2010 – Success or Flop?
One year and two days ago I sat down and devised a plan. A new way of logging my running had been established. It was also the first time I had set any running targets for myself so I didn’t really know whether these goals for 2010 were prudent or optimistic. One thing I can say though is it has been my best year of running.
Most of that enjoyment occurred in the second half of the year however. In the last 6 months I learned a lot, utilising techniques from POSE Method and general good running mechanics (thanks @thinkrunning!) to change my running form for the better. I discovered barefoot running and off the back of all that improvement I gained new Personal Best times for both 10km and Half Marathon distances.
How did I do though?
First, some numbers…
- I ran 938 miles in 2010
- I ran 119 miles in May, my top month
- And 114 miles in August
- I spent 140 hours 17 minutes running in 2010
- The furthest I ran was 26.2 miles (in May)
- My fastest average pace was 7:02 minute miles (on a 4.7 mile run)
- I’ve run 149 miles barefoot, my longest barefoot run was 8.42 miles
- I ran a Half Marathon Personal Best of 1:47:17
- I shaved almost 5 minutes off my 10K PB in 4 months
- I ran a 10k Personal Best of 44:44, which I ran barefoot
- I shaved 30 mins off my Marathon time for a new PB of 4:47:33
- I ran up 77,364ft worth of hills
…Now a table showing my targets and actual results. I set 4 main targets; Total Mileage, Overall Average Pace, Marathon Finish time and Compete in 4 organised events.
There’s only one flop in there – the target Marathon time. I know what went wrong though. I’ve learned and next time, I’ll achieve target. Another flop not recorded was the November challenge – 30 Days of Running. I only managed 8 days after which I had to give up when I turned the wrong way on a stair case and heard my knee pop.
I smashed my annual mileage target by 238 miles! I over achieved every quarter, however, only just managed in Q4. That was down to 3 weeks of not running though.
The biggest surprise was with my average pace. There’s a mixture of reasons why I think i fared better than first thought. Firstly, improved fitness levels in the first half of the year. Secondly, improved technique – I transitioned from a slow cadence, pounding the road and over striding to a vastly more efficient form; high cadence (around 180 steps p/m), landing below my centre of gravity. All in all made for being able to hold a decent pace. And I know I can run faster with more training.
The Final Decision
There you have it, 2010 – Success or Flop? Sure, there were disappointments, but I learned from every mistake. The final outcome is Success though!
And what does 2011 hold I hear you ask. Well, I’ll write another post for that but I know one thing, it’s going to be a year I’ll never forget.
Caught Short
Oh dear, it seems that it’s only 17 weeks (16 weeks and 4 days to be precise) until the Lochaber Marathon. I wouldn’t have realised if I hadn’t seen @runningfairy commenting to @runningmeschee that it’s only 17 weeks till the Brighton Marathon (same day). So much has been happening lately that I clean forgot about it.
The problem – I have no training plan. Realistically I should start training next week! Well, I may have a quick solution. Last February I wrote a Marathon Training Plan post in preparation for the Edinburgh Marathon. It was a sub 4 hour plan. At the time it was a very adventurous plan and, as my ITB kindly let me know, it was a bit much at times.
A lot has changed in the second half of the year though. My fitness levels are at the highest they’ve ever been and I’ve come a long way in improving my running form. I think the once adventurous plan is now very achievable.
The plan starts at 23 miles per week – my now usual weekly mileage – and calls for 5 days running per week. I don’t think I’m quite ready for 5 days. Although I often wish I could run everyday, I’ve been comfortable with a 4 day running week for a while now and I don’t want to change that. It just means I’ll have to be a little smarter in the way I train. I’ll post the revised plan once I’ve figured out what that smarter training is.
That’s it then. The training starts on Monday.
November Challenge 2010
In early/mid 2010 a conversation on Twitter with @runningfairy brought about the November Challenge – 30 Days of running. That’s 30 consecutive days of running. We decided it didn’t matter how much you ran, just as long as you got out every day. Out of the 46 people who signed up for the challenge, 8 completed the challenge (they exercised every day but didn’t run every day) and 6 managed to run every day! Unfortunately, that final 6 didn’t include myself or @runningfairy. Think that’s down to Murphy’s Law or something. That and picking up an injury, which I heard a few people did too. To those, I hope the injuries have healed!
A massive congratulations to Lena, Claire, Catherine B, Rebecca B, Euan and MJ who all completed the challenge and between them amassed a total of 622 miles for the month! Well done, I know from the Daily Mile and Twitter updates it was tough at times.
As you can see from the chart to the right, Lena secured the top spot for total mileage achieved by clocking up a whopping 157 miles, 26.2 of those running the Newcastle Town Moor Marathon. Well done Lena.
Everyone built up a great monthly total though;
- Lena 157
- Catherine B 109
- Claire 99
- Euan 93
- MJ 90
- Rebecca B 74
The chart below shows the daily mileage per challenger. Little and often seemed to be the key to a successful November challenge, clocking between 1 and 3 miles on each outing while still maintaining at least one long run per week.
Once again, well done to those who took part and congratulations to those who completed the challenge!
