Monday 20 April 2009

hot hot hot!

Stuck in Algeria this week and training is limited to hammering away on a truly rubbish treadmill (the belt sticks every now and again and almost catapults you off the stupid thing) in 27 - 32 degree heat with no air con, not been easy to keep going but I have managed to get a decent number of 10k runs in without too much incident, except for the fact that I have to change my t-shirt every 15 minutes while running - try eating a banana, drinking water and trying to change your T-shirt while running at 11km/hour on an unreliable surface if you fancy a challenge!


On the plus side I got the official picture back from Edinburgh this week - nicely done, they identify you by the number and put the chip time on the bottom of it too so all in all its a nice memento to have for when I am old and fat (probably this time next year to be honest!)



If it doesn't look like I am enjoying myself that's probably because I wasn't! Was pushing hard at that point to get back on pace..... never again!

Home tomorrow (hopefully) so back to running outside in the drizzle again - lovely! And just over a month to go till Copenhagen....

Monday 6 April 2009

The first hurdle

It was the Edinburgh half marathon at the weekend and I was in it as a test run for the big one which is now only 7 weeks away.... luckily I came out of it with a good result.

Things I learned were....

Get there early - I was there in plenyt of time and although I was nervous it halepd that I was not running around all over the place trying to get numbers etc etc etc. The race was delayed for 15 minutes which was a pain as it was coldish but I was glad that I was there in plenty time....

I don't running in crowds.... it was very hard to get a handle on pace etc with a big crowd about - they start in time order and I was too far back at the start of the race which held me up a lot (was 21 minutes for the first 2 miles which was was way slower than I hoped to be)

Running at a constant pace.... Point 2 above meant that I had to chase time for the middle - end of the race which was hard, on the good side I managed to do it and I felt strong at the end of the run but the thought of stepping my pace up from mile 2 on was hard....

Take the day off!.... I could hardly walk today and stairs were, frankly, impossible - luckily Luigi my boss let me have the day off at short notice so I could rest up - gawd only knows what would have happened otherwise!

All things considered though I am delighted - I was hoping for a time of between 2:05 and 2:15 and got over the line in 1:57 which is a huge boost for the second half of the marathon training.... the hard miles start here....(or more accurately they start tomorrow with a 10k recovery run!)