Another 3 half marathons to add to the tally, but now it is time to get really serious

I have another 3 half marathon distance training runs to add to my training log, from when I was in the UK a few days back.  The first was around Bracknell forest, with my friend Pritesh accompanying me on his bike.  That was pretty nice as there were plenty of trails to run on and lots of squelchy mud and soft pine needles.  The second was along the banks of the river Wye in Monmouth to the Biblins bridge and back, as night was beginning to fall.  On the return leg from the Biblins bridge I was rushing to get back while there was still enough light to see where I was treading, as there are no street lights along that part of the river.  It helped to spur me on when I saw an eight person rowing boat and decided to try and race it back to Monmouth.  In the end the boat won but I blame that on the large numbers of gates and stiles that held up my progress.  It was fun to run in the woods as night was falling, although a little eery too.  Then the final one is around the Streatham area of London, near to where my sister lives.  That involved doing a couple of big loops of Tooting Bec common and a few side excursions on top.  Some was pavement but a lot of the route was on muddy paths, yum yum.  It takes me around 2 hours and 5 minutes to run a nice easy half marathon, keeping my heart rate nice and low.

Now though it is time to get REALLY serious.  My plan is to do five 20 mile runs within the space of one week.  I will have to listen to my body really carefully and take note if it feels like too much, but if I can do it then I will.  The idea would be two 20 mile runs then a rest day then two more 20 mile runs then a rest day, and then a final 20 mile run followed by a rest day.

Oh yes and I will also be starting hot yoga next week too.  I find the idea of doing yoga in a pair of swimming trunks rather strange, but I will just have to wait and see how it feels when I get there.

The final part of my plan next week is to start buying more and more kit for the MDS.  I have got on well with my PT03 winter shoes from UK gear, so I think I will go ahead and order the PT03 desert shoes.  I just need to decide what size I want to order them in, as whilst my usual size is 42, you are meant to order them bigger for the MDS as your feet swell a lot in the heat.  If anyone can offer me advise on this last subject I would be grateful (Sarah-Jayne perhaps).

I was aiming for 45 minutes, but achieved 45 minutes 3 seconds - my 10km tempo run

I am currently in London, staying at my sister's house in Streatham.  As you would imagine I would do, I brought my running kit with me so that I could take advantage of my time and not miss out on any training.  At first my plan was to go for a 21km steady run, but I woke up pretty late.  Rather than go for a 21km run and then most of the day would be gone, I chose instead to go for a 10km tempo run.  I wasn't too sure about this plan, as I only just did a 30km on Monday, so I figured my legs may still be pretty jaded.  All the same I decided to stick with it.

Now the other day I did a time close to 46 minutes for my 10km run.  I wanted to try to knock that down a bit to 45 minutes.  After a warm up jog I went down the road to Tooting Bec Common and prepared my mind for a 45 minute 10km attempt.  It is a nice park and there are plenty of off road opportunities to avoid some hard impact on the legs.  It has rained recently though, so the paths are a bit muddy.  For this reason I stuck mostly to the asphalt but switched now and again onto the muddy paths just to shake things and keep my mind fresh.

I set off fast and I was a little worried I was going to blow up long before the end.  I eased off the gas ever so slightly and after a few minutes, my breathing and heat rate settled down and I got a nice smooth rhythm going.  One lap of the common turned out rather conveniently to be 2.5km, so that allowed me to get a feel of where I was and how well I was doing at each stage of the run.  By half way my time was almost bang on 22 and a half minutes so I knew that 45 minutes was achievable, although it would be tough because I had been working hard in the first half.  By the end of the third lap 45 minutes was still within the realms of possibility so I pushed hard into the final lap.

I was breathing really hard the whole last lap and my legs were burning.  I didn't want to push too hard until the very last few hundred metres as I really didn't have that much left in the tanks.  When the final few hundred metres came I looked at my watch and saw it was going to be very close.  I gave the last spurt I could and kept looking at my watch.  With 50 metres left I realised I had mistimed it ever so slightly and that I was going to be a few seconds over my target.  The final time was 45 minutes and 3 seconds and I am pretty happy with that.  I may even be able to go under 45 minutes as early as next week just by better pacing.

I will be staying at my friend Pete's house in Bracknell tonight, so if I am lucky I will get a nice run in Bracknell forest tomorrow.  I love the scenery around Zurich but it is always nice to have a change from time to time, and in Bracknell forest I have no need to run on the asphalt at all, with acres and acres of woodland to run around in. I have biked there plenty of times, but I don't recall every running there before, so it will be fun I am sure.  Then at the weekend I will be at my parents' house in Wales, so I will get a chance to run in the woods of the Wye Valley.  Anny has also signed up for a 10km run and so is running regularly too, and she is coming to join me in Wales at the weekend, so I will see if I can drag her along with me.

Speak to you again soon
Paul Gump

Completed back to back 30km runs meaning weekly milage is 112km

Aching, tired, challenged, buzzing, runners high, sleepy, alive - these are all words to describe how I feel right now after just completing my second 30km training run in 2 days.  Whilst the 21km back to back run felt absolutely fine, this one really challenged me, so I will keep the distance of my back to back runs like this for a few weeks, to give my body some time to adjust to these new demands.

Last week I did my back to back runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, but because I am going to the UK tomorrow, I wanted to get my back to back runs out of the way for this week.  Yesterday I did the first one and today I did the second one, so tomorrow I can rest, which is good since I am travelling.  What that means however is that within the span of one week (last Tuesday until now) I have managed to run a whopping 112m, exactly half the distance I will need to run in the MDS.  I had no idea I had run that far until I was looking through my Garmin Connect Activities, after having uploaded the latest run from today.

If my body feels okay tomorrow, and no sudden pains appear, then things are looking really good training wise.  Naturally I do expect some soreness though.  I have to go now, and try to ingest plenty of protein and carbs, take my hot bath and do my stretching.  I just wanted to share this great news with you first.  Thanks everyone for your ongoing support, even if you only read this blog, it is great to know that there are people out there reading it.  Thanks again.