Kipsang narrowly misses the new world record set at Berlin. Kipsang run 2:03:42 - 2nd fastest of all time.

I don't think we will see a challenge for the world record at the New York City Marathon this week but given the field it should be an excellent race.

It is being shown on the Eurosport channel on Foxtel from 10pm Perth time and is also being streamed live on Universalsports.com

My plan is to get a decent nap in the afternoon after a 35km long run in the morning so that I can stay up to see the end.

Here is a little form guide/cheat sheet on the main contenders in the men's field that I have put together:

New York City Marathon - Sunday November 6

Gebre Gebremariam (Ethiopia) PB = 2:04:53: Defending champion. His win last year was his debut marathon. Followed up with third place at the Boston Marathon in April in 2:04. DNF at the World Championship marathon in September. Has a great finishing kick and is a former World cross country champion.

Geoffrey Mutai (Kenya) PB = 2:03:02: Fastest marathoner ever winning Boston this year in 2:03:02 although it does not qualify for the World record. In April 2010 he ran 2:04 finishing second to Patrick Makau in Rotterdam. Won BAA 10k in Boston in June this year running 27:19 and followed that up in July with a win at the prestigious Giro di Castelbuono 10km road race in Italy where he beat Gebremariam convincingly.

Emmanuel Mutai (Kenya) PB = 2:04:40: Won London Marathon in April in a course record of 2:04:40 (after finishing second in London in 2010) and second in New York last year. Silver medallist at the 2009 World Champs in Berlin behind Abel Kirui. Has finished in the top 3 in his last 7 marathons.

Tsegaye Kebede (Ethiopia) PB = 2:05:18: 2nd to Sammy Wanjiru at 2010 Chicago Marathon in one of the all time great marathon finishes. Has previously won both London and Fukuoka and was the bronze medallist at the 2008 Olympics. Fifth in London this year. Was with the leaders to 30km but faded and ran 2:07:48, more than 3 mins behind Emmanuel Mutai.

Feyisa Lelisa (Ethiopia) PB = 2:05:23: Bronze medallist at the world championships marathon in Daegu this year. Has to be a question mark if he can back up only eight weeks later. PB set at Rotterdam 2010.

Jauoud Gharib (Morocco) PB = 2:05:27: Silver medalist at the Beijing Olympics and won 2003 and 2005 World Champs but is in the veteran class now at 39 years old. PB set at London in 2009 but only ran 2:08:26 this year finishing 6th.

Matthew Kisorio (Kenya) Debut marathon: 58:46 half marathon in September this year which is third fastest of all time. Was 4th at 2011 world cross county champs and third at Giro di Castelbuono.

Meb Keflezighi (USA) PB = 2:09:15: Won in 2009 and silver medallist in Athens in 2004. Hard to understand why he is running this marathon with US Olympic Marathon trials on January 14. Perhaps it is one last big payday which would be consistent with his recent move to running in Skechers shoes.

Viktor Röthlin (Switzerland) PB = 2:07:33: 2010 European Marathon champion; Swiss marathon record-holder; 2008 Tokyo Marathon champion and 2007 World Championships Marathon bronze medalist.

My prediction - Geoffrey Mutai followed by Emmanuel Mutai and Gebremariam.

Recovery week (134km)

2011-10-24T15:56:00.004+08:00

I took a step back last week after 5 weeks of ratcheting up the mileage and dropped back to 134km. Given that 134km was a big week for me during my last marathon training segment, it felt very comfortable coming down from 150km.

The reduction came from dropping one of my double days, minor reductions to my mid week medium long runs and reducing the Sunday long run to 26.5km. Apart from a slightly uptempo mdium long run with Simon Elliott on Wednesday (we always seem to go slightly quicker than either of us actually planned to and also doing some strides on Tuesday, all of my runs last week were very much in the "easy" bracket.

Right back into it this week with three double days, 24k and 21km medium long runs midweek and also a 3 x 3km interval session with Simon and the BT RunClub on Tuesday. My program had me down for an 8km tempo that morning but I am substituting the 3 x 3km with half an eye on the John Gilmour 10,000m on 4 November as I would like to try to run a 10km PB that night.

Great results at the Rottnest Marathon on the weekend with 6 guys going sub 3hrs on a pretty warm and windy day (isn't it always at Rottnest ...?) Not sure if I will ever try Rottnest again. I can't see myself ever doing more than 2 marathons a year and I'm not sure I want to waste one on course which is so slow. Credit to those who go and smash it out over there year after year. I like Rotto for a holiday and for training but racing, no thanks.

I have put some videos and a link below. The first video shows what I thought was the new Saucony Cortana that I reviewed a few weeks back but I since found out is the new Guide 5. As the video shows, there is a reduced heel to toe ratio (8%) compared to what has usually been the norm (12%). This is still more than the Kinvara (4%), but I am enjoying the Cortana as a more supportive shoe on days when I don't want to go too hard. Not to say that it is heavy, but it is heavier relative to the Kinvara.

One of the blogs I follow is Reid Coolsaet's "Float On". Coolsaet is the top Canadian marathon runner and last weekend booked his spot at the London Olympics with 2:10 performance in Toronto. This is a really good 1 hour highlights package with a profile piece included as well. It is an example of how good a marathon highlights package can be compared to the crap that we get dished up after the Perth City to Surf each year.

http://t.co/57F2kg0b

One of the highlights of our trip to Houston in January will be the opportunity to watch the USA Men's and Women's Olympic Marathon trials on a multi loop course the day before. This video is the trailer for an upcoming online series profiling some of the runners and their training as they prepare for the Trials.

150km+

2011-10-16T20:35:00.000+08:00

152km this week. Would have been slightly more but I completely forgot to go for my afternoon run on Tuesday. Sammie was having a sleepover at her cousin's house and Rox, Ben and I went to a movie - The Hunter with Willem Dafoe. It is set in the Tasmanian wilderness and is spectacular - so much so that we have started making tentative plans for a Tasmanian holiday next year.

I got some great quality running in this week amongst the volume. On Tuesday I did 18.5km including an 8km tempo. 4km warm up which was to the car park just over the Causeway then 8km tempo which was 6km out to UWA and 2km back to the Brewery.

McMillan gives my tempo pace as 3:34-3:40 and I managed this for the first 6km but blew out a bit over the last couple of km which were back into the wind, although there was a bit of fatigue in there too. Didn’t want to push to hard over tempo effort even though the pace had dropped. Average pace for the tempo was 3:42/km.

Easy run home for the last 8.55km.

Pretty happy with this effort given where I am at with volume at the moment and also compared to my last temp effort which was more in the 3:50 range for the whole 8km.

On Wednesday, I caught up with Simon Elliott for our first run since he got back from Berlin. Met up down the bottom of Hurlingham and set off on a clockwise three bridges loop although I was going a bit further. Even though we were having a good conversation we got into a groove at a nice pace around 4:07/km which continued on until we separated at the Windan Bridge.

I carried on to the Peninsula golf course and kept the same pace up until after I crossed the Windan on the way back. Hit a headwind and decided I didn’t want to feel like I was pushing so backed off. Noticed that I still went through what would be a half marathon in 1:28:30 so it was an honest pace which ended up being 4:13/km for the whole run despite the slower kms towards the end.

Easy running after then including catching up with Rob on Thursday and then 21km on Friday. Got a bit of niggle in my groin (left) which bothered me for a couple of days but with just easy running and some anti inflamms it was ok by Sunday.

For this morning's long run I ran 16km out in 1:13 (4:35/km) and then 16km back to just past the big flagpole. Had to work hard over the last 5km – one particularly slow km in there 4:00 which was coming back up over the Windan Bridge and where the easterly made it feel like you were in wind tunnel. First couple of km were probably a little quick so I was pleased to average 3:54/km against a target of 3:55/km.

My overall assessment is that I didn’t feel like I could maintain this pace for a marathon but I don’t think that is the point of this workout at this stage of my program – it is more about teaching my body to burn fuel efficiently at marathon pace.

Took one Burner gel at the 16km turnaround before I started and then a Smart 1 gel after about 9km into the MP section. The Smart 1 gel contains caffeine and I think this provided a good boost. The Science in Sport gels are an isotonic solution which is runnier than normal gels which means that you do not need to take them with water which is good when you don’t have access to a drink and don’t want to have to stop at drink fountain.

Good to get this in the bank. When I did a similar run on May 28 before the Perth Marathon I did it in 63:12 (3:57/km pace).

Bit of a recovery week this week to consolidate the work so far. Think I will also get a massage during the week.

Two big weeks

2011-10-09T14:42:00.002+08:00

146km and 147km over the last two weeks. Mostly easy running in the Canova fundamental range of 80-90% of marathon pace although I have mixed a bit of quality work in there.

Workouts have included 8km tempo as part of a 16km run, some progression runs as part of my mid week medium long runs and some 10 x 110m stride sessions.

Last weeks long run was 29km, today's was 32km.

On Thursday my medium long run was 21.1km which I ran in 1:29. Ran easy on the way out and picked it up on the way back progressively over the last 10km. Initially I just increased my cadence without significantly increasing effort but over the last 5km I continued the progression, especially when I realised that I was on track to run under 1:30 for 21.1km. Last 10km progressed from 4:08 down to 3:56/km which is basically MP.

On today's long run I don’t know whether it was the harder run on Friday or just general fatigue and a bit of a headwind but the run on the way out of this out and back run was feeling a bit harder than I thought it should.

It was very nice then to feel pretty comfortable coming back a bit quicker. First 16km was average 4:30/km, last 16km was 4:18/km.

I have been using some different nutrition products from Science in Sport including gels, isotonic, carbohydrate and recovery drinks. You can get to their website from the link in the sidebar. Today I used a Burner Gel for the first time. It contains 1g of carnitine and Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA). Carnitine has been shown to facilitate the movement of fatty acids into the mitochondria, which burn fatty acids to make energy.

Here is a link to the product information: http://www.scienceinsport.com.au/product_info.asp?sport=84

I was supposed to go over 150km this week but fell short as I didn’t do my second run on Thursday. I suspected this would be the case as we had our niece staying with us. I took my gear to work but got caught up and didn’t get out as I hoped around 4.30pm.Happy enough with consolidating with this week in the 140s following last week which was around the same.

Calf and hamstring all good, some minor stiffness in my back but pretty happy with how I am travelling at the moment. I seem to be having a good patch while my mates are struggling so hopefully we will all be on track again soon.

Looking forward to the first Glory game of the season this afternoon and the live streaming of the Chicago marathon tonight.

Running for the Hansons - book review

2011-09-29T20:48:00.001+08:00

I recently purchased the book "Running for the Hansons" by Sage Canaday. Canaday is a member of the Hansons Brooks Distance Project and his book is an account of the day to day existence of a runner on the team.

