Month: April 2022

Let it never be said I am not determined

On By 00snookIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

As keen readers of this blog will be aware I had a bit of a disasterous run last week. (link here)

My solution to this bad run is the same as my usual solution when I face any sort of adversity. To dig in and to try harder. After my awful run, I resolved to keep doing the exact same loop that I was attempting until I can run it with ease. After all, the thing to do after you fall off a horse is to get back on (apparently). To be honest, I have never ridden a horse and I imagine if I did fall off it would hurt like hell, as I am old and feeble these days, but the analogy still works.

So two days after my disasterous run, I went out on the same 4 mile (6.4km) loop and this happened.

A HUGE improvement on the 55 minutes it took me 2 days before, and much closer to the pace I would expect. Before you start high fiving yourself with joy, this is not all good news. My HR was a lot higher than I would have liked at that pace.

Under ideal circumstances the pace that I was running at (which is about 10 minute/mile pace for those of you who live in the stone age and still calculate your running in miles) should be in Zone 2. My HR should be hovering around 140 at that speed. As you can see it was mostly up in the 150’s.

The problem with this is that to train effectively, the majority of your training should be at an “easy” pace. Slow enough you can have a conversation. This is the 80/20 rule, which I will post about properly some time soon, but essentially 80% of your training should be easy and 20% should be hard. We are talking really rather easy and really rather hard. here. Opposite ends of the scale.

What lots of endurance athletes do (me included) is complete the majority of their training somwhere in the “comfortably uncomfortable” range, which for purposes of the diagram above is Tempo moving up to Threshold. I can run in this zone for a long time, which is all well and good, but 80/20 research shows that the fastest fitness gains are made when you avoid training in Z3/Z4 almost entirely.

The problem I have is that Z1/Z2 is so incredibly slow for me that it is practically walking and often my ego gets in the way and I just wanna run. Somthing for me to address in the future.

Anyway, the first run after my disasterous run was good, so 2 days later I set off again on the same course, and this happened.

Same route, with almost exactly the same time and pace, but the HR was higher again still. Now the explanation for this is an easy one. It was much hotter. Like over 20 degrees. And Snooky does not cope very well when it is hot. I love the heat. It does not love me.

Taking the positives , that is two runs on the same route that are getting somehwere back towards the pace that I would like.

The plan is to keep running this same 4 mile route once every 2 days until I can complete it in around 40 mins and my HR stays mostly in Zone 2. As you can see below, I have run this pace before, but it was a while ago now.

28th May 2018 – same route

So above is the same route (actually 480 metres further) in under 40 mins. Sadly, there is no HR data for this run, but I imagine this was close to flat out for me 4 years ago, so likely to be high. Anyway, it proves that the speed is possible. Now just to get the HR down.

It’s only 7 or so weeks until my proper marathon training plan kicks into place. If all goes well, by then I will be running at sub 10 minute mile pace (sub 6 min/km) with a HR around the 140 mark and will be in a good spot for starting my marathon training. Also, I should weigh a lot less than I do now (see Project 80 for more details).

Hope you are all keeping well out there in the world and for those of you in the UK you are enjoying the good weather.

TTFN

Snooky

It is time to move to DEFCON 4

On By 00snookIn Uncategorized1 Comment

If you are not familiar with DEFCON statuses, then you have clearly not seem the 1983 film War Games. And if you have not seen the film War Games, then you should immediately stop what you are doing, go and watch War Games, then come back and read the rest of this. Because you clearly have not lived.

Now you have seen War Games and are familiar with the DEFCON statuses, you will understand that DEFCON 4 is not good. We are very close to full blown panic here people. And this is precisely where I find myself. Let me tell you a little story, dear reader.

War Games – Its got Matthew Broderick in it

So today is Good Friday. Which is something to do with Jesus. Anyway, it is a bank holiday which means that you don’t have to work. Except in my case I did do a bit of work this morning. Even though it is bank holiday. But that is not the point so I will shut up about it.

