Night Run

It was hot today.  Very hot.  So I went out late at night. 

This picture is pretty much the same place as my last run two days ago. 

It wasd a hard run tonight and although I went reasonably well on the way out, I was spent for the return leg meaning that, yet again, there was a lot of walk in my walk/run.

No really discernible improvement in my running yet but it's early days and the road will be long.

 This was also my first real tryout with my new Petzl Nao+ head torch*.  I bought my first Petzl (The original Nao) in 2011, I think, and it served me well on everything from training sessions to the odd ultra for a decade until I lost it this year.  (Of course, now I've bought a new one, I'm sure to find it.)  I'll probably do a Gear write up on it when I have a few more night sessions under my belt.

* Note:  Nao is a apparently chinese word meaning Intellect or (literally) Brains.  It's pronounce now.

Haven't we been here before?

 It certainly feels like déja vu but I'm pretty sure I've felt that way before...

The tendon injury stubbornly refused to heal up so here I am yet another two years down the line and starting over yet again.

So what's different this time?

Well, basically: Nothing.  I'm older.  I'm fatter. (138.9kg to be precise.)  I'll be a bit more cautious in ramping up effort/distance/time-on-feet.  I'll make sure I don't carry on in a pair of  shoes beyond their useful lifetime.  Beyond that. it'll be a case of trying stuff and seeing how I cope.

Almost none of my shirts/shorts still fit so I have two of each to use while I get a bit of weight off and unlock the next set of stuff.  Several of my accessories (running belts, water bottles etc have perished and are no longer usable.  I've trown out all the unused gels, bars and other out-of-date foodstuffs.  (That was quite cathartic, actually.)

So:  The  Plan.  Take it slowly and head for a 37:30 5k as a start.  No particular time scale in mind so I'll set the pace nice and easy.  Once that's done, I can hopefully ease up the "race" distance to 10k and a slightly quicker pace.  Ive no end game in mind and I'll pause when I'm feeling comfortable.

We shall see...

Session #3 with Stroud AC

Way of the back of the pack still but that's not what's important.  Knocked over 10 seconds off my best lap from last week which is really nice.  I know these improvements are going to come "easy" at this stage and the gains will be more marginal over time.  It's still really nice to see, though.

All of which means that the new Garmin is working well and I was easily able to control it to record the efforts in the session.  I don't notice the weight of the watch any more unless I put the steel strap on it.  

I'm starting to get to know a few people at the club and it's lovely to be running with such a friendly bunch.

A rare London run.

I don't usually run while I'm away.  Not that I can't, not that it's difficult.  I'm just adept at finding excuses.

Made a proper effort this time and went out across Leyton marshes (between the Reservoirs at Walthamstow and the Hackney marshes).  I found it harder than I expected on the back of yesterday so I kept the distance down to about 6k.  This was not a quick session.

Yesterday morning, the Fenix got a firmware update.  I don't know if it's related but getting a GPS fix was much faster and the GPS track seemed to wobble less than before.  It'll be interesting to see if there's a difference on routes that I know well.

First time out with the Fenix

Still feeling a bit tight in the calves from Thursday's session but went out for a shorter run tonight.

The Fenix is odd to use after so many years with the touch interface of the Forerunner 620 but I think I'll become accustomed to it soon enough.  Satellite lock took ages for some reason and I'm not too impressed with the track (here) as I was on the same road/track the whole way.  On the plus side, the sync and WiFi features are excellent.

As for the run, I'm seeing benefits from the training sessions with Stroud AC already as I knocked 4 minutes of my previous times on this route.  I'd say that a minute was due to the slightly short track due to the GPS lock issue mentioned above.  Even so, that's a significant improvement.

New Watch: Garmin Fenix 5X

My new watch arrived today and it's a monster.

I was torn between the Garmin and Suunto lines.  My friends in the south of France have the Suunto and I was very impressed by them last time we visited.  The decision finally hinged on two things:

When a watch goes bang!

I'm staying in digs at the moment and the power went off.  When it came back on, it must have surged.  Unfortunately, my trusty Garmin Forerunner 620 was plugged in to a charger, gave off a weird little noise and then died.

There's a nasty smell coming from the device and I suspect that it's properly broken.

The cupboard is bare.

I pushed out my longest distance since the reboot to 10k yesterday and today I followed up with a very gentle 8k.  Things are going OK as long as I remember to keep myself in check.  Which means that I'll be taking a few days off now.

It's a useful time to address my wardrobe malfunction...

Contacting Garmin: A Good Result.

If I get bad service, I'm the first to complain.  It seems only fair that when a company responds quickly and helpfully then I should make it known also.

Getting ready

This weekend, I've been preparing my kit for the Trail de Paris next Saturday.  With the advice I've had from the others and the odd hard learning experience (like last weekend), I've had plenty of time to obsess over the kit I'm actually going to take with me.

Shoe Shopping: Aftermath

Time for a follow-up after the great Shoe Shopping Expedition to Runners Service Lab in Belgium.

The end result was the purchase of a pair of Brooks Ravenna 3 shoes.  I had five requirements for my new shoes:  Lighter.  Same pronation correcting.  Less stabilisation.  More shock absorption.  Larger toe space.

This should make the London Marathon easier...

Technically, I'm sure some would call this cheating.  I wonder if I could claim it was fancy dress?

