Distance: 6.92 km
Time: 40:23 secs
Calories: 550
Although the plan calls for another 'easy' 35 minute run at the beginning of the week there was a real difference between last week's punk fuelled dash and the more leisurely approach I adopted tonight. Last week I ran 6.55 km in 34:37 secs, this week I ran a similar route but took nearly six minutes more to complete it. Given that this is my third run in as many days it's probably not a bad idea to take it a little easier.
I was reading an article earlier today in which a runner was discussing 'cadence' - how frequently your feet touch the ground as you run. Apparently, one should ...
"Keep turning your feet over quickly ... and you'll move faster, more easily. Short, frequent strides, with your foot landing underneath your body, are the way forward. Literally."The runner in the article did this by counting the number of strides he was taking in a minute and then concentrated on taking shorter, quicker steps by running to the beat of "Rock Around The Clock". Obviously, I know the song but I don't have it in my itunes library so I couldn't run to the actual beat but as I was running round tonight I did try to take shorter, quicker steps and while it felt pretty odd at first it did feel as though I was running faster and more easily. This was a completely non-scientific experiment, but I think I'll give this some more thought this week.
Something I've already given more thought to is my projected time for finishing the London Marathon. At work today I was asked what time I was hoping to do it and my stated aim (see Day 17 for details) of finishing in 3:40 mins was met with some scepticism. Admittedly, I hadn't used the most scientific method of deriving this target but I thought it was realistic. Stung by my workmates' comments I sought solace online and found a very useful site which features a number of different Marathon Time Calculators. Using the time I recorded in last year's Brentwood Half Marathon I thought I'd consult these calculators to see whether my target was wildly optimistic. The results from each of the calculators is shown below:
Runworks 3hrs 27 mins
Runners World 3hrs 28 mins
Marathon Guide 3hrs 29 mins
Running Times 3hrs 32 mins
Hal Higdon 3hrs 50 mins
My projection falls between the first four and the last calculation. I'd be over the moon if the Runworks projection was on the money, but the first four calculators in particular seem to use a not terribly sophisticated method for calculating the time it'll take to complete the marathon. They basically all take my half marathon time (1:39 mins), multiply by 2 and then add c.10 mins of contingency (I've added 20 mins of contingency). Hal Higdon's method takes your 10k time and multiplies it by 5 - again, not terribly sophisticated but at least it's a different answer to the others.
Anyway, I think that all five of these suggest that my target time is achievable. But even if it isn't and I cringe when I look back at this post in three months time I think it's good to set a challenging goal and to work towards it. I've been looking around for a good quote to encapsulate this sentiment and I like what JFK had to say in 1961 when he committed the USA to putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s:
"If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgement it would be better not to go at all"
As the great Bill Nicholson once said:
ReplyDelete‘It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.’
And then once you have succesfully completed the marathon, you can use this bobby dazzler from manager of the moment, Ian Holloway:
'I couldn't be more chuffed if I were a badger at the start of the mating season.'
Much as I love the JFK quote I believe that the one you've mentioned is the one I was actually looking for. It was the first sentence in particular which had stuck in my mind and I just assumed it was a politician who'd said it.
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