Tag: intervals

Juneathon Days 21 and 22 – No Slactivities For Me

Leave a comment
Friends of Pilgrim Hospice Social Rides

I’m fourth from left in the pink top and pink shoes. A lovely summer’s day at the seaside. Brr.

Ha, you thought I’d slacked off yesterday, didn’t you? Well, I’m here to tell all you disbelievers that I didn’t slack off, so there. In fact, I went on a 30 mile bike ride yesterday (after getting the day right). I couldn’t be bothered to blog when I got in and sat and read my book in the conservatory instead (Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky by Patrick Hamilton, in case you’re interested. I love Patrick Hamilton. If you haven’t already, read Hangover Square, it’s brilliant.) and then later on, I sort of forgot. That’s ‘sort of forgot’, as in ‘totally forgot because I ate pizza and drank wine and then watched crap all night on telly instead’.

This morning I went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the rowing machine, 22 minutes on the treadmill doing Audiofuel’s 180 Pyramid Max interval session, then 20 minutes on the cross-trainer. I also booked spin classes for tomorrow evening and Saturday morning. As you’ll remember (if you’ve been paying attention that is but, if not why not, hmm?), I challenged myself to a parkrun/spin challenge. The challenge involves running parkrun quick enough, then cycling back quick enough to get to the spin class in time. To be honest, although the timing is quite tight, it’s nowhere near impossible and unless my legs or wheels fall off or an unlikely but extremely unlucky combination of both, it should be fine. Touch wood, fingers crossed, stroke a black cat, etc.

Also this morning, Carla, Rachel and I have been discussing arrangements for Sunday’s Great Kent Bike Ride (where fellow Juneathoner Helen will also be joining us). It didn’t take long for the discussion to turn to where we’ll be eating and drinking after the ride and we are all now looking forward to our Wetherspoon roast. Yum.

You may be wondering where my marathon training is going to fit into all this spinning and cycling. I’ve been wondering the same thing myself and have decided Saturday’s long run of 7 miles is going to happen on Wednesday, although I’m supposed to be doing 4 miles tomorrow, so it’ll probably be more of a 7 mile walk.

Stats

Cycling: 30 miles
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 22 minutes
Cross-trainer: 20 minutes
parkrun/spin challenges coming up: 1
Great Kent Bike Rides coming up: 1
Wetherspoon roasts looking forward to: 1

Juneathon 2014 – Day 24 – Back To The Running Group

Leave a comment

Usually when I go along to something, at the end when saying goodbye and I’m asked if I’ll be along next time, I always reply with ‘yes, definitely’, then am never to be seen again. This isn’t because I haven’t enjoyed myself – when I say, ‘yes, definitely’, I mean it (except for that time I went along to the local writing group. I most definitely did not mean it that time) – I just seem to not go along again, at least not for a long time after, anyway. But last night saw me going along again to the Tuesday session of a local running group. They do meet at other times – on a Wednesday night when I’m at my spin class and on a Saturday morning when they meet too early for my liking and so Tuesday suits me. It especially suits me as, on a Tuesday, they do things like hills (see last week) and speed sessions. Last night was a speed session. I thought this would be a bit of running fast, then stopping for a break, then doing it again a couple more times. Oh no. We got to the field and the leader said while pointing at each corner of the field, ‘start at that corner, then run to that corner as fast as you can and don’t stop until you get to that corner where you can slow down a bit then when you get back to the first corner run fast again and repeat for thirty minutes’. Um, okay. Not.

We all started off well, then I was out of breath in about twenty feet but I managed to carry on until I got to the corner where we could slow down and I slowed down and slowed down until I was walking and then I ran again then I walked again and then I thought I need some sort of system here and everyone else was going round the field doing their own thing and so I decided to run round to one of the corners then walk for a minute and repeat until I’d done the thirty minutes. I got back to the start at about 28 minutes so I decided that was near enough thirty minutes, then every one got back and the leader said to me, ‘did you enjoy that?’ and I said, ‘yes, and I must have won, as I was back first’. Yay, I am the champion.

Audiofuel Power Up 2012 Interval Training

5 comments

 

Audiofuel Power Up 2012 Pyramid Interval Training

 

I’ve always said Audiofuel rocked. Now they really do. Audiofuel’s Power Up 2012 Pyramid Interval Training tracks have left their dancing shoes behind and put on their biker boots.