Anyway, where running and riding collide, there's another opportunity to help us raise some money...

DIY Energy Bars

I really don't like energy bars.  I understand what they're for but the commercially available products all have at least one flaw.  The primary one is that most of them taste awful.  Some of them do taste kind of alright but then they either get packaged at Fort Knox (impossible to get into with cold or wet hands), have the consistency of either rubber or muesli, make you super-thirsty, have an ingredients list giving more chemical compounds than foodstuffs or all of the above.

In addition, I have the Trail de Paris coming up and it's supposed to be "semi-autonomous" meaning I have to carry some of my supplies round the course.  Having something cheap, reliable and predictable sounds like a good plan to me.

I figured it would be hard to do worse, so I had my first go at making some of my own.  The ingredients are Peanut Butter, Honey, Oats, Vanilla Sugar and Salt.  When (if) I get the recipe fine tuned, I'll be sure to post it here but for now I'm actually pleased with the results.  I have chopped the resulting slab into small bars that are pretty dense, wrapped in cling-film and weighing in at 225 kCal each.

I tried some tonight and so far, so good. Not as nutty as I hoped so perhaps smooth peanut butter next time.  I also think I need to cook lower and slower as they were a little overcooked..

Will be trying them at a few events over the coming weeks to see how they hold up in the field.

Shoe shopping.

Usually, I hate shopping but as soon as you add technology to the mix:  I'm in.

I've done over 1500km on my old pair and I needed some new ones.  At the 24 Uur van Welle last year, one of my team mates (Thanks, Dirk!) recommended Runners Service Lab who have three sites in Belgium at Antwerp, Gent and Duffel.  I opted for the one in Antwerp as it's less than 30 minutes from work.

Until now, I've always been a little sceptical about just how much benefit there is from technical running shoes.  But not any more.

The set up is like this:  They have an indoor running area all set up with cameras and an array of pressure sensors.  To start with, you run up the track barefoot and then they play back the video.  It was very interesting to see just how markedly I pronate (Do yer own googling, OK?).  Even more fascinating was looking at the way my feet strike the floor and the areas taking all the pressure.  Additionally, they are able to show on-screen a trace indicating how much correction is needed.  Geekgasm ensued.

There then followed a discussion about what kind of distances I run (long) and over what terrain (75% road, 25% trail).  The assistant conjured up three pairs of shoes from the ludicrously large stock and the process was repeated for each of them.  By a happy coincidence, the best correcting shoe was also the most comfortable so it wasn't necessary to dig deeper into the range available.  I paid and left with shoes I have confidence in.

The cost?  Nothing.  Well, OK, the shoes themselves are at RRP and, while I could have bought them discounted online, the value add here was absolutely worthwhile.  I would love to know if there are other places offering the same services outside Belgium.

New Techno Toy

I am the proud owner of a Garmin Forerunner 610 watch .  This rather nice device has integrated GPS and connects wirelessly to both a heart rate monitor and foot pod so I can measure effort levels and pace cadence.  I intend to use it for a few months without too much analysis just to get a good baseline data set.  The advantage over my previous setup (iPhone and Polar watch with HRM) was the need to stitch together multiple data sources and always having synchronisation problems.  Now, I hope that one source for all the data will simplify things enormously.

Treadmills

How do people do it?  Running on a treadmill, I mean.

I tried this for the very first time today.  I'm on holiday in Thailand and we are staying with friends in the capital, Bangkok.  Essentially it is either too hot to go jogging or too humid.  Or both.  But their building has a gym with airco and a couple of treadmills so I thought I'd give it a go.

I just couldn't get on with it.  The pace seems unnaturally fast even when it's actually slower than I'm used to and the invariance was quite difficult to get to grips with.  You know, the way the machine determines how much effort you make rather than me deciding how fast I want to go.

But the worst thing, really, was that it is just so dull.  Even with TV/radio/music.  It's just running on the spot in a cellar.  I guess if it works for you, great.  For myself, this would have to be a total last resort.

First running shoes

Went to the running shop which is full of impossibly thin and fit people.  The staff and the customers.  A very patient assistant helped me choose some shoes and I took them out for a go tonight.  Totally different experience but I only managed about 3 laps around the park.

Everyone else there seems to be able to run effortlessly and quite fast but I just tell myself they all had to start somehow...

Technology gone wild

I have a smartphone with GPS so I thought I'd see if there are any Apps that can help me to track what I'm doing.

Wow!

There are a lot.  I spent a few hours (really) sifting through them and looking at reviews.  Which led me to the next step:  Automatically tracking all of this on the web.  From the App.

I have decided to try MapMyFitness for a while to see how it goes.  App on the phone and off we go.  My username is Caradac if you're desperate enough to want to see what I log there...

Shoes 2.

Hmm.  OK, these walking shoes were cheap but they are playing hell with my ankles.

I think my legs are too fat for them so I have had to trample the backs, breaking the internal structure, so they don't press against the back of my ankles.

On the plus side:  The blisters are going and these shoes keep my feet much cooler.

Shoes

Predictably, I have blisters.  My regular work shoes just aren't up to this so I went to the local sport superstore (Decathlon) and bough a cheap pair of walking shoes.  To my untutored eyes, they look like any other kind of training shoe but then again: What do I know?

I'll leave my proper shoes in my desk and change when I get there.