It is nowhere near as glamorous as you might expect as members of the team are required to work in the Hansons Running Stores as part of the deal. They don't work full time but when you add it to the high mileage program that that these guys run, you can see how it could become a real grind and why there is a relatively high attrition rate.

It is a self published book and contains stuff that probably would have been cut if professionally published but I think this adds to the honesty of the account.

This is the start of the chapter "An Easy Day - September 8th, 2009":

"I almost shit myself today. Every runner knows the feeling of the in and out. It's like a turtle popping his head in and out from his shell ... except the shell is your ass"!

No details are spared, with accounts of workouts, races, the daily and weekly regime and the team and team environment.

It was after reading this book that I decided to go with a higher mileage program this time around and include double days. I felt like I had gotten an insight into what it is like to get it done every day and callous yourself against the fatigue and workload.

The picture above gives details of where you can purchase the book - either through Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Running-Hansons-Insiders-Brooks-Sponsored-Marathon/dp/0983294119/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317300039&sr=8-1

or at Sage Canaday's own website:

http://vo2maxproductions.com/

Here are a few videos which also provide an insight into the life of Hansons runner and what is in the book.

Recommended.

Another week down also Fifth Avenue Mile (videos)

2011-09-26T21:29:00.001+08:00

137km last week. Main workout was a marathon specific long run which ended up being 28.7km with 12km at marathon pace.

It was a hard run. I have done that session before but later in the program and probably not with 100km in the previous 5 days and 234 km in the previous 12 days.

Wasn’t feeling hugely motivated when I woke up in the morning but I knew I had to get it done or the guilt trip I would impose upon myself the next day after others had run the Freo Half and Simon had done Berlin would have been a major one.

Consciously made myself slow down early in the run so that I was running 4:30/km rather than 4:20/km which was the pace I was naturally slotting into.

Ran the 12km from the gazebo in Maylands to just before the big flagpole. I was initially planning to do 13km MP but settled on 12km. I definitely could have kept going for another km at that pace but didn’t want to turn and didn’t face the additional km cooldown home. Pace actually picked up thru the 12km – the second last km was a bit quicker than it says as satellite seemed to get lost under the trees near the Swan River Trust as pace jumped up to 4:10/km. Averaged 3:55/km for the 12km MP segment which is right on pace.

Earlier in the week, I did a couple medium long runs and then on Thursday I did the regular Thursday morning run with Clown out to Maylands – we tempo ran back from the Police Academy to Windan at around 3:42/km pace.

Two double days again last week - missed the second run on Sunday as I left it too late after watching the Berlin Marathon and then family life intervened.

Unfortunately, Ben's team lost their grand final although Ben had a good game. He never stopped trying 100% even when it was clear the game was lost.

With soccer season now finished, I am going to move my long run to Sunday which will alter the structure of my whole week slightly. I think it will help in getting in two medium long runs during the week and then and a bit more quality on the weekends rather than just recovering from my long run on Sunday.

Here are the videos from the 5th Avenue mile

Mens race:

Womens race:

Racking up the mileage - also Rudisha beaten (video)

2011-09-21T15:57:00.000+08:00

First week of my "official" marathon training program completed - 134km including two double days. It was supposed to be three but I piked out on the second run on Sunday. 134km was 10% more than the previous week's 122km and the weather was pretty gross ...

I am finding the increase in mileage pretty tiring and think it is the double days that are the difference. I am coming off a good base with 6 of my last 8 weeks being over 100km and the two others being in the 90s. I think also that I may be running my easy/general aerobic runs a bit quick as they are usually at around 4:25/km pace or even slightly quicker. This is however right in the middle of the range on the McMillan calculator.

Endurance Workouts Pace/km

Recovery Jogs 4:51 to 5:10

Long Runs 4:14 to 4:51

Easy Runs 4:14 to 4:33

I am going slower on my specific recovery runs on my double days and also on Fridays but I will keep an eye on this as I need the recovery if I am going to hit the workouts at the correct pace/effort.

I am excited about the Berlin Marathon this Sunday. It is being shown live on Eurosport on Sunday afternoon. Simon Elliott is running and there are couple of other decent runners in Haile Gebrselassie and Patrick Makau lining up as well. It will be interesting to see how Paula Radcliffe goes in the Women's race.

My long run this week will be on Saturday - 27km with 13km at marathon pace. I'm not sure I will be able to run it at 3:55/km at this stage of my training so will try to run sub 4:00/km first time out.

Here is a rare video from the recent meet in Milan - David Rudisha beaten. It has been a long season for him though.

I'm looking out the window now as the rain has come in and not exactly looking forward to my afternoon run - oh well ...

Bekele is back! Also Galen Rupp American Record - 10,000m from Brussels (video)

2011-09-19T12:28:00.002+08:00

New shoes - Saucony Cortana

2011-09-14T14:05:00.000+08:00

I took these for their first spin this morning. Awesome cushioning without compromising on weight. Although slightly heavier than the Mirage, they are lighter than an Asics DS Trainer.

There is a good chance that these may become the 2nd shoes in my rotation behind the Kinvara but ahead of the Mirage. Not sure yet, it is too early to say.

The Cortana incorporates a heel fit mechanism that keeps the foot embedded and provides some addtional structure. It has the what is now standard Saucony 4mm dropped heel for a more supportive yet natural ride.

Good news update and 800m and 1500m videos from Rieti

2011-09-12T20:40:00.001+08:00

I have waited so long now that I am over the City to Surf and the fact that I didn't run as quick as I had hoped I would.

Thank you to everyone who donated via Team World Vision. We raised $632, well over the $500 target. I'm sure our donations will save lives if they haven't already so thanks again.

At the end of the day, I ran as best as I could. This must just have been where I was at that moment. A minute or so quicker than last year but 37 secs slower than 2009.

Struggled on the hills and looking at my splits, most of the minute more that I ran was on the hills on Oceanic Drive as well as the hill on Underwood. I expected to slow down but not by that much.

Was on pace until about 6km and ran the pace I wanted to down Hay Street through Subiaco (3:34/km) even though Epi caught and then gapped me along that section. For some reason I ran shithouse thru Perry Lakes. I remember really struggling through here last year as well but I lost more time here for no apparent reason.

It is ironic that I knew that the hills were my weak point and that it why I did the session on Mount Street that lead to my hamstring issue and which impacted on the type of training I could do over the last few weeks. Hamstring was a bit tight but only really felt it once when it grabbed on a downhill so it didn’t impact on me much during the race.

Felt a bit old and slow on the day so looking forward to getting back into marathon training. 46:09 and 65th place overall (6th 40-49).

I have managed to keep my mileage up pretty much despite the hamstring issues. 94km the week of the City to Surf and I have picked it up since then with 120km and 122km over the past couple of weeks as an endurance base now I am just starting my 18 week marathon training program. I have taken it pretty easy on the speedwork to make sure that my hammie is OK with just a couple of tempo runs in that time.

This week will probably end up being around 130km. First workout of the program was this morning with a 19km medium long run with the last 6km at tempo pace.

Really happy with how this went as I was feeling like running under 3:50/km pace for the tempo section was going to be hard but I ended up running 3:44 average pace for the 6km tempo even with the last km back into the wind.

Pencilled in my marathon program last night and it includes a pretty decent increase in mileage on the last marathon cycle I did. I still need to finalise the specific endurance long runs (ie those with MP finishes or significant parts of it at MP). As soon as Ben and Sammie’s soccer has finished I will move my long runs to Sundays although I will do a 35km long run on Saturday 24 December rather than on Christmas Day!

Only problem is that I am not going to get in a half marathon tune up race as Ben’s team won their semi final (!!!) yesterday and the grand final is the same morning as the Freo Half. My back up plan was Melbourne Half but it has sold out. So looks like Deepwater Point 15km in November will be my main tune up race.

Ben had a great game. His team beat a team that they have been pretty even with this season (1 win, 1 loss, 1 draw) 7-1. It was 3-0 at half time. Ben set up the first goal with a great free kick from inside their own half.

The IAAF Grand Prix meet in Rieti the other night wasn't on Foxtel. It is always a great event for middle distance races. Here are videos of both the 800m and 1500m from Rieti - top fields in both events. Asbel Kiprop makes a world class field look very, very ordinary.

Training day and World Championships videos

2011-08-31T10:19:00.002+08:00

Here are some videos. I am still composing my annual "I'm disappointed with how I ran" City to Surf post in my head at the moment.

Down week but came good at the end

2011-08-22T12:16:00.007+08:00

Took Monday off pending visit to the physio and as a result mileage this week was only 91kms.

Easy runs on Tuesday and Wednesday then a tempo run with Clown on Thursday as part of a medium long run and then a Surf to City / City to Surf long run on Saturday.

On the Thursday we did the regular run out to the Maylands Police Academy. We then ran tempo back to the Marathon Club which was 6.5km. We worked our way into it starting just under 4.00/km down into 3.40s and then 3.38/km for the last. We averaged 3.49 for the last 6km of this section. Clown was travelling pretty well towards the end and looked strong. It's a real pity he didn't get a priority start for City to Surf as I am sure he would have smashed it up.

Rest of the run was at a steady pace around 4.30/km or slightly quicker so the whole run was at a pretty reasonable pace - 21km in 1:29 (4:16/km)

Hamstring wasn’t too bad. Could still feel it slightly and it got a bit tighter over the last 2-3km of the tempo section. I was pretty pleased to get through this run without it blowing up and feeling like I could stick to my normal program from here on.

On Saturday morning I set off from City Beach with Clown and Epi and ran into the City along the City to Surf route except for Bagot Road instead of Hay Street. We turned at William Street in the city which by my Garmin was 12.85km into the run.

I was keen to push it a little bit on the way back as a bit of test of my hammie and the course. On the way out I could feel it getting a bit tight on the uphills but it eased off as soon as we got onto the flat or downhill. On the way back, it felt fine.

We ran back on the new course. There was not much traffic on Hay Street so I was able to run on th edge of the road rather than the footpath (mostly) and hardly felt like my feet were touching the ground. I wasn’t pushing it hard at all but was running 3.51/km along Hay Street.

Worked moderately hard up the hills consistent with the overall effort and then opened up on the last km downhill to City Beach in 3.48.

Last 12km back from the City in 49.57 (4.10/km) which I am pretty pleased with given the relative effort involved and that we had run 13km beforehand. All up 25km in 1:48:26 (4:20/km)

Went for a bit of a dip in the ocean afterwards but only lasted 5mins as it was a bit rough and I only really wanted to soak my legs in the cold water.

This was a good confidence booster after a couple of difficult weeks – fingers crossed the weather next Sunday is similar to what it was on Saturday. The early forecast is looking promising with a bit of a ESE tailwind predicted.

Feeling pretty good at the moment and hope I can go into Sunday with my legs feeling fresh and with a tailwind at my back!

