19-25 January

Here's my second weekly update:

• Another week of little progress regarding weight loss.  I've had 3 evenings out and one takeaway pizza, and plenty of beer and wine.  Despite that I'm still broadly on track to meet my race-day goal, so I'm not too concerned at this stage.  A poor 2/5 for weight loss.
• Ran 35km vs my target of 39km.  Missed a 7km run during the week due to family commitments, but partially made up for it with an extra few kilometres on the weekend runs.  I'll give myself 4/5 for putting in the miles.
• I've not been feeling too bad - legs ache a bit, but nothing excessive.  I've had a bit of hip pain in some runs - I think I might need some new shoes.  I'll take a 4/5 for making it to the start line.
• Lots more easy kilometres this week, so I'm going to give myself 5/5 for peaking for the race.

Overall I score 15/20 this week.

Weekly update

In the last week I have:

• Run 31km vs my plan of 33km.
• Seen my weight fluctuate between 74.1 and 72.6kg but finish the week back where I started.
• Roughly stuck to my running plan - I was planning runs of 7, 7, 7 and 12km, and in fact I did 9, 4, 6 and 12.  I would have slotted in an extra 7km run but was knackered after spending Sunday laying flooring in my kitchen.  I ache everywhere this morning, so it was probably good exercise.
• Been moderately restrained when it comes to eating.  I had 12 beers over the course of 3 evenings, but no random after-work drinks.  I reckon I took in 2400 calories from beer and expended 2500 while running.

Rating myself against my goals:

• 2/5 for weight loss - little if any progress this week, but at least I'm not going backwards.
• 4/5 for putting in the miles - didn't quite make it.
• 3/5 for making it to the start line - I think I'm OK, but I hurt in all sorts of places.
• 5/5 for peaking for the race - I was a good boy and ran lots of easy kilometres.

Overall: 14/20.

Goal #4: Peak for the race

In the past I've peaked at the wrong time.  For the half marathon in 2012 I did an entire half marathon at race pace two weeks before the race itself - the race felt much harder but my time was actually worse.  The 10k PB I'm trying to beat was actually a late peak for the marathon 2 weeks earlier - I didn't taper sufficiently.

So for this one I'm going to stick to my training plan, which has a gradual build-up in mileage and difficulty (tempo runs, intervals, race pace efforts) leading up to the race and then a 1 week taper.

Goal #3: Make it to the start line

I guess this should have been goal #1, but never mind.  "To finish first, you must first finish".  And in order to finish, you must start.  I'm not going to finish first, but I do want to get to the start line in good shape.  To minimize the chance of something going wrong, I'm not going to be trying anything new for the next few months (Hal Higdon's advanced 10k plan prescribes strength training, but that sounds like a recipe for disaster given I've done none for years).

If I pick up an injury, I'm going to take it easy until it starts feeling better - easy runs only.

Before any hard sessions I'll warm up.

Goal #2: Put in the miles

In 2012 I averaged 35km a week for 20 weeks leading up to a half marathon.  In that time my fitness (danieltebbutt.com/fitness.html) went from ~10 to ~12.5.

On 1st January my fitness was around 11.  46:30 in a 10k requires a fitness level of about 12.5.  That's a slower rate of increase than I managed in 2012, so if I can run at least 35km a week then that should put me in a good position.

So, goal #2 is to average at least 35km per week from 1st January to 25th April this year.  I've put together a plan that will see me doing between 30 and 50 km per week, averaging about 40.

Goal #1: Lose weight

On 1st January this year I weighed 75kg.  I'm 1.78m tall.  That's a BMI of about 23.7 - within the normal range, but certainly there's room to lose a few kilos.

The following calculator predicts a 34 second gain in a 10km race for every kilo I lose: http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/diet/weighteffect.  Minimum healthy BMI is 18.5, which is about 59kg for me.  I'm not in any immediate danger of being too skinny!

My goal for the race in April is to be under 70kg, which was my weight when I set my last PB.  If I go crazy and lose another 5kg that would translate to another 3 minutes on race day - worth considering as long as I don't mind temporarily sporting the skeletal look.

To lose a kilo I need a calorie deficit of about 7500.  That's only about 100km of running, which I'll be doing every 2-3 weeks during my training.  Getting under 70kg should be easy.

