Training Diary #29 // Cambridge Half Marathon - Week Thirteen

2/19/2018

Just two weeks to go! We're into the last week of proper training before I start to taper. I can't hide my disappointment in only doing 2 runs again this week.. but I guess it's better than one.. or none! and I did atleast get in some extra activity this week.

WEEK THIRTEEN TRAINING
MONDAY & THURSDAY
Activity: Run | Distance: Bike Commute - Distance 2 miles each way

Ahhh those light evenings are here and it's bloody bliss. It's still fairly dark in the mornings though, but thankfully, it's not as busy in the morning with regards to cars. Nothing eventful really happened, except for the fact that, for some reason, I'm really struggling to pedal my legs up the steep hill atm, not entirely sure why!

WEDNESDAY
Activity: Run | Distance: 1.45 miles | Time: 13:27 | Pace: 9:16 min/mi
Activity: Run | Distance: 0.38 miles | Time: 3:55 | Pace: 10:25 min/mi
Activity: Run | Distance: 1.50 miles | Time: 15:39 | Pace: 10:26 min/mi
Activity: Run | Distance: 0.37 miles | Time: 3:47 | Pace: 10:15 min/mi

To be fair.. I almost didn't do this run commute as I wasn't feeling it. I'm glad I did now or I'd have been down to one run for the week. With the DOMS left over from my challenges, I had intended on just running it slower as a recovery and it turns out I don't know how to run slow.. though I've heard from many people that its hard to slow down your pace. Ended up with close to 9 min/mi despite it being fairly slippery out on the paths too.

SUNDAY
Activity: Run | Distance: 10 miles | Time: 1:41:40 | Pace: 10:10 min/mi

This run was far better than last week but not my best and ended with a bit of a hissy fit in the middle of the street. Thankfully, no DOMS this week which was a good start.. and it wasn't as windy out this week as it was last week. The intention was to do 11 but we decided an out to to the top of monster mile hill and then turn around, whatever the distance was, that's what it would be.. at the end of the day, I didn't need to do 11 miles as I'd done it last week.

The out was fairly straight forward and actually good in terms of pace, I was comfortably maintaining under under 9:45 for the first 4 miles which would ideally be my race pace. Then we hit the incline for the mile hill, which I obviously know will slow my pace. I'm yet to get up the hill without stopping. I did almost manage it but I stopped to walk for about 10 seconds so no banana!

I'm smiling on the outside and dying on the inside... and sprinting home for the loo! ;)

We turned around at the top and headed downhill, oddly, considering we were going back downhill, my pace was actually slower. I kinda stayed around 10:30-ish pace after that. I got stomach cramps and needed the loo at 8 miles, managed to carry on and got under 10 for mile 9 due to panic running and wanting to get home. Final mile is another brutal uphill and was close to 11. I got to almost the top and could not catch my breath! Ended up getting severely annoyed with myself for bailing on all the hills and was shouting at myself at being a sh*t runner and saying I was gonna quit running after the half xD

Phillip says I get anxious coming up to a hill and my breathing changes and I panic - he's obviously right but i don't know how to control it. i literally just feel like I cant get my breath on the hill and panic that I'm not getting enough air.

I need to get a hang of this, cause it's super annoying.

CHALLENGES
Activity: 30 day challenge exercises

I wanna say I did my challenges on 3 days of the week.. but I haven't been recording them on my watch or anything so I'm not 100% sure. On each of the days, I've been doing 2 days worth of the challenges in order to try and catch up with the days that I missed and let me tell you, it's bloody hard work! 2 days worth of challenges with 4 challenges to complete is taking me about 25 minutes, so its like a full on workout!

I can tell you that my core is extremely weak.. so much so that I had to forego some of the ab challenges as I feel like i've pulled an ab muscle which isn't great, so I'm letting it recover a bit before trying again. I need to be more consistent with core work as its a joke how weak I actually am!

That said, I am enjoying the challenges and I definitely want to continue doing them next month too.. hopefully follow them properly and do them daily!

Ahhh... I've really messed this up.. I've been doing 2 runs a week for as far as I can remember and I'm pretty disappointed in it. I'm hoping as it gets lighter in the evenings and warmer, it will give me an excuse to go out in the evening.. it's not going to make much of a difference at all in the last 2 weeks of half marathon training, esp as I'm about to start tapering.

Hopefully I can get my butt into gear for the next one.

It's now just 2 mere weeks until race day though I'm not really nervous about it - despite only doing 2 runs a week, I do feel a lot fitter and feel as though I've made a lot of progress this training cycle that I didn't the last time round. I've got no more long runs either, my last 'long' run is 6 miles this weekend.

I kinda just want to get the race over and done with now and start a fresh again.. though I've no idea what race I'll do next.

Question: How do you control your breathing on hills? How many times do you run per week?