Follow this link to watch Lachlan Renshaw win the 800m at the World Uni Games:

http://www.livefisu.tv/vodplayer/video/1808674/title/Athletics_-_Men's_800m_(Final)

Struggling with hamstring but starting to come good. Also thanks for the support for Team World Vision.

2011-08-18T12:36:00.003+08:00

As you can see from the widget in the sidebar - $375 has been donated so far and we are nearly 80% of the way to the $500 target. A couple of people have said to me that they are still planning to donate so hopefully with those donations and maybe a few more we will make our target before race day.

Thanks to those who have already sponsored me - I really do appreciate your support.

Here is the link to my fundraising page:

http://www.teamworldvision.com.au/simon_ward_6

Ran 106km last week on 6 days of running (had Sunday off).

I got in some good runs early in the week with three runs over 80mins and a Mona fartlek on the Tuesday where I covered 40m further than I have previously for that session on that course.

My hammie was quite tight and sore after Wednesday and Thursday's runs so I went to the physio on Thursday which improved things considerably - so much so that I stuck with my plan to run in the hills on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster as although the hammie felt good when we set out, it did not like the 2km uphill we went straight into. It settled down ok after that until about 5km into a long steady uphill from about 10km. The hill kicked up and my left leg basically went dead. All down the back of my leg, through the back of my knee and into the top of my calf. It felt like I had a club foot as I had no drive in that leg and my foot was basically just thumping into the ground as I swung the leg through.

I had to stop and walk and walked for about 1km with a short run on a flattish section until I got to the top of the hill. Sugar and Liam had waited for me there and I tried running again as it was going to be a long walk back otherwise. it was manageable on the flat and the slight downhills at about 4:30/km pace and I was able to even run a bit quicker over the last couple of kms on the really nice downhill into Darlington.

Ended up running 26km instead of 27km and got changed and sat on the tailgate of my car feeling sorry for myself for a few minutes. 26km in 1 hour 56 mins (4:27/km pace).

I took Sunday and Monday off and took anti-inflammatories. Back to the physio on Monday which again was very beneficial and I was able to run an easy lap of the Bridges on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had an osteopath appointment on Wednesday afternoon which involves some "adjustment" and identified some problems with the alignment of my pelvis and a lot of tightness through my piraformis and glutes.

My physio was keen for me to push things a bit on Thursday (today) to see how I am going and whether running long on Saturday was going to be problematic so this morning I met up with Clown and We did the regular Thursday morning run out to the Maylands Police Academy. We then ran tempo back to the Marathon Club which was 6.5km. We worked our way into it starting just under 4.00/km down into 3.40s and then 3.38/km for the last. We averaged 3.49 for the last 6km of this section. Clown was travelling pretty well towards the end and looked strong. Hopefully he gets his City to Surf entry sorted today.

Rest of the run was at a steady pace around 4.30/km or slightly quicker so the whole run was at a pretty reasonable pace. All up this was 21km in 1:29 (4:16/km pace)

Hamstring wasn’t too bad. Could still feel it slightly and it got a bit tighter over the last 2-3km of the tempo section. Still I’m pretty pleased to get through this run without it blowing up and feeling like I can stick to my normal program from here on.

Below are a couple of interesting videos. One is a Ben St lawrence, Collis Birmingham, Ryan Gregson workout and the other is about Active Isolated Flexibility. I have been doing the hamstring stretches in particular and think they are very effective.

Steady progress towards City to Surf and Team World Vision target. Also two great races from London

2011-08-10T10:59:00.000+08:00

112 kms last week so a good consolidation of the previous week and I'm now right back in the swing of the longer mid week runs.

Main runs last week were a 23km medium long run on Monday, a hills rep session at Mount Street on Tuesday, another medium long run including an 8km tempo with Clown on Thursday and then a 2 hour long run on Saturday with Clown and Epi where we ran the Mount Yokine loop four times for a total of 27.4km.

In hindsight the Mount Street session was a mistake. Mount Street is probably a little too steep to be of maximum benefit for hill reps. It is an average gradient of about 16% which means that you are just going a bit too slow as you get towards the top and it is not that close to “real” running. In the days following my glutes were very stiff and sore and I developed some significant tightness in my left hamstring which is still hanging around. Really felt it on Thursday's tempo run although it wasn't too bad on Saturday's long run.

Thanks to a lot of generosity, we have now got past the halfway mark towards the $500 target for Team World Vision. $300 can provide $3000 worth of food but $5000 worth of food would be even better. I hope we can make the target.

Below are videos of what I think were the two best races from last weekend's Diamond league meet in London. The Rudisha/Kaki clash in the 800m did not disappoint and the mile is always a classic at this meet.

Training update and Team World Vision

2011-08-03T13:46:00.003+08:00

111km last week as I made the switch back to longer runs mid week with more emphasis on strength and less emphasis on speedwork. I won't neglect speedwork completely but I think I will be doing more tempo and progression runs than interval sessions.

2 hour long run on Saturday was 26km from the City to City Beach and back along the City to Surf course with Clown and Epi. We received a thorough drenching just after we turned around where Clown's much maligned (by Epi anyway) vest would have been very handy.

Also, I have joined Team World Vision for this year's City to Surf on 28 August. Rox and I have sponsored a girl in Lesotho through World Vision for a number of years and it is great that Team World Vision has started in Australia. I first heard of it when I saw a booth at the Boston Marathon expo when it was being launched in the US in 2009.

Basically, Team World Vision is a community of marathon and ‘fun’ runners from across Australia who participate in existing major public sporting events, whilst fundraising for World Vision’s Multiplying Gift Appeal (MGA).

Around 925 million people wake up each day denied the basic human right to food (UN WFP 2011). World Vision is partnering with the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) to deliver life-saving food aid to desperately hungry people through the MGA. Every $1 raised allows World Vision to deliver up to ten times the value of their donation in food aid and relief essentials.

For every $250 received by World Vision for MGA, they can provide $2500 worth of life-saving food to feed 52 families of six for one month.

You can visit my fundraising page here:
http://www.teamworldvision.com.au/simon_ward_6

or click on the widget in the right sidebar of my blog.

If you can spare some money to make a donation to this important cause you will be making a really worthwhile and possibly life saving contribution. You can donate as little or as much as you feel able as there is a custom amount option.

Run for Gold 10km and re-inventing my training program (more like re-inventing the wheel ... )

2011-07-26T17:45:00.057+08:00

Felt much better for this week's race than I did last week but based on time, I ran even worse. Felt fine in the warm up and for the first few kms but wasn’t able to run at or maintain the pace that I wanted. I feel fit but it is not being reflected in my race performances. Maybe I am still a bit flat after the marathon or more likely, I don’t have the specific endurance for 10km at the moment.

Big Kev went out very quick at around 3:20/km pace so I settled in just behind Simon Elliott. At about 2km, I heard the familiar stride of Clown coming up behind and we ran together to just past the 5km mark where he opened up a bit of a break on me. We had gone through 5km in around 18:00 and I wasn’t feeling too bad so at that stage I was still entertaining thoughts of finishing strong and going under 36 mins and perhaps even a PB.

As it turned out though, I just slowly faded and my last 2kms were not great even though at one stage just after the 8km mark, I was pushing on and my Garmin indicated 3:35 pace – I obviously did not maintain this pace, even though I was trying to maintain effort.

I still feel better about this week than I did about last week. Last week, I was frustrated because I felt that my chest issues held me back from running better whereas this week, I don’t think I could have run any better on the day than I did. I’m just not in the racing shape that I hoped I was.

Great to have a big crew of us racing today – made it into a real social occasion as well.

Hamstrings are a bit tight post race.

Official results show me as 17th overall out of 390 and 4th M40-44. It's a pretty competitive age group with 6 of the first 20 in the race being M40-44 (all 6 between 9th and 20th). Well done to Kev, Simon Elliott and Clown who all left me in their wake, especially Kev - normal service has been resumed it seems.

Splits:
3:26
3:32
3:38
3:44
3:44
3:44
3:45
3:44
3:48
3:51
0:21 (.11km - Garmin measured the course at 10.11km for me but most guys Garmins had it at 10.24km).

Interestingly, I ran 36:59 for 10km this week and last week according to my Garmin and went through 5km in 18:06 both weeks as well. Much more consistent pacing this week though with the 5km from 3-8km all within 1 sec of each other. Average pace was slower than what I ran for 13.9km at the Run for a Reason in May, so there is a real need to get back to the type of training that produces results for me.

The Western Australian Synchronised Running Team in action

Courtesy of Dave Bryant (thanks!)

I have been back and reviewed the work outs I was doing before Bridges this year where I really surprised myself by running 35:54 as well as looking at what I have done in the lead up to races where I didn't do as well.

The common factor seems to be that when I have done well, I have been doing higher mileage including two medium long runs and a long run each week. When I haven't done as well, it has generally been when I have specifically targeted the 10km or 5km distance and been running more speedwork in the form of intervals and tempo runs in the same week (ie two speed sessions per week).

So in the next few weeks leading up to the City to Surf, I am going to go back to what I feel most comfortable with - medium long runs on Monday or Tuesday, medium long run on Thursday sometimes including 8km tempo, 2 hour long run Saturday. In between, recovery runs and some hill reps and occasional interval or Mona fartlek sessions. I am going to try and get four runs a week beyond 80 minutes.

I find medium long runs are much more enjoyable than intervals and I will continue to build some progression into them where possible so it won't be as if I am slacking off. Getting the mileage up should also work well as I transition to marathon specific training at the start of October.

Interesting article on Single-Session Workouts for Marathoners

2011-07-21T18:00:00.003+08:00

Single-Session Workouts for Marathoners -Why training once a day can work to your advantage

I found this very interesting. I have often fretted about the fact that I have not been able to successfully incorporate "doubles" into my training schedules. I had generally formed the view that it was one of the things, apart from a lack of natural ability, that was preventing further improvements in performances.

My training for the Perth marathon was almost solely singles and on reading this article, I think I can see why I had a successful marathon as a program based on singles seems to play to my strengths - ie endurance rather than speed, mental toughness and efficient fat burning at marathon pace.

So while I found this reassuring, I also found something very worthwhile in this article:

Marathon Performance Training Group’s elite coach Brad Hudson says the magic number to hit in a single run is 80 minutes. “A lot of the science shows that once you reach the 80-minute mark, there is a bigger benefit in endurance enzymes made.” Hudson notes that studies have shown that the differences of enzymatic production from 60 to 80 minutes are enormous.

Long singles also make you a stronger runner. The longer amount of time spent during one session increases the flow of blood to the muscles. Ligaments and tendons are strengthened; capillaries grow and more oxygen can be delivered to the working muscles. Additionally, completing training in singles allows the body more rest. “When you are doing singles, you are giving the body a full 24 hours of rest,” Hudson points out.

