Started the week with a swim!

As planned I went to the pool on Monday morning, I hoped I had everything you need, Towel, Speedos... but as I got to the pool edge... goggles! Bah never mind, also my first swim in years and a first for using the Apple Watch.

The watch did very well and accurately counted the laps and was a breeze, the days of trying to remember what lap you are on and what time did you start swimming again... Not anymore.

I am using rungo with its "swagbag" to export to Strava, I am not happy that Strava does not support the Apple Watch natively and that when you do have rich data from Apple Health, rungo imports it fine, but once its gets there Strava holds minimal data.



So as I had trained in the pool in the morning I fancied a blast on the turbo so did 15k again but this time found a good gear and enjoyed the ride.



Unfortunately I planned to go for a 5k run but could not fit it in so finished the week with a 15 minute 145 bpm turbo session, finally got the cadence sensor just right thanks to a video on youtube.


So getting back into some sort of fitness regime, this week I will try to use the turbo trainer up to Wednesday night as from Thursday I am on a holiday to Nuremberg, Germany so have packed my running stuff for parkrun on Saturday!

Back on the turbo trainer

Since I am struggling to run and the weather not exactly nice for running, I decided to dust off the old Tacx Flow turbo trainer.

Quite a struggle as it is that old it only uses USB and the software I had only ran on Windows 7, also the licence is tied to the laptop it was installed on.
As luck would have it I found the laptop, the screen does not work and was well behind on patches and anti-virus so took ages to get running, plus the Tacx software incrementally updates so had to go from 3.7 to 3.12.

The first few sessions worked well and decided to invest in a Heart Rate Monitor, again the unit being so old it does not use Bluetooth or ant+ so after research managed to find the "Sigma Analogue" HRM on Amazon.

So today managed to get 15km done and it works as if was 5 years ago! The process to get the workout into Strava a little convoluted as I have to export to a Polar HRM format, then use a converter to change it to a Garmin TCX file and then finally upload to Strava!

If I keep up the effort, I will buy a newer turbo trainer that connects via bluetooth to an iPad. Then I can us Zwift which a great training app and puts you on virtual courses, races etc.

So for this week I will attempt some swimming on Monday and a run on Thursday to complement the turbo sessions.

Back racing with RRR

Sunday 4th November was the Derwentwater 10, the last race on the Royton Road Runners calendar.
So what better way to put my return to the club than putting the RRR running vest back on, doing the last race and one of the hardest!

The coach picked us up at 8am and off we went! I had nerves not just about the race but about meeting club mates again and although nice to be remembered, reminders of how quick I used to be was all around. People I used to race again I knew I had no chance of beating and kept reminding myself that today was just a sighter and a target for next year to beat, something Brian Moore happily reminded me of.
It had been raining all night so it was going to be wet on the roads, that stuff just rolls off the hills and pours onto the roads, torrents as it turned out but that is part of the fun of the race.

As per usual I headed off quick, that will never change and soon got into my rhythm and the pace I wanted to do.

Water at about 4.5 miles was heaven and then the hills just kept on coming, funny marshal near the end claiming that was the last hill... I hope he gets a nasty rash for a week.


I preferred the old course, fewer hills near the end!

2010 66 minutes

2018 85 minutes

But I was the first V40 back for Royton Road Runners so not a bad start back at the club.

Keep running everyone

Mark

giving trainasone.com a whirl

For the last few weeks I have been increasing the mileage, trying to keep to the 10% rule i.e. do not up your effort too quickly as this can lead to injury so week "A" you do 10 miles then next week "B" you do 11 miles.

So far it has worked and the mileage is getting there with a mixture of longer runs and now one extra day, so trying to do 4 runs a week.

Strava however has a new feature for "Summit' users (formerly known as premium) on the iPhone, it looks to track your effort for the week and compare to the previous week. so as you progress through the week it warns if you are pushing it too hard or the opposite.
It does this based on the suffer score (Strava's measure of your heart rate vs pace etc during runs.

Try and keep in the white zone

As you progress the week, it advises you

This is good but I still cannot seem to reconcile how to balance the effort, I want to increase mileage but this pushes me over, running slow is no good to me as it historically led to injury (change in running gait) so as you can see I have yet to keep in the "Zone"

By chance on one of my runs I came across a club mate who I have not seen in ages, as we ran around Shaw together I talked about how I getting back and trying to plan my runs he told me of some software he uses. The conversation was somewhat difficult as my fitness is still way off, but the basis of what he said was you set a goal, the website tells him what to do, it reviews how it went and using AI sets your next few runs.

So a few days later I contacted him via facebook and got the name of the website, trainasone.com it has a free account or premium coming at £6 a month and you can use a 21 day trial. It was easy to link to Strava and pulled in the last few months of data so it has a good knowledge of what you have been up to.

For the first few weeks it sets a good number of different "Assessment" runs, these are made up of different stages to a run i.e. walk, easy, all out for set durations.

As you complete runs it adjusts the future assessments and what it refers to "Economy" runs i.e. a normal go out for 6 miles at 8:40 pace.

This can make it difficult to remember to do as you run so writing it on my hand the only way to do this.

On the morning of the run a reminder of the objective is emailed to you

The on the go version!

So far so good and it only shows you a few weeks and the website explains in the beginning it might look as you are doing less but it is key to establish a baseline for all paces like tempo and threshold.

The last run of the week was a struggle as was still very hungover from Saturdays Latics trip to Morecambe. It had plenty of slow pace sections with a 2 mile "fast as you can" effort in the middle, given this took in 2 hills I did my best!

