Madrid minus 13 weeks (I think)

[Riazor Blue]

I’m going to cheat here and start off last Sunday (which for me was last week). Sunday 25th January I ran a half marathon in a place called Viana do Castelo in the North of Portugal. The top bit of Portugal is much nearer to La Coruña than the vast majority of Spain, and given that there have not been too many races in Galicia in January, I decided to give this one a go. The town itself is pretty small, it’s got the Atlantic on one side, then climbs up into the hills and out into countryside on the other. About 500 or so entered and with 15 minutes to go before the start about 450 runners were fighting at the entries desk trying to get their race number. Somehow, everyone received their number in time and we set off only 5 minutes late.

I was told originally that the race was a course of two laps but this year was only one, a little run around the port then an out and back before leading back to the town. I think the term used is ‘undulating’, and it undulated. The crowds in the little villages were pretty enthusiastic, which always helps, but the last 3Km in the town were run on cobblestones. That part hurt the most.

I set off following a couple of runners from the Samil Veterans Club which is based in Porriño, a dormitorty town of 15,000 close to the city of Vigo. Porriño is interesting as it has 3 athletic clubs and 2 cycling clubs, not bad for a place that small. I have seen these guys at many of the races here and usually they are at around my pace. I have a feeling now that they were after PBs on Sunday as I found it hard to keep up and decided to leave them to it at around 7 Km. With the pace I set off, and the topography of the route, I was a little concerned that I’d have nothing left for the final few Kms.

Normally my plan for a half marathon is this:

1st 5KM: Nice and easy, around 5min 5 secs per kilometer.
2nd & 3rd 5Ks : Up the pace to around 4min 45 sec per kilometer.
Last 6 Km: Go flat out. I always tell myself that it’s less than I run every day of the week. (mentally I picture where I am on my normal 8 km circuit around the La Coruña esplanade).

This half ended up with splits:

0-5KM – 23m32s
5-10Km – 23m49s
10-15Km - 23m50s
15-20Km – 23m36s
last km – 4m44s
97metres – 26secs.

Overall that worked out at 4m44s per Km. Given that the course was a leg breaker as they say here, I’m well happy with that. Oh, and I was right, there wasn't much left in the tank at the finish.

[Riazor Blue]

Streached my legs today, done about 5km along the sea front, managed to fit in 25 minutes with the sun shining, probably the only 25 minutes of sun all day. Nothing aches too much.. Well actually something always aches a little, but nothing unusual. Gearing myself up for series tomorrow.

[Riazor Blue]

Sunny and cold today. I’m lucky more or less in that I can train when I like at the moment. Put on my Stormy Pegasus this morning. Jogged down to Riazor stadium on the seafront, that’s where Deportivo play by the way. Turned left and jogged up past the Millenium Obelisk, a green glass needle in a pond that lights up at night, also known as the ‘Pacolito’ after the mayor – some reckon it’s his folly.

Anyway, just past there the esplanade climbs up steeply and just off to the side is a dirt track that leads up to a park called Mont San Pedro. Today I decided that I’d treat myself to some hill reps (since it’s my birthday today). The track is great at this time of year, nice and springy, it’s about 800 metres long and probably rises 100 metres. And it’s bloody hard work.

If you ask a normal person to describe that hill probably he would say, “well it’s a dirt track and it goes from the bottom to the top” and not much more.

If you ask a runner he’ll say “ OK, it starts off fairly smoothly, rises at about 1 in 10, after 300 metres there’s a sharp rise and the calves begin to pump a bit, at 400 metres you are starting to puff and pant then it’s even steeper for about 50 metres, there’s a flatter section where you can recover for about 100 metres before rising again to reach the car park at the top, by which time the legs and the lungs are fit to explode”. Or something along those lines.

So when you reach the top for the third time you think “That’s it, no more. When I get to the bottom I’m going home”.

Then at the bottom you think “Well, OK, one more..”

Next time “Bugger it, I can do another one”

And finally “ Oh well I’ll make it a nice round 6 (!)”.

Jog home and that’s me done for the day.


Whether this is how one’s supposed to do hill reps, I haven’t got a clue. Does it get easier? I don’t think so.

By the way, my girlfriend thinks it's abnormal to eat a whole 200g Toblerone in less than 1/2 an hour. What do you think?

[Seafront Plodder]

I think your girlfriend's abnormal RB!

I've been doing some hill work recently, and if it's not doing me any good then frankly someone's got to die!

P.S. Happy birthday.

[El Gordo]

200g in half an hour? What took you so long? Weren't you enjoying it?

[Nigel]

Some years ago, I lived very close to the Toblerone factory whilst working at the University in Berne. My theory then was that, like Guinness, Toblerone improves with proximity to its source. And, even more like Guinness, the yearning for it increases with distance from the source. Funny that I never lost weight in Switzerland.

I saw three different Toblerone varieties in the duty free at Tunis airport recently - regular yellow (milk chocolate), black (dark chocolate) and white (white chocolate). It was a close run thing - they took only US Dollars and I had only Dinars, but fortunately the credit card saved the day.....

