USA 2011 Training Summary - Week 10

Monday 5th January - 5 mile run, Race Course. (00:46:21).

Tuesday 6th January - 6 mile run, Town Moor. (00:54:43).

Tuesday 6th January - 4 mile run, Gosforth Round the Block and back. (00:39:34).

Wednesday 7th January - 10.4 mile run, Havannah and Race Course. (01:31:58).
Thursday 8th January - Personal Training Session. (01:30:00).
Friday 9th January - 5 mile run, Race Course. (00:42:43). PB!

Saturday 10th January - Beach Bootcamp. (00:45:00).
Saturday 10th January - 11 x run up the steps. (00:25:11).

Saturday 10th January - 8.5 mile run, Tynemouth to St Mary's Lighthouse and back. (01:24:50).
Sunday 11th January - 11.1 mile run, Shotley Bridge to Hamsterley Mill and back. (02:00:52).

Jack's the lad to lead the way.

My son Jack (pictured in David Fairlamb's gym) was the first lucky recipient of a Run Geordie Run T-Shirt back in December. Since then, sales have gone really well and a second batch has already been ordered.

Custom Planet in North Shields have done a sterling job with the production of the t-shirts and I've had some really good feedback from the good folk who've bought them. Thanks to Peter McCowie, all proceeds from the sale of the t-shirts will go to St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation.

T-shirts are priced at £10 and feature the Run Geordie Run logo on the front and back. The front also has the 2 charity's logos. On the back the message "I'm supporting the 3100 mile run across the USA in 100 days 2011" is shown along with the www.RunGeordieRun.com address. The sleeves have 2 logos. The first is Custom Planet, producers of the t-shirts. The second is the David Fairlamb Fitness logo. What's more, the t-shirts are screen printed so they'll last for ages! I've ran over 100 miles and have had a few gym sessions in the t-shirts I have and they are as good as new after each wash. Needless to say, it's not me that washes them!

The t-shirts are available in sizes Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large and Extra Extra Large. If you would to contribute to 2 very worthy causes with the purchase of a t-shirt then please get in touch at sponsorship@rungeordierun.com. All payments are made securely at www.justgiving.com where the charities receive the money directly.

The following is a reminder as to how important the services that St Benedict's Hospice and The Children's Foundation provide to people in the North East.

St Benedict's Hospice have recently launched an appeal for £400,000 to extend their "Hospice at Home Service". At present the service is from 9pm – 8am when the palliative care team are on call and can visit patients at home. It will be changed to 5pm – 8am avoiding an influx of calls at 9pm and will spread the visits over a longer time. This means that the patient has a choice of where they want to be cared for - in the hospice or at home and it means that they are covered 24 hours per day. Personally speaking, this service would have been of great use to me and my Mam during the days when I cared for her at home. You can read more about the aims of the Hospice at Home Service by clicking here or by visiting www.hospice.co.uk.

The Children's Foundation "provides leadership and raises funds to enable research, support service delivery and create partnership programmes, designed to improve the health and well being of children and young people in the North East.". You can read all about their achievements here or by visiting www.thechildrensfoundation.co.uk.

So, if you would like to make a real contribution and get a very good quality t-shirt in return then please click this link sponsorship@rungeordierun.com.

Shoe must be joking!

I got some brilliant news today! Brooks Sports Ltd have offered to supply me with shoes and kit. Regular readers and running colleagues will know that I have worn Brooks shoes for the last couple of years. They were the shoe that I ran in from John O'Groats to Lands End and I adore the Glycerin type of shoes. I've always said that they are like running in a very comfortable pair of slippers. Which was nice when you're, say, 400 miles into an 874 mile tour!

Thanks to Brooks and Martin Exley in particular for arranging this valued support. With the USA 2011 tour being funded out of my own pocket, any help towards reducing it's cost is most appreciated. This will certainly go some way to reducing that cost. 

A 5 mile PB.

It's a 50 mile week this week and Friday saw me run miles 26 - 30 for the week. To say that I'm enjoying my running at the moment is an absolute understatement and once again it showed on a cold lunchtime in Gosforth. 

Speed merchant Dave Francis and the ever reliable Carl Hudson were my company for the run from Regent Centre to Newcastle Race Course and back. My previous best for this one was exactly 43 minutes. Thanks to the other 2 lads setting a good pace, I beat that previous best with a time of 00:42:43. 

The split times were as follows:

Mile 1 - 08:21

Mile 2 - 08:44

Mile 3 - 08:38

Mile 4 - 08:30

Mile 5 - 08:30

As I said earlier in the week, confidence and fitness is reaching a whole new level. Every time I do something now I feel stronger and fitter. With 3 stone or so to lose it's going to be a while before it evens out too so expect more stories like this. The story I'd really like to write, though, is about beating my 1995 running times - 17 minutes for 3 miles and 43 minutes for 10k.

I'm constantly thinking of the stories and headlines in my mind. It's then a case of doing the actions to make them a reality. Once upon a time, back in 1993, the headlines were simply to run 3 miles round the block! Those were the days!

A new short term challenge. Oh and what a challenge!

Well then! Where do I start with this one? Are you sitting down? Ex pro Boxer and accomplished ultra marathon runner Jackson Williams (pictured) tonight issued a challenge with an invitation to join him on a 125 mile bike ride and 125 mile run.

The mammoth distance from Norwich to London and back will be done over the duration of 48 hours in aid of Sport Relief! The date of the event is 15th and 16th March leaving only 9 weeks to try and get as prepared as I can possibly be for it.

I'll post more details as and when I get them. In the meantime, there is no doubt that this is a massive, massive challenge. If successful, it will certainly accelerate the progress of my USA 2011 training. In the words of Lance Armstrong - "Anything's possible. You can be told you have a 90% chance or a 50% chance or a 1% chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.". 

I'll hopefully have a revised training schedule in place by the weekend!

The hard work is paying off.

It's still very early days but after today's body composition test there is further proof that the hard work is starting to pay off. In September, Mark Fleming set me a target weight of 100 kg. That's a weight loss by the way, in case you were wondering! 

Back in September, I weighed in at 105.6 kg (16 stone 9 pounds). My body fat was 28.6%, visceral fat rating (fat around major organs) was 12 and metabolic age was 52. That's not good! That's not good at all. These aren't the kind of stats of someone who wants to run 3100 miles in 100 days!

I'm pleased to report that there has been an improvement since that first weigh in. My weight is now 99.5 kg (15 stone 9 pounds). That's a stone in weight lost. That's not the full story though as I've lost 1 stone, 6 pounds of fat and gained 6 pounds of lean muscle weight. As a result my body fat is down to 21.3%. That's a 7.3% loss since September! The visceral fat rating is down to 8 and my metabolic age is down to a whopping 36! That's a year less than my real age and 16 years less than September!

The next target is 95 kg. That's 14 stone 13 pounds! That's the weight I was when I finished the 874 mile run in Lands End. Once again thanks must go to Mark Fleming and David Fairlamb for their continued support and motivation. And here's to the next milestone. I've got a feeling it will be achieved sooner rather than later!

Confidence and fitness reaching a whole new level.

I'm writing this post on the back of a super 10.4 mile run around Gosforth today. Running with a few of the other lads, we decided to run up to the Havannah Nature Reserve and then Newcastle Race Course. The other lads stayed in a pack and were having a 1 minute walk break every 7 minutes. That walking lark is not for me though! This meant that they would catch me up for a while then drop off for a while. This really threw me off my rhythm in miles 2, 3 and 4 as you can see from the split times. Enough was enough and I decided to increase the pace and try and put some distance between myself and the pack! I kept looking over my shoulder and the gap increased through miles 5, 6 and 7 with some good controlled running. In fact, if you take out mile 8 which I used to get my breath a bit then the pace was very consistent with only a 9 second variance between the later miles. My initial plan was to fend them off until mile 7 but I felt really good and relished the challenge of being pursued. It was very similar to when Steven Moore and I raced in the Cairngorms. You can read about that day here.

When I got to the Race Course, I could see the chasing pack of Carlton Fletcher and John Brettell through the trees! They closed the gap at 9.4 miles to the length of the bridge near the 3 Mile Inn on the Great North Road. As I left the bridge they started on it. I thought for a second that they were going to catch me so I tried to increase the pace even further. I got a good rhythm and technique going and made good use of my arms just as I do up the steps on a Saturday morning. My pace was enough to see me back home first and John wasn't too far behind with Carlton nowhere to be seen!

