GULP just entered my first half marathon

Forgive me I have sinned?

Getting back in the grove - Excellent little ones birthday such a joy apart from the 3.30 early morning call.  Not much running but managed 3 miles of intervals on treadmill Wednesday,  this morning just run up my hill (for punishment) managed it and could of gone on. 

 Happy and healthy new year to all.

Did the 10 miler as planned (infact 10.28 miles she says smugly).  Scoffed my roast dinner with a clear conscience.  All went very well.  Most of the route was the same as I did this time last year (apart from the extra 3 miles I tagged on to make up the distance).  It was great as there are certain bits I remember walking last year and being knackered at, and this time it was so much easier and I even cranked the pace up for the last 3 miles.

4 miles tomorrow and a rest on Saturday (and "oh joy" a trip to the Pantomime)

 Well done DC for getting up your hill, great to hear it went well!

Signing off smugly to watch Shrek 2.

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A very Happy and Healthy New Year to you all.

Susiebe, hope the knee holds out, scary how quick the time is going!

Saltpot I still have stilton left. O. Trying to resist.........

MTP hope you get better soon, I love swimming but find it so cccccold when I get out at the local swimming baths, showers are always freezing too. Also, there is a tendency to either get jumped on by kids or else we get ladies doing widths or just standing in the middle chattering to negotiate! Guess I need to find a different pool...........

Darren is this THE hill that was just casually chatted about several pages ago? WWHHHOOOOPPPEEE  and Happy Birthday to your small person

Foxy, watch out...........HE'S BEHIND YOU. Bet that made you jump! Managed my easy 3 miler easily today so looks like i'm back in the swing apart from the slight excess of food still being consumed. I have been wondering about doing the Run to the Beat half in london in september however I think I should probably wait and see how Brentwood goes in march. No point trying to run before i can walk and all that

HAPPY NEW YEAR (again)

Good point Susiebe, I have to confess to not stretching properly most of the time............

I tried knee supports once but found they rolled over and I couldn't get them to stay put

Checked out the Run to the Beat website and nearly entered but at the last minute I checked out posts on this site and it got really bad ratings last year so holding fire at the moment..............

Well done Susiebe; agree totally re the stretching and strengthening; if I don't look after my knees, I get a warningtwinge from my ankle (yes really) and if I ignore that......

Did my 4 miler today as planned, very hard after yesterday (which was supposed to have been easy but I ran at  a steady pace) so explained why today was like running through treacle.  treated myself to a new IPOD shuffle and just reloaded the stuff from the old dead one- weird music I have to run to but can say "Waterloo" is quite uplifting, but Marillion/Fish is less so; may have to update it a bit.  Any good suggestions?  Robbie "Let me entertain you is good".

Stop trying to scare my Julia- it worked; it's Dick Wittington tomorrow and then some intervals on Sunday, with hopefully so extra mileage at the end to keep the distance record up.

Are you following the sub 2.15 schedule?  I am but often go faster/further so have been comparing it with the sub-2 hr (a girl can dream!) and wondering if it's too later to change with 5 weeks to go.  There's not a massive difference, but maybe I'd be better off doing what I am now, than cranking it up "officially" and ending up in the seried masses of the injured........

 SP- finally banished the stilton to the freezer, still Xmas cake left; there's really no hope for good dietary habits until after Monday when we all go back to school.

Just back from a longer run including my hill 7.5 miles (that hill is now well and truely conquered onto the next) Isn't it suprising how quick you can improve.

 Anyhow you Garmin 305 girls just ordered mine today any tips?

Take care it's quite slippy in places.

Darren

Happy new year everybody!

Sorry for disappearing almost as soon as I had entered this thread - I'm so busy holidaying and stuffing my face with all sorts of christmas goodies, it's unbelievable. Only went running twice or so during the past 3 weeks, but one of them was superb: a clear and sunny winter morning, crisp frost on the trees and bushes and a beautiful forest. Other than that, I have gained a hole in my belt in the meantime and a lovely selection of chocolates to take home.

Some of you have thir halfs coming up real soon, it seems, though I have to say I lost track of when everybody's are. Good luck with the training! (I still haven't entered, still not sure whether I can do it - recent binge eating doesn't seem to be too helpful on this one...)

Susie, you're so right about stretching. I now stretch for about 15 mins after each run or gym session. Not sure whether it really makes that much of a difference to my hamstring, but I also like how it slows me down mentally, and makes me feel all contentthat I have exercised.

FoxyLady, thanks for recommending sports massage therapists. Unfortunately, I'm not only on the other side of the country though, but am also on a rather tight budge...

MTP, hope your injury is getting better!

Darren, did you manage to get rid of the man flu yet?

And Julia, did you find your motivation again? Sorry, can't help on that front (cf my first paragraph)...

DC- Congratulations- you will not regret that purchase!

HintsNo1 I know you're male, but still read the instructions.

I use Garmin TC (the CD it comes with) and Sportstracks (free mapping software) Other software is available at a price, but I have been happy with this combination.

Don't forget to charge it up!Very frustrating when it runs out part way through a run.

I have glitches when downloading the schedules from RW with the dates, but then move stuff around.

If you need help with virtual partner- ask Julia, I have never managed to get that to work and will be asking her for help soon as I need to do a "10K race" and there isn't one so I am going to race the VP (hopefully!)

As for hills- there's always another one, but at least you'll know how high it is!

Enjoy.

Spiced Apple- welcome back and enter one!  Stop talking and do it.  Right, got to check out the new doc....................................

Wotcher everyone, nice cheese is Lancashire, white with a distinct twang I believe?

