Loping Bear

10 days to go to off road duathlon

I've got about 10 days to go before my Tuffman event, which will involve running 8k, then biking 13k, then running another 5k, all off road.

Training wise I've been getting in 3-4 sessions of crossfit a week, and doing brazilian jiu jitsu 2 times as well.

I also managed to do a run-bike-run last weekend ( 5k-10k-3k ), which was actually quite good fun!

The training plan for this week and next will involve as many tabata runs on a treadmill as possible, plus maybe a 5k time trial this weekend.

Tuffman 2011

First event for 2011

December was cold, very cold. Well cold enough for me to not step a foot outside for running! It was a good month for my weightlifting and conditioning ( 200k deadlift PB, 303 fran PB etc... ) but nothing in the way of endurance.

So come january I was thinking  of ways to get myself back into the game of endurance sports, when a friend invited me to the Tuffman Duathlon http://www.humanrace.co.uk/events/off-road/tuffman-2011 on the 5th of Feb.

8k run, 13k bike, 4k run, all off road. A lot more mileage than Ive ever attempted. Ive got 4 weekends or so to go, which should be enough for me to pull it off... just!

Benchmark 5k TT : 32 mins

Friday 12th of November I ran my first proper time trial 5k. The route was 3 and a bit laps around St James park, with my friend Ed as a running buddy. 3 observations:

1) time was 32 mins, roughly 10 min per mile.

2) last lap round the park felt a lot better than the first two, maybe need to do more of a warmup next time, maybe me just getting into my stride.

3) I didnt have to stop or anything, but had a hard time sustaining a decent pace.  Wasn't a good running buddy to Ed becuase I couldn't talk most of the time!

 

 

How slow a runner am I?

This will be an ongoing theme...

Last weeks training consisted of 4 days of crossfit, plus 2 days running intervals. Here's what the running work looked like...

On Thursday I attempted a Tabata run on a treadmill. 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest, sounds easy I know. Set the treadmill up as perscribed, 12% gradient, ramped up the speed to 12 km/hr and then found I had a hard time staying in there for 5 seconds let alone 20!

So I brought down the gradient to 6% and the speed to 11km/hr, while trying to focus on pulling my feet with a very high cadence, and relaxing my calves and the soles of my feet. It still was surprisingly difficult.

On Sunday the 8th Nov I went to Battersea park to run on the track. They have excellent facilities there and the track was virtually empty. After doing my running form drills and 6 sets of tabata bottom-to-bottom squats as a warm up I hit my 400's: 2:07,1:57, 1:58; 1:56 with about 2:00 rest in betweeen. Slow, I know.

Next up is a benchmark 5k, not looking forward to it.

So first post for the blog, going to keep it nice and simple.

The story so far: I am a painfully slow runner, and I break down and cry inconsolably at the prospect of running any distance greater than 200 metres.

This blog is here for me to document and share my progress towards running a reasonably long distance ( don't mention the m word yet ) in a respectable time, without crying like a girl.

That is all.