Rightzone Triathlon

Thanks to David Rowe for the picture above. Taken at the Bushy Park 5k on 30th Jan (only managed 17.50 here). Having had pretty much all of 2009 off in terms of exercise I was certainly lacking confidence that a sub 2.45 marathon was possible. Being quite impatient I was quite quick to dismiss the chances given the early stats. Not that it stopped me from putting in the effort. It's amazing how every now and again a breakthrough session confirms that rapid improvements are possible and that the form is starting to head towards what i would expect for this time of a marathon build. I'd normally start in late November so starting on January 1st was pretty late really. 

So what are the breakthroughs? One was today. 16 miles @ 6.53mins per mile for an average HR of 140!!! Contrast that with a 12 mile run on the 23rd of January on exactly the same terrain where I averaged 7.07mins per mile for an average HR of 146. 

Run number 35 was a delightful track session at St Mary's with Victoria. Stats were as follows

Mile 1 -  1.23,1.26, 1.26, 1.25 = 5.41

Mile 2 - 1.23, 1.26, 1.25, 1.23 = 5.39

Mile 3 - 1.22, 1.23, 1.25, 1.23 =  5.35

Mile 4 - 1.21, 1.25, 1.25, 1.21 =  5.34

Mile 5 - 1.22, 1.24, 1.23, 1.19 = 5.30

So the model track session in terms of improved splits. I'd have liked to have seen more like 5.20s really but I guess that will come in time. It's still only the end of the 6th week of training. Be interested to see what this session looks like in August time. Sore calves now!

When I started the 365 day running challenge on the 1st January 2010 I didn't plan on actually doing the London Marathon seriously. Only 24 days into the 365 and I'm already starting to feel strongish and in my head I'm planning on going for the elusive sub 2.45 at London. It seems like every year could be a missed opportunity should I choose not to race London. Not to say a PB couldn't be on the cards at 40+ mind. So the challenge has been a positive one so far. I'm actually really enjoying running every day and also glad to feel like an athlete once again.

The stats so far are 24 runs in 24 days, 114 miles covered and averaging 37.5 mins per day. That's not bad. I've even done one race. I'm not far off completing something I give a lot of my athletes to do if they are considering developing there running quickly or coming back from a layoff……30 runs in 30 days. 

So I've comitted to running 30 mins every day for 365 days. How on earth am I going to stay motivated for that? I've bought the Garmin 310XT of course! I've always loved the bits of tech that have been developed for athletes to monitor their progress. Having used the Garmin 305 in the 2008 marathon I've been waiting for a watch that is waterproof (i.e. can be used for swimming) and the Garmin 405 was a little disappointing in that it did everything that I wanted, except it wasn't waterproof. The 310XT is a Heart Rate monitor, measures speed / distance AND it's waterproof. I paid £160 for a 2nd hand version on Ebay.

So for around £70 I spent my paper money on a Polar Edge which was pretty basic in that all it measured was a heartrate and I think it had a self lit screen! The Edge lasted for years and I was still using it in 2001 for the London Marathon.

When I got into triathlon more seriously in 2002 I realised that I wanted something a little more sophisticated. So I purchased a Polar S710. Apart from it falling apart in the last few years this watch was excellent. I loved downloading all the exercise files into the Polar software and pouring over the data, which even included a gradient profile.

I was bugged by the fact that the S710 didn't do distance and round about that time Timex brought out a groundbreaking watch called the Timex 50 Speed & Distance (there was a Timex 100 which allowed you to take 100 time splits). The main feature was that it measured speed and distance using GPS. The downside was that the GPS signal was picked up by a rather bulky receiver that strapped onto your arm. Never really did like the watch and probably didn't really justify the spend on it. It was pretty unrealiable in town or under trees but I did use it to pace my marathon PB!

I'm back with a challenge that will hopefully kick start some exercise in 2010. The last year has probably been one of the most sendentary for me. Most of my spare time was spent learning to play golf (I took this up in late 2008). I managed to get my handicap down to 15 but completely let the fitness stuff go (apart from an outing at the National Relays in Nottingham in August).

Many of the athletes I've coached have used the 30 runs lasting 30 mins over 30 days to get back into running. I thought I'd take it a step further an extend this out to a whole year. The challenge is simply to run for 30 mins every day for 365 consecutive days. Naturally the runs can be longer but the key is to run for 30 mins. The good news is I've completed 2 out of the 365 and it's going well! My main area of concern will be staying injury free so I'll be stretching well after every session. Illness is probably the other main enemy to the challenge and I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed for that.

I've got a place in the London Marathon in April and was toying with the idea of deferring it to 2011. However it might be nice, actually maybe nice isn't the right word, to actually run round in under 3 hours without putting too much into the training. Running sub 2.45 will take 70 to 80 miles a week of training but surely it's possible to run under 3 hours with around 40 miles of training.