Training Log Archive: murraystraining

Jogging with Kristian.

First sprint race since WOC. Pretty easy course around Kildrum, Cumbernauld. A couple of routes I might change but otherwise fine. Running hard but not maximal.

Rough tough middle 'race'. Decided pretty early on to 'save myself for tomorrow' (i.e. wimp out of trying to race hard). Nav wasn't great either with a couple of misses in the circle. 11 minutes down on Spongey, 20s ahead of Paddy.

Chilled cruise about. Recce of the first 6k of Sunday's course.

Usual boys all bailed out for various reasons and once I started warming up I realised I was going to struggle to to the planned session on my own so did an extra long warm up then Trotter Training. Faffy, as usual, but decent running when we got going. 9x~800m on the clover leaf loops from the pavilion. Made more interesting by a system of promotion/relegation from the different pace groups although that was largely inconsequential for me.

Trainspotting.

Railway progression w/DC, JC & Ray.
Post-HM sluggishness in the first half but pleasingly it didn't seem to affect the second half.
31:40/27:00
4:26/05/02/3:56/52/50/40/36/31/27/26/24/22/16/16/15/(15)

Slightly longer warmdown than usual to fetch Coombs' jacket from the bush he tossed it in after half a mile.

Shuffle to the park and back. Pipers, Dry valley & radical road. Slow.

Jedburgh Half Marathon.
Pre-race targets:
London QT √
PB (was 72:04) √
Win √
Beat DiscoStu's time from Glasgow (70:40ish) to regain mantle of best half-marathon in my department x
Sub-70 x

The first 5km were easonably brisk as we were running together with the 10k runners (and the 9.6k runner who would have won had he not turned 200m early). After 5k it was just me and PatGie sharing the work. He pushed on a little bit and got a bit of a gap - probably 50m at most. Through halfway I resolved to work a bit harder to stop Pat pulling away and the gap stayed pretty constant up to 10miles. It felt like the gap closed a fair bit on the climb through 11miles although Strava has given the CR for that segment to him. It definitely did close on the descent back into town though and I passed him with a mile to go and just about held on to the finish. Standard racing tactics to beat PatGie really, it doesn't matter whether it's a meadows 2 or a rural 1/2: let him lead till a mile out then abuse his lack of a kick.
5ks: 16:30/16:42/17:06/17:04/(3:52)
1ks: 3:12/28/15/17/21/25/21/15/20/26/21/28/27/24/23/26/39(hill)/24/12(d/h)/20/32)
Fairly satisfied with this. 5th HM (though first since 2011) and I've run a PB every time. Would like to keep that progression going for another couple at least to get down to something more in line with my 10k times.

Pointless shuffle with PatGie.

Cumbernauld Nat XC Relays. Standard Trotter disorganisation meant I got 9 minutes notice that I was running first leg (I was supposed to be on fourth). Just enough time to lace my spikes up, jog to a bush for a pee and do two strides on the start straight…

…and not enough time to actually warm up. Struggled on regardless, trying to judge pace as best as I could. Picked up a couple of places in the second half which felt better than the first but still a bit 'meh'. 10th on leg, 21st best leg time. Team 12th.

Ambling around the park supporting the later runners. Not an easy place to get the miles in.

Time for kill-or-cure. Steady round the Rugby Run. Iffy at first, snotty in the middle, fine by the end. More or less cured, just in time for the weekend.

Off work.

#RunEveryDay failed: came down with a head cold and felt distinctly not right: went for a lie down after work and woke up five minutes after I should have left to meet Jonny.

Innocent 10. Two races but low volume at the weekend so legs tired but not post-Skyline-tired.

CSC Brown course. Started a minute behind GG so I went out like a rocket to try and reel him in. Three fastest splits in the first 6 pulled in 12s and kept him in sight but a miss in the circle at 5 cancelled most of that out. Never saw him again after that and sadly had to do it all on my own. Missed 30s on 10 (went to hill to the left rather than the spur) and 30s on 15 (banana'ed a bit climbing the hill. OK apart from that but not up to GGs speed. Not bad for my first orienteering since WOC!

FRA Relay, Leg 2, paired with Don Naylor. A decent canter about Pendle Hill. Don was going fairly well at the start and we slowly reeled in Shettleston. We caught them just as Carnethy and Bingley came past but Don didn't have the legs for the steep climb and we dropped off a bit. We got a good rhythm up to the summit then Don flew off on the descent and suddenly it was me struggling to keep up with him! Happy to be only 4 minutes down on the fastest times, sad to get pipped by Shettleston despite reeling them in at half way.
Team dropped to 27th over the last couple of legs. Will be interesting to see what a full strength team can do next year - it's my aim to have a team strong enough that we don't need to call up Don again (I hope you're reading this Coombs, Doug, Hector et al.).

Lunsjogg. Felt like I was going faster than my watch said. Hermitage and Braid Hills Drive.

12x60s Castro hill reps w/Jonny. Going reasonably well.

Very gentle potter around Holyrood. Legs battered.

Signed up for Strava at last. This was a fairly poor run to start off with!

Tuesday railway. Just Coombs and myself and more of a 'tempo with a warm up' than a progression. Aerobically I felt fine but my legs were still pretty wrecked after the Skyline so decided not to push them too hard. Still pleased with the way they did respond though - I expected to get stuck at 3:45s.
4:21,12,00,3:52,47,46,38,47,33,35,35,33,34,30,25.
31:19/28:45.

