Monday 23 April 2018

London Marathon 2018 Part 3 - Spring Training and Race Prep

In a nutshell my spring training for the 2018 London Marathon went a little like this....

Jan
55 miles
61 miles
71 miles
82 miles
Feb
101 miles
71 mile (Wokingham Half Marathon 74:52)
110 miles
90 miles
March
101 miles
101 miles
105 miles
102 miles (inc a windy/wet York parkrun in 17:11)
April
97 miles (inc Salisbury 10 mile race, 6th place in 55:46 & a new PB)
64 miles (inc Poole parkrun in 16:37 for another PB!)
62 miles (Taper week with marathon)

The basic structure of the training was high mileage with a weekly or so 60-70 minute steady run around 80-85% maximum heart rate. I also slotted in a few parkruns as shorter but harder training runs. There should also have been a 20 mile race in early March as I was selected to run for Hampshire in the Inter-counties 20 mile match as part of the Essex 20 race near Southend, but the 'Beast from the East' snow put pay to that race (and many others) and I didn't find an alternative.

Although my time at Wokingham was a little disappointing, it was after only 6 weeks back into regular running post achilles injury rehab, so it might be expected. However by the time I ran Salisbury in April I was confident I was back into sub 2hr 30 marathon shape and raring to go. I also track my heart rate efficiency, the average number of beats per mile of each run, and this number had been progressively dropping from well over a 1000bt/mile in Janurary down to 920-30bt/mile by the start of April. The value estimated by my Garmin watch for my Vo2Max (maximum volume of oxygen my blood can carry) had also risen from 66-67 to 70-71%, A number which I have some trut in as it's matched with accurate lab testing in the past.
Running sub 5:30 miles at the start of the Salisbury race

Then the weather threw another curveball and from up to 10 days out from the London raceday it was looking likely that it was going to get unseasonably warm. I'd not done any adapation work for the possibility of higher temperatures on race day, such as running overdressed (either outdoors or on a treadmill) or extended sauna sessions. So implemented a hasty plan of daily(ish) overdressed treadmill 3-4M runs followed straight away by at least 30 mins in a hot (100C+) sauna. This was not a lot of fun, but may have had it's benefits.....

My London marathon weekend is a well practised routine of Expo visit on Friday afternoon to collect my number (and catch up with the guys from Alton Sports!), then back to my brother's place in High Wycombe for Friday & Saturday night. My last pre-race run was Wycombe Rye parkrun which I usually do moderately hard (feels worse due to the lack of carbohydrates eaten during taper week, largely to get my weight down as much as possible). This year this translated into a 18:08 & first finisher, which was probably a bit exuberent, but not damaging for the following day.
Up the lovely steps halfway through the parkrun!
My brother had come to parkrun too and afterwards we got in a final half hour sauna session in the Lido complex right at the finish to parkrun! I was also testing out one final attempt at dealing with the higher temperatures (forecat now up to 23C) - shaved legs and arms, which felt super nice with a cooling breeze! Then it was just a case of getting the carbs in through the rest of Saturday, get a racing hair cut, prepping race kit and getting to bed (and a bit of playtime with my 9 month old neice!).
Race Day Nutrition Planning (and carb loading!)

2018 Race kit ready to go




Sunday 22 April 2018

London 2018 Part 2 - ....and the rest of 2017

Through a lot of the training build up to the 2017 London marathon I'd been increasingly aware of something not quite right with my left ankle. I had no issues when running, but after I'd been sitting down for a while, when i got up my left achilles would be very tight and painful to walk on for a few yards before freeing up anf feeling normal to walk on again. I realised I was developing a painful region on the tendon which eventually became a noticable lump. As I could still run with relatively little discomfort I continued training. I found that by introducing eccentric/concentric heel drop and raise exercises after each run it helped to reduce the stiffness/discomfort which I was experienceing after rest. My train of thought was that if I could get manage it ok through to the marathon then a decent rest and training reduction after that would hopefully sort it out. The cuouple of months or so post London involved travel for work (to Mexico City!), 2 trips to Cornwall and a week in Scotland, so my running was fairly on/off and whenever I could fit it in. Running in Mexico City was fun, althought the altitute made it hard work and the UK holiday trips gave oppotunities to run in some beautiful places, including the South West Coast Footpath and the West Highlands. the downside to this was the inherent lumpiness of the trails I was running on, which my achilles did not like!
Beautiful Running Scenery in the West Highlands of Scotland

By June I was pretty unfit (due to sporadic running), heavy (post marathon food bingeing) and had an achilles which still did not feel in good shape! I'd knocked the running volume back and was enjoying getting out on my bike, in the pool and open water swimming at Ellingham Lake (6am Wednesdays!), but the heel drop/raise exercises I was doing weren't really getting on top of the achilles issue. So I got an appointment to see Rob Edmondson at Therapeutics Physiotherapy in Eastleigh. 


