Back on the easy train

Working from home for a couple of days has provided the answer to the question - Why do I run? My discipline is horrendous! I'm sat at the dining room table for a few days on an ITIL course & I just keep snacking! It doesn't help that the course is broken into hour chunks, neither does it help that we appear to have so many tasty things stowed away. Perhaps I'm just making it easier for our upcoming kitchen fit out, not so much to pack away as I've already stuffed my face with most of it!
One benefit to working from home is that I'm less time constrained in the morning. It meant that today I wasn't overly concerned with how long I was taking to get ready & once running I wasn't checking the watch to ensure I made a specific train. This meant I was perfectly relaxed for the prescribed 40 minutes of easy running this morning. I was intrigued to see how I'd be feeling just two days removed from 15km. Although I had no pain in either Achilles, the shins were sore to start with.

Reasonably steady

My tempo was around the 6:00/km throughout, just over rather than under. My first km always appears to be my slowest on an easy run, this is no bad thing though & I soon settled into a rhythm. The thing I took most encouragement from is that the hills of Stansted didn't take too much out of me, my pace uphill was almost as good as on the flat.
A good run to start the week with, tonight I've prescribed some ice & possibly a swim with Thursday's Fartlek session the next focus.

Misplaced pessimism?

A couple of runs rolled into one here. My blogging hasn't been as efficient as I planned this week, lots of upcoming building work in the Holt household has diverted my attention elsewhere! Better late than never though....

What a difference a week makes. This time last week I was pretty down, wondering whether more time off was required to heal my Achilles and dodgy calves. I decided that the sensible route would be to take things one run at a time. After plenty of ice on Sunday & Monday I had a decent easy run on Tuesday. More ice & stretching got me through a tempo session Thursday lunchtime & it meant I could approach the weekend with a bit more confidence.
My weekend plan was for a parkrun on Saturday & a long run on Sunday. Speed & stamina in two individual doses.

The Run #1

With all of my parkrun plans, the key decision is where? Where shall the pursuit of a 50 shirt take me this week? The advantage if having no local event is that there is no sense of loyalty, no duty to attend somewhere regularly. You can take the parkrun map, close your eyes and just pick an event at random.
We'd decided the week before to head to Colchester, where the event had been running for nearly a year.
The early start appeared to have frazzled my mind, GPS watch was left at home & I managed to leave my water bottle in the car. So I warmed up whilst Paula headed back to the car park to fetch my bottle. Luckily my phone has the Nike app on it so I could at least log the run. It meant running naked though, no faffing with the phone & no GPS meant I had no idea what my pace was like. It was pacer week so I decided to try and keep up with the 25 minute pace for as long as possible.

After about half a km I caught up with Ian, the 25 minute man & got chatting. Having paced once myself I was impressed with how easy he was making it look, when your usual time is a mid 21:00 it makes sense that a mere 5:00/km would seem like a stroll. He got me round to halfway & then we started to climb for a lap of the castle. With near perfect timing, Paula was there to hand me my water bottle, like a soigneur! The hill took it out of me & the 25 vest started to get further & further away.

Sprint finish.....

Luckily what goes up must invaribly go down so I was able to relax down hill, conserving energy for the second lap of the castle. I felt really slow by the second climb, concerned that the 26 minute pacer would overtake me at any moment. That didn't happen though & soon there was a last small descent & a race to the line. I could feel myself tiring & was disappointed to be pipped on the line. The parkrun organisers can tell everyone they like that it's a run & not a race, but in those last 200m, everyone is racing!

Pipped on the line!

I clumsily fumbled my phone & managed to stop the clock, 25:34. Similar to my result in Chelmsford the week before & with the climbs involved, a far tougher proposition. To my surprise, the official result was 25:16. It might be nowhere near my best, but the double lap of the castle isn't that different to Finsbury Park, the downhill sections are more generous though.

The Eat #1

With a very decent parkrun time banked it was off to Colchester's second attraction, Wimpy for a thickshake. I can't explain what my fascination with Wimpy is. I suspect it is nostalgia, fast food on plates, a throwback to a once more successful business. The shakes though, they are awesome. Made much thicker than a milkshake & a lot thicker than a McD's. The chap behind the counter suggested it was a bit cold for a shake, once I explained it was hard earned, he understood!

