Stanford in the Vale Half Marathon

Weekly catchup:

Monday
Exercise: swim
Distance: 550m
Crawl: 17 lengths
Breaststroke: 5 lengths

Tuesday
Exercise: Gym training
Treadmill hill run
Distance: 1.15m
Time: 15m
Core exercises: 10 mins
Strength exercises: 25 mins
Elliptical trainer
Distance: 0.69k
Time: 10 mins

Wednesday
Exercise: Lunchtime run
Distance: 5.25 miles
Time: 45m53s
Mile 1 - 8m59s
Mile 2 - 8m41s
Mile 3 - 8m47s
Mile 4 - 8m42s
Mile 5 - 8m27s
0.25m - 2m14s

Thursday
Exercise: Gym training
Treadmill hill run
Distance: 1.15m
Time: 15m
Core exercises: 10 mins
Strength exercises: 25 mins
Elliptical trainer
Distance: 0.70k
Time: 10 mins

Friday
Exercise: Gym training
Treadmill hill run
Distance: 1.15m
Time: 15m
Core exercises: 10 mins
Strength exercises: 25 mins
Elliptical trainer
Distance: 0.72k
Time: 10 mins

Sunday
Distance: 13.19 miles
Time: 2h02m04s
Mile 1 - 9m40s
Mile 2 - 9m42s
Mile 3 - 9m36s
Mile 4 - 9m30s
Mile 5 - 9m40s
Mile 6 - 9m10s
Mile 7 - 9m03s
Mile 8 - 9m19s
Mile 9 - 9m18s
Mile 10 - 9m05s
Mile 11 - 8m52s
Mile 12 - 8m40s
Mile 13 - 8m39s
0.19m - 1m44s

Another good week for exercise. Though it didn't get off to a great start. I forgot my goggles on Monday, so had to cut my pool session short, as my eyes were stinging too much to carry on. I tried a few breaststroke lengths for a change, so keep my eyes out of the water, but in the end I decided enough was enough.

Tuesday, back in the gym for the usual mix of running, core stability exercises, strength work and finally beat the distance on the elliptical trainer. I've been upping the distance by 0.02k each time so far, but only got up to 0.69k today - a 0.01k increase on last week in accordance with the law of diminishing returns.

Wednesday and a brisk 45 minute lunchtime run. 5 laps of the village, clocking up 5.25 miles.
Thursday & Friday back in the gym again, and the V-sits are gradually getting easier. I still can't do 25 without stopping on the third attempt, but can at leas to 15 and 20 nonstop on the first two goes.

Thursday and I beat the distance again - to bring it to 0.70k and again on Friday to 0.72k, though I may need to review this at the end of the week in my catchup session as it's getting quite quick now. Perhaps it'll be better to up the difficulty rather than trying to go faster each time.

After a well earned day off on Saturday, the longest day dawns. I enjoy Father's day with my daughter. We mooch about in Oxford doing a bit of shopping, and having a Yo Sushi for lunch. And after a visit to the Charlbury Riverside music festival for an hour or so, it's time to think about my LSR (long slow run). Since I indulged in a gooey chocolate cheesecake slice from Tesco for pudding, I decided I had a few extra calories which needed burning off. I'd been thinking of running 10-12 miles today, but thought, why not run a half marathon?

I mapped out a new route on the mapyourpassion section of the Realbuzz website, and after a couple of attempts worked out a run that would be somewhere between 13.1 and 13.3 miles. So at 7.05pm I set off on the first ever "Stanford in the Vale longest day fathers day Half Marathon", with a plan to run it in under 2 hours and 5 minutes (9½-minute-mile pace). It would be good to beat my Silverstone Half Marathon time, but really as just a training run with no crowd (or even any other runners) to spur me on, then realistically anything under 131 minutes would be good really.

Half way in, and I'm feeling good. 62 minutes. I'm on course to at least equal my Silverstone time, and I know that I'm good at running negative splits when I put my mind to it. Can I beat 2 hours? Hmm, that would be pushing it, and I don't want to overdo things today. I pass the 13.1 mile point at just over 121 minutes. This is great, and means I should comfortably be able to shed a couple of minutes off that come the Birmingham Half in October.