Actually planning some training

Over the last year I've tried a couple of different training plans - one from the Manchester 10k website and one from a dedicated ASICS training app. Neither worked for me, partly because they seem to under-pitch the effort required for my skill level, but more so because I find it difficult to fit their routines into my schedule. What they did do was get me into a pattern of recording and tracking my runs, allowing me to see progress over time.

I have two goals related to my upcoming races that I think require a bit of a concerted effort in preparation:

1. Survive the Huddersfield 10k and if possible get a half-decent time for my skill level i.e. a sub-60 min finish
2. Knock 10% off my previous Manchester 10k time i.e. a sub-50 min finish

I've taken a bit of inspiration from the Mcr 10k training website to come up with my very own training plan. Inspiration or folly, we'll see soon enough.

I have a regular Tuesday evening run with the Greyhounds, a moderate 5-10k. I also have a regular Thursday evening run with a sub-set of the Greyhounds, a hard 11-13k that I may need to miss a few of to get the diary to work. Finally, I've decided to switch Saturday morning park runs for a while and introduce some dedicated training runs.

For February, my focus is on Hudds 10k. As such, I will be undertaking a weekly hill training session where I run a local route that gets close to matching the race levels of climbing and distance.

In February I will also experiment with some interval training. This involves running fast for a few minutes then recovering for a few minutes, then repeat a few times.

Then from March I will switch focus to Mcr 10k. That will mean I can drop the hill training (there will be enough hills with the regular Greyhounds runs) and start some race simulations instead. In these I will run for a time at 'yellow zone' level (e.g. 6km at slower than goal pace), run a bit at 'orange zone' level (e.g. 3km at goal pace), and finish with a little bit at 'red zone' level (e.g. 1km at faster than goal pace). Over time I intend to spend less time in the yellow zone and more time in the orange zone.

All the above is fine on paper, but it will get interrupted by obviously having to race - to make sure I run well I will taper off my training in the week before a 10k. There will also be some personal diary clashes to contend with, but I think I've managed to work out a plan that gets me where I want to be (or at least near). I will try not to be a slave to it - I can already run at a speed I'm fairly happy with (although it's in my nature to always want to be faster). I will miss park run, but hope to volunteer on tapering weeks and get back into it properly in summer.

I've found the Huddersfield 10k to be a mental challenge - I don't know the course, so I don't know whether the hills will be long and gentle or short and steep. This training will help prove to myself that not only can I complete the challenge, but do it justice. I don't know if it will work, but I'm going to give it a go. It still doesn't include any cross training (cycling, swimming, pilates, HIIT classes, etc), but I just can't fit it all in.

One month in

As we start February, the weather has given us a taste of something cold, but I assume there's more to come. Your encouragement gives me the soul-warmth to keep going out there. Both Horizons and I are very blessed by all the support to date - every donation is significant, no matter how much it is and no matter whether it comes from individuals, companies or anonymous donors.

As January closes we have together raised £545 - thank you all! This means we will hit the target of £600 for the first project and be able to move on to the second project with our spirits high. That gives me great motivation to race well and race hard! I'd like to thank my parents for managing to get to every race so far to cheer me on - it's great to have friendly faces cheer you across the finish line.

Keen observers will notice I've now booked on two more races, taking my total to six. I will be racing as part of a works team in the Manchester 10k in May. I'm really looking forward to that - the event last year was my first ever race and means I've now got a time to beat (54m 26s).

In addition to that I've also booked on to the Mossley 10k. That's my home town, but I wasn't able to run it last year so I'm looking forward to getting that opportunity. Hopefully a few of the local running clubs will open some more of their races soon.

I'm definitely in the racing mode at the moment and feel like I could race more frequently. But I'm conscious not to overdo things and to give myself time to recover and keep improving through training. That said... April, May and July are all looking fairly busy months.

RACE 2 - Lyme Park Night Run

Saturday night I travelled to Lyme Park in Cheshire with a group of 4 other Greenfield Greyhounds to take part in one of the National Trust's series of Night Runs. One Greyhound was recovering from injury, another was racing for the first time and none of us had run the course before. With a body like the National Trust involved, it's a well publicised event that attracts a wide range of skill levels and experience. I think that's a good thing, but we were not let off with an easy course!

The night was a little cold while waiting around at the start and although it was nice and dry during the day, the rain decided to pour down for race time. That didn't stop us, but it did mean the course was extra slippy. It's muddy to begin with and has lots of tree roots and puddles to jump over, but with some quite steep ascents and 250 runners churning the ground this became a very tricky course on which to remain upright.

The first hill was only a minute or so into the run and managed to split up the Greyhounds quite early. But it was a great sight to see a long line of bobbing head torches climbing up and have the wonder of Manchester arrayed before us at the top. We then turned away and into the forested sections. More climbing, more mud, more roots, and a few stiles to climb over. The course was well marshalled - thanks to all marshals who stand out there in all weathers to make sure we go the right way and get a heads up on tricky sections.

