Making adjustments and staying positive

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Run Wellington

It’s exactly another 8 sleeps to my first Marathon on 23rd of June (in case you didn’t know that already since most of my previous posts have been on that subject). It had been a good stint of solid training runs up until Saturday 8th June when I pulled a thigh muscle in the first lap of a club cross country race. Yes, I do occasionally (read very rarely decide to show up) participate in races with Wellington Scottish Athletics club. Anyways it happened about 2kms in to a 8km cross country race. I had to stop with a rather painful strain on my left thigh. Incidentally the same leg had a bit of discomfort just under my left knee after one of my longer runs the week before. I wasn’t too concerned about that since I get all sorts of pain after long runs. So whatever this new strain was it was rather painful and bit of a shock to the system that I may not be able to start my first Marathon. I was pretty gutted and it was hurting even to jog so I expected the worse. However after coming home and a self massage with the foam roller and some ice the pain went away. I decided not to run the final Xterra trail run on Sunday 9th and give it time to settle. As it turns out the last Xterra race was made tough with lots of mud and some tough hills. I was sorry I missed the fun of Xterra it but I knew that I had to be sensible and be focused on my goal and stay on track to completing my first Marathon goal.

One of the best pieces of advise I’ve had about injuries and running is that if you are injured STOP RUNNING! I am the worst person to take advice that I give. This time however I didn’t run on Sunday even though the pain had gone away and just rested and massaged my legs with the foam roller like a mad man.

The next day (Monday 10th) I decided to go for an easy run, I started slowly and there was no discomfort so I gradually increased my pace until I was running steady and ran 8k without any hint of pain. Yeai I’m all good – I thought and was in good spirits again. Did more foam rolling.

Next day Tuesday 11th I wanted to see if I could add a bit of pace and went for a steady 10km run and added a bit of pace at the end of the run which got me to the pace about where I wanted to run my Marathon in. I could feel a slight twinge building after I had finished the run. Hmm not so good, that was just a 10k. So more foam rolling and massaging.I took Wednesday 12th off and did no running. Made sure I kept off my feet and more foam rolling ensued. There was no pain as such and I was back in good spirits.

Thursday 13th I decided I will push it a bit to see if it will start hurting. It was also my regular morning group run which is usually a 14-15km run around the bays. Since I was running with the group I kept up steady pace and around the 11km mark my leg thigh strain started again! Yup it was back and it was back with more pain. I stopped immediately and I was about 3km from where I usually stop so had to slowly jog/walk back. The pain eventually went away after walking. So guess what? more foam rolling!

Anyways that was Thursday 13th and today is Sunday the 16th and I have not run for the last 3 days. I went for a walk on Saturday morning and rest of the time I’ve either being resting or foam rolling! Not running is the hardest thing to do when you are getting ready for an event. I resisted even going for an easy jog. I am going to attempt an easy run tomorrow (Monday 17th) (Last week of training before Marathon).

In any case I have nothing to really be concerned about (yet) although it can be demoralizing to know that you may be not 100% to start the marathon (or may not be able to start) after 15 weeks of training I am pretty much into my taper phase of 2 weeks, so maybe it was my body’s way of stopping me from going too far. I had done all my long runs that I had scheduled that were over 30kms (3 runs in total) in the previous weeks in training. My regular 10milers (16km) tempos were getting faster. Looking back at my training log I know that I’ve got a good endurance base come next Sunday to finish the Marathon. I have nothing to gain in this final week so I’m going to stay positive and take it easy, eat well, rest and be ready to tackle 42.2kms come Sunday 23rd!

With that – if you are still not entered go and enter my Marathon giveaway! Look forward to updating you all on how it all went post Marathon!

“Life requires us to make adjustments, less is still something”

Guess my Marathon finish time – Giveaway

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Run Wellington

This is my first attempt at running a Marathon and I thought it would be fun to run a little competition. The rules are relatively very simple.

All you have to do is guess what my Marathon finish time will be and leave a comment on this post. The said Marathon is on June 23rd 2013 and I’ve been training for it since beginning of March 2013.
Anyone can enter but only one entry per person is allowed. Yes it does not matter whether you run or not and live in Timbuktu. I will post the prize to wherever you are.
The person who guesses my closest finish time (in HH:MM format ex: 04:30) will win the ultimate prize.
If multiple entries of the same time is posted then I will randomly select a winner on the 24th June after the Marathon.
Oh and you must enter before the 21st of June 2013 to be eligible for the prize.

So what can you win? I am giving away a copy of Mal Law’s – One Step Beyond to the lucky winner (and it’s a signed copy by Mal too!). What’s that book about you ask? Well I think you should head over to this great review by the super awesome super generic girl about Mal’s book. If you want the details direct from the source go and have a nosey on RunningWild NZ.

Ultra Running Man Mr Karnazes has this to say about the book!

Review by Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon runner and best-selling author

“Mal dealt with loss and adversity, yet he overcame them in an extraordinary way. In taking One Step Beyond he proves that while the human body may have its limitations, the human spirit is truly boundless.”

