Here Comes the Run

Day:         70

Distance: 31.41km

Time:       2:42:07 secs

Calories:  2,389

If you've read yesterday's post you'll know that I was having difficulty sorting out a route for today's run. In the end, and with a little help from Varoo, I went with a new route that takes me round some more of London's tourist sights. It's not wildly different to other long runs that I've been doing, but the 5km long diversion into Westminster is new.

My preparation for this run started earlier in the week when I happened to speak to a colleague who ran the London Marathon last year. Rather than sports drinks (like the "Marathon Moonshine" I made last week) she uses gels. On her recommendation I thought I'd give them a go so I popped to the London Marathon store on Old Bailey one lunchtime. While there I picked up two Lucozade Carbohydrate Energy gels, which are what they dish out during the Marathon so it made sense to go with those. I also picked up a Lucozade cereal bar. I don't normally eat before heading out for these runs as I start so early, but these seemed like a convenient option.



Mmm ... carbohydrate gel and carbohydrate bar.
Never has the consumption of calories felt more
like a simple refuelling exercise.



I creep out of the flat at 6:45am leaving my wife fast asleep. It turns out later on that she was in such a deep sleep she didn't even hear me leave. I won't spend too long on the early part of the run as it's much the same as in previous weeks. Instead let's fast forward to around the 6km mark. I'd just run past Druid Street (which always makes me think of Getafix from the Asterix books) when I decided to go with a different river crossing this week. Despite being tantalisingly close to Tower Bridge I instead hang a left down Tooley Street which gives me a good view of how construction of the Shard is progressing. This building - which will be the tallest in the EU - is dividing opinion but I really like it and think it will be a prominent London landmark when it's completed in 2012.

The Shard, as it looked at 7:20am on 27th
February 2011.

Tooley Street takes me really near to Borough Market - one of my favourite parts of London - but it is London Bridge that I'm interested in today so I turn right and cross the oldest bridge in London. There has been a bridge on this site from the time of the Roman occupation (c.50 AD) and it stood as London's only bridge until one was built at Putney in the 18th Century.

Once on the north bank I head West into the City, past Bank and St Paul's and the Church of Scientology on Queen Victoria Street. It must have been too early For Tom Cruise, Beck et al as I don't see any celebrities heading in to pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever it is they believe in. Just past Blackfriars Bridge I head down towards the river, but unlike previous weeks I'm only going to be following it for a short distance because just after Embankment Station I turn right onto Northumberland Avenue. This road affords a splendid view of Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column - and all for just £160 in Monopoly money. Bargain.

Nelson surveying the scene over Trafalgar Square.
The National Gallery is in the background - go and
visit it. It's great.

At the end of Northumberland Avenue I turn left onto Whitehall, which takes me past Downing Street and down towards the Houses of Parliament. I am officially in what political commentators (and literally no-one else) call the "Westminster Village" but there's no fetes on the green, or vicars taking tea just some anti-war protesters maintaining their impressive vigil.

Turning right I head towards St James Park along the intriguingly named "Birdcage Walk". It's at this point, around an hour (or, 12km) into the run, that I decide to break out the first of the Lucozade gels and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that they're actually quite tasty. The consistency is odd, I'm not even sure how to describe it, and it needs to be washed down with a glug of water but all in all a not unpleasant experience.

At the end of Birdcage Walk I reach Buckingham Palace. I'm no Royalist but in the beautiful early morning sunshine the palace does look very impressive. Unlike the ridiculously early rising tourists with their cameras I'm not here to stand and admire it though, so I plough on up Constitution Hill and turn right onto Picadilly. This is where the Asics London 10k run starts, I've taken part in that event in each of the the last two years and would recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting, well organised 10k in London. After passing the Ritz I turn down St James's Street and onto Pall Mall which takes me back to Trafalgar Square where the Westminster loop concludes.

I've already written loads, so I won't dwell for too long on the remainder of the run. After Westminster I ran alongside the river to Vauxhall Bridge, crossed back over to the south bank and then headed home. In the last few long runs it has been during the last couple of kilometres when I've really started to feel the strain, but on this run I still felt good. In fact, when I arrived back home Varoo even said that I didn't look like a broken man this week. High praise indeed. I have no idea whether I feel good because of all the training I've done, the use of the Lucozade gels or something else but I think I'll be getting some more of those gels just in case.

This run means that I've now completed 10 weeks of the Guardian's 12 week marathon training guide. I've also raised more than £800 for Diabetes UK so far, but if you would like to help me to reach my goal of £1,000 worth of sponsorship please visit my JustGiving page.

Sweet Soul Music

Day:         68

Distance: 7.5km

Time:       45:54 secs

Calories:  578

Friday morning begins with a 45 minute run at an 'easy' tempo. For the past few weeks I've been using the National to soundtrack these runs, but today I decide to take a gamble on a different album. Since catching Adele's mesmerising performance on "Later with Jools Holland" a few months back I've really got into her music. It's not what I typically listen to, but I love music with soul and as her latest album "21" is full to the brim with slow, soulful numbers I had a feeling it might work well.

How right I was. From the opening tune "Rolling in the Deep" to the album closer "Someone like you" this collection worked perfectly by setting a wonderful soundscape for an early morning run through quiet London streets.

