I'm back

I'm back again, writing posts on a blog that nobody reads.  What on earth do I think I'm doing?

I've just signed up for the Oslo Marathon on 16th September.  I'll no doubt be doing some geekiness between now and then, and I may as well put it here.

For background the only other marathon I've done was in 2013 and it was the most painful experience of my life.  I ran it in spring, rather than autumn, so a lot of my training was on a treadmill.  I lost 4 weeks of training to pneumonia, only recovering 8 weeks before the race.  And I finished with 4:18, which was 18 minutes slower than the time I wanted.

Current status
I've been using the treadmill a fair bit since October.  I've run 450km since then, about 400km of which was on the treadmill.  At the start I was doing sessions of 4km in 30 minutes, and I've built up the pace to 5.3km in 30 minutes.  I've kept the sessions short - anything more than about 30 minutes on the treadmill is too mind-numbing.

My outside runs have been longer, usually 9.5km (my usual route round Semsvann).

My most recent outdoor run was today: a gentle 10.8km in 1:01:31.  My fitness measure was 12.4.  It had a few hills, which didn't bother me too much - that was a surprise, since I've not been using any incline on the treadmill at all.

In October I weighed 81kg, I'm now down to about 73kg.

Oslo marathon
16th September - 27 weeks away.

42.2km (of course) with 300m of total climbing.  2 laps of a course.  There's only one proper climb at 15/36km.  I'm sure I'll enjoy that one the second time around!

My prep is going to focus almost entirely on putting kilometres in my legs:

• Build my weekly distance up from 25km to 50km.
• Build my long run distance up from 10km to 30km.
• Mostly gentle running and the occasional short session at marathon pace.

Something like this: http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51138/Marathon-Novice-2-Training-Program but I'll focus on the spirit of it rather than obsessing over details.

I'm probably running too fast at the moment, increasing distance and maintaining speed risks injury.

The less fat I have to drag around the course the better, so I'm going to try and keep up the weight loss.  Using the BMI scale my healthy range is 58-79kg.  I'd be delighted to be 65kg on race day, but I haven't been that skinny since I was 17, so that's probably unrealistic.

Milestones

I'm running Sentrumsløpet on 29th April. I'd like to do that in under 50 minutes.  I was hoping to hit 70kg for race day, but I'll probably end up slightly heavier than that.

I'll do a little bit of speedwork to prepare for Sentrumsløpet, but try to avoid injuring myself.  After Sentrumsløpet I'll slow down my training runs and concentrate on building distance.

I'm away from home for 3 weeks late-June / early-July, mostly on holiday.  I'll take the running gear!  Total distance will decline for that period, so I'll focus on trying to maintain fitness.  I then have 2 months at home to focus on the marathon, and that's when all the really serious 30km runs will happen.

Mixed feelings

I've always said that my minimum goal for a half marathon is to do it in under 2 hours.  I've cut it close twice before (1:59 in 2013 and 1:58 in 2014) but yesterday I finally fell short with 2:00:15 in the Oslo Half Marathon.

I only ran 100km in training in the previous 12 weeks, which I knew wasn't really enough - it's a good predictor of my race time, and forecast a race time of 2:02, plus or minus 3 minutes.  So 2 hours was possible but unlikely.

On the plus side I had a good idea of my limitations going into the race, and I had a plan to mitigate them as far as possible.  I knew my legs would be the limiting factor, and that I'd probably suffer cramp in the last 5km, so my aim was:

• Run a steady pace.
• No overtaking or weaving through the crowds.
• Relax.

I was lucky to find myself in a crowd running my goal pace, so I managed to stick to the plan throughout.  I had the first sign of cramp in some hills around the 15-16km mark, but ran through it and managed a moderately quick last km and even a sprint finish - but by that stage I knew that 2 hours was out of reach.

So I'm happy with my performance on the day - it was pretty hot as well, which didn't help - but disappointed at how lazy I've been over the last 3 months.

Sick :-(

For the second year in a row I'm going to miss Fornebuløpet with a cold. I could have powered through and done it anyway, but I doubt I would have done well and I can't imagine it would improve my health.

Next year I'll delay signing up until the last minute!

Unfortunately that means I'm unlikely to break my 10k PB this year - London will just be too hilly. Ah well.

New training phase

The disappointment of getting 47:53 at Sentrumsløpet has faded somewhat.  I don't want to dwell on it, but it's worth looking at what went wrong:

• Going out too hard was a mistake.
• It was slightly hillier than I expected.
• I was about 1.5kg overweight.

If I'd adopted a similar strategy to Holmestrand but put in my typical 10k effort, then that should have made me 3% faster.  On the other hand Sentrumsløpet was a bit hillier (77m climb instead of 60m), and that would have cost me about 1%.  Overall I should therefore have done about 47:02 if I'd paced it correctly.  But even if I'd got it completely right 46:30 was probably slightly out of reach.

So how do I turn 47:53 into 46:30?

• Find a flat race.  A dead flat course should save me 48 seconds, based on my fitness calculation.
• Pace it correctly.  Could be 51 seconds, as calculated above (or even more - I surely didn't pace Holmestrand perfectly).
• Lose weight.  Losing that extra 1.5kg should translate to 51 seconds, and there's plenty of scope to lose a few more kilos after that.
• Get fitter.  Impossible to predict.

I'm considering Fornebuløpet on 20th May.  That only has 24m of elevation change, so a decent time should be possible.

The London 10k on 12th July is a different story - 128m of elevation change.  Don't think I'll be setting any records there.

Bleurgh

Tried for 46:30 but just didn't have it in me. Lost time on every uphill and couldn't make it back on the downhills. Finished in 47:53. Average HR was 186, so you can't say I didn't try - that's about 5bpm above what I'd expect for a 10k.

Splits were 23:19 / 24:34. Yuck.

Weight loss

My biggest challenge seems to be losing weight rather than training. I aimed to lose 5kg over 4 months and have barely managed half that.

So I have a new plan: I've committed to lose the last 2.5kg over the next 10 weeks at https://www.stickk.com/ and put $250 on the line to motivate myself.

Hopefully a monetary incentive will do the trick!

Holmestrand 10k

Ran the Holmestrand 10k today in 48 minutes dead. Ran slightly within myself with an average HR of 178 (181 is my target for a 10k) but my Garmin had the course at only 9.86km, and the extra 140m would have taken 40 seconds.

46:30 at Sentrumsløpet in 2 weeks is looking challenging. While my training has gone well I'm about 2.5kg heavier than I need to be, which will probably make all the difference.