A Picture Postcard Snowy Run
Since this mornings run was more about staying upright than getting round at a decent pace, I took it easy and stopped a few time and snapped some sections of today’s route. There was only about an inch of snow on the ground but it made for some nice scenes…
It might not look it but this hill is a particularly steep downhill section, not so great when it’s really icy.
Free Running Log 2011
***UPDATED with NEW Spreadsheet 2 Jan 2011***
I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a slave to running stats. I’m no elite athlete but there’s just something great about seeing your numbers build up, pace trends go down and see how far from or how much you’ve beat your target by. Since starting to run I’ve used mobile apps to track runs but the trouble with that is your data is scattered and easily lost. What happens when you try a new app, change your phone, etc. It’s much easier and a little more reliable to keep your log in one place. Some people use a paper log book, which I do too – it’s a back up! But my main log is in the form of a spreadsheet. I keep the spreadsheet in Google Docs in order that I can access and update it from anywhere.
If you’re looking for a new spreadsheet to log your running in 2011, feel free to download the .xls spreadsheet here (225kb) >>> Running Log 2011 Revised
I’ll briefly run through each sheet. The main things to remember though are:
- Grey cells are editable, i.e. the bits you fill in
- Green cells contain formulae, i.e. the bits that do the work for you
- Little marks on a cell corner means I’ve left a nice comment about a cell or data area that might be useful
Dashboard
The Dashboard is a summary page for all of your runs. It provides a quarterly and total view on your mileage, time, pace and climb (ascent in ft). If you use a web app like mapometer.com to measure distances it will also show you the total ascent from A-B, which you can use as data. There is also a space labelled Temp. This can be easily changed to average Heart Rate, where you can insert bpm data. I use temp because a) I don’t use a HR monitor and b) I like the thought of being able to correlate outside temperature with running performance.
The grey rows are editable and contain fields for quarterly and annual targets, examples of which are shown in the document.
Weekly
This sheet does not require any editing. It packages up the data from the Daily Sheet into, you guessed it, weekly chunks. useful for keeping tabs on your weekly mileage. All of the data here feeds into the Charts sheet at the end of the document.
Daily (The sheet you input all your workout data)
This sheet is the guts of the log. This is where you’ll input all of your data: Time, Distance, Average Pace, Climb, Temp (or HR if you decide to change it), Shoe mileage, etc.
Every day of the year is represented the sheet. Each group you see represent a week going from Monday – Sunday. In the first group you’ll notice only two dates are shown. This is because the 1st & 2nd of January are a Saturday and Sunday, respectively. You get where it’s going from there.
Time is entered in an “hours” format. I log distance in miles (to 2 decimal places, e.g. 6.21) but you can log it in Kilometres if you want – as long as it’s consistent throughout the log. You’ll need to change some titles in the charts but that’s no hassle. Average Pace in column D is a simple calculation, so no need to touch that. Just remember to copy it down to your next workout entry.
As I mentioned before, you can change Temp to Ave HR if required.
To the right of the group data you’ll also see columns where you can input your shoe mileage. Just type in the mileage you ran in the shoes in the same row as the workout. Change the titles to the shoe name as appropriate.
Last in line you’ll see columns entitled “Dark” and “Light”. There’s a method to the madness here. if you ran your workout in daylight, put a 1 into the Daylight cell in line with your work out. Same goes if you ran in the dark. You’ll see a pie chart in the chart sheet that shows a split between light and dark runs. I included this because I do a lot of my running early in the morning before work so i thought it would be fun to see how much running I do in the dark over the course of the year.
I’ve left in example workouts to show how cells are filled in. Have a look and play around with them.
Comments
It’s good to note how you felt during and after a run. In that respect, this page is pretty self explanatory.
Shoes
Shoes links back to Daily Sheet and totals the mileage you’ve ramped up on each pair of your running friends. There’s also an editable field to note mileage already on your shoes if you had them the previous year. Data from this sheet and the Weekly sheet are shown graphically in the Charts sheet.
Races
This is just a place for you to note your races and times. It doesn’t link to anything, it’s just there for posterity.
Stats For Charts
Unless you’re adding data fields, you shouldn’t need to tough this sheet. It pulls data from all of the previous sheets into nice chunks, which are used in the next sheet to visualise your training. Again, this is a hangover from Google Docs awkwardness in selecting data ranges.
Charts
This is the fun bit I guess. As simple as it goes too, it shows all of your training results in various tables. Feel free to add tables to splice and dice your data.
So there you have it. It’s easier to use than it’s made out above to be honest. There is some awkwardness, which is from Google Docs and it may make you wonder why I don’t just use Excel. Well, for me, the pro of being able to access and edit the doc from anywhere outweighs the con of low functionality. As i mentioned, I’ve left in example workouts to show the sheet in action. If you have any queries or suggestions about using/improving the spreadsheet, please leave a comment!
Again, you can download the .xls document here >>> Running Log 2011 Revised
Enjoy!!
DailyMile updates
- Paul posted a workout May 14, 2012
- Paul posted a workout April 28, 2012
- Paul posted a workout April 6, 2012
- Paul posted a workout April 4, 2012
- Paul posted a workout March 28, 2012