One of the things that has discouraged me from doing doubles has been the shortened recovery time between runs. If I was 20 years younger, I wouldn't be concerned about this at all, but I haven't seen one reputable source/coach that recommends doubles for masters runners, basically because as you get older, you need more time to recover.

Anyway, here is a link to the article:
http://www.runningtimes.com/Print.aspx?articleID=23257

Lake Joondalup 10km (State Road Racing Championship)

2011-07-19T16:24:00.000+08:00

Found this heavy going from about 3-4km onwards. Although I have largely managed to avoid the illness in the rest of the family, I started getting a bit of crap on my chest on Friday. It was pretty dry though so I was hoping it would be OK but from about 3-4km I could feel it constricting my breathing which was quite heavy and raspy.

Felt OK in the warmup and for the first couple of kms although I was having to work a bit harder than I thought I would to maintain 3:30-3:32/km pace. My legs (calves) did not appreciate either the downhills or the uphills that were at the far end of the course. Definitely got some issues with my left lower leg. Through some foam rolling, I have managed to loosen up the tightmess that was pulling the tendon in my ankle but by the time we finished today, my left calf was so rock hard, it felt like it was going to burst out of my skin. Wore compression socks for the rest of Sunday and also Monday but might look to get a massage sometime this week.

Sugar was pacing me although I was unable to maintain the pace we had agreed on and he considerately stuck with me thoroughout. Dave Bryant ran a well paced race, passing me around 3.5km and opening up a bit of gap which increased from 5km onwards. 36:30 for him which was a PB.

Relatively pleased with my last km in 3:29 given how I was feeling as I made up some ground and passed two runners, one of whom has been close to me in quite a few races over the past couple of years. Little bit disappointed I didn’t push on harder once I got past them as that would have got me under 37:00 instead of 37 flat. No idea where I came overall, Marc See won in 31 something.

Even though I was well outside what I wanted to run, this is still my 2nd fastest 10km so it isn’t a complete disaster, given that I was feeling a bit off. Still planning to run Run for Gold this coming Sunday so hopefully I will throw off this cough by the middle of the week and have something better to report next time.

Splits:
3:29
3:35
3:45
3:35
3:39
3:49
3:56
3:57
3:42
3:29
10km - 37:00

Sign on!

2011-07-14T07:30:00.002+08:00

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State.

Craig Mottram/Collis Birmingham - 5000m Diamond League, Birmingham - 10 July

2011-07-11T11:43:00.003+08:00

Only managed to find a video of the last half of the race without English commentary online.

Also read this recent article/interview:

http://www.runnerstribe.com/article/post/show/id/973-Craig-Mottram-Back-in-Business-RT-Exclusive

A couple of easy weeks post marathon and video of Craig Mottram 1500m from Uden, Netherlands

2011-07-03T21:33:00.004+08:00

I have had a couple of easy weeks post marathon. Only ran twice in the first week (Thursday, Saturday) for 14km and four times this week (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday) for 51.4km.

On Saturday , I did a controlled Mona Fartlek and averaged 3:47/km for the workout with the harder reps at around 3:28-3:30/km pace.

I'm planning on doing 6 days this week. Forecast is for cold, fine mornings - I'm just looking forward to getting out there and getting back into my routine.

Big congratulations to Sugar on his 1:14 half marathon at Gold Coast. 3:30/km avg pace is a cracking pace so I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

Video - Mens 1500m and 5000m - USA Track and Field Championships

2011-06-27T11:16:00.000+08:00

1500m

5000m

David Rudisha back from injury with World leading 1.43 800m

2011-06-25T10:40:00.001+08:00

Craig Mottram ran 3.38 to finish 3rd in the 1500m behind Augustine Choge (3.36). Still trying to find a video of that

Perth Marathon report

2011-06-23T11:43:00.001+08:00

The week hadn't started brilliantly with a few niggles in my legs to the extent that I took Tuesday off. It was still hanging around late in the week but had improved - most significantly after I had a good massage from Nathan at the Running Centre on Thursday. Thanks Nathan!!

Went out for dinner on Friday night with Clown, Epi and Sling Runner (who was down from Singapore for the race). Excellent meal and of course lots of running related chat. When I got home and told Rox what we had eaten (3 courses) including big plate of pasta, she commented that the waitress would have been very confused seeing 4 skinny guys putting away so much food.

I had taken Friday off work to make sure I was mentally rested. Rox and I went to see The Hangover Part II which was a perfect movie for getting your mind off other things. Made me think though that it has been a long time since I got completely trashed - probably last time I carried on after a Christmas party so at least 5 years.

Saturday was a very quiet day. Made up my special drinks and took them out to the WAMC and also picked up Sammie's race packet for the Kid's Marathon. It really is worth watching her finish video (see a couple of posts below). Saturday night was more pasta and I really felt like I was carbo loaded and ready to go.

Race morning - got to Burswood around 6.40am and parking was already well and truly at a premium. Marathon numbers were up and the Dalai Lama was appearing at the the Dome later that morning. Got a park in the far car park which was good as it gave me a nice walk to the WAMC along the last few hundred metres of the course which was useful for a bit of mental preparation and focus.

Went for a 1km warm up jog at around 7am. About 5min pace just to get the legs moving. Visit to the loo - excellent work by the WAMC getting the extra porta loos this year which made it far less stressful. Body glide and race singlet on and it was time to go.

Trailblazer did his normal burst to the front for the first 400-500m - it is expected of him now and he didn't disappoint although I'm sure it has a negative impact on his performance.

Despite Jockster and Big Kev saying while we were waiting for the start that they were going to run the first km @ 4mins and then go to 3:56 after that, the first km was a 3:45. I went with it and although the pace eased a bit, we were about 30-40secs up on 4min average pace by the time we got to 10km. I think Jockster and BK had us slightly quicker than that by their Garmins.

My Garmin was showing slightly short at this stage and for the remainder of the race because it lost the satellite signal under the Windan Bridge and measured a 4.28km which was probably about 130m long.

Coming up to the drink station at the Narrows (approx 11km), Jockster gave Kev the gels he was carrying for him and said that he was going to take his drink and would probably slow a bit. In fact, he sped up before the drink station and then ran on strongly, opening up a gap on me and I thought Kev. It was only a bit of a way down the freeway when we ran past former Australian opener Geoff “Swampy” Marsh out for a walk (he has been in a good paddock) and I turned to comment to Kev about it that I found it was another runner in a blue top who was just behind me and that Kev was about 20-30m back.

The average km split pace on my Garmin was all over the place at times although the actual splits seemed ok. Don’t know whether it was the cloud cover but sometimes it would say I was running 4.10-4.20 when my pace and effort were the same and I was actually running around 4.00 or slightly quicker.

I basically kept a tab on my pace from the km markers and time elapsed at each km and also kept an eye on my current pace. The most I got ahead of 4min average pace was about 37sec. Jockster had run on strongly and would have got out about 300m at the most on me.

Managed to find my drinks very easily and was lucky enough to have my brother Nick hand me my drink at a couple of drink stations. A volunteer also handed me my drink with a gel at the turnaround so that all went very smoothly.

I don’t know whether it was because the number of runners in the race was greater this year but there certainly seemed to be more spectators out this year. I received great support from Rox, Nick and his family (Nick actually tracked me pretty much from 10km onwards and must have seen me about six times including finish), his wife Brigit and their girls, Tammie and Garry, my Mum and Dad, Clown and Dave Bryant. Also Sugar and Kim out near half way were a welcome sight at that point in the race. Heaps of encouragement helped keep me going and I really appreciated the motivation from Nick, Clown and DB over the last 10kms.

Picked up runners steadily from 15km onwards and was in 10th by about 25km. By the time I was running along the Freeway on the way back I could see Jockster about 250m in front of me and steadily worked on making up that ground over the next 5kms. Passed a couple of runners, one near the Causeway and another just before Mends Street.

I got to Jockster just before the Swan River Trust building with about 2kms to go. He sat just back from me and I think had a little bit of a crack as we went under the Causeway but I was able to run on strongly and in fact, from my Garmin it looks like I ran that km in 3:46.

The runner in front of me had stopped with a cramp but he saw me coming and started running again. Although I was gaining on him quickly, I ran out of distance and finished just behind him. 7th overall and 1st M40-44. 1:23 out and 1:26 back.

Had a great run – really pleased with how I ran today. Stuck to my pace and although I faded a little over the last few kms I was still able to pass three runners in the last 6km. I am glad I kept faith with the program and the goal I set myself early in the year. I really targeted this race and didn't allow myself to get distracted by my own or other people's performances in lead up races.

By my Garmin my slowest kms were 4:09 at for kms 35 and 41. Was certainly holding a sub 4min/km pace to 32km and only really faded from 35km. So there is a bit of specific endurance to work on there although it really is the hardest part of a marathon to train for as it is really only in the marathon itself that you experience that specific fatigue.

Was completely spent for about 5mins after I finished but then recovered reasonably well. We headed out for dinner around 6pm to Tony Roma's in the city where I enjoyed a nice big juicy steak. Everyone really like their meal so I think we will be back there again.

I had already organised myself a day off work for Monday and Rox and I saw another movie, Super 8 which was excellent and is highly recommended.

Congratulations to Epi on a solid run just outside 3 hours on limited preparation since Boston. Big aerobic base there and I am sure he will be running quick over the coming months.

Bad luck to Sling Runner and also to Gerry Hill who were DNFs due to injury. It is never good going into a marathon with an injury as I found out at Rottnest but at least by pulling out early they have given themselves a chance to recover quickly.

This week I have taken a full three days off and only went for a very gentle 6km this morning (Thursday). I am going to keep it very relaxed over the next couple of weeks and only run when I really feel like it.

More marathon photos

2011-06-21T19:52:00.000+08:00

Courtesy of Sugar

Perth Marathon (and Sammie in the Kid's Marathon) - finish videos

2011-06-20T17:08:00.001+08:00

My finish video

From Jun 19, 2011 - Perth Marathon and Kids Marathon

Sammie's finish video (with her trademark sprint finish!)

From Jun 19, 2011 - Perth Marathon and Kids Marathon

The sub 2:50 group at approx 8km

From Jun 19, 2011 - Perth Marathon and Kids Marathon

Perth Marathon - 2:49:07

2011-06-19T22:39:00.001+08:00

Finished 7th overall and 1st Male 40-44

I'll put up more in a day or so.

From Jun 19, 2011 - Perth Marathon and Kids Marathon

Week 17 - now only 1 week to go

2011-06-14T13:42:00.000+08:00

83km this week including a fantastic morning at the WAMC Lake Monger run when I ran with Sammie as she did her first ever 3km race and first ever race with a number!

