Getting back into marathon mode

Following on from a successful Parkrun yesterday where I added in an extra fee miles from the course to the station and then the station back home, today I had planned a long slow run.

My plan was to get into 'marathon mode', to run long, run slow, forget about running fast and just relax enjoy the run and without being cheesy 'get into the zone' and really enjoy running.

I was taking my hydration pack out for its first spin in a while to get used to carrying it again ahead of hopefully completing a few marathons in the autumn.

I had planned out a proposed route of sorts, an ambitious there and back route of at least thirteen miles heading through some local parks and out onto the London Loop sections 22 and 23 towards Rainham.

In the end I only ended up completing about half the route, firstly as it was a lot longer than I anticipated, secondly I was more tired from yesterday's running then I though and thirdly last nights enchiladas had played havoc with my stomach, but the less said about that the better! 

My adventure began after around 5k when I headed onto the first off-road trail section of the London Loop section 22. A quite little residential road leads downhill into a dark wooded area that looks like it should be the setting of a horror movie as it is so out of place at the end of this quiet suburban road.

The trail is great though and an enjoyable but technical route to run.

It soon opens up into a large meadow which was beautifully in flower in this early part of the summer.

Some more trails around some ploughed fields and through hound woodland and I was soon back into built up residential areas. A quick lap around the Upminster Bridge area including the start of the London Loop section 23 And I then started on my return journey taking much the same route.

A slightly different path took me past some some lovely pink flowers.

I also had a quick stop to chat with the resident pony that lives in a little small holding along the route.

After a quick chat and a few handfuls of grass, (for the pony not me!) I headed onto through the fields and along some nice green trails.

Soon enough I was heading for home and back into Pages Wood and then Harold Wood Park before less than 2kms back to home to round off an 18km run in a snip under 2 hours.

Once home I was quickly into a cold bath to aid my recovery as these form a key part of recovery strategy after longer runs.

All in all a really enjoyable run, some great sights to see and really what I wanted in terms of just running slowly and enjoying the scenery. 

The London Loop is a network of pathways designed to provide a route encircling greater London, you can find out more about the London Loop on the TFL website here, the sections I partly ran were sections 22, Harold Wood to Upminster Bridge and section 23, Upminster Bridge to Rainham. I have previously ran these sections in their entirety and you can read about my experience doing that here. The best way to find out more about the routes make up the London Loop is by reading other peoples experiences, a quick google will bring up a plethora of pages. There are several pages by people who have walked, cycled or ran large parts and in some cases all of the London Loop, a particular blog I have enjoyed reading on this subject and many others is Diamond Geezer which is well worth a look, his post on section 22 can be read here. 

Training round up for my second marathon

Two weeks after my marathon and now six weeks until my next one I have been working hard to hit the next race harder and faster!

My training in the last two weeks has included a lot more strength training and circuit training in my attempts to be even fitter and stronger.

Heres a leg circuit I have done a couple of times recently to work on strengthening my legs: 

I have also done a bit more gym work including more weights and mixing up ab exercises, upper body work and some leg exercises into circuit routines.

The main exercises I have been focusing on are press ups, squats, lunges, crunches and leg raises.

Over the last fortnight a main focus has been on building up my press up capabilities as this has been something I have let slide recently. So on top of my training I completed a press up streak of 100 press ups on seven consecutive days, a pretty good achievement for me and I feel so much stronger from it already. 

Diet wise things have slipped a bit as I have enjoyed not watching what I have been eating so carefully.

A few foodporn highlights from the week include :

An awesome ham and BBQ pizza

A delicious strawberry and banana smoothie

And my epic post run Sunday brunch breakfast wrap last weekend

Today's run

Today was my first longer run since the marathon as I completed 27.5km on a route out along the London Loop to Purfleet. This is a route I have been very keen to run as this was the route I had planned to run a few weeks before the marathon but had to abandon after 2kms due to my foot injury striking.

My route took me through my usual course through the Ingrebourne valley country park but further out to Rainham village, over the train tracks, through Rainham marshes following the London Loop trail all the way out onto the Thames. 

These pictures are the view from when I came out onto the river, firstly looking East out towards the Thames estuary, if my camera was better you would make out the Dartford crossing. 

The second photo is then looking West towards the City, again if the photo was better quality you could make out the skyscrapers in the far distance.

Unfortunately I had picked a poor day for this run as it was very overcast and cloudy not to mention windy and battling the wind coming off the river was challenging to say the least!

A few highlight along the route include the sculpture of the diver in the photo below which is supposedly the only sculpture actually in the Thames. 

My personal highlight though is the concrete barges which were used as part of the D Day landing in World War ii, they inspire and fascinate me every time I see them and I continue to be perplexed by the lack of interest and information available on them and the lack of recognition they receive. 

My half way turnaround point was the RSPB bird sanctuary at Purfleet which is the base for bird watchers on the Rainham marshes and an excellent provider of refreshments and tasty cakes. Not today unfortunately as today I only had time for a quick toilet break before turning around and heading home. 

After 2 and three quarter hours and over 27 kilometers I was pretty knackered and was in need of some refuel nutritional sustenance which I consumed in the form of a tortilla wrap with peanut butter, jam and banana, delicious!

As always thanks for reading and I welcome any comments, feedback and suggestions, thanks!

I am now on bloglovin as well, its great way to keep up with your favourite blogs, well worth a look if you haven't already checked it out. 

1st run with my new camel pack

For this weekends long run the plan was to run around 30K as my major long run before the marathon 3 weeks today. 

The run was also going to be my first venture with my new addition to my running apparel, a long desired camel pack/running bladder.