Foxy I downloaded the slowest heartrate Garmin I could find on this site, I believe it was 2.15 although I have not a hope of getting round in that time, 2.45 best so far in training. I tweaked the heartrate to a max of 185 rather than 200 and i'm so glad i did that, my 3 Steady miles today wanted HR between 147-155 (ish). Phew last mile was hard. If I keep my heart in the low 140's I can go on forever (well you know what i mean). Unfortunately tomorrows 7 mile is also 'steady' ah well, we shall see. I noticed my longest run comes in at 14 miles in a few weeks, I have wondered whether to extend a bit once the post xmas pud round the middle goes. It's that fear of overdoing it tho isn't it?

I've recently discovered Gnarls Barclay and am loving running to him.Mcfly are cheerful and cheesy with it (saltpot!). If you want to plod to a fixed bpm to get into the groove man then podrunner does good house type stuff. And it's free. In fact it's due to podrunner intervals that i started running in the first place so thought i should big them up. 

Darren my Garmin is the best gadget i bought except may be my i-pod. It will do far more than you maybe realise now, you can race a stick man, so you get paced if you're trying to do a particular time, it does HR, pace, speed, distance, INCLINE (so you can see how steep those hills are!) and even your intervals are worked out for you and it beeps when you need to speed up or slow down. I could go on forever and i'm sure there are still things i haven't discovered. Enjoy it!

Spiced apple welcome back, YES i'm full of motivation again now not to mention mince pies, quality street, blah blah etc! How long is it until your half? You probably need a couple of months to get back into the swing. Shall we all compare?

Mine is 15 march and i'd like to be under 2.45. (sounds like the AA, we should be RA instead!)

To race the stick man you go to training,workouts,quick,then pick if you want:

Distance and time e.g. i want to do 5k in 30 mins (i wish!)

or time and pace e.g. i want to run for 30 mins at 9.39 min mile pace (thats 3.11 miles funny enough!)

or distance and pace e.g 3.11 miles at a pace of 9.39 min miles (well i never, if i manage that it will take 30 mins!) You'd never tell i've been trying to do a 30 min 5k would you! Got half way thro a race with the stick man last time and having built up a good lead he caught me up and i could sense him 2 foot behind breathing over my shoulder so rather than be overtaken i stopped the race! So did a 15 min 1.5and a bit miler!

anyway, woffling again. Once you have decided which option you want you select it then input the data you want your race to be, then do done. It will then display a split screen showing your race e.g. distance to do and pace you've got to achieve, press start. Then you scroll on the up and down arrows, to get various displays, the stick one being one of them. At the moment i'm 0.12 miles behind as i pressed go and i'm sitting at the screen. ha ha fooled you stick man!

To get rid of your race, it's 'stop workout' in training.

Hope you understand that!

He's behind me!  Arrgh- the Garmin stick man I mean (I wish).

it was OK, I nodded off a few times, yes really!  despite the racket and maltezers.

Thanks for the music ideas.  Mr FL has promised tecnical assistance, really need it for the 14 miler you mentioned, on 24th, as my plodding partner has wimped on that one and is planning an 8 mile race- I pointed out I'd have to do it twice to meet my training needs!

 SP- How was your Dick W?  The high point in ours was the cat, which was def. modelled on Danny John Jules- Cat from Red dwarf.

Just watching the DR Who announcement progrem checking out who is supposed to replace DT in my affections.....Hard act to follow.  Mr FL has just announced a penchant for Sarah Jane!

Back to running and Garmin training Julia- I have noticed with their training plans(having done the 10K one as well I am now the expert of course!) that they build mostly mileage first and then speed gets pushed towards the end, as I have a couple of much easier weeks coming up distance-wise but lots of intervals, unless I have just jiggered the plan around too much.  Before I did my first HM the furthest I ran was about 11.5m, about 3 weeks before, so if you get up to 14 before that will give you great confidence.

Tom Baker (Dr Who when I was young) must have been a closet runner- he was always offering jelly babies around.

Diet really starts tomorrow, totally failed in my plans not to put on any weight over Xmas- I entirely blame the chocolate!

Hi

Thanks for the advice on the Garmin, I purchassed a cheap HRM just to see how I got on and found that training in the different zones helped to keep training intersting.   Very wise advice about instructions Foxy I am a typical male. 

Thanks Julia for quick instructions I guess this stick man/woman will be the first thing I've raced with or against.

I have done the research on all gps & better hrm's and the garmin seemed the only one with everything that I needed with a realistic price (sale at Amazon) most others had either distance, pace or Incline missing or twice the price.

One other question - Do you take the Garmin & HRM strap to a race?

Thanks

Darren

Yes I do race with it.  Even wore it for The Grim- it's waterproof but not suitable for swimming. It's amazing how far out some of the race distances can be, especially if you swerve a lot round other runners!

 I think you can set it up with split times etc when you get complicated and wanted to do more than just get round and not require an ambulance at the end!

I was given my Garmin for a big b'day present last April- wasn't even sure I wanted/needed it, but people wanted/needed to give me something big so I suggested it.  Best thing I even did.  Got it just after the 405 was launched and wibbled between the 2, but the 305 price was dropping like a stone and it has the advantage that the bugs have (mostly) been ironed out whereas the 405 was just starting that process.  As I only wear it for running I don't care if I look like an extra from Startrek!  it has made a huge difference to my training and motivation.

Mind you, the day after I got it, I ran a 10K wearing it.  It was set up all wrong and beeped the whole way round saying either HR too high or Need to speed up; was a no-win situation and the people I was running near found it a tad infuriating I suspect but laughed at me/with me as I didn't know how to reset it!