Epic brownie from The Food Co. Needed a 2nd sitting!

Once the town centre had been successfully negotiated it was time to head home, with a visit to an old favourite of mine on the way. The Food Company in Marks Tey was my place of work through University over a decade ago. I left there 11 years ago & my time there is probably the reason why I became such a foodie (and probably why I have to run!). The food hall always appeared to be based loosely on Selfridges & has evolved significantly since my last visit in 2010. There were still a couple of recognisable faces from when I worked there & it was a perfect opportunity to pick up some purely indulgent food. Gluten free double chocolate & raspberry brownies, blue murder cheese, Irish Dairy Milk, Turkish Delight, Biltong, if my shopping list were like that every week I'd die broke but happy!!!

The Conclusion #1

I think I had some decent pace at the parkrun. To return a low 25 when the course was tough is something to be satisfied with. The rest & recuperation between runs appears to be working & now my pace is returning. This Saturday brings another parkrun, with a visit to Eastbourne on the south coast. This will  be my 21st different parkrun event, meaning that this weekend I appeared on a parkrun leaderboard for the first time.

Joining parkrun royalty

I might not have a 50 shirt yet, but I have something that none of my parkrun friends have achieved yet. There is a parkrun table for most events attended. To qualify you need to either attend 5 inaugural runs (I have one, Gunpowder in 2011) or 20 different events. If you scroll down far enough, you can find me!

The Run #2

In recent weeks the Sunday run has been more of an If event than a When. Since starting my Helsinki training the longest run I'd managed was 10km, hardly a sufficient base from which to take on a half marathon. With this in mind I kept stretching & icing through Saturday in a bid to be fit for Sunday morning. I was also aware that the weather was due to be rubbish once more so kept an eye on the forecast.
I had agreed to go swimming with Paula, but before heading to bed she advised that a lie in would be much more preferable, so I had my running window. Seven am is a bonus to me so once awake I donned my running kit & left the wife in bed to her own lie in. There were no obvious warning signs of solid Achilles or tight quads so I loaded up my pocket with energy gels & made sure I had my GPS watch this time!
With heavy rainfall experienced on Saturday I knew that some routes would be out of bounds, so I headed out towards Bishops Stortford. Despite advising the council last year on Twitter about the state of pavements, they remain perilously narrow alongside a busy road (due to vegetation overgrowth) & thanks to the weather some parts were now extra muddy.

A little bit muddy for my shiny newish trainers!

During the early parts of the run my shins were feeling it a bit & descends were also noticeable on both Achilles. The longer I ran for, the better they felt, as if they just needed some miles to settle down. Once into Stortford I decided on a new addition to my route, the rugby club hill. As you head out from the centre to the west, the road climbs substantially. In all of my years of running around Stortford I had never taken on this hill, mainly due to excuses & cowardice! On Sunday though I felt it was worth an attempt, it might light up my quads, but it'll be harsher than anything Helsinki can offer (I hope). Getting up the hill wasn't too bad, it felt like a long slog & the stats afterwards agreed (30m climb over 1km). It was swiftly followed by a downhill & then a bit of me getting lost in a part of Stortford I'm unfamiliar with. I was soon back on course & will be consulting the map & Google StreetView to work out where I'd gone wrong & how to correct it in the future.

Spot the hills....

Once I crossed the A120 I decided to detour via Birchanger & the Forest Hall estate rather than take on the narrow roadside pavement. A shorter & sharper hill took a lot out of me & after finding an awesome view overlooking Stansted within the estate I turned for home. Fifteen kilometres in the legs & I felt very decent afterwards. My cardio seemed fine throughout, the pace fade towards the end can be attributed equally to the hills & the lack of distance in my training so far. I took on two gels, more to get back into the habit than any urgent need for energy.

The Eat #2

Once I'd showered from the run I got the slow cooker out & prepared for a Sunday feast. Into the pot went a joint of lamb, vegetable stock, red wine, onions, garlic & rosemary. I seasoned with smoked salt, pepper, Worcestershire Sauce & mushroom ketchup.

Slow roasted lamb. It offered so much.....

I want to tell you that with this combination produced something epic. Sadly it was a bit disappointing. Perhaps the lamb wasn't the idea joint for slow cooking, it might have spent too long hibernating in our freezer. Despite all of the stock it felt a bit dry, I like I'll stick to pork when cooking slow in the future. I'm hoping I can salvage a decent meal out of it tonight, thinking Moroccan, or at least something a bit different.