So get on down to the comments area and have at it! Guess what time I’ll finish my first Marathon in or not… 🙂

Happy guessing!

8 weeks to the Wellington Marathon

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Run Wellington

It’s been 8 weeks since I started my 16 week training plan aiming to complete the Wellington Marathon on 23rd of June 2013. So I’m exactly half way in my training schedule. On Saturday 4th of May I am running the Rotorua Half Marathon. This is essentially a time trial of sorts to see how my training has progressed. Ideally I am hoping that I can run a PB and beat my previous half marathon time of 1:33:54. The Rotorua course is known as being hilly so this might not be the case that I beat my PB. In any case I want to try and maintain even splits for the whole 21.1kms and see where I end up!

Last Sunday I ran one of my first longest runs in the 16 week plan on one of Wellington’s classic training loops. The 34km Makara Loop is the play ground of many a famous Wellington distance runners. Known for its hills and the nice flats passing through Ohariu Valley it’s regarded as a must do loop in Runners Guide to Wellington. So anyways I was joined on this loop by a few of my running buddies from Wellington Scottish Athletics club and Wellington Running Meetup Group. This was a pretty hard run I must say, although previously I had run a similar distance on trails (Rakiura Track) the Makara loop was pretty relentless. It was a steady pace all the way. By about the 28km mark coming through Johnsonville I started questioning myself! “why the hell am I doing this” and the last 5km was the hardest 5km I’ve ever run. Suffice to say I lost my confidence in myself if I’d be ever able to run a full marathon. This some say is what it’s about getting ready for a marathon and hitting the proverbial WALL! So it was first hand experience that even when you feel good at 25km and think ah it’s another 7km to go within a space of few Km’s things can change and change rapidly! I guess I should just take a teaspoon of cement and carry on with the next 8 weeks!

Here is the map & profile of the loop for those who are interested. We started from Karori Park and went over Makara hill towards Johnsonville and back to Karori Park.

MakaraLoop34k

Running with the group kind of helped but was also tough as trying to catchup when you dropped off pace. In any case I’m glad I was able to finish the loop. And I’m determined to run the same loop again at least once before the Marathon.

So in the last 8 weeks I’ve managed to hit 100km weekly mileage twice. Once at the start and also at in the 8th week. So it’s a classic Hard, Easy, Moderate, Hard cycle as you can see from the below training log.

8 Week Training Log

The last 8 weeks in numbers:

Total KM run: 651km
Average Km per Week: 81km
Longest Run: 34km

The next 8 weeks my plan is to incorporate some key conditioning sessions along with some speed and strength workouts to my schedule. Then I’ll start a 2 week taper starting from week 14. The 16 week plan has changed again somewhat based on what I’ve done and it’s going to be updated soon.

Also this is the club cross country season so there are a number of club events that I am interested in doing. I am no where near fast compared to some of the other club runners but I’m going to give some events a go to at least get some experience. All going well I’ll be able to improve my time over distances like 5km and 10km.

If you are training for any running event I would like to share this documentary with you. It’s a two part series and something that will inspire you in your running goals.

If you are training for the Wellington Marathon or any Marathon for that matter leave a comment and share your thoughts! How is your training going?

Marathon training update weeks 2 to 5

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Run Wellington

I posted about my first week update on the 16 week Marathon training plan that I am currently following a few weeks back! Now I’m well into the program and is at end of week 5. The 16 week Marathon plan has undergone some significant changes since I first published it – the updated version can be found here. This has been due to some valuable feedback from experienced Marathoners and also because of a few *new* events that I have signed up for. First I’ll talk about how the last 4 weeks had gone and then outline the updated plan.

Key highlights:

I do at least 1 or 2 runs of approximately 16km or 22km each week regardless of my long run
I attended the New Zealand Mountain Running camp in week 4 of the plan and ran about 60kms in 4 days with two back to back runs over 2hrs duration
I am recovering faster and can run a 14km run at steady pace
I ran a 5km PB (20:28) at Park Run on week 3
Ran a steady 25km run in just over 2hrs at an average pace of 5min per km

New Events

Rotorua Half Marathon on 4th May – My goal is to use this race to beat my current Half marathon PB of 1:33
Xterra Trail Series – Trail Running Series (4 events) from April to June!
Wellington Scottish Athletics Club Races – TBC

Major Updates to the 16 Week Training Plan (Actually 11 weeks to go)

Added 3 runs of 35kms to the plan leading into the Marathon
Extra Tempo and Interval sessions and Goal Pace runs
Track work 1600m repeats and 800m repeats

Below is the breakdown of the updated plan!

Completed 5weeks Marathon Plan

Note that on Sunday 7th I am running another off-road trail/mountain run of 18km at the Porirua Grand Traverse event. A recap will follow as usual. Head over here to get the latest updated Marathon Plan.

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Tag Archives: Marathon