Arthur's Seat

Back in Edinburgh for the weekend, preparing for the sale of my flat. A good opportunity to do some running in cooler weather than we've been having down south. Saturday I did 4 laps of my usual route around Inverleith, plus a little extra, for a total of 9.45 miles, and felt good - I could have happily continued but I had some chores to do.



Sunday I re-ran the route of the BUPA Great Winter Run, a 5km race around Arthur's Seat, the hill which dramatically overlooks Edinburgh city centre. The route follows a road which climbs around the hill for around a mile, levels out for around a mile, with fantastic views over the city, and then descends over the course of the third mile.





The hill isn't particularly steep but it's relentless, and it's generally pretty windy on top. So it's a nice wee run to waken you up on a Sunday morning. When I did the Great Winter Run - which isn't quite a full lap - I went round in 28 minutes 20. This time I did the full 3.25 miles in 31:08, so a bit slower, but I'll blame it on slowing down several times to take photos...













Last weekend we were in Hertfordshire and dodged the 30+ degree heat by getting up early to do a few laps of Fairlands Valley Park on the Saturday, and then had a leisurely run across the fields to Datchworth on Sunday. The intervening weeks have been a bit quiet on the running front due to work commitments, but I still totalled 46 miles for the two weeks. My total for the year is now 465 miles and I'm on schedule to exceed my 750 mile target comfortably.

Half-way

Half way through the year, and the challenge is going well - my total for the year now stands at 428 miles, well past the half-way mark in terms of distance.

This week wasn't such a productive week for running - I had a short notice request to go and work in Reading on an urgent project which meant no lunch-time running. So just a couple of runs at the weekend, but due to my inactivity during the week I felt like doing a longer run on Saturday, and in spite of the temperatures in the high 20s, managed 4.5 laps in Greenwich for 9 miles - my longest run since the Milton Keynes back in March. Today I felt a little stiff but ran a gentle 4 laps of Greenwich in rather cooler weather - still around 25 degrees but a nice cool breeze.

Tomorrow marks the "official" start of my training for the New Forest Half on 26th September. I'd like to break 2 hours this time (I aimed to do that at Milton Keynes but was scuppered by starting too fast and by the unexpectedly steep hill in the final mile). So I think I'm going to set 1:55 as my target. It's a tough target: 8:45 minute miles for 13.1 miles, and the website says the route is "undulating" - so I think I can do it if I train well.

Greek holidays, hot sun and a new running venue

Just back from 2 weeks' holiday on the beautiful Greek island of Samos, where the temperature started high and got higher, reaching 39 degrees at one point. So a good time to enjoy the delicious food, relaxation at the beach, floating and swimming in the Aegean and the hotel pool, and a bit of sightseeing around the island.

The temperature meant it wasn't great weather for running, and I originally didn't plan to do any at all, but we took our shoes and shorts along on the offchance and in the end we did 4 short runs, 2 at either end of the holiday when the temperatures were marginally cooler.

Running at a leisurely pace and in the early morning also helped, and running along a beautiful coastline with the prospect of fresh fruit, Greek yoghurt and honey for breakfast was a nice reward for toiling up the hills in the heat.

So around 12 unexpected Greek miles to add to the June miles total - which I'd expected to be rather modest due to the holidays.

Back home and the weather in the UK is pretty hot too, albeit not quite in the same league as Greece. Since getting back I've managed a couple of trips to Dulwich, doing 5 and 4 miles, and also a visit to Fairlands Valley Park in Stevenage, a nice park with lots of scope for long runs alongside a couple of artificial lakes and through trees. It's a long thin park, split by a road, but a lap of the larger part of the park is around 2.5 miles, so it probably covers a similar area to Greenwich Park, and it's a lot quieter. There are some gentle hills too, although not quite in the Greenwich league.

But all in all a good venue for running when we visit Hertfordshire. On Saturday I did a couple of big laps and one smaller lap for a total of 5.9 miles. Just over 44 miles so far in June, with my total for the year now at 415 miles.

While I was on holiday I read a really inspiring book: Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall. It's a difficult book to categorise but at its heart the messages are clear: the human species originally survived, and then thrived, as a result of our ability to do endurance running; our bodies are capable of much more than we believe, as long as we eat well (avoiding processed food as much as possible), keep hydrated, and run easy - running is meant to be, and feel like, fun; and modern, expensive running shoes which provide a lot of support and cushioning and promote heel striking rather than forefoot running, actually cause, rather than prevent injury.

It's a book which taught me a lot and I'll be trying to put some of it in action from now on.

Since my last blog entry I've signed up for a few more races: I'm going to do the BUPA London 10000 again, in May 2011; I've signed up for the New Forest Half Marathon on 26th September this year and, next year, I'm going for the big one: 26 miles 385 yards at the Brighton Marathon on Sunday 10th April 2011.

Lots more about those in races in future blog entries....

Success !

Big success at the BUPA 10000 on Monday - I finished in 54:14, well ahead of my 55 minute target... 8m 44s per mile, and while it didn't feel easy it certainly felt a lot more comfortable than the first 2 10ks I did back in 2008.

