The Moiderer

The Gallery–View from my run

On Sunday I went for a run that was scheduled at 2 hours 15 minutes as part of my marathon training.

I dropped the little one off at my friends and headed out on the Fife Coastal Trail through Tentsmuir Forest.

I was delighted when I realised I could do the whole distance in the forest without needing to fight with cars etc.

It was a lovely day. Cold but sunny.

At 2 hours 10 minutes I realised I was lost and had missed my turn home. So I started walking. It took me just under an hour more to find my way home. But the good thing was that I had an unusual opportunity to take some photo’s. So here they are. The forest (from a dead end road I went down!) and a view of Broughty Ferry from the Fife side of the world.

It’s a pretty place to run don’t you agree?

This was all put together for this weeks gallery over at sticky fingers where the subject is "A Landscape"

Marathon week 9–a half marathon!

Oh my this was another super interesting week. Let me see, where to start?

We could start with my intervals being really really tough but going ok none the less

I did 8 one minute sprints with a 90 second jog in between (ignore split 1 and 18 because they are warm up and cooldown ).I know that wasn’t the plan but it’s a way that works for me.

I did my 45 minute recovery run down the path before work. I love the fact that it’s getting light enough to do that now. It amused me to think that before my marathon training I would have counted this as a long run! This was 3.68 miles and it went well apart from losing my phone along the path and not realising until I got home! Luckily it wasn’t raining and I found it on the first leg of the path.

Next I went to the sports shop at my gym and spoke to them about a Gait analysis. She did it a totally different way. First I got barefoot (that’s another demon put to rest) and then walked up and down. She spotted straight away my dodgy ankle and which one it was!

Then she had me stand on one leg and bend at the knee to see which way my leg bent.

Then she lifted my toes.

In conclusion I have pretty neutral feet with high arches and should not get too rigid a shoe because of that. That will be why my previous Saucony trainers aren’t working for me and why my cheaper off the shelf ones are fine. She suggested I don’t change anything this close to the marathon. If anything just get another pair of the ones that work for me and after the marathon I can always go in and get some new ones.

This made a lot of sense to me because I don’t get any aches and pains from the trainers I use either for running on the treadmill or outside (I have separate pairs) so I was very happy.

Then today was a 2 hour 15 minute run on my schedule. I had arranged to take the little one over to my friends house and run from there. She is right on the Fife Coastal trail so it was perfect.

At the same time Becca and Darin were running the Brighton half marathon – so I was secretly hoping my time would get me close to 13 miles!

It was a gorgeous day and I ran through Tentsmuir forest so it was totally off road which was lovely.

I started from the top left and headed as you can see on the map along the red line to the right. When my iPod Nike+ told me I was half way through, I turned round and headed back the way I’d come.

Then a couple of things happened. My knee started twinging painfully like it was going to give. I had to walk more than I would have wanted until I found a strange gait that kind of work. This all happened about 1 hour into the run. As it was in the forest there was no option to hop on a bus!

Then you can see I headed to the bottom left. I totally missed my turn home! When I realised I doubled back and took a wrong turn down a dead end again! Then I doubled back again and found the route home which was the left hand leg of the rectangle. By the time I’d realised my mistake, I had run 11 miles and my 2 hours 15 minutes was up.

As my knee was duff I started walking.

I eventually got home in 3 hours and 7 minutes which my Garmin watch said was 13.2 miles and my Nike+ iPod thingy said was 14.9 miles. I walked for about 45 minutes of that.

So there you go. I ran a half marathon today –ish!

Although the last 30 minutes were hell and I could barely walk, right now, a few hours later I feel ok actually. I’m sure I’ll be sore tomorrow but I’m happy that my feet aren’t sore and blistered. I just need to sort my knee!

So here is my summary for the week

If you want to guess my time you can below and it would also be really nice if you made a small donation at the same time by visiting my BT MyDonate page (I have chosen this method of fundraising because they don’t take any sort of admin fee which I like). I won’t be constantly plugging for a donation because I know money is tight. I only want you to give to this cause if you can afford it. There will be a link with every marathon post I do – as well as a link to guess my time. Here are the guesses so far

4 hours 45 minutes

4 hours 52 minutes

5hrs 20min

5:25:00

3h 50m

5hrs 5mins 5secs.