Sammie ran brilliantly especially as she was so cold before we started. Only a couple of very short walks and her last km was her fastest in 6.03. I started the Garmin at the gun, not when we crossed the start line and stopped after I crossed the line and Sammie was in front of me so I think she probably ran 18:59 and definitely under 19min for the 3km.

Saw quite a few people there including Big Kev who was running with his daughter, Simon Elliott who was doing the 10km, his wife Fiona who did the 3km with Molly in the pram and Eldon and Charlotte who ran the 3km. Sammie and Charlotte ran together for the first km and had nice chat – just like a Sunday long run. It was great for Sammie to get a shout of encouragement from Mark Lee as he ran past while in the lead of the 10km race, she didn't walk again after that!

Very proud of Sammie and I think she is pretty pleased with herself – we can’t get the race number off her!!

Other runs for me last week were pretty much all easy running except for doing some strides after my run on Monday and then my usual 3 x 1600m interval session that I do 10 days out from the marathon.

Pretty happy with how this went. My left foot (I think there is a movie in that somewhere … ) felt fine. I took a Naproxen tablet with dinner and iced it again last night and all good this morning. I suspect it may have been a taper niggle as it has now gone completely but I am having issues with my right leg/ankle.

Pace was pretty much spot on and effort was very controlled. Slightly shorter recoveries and than last time I did this session. Legs didn’t feel fantastic but aerobically I felt very good.

I used my Garmin and found that the mile I had measured on Map My Run for my previous sessions was dead on to the metre.

Reps were 5:34; 5:34; 5:30 which was 3:29/km and 3:26/km pace.

Only other significant run was on Saturday. 21.4km which was really only a medium long run. Clown and I drove to the Raffles and ran out to Point Walter and back. Very easy paced, conversational run which was perfect 1 week out. Decent headwind on the way back which I hope is not around next Sunday.

It was good to run the part of the marathon course I don’t normally run on.

With about 4km to go, I developed a niggle in my right foot which was strange but by Sunday morning I had forgotten all about it. Didn't feel it at all during my run with Sammie on Sunday but it was there from the start of my easy 10km run on Monday and persisted for the whole run.

It seems that it is a bit of tibialis anterior tendon inflammation. It is minor and more of a discomfort than anything but I don't want it to get any worse so I have been back on the anti inflammatories and also the ice.

Took a day off today (Tuesday) which worked out well as it was not only bucketing down with rain outside but it was Sammie's 6th birthday.

We have been very lucky with the weather recently and Perth really is a great place to run which I was reminded off when I saw these photos from the Perth Now website. It is not hard to get out and run around a river that looks like this.

Marathon training - Week 16 (2 weeks to go) and more advice from Jack Daniels (video)

2011-06-09T09:26:00.003+08:00

A bit late with this post of last week's training. 114.86 km last week so it was really only a semi taper with a minor reduction in mileage. Main runs last week were a 23km medium long run on Tuesday morning and 19.5km on Thursday morning which included 8km @ tempo pace.

I think my Garmin measures overly long/slow on the first km of each run. For Thursday's workout it had me running at 4.15/km pace for a considerable part of my first tempo km and total time for the km 3:59 when I was definitely running in the mid 3:40s. Clown’s first km was 3:50 something and he was a bit behind me.

Although I turned right on 4km the map shows slightly different start finish points although in actuality I started and finished in pretty much the same spot.

Doesn’t really matter for this run as I was running on effort and not pace. Nice controlled tempo run where I was careful to stay below my lactate threshold at all times. Very much following the “train, don’t strain” philosophy at the moment.

Wind was bit odd, felt like a slight headwind both ways.

Nice to do a tempo run in a differnent spot. This is a good flat path/course although the noise and headlights on Mounts Bay Road are a bit of a drag.

Splits from my Garmin were:

03:59
03:44
03:42
03:51
03:47
03:51
03:42
03:50

Total 8km @ 3:48 average.

On Saturday morning I did a 27km long run with Simon Elliott. Just a touch over 27km @ 4.21 average pace although there were a few km in the 4.10-4.15 range.

It was a nice change to have a long run where I wasn’t going to have to push the pace for at least some of it.

I met Simon down by the river and we headed out to Garrett Road and then return via Maylands and East Perth.

When I got back to South Perth, there were some dolphins in the river right up close so when I got home, Sammie and I drove straight back down but unfortunately we missed them by about 1 minute.

This was a very enjoyable run. I had an ice bath afterwards which has freshened up my legs nicely at the time although I have been feeling a bit sluggish so far this week.

Ryan Gregson wins International Mile at Pre Classic

2011-06-06T22:19:00.002+08:00

10,000m from Pre Classic Distance Night video

2011-06-04T22:34:00.002+08:00

Probably one of the deepest 10,000m fields ever. 9 men go under 27mins - fantastic race with a great result!

Embedded video not available anymore but you can follow the link below and still watch it.

NikeHUB - Nike High School Track and Field - Videos - Mens 10000 Full Race Replay - Prefontaine Classic 2011

Marathon training - week 15 and moving into the 21st Century with a Garmin 610

2011-05-31T20:40:00.000+08:00

135.7km in week 15. Biggest week this program. I was hoping to have done something similar on the week we were on Rottnest but didn't manage it due to illness and how I felt at the time. It feels good to have got this done as my last hard week and now back off a bit as I start my taper.

I will be doing a full three week taper but will still be just over 100km this coming week. I have used the Pfitzinger and Douglas taper for three of my four marathons (I was unable to for Rottnest due to injury) and feel very comfortable and confident with it.

Last week I did my medium long run on Monday to compensate for no long run (due to Run for a Reason). Then I did an interval session on Tuesday.

Probably did this a day earlier than I should have done but wanted to get it out of the way so that the remainder of the week could be relatively easy running before my planned 35km/marathon specific long run on Saturday.

This morning’s session was 6km warmup; 4 × 1600m @ 5km race pace with 3:30 jog recovery; 6km warm down

6km – 26mins

1600m – 5:37
(700m – 3:27)
1600m – 5:35
(720m – 3:40 including swallowing a fly/cough/spit/splutter)
1600m – 5:38
(700m – 3:28)
1600m – 5:37

6km – 26:30

1600m were between 3:28 and 3:31 pace so right on what I think is probably my current 5km speed. Wasn’t busting a gut but probably just on the hard side of comfortably hard at least on the last rep.

Saw Simon Elliott heading out for an easy run – I was pretty envious and even more so when I saw him again when I was halfway through my last rep!

Other hard thing about that morning is that I was fasting for a workplace health assessment blood test. Waste of time though as when I asked them to take extra blood to check ferretin and red blood cell count they said they couldn’t and are only checking for cholesterol and glucose. So it is just the basic – are you a couch potato or not type assessment.

On Thursday I caught up with Clown and Sandgroper for a run out to the Maylands Police Academy. It was a really enjoyable run. We had a leisurely run and a good chat all the way. Nice morning for a run and a good pace for a chat at just under 5min/km.

Got in a few extra very short runs last week as well with Sammie who is training for the WAMC Kids Marathon which is being held on the morning of the Perth Marathon. Sammie is running 1-2km at a time at around 6min/km pace. Sometimes she has a small walk break but it is usually only for a few strides. She likes to have chat and likes to be in front!!

On Saturday, I used my new Garmin 610 for the first time. Only problem was that although I had set the unit distance to kilometres, the autolap was still on the default of miles. So I was OK in that I could monitor my actual pace but the laps were recording on the mile.

Ran out to Garrett Road, over the Bridge, up to Tonkin Highway and then back down to the little park at the back of Ascot Park. Had a drink and a gel then ran for about 600m when I had then run 17km at around 4.20-4.25/km pace – I will have to check and convert back from the miles.

Then ran 16km at MP effort and no slower than MP pace of 4.00/km. Was actually under this for most of the way – again I will have to convert. The last km was 3.50 has got mixed in with a mile because I hit stop at the end and then restarted when I did my cool down home whithout hitting lap – was going at 3:50/km pace I remember. Have a bit of learning to do with this new fangled technology.

These are the mile splits:

07:39 06:57 06:53 07:01 07:14 06:53 06:54 07:08 06:58 06:57 03:57 (0.56 of a mile- 07:00/mile pace) – 17km in 1:14:31 = 4:23/km

MP section: 06:19 06:21 06:19 06:18 06:23 06:20 6:23 6:24 6:15 then 6:34 (part MP/part cooldown – the 16th km was @ 3:50/km so 6.10 to 16km) – 16km in 63:12 = 3:57/km

Cooldown 7:44 7:42

So my 16km @ MP was done in 63:12 which is 3:57/km pace. Slowest mile was 6:24 which is just under 3:59 and quickest full mile was 6:15 which is 3:53

Workout done as planned. Bit annoyed that I have had to recreate everything in kms afterwards but I have fixed the autolap to kms now so should be all good from now on.

Here is my new toy!!

Marathon training - week 14 and Run for a Reason

2011-05-25T20:43:00.004+08:00

No long run this week due to 14km Run for a Reason on Sunday. Didn't get a proper warm up in for the race so slightly disappointingly I did 98.8km for the week. A decent warmup would have got me over the 100km

I did a pretty standard pre race week although I did stick in an additional medium long run on Monday before a 3 x 3 x 400m interval session on Tuesday, a medium long run on Thursday and then some strides after a recovery run on the day before the race.

The interval session went well. Strange morning for running with a thick smoke and fog haze over the city and suburbs and also pretty humid.

Due to the fog it was pretty dark down at the oval as it blocked out the pre-dawn light. I didn’t want to risk tripping or falling in the dark so I just did laps of the oval until it was a bit lighter but it didn’t really improve. I almost called it quits and thought about doing some hill repeats on the road under street lamps instead but figured that they wouldn’t really help with turnover for the weekend’s race. So I decided to run my intervals but stay very controlled and concentrate on where I was putting my feet as the edge of the oval is a bit rough in places.

I couldn’t see my watch so had to run purely on perceived effort and hope that it was about right.

Original plan was to come down in time over the sets as follows 87/84/80

3.3km warm up
400m rep 86.8
(100 rec 45.5)
400m rep 88.1
(100m rec 45.7)
400m rep 85.2
(400m rec 2:00.9)
400m rep 83.0
(200m rec 1:11.0)
400m rep 80.3
(200m rec 1:17.09)
400m rep 79.2
(400m rec 2:12.9)
400m rep 78.0
(400m rec 2:20.5)
400m rep 80.3
(400m rec 2:21.6)
400m rep 75.3
Total 5.8km with 3.6km of work in 25:11(26 secs faster than last time)

2.5km cool down

Rep times were pretty comparable to last time I did this session but the effort level was lower in that I ran more controlled.