I can't tell you how pleased I was with the final time of 01:31:58. I've actually ran 8.4 miles in around that time last year. To do 2 more miles on top of that in a similar time is very exciting indeed! I know I'm training for an ultra-distance run but part of me is wondering if, when I get down to my 1995 weight of 12 stone, will I be able to run the kinds of times that I used to run in 1995? I used to do this 3 mile run around Washington. The first 2 miles were at 00:05:30 pace with the final one at 00:06:00 pace. I'll definitely be trying that one before the year is out!

Back to the present time! That's 25.4 miles done for the week with 24.6 left to do on top of a personal training session tomorrow and Beach Bootcamp on Saturday. Today's run and a hilly 11 mile run I did last Friday in the Pennines (is there any other kind?) has really served as an indicator of where my fitness levels are. And the easier than normal personal best of 11 lots of steps on Saturday morning tells me a lot too. This is only week 10 of USA 2011 training! There are 120 weeks or so left and there is still about 3 stone to lose in weight. I'm starting to wonder just how much improvement can be made during that time? With the confidence and motivation I currently have, I reckon this is just the tip of the iceberg. I now have a genuine hunger (not the usual kind) to push myself and run further and faster every time. Confidence is sky high. I'm now looking forward to finishing off the week in style again and hitting the planned 50 mile target! 

A good start to a 50 mile week

This week will see me run 50 miles and, at the time of writing, I've already managed 15 in very cold conditions! Next week will be the usual mixture of running, spinning, body pump and gym work before I increase the mileage to 55 miles the following week. This is the pattern I'll be following until the summer. i.e. increasing the mileage every fortnight until I get to 110 miles per week in July. 

It's a case of so far so good in 2009. No injures. No illness. Long may it continue.

USA 2011 Training Summary - Week 9

Tuesday 30th December - Personal Training Session. (01:30:00).

Wednesday 31st December - 7 mile run, Shotley Bridge to Low Westwood and back. (01:04:50).
Friday 2nd January - 11 mile run, Shotley Bridge to Whittonstall and back. (01:45:19).
Saturday 3rd January - Beach Bootcamp. (00:45:00).

Saturday 3rd January - 11 x run up the steps. (00:27:48). PB!

Sunday 4th January - 5 mile run, Shotley Bridge to Ebchester and back. (00:44:57). PB!

2008 - Year end thoughts (part 2)

One thing is for sure, although I will be running across the USA in 2011 on my own, it can't be done without the help of a few people who are worthy of mention. Two of the most important people associated with the run are David Fairlamb (below left) and Mark Fleming (right). You can read all about their importance to the project here. In a nutshell, though, these 2 guys' aim is to ensure that I'm in peak condition for the run, both physically and mentally. Good luck with that one lads!

All joking aside, though, I'm already starting to feel the benefit of having these 2 guys on board. Mark puts me through my paces on a weekly basis in the gym and keeps a critical eye on my body composition stats every month. He's always on my case about nutrition and diet and is the key reason why I've lost a stone in fat since September. Qualifying in 2008, Mark has just started out with his personal fitness career and has already got a growing list of clients. One thing I can honestly say, though, is that you'd think he'd been doing personal training for years. His enthusiasm and motivational nature is second to none and will be called upon numerous times during the next 2 1/2 years of training.

David Fairlamb takes Beach Bootcamp, of course, and the benefits, the challenge and the enjoyment I get from it is well documented here and here. I have met some great people at Bootcamp and they are always full of encouragement and keen to know how my training is going. David will be another key motivator and will take some part in overseeing my training over the next few years. David's years of experience and advice will be his major contribution to the project. Again, he will be called upon many times during the next 2 1/2 years.

Other folk very worthy of mention are the people I run with at Northern Rock; Carl, John, Carlton, Patrick, Jeff, Julie and Colin to name but a few. There are times, especially in the early days of pre-training, where this lot dragged me round and provided valuable company to keep me going. Hopefully, this will continue in 2009. 

Finally, it is the many sponsors and supporters who will ultimately put the icing on the USA 2011 cake. Without them, this whole project would not be worth doing. With them, however, we are likely to succeed and very likely to hit that fundraising target for 2 very worthwhile North East charities. Happy New Year!