Tuesday, 9 December 2014

Ramping up the mileage and GPS woes

 Fri 7.50 m, Sat 7.36 m, Sun Referee and Crosstrain, Mon 4.34 m, and Tues 7.12 m => Total 26.32 miles 

It has turned colder, but remained largely dry here in England (Brits really do like to discuss the weather and I am no different). Perfect for increasing or ramping up the mileage. If you are a beginner then be careful about increasing your mileage too much as it can lead to injury. About a ten percent increase week on week is the accepted rule of thumb. However, I have a pretty good base fitness having completed a marathon back at the end of October. So, I feel confident that I can add in a few extra days and a few longer runs. Just be sensible about it. I was encouraged by two men either side of the Atlantic: Mo Farah tweeting away and Luke Humphrey posting on You Tube. I find it kind of special that an ordinary runner like me can be in touch with elite runners. I could never in a million years keep pace with these guys in a race, but they are willing to share their love of the sport and pass on a few tips along the way.   

I have been doing some free running and really enjoying it. This is basically going out of the door with no set plan. I am just going with the flow. However, frustratingly there has been a problem with GPS reception on my android phone which has made my running app unusable. As much as I like the app and how easy it is to use, if it will not pick up and keep a signal then it is no good. I dug out my old Garmin 305 and after an evening of sorting out an issue with the Connect / Expess feature of the software it is now working again. I can upload data to my laptop and monitor my progress. It looks like this will be my frontline running buddy leading up to London 2015. Only the last two runs have been measured accurately and I probably ran about three miles on Sunday refereeing the under 14's. This would give roughly 30 miles for the week which is fine for now.

 Is it important to have a GPS device? Well it is not essential, but I would like to knock ten or so minutes off my marathon time and get under 3 hours 30 minutes. In order to do this I will need to average 30 seconds per mile faster pace than at the Chelmsford Marathon. The apps and watches are a good tool to help you pace out your runs and achieve your goals. Did I say knock ten minutes off my time? Well I would really like to get a good for age time which for london would be 3 hours 20 minutes, but that would be a big jump, maybe too big a jump. Why is this a big deal? Because this would enable automatic entry to London the year after Let's see how the training goes.

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