The stats on Run Keeper show how slow and steady this run was with an average pace of 6:07 mins/km. The fastest kilometre was covered in 6:01 mins/km, while the slowest only took another 16 seconds. Like "High Violet" by the National this album is exactly what I need for a run like this. It doesn't replace the National, but it does now mean I have some choice over what I want to listen to for the next 45 minute run at an 'easy' tempo.

In other news, I've been sitting here for the last hour trying to sort out a route for tomorrow's long run. The training guide says I should be running for 160 mins which I reckon is something like 31km in total. I'm half tempted to use the route from last week with 2 kilometres tacked on for good measure as that requires the least amount of work. However, there's also part of me that wants to continue and expand the sightseeing aspect of the long runs I've been doing recently. I've really enjoyed taking in the sights and taking a few photos whilst doing so. There's so much to see in London that it would seem a shame to miss out on some of it just for the sake of making it easier for myself. 

Drawing it forward, pushing it back

Day:         67

Distance: 11km

Time:       59:21 secs

Calories:  843

The training plan is less specific than usual, my sole instruction: "60 mins fartlek". Not 2 mins easy 8 mins fast or anything like that, just 60 minutes of fartlek running. 

With this new found creative freedom I take the opportunity to create a new, less structured, fartlek playlist. It contains many of the usual suspects, but also gives me the chance to throw some different stuff into the mix. The first change in tempo comes around 5 mins into the run when Adele's heartbreakingly beautiful "Someone like you" segues into the Datsuns' pedal to the metal riffing monster "MF from hell". Such a juxtaposition has no right working, but it's fantastic for a run like this and I soon find myself tearing up the streets bellowing out the expletive strewn chorus. It's a good thing that no-one's around at this early hour of the day.

The whole point of fartlek (or, "speed play") is to alternate paces with periods of slow running augmented by bursts of speed. The playlist sees me swinging from slow acoustic numbers like "Don't leave" by Faithless and "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix into punky tunes like "I wish I was someone better" by Blood Red Shoes, "A whole Child Ago" by Biffy Clyro and "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. Good Lord, why have I never thought to add that last one to the actual running playlist? Not only is it a fantastic song, the 70s cop show spoof which accompanied the single release back in 1994 is one of the finest music videos ever made. Fact.

It's fair to say that this new playlist made for a most enjoyable run. While it probably wasn't as knackering as the more structured sessions I've been doing recently it still took it out of me and by the time the last slow song was rolling by I was about ready to stagger home. Until, that is, said slow song gave way for Funeral Party's fittingly titled "Finale". When the driving, insistent riff kicks in after 30 seconds my legs, energy levels and speed all pick up and the 60 minute run ends triumphantly.

But what of the actual run, I hear you say. Well, interestingly the Run Keeper stats for each of the 11 kilometres would suggest to a casual observer that this wasn't a fartlek run at all as they're remarkably constant (averaging 5:24 mins/km). Of course, these times mask the actual highs and lows so it's interesting to see that my slowest minute was jogged at 7:10 mins/km, while the fastest minute saw me propelled along, like a MF from hell, at just 3:49 mins/km. 

Early Mornin' Rain

Day:         66

Distance: 7.93km
Time:       39:46 secs
Calories:  658

The alarm goes off at 6am. I can hear the rain pelting down on the street outside the bedroom window. Brilliant.

It's perhaps not that surprising that I cling onto the duvet for a good 30 minutes before finally willing myself to get up and get out for "40 mins 2 mins easy 8 mins fast x 4". There was a time when the prospect of this run alone would have been reason enough to stay in bed, but not any more. I'm finding this kind of run more manageable now, which hopefully is indicative of improvements in fitness levels rather than a sign that I've been taking it easy. I'm also finding these runs more enjoyable since compiling a "slow/fast" playlist to accompany me.

Speaking of the "slow/fast" playlist, I still haven't got round to replacing Bill Withers' repetitive "Ain't no sunshine" with another slow song around 2 minutes long. However, the song did seem to catch the mood of today's rain-soaked run so maybe it has earned a reprieve?

As ever, Run Keeper provides some fascinating (to me at least) and useful data from the run. The app shows each minute of the run as a graph and tracking the peaks and troughs of a run like this is really interesting. Unfortunately, I can't work out a way to show that information here so I've cobbled together the information in a less engaging format. The table below shows the average pace for each of the sections:

Section          Type          Pace (mins/km)

One                Slow           6:10

Two                Fast            4:15

Three              Slow           6:02

Four                Fast            4:50

Five                 Slow           6:00

Six                   Fast            4:58

Seven              Slow           6:25

Eight                Fast            4:51

I'm pleased with that. The stats show a real difference between each slow and fast section of the run. It's reassuring and encouraging, because the difference isn't always apparent during the run. 

See ya later Alligator

Day:         64

Distance: 6.82km

Time:       43:13 secs

Calories:  528

My wife described the bedraggled figure who staggered through the front door after yesterday's long run as a "broken man". She had a point. After sitting down for any amount of time my legs felt incredibly stiff when I got up to do something. Walking down stairs this morning wasn't much fun either. So, heading out on a cold Monday night for a 45 minute long run at 'easy' tempo felt like some kind of achievement.

