Jedi powered by music

Evening Campers :)

I'm sufficiently recovered from yesterday's run, and golf today to do a wee bit of an update.

Tuesday saw in a pretty decent progressive intervals session.  Evil Coach Darth Jim mustn't have annihilated any planets recently, because the session didnt finish till after 7pm...infact I was back so late I thought my car may have turned into a pumpkin on the way back.  As it happens it didn't, but the guy I was following didn't even get to the dizzying heights of 25 mph, never mind the speed limit, so perhaps the pumpkin transmutation was a closer call than I thought.

Anyways..I digress

The session was "steady - fast - flat out" 300m - 300m - 300m, with 300m recovery.  I (of course) took off like a scalded cat on the first one, imagined that I was Alyson Dixon, and attempted for at least 300m to keep up with Frankie.  This was a fools errand of course, but I don't call myself Graceless Whippet for nowt, and the name is well deserved.  But, after the usual chuckle from Darth Jim, I got down to serious business on the next 7 reps (yes that really is 8 x 900m in total) and managed a pretty consistent set overall:

3:56, 4:14, 4:14, 4:15, 4:11, 4:10, 4:11, 4:10

The first was a bit silly and I have no excuse for it, but I got home thinking I'd put in a canny effort.

Thursday was the return of the dreaded 300 parlaafs 

We had 2 sets of 8 to do, with a 400 jog recovery between each set.  I teamed up with Jimmy and just hoped to finish the lot. 

Set 1: 77,77,78,78,77,77,77,77
Set 2: 75,71,71,71,70,70,70,64

The second set did seem a fair bit quicker than the first, and it was pretty good to get the lot done.  Will try and aim for closer to 70 seconds for all next time.

I took Friday off as a recovery day, and opted for a looped route on Saturday for my long run.  Rather than to go walkabout I'd plan my route on gmaps pedometer beforehand (as my garmin is hit & miss at the moment), and opted for three laps round Jarrow & Hebburn, plus the run from home and back up through Bill Quay to work.

I saw a fair few familiar faces running on the way round, as well as a thumbs up from Peter from my running club route, bumped into Anne-Marie as she was finishing her run (I was very jealous having only just done 30 mins of mine), and a beep from my sis & brother in law as I was coming up to finishing my first lap.

It was also the first time I've ran with music - loaded up a bunch of stuff onto my blackberry and hit the roads.  It had fortunately stopped raining by the time I set off, so at least I missed the bulk of the horrible weather.

Gotta say it really made the time pass much faster with sommit to listen to, and run a lot faster (perhaps I shouldn't have had the Ramones or Marilyn Manson on), but it really gave me a boost when an uplifting track came on.  The best of it was on lap three (and it was dark by then) I was at about mile 18 when Bohemian Rhapsody came on,. and then Binary Finary - cracking stuff

 

21.12 miles - 2:58:04

Much quicker than I was expecting to be honest, but not having the garmin on, and just running comfortably was the reason.  I had also put the Phantom Menace - Duel of the Fates (the bit where Obi wan & Anakin take on Darth Maul) and when that came on I just kinda floated along ....I am a Jedi !

So, a pretty decent round up to the week, and I've already equaled last months mileage by the 20th :D


Playlist as follows (I had 'em on shuffle, so this is in no particular order):

The Trammps : Disco Inferno
The Bee Gees - Saturday Night Fever
The Cardigans - My Favourite Game
Fat Boy Slim - Weapon of Choice
Planet Perfecto - Bullet In The Gun
Duran Duran - Rio
Leftfield - Phat Planet
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen - We are the Champions
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Starwars Phantom Menace - Duel of the Fates
The Ramones - Do You Wanna Dance
Paul van Dyk - Binary Finery
Paul Oakenfold - Rendezvous (quadraphonic mix)
Faithless - Insomnia (monster mix)
Morrisey - The Last of the Famous International Playboys
Wild Cherry - Play the funky music white boy
Nine Inch Nails - Head Like a Hole
Jamiroquai - Canned Heat
Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (Sasha & John Digweed remix)
ATB vs Faithless - Don't Stop vs Insomnia
Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People

Add to that lot a round of golf today and I'm well and truly done for the week, though three and a half hours meandering round the golf course was definitely the perfect 'recovery run'

Happy running folks!

Super woman

Wow! what a week :D

If Carlsberg made training sessions, they'd probably be just like the week's running I've just had.

It started with the club time trial on Tuesday.  I had a bit of an incling that it was going to be the 5k, so I put my shorts on despite the cold.  Leggings are for training, shorts are definitely for proper running.  After my disasterous time in last month's club handicap (24:46), I wasn't hoping for anything more than just under 24 mins, but I thought that if I could just not fly off like a loon at the start, then I might manage 23:xx.

To be fair to Evil Coach Darth Jim, he gave me a decent enough handicap - off after Helen & Alan, so I wasn't chasing Jimmy.  The conditions were perfect so I just went for it.  I'd caught Barry (who missed his slot cause he was nattering), as we came out of Monkton Village, then I was tracking down Alan & Helen right up until Mill Lane.  Helen pulled ahead on the bank, and it was a real struggle to try and catch her, but I did (eventually) and then started the chase to try to get to Graeme & Rachel.  As I went past, Graeme left Rachel and was hot on my heels, We both flew by Maria, and the race was on.