Anyway I woke up, did a bit of work, tidyed up the garden and got ready for our friends who were coming round for a BBQ. Now usually this would be a good opportunity for me to relax and have a few beers, but I wanted to go for a run, so no beers for me.

We had a lovely BBQ, the kids played in the garden, it was warm (but not too warm) and all was well.

After everybody had gone about 7.30pm it was time for my run. A simple 35 minute route that I have run 1000 times. I was happy with myself for eating well during the day and not having any drinks and was ready to run.

No sooner had I set out of the door and started running that my right hip flexor immediately screamed out in pain. Now I had warmed up properly and was running slowly, but it instantly hurt, a lot. Now this is nothing new for me. My hip flexors fail all the time and they hurt a lot when I run, but usually after about 20 miles or so, not 20 metres.

On I plodded, hip flexor screaming with every stride and then I started to feel like I was running through treacle. Like the air itself was thick. Like running in a swimming pool. Goodness me it was hard. My heart rate was way too high for the pace I was doing and I could not get any air in. I checked my watch, I had run 800 metres!

Slowing down, I kept on going, hoping these early run niggles would go away and I could get into my stride. How wrong I was. The hip pain was then joined by knee pain on the same side. I could not shake the thought in my head spinning round and round. “You are going to have to walk” it kept saying to me. Walk. Fecking Walk! I had done just over 1km and I was having to walk. But walk I did. I had absolutely nothing in the tank.

Now this was not a great situation to be in. I am not the best runner in the world, but I can run a bit. Under normal circumstances I can easily run for 35 minutes, but this is clearly not normal circumstances.

I was angry with myself. Angry that my lungs seem to have packed up and not get any air in. That my muscles and body seemed to be as tired as it would be at the end of an Ultra Marathon. Understandable in an Ultra Marathon. Not so understandable after 1km of running.

Now there is nothing wrong with walking. In fact, I walk a lot during my marathons, but this was not a marathon. This was a 35 minute run that there should be no walking. So I decided to run again. And run I did, slowly, for about 100 metres, and then I had to stop, again. And this is how it went for a while. Run for a bit, get exhausted, walk, run for a bit, get exhausted, you get the idea.

20 minutes into my “run” and I had covered just over 2km. Not good. I felt awful. I was very sad and angry and I did not understand. A mental checklist went through my mind.

  • Am I overtrained – No
  • Did I sleep well last night – Yes
  • Any boozing – No
  • Diet decent – Yes
  • Did I run recently and that is why I am struggling – No

There was no obvious reason. As the time wound on I was just getting more and more upset. I felt so sad I could cry. How the hell am I ever going to be able to run a marathon for Daisy’s Dream if I can’t even run for 35 minutes? I am a better runner than this. But clearly that is not the case.

40 minutes into the run and the 5km distance clocked up on my watch with a unceremonious beep. The beep almost felt like it was mocking me. Stupid watch. I was about 1km from home and it may as well have been 100. There I was, in my full run gear with running vest, cap, shorts and trainers walking down the main road back to my house. Like an overweight fella who thought he could run but clearly could not. Shuffling along like a useless blob. I was sad and angry in equal measure, so I forced myself to run. I can run 1km. Just run. Run Snooky, run.

So I ran, for about 200 metres and then my back started to hurt. So now I have the following things wrong with me.

  1. My right hip flexor is agony each time my foot hits the groud
  2. My right knee is hurting me
  3. I cannot get any air into my lungs at all
  4. I feel like I am running through treacle
  5. My back hurts

All this after 5km of “running”. A marathon is 42km. I have done many of them. I quickly worked out that at the pace I had run I would be looking at a 6hr 30 minute marathon finishing time. You can walk one faster than that!

So I walked, again. All the way home. It took me 55 minutes to complete a loop that normally takes 35. For those mathemeticians amongst us, that is an increase of 57.14%.

And now I am sitting here, writing this blog. My hips are aching me. My shoulders ache. My left knee is now a bit sore. From a 6km walk with a bit of running. Absolutely and completely pathetic.