4 hours 56 minutes

6 1/2 hours

4 hours 24 minutes

Five hours seventeen minutes twenty two seconds!

4.47

5:25:00

If you want to guess my time and donate then either leave a comment with your guess (and I will fill in the survey), or fill in the survey below. I will try and think of a nice prize for the winning guess too!

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The Marathon–Frustration

Look how lovely my friends are! In the space of a week I have already raised £193 (£241 with gift aid) for the Samatha Dickinson Brain Tumour Trust.

I count myself very lucky that in these tough times people are still supporting me in this way.

And my commitment as a result is to not let anyone down, least of all myself, and complete all my training to do my best to prepare for the London Marathon a mere 65 days away on the 22nd April.

This morning I went out along the path to do my mid-week 45 minute recovery run. This is a run time and distance that would have been classed as my “long run” before Xmas and yet today it was a gentle run before work. That is how good my training plan is. It is preparing me so well for the marathon and so I am sticking to every single step to the very best of my ability.

And that is where I am getting frustrated. I am so fortunate in the level of support that has been provided to me by Nestlé Pure Life. I have kit, a full training plan through Full Potential, loads of information and support and I couldn’t be luckier.

But I can’t make the training days.

The special days that they have set up to help you learn to pace your run, learn about nutrition and hydration, learn how the big day will work in practice, do the cool Adidas footscan to find the best trainers and just countless other aspects of support, preparation and reassurance.

I can’t make them because of work, family and my course.

And quite frankly I feel really guilty about it. I am being given an opportunity that so many people would love and I can’t make the most of it.

All I can do is follow my training plan, raise money for my charity and turn up on the day and do the run. I know that’s a lot, but right now I feel bad that it isn’t enough.

If you want to guess my time you can below and it would also be really nice if you made a small donation at the same time by visiting my BT MyDonate page (I have chosen this method of fundraising because they don’t take any sort of admin fee which I like). I won’t be constantly plugging for a donation because I know money is tight. I only want you to give to this cause if you can afford it. There will be a link with every marathon post I do – as well as a link to guess my time.

If you want to guess my time and donate then either leave a comment with your guess (and I will fill in the survey), or fill in the survey below. I will try and think of a nice prize for the winning guess too!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

London Marathon–8 weeks training done

I have done 8 weeks of training for the London Marathon. No really. I have. Me. Amazing if you consider I don’t like running.

But let’s pause a moment on that thought shall we.

I actually do like running now.

Because before I started training for the marathon I always felt I had to run either further or faster each time I went out. I had no goal and so was competing with myself. As a result, every run was harder than the last.

The thing I hate about running is getting breathless. For some reason I can’t cope with that and it’s always been the same. But the marathon is about balance. Generally here’s how it goes:

1. You do 1 long run a week. The distance or time of this increases each week as you get closer to the big day. The maximum distance you ever run in preparation is 20 miles. This run is done at a pace where you can easily have a conversation. I enjoy these most. I feel on these I can keep going forever. I have found, with these runs that I can actually enjoy running. Because of weather I have done these on the treadmill so far but the last 2 times I went out. The challenge is that it is all in the hills round here so when I did 1 hour 44 minutes instead of 2 hours I didn’t mind too much because it was all up in the hills. I will expand my route and make these longer and longer because I usually walk briskly up the steeper hills to keep my pace ‘easy conversational’. I take water and energy gels with me to keep me going and, when I run on a Sunday am usually fully recovered by the Monday. These runs are getting easier as my training kicks in. This is soul destroying on the treadmill but give where I live it’s better than not doing it.

2. You do 1 recovery run a week. This is at a faster pace than the long run but by no means a sprint. This week I did 4.23 miles in the 45 minutes I had scheduled. This was a reasonable pace. This is easy to do on the treadmill.

3. You do 1 interval run. Out of all of them this is the best for building your endurance for the marathon – and the one I find the hardest. You effectively sprint until you nearly collapse for a few minutes, do a cooldown jog for a couple of minutes and repeat for 5+ cycles. I have started doing these in the road across the front of my house. I sprint down and jog back. If this ever gets too easy (hard to imagine!) I can sprint 2 legs and jog one. This week it was too icy/snowy but the hill outside of my house was clear on one side of the road. So I ran up and down that 6 times which was the same effect. This is not something you can do on the treadmill easily!

