Hello. Did you notice the gap in posts? I think this is the longest time I haven’t blogged about running since I started this blog. There might be all sorts of reasons for that – there’s a lot of stuff going on but actually I think it is just because I don’t really like running at the minute. I have had a couple of good runs but I’ve also been good at not going and mostly it has just felt like a long slog. Even the second of the RunDisney Shorts series wasn’t really fun.

So what have I done since I last blogged? Lots of excuses, a couple of short run-to-the-sheep-and-back runs, a miserable 4 x 800 metres, a very fast mile, a speedy 4 mile seafront run and today a 5 mile hot plod.

The thing is, you’re supposed to get better at this, right? I’m not. Just 2 months (almost exactly) after doing the London Marathon I feel like I can barely run at all. I wanted to scale down distance a bit and focus on getting a bit faster over shorter distances and to run longer intervals so that I could run a 10km without walking at the same pace or faster than when I include walk breaks. Well that’s not working. I’m slower than ever even when I use walk breaks and I can barely run my 2.5 minute intervals most of the time – can’t remember the last time I took out a walk break… I feel like I am going backwards on everything.

Are there some positives? Probably. I ran a fast mile (for me) a couple of weeks back. 9.43minutes which felt horrendously hard and I huffed and puffed all the way through complaining I couldn’t do this running crap. I had no idea it was fast until Kath told me. I cheered up a bit after that. I also managed 20 minutes running without walking along the seafront in Portsmouth on Tuesday. I stopped and chatted to Kath on the phone for a few minutes before turning back and running back to the hotel in 24 minutes. I enjoyed that run and the little swim in the hotel pool immediately afterwards. I didn’t have the Garmin so can’t be sure how far it was but Google Maps insists it was a 4 mile run so that was fast for me too. But at the back of my mind I just have that niggle that actually it can’t have been 4 miles. I’m not that fast.

Today we went for our 5 mile run that has been outstanding on our plan for ages. I managed the 2.5 mins running 1 minute walking without too much trouble but the whole thing felt like really really hard work and a couple of times I started a run thinking I’ll take the next walk break out but by the time I got the end of the run I didn’t. I started really feeling the heat at about 3 miles and the canal towpath isn’t as shady as I thought it was. Anyway, I finished the 5 miles in an hour and 3 minutes 18 seconds. Walking up the hill afterwards I felt really flakey and when I got almost to the top of the hill I had to sit down at the side of the road for a few minutes because my blood pressure just plummeted and I nearly passed out. I was fine after a little rest and then a banana and water at home quickly followed by a gorgeous mango and avocado salady thing.

So yeah – I’m not loving the running thing at the minute but I will just keep plodding.

Before the London Marathon I was really looking forward to not running to a plan, just going out and running by feel and not worrying about time, speed, distance… well I was wrong about that. If I don’t have a plan I don’t quite know what to do with myself and I end up not going out at all. If I have to think about what I want to do, I really struggle to decide that I want to run at all. A plan was needed. When we signed up for the Disneyland Super Heroes Marathon weekend in November I looked for the training plan for that and then checked whether there was one for the Disneyland Paris half, too.

We decided that the Jeff Galloway plans had got us to Dopey and through London so we weren’t about to go fix something that wasn’t broken. The plans have worked well for us and I am still convinced that the run/walk intervals are what keeps my motivation up because it means I can actually do a pretty decent distance and don’t feel like a failure all the time. Anyway, I couldn’t find a plan for the Disneyland Paris Half so we used the November  run one and adapted the timings.

The plan we have finally come up with is an amalgamation of the Infinity Gauntlet Challenge plan, the improvers half marathon plan and a Runners World 10km training plan which we both liked the look of. Then we added in some specific yoga sessions – we usually do a little bit every day but I am certainly good at avoiding the strength yoga so that is now timetabled and on our non running weekend day we’ll try and do at least an hour, although not necessarily in one go.

