Tag: Christchurch 10K

Update on my 800m training – Jan 2023

I feel like I’m in wash-rinse-repeat with my training at the moment. I keep cycling through the right training sessions yet the race results keep coming out the same. I can see some improvement in the stats and speed, yet when I race it is no faster. But this really is the secret to coaching – figuring out where to apply effort.

Coming into January I was working on top-end speed using short intervals lasting around a minute. The pace was intended to be at my calculated 3K-pace broken into sets. The sessions I did were made harder by high winds and I ran my 300s along a section of road which caught the brunt of it along with a gradual hill in the first/last 100 metres depending on which direction I was headed.

Illness strikes …

I had done two sessions at the end of December then my Sunday run went backwards. I wasn’t too concerned as a VO2 lull usually happens at the start of a new training block. But there was a concern – my sister brought a hacking cough to visit over the Christmas period and I fell under its spell. I wasn’t terrible but I was struggling. Yet after a couple of days, I felt slightly better and mistakenly did a 3rd session which, while generally close to target, led me to scale back training as the coughing got worse. I missed the next session of 300s and focused on getting healthy, but was still running each day. By the following Monday it had gone. My mother is still coughing all these weeks later whereas mine was gone in ten days. This is why I believe in keeping fit and healthy especially as you get older. With a good aerobic system your body’s immune system can fight stuff.

Race taper

With only two weeks left to the rescheduled Christchurch Christmas 10K, I knew I needed to taper so I did one more session of 300s and then an even sharper session of 10x100m with 30s standing recovery aiming for 5:30/mile. I found them really easy which probably aligns with why I’m better suited to short distance than long.

A week ahead of the 10K, I went to Poole parkrun on what was an atrocious day. Very high winds and rain. It was absolutely pelting down as I arrived but had eased off by the start. Once again my speed seemed lacking as the first kilometre only came in at 4mins. Along the windiest stretch I ran a 4:20km – at 6’2” and broad I’ve got a large frontal surface area to be blown back. The finishing stretch headed into the wind a second time and having passed them earlier, five men now passed me as my pace dropped to 8min/mile and I felt like I was barely moving. My finish time of 21:02 was good enough to place 19th. I’d guess it’s a long time since Poole parkrun’s 19th finisher ran over twenty-one minutes. While I could make excuses for the wind and rain, the fact is my opening kilometre of 4-mins was fresh-legged and running with the wind; however much others may suggest a sub-20 was on the cards; it wasn’t.

Race

Christchurch 10K itself reinforced this analysis. The run was another cold morning and it was a shame to see the race not as well attended as it would have been before Christmas – less than 200 runners. Many of the others had deferred their places until next December because they’ve started marathon training or other races were taking place on the same day.

I set off quickly not holding back, but again my kilometres were all over four minutes. I reached 5K in 20:38 and then held on for the second half to finish in 42min08. I was somewhat disappointed as it was only fifteen seconds or so faster than last year. All my efforts from a year’s training had added barely anything. However my heart-rate monitor told a different story. Last year my average heart-rate was 159, on this day it was only 152. That’s incredibly low for me on any race. I’d expect it to be up around 161bpm. What it suggests is my fuel source is mostly aerobic but something is blocking me from running faster. When I look at the final miles the pace is consistently 7min/mile.

Finding the problem

On the Tuesday before the race I did a 7-8 mile Steady run averaging 7:17/mile. I felt blocked to run any faster, when I arrived home I realised I had put in more effort than I should have. On the Friday following the race, I did a Steady run at the beach – just letting my body pick up speed and it settled around 7:35-40/mile with heart-rate hitting 150ish. It was a completely comfortable run but slower than I expected.

The day after the Steady run at the beach I went to Upton House parkrun and ran 21:58 averaging only 149bpm. I started slowly and picked up pace as the run went on. But again, it was a big effort to get any much quicker than 7min/mile on tired legs.

A quick look at my old favourite, the Jack Daniels’ tables shows a VDOT of 49 results in a 20:18 5K and 42:04 10K. My Christmas Day parkrun was 20:27 so matches up quite nicely to this. Jack’s tables give a Threshold of 6:55, a Marathon pace of 7:24 and Easy run pace of 8:40. Each of these matches with what I’ve found in training.

Fixing the problem

All these facts – speed of steady runs, not being able to run quicker at parkrun or 10Ks, lower heart-rate when racing, feeling the pace at which I have to put effort in to go faster suggest my aerobic system is clogged and causing the anaerobic system to kick in too early.

In all my years I’ve learned that you have to trust the results from races, especially longer ones where speed counts less. However good things may feel in training or what the heart-rate monitor may suggest, race results are the best guide to what needs to be done.

I could probably just get faster doing Steady runs twice per week with easy runs or recoveries on other days but I want to experiment a little. I want to see whether I can do the same set of Threshold intervals I did this time last year but with more control. I’m going to stay at around 7min/mile as VDOT suggests it’s my Threshold and see if that filters things down.

The block of training I did last year through February and March went well and began with intervals at 6:50 pace and by the end I was closing in on 6:30; but when I arrived at April’s half marathon my legs had nothing. I’d overcooked it. This time I’m going to make sure I don’t exceed Threshold by focusing on my breathing. That will be my guide. Last year, I was pushing efforts to hit a target and it didn’t work.

I did my first session on Tuesday and having warmed up for two easy miles averaging 7:20/mile – not that far off the repeats pace – I began the session.  I accelerated just past 7min/mile and the mile repeats then felt limited at around 6:55 – in line with Jack’s prediction. But, unlike last year, it never felt too taxing and I never had to push harder to hit similar numbers. I’m going to give it three weeks of these and see how things are progressing. If it isn’t going to plan then I’ll drop back to doing the Steady runs instead.

Update on my 800m training – Aug / Sep 2022

In my last update I detailed that I had gone back to endurance training as all the hills and speedwork of the spring had toppled my aerobic base. It was somewhat disappointing but also necessary if I’m to sort out my 800m. I now realise I’m done for this year and it’s going to be a winter of building endurance and stamina. The introduction of hills and sprints was great fun but also introduced way too much naturally anaerobic fast-twitch muscle. As I haven’t been near these areas in years, things toppled quickly. Hopefully by next winter, my base will be bigger and I’ll be able to handle the anaerobic side better.

Having restarted endurance training in early July I found I wasn’t making much progress; then in early August I realised I was beginning to get aches and pains of the sort when you’re training too anaerobically. I had to reset AGAIN. My focus became to ensure I set off on runs at a slower pace and built up to my aerobic limits. That reset did the trick as the pains dissipated and the endurance began to build. Even so I was still a good 30+ secs/mile down on where I was back in March. It was a surprise to me how easy it is undo everything.

Mid-August I did an all-out parkrun at Poole and clocked 20:25. Quicker than running there at Easter (20:40) but slower than last Christmas (20:11). I cannot tell you how frustrated I am feeling at not being able to get back under twenty minutes. Another parkrun at Sandhurst Memorial parkrun in late September was even worse at 20:48 but it’s a tougher course and my legs were fatigued so that didn’t concern me.

I’ve entered a couple of 10Ks – Boscombe on Nov 27 and Christchurch two weeks later. I’ve gone back to using the training system I used on my only ever sub-40 run back in 2015. Controlled threshold work on a Tuesday, a Steady run on Fridays and a long run on Sunday. This is the same as I was doing in February and March this year.

My plan is to do intervals at Threshold pace (6:50/mile) for three weeks, then up the pace to 6:40 for three weeks and again to 6:30 which will take me through to the end of October. After that I’m going to do shorter intervals at 5K and 10K pace which will hopefully see me breaking forty minutes again. It’s an aggressive schedule but so far the body has been holding up.

Endurance-wise it took me until mid-September to get back to where I was in February. That said, my fasted Sunday morning long runs have all been coming in at a decent pace, usually sub-8 average for 12-miles, no stops. For whatever reason, I seem to be running these quicker than in February.

Possibly some of the drop off I’ve been experiencing is down to a change in running form. Since last October I’ve been working on my form using drills at least once per week and somewhere around late June, combined with the sprints I was doing, I began to feel I was running differently. Less hip rotation and more power from the glutes. Of course, using muscles that have never been involved in my running, meant they needed to be trained and quite possibly they had a lower lactate threshold due to this. Whatever it is, the form change is beginning to feel powerful at times and I just have to keep working at it.

Behind the scenes I’ve been wondering about whether I’m cut out for training like this. For all the miles and effort, I’ve put in over the years; my improvements have been sporadic. I’ve decided this winter will be the acid test. Hopefully when spring arrives next April, I will see a decent improvement in my half marathon time.  If I don’t then I’m scrapping the endurance focus and putting my training time into working on speed and to see whether I can get my 200/400 times down, even if it’s at the expense of longer distances.

I’m going to give it a fair crack of the whip and train the best way I know how to. The one sticking point is I entered the London Marathon ballot yesterday not realising the race is in six months’ time (April). If this were to be the year I get a place then my training would have to look at lengthening my long run out to twenty miles. Even so I’d expect the training I’ve got planned, to fit in well with how I would need to train. We’ll see when the ballot results are announced at the end of October. I’m currently doing just shy of fifty miles per week and have been for the past two years so the base is there for whichever direction I need to go.

Streak ends

Two years later than planned but my running streak finally came to an end at 845 consecutive days of 5K or more. The daily average was 6.3 miles, a touch over 10K. It started back on Dec 8th 2019 at the Christchurch 10K. I ran 46:30 that day and knew I needed to rebuild my running fitness. I’d been running 10K in 42-mins in the summer but about three weeks before the race, I’d caught a mystery illness that affected me for five days – headache, fever and then a loss of fitness. I’m tempted to say it was some early variant of Covid19 and well, who knows.

So I targeted rebuilding fitness thinking I’d enter Bournemouth Bay 1/2M at the start of April 2020. But, news of the Covid19 pandemic broke and I held off entering and it turned out to be the correct decision as we went into lockdown in late March. By then my running was beginning to pick up and I was running a nine mile Steady run around the locale in 1hr9.

My run streak was out to 100 days and I thought I’d see how far I could take it, fully expecting we’d be out of lockdown in 2-3 months and everything would be getting back to normal. If it went on longer and I reached September with my run streak then I’d try to take it through to the end of the year so I could say I’d done it. Of course, it didn’t work out like that.

With the endurance looking good, I dived into a routine of hill sprints, bounding and plyometrics to strengthen the legs. I overdid it and by mid-June I was feeling overcooked, suffering aches and pains every morning, before and after runs. These went on through July and August even though I adjusted my routine.

At the beginning of September I made an honest assessment of the situation. As much as I wanted to try to get to the end of the year with my running streak, I knew four more months of the aches and pains would be too much. If it had been say 4-6 weeks I could have pushed through. So I made a deal with myself, I’d back off the training pace but if I was still in agony at start of October, I’d take some rest days and end the streak. It worked, as after three weeks, the pain had eased but I still wasn’t fully recovered so I backed off even slower than the 9:15/mile I was jogging at. Some way off the seven minute mile pace I was running for 5K.

The true beginning of my rebuild, and all that has come since, began on September 21st 2020. I cut my daily recovery runs from an hour to forty minutes and dropped the pace down even further. My first three runs averaged 10:02/mile, 10:05/mile, 9:48/mile! I kept a Sunday long run and this came in at 9:25/mile. Within 2-3 weeks, I was beginning to feel much better, all the aches and pains had disappeared and the pace was a little quicker. There was still the occasional recovery run which was closer to 10min/mile but my 3rd Sunday run came in at a more effortful 8:41/mile (HR averaging 146bpm). By November I was beginning to feel strong, to add in strides and look for ways to work on adding more ‘stress’ to the runs. Everything was beginning to feel comfortable.

At the start of December, ten weeks after starting my rebuilding; I began 800m training with a time trial. And since then my training has been ever focused on that. I ran every day of 2020 and 2021 and continued on into 2022. Finally two years later than planned, I entered this year’s Bournemouth Bay run. I spent February and March running the nine mile Steady run again. Where in 2020 it had peaked at 1hr09, now it was 1hr03. My run streak finally ended two days before the half marathon and gave the legs a couple of days to carbo load and hopefully be at their best. It didn’t turn out that way but that’s a different story.

And so having run the half marathon I began a new streak … I didn’t run for the next five days!

This is the moral of the story. Streaks don’t matter – they should support your training – not be the goal. My run streak ended at 845 days because I had a race coming up. I didn’t run for five consecutive days because I was recovering from it.

On reflection there were one or two days in my run streak where I would have been better off taking a rest day or doing the run at a different time of day, or shorter distance – even I’m not immune to flights of ego but it never came to dominate. I was ready to give the streak up in September 2020 when the aches and pains were at their peak but some adjustments allowed everything to get on track.

But the streak itself? Well, it’s nice to talk about but the experience is more important to me. I’ve learned so much from going out every day. You get to see how the body is affected and reacts to tiredness. You begin to learn how quickly you recover, to learn when the legs genuinely don’t have more and when they do. And, of course, my fitness has improved. Recently able to run nine miles at the same pace as I would have run 5K a couple of years ago.

For the most part though, I’ve simply enjoyed going out for a run or jog. There is no new streak. I doubt I will ever run every day for over two years again. I hope to be entering more races and taking rest days before and after them.

Review of the year – 2021

I’m not sure what to make of 2021 as a running year. My goal at the start of the year was to train for the 800m and improve on the 2:58 time I recorded in December 2020. I’m under no illusions that this is not a particularly good time even for a fifty year old. I religiously followed Jack Daniels’ training plan and when I next time trialled in April, I’d only improved to 2:55. Another time trial in early June was 2:53 and after another round of following the training plan I was only down to 2:49 in October. It really hasn’t been very satisfying progress from a results perspective.

Final sprint to the line at Christchurch 10K in 2021

From a process perspective, much seems to have happened. I’ve generally got fitter. At start of year I was running some of my recovery miles as slow as ten minutes; by year end I was feeling comfortable at eight minute miles. My general training speed has improved and there was a notable difference in how I felt on my 800 time trial. Last December I was absolutely gasping by the end of it with the lactate build-up leaving me coughing for the next hour. Each of this year’s time trials has felt progressively better, less hard breathing, even if I’ve not been significantly faster. All of this summarises to having built a better aerobic system.

Over the year, I’ve lost a stone in weight. I started the year at 188lbs (13st 6lbs) and am now below 175lbs. I’ve never been this light or chiselled in my life. Half the weight loss happened in the early months when I geared up and did the tough interval training; the other half when I started doing a low volume of press-ups and bicep curls daily. On that front, I’ve at least doubled my capacity for doing press-ups in six months.

While endurance has improved. I’ve been wondering about my top-end speed. At year start, I knew I was struggling there as I couldn’t even hit a peak speed of five minute per mile pace running flat out. Now, I will say this is to be treated with a little scepticism because the accuracy of my GPS watch is not quick to lock in. It takes fifteen seconds but even so, by year end I’ve seen myself hit 4:13/mile on it. Again I’m aware this is not a great top end speed, given that Olympic distance runners do whole races at this pace.

Digging back through my records, I found myself hitting 3:38/mile when I was younger at the end of parkruns. Again I treat this with some scepticism as GPS can be wonky but I also suspect it’s relatively accurate. Ultimately the best 800m runners in the world are averaging a 3:20/mile pace for the men and 3:50/mile for the women. They can run fast over short distances – I can’t even hit these paces yet.

Throughout 2021 I’ve been exploring ways to improve my top end speed. This has ranged from looking at cadence and trying step-over drills; thinking about form generally; to doing twice-weekly sessions of sprint drills which really seem to be making a difference. As I exited 2021, my running form had begun to feel different in a positive way. I finally feel like I’ve got a back kick and the trail leg is shortening when I try to run quickly. I’m becoming glute-powered rather than quad-powered.

What I haven’t done to improve my speed, for deliberate reasons, is any hill work. I tried that in 2020 and within two weeks, I’d blown my aerobic base as the fast-twitch muscle began to overpower it. While it would be useful to get the fast-twitch speed back, I need to do it in a controlled manner, waiting until base is bigger and capable of handling high levels of anaerobic work.

From a racing perspective there hasn’t been much. The big positive was the return of parkrun in July. At my fiftieth birthday, I managed a 21:20 Upton House Personal Best. Then over the last few months I’ve been reducing that with runs of 20:55 there again, 20:26 at The Great Field parkrun and a touching distance of sub-twenty – 20:11 at Poole on Christmas Day.

The great thing about running 20:11 on Christmas Day is it’s not notably worse than ten years ago when I was forty and running 20:00 on Christmas Eve 2011. This is also true of my 10K.  At Christchurch in 2011 I ran 42:23; this year I was one second slower at 42:24 !!

Ten years ago, I was on my way up with my run training and I didn’t have any understanding of the interaction of speed, endurance and recovery; and how to bring them together to perform at your best. I had much more speed then because it’s all I tried to do, whereas now I’m coming at running from the endurance end. I’m hopeful I’ll be adding aerobic speed this winter that will see me surpassing all previous bests. I don’t like to rely on luck or hope but … fingers crossed!

This reflects the negative about Jack’s plan. I don’t feel it’s helped me improve at the top-end speed as there’s nothing in the schedule dedicated to building it in the first place. The best 800m runners are often coming to the event capable of running 400m in less than fifty seconds (as young adults) and then building the endurance to hang on. For this reason, I’m going to reintroduce my own ideas about the things that helped me to get fast when I was young – which mostly involve more standing recoveries and interval work done in sets to allow lactate to clear. I just need to make sure I don’t undermine the aerobic base by doing too much.

So that’s been my 2021. I’ve enjoyed the year’s running – there’s no way I could have got out every day if I didn’t. I covered about 100 miles more than in 2020 and that has been down to a consistent schedule. I usually run around six hours per week training and that’s led to more miles as I’ve speeded up. Of course the schedule flexed through the year depending on where I was at with Jack’s plan but generally speaking it’s been a consistent outlay of six to six-and-a-half hours each week resulting in 40-50 miles.

Update on my 800m training – Nov-Dec 2021

Traditional winter training for middle-distance runners is a combination of building endurance and running cross-country. In my case, I’ve replaced cross-country with an all-out parkrun effort every couple of weeks.

After my last 800m time trial (2:49) in October, I took a recovery week and then began the endurance work. Using a fortnightly cycle the plan was to do two Steady runs (Tuesday and Friday) and a long run on Sunday on week one; a Steady run on the Tuesday and a faster-than-Recovery paced run on Thursday with the fast parkrun on Saturday. It worked quite well and my first three parkruns came in at 21:20 (Oct 23rd) and 20:55 (Nov 6th) at Upton House then a road trip to The Great Field parkrun (Nov 20th) where I ran 20:26.

With Christchurch 10K on December 12th I wasn’t planning to do specific training other than to taper and run on fresh legs. I’d planned to run one more fast parkrun between Dorchester and the race but Storm Arwen hit so I replaced it with some cruise intervals.

The 10K was a little disappointing as I went in expecting to be somewhere in the 41-42min range and ended up clocking 42:25. Not a terrible time by any means but my legs never felt good. I have a feeling I killed them in the preceding week by running a low volume of 200s and 400s. On the Friday (3x400m), Tuesday (2x400m) and Thursday (2x200m). That really is a low volume but perhaps I ran them too fast as I originally was aiming to hit 5-10K pace and the 200s came in at 37s which is faster than my 800 pace. That was a fun session as I ran it at the cricket pitch. Groups of college sixth formers on their lunch breaks were dotted around and they began heckling and cheering me on!

Since the 10K, I ran another 21:01 at Upton House and then on Christmas Day on the flats of Poole, I was among 798 runners as I ripped round to finish in 20:11. Touching distance of being back under twenty minutes.

After giving the legs a week to recover from the 10K, I decided I’m lacking decent aerobic capacity. On the parkruns and race I’ve barely been able to run quicker than 3:55 for a km. In 2020 I could run 3:48, two years ago I was hitting 3:45 and five years ago I was close to 3:30. The endurance training has been good but it’s been to the detriment of my aerobic speed. Even my top-end speed isn’t great and I believe this has contributed to the disappointing 800m time trials this year. I’ve noticed as my leg speed has disappeared so has the size of my quads – at least a couple of inches smaller than they were.

The consequence is I’ve begun running my old favourite session – 5x1K with 3-min recovery. It’s a great combination of distance, pushing the aerobic capacity and improving lactate clearance and tolerance.

The endurance training itself has begun to look great. I’m running twelve mile Sunday runs at sub-8 pace – close to 1hr30 most weeks. But also my recovery runs have got faster despite me keeping them easy wherever possible. This has really set me in position to build the speed side with the kilometre intervals and I’m hopeful this will have me close to nineteen minutes at parkrun by end of January.

Supplemental to the running, I’ve been finding sprint drills and strength work have been highly beneficial. The drills have been great in identifying inefficient running form and after two weekly sessions for two months, I’m finding the improved posture and muscle activation are beginning to bleed into my runs. Most significantly I’m start to get the feel for how to sprint and this can only be a good thing for my 800m time.

The squat work has strengthened up my legs but also the muscles in the hips and glutes. It highlighted a weakness in the left glute on the outside which was clearly not contributing to my running. As it strengthened up, it began to fire during runs and, in the long term, I’m expecting it to make a difference. On the negative side, I did too much squatting too soon and after about three weeks began to find my legs were getting sore so I stopped to let them recover for a week.

It’s been a useful two months, especially as I’ve taken over a minute off my parkrun time with my best time in four years at 20:11. I’m intending to stay with this plan through early 2022 and maybe run Bournemouth Bay half marathon in the spring. I’m sure a big part of improving my 800m time is going to be improving my aerobic capacity with the 5x1K intervals – I’ve really allowed my leg strength to drop in favour of efficiency the past few years.