Johnno's sort-of-training-log

Discussion in 'Training Logs' started by Johnno, Feb 18, 2015.

  1. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    Stay away from the lurgy, walking off street-curbs at night and new shoes.

    You know Murphy's law by now. ;)

    Good luck.
     
  2. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Tuesday 2015/09/22. Running club, group 5.

    The group leader (SC) chose a route to avoid Headingley and the city centre, since both woul dbe rammed with students for Freshers Week. So happily we did a really diferent route, and it made a nice change. It did take us up a few seriously steep hills, but the group managed very wel and stayed nice and compact - despite being a bit on the large side at 22 runners.

    Unfortunately my running app failed to record a thing. I was told that we did 6.3 miles in 56 minutes.
     
  3. Bozza Bostik

    Bozza Bostik Antichrist on Button Moon

    It's ok mate. I was a bit upset for a few days, but I am ok now. :)

    Thanks. I was just curious as to how your group functioned really. I went to a "running school" for a bit and thought it was quite good. I actually got one-to-one running lessons for a couple of months, then joined a group. It was only once a week, we worked on technique then would go out and run.

    It was with one of the local athletic societies and stupidly cheap....like, 20 odd euros a semester or something. I actually made a few phone calls and double checked the price a few times as it was so low.

    My IT band is giving me a lot of trouble, so I haven't ran in ages. I am really hoping work picks up soon so I can afford some sort of physio and get running again. It's frustrating.

    I'll be moving to Helsinki in a couple of months and looking forward to using this park near the apartment for hill sprints. The photo doesn't do it justice...I've worked out some nice loops that'll be pretty punishing and keep me off the tarmac.


    [​IMG]
     
  4. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    That looks nice! Although, being in Finland, I assume it will be covered in snow for about eight months of the year. ;)

    That one-on-one coaching sounds good. We don't really have anything quite like that, at least not systematically. But we do have a senior member of the club who ran for Great Britain as a junior, and he does give quite a bit of free coaching to some members who are striving for particular goals. (And he coached everyone who wanted it in the build-up to our annual Summer Mile event.) But our club is huge, so he couldn't possibly coach everyone.

    I would guess that coaching would more likely be widely available at an athletics club, or a 'specialist' group like a triathlon club. I imagine that most running clubs round here are fairly informal. They provide an environment for regular group runs, and discounted entry into most events.
     
  5. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Wednesday 2015/09/23. Taiji class.

    Worked on the fine detail on parts of the long form and the sabre form.


    --------------------------


    Thursday 2015/09/24. Local run.

    Just what I needed to recover from Tuesday's hill climbs was.... more hill clinbs!

    The world's laziest phone app once again didn't bother to record my run. But I know that the route is about 6.3/6.4 miles, and I did it in a fraction over an hour.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2015
  6. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Saturday 2015/09/26. First weekend with no 'long run' to do, so I was free to do whatever I wanted! Decided to do a the newest of the five parkruns in Leeds, which started back in June and which I hadn't got round to trying yet.

    It's slightly unusual in that it's a four-lap course, rather than the more usual three. A straightforward oblong route, with a long climb up one side, a run across grass at the top end, then a long descent down the other side.

    Started right near the back, then worked my way through the back end of the field and did a fairly respectable time of 26-minutes-something in the end.

    ----------------------

    Sunday 2015/09/27. The Kirkstall Abbey 7, a 6.7 mile multi-terrain race which starts and finishes at Kirkstall Abbey (hence the name.) Had been looking forward to this since last year, but then thought I'd have to miss it due to marathon training. Then it turned out that it would fall during my 'tapering' period, so couldn't resist entering.

    Not quite as gorgeous a morning as we had last year, but the sun peeped through the mist just before we started, and reallly the conditions couldn't have been any better for running. It's mostly along canal towpaths, plus some dirt trails, some fields, and a couple of miles on road, so a bit of everything really.

    Didn't want to wipe myself out, but really wanted to do a PB. Ended up making sure that I beat a couple of people I know from our club, and took 5.18 off last year's time, so I was delighted with that. I think that running really hard but over a relatively short distance should help to keep my fitness levels right up but without the degree of exhaustion that I got from my longest marathon training runs. And I think it was good practise in pacing myself, although it was of course nothing like the pace I'l be running the marathon at!
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2015
  7. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Tuesday 2015/09/29. Running club.

    For a bit of a change, we headed east, rather than north or west (or occasionally south.) RP at long last took us for that promised run around East End Park!

