Mon - 05/11/18

pm
I did a track session with NEWTs. The warm up session was led by Richard. The track session by Paul Bruton. The stretching at the end by Chris Davies. The warm up included exercises with bands. Maybe I need to try that at home.

The running session was 1 * 12 minutes then 2 * 6 minutes.

recording the distances from where I actually stopped on the track...

 I did - 2,530 metres in 12 minutes then
            1,340 in six minutes then
            1,330 in 6 minutes.

The 12 minutes run is a recgonised test for VO2 max estimation (The Cooper Test)

Garmin stats for the test were thus:

12:02	59:17:00	12:01	1.55	2496
06:25.6	01:05:43	02:07	0.1	161
06:02.1	01:11:45	05:58	0.82	1320
03:50.2	01:15:35	02:25	0.09	145
06:02.7	01:21:38	06:01	0.8	1288

Banter for Keith ...

 Maisie was too frightened to go for a decent walk yesterday late evening (Bonfire Night) so when she started barking at 4am I thought I’d better come down and let her out into the back garden. I then sent you a link to Sunday’s Strava trace. Maisie, after doing her business, came back upstairs with me so I was subjected to her snoring for the next 90 minutes.

Anyway, back to Sunday morning… I’m not sure whether I started Live Track or not, possibly not.

I was up very early on Sunday morning in order to take Maisie for a walk before I started training. Just as I was getting ready to go out to run the zipper pull tab on my glasses case came apart from the case. It was raining so I needed to take my glasses case to be prepared for the eventuality that my glasses lenses got too wet to see through. I rushed around trying to find a small pair of pliers which I knew were in the house somewhere but I couldn’t find them.   In the end I just took the case in a bum bag without the pull tab and left the pull tab in a safe place so I could repair it later. I have repaired it now! The shape of glasses and case is such that the case is quite bulky and my glasses cost £299 so it is important to protect them! I took some tissue paper (toilet paper actually) so I could dry my glasses when we stopped to regroup. That did the trick!

So now you should have the evidence of Sunday’s run in a separate e-mail. The run was very enjoyable. I ran down to the NISV as a warm up. I led the group from the back of the group with the slower runners, and I got a lift home! Next Sunday I may step the mileage up to 10 miles. This Sunday one of the 10 mile groups took a wrong turn and ended up doing 13 miles!

I ended up do 38 miles or thereabouts last week which is a huge jump in mileage. Good if you can do it but dangerous too. The training was very varied so I may well try and stay at a high mileage level while being wary of possible injury.

Last night’s session was my second successive week doing a track session led by the NEWTs (Newport and East Wales Triathlon club). They are a “sister club” to Lliswerry Runners. They are big on Strength and Conditioning (S & C) and that was what the first part of the session was all about. S & C is something that I really need so I am pleased that I now have two lots of S & C on my training schedule, one on Monday and one on Thursday. The second part of the track session last night included a Cooper test. This is a test to see how efficiently a runner uses his/her oxygen supply, hence it’s a basic measure of aerobic fitness.  Information on this test can be found by Googling. This popular web site has some details:

                https://www.brianmac.co.uk/gentest.htm

Basically you measure the distance you can run in 12 minutes and look up a result in the table (it is most definitely a fairly basic measure). I covered a distance of 2530 metres in the 12 minutes. That would be an above average for a 30 year old!

For good measure (excuse the pun) after the 12 minutes test and a bit of a rest for recovery we did two lots of 6 minutes running to see if we could hold the same pace. I actually ran both of the 6 minutes intervals faster than the 12 minute  interval while some of the younger runners and triathletes were starting to lose pace due to fatigue.

Once again I have the opportunity to do a high mileage week. An interval session on hills this evening, another interval session on the track on Wednesday, S & C Thursday, Six @ Six Friday, parkrun Saturday, long slow run (LSR) on Sunday. I have a sports massage scheduled for Friday morning so if I get extensively pummelled I may miss Six @ Six.

I watched the New York marathon on Free Sports on Sunday afternoon. One of my chums was doing it and she ran very well. I notice that the winner of the women’s race, Mary Keitany, weighs less than 7 stones. That got me thinking about my target weight again. I have lost 8 lbs in two weeks, with the high mileage and the keto diet I should get back down to a decent racing weight in a couple of months or so. There is an indoors Masters race (3000 metres) in Cardiff on December 16^th  I may well have a go at that.

As for food, I lost 8lbs on my two week keto challenge so I shall continue with that way of eating. I was hungry after last night’s track session so I had half a keto pizza (one that I had prepared earlier). I also drank some High 5 electrolyte and placed an order on Amazon for another 8 tubes of 20 tablets. That stuff seems to work miracles with the prevention of muscle cramps. Today I shall roast a chicken. Maisie likes roast chicken. I shall make bone broth out of the carcass since shop-bought bone broth is rather expensive.