The goal for today was 20k, but my legs started seriously aching around about 15k, and where I could have put in some extra looping down local residential streets to add in the extra distance, I decided to sod it and just go straight home.

I went from home, through Girton and Oakington, down the busway all the way to Milton Road (passing a naath heading the other way somewhere north of Histon), then back up the busway to the easy crossing to Northfield Avenue and then home down Carlton Way.

The Boundary Run is in two weeks, so that was my last long run before the event.  It's not as good as I'd have liked, but in mitigation, I have been ill and not running a lot of the last three weeks, and far from carb-loading, I'd spent a few days at my mother's where they mostly eat lean protein and veg and thus so did I.  My plan is to do a couple of short runs this week and next, a gentle5k next weekend, and to eat as much porridge, pasta and rice as I can bear the Thu-Sat before the big event.  Finishing is success, and I'm almost certain I can do it.

I decided to try a completely new route, and ran from home through Girton, along the bridlepath to the busway, along the busway to CRC and from there home.  I only had to add a little wiggle along Windsor Road near home to make the distance.

This was another slow walk/run - my new training pace is 9:31 min/km and despite consciously trying to run slowly and walk steadily, I averaged just under 9 min/km.   Looking at the splits, every single km was under 09:31 min except the last one, and that one included waiting for the lights to change on Histon Road.

The Cambridge Boundary Run is 7 weeks away.  I realised this on Monday and also that my training plan was out of sync with the actual race date, so had to rewrite it a bit.  I have the worst jump in distance next week, and then it's more sensibly-incremented short-long-short-long-short-RACE.  I think next weekend I'll add the extra distance by going all the way to Oakington - any suggestion as to whether that's best done going up-and-down the busway, or by running on from Girton to Oakington?


Hanging alongside the busway at Histon was a huge poster for the "Flaming June Half-Marathon" which starts and ends in Histon.   I will probably register for it in a month or two (there are other things queuing up for my spending money which I care about more).  It's 4 weeks after the Neolithic, which ought to be enough recovery time if I do a Neolithic half-marathon.  I've given up on the Cheltenham Challenge for this year - if I stick to my training plan with no setbacks, I will only just be ready for a marathon distance by the event date, and it's a hilly course whereas my training is basically flat.   I think it's more realistic to keep working on my stamina and look for a marathon event in Aug-Oct time.

I did a 30min run on Monday but failed to do my second short run because of a studying deadline and forgetting to take my kit to work.

Today I ran from home over to the West Cambridge site and around the lake a few times and then back the way I'd come.  The ratio today was 2.5:1 running:walking and my overall pace was 7:50/km.  In terms of pacing, this mostly felt at the "hard work but I can keep this up for a while yet" level; the walking breaks definitely work for me.

I have been thinking about my starts - I've carried over from C25k a habit of walking for 5 minutes to warm up first, and I do seem to need at least some of this when it is actually cold, but both my Zombies, Run game and presumably actual running events expect me to start off running.   It would reduce the time pressure on my lunchtime runs if I could cut out the 5 minute warm-up walk and just have a 30 minute run and then a walk to cool down.

How do you more experienced people warm up for a run? Do you do anything different between long runs and short runs?

How do you cool down? Again, do you do different things for long and short runs?

So, I got all excited about my marathon training plan from Jeff Galloway, I made a spreadsheet translating the distances and paces, and set up a new workout in RunKeeper and was all set ...

And then I was in bed with a filthy cold from Saturday to Tuesday and though feeling mostly better on Thursday decided that a gentle lunchtime walk was more in order than a 30 minute run.

However, today I felt fully back to normal, and decided to jump in with my week 2 long run of 6.5km, also trying out the run:walk split (using the RunKeeper workout to do the timing for me). I ran during my son's gymnastic lesson, so my route was simply around the residential streets between Victoria Road and Gilbert Road, finally making a direct run back from Gilbert Road towards the end.

Taking walking breaks was less irritating than I'd expected, with RunKeeper's notifications dialled down to the minimum, and it definitely made it easier to cope mentally when I started getting tired. My overall pace over the 6.5k was 7:40 min/km compared with my last three 5ks which were 8:20, 8:05, 7:55. I'm clearly still on the upswing of easy improvements as a beginner, but that's more of an improvement than I'd have expected, especially over a longer distance, after 8 days off.

The funniest bit of today was running past some small children in a quiet road, who decided to hide behind a parked car and jump out at me making monster noises. I was well aware they were doing this, so wasn't very surprised and made monster noises back; when I turned around and ran back down the road toward them, one of them asked why I was running and I said "to practice running!" which they clearly found very strange.

I have updated my spreadsheet to push everything back a week.

Hi.  I'm Rachel and I want to run longer distances.  I completed Couch-2-5k earlier this year, and after a summer break have started running regularly again.  I find myself thinking big.

Current longest distance run: 5k

Goal at this point: run a marathon some time next year (I said I was thinking big)

Training frequency: I'm following Jeff Galloway's marathon training for beginners, which consists of 2x 30 minutes run, an "easy walk" day and a long run day each week.  Galloway is also keen on walking breaks; I'm not sure about this and definitely not thrilled by the run:walk ratio he suggests for my slow running pace, but his is the only plan I've found that fits the time I actually have to spend on training, so I'm going to give it a try.  At the moment, I'm in week 2 of the plan which assumes the marathon race is week 30.

Expected check-ins: Weekly, after my long run

Events I am interested in:
Sun 2nd March 2014: Cambridge Boundary Run (half marathon).  Registration open now.
? May ? 2014: Neolithic Marathon (marathon). Registration opens January.
Sat 22nd June 2014: Cheltenham Circular Challenge (marathon). Registration opens January.