It may be a co-incidence but trainasone.com seems to have delivered my first week "in the zone"

Thanks for reading

Mark

Starting to get back running

So far this year it has been a patchy restart to my running life but things are looking positive now.
Getting to training nights with Royton are proving difficult and not usually able to get to a parkrun on a Saturday so have chosen to match the distance I would have done, so a training night would be 10K and parkrun obviously 5K.

The process to get my coaching licence re-activated is moving on and this week received my DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) certificate, so England Athletics can send me my new licence.

How to get to club nights will still be a challenge, Mondays and Thursdays are from the Cricket club so it is just a case of a jog (if I am not working away), Wednesdays are at Kingsway track which is a car journey and I still have no car with no plans in the short term to get one.

So just focusing on getting fit, losing weight and reading the latest info set out by England Athletics.

On Monday I wanted to do a 10k mostly because I had signed up to the Strava July 10K challenge and time was running out, I find this a good motivator as I am not racing or training it is too easy to plump for short runs.
I started by planning the route and remembered I now live on the route of the Milltown 10K I created for the series with Alan Keane back in 2011.

My goto routing tool is www.mapmyrun.com and set about re-creating the run, of course with a different start/finish!

Here is my effort and aim to do it at the end of each month so I can compare efforts



I really want to complete the August distance and hill climbing challenges so watch this space!

Lastly for this week the local craft beer place I frequent (The Secret SIP) has engaged with the Mikkeller brewery who have set up running clubs all over the world, it is a simple fun concept. 1 Saturday a month turn up to the pub run a 5k or 10k get back and get a free pint of beer when you get back.

It was great to speak with Ben who is setting it up, his enthusiasm for the project was great and it is something I will support (if it does not clash with football)
So registered the app and soon the Oldham "Chapter" will be live, could not link the app to Strava and Ben had the same issue but he managed to do it via the website.
Not something I have managed to do yet but no rush to resolve.

Check it out at Mikkeller

Have a good week

Mark

It's been a while but back into the running... trialling Rungo app

So after a bit of start/stop effort, I am finally starting to get the running back (pun intended) on track and can give you a bit of an update.

Recently work and family life has taken a big hit on my let's say happiness, so now looking for the exercise to help pick my mood up, which seems to be working. No longer am I looking for faster lap times or race times, I am running just for the hell of it, sure Strava gives me great insight into how I am doing but any runner will tell you how well a run went, suffer score not required however fun it is to look at.

I am now living in a new part of Manchester which my only running link being the Moonraker 10k course, which sadly no longer takes place. So in one way is nice to be able to train on the course but if you have ever raced it... Windermere Road is a heck of a climb!

So to help me get about and not get lost, I tried out Rungo which works in the same way as Strava but you can download your running route to the watch and it gives you turn by turn directions in your ears.

This worked well in a trial and paid for the premium plugin to enable among other features, the ability to sync with Strava.

This worked very well and as soon as the watch connects to the phone (just like Strava), the activity is uploaded to the website. The Rungo website itself is very basic but is enough to get your route, pace and splits. The focus seems to be on community and routes rather than out and out the detail of how you performed.

Rungo

Strava

When I checked out what information was synced to Strava it struck me straight away that there was no HR data passed across, so checked back at Rungo and it too does not store HR data, the watch app, however, does display your HR all be it in a grey font, small at the top of the screen.

This was a complaint of forum folks and it is believed that the ability to customise the watch interface is on the roadmap, just change the font to red and larger!

I have to say the technical support for Rungo is good, with the responses being quite prompt and knowledge placed at the right level.

So, in a nutshell, I am having to run both apps when running new routes and configure Rungo not to write to activity as it duplicates data. Once the HR issue is fixed I can see myself going fully to Rungo and using Strava to collect the data.... unless that is Strava mans up and does turn-by-turn navigation...

So my last challenge of the day was how to get back into the house, no longer do I have the luxury of someone to open the door for me. I have worked (and paid) hard to cord-cut and minimise stuff that I have to carry when out for a run. The Apple Watch as discussed in my Back to running post handles everything from tracking the run, phone for emergencies and paying for stuff. I don't have to have an armband, running belt... nothing, however I do not to be able to get back in the house.
The solution back to the old days, thread the key into your laces... simples.
My back issue if you are wondering... persists and my physio's last words to me "stretch" still ring in my ears.

Till next time

Keep running

Mark

Rest week, fat old man, bad back!

My back has been pure agony and the right calf manageable, I have used ibuprofen and Voltarol to ease the pain, so nothing more than walking this week.

Having rested my back and calf have made some recovery, so rocked up to Heaton parkrun with the back strapped, smothered in Voltarol...

Meeting Rick Bennett again after all these years was a delight, Saturday mornings setting out Heaton parkrun all those years ago was great, we rarely got to run, so this was probably the first time we were running together!

Steve my parkrun buddy fresh from a night out on the beer was experiencing Heaton for the first time and I had prepped him for Angina Hill which he tackled well, it was ominous that he and Rick had only met today and both targeting under 25 minutes.

As you can see they had a close but no cigar moment!

For me, things went OK the back was angry but manageable and all was well until about 3.5K in. My fingers started to tingle (yes I had forgotten my gloves) so thought hmmm circulation, breathe more! 
At that point, my right calf went with a pop and I thought "great, that's the run over" however by the time I reached the bottom of Angina Hill it did not seem to have slowed me down much so carried on.
Running around the golf course section I could hear my breathing, even with my ears full of music. so puffed on and my official time was 29:21 no danger of breaking my 19:00 PB on the course!


On Sunday I tried a quick jog to so if the back pain could be tolerated without all the pain relief... not a chance!

So will try for a couple 3K sessions during the week and next Saturday visit South Manchester parkrun which I have not been to since assisting the creation of it with Manchester University many years ago.

Keep running everybody!

Mark