York Avenue Garage to the finish is a lot longer than it seems, but I managed to hold Graeme off right through to the finish, and 1st across the line in 22:40 ! 

I have a feeling that I'll be suffering for the better time in next month's handicap placing.

Wednesday, saw a wee recovery run with Alan & helen, then the dreaded postponed 400s from last week was the track session on Thursday.  I had been told to try for consistency, and that's exactly what I pulled out of the hat!

16 x 400m, with 90 secs recovery:
1:43, 1:40, 1:41, 1:42, 1:42, 1:42, 1:42, 1:42,
1:41, 1:40, 1:41, 1:42, 1:42, 1:41, 1:41, 1:40

Aside from the first one, the others were all within 1 second of 1:41 :)

I had a break on Friday, then Saturday was the dreaded long run.  I'd planned for 19-20 miles, and had kind of a rough idea where I wanted to go, but no actual distances till I got out and on my feet, with the aim of running till I hit 3 hours or near enough.

Setting off from home in Felling, I ran down through Pelaw, Hebburn, Jarrow and Tyne Dock (cheers to the council guys who gave me a wave and a thumbs up) till I got to Laygate in South Shields (where I bumped into my aunt & uncle).  Then it was down Commercial Road, past the market place, round to the sea front,  along the promenade, onto the beach, then back up past the dragon playing fields.

At this point I thought I'd be hitting the 1:30 ish mark, but it was actually over two hours, so instead of going up to the Nook as planned, I headed back into South Shields, past the Town Hall and back towards Tyne Dock.  I ran past the same woman outside smoking at the Tyne Dock pub as I had on the way down (she smiled and said hello again).  The trip back up to St Pauls & Bede's World was pretty uneventful, and I got to Morrison's in Jarrow in just over 3 hours.

After a quick pitstop I thought it would be madness to run back up to Felling (which would have put the run at well over 3:45) so I jumped on the metro up to Heworth, then bimbled back up the hill as a warm down.

20 miles covered in 3:22:24

Pretty pleased with that to be honest, as I don't think I could have covered any more distance without some gels or more fuel.  Will have to look at picking some up from Start Fitness for next weeks run.

So, after all of that I'm feeling pretty happy with the marathon training so far, except for feeling like a narcoleptic cookie monster - alternating between eating and sleeping (with not much of anything else in between).

Four boroughs run

Evening all,

What an exciting end to the weeks running (assuming I manage not to run at the Town Moor xc tomorrow), today's run was perfect - great conditions, felt good, it all came together.  I decided on another walkabout style trip, just me and the garmin, and an approximate distance of between 16 and 18 miles.  I kind of had a bit of an idea that I'd head down to the river Tyne again, as it's got some interesting scenery, and once I'm through the pedestrian tunnel at the far end, I'm not a million miles from home.

Anyways - here's the route:

 

It's a canny start with a steep decent down to Felling and Gateshead Stadium, and the north side of the river is mostly downhill, but after that it's just climb after climb back up to Felling - see the elevation map:

actually - that 0 elevation should read below sea level as I went under the river in the pedestrian tunnel.

So, some top facts about todays 17.4 mile effort:

• I went through four local boroughs: Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, and South Tyneside
• Passed over the Tyne, went under the Tyne, over Ouse Burn, and over the Don (tyne tributary) twice.
• I passed the end of Hadrian's Wall at Segedunum (Wallsend) 

All in all a canny bimble out, finishing in 2:37:41 though it may have been quicker without that savage climb back up the hill at the end.

Happy running folks!

Thursday night track session

Got to the track early to do a bit of a warm up and the wind was hideously strong.  It was fine for 300m of the track though, so Jimmy, Frankie, Barry and I opted for 300s instead of the requested 400s (sorry Jim).  We did have to jog in the last 100m which was like running in one of those wind tunnels they use to test airplane aerodynamics.

1:12, 1:13, 1:13, 1:13, 1:15, 1:16, 1:16, 1:16, 1:15, 1:20, 1:20, 1:20

Now I know I was supposed to be aiming for consistency here, but the variations weren't actually my fault.  It was getting windier as the session went on, and the last three laps were particularly challenging, with a crosswind which blew me from lane one into lane four as we came round past the hammer cage.

I was happy just to get to twelve as I think the last four would have knocked me on my back.

Then it was a quick turnaround and 'up t'the toon' for the North East fetcheveryone one mile challenge on the quayside.  I got there in plenty of time, but by this point was bloody freezing.  Had a quick natter, then we were off.  I managed the lap in 7:28, nothing stunning, but I'm happy enough with that.  Will look at something quicker when the weather's a bit nicer.

Happy running folks!

Wood terrace

Darth Jim's first session of the month: pyramid session on Wood Terrace.

700m, 1700m, 2750m, 1700m, 700m
2:28, 7:31, 13:08, 7:53, 2:48

Took the first at a daft pace, but otherwise was ok