Ten Days Later...

The idea of this blog was to note something down every day or two or three or four... It has, of course, been ten days, because I never get round to anything!  But I will try and leave more regular updates...  The last ten days have been interesting for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, following the Steve Palladino Marathon Training Plan has been very hard but very worthwhile.  Secondly, there is an update on something that was put in place before this blog started.  About three weeks ago I was up in Glasgow and talking to my sister Jo about my marathon plans.  Both my medical sisters are worried that, given my injury, I should be careful about overdoing it.  And marathon plans can lead to that, so it's not a bad idea to have that in mind for sure!   Jo mentioned an old friend of hers who is an ex-international athlete and who specialises in running and aging and is heavily involved in research.  I thought it would be great to have a chat with this friend, Ceri Diss, if she had the time and inclination.  Jo pinged her, and Ceri called me soon afterwards.  We had a great chat, well, it was great for me, because Ceri is truly an expert in this field, so hugely interesting to me.  I told Ceri that my plan was to run the Manchester marathon slowly this April.  Then quicker next April (2024).  And then, hopefully close to three hours in London the year after (2025 when I am 60).  Ceri made me realise that achieving this goal is virtually impossible, but the thing with goals is it's the journey that is important, not the success or failure.  So I'm obviously still gonna give it a go...  She asked me to check how many 60+ year-olds break three hours for the marathon and also asked me to send her a little video of me running.  Today I managed to get a video, so I will answer Ceri here and I can send her the link to this blog.  She can obviously ignore/skim all the nonsense before the answers to her questions :-) 

For the first question, I couldn't actually find a concrete record of the number of people who break three hours at age 60+.  But I got an idea...  Last year in the London marathon there were 10 people who did it aged 60-69 and the even fewer at ages beyond that,  London has tens of thousands of runners.  Clearly breaking three hours at this age is unusual, and probably mainly for ex-elite athletes.  Not impossible, but certainly a stretch goal for someone like me!

For the second question it has been a while to get a video of me running.  I only run on treadmills in winter due to worry about my head injury with tricky conditions.  So I have been going to the gym to do a run five days a week.  However usually most of the other treadmills have someone running on them so I wasn't sure how appropriate it would be for someone to video me.  Also, I know nobody in Penrith, so getting someone to video me running wasn't a no-brainer...  Today was scheduled (in my training plan) to be a long run.  The long runs are always on a Saturday, and today was the longest so far - two hours ten minutes!!  I was slightly terrified :-)  The plan is power based, so ten minutes at an easy power, an hour and a half at a harder but still easy power, twenty five minutes at a medium pace and then finally five minutes easy at the end.  For the treadmill I used in the gym today, that meant 11.3kmh at the start and end and 11.6kmh for the big hour and a half and 12.8kmh for the medium pace bit.  I found it very, very hard to do, but I managed it.  And after about thirty five minutes, the person on the treadmill next to me finished their run.  And all the other treadmills were empty!  So I asked them if they minded doing a quick video of me and they were fine with that!  They were great!  Very supportive of the endeavour!  That's all I want to say for today, but I will try and add in the three little videos of me running.  I thought I was looking quite quick when I was doing it, but when I saw the video I look very slow!  The video is accurate!!  I came away with a horrible but not painful blister after this long run, so I have added a photo of that too.  Dunno why!! :-)

Normal speed video of treadmill run

    
Slow Mo speed video of treadmill run


Horrible Blister after long (130 minute) run.  Yugh!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manchester Half Marathon!!

Today was the day!  The half marathon that I had been training for, for the last few months!  The event is just superb!!  An easy tram to get close to the start,  And then a flat course with loads of support the whole way round!!  Just fabulous!!  I was wearing my Vegan Runners t-shirt and got just heaps of support personally the whole way!!  Loved the whole event, and the Manchester Evening News (a newspaper) even has a picture of me running!!  Picture number 20 out of 45, so not exactly famous, but funny!! My idea before the race was that I should be somewhere between 1:50:00 and 1:55:00.  Not exactly quick, but decent enough!  However I didn't mind if it was over 2 hours - the main goal was simply to finish!!  But on the day, with the good weather, and good training and feeling fine, I thought I should be under 1:50:00 - maybe even close to 1:45:00.  It wasn't to be - my official time was 1:52:34 which is bang on what I ex...
Read more

Parkrun PB: 22:14

My parkrun PB has been 22:26 since the 3rd of June 2023!!  I clearly haven't exactly been tearing it up on parkruns over the last 15 months!!  And I haven't written anything for this blog in the last four months or so, but nothing unusual has happened in my running world in that time.  But last year I said I would blog every time I managed to get a new PB, and, finally, today is the day!  The improvement was only 12s but it's still an improvement, so I am very pleased.  Also, in January I moved to Manchester, and that means all my parkruns this year have been in Manchester.  Today the location of my overall PB moved from Penrith to Manchester - end of an era😁.  I have been getting close to a PB recently, and today the weather was chilly but nice, so it was a good day to attempt a PB.  I usually do Alexandra Parkrun in Manchester and today was no exception!  I was 87th today, and being in the top 100 at Alexandra is unusual for me!!  It...
Read more

Long Run Post-Operation

It's 12 days before the Manchester marathon!!  Obviously due to the head operation at the end of February, my running in March has been kinda limited!!  And my running for the second half of February was pretty much non-existent too!!  Not great training for the marathon, but if I am going to give it a go, what do I need to do?  Clearly the aim now is not to worry about pace, but just try and get round it, ideally without stopping!  Even breaking four hours is not a goal - that's too quick for me in my current state.  But maybe 6m/km is achievable for a marathon.  That would equate to about 4:13h which is, if anything, faster than I should be aiming at!!  The not stopping is bizarrely important to me, because I have a possibly daft feeling that the knee/calf problems I have had in long runs only happen after I stop.  If I keep going, even very slowly, the pain won't start until I stop, which is hopefully after the finish!  So I am lookin...
Read more