Diary Of A Road Runner

Easy 5k – 28:00

Easy Run just to keep legs turning over before tomorrow’s race.

5k Recovery Run – 26m 15s

My comeback run after the Great Manchester Run. Have been feeling very tired all week and didn’t feel like running at all. Someone said I might have a bit of an iron deficiency so I looked it up and have been taking iron supplements all week.

A few more red blood cells to carry around oxygen seemed to help, as I ran an easy first k and felt better than my last 2 runs, and even put in a speedy couple of k’s relatively speaking (5.00 and 4:54 – faster than I ran at any point in sunday’s race and I felt good), then slowed down as it was after all a recovery run.

Felt much better afterwards and looking forward to finding that kind of form in a race sometime soon

5k Easy Run – Hard work! 29 mins

Last easy run before Sunday’s Great manchester run. I seem to follow a pattern of my last run before a race being awful – meant to do 4 miles today but was feeling it getting harder and harder so stopped at 5k and was pretty hot and sweaty despite the cool day – and had not gone very quick at 29 minutes for the 5k, but had a bit of tummy trouble and felt a bit tired. Didn’t feel I could possibly have gone any faster and no idea how I ran 23:38 for a 5k last week!

Last time my pre-race run was so bad, I PB’d and nearly went sub 50 for the 10k, so it may be a good omen!

5 Mile Easy Evening Run – 50 mins

My niece is a bit ill lately so is taking a break from her training, I had held off running today to see if she was up to it; as she wasn’t, I ended up going for a run in the early evening sunshine. Intended to run aroun 6 mins per k and started off at 5:59, then slowed a bit due to inclines and wooden steps in hills! Took the scenic route which was nice, and running at a slow pace was almost like walking used to be, felt I could just keep going, although would feel a bit puffy after hills.

Saw more runners around than I normally do in my daytime runs! I am doing the Dennis the Menace 5 mile race in June so a few evening runs will be good preparation, but took it really nice and easy today.

Hamstring seemed to twinge a bit when I did a burst of race pace for a few 100 metres, but doesn’t seem to be anything major. Think I will rest for a couple of days before another easy 5 miler, and then prepare for the Great Manchester Run 2009!

5k Easy Run – 31 minutes

Easy run as part of training run with Laura Jane. She did about 2.5k, then I went off and did a slightly faster 2.5 to make up a 3 miler. Struggled a bit at the end, yesterday’s long run still in the legs and lungs!

5 miles in 45 minutes

5 mile run, decided to just run how I felt and got slower and slower as I went along – seems I need a psychological target, if I run to how I feel I feel like slowing down and without some kind of target, I have no motivation to experience pain!

Was good to just run easier though, it all helps.

6k mix up of hard and easy.

Was due a training run with my niece, so I ran an easyish mile to her house, and then took her out for an easy couple of k, which was enough for her, although she had a sprint finish with me for a bit of fun and demonstrated amazing natural speed – I fear for my pride if she keeps it up!

Ran the mile back to my place as hard as I could and ended up with a one mile PB of 7:25

4k Easy run with niece

Just a very gentle run before tomorrow’s Bolton 10k – although niece was exhausted, I didn’t break into a sweat or breathe hard. But she’ll get there

Approx 6k altogether with niece, also first timed mile.

My niece Laura has decided to do the Race for Life and asked me to train her, so we got some suitable running shoes from Sweat Shop Hyde first and this was our first run out, she did quite well, running the first kilometre in 6:16 – I have run a lot slower!

I ran to her house as a warmup, measured on the Garmin as a mile, so did my first one mile time trial in effect in 7:36. Will be interesting to see how that speed comes on!

5 Recovery Run – 28m 27s

First run after the Salford 10k, Mum’s funeral and a mountain of admin to come back to after the Easter weekend.

Felt OK but just took it easy and was quite puffed out and sweating by the end – some hilly bits on this route. Always find it hard to come back after more than 3 days off, but felt OK and will see how next run pans out!