My legs are still hurting, but it seems to me that it's important to get out and stretch them with an unchallenging run. That means going at a a fairly slow pace and avoiding even the merest suggestion of a hill climb.

As in previous weeks my soundtrack for this slow run is the National, but for a slight change I opt for the album "Alligator" rather than "High Violet". Although it's another great album that I love listening to it's just not right for this kind of run. Where "High Violet" maintains a similar pace across an entire album "Alligator" is much more varied and includes a couple of more up tempo numbers like "Abel" and "Mr November". That said, I've just checked Run Keeper and it turns out that my average pace in this run was considerably slower than in the same run last week when I listened to "High Violet" (6:20 mins/km compared with 6:05 mins/km). I suspect this has more to do with yesterday's 29 kilometres rather than any musical accompaniment.

While on the subject of music I realise that I haven't written about the actual running playlist for some time. At 92 songs and 4.7 hours long it is pretty much as long as I need it to be, but I will consider it a work in progress up until running the London Marathon. 

I got to thinking about it while listening to British Sea Power's new album "Valhalla Dancehall" on my way home tonight. The album opens with the anthemic protest song "Who's in control" and as soon as the guitar riff kicked in 10 seconds into the track I knew that this was exactly the kind of thing that I need on the playlist. 

So, that's been added along with "White Riot" by the Clash (I can't believe it wasn't already on there) and "The People" by the Music which was suggested by a good friend of mine recently. I'm looking forward to trying these three out on my next run.

These additions mean that I'm able to jettison a couple of tracks which really haven't been working for me recently; "I like you so much better when you're naked" by Ida Maria, "Nobody move, nobody get hurt" by We Are Scientists and "Machinehead" by Bush. I still like all these songs but they haven't had the desired effect of firing me up and I've even found myself skipping to the next song when they've come on during recent runs.

There will no doubt be more additions and deletions in the coming weeks. Thanks to those of you who have suggested songs, if anyone else has a suggestion please feel free to leave a comment.

To the 6 Boroughs

Day:         63

Distance: 29.07km

Time:       2:33:23 secs

Calories:  2,485

It's 6:45am. It's Sunday morning. This can only mean one thing - another long run. This time the training plan specifies "150 mins easy", which I estimate to be around 29km (or 18 miles for those Imperialists amongst you). As I enjoyed last Sunday's sightseeing tour I devised a similar(ish) route which takes in even more sights and takes me through six of London's 33 boroughs.

Before I get onto the actual run I'd like to briefly discuss hydration. For these longer runs I've generally been following the advice of other runners I know which says water is fine for runs up to 60 mins, but for those longer runs (which this most certainly is) you really need a sports drink. Up until this week I've been taking Lucozade Sport out with me, but my supplies had run out so I thought I'd make some bootleg sport drink mixture based on a recipe I found here:

"Marathon Moonshine" mix (makes 500ml)

125ml Orange and Mango squash (the brand is irrelevant but avoid sugar free)

375ml water

1/8 level tsp salt

It looks quite tasty up until the addition of the salt, but I guess that's in there to replace all the salts lost through sweating. I have to say, this moonshine is actually quite tasty (it dumps on Gatorade from a great height) and after the first couple of mouthfuls I can't taste the salt any more. Which is nice.

Anyway, onto the sightseeing tour. As with last week's run, I set off from home and run alongside Peckham Rye. I realised when I got to Rye Lane that I'd left a couple of landmarks out from this section of the run last week. Fans of 80s and 90s sitcoms will be pleased to know that there is both a Nags Head and a barbers called Desmonds in SE15. I'm not sure whether this is a case of life imitating art or vice versa.

My run followed the same route as last week until I reached the end of the Old Kent Road. Instead of heading through Borough towards the Millennium Bridge I instead turn towards Tower Bridge - possibly my favourite of all London's river crossings (yep, I'm sad enough to have a favourite bridge). 

Tower Bridge at 7:30am on Sunday 20th February 2011.
You don't normally see it this empty, let me tell you.

The bridge takes me from Southwark to Tower Hamlets and past the Tower of London - a favourite tourist attraction of mine when I was young (although I haven't been there in years). As I run past the Tower I enter the boundaries of the City of London head down Tower Hill and along Lower Thames Street where I catch the briefest of glimpses of the Monument on my right hand side. This flame-topped monument to the Great Fire of London was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and tourists are able to climb to the top of it and peer out over London for a mere £3. There's no time for that now though, as I've still got 21 kilometres to get through ...

I carry on past London Bridge and Southwark Bridge and then head down towards the river just before I get to the Millennium Bridge where I take this photo of the bridge and Tate Modern.

A view of the Millennium Bridge and Tate Modern from the North Bank
of the Thames. This photo captures the less than beautiful weather I
was running in.

Pretty much as soon as the photo is taken I have to take a slight diversion away from the river due to all the work that is going on at Blackfriars at the moment. I get back onto the Thames Path just past Blackfriars Bridge. I love following the Thames' meandering path through London and as I head West it takes me into the City of Westminster past the Houses of Parliament and down into Pimlico with its lovely garden squares and beautiful Regency houses. 

