Roger Bannister 60th anniversary mile

Bannister anniversary

Tuesday May 6th was the 60th anniversary of Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile barrier. To mark the occasion, Dan Wymer (@running_dan_w) asked 60 people to run a mile and blog or tweet about the run. Read his blog post about the day.



I signed up to run a mile knowing it would be the day after MK Marathon, so I wasn't expecting to run a fast time. My physio Kieran had advised me to go for a walk on the Tuesday to flush out lactic acid, so a mile jog seemed a good alternative. I went straight after I'd dropped my children at school, and managed a fairly respectable 10:33 minutes for the mile.

Post-marathon recovery

It was a good idea to jog on Tuesday, because my legs felt much less stiff when I got home. I had another cold bath for 10 minutes, then donned a fetching pair of compression tights to wear for the rest of the day. I went for another couple of short walks in the afternoon too (1.5 miles in total), followed by my regular Pilates class in the evening. Drank plenty of water throughout the day, to rehydrate properly from Monday (not a chore though, I was really thirsty), and logged my food on myfitnesspal to make sure I didn't go mad and eat a bucket of pasta.

On Wednesday my legs felt fully recovered, apart from my sore knee, which will take a while to heal. I took my physio's advice to rest fully on Wednesday. I drank lots of water and ate sensibly, logging everything on myfitnesspal so I didn't gorge on chocolate!

I'm feeling ready to brave running club this evening, will be good to have an easy jog with the beginners to test my knee. The intermediates are planning their own Roger Bannister anniversary mile, a series of 100m sprint intervals as a relay, to see if we can beat 4 minutes! I might hold the stopwatch...

Mile time trial for Jantastic

It's the last week of Jantastic, a 3-month running challenge. In January the challenge was to set a weekly run target, in February it was meet the weekly run target AND set a weekly long-run distance, and in March it was to meet the weekly run target, the distance challenge, AND run a set distance in a specific time.

I set myself the challenge to run 4 times a week. The long run targets were based on my marathon plan, so had 20 milers on there (failed at this last week when I swapped a shorter run of 14 miles for another 20 miler). But with not having any races booked for March I was a bit stuck for the distance challenge. I decided to challenge myself to run a mile as fast as I could. I originally set a time of 7 minutes, but changed it about a week ago to 7:05 because I got scared (and I decided it would be good to try to match the mile time I set in February when I was challenged by my husband).

I struggle with short distances, I need a few miles to warm up before I can run very fast. I used this morning's circuit training class as a warm up, then ran to the usual club time trial spot on the Greenway (1 mile away). Set off way too fast, but settled down eventually. Hated every moment. Finished in 6:57! That's new mile PB! The run home made 3 miles in total.

This just proves I should have left my Jantastic target well alone. And I shouldn't doubt myself. Blah blah blah...

In other news, my right hamstring is REALLY sore, so I'm going to rest it now until my last 20 mile long run on Saturday. Lots of stretching and rolling in the meantime.

Training to heart rate: week one progress

Low and slow

Last Saturday I ran 11 miles as part of training for the Stevenage half marathon. The aim was to keep my heart rate low, under 140 bpm, throughout. This strategy helps to increase endurance because at this HR level your body burns fat (that we have plenty of) rather than glycogen (that runs out after a time). It's all about building new muscle fibres of the "correct" type. See my previous blog on this subject!

I had to take several walk breaks to keep HR low, mainly when I was halfway up a hill, but not as many as I thought I might. And my average pace wasn't as "slow" as I feared either, a respectable 10:30 min/mile. I hit a lovely flat section through Letchworth, and HR fell so much I was able to speed up.

I noticed some knee, ankle, and shin niggles while running, but these went as soon as I corrected my posture, cadence, and foot strike. Reading Born To Run has reinforced what I've been told previously about running style! I also read this week something Hal Higdon said about having to concentrate on running to do it properly, like you would at work (for example). One of the reasons I don't listen to music when I run, because I like to "hear" my feet and my breathing.

I finished the run in 1 hour and 55 minutes. I was very pleased with how I felt, apart from an aching right knee I didn't feel tired and could have carried on. I didn't take food with me, I'd prefer to avoid gels at the moment, now I'm training to burn fat. It would defeat the purpose to run slow but then take glycogen... I know I can tolerate gels so I'll save them for race day. 

This weekend I'm running between 12 and 14 (full Greenway route), nice and slow as before.

Fast peaks

Tonight I wanted to incorporate some speedwork into half marathon training. I ran 6 miles, but kept the first mile and a half and last mile and a half slow, with HR aimed at <140. These were my warm up and cool down periods, defined properly by HR. 

The mile after my warm up coincided with a Strava segment from Fairfield Park exit to Wilbury Hills roundabout. I wanted to see how fast I could run it, and where I would place in the leader board! Hit my max HR (175) during this mile, which was around 7:35 mile/min pace. And I was 3rd female overall on Strava :)

The mile return was kept slow and low again, then a final fast mile segment before my cool down. Hit 7:22 min/mile and placed 6th overall on Strava for that segment. OK, I'm a bit obsessed with those segments, but I don't like being down the bottom of the board!

Just over an hour run for the 10K, but I'm happy because I achieved everything I wanted to, high and low HR, in the correct training zones, and good pace. 

Bring on tomorrow's club run and my next long run! I'm (finally) enjoying running again :)

Thursday 9th May: one mile time trial

Today was the first "official" time trial of the year. The beginners met at Nortonbury Farm at 7pm, and I was there to help (umbrella-holding and organising runners). I was really pleased to see my run-walker friend there, and she managed to run all the way too, a real achievement. Makes me proud to see how far everyone has come. 

The intermediate trial began at 7:50, we had to give everyone time to run down from Stotfold. This unfortunately meant that my run down/warm up was slightly pointless, I was cold and shivery and wet. Not good. I had a bit of a warm up but I didn't feel good. I managed 7:33, running in rain and into a headwind. Also wearing my massive VLM reject jacket. I think I can do better next time!

Ran home, which made the whole run 4 miles. 

Thursday 25th April: lethargic legs

Back to running club tonight, chest has finally cleared, so it was a tentative "see how I am/blowing cobwebs" sort of run.

Began with a 2 mile run-walk with three ladies just starting out running. We ran 2 minutes and walked a minute. Route was lovely, along the River Ivel. Felt good and it was great warm up.

The advanced group run was the first mile time trial of the year; we do these to get an idea where runners are and to gauge improvement. On the mile warm up to the start of the trial I started to feel slow and shaky. I wasn't sure if it was nerves or lethargy, but by the time we arrived to start I didn't feel up to anything. Since a lot of runners didn't know the route, I offered to act as "halfway marker". Managed 7:21 pace for the half mile, then 7:50 on the way back. Definitely wasn't up to a sprint.