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York - Week 5

Yorkshire, home of the puddings...
Week Five

This week in numbers ...

Miles ran : 43.43
Wine drunk : 1 bottle
Beer drunk : 1, breakfast beer
Mushrooms eaten : 3 packs
Chocolate eaten : 1 Yorkie
Times I vomited : 0

Monday 29th July

Rest day today.

I wake up and the sun is shining, a great day to go for a run along the coast, my legs are trashed, I know it's a stupid thing to do and I'm going to the gym later so for once I do the sensible thing and I don't run.

I also don't go to the gym because Sam went to work and Lily went out and that's enough of a reason for me not to bother and the fact I also detest the gym and I'm really lazy.

Spend the day working and listening to a lot of Bloc Party & The Pogues, not a bad day really.

Tuesday 30th July

Busy day working and then it's a track session tonight doing long track reps. Be my first bit of speed work in a couple of weeks so should be interesting, plan to run in C team and see how it goes.

Join C team and just before we start Bain says we're going to go a bit faster than planned C team pace, suits me as I fancied pushing it a bit tonight. It was supposed to be 26 secs per 100, I suggest 25's and get kind of a nod from the group and off we go.

Front of the group with Lloyd, Mason and Jason and we knock out the first rep at B team pace, that sets the tone and I decide to push on and try and hold that pace for the next reps. Instead we start going faster and are hitting 22 per 100 instead of the planned 26.

It's bloody brilliant, I feel like I'm running really well and the mushroom diet is fuelling me well. I'm also back on the carbs and eating lots of protein which is helping massively.

Finish the reps and just have the 1km left, realise im a bit broken now and this ones going to hurt. First 800m are hard and I keep it steady and then push on and run a 3:52km which is the fastest I've gone in a long time.

Maybe it's time I stop hiding out in C team and get myself back into B team ?

But I know C team really love having me around and they'll really miss me and then Bain will start crying and probably go out and get a tattoo of me because he'll be so sad. He already has one tattoo of me on his ass that he struggles to hidde under his short shorts, true story.

Easy 10k tomorrow which should be good, I plan to listen to some Sugababes and the Pogues.

Wednesday 31st July

Easy 6 miler this morning, felt good but legs a little heavy so kept it slow and easy, see I can be sensible sometimes.

Spent the day working, eating mushrooms (obviously) and being sensible. Last night's track session took a little more out of me than I'm used to.

After work I head to the gym, they've got all new fancy machines, my legs are heavy so it's not a day for pushing the legs and core work and upper body would be good.

So....

I go on the new cross trainer and do a 35 minute glute and leg HIIT session and then I go on the rower and do 2 x 5 mins flat out and then I finish off with 10 mins on the spinning bike doing a hill climb out the saddle.

Idiot.

Thursday 1st August

Threshold Thursday and today is 4 x 2 miles, first mile is threshold pace and then straight into the second mile at mara pace, the aim of this is to do the fast first mile and build some lactic and then drop around 30 secs a mile so the mara pace feels easy but you're doing it with lactic building up.

Now I love thresholds, I find them relatively easy, actually not easy, they're certainly not easy but they are manageable and a great way to do a high mileage session in bite sized chunks.

Now I'm not a morning person but I have to be up at 7am to fit this in, do a 2 mile warm up and then start rep 1.

It ain't happening.

Really have to push to get to 7:15/20 mile pace and it feels way harder than it should, drop into the second mile and I'm 20 secs off the pace and feel tired and sluggish. Rep one done and 2 min recovery.

Start rep 2, can't hit the pace, feet are slapping down on the ground, the pace feels too fast and I feel wrecked.

Now the reason I started this blog last year when I did London was to give me some accountability, to force me to do sessions that usually I'd quit midway through. I thought if I had to write about it, I'd have to do it and this theory has served me well.

Until today.

I sacked it off after two reps and here is some sensible advice from me, you don't get this often.

If you're feeling shitty, if you know you won't hit the times or the distance you want then there's very little point in slogging away and risk picking up an injury or just making yourself feel shit.

I stop after 2 of the planned 4 reps, walk to co-op and buy a coffee and treat myself to an alpro vanilla yoghurt, I'm on a diet if you didn't know, no croissants and no chocolate twists allowed.

Off to the club tonight, won't be running, just heckling.

Obviously I do run, you've realised by now I'm an idiot. 2.5 mile easy to the field, stood and watched the session and then 2.5 miles home way too fast but it felt good to stretch out my legs.

Friday 2nd August

Friday is always 4 miles easy with some hills, I'm tired but it's on the plan and it's what I need to do.

The sun is shining.

I went for a run, it was glorious and sunny.

Friday night was all about red wine and pizza and it too was glorious.

At least this is what was supposed to happen today...

I wrote that bit above on Thursday and then I woke up today and thought fuck it, I'm not running today so I didn't.

