London Marathon Training Week 3 - got a PR!

Saturday was the first of 3 "tune-up" races, a 5k (3.1 miles) race in Regents Park.  

Week 3

I ran a personal best (PB) or personal record (PR) of 31:17! Woohoo! I had a single three-pronged strategy: 

• go as fast as I could
• have negative splits
• finish as close to 30 min as possible.

It's not much of a strategy, to be honest.  I did go as fast as I could. I got a stitch in my right ribs toward the end. I got some negative split: my second mile was faster than my first mile, and my third mile was slower than my second but faster than my first. And 31 minutes and change...that's close enough to 30 minutes. I won or, as Coach Clare declared, "you bossed it!" I actually quite surprised myself. 

Week 3 was kind of a mini-taper. No cycling at all, just the easy running I've been doing the previous two weeks. The new thing was the race instead of the 90 min long run. Coach Clare suggested I do a 16 minute warm-up ahead of the race. I've seen others do that and I tend to think, why waste all my energy on warm-up? But actually after doing a little research, and having experienced that, I can see what the point is. 

First, done right it doesn't waste energy - it helps you get into the right mind space and is a reminder of what fast legs feel like. You don't start from the line with cold legs. I've read that if you do this pre-race warm-up too early then you doing gain the benefit of doing it, because that benefit doesn't last long.  I picked a sweet spot about 30 minutes before the race, which I knew would give me enough time to do that and hit the toilets. Anxiety-pee, or (sing it with me, Mel!) "it's my High Anxie-Pee!"

It was funny to hear the race announcers saying "save your legs, you don't need to run before you cross the start line" which, actually, is counter to this whole think of getting your legs moving and warm. Although, there was an organized calisthenics warm-up session in the field before the race. 

I love Regents Park. It's beautiful and it is where the majority of my running took place when we first moved to London - we lived one street away, and the Outer Circle is almost exactly 5k. The race criss-crossed inside the park, where there are undulating paths, football and rugby pitches, ponds, bridges, a university, tennis courts, formal and informal gardens, an open air theater, and a zoo. Every year there is the Frieze outdoor sculpture exhibit, which we missed last year due to October lockdown. I love all of it. 

London Marathon Training - Weeks 1 and 2

No, no preamble. Just gonna jump right in. 

These first two weeks of training for the London Marathon have been foundation training. In Training Peaks, the app my coach uses to guide my training, it's referred to as Base 1. 

Yes, I have a coach. I hired a coach to get me to my goal race! Yes, it's expensive. I want to do this right because I am a bit prone to injury and she can help me make sure I'm at least doing the right things at the right time. Also, all the running and racing I've ever done since I started running seven years ago has been really casual and cavalier. So, I'm trying to be a little bit more focused and serious about this - or, at least less glib. Right. Anyway, the objective is I can make it to race day without hurting myself and I can finish the distance. I'm running in the Virtual version of the race, not the mass in-person version. 

I have always thought that there was a 6-hr time limit on the race, but I found out that isn't true. 7pm is the cut-off. The official start time is 9:30am, and if you hit the start line by 10am or even 10:30 am, that's still 8.5 hours! My original reason for embracing the virtual event was so I wouldn't have to stress over finishing within 6 hrs, and I missed the ballot entry completely. Coach Clare and I agree that a realistic finish for me will be 6:30. I still have to do it on the day everyone else does and I'll wear my official bib on my LDN 2021 shirt and I'll use the official app, so by all intents and purposes It's Official. Finishers T-shirt and medal come via mail :-) 

Week 1

Week 1 was weird. It was weird having someone essentially watching over my shoulder every cycle ride and every run and every rest.  I feared judgement. I feared disappointing my coach. I feared disappointing myself - did I even have any expectations? Ya, my expectation was to make my coach proud. Come on. Week 1.  Seriously? It was nerves. And when I am nervous I get stupid and glib and I say moronic things. 

I made it through Week 1 and learned a few things about myself. I could run 6 days a week and it didn't finish me. I could run a 90-min session all in heart rate zone 2 , and it was a lot harder than the 2-hour+ runs I'd done previously. Coach Clare suggested that I find a couple of races I could do along the way between now and October 3. I already had one lined up for September 4th. I chose a 5k in Regents Park for July 10, and a 10k in Clapham Common for August 15.

The Saturday long run was long. Actually, it wasn't, it was only 90 minutes but it felt long. It was the first time I thought, oh no, really? It's only 6 miles - why did that feel like 9?

Week 2

Week 2 was somewhat less weird. I can comment on each training session and Coach Clare comments back, via the Training Peaks app. So, I experimented with how and what I wanted to comment. I imagined her rolling her eyes over my random thoughts. I attended a weekly athletes Zoom meet-up. Do what? Athletes? Actually, they are all quite nice and just like me but it's a social situation so naturally I hear myself coming across like a know-nothing eee-deee-ott (ahem. idiot). 

My cycling is done on a Peloton bike. Until now I've been happily choosing my almost-daily spin class from my favorite instructors on the platform - Matt, Christine, Sam, and sometimes others. The classes typically follow a formula of warmup, some challenging sections (not INTERVALS, just intervals) followed by less challenging sections, and it averages out to a certain amount of time in a cycling power zone. This week, I am doing "Just Ride" spins where I essentially Do My Own Thing where the platform records my metrics (hr, power, cadence, etc). The Thing I'm doing is 30 minutes in power zone 2. Every day. Boring. The instructors are exciting. No instructors is not exciting. It's like going back to the stationary bike at the gym. I'm being a little dramatic, that's fair. Because, actually, I get to listen to some of my favorite podcasts and my choice of music on Spotify. But...

I do the rides in the morning, the running at my lunch hour, and the long run Saturday morning. This week's long run was a new route starting from Cassiobury Park in Watford and going north along the Grand Union Canal for 90 minutes. I knew this would put me roughly between Kings Langley and Apsley, at the end of 90 min so I would have a 30 min walk after I finished running. I think I would do this route again, it's very pretty, but I would stay on the canal tow path all the way to Evans Wharf, instead of exiting up to street level at Nash Mills Lane, which Google maps advised. The street level route to the Apsley train station is an unpleasant walk along a major road with a narrow sidewalk. Lots of traffic, nothing scenic. On the plus side of this, though, the day was forecast to be rainy and it wasn't - it was sunny and warm and I was glad to have the sun mostly off my right flank the entire way. 

With this buzz cut I've noticed that, without hair to hold the moisture, a hat or visor is absolutely essential for keeping the sweat out of my eyes.  Also important for preventing sunburn on my scalp. 

Am I doing anything else? Hardly. We're near the end of the remainder of lock down restrictions so we don't really go anywhere much. The office isn't fully open yet - we have to schedule ourselves if we're going to be in, and desks are 2 meters apart, yet we can hug. Sunday is Our Day Out. Today we're going to hike from Hampstead to Covent Garden, see a Banksy exhibit, and eat lunch at BrewDog. Above all we're going to avoid going anywhere near Wembley Park and all the Euro 2020 fuss and bother. England v Italy. Go England! 

I am finally finishing a weaving project I began well before lockdown so I can proceed with a weaving project I planned well before lockdown. I have no rational excuse for not using lockdown time to get ahead of weaving projects. Lots of irrational excuses, though. We're going to draw a line under it and move on.

Lockdown. Shit.