Around the 14km mark I stop very briefly to take another quick photo, which I'm really pleased with as it captures three iconic London images: the red telephone box, Battersea Power Station and a row of "Boris Bikes".

For the record, I'd have much preferred it if the new
bike scheme had been introduced under the former
Mayor and were known as "Ken Cycles".

I cross back over to the South Bank via Chelsea Bridge (not one of the most aesthetically pleasing of London's bridges) and find myself in Wandsworth for the briefest of moments before turning east and heading past Battersea Dogs and Cats Home towards Lambeth. I follow the curve of the Thames over to Blackfriars Bridge where I resurface from my riverside run and head for home.

With around 5 kilometres of the run left I can really feel my legs protesting and my pace slowing. Thankfully, the running playlist comes to my rescue. Now, Steve Jobs is undoubtedly a very clever man but I'm pretty sure that ipods don't yet have the capacity to judge moods and yet when I feel at my lowest ebb it rummages around the running playlist and plucks out the Vaccines' modern classic "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)". The song has the desired effect of reinvigorating a run which was in danger of collapse and helps me bring it all back home. 

Upon arrival my legs have turned to jelly - the first time they've felt like this in the 9 weeks in which I've been training for the marathon. I also discover, upon removing my trainers, that my left foot has been bleeding quite badly and although I'm too shattered to do anything about it I'm very lucky that Varoo steps in to help me out (and listen to me moaning about how much I ache). 

This was undoubtedly a challenging, but enjoyable, run. Being able to take in the sights of old London town is always a pleasure and to do it at such an early hour means that I have them all to myself. As well as the sightseeing I'm really pleased to see that Run Keeper has recorded my average speed as 5:17 mins/km - which is slightly quicker than the time I need to average in order to reach my goal of 3:40 mins for the London Marathon. I'm also pleased to see how many calories have been burned in pursuit of these 29 kilometres. According to Guideline Daily Amounts the average male should consume 2,500 calories per day. Seeing as I've burnt off 2,485 calories with this run does this mean I can gorge myself silly all day?

Slow show

Day:         61
Distance: 7.46km

Time:       45:24 secs

Calories:  615

I'm only going to be able to fit four out of the five specified runs in this week. In theory, I have the choice between either "50 mins 10 mins steady 30 mins tempo 10 mins steady" or "45 mins steady". However, because of the difficulties I had with Wednesday night's run I instead choose to do the "45 mins easy" that I skipped past on Tuesday.

I wouldn't normally go for the easy option, but I think it makes sense in preparation for Sunday's 2.5 hour long run that I have scheduled. Also, it gives me another chance to immerse myself in the National's glorious "High Violet" album. Apologies for mentioning them again, but it would appear that it's something I'm doing on a regular basis as I asked a friend at work recently whether I'd recommended listening to the National and her response was "only about three times a week". Oops.

As I've said before, the album is the perfect pace and length for a run of this nature and you need only compare the distance covered today with that from Monday's run (8.38km) to see that it helped me to run at an 'easy' pace. Somewhat ironically, it's not always that easy to run 'easy', especially when you have a pathetically competitive nature like I do.

While I'm quite happily running round at a deliberately slow pace (6.05 mins/km, if you're interested) there are other joggers out and about and on one occasion one of them absolutely flies past me. Now, part of me (let's call it the 'wounded male pride' part of me) desperately wanted to put my foot down and sprint past just to show him that I'm not some dawdling idiot. Thankfully, I went with the other (logical) part of me when I remembered that this was no race, that the slower tempo was intentional and that it was, in any case, for the greater good of my marathon training.

Anyway, I reckon that this slower run plus a rest day tomorrow should mean I'm absolutely raring to take on the 28km route I've plotted for Sunday's run. I enjoyed last week's London sightseeing tour so much that I've devised a new one for this week. I'm really looking forward to it.

Right, by way of a conclusion to this post I thought I'd leave with another music video from the National. I've posted up a couple of songs from "High Violet" in the past couple of weeks, but it seems to me that this song from their 2007 release "Boxer" is more appropriate for today. I honestly hope you enjoy it, because you can guarantee I'll be talking about this band some more before this marathon training is done.

Looking for positives

Day:         59

Distance: 9.97km

Time:       53:19 secs

Calories:  767

Note to self: when the training plan suggests you take it easy after a long run at the weekend you should take it easy.

Following last night's AudioFuelled run, tonight was challenging. In my eagerness to try out the AudioFuel freebie last night I ended up covering 8.38km in about the same time that it took me to cover 7.48km the Monday before. Now I see the difference written down it really doesn't seem all that much, but this can be the only reason why I found tonight's run so difficult.

I started out with high hopes for this "60 mins fartlek" run following the successful pilot of my "Slow/fast" playlist last week. However, it never really felt as though I was able to speed up as much as I would like for the fast sections of this run. The only two fast songs that really seemed to pick me up this time round were "Wreckin ' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" and "White Riot" - but they both last for less than 2 minutes!

Although this was perhaps the least enjoyable of all the training runs I've been on so far there are definitely some positives to take out of it. 

Firstly, at least I went out and did it. There were points when I considered turning back, but I'm glad I pushed on. I didn't manage the full hour, but 53 mins isn't far off. 