I've seen Rob on and off for a number of years and he's be great at getting my running related issues sorted. He diagnosed a chronic tendinopothy and we looked at how to manage loading the tendon. Left along the tendon was unlikely to heal well as it doesn't have it's own blood supply, so we needed to figure out how to load the Achilles enough to promote a healing process but not overload it and do further damage. Contrary to rational thinking my achilles was actually happier running at at faster paces! The thinking goes along the lines of the faster speed means the foot is in contact with the ground for a short period of time per stride and so the overall 'loading' time on the tendon is less. So I ended up doing interval sessions with walking recoveries. The basic rule of the injury rehab was to do active loading on the tendon a minimum of 24 hours apart, to allow the breakdown/repair cycle to take place. The active loading activities consisted of 'loaded' heel drop/raise sets (3x8-10) with increasing weight in a rucksack and fast pace running workouts with interval lengths depending on how the tendon reacted. I filled in for the reduced run volume with swim and bike work (which was very nice riding in the New Forest through the summer). This continued for a couple of months, but my achilles didn't really show much sign of resolving, with a sore lump still present on the tendon. I stopped running completely from mid Auust to September and still things didn't seem to get better.


So in September I took the decision to get a consultant appointment to get the injury reviewed. This coincided with starting a new job after 12 years with my previous company, so there was a fair amount of upheaval with work travel and getting into a new working week routine. The consultant (Dr Mark Wotherspoon, also team doctor for England Cricket) got the tendon ultrasound scanned which confirmed Rob the physio's diagnosis of a chronic mid-portion achilles tendinopothy. The scan images looked a right mess of clearly not nice and straight collegen fibres๐Ÿ˜Ÿ. The recommendation was to get back and continue working with Rob to progressive try and get the tendon to heal through controlled loading, but it might take months even years to get back to normal, not great news. We considered Shockwave therapy, but Dr. Wotherspoon was uncertain whether it would help given the chronic and not acute nature of the injury (Shockwave is more for pain elleviation).


Back at Therapeutics with Rob an updated action plan was devised based on the Consultation feedback. I could run, but needed to determine how much the tendon could tolerate. So we started with a simple 'Couch to 5k' run/walk apporach, starting with 6x(4'30" Walk/30" Run), increasing the run segments by 30" & reducing the walks by 30" every other day. Then loaded heel drop/raises on the other days and as much road bikes as I could fit in commuting etc...


This seemed to do trick after a couple of weeks the tendon discomfort (to touch) was greatly reduced, but still with a pronounced bump. It was good enough that I could switch to short fast runs again and I ran East Coast parkrun in Singapore, while away for work in October, with no problems or reaction from the tendon. I did a couple more 5x1M speed sessions (walk recoveries) while in Singapore, supplementing with hotel gym cross-trainer time. 




parkrun - Singapore Style - 8am, 29DegC & 95% Humidity!

Through October and November I stuck to keeping the runs well spaced and mostly done at speed with walking warm-ups/cool-downs and recoveries between intervals. The weekly mileage hovered around the 20 mile mark. I was getting very regimented with my heel drops/raises, doing unloaded sets after every run and every day before bed. I also experiented with some different shoes (thanks to Scott @ Alton Sports in Eastleigh for sharing a few of his pairs with me to try out, luckily we're the same foot size!) and found I got on very well with the Adidas Supernova. Up to then I had routinely run in lightweight shoes, with the Adidas Boston Boost and New Balance 1400 being the favourites. The Supernovas, especially when worn with Superfeet insoles for extra heel support, really felt like they helped my injury, probably by not making it worse! I've continued to use the Supernovas (with insoles) into 2018 spring marathon training and do think that they have contributed my general lack of injuries since January 


Coming to the end of 2017 by early December the lump on my tendon was noticably reduced in profile and any tenderness had largely gone. The Christchurch Christmas Pudding 10k was my first proper race (barring parkruns) since London the previous April and I was very happy to run just over 37mins in iffy wet and windy conditions, felt strong too. I suspect the focus on fast running intervals had actually given me reasonable 10k fitness! So as Christmas approached a final Physio check-up gave the all clear to start, cautiously, increasing weekly mileage into spring marathon training....


