Running

If you want to nail that hill in 2 hours, you're going to need to be running a 1:20 half on the flat, which is a 0:36:30 10k.

My goal is a top five finish next year.

To have come fifth this year I'd have needed a total time of 3:42.

I'm confident that I can cycle that in one hour thirty without going into the red/burning myself up, which means that the run needs to happen in 2:12.

If I had hit threshold off the line on the ride (aka Team Creeping Death tactics) then I reckon I could take ten minutes or so off that cycle, but safer to peg it at 1:30 for planning purposes.

Plus of course I do need to do the whole ride, rather than missing a bit.

Anyway, a 1:20 half marathon sounds rather intimidating.

Dammit - are you going back to that Norway thing again? If you do the bike, I'll do the run. I am close to 1.20 for the half and you can go balls out on the bike.

Sounds like a plan- do you want to wear a Dammit mask, or shall I wear a rwn face?

If I went flat out on the bike (with no need to run afterward) I could take a further chunk of time out, or go straight off the edge of the mountain, alternatively.

Hmm, i think some sort of neutral third party. Is there a set of annoying identical twins we can skin?

Jedward please.

I've been plugging away at trying to get running again, and that negative bitch that is my body can get stuffed and stop whingeing. On the plus side, I've got back down to below 21min for 5km, slow but a massive step in the right direction. The negative is that my back is really unhappy and I haven't slept for the past week. Soon enough it'll realise that I'm just going to keep running so there's no point in sending pain messages.

Longer intervals this week, managed to keep my time dead on each interval with a heart rate that just went up.

On the third interval I nearly got chicked, had to dig deep to avoid that!

got chicked?

Caught by a girl.

That's awful! You can't say that!

*remembers being momentarily passed by a girl with a big fat arse in the last 500m of my first triathlon and the superhuman effort I put in to make sure I got back past. I almost had to put me fag out and start running again.

Just did the the 10k home again tonight. Not too bad but didn't feel as perky as last week. Was tired and stiff before starting though. Didn't time it because I never do but I got through the whole of an "In Our Time" archive podcast about the Fibonacci sequence and about half of one about the history of the city. Yeah I know, but I've already listened to all the actually interesting ones. Pretty dire.

Am rehydrating with tea and about to go to bed at 9:30. Rock and roll it ain't.

Why!?

I should be faster than a girl, if they beat me then kudos, if I get beaten then I need to train/try harder!

That's half the point in training in groups!

yep. theres always someone faster.
pics from sunday, didnt win, but good training 10k
http://www.flickr.com/photos/owls-count/9177973168/in/photostream/

My wife usually beats me in 5km and up. Probably because she runs 80miles a week and I do 40... I am still unbeaten over 1 mile though.

faster than which girl? all girls? really?

Yes.

All of them.

Apart from the ones who are faster than me.

I'm mostly joking, and it's purely bravado to motivate myself in training, and if anyone was faster than me in a second or third interval that I beat in the first, then I have a problem with myself for letting that happen, and I'll give everything to avoid it. I've heard it being called the fear gear, and it's purely to push myself harder. In the same way that if I get a sniff of catching someone else then I'll dig deep to do that.

Oh Ed, you're one if those people. Training != racing.

Interval training should be harder than racing

beat all the girls!

Might've just run my first ever <20min 5k. Am sort of delighted!

The garmin reckons it was 20:51, but it struggles in built up areas (I should probably give it longer before setting off). However, gmap-pedometer reckons the distance was 5.25 rather than 5k, so knocking a minute off for the extra 250m gives me 19:51.

I guess the google maps thing might over estimate the distance cos it uses the roads rather than pavement so the actual time is probably somewhere in between. For the sake of argument I'll just call it 19:59.99.

Regent's Park 10k on Sunday morning. Will be pretty disappointed if I don't knock a decent chunk off my 44:09 PB. Not sure whether I should do the usual parkrun thing on Sat or just rest up.

Also, this wasn't girl-assisted.

Battersea assembly league (5km) tonight. 5sec slower than PB, which was a pleasant surprise given how much I've been slacking off the training the last two months. Lets ruin that with beer!

beat all the girls!

Bobby browns motto.

Bobby browns motto.

17 miles in the morning, i should stop drinking soon....

Oops

I'm doing 6.2 miles in the morning.

In a determined effort to not wake up too dehydrated, I'm drinking a pint of water for every glass of wine.

Bit hot in Regent's Park this morning. Didn't help that the start was 9.30 rather than 9 as I was expecting.

Ran the first 5k in just over 21 minutes which actually felt pretty comfortable, pace wise. Unfortunately I think the temperature did for me and the second half was more like 22:40, so finished around 43:50 for the 10k. That's about 20 seconds faster than my previous PB back in November (first time I've run it since then) so I'm pretty happy in the circumstances. Like to think that in more favourable conditions it'd be 42:something.

If Ed has run 17 miles today he's insane.