[Antonio247]

Happy birthday, Brian! ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

What a wonderful way to celebrate it!

Regards,

Antonio

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

No doubt finding a Swiss chocolate factory at the top of a hill wouldn't be a problem, but is there a Guinness brewery on a hill? Hill reps would never be a problem then.

I had another thought, but I can't eat Toblerone, drink a tinnie and type at the same time. Especially not while running up this damn hill (thank God for laptops and wireless networks, eh?)

Anyone know how to get melted chocolate out of a keyboard?

MLC Man

[Riazor Blue]

Anyone remember Payne's Poppets? Their factory was close to home when I was younger, always smelled good going past. Perhaps that's where I got it from, I loved the toffee ones and the mint ones. Antonio, you don't know what you are missing with all the chocolate bars in the UK.

MLC Man, where's the Coopers' brewery in Adelaide? I wouldn't mind if that was at the top of a hill.

Seriously, I suppose that these hills are doing some good, I have always found that everyone overtakes me on the hills, I'm faster on the flat but slow dramatically uphill. Give it five or six months and we'll see. Probably won't notice anything before Madrid though and there's a nasty hill 3km before the finish.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Sadly RB, the Coopers brewery has moved to an immensely dull, very modern and totally flat outer suburban site.

It did get me thinking though... the 'Point to Pinnacle' half marathon in Hobart, Tasmania (which is a totally uphill half, running from sea level to the top of Mt.Wellington), runs past the Cascade brewery at about the 10km mark... making it an ideal "water" point. As the event is sponsored by Boags brewery (which I think now owns Cascade), it is a very enticing race... beer, scenery, hills, more beer...

And the Cadbury chocolate factory is just a few clicks up the river!

Sounds like my kind of event.

At least the diet aspect of training will be easy.

MLC Man.

[Riazor Blue]

Beer and chocolate, I could train on that quite happily - OK with a bit of red wine thrown in because it's healthy aswell. Think about it, everyone recommends brewers yeast as a suppliment, red wine, a glass or two a day and there's heaps of magnesium in Choccies.

Didn't have time for anything all day yesterday, although I was itching to nip out for a quick half hour or so. Measured out my normal route yesterday in the car - it's 9.6Km , so if I run 200m past the traffic lights and back its a nice round 10k.

So freshly armed with this info I ran 10k this morning, well, I ran a bit more because I jogged about 1K to the start of my route, but that's warm-up so doesn't count in my book. I've been looking at that Mcmillan running calculator thingy, and thought I'd whack out a 10k at tempo pace. Looks like I need more training. Still, it wasn't bad, 4m30s kilometres. On a flat course, perhaps I could do something close in a 1/2. I'm aiming to do a half at the end of March, Vig-Bay it's called, it follows the coast so is flat, we'll see then.

I'm in two minds for the weekend, If I do my long run tomorrow morning I can take the car out to try and find a long distance pathway that's supposed to exist near a place called Pontedueme, which will mean that I don't get any shopping for the weekend, or I do it on Sunday morning which will be around the esplanade a couple of times on asphalt. Or I could look for this path on Sunday, but that would mean that I miss out on lunch with the in-laws, and the ma-in-law is a great cook. Dilemmas, Dilemmas.....

[Antonio247]

I really love chocolate, Brian. I like all kinds of chocolate.

Last Wednesday I had a cup of chocolate and "churros" with Thomas, the German lad who is travelling on bicycle around Europe. I took him to my school to talk to my students on his experience and my students enjoyed a lot. They asked him a lot of questions and they even asked him for an autograph. Then, we went to a café to have a typical Spanish breakfast. He had never tried "churros" and he liked them a lot. However, he had a white coffee instead of chocolate. If I could I´d have chocolate, cakes and all those sweet things everyday but I must control myself in order not to gain weight.

I think you could do the shopping on Saturday afternoon and do your long distance run at Pontedeume so that you can enjoy your mother-in-law´s "empanadas gallegas". "lacón con grelos" or whatever she decides to make.

Congratulations on your training and on your interesting diary!

Good luck!

Antonio

[Riazor Blue]

Funny you should mention lacón con grelos.... She's never done them before for me. For you guys who don't know , grelos are the leaves of turnips, a very popular vegetable in Galicia, lacon is a cut of pork, add to that boiled beef, potatoes, chick peas and chorizos (spicy red sausages) and you have a laconada. Now while this may not sound very exotic or very Spanish, it's traditional winter food in Galicia and tastes superb.

Yesterday I ran my long one, along the seafront, as I didn't have time to search out the route in Pontedueme. Actually it wasn't very long, my long run, but it was slow. After about 11km I could feel my hamstring tightening so I thought it best not to continue.

Today, given the hamstring situation I thought it best to relax and take things easy.

I weighed myself today at the in-laws, I don't have a set of scales at home, 83.6Kg, I think thats 1/2 a kilo more than last week. That may be the lacon from today, or perhaps last wednesday's toblerone.

Adding up my totals for this week, Monday to Sunday, I've only done 33Km. Just as well I've got 12 more weeks to train.