I thoroughly enjoyed watching the marathon yesterday – both men’s and women’s races were very enjoyable, in different ways. One of the things I really enjoyed was watching Emile Cairess (2:06:46) & Mahamed Mahamed (2:07:05) storm through the field, over the last few miles to come 3rd & 4th in what proved to be 2nd … Continue reading London Marathon 2024 – tiny differences
Above was a year ago today, where Heartbreak Hill was true to it’s name and utterly broke me. I’ve always amazed when I look back at the picture and can’t see a deeper grimace – at the time when Amrit ran past me it was possibly the worst I’ve ever felt in a marathon. It … Continue reading What a year on from Boston has taught me.
I bought this great model of a foot recently – it’s a lot of fun to play around with and get a better feel / understanding of how the bones in the feet move and the knock on impact this has on the muscles / tendons that are attached. One of the areas I’ve been … Continue reading The foot & achilles
Calming down, down regulating, taking your mind off things. I was thinking about this last week, as a counter point to warming up to sessions. I ran through the various things that I do, to offer me a sense of calm / peace and allow my mind space to recuperate. Having this mental space is … Continue reading Relaxing
The sea has been wonderfully cold the last week or so. Swimming in it has been incredibly life affirming and incredibly cold on gloved / booted feet. Hitting colder temperatures than last year, regular ice swimming (where I believe the water temp is 5c or less). Today the forecast looked like it was going to … Continue reading The Sea
Over the last 7 week marathon build – and the last 4 weeks of my running recently I’ve stuck to a pretty similar set of warm up routines, fuelling, dependant on the type of run I’ve been doing and the outcome for the runs that I’m looking for. Time / patience / comfort all play … Continue reading Warming up – The differences I’ve used in last cycle (breath & tools)
I’ve had a good start to 2024, coming into the year fit, healthy and positive. This isn’t always the case – but my mind blurs from one previous year to another when I reflect back. I do know that this year has felt different. That in itself is enough – as at the moment that … Continue reading 2024
Some time ago I came across a really fascinating article (https://medium.com/running-with-data/perfect-pacing-at-the-london-marathon-95f09db2ac5c) written by Barry Smyth, a data scientist from Ireland. At the time the article wasn’t stuck behind a paywall, so to summarise what Barry did as the introduction outlines was: The article itself was a great read, Barry took all of the above data, … Continue reading The Marathon calculator
As brutal as Boston was, Valencia was beautiful from a personal and professional point of view. I’ll add my thoughts on the personal first, then the professional. I’ve never paced a marathon well – this was my 7th. Too often I go off too fast – this being the case for the last 2, London … Continue reading Valencia – Beautiful
Week 11 – Solid progress 9/10 week Best week to date – in terms of embedding some pace, feeling good and running well. Monday 20/11: Speed sharpness – this feels like it has really helped over the last couple of weeks. Executed a lot more proficiently than last week. Same run – train to Herne … Continue reading Valencia 11/12
BreatheToMove 