    As always, a change from the usual routes was very welcome. It was quite a varied route, with some good long climbs but nothing very steep. Plenty of flat stretches, so the pace was fairly quick.

    We did 7.4 miles in just over an hour. Average pace was about 8.3 mpm.
     
  8. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Wednesday 2015/09/30. Taiji class.

    Warm-up, then ran through the long form, then spent the rest of class on the fine detail in the sabre form.

    Really need to get back to practising my sabre form more often. I used to do it every day, now it's a bit hit-and-miss.


    -----------------


    Thursday 2015/10/01. Didn't have time for my usual run, as I had far too much work to do. Bah!!!
     
  9. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    My taiji class starts next weekend - though I doubt we'll be using sabres in the community centre intro class.

    Would be fun, though.
     
  10. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Learning the sabre form can be fun. I know it's a totally obsolete weapon, but we aren't really learning to fight with them as such, just learning a form. And the real reason we still do it is because it helps with our empty-hand stuff.

    That is why we get taught the sabre after learning the empty-hand form. Different teachers will teach things in a different order, but the head of our 'branch' of the family felt that the sabre teaches/reinforces a number of important principles, so we do it second.
     
  11. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Saturday 2015/10/03. Did my 'home' parkrun, which was celebrating it's 8th birthday.

    Huge turnout, and a nice subsidised breakfast at the University afterwards, with speeches and awards and stuff, with lots of friends. Otherwise, I would have done an extra five miles afterwards, but as it was I did a steady run and saved myself for Sunday....

    -----------------

    Sunday 2015/10/04. Penultimate run before the 'big one'.

    Planned a route which I thought would be somewhere between 7 and 8 miles. Gorgeous morning for a run, and it turned out in the end to be bang on 7 miles, but slightly hillier than I'd realised, so it was a fair enough effort I think. Did it pretty close to what I HOPE will be actual marathon pace!
     
  12. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Tuesday 2015/10/06. Run club.

    Since it was the first Tuesday of the month, there was the usual choice between hill sprints or an interval session. I didn't fancy doing either so close to the marathon, so last week I suggested to some of the other 'marathoneers' that we do a steady little run instead.

    So I had planned a route in advance, and we were joined on the night by a few other folk who fancied just doing a normal run.

    The only snag was that the heavens opened just before we got going. And then the thunder and lightening started. We were soaked to the skin before we'd gone twenty yards. Before long we were struggling to avoid big puddles, and getting extra-soaked by lorries driving through huge puddles on the roads. By the end we all stunk of drain water.

    Afterwards, everyone said what a great time they had had! It made me realise just how lucky I've been with the weather, because in 18 months with the club, that was the first really serious drenching I've had on a Tuesday night.

    We did six miles in just under an hour, slightly slower than I had intended, but it was a 'mixed ability' group in terms of speed, and two people were recovering from half marathons they did on Sunday.

    That's it for me now until Sunday. Just lots of rest, sleep, hydration and food. And hopefully no ill-effects from getting drenched!
     
  13. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Wednesday 2015/10/07. taiji class.

    Started with warm-up excercises, then did the long form once.

    We then spent some time doing a few different pushing-hands sets which we haven't done for ages, so it was a bit of a memory-jogger for most people I think, although for me there were a couple which I don't actually know because I've hardly done them before. Didn't really learn a great deal to be honest, and if we don't practise them more often then I don't think I ever will.

    Finally, we ran through the sabre form, then spent some time going over the bits towards the end which I don't really know because I missed the classes when everyone else was taught them.
     
  14. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    I could see many benefits for practicing with it - doesn't always have to have an immediate SD practicality to it to be useful.

    How far down the road with empty hand forms would the typical student be before they began to learn Sabre?
     
  15. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Different teachers will teach things in different order. Some may teach spear before they teach sabre. Some may spend more time on pushing hands BEFORE doing weapons, for all I know.

    I would imagine that the only common factor would be that you'd learn the empty-hand form before anything else. But again, some teachers might expect you to learn long and short versions of that before progressing to weapons and whatnot.

    It might be worth you starting a thread or something in order to pick the brains of some of the members here who actually teach Taiji. They might have a more informed slant on this than I do.
     
  16. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    Ja, we started off with Yang style empty hands form. Much harder to do fluidly than from the way it looks when watching it done, lol.

    Interestingly, I could see very strong foundations of MA in it, even this early on.

    Gonna be interesting.
     
  17. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    All the best for tomorrow Johnno. Get into a good rhythm and I'm sure all this training will make those 26 miles fly by. :)
     
  18. belltoller

    belltoller OffTopic MonstreOrdinaire Supporter

    Ja, good luck for your big day [​IMG]
     
  19. Johnno

    Johnno Valued Member

    Sunday 2015/10/11. Yorkshire Marathon.

    I could probably write a full length dissertation about this, but I'll try to keep it brief!

    Perfect conditions for running: bright, cool and still. My left knee felt really fragile as soon as I started, which made me worry that my run might be over very quickly. So I took the first mile pretty slowly, and my knee settled down.

    Set off with a couple of friends from my club who were in the same pen as me. Two of us kept passing each other, so that gave me a useful 'marker' when I was the one behind. Passed quite a few other friends in the first couple of miles, and we were doing a lot more overtaking than being overtaken. Didn't feel like I was goiing to quickly though, it just felt comfortable. Eventually I decided that I was going to let her go, as she now doing a pace that I didn't feel like I wanted to try to match, not that early.

    I had wanted to set off close to the four hour pacemaker, but due to the pen I was in I was actually a bit behind the 4.5 hour one. Passed him fairly early on, and then I was hunting down the four hour one. Didn't catch him up until about five or six miles out. Was going to tag in behind him, but there was a big cluster of runners coattailing him, so I decided to get in front and then I'd know that I was ahead of schedule as long as he didn't pass me.

    The first four miles had gone failry slowly (it felt) and when we reached the five mile marker I was disappointed, because I was expecting to see number 6! But the next few mile markers seemed to whizz by, and I was feeling very comfortable.

    Then we had a couple of climbs which were a lot steeper than they had seemed to me when we had recce'd them in the car! They took more out of my legs than I would have expected them to, and by eleven miles I was starting to dwell on the advice that the first half should be easy and the race really begins in the second half. I was starting to feel a lot tireder than I would have liked to at that stage.

    It was starting to become a real struggle. I had had a bit of an upset stomach since Saturday morning, and it was really churning now. I wouldn't say that it affected my running, but I could have done without it. Worse than that though, my lower back was starting to get very sore. Now that was frustrating, because I was still within the distance that I had run in training, and my back hadn't given me this much bother then. Something else, which I hadn't experienced ever before, was that my feet were getting extremely sore.

    The four hour pacemaker passed me at about 18 miles. His following pack had gone down to two people, so I just tagged along with them and hoped to be able to keep up, but I had to drop back after about a quarter of a mile, I just couldn't maintain even 9 minute miles. That was hugely demoralising, because my target time was now out of the question. I just had to make sure that I finished. And over the last seven miles I had my doubts that I could. I was starting to wonder if it really was sensible to continue to run, but it would have been a very long and miserable walk to the finish! And with so many people having generously sponsored me, I couldn't let them down.

    A couple of times in the last few miles I said to myself "Bugger the pain, I'm going to RUN!" and would lurch from my stumbling jog into actual running strides. Then after about two hundred yards the pain won, and it was back to stumbling again.

    In the end I decided that I really should stop thinking about a toilet break and actually have one. Maybe then I wouldn't be in such discomfort for the rest of the race. So I stumbled into a portacabin, but very little actually happened. Washed my hands with what I assumed (in my befuddled state) to be alcohol hand cleanser, but it turned out to be soap. And there was no basin or tap where I could wash it off. I then couldn't open the door, and thought that I had locked myself in. Was about to start shouting for help, when I realised that I simply had to push the door, instead of pulling it! And for the next mile or so I had to avoid wiping the sweat out of my eyes for fear of getting soap in them! Finally reached the next water station, where I could rinse my hands while I ran.

    After a few more miles of stumbling along at a slow jog, being overtaken by just about everyone who I had passed in the first few miles, I finally reached the steep hill that I was dreading. And funnily enough, it didn't seem nearly as bad as I expected. I managed to shamble al the way up it without needing to walk, and the knowledge that the end was close kept me going. Once over the top I actually managed to run to the finish line. A pretty slow run, mind, but I was delighted just to be able to run at all.

    So my finish time was close to four and a half hours, well below my target. I suppose I am pleased with myself for keeping going when I was really hurting and way, way behond exhausted. But I'm wondering whether I just have to accept that my body isn't up to running this distance, or whether it was just bad luck on the day. If it had just been that my legs weren't up to it then I would just plan to train harder next time. I suppose I need to take a bit of time to digest this and decide whether I want to do it again.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2015
  20. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    MAP needs a mega-thanks button. This make me feel positively lazy.
    Sounds to me you got unlucky Johnno?. Hit a bad day that made things ache more than normal?
     

Share This Page