I did however drink a bottle of red wine and watch some Olympics and that was glorious.

Parkrun pacing duties tomorrow, instead of my usual 22 or 23 minutes I've asked to do 24 to keep a steady pace that won't bother me as Sunday is a big'un.

Saturday 3rd August

It's Saturday, so it's Parkrun day.

24 mins pacer, that's 7:40 mile pace all the way through.

Mile 1 in 7:39 and I have 3 or 4 people using me as a pacer, mile 2 in 7:40 and I'm down to one person following me, mile 3 in 7:40 and I'm on my own.

Up the last hill and steady to the line and finish in 24:00, Strava rounds this up to 24:01 because quite frankly Strava is a massive bastard.

Nice day wondering round the shops with Mrs J and Poppy (I've mentioned you now Poppy so you can shut up about it) , then a night watching the Olympics, drinking no booze and eating lots and lots of pasta for tomorrow's 18 miler.

Sunday 4th August

Over the last 4 weeks of training my Sunday long runs have all been a little bit shit. They've either been too short, too slow or I've just skipped them altogether. No great reason for this as I enjoy long runs but so far just haven't been in the right mindset to tackle a big'un.

Today is different, I still don't want to do it but I have to do it.

Alarm is set for 7am, all my gear is laid out ready for the run, my bagel is already in the toaster, I have gels, salt sticks, a few haribo and today I have a plan, it may be a shit plan but it's a plan.

I need to run 18 miles, I don't want to do loops as I'll probably sack it off and go home, instead I want to run 9 miles in a straight line and turn and run back and not give myself an opportunity to quit.

So where do I go ?

Along to Blyth works, keep going straight for 9 and turn back but I can see on the way back there's a few twists and turns and I'll be lost in Blyth somewhere for days. How about heading the other way to Tynemouth and into Shields, that looks okay but again there's some twists and turns once you get deep into Shields territory and I'm useless and I'll get lost and pissed off and give up.

Then a moment of genius, a straight line for 9 miles where I can't get lost.

I'll run up the coast road.

No distractions, no getting lost, footpath all the way, 9 miles out, turn and 9 miles home. Simon you are a fecking genius.

Now I'm not one for scenery, I stare at the ground 90% of the time when I'm running. I did Kielder and people bang on about how beautiful it is, yeah well the ground is just as dull at Kielder as it is on the Coast Road. I did London and I stared at the ground so much that I didn't even see the Cutty Sark, I do however know where it was as the ground changed from tarmac to a nice polished granite around there.

Even so, even though I don't look around much when I run, just how unbelievably dull is that route!

But, it worked.

Instead of turning at 9 miles I was feeling good and went to 10, looped round a roundabout and headed home, picked the pace up and knocked 30 secs a mile off and weirdly enjoyed it.

Last week was a disaster with no drink and being a big, sweaty fella, this time thanks to some advice from Emily B I took a bottle of Lucozade with me. This is the absolute definition of over-thinking, I didn't want to wear a hydration pack as I'd get too hot, didn't want to wear a belt thing with bottles as it'd annoy me, didn't want to stop at shops as I don't like stopping when I'm running. Then Emily says why don't you just carry a bottle? I think about this and realise it's a genius idea, just carry a bottle, not a backpack, not a belt, just buy a bottle and actually carry it with my hand and it turns out I have two hands so can move it around between them.

Took a gel every 4 miles, popped a saltstick in my mouth every 15-20 mins and took a swig of lucozade whenever I needed it from the bottle I had in my hand, hands are brilliant aren't they, really useful things to have. I sepnd at least 5 miles of the run trying to decide what I would have done with the bottle if I didn't have hands. I finally settle on sellotaping it to my arm stumps if that situation was ever to arise.

I hit 18 miles up past Cullercoats and decide I may as well plod on as I feel good and I hit 19.69 miles at co-op.

Treated myself to a bottle of full fat coke and a can of Camden Hells lager. For the last 2 miles of the run all I could think of was buying a cold beer from the fridge in co-op, I'm not even a big beer drinker and much prefer wine but I really wanted a beer today so got one, opened it, drank half it and started walking home. It's about 10 o'clock in the morning.

Now, it's s amazing just how 200ml of lager hits you when you've only eaten a bagel and ran nearly 20 miles with nothing more than gels and haribo. I felt properly pissed, stumbled and knocked into a parked car and then my vision started to go a bit weird. I had a swig of coke to counteract the lager (a well known technique) and then drank the rest of the lager and walked home in a slightly drunken haze.

There was talk today about going to Ikea, I'm thinking about meatballs (veggie ones naturally) and a massive slab of Daim cake but then Gail says we're not going. Instead we go to the pub for lunch and I have a massive double burger, chips and a pint of Guinness.

Week 5 done and things looking a bit better.