4. You then do 2 or 3 days of cross training of some sort. I do an Xbox Kinect session. I use YourShape Cardio Endurance workout and a fun kick boxing session on after.

This week I had to juggle stuff around because I was in London on my course and because of the snow and ice. In the end, I only missed out 1 cross training day which is good enough. I did my long run on Friday afternoon before flying to London. I have more aches after that run than usual but I think this is because I did hills instead of intervals and hills on my long run. The muscles at the top of my thighs seemed to activate!

So in summary for this, week 8 of my marathon training, with only 68 days of training left :

If you want to guess my time you can below and it would also be really nice if you made a small donation at the same time by visiting my BT MyDonate page (I have chosen this method of fundraising because they don’t take any sort of admin fee which I like). I won’t be constantly plugging for a donation because I know money is tight. I only want you to give to this cause if you can afford it. There will be a link with every marathon post I do – as well as a link to guess my time.

If you want to guess my time and donate then either leave a comment with your guess (and I will fill in the survey), or click on the link and it will collect all the guesses in a survey tool. I will try and think of a nice prize for the winning guess too!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

The London Marathon–my charity

As you all should know by now that I am running the London Marathon thanks to Nestle Pure Life.

We are running for a charity too. After all, that is what the London Marathon is all about! I am running for:

Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust

Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust (SDBTT) is the largest brain tumour charity in the UK. We have been working to improve understanding, diagnosis and treatment of both childhood and adult brain tumours since we were established in 1996.

Our work has three key strands:
1) Research: We spend around £1 million per year funding top quality scientific and clinical research into childhood and adult brain tumours, making us the leading dedicated brain tumour research funder in the UK.
2) Support: We run a dedicated helpline and series of patient information days to provide compassionate, confidential and accurate support and information for anyone living with, or affected by, a brain tumour including patients, family members, carers or friends.
3) Campaigning and Awareness Raising: Our latest campaign, HeadSmart, aims to raise awareness of childhood brain tumour symptoms among parents, GPs and other health professionals to make earlier diagnosis of brain tumours a reality for many more of the children and young people who experience them.

So I am going to make this a bit of fun.

I would like you to guess how long it will take for me to complete the marathon.

And if you want to guess, it would also be really nice if you made a small donation at the same time by visiting my BT MyDonate page (I have chosen this method of fundraising because they don’t take any sort of admin fee which I like)

If you want to guess my time and donate then either leave a comment with your guess, or click on the link and it will collect all the guesses in a survey tool. I will try and think of a nice prize for the winning guess too!

Click here to guess my time using survey monkey

**I am trying to find a survey tool that I can embed on this page so watch this space! but here are the guesses so far..

Marathon training–7 weeks done

7 weeks done and 11 weeks to go.

The big news is that I have managed to stick to my schedule for yet another week.

This week was my new schedule and I swapped my rest day from Friday to Thursday because I was away with work on Thursday. That worked pretty well.

This week is a down week with ‘only’ a 60 minute long run. Next week will be 2 hours! *gulp*

I pushed it a little and did the long run at my short run pace. It was a risk but I would have slowed down if it was too much. It wasn’t. It is supposed to be run at an easy conversational pace and I managed 5.31 miles in 60 minutes at that pace.

The other news is that I managed to find an approach to intervals that works for me. It basically involves sprinting down the road across by the house and jogging back. I did this 8 times in the 30 minutes I set myself (same timing as on the schedule). The thing that’s good is I managed about 0.5 miles further for the same time than on previous interval runs – showing I was getting faster. If this gets to easy I can just do 2 legs of the road at the sprint.

You can see it definitely gets harder so it may be a while before I can do the 2 legs of the road!

So overall another good week

Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the meet the experts event in London this week (Becca and Darin went along). With Nestle Pure Life there explaining about the water points along the way and Adidas doing a cool gait thing with some excellent discounts on trainers (2 pairs for price of 1) , I really missed out again despite these companies making it possible for me to run the marathon as part of their team

They also run training days but I can’t make any of the dates for them. I guess that’s the price I pay for living in deepest, darkest Dundee.

