Bye bye November

More snow overnight. Difficult to say how much, maybe 3 inches, but the accumulation on the table and bench in the garden look to be well over 6-8 inches.

Fell shoes on today for 6 miles and some drills. If I run early but when its light I can run largely off road which would be more reassuring.

The weight loss seems to be going well. I only started on Friday and aside from a blip on Sunday (not too major a blip - related to an unplanned trip to the cinema to see Harry Potter - but enough to cause a temporary gain on the scales yesterday) things have gone nicely. After 4 days its 3.2lb down which is about what I'd expect from week one with the usual water and food in transit loss.

That's the end of November and advent starts tomorrow. Champion. Looking forward to Christmas this year.

Blimey, its been a week since I last blogged but then its been a busy last couple of weeks.

I've had 4 nights away in the last fortnight, 5 meetings last week, I've been as far south as Poole, as far north as Edinburgh, I've been in Newcastle in the heavy snow last week and driven through a blizzard on an untreated Northumbrian road (and scared myself silly). The man flu has slowly got better over the second half of the last week - not quite gone yet - but getting there. Oh, and I sorted the full Christmas dinner menu!

Running wise its gone OK all things considered. I managed to get out on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday but not all as planned as Friday's intervals were replaced by a steady run (due to man flu) and yesterday's 10 mile race was (thankfully) cancelled so I did 10 miles along the snowy and frozen canal with a guy from the running club.

The supplementary exercising didn't go so well. I felt rotten last Monday and missed the reformer class; did the drills on Tuesday, was in Newcastle and Nottingham on Thursday and didn't get back in time to cross train or do the resistance training; and on Saturday I only got half way through the resistance training before having to collect Charlotte from her gymnastics class.

Diet wise its been mixed too. I'd weighed myself the Saturday before last and struck a hefty 12st 10.4lb. On Tuesday, as I drove to Edinburgh, I had a think about what I could or should do.

Here's the plan. Dead simple. I'll be weighing daily for 12 weeks by the end of which I would expect to be at or near 11st.

I know, I know, a complete volte face. The rationale is that I can't afford to continue drifting, particularly with Christmas coming. If I do I'll either face the prospect of not getting to target or having to diet 'firmly' throughout marathon training in the new year. Neither are enticing prospects.

What I'm expecting is that I can steadily lose so that the last 7 weeks of training won't require any restriction on calories beyond maintenance. It even allows for Christmas week 'off' (dieting, not training).

I still think getting away from the scales has to be the long term objective but the marathon is a fixed target that needs a more robust approach.

Return of the man flu

Well, I say return but it hasn't really gone away in about 3 weeks; and I say man flu in a rather self deprecating manner but its struck down two females of the household too.

Both Sue and I have had colds for 2-3 weeks. For me, some days I feel close to fine; but on others I'll have a rasping cough, a headache, stomach ache and so on. On a couple of occasions in the past week I've felt bad enough that I feared it was turning to sickness. Charlotte also had a thick cold for about 10 days but last week hers did turn to sickness and once she had that out of her system she was back to normal. Bethan just seems completely untouched by it.

Its not really helping the quest for health and fitness.

On Saturday I didn't do too badly despite needing to ferry Beth to a party, take Charlotte to gymnastics and swimming, and head into the city centre. I did manage to get onto a dreadmill while Charlotte was at gymnastics but I hadn't been 'with it' enough to be too organised meaning I only had about 45 minutes for exercising. That was OK though as I only had a 4 mile interval run scheduled in the cut back week. I managed this but found it extremely hard work - I think that was the virus.

Yesterday was always going to be difficult as I needed to be in the city centre by 7.45am as I was marshaling at the Leeds Abbey Dash, an annual 8,000 runner 10k. I enjoy marshaling but it meant I'd be in town until well after midday and probably a wee while longer than that as Bethan wanted me to meet the rest of the family at the German market afterwards.

After two poor nights of sleep I felt pretty rotten to start with yesterday but the fresh air and walking about 5 miles to/from marshal points meant I coped OK but knew running wouldn't be on the agenda. After meeting the girls for half hour I walked back to my car, went home, to bed and to sleep and woke up feeling worse!

So, exercise wise that meant I missed the drills, only did half of one of the two resistance exercise sessions, replaced the hill training with another intervals session and missed a 4 mile base pace run. Bugger.

Diet wise, not a lot better. I don't have any appetite for big meals nor anything healthy, so I pick; and what I pick at or snack on tends to be the worst kind of food.

Away again this week. Heading off tomorrow for Edinburgh with a meeting in the afternoon, then its another Edinburgh meeting the next day and one a few miles south in Selkirk before a couple of hours driving to Washington in Tyne & Wear where I'll stay en route to a meeting in Nottingham on Thursday morning. Lots of driving, lots of eating from service stations, lots of challenges for exercising.