A pyramid session is split into sprints and recoveries, the seconds/minutes increasing on the way up to the top of the pyramid and decreasing on the way down. The longest sprint in the session I tried out today is two minutes, so even lightweights like me aren’t scared of giving it a go. What’s even better is that you’re allowed to walk in the recovery bits.

Having a new training session motivated me to get out of the house. I haven’t run for a week as I‘ve got a bad knee but I wanted to try out the pyramid session. I also wanted to try out my new Craft running top.

craft-running-top-pink (Please excuse my cat licking her bum)

I’m a fan of Craft tops. They’re not expensive, fit well, comfortable, stay in place and still look good after they’ve been washed lots of time (unless your washing machine is like mine and eats your clothes).

With my new running top on and my new Audiofuel pyramid session in my iPod, I flew out the door, eager to run. There are two levels to choose from – 20 or 30 minutes. I chose my level of hardcore – 30 minutes. (Actually, I chose 30 minutes because I wanted a 30 minute run but sshhh, don’t tell anyone.)

It starts off with Sean (one of the founders of Audiofuel) introducing himself and explaining about the pyramid session and then leads into the warm-up with Audiofuel’s trademark ‘one two three four’. After the warm-up is the first sprint of 30 seconds, followed by the first recovery – also 30 seconds. The sprints and recoveries go up in increments of 15 seconds until the top of the pyramid of 180 seconds is reached. During the sprints, Sean gives encouragement and shouts out things like ‘COME ON, LET’S GO!’ and ‘LET’S SEE YOU FLY!’ and as he’s telling me to fly, I catch a glimpse of my shadow and um, I’m seriously not flying. In fact, it looks like my shadow would like a bit of a sit down.

On the other side of the road, I see two girls jogging. I’m not sure why I’ve decided they’re jogging and not running, maybe it’s because they’re wearing lots of clothes and going slowly (ha, like I’m not going slowly). I’m on a walking bit of my recovery and I’m hoping they don’t think I’m a lightweight and I want to shout out ‘I’M DOING INTERVALS. I’M ALLOWED TO WALK’ and then I’m on a sprinting bit and I’m about to catch them up and I think oh fuck, they’ll think I’m purposely overtaking them and just as I’m so close I could almost bite one of them on the shoulder*, it’s the recovery bit again and I slow down and then I’m hoping they don’t think I’m playing tag with them and then they go off a different way and I can stop wondering what strangers are wondering and I carry on doing fast bits and doing slow bits and then I’m in a field and as I’m on another walking bit, two girls are running up towards me and they must be proper runners as they’re wearing short shorts and I want to shout out again ‘I’M DOING INTERVALS. I’M ALLOWED TO WALK’ and I wonder why there’s so many people out running today as that’s five in total (I didn’t bother mentioning the man I saw, he wasn’t very interesting and he never says hello to me anyway so he can bog off) and maybe they all got their happy face magazines the other day and thought ‘OH SHIT, I’D BETTER START DOING  A BIT OF JOGGING’ and because I deferred from last year, I also got the happy face magazine and so I’d better stop pissing about and do some jogging too.

Anyway, Audiofuel’s Power Up 2012 Pyramid Interval Training session: It’s magic, as my mile splits – even with the walking bits – are faster than I’ve done for ages. And it’s rock music, none of that poncey dancey stuff**.

*I’d like to point out that I have never bitten anyone on the shoulder.

**I like the dancey Audiofuel stuff too.

The 7 week itch

7 comments

Eight weeks ago I started a 12 week half-marathon training schedule, extending it to 19 weeks, so if I had to skip a run or two, I could repeat that week. I was doing really well up to week 7; I hadn’t skipped a single day but then at the end of week 7, I was supposed to do a 7 mile run. I hadn’t done a 7 mile run since the first time I trained for the Royal Parks Half back in 2008 and so that wasn’t a run to be skipped.

But I skipped it.

Oops.

But I have excuses! Of course I have excuses, don’t I always? My excuse is that I had a 5k the day before and therefore needed to rest the day after, plus before I did the 5k, I did body pump for the first time in three weeks and man, did I ache the next day.

That was a week ago and I haven’t really done any running since, except for a 4.27 mile run last Tuesday that was practically at walking pace. What happened to the 9:48 minute miles I’d done just a few days previously?

Bah.