Next weekend is weekend 5 of my course in London. I am hoping to do my mammoth 2 hour run on Friday afternoon before I fly, a Kinect session tomorrow and then treat Saturday and Sunday as rest days because it’s not really practical to do much.

Marathon–12 weeks to go

I stepped out of the door to do my run. I get nervous about these long runs. The thought of running 1 hour and 45 minutes is a little intimidating!

The day was crisp but without even a hint of a breeze. The sun wasn’t out but it was there and trying. Puddles were frozen but there was no frost on the road.

All was good.

I had my water bottle, my belt with my phone and gel pack in it, my muddy old trainers on and my gloves. I find, in the cold, as long as your hands are warm you’re fine.

I set off up the hill, planning my route in my head as I ran. I wanted to avoid the big long hill at the start but wanted to be coming down the hill on the way home. I walked up the first steep hill. I had resolved to walk the very steep hills to try and keep my heart rate even. After all this was supposed to be an easy effort run!

I controlled my pace.

I settled into an easy effort run, able to enjoy the scenery and the space to think. This was the first time I’d run outside for a long time. I enjoyed the fact that my training is clearly paying off. I was maintaining a run at an easy effort pace.

I smiled to myself in the realisation that, now more than ever, the marathon in 12 weeks will be achievable.

I ran on, maintaining my steady pace, running the hills until they got too steep and then walking up them briskly. At the half way point I’d turned onto the home straight. It was at the end of a long hill but I was still going.

My legs were a little tired but nothing that I couldn’t run through. I wasn’t even out of breath. I could keep going.

I came in the front door nearly 8 miles later and with a great sense of achievement. This training plan is working. In 12 weeks I will be ready.

Yep, it’s true there are 12 weeks until I run 26.2 miles.

I would have expected this thought to panic me. But strangely it doesn’t.

I got my new training plan for February through to. By the end of February I will be running for 2.5 hours!!

I would have expected this thought to panic me. But strangely it doesn’t.

I am so grateful to Nestle Pure Life for inviting me to be part of their running team. I would never have considered running the marathon in my wildest dreams if they hadn’t asked. And the support they have provided is amazing.

So here is the summary of my week. Next week I am away with work one day but I’ll adapt my rest days.

Next week my long run drops to 60 minutes before ramping up to an amazing 2.5 hours by the end of the month.

Another good thing is that on Monday, after my 10 mile run on Sunday, I was absolutely fine. Not even a single ache. This is a good thing. I know the 26 miles will be different but I have a conference in Blackpool on the Monday and I need to be able to drive to it!

I am really proud of my ability to stick to this training plan. And I’m really positive about the marathon.

Marathon training–5 weeks in

Ok let me just start with this:

I RAN 10 MILES TODAY!

I have never ever run that far in my life before (I’m 39 now)

I wanted to run that far back in October/November when Becca, Darin and Trevor were running the Great South Run which is 10 miles. Unfortunately an old ankle injury kicked off and I had a horrible chesty cold so I got to 8.3 miles and never made it any further.

Now, this was 10 minutes more than the 1 hour 45 minute session I was supposed to do. And it was really, really hard to keep going. The last 10 minutes were a combination of walking and very slow jogging. But I did it. In under 2 hours.

I used a gel for the first time this time too. Not sure how much it helped. Maybe a little. I also made sure I drank plenty using the new water bottle that my hubby bought me.

It’s been a good week of training overall. I can’t believe I’ve now done 5 weeks of training for the marathon and totally stuck to it!

I also did managed to get the Nike Plus website working. This tracks my runs on my iPod which is good because the Garmin watch is GPS so only works for outside runs and treadmills are notoriously inaccurate (that’s even if I could remember the details)

Intervals were interesting on Thursday. I ran back and forward in front of the house. It was, of course, really tough but it is workable.

So here are is my summary for the week

Here we go for week 6!

New trainers

As you may have noticed, I am training to run the London Marathon on the 22nd April, 2012 (yep that’s this year!)

It goes without saying that trainers are a really important piece of equipment.

At the start of last year, when I started trying to get fit, I bought a number of pairs of trainers until I found the right one’s that felt like they supported me well. I have been running in these for the last month and they have been fine. I haven’t been getting any aches and pains at all.

