Anyone else live in always uphill bizarroworld?

When I leave my house for a run

When I'm returning home from my run

Running dreams

So, last night I had this dream about all sorts of disjointed plots. A weird holiday in a brutalist architected city, old friends, poltergeist activity, excess baggage, and a side plot about running hill reps on an old dirt road called Devil's Highway.

The thing is, unlike most things from that dream, Devil's Highway is actually a place that runs right up into Swinley Forest. And it's actually about a mile from my house.

Well that's all the encouragement I needed. Off I went.

I know Devil's quite well, not only because I run round that part of Swinley Forest quite a lot in the summer but also because it was where we'd all meet up to *ahem* smoke mindbenders back in the day. So I'm familiar with it's undulations and knew there would be 3 decent sized hills for me to run up. As I ran a nice easy pace up to the start of the the Highway I decided my plan of attack would be get to the first hill, lay a marker down (jabbing a stick into the ground for the non-technical amongst you), sprint as hard as I could to the top of the hill, turn around and do a very easy pace back to my marker. Do this 3 times I each hill and I'd have gone for 9 blasts up some fairly rude inclines. After that just a little plod round Caeser's Camp in Swinley Forest and back home.

Wow. Sweaty workout that. If you saw Sir Mo at the end of the London Marathon today that's basically what I looked like after the third time up the third hill. Well like that but fatter, whiter, and with more hair. I was sweating and had to stop to catch my breath is what I'm saying. Also did some pissing about with the runselfie before uploading it to Strava to keep it in with the theme of the run.

Speaking of London I guess I need to resign myself to the fact that I'm never going to run that marathon.

1. I'm not generally lucky enough to win a ballot place (I know this is superstitious bullshit and I have as much chance as everyone else but I never seem to win things like that so I'm claiming it as fact)
2. I'm not fast enough to get a Good For Age time and I can't imagine that I ever will be. Right now I'm about 1h45m away from the GFA for my age bracket, and now that they've changed the GFA from guaranteed entry to entry into a different ballot essentially then see point 1.
3. Charity places aren't really viable. The organisers charge charities so much for their entries that they then have to pass it on to the runners in the form of minimum fundraising contracts. Yes in theory I could get a charity place but having run a few marathons and an ultra already without asking for sponsorship people I know generally reckon a marathon is a stroll in the park for me (it so fucking isn't btw just look at my PBs and splits) and that perception would make fundraising really hard. I'd have to do it dressed as a fucking anvil or something to make people perceive it as a challenge worth sponsoring and that isn't why I run.

Seems like I'm quite bitter doesn't it? To be honest I'm not really, there are plenty of brilliant races around but I do get a bit envious of people who get to run "The Marathon". I'll keep doing the ballot and maybe one year it will come up for me, and if I really really really wanted to run it that badly I'd find a way to fundraise.

The folks I do feel really sorry for though are the GFA qualifiers. I can only imagine the years of dedication and the intensity of the winter training, not to mention the good fortune to stay free of injury when pushing so hard, to hit the current qualifying times and to go through that and not even know whether you have a guaranteed place - brutal. Even worse if you just sneaked in with a GFA in Brighton or Manchester this year thinking of London 2019 - well soz you are shit outta luck my friend as they changed the goalposts literally the day after those races.

So not only is the London Marathon a massive charity fleecing scam but it's quite happy to take the piss out of the very runners who feed it. Fuck you London, I still want to run you though!

Strava routes on the Garmin Fenix 3. A whole new world!

This year with the Brighton Marathon back in April and the Bath Two Tunnel 50km coming up next week I've been pretty much cycling on and off 16 week training programmes since January. This means almost every Sunday has been a "long run" day and as you can imagine by this point in the year I'm really lacking in inspiration when it comes to leaving my house and picking a route. I've gone every direction so many times it's just sooooo fucking boring and I often find myself just on a plod as a result.

So I was lying in bed this morning wondering where to run. Ten miles-ish was needed. Would I kill my legs on the Swinley Forest hills, plod round the bike paths and underpasses, head off along the Berkshire roads? I knew if I headed out without a plan I'd just be focussing on the route and working out the distance as I ran which connects your mind a bit too much to the distance and makes the run feel like hard work, so I needed to take that away from me and have the thinking pre-done.