Towards the end of the forest section I couldn't see where I was going. By this point my glasses were full of rain and I wasn't able to run quick enough to clear the fogged lenses. Added to this, the night torch illuminated my cold breath to become a blanket of blinding white in the midst of pitch dark forest. I had a reasonable pace up to this point, but had to slow right down for the final crest. In the end I took my glasses off, as it was just too dangerous.

The last descent was long, working its way down the muddy hill to pick up a bridle path and eventually end up on the tarmac drive back towards the beautifully-lit grand house. A few final fast sweeping bends meant picking up more and more speed - a really good way to conclude the course, along with the cheer of the finish line crowds.

My current barometer for predicting a finish time is 6 minutes per kilometre. This course was supposed to be around 6.8km, so I was forecasting a 41 minute finish. I'd completed Hit the Trails at a speedy pace of 5:30/km, so had a potential finish time of just over 37 minutes in mind. In reality the course was even shorter - my Strava had it as 6.2km, although there wasn't any signal out there so that could be inaccurate - and I ended up completing the course in 41 minutes 50 seconds.

This is slower than I wanted, especially given the shorter distance, but I'm happy enough given the conditions and terrain. Looking at my Strava data, I can see my pace increasing after the first hill - from 6:49/km on kilometre 2 to 5:47/km on kilometre 4 and 4:44/km on kilometre 6. Can I just say that again... 4 minutes 44 seconds for the last km... for me that's very fast! That last hill was terrible - I slowed right down to 8:49/km pace! If I could run that again and see where I was going, I reckon I could shave a couple of minutes off my finish time.

So there we go - race 2 in the bag. A free bottle of water and a lovely cup of hot soup for the runners topped off a great race. We were given a goody bag of National Trust info, water bottle and snack... and a glow in the dark medal!

Next up is the Huddersfield 10km. It will be a nice change to have a road race, but this will have even more hills - over 100m more climbing than Lyme Park (which is already 158m)... oof!

Strava

Something you will see a lot of runners do just before they set off is clicking watches and phones to start tracking their activity. I had experimented with the Walk Jog Run app, but had seen a number of my running mates using other timekeepers - Garmin watches and apps like Runkeeper and Endomondo.

Halfway through last year I decided to switch to Strava. It seems a very popular application and I've enjoyed using it. Some of the things it allows me to do:

• obviously record the time I run for - I have set it to auto-pause so it doesn't record my rests and that then tells me the pace I'm actually running at
• record the shoes I wear for each run - useful for gauging when to replace them i.e. at around 500 miles
• show me a map of where I've just run - let's others know what routes I've been on
• track the height I'm running at so I can see all the ups and downs - elevation gain is something I look for to gauge how tough a race will be
• share that information with fellow strava users - and be able to encourage each other with our achievements
• share that information with social media - although I don't do that very much at the moment
• join challenges with other runners in the Strava community, which helps with motivation - for example, two challenges I've joined this month are 'Strava Races: 10k' (complete a 10km run) and 'January Run Climbing Challenge' (run up 1,000 metres this month)
• lastly, a cool feature on the website is that if you're running with other Strava users you can overlay a few sets of run data and see how you all did on a single map - seeing 3 or 4 dots navigating the map is amusing to watch

I also wear an Apple Watch and use it's Activity app to record the same run. I can look at this easily while I'm running (the Strava app is on my phone, which is strapped to my arm) and see my time and distance at a glance. I tried the Strava watch app, but it doesn't stay on screen - hopefully that will change sometime in the future. Also, I use my watch to record the full run time (as opposed to Strava, which I set to exclude my rests).

Strava made a personalised end of year video that shows some of the key stats for the year (or half year for me), here's mine: http://2015.strava.com/video/vqAGhQh

I look forward to the 2016 summary showing a much better set of information!

Coming up next week: Race 2, the Lyme Park Nightrun

What next for Q1?

As you now know, I had a great start to the year with Hit the Trail 5.

What's next? A bit more mud, I think :)

I've now got the races for the first quarter of the year locked:

• next up is Lyme Park Nightrun on Jan 23, which I'm expecting to be very similar to Hit the Trail 5 (tough, muddy, watery in places and a bit hilly), except run in the dark!
• after that is the Huddersfield 10km race on Feb 28, which I'm expecting to be rainy, cold and very hilly (likely to be more than double the climbing of Hit the Trails 5!). It's the first road race of 2016, so not as muddy as the other two (although there could well be snow instead).

I've made a few other changes to the race calendar:

• added Black Knight Charge, which I found out about from a fellow runner last week - a race around Daisy Nook Country Park, which I'm familiar with from travelling through for many years to get to school
• swapped Salford 10km for Huddersfield 10km to have a better break between races, even though Hudds is much more difficult (I assume), although I may still have a go at the Salford 10km...
• I've also decided to no longer consider the Mad Hatter race in May, which looks to cover similar terrain as Hit the Trail 5 and May is already busy with Manchester 10k and Dovestone Diamond.

The new year is still very new, but Horizons has already had £130 of donations - thank you very much to those first few for a great start. There is still a long way to go and I need your help to reach £600 from these three races. The fund raising from this first quarter of races will go to feed school children in Zambia, so please give generously to help that next generation study well.