Friday 20 April 2018

London 2018 Part 1 - Look Back on the 2017 Race

I've got out of the way of posting much on my blog for a while now, but there's lots to say so with the London Marathon looming this weekend I thought I'd post a series of updates on what I've been up to since the 2017 race. 2017 was very definitely a year of two contrasting halves....First up is a very late review of VLM17!


2012 to 2017 -  Under 2:30 after 7 goes...

I had a pretty much perfect day by all accounts, breaking the 2 1/2 hr barrier in 2:29:30. Encouraged by Ryan Snell of Exmouth Harriers I'd decided that this year was going to be an all or nothing approach.  I've run fairly conservatively to HR for a few years and ended up with a string of 2:33/2:34's and really didn't just want to churn out another... I also have to give a hat tip to club mate Henry Swinzto at New Forest Runners, he originally seeded the idea in my mind that you don't know your limits until you step over the edge!


A strong run on the lumpy Salisbury 10M race (for 2nd place, it was a warm day) 2 weeks previous had showed that the aerobic engine was in good shape. My last few double digit runs a week out were well below 7m/M so I had confidence that the potential for a fast time was there.


I ticked off a now well rehearsed 1 week taper with a combo of short (3-4M) easy runs, some 'MP' treadmill strides (eg 4-8x200m@17kph) and a daily sauna session (to encourage heat adaptation), plus a quickish progressive parkrun (18:39) the day before. I did the trip to ExCEL to collect my race number(s) on the Friday before and then heading to my Brother's place in High Wycombe for Friday & Saturday night. Everything went smoothly getting to the start and I was great to meet up with the usual suspects for pre-race chat and banter in the UK Club Championship start area.

The weather was ideal for a marathon, overcast and 11-12C with only light winds, The plan was to run 17:45 5k's up to 30km or so and then hopefully be able to hang on for the final stint. The start was a bit of a manic weave-fest with Ryan and George King from Winchester AC, but a few miles in and things had settled down and we'd tag on with a good few other sub2:30 aspirants. The first 5k ultimately was a bit quick in 17:28 with the downhill and by 10k the margin under target had grown to 30s with a 17:38. Honestly in the first 6M I was seriously wondering if I'd bitten off too much, but I'd taken all the HR stats off my Garmin and just focused on the pace. Thankfully as the miles progressed my legs settled in nicely. 

10-15k passed spot on in 17:45 and around that point I found myself drifting forwards into and to the front of the next big group of runners. 15-20k was 17:47 and I started to get the inkling that this could be a good day, but it was a bit early to tell and my mind see-sawing a bit from the positive to the negative going through half way in 1:14:25 and 20-25k in 17:44. A bit of a headwind going south through the Isle of Dogs was enough to push thoughts towards the 'well a PB will be just as nice' but thankfully the crowds around Canary Wharf rallied my mind. 25-30k clocked at 17:51 and the 'av lap time' (using manual splits) on my watch told me I was still on 5:41/M pace, so it was game on at 20M with 30ish secs still in the bank.


30-35k (17:50) was when the mental fight kicked in, my legs were slowly voicing their displeasure louder and louder, nothing critical in terms of cramp potential or the like, just resistance to the task at hand. Going along the Highway through mile 22 the field was becoming quite spread out which made it tougher still. Somewhere in the 23rd mile the thought popped into my head (with the actual pace showing 5:42) that 'that's a decent outing', to which another part of my mind retorted back, 'you don't get the kudos for running a good 23M...there's less than a parkrun to go, GET ON WITH IT...
Daddy's Big Shiny Medal!
35-40k was my slowest (admittedly not by much) split of 17:52, but the target margin was down to <10secs.... With only a couple of miles to go finally the conviction that this was going to be the day really started to kick in and it had a rallying effect on my pace with the last 2.2km averaging 5:39/M. The run up Birdcage walk seemed to go on forever counting down the 1km, 800m, 400m, 385yd(!) markers to the turn into the Mall. Sighting the finish line clock at 2:29:0x, for a moment I wasn't sure I'd get there in under a minute! Crossed the line elated and got down to kiss the tarmac in respect. Job done and massively happy ๐Ÿ˜ Beers were thoroughly enjoyed on the pavement outside The Red Lion pub on Whitehall ๐Ÿป

THe post race elation lasted a fair while and to be fair I wasn't sure I'd have the motivation to try and repeat the feat, however the rest of 2017 didn't go very well running wise....




A selection of reasonably fast Dorset/Hampshire Marathoners