The Running Man

17 miles this week! 5 days of running including two sessions of 4 miles. The only pain I've been feeling is the usual muscle aching that occurs from using muscles that I haven't used properly in the last six months. Next week I'm going to extend the long run sessions to 5 miles. This means I'm going to be able to travel further afield from my house than the usual running around in a circle.

I've been reading about what my optimal running weight and body fat is. Exciting stuff eh! Apparently my current body fat of 15.5% puts me in the 80th percentile for my age. If I reduce this to 12% it will put me close to the 90th percentile and would pretty much be my optimal body fat without giving up work and becoming a full time runner. My estimated weight for this body fat would be 78.3kg (12 stone 6 pounds in old money) which will become my goal in time for the Chester marathon in October. At the moment I'm 81.6kg so it shouldn't be too difficult providing I don't get injured!

Here's my weigh-in from 24th May:

Here's my run from Saturday morning, a nice little run to Ealing Common and back:

Keep on running!

Finally I have managed to run continuously for three miles! Having said last week that I would increase my sessions I decided to increase them even further by running five in five days, increasing the running time each day. This meant that by the Friday I was running twenty minutes non-stop. I had no adverse reaction at all and felt good. Well, not good, but certainly not in any muscular pain. My cardio fitness is way down from where it was six months ago so hopefully this will improve over the next month.

To celebrate finishing my return to running schedule I decided to go out for a three mile run on the Saturday morning and then another on the Monday morning. This week I will run five times, three sessions of three miles and two of four miles. Then the next week I will run three sessions of four miles and two of five miles and so on and so on. Hopefully this will ease my body back to regular running as well as improving my cardio fitness. It feels good to be running instead of run/walking which I’ve always found to be more difficult than just running. Perhaps it’s the stop-start aspect of it that grates with me. Also, I find that you look forward to the walking section and see the running as a bit of a punishment whereas when I am running continuously I can concentrate just on how I am running without thinking about stopping. It’s all in the mind!

Talking of all in the mind I’m currently reading a book called Brain Training for Runners. According to the author our brains try to fool us into thinking that we are in pain to prevent the body depleting it’s resources when in fact we can physically run much further. He cites an example of a person who is running a marathon and no matter how difficult it gets for them or how much their brain is screaming to walk or stop or lie down or do anything other than put one foot in front of the other but as soon as the finishing line comes into sight they are capable of putting in a sprint for 200-300 metres. It is interesting stuff but I think it’s going to take a while for me to stop listening to my brain especially if I start to get pain twinges in my calf.

On Saturday my run took me through Walpole Park next to the Ealing Studios. I saw at least half a dozen other runners there and it was pretty early on Saturday morning, about 7am. I’m sure more people are running these days. Maybe it’s because there’s more coverage on the tv or maybe it’s just because it’s sunny and warm. No matter, the more runners the better as far as I am concerned.

Here’s my run from this morning that I took round Ealing

Speeding up the schedule

My recovery is going well so I'm going to speed up my return to full running by halving my training schedule. This just means that instead of doing two sessions of the same then I will only do one and then step up the amount of time I am running for the next session. This "should" allow me to start my marathon training at the end of June. If I feel any twinges then I'll step back to the previous session until the twinge goes away. Well, that's the plan at least.

My plan to lose 6 kg by the start of July is going well. I've lost just over 3 kg since the start of April so as long as I can keep off the pizzas and curries for the next six weeks then I should hit my goal. Hopefully by running more and more this should become easier.

I was ill at the start of the week with a cold which didn't help. I wasn't able to do my core exercises although I did go running. The rule of thumb is that as long as the cold is not in the chest then you can still run. My heart rate was up a bit but I managed to get all three sessions in.

Friday's run was a nice circular route that I used to do the first time I started running about ten years ago.

GPS AWOL

Sometimes, very rarely, my GPS watch goes nuts. Today it decided that my starting point was somewhere in Hammersmith and took about five minutes before it realised its mistake. The upshot to this is that I can apparently run a kilometer in thirty five seconds! Maybe I should enter the olympics next year. I'm certain I can improve on that time.
Apart from this technical strangeness I had a relatively pleasant, and short, run around west Ealing. Because I can only run for twenty minutes at the moment due to my schedule I have to be more inventive with my routes to make it more interesting. This basically means running down local roads that I've not been down before. It's nice to see a few new places so close to home. Nothing to really shout about mind you, the roads don't vary greatly. They look just like any other roads, but the fact that they are different is enough for my little mind to be happy with the change.
My resting heart rate is now in the lower 50s. Which means I'm either becoming much fitter or my heart rate monitor needs new batteries. Probably the latter, but I can hope for the former.
More good news, my weight is now down to 84.1 kg. Just over 4 kg to go to get to my ideal weight. I've given myself until the start of July to acheive this so I need to shed 1 kg every two weeks. As long as I can keep my booze consumption down then this should be achievable.
Here's my run from this morning, with the aforementioned crazy GPS. I'm up to 1 minute 30 seconds of running per 5 minute interval. Today's podcast was Adam and Joe.