I had an interesting recovery run on Friday. Despite the weather forecast, I decided the night before that I was going to do my recovery run down at Cottesloe and then have a dip in the ocean. Woke up at 5.30am – no rain. “Stupid weather forecast – can’t fool me”. 2 minutes later it starts raining … but not too heavy so I jump in the car and drive to Cottesloe. Had the stereo going (Ramones) so it wasn’t until I parked that I realised that it was not only a bit rainy but pretty bloody windy too. The rain started up again too and I could see that the sea was very rough.

Sat in the car having a debate with myself for a couple of minutes before deciding to drive home and run from there. Get a minute down the road and it isn’t raining and I decide that conditions will be the same at home so turn around and drive back to the car park.

Got my run in. Ran to Port Beach and back – strong tailwind on the way out and monster headwind on the way back. Got rained on but not too bad. Contemplated going for a swim but asked a guy who was walking up from the beach in his bathers what it was like and he said no go (I noticed he hadn’t actually been in).

Went and grabbed a coffee for the drive home and was back home by 7.30am

So missed out on the soak in the cold ocean which was the point of going there but it was an experience all the same.

Perfect conditions for race day on Sunday. I rode my bike there so that I could get away relatively quickly to get to Ben’s game in Vic Park which was kicking off at 10am. It was a cold morning but the only thing that really froze were my hands – wish I wore gloves …

Caught up with an old work colleague before the race and by the time I went to check my bag (still 25 minutes until the start) the queue was very long – I reckon about 20 minutes after it hardly moved in 5. I spotted Sugar so decided to just take a chance on leaving my bag.

We made our way to the start line and as seeded runners we had a chance to warm up a bit in front of the start. I ran up to Plain Street and back a couple of times. It wasn’t really a warm up but at least it turned the legs over.

Sugar had said he was going to run this as a tempo at around 3:40 but I guessed that plan was out the window when I hit 1km in 3:26 but he was at least 30m-40m in front of me.

Felt like I was running the right pace for me though. I could see Simon Elliott a bit behind him and intended to get up with him by the time we turned off Riverside Drive and onto the Freeway but he was running very strongly and pulled further away even though I maintained my pace.

Up near Parliament House, Epi ran up to me. I was surprised to see him as I knew he was starting back in the pack as he had not arranged a seeded start. We ran together for a bit but he then went in front just before we got to the tunnel. It was warm in the tunnel and I may have run a bit quicker in there just to get out the other end.

There was a drink station when we came out of the tunnel and a bit of an incline. I took a drink there and worked up the incline which was where I passed Epi.

Gina Grayson-Cassey was the first female and was just in front of me. I managed to pass her between the WAMC and the Causeway where I ran fairly hard. The run across the Causeway is a highlight of this race and not only because it is only about a km to go. The course this year went into the WACA at the entrance near the scoreboard. I put in a bit of a sprint when we got onto the oval and managed to pass one runner in front of me in the last 100m.

Results in the paper were based on chip time. Although I was 26th over the line, some bloke called Steve Moneghetti ran a faster chip time than me so pushed me back into 27th position. I am very happy though with my 50.35 (3.38/km pace) run and how controlled I felt during the race. I think the photos indicate that as apart from the sprint at the finish, there seems to be less tension in my shoulders than I normally have in shorter races.

Sugar had a good run as did Mark Lee. Really happy to see Simon Elliott have such a good run and Epi’s run should give him some confidence heading into the Perth Marathon.

I actually felt like I could run for a bit longer at that pace. It is such a good course I think that helps.

Marathon training - week 13

2011-05-15T14:21:00.000+08:00

120km this week. A good solid week where I hit the two main sessions I had planned perfectly.

Monday (18.6km) and Tuesday (23km) I got some easy mileage in although Tuesday was bit quicker than planned, especially for a couple of kms. Started off pretty easy but as I got towards Maylands things got interesting.

A guy who I often see running in the opposite direction but who never nods or anything, was running towards me but turned around about 30-40m in front of me. He seemed to pick things up a bit but we were going at a similar pace but after about 800m I caught up to him. As I ran alongside, I turned and said g’day but he just turned and then ignored me. Oh well, I thought, stuff you – so I picked it up a bit further. He did too but I put about 20-30m on over the next couple of kms which I reckon were at about 3.50/km pace. He made a real effort and got up just behind me before he turned off, probably to head home whereas I still had about 13km to go.

Once you have picked it up, it is a bit harder to slow back down again and the second half of the run was slightly quicker than the first. Hit the turn around at around 50 mins and that had included the quicker couple of kms whereas the return was in 49mins. All up 23km @4.17/km pace.

Don’t feel like the “race” did me any harm and probably good to practice surging/recovering.

On Thursday, I joined in with the BT RunClub interval session. 6 x 1km was the same session as last week although this week the easterly was a lot stronger plus I decided to jog the 2 min recoveries so it made for a harder session. The difference in the conditions with the wind makes it hard to compare this session to last week.

I think taking account for the wind, the times are comparable but the fact that the recoveries were jogged rather than walked makes this an improvement on last week.

Jog from home – 500-600m approx

Warm-up 3.6km + 2 short strides

6×1000m with a slow 2 minute jog recovery (walked 30 secs/jogged 1.30 after the 5th rep).

1000m – 3’26

1000m – 3’16

1000m - 3’31(did this one on my own as Simon went for a toliet break – it’s much harder on your own)

1000m – 3’11

1000m – 3’27 (felt like I was wading through concrete when the wind blew up)

1000m – 3’13

Warm-down 3 km

On Saturday morning, Simon Elliott lent me his Garmin for this run which was much appreciated and made for a much better session than I would have been able to do on a measured course and just a watch. Did this solo around the Ascot/Garrett Road/Maylands loop from home.

This was a pretty important marathon specific workout for me. After recent workouts and the 32km race, I am confident about my fitness but the next few weeks are going to be very much focused on preparing my body to burn glycogen efficiently at marathon pace. This was also quite a hard workout mentally as I was doing it solo and most of my harder workouts in recent weeks/months have been with company.

I was a bit worried about my ability to finish this workout as planned early on as it wasn’t as comfortable as I thought the first few km should be but on reflection I think that was more a factor of the first 7km stretch being into the wind and over the rolling hills at the back of Rivervale/Ascot.

I felt really good over the last 7km apart from the uphill at the East Perth inlet and pushed on for the last couple of km with the last one in 3:46.

Looking forward to getting a Garmin of my own now.

4km warm up – 4:29/4:28/4:24/4:27

7km @ MP – 4:00/3:59/3:59/4:03/4:00/3:56/3:57

1km @ 4:15 – 4:11

7km @ MP – 4:01/3:56/3:57/3:57/3:57/3:58/3:54

1km @ 4:15 – 4:19 (included a stop at a drink fountain to wash down a gel)

7km @ MP – 3:57/4:00/3:56/3:57/3:57/3:54/3:46

2.66km cool down – 5:02/4:37/3:07 ( .66km @ 4:44/km pace)

All up 29.71km in 2:02:49 (4:08/km pace)
This week I will do my medium long run on Monday so I can get some 400s in on Tuesday morning as a sharpening session for next Sunday's Run for a Reason 14km race. No Sunday weather forecast yet but if it may be windy along the Graham Farmer Freeway I suspect. I'm hoping to run under 52mins.

Picking up the race packet/number this week - I am race number 4.

..

Bernard Lagat workout video

2011-05-11T08:30:00.001+08:00

Workout:
Interval- 10x 600 meters
Rest- 60 secs over 80-90 meter jog
Goal pace- 1:40
Location- golf course, Tucson, Arizona

Marathon training - week 12 and 1987 World Champs Marathon

2011-05-08T21:09:00.003+08:00

103km this week. Main workouts were an interval session on Thursday and then a good long run in the hills with Sugar early on Saturday morning. The first couple of days of the week were very easy making sure that I recovered fully from the previous Sunday's 32km race.

On Thursday, I Joined in with the BT RunClub interval session.

500m (approx) to Simon’s house then
3.6km warm-up before
6 × 1km

We were a bit slower when we were running into the wind. I had no expectations for this session as it was my first for a long time and would have been happy if I had run 3:30 average so pleased and a bit suprised how well this went.

Felt very strong and controlled – only got hard from about a third of the way into the 5th rep which was when I was wishing we were only doing 5. Luckily the last rep was with the wind

Recoveries were decent though – 2 min walk recovery after each rep.

3’19
3’17
3’21
3’17
3’23
3’17
ave: 3’19

3km warm-down

A good start to VO2max work.

On Saturday, we started in the dark. Howling easterly made this steady/hard work over the first half – then Brooking Road which I always find a struggle, not helped today by having to stop at the highway to let cars go past.

We set a good pace on the way out and then apparently went 3.55/km for the last 5.8km which was downhill and with the wind behind us. All up 26.65km in 1:54 (4:16/km).

Good fun though and as always excellent conversation. We were all done and refuelled by 8.30am. Got home to find two beautifully behaved children so couldn’t be happier.

Mileage will be up a bit this week and I will most likely do pretty specific marathon pace long run next weekend.

Some new old marathon videos have been loaded onto YouTube recently. Here is part 1 of the 1987 World Champs Marathon (3 parts in all so less than 45mins all up but covers the whole race). Great course for watching on TV, taking in all the great sights of Rome. Less enjoyable are the "expert" comments of Ron Clarke. It's no surprise his stint as a commentator was short lived based on this.

You can also find the 1988 Olympics and 1986 Commonwealth Games marathons on You Tube now.

Marathon training: weeks 10-11 including Rottnest holiday and Perth 32Km race

2011-05-06T15:31:00.001+08:00

It has been a few weeks since I have been able to update due to our Rottnest holiday and then some unexpected/unwelcome internet outages when we got back.

Week 10's mileage was an estimated 98.9km. I actually missed a day this week when I came down crook the night before we were due to leave for Rottnest. Bit of gastro and nausea left me feeling very average in the morning and with packing and a ferry trip ahead of us as well, I reluctantly decided to break a nearly 100 day streak (pretty much since we had got back from Bali).

Missed what was supposed to be 19km with 12km tempo on that but not overly concerned.

Rottnest was very relaxing apart from Rox's bike getting stolen from the jetty when we arrived. It turned out though that it wasn't actually "stolen" but that some stupid old woman had taken it from the jetty thinking that it was a hire bike. In case anyone, thinks I am being harsh calling her stupid, I think it is pretty hard to mistake a purple/pink Malvern Star Pathfinder for a red/white hire bike but maybe it's just me ...

Got lots of good running in on Rottnest although my long run was not as long as I intended. I was very annoyed as I missed a turn which cut the run shorter. I started to head out on another 7.7km loop to make up the distance and time but spat it after about 500m and walked home. Although it was still approx 30km in 2:15, I’ll need to get a 2:45-3:00 long run in somewhere before the taper starts to make up for this.

I did a few runs of an hour and just over rather than proper medium long runs. It was very windy the week we were there and combined with the hills and running on my own, I decided to keep things at a level where they were still enjoyable.

