Ricks NOT Running!

The downward slide of a distance runner and a light at the end of the tunnel!
My 12 weeks of Lydiard training ended in disaster, chronic fatigue, muscle spasms and injury!
I went into the training full of hope and desire but something went wrong along the way.
In desperation I had some tests done and they came back today.
It seems I've got pretty bad magnesium deficiency.
The side effects of this deficiency are chronic fatigue, insomnia, muscle tension- spasms, depression, erratic heart palpitations and a whole host of minor problems!
All of which I've been going through.
The good news is I can recover from this quite quickly by taking mineral supplements and changing my diet.
THE BAD NEWS
My injuries may take longer to heal.
In December I had a hamstring pull which is now fully recovered But in a cross country race a week ago I tore some fibers in my Achilles Tendon!
I got treatment today from Sarah Hall, it may take some weeks to get full recovery!
I believe the injuries were caused part by incorrect running biomechanics and part through the mineral deficiency.
I do feel a great sense of relief to know I really was ill and it was not all in my mind!
Training correctly and seeing yourself going backwards is hard to take.
Getting a good hiding in every race is even more depressing!
Looks like the London Marathon is off the picture this year.
But I'll be back for sure sometime!
Peace

REBEL RUNNER

TUESDAY NIGHT TEMPO RUN
I decided to get my own back on all the drivers who would not let me use the road and who pushed me onto the the ice rink of a footpath during our recent 'ICE AGE'.
I strapped on my super bright flashing blue led lighted belt for my first road tempo run of the year. this was no normal tempo run you understand this was a varying pace Marius Bakken tempo run.

6 x 4 mins, alternating between 10k and marathon pace with no rest between efforts.
Could I do it? would i end up at the side of the road half way through the session gasping for air!
I did a 5 min warm up then kicked into my session blue lights flashing as I went. at first I found it hard to hold the pace i was looking for but into my second 10k pace effort my legs finally warmed up and i felt strong as the Garmin showed 5.45 pace!
The first car that came towards me dramatically slowed as they tried to work out what i was.
the second car stopped, was I a new type of police vehicle or some sort of U F O, they must have thought! This was cool, respect at last and my very own space on the road.
I was flying now, all thoughts that I might have lost fitness over the last couple of weeks due to the ice and snow vanished as I alternated between 35 min 10k pace and 2.45 Marathon pace.
I finished with two laps of a half mile loop still feeling strong. Marius says if you feel like you can still do another effort then you've got the pace about right, so i was pretty pleased. in the months to come these tempo sessions get longer and harder [ 2 hours plus!].
The day before i ran down to the club fartlek session and back which gave me 2 hours and 7 mins of running. i felt a bit rusty on the half mile efforts, as it was my first really fast run since all the ice and snow .

Super speed freak 5.00 MILE PACE final coundown London marathon workout

Mike Gratton comes from the hard school of Marathon running, so I have a lot of respect for him and his training program [ so far its worked really well].The final hard session called for 8 x 400m, I got Tracey to join me on the session, we started with 1 mile easy before we headed into the last fast session before London, using the Saxon -Gloucester rd block. We used the first effort as a warm up and went for it in the last 7, I felt pretty good and averaged 12 mph, 5.00 mile pace for the efforts, not bad for an old dog in Marathon training, now its easy,easy, REST!

PAULS 20 MILE LONDON MARATHON TRAINING RUN

PAUL'S PROFILE
Occupation;Ambulance-Driver- Paramedic

Paul ran a p,b. of 81 mins for the half marathon when he was in his 20's, after a long layoff Paul got back into running last year. Now he is training for the LONDON MARATHON, and religiously following the Runners World sub 3.15 schedule
he has now increased his weekly mileage from a poultry 25 miles up to 49 miles and his improvement is quite impressive!

I said i would accompany him on his 1st 20 mile run, heading off from Birkdale within a mile we were running over the roller coaster sandhills to woodvale then following the roads North through Ainsdale, and on to Southport. Once we got to bentham's way we took the trail path through the reclaimed tip, then on to Tesco ,High park, Churchtown and Crossens before a final 5 miles along the sea wall into a stiff headwind. Paul asked me to speed up to his hoped for marathon pace [7.20] over the final 5 miles, taking into account the headwind we pretty much achieved the target pace until the end!

Out of interest Paul I did the same run with Tracey[ inc the 5 miles fast at the end] last march and she ran 2.53 [ she ran London in about 3.30]. Anyway Paul finished strongly but his legs definitely knew they'd done a long one!
20 miles at 8.05 pace,= 2.41

