Training Tales

Tag: easy run

  • The Big 3-0. My Longest Ever Run!

    The Big 3-0. My Longest Ever Run!

    Sunday 9 February 2025

    Week 5, Day 7: 30km Long Run

    My longest ever run and the first time I’ve ever run into the thirties! Crazy!

    Today’s word-of-the-day was ‘easy‘. Given my right knee has been giving me some grief, and we had XC yesterday, Jo was very strict. “Keep it easy, Very easy.”

    This one scared me a bit. 30km. That’s like, 2 ½ hours of running. I’ve never ran that far or for that long. And I would be on my own with no one to chat to and only Steve Magness and Rich Roll to keep me company.

    I headed out.

    Almost immediately I stopped.

    Brainwave! I’ve never used the alerting system on my watch, but I quickly programmed in a ‘too fast’ alert so my watch would beep if I went faster than 4:50/km pace. I also added a ‘too slow’ alert for paces slower than 5:00/km. I quickly turned this one off to stop the almost continuous beeping. This proved to be a pretty successful strategy actually. It meant I didn’t need to endlessly fixate on my watch to check I wasn’t accidentally speeding up, which is what often tends to happen, but was getting a constant reminder if I did speed up. And the beeping noticeably stopped. At first it was really annoying, beeping every 100m or so, but after I settled into it, my watch beeped far less often.

    The route I’d planned pretty much went to pot in the first 10 minutes, when I decided I fancied running down Badgeworth Lane. One of the nice things about running so far is that you can make it up on the fly, and know you’ve got 20km to play with to get back home. Nearer the end you need to be a little more on it, of course. I didn’t think Rob would come and pick me up from Bishop’s Cleeve if I got my distances wrong. But it’s really quite freeing just having nowhere particular to go for the next 2 ½ hours. Except for running back past your house of course – I try to avoid that.

    30km Long Run

    The run went pretty well overall.

    Pacing, good.

    Route, good.

    Fuelling, good.

    Knee? Not so good. It started hurting a little from about 8km, but didn’t really get any worse until just towards the end. I’m trying to remain calm and not worry, but my worry level has probably increased from about 2 to 4. Tomorrow is a rest day so I will rest hard, perhaps even forgoing our morning walk. I stretched, rolled and massage-gunned my ass off when I got in and will try to do some more later. I’ve also booked in for a sports massage at Pentons tomorrow, to loosen anything up which might be causing a bit of tension or stress. Let’s wait and see.

    So all in all, knee excluded, another good run. I’m really chuffed with how ‘easy’ I found 30km. Yes it was long. But it was doable and I got it done.

    Fuelling Notes

    Pre Run

    As it’s important to practise practise practise, I’ve decided I should be having my pre-race breakfast before my long runs. I know my stomach behaves differently on race day when I get nervous, but the more I can create patterns to simply repeat on race day, the better. I had a bagel topped with peanut butter and banana about 75-90 minutes before I started running.

    During Run

    Gels gels gels. Today I had three:

    I should have had something more at 2h 20m, and I was carrying some Veloforte Lemon & Mint chews, but I just didn’t really want to open them. And as the pace was easy, I decided it was probably ok for the last 10 minutes.

    Interestingly, I was ‘hungry’ on the run. The gels were fuelling me but my stomach felt empty and like it needed some real food. I’d woken up hungry but didn’t want to overeat and feel sick on my run, so I probably needed a little more food yesterday post race / pre long run. A good learning for next time.

    Post Run

    When I got in, Rob had finished off the milk! So I headed to the co-op for more and made myself milky coffee. Jo’s advice of ‘cows, chickens and carbs’ was ringing in my head but what I really wanted was cheesy beans on toast. I don’t think this is a bad re-fuelling decision, given half a can of baked beans has 10g of protein vs. 2-eggs’ 12-15g, so went with what I fancied and really, really enjoyed it.

    For that little bit more protein, and given the beans over eggs previous decision, I finished with some yoghurt with stewed apple, raspberries and pecan nuts, another recent favourite.

    Despite a good re-fuel, I know I’ll feel like a bottomless pit the rest of the afternoon. I always do after a long run! We are going out for a Harriers’ ladies meal to celebrate the end of the Midlands XC league tonight, so I hope we have some crumpets in for a tasty mid-afternoon snack.

  • Go Slower, Keep It Easy

    Wednesday 5 January

    Week 5, Day 3: 60′ Easy

    Keep it easy.