Probably the best run/workout I had while I was there was a hill repeat session I did at Oliver Hill. Oliver Hill is in the middle of Rottnest Island and where the gun battery that was built during WWII is located. I ran there as warm up (16 mins) then 6 x up the Hill with a jog back then walk recovery of total 2 min. Times for the hill were:
1:17
1:13
1:14
1:12
1:10
1:07

17 min cool down back to our accommodation at Geordie Bay. This was a good session. I haven’t done any speedwork for a while so this was a good reintroduction.

I took another day off on the day we returned from Rottnest (Friday). Packing and then ferry in the morning. Unpacking, washing and shopping in the afternoon. I decided also that it was probably not a bad idea to have a day off with the 32km race on Sunday. Although I hadn't done overdone the running on Rottnest, what I had done, combined with a fair bit of hilly cycling, some of it pulling Sammie on the trailgator, had left my legs feeling a bit fatigued.

Saturday morning I just did 6.6km including 1km at intended race pace ie 4min.

Perth 32km race report:

Planned to run this at 4min/km pace and achieved it exactly (2:08:28)though the race didn’t go exactly as I envisaged.

My stopwatch crapped itself as I was getting ready so I was reduced to using my Polar FS1 HR monitor which only has time elapsed and which is only hours and minutes after 59:59/1hour.

First km was at 3:55 as was the 2nd (from memory). Around this time I was passed by Kev Matthews and Dave Kennedy so made the decision to stick with them. Kev was saying that his plan was for 4:05/km but they were going at around 3:50-3:55 but I figured it was much better to have people to run with than run on my own.

After about 7km, Dave pushed on and Kev and I were running together with Brad Hart and another guy. We were maintaining around 3:55/km pace fairly comfortably and having a bit of a chat too which was reassuring that we weren’t going to hard. At around 12km we passed the 25km marker for the way back and I said to Kev that if we are still going at this pace when we get back to here we will be doing alright but it was in hope rather than confidence.

The pace was pretty constant and moderately hard ie not as hard as tempo pace. We were passed by Nathan Doig and Cody Angell near Matilda Bay. They had started off at 4min/km and cranked it up from there and although we ran with them for a couple of hundred metres, they had gapped us pretty well by the time we hit the turnaround.

From the turnaround, I didn’t want to let the pace lag at all so ran to the front and pushed on. Brad and Kev stuck with me although there was a short period along Mounts Bay Road where Kev dropped off by about 20m and I thought he might be gone.

As we got closer to the Brewery, we saw Dave Kennedy up ahead of us and Kev said we should try to catch him. He quickened the pace and opened up a gap on Brad and me of about 20-30m. After a km or so though he slowed back to us and said that he didn’t think Dave was going to blow up.

We continued to gain on Dave though and were pretty close to him as we crossed the Narrows. Close enough to see Gary Carlton do an excellent job as marshall in preventing an arrogant cyclist from riding through a stop sign when Dave was crossing the road. As we ran past, an argument was on in full with the cyclist bleating "but you’re not a policeman … " – classic.

Gary's comment in this week's Hills email was that "A few Lycra clad cyclists with a peanut for a brain would be even worse off after their selfish behaviour at the Traffic Control points. I think they must sell cyclists’ Lycra clothing with a free do-it-yourself frontal lobotomy kit".

We caught Dave just after Mends Street and Kev put his foot down increasing the pace to what must have been about 3:45/km. It was too quick for me and by the time we got to the big flagpole, Kev had opened up a big gap, Brad was running away from me too and then Dave passed me back. I think I was feeling the accumulated effects of the hills and wind of Rottnest over the previous week. Not sure what my pace was but probably dropped to somewhere around 4:05-4:10/km pace over the last couple of kms.

Rox and Sammie and one of Sammie’s friends came down to the end of Hurlingham Street to give me a bit of a cheer as I ran past which was just what I needed at that point. Gave me a real boost although it didn’t help my pace much.

2:08:28 is 9 mins quicker than I ran this race last year and although last year was slightly long, my average pace per km was 4:15 compared to 4:00 this year. Unfortunately for me, Kev ran 6 mins faster than last year and beat me by a minute. Finished 9th overall and 2nd in M40-44.

Good signs for going sub 2:50 at the Perth Marathon though. With a few more weeks training and some more specific MP and also VO2max work and then a taper, if things go well, I should be in shape to run this pace for the full distance. Having someone to run with though will be a big factor so hopefully there will be a few of us around the 2:50 mark – it seems like Kev definitely will be.

I did a 2km warmup and a very slow 2km cooldown so 36km for the day. Pretty tired in the afternoon and lots of twitching in my calf muscles. No chafing, back soreness or any of the other problems I sometimes get so otherwise very good.

Due to the day off, no medium long run and the short run on Saturday, total for week 11 was only 88.8km.

All good so far this week and will be back over 100km with also first interval (6 x 1km) session done.

Saucony - What is Strong?

2011-05-05T09:18:00.003+08:00

Ben St Lawrence -10,000m Australian record video

2011-05-03T14:19:00.002+08:00

Olympic Games qualifier and 5th fastest in world this year.

Watch more videos on Flotrack

Far more boringly, I will endeavour to update with my last couple of weeks training in the next day or so. We were offline on Rottnest and then when we got back some "intelligent" council workers severed the fibre optic cable when doing some digging down the road which knocked out our internet and cable tv for the weekend.

Marathon training - week 9 also very nice new shoes!

2011-04-17T16:18:00.002+08:00

Just over 120km this week. 2 medium long runs and then a decent marathon pace workout as part of a 30.5km long run were the main efforts.

I was able to push my long run back to Sunday this week as Ben had a late kick off and I was feeling a bit flat after Thursday's 21km run.

Simon Elliott and I made an early start on Sunday. We ran to the back of Ascot Park which is about 12.5km in 52:30 which is 4:17/km pace so a bit quicker than we intended to go. We tried slowing down a couple of times but it was just coming so easy we went with it.

We stopped for a drink and a gel at the small park by the river and then set off for our marathon pace segment. I had measured from here to the gazebo where Rob, Craig and I did the fast finish long run a few weeks back – 4.25km so 16.25km all up to the big flag pole in South Perth.

Made it to the gazebo in 16:31 (3:53/km) about 30secs ahead of goal 4min pace and carried on at a pretty steady pace. Simon pulled us along at a reasonable clip although I did open up a bit of a gap after we got to the Causeway. Made it to the flagpole in 1:03:49 which is an overall pace of 3:55/km with the last 12km taking 47:18 (3:56/km) which is about 20secs quicker than I ran it with Rob when we just did the 12km fast finish.

A very slow jog home with a couple of drink stops and I was pretty pleased to get some Endura in when I got home.

I’m really pleased with this run especially as we didn’t exactly dawdle on the way out. While it took a decent effort to maintain the pace over the last 5 or so kms, for the most part, I felt like I was cruising at that pace. Goal MP pace is still a bit slower than that and I do have to stick another 26km at that pace on but I think this morning’s run was a very good workout for utilising the right systems etc for the marathon.

Probably would have run a little slower without Simon to work off of so it was good having him there so we could suffer together …

On Friday I ran in my new Saucony Mirage shoes. These are lighter than Asics GS Trainers but with similar support. Only 4mm heel rise same as Saucony Kinvaras. These felt fantastic straight out of the box and will be regularly rotated with the Kinvaras. They are built on a similar sole to the Kinvara but with a little bit of extra support in the arch. The upper is more like a traditional running shoe with a bit more structure than the Kinvara. Good room in the toebox. I have taken an instant like to these. Here is a video review from US Runners World

Just settling down now to watch the London Marathon live and have received text messages with halfway splits for Dave (1:26) and JK (1:20) in the Zurich Marathon. Update - JK 2:49, Dave 2:57

A late night ahead on Monday night with the Boston Marathon from 9.30pm. Mass and elite race starts at 10pm. I'll be tracking Clown and Epi so I hope they run around 2:50 so I can get to bed before 1am!!

Whatever happened to Daniel Komen

2011-04-14T06:00:00.000+08:00

I recently read this article in Competitor magazine - fascinating reading. I highly recommend reading the article - follow the embedded link below and then watch the race video below that.

Whatever happened to Daniel Komen

Competitor
March 2011 p. 58

Marathon training - Week 8 including massive PB at Bridges 10km

2011-04-11T11:58:00.002+08:00

I backed off a bit this week - total 84.3km. This was for a dual purpose. My mileage had been gradually increasing for a month or so but I had not taken a recovery week. With some big weeks coming up, including a massive effort planned for the 9 days we are on Rottnest, I thought it was time to ease back for a week and absorb and consolidate the training of the past few weeks.

The second reason was that this would give me a chance to sharpen/freshen up a bit and race the Bridges 10km. Apparently this will be last year that the traditional "Around the Bridges" route will be able to be used due to the Barrack Street foreshore development which is a shame.

So this week I replaced the Tuesday medium long run with a 3 x 3 x 400m interval session and cut back the length of the Thursday medium long run.

The interval session is a pretty regular session for me now in the week before a 5-10km race. Last time I cut it back to 2 reps per set but went back to the 3 reps today.

Plan was to come down in time over the sets as follows 87/84/80

4km warm up in 18:49
Dynamic stretching and drills (2:47)
400m rep 84.2
(100 rec 44.6)
400m rep 86.9
(100m rec 49.1)
400m rep 84.2
(400m rec 2:09.3)
400m rep 82.9
(200m rec 1:23.6)
400m rep 82.4
(200m rec 1:22.8)
400m rep 82.0
(400m rec 2:15.3)
400m rep 78.5
(400m rec 2:11.4)
400m rep 80.3
(400m rec 2:25.0)
400m rep 73.6
Total 5.8km with 3.6km of work in 25:36

2.7km cool down in 13:35

Session was very comparable to when I was doing it late last year in preparation for 5-8km races. I deliberately pushed harder on the last rep but ran pretty well within myself for the other reps as I haven’t been doing much anaerobic stuff (ie nil).

On Friday I did some strides after a recovery run, just to maintain some muscle tension and feel ready to go rather than sluggish come Sunday. Not sure if I have recommended this articel before but if I have, here it is again - Managing Muscle Tension http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=21918

On Sunday, I had a great run at the Bridges 10km – in fact I think this may be close to if not actually my best race ever.

Took 1:16 off of my 10km PB and not only broke 37mins for the first time but 36 mins as well.

Won the 40-44 age group and really pleased with my overall effort especially when it got hard into what was a very strong wind over the last 2km.

There was a very strong easterly blowing (+30km/hr) and I went out a little quicker than I planned to but wanted to try and tack onto the back of a couple of runners into the headwind towards the Causeway. Backed off slightly when the pack thinned after the first 1km.