MY LONDON MARATHON TRAINING MOVES UP TO THE NEXT LEVEL

I asked Adarian Barr of NEXT LEVEL ATHLETICS AND FITNESS to help me with my training program, Adarian looked through my training logs and told me I needed to start training in blocks of 4 weeks, 3 weeks of progressive work load followed by 1 week reduced work load. It should help me regenerate and be able to work harder in the next cycle.
Adarian suggested a few more changes including doing a progression session of 2 mins increasing speed followed by 2 mins holding speed then increase speed again!! He told told me,
"The two min on/off, is where you take two min to get up to set speed
of 8 mph, then hold that for 2 min, stay at 8 mph for 2 min, then work up to
say 9 mph over the next two min and then hold it for two min".
"The idea is to learn how to increase pace, recovery at pace then increase it
again. Most people tend to slow down to recover when all you need to do is
hold pace. It takes the body about 2 minutes to meet energy demand".
"As you get better you will find that you can get to a higher pace faster and hold it longer".
I decided to do the session on the treadmill at the gym because it was very windy outside and it would be hard to control my speed!
I warmed up then started at 12 kph and built up my speed over 2 mins to 13 kph, I then held the pace for 2 mins before once again increasing my speed. After about 20 mins I was hitting 17 kph when disaster stuck, the treadmill started malfunctioning and as the speed erratically went up and down between 15.6 and 17.5 kph the screen on the treadmill flashed
' UNABLE TO MAINTAIN PACE'.....!
WOW, I thought, I'd out run a treadmill and sent it into serious oxygen debt!
I jumped off the machine and onto the next one, quickly getting back up to 17kph , but my rhythm and concentration had gone so I called it a day after 2 mins. hopefully without the interruption I would have reached 18 or 19k ! Anyway it will be interesting over the coming weeks seeing how I progress!
Fri 16th
Easy steady run with mad dog, 3.2 miles = 24 mins
Thur 15th
Evening Treadmill, progression session = 22 mins
Plus weight training.
Afternoon, 10x 150m with wind, max speed 13.9 mph, plus acceleration run home, 9-10 then 11 mph. = 49 mins
Wed 14th Big sandhills easy = 2 h 3 mins

NEW YEARS DAY COSTAL PATH RUN 14.47 MILES

COASTAL PATH MAP
2009 kicked off with the traditional club run along the coastal path from hall road coast guard station back to the Fisherman's rest pub in Birkdale! About 15 of us set off, conditions were well below freezing, after putting some really hard training in over the past 5 days i was feeling a little jaded, At one time I use to run this route both ways without stopping 28.94 miles plus running to the start and back, my record was 3 hours and 41 mins! But today one way was more than enough for my and I was more than happy to make it back to the warmth of the pub! = 2.00.13

Wed Sandhill 6, 4 mins fast 1 min easy all the way round, felt great, 1 min faster for the course than this time last year! holding 10 mph over the faster last section, 37.21 plus run down and back total 58.32
Tue steady road run 8.5 mph av 9.45 miles = 1.07
Mon Leg speed session on the road max 15.2 mph 7.55 miles, av speed 8.2 = 0.54mins
Sun am Tempo run 3 miles at 9.4 mph followed by 3 miles steady 8.4 mph = 42.28
Sat 27th big sandhills = 2.02
Fri 26th leg speed session at greenbank school 10 x 150 14 mph max, ran down and back at marathon pace = 1.03
Thur sandhill 6 felt weak and coughing 4 mins fast 1 easy all the way round 42 mins plus run down and back = 1.13
Wed 24th First run back after 5 days in bed with flu, legs very stiff and bad cough, tired after only 30 mins in the sandhills, feel very unfit! = 42 mins
FRIENDS OF MY BROTHER ANDY AND SIS INLAW MARGOT CAN CATCH UP ON HOW THEY ARE GETTING ON IN THERE NEW LIFE ON THE WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND BY CLICKING THIS LINK, GREAT PHOTOS.
2008 in retrospect
In a way its been a good year, 11th place and age group win at the blackpool marathon,
11th place anglesea marathon, my fastest time in 4 years and age group win in the harrock hill race series and age group win at the lancaster half marathon but a lot of my best runs happened in training even setting p.b.s on a hilly mile loop I've been running for many years ! But I often felt flat in racing, 2 hard interval sessions per week is just 2 much for my body to take, so in 2009 I will restrict myself to one interval session each week and hopfully I'll feel a whole lot fresher in races!

LONDON MARATHON TRAINING STARTS TODAY

TRAINING PROGRAM; DISTANCE TRAINING FOR MASTERS by ARTHUR LYDIARD
Training started with a whisper rather than a BANG! The first 4 weeks of the program called for no more an hour a day!
I'm going to follow the basic principle of the plan but add in extra miles, from the new year I aim to run a 30 mile over distance run once every 3 weeks.
Well anyway MAD DOG and me headed off into the big sandhills, wearing my thermal top and Ron hill vintage bottoms I soon found myself sweltering in the afternoon sun!
I have now put in 3 runs using the techniques from the
EVOLUTION RUNNING VIDEO , I really feel like I'm starting to generate more power and running more efficiently !
= 1.33
Fri 31st Core training
Thur 30th Robs speed session, I ran with Steady Eddie and Racey Tracey, keeping my effort aerobic. 7 x 0.6 miles at m.p. = 1.08
Wed 29th Big sandhills with mad dog! = 1.30
Tue 28th Rest
Mon 27th Leg speed session 10 x 150m = 1.13

training for the london marathon,; read on;

ARTHUR LYDIARD
The Man Who Never Stopped

The Man Who Never Stopped
Taken from "The Lonely Breed" by Ron Clarke and Norman Harris; published in 1967 from PEI.HAM BOOKS, LTD. Reproduced with permission from Ron Clarke

