Medical Update, Training, Pace & Sponsorship

Hi all, here we are again. I hope you are all well and thanks for reading.

Medical Update

I had a re-occuring appt with my normal doctor this week. Call it a "Mini-MOT". Weight is down again :-). Blood pressure has improved :-). Heart Rate is Fine :-). Blood tests were fine with the exception of the pre-diabetic / glucose one - apparently I am borderline but it went down from 42 to 33 this time - so that surely must be a good result! So, still no medical reason to bottle these Half Marathons!

Training Update

In my last blog, I had just ran 16.14 km on Wed 7th July and was still feeling good at the end. These are my runs since: Fri 9th July - I planned to do 10k but felt OK and ended up doing 11k (1k extra cos of the route that I took). Next Run was my long weekly run on Sunday 11th July. I did 16.59km (just over 10 miles) and felt really good again and could have definitely kept going. On Tue 13th July, Shaun was home, so we did 5k together and then I followed on with another 5k, the pace was interesting (more to follow). The pace was also interesting on Thus 15th July, where I did 11.94km (again, I had only planned on doing 10 but auto pilot took me on a slightly longer route).

So, I was feeling really good at this point and starting to feel quite confident. Then I ran this morning (Sun 18th July) having given myself a treat and two days off. The legs felt heavy as soon as I started, it was also part of our heatwave weekend. The first 6k felt fine. Then I hit some sort of heavy legged wall. I stopped at 7k briefly just do to a couple of stretches and try and get the legs going. It got me to 9k but I just had to stop and have a decent drink, I was really struggling. I don't know if it was the heat that was killing me or negativity in my head. I definitely didn't feel as positive today and I was going to start plugging sponsorship today so felt under a bit more pressure to bank a decent run.

Ultimately I stopped at 9.77km which is dreadful. I started to walk home and had a "Marfan Ankles" incident as they turned right in and I went flying (but I did manage to catch myself). About 1.8km from home I decided to have another little jog and whilst it was slow, I did feel better.

Now I am going to start ramping down my training with 2 weeks to go. However, if the heat dies down I might have one more pop at a long run this week after todays fail. Either way I am going to start giving myself more 2 day breaks and walk inbetween so my legs don't feel so heavy when I run.

My Strava has been telling me that my fitness is the best that it has ever been (with a score of 68) but my watch doesn't upload every time and if I have to go with my phone record, it doesn't count towards my fitness score, which is annoying. So whilst 68 is my best, it should actually be higher.

As always, if you spot obvious training mistakes that I am making, please do say. I don't want to do intervals, beach runs or quicker runs at the moment as I don't want to risk an injury but all advise is welcome.

Pace

When I was doing the 10k GYRR Virtual Handicap runs earlier this year I was looking at a sub 6.15/km average on Strava (I.E. Getting as close to an hour as I could for 10k). I did even get below an hour on occasions. However, whilst driving the pace at 10k a little I started to struggle with my longer runs. So, I stopped doing forced 10k's and slowed my pace to a target around 6.45/km and my longer runs got longer. However, I then found it impossible to bang in a good 10k time. When I ran with Shaun though, we were hitting 6.20/km and i struggled again after 7km. When I went out alone next time i was hitting 6.20/kms again and was struggling to slow to the 6.45km mark again. Is it just me that seems to go thru phases of similar speeds but then has to work at it if I want to go faster or slower?

Alcohol

I am meant to be alcohol free during July - but I did accidentally have 2 cans of beer and a glass of red wine before the England Final on Sunday. I'll bank that rule break as it was pretty sensible for me I reckon and that shows you how seriously I am taking these runs!

Sponsorship

As planned, I am now fully open for sponsorship, with all the money going to the Marfan Trust, as the London Half is only 2 weeks today and my race number turned up yesterday. I am also injury free and covid free (so far!).

I would love to get my Just Giving account to £7,000 before it expires forever in Nov......

My Story and sponsorship link is here - https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/marfellous2017.

and if you desire, for every £2 you donate, you can add a track to my "Training Spotify List". Just take a look at some of the rubbish that I have to listen to on my training runs lol. Thanks though everyone, it is appreciated. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01NzqI5xm8CrcEYkS13Tg5?si=kwtgHeHPTgi38ZG_hs7Ixw&utm_source=whatsapp&dl_branch=1&nd=1

I (and the Marfan Trust) really appreciate all your support here!

Anyway, if you have made it to the bottom of this blog, thanks loads, have a good week and speak again soon.