The Conclusion #2

I'm really happy with the long run. It was the most distance covered since the Copenhagen half in September & a good indicator that if I rest & recuperate properly I shouldn't need any extended & unplanned periods of rest. I'm breaking down my training plan into smaller doses & have three long runs left before the Denton Ford 10 miler at the end of Feb. Then it's a month to the Brentwood Half & a further 6 weeks to Helsinki. I think the training plan became too big & lacked focused by having the end target so far away.

Recovery after 15 easy kilometres

After being so pessimistic last week I've actually had a really good week with all four intended runs completed. So it's onto a new week & we're back on schedule.

A parkrun birthday and back to square one

Ever get this feeling that you're going no where? That whatever you do the recurring theme is two steps forward & two back.

Let's start with some positivity though. Saturday meant for a trip to a parkrun. I'd negotiated Chelmsford with Paula based on there being a comic store & a cider shop! This week was the 1st birthday for the parkrun event, with a bumper crowd to celebrate. The award ceremony overran, which meant a lot of chilly runners waiting & sporadic clapping when the PA could be heard. That said, the atmosphere was excellent, the event appears to have grown exponentially in 2014, another record for finishers this week. It is a mark of the flexibility of the organisers that this was my 4th outing at Chelmsford & I'm yet to repeat a route! Given the amount of rain in the past week I was surprised the event took place.

The Run

I went into the run with low expectations, given the level of training this year. I also wasn't sure how much of the route was going to be on tarmac compared to grass. The start was congested, a wide start narrowing quickly, meaning the pace slowed and a rhythm hard to find. After about half a km the course rounded a pond, filing runners two by two. After a kilometre I started to find a pace and settle in, relieved that nothing was hurting! A small detour round a field was tough on the first lap, second lap even harder as around 500 pairs of feet had got to it by the time I got there! Always tempted to pick up some trail shoes for the winter. My pace stayed consistent throughout, at around the 5:10/km mark throughout, with a slight slow down round the field.

Most of the people behind me had passed by the finish......

I was relived to cross the line in 25:41. No where near my fastest, but I was expecting to be far slower given my lack of running time in 2014. I'm yet to find a consistent time at Chelmsford, I suspect the course being different on every visit might have played a part. The event is well run though, the variation in route a testament to the team's desire to keep going rather than cancel a week due to the elements. 

Practically falling across the finish line

The Eat

My bribery of Mrs H fell on its face. The comic store was a let down & the cider shop was closed for a winter break! The upside to this is another trip to Chelmsford in the future to allow Paula to stock up on apple juice. 

The plan for the evening was to put together a home made curry. This was made even better after finding a stall selling Indian snacks. So a surprisingly spicy chicken rogan was supplemented with onion bhaji & a paneer spring roll. I'd never tried a paneer spring roll, but observing the adage that anything with cheese must be good, had to try one. It made for an excellent side. 

A plate of curry. A just reward!

The Conclusion

As alluded to, the high of a decent run was followed by the low of the day after. I woke up on Sunday with a plan to cover ten miles, 90 minutes of easy and kick start my training. 

Instead I woke to solid, painful Achilles, again. Yet again all plans were abandoned & the cycle of icing & stretching returned. At this stage, frustration & negativity are getting the better of me. It also doesn't help to carry out any internet self diagnosis either, I might as well amputate appears to be the prognosis. If recovery is going to be this difficult, I'm going to have to consider abandoning some parkruns to allow for at least one long run a weekend. The other option will be to run long during the week, if time allows. 

There is at least some good news to end on. After stretching throughout Sunday & Monday I packed some running kit, hoping that my body & the elements would allow for a lunchtime run. I woke up pain free, making the day instantly better! 

After burying myself in paperwork for the morning, escaping over lunch became a must so I headed out for a lap of Battersea Park. I was purposefully slow, determined to put little effort in and just get some distance. The result being 56 minutes and under 9 kilometres completed!

It was a good workout & I'm not feeling the affects today. It'll be a day by day basis of stretching and recovery, but hopefully the road to Helsinki has started. 

