ow, Ow, OW! Thanks, where do I pay?

I started this week with an 18 mile run on Sunday afternoon. Setting off at about 4pm and returning home at around 7:30pm.

I didn't do my normal 5am start because it was Mothering Sunday, and also Helena's birthday on the following Monday, and both Helena and Suzi needed (and deserved) breakfast in bed.

The run route was a change from my normal run route also. I set off from home to Eastville Park and then followed the Frome Valley Walkway all the way until just after the Winterborne Viaduct (see picture), where the pathway began to cross very rough fields that made the going quite tough, and so I decided to return home.

I felt like the 18 miles was pretty much my limit. Thinking about how to go further, I think I either need to toughen up, better my nutrition, or go more slowly, or probably a bit of all of these.

When I returned home I used an ice-pack on my knees as they tend to be the area that feel the most sore. This treatment seemed to really work, and on Monday I ran the 8 miles round trip to the Junior BAD Tri track session at Filton Academy and my knees felt fine.

Tuesday (today) was a rest day. However, I had booked myself for a sports massage. Hence the title of the post - My God it was painful (but effective).

Gina, my massuer, highlighted some possible issues with my legs and gave some helpful advice on ways to improve things:

1. I have an imbalance between my legs. Most pronounced is that my left hamstring is much weaker than my right. So from now on, when I do weights sessions, I need to concentrate on strengthening my left hamstring
2. My ITB's are both tight. Gina recommended using a cut-off part of a swim woggle as an effective roller to loosen my ITB's
3. My glutes are very tight, and she gave me some stretches to assist with this

I'll try to repeat the torture of the sports massage every 4-6 weeks, as it has really helped to loosen-up my legs.

Spring is in the air...

What a fantastic day to begin my week's training.

After feeling very old last week, with achy joints and slight malaise, I decided to skip my long run today and go for a long mountain bike (MTB) ride instead. My thinking was that I could still give my muscular endurance a good workout whilst also giving my joints a much needed break from the pounding of a 20+ mile run.

I arose at 5:10am and was out of the door by 5:30am. And once on my normal run route along the towpath, there was just enough light to see the terrain and enable me to push-on rather than just dawdle along. I tried to keep a pace that would keep my heart rate up at about my normal run HR -10 beats.

As the Sun came up, it turned out to be a beautiful day, with Spring very much in the air. With Daffodils, lambs and wild garlic all showing an end to Winter!

By the time I got home 4 hours later at 09:30am, I really felt like my legs had had a good workout, but my joints felt fine. And, given the success of today, I will probably look to change my training plan so that I have a long run every other week with a long MTB in between.

I wore my heart rate monitor to give me some idea of the intensity of the workout. My average was 135bpm, which was about what I expected. Here's the chart of my heart rate:


The long gap at about 3hrs 20mins was for a stop to get something to eat. By then my breakfast of two oatcakes with peanut butter had definitely burnt-off.

All-in-all, a very good workout.

On my return, I found that the children had gotten Suzi up very early, so the household atmosphere wasn't its best. However, Suzi had managed to get another hour's sleep while the children played.

Now, given how wonderful that the weather was, we took all the children's bikes up to the Downs - which is a big open space not very far from our house.

Helena had her first try riding a bike without stabilisers, and just took off without me having to hold her at all! Top marks. In fact, this has very much been her weekend. Firstly, she got promoted to the top group at her swimming class despite being much smaller than the other children in the top group. She also went to two parties, one Saturday and one Sunday, and learnt to ride a bike. Surprise, surprise, she was very tired tonight!

Tomorrow evening I shall be off to help with the BAD Kids training night, and will try to get in a good long run as well (10-15miles).

Back on track? Just maybe...

The trouble with enthusiasm...

...is it can get you into trouble!

Oh what a fool I am. The week following the Tough Ten Challenge, I was so full of enthusiasm that I pushed on hard trying to claw-back my mileage total for the week .

I seem to be at the point where my muscles are able to accept plenty of training volume, but my tendons are not. Smashing down rough, rocky descents in the Tough Ten Challenge, followed by too much road mileage training resulted in another tendon inflammation (tendonitis), this time - the knee (hence the picture).

The main symptom of the injury was a stabbing pain in the knee when attempting to run up any sort of incline. So, again there wasn't much to do but RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) and add some leg strengthening exercises.

On the positive side (sort of), my knee injury coincided with a head-cold, caught from my darling wife. So, dodgy knee and snotty nose - not great!

After a week's rest, with the exception of doing some gym work, I managed to get out for a 17 mile slow run on Sunday. This started badly with a few bouts of the stabbing pain, but after about 10 minutes or so the pain pretty much disappeared. And since this run, my knee swelled very slightly but now seems pretty much back to normal. But just to be sure I've kept it pretty low volume this week.

Looking forward, I need to re-focus on the ONER. And therefore I have decided:

1. To skip the Bath Half Marathon as it won't help me at all towards preparing for the ONER, and will just take time for me to recover
2. Add more leg-weights sessions, particularly leg press, as there is some evidence that these may help to protect my quads against all the hills that the ONER will present
3. Don't fall into the trap of just adding more and more mileage at the expense of other training
4. Listen to my body more to try not to get injured again

I have re-planned as follows:


Also, mad as it seems, I have taken to carrying a rolled-up piece of roofing lead in my work rucksack. I will soon be adding to this with a pair of 1Kg ankle weights. These impediments are to help me get general conditioning at every opportunity (free training!). Will these work? Only time will tell...

The Tough Ten Challenge

This race is described as...

"The 10 mile course uses sections of (closed) tarmac road along the seafront and coast, a section of the Promenade, woodland paths and trails within Worlebury Woods, and a little of the beach. In parts is it flat and fast; in others there are short climbs and long down hill sections."

