Training Tales

Tag: marathontraining

  • 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.

  • Midlands XC Race 4 – 11th and no DQ this time!

    Midlands XC Race 4 – 11th and no DQ this time!

    Saturday 8 February 2025

    Week 5, Day 6: Midlands XC

    It’s race day! Bring it on!

    This one was a little touch and go, given my knee has been giving me some issues the past day or two. But it was the final match of the series and the first one where we have been racing at the same venue at the Harriers’ Men. I wanted to go and support the team and see Rob race, so I decided I should pack my kit, see how my knee was and decide when I got there.

    It was fun racing as a team. Kaighan had sorted a mini bus (“executive coach”) so there was a good team atmosphere right from the start.

    My knee felt ok on my warm up, so I decided to race, with the aim of keeping it a little ‘within myself’ meaning  “don’t run so hard, Nicole!”

    Start Fast

    The race started uphill then the course narrowed so a good, fast start was key. Given ‘good starts’ are not a strength of mine, maybe today it would go to plan? Erm.. no. Al recorded the start and with a bit of manual counting and some guesswork as to whether there were two legs or four, my guess is that I was in about 26-30th position when the course narrowed.

    Work Through The Field

    My plan to ‘run within myself’ didn’t really go to plan. It turns out that’s really hard to do on an undulating XC course. In typical Nicole style, I worked through the girls from my slow start. On the first bend I probably jumped up about 5 places, taking it wide. There was then a nice out-and-back-dog-leg where I gained a few more places. The course had changed a bit from the last time I raced here so I was a little surprised when we did a lap of a field I wasn’t expecting. But I didn’t get lost or go wrong this time! Yay!

    I overtook the odd person here and there, and was pleasantly surprised when someone shouted “you’re in 14th” to someone not that far behind me. I didn’t know how many people were between us but I guessed this put me somewhere in 10th-12th ish.

    Finish Strong

    As with the start, this part of my race didn’t really go to plan. I don’t have the best finish-line-kick at the best of times, but this one was uphill up the same field we started in. I had overtaken the girl ahead of me twice in the final kilometre or so, but she outkicked me on the final run in. Just before the line another girl steamed past me and I couldn’t cling on. So sadly, I lost two places in the final sprint to finish, happily, in a very good 11th.

    After I finished racing, I headed back to the final straight to cheer in the rest of the girls. They had some great runs too, and this was our biggest team at a Midlands XC match, which I consider a big success for the team.

    A Great Team Day Out

    We came 16th team on the day, finishing 13th overall in the league. Luckily, my DQ at the last match had no bearing at all on our overall position, as the team in 12th were more than 100 points ahead and me counting would not have made up that difference.

    Next up were the boys. Some thought they were up for potential relegation, but I had faith that though we might not have anyone in the top 10, we have real strength in the depth of the men’s team. Rob, Harrison, Al, Matt, Cameron and Andy put in some brilliant performances and especially some insane sprint finishes to fight for every point. We’re still waiting on the results, but think they won’t be relegated.

    After all that racing fun, it was back on the party bus to head home for a shower, PJs and a relaxing evening in front of the TV.

  • 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!

  • London’s Calling

    London’s Calling

    So I did it.

    I finally entered The London Marathon.

    Gulp.

    I’ve run for about eight years now. I took up running when I moved to Southampton for work after university, to meet people and make friends in a new city.

    Since then, I’ve moved to Cheltenham, where I now live and work from home. I rowed at school and university – but looking back now, I was never that good at it.

    I was too short.

    Too weak.

    Too inflexible.

    Pretty rubbish, in hindsight. But I worked hard and did as well as I could. I’m a much better runner, it turns out.

    Running follows cycles. Cross country, relays, track and repeat.

    Every year, April comes around and my Strava and Instagram feeds are full of marathon training. And every year I get, what I call, ‘the Marathon itch’. And every year, someone – a friend, a coach, a more experienced runner – says,

    “Don’t enter a marathon until your older. It ruins your life and kills your speed.

    But it is the best thing you’ll ever do!”

    So this is what I expected when I sat down with my coach, Jo, probably in Woodkraft, one of our favourite post-parkrun-breakfast cafes, and told her about the 2024 marathon ‘itch’ I wanted to scratch in 2025. Except, this time, she didn’t say ‘no’. She said, I’m paraphrasing of course… but she said something along the lines of, ‘Well yes, I was wondering about that too. We’ve gradually increased your long runs and mileage so you’re in good place. For the marathon, you’d need to up it a little more again, but we’ve got a good base…’

    Well, that was unexpected and not the ‘talk down’ I’d expected.

    So here I am, just starting my First. Ever. Marathon. Block.

    It’s not special, I know. Thousands, probably millions of people have trained and run a marathon. But I haven’t. So this is totally new for me. So I thought, why not create a bit of a diary to capture my experience, learnings and if you want, you can follow along with me. If not, well, that’s fine too.