Hoping the bug will go soon.

One silver lining is that having weighed myself on Saturday I don't look to have gained anything in the first 3 weeks of November.

A few days away

Been a busy week with work so far...Poole, Christchurch, Warwick, West Bromwich, Sheffield have all featured on my list of places I've been to and I must have driven nearly 1000 miles.

I have just about managed to keep up exercise wise though. Tuesday's early treadmill run was a good start (though it meant I missed the drills); Wednesday's hills were switched with Friday's intervals and that was fine too and yesterday I did a very short, very slow run but missed the resistance training. That leaves a bit of catch up to do today/tomorrow/Sunday but as its a cut back week its no biggie to tag on the drills to Sunday's run and to do a resistance session today.

Only Wednesday's run was important for any reason - a run along the south coast on the Dorset/Hants border. It was fairly stormy with the sea crashing over the quayside, looking (and sounding) dramatic as the wind was strong - again making intervals either very tough or very easy depending which way I was facing. The path itself was variable: a mix of concrete, road, sand and a bit of woodland trail past the rather pretty Highcliffe Castle. Castle is misleading as there's no hill, no moat, no keep, no thick walls or arrow slits but what there is is a rather grand looking stately home - what it's website describes as 'an early Victorian fantasy castle'.

I've not eaten well while away. I rarely do. There's just too much access to food - cooked breakfasts, dinner out somewhere, 3 course evening meals and long hours driving punctuated by coffee and chocolate.

I haven't weighed for over 2 weeks but will do so today. Whilst the running feels OK I feel like the weight is slowly creeping up. I'm not unduly concerned or beating myself up about it but want to get a bit of a handle on where I am so I can consider how to proceed.

Early to bed, early to rise...

...makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Apparently. Though I've seen precious little evidence of the latter two at least.

Last night was a relatively late night for me in that I didn't get into bed until nearly 9.30. That's well over an hour later than some nights last week. As soon as it reaches 8pm I'm struggling to stay awake but wake up easy enough on a morning. I think it may be related to the time of year and the clock change; and exasperated by their rarely being anything worth watching on TV.

I'm off shortly to the gym to either run on the treadmill or use the cross trainer. Not sure which. The prescribed activity is a 4 mile run with drills but as I need to leave for Dorset by 8.30 I'm a bit limited in what can do, especially as I'll still be there for tomorrow morning's run (due to be hills but I'll need to swap it for Friday's intervals) and out all of Thursday (so won't be able to x-train then but will do a run first thing). I either run and therefore run on 6 consecutive days, or I cross train and run on 5 consecutive days. Decisions, decisions.

Today's exercise is all made slightly easier by Charlotte being up much of the night ill. Like her parents she's had a cold that's come and gone for a couple of weeks but for her has now gone to her stomach. Not nice for her and not too wonderful for the mother that gets disrupted sleep to look after her every hour. It means Sue will be off and therefore I don't have to get back from the gym quite so early and therefore don't have to go there so early either.

Reflections

Its the first recovery week of the marathon plan.

I don't really feel I deserve it yet as the top mileage week has only just nudged over 30 miles - a distance that was the norm from late spring through summer. However, its part of training and if it helps keep me fit and healthy ahead of the mileage increases then all well and good.

This week keeps the same themes as previous weeks - drills, resistance training, hills, intervals etc - it just cuts back on the mileage.

Mentally I tend to find cut back weeks to be a time for reflection and planning: reflecting on accomplishments to date and looking forward towards increased challenges ahead. This post is the reflecting - the looking ahead can be summed up in 30.5, 34.5, 34.5 as the mileage for the next 3 weeks.

Overall I'm pleased. I've adapted to the demands of consistent 5 day a week running (ironically it'll be 6 this week) without obvious injury; I'm cross training once a week, doing a reformer class and doing resistance exercises; as well as completing running drills and flexibility work.

Injury wise the groin seems reassuringly dormant (as it were). Sure there's occasional slight twinges but they're very isolated and probably no different to the momentary twinges I'll get elsewhere in the body every day. Cautiously optimistic there. Probably a slightly bigger concern is the left Achilles. I've had some tenderness there for many weeks but there's no sign of swelling or growth and the physio seemed unconcerned. Interestingly its been far better the last couple of days when I've been rubbing on some arnica oil to the wider area and spending an hour or so in a warming neoprene support. Optimistic that keeping that up along with lower volume of running will help fix that this week.

The running drills have been good even if I do have to find places to do them where I wont be seen or sectioned. After completing them I do feel my gait alters and I hope a little of that trickles through to the regular runs over time - I presume that's the theory.

