Pages tagged "running"

Catching Up

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, mainly due to laziness and busyness. I was out on my long run on Sunday morning (more on that later) and I was thinking that it would be good to write a little about what’s gone down over the last few weeks.

Frome 10k

The Frome 10k (along with the 5k and Half Marathon) was a couple of weekends ago. Going into the race I was thinking that a PB would be possible – the last few months have been the largest block of sustained running I’ve ever done, and I was injury free. I had checked out the course on Strava beforehand and thought it looked fairly flat. Strava lied! The course was very hilly, not so much in terms of actual elevation gained, but the hills were very steep in places.

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Tags: running  frome 10k  forerunner 235  brooks launch 2 

New Watch - Garmin Forerunner 235

Yay for running materialism!

My trusty Garmin Forerunner 10 has served me pretty well over the past couple of years, but it has never quite been the same since I smashed it up after my dramatic Cardiff Half 2015 wipeout – both the strap and the usb connector have been a bit suspect ever since.

I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement for a while, and finally settled on the Garmin Forerunner 235. I went for it primarily for the in-built heart rate monitor on the wrist, and also because of the larger screen allowing me to see more information on the go at once. I asked Anna to buy it for me for my birthday, and now it is in my possession!

Watch Watch close-up Bask in the glory of my arty photos

My first impressions are excellent. The GPS...

Tags: running  garmin  watch  forerunner 235  review 

Holidays and Training Plans

No post last week, mainly due to me being away and not really fancying writing. On top of that, there wasn’t much running to talk about – certainly nothing out of the ordinary. So once again, there’s two weeks of running to talk about.

First though, where did we go away? Actually, not very far from home. Anna and I like to do short hotel breaks in the UK (usually sourced from a discount website like Secret Escapes), and we usually focus on the quality of the hotel, as opposed to finding somewhere exotic to go to. So we ended up going to the lovely Essebourne Manor. The food and room were both excellent, and it made for a really great few days away. We hit up the local sites: we went to Newbury a couple of times, tried out a few local pubs, and went to the...

Tags: running  training report  parkrun  holiday  long run 

Building up the Miles

I didn’t do a weekly training report post last week, mainly because I spent didn’t do any vaguely interesting running last week, and also because I was quite hungover on Sunday after spending Saturday in London watching rugby for a friend’s birthday.

So I’m going to talk about two weeks worth of running this week instead of just the one, although most of the focus will be on the second of the two weeks.

All this means that I get to punctuate my musings with two poorly-formatted tables instead of just one!

Week 1

...

Tags: running  training report  parkrun 

New Shoes - Brooks Launch 2

I’m a bit of a materialist, and doing lots of running is a great excuse for some materialism, because I get to buy and destroy lots of pairs of shoes!

I’ve been running on the same pair of shoes for a while now, the Brooks Ghost 8, and I really like them. They provide lots of support and comfort, so they’re perfect for bashing out the miles. We’re a bit of a Brooks household actually – Anna has a couple of pairs of Adrenalines on rotation and gets on well with those.

However, after doing some reading online and chatting to people at my running club, I decided to get a second pair of shoes. I wanted some lighter ones for running shorter races and intervals in (the Ghosts are quite heavy due to all the support). I read around a bit, not being able to decide, and after...

Tags: running  shoes  brooks  brooks launch 2  review 

Parkrun Tourism

This week was one of travelling and celebration, and I didn’t get a huge amount of quality running done, so only a short post this week.

The first portion of the week was filled with slow running, as I was still suffering slightly from the previous week’s long run. I tried to put some miles in at tempo pace, but it wasn’t really happening. I also gave interval training a miss on Thursday to further my recovery.

Day Distance (miles) Pace (mins/mile) Notes
Mon 6.2 8:02 with Andover AC
Tue Rest    
Wed Rest (Badminton)    
Thu 4.0 9:17 with Anna
Fri 8.0 8:07  
Sat Rest    
Sun
Day Distance (miles) Pace (mins/mile) Notes
Mon 5.8 8:45 with Andover AC
Tue Rest    
Wed Rest (Badminton)    
Thu 3.6 8:19  
Fri 2.9 8:50  
Sat 3.1 6:46 Barry Island parkrun
Sun 5.6 8:16  

Total: 21.9 miles, 3 hours 1 minute

On the weekend...

Tags: running  training report  parkrun  barry island parkrun 

Lots of Sunny Miles

In my last post I said I would try to post once a week about the running I’ve been doing. I’m just going to dive in with the facts and figures:

Day Distance (miles) Pace (mins/mile) Notes
Mon 4.0 8:23  
Tue Rest    
Wed Rest (Badminton)    
Thu Intervals 6:09 with Andover AC
Fri 2.4 9:04  
Sat 3.1 6:52 Salisbury Parkrun
Sun 14.5 9:08  

Total: 28.2 miles, 4 hours 1 minute

The first part of the week was taken fairly easy, because I knew there were lots of miles to come later on in the week. The intervals session on Thursday was pretty good – I did three 1k repetitions (I was contemplating doing a fourth, but it seemed like a bad...

Tags: running  training report  long run 

Blogging About Running

Being a big sports fan from an early age, I have always enjoyed athletics. I’ve always had an interest in the day-to-day training of elite athletes, especially runners, and that interest has grown even larger since taking up running regularly a couple of years ago. Being able to compare and relate one’s training to that of the best runners in the world is one of the most awesome things about the internet.

After watching the London Marathon last Sunday, I found myself looking up the various elite athletics near the front of the field. I was reading a couple of blogs (including Steve Way’s and Aly Dixon’s), and the thought struck me that, given that running is one of my main hobbies and I have been looking for something to write about for while, why not give “running blogging” a go myself? Obviously my experiences are a lot...

Tags: running  training report  london marathon