Fartlek A Go-Go

Having taken things easy since resting up, today marked the first true test of my troublesome calves. Though I know Thursday to be tempo day, I had to glance at my training plan to confirm what I was in store for this morning.
The word Fartlek was projecting back to me. A word that used to hold a lot of fear when I first started adding speed work into my regime. In essence Fartlek is perfectly suited to winter running. You could even rename it The Lamppost Game to make it sound fun! You run in cycles, jog, sprint, walk. When I first started this method I used to disregard the walk, not realising how important it was to prolonging the training. Without the walk you just get a depreciating quality of sprints and increasing in length pathetic jogs.
This morning everything went to plan. I eased myself in & after the five minute beep on my GPS started a half hour fartlek cycle. The sprints might have been slower than desired normally, but they were within parkrun range and still a push. By not sprinting flat out I could keep my shape and ensure good form. At no stage did I feel I'd overdone the sprint and need extra recovery as a result. There were even a few occasions where I extended the sprint, picking an alternative lamppost to target.
The workout was a good way to shake the cobwebs, an extra half hour in bed was very appealing when the alarm went off!
Saturday will hopefully see me line up at a parkrun, if I can persuade Mrs H to sacrifice a lie in!
I also finalised my plans for an autumn goal yesterday. The Richmond Running Festival opened for entries this week. Having read many good reports on Twitter about the event and seeing the awesome medal, I felt it was a good choice of race. Not enough UK events make an effort when it comes to medals, just look at the Run Bling you can acquire in the US!
This will be my third successive year of half marathon training over a summer, I'm hoping that by learning what works for me I can ensure I get it right this time. There is a possibility of two halves over three weekends as I'll enter the Royal Parks Half ballot when the time comes.

Easy does it

It would be fair to say 2014 hasn't gone to plan so far. The runstreak recovery has taken longer than expected and with the morning's being so dark it is hard to recover that motivation! This weekend the weather was perfect, beautiful sunshine. I was hoping to take on a parkrun & then follow with a ten miler on Sunday. Neither came to fruition. Something didn't feel right in my ankle & owing to the side of caution coupled with a parkrun veto Saturday didn't happen. Sunday the weather was again amazing, yet my ankle was on ice. Given the issues since the runstreak I felt it was more sensible to rest up than be picked up halfway through an aborted run.
So a new week means a return to the run plan. My calves and Achilles feel ok and I've not picked up any shin pain for a while. The ache in the ankle had faded so it was time to slip into the 010's and start again.
Today was a nice reintroduction, easy running. At no point did I feel pressured to push the pace, I even hid the GPS under my sleeve. If I recover nicely then this will be the building block for the rest of the month.  

The road to recovery

What a difference a week makes. On NYD I was completing a parkrun with a pronounced limp and a grimace. The run streak had taken a toll on me, with a depreciating pace, sore shins & Achilles pain.
I decided it was time for a bit of time off. I stretched and applied ice extensively to nurse my Achilles and calves back to a decent state. Although I had a game of squash on Friday I approached it tentatively, not over exerting myself. It was tempting to declare myself fit & run over the weekend, thankfully for once my inner monologue was sensible!
This return run was due to be yesterday, but the rain was horrific so I opted for some yoga instead. Thankfully the morning was clear today so I donned the floro jacket and decided to see how it would go. My plan was to run easy, the reality was exceedingly easy! At no point did I attempt to push the pace, normally a glance at my watch to see a near 7 minute km pace would have me kicking faster, today that wasn't the case.
My saunter around Stansted was intentionally slow, not even a bit of a kick to finish. A 5km in over 30 minutes isn't going to win any speed records, yet it was the perfect result for me. No Achilles pain whilst I ran and so far no shin pain either.
I slathered on some hot ginger Natural Hero rub to my calves and started the rest of my day. Tomorrow is meant to be a pace day, I think I'll skip it and aim for a parkrun on Saturday instead as I also have a squash match scheduled. A very happy return though.

2014 started with a parkrun

What's the best way to see in a new year? I'd say that surrounded by good company & with a G&T to hand is about perfect. We were joined for a quiet NYE at the soon to be improved house of Holt for an evening of eating, drinking and silly games. 