Another data point: in 2012 I lost 8kg in 6 months, basically just from running lots.  A similar rate of weight loss this time around would put me right around 70kg.

So this goal sounds like a doddle - let's see if that's how it proves in practice.

3-month aspiration: PB in Sentrumsløpet

In future posts I'm going to set several specific, measurable goals for myself.  Let's start with an aspiration: I'd like to beat my 10k PB on 25th April in Sentrumsløpet.  I need 46:30 or under to do that.  I think that's aggressive, and I'm not sure if it's achievable - but that's my over-riding aim.

In general terms, to get there I need to:

• Train a lot.
• Avoid peaking too early.
• Avoid injury and illness.
• Not be too fat at the starting line.

When I ran 46:31 I had just come off 3 months of marathon training, which meant:

• I did a lot of long, slow runs
• I didn't do any speed work
• I did some hills - outdoor running where I live leaves me little choice.

In fact, because I record all my runs I can do better than that - here's a summary of what I did in 2013 from the start of January:

• Celebrated the New Year by knackering my knee using a rowing machine.
• Did several treadmill runs and one outdoor run in January, at which point my fitness measure (see danieltebbutt.com/fitness.html) was about 13.  My knee hurt every time.
• Caught pneumonia and didn't run for a month, during which time my fitness measure fell to about 10.  But my knee got better!
• Ran 20, 46, 50, 20, 41, 30kms per week of mostly easy running for 6 weeks, including a half marathon in the final week.  All pretty easy effort.
• Ran 36, 50, 47kms in the following 3 weeks, including a marathon in the last week.  All pretty easy effort - except the marathon, obviously.  That wasn't easy at all.
• Ran 12km then 20km including Sentrumsløpet in a good time.
• By the end my fitness measure had just about recovered to 13.

You wouldn't pick it as a good preparation for a 10k race, would you? Surely I can do better this time.  What can I take from this experience?

• I can probably achieve a PB without speedwork, although that's not to say that won't help.
• Running a lot is good preparation, including lots of long runs.
• Getting sick and injured is a really bad idea.  Care is required when starting any unfamiliar exercise.
• Tapering is a good thing.
• Hard to say if sharpening was a factor - did the HM and marathon help with the 10k a few weeks later?  Maybe.  Certainly I don't need to be afraid of some hard efforts 2-6 weeks before the race.

Some challenges I face this time around:

• My starting fitness is about 11 instead of 13.
• I'm about 4kg overweight.

Another blog with no readers

I already have one blog that nobody reads (dansinvestments.blogspot.com) - why start another?  Not for everyone else's benefit - I'll never publicise it or encourage anyone else to read it, although of course some people will come across it and may read a few posts.  It's a trick to make myself more accountable, thereby encouraging me to:

• Keep running.
• Set goals and deliver on them
• Face up to failure and work out what went wrong.

I already have a load of historical data linked from www.danieltebbutt.com covering the running I've done since March 2012.  I've run over 2700km, taken part in 9 races (one marathon, four halfs, three 10ks and a partridge in a pear tree 5k), and spent 267 hours running.  My heart has beat about 2.6m times while I've been running, which is about 1.3m more than it would have done if I'd just been loafing about the house.  I've done a 10km race in 46:30, which is probably my best race performance, 2 weeks after my most disappointing race, when I failed to beat 4 hours for the marathon.

I'm currently training for Sentrumsløpet in April.  I've recently acquired a running machine so I can run through the winter.  My current challenges are:

• I'm at least 4kg over a sensible racing weight, so I need to lose that by April.  Running regularly and exercising some self-restraint regarding food and beer should do the trick.
• I appear to be pretty unfit, based on my performance on the treadmill (see danieltebbutt.com/fitness.html for details).  I did a half marathon in September on minimal training, took some time off after that after the weather went cold and before getting the treadmill, and that appears to have knocked me back a pretty long way.
• Using the treadmill is really convenient, and I have no problem finding 45 minutes or so to use it in the evening, but I've not yet summoned the motivation to do a long run on it - and I suspect this is holding me back.
• I don't seem to make progress year to year.  I regularly stop training for a month or two at a time, and it seems that this is enough for me to lose any fitness I previously gained, so I start again from scratch.

I'll formulate some specific goals in future posts, and then track my progress against them.