My Training with Peter Karran and U.K.I.P.

Brilliant! The weather has arrived to give us all an excuse not to go training and there's no point in getting yourself injured, slipping on ice or snow!

The only ones going out in that are the committed... or perhaps more accurately, the ones who should be committed.

Sit down in front of the fire and have a 'Training Break.'

On the other hand, perhaps now is the perfect time to try 'Cross Training.' Go swimming, try the Gym, squash, badminton, short tennis, anything but if you're not injured, stay active. It's too easy to give up now and the hardest part is getting back in the routine.

I fully intended to go ahead and do my planned session (note to self about being committed) last night but work ran on too long, then it was 'School open evening' and by the time I returned my resolution had evaporated and my tea (not the liquid variety for once) was hot and ready.

In an earlier post, I referred to the fact that I'm no fan of using the treadmill but with only nine days until the Manx 10k championships and the year's shortest month until the H.S.B.C. Manx Open meeting, desperate measures were called for.

Luckily, for me, we have one at work, although this is the first time I have ever used it for walking. The object of pace training is to develop speed with good technique, give you a great cardiovascular work out and make you feel like you are dying. Actually, for those of you a little slow on the uptake, that was a joke but it's a certain by-product if you are putting enough effort into it.

My task today was 2 x 20 minutes. As my P.B. for 10k is a little under 50 minutes, it is not too hard to work out that to improve upon this, I've got to be under five per kilometre. What slightly complicates matters is that because of our strangely mixed society, our treadmill works in miles, though once again I'm very lucky because a 50 minute 10k is almost exactly 7.5mph or an 8 minute mile or 4 minute laps of the N.S.C.

If you can understand all that you're just about ready to start reading Alan Thompson's forum postings but start with the Manx Athletics ones before you move further afield. It's certainly not much of an incentive for me to move to the next level though. Then I'll really have to learn maths.

After a few false starts - my use of gym technology is no better than my arithmatic- I finally managed to get going and completed 2.54 miles in my first 20 minutes. After a break to recover, I managed to get my breath back, this time starting off at 7.8mph. When I went past 5 mins I increased the pace to 8mph, then 8.2 10 mins. By this time, I was really working hard. The sweat was pouring off me. At 15 mins, 8.5mph. Now I just had to hang on. With just 4 minutes left, I tried to visualise the N.S.C. I could see in my mind's eye where I was on the track. When I got down to the last two minutes, I was really going to give it my all. And then........... my hand caught the safety string, the band stopped, the power went down and I lost all the data!

Now in our troubled world, I don't think this really matters too much but it was a bit frustrating just then. I did finish the approximate time I had left but I managed to do the same again before dispensing with the safety cord. If Ronnie Corbett can do it why couldn't I?

Overall I was very satisfied with my performance but I wouldn't read too much into it because when in Manx weather will I again walk a whole race with 0mph headwind and I don't know how accurate the readings are. I would recommend training on the treadmill though because it really allowed me to concentrate on my technique and to ascertain what affected my speed despite Peter Karran rambling on about how he was in accordance with certain aspects of U.K. Independence Party policy on the radio.

This was going to be a quick concise post tonight, so I don't suppose I've much right to accuse Peter Karran of talking too much but enjoy your training or your training break.