That was when I looked at my wrist and remembered there is a navigation mode on the Fenix3 (great watch btw, really bigly uuuuugely good watch, Garmin have the best watches). So if I could just find a way to plot a route, copy it to the watch and see if I could follow it I might end up with more variety in my runs and Garmin said...

Gee thanks Garmin, you are a pal.

So how do I work out a route? I could go to something like mapmyrun and download a gpx but the problem is a lot of the runs on these sites start and end in inconvenient places (people's houses that aren't me and such) so that's annoying. Plus other people are not me and I'm a bit control freaky about these things. So how do I make my own?

Strava in a web browser. That's how. Log in, go to Dashboard > My  Routes > New Route and you can start clicking on the map to build a run. The beauty of Strava is it has so much data about where other people are running that it will build a route between two points based on where other people tend to run so the chances of you being directed down a motorway or train track are pretty slim.

Anyway five minutes of clicking about and I had my nice 10 mile loop planned, it was a route I've never run before, and even took in a footbridge that I never new existed despite having driven under it about 1000 times. Nice.

So next challenge. How do I get it on my watch? Well the Fenix3 makes it so easy.

• Dock it in the USB
• Plug it in to your mac/pc
• If/When prompted enable Mass Storage mode on the Fenix3
• When it appears as a drive open it and then open the Garmin folder
• Check that there is a folder called Newfiles - it's hidden so if you can't see it ask Doctor Google how to view hidden files on your operating system
• Open your running route in Strava
• Click Export GPX and save it to your desktop
• Copy it to your Newfiles folder on the Fenix3
• Safely eject the device
• Garmin will say it's updating
• Route (Course in Garminspeak) is now saved to the device

Good. So how do you use it?

Well it couldn't be simpler

• Hold the Up key
• Press Down until you get to the Navigation option
• Press Start
• Select Courses
• Select your new course
• Select Do Course
• Choose your profile (e.g. Run)
• Wait for the GPS to find the satellite
• Run like normal but instead of looking at the pace and shit on your wrist you can now look at a funky route plot like this 

OK so it's hardly Google Maps, it won't show you where the nearest pub is or even the roads you are running along but it does do a very good job of keeping you on track. I tried tricking it a couple of times with detours and within a few seconds of heading off course it vibrated on my wrist to warn me. It really did achieve the primary goal of taking all the thinking about the route out of the run. So I could just enjoy the sights like the Bracknell Alps

Lillehammer has nothing on the John Nike

I just want a fondue now

So there we go. Had a nice 10 mile run. Came home. Ate a slice of cake. Hashtag Sunday mofos.

Getting Faster

When I was training for the Brighton Marathon my work schedule was a nightmare, with 5 hour total commute times most weekdays. I made sure I did at least part of them on the Brompton to get cardio but we all know cycling doesn't translate to running too well.

"Don't worry too much" I was told by more experienced marathon runners "forget a target time and just make it all about the long runs in training". This was kind of ok as I got through the mara and although I was slower than I'd hoped I was reminded by a spectator a couple of miles from the end that just the act of finishing a marathon makes you amazing.

Fortunately as I get ready for next month's 50km in Bath I'm now working just a few miles from home so I've no excuses not to stick to the training plan. This means a lot of extra speedwork in the middle of the week, particularly intervals.

Experienced runners will know this already but if you are more of a novice like me you might not realise how much of a boost you get from this type of activity. Essentially I've found it has resulted in a lot of seconds coming off my easy run pace without really feeling like I've altered the amount of effort I'm putting in.

Within a month of doing my midweek intervals (either 1 mile with 60 seconds rest times 5, or 10 minutes with 2 minutes rest times 3) I've knocked 100 seconds off my Parkrun time and I'm pretty sure there was more in me that day.

I've also found that the nature of intervals means you adjust where you set the "shit this is too hard I need to walk a bit" needle as you get used to pushing thorough that last 60 seconds of a ten minute interval.

Try it. Works well.