I have really wanted one for ages as an addition to my long distance running gear and decided to order one from amazon. It was pretty cheap but had a high number of really positive reviews so I decided to go for it just to see how I got on with using one.

Being 3 weeks to my marathon and this being one of my last long runs I decided to focus on practicing my race preparation. 

So I put 100% effort into my preparation, Friday evening I loaded up on protein with a steak, Saturday I carb loaded and was selective in eating clean and whole foods. Saturday evening I ate my pre race meal of double carbs in the form of potato and brown rice with chicken and vegetables, completed with a protein shake before bed.

Sunday morning I continued my carb loading with an early breakfast of cereal, flapjack and fruit juice at 5.30 before returning to bed until 7.00. At 7.00 I got up and had my second breakfast of cereal with natural yogurt with another flapjack. I then prepared my gear for my run:

I took an energy drink before I set off and spent some time making sure I was comfortable with my camel pack before I headed out.

So off I went, my route was to head through Ingrebourne Country Park out to Rainham and along the Thames out to Purfleet and back.

I started off feeling so good, really feeling the benefits of my training and feeling so strong and fit. The feeling of being 'carbed to the max' felt good as I really felt I had fuel to burn over the next few hours.

I was aiming to run just over 5minute/km splits but my first Km was nicely under the 5 minute mark. I started to focus on slowing it down and settling into a rhythm, when just coming up to my second Km I felt pain in the ball of my foot. I shrugged it off as a niggle that I could run off, I soon realised I had been covering a whole Kilometer while experiencing pain with every foot strike. So I reluctantly but sensibly decided to stop, I walked for a few hundred metres and the pain eased off so I sped up to a jog only for the pain to return.

After walking for another minute or two I pulled over to sit on a bench. I removed my right trainer and started to rub and massage the sore area as I thought it could be a cramp as I have suffered from cramp in the same place before. After a bit of rubbing and mobilising of the area I set off again only for the pain to return again after a short while.

Now I was in a dilemma, if its an injury I need to stop to avoid making it worse and to hope that I could still successfully take part in the marathon in 3 weeks time, but if its not a serious injury I really need to run through it as I need to get a long 30K run under my belt.

I kept on running trying to push through the pain hoping it would ease off. It wasn't getting any better though and I noticed I was starting to twist my ankle to compensate against the pain in my foot to try and put less pressure on it. I knew this was bad news that would only get worse so I started to come to terms with the fact I wasn't going to be able to see this run through.

Continuing along the path I was reluctantly starting to think about pulling up but was so keen to keep going, then around the next corner I was confronted with this:

The path had been a little watery but now it was completely flooded where the path passes alongside the river Ingrebourne. All the way to the gate you can see ahead the path was flooded and I could see it was a good few inches deep. That was it! I decided this was a sign that the run was over and I gloomily turned around to trudge home. I had only covered 3.5Km.

It was disappointing and so difficult to come to terms with on many levels. The main two being all the preparation I had put into the run, the eating, the getting up early now all for nothing! The second being that my training for the marathon would suffer without this long run especially as I had only manged 20K last weekend due to illness.

Anyway I was soon home and starting my rest and recovery process.

Lots of RICE for me today and I guess I will just have to see how I go to see as to whether I can get up an running again soon and maybe squeeze in a long run in the next day or two or leave it until the weekend.

I wasn't resting for long though as after a bit of ice I decided I had all the energy and preparation to do something so I had to do some activity, so I headed out on my bike and covered the same route I had planned to run. I must have covered close to 30Km in just under 2 hours, as I had consumed close to 1500 calories before heading out to run I needed to do some exercise and I felt so much better for getting back out and doing something.

Thanks for reading, come back soon to see how I recover from this injury and if I can get back up and running this week.

This weeks long run and a recovery experiment

This mornings run summary, 22K, boiling hot, not a cloud in the sky and my destination was the World War II concrete barges moored near Rainham.

So I set out at around 8.30am to try and get out before the weather got too hot. It was still pretty hot though a really nice summers day without a cloud in the sky.

My route was through Ingrebourne Valley following the London Loop route 23 all the way to Rainham and onto the River Thames.

Out on the Thames in a bay just beyond Rainham Village are around a dozen discarded World War II concrete barges that were used as part of the D Day landing. 

I really wanted to do this route this weekend following the D Day anniversary earlier in the week.

The engineering feat of constructing these barges and floating them across the channel to France has always astounded and amazed me and seeing these barges up close is always an impressive experience. 

I have done some internet research on the barges and why they ended up there and what their history was. All I have found out was they were used to transport water and fuel over the channel.

They marked the halfway point of my journey and after a bit of reflection I turned around and headed for home. 

My run back was great I felt so good and strong and managed to keep going at a good pace for most of the way home.

I covered 22K in 2hours and 2minutes which I was very happy with. 

When I got home I had a new recovery experiment to try out: 

Ice bath!!!

 

I felt I needed something extra to boost my recovery during my training for my three up coming marathons so I decided to try out an ice bath.

I filled up a bath with cold water and added cold water from the fridge as well as ice.

I am not sure how cold it was and it really didn't feel that bad, I am not a great fan of really hot baths or showers anyway so that probably helps me cope with colder temperatures. 

Writing this later in the afternoon I must say I am really feeling the benefits of the ice bath. I can honestly say I have never felt this good after a long run. I have no stiffness or achy feeling in my legs instead a kind of numbness in my muscles and feeling of nothingness.

I feel like I could easily train again tomorrow or even today, I wont be but itsgood  to know I feel so well and have discovered a good way to increase my recovery.