The weather turned out to be perfect for running: cool and grey but not much wind. As with all BUPA races the start was really well-organised - I was in wave 4 out of 9 and having got there early I was right up at the front of my pen so got off to a nice clean start.

As usual a large proportion of people sprinted away at the start - not sure about the point of that unless you're elite - better to finish strong than start strong - but anyway, I went off comfortably and reached the 1km mark on Embankment in 5:49. As I started to warm up my pace picked up and I did 5:28 and 5:21 for the next 2km, putting me nicely on target for 55 minutes. The race leaders passed in the opposite direction at this point - fantastic pace they keep up and it's like watching a different sport when you see their leg extension and length of stride.

The course was basically very flat but the fourth km into the City contained the only real hill so my 4th km was a little slower at 5:32. The streets around the City were quite narrow and there were a few kerbs to watch out for and the enclosed spaces meant it started to get a litle hot, although they had showers set up around here which were welcome. I passed the half-way mark in 27:34, so still right on schedule.

Exactly 5:30 for km 6, and then a bit of downhill back onto Embankment, with kms 7 and 8 taking me 5:23 and 5:17. This stretch seemed to pass very slowly although it was probably worse for the people running the opposite way knowing they still had 8km to go.

The turn off Embankment onto Horse Guards was very welcome, especially as Sophie was waiting there to cheer me on, and the 9th km took me 5:18. Turning up Whitehall I knew I was on target for a good time and just tried to keep my pace up until the final turn into The Mall and under Admiralty Arch. The last 400 metres were a lot more comfortable than my previous two 10ks and I managed a little sprint to make my last 1km the fastest of the race in 5:16, bringing me home in 54:18 according to my watch, although the "official" chip time was 4 seconds quicker.

A really enjoyable run and a well-organised race - and thanks to generosity of my sponsors I raised over £200 for Cure Parkinson's Trust.

A big thank you also to Sophie for supporting and photographing me on the day - and for all the support she gives me the rest of the time.

So... back to the 750 mile challenge: my total for May was an excellent 80.31 miles, and three runs this week have taken my overall total past the half-way mark to 382.6 miles. So still ahead of schedule.

Two days to go

Did my last pre-10K run today.... a couple of laps of Greenwich. A cool, showery day, ideal for running, even more so since the rain (and the bank holiday weekend) seemed to have scared a lot of people away leaving the park much quieter than usual. Shame it looks like it's going to warm up for Monday's race but at 20 degrees it shouldn't be too bad to run in.

This is the uphill section of the lap around Greenwich. At one time running up it once was a struggle but these days three or four laps is pretty routine and it's a good workout which makes running faster on the level a lot easier.

Having a nice park to run in like Greenwich makes a big difference - a lot easier to get motivated to go out running, and keep running, than if I was pounding the pavements, having to dodge pedestrians, cross roads and breathe vehicle fumes.

So... the BUPA 10000 on Monday. As usual my first two goals are 1) to complete the course and

2) run all the way around. Assuming I can manage both of those, goal 3 is to beat my previous best 10k time (59:59 at Hampton Court Palace in 2008) and goal 4 is to beat 55 minutes, which means 8:53 miles or better. Let's see...

Total miles in May is now 74.1 miles and, for 2010, 364.8, so the 6.1 miles to come on Monday will take me almost to the halfway mark of the challenge, a whole month ahead of schedule.

Another marathon weekend

Back in Edinburgh for the weekend and it's marathon time here - Sunday morning echoing to the sound of starters guns going off for the various races which make up the Edinburgh Marathon festival. The marathon kicked off at 08:50 this morning so the "proper" runners will already have finished and the majority of the rest of the field are probably at the painful 20 mile mark.



The weather is absolutely glorious at the moment - 25 degrees yesterday and forecast for 22 or so today. Nice for a barbie in the park but not so good for distance running though and I imagine the first aid people at the marathon will be busy. Hopefully there's enough water to go round and people are sensible about their pace.





Anyway, my training for the BUPA 10000 next Monday has gone pretty well and I did my last "long" run today - just under 7 miles at a good pace of 9:07 per mile. I need to up that to 8:51 per mile if I'm going to reach my 55 minute target but I'm hoping the race day adrenalin will achieve that. Also I've been eating too much junk over the last few weeks so hopefully keeping an eye on my diet over the next week will help. And hopefully the weather will cool off a bit before then !



As for the 750 mile challenge, well, also going well. 64.45 miles so far in May, and a total of 355 miles for the year so far, so looks like I'll have reached half way by the end of May, which is great news. June is likely to be a lower mileage month however as I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks - volcanic ash, forest fires and political instability permitting !

More sunshine on Inverleith

A very sunny weekend in Edinburgh and very nice conditions for running.

6.5 miles yesterday and 3.5 miles today, together with 11 miles in lunchtime runs at Dulwich, add up to 21 miles for the week, taking me comfortably past 300 miles for the year so far. At the current rate of progress I'll cruise past my 750 mile target and get to 900 miles by the end of the year.

Only 3 weeks until the BUPA 10000 now... this week I ran 6 laps of Dulwich in 55:33, so if I keep up the training I should have a good chance of beating 55 minutes on the day.