I'm either mad or a runner......or both! by JoCompton

Happy new year to you all.  Hope it's a good one. My love for running hasn't diminished but my love for my pc has! It's old and grumpy and will just freeze when I try and use this site for too long so hopefully the agreement that we've come to will mean that some of my comments will end up on your posts instead of somewhere in the frozen cyberspace that my pc seems to love. I did once try to post something from my blackberry but that really isn't a good thing.

Anyway, new year, new challenge.

The challenges that you know about are that I'm going to run the Brighton marathon on 15 April and 2 weeks after that is the Southend marathon which I may do if it happens. The other challenge I've now signed up for is to run 2012 in 2012.  I had a look at the Garmin activities for 2011 and despite training for London I don't think I ran more than 500 miles last year, if that. Therefore me running 2012 miles this year was never going to happen.  I opted instead to run 2012 km, just over 1250 miles which is much more realistic, if running 25 miles a week for the next 52 weeks is realistic!! Tied in with the marathon training plan I'm following, which is loosely based on a Hal Higdon one, I'm hoping to be about 75 miles up on that target come April so that should allow for off weeks, hopefully! Might have to find myself an autumn marathon though just to make sure I've something else to aim for.

Running so far this year.  I had 3 weeks off running over xmas due to illness and then laziness.  We spent a lovely 4 days in the Wirral over new year for my cousins wedding and then New years eve and I'll be honest, walking along Parkgate front I was gutted I didn't have my trainers and was itching for a run.  This also meant I missed my New years day run.

I have made up for it since though. It is only the 4 Jan and I have so far had 3 runs totalling over 10 miles. My first run of the year on 2 Jan was horrible.  I'd put on 7lbs over Xmas and new year and boy did I feel it. Lack of sleep and lack of water also made it a run to forget and I nigh on crawled round 3.3 miles in 43 mins

Yesterdays 2 mile run wasn't much better although the wind didn't help much and at one point I was actually going backwards. That took 23 mins but is no reflection on how I ran as the wind helped when behind me but really slowed me down (I know, that's hardly possible!).

Today. The plan said 5 mile pace (I realised last night I'm a week behind but if I carry on running the way I have been then I'm not worried and will have run an extra 6 miles this week compared to what the plan says and only 3 behind on what I should have done) which I took to mean running at marathon pace. Seeing as I only have one setting, slow, I decided instead to aim to run a more even 5 miles and aim for 12 min miles compared to the very erratic times my runs usually have (3 miler - 11.01, 15.50, 13.46 and 2 miler - 11.08 and 12.58, most of my runs are like this!!) and start off slower. I managed the 5 miles in 1.01 (16 mins faster than the last 5 miler I did 1 month ago!)so an average of 12.20 and the splits looked like this 11.51, 12.31, 12.41, 11.43 and 11.49 so I'm very happy with that and could have carried on running.  Whenever I run I alway seem to struggle up to about 2.5 - 3 miles and then after that it always feels so much easier.  I've tried much longer warm ups, stretching more but I think it just takes me a while to get into a rhythm and I try and just stick with it knowing that soon it will feel easier. I think if I can just slow down a little bit more for that first mile to then the rest might come a bit easier.

The rest of the week will either be 2 tomorrow, 3 Friday and then 6 on Sunday or 4 on Friday and 7 on Sunday. 5 runs in 5 days may just be a little too much for my legs! From next week though I want to start doing my long runs on a weds instead of the weekend as then it  doesn't take away from the family time. I will then aim to run on a Mon, Weds, Fri and Sat or Sun. I think 4 times a week is enough although I'm chomping at the bit to get out running at the moment.  Hope it lasts past Jan!!

Hope you all had a good new year and 2012 is a good year for you xx