Felt like I was running comfortably and controlled and the end of the Causeway came at just the right time (approx 3km) and we had a tailwind for the next 5km. I had constant pressure from Kevin Matthews (also 40-44 age group) behind me which meant that I was never able to take the foot off the pedal the whole way.

The uphill into the wind over the Narrows with approx 2km to go was hard but I think everyone was finding it hard as no one passed me there and I felt like I was making up some ground on the runners in front of me.

Once we were off the Bridge it was about 1500m to the finish and I was determined to hold my position and pick off anyone in front of me if I could. The new straight finish was a massive improvement and I felt quite strong as I ran to the finish especially when I could see the clock and that I was going to go under 36 mins. (I had been hitting my splits at each km but hadn’t really looked at my watch since 5km as I was just running on maximum effort so what was the point of looking at my watch, I wasn’t going to slow down on purpose and I couldn’t run any harder).

Splits:
3:23
3:39
3:40
3:30
3:31 (17:45 at 5km – only 4 secs off my 5km PB)
3:33
3:33
3:40 (28:32 at 8km – an 8km PB)
3:44
3:37 (35:54 – PB by 1:16 and 2 mins quicker than I ran in this race last year).

Not sure where I finished - maybe around 20th but I did win the M40-44 age group which was a bonus!

Lots of PBs run - congrats to Sugar for another PB and also top 10 overall, an age group win and a team win, not a bad trifecta.

Spent the rest of the day basking in satisfaction. Had a couple of donuts and vegged on the couch watching the Paris Marathon then had pizza for dinner which thanks to Sammie spinning the winning letter on the wheel at Hero's Pizza didn't cost us anything - another bonus!

Good luck to Clown and Epi in Boston on Monday 18th, Bruce in London and Dave and JK in Zurich next weekend.

Rotterdam and Paris Marathons this Sunday

2011-04-08T17:45:00.001+08:00

Paris Marathon is being shown on the Eurosport channel on Foxtel while Rotterdam is streaming on www.universalsports.com (both on Sunday afternoon).

I am going to record Paris and watch Rotterdam. Both should be cracking races but I have loved the Rotterdam Marathon ever since Deek won back in the early 80s against Carlos Lopes and Alberto Salazar.

Here is a great preview video for Rotterdam

Compilatie interviews Kenia from Like2Run on Vimeo.

Running form video

2011-04-08T09:00:00.001+08:00

Found this the other night and thought it might be of interest to more than just me

Olympic Video from Good Form on Vimeo.

Marathon training - Week 7

2011-04-06T11:26:00.003+08:00

122.65km last week. Main runs were a 20 x 1 min on / 1 min off session on Monday, my regular medium long run on Tuesday (23km @ 4:11/km pace), another medium long run with Clown on Thursday (21km) and then a 32.7km long run with Simon Elliott on Saturday morning.

The Monday session was 4km warmup in 18 mins then 20 × 1 min on / 1 min off around the Kent Street Ovals before a short cooldown run home (1.37km)

I ran just short of 8 × 1.32km laps in the 40 mins so approx 10.4km which was good going on grass. Distance may be slightly over but it is what I measured it a while back on Map My Run.

Saturday's long run with Simon Elliott was out around Ascot park and then back via Maylands and East Perth and along to the big flag pole in South Perth. it's the same run as I did with Clown and Epi a fortnight ago but without the fast finish.

According to Simon’s Garmin we did most of the running together at around 4:15/km pace which felt surprisingly but nicely comfortable. A couple of quicker km with the wind behind us through Maylands.

Simon turned at the Fisheries building in South Perth to catch up with the BT RunClub and I carried on down to the flagpole. It was only just before I got to the flagpole that I remembered that the cooldown part of the run was back to the Fisheries building not to my turnoff and therefore back into what was now a pretty stiff easterly.

Also pretty hard going back past my turn off for the second time … it was very nice to turn and run back with the wind behind me for the last part.

Really happy with how comfortable this run felt. Only downside – my back stiffened up a bit when we stopped for our first gel (the low water tap doesn’t help) and when I stopped running it stiffened up considerably and has gone into spasm a bit. It is still a bit stiff and sore today (Wednesday) but doesn't seem to be affecting my running just standing and walking ...

Here is an interview with Craig Mottram. Great to see him back running injury free and I am really looking forward to seeing how he runs in the US and Europe over the next few months.

I have posted before about Running the Sahara http://biscuitmanruns.blogspot.com/2009/06/still-going-well.html

One of the runners was Charlie Engle. I have just finished reading an aricle he wrote for the US Runner's World magazine and the footnote to the article said that Charlie was (as of Feb 2011) serving 21 months in a federal prison for fraud offences (allegedly overstating his income on a loan application). I have found his blog which outlines what has happened and is happening. It makes for very interesting reading. I've certainly got my views about a justice system which lets the those responsible for the GFC get off scot free (or with a salary bonus) but pursues individuals because they are an easy target.

Anyway here is his blog:

http://charlieengle.com/

If you are interested in his story, I strongly recommend that you read this article from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26nocera.html?_r=1&ref=business

Marathon training - Week 6 including 511km in March

2011-04-01T15:55:00.000+08:00

Although it is almost the end of week 7 of my program, this is a quick post to note that I did 111km last week and with a solid first half of this week, got up over 500km for the month. My highest previous monthly total was 440km in December last year.

I feel like I have established a really good base to build on over the next 8 weeks before I commence a three week gradual taper for the marathon on June 19.

Significant runs last week were my regular medium long run on Tuesday (21km in just under 1:30 so approx 4:16/km pace) and a progressive tempo run with Clown on Thursday.

We were both feeling a bit flat so decided to go out at marathon pace and see what happened. Marathon pace felt pretty comfortable and we were still having a bit of a chat as we ran down to Maylands. I only took a split at halfway (4km) which was 15:58 so right on MP or 4min/km pace.

We picked it up a bit on the way back, particularly over the last 2km and especially the last km. 14:53 on the way back with the last km @ 3:26.

Very good and enjoyable run. Was still pretty humid but no wind which made things OK. Pleased to be able to keep up with Clown for a change :-)

Warm up 4.1km in 18:30
MP/tempo 8km in 30:52
Cooldown 5.4km in 24:00

Sunday's long run was just over 28km @ 4:34/km pace but it did include 4 x up the Mount Yokine hill. The "good" thing about this hill is that it makes the rest of the run seem relatively easy.

Training has gone well this week but I know I am right into marathon training now as I wake up tired and go to bed very tired ...

Marathon training - week 5 inc first 20 mile run of this program

2011-03-22T22:16:00.003+08:00

123.76km for the week. Took it pretty easy early in the week after a hard effort at Darlington.

I had quite a bit of delayed muscle soreness which peaked on Monday. The best I felt was when I went for a recovery run in the morning so I actually went for one in the afternoon as well hoping that would have a similar effect - no such luck ...

Medium long run (23km @4:27/km pace) on Tuesday, around the Bridges with Simon on Wednesday (12.8km @ 4:31/km pace) and medium long run with Clown on Thursday (19.4km @ 4:35/km pace).

On Friday morning I did an easy run to the Narrows and back – ran some on the grass and some on the path. Grass was wet and I didn’t want my shoes to get soaked.

Plan was to try to do 30 × 100m with full ie walk back recovery as a muscular endurance workout. The most strides I have done previously is 10 so this was a bit of a jump up.

It turns out that my approx 100m is actually 120m. I was running them in between 17.4 and 18.4 secs so approx 15 secs for 100m pace. One thing I didn’t really take into account/underestimated was the amount of time this workout was going to take with the full recoveries. Even with starting each rep as soon as I got back it still took me 25 mins to do the first 15 reps.

By the time I had go to 15 reps I had decided I was going to scale this one back to 20 reps as much for the time it was taking, a bit of boredom and not wanting to overdo things.

As it turned out, on the 18th rep I felt a twinge in my left hamstring. More of a slight cramp than a pull but I decided to call the session there and slowly jogged the 1km home.

I think I got my muscles to the fatigued state which was the point of the session. I have iced my hamstring and it has seemed OK since.

On Saturday morning's long run, I started with Clown from my place and met Epi down at Burswood. We went out a bit quicker for the normal long run paced bit of 16.5km at around 4.23/km pace which felt very comfortable and conversational. We ran out through Rivervale and around Ascot Park before crossing Garrett Rd bridge and then through Bayswater and Maylands.

We started the fast finish segment near the Maylands Tennis Club and went out at a good pace. Too good in fact because after about 1.5km I said to Clown,“this feels more like tempo pace than marathon pace” and he said that we were going at 3:46/km pace. I backed off a bit pretty much straight away because I knew that I would blow up if I tried keep that pace up and a survival shuffle would be a bit of disaster I didn’t need.

Rob kept going at a solid, steady pace and although I kept it to about 20m until we got to East Perth, he put a good bit of distance on me on the run to the big flagpole just past Coode Street which is exactly 12km.

I finished 54 secs behind Rob in 47:30 which is 3:57/km. My goal marathon pace is 4:00/km so I am pretty happy with this at this stage of my program and after a hard half marathon last Sunday. Rob looked like he was jogging up in front of me as we ran through South Perth and is looking great for Boston.

We did another 4 and a bit km as a cool down – very slowly at first but then at a easy pace. I was pretty happy to finish and it was good to get up over 32km for the first time this training block. Total 32.7km @ 4:17/km pace.

I could feel the niggle in my hammy but that is all it was just a feeling, it didn’t affect my running at all but I think I will give the strides a miss for a while.

It was also a great weekend for following elite running as well. On Saturday afternoon/evening I watched the streaming of the Sydney Track Classic and saw David Rudisha destroy the field in the 800m and then on Sunday, I watched the streaming of the NYC Half Marathon and also followed the live results coming through from the World Cross Country Champs.

The NYC Half was a classic race with Mo Farah just getting up over Gebre Gebremariam despite Gebremariam trying to block Farah in the final sprint home. Pretty disgraceful and I am surprised more hasn't been made of it. Perhaps if he had succeeded and won as a result it may have got more notice. With less than a mile to go there three of them in a line on the straight run home. Galen Rupp finished a close third.

Here is the race video - you can skip forward quite easily. Men's finish from about 1.14 into the video (there is about 15 mins of guff pre race start).

Watch live streaming video from nyrr at livestream.com

Shawn Forrest (9th - 1:01:25) and Lee Troop (20th - 1:03:13) both ran very well with Forrest in the lead pack until about 4 miles to go.

Great to see Craig Mottram have a good one at World XC - 21st and first non African (well, there was one Spaniard in front of him but he was an African Spaniard). He was actually 23rd across the line but then two disqualifications came up for the guys who finished 15th and 18th apparently for fighting!

Lots of good marathons coming up in April with Boston, London and Rotterdam.