"He still worked on the beach house. It was 26 miles up there, pretty well an exact marathon, and he ran up on a Saturday and back on the Sunday and worked on the house in between. He amazed runners who chanced to meet him on the return trip, just a few miles from home, because he was running harder than they wished to, and he was not virtually out on his feet thinking only about collapsing on his back steps and sliding into a bath – he was thinking about buying some ice cream from the dairy near to his house, to thin out and cool his blood, and he was debating what he was going to do after that. His friends enjoyed the joke, which he himself had offered, that he wasted so little time that he wrote out his training schedules in the toilet. Even they, after all this time, regarded him as something of a phenomenon with his apparently limitless drive and energy – the way he could work at the shoe factory, also by night on a milk round, and dig his garden furiously and build a cottage – and still train harder than anyone else. So, too, did anyone who ever knew him well; at school, in a Rugby team, in the shoe factory, in the running club. They knew him as an individual of exceptional drive and someone whom you never crossed, that if there was anything which really got Arthur Lydiard going it was being told that he would not be able to do what he was attempting, or that he did not have the ability, or he was going about it the wrong way…

At secondary school in the boxing finals he was given very little chance against an opponent, or superior height and reach, who was one of the city’s better amateurs. But he said he would win, he gave a variety of reasons; in the event he won by filling the air with leather, by sheer aggression and determination. He rode a bicycle everywhere, head down, pedaling as if it were a personal challenge. He was always racing the trams – and once a fellow on a racing bike who turned out to be the Auckland junior champion, and finally beat him on a hill."

The Man Who Never Stopped

trimpell 20

BELOW IS A REPORT ON LAST YEARS TRIMPELL 20
i ran this race in 2004 and found it a fantastic race and a great build up for the london marathon.
i am running this race again this march; check it out if you are looking for a good 20 miler.
Trimpell 20 miler 11/03/07

Sunday 11th March was the day of our pre marathon 20 miler at Morecambe. Our B&B was only 3/4 mile from the start so we walked up near to start time.Scott said that because the race was so long we didn't need to warm up.I wasn't so sure. Anyway we were almost changed in the Trimpell centre when the announcer said 3 mins to the start of the race. I squeezed in a few strides and made my way to the start. A few announcements and then we were off. The banter as we set off was the same as back in Scotland but the accents were different, as were the vests. Preston harriers, Bingley and Ellesmere Port etc.

I tried to stay relaxed for the first mile but it seemed a bit fast for a warmup. My race plan had been to try to average 6.30 miles with the first few a bit slower. 6.12 and 6.14 were my first two so I tried to slow down a little for the 3rd but still it was about 6.25. By now there was a group of about 10 runners at least a minute ahead. I reckoned they were doing under 6 min pace and thought it might be a bit fast for a few and I might see them later in the race. The next group consisted of about 5 of us and we settled into a good pace together. I was concious as we approached 7 miles that we still had a half marathon to run and reminded myself to hold back some energy. The views now over the Lune Valley are spectacular. In fact the poet Thomas Gray describes one as having "every feature which constitutes a good landscape". I must have got carried away at this point as I found myself leading our group and we went through the next mile in 6.10 (Oh Dear). Anyway we passed the village of Caton and the last mile on our outward journey was on a dirt trail through woodlands till we came out onto the main road and started the journey home. You could see the other runners through the trees as we headed back. They look to be going quite fast. Better not slow down. Easier said than done as we are now running into a head wind. The 11th mile was slower. I then found myself having a bad patch between 11 and 12 miles not helped by the return of the dreaded stitch I suffered from at Lasswade the previous week. I slowed and moved to the back of our group to try some anti stitch exercises (If anyone sees me running with my arms above my head making strange noises during a race "don't worry", I'm just trying to shake off a stitch). By this time I had taken an energy gel and the stitch had gone for the moment. I kept breathing in deeply and started to feel a bit better and I caught up on the group who had got about 10 yards in front.The next mile was OK and then 2 of the guys I was running with seemed to hit their own "wall" and fell off the pace and I went with the other 2. I reckoned I was about 12th now and unless the dreaded stitch came back I could maybe hold my position.14 miles came and went and I mentally broke my race down into 3 x 2 mile sections. By 16 miles I was in 9th place as we had dropped one of my running companions and caught 2 of the leading group who were paying for their early pace. 17 miles we crossed the Lancaster bridge and back onto the cycle track we'd come out. The last 3 miles were tough and one runner was never more than 10 seconds in front and I thought if he was close at the end I could maybe out-sprint him but had to settle for my position.The last 3 miles in under 18 mins may have put paid to my sprint finish. I crossed the finish in 2.05.51 in 8th place and was pretty pleased.

FOOTNOTE - The Trimpell 20 is a well organised race with brilliant support from the marshals, plenty water stations. Scenic course and lots of prizes. Pity it's so far away as the long car journey back the next day can be sorer on the legs than the actual race! (Any chance of someone organizing a pre-marathon 20 miler in Scotland?)

Report Jarvie Sr.Portobello Running Club