Running Longer

8 March: 10k (DONE)
15 March 5k (DONE)
22 March 15k (DONE)
29 March 5k (DONE)
5th April - travelling to France for six days
3rd April 17k (DONE)
12 April 10k 5k
19 April 25k
26 April 5k
4th May HALF MARATHON
10 May 5k
17 May 25k
24 May 5k
1st June HALF MARATHON

Yesterday's 17k was going to be 20k but I didn't leave work for my half-day early enough to complete 20k before 4pm, when the window opened for signing C up for swimming lessons.  That's right, I took a half-day off work to queue for swimming lessons; the queue is usually popular enough that I didn't dare leave it to a normal working day departure, but decided to make good use of the leave by RUNNING . 

Anyway, because of leaving work late, I planned a 16k run as better than nothing, but in the event ran consistently above my training pace so managed to squeeze in an extra km at the end.

My route was very simple: leaving my bike parked at the sports centre, and ran from there to the busway and kept running until I'd covered 8km (this turned out to be a bit north of Oakington) then turned around and went back.  I got my extra km in by going up and down residential streets as I got near to Gilbert Road.

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?

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.