I know what I am going to do about this. The same thing that I always do. But I will tell you what that is another time.

Enjoy your Easter weekend people. Hope that the sun shines and you get lost of nice chocolate eggs to scoff down and that if you do go out running, it is better than mine. Though you would do well to make it worse.

TTFN

Snooky

Project 80 – 133rd times a charm!

On By 00snookIn fundraising, marathon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

So, only one week and one day later than planned, Project 80 launches today.

Project 80 is simple. I need to weight 80kg or less by the time I get to run London Marathon. Ideally, it could do with being closer to 75kg I think, but 80 is probably more realistic.

Before we get into why this is important, I am aware that some of you cannot figure out kilograms (kg) and may prefer weight measurements to be in stone and pounds (st, lbs) or just pounds (lbs). I will do my best to do the relevant conversions for you as we go though this.

How we weigh ourselves in stones in the UK. This fella is around 1 stone!

So, a long time ago I wrote a blog post explaining why weight is particularly important in running. At the time I was training for a 100 mile ultra marathon (which I never even made the start line of) but if you want to read this you can find it here. Time to Address the Elephant in the Room

The basic premise is this.

  • When you run the ground force through your joints is 2 – 2.9 times your body weight each time your foot hits the ground
  • A marathon is 42,000 metres. Assuming I travel a metre per stride, that is 42,000 foot strikes
  • If I weight 100kg (15st 10lbs, 220lbs) then this is 100 x 2.5 (if we take the average from the first point) x 42,000 which equals 10,500,000kg of force my legs have to absorb over a marathon distance.
  • If I weigh 80 kg (12st 8lbs, 176lbs) this number reduces to 8,400,000kg of force, a reduction of 2.1 million kg of force my body has to absorb
  • The largest bull elephants weigh about 6000kg, so the reduction in impact force is around 350 elephants worth. Thats quite a lot.

Then things get even more interesting. According to a podcast I listened to a long time ago (which I now cannot find to reference) athetic performance increases roughly 5% for every 10% of bodyweight you drop, assuming that you only drop fat and maintain muscle. Now bearing in mind I want to drop about 20-25% bodyweight (I currently weight more than 100kg (220lbs or 15st 10lbs) I could be looking at a performance increase of 10% or more. This would mean that my current marathon speed of around 12.5 minute miles would improve to possibly sub 11 minute miles, which would improve my marathon finish time from 5hrs 30 minutes to around 4hrs 48 minutes.

Now all of the above is just based on weight alone. It does not factor in improvements in fitness that can be made from training. It is only taking into account my current level of fitness and my current weight vs my ideal racing weight. So if I get the training right and the weight loss right I could be closing in on 4hr 30min marathon, or perhaps less.

Whilst marathon running is not all about finishing times, believe me being out there for an hour less is a good thing. Marathons are hard. Really hard. You usually feel OK up to around mile 18-20, then you face 6-8 miles of pain and suffering to get over the line. If that pain and suffering can last a bit less time that can only be a good thing.

My knees hurt!

All things considered it is a good idea to weigh less than I do when running. Quite a lot less in fact. So, for the 133rd time of trying, I am going to have to lose weight. Something that is relatively easy to do in your 20’s, trickier in your 30’s and very hard to do in your 40’s. Combined with the fact that endurance exercise is not actually that good for weight loss (I will blog about this another time) and the fact that too much training tends to break my body anyway, basically I am just going to have to eat a lot less.

I really like food though. That is how I got into this position in the first place 🙂

Then again, if White Goodman can succeed on his weight loss journey and almost lead the Cobras to victory against Honest Joes in the American Dodgeball Association of America International Dodgeball Competition then I am sure I can do the same, and run London at a weight substantially less than I am right now.

It’s a metaphor.

So off we go. Not only do I need to train hard and rest and recover, but I will be needing to do this on a calorie deficit. Should be fun.

Next post will be about running and not about being overweight, I promise.

To track Project 80 and see how well (or not) I am getting on please use the Project 80 page

TTFN

Snooky