Running at base pace has proved simple and made me wonder if I had a tendency to run too fast before, and that the secret to high mileage is making sure much of the running is low intensity - lower than I'd thought.

Recovery rate running I find more difficult - that's 9.20 - 10.30 pace and I find that strangely tiring. At present I only have to do it during warm up and cool down either side of hill training and in the recoveries between hill repeats.

Hill training itself has been good though. Its one of those sessions that's undeniably tough but a nice kind of tough - one that leaves me feeling relatively youthful and self satisfied. OK, its a difficult one to convey.

Interval training I've enjoyed for similar reasons and its got me back to doing some runs along the canal which gives some variety. Its been intervals at mile pace so far but as the length of intervals gets longer the pace drops over coming weeks to 3k pace, 5k pace, 10k pace, half and marathon paces. Interestingly though, even through the later weeks some faster 3k and 5k paces are included - its not all long and slow.

The dynamic flexibility exercises have seemed strangely tough, simply because I always find myself red in the face at the end of them! I'd like to extend their use further or supplement them with some static stretches and self massage, mainly due to the experience with the achilles. That's a focus for this week.

Talking of focuses...they've gone OK-ish. I'm meant to consider a different theme each week throughout each run and whilst that was fine in weeks one and two I completely forgot it last week, even to the point where I frequently forgot the week before's while running too.

Resistance training has been another winner though. That started as 1 set of each exercise twice a week and increased to two sets and three sets. They'll now stay at 3 sets but the mix of exercises will change. The ones so far have largely been 'introductory' and often simple Pilates moves. Its meant that between these, the reformer class and the two lots of dynamic 'stretches' (that include 2 types of lunges for example) I'm doing some sort of work on core/glutes 5 times each week.

The endurance runs* have been fine too. They're the one area where I've cheated the plan a bit. They should have been 5 miles, 6 miles and 8 miles whereas I've done 7 miles, 8.5 miles and 10 miles, but these are still well down on previous running and haven't caused a problem so I have no concerns. Its a policy I'll maintain for the next 4 weeks (if only for the practical reason that I have 10 and 11 mile races in that time) but my guess, and without checking the plan's requirements, is that by mid January at the latest the prescribed distances will be the ones I do.

Cross training has been fine too. Its only a once a week requirement and the only challenge has been to slow myself down as its meant to be completed at 'recovery pace' whereas I've always tended to keep myself interested on CV machines by pushing myself to hit certain targets.

*In Brain Training what might be thought of as the Long Slow Run (LSR) is called the endurance run. I suspect there's two reasons for this. Firstly LSR simply describes what the run is - long but slow - whereas 'endurance' describes what the type of training will test and what it will build. Also, a traditional LSR is single pace and typically far slower than marathon pace - maybe 90s a mile slower. In Brain Training the endurance run is 30s - 60s slower than marathon pace but some weeks may include far faster paces, so, for example a 16m run might have 8 miles at base pace then 7 miles getting progressively faster from marathon pace down to 5/10k pace before a final base pace mile at then end. That trains you rather differently to simple long and slow and I'm hoping that works well as it does this in place of doing more of the longest runs.

Last few days

That's week 3 completed - 1/8th of the way through the training already and into a cut back week next week.

Pleased with the week. 30.53 miles completed with no great ill effects other than a ruddy great blister on my left little toe.

Yesterday's easy 5 mile run at 8.39 a mile was pleasing simply because it was completed on a treadmill. I find them really hard work as I get hot and don't like the fixed pace or lack of scenery. Yesterday's wasn't made any easier by my forgetting the iPod. I don't normally run with music but can make an allowance in the gym. That left me with 3 of the screens directly in front but no sound. I was distracted momentarily by a music video featuring one of Girls Aloud (not sure what they call her) where she sometimes appeared in stockings and suspenders but it was transient relief from the boredom, particularly as the other 2 screens were showing the tedious pursuit that is rugby union.

At one stage I considered pausing at 25/30 minutes and do my resistance exercises ahead of the final minutes running but in the end I saw it through OK in one go with the only real problem that of the afore mentioned blister.

Today was the endurance run - 10 miles along the canal. I deliberately got up early as its Charlotte's birthday and left home about 7.30. That meant the canal was quiet, misty, cold but still. With the sun low in the sky throughout, the water still and reflecting the skeletal trees, and various sections accompanied by the sound of cows mooing in neighbouring fields it was quite a pleasant run.

I ignored the time almost completely, just aiming to run at an easy feeling pace, and found I'd averaged 8.53 with the first mile at 9.34 but getting fairly consistently faster mile on mile until the last at 8.20. That's nicely on track with the prescribed targets.

Diet hasn't been so good the last few days. No binging but just not particularly tight either. That's OK. Off for a birthday curry this evening.