Secondly, looking at the Run Keeper analysis I can see that, as so often happens, perception is different to reality. While it felt as if every kilometre was a struggle and as though I was wading through treacle at times I can see that despite the varied pace of a fartlek run only one of the kilometres averaged more than 5:30 mins/km. The fastest kilometre was covered in 4:39 and the slowest in 6:02. The average speed came out at 5:20 mins/km which, incidentally, is about the speed I need to be averaging if I'm to complete the London Marathon in my target time of 3:40.

Thirdly, well it would have been nice to have had three positives to take out of tonight's run but I'm afraid I've stretched it too far at this point. That said, tomorrow is designated as a rest day and after a run like this that is most definitely a positive.

Running on Audio pilot

Day:         58

Distance: 8.38km

Time:       45:31 secs

Calories:  649

The training plan specified "45 mins easy" as the run to kick off Week 9, but in the spirit of rebellion brought on from listening to the Clash, Rage Against the Machine and Girls Aloud too often I decide to try something different tonight.

I read an article in the Guardian a couple of weeks back which talked about exercising with music. The article mentioned something called AudioFuel and my interest was piqued when I read further and saw that one of the co-founders of AudioFuel had said that office workers should play "a track that really energises you - maybe a powerful rock track" to get you going. Being the curious type I clicked on the link provided by the Guardian and found myself at the AudioFuel website which provides:

"Ready made programmes for walking, jogging and running that combine coaching with music that has a beat to match and drive your stride"

Interesting.

Even more interestingly, they offer a free sample to download. This freebie consists of 16 minutes of dance tracks specially designed to get you running at different tempos. The session starts off with a track called "This one rocks" which, I'm told, starts at 150bpm and slowly increases to 155bpm. I set off and am surprised to find my stride locking into the beat straight away. The next track ups the tempo to 160bpm and I do actually feel myself speeding up and counting off the beats "1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4" in my head. So far, so good. OK, it's not music that I would choose to listen to normally but it seems to be a very effective running tool.

The remainder of the session includes tracks at 165bpm, a very short 'sprint' (frustratingly the voiceover doesn't tell you the bpm for this section) and a warm down. As I'm doing a 45 minute run I play the free sample three times in a row, which makes for a pretty varied run all round. Given that the session consists exclusively of what I would sneeringly generalise as "dance" music I'm surprised to find myself almost hypnotised at times and I realise that - unlike my running playlist - running music doesn't have to be music that you love.

So, would I recommend AudioFuel? I started off somewhat sceptical, but I have to say that based on this short promo I would recommend it to fellow runners. It's not for everyone, the voiceover which advertises AudioFuel at various points is somewhat annoying and I certainly won't be using it for every run. That said, if you enjoy listening to music whilst running or need some encouragement I'd say give it a go. At the very least, download the free sample from http://www.audiofuel.co.uk/free/audiofuel.html. At a price like that what have you got to lose?

London Loves

Day:         56

Distance: 26.22km

Time:       2:20:06 secs

Calories:  1,996

Living and working in London means that you can sometimes take this wonderful city for granted. I can't remember the last time we did anything vaguely touristy, except for when friends are visiting. However, a 140 mins run provides the perfect opportunity to mix running with a spot of sight seeing.

I set out early on Sunday morning and start by running alongside Peckham Rye. Unlike the poet William Blake I don't see "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars", perhaps the angels are all long gone like the Italian POWs who were detained here during WWII? I head up through Rye Lane past the Halal butchers and fruit and vegetable stalls groaning under the weight of brightly coloured fruit and veg from around the world testament to the ethnic diversity of the area. 

At the end of Rye Lane the award winning Peckham Library comes into view and I have to weave around some stalls from the Farmers Market that is held there every Sunday. To the side of the library I follow the route of the old Grand Surrey Canal which leads me up to Trafalgar Avenue and then onto the Old Kent Road (a snip at just £60 in Monopoly!). It's true that the Old Kent Road doesn't provide much in the way of tourist interest, but running up it does provide a nice view of the Shard which is still under construction in London Bridge.

At the end of the Old Kent Road I head up through Borough and behind the Tate Modern. I go round the back of the power station turned gallery and run across the Millennium Bridge where I stop for a moment to take this photo of the bridge and St Paul's Cathedral on my phone.

The Millennium Bridge on Sunday 13th February.
The photo was taken at around 8am - hence
there's no crowds in this picture.

Once over the bridge I head West along the north bank of Old Father Thames. I run past Blackfriars Bridge onto Victoria Embankment which takes me past Waterloo Bridge and the Hungerford Bridge on towards the Palace of Westminster where I once again stop to take a photo.

Heading up towards the Palace of Westminster
(a.k.a. The Houses of Parliament). You can see
in this photo that the weather wasn't that great.

Normally, running around Westminster means weaving in and out of the tourist hordes, but the early hour and the grey, wet weather means that I can just run round and enjoy the sights. From there, I carry on alongside the Thames past Lambeth Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge passing by Battersea power station on the opposite bank and on until Chelsea Bridge. Upon reaching this railway bridge I turn round and retrace my steps back to Vauxhall Bridge and cross back over to the South Bank. Running along the South Bank takes me past even more quintessential London sights, such as the London Eye, Royal Festival Hall, the National Theatre and the Oxo Tower (where we enjoyed the best ever New Year's Eve a few years back).

