The Last Post. Or is it?

Some more thoughts on the numbers...accountants rule, OK?
1/ After the Action Heart 5, my time there converted into 1:52:55 on the Lucozade website, and yesterday I only ran 1:53:09. The last few weeks of training didn't unlock a better performance, on the other hand, it was well within tolerance. And my time was 149.7 % of the winner, against 151.6% of the winner at Action Heart. It will, of course, take me forever - at that rate of improvement - to reduce my time to 100% of the winner!
2/ My time for the first mile was about 8 minutes, if fact for the first 5 miles I was averaging 8 minute miles (i.e. running this 5 miles pretty much as fast as Action Heart. Either I was running faster, or there's a lot of downhill up to this point (which is before the plunge down Coalbrookdale).
3/ I reckon that I was pretty much on 8 minute miles all the way to Coalport - about 7 miles, so that's 56 minutes, and the last 6.1 miles then took another 57 minutes - that's 9.34 minute miles. OK, it's a tough uphill slog from Coalport to Madeley, but I averaged 9 minute miles for the 4 miles from Coalport to Stirchley last weekend, so it looks as if I need to do something to supercharge my homeward leg - perhaps the Carbo Gel that I forgot made a difference?
4/ My charge over the last 200 yards gained me 14 seconds on Colin Pheasant, so if I had maintained that pace for the full 13 miles, it would have gained me - let's see, 13.1 miles is 23,056 yards, so divide by 200 and multiply by 14 gives me 1,614 seconds = 27 minutes. That's a finishing time of 1:26, still 11 minutes behind the winner! Encouragingly, though, the same calculation at Delamere would have had me finishing 17 minutes behind, and that over a distance of only 6 miles.
5/ Wendy commented that my running style changed from droop-shouldered shuffling - for most of the way round - to something altogether more dynamic for my finish. Certainly, I was consciously lifting my knees and 'running' on the run-in, and I did seem to pick up speed in two stages, first when I changed into 'running' gear, and then again when I put in the effort and started to sprint. Lesson seems to be that I need to learn how to run. I know that if I could maintain the fast shuffle for the whole distance that I could reduce my time to 1:45, but it seems that, to do better than that, a change of style is indicated.

So, I've run my half-marathon. Where do I go now? I know that I will continue running, but - What is my motivation?
Answers on a postcard, please.

It's Over!

I intended to blog last night with all the "the preparations are over, all that's left is to run the race tomorrow...", but I ran out of time, and here I am having completed the run without having charted my last preparations. Not too good, really. After last week's long run of 8 miles, I tapered with a couple of shorter runs, where I didn't exert myself, on Tuesday and Thursday. The "glycogen loading" high-intensity short run on Saturday just didn't happen, and I left it too late to get any energy gel to give myself a boost during the race - when I got to Asda, they were sold out.
Owain came around with Leyla on Sunday morning, and we discussed the points where the groupies were going to cheer us on from. Ten O'clock we headed for the start, with them expected to show up at various points around the course. Twenty minutes of hanging around, and then we set off, just an "on your marks", 2, 3, and then the hooter. We lapped the arena once before setting out on the course proper. About half a mile out, we went down a fairly steep slope to the bridge that carried us over the Silkin way, and I let gravity take me, and flew away from Owain so that when I reached the groupies (Wendy, Rhiannon and Leyla), I was clear ahead of Owain. Went through the 1 mile mark in 8 minutes - on target for 1:45. At the bench (second groupie check point) at about 2 miles (done in 16 minutes) I was still clear of Owain. However, he caught me up, and pulled ahead when I slowed to a walk at the drinks station. Past the 5 miles in 40 minutes - still on schedule, and heading down Coalbrookdale, and Owain is nowhere in sight ahead of me, when who should come jogging past me! He'd stopped for an unwatering pit stop, and was only now catching up! He was still ahead of me as we went past the groupies on the Ironbridge, and they were giving me grief about letting Owain beat me. I said to myself "this is where the tough get going", and started picking up places as we headed out alongside the river, including passing Owain again.
We recrossed the river at Coalport (last groupie check-point) and started the long climb out of the valley, still picking off people ahead of me, but still finding that there were people behind me coming past me. Eventually, we re-entered the town park, and went past the 12 mile mark in about 1:45, so that target is beyond reach, but the 2 hours looks comfortable. It's all about how fast, and how far down the field now.
There was one guy (he looked as if he might be in my age group) whom I had passed just as we headed out of Coalport, and who had re-passed me (etc., etc.) several times since then. Now, about haf-a-mile out, he comes steaming past me again. This awakens my competitive instincts, and I track him until we start to go past Wonderland, a couple of hundred yards from the finish, when I change from long-distance fast shuffling style to big-finish actually picking my feet up and running style, and I go steaming past him (I later found out that he was about ten years younger). And then picked up the speed, and picked off another 3 places before the finish, in what turned out to be 1hour 53.09 seconds, with the groupies whooping me home.
Results, 293 out of 660, and Owain finished just over 8 seconds and 134 places later! I was 7th finisher out of 20 in the over-60 class, and I managed to beat all the over-65s, and I finished 5 minutes behind the 6th over-60. At least he didn't beat me by an embarassingly narrow margin, where I'd have kicked myself for not trying that much harder.
It's now nearly midnight, my buttocks are still aching, so I'll have an early night, with more analysis of the numbers tomorrow.