    Slow it down.

    Even more.

    Seriously Nicole, stop running so fast!

    Easy runs are really important to let your body clock up the miles and build aerobic capacity and volume, whilst avoiding training overload by always running too hard to too fast.

    One of the biggest ‘challenges’ of marathon training so far, has been keeping my easy runs ‘easy enough’. Last Wednesday my legs felt pretty good after Tuesday’s session, and I averaged ~ 4:40/km for my ‘easy’ run. Too fast!

    The theme of last week’s feedback on Training Peaks was ‘slow it down’ and today, I really tried.

    Luckily, my legs were spent. I decided to get up and run first thing, therefore not having much rest, in real terms, between finishing the session and starting my run. This helped me to keep it easy.

    I think I almost passed, though Jo probably would have liked it to be slower still. Unfortunately, my decision to run first thing, and Jo’s WhatsApp messages to make sure I kept it ‘REALLY REALLY EASY’ (which was in capitals) crossed paths and so I didn’t pick her messaged up until I got back home. Luckily I was too busy keeping it easy* to see them.

    *Keeping it easy and finishing my bi-annual re-listen of Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter. Oh how a good audio book can keep you going for miles upon miles upon miles. Until next time!

  • Pre-XC Easy Miles

    Pre-XC Easy Miles

    Friday 10 January 2025

    Week 1, Day 5: 30′ Easy

    Just an easy 30 minutes on the plan today before the XC tomorrow.

    I was also off work today, so headed to the gym first to do some light weights with more of a core / arm focus. Unfortunately, it ended up being surprisingly tiring and so the easy run did feel harder than I would have liked. I told myself to just step back off the pace a little and focus on enjoying the surroundings. As I started at the gym, 30 minutes gave me enough time to do a lap around Pittville Park, which was just stunning in the frosty wintery landscape.

  • Hello Mid-Week Long(er) Runs

    Wednesday 8 January 2025

    Week 1, Day 3: 60′ Easy

    Since I told my Coach that I had entered London, the main thing that seems to have changed in my training is my Wednesday run. This has increased from 45 minutes to 60 minutes, and I’m sure will increase further as we head towards the sharp end of things.

    Unlike some people, I cannot ‘see’ what’s coming. I use Training Peaks for my training, but Jo only makes the next 3-4 weeks visible for me. Whether she does this for everyone, I don’t know. But for me, it works.

    I don’t really like knowing training sessions in advance. It freaks me out. I’m used to it now I’ve run with the Harriers for three years, but at Southampton AC, we would never know what was in store. We’d turn up on a Tuesday evening and find out. It suited me and so does this.

    On the plan today was a 60 minute easy run. Usually, I’d want to do this before work. It gets it done. And by this, I don’t mean it gets it out of the way. I mean I have prioritised it before the daily stresses or worries of work take over and any lunchtime runs I might be planning fall by the wayside. However, it’s really dark and freezing cold at the moment, so I did do this at lunchtime to get some sunlight and fresh air.

    I got out 20 minutes later than planned as I was putting off going out into the cold, but I did really enjoyed it once I got out the door. My legs felt tired at home after last night’s session. I wasn’t doing so well on Rob and my self-defined ‘fatigue test’. This measures your fatigue based on how ‘spritely’ you can get up the stairs. As we have a loft conversion and so have two steep-ish stair cases to tackle, it’s not unknown to be crawling by the time you get to the top.

    My legs felt tired on the fatigue test (to be expected), but fine on the run. In fact, pretty fresh. I am really struggling to slow down my easy runs though. They feel easy, but I think they are too fast, averaging around 4:30-4:40/km. I think they need to be more like 4:45-5:00/km. Maybe I’ll slow down naturally as the miles build. Maybe I’ll have to constantly consiously slow myself down.

    I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

    Given Monday’s are now strictly for rest, I headed to the gym this evening.

    Hmm. Not my best.

    To be honest, I flapped around a bit. I didn’t really know what to do, and I’m not great at the gym at the best of times, though I know it’s important. I’d seen a video from Eilish McColgan earlier in the week with some good exercises for runners, so I worked through them and did some leg press as prescribed by the Physio. The exercises consisted mostly of cable work, which actually was really good and it felt quite hard. But it wasn’t my best, or most focused session, and all things considered, probably wasn’t a particularly effective use of my time.