Week 11

Wednesday the wife was kind enough to let me sneak out for a run after dinner/before bedtime this past week. Got in 10 miles and tested out Strava's Beacon tracker. Strava is one of the second party apps I use to track my running, you'll see the "widget" in the sidebar of this blog if you're on a computer. I normally just use the free Strava app because a lot of the premium (paid for) app additions I don't need or would use. However they added this tracking feature called Beacon. I had a free month of Strava Premium and this run seemed like a good opportunity to try it out. I turned the Beacon on and it gave me the option to send three text messages with a link to people who'd want to know my location. My wife received the text and tracked me the entire run via her phone! Pretty cool safety feature. The only downside is it doesn't sync with my watch and I have to use the Strava GPS on my phone which can eat up battery life. No big deal though, I just need to get a feel for the battery consumption.

A few photos from this run. I unfortunately don't have time to "manipulate" them to my liking. I really enjoy playing with Instagram and Light Room but currently I'm making other things priority.   

rapeseed field next to the River Severn

Worcestershire Way, pear emblem on signpost

flower petals on the Worcestershire Way

St. Leonard's Church cemetary along Worcestershire Way

St. Leonard's Church

St. Leonard's Church

swan on eggs, River Severn

Severn Way footpath with swan, River Severn

I had intended to post the previous photos mid week but it slipped my mind so I'm including it with my "weekly update." All the following photos are from Saturday and Sunday (Easter) runs on my new "go to loop" through the countryside and into Ribbesford Wood. Lots of hills and various loop options of 10 - 16 miles plus. I had a minute to Instagram a few of them and play with the colors a bit, nothing super special but ok.

panorama from Stagborough Hill over looking Stourport (left side)  

Overall a phenomenal week of running. I had a goal of 50 - 60 miles with no speed work due to my shin. I wanted to work into it and see how my injury was going. It's feeling fine running, a bit sore on both legs now post run, could be due to the increase in miles. It seems alright still and I'm not overly concerned as long as I keep up the maintenance of rolling, stretching, icing as mentioned. It's kind of a good thing I acquired this problem as it's reinforced the rolling and stretching which I rarely had been doing. It's these things outside of actual running that will help tremendously in keeping me injury free and aid recovery making me stronger.

sunrise Ribbesford Wood

Sleep is another concern that is growing and I'm more aware of as I increase my mileage. Running in the morning is awesome. I love it. However waking at 4- 430am does cut into sleep and I need to make sure I'm not getting too behind and digging myself into a sleep deprived hole I can't get out of. Awareness is key. Once again you get stronger and faster when you rest.

Fortunately the wife has been off work and has let me sneak out during the day a few times which had been awesome as I get solid sleep and I get to hang out with her at night more rather than run some nights. This won't happen all the time but helps a great deal.  

sunrise from Stagborough Hill trig point. Our house is one of those. 

Easter I managed 16 plus miles. I was tired and sore from the previous two days (10 and 14 miles) but it went well none the less. Soreness is growing due to the increase of hills I'm running. The eccentric contraction the quads make running downhill is very taxing on the body but I need to focus on hammering my quads in preparation of all the downhill at WS100. A few of the uphills on my route I've mentioned are steep. Too steep to efficiently run so I power walk/ski walk them using different muscles than running. A good strategy in ultras is to walk many of the hills so despite being kind of ashamed to not run, walking steep hills will benefit my racing. It's interesting looking at my pace on my watch increase walking versus running on steep hills.  

St. Leonard's Church cemetery 

My friend Nathan highlighted the importance of feeding in an e-mail last week so this weekend I've been considering it more on my runs. Most training runs I don't eat or drink unless it's over 18 miles. I normally carry energy gels when I do, they work, but give me a sickly feeling in my stomach. I've never has any puking issues but anything to make it more comfortable why not? So, I tried some energy chews. Basically they are a fancy gummy bear. You can train your stomach to accept more calories per hour so I took one serving every 20 minutes to see how they worked. Tasted great, no stomach problems, energy seemed consistent throughout my runs. Obviously things change over longer distances and environments but I'm pretty sold on these things right now. Experimentation will continue.

I also try to drink at least 22oz of water per hour in normal temperatures. Once again this can be trained so I've started drinking more on my training runs. It's super important for racing so why not train for it?
  

sleeping cat, St. Leonard's Church

Training this week will consist of hopefully the same as last week, 60 miles. I'm considering a tempo run session midweek. Speed work is important and necessary, and I really enjoy it, so I may revisit that again and see how I feel. I need more long runs on the weekends and am sticking to my plan of 10 - 15 Saturday and 15 - 20 Sunday. That gives me some flexibility if life gets hectic, but really need some 20 milers. I also need to commit to and enter Malvern Hills 52 which is coming up the first weekend in May. In running it I want to focus on feeding and also starting out slow, not just being in the front. This is always tough to do in a "race." So on we go.