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It's been far too long since I wrote about running; the hobby I discovered last spring blossomed over summer, lingered in the autumn and died back over winter. I got the fear that I had left behind the days I could enjoy pounding the streets in my running clobber. The treadmill became my reluctant companion for a few months since Christmas but as soon as the evenings drew out I dumped it in favour of the great outdoors, how fickle my affections are. Over the past six weeks or so we have been heading out to run 10ks which at first was dreadfully disappointing – finding it so tough going to make the distance at a significantly reduced pace. It felt like I'd dropped back behind about ten months of training even though I'd kept active over the indoor season and I did question whether I really wanted to persevere with it at all. Then after a couple of weeks Chris volunteered to run with me as he wanted an 'easy' run (thanks a bunch). That 10k training run was absolutely one of the worst runs I've ever been on, the effort I put in to keep going was ridiculous but tried to keep my concentration focussed on keeping my breathing in a relaxed rhythm. I made it round in around three minutes quicker than the week before but felt sick as a parrot afterwards. We ran together for the following three weeks and progress was up and down but still in a positive manner which was a relief – I feel like all the effort is worth it when progress is made.

On Sunday we took part in the GEAR 10k race locally which was a flat, fast, traffic free road race with around 1800 competitors, so easily the biggest we've taken part in locally (we did it last year too as our first 10k race)

My 2014 resolution of setting a new pb was safely out of reach so I wanted to run a race I was happy with as opposed to anything else. The nature of a large race meant that there was so much congestion from the start, which seemed to last for at least the first 2k, giving a most irritating slow start. Despite wearing my Garmin watch I found it difficult to keep track of my overall pace with so many other runners speeding up and slowing down all over the place. My chip time was confirmed at 48:12 which was an exact match for this season's best so I have to be satisfied with that in challenging conditions. My time was just over three minutes faster than my time for last year's race (and beat Chris' time from last year too) which was pleasing but the main difference was my recovery time; I got my breath back far sooner and only felt a bit peaky for a minute then pretty good. My boot camp training coach had come to support us and we had a little chat after the race and I was entirely capable of conversation if dripping a little sweaty.

The most exciting thing is that I feel like the fun has been put back in to fun runs for me, I can look forward to going out for a spin in the sunshine as well as a slog to get a good time. It's not all uphill anymore and I can stay realistically hopeful that progress can be made towards my running goals. Thank goodness.

Sophie

It's high time I checked in again with my running progress this year. As you may know, I've been spending time with the treadmill in an attempt to get my training back on track after a frankly LAZY winter. Ideally I've been on 'mill 3 times a week but in fact it's been more sporadic so sometimes just once, or none. My main focus has been on interval training in order to build up my cardio abilities and my breathing, with a gentle warm-up in order to get my body in gear for a bit of a beasting. To be honest the maths of pace and speed are beyond me but the treadmill is currently set on imperial measurements. I try to do between a 14 and 25 minute workout with at least 5 minutes of gentle jogging included to start off, the last thing I want is to go and injure myself at this stage! I then whack the speed up to somewhere between 9-11 mph for a minute (or as long as I can possibly manage) before reducing it to about 3 mph (walking pace) to recover. The machine can measure heart rate so I'm tending to take that as an indicator for when to speed back up again. For example; my heart rate once I have been sprinting for as long as I can manage is around 181 bpm, so I wait until it falls down to under 130 bpm (which is a couple of minutes of walking and breathing) then go fast again. At the moment I tend to do between 3 and 6 sprints depending on the length of workout and by the end I expect to be sweaty and disgusting. For the time being I have been running at 0% incline but I'm going to start the intervals at an incline but slower pace in order to get some hill training in.


Anyway, earlier this week I aimed to run 5k and set the speed at higher than I was used to running at. I made it to 2.75miles in 22minutes (after a 0.5 mile steady warm up) and really felt pretty shattered after that. The workout kind of left me feeling a bit daunted at just how much faster I'd have to run to reach my goal of 5k (that's 3.1miles in old money) in sub 22 minutes. Clearly, I have a LOT of work to do.
Yesterday I decided to make the most of the mild conditions and afternoon sunshine to hit the road for the first time in what feels like an eternity, although in reality probably only a couple of months. The main objective was just to make it to 10k all running as it felt like all confidence had drained out of me and I really didn't even know if I could still make the distance at all. For the first time in at least a year – if in fact ever- I discovered what it is like to go for a casual run and how to enjoy just running in the great outdoors, feeling the sun on my bones and feeling to a certain extent 'carefree'. Sure, I DID keep an eye on my Garmin Forerunner watch to see how I was going but not in a competitive way, just to make sure I wasn't pushing forewords too fast with the risk of premature expiry. To my total surprise the first 5k were at such a leisurely pace that despite a raised heart rate, I wasn't really out of breath and felt mighty fine. I should point out that I planned to do two laps of a 5k circuit just in case I felt like I wasn't going to make it. So the second lap started really well and naturally I didn't feel quite as fresh but it did make me happy to just relax about slowing right down on the incline and just not look at the watch, panic and have to press on harder. It's not in my nature to be so laid back about this but I had promised myself I wouldn't be fazed by however long it took me to make the distance and I resisted running hard at all points other than on the last half kilometre on a proper good downhill so I thought I'd just stretch out and do a short stretch as fast as I could which was satisfying. Just the fact that I made the whole distance still running has boosted my confidence no end and was just what I needed to make me feel like I CAN do it and I CAN make progress. All is not lost.

Sophie

In terms of December and early, middle and end of  January are pretty much a write off in terms of healthy eating. With the amount of food gifts we receive it’s just never going to happen so I just accept that I’m going to eat like a pig and move on; no point fighting it. With the dawn of the new year comes a new found enthusiasm for getting in shape so I like to think that goes some way in compensating for all the gluttony.

We have at long last got a treadmill up and running (oh I laughed) in the house. It only took a few months of dithering plus a reluctant upping of the budget but we darned well got one. The first workout was getting it into the house; it is so heavy and bulky, you have no idea! I have great plans for getting some serious interval training under my belt over the next few weeks. The last three months have been something of a write-off in terms of running so I guess I'm starting from a low base and working back up. My main aim is to work towards being comfortable running 10k again as I'd really like to take part in a spring race.

Since I drafted the above there has been something of a setback. We've used the beast a handful of times and couple of issues have arisen so unfortunately the refurb company we bought it from want it back to repair or replace which means we have to get it back out of the house, plus receive it back again at a later date. It's a setback that I could really do without but if the machine gave up prematurely than I guess it would be annoying (and quite a lot of money down the drain too). Needless to say I'm peeved my plans have been interrupted but I suppose it's for the best in the long run.

Sophie

Something unexpected happened on Sunday. I went for my usual 10k route in the pouring rain, with the light fading stupidly fast. Maybe it was because I was desperate to get home in one piece but I made it back in 46:53, which is beyond my comprehension as it was just 4 weeks earlier it was 48:25 (so that's 1:32 difference). As the 10k actually registered me running 10.17k on my watch it was proportionately a faster average pace, but for ease of memory I will use 46:53 as my pb
The gloomy thing is that I really really can't expect to see any improvement especially as I can't even run as often. I don’t tend to set goals because I tend to think that going any faster than I already have is a bit unrealistic and I just don’t know how much further improvement can be made. Let’s face it, I’ve got lucky so far and have managed to make some gains but how good have I got the potential to get? I’ll reserve judgement.