#RunEveryDay #EvenAfterTheSkyline

C • hashtagging 1

Pentland Skyline.
Set off quite boldly, leading up Caerketton and off Allermuir, in a fastmoving triple with Jonny C and iainw. Held back a bit on the descent off Castlelaw as I think this was the key to setting the record three years ago but Jonny and Iain forged on and opened up a bit of a gap. I felt quite weak on Turnhouse, the same lack of power I felt at the 2Breweries and dropped two minutes off record pace on this climb alone. I made steady progress along the ridge but lacking oomph on the climbs and confidence on the descents. By the kips the gap infront was over 2:30, about the same as the gap behind me to the chasing pack including Al A and Stewart Whitlie.

Iain and Jonny were out of sight on the Drove Road so I chilled out and set about keeping up a tempo that would hold 3rd - I was feeling not too fresh by now and had given up hope of the win - even if Jonny died Iain was looking pretty strong and knows these hills well.

Second gel drop at GC was very welcome and when I got up the trod on BH I was surprised to see the boys again. Still a good way ahead but not as far as they might have been. It turns out they took the wrong trod and had to do some heather bashing to get across. Glad I recce'd it on Friday! There might be something in this after all. I didn't see them ahead again until I was almost off Black and they were on the steep climb up Bells - and I was very pleased to see them walking. I managed to run all the way up the reentrant which is a sign that things are going well - had to walk in 2010 when I crashed at the end but ran all the way in 2013 when the record went.

Moving well on the fast traverse to Harbour and getting close enough that Iain looked round when the gate crashed - he did start running though at that point. Jonny was a bit further ahead by now though and looking stronger so I thought second was up for grabs. The gap came down a bit on Capelaw and Allermuir but both times the top came too soon. By the wedding stile though, the gap from Jonny to Iain was the same as Iain to me - all to play for!

The climb up Caerketton proved decisive. Jonny went steeply up the fence line but looked to be making a meal of it; Iain went round the path and was moving well. I chased Jonny up the gravel but was in full racing mode and managed to get him, just as Iain appeared from the side. The momentum was with me though on the second half of the climb I pulled away. There was almost a sting in the tail when I took the wrong path down the side of the ski slope and ended up on the wrong side of some fences but fortunately Iain followed me and Jonny followed him so we all came into the finish from the wrong side, looking a bit daft.

So all in all I was happy to get the win, not so happy with how it felt. It;s funny that I only led at two summits out of the 16 - the first and last! I was 6 minutes off record pace for the first half (1:19 at the Drove Road / 109%) and 4:30 off for the second half (107%) so reasonably well paced. Gels worked well as usual along with a couple of cups of water at Flotterstone and the DR. Conditions were pretty good, both atmospherically and underfoot.

C • Nice one! 6

Potter about Blackford and Braids after the SEDS planning meeting.

Flotterstone-Green Cleuch-Black Hill dropping gels off/recceing the lines over BH.

Hills w/Coombs and Jonny. 3:30 up Castro/Radical Road then 60s of fast technical descending through the quarries. 2:30 easy jog back down Castro. x5.

Flattish run around Holyrood. I was dressed for summer, conditions very autumnal. Also forgot normal shoes so had to go in the only ones I had kicking about the office - my oldest F-lites with a 2-inch hole across the toes.

C • Don't you earn money? 3

Railway progression with Doug, Jonny & Coombs. No one feeling too frisky so slower start than last week and a bit inconsistent on the way back - decent amount of tempo running though. ~31:15/27:25
4:28/06/3:57/52/48/35/30/33/39/34/22/28/22/25/20/18.

C • Savage 1

Conference at work meant no lunsjogg but also meant an early finish. Innocent 10.

Decent warm up including meeting Spongey to get my number.

Great Scottish Run 10k
Spongey asked me in the start pen what my aims were. I said "31-something would be nice but I really have no expectations." Same question to him: "32 something?". Aye, right, I thought. You'll be on my heels for sure.
And so he was, for the first half (15:45ish), along with Ben Stevenson (Jamie's brother, I discovered afterwards). I put in a 3:00/km from 5-6km to try and shake them off but it didn't work and took a chunk out of me instead. Whoops. They both eased away in the last couple of km and I couldn't summons a big finish to try to real them in.
Still, it was a decent wee run out, nice to help Spongey to a big PB (31:15ish) and good to put a marker down for the autumn.
Autolaps: 3:09,00,07,10,08,00,07,07,06,08,(23s extra)

Sundry jogging around Glasgow afterwards with Spongey and Bryony. Some of it quite faffy, other bits better quality.

Cruisey run up through Bonaly then along the foot of the Pentlands to Grannies. Could have gone faster but no need.

Apparently October is #RunEveryDay month (sponsored by Ron Hill, naturally). So I dragged myself out for a loop up to Hillend/Swanston. The sky was summery but the wind was definitely autumnal. My legs were feeling fairly battered.

C • what is the minimum that co... 5

Coombs wanted some more 'severe' hills than we did last week. 8 x 'Liz's Curtain Twitcher', the path up the northern end of Salisbury crags. Very steep and a bit slippy. One of those hills where just keeping moving upward is the challenge. Started at the well as well so a bit of flat running on each rep to get you going. Very good session. Beautiful sunset as well - ran back along the top of the crags in the gathering gloom to appreciate it for longer.