As Christmas nears, the trainers get further and further from the front door. It’s the season to party and enjoy the festivities, unfortunately this means a drop in concentration and interest on exercise and keeping fit.

There have been murmurings in the office about a team run. Though clearly this is something for the new year and certainly not for the beginning of it.

Having just recently purchased a new headset for my phone I am eager to give it a go. I’ve always been a fan of Sennheiser, and their recent teaming up with Adidas has brought forth some glowing sporty headsets. I ended up getting the Sennheiser MX 680i, which have an ear fin that you slot in your ears to hold them tight while you run. Not appropriate for everyone as they may not have the bits in the ears to hook into, but I’ve not had a problem with them. The sound quality is good too.

Hopefully my next post will be championing the new headset. We’ll see how it goes.

And finally… drum roll! After a final training run mid week and a set of intervals in the gym it was off to the south coast for the big one. Its important to remember that the Great South Run is a 10 miler, not actually a proper half marathon. But to be fair it felt like a marathon from the way my legs have been complaining.

The weather was cool and overcast on Sunday morning. Apparently about 24,000 runners were at the starting line, well it was rather tight I have to admit. I was lined up in the white  coloured section, after the orange elite section and before the final green section. It was a comfortable place to be in some respects as I felt I was neither one nor the other and with limited training prior to the race I was concerned about my performance on the day. It was too late to think about what might have been though, as the runners slowly lurched forward to approach the starting line. The white bibs were lined up to start a good 10 minutes after the elite orange, but despite this it didn’t give us much space as we started off and I found myself ducking and diving as usual to final a space and pace to call my own. The weaving took up at least the 1st third of the race to clear up when the field finally spread out.

En-route the mile markers started from the 3 mile mark, which is fair enough, there didn’t appear to any pacers on route which is a shame but I guess you can’t have it all. I found myself coping well up until around 6 miles when I felt like I really should have felt better for the distance. Interestingly a 10 km marker was present just to confirm my standard training runs distance and the fact that from here on in I hadn’t really spent enough time on my distance runs. One blessing with the course is that there isn’t repeat loops or much in the way of double backing. Theres nothing worse than constantly passing front runners at advanced distances knowing you’re a long way from being where they are.

Time to shine – and refuel.

The start line was at sea front, with half of the route coastal and the other half drifting through parts of town. At the 7 mile marker was a long slow u-turn, bringing the runners back round to the sea front and in for the big finish. I was really feeling it by this time, and quite frankly shocked at how tired I was feeling, constantly reminding myself that this was actually only a 10 miler. Mile 8 was incredibly tiresome and annoying but at least the precursor to the final push. I grabbed at the opportunity of free Jelly Babies while cradling my water bottle to help me see it through to the end. The last 2 miles were on the straight with a slight downhill advantage and the blue banner of the finish line clearly visible. It was merely a case of holding it together and considering where to let out one final sprint to gain a few precious seconds for the all important time.

And the final time was… ? 1 hour, 29 mins, 28 seconds. Its not going to be a personal best but actually when I worked it out compared to previous PB proper half marathon (a mere 15 mins longer), this wasn’t actually too bad. Hooray!

It’s now the last week prior to the race. Yesterdays run as I quite rightly noted was a horrid affair. An 11 kilometre run, which began with feeling a little under the weather, progressing to getting lost, finding myself fighting long slow hills and carrying a stitch for most of the run. Clearly my body wasn’t keen on being pushed yesterday, but needless to say it got a good shove. However it got it’s own back once I finished. Legs like jelly, a dehydration head and pure exhaustion of the likes I haven’t felt for some time. Felt like I’d run a marathon! And actually when I did last run a marathon I felt heaps better. Anyway with so little time to the big day its going to be a mixture of gym and intervals to carry me through the last week. Let’s hope the body will relinquish and play fair.

After an earlier post harping on about doing some interval training,  I have finally got a couple of sessions in. Whether you do them or not, interval training can’t be knocked for its ability to improve your fitness and pace. What I am always amazed with is how in one session you can trick your body into increasing your pace with intervals. I have so far completed 2 sessions, one outdoor and one on the treadmill. Prefer the former if I’m honest. I will be aiming to get another 2 sets of intervals in before the end of the next week. Tomorrows run will be a pretty standard early morning affair with the aim to get a 10 miler in over the weekend to prepare for the big day the following weekend.

If you can make it out of bed before dawn and run then its a job done for the day. This morning I did just that. Empty streets and few cars made it a breeze. The temperature was a temperate 13c which is more than comfortable coupled with some low lying fog to cool the face. I always find that my morning runs (when I can get myself out of bed) produce good results. My speed quickened to around 5 mins and 30 per km. I also ran slightly further to just over 5km. I had planned to do interval training but this seems likely to be a gym based event tomorrow or Monday. If only all runs were like this mornings… Sigh.

Well not quite the start I was hoping for. After a 4km run on sunday there has been precious little else. Work overload, long commutes home and stomach aches are not the recipe for a man in training. However tomorrow I do plan to pull together interval training to lift my spirits a little. I’ll keep you posted as to how it goes. I am of course more than aware that the clock is ticking and time is limited if I am to get a decent time in the Great South Run. More news tomorrow.

Rather later than expected, around 8pm, I trotted out of the house to warm up. Conditions were fine, it was dark of course, but I do like night runs. Some might point out the dangers of running at night, however there is something a little exciting about running around in the dark. While training for my last marathon I found night runs up and down the Thames exhilarating along with being great for benchmarking a good time with the lack of pedestrians to slow my pace.

Anyway I digress.  Last night proved tricky as dinner was merely an hour before and still making a point of being digested. This made for a slower jog than preferred. In fact it was quite an uncomfortable run all round. Despite good conditions and quiet streets I was hampered by a dull stitch for the duration. And yes I know i should leave sufficient time after eating before running. Anyway the upshoot was a time of 30mins 1r seconds over a distance of just over 5km, meaning my average pace was a rather poor 6 minutes per km, 9.97km/h. I’ll get me coat now!

But theres always another day, that being today.