A view of the London Eye, taken from the north
bank of the Thames.

The riverside run comes to an end at Blackfriars Bridge and I head for home happy to have taken in some sights. The return home follows the same route down the Old Kent Road, along the disused canal and down towards Peckham Rye. By the time I hit the top of the Rye I've covered 25km and the effects are plain to see as I feel shattered, light headed and slow. The last kilometre feels slower than the previous 25 combined and it is with pleasure that I get back to the flat almost exactly 2 hours after setting out. In a remarkable quirk of the ipod's shuffle function the last song that is played from the running playlist is "London Calling" by the Clash.

This run brings the curtain down on the 8th week of my marathon training. Which means that I'm now two thirds of the way through the Guardian's 12 week training plan. In that time I have undertaken 33 runs (and one circuits session in a gym), covered 335 kilometres (c.208 miles), run for a total of 32.5 hours and burnt off more than 26,000 calories.

In an interesting coincidence, I'm also about two thirds of the way towards my target of £1,000 in sponsorship. Thanks again to everyone who has already sponsored me, if you haven't already sponsored me but would like to help me towards my goal please visit my JustGiving page. 

One February Friday

Day:         54

Distance: 6.76km

Time:       39.37secs

Calories:  563

It's another early start and one that isn't helped by the fact that the last song I hear while getting my running gear together is "Shoot the runner" by Kasabian. Thanks for those words of encouragement XFM.

Putting worries about the possibly prophetic nature of the song to one side I head out and find that my legs are feeling the effects of yesterday's fartlek outing. This just gets better.

On the plus side, I do have company today as Jim joins me for a pre-work run. He's now just 3 weeks away from the Silverstone Half Marathon and he already has designs on the St Albans Half Marathon later in the year - I think this underlines the addictive nature of running. Jim started running 10k events a few years back and his experience (along with other friends) inspired me to give it a go for myself, since running my first 10k in November 2008 I've been hooked and haven't looked back.

As ever, I digress.

Once we set off my legs stop protesting and we tackle this 7km route at a fairly easy pace (averaging 5:51 mins/km across the 40 minutes). Although the training plan recommends "45 mins steady" I'm quite happy to run at this pace as I've still got another run to do on Sunday and at 26km or so I want to be in a fit state for that.

Assuming all goes to plan, the run on Sunday will take me to five runs this week, which I'm really pleased about. I only managed to fit three in last week and, as a result, felt like I wasn't doing enough so it's good to be hitting the target set by the training plan again this week. I was always a little concerned about how to fit the running around work and a social life but the fact that I was in the mosh pit at Funeral Party's gig at Cargo last night and still got up for a 6.30am run suggests that it is doable.
 

Funeral Party's energetic stage show in full, irresistible flow. I was down the front. Should have thanked them for providing one of the standout tracks on my running playlist ("NYC moves to the sound of LA")



Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards?

Day:         53

Distance: 8.31km

Time:       40:29 secs

Calories:  639

It's an early start (out the door at 6:20am) and the training plan has dictated a fartlek run consisting of "40 mins 2 mins easy 8 mins fast x 4". Given previous posts you could be forgiven for thinking that I'd be dreading this run and normally you'd be right, but last night I finally put together a fartlek playlist and I was looking forward to trying it out.

Compiling a playlist for a fartlek session is quite difficult as the majority of songs lasting for around 2 minutes in my itunes library are 200mph punk numbers. I have a pretty limited number of slow 2 minute long songs to choose from. The second problem is, essentially, the reverse of the first. There aren't a whole lot of fast songs which last for 8 minutes, so I'm left trying to beat match a number of fast songs so as to create a vaguely consistent tempo.

The first 10 minutes began with British Sea Power's slow-building opener "All in it", which lasts for 2:13 secs. This set me up perfectly for the 'slow' tempo start to the run before the Vaccines, Idlewild, The Ramones and The Rakes crashed the party and got me running at a 'fast' tempo for 8 minutes. Run Keeper underlines the effectiveness of this mix as I was running at 6:25 mins/km in the first minute, but when "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" by the Vaccines kicked in in the third minute I was propelled forward at 3:52 mins/km - a pretty impressive change in tempo. While the tempo wasn't constant for the entirety of this 'fast' section most of those eight minutes saw me record an average speed around or below 4:30 mins/km.

The second 10 minutes began with Mark Kozelek's cover of AC/DC's "Love at first feel". This acoustic beauty gave me 2:12 secs of respite before Blur's "We've got a file on you" informed me that it was time to pick up my pace. This was followed by "Oh Yeah" (The Subways), "22 Grand Job" (The Rakes) and "I wanna be sedated" (The Ramones). Again, the effectiveness of the music mix is clear to see as for the two minutes of 'slow' running I was averaging 6 mins/km. For the 8 minutes of 'fast' running that followed this I was able to maintain a pretty fast pace, although I can see that I definitely slowed down for the last couple of minutes (the last minute of this section took 5:41 mins/km).

