Project Good For Age! Week 3 of 30
Goal : Automatic Entry Into the London Marathon
How? : Run a 3:15 Mara @ Manchester Mara in April (Current PB 4:45)
First Step : Run a 45 Minute 10k @ Windmill 10k race in November (10k time at start of project 57:58) www.strava.com/activities/1188827899
This Weeks 10k Time : 46:38 www.strava.com/activities/1220629150
Have you seen that time?
Buzzing!
Here is how I got on in week 3….
Behaviour
It is clear to me that behaving like the person you want to become is going to be one of the major keys if am going to be successful in this quest.
What I mean by this is saying no to temptation.
When it’s Saturday night and all your mates are going down the pub having ‘fun’ and you are sat at home being a good little boy because you have got a ‘Super Sunday’ run in the morning – it’s one of the most difficult things to master.
It’s tough.
It really is.
But what do you want?
Do you want to go ‘down the pub’ like everybody else?
Or do you want to operate on a different level and try and achieve something amazing?
For me, alcohol is a complete no-no.
I can never just have ‘the one’ – I end up having a skinfull and then I’m rough as nails the next day so my training suffers and so does my performance etc etc etc – I just feel like a completely different person without it.
Once again I managed to resist Saturday night and I went the gym instead.
For the first time in a long time I actually wasn’t bothered, I was genuinely excited about what was going to happen on Sundays run and I didn’t want to spoil it…
Oh Dear….
Diet
Without meaning to state the obvious, what I put in my mouth has a direct impact on my bodyweight and as far as I am concerned losing body-weight as a tactic to improve running speed is a complete no-brainer.
But diet is another thing that I struggle with.
Some days I do great and live like Mohammed Farrah.
Other days I turn into the incredible hulk and completely lose the plot.
If any ‘goodies’ (crisps, biscuits, chocolate, sweets, ice cream etc) touch my lips I appear to become possessed and will start to gorge on the lot of them.
The only way is not to have them in the house but then is that really fair on my little girl? I try to ‘hide’ them but it doesn’t work, I end up ransacking the cupboards in some sugar induced rage.
I am trying my best to substitute sweet things with grapes and yoghurts etc but it’s tough, as we know!.
One must learn to resist!
As I said, who is the person that you want to become?
Weight
At the start of this process I weighed 14st and my bodyfat was 25%
This week I weighed 13 stone 9 and my bodyfat was 23.1%.
There is no doubt in my mind that losing bodyweight will have a direct impact on running speed.
I have made some decent progress, but there are bucket loads of gains to be made here and the key to it is diet, as above, simple as that.
Training In The Week
My training has gone really well all week, I definitely feel like I am working in each session and can feel my body wanting to push on to the next level which is just great, more importantly I am enjoying it and finding it fun. long may this continue.
Super Sunday 10k 46:38 www.strava.com/activities/1220629150
Sad but true, I can’t begin to tell you how much I look forward to lacing up the Mizunos and getting out onto my ‘benchmark’ circuit to disover what effect this weeks training will have on my ‘Super Sunday’ performance.
This is when you get the rewards for behaving like a saint.
Waking up Sunday fresh as a daisy and ‘itching’ to get out there versus ruff as fuk due to too much ale/debaunchery the night before is nothing less than a game changer.
Whereas last week my Super Sunday turned into a glorified interval session my plan this week was to ease into it for the first 500km then try to hit sub 5 minute km pace for as long as I could hold on.
The session got off to the worst possible start as try as I might I could not pick up the pace but I discovered that my Garmin was set at ‘lap pace’ instead of ‘actual pace’ – this meant I was trying to ‘reverse’ the effects of a slow start and force the speed way harder than I needed to be doing from the outset leaving me fatigued before I even got cracking!
Thankfully I realised the error very early on and soon settled into my stride.
The first 5km went by smoothly enough and I was hitting my sub 5 minute kilometres target throughout which I was very pleased about.
Kilometres 6-7 were hard going, but this is up a slight steady incline,so what do you expect, and I also found km 8-9 very tough.
By the end I was ready to throw up.
But hey, look at the result.
After just 3 weeks I am running the ‘benchmark route’ in 46:38 when at the start of the process my ‘deault setting’ for the same circuit was just under an hour.
This needs celebrating.
Think i’ll crack open a protein smoothie….
Training Next Week
It was clear to me from this weeks sessinon that I need to incorporte 2 things.
Keep an eye on my blog to find out what they are ?
Next Update 15-10-17 – 4 weeks till race day!
By the way, I have written a book, it’s all about how I went from zero fitness to completing an Ironman triathlon, it’s only just come out but it has got some fantastic reviews already!- you can check them out here: (also available on Amazon in the US but please read the UK reviews first!)
To your amazing journey!
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