The Plan. Exercise Day 2 (and a little milestone)

Another day, another interval session but one with a difference. This time, The Plan called for 2 miles at 8m/m pace, 800m walk and then another 2 miles at 8 m/m pace. This was followed by 4 x 100m sprints giving everything I had left. This turned out to be not a lot. After what can only be described as a truly awful week at work, I had a lot of anger to get rid of. Just a year ago, you would probably have found me in a pub drinking copious amounts of alcohol, drowning my sorrows and trying to forget that the day had happened. Now I'm running instead?!?! AND I haven't even hit my 30's yet! Mind you, I can't deal with hangovers any more either which may have something to do with it!

So, onto the results!

2 miles. Target time: 16:00. Actual time: 15:26. (7:43 m/m)
Hell yeah. That's what I'm talking about!!
2 miles. Target time: 16:00. Actual time: 16:04. (8:02 m/m)
Cock it. So close. Got too complacent after the first effort me thinks!
100m sprint. Target: all out sprint. Actual time: 14 secs
Happy boy. It can only get worse.. and it did!
100m sprint. Target: all out sprint. Actual time: 15 secs
Thought as much
100m sprint. Target: all out sprint. Actual time: 15 secs
More consistent than the 2 mile efforts though
100m sprint. Target: all out sprint. Actual time: 15 secs
Home time and oh crap, I know what's coming now!

Yep, it was time to see if there were any benefits to an ice bath. After speaking to the brother-in-law the other week and reading the thoughts of I run because I love food, it was time to try it. I only did limited stretching to see the effects and I must say, the hip/hamstring/back ache pain isn't as bad today so I think this is the way forward with a bit of light stretching especially for the Saturday then Sunday runs. Hopefully it will aid recovery.

One thing I must say though is that the standard tired muscle aches I'm getting at the moment are very similar to when I first started running. It seems they have to learn to run all over again now I'm trying to pick up the pace. I'm wondering if the way forward for any new starter is to run at a faster rate at first instead of just trying to get a longer distance. That way at least you're training your muscles to run faster from an early point?!?! Scientific proof?? Hell no, just my random mumblings as ever.

Enjoy your weekend, I have a 4m pace run on Saturday and an 8 mile relaxed run on Sunday. Oh yes, I'll need to fit packing a two bed flat into boxes somewhere along the line too.

Just realised this is my 50th post!!! Never thought it'd get this far so cheers for reading!

If the aching's anything to go by

So along with a few others, I've done myself a training plan for the Royal Parks Half in Oct. I found one on a website, then destroyed it and rebuilt it taking into account things such as Hard as Snails, Surrey Badger and Rat Race as well as moving house and going for a long weekend in Devon. You can see why I couldn't follow it to the letter.

It gives me 2 full rest days a week and one 3 mile easy run day so in essence, 4 days of hard work a week which I think I can do. It's only a 9 week plan so I don't actually have to start yet but I thought I'd give one of these 'interval' sessions a go and therefore copied the plan of what will be my first day of training come 11th Aug. The entire thing only involves 2.2 miles of running and a mile of walking. How that's going to help run 13.1 miles in under 1:50:00 come October, I have no idea.

I know that there's some logic to it but I have to see it doing some good first I think. Now, if doing some good means more aching in the calves than I've had since starting to run last year, then it's definitely doing some good!! Following my schedule I ran at a pace of just under 8 min/miles which was OK. The pain arrived after the 4 x 200m sprints at the end.

I'm going to do a few more of these sessions leading up to my training start date in the hope that I'll still be able to use stairs come August 11th! Wish me luck.

By the way, for the coolest thing I've seen today, check out the link above for Hard as Snails. It's a 3D fly through of the route. Oh dear. They could have made it a bit flatter!!!