Training Log Archive: murraystraining

Took over from Oleg with a 2 minute lead - nice job again. Sadly Cherry had MP'd for the first time ever in a relay on first leg so I knew we were out of it. I didn't want to interfere with the outcome of the race so I shoved my map in my pocket and went off for an "in-play" warmup for 15 minutes.

Neither movitated nor focused. Scrappy dappy doo. Beat Tessa's time, just. She had 300m longer than me though!

British Champion. A decent run, but not one which would have held up in a full strength competition - 90s binned on #4 (confused by paths which seemed muich bigger than mapped), 30s on a hidden reentrant on a butterfly loop and a few other wobbles and missed routes elsewhere. Felt a bit flat right from the start which meant I put quite a lot of effort into running hard. Good for the final 1/3 though, helped by catching Schminty who was pushing strongly. Still, the record books only say who won, not who was at TioMila!

C • Congratulations Murray 5

C • Only the Britsh Nights to go.... 3

Lower Craiglochart loop. Tired.

Had to pick a parcel up from the South Gyle sorting office so combined it with a cheeky pre-work line course round my South Gyle map. It really needs some work done to it!

C • south gyle map 2

Ian Campbell is running an "Everest of Allermuirs" this weekend - 29 trips up the face of the Pentlands - to raise money for Prostate Cancer Research. To raise awareness of his challenge he organised an informal Thursday night hill race on the route he'll run 10 times each day.
Donate generously here.
I didn't really race - just protecting the legs. Jogged back to the ski slope afterwards.

Home from Fairmilehead.

Getting blown about on the Murrayfield loop. Legs not the freshest - I'm sure they'll be fine by tonight though.

20 minute shake up from Silverknowes up to Cramond and the River Almond, then strides.

Scottish 5km RR champs.
More orienteering = stripped back racing schedule, so with fewer opportunities to lay down a marker so I wanted to make the most of this race. With a strong wind blowing all day I decided to put my watch away and run the best tactics I could think of, knowling that the time was likely to be slightly slower than it might be.
The course is the same as the Edinburgh parkrun but with the start/finish moved to the middle of the course. With a prevailing westerly this means a headwind for the first km, last 1.5km and a tailwind for the middle 2.5km. With that in mind I wanted to try and shelter at the start, push on with the wind behind and then make the most of whatever situation I found myself in with a mile to go. I also decided not to look at my watch for the whole race, so I set the screen to "elevation" (basically 1m for the whole course) and just ran on feel.
1km - tucked in behind Dermot Cummings and Paul Sorrie (big lads - good for shelter!) in about 4th/5th. 3:02.
2km - big accelleration off the turn from the leaders. I picked it up a bit but still found myself a little off the group . Steadily worked my way back on though and got to the front, running shoulder to shoulder with Dermot. 2:53 - 5:55.
3km - itching to push on but forced myself to hang back until at least the half way point. Then gradually increased intensity as we entered the "go-zone". I was now alone at the front but there still people hot on my heels - I think the group must have started to splinter here but I wasn't looking back to check. Slight hints of a headwind at the end, despite us now running east - told myself that was just because of the speed we were running! 2:59 - 8:54
4km - yep, definitely an unexpected headwind now. I was pretty committed to leading now though so just got the head down and ran. This is the money mile, this is where you make it count. 2:56 - 11:50.
5km - Butchart and the young guy from Glasgow came past just after 4km. I was suffering now. I tried to pick it up to stay as a group but it still felt like a long way to the finish. I told myself to hang in until the trees at 500 and focused on the back of second place. I got past him when the finish came into sight but by that time butchart was 20m clear. With 300m left I thought the gap was closing but I couldn't muster the sort of all out sprint that was needed to catch him. Not a bad final km though: 2:47, 14:37.

Happy with that. A slightly bittersweet silver having led for a large part of the race but nice to get another 5km under my belt at this speed (14:38 in crazy Blackburn 5km before WOC2010 and 14:36.7 in BMC track race before WOC last year) especially given I wasn't running for a time, just trying to execute a good race. Maybe I should have eased off a little in the 4th km when the wind picked up but that's arguable.

It's good to get some reassurance that the speedwork & reduced mileage is working. After British I have 4 weeks until my next O race (NORT) to really get some physical work done - I think I'll move the focus to speed endurance rather than pure speed - but with weekends freed up I can get the quality sprint work done then and maybe get two interval sessions in midweek.

I think I've spent longer writing about this race than I did running it! That'll have to do for now I think,

Jogging with HH (15:32). Then home with an over-the-moon Tessa (17:10 - huge PB - watch out world!).

Easy day.
Streets visited: 7 - Drylaw Avenue, Drylaw Crescent, Drylaw Gardens, Drylaw Green, Drylaw Grove, Drylaw House Gardens & Drylaw House paddock.
AZ Stat: Number of AZ runs - 317

C • Rules of the game? 1

Shuffle up the WoL.

Sprint training. 45/15 intervals around an old sprint course (chasing sprint final from this years Big Weekend). One rule: no looking at the map during the 45s run, so you have to capture all the information you need during the 15s "recovery" and then you have nothing to slow you down while you're running. I made this slightly trickier than it needed to be by regularly running for longer than 45s and only having 5-7s for planning ahead - the beep on my Garmin has long since stopped working.

Stevie V certified hill reps. 8s on, 2 minutes off on the Radical Road.

C • I've had... 2

Plod home.
Streets visited: 2 - Dryden Street & Dryden Terrace.
AZ Stat: Number of streets visited - 1232