The Middle Ground

Tasty mileage Mr V!

Nice monthly stats Phil and MrV. More modest in my corner of the world, partly due to lurgy at the start of the month ...

127 miles, 2 races, no PBs, no cycling, lots of food.

Today's run may be scuppered, depending on when the BT engineer turns up to fix our phone line. However, things are looking good for a parkrun escape on Saturday. It will be ba case of sub-20, or die in the attempt.

Dr D - which one you doing?  We're off to Hull to see if I can get close to sub 20 again.

Mr V - good mileage.  All looking positive again!

12 miles done this morning with some tasty hills included.  Wish I could say I felt great, but that would be a fib.  Although it's great to be back doing this kind of running and it's a nice tired feeling at the end instead of a hobbling to try and run feeling, which is not nice.

My breathing is a bit problematic at present though, so time to use my inhalers a bit more as not been using very much during the summer.

Hilly - I only ever escape as far as Leeds Hyde Park/Woodhouse Moor  ... although I have made it all the way to Rounday a couple of times. Good luck with the sub-20!!

Popping in to say hello as I am completely out of touch with what everyone is upto

Josh sorry to hear about your issues hope they are sorted very quickly

Alehouse hope achilles mends ok and that other issues get sorted soon

October stats - 257 miles for month, no races but training well feeling stronger and faster than have for some time 1st race since mid Sept Saturday 5k target sub 16.30ish!!

Monthly stats for me reveal this is my lowest monthly total of the year:

Miles 120
1 Race, 1 PB

Yearly total is now 1,723, which means I'm 50 ahead of where I need to be for my 2012 in 2012 target.... just about to get out for a run so November starts off properly.... 

Ah, new month.  I hate starting a new page on fetch.  Looks so blank! (OCD, moi?!) An hour in the gym to start me off...

Hilly - I've definitely found when trying to get back to some level of fitness, the lack of breath on hills really shows up!  Obviously doing your aerobic fitness some good.    I'm in the mood for hills for some reason, less enthused about trying to run another Thursday tempo run at 5:xx whatever, so I think I might copy you and go out for 12 or so hilly ones this evening, sort of steady/fartlek.

Hi Rob!  Good luck with the 5k, that would be a nice ranking if you break target.  Was thinking about you the other day, reading about Adidas shoes.  Did you ever get those Feathers?

PP - I did, only worn them once on a track session grip not as good as addios but nice shoe not racing in Saturday worry about slipping as a few tight turns and maybe slippy but will use in spring racing campaign How is your running going?

I'm in a very intense training period (for me) 107 miles in 11 days all single runs slowest pace in whole section 7.09 on a muddy off road run average pace around 6.45 min miles so not racing on fresh legs but main target still Telford 10k in Dec!!

RobT: sounds decent training! Is that Halewood that you are doing: I hear its pretty fast. Is Chingo doing anything at present?

Does going upstairs on crutches count as a hill session? Certainly raises the pulse rate!

Alehouse - Hill session I'll accept  Haven't seen or heard anything from Chingo for a long time last I heard still having injury issues and stuggling to get any consistent training in - I do feel for him as he thrived on running and targets etc!! It is Halewood, it is quite fast few funny turns but flat traffic free tarmac paths but can end up being a solo timetrial having said that I'm going with my training partner and he's a bloody good runner (he's doing masters x-country International in Belfast next weekend so he want's a sharpener) should be a good race

rob - Good miles, and pretty nifty. You'll be ready for a marathon soon!  I can't remember how long you've been away from here but my Autumn highlight was finally cracking sub-16 for 5k, mid-September (actually 15:55.9 for 5,000m on the track for my club champs). Since then I've been a bit on-and-off with the odd virus/holiday interruption, etc, but very much in the swing of things again for winter training, which is all about XC racing (club's taking it pretty seriously this year!) and getting ready for the marathon next year, which will be my first for three and a half years, so the mojo's working. 

Young pup, and anyone else on here, how regularly do you have sports massages, and how much good do you rate them as having?

I ask, as I'd never had one before the Cabbage Patch, and that one was ok. But the one at the Great South Run was terrific, really hurt but smashed a lot of built up tightness out, and I honestly walked out looser feeling than I'd started the race!

However, each run has different little feels of tightness from hip to glute to hamstring, so wondering if it's something to factor in more..along with the 20mins of strengthening/stretching 3 times a day

Dr Dan - Leeds is ok a course for going for a time, so hope you get your sub 20!

Phil - wish it was just on the hills, but breathlessness was on the flat too  Hopefully the asthma inhaler will sort me out!  Hope you enjoyed your hilly run!

Tom - great news.  Are you looking to just keep the training consistent or have you already got your eye on a race?

YP - sounds like a good massage!

Massages are something I don't have often enough these days. I used to and found they loosened the legs.  Although I do think the therapist needs to know their stuff as I have in the past had a massage that left me with an injury due to going in too deep after I had run a marathon!  I was quite new to marathon running at the time and was nearly in tears with the free post run massage.  I know now that giving a deep massage within an hour of finishing is not the thing to do.  It did put me off post race massages for a long while! 

I've never had a sports massage, mainly because I'm a wuss!  And perhaps I've been concerned about it doing more harm than good. I'd probably think about it more if I started having any recurring muscle tightness but I'll leave them for now.

Tom - Four more miles than my monthly record this year! 

The hill session only went up to 9 miles but what with a hilly rep session on Tuesday as well, legs were definitely feeling it towards the end, so I think it did the job.  My main idea was to keep the pace strong most of the time so it was "steady" on the flat, then trying to maintain pace as much as possible uphill, and fairly quick down so minimal recovery.  Think I'll definitely make a habit of this for the foreseeable future, interspersed with Thursday tempo runs. Did 3 x 3 hills last night, so I can progress this to 3 x 4 hills for a pretty tough 12/13 mile run.

Stevie – I used to have regular sports massages as my previous job offered them for £12 for staff. Whilst I do think they are useful I don’t think they offer anything you can’t do yourself with a foam roller/ rolling pin and massage ball.  Maybe one every now and again to really get into the places that are tough to hit yourself.

Tom – Sounds promising.

Dan – I’m predicting 19.44

Rob – Sounds like training is going well. When’s your target 5K?

Had one of those enjoyable, flowing runs last night. 11.5 at easy pace at 7.38s. Quite surprising given how my legs felt immediately after the hard hill session the night before.

Mr V - don't know of any good 5k's this time of year will probably be 2013 now but tomorrow's should be a pointer! only seem to be quality 10k's around before end of year hence Telford 10k target race in Dec!