For the first 9ish years of my life I lived with my father and stepmother. I have mentioned before that this wasn’t exactly what you would call a loving and nurturing environment. The reality is that my stepmother had a number of her own issues and one of them seemed to be that she didn’t want me and my brother in her house.

There were a number of consequences of this, but one of them was around clothes and shoes. Little money was invested in these things. As a result, as my feet developed, I spent most of the years in shoes that were too small and badly fitting.

The end result it that my little toes are a little bent under my other toes on both of my feet. The only real side effect I have experienced from this is that if I wear the wrong shoes or go horse riding (for some reason) the toes go quickly numb.

In my recent training, it is only at the very end of the long runs that I get any sense of numbness, and even then it is very minor. So the trainers work for me.

Anyway, back to the new ones.

It was suggested I do a gait analysis and get some trainers for my running style. I panicked at first, thinking they would ‘suss out’ my dodgy feet and tell me I’d never be able to run without injuring myself. However, suitably reassured, I went to Runners Need near Harley Street in London when I was there on Friday, and did a gait analysis.

This is how it works:

1. They get you to wear a bog standard and quite soft pair of trainers
2. You then get on a treadmill and run for 30 seconds or so. Meanwhile they have a camera focussed, from behind, on your feet.
3. You hop off and they show you the video, showing how your feet hit the treadmill, the angle of impact etc
4. It’s classified as under or over prone – basically do your feet turn inwards or outwards as you connect with the treadmill.
5. They then pick a pair of trainers they think will be suitable to correct it, and you run again with the camera watching.
6. You check the computer again to see if it worked.
7. They probably stick you in a second pair and repeat to be sure.

So we did this and my feet were prone. Quite a lot actually. I think they turned out but can’t remember. With my new trainers they were hitting the treadmill straight which is a good result.

So lots of money spent, I wandered out of the shop. I did interval runs in them the next day but that’s not a great test because you are constantly varying your speed.

So today was my first proper run in them. On my schedule I had a 30 minute easy effort run. I was expecting to ‘discover’ new muscles. Obviously my calf and thigh muscles have been developed based on the angle my feet were hitting the ground. This would change that. I am happy to wander round in them all week and let my muscles get retrained.

What I wasn’t expecting was to have numb toes within the first few minutes.

I am a little worried about it to be honest. I don’t want to set off on my long run on Sunday with that at the start. Does it mean these trainers aren’t actually right for me at all? Will it pass? Is it even a problem?

Would very much appreciate your expertise on the matter. Should I just keep going?

London Marathon-1 month of training–done!

I’ve been training for a month for the London Marathon.

Never thought I would ever ever type that sentence!

This last week was a bit of a struggle with my course being at the weekend but I juggled things around and only missed Sunday’s exercise (supposed to be a Kinect session) but in fairness I walked a couple of miles on Saturday on top of the threshold and on Sunday too so it’s not too bad. In fact, I’m pretty pleased with myself.

Another thing I’m pleased with is my Threshold run on Saturday (interval). I did it from the hotel and ran around the carpark next to it. This was my first successful threshold run and I started off by programming it into my Garmin Forerunner 405cx watch. This was brilliant because it beeped when I need to sprint or jog etc.

The thing I like about this is is shows I was increasing my pace to a higher rate (the point is to increase your heart rate for the ‘sprint’ sections). My ‘easy effort’ pace (you can hold a conversation) is about 12:30. My pace when I am trying to do a reasonable but sustainable pace is 11:10-11:30. So clearly at 9:30 ish I was doing enough to raise my hear rate. Happy with that. I can keep on improving and pushing. The real shame is that I have nowhere close to my front door to do this so I am going to have to get creative.

I also got a gait analysis done in a proper running shop and have my new trainers that make sure I run evenly. I also bought a belt to carry my phone in while I run. This will allow me to take pictures during the marathon and maybe even tweet!

So here is the summary of my first month of marathon training in the stats.

I am really hoping to keep making it work as well as I have this month. I have enjoyed the variety in the training and even after I have run the marathon I am planning on keeping a similar mix rather than just running. I have also discovered that there are circumstances where I enjoy running! I enjoy the long runs because they are done at that conversational pace. It seems I struggle most when I get out of breath!