Last Saturday’s scheduled 8 miles was postponed due to going to Hyde Park to meet up with some of my fellow Juneathoners for our post-Juneathon picnic (four of them were hardcore enough to have a run first. Abradypus was extra hardcore, having already done a Park Run and then running from Liverpool Street to Hyde Park. Me, I sat down, opened a can of Pimms and tucked into the stuffed vine leaves and hummous).

This morning, I didn’t have the energy to catch up on one of my missed long runs. I didn’t even have the energy to do the 5 miles it had on my schedule for today, so I decided to do some intervals, incorporating them into a 3 mile run.

So that’s what I did.

This weekend, I’ll have to catch up on my missed miles and go for a 7 miler. In the meantime, tonight I’m going to Talking Twitter with Grace Dent and tomorrow I’m having one of my short stories read out at Are You Sitting Comfortably, a local event organised by White Rabbit.

See that bit where it says “an evening of short stories written by local writers”? That’s me, that is!

I may be a bit excited.

Stats
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 34:43
Pace: 11:30 m/m
Calories: 317
post-Juneathon picnics: 1
Long runs skipped: 2
Mes a bit excited: 1

Thru the hardcore Pyramid

3 comments

Hal says I have to do three miles this morning. Hal also said I was supposed to have stretched and strengthened yesterday but I spent the day trawling the mean streets of Maidstone (successfully) looking for a new book club venue and then going to Pizza Express for lunch and then going (even more successfully) shopping in Ashford on the way back and then I couldn’t be bothered with all that stretching and strengthening nonsense but I decided the runs are more important than the stretching and strengthening nonsense anyway, aren’t they?

So I get up this morning and my shoulders are hurting as I must have slept funny or something and I can’t be bothered to go out for a run but I don’t want to slack off this early in my training schedule as I have got two half-marathons just two weeks apart to train for after all and then I’m on Twitter and Travelling Hopefully says she was going to do intervals and I think ooh, intervals, that’s a good idea but the Audiofuel Pyramid 180 Max interval session only takes me about two miles and so Travelling Hopefully says that sometimes when she does intervals, she rounds it up to three miles and I think, well, I can’t be outhardcored by her and so I plot a three mile route and decide to do the Pyramid followed by Thru the Gears and when I go back to Twitter to waste some more time, Lissy Runs tweets that she’s got two halfs to do but there’s only two weeks between them and she’ll have to ditch one of them and so I say

‘I must be stupid two then as I’m doing two halfs with two week’s between them’

and then I delete my tweet and correct the embarrassing ‘two’ and tweet it again, as yes, I’m that sad that I edit my tweets and then I delete it again and write it again, this time without the unnecessary apostrophe, as yes, I am that sad that I will edit twice the same tweet and then helsbels comes on to say to Lissy Runs that we’re doing two halfs with only two weeks between them and if we can do it, she can do it and I remind Lissy Runs that Juneathon participants are hardcore and then fairweatherrunner comes on and says she’s done two halfs with only two weeks between them before and she survived and Lissy Runs says ok then, she will do it, so yay for her, and then I ask Travelling Hopefully if she’s been out for a run yet and she says yes, she went at 6am and so she has definitely outhardcored me there and I force myself out the door and turn my Garmin on while I’m still walking down to the gate as then my three miles will be up sooner and I cross the road and start running and I do the interval session and I walk most of the recovery bits although not all of them and then Thru the Gears comes on and I run along to that and when I get close to three miles my Garmin tells me that I’m close to doing it in under 11 minute miles for the first time in about two years and so I don’t stop to walk across the last two roads as would be befitting for someone who usually adheres strictly to the Green Cross Code

(and not just because I’m scared that a weirdy looking man will turn up and call me Dumbo) but run across them as befitting for one of those small children who run out in between cars* in one of those scary public information films they made you watch at school**

and I do indeed manage three miles in under thirty-three minutes which is pretty cool considering that included walking breaks.

Stats
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 32:33
Pace: 10:46
Calories: 318
Stretches and strengthenings slacked off of: 1
Runs slacked off of: 0
Time wasted on Twitter: some
Hardcore Twitterers doing two halfs in two weeks: 3
Roads run across: 2
Miles over 11 m/m: 0
Music
Audiofuel – Pyramid 180 Max
Audiofuel – Thru the Gears

*I am not as brave as I sound. There weren’t actually any cars coming.
** I didn’t go to school in the 1940s but that’s all I could find.