The race was bigger than I had at first thought with 1250 entrants. I travelled down with a friend, Martin, and we met a few others that I knew whilst at the race. This included a friend Simon and his wife Sarah. Simon and I used to be very close surf buddies. There wasn't many a Sunday that went by without us heading down to the Devon/Cornwall coastline come what may surf-wise. It was great to see Simon at the race - Do all land-locked surfers turn to recreational running?

The race itself went pretty well. Despite feeling pretty fatigued from training going in to the race, I felt quite strong throughout the 10 miles.

I mostly walked the big hill up into the woods, and this tactic seemed to work well versus those who attempted to run the whole way. They made a bit on me on the ascent, but I very quickly caught-up and overtook once at the top.

The descent down the hill was a chance to let go, only in semi-control:


I finished in a time of 69 minutes which put me 97th out of 1070 who completed the course.

My average pace was 7:05/mile (8.45mph) which was OK.

Here's a picture towards the finish:


Back to the serious stuff now - plenty of training miles!

Raising money for...

The NSPCC is a UK based charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children. It is the only children's charity with statutory powers, enabling it to act to safeguard children.
If you would like to donate to NSPCC in support of my attempt at the ONER, please either visit my ONER-NSPCC Justgiving page (to donate a fixed amount), or if you would prefer to sponsor me per-mile, download my sponsorship form and send it to me at the address below.

CLIC Sargent is a UK based children’s cancer charity, supporting children, young people and their families through cancer. The care they offer includes: * Nurses * Social Workers * Play Therapists * Home from Home * Research * Financial support and advice * Holidays
If you would like to donate to CLIC Sargent in support of my attempt at the ONER, please either visit my ONER-CLIC Justgiving page (to donate a fixed amount), or if you would prefer to sponsor me per-mile, download my sponsorship form and send it to me at the address below.

Address for sponsorship forms:

Luke Taylor
55 Fremantle Road
Cotham
Bristol
BS6 5SX
UK

I have a cunning plan Baldrick...

"Is it as cunning as a fox that used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University, but has moved on, and is now working for the UN at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning?"

Erm, perhaps not. But it is a plan. And here it is -


As can be seen, the main basis of the plan is the long run on Sunday, followed by another long'ish run on Monday evening. The mileage during the rest of each week will be made up of various sessions at various times.

I have tried to create a plan that increases my training volume gradually, and provides a recovery week every third week.

I e-mailed my plan to ed_m, an ultra runner who I got to know via the TriTalk triathlon forum. Ed very kindly commented on my plan. This has helped give me confidence that my plan is probably about right. However, as Ed said - "...ultra training more than shorter stuff can vary depending on the individual & recovery times etc."

So far, I have been sticking to the plan (early days I know!). Yesterday I completed a 19 mile run, and backed that up today with another 8 mile run - In the snow!

I'm just really pleased to have completed the last 10 days without any further Achilles problems.

I'll finish this post with a photo of Laura completing a snow angel:


And a picture from my phone, out on a run on Saturday 7th February:

Ups and downs of training

The first month of training has had its ups and downs. The most positive aspect has been Suzi's brilliant support for me doing a long run every Sunday morning. I get up and out at 6:00am, taking some sandwiches and a drink with me, and then return at about 9:00am, still with the day ahead with the family to look forward to.

The runs start in the dark for the first hour or so, but I'm finding that there's plenty of ambient light or moonlight to light my way out along the towpath, beneath Brunel's Suspension Bridge alongside the River Avon (hence the picture). The route continues along to a village called Pill, where I join-up with the A369 that returns to Bristol. There are lots of woods and parkland (Abbots Pool, Leigh Woods, Ashton Court) on the return leg to ensure that most of the run takes place off-road.

My training so far this month has been as follows:

• 14 Dec - 20 Dec = 34 miles
• 21 Dec - 27 Dec = 28 miles
• 28 Dec - 3 Jan = 11 miles
• 4 Jan - 10 Jan = 36 miles

As you can see, and to be expected, there was quite a dip over the Christmas and New Year period whilst family took precedence.

My training plan is roughly developing as follows:

• Run 4-5 days per week
• Sunday long run (building-up to 5+ hours) backed-up by another long run Monday evening (I help with the BAD Kids track night, and run about 4.5 miles to Filton Sport Academy) with a longer loop on the way back (building to 3+ hours)
• Weekday lunchtime runs to include hills work and a small amount of speed work
• Plenty of core exercises and regular weights (low weight / high reps)

The main negative aspect of this month's training has been that towards the end of my last long run, my right Achilles flared-up again with Achilles Paratendinopathy (inflammation in the Achilles area). This is something that I've had before, and looking back it was caused by:

1. Increasing my overall training volume too quickly (I did a hills session followed by a tempo session followed by the long run, all in 4 days) when my body just wasn't ready - the muscles were OK, but not the tendons
2. Not stretching properly after my runs

My treatment has mainly consisted of:

1. Not running, but doing general leg weights instead
2. Eccentric calf lowers to strengthen the Achilles
3. Lots of stretching

I'm hoping that I've caught this problem early enough that I can restart running after a week's lay-off.

I'll make sure I continue with the exercises to strengthen my Achilles, along with lots of stretching, which should hopefully prevent any reoccurrence.

There was some very useful information on Achilles Tendonitis in my training bible - The Lore of Running by Dr Tim Noakes.

Looking ahead, I still want to reach my first goal of completing about a marathon distance as a training run by sometime in March (without any further injury!). The pace will be about 10 minute miles, equating to about a 4.5hour training run. That will give me April/May/June to extend this to 6+ hours.

That's the plan, but this is a journey into the unknown for me, so we'll see...