Relief was on hand at the start of the third section as Michael Cera and Ellen Page (the stars of "Juno") serenaded me with a cover of the Moldy Peaches' "Anyone else but you". The 'fast' section was run to the sound of the View ("Wasted Little DJs") and Arcade Fire ("Month of May"). By this time it really felt as though I was running through treacle and the difference between the slow and fast tempos seemed, if not exactly non-existent, certainly less pronounced. So, I'm pleased to look at the stats on Run Keeper and see that there was still a clear difference between the two paces.

The final quarter began with Bill Withers singing "Ain't no sunshine". It's a good song to slow the pace down, but I hadn't realised how bloody repetitive it is. In one chorus (?) alone he repeats "I know" 26 times. Twenty six. I thought my ipod was skipping.

It was with some relief that the Libertines' "I get along" kicked off the final 'fast' section of the run. This was followed by "Readers and Writers" by Idlewild - which I've already mentioned on this blog as being a song that really helps to fire me up. This was trumped by the final song on the playlist, "White Riot" by the Clash - one of my all time favourite songs. As soon as that urgent two chord riff started up I felt completely re-energised and this is demonstrated by Run Keeper which shows that those last two minutes were conquered in 4:11 and 4:51 mins/km respectively.

So there we have it. Proof that a fartlek playlist can be done and can be very effective. I've got some more of these runs coming up in the next few weeks and now I've got this playlist sorted I may even look forward to them, more so when I've found a replacement for "Ain't no sunshine".

Run to the hills

Day:         51

Distance: 9.97km

Time:       53:43 secs

Calories:  768

The training plan calls for "60 mins including 8 x 1 min hill climbs, jog down to recover". Although hills have featured in some of the runs I've been doing, I have shied away from doing those runs which demand a certain number of hill climbs. This is largely because there aren't a lot of hills round where I live or work, which means that I'd need to keep running up and down the same hill which would look and feel a bit weird.

However, I was reading a Runner's World article today which changed my mind. The article nailed my feelings about hill climbs, as it correctly notes that hills are ...

"an obstacle, standing in the way of fast times, a burden to be endured, a muscle-sapping, lung-bursting exercise in pain"

But the article, and others I've read, also says that hill climbs are good for runners (how sadly predictable) as:

"Training on hills improves leg-muscle strength, quickens your stride, expands stride length, develops your cardiovascular system, ... In short, hill running will make you a stronger, faster and healthier runner"

Well, I've tried to follow the training plan as much as possible so I guess I need to give these hill climbs a proper go. While the training plan is pretty specific on the number and length of these hill climbs it doesn't give a clear steer on general pace or whether all 8 climbs should be done in one burst or if they should be spread out across the hour. 

With no help from the training plan, I set off at a pretty fast pace (averaging around 4:30 mins/km for the first 10 mins). The gap left by the training plan was filled, initially, by an opening burst of rock n' roll from AC/DC in the form of "Safe in New York City". The song benefits from a rock solid drum beat which saw me flying from the blocks.

The first hill hove into view around 12 minutes into the run and I realised that my initial pace may have been a mistake as I was already knackered and the thought of "a muscle-sapping" hill climb was not altogether appealing. As the route I was following featured two hills I'd already decided that I'd do four hill climbs up the hill on Lordship Lane. My concerns about looking weird whilst doing these hill climbs was heightened somewhat by the people who were sitting in the laundrette at the bottom of the hill. It might just be my paranoia, but I'm pretty certain I was getting increasingly bemused looks from them as I struggled back to the bottom of the hill each time. 

After the fourth hill climb came to a merciful end some 20 minutes into the run I continued on my way. Normally, 20 minutes into a run I would be feeling warmed up. Not today, I was absolutely shattered and it's pretty telling that in the 15 minutes which followed the initial hill climbs I was running at a considerably slower pace than when I'd started (around 5:50 mins/km).

I hit the second hill, this time on Forest Hill Road (there's a clue in the name), around the 35 minute mark and I remember feeling absolutely determined to take the fight to the hill. So, it's quite pleasing to look at the stats on Run Keeper and see that the following was recorded:

          Minute 35 - 4:03 mins/km

          Minute 36 - 6:15 mins/km

          Minute 37 - 4:33 mins/km

          Minute 38 - 6:23 mins/km

          Minute 39 - 4:32 mins/km

          Minute 40 - 7:59 mins/km

          Minute 41 - 5:43 mins/km

          Minute 42 - 5:50 mins/km

Ok, so I slowed down markedly on the final hill climb (Minute 41) but I think these stats show pretty clearly that I tried my hardest to follow the training plan's diktat of running up and then jogging down a hill. Let's hope this does go some way to making me a "stronger, faster and healthier runner".

After the second set of hill climbs I again continued on my way. The route was slightly shorter than the 60 minutes it should have been, but for once I didn't mind as I felt I'd put in a lot of effort and by the time I reached home I was out of breath, absolutely knackered and very glad that tomorrow is a rest day. 

I won't be no runaway

Day:         50

Distance: 7.48km

Time:       46:00 secs

Calories:  618

"It's Monday night, it's 7.00, it's ... another 45 minute run at 'easy' tempo"

Not quite as catchy as the old opening line from Top of the Pops admittedly, but I thought I needed a new way to introduce yet another Monday night run of this length and this tempo.

