Posts Tagged ‘running’

Recently I ran the Leeds 10k. I think it was the hardest run I have ever done. I was not expecting it to be that difficult as I run 10k quite regularly. However, it proved much more of a challenge doing it as an organised event.

That is not entirely unsurprising as my Parkrun times are usually slightly slower too. However, why it is, I am not entirely sure. The race is later in the morning and has less shade than my usual route, so I think heat had an effect. Also possibly lack of familiarity with the route.

At the start, you also spend half an hour crammed in with 10,000 other runners too, which was quite anxiety-provoking, so that probably took a bit out of me,

I finished in 1:06:14, which is about 8 minutes slower than my personal best when out running by myself. Not the complete disaster I was expecting though, from my pace on the home stretch I remember thinking I was on for a 1:20:00!

The event was well organised. They had water stations along the route, lots of volunteers to hand out goodie bags and you were texted your result within a minute of crossing the finish line.

I was very grateful for Elina coming to meet me too. I felt really ill after I ran 10k last week before attempting to run up to the park, so it was awesome to have someone bring me drinks and snacks.

I recently read Run Less, Run Faster after it was recommended by a friend. It sets out a training programme that emphasises getting rid of “junk milage” and making the runs you do do more effective.

In general it seems to have a lot of good stuff in it, and if I wanted to take my running more seriously, it seems like a great programme to follow. As it is, I will take some ideas from it without taking the whole package.

It seems mostly written for people who run marathons. There is plenty of adjustments for 5km and 10km races and all the tables discuss these values, as well as values for quite slow runners (a lot slower than me even) but even so I feel like it is really for people who dedicate their entire lives to running. I guess that should be obviously from a scheme that advocates five workouts a week. It certainly is not a book targeted as casual runners, or anyone who’s primary purpose is fitness rather than competitive running.

It is filled with jargon. Maybe if you are a serious runner you will understand it all, but a lot of it is lost on me and I have had to look quite a few terms up.

Some of it seems cautious. It talks about speaking to a doctor before beginning a training programme. Perhaps this is good advice if you have health issues, but I am pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of doctors will tell overwhelming majority of people “yes, of course you should exercise!” And as Chris H has pointed out previously, if you are a healthy 20-something year old, you don’t really need to train for a 10km. If you already do regular exercise, you will just be able to do it. Even by accident. Again though, that goes back to whether you just want to run it, or whether you want to run it competitively.

I like the way they mix up the format of the book. Some of it is standard flowing text, other parts are delivered as a question and answer. They also intersperse of all this with letters from people telling them how amazing they are. This I find odd and uncomfortable. I am always suspicious about texts that spend so much time openly stating how good they are rather than offering real content.

Overall, I think if you want to run competitively, this is a great book to read. Otherwise, it probably is not that useful.

I have been running more recently with the anticipation of completing the Abbey Dash in November. I had drawn up a training programme, in my head, in which I would add half a kilometre each month so that by October I was running the full 10km.

Then, a few weeks ago, I felt pretty good on my run, so I just kept going and suddenly I had done 10km. This has entirely ruined my schedule. Not really sure what to do now.

Parkrun is a network of UK (and now international) 5km weekly runs open to the general public. There are now three in Leeds – Woodhouse Moor, Temple Newsam and Roundhay Park.

Each one takes place at 9am each Saturday. You register (for free) and print out a barcode. You then turn up and run 5km with everyone else and get your barcode scanned when you are finished. They then upload all the data and email everyone to let them know their times. They are popular events. Woodhouse Moor had around 400 people there this week.

Overall, I am not sure I prefer it to running on my own. For a number of reasons:

• I like running because it is accessible. I live next to the canal, so I can leave my front door and start running. No overheads. With Parkrun I have to make my way up to Woodhouse Moor, wait around for it to start, do my run, then come home. The whole experience takes around 75 minutes for less than 30 minutes of running.
• I am not very fast, so it is not that motivating to be at the back of the field.
• It is hard to pace yourself when running in a large crowd.

However, cleverly they give you a t-shirt when you have completed 50, 100 and 250 runs. And I want my t-shirt!