Training Hard... Running Faster

It’s been a long while since I put pen to paper for Run Reece Run, in fact just over a year with the last occasion being in the afterglow of my first sub 4 hour marathon achieved at Paris in April 2015.

I did have every intention of getting the blog going again in January 2016 to track my training for the April 2016 Brighton Marathon but other matters took over…

The most significant was Mum having a fall that led her to being rushed into hospital in mid-January.  Mum has remained in hospital from then right up to now in May.  The other matter was an injury I incurred, also in January, that has troubled me throughout my training and led me on at least three separate occasions to seriously contemplate having to defer my Brighton entry.

For a combination of reasons these matters left me with no particular enthusiasm for resuming the blog until now.

The difficulties I encountered from January were in marked contrast to the period between Paris Marathon in April 2015 and the turn of the year.

Things really got going in that period on the back of the Turk’s Head 10K event in June 2015.  Between the Paris Marathon in April 2015 and Turk’s Head 10 in June I changed my approach to training, focussing much more on sprint intervals and pushing myself a bit harder at the 5K distance at weekly Parkrun events.  Another important feature of my training at that time was doing strength sessions about three times a week.  This was not exactly sophisticated but it seemed to be pretty effective.  This involved doing three to four cycles of a programme involving press-ups, squats, steps and a combination of core exercises.  Overall this took about 45 minutes and was completed in my front room three mornings a week for two to three months before being reduced to one session per week.  On the mornings that I didn’t do the strength sessions I did a somewhat less strenuous but nevertheless important set of stretching exercises that took about 20 minutes to complete.   The 20 minutes of stretching exercises were also a feature of my evenings other than a Wednesday when I would try to get to a Pilates class and swim session. 

The Turk’s Head 10 went as well as I could have hoped for as I finished well inside the 48 minute time I’d targeted.  More than that, it gave me a marker for what I wanted to achieve over the rest of the year.  

My most immediate target was to improve on my 22m17s PB for 5K, achieved at my regular Parkrun event (Crane Park).  On the back of my training, I succeeded with this objective on two occasions in July, both times getting below 22 minutes.  Then in August I achieved another two PBs at the distance, getting down to 21m23s.  That was almost a minute less than the best that I’d set in September 2014, which at the time I’d considered would be a major challenge to improve upon.

With my 5K performance improvement well in hand, what then helped to raise my ambitions for the longer distances was a combination of seeing the achievements of some of my Bearcat Running Club friends and also checking out websites such as www.goodrunguide.co.uk/RacePredictor.asp  which provided a means to identify the realistically achievable times for longer distances projected from inputting my finish times at 5K events.   The fact that at this point in August/September I was consistently achieving  5K times of around 21m30s seemed to indicate that I could realistically aim for a half marathon of about 1h40m (my PB stood at 1h44m).

As the summer progressed and going into September, I reduced the strength and sprint interval sessions but increased the number and intensity of my 5 to 10 mile training runs.  I had a hint of what my training was going to enable when in September at the Richmond Running Festival I found myself smashing my Half Marathon PB while still feeling I had further capacity for improvement. Eighteen months had passed since my previous Half Marathon PB of 1h44m and in that time I’d run eight half marathons with none better than 1h48m.  My new PB was a time of 1h40m25s (though my Garmin annoyingly showed a distance of just 12.97 miles!).  For me, another memorable aspect of the Richmond Running Festival was that it marked my partner Lesley's first race event after she had started running in January 2015.  She did the Bearcat Running Club proud by earning her first 10K medal!

This set the scene for a period in October/November which may turn out to be the best three weeks of running I ever achieve.  

On 18th October I completed the River Thames Half Marathon in 1h39m09s...

On 25th October as part of Bearcat Running Club friendly invasion of Portsmouth, I completed the Great South Run (10 miles) in 1h13m13s...

On 1st November I completed the Trick or Treat 10K event in 43m15s (hotly pursued by Catwoman)...

Three PBs absolutely smashed in three weeks!  The only relative disappointment was that one week later my effort in the Thames Meander Marathon was about 15 minutes outside my marathon PB.  

There were a number of factors that contributed to that and I was more than happy to end my autumn campaign with the three PBs plus a completed marathon and added resolve to achieve a 3h45m time at the Brighton Marathon!

In closing my account of how I moved on from the Paris Marathon in April 2015 to the Thames Meander Marathon in November 2015 it is right that I also reflect on the charity I supported in the lead up to Paris.  As recorded in the January to April 2015 instalments of Run Reece Run, my aim was to support Kaira Konko Scout Active Support.

I was inspired to do this particularly by the work my daughter Carmella has been involved with in The Gambia since 2008.  Carmella’s association with The Gambia arose initially from a link between the school at which she is a teacher, All Saints C of E Junior School in Fleet, and The Soma Lower Basic School, located in Soma, a town in The Gambia.  This link was itself developed from work that had been initiated between scouts groups based in Soma and Hampshire and Carmella has become increasingly involved with this as well.

I hugely appreciate the fundraising support I received which provided £1,120 to the charity.   This supported the construction of a borehole at Soma Lower Basic School, part of the school orchard project.

Carmella along with colleagues from her school visited Soma again in February 2016 and her report included the following….

This year, we were absolutely delighted to find the school orchard, once barren land, transformed as a fully operating women’s garden.  Two years ago, our school community helped raise funds to build a wall, crucial to the success of this project, and over the summer a bore hole was built allowing mothers to cultivate the land and grow crops.  The vast amount of land at the back of the school is now a fully functioning women’s garden, tended by hundreds of mothers, which impacts both the school and local community.

With all that has gone on since January, I failed to get myself engaged in a coordinated fundraising campaign but I have belatedly started raising funds for the Education Support Partnership.

This is an organisation that provides practical and emotional support to staff in the education sector and their families. They provide independent, confidential support, to help people deal with stress and anxiety, bullying, career and money worries, and a range of other issues.

In view of the fact that I have not given the Education Support Partnership the attention that I would have liked to in the lead up to the Brighton Marathon, my current thinking is to continue with my support of the charity in association with my next running campaign (the timing of which is a little uncertain with my current injury!).  In the meantime any support to the charity through my fundraising page  https://www.justgiving.com/John-Reece1 will be very gratefully received! 

The next instalment of Run Reece Run will bring things up to date with the highs and lows of my Brighton Marathon campaign and hopefully some news of improvement on the injury front!

With very best wishes...