Dominos was appealing to both human & feline

Once food had been delivered by those chaps at Dominos we cracked open a very very silly game. My sister had sent us Cards Against Humanity for Xmas & we'd wisely decided that it wouldn't be appropriate to play with both sets of parents on Christmas Eve. Essentially it is a game of fill in the blank. You have ten cards to choose your answer from, of varying degrees of comedy, absurdity and grimness. I've included one such example!

Cards Against Humanity - not sure Grandma would find it charming at all!

We opted against the annual Hootenanny drinking game, although without Al Murray on the show to make it messy, we'd have probably been safe. I also avoided the narcissistic option of forcing our guests to listen to our Horne Section Radio 4 appearance! They were intrigued to know what I won Audience Member of the Year for though. 

With a toxic mix of Chambord & Brut consumed we saw in the new year and then from one am made our excuses if old age and headed to bed. 

On NYD three of us were planning to take part in the Chelmsford Central parkrun event. At 1am it appeared there might be a route participant. Paula was talking up the possibility of running for the first time since Copenhagen. She was even coming up with a cunning plan to sprint off in front of me to try and beat me. 

Sadly when morning came she had a headache, we believe it was unrelated to the alcohol consumed the night before, just one of those coincidences that occur. Those plans would need to be shelved for now. 

The Run

So with three of us making the start line it was time to start 2014 with a bang, or at least a half decent whimper. Thankfully the heavy rainfall hadn't flooded the course, although the layout was again different. In three runs at Chelmsford I'm yet to repeat the same route! This isn't a complaint though, just keeps you on your toes!

parkrun tourism board

For Fran it was a debut parkrun, a means to start the new year with good intentions. Joel was returning to the site of his parkrun re-debut in September, his PB for the course was all set to be smashed, by how much would depend on the lingering effects of the whiskey consumed on NYE. 

Pre run enthusiasm

My intention was to run as well as my injuries would allow me. With my run streak ending abruptly I was hoping for a week off, yet my previous commitment of a NYD parkrun still stood, so it was a case of getting round. I was also hoping that though this might be my worst parkrun performance for 2014 that I might at least improve on my debacle in Ipswich. 

We were greeted my a very enthusiastic Chelmsford parkrun team & 187 runners, which is some kind of record for a NYD attendance at Chelmsford (slightly misleading fact). We even got a round of applause for turning up after identifying ourselves as tourists, this is the first time doing something physical has ever been met with applause (another fact, unless you count slow hand clapping when I play cricket).

If you look closely you can almost see a double thumbs up

Once we were under way I just tried to maintain a decent pace for as long as possible. I was reasonable for the first 2.5km, keeping around the low 5:00/km pacing. The course then took on a loop of a field & though this meant less pain on my shins, it manifested more pain in my Achilles. I eased my pace slightly to accommodate for the soft ground & just carried on. Once back on tarmac I could feel a noticeable increase in pain on both Achilles, though the left was definitely far worse. 

After a brief hill it was time for another off road section to stretch out the Achilles even more. By the time I made it back onto the tarmac path I was really favouring the injury & starting to run with a limp. From this point onwards I knew that finishing was the sole target, the pace wasn't there to ever trouble my PB. The temptation to walk was very high, yet I realised that might just make things worse!

Nothing like a weak finish!

I don't think I even made the obligatory finish line sprint! My pace had increased with the end in sight, but not to usual levels. It was time to get warm & stretch out the calves as much as possible.

The Conclusion

It probably would have been a better idea not to run at all, yet the chance to do a New Years Day parkrun was too tempting & something I'd committed to already. My finish time was 26:03, a near 2 minutes slower than my course PB back in September, but the circumstances were different. It was at least better than the weekend result in Ipswich. If a 26 minute parkrun is my worst result of the year, then it'll be a good year over all. This time last year I was barely breaking the 28 minute barrier as my form was completely bottoming out.

New Year's badge earned on Nike

And what of my running buddies? Fran enjoyed her first parkrun experience, a 33:39 being a far better result than the 37:00 she felt she'd done when finishing. Joel came home in 29:34. Just outside of a lifetime best, but an event best by nearly three & a half minutes. Perhaps drinking until the early hours & pigging out on takeaway is the best form of preparation?

I finished the evening with my calves being rolled by Paula following a thorough icing. I'm finding a nice benefit to having a reclining sofa, ease of leg elevation! I'll continue to ice & stretch for a few days & doubt I'll be running until Sunday or even Tuesday.

Achilles being treated by medical peas