A Mixed Bag

Another week of exceeding the planned mileage - of course, last Monday's 12.5 miles got me off to a good start, then 5.7 miles of interval work, combined with running every day since Wednesday contributed to a total of nearly 30 mies against 20 planned. As with most of last week's runs, the times were disappointingly slow. In particular, the 4.29 miles around the town park, where I've been close - but not quite making it - to breaking 38 minutes. This week was the furthest away from that since I stopped wearing my boots!
However, today was a great improvement. 8 miles down to Coalport and back, 8 minute miles on the way down, and better than 9 minute miles on the way back up. I was as quick coming up as I was going down the last time that I ran this, and 5 minutes faster over the whole route. Now to taper off for the last week, with girly rest days, and softy short and easy runs in between.

One last throw

After reading Katherine's blog about how hard she's training in China, Wendy more or less challenged me for my girly training methods, taking a day's break between sessions and the like. So on Friday (which would normally have been a rest day) I ran 6 miles, then on Saturday another 4. Disappointingly, the 6 miles was in 53 minutes - slightly slower than my time at Delamere way back at the start of January. This brought the week's total up to 34 miles, against a planned 22. Since the race is in a fortnight, it's perhaps a little late in the day to intensify the training, but an extra week of hard training, before I taper for the last week, may just make all the difference.
Then I started this week with long run day, basically running the whole course, only omitting the start and finish, but including an extra long loop to bring the mileage back up to - well, only 12.5 miles. Completed this in just over 2 hours, again disappointing. Somehow those last couple of miles are a killer, either that or I really need the taper to find me some extra zip, otherwise I won't even break 2 hours, let alone reach my target of 1-45, or even my predicted 1-52.

Going the distance

At last! I've run a half-marathon distance. In fact, I've run more than a half-marathon distance - 13.84 miles. Part of Marshal Zhukov's "train hard, fight easy" philosophy. I think that I said a few weeks ago that I intended to do at least one training run over the full distance, so that, come the day, I wouldn't find the extra couple of miles from my previous longest run as an unwelcome surprise. Certainly, this much extra (my previous longest, a month ago, was only just over 11 miles, so this is nearly 3 miles further) gave me some real grief on the homeward stretch. The course that I'd plotted was home to Coalport, then back up the long slog as far as Aqueduct, then turn around and go back down, and then back up. The result was doing the climb out of Coalport twice, intentionally, since it looks as if this climb is going to be what sorts out the men from the boys, after about 9 miles of running. It was a hard run, enlivened by passing groups of people whom I'd already seen as I went down (or up). One pair of women I passed as I approached Aqueduct on the first climb, passed them again as I headed back down, and then passed them again as I climbed back up again!
The time, 2 hours 15 minutes, was disappointing considering my target time, and the predicted times that I'm getting. I'm just going to have to push it a bit harder this week, before beginning to taper down my effort in the last fortnight.
And today, I received eMail notification that my race number (142) should be with my in the post in a few days.

Another week, another 23 miles...

Results for Action Heart are in - I'm 236 out of 762 in a time of 40 minutes 41 secs, which predicts a half-marathon time of just under 1 hour 53 on the Lucozade site, which comes in pretty close to the time calculated on the % of the winner's time.
This week, other commitments (like a job interview and taking Katherine to the airport) interfered with my normal training days, so I trained Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Monday I followed the Coalport Dodger route from Stirchley and Dawley Station, past Madeley Market Station, and down into Coalport. And then back! Part of my intention to remove the sting from that long gruelling run back up into Telford. It seemed to work, this time (I don't know whether it was second wind, or the slope actually eases) I was able to pick up the pace as I neared Madeley, and I covered the 8 miles in 1 hour 12 minutes, 35 minutes going down, and 37 minutes coming back up. Wednesday was only remarkable in that, for the 3rd consecutive run on this route, I've completed it in just over 38 minutes (38:02, 38:09, 38:08), and Friday was about 5 1/2 miles - when I tried to measure it on Runfinder, it packed up on me! I'll do it later!

Take Heart

After last Sunday's long run, the rest of the week's training was relatively light. Tuesday saw a return to intervals - 3 laps of just over a mile, with a half-mile recovery between - and the interval time was no real improvement over my first attempt, except that the later laps were closer to the first lap. Speed not really improving, but the ability to maintain it is. Thursday was a fairly fast straight 4 miles, at just better than 9 minute miles. Still a way to go. The Saturday run I pulled forward to Friday, and just ran an easy 3 miles, to leave me fresh for Sunday's race. When I say easy, my Heart Rate averaged 133 - I'm usually pulling somewhere in the 160s!
Sunday's race was the Action Heart 5, starting from Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, so plenty of medical backup in the event of a mishap! Again, plenty of professional-looking athletes, many of them seem to be wearing heart monitors, certainly some of the wrist watches wouldn't look out of place as Tuvok's tactical array!
Having made the mistake of starting at the front at Delamere, I lined up some distance back from the start line, only to find the space in front of me filled with even slower runners. The hooter goes, and off we set, with me alternating between running and walking, because it was so congested that I was in danger of running into somebody! We get clear of the hospital grounds, and I start passing people, generally getting more of a feeling of being in a race than I did at Delamere, where I only passed about a dozen people in the whole 6 miles. Unlike Delamere, however, it's much more of a road race - actually being run on the road, with cars in side roads having to stop to let us pass, and cars on the main roads keeping towards the middle to avoid running us down. I tend to keep on the pavement, and I'm looking around at every junction, something that other runners don't do. Am I the only one who doesn't totally trust drivers?
We reach the "1 mile" marker, and somebody behind me says "8 minutes - quite good", and I mentally agree. That will give me a respectable 40 minutes for the distance, although I'd like to do better. Perhaps I can pick the pace up later.
About half-way round, and we start down the hill along Himley Road, and I put my fell-running expertise to use, and start flying past people, using gravity to take me. Finally, we hit the 4 mile mark, and turn for home, and start up another hill. Somebody near me complains about it all being hills - I invite him to Ironbridge next month! I plan my big finish, when I will pull back another couple of places, to begin with about 200 yards to go, as we re-enter the hospital grounds. Somehow, the legs don't seem to want to know, and the guy in front of me actually starts to pull away (his big finish beats my big finish!), and I can hear the patter of tiny feet closing in from behind me. The fear of losing a place does what the carrot of gaining a place failed to do, and I manage to pull the last bit of performance out of my legs, and I at least hold my place to cross the line in ?th place. (No results yet - watch this space!). I know, however, that I finished in just over 40 minutes, because the pace car, with stop-watch on top, is parked near the finish, and I can see that it's already over 40.
Over the line, make sure that they've got my number, pick up my Large commemorative T-shirt, collect a drink, and sit and let the legs recover. Then, back to the car (fortunately, I've got on-site parking, rather than about half-a-mile away on the Servosteel car park), get changed, drink a bit more, eat a banana, then back to the race marquee and look around the Sweatshop stand, where they've got a rail of vests and t-shirts, most at reduced prices. I spot a nice red singlet reduced to a fiver, and I'm just about to put my hand in my pocket when I overhear somebody say something about a discount. Back to the car again, collect the discount voucher for a fiver off anything from Sweatshop that came with my race information, and I am now the proud possessor of a singlet that cost me nothing!
All in all, a pretty good day, a new t-shirt and free singlet (both in my racing colour of red), and a time that is about 150% of the winner's, compared with 168% at Delamere. Taking the Ironbridge winner as 1 hour 15, 150% is 1 hour 52, whereas 168% is 2 hours 7. The 7 weeks between Delamere and Dudley has reduced my Ironbridge time by 15 minutes, and I've got 4 weeks left to go - another 7.5 minutes would get me home in 1 hour 45. The dream is still alive, at least in my calculations!
Finally, back home, a bite to eat, and I'm off with Owain to get some upper-body strength training in on the Severn, while helping him with some paddling practice for Devizes-Westminster.