Parks and Recreation (and Canals)

Sleep, run, eat. And repeat. That's how it's felt for the past few weeks. The P+D training plan is really kicking in on the distances. After four weeks my weekly distance is about as much as it was during the height of my previous training plan. And I like it! I must be a masochist.

I've noticed on my midweek runs that I don't venture far from home. Even if I'm running 10 miles I will choose a familiar circular route that keeps me within a couple of miles from my front door. Yet on the weekend I will happily forge a new route that takes me miles away. I take my Oystercard and some money just in case I get injured or have to stop for some reason. I used to take my iPhone with me to listen to podcasts which meant I could call my wife to come and pick me up should I get into trouble (not that I did!). But now I use an iPod Nano because it's much lighter so leave the phone at home. Anyway, I think the midweek runs top out at 14 miles so maybe I'll be forced to go far from home. Maybe it's just a psychological thing but it's worth mentioning.

I used to have issues on about 90% of my runs where I would feel the need to take a "comfort break" for want of a better euphemism. I'd either have to stop to compose myself or find a nearby hotel, both of which were a major disruption. In my quest to prevent this I've started getting out of bed about 15 minutes earlier and having a cup of coffee. So far this has done the trick and I'm able to go out on my run a happier, lighter man!

Two long runs since my last blog. The first was 14 miles and I mapped out a route that took me around the Grand Union Canal that surrounds Ealing. I managed to plan it such that 10 of the 14 miles were on the canal itself. The advantage of that being that it's flat as a pancake. At that time in the morning (6am on a Sunday) there were three other types of people sharing the canal path - runners, anglers and drinkers on the way home from a late night party. It's a beautiful time to run the canals. All the water birds are out. Coots, moorhens, herons, ducks, geese and swans. Although the swans and geese tend to sit in a big group together on the path which can be quite alarming and requires a bit of careful negotiation to wend a path through them, especially as a lot of them have young. A duck with a little gaggle of ducklings - cute, a swan with a gaggle of cygnets - potential death!

Here's the route (you'll notice that my watch's battery died just at the end during the last mile):

The second long run (today) took me down to Richmond Park for the first time since the marathon two months ago. It was a 15 mile run on a beautiful summer morning. There's a bit of a climb to get into Richmond Park but apart from that it's a flat route. It was one of those mornings were I didn't know precisely where I was going to run. I'd thought of three of four potential routes and in the end just went where my feet took me. Richmond Park on a day like this seemed like perfect sense although I didn't see any deer this time. My fitness is definitely improving and hopefully it will improve again over the next three or four weeks.

Here's the Richmond Park route:

Next week I'm going to be in Chester and will need to find a 16 mile route to run either on the Saturday or Sunday morning. At the moment we don't know which family member we will be staying with so I can't start planning any routes yet.

New marathon, new training plan

Chester marathon is on the 6th October. That is 16 weeks away which is the usual amount of time given by pretty much all the marathon training plans. All except the Pfitzinger and Douglas training plan which is 18 weeks long.

Why change training plans for this marathon? Couple of reasons.

1. I've used the Runner's World training plan for the past couple of years. Familiarity breeds not exactly contempt but I know it too well and needed to do something different to keep things interesting.
2. A lot, and I mean a lot, of people online swear by it as the training plan that gave them the big boost that enabled them to run a PB.
3. I bought their book a couple of years ago and always wanted to try out the plan.

They have a couple of plans based on varying amount of experience and time available. I've chosen the up to 55 miles per week plan because I've looked at the others and they require a hell of a lot of commitment timewise that I don't think I can give at the moment.

So what's it been like for the first two weeks? At the moment, great. The biggest difference I've noticed is that I run fewer days per week (4 or 5 as compared to 6 in the Runner's World plan) but the runs tend to be longer and at a faster pace. My midweek medium-long runs are currently 10 miles which means I have to get up at 5:30am in order to fit them in before work. Also, the runs tend to be broken up into more speed variations. So for example I may run 8 miles but in the middle will be 4 miles run at half marathon pace. Or on my weekend long run I may run 13 miles but the last 8 will be at marathon pace. This is supposed to get the body more used to running faster and in a tired state. I'm hoping the benefits will show as the weeks go on.

I've also decided to run according to heart rate this time instead of pace. From comparing the runs I've done I can see that my pace is still pretty much the same as if I was running to pace. But since this is early days I am hoping that as I get fitter I am able to run at the same heart rate but a faster pace. Time will tell.

The new Ealing half marathon course was published this week so since my run this morning was a 13 miler (last 8 at marathon pace, see above) I thought I'd give it a go. It's still as hilly as last year but I like the slight alterations they've done from the previous course. Anyway, here it is: