Keeping yourself motivated for the long run

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So you have done the training – you’re ready to run “THE” event you have been training for – but have you thought about what’s next? For me I’ve always had another event that I wanted to take part in. This has helped me in terms of keeping myself motivated and look forward to keep going on with running.

So if you are about to do your first event here are some tips to get ready and motivated for the next event!

  • Keep a log book of how often and how long you run. – One of the best ways is to sign up with a site such as Endomondo, Run Keeper or Sports Tracker. These also offer ‘free’ apps that you can use on your smart phone and can track your Kms, Heart rate and your route of the run. I find it very motivating to see the daily, weekly, monthly stats and the progress I have made. Check out my previous post on “How much do you run?”
    According to my current stats I have run 4412.79 km which is equivalent to 0.11 Trips around the world and 0.011 Trips to the moon!

    Running Summary

    Running Summary

  • Sign up for local 5k races – there are plenty of races around and these are on each week. The point is not competing against others but competing with yourself to see if you can beat your previous time.
  • Sign up for a longer event, if you have just completed Round the Bays 7km why not target the Wellington 10k that happens in June? This helps you to keep yourself motivated and keep going.
  • Traveling overseas? – Look up a local race in the destination you are going to be at – back in 2011 I was in Ireland in April and I entered a half marathon which happened to be on at the time I was there. You’ll meet some new people and even make new friends!
  • Join a local running group – In Wellington there are many options with professional clubs as well as socially organised group runs. Check out The Wellington Running Meetup Group. They organise runs every week for all levels. The Wellington Scottish Athletics Club also have many options for all levels of runners.

I am also running a small competition to help you keep going – check out my post “Keep running and you’ll be winning” for details.

Happy running!

Keep running and you’ll be winning!

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I mentioned on twitter a few days ago that I’ll be posting a competition to giveaway a pair of ‘yurbuds’ sports earphones. Needless to say these are engineered for athletes in mind.
http://yurbuds.com/products/limited-edition/inspire-limited-edition/

Competition - give away!

Competition – give away!

So here are the details of the competition and how you can win them!

Enter and run two 5km races before 31st March 2013, basically after you finish Wellington Round the bays you’ll be extending your training and using that as an advantage.
You can choose from the following two events.

 

 

Support any of the following events.. (yes I’ve changed the rules of the competition)

Competition General Rules

  • Open for all runners based in the Wellington region.
  • You must have entered Wellington Round the Bays (7k or the half marathon) and complete the event.
  • You must enter your name/details in the ‘comments’ section of this post so I know who is entered.
  • Winner will be announced on Monday 1st April 2013. Wednesday 20th  February 2013!

Happy running!

2 Weeks to RTB – Recap of week 3 and Sahara Challenge

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I posted my 5 week plan that I made for leading up to Wellington Round the Bays half marathon and the update on the second week on how things went. This is my third week training update leading to the next two weeks before Wellington Round the Bays half marathon!

Week 3 was another week of medium to high mileage week. With the The Tussock Traverse 26k trail run out of the way and a day of rest leading onto the week of running starting Monday 28th January. Target was to run a total of 80kms for the week.

Monday – 28th Jan – 12kms steady pace – it was pretty warm even at 6:30am when I did my run. Finished my run with a swim at oriental bay to cool off. The ‘unusual’ summer we are having is pretty good but sure does make it a bit uncomfortable because of the higher than normal temperatures in Wellington.

Tuesday – 29th Jan – 5k race @ 80% effort at about 4:10 pace and a 5k warm down jog post race. Managed to do the 5k race relatively easily with even splits. Jogged 5k so total of 10ks for the day. Again a fine warm day with high temperatures.

Wednesday – 30th Jan – 16k run at about 4:30 per Km pace. I did about 14kms at this pace and slowed down the last 2km to recover. Total 16kms done. This run was a bit of a test run to check how I can get into ‘race pace’ on the day of the race. Pushing 4:30 pace felt good and no major concerns. Did some core strength and foam rolling in the evening.

Thursday – 31st Jan – Rest day!. Lots of stretching and foam rolling to relax leg and ITB muscles.

Incidentally January 2013 was my highest mileage for the last 3 years of running. In January I ran a total of 308km (191miles) in total. This was a steady build up for over 5 months of slight increases in my weekly Kms. If you are planning to increase your running mileage make sure that you increase gradually and back off when things start hurting.

Monthly Increase Kms

Monthly Increase in Kilometers.

One of my goals after this half marathon is to start training for my first Marathon. So this increase in Km is an important step to get my body adopted to the coming high mileage training. I’ll update on this in another post. 🙂

Friday – 1st of February – A steady 20km run. Now this was a special run! I ran with Greig and Willy, two local fitness experts/runners who are training for one of the toughest races on the planet. “Marathon Des Sables 2013” is a 6 day stage race across the sahara desert and these guys are doing it this year!

“The MdS is a multi-day ‘ultra-marathon’ or ‘ultra’ run in six days over a course of between 150 and 156 (254km) miles.”

Basically they set themselves a goal of running 5 marathons in 5 days in different parts of the country as part of training, their 5th marathon was scheduled in Wellington on Friday 1st Feb. They sent out a message to local runners to come join them for the run and I gladly joined them for 20kms.  They are fund raising for the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research. So please visit the Sahara Charity Challenge fund raising page and donate if you can.

It was great to run with them and they certainly were pushing a steady pace so all in all my 20km scheduled run was done with them out to Chocolate Fish cafe and back.

Willy and Greig just before heading off to complete the 5th marathon! Photo credit - Malaghan Institute.

Willy and Greig just before heading off to complete the 5th marathon! Photo credit – Malaghan Institute.

Saturday – 2nd Feb – I had a 10k interval session scheduled for the morning. I ran this at the Lower Hutt Park Run – 5k + 5k, 2 sets of intervals.

Sunday – 3rd Feb – 12ks of easy running with a few hills! I headed up Mount Victoria and explored some of my favourite trails and did a couple of hill reps and a total of 14ks. Stopped on Oreintal bay and cooled off in the sea with a swim!

RTB Week 3 Recap

RTB Week 3 Recap

So here’s to the next two weeks of running leading up to Wellington Round The Bays and remaining injury free!

Wellington Round the Bays Training Hotspots

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If you are a runner in Wellington (New Zealand) here are some great options for running trails – check out the “Runners Guide to Wellington” it’s a great book. And for those of you in the UK (In London) there is also a “Runners Guide to London” e-book version!

Hayden Shearman's avatarA Runner's Guide

So you’re one of the 13,000 entrants in this year’s AMI Round the Bays. By now, two weeks out from the event, you should have a nice base of running mileage behind you. So the next week or so, before you begin your taper, is about sharpening up with some quality workouts.

Even top runners can’t run a personal best without workouts or build up races. It’s important to inject some speed into your legs, remind your lungs what it’s like to run fast, and get some of that eye-of-the-tiger factor back into your running.

So today (Friday 1 February) is just over two weeks out from the big race. Over this time it’s a good idea to set aside two to four days for quality (faster) running, with one of these sessions being quite intense. These workouts might include:

  • a session of 1k reps (3-6 reps at your 5k…

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3 Weeks to RTB – Recap of week 2

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I posted my 5 week plan that I made for leading up to Wellington Round the Bays half marathon and the update on the first week on how things went. This is my second week update!

This is a recap of how the second week went. It was an relatively easy week of running with a few rest days leading on to my first event of this year The Tussock Traverse 26k trail run. So here is what happened in week 2.

Monday – 21st Jan – REST DAY! Apart from going for a walk I just chilled out. And being a public holiday (Wellington Anniversary day) it was nice just to chill out!

Tuesday – 22nd Jan – planned 10k @ 80% effort at about 4:40 pace. Managed to do this relatively easily with even splits. Jogged 1k so total of 11ks.

Wednesday – 23rd Jan – 14k run at about 4:30 pace. I did about 12kms at this pace and slowed down the last 2km to recover. Total 14kms done.

Thursday – 24th Jan – 10km easy pace as a recovery run. Did this one at about 5:30 pace. Lots of stretching and foam rolling to relax the muscles before the Saturday race.

Friday – 25th Jan – REST DAY! Drove to Tongariro National Park!

Saturday – 26th Jan – The Tussock Traverse – read the full race recap here!

Sunday – 27th Jan – Rest day! Easy 2hr walk in Natiional Park and a relaxing day!

RTB Week 2 Recap

RTB Week 2 Training Recap

So here’s to the next three weeks of running leading up to Wellington Round The Bays remaining injury free!