13in12 – Snooky's Adventures

I have read time and time again, that to get better as a long distance endurance athlete you need to run/cycle/swim more slowly.

The idea is that I should be exercising at an intensity that I could hold a conversation with somebody. That my heart rate is up, but not up too much. That I am in “Zone 2”, meaning that my heart rate is in that sweet spot for maximising aerobic capacity.

I usually run my training runs with a heart rate monitor, so keeping track of my heart rate is relatively easy. Using a calculation taken from the Don Fink book “Be Iron Fit’, and having achieved a maximum heart rate whilst running of 191bpm (just after crossing the line at the Great South Run following a sprint finish), I know that I need to keep my heart rate under 162bpm to stay in the magical “aerobic zone”.

Borrowing further from Rich Roll, who mentions in his excellent book “Finding Ultra” the need for him to slow down his training speed to get fitter for the mega endurance events, I have concentrated on keeping my heart rate at around the 140-145 mark. This feels about right to me. I am not out of breath, feel like I can run forever at this pace but am still getting a reasonable workout. At least I think I am. But there is one problem. I am getting slower.

Using good old Strava (click the link to follow me), I can keep an eye on my runs and track if I am getting quicker or not. Almost universally, I seem to be getting slower. Despite now running 5 days a week and concentrating on keeping in Zone 2, I am definitely getting slower.

I keep telling myself that perhaps this is not such a bad thing. Perhaps you have to get slower before you get quicker. After all, I am not trying to break any world records. That being said, it would be nice to at least feel that I am fitter and faster than I was two years ago. I simply must be fitter. There is no way you can do the amount of training I have done over the last two years and not get fitter. I have done an Ironman for God sakes. The problem is, the evidence just does not show this.

In April 2015 I was well over a stone (7kg) heavier than I am now, but I ran the Brighton Marathon in 2015 a full 4 minutes quicker than I ran it just a couple of weeks ago. I am lighter than I was in 2015 and am almost certainly fitter, but I am slower. All of my runs on Strava are tracking slower too.

If anybody out there is reading this and has experienced something similar, please get in touch and let me know. I am especially intrigued to know if you did eventually get faster, or if I am destined to be the slowest fit person in England.

I really hope it is not the latter.

TTFN

Snooky

Hello all,

It’s been rather a long time since my last blog update. In all honesty, I’ve been busy and haven’t been competing at all so there has been little to blog about. That is until now.

Over the last few months I have been contemplating what to do for my next fundraising challenge. The Ironman, which was now over a year ago, was a big deal. No doubt about it, taking myself from couch potato to Ironman was one hell of a journey. Thanks to the incredible generosity of my friends, family, and some complete strangers we managed to raise enough money to pay for a day at Chestnut Tree House, over £7,300.

This was a while ago now, so it’s time for the next challenge. “What challenge have you chosen”, I can almost hear you shouting at your screens. Well as the blog title implies, I have decided to run 13 marathons in 12 months.

Starting at Brighton Marathon 2017, I will complete a marathon every month, ending at Brighton Marathon 2018. Brighton Marathon is a big event for Chestnut, so it seemed the right place to start and end the challenge.

Beautiful Winchester Cathedral

On top of that, just to make things a little more difficult, I have decided to throw a 55 mile Ultramarathon into the mix. This will be in June 2017. I have chosen the Race to the King. I will be competing in the 1 day option at this race, quite literally running 55 miles non stop. The race takes place across the South Downs, from near Arundel to Winchester Cathedral. It is going to be hilly. VERY hilly.

So that’s the challenge. Simple really. 12 marathons at 26.2 miles each plus a 55 mile Ultra equals 369.4 miles of running if I just account for the racing. Obviously there will be miles and miles of training too, so it is likely that I will probably run around 1500 miles throughout this challenge. To put this into perspective, that is from London to Moscow.

As any of you who have regularly followed my blog will know, running is by far my weakest discipline when it comes to triathlon. This is why I have chosen this challenge. If I am ever going to become a better triathlete I have to get my running times down. 13 marathons in 12 months should help me to do that!

I also wanted to do something big. Something that would inspire people to donate to the charity that I care so much about. I feel this challenge is a fairly big one.

Over the next few months I will be altering the blog site and relevant Facebook accounts to reflect this move away from triathlon towards running. I will still be going out on the bike, though not half as much as before. I might even go for an occasional swim. But what I will mostly be doing is running. A LOT of running.

It is also my plan to keep you all up to date as I book up events for this challenge. So far I have booked the following.

April 2017 – Brighton Marathon
May 2017 – Three Forts Challenge – a 27 mile race across the South Downs taking in 3 Iron Age forts (this one is going to hurt).

Nothing else booked yet, as the Race to the King doesn’t open until the end of September. Just to get me warmed up, I am also racing at Beachy Head Marathon at the end of October (but this was pre-booked and is nothing to do with the challenge).

That is really all I have to say for myself right now. I will sign off with a few pictures of me running in a snowman costume at the recent Chestnut Tree House Littlehampton 10k. The two guys you can see next to me (also in fancy dress) are Mark Ward and Dave Chapman. Both very dedicated Chestnut fundraisers in their own right, and jolly nice chaps to boot. Both will be with me at the Brighton Marathons, and I am hoping to talk them into one or two of the others.

TTFN.

Snooky