|
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Training Diary
March 31, 2005
- 30 miles bike in year-best times.Wow. Completed my 10k race in good time and I'm totally stoked. Knackered, limping on my blisters and sore ankles and walking like an old woman, but totally stoked. The race itself was pretty straightforward once I found the site (!). The pack carried me to a first kilometre in five minutes, and I managed to hold a six-minute klick pace for the rest of the course, so that one-minute advantage was preserved to give a 58:52 time (on my watch; the official time was 59:21 but I started toward the back of the pack). Stuff to note: blisters on instep (get cushioned socks and/or tape micropore over the footbed/shoe edge); blisters on little toes where they got rolled over (compeed slivers between toes?); bloody blister on right ankle (slightly higher socks?). Pin the number on once you're wearing your T, or you might get a pin rubbing your nipple and blimey, that's sore! For longer runs practise drinking and maybe taking on a gel before the half-marathon. And while I can train in fuzzyvision, the unfamiliar route for a race means I need good eyesight, so I need to sort out my sunnies ASAP. Mental soundtrack (stereo would have been rude): Christina Aguillera, Fighter; Megadeth, Skin O' My Teeth; Aqua, Barbie Girl. Highbrow stuff! Thanks to: Yeovil Road Runners Club and all the marshalls (you have no idea how motivating "Come on 123, good effort!" is at the 9km mark); Elaine for motivating texts; Thor and Nike for non-consensus goodness. And no, Raven, you cannot claim the bloody credit. Today it's a triumph. Tomorrow, it's just a training benchmark. Two miles at what felt like an easy pace, but ended up being 16:14. Not bad at all. That's the last run before the 10k: time to rest and prep. My left ankle's gyppy so I'll strap it for the meantime. Must dig out the vaz... The ephedrine arrived. Without the theophylline, it's much less harsh - none of that rough caffeiney nasty edge, while maintaining its appetite-suppressant effect. Currently doing 16mg eph, 150mg caffeine and 150mg aspirin, three times daily. You'll forgive me for missing Monday's weigh-in as I'll be running a bloody ten-k! Great run last night: 5 miles in 50:30, so that's near as dammit a ten-minute mile. I blame the absolute rocking collection of tracks on my spanky new MP3 player, and the thunderstorm. Fan-fucking-tastic. I'm so ready for this 10k. Maybe I should start every session with Fighter as a hook? In other news, I ran out of ephedrine about a week ago. I'd ordered some straight ephedrine HCl from the scary internet, on the grounds that the jitters and grumps might well be the theophyilline present in OTC UK ephedrine products. We'll see: I'll start a fresh two-week cycle on Saturday. 30 bike miles, nice and easy in the rain. Four miles trailer chores on the bike, resting that gyppy left ankle. Three and a quarter mile plod - first time I've run in daylight, which was kidna strange. Thought I'd better, before the 10k! Average heart rate 152 BPM, recovery rate 115. 19 bike miles today: totally shattered, so I took the train home. Left ankle is a bit gyppy after that long run, too, but it'll pass. Rest or weights tomorrow - I'll try to get lots of sleep tonight. I've sussed what was up with my ECA: too much caffeine. I had forgotten the effect of the second Franol tab's theophylline, and theophylline is a caffeine analogue. So down to two Franols and a bit of aspirin, until the clean ephedrine shows up. Weigh-in today is under 100kg for the first time in ages, so yay! Go me! In scarier news, my race number arrived for the Easter Bunny 10k in Yeovil. I'm number 123. Easy as. Oh poo. 5 mile steady run, in 55:00, so that's an eleven-minute mile pace. On target for the 10k. Also: I'm sticking with two doses of ECA for now, as all three is upsetting the hell out of my digestion. Burping like a steam train! 30 miles bike, good easy times. 1:01 in and 1:06 back, which is tidy going for winter kit. Back on the ECA at 2x franol, 2x pro-plus and 1/2x aspirin three times daily, and pretty wired (as expected). Weekly weigh-in shows no change from last week, but that's no surprise as I was naughty with beer. Tsk, tsk. Hard 2-mile run - the first mile was good, the second very stop-start. That's supposed to be the tempo run, the idea being that you do long distance runs at easy pace and short fast tempo runs to build strength. Makes sense. That was grim though, but it was all form-grim, so it will come. Also, just to keep my legs in, eight miles of hilly fixie chores. Rather a good day: ran the loop clockwise (Home - Elston - Copplestone - Home) for the first time, at a very steady pace. Feet were good - no cramping, no pain from the shoes (yay!), time was 41 minutes dead. I did take the GPS along to measure the route, but it sulked: I drove the route later and it's 4 miles dead: that's a mile pace of 10:15. And I've entered for my first actual event. The Yeovil Easter Bunny is a 10km flat road race. Since I'm committed to the Great West Run, a half-marathon, on May Day, a 10k on 23th March is positioned about right for a midway benchmark. This is both exciting and scary, and the ease with which I plodded round the loop is a huge mental boost. 30 miles bike. Knees aching like buggery. Good to ride again, though, gets me over this daft fear of ice! Need sleeeeeeepp... Nice clear still dry day, so since I can't run (shin splints! ow!) I thought I'd do some upper-body weights. Thus: Tooling around with some light (15kg) skullcrushers, but I don't think I got the form right; Bench (34x11, 40x6, 44x4) superset with crunches in 22s; bar curl at 20kg for 8, 7 and 3. And because of those damn shin splints, some calf raises: 35 unweighted before I got bored. Must do some calf stretching after bike, too... Rough week, felt very down, was eating badly, then got a cold. Cleared by Saturday morning, so I went for a little run, three and a bit miles in 28:51. Feet hurty, form poor, stamina weak. Bah!
|
||||||||||||
  
|