So May looks like this:

As you can see we are at the end of week 1 of the plan. You’ll also see that the weekend runs are listed on Saturdays but that’s not set – it just means a weekend run for now. For example today we are not running but are instead planning to go to Bolton Abbey to run our RunDisney Shorts first virtual run there. Later on in the programme we add some back to back days so that’s when it all becomes a little less flexible.

June looks like this:

There are different types of sessions – hills every two weeks (although many of our routes include a good number of hills/slopes anyway so the hill sessions are the serious hills), 45 minutes with Magic Mile and/or with a section at race pace, form strides, longer runs with 1 minute surges and 800 metre interval speed training. I’m quite excited to see how this pans out and how much of a difference this will make to our half marathon time in autumn. I do want to go a bit faster (we set a new PB at the London Marathon of 2.48 ish I think although I’d have to check the exact time) and ultimately I’d like to get close to 2.30 but I’m also really interested to see how I feel and whether I can get through a half marathon without having to walk loads towards the end.

I’ll share the rest of the plan as we progress through it and keep you posted on how we are doing.

Anyway, happy running and just a warning – virtual Disney run tomorrow so the next blog is likely to be full of silliness!

So, run number 2 of the new training programme. The programme says: 45 mins with MM + 4 form strides. After staring at it for a minute or two I remembered that MM was Magic Mile so the plan was to do a 45 min run and within in that time a one mile stretch which we’d run at just above easy pace for this first one. This makes me chuckle – I don’t have an easy pace. If I’m running it aint’ easy! That aside though,it means running a full mile without stopping for a walk break and is apparently a pretty good indicator of what your half marathon race pace can be at this point  – just multiply by 1.2. So, I was thinking, roughly 12 minutes of running. After the MM the rest of the 45 mins should be back at easy pace. After that there were the form strides which Kath had sort of explained to me but I decided I just wouldn’t worry about that until we got there.

So we set off down to the canal running intervals and then start our magic mile as we crossed the bridge. Geoff Galloway suggest taking a 15 second walk break in the middle of the magic mile so we did. I did find it quite tough but I also think we ran it relatively conservatively and possibly could have pushed a little harder. I’m always better when I know the start and finish point so if we do it again I know where I have to get to, whereas today I was just waiting for Kath to tell me when our mile was up. We completed in in 11 mins 24 seconds and then settled into a couple of easy intervals. I’m happy about that. For me running a mile in under 12 minutes is always good and this is a great benchmark. The plan is to improve the MM every time we do it which is roughly every two weeks.

I’ve blogged about toilet issues before – but thankfully not for quite some time so I am sorry to have to go there again. I’d been to the loo before we went to run but I still felt a bit bunged up. Well that was clearly resolving itself as I was running. I no longer felt in any way at all constipated – in fact it all felt rather precariously jiggled. I kept going a little bit but with only 2 intervals left my tummy was really sore and I was getting quite concerned and when running was in serious danger of having to abandon all dignity (again). I decided I needed to walk the rest and nip to Kath’s mum’s for the loo – we were nearly there anyway so while Kath went and fed our sheep I went to the loo. Then I left Anne’s house and jogged to catch up with Kath. My tummy was settling nicely and running felt so much more comfortable.

So only the form strides to do. We picked a short stretch adjacent to our field and did one set of fast knee raises and one set of bum flicks. I’m glad it was just a very short stretch – particularly for the knee raises which are stupidly hard work. Now I know what to expect a bit more we can extend the distance and I can push myself a bit more. Then we did 2 sets of running roughly 30 metres at hard pace but concentrating on good running form. Next time I think I’ll ask Kath to watch those 30 metres as she did with the first two drills just to check that I am actually keeping my form.

So while not perfect – and towards the end really rather uncomfortable – it was a good session overall. Next run is our first Disney Running Shorts virtual 5km at the weekend – yay.

Happy Friday.