If that makes it sound like I'm bored of doing this run or of running in general then I should say that that is most definitely not the case. In fact, tonight could well go down as one of those perfect runs. An audit of the run would show that I felt good (no aches or pains after Saturday's long run), I ran at a decent 'easy' tempo (averaging 6:09 mins/km) and I was lucky enough to be running on a very mild night (no sign of those strong winds which we were fighting against on Saturday). Speaking of the weather, this is the first run so far when I haven't gone out with gloves on. I still wore a hat, but that's not to keep my head warm its primary role is to keep my headphones in place.

Regular readers (if I have any) may recall that I piloted the National's "High Violet" album as a ready-made playlist for slower runs last week. It worked so well that I did the same again this week. It really is the perfect album for this sort of run as it helps me to settle into a remarkably constant pace for the whole 45 minutes; the fastest kilometre took 5:57 secs while the slowest took 6:19 secs. The slowest kilometre was also the final kilometre but I don't think it was slower because I was tired, rather it was because that kilometre was run to the sound of "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" - my favourite song on the album and the only song I didn't get to hear in last week's slightly shorter run.

I posted up a video of "Vanderlyle ..." last week, so for your listening pleasure this week I'm posting "Runaway" this week. When we saw the National last year this was the opening number. I'm more used to gigs where the opener is an explosive statement of intent (e.g. Rage Against the Machine opening with "Bombtrack" at Reading in 2009), but this was a surprisingly effective opener on the night. The lyric "I won't be no runaway" seems particularly apt given the slow nature of tonight's run.

The long and winding road

Day:         48

Distance: 22.1km

Time:       2:02:11 secs

Calories:  1,746

The plan called for "120 mins 20 mins easy 20 mins steady x3". I translated this into a run of around 25k and duly set about working out a route which you can view here. As we were back in Essex for a friend's 30th birthday this weekend I was accompanied by my brother-in-law Ravi. Now, Ravi's new to this blog so allow me to introduce him briefly. Ravi is very much a natural runner. He ran his first marathon in 2010 and did virtually no training for the event. Since that marathon in October he reckons he's been out running twice and yet I never had any doubts about his ability to run with me for 2 hours. In fact, I wondered whether I'd end up slowing him down.

As you may have noticed, the statistics from this run show that we didn't actually complete the full 25km that I'd mapped out. I think there are three main reasons for this.

Firstly, it's fair to say that the weather conditions weren't ideal for a long run. No matter which direction we were running in we found ourselves battling against an incredibly strong wind. Given that the route I'd worked out was essentially a rather large loop logic would suggest that at some point we would benefit from the wind pushing us along rather than holding us back, but although there were moments of respite neither of us could remember a time in which the wind had made the running any easier for us.

The second difficulty we had to contend with was the long and winding country roads that we spent much of our time on. It would appear that the good people of Doddinghurst have something against pavements, because there really aren't a whole lot of them in that particular part of Essex. This meant that Ravi and I were spending a fair amount of time nervously looking over our shoulders and jumping on and off the verge at the side of the road so as to avoid traffic. Sometimes this meant that we had to stop completely. I'm always keen to get a good time on these runs, but I'm also quite keen to avoid becoming road kill. Speaking of which, lying on one of the verges was what looked very much like a wild boar. Given that the only knowledge that I have of wild boars is that which I gleaned from the Asterix books I loved as a kid I may well be wrong, but it certainly looked like a small, hairy pig.

A wild boar yesterday.

The third difficulty we encountered is related to the second. One country road looks pretty much like any country road and, as a result, I managed to get us hopelessly lost. In my defence, I haven't lived in Essex for about 5 years now so I don't know the roads as well as I could. When we ran past one turning I did wonder whether we should be following that road rather than the one we were on. Unfortunately, I decided not to listen to that little voice in my head and so we went on a magical mystery tour of a hitherto unexplored rural part of Essex. There were a number of times on this unplanned detour when we had to stop, not because we were tired but because we were both scratching our heads trying to work out where the hell we were at that point. Around the 18km mark, Ravi recognised our location and he suggested that we carry on until the only landmark he could think of in the area - a BP station. So, on we ran ... and ran ... and ran, until 4km later we finally reached our new destination. 

I've plotted our actual route and can see quite clearly now that things went awry at the 13km mark when we didn't turn right onto Hall Lane as I had intended. If you have a look at the route map you'll note that our start and end points were some distance apart. To run back to our starting point would have added some considerable distance to an already long run and, so, with metaphorical tail between legs I had to phone up for a lift home. How embarrassing.

So, although we didn't complete the 25km I'd mapped out I feel pretty satisfied with this run. For one thing, this was 2.5km further than I ran last week which seems like solid progress. Now I think about it the planned increase from 19.6km to 25km seems like too much of a leap. I think I had it in my head that I'd done a half marathon distance (that is, 21.1km) last week, so the 25km sounded right at the time. The other key reasons to be cheerful are that this is officially the furthest I have ever run (up until yesterday a half marathon was the furthest I'd done) and it's also the longest amount of time that I've been running for.