Welcome to my running Blog!

Here I hope to give you an idea of how I’m preparing for my 10th Great North Run on 18th September 2011 and hopefully you’ll see how much effort I’m putting in to raise as much money as possible for Make-A-Wish Foundation. Last year I ran the half marathon in 1 hour 28 minutes and I’m hoping to smash that time this year.

To sponsor me and help to make the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses a reality please click on the link below:

Alternatively go directly to my JustGiving page:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

11th September

I had planned on doing another couple of runs during the last week but due to having to get my club tournament matches up to date I wasn’t able to run on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. Yesterday morning I had the semi-finals of the doubles, then in the afternoon I had our first football league match and the whole of today was taken up with the club finals day – a busy week then!! All in all it’s been a good addition to my training especially as I won the singles, doubles and mixed in the club finals and we won the football 3-2 (I should have actually got a very rare goal but one of my team got his head in the way!!). Unfortunately in the football yesterday I was on the receiving end of a nasty two footed challenge which bruised my ankle badly. I managed to strap it for all of the finals but this evening it wasn’t looking good:

6th September 2011

As I missed a few runs at the start of August due to the baby arriving I’m not quite up to date with the micoach plan so today I decided to go back a month or so and do a 48 minute short Green and Yellow Zone intervals. I thought it was going to be quite a straightforward run but after 6 minutes my legs went like jelly and I really felt low on sugar. I actually thought I was going to be sick as I pushed up a steep hill to the 15 minute mark but as I was struggling all I could think of was the fact that I’m able to fight through this where as the children I’m running for can’t always fight and that’s why it’s so important to raise the money to make their lives a little happier. We take SO much for granted and only realise how tough things can be when we’re ill – most of the time it’s only a cold that makes us realise this but the children that Make-A-Wish Foundation are helping are struggling everyday with life-threatening illnesses. PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME TO HELP THEM.

I managed to get through a 25 minute period of feeling rough as I went through intervals of 1 minute in the Green zone followed by 2 minutes in a fast Yellow zone. In total I ran for 50 minutes and 34 seconds and covered 7.02 miles – by the time I got home I was so grateful that my wife had dinner ready 🙂

The table below shows all of the runs I’m completing with the assistance of Adidas micoach. Each run starts with a Blue Zone (8.26 – 9.40 mins/mile) and then it changes daily between a Green Zone (7.15 – 8.26 mins/mile), a Yellow Zone (5.35 – 7.15 mins/mile) and a Red Zone (4.17 – 5.35 mins/mile).

RUN NUMBER	DATE	TYPE OF RUN	DISTANCE	TIME
39	6th September ’11	Short Green & Yellow Intervals	7.02miles	50mins 34secs
38	5th September ’11	Long Green & Yellow Intervals	9.46miles	1hr 07mins 54secs
37	30th August ’11	Green – Yellow – Red	9.14miles	1hr 05mins 04secs
36	29th August ’11	Steady Green, Steady Yellow	12.26miles	1hr 30mins 12secs
35	25th August ’11	Steady Green	8.2miles	1hr 00mins 00secs
34	19th August ’11	Steady Green	8.83miles	1hr 03mins 40secs
33	17th August ’11	Yellow & Green Intervals	9.02miles	1hr 04mins 36secs
32	14th August ’11	Steady Green	11.9miles	1hr 30mins 06secs
31	11th August ’11	Steady Green	14.2miles	1hr 50mins 17secs
30	8th August ’11	Steady Green	8.77miles	1hr 02mins 42secs
29	7th August ’11	Steady Yellow	8.13miles	1hr 00mins 07secs
28	5th August ’11	Green-Yellow-Red	8.13miles	1hr 00mins 19secs
27	4th August ’11	Football Training Hills	n/a	30mins
26	2nd August ’11	Football Training Intervals	n/a	40mins
25	2nd August ’11	Steady Green, Steady Yellow	11.96miles	1hr 34mins 27secs
24	31st July ’11	Steady Green	8.13miles	1hr 0mins 2secs
23	28th July ’11	Green & Yellow Intervals	11.34miles	1hr 26mins 41secs
22	26th July ’11	Football Training Run	2.14miles	12mins 59secs
21	26th July ’11	Steady Green	11.32miles	1hr 30mins 11secs
20	24th July ’11	Dartford Half Marathon	13.1miles	1hr 29mins 59secs
19	22nd July ’11	Steady Green	8.1miles	1hr 00mins 03secs
18	21st July ’11	Football Training Run	2.14miles	13mins 15secs
17	20th July ’11	Yellow & Blue Intervals	9.38miles	1hr 15mins 48secs
16	19th July ’11	Football Training Run	2.14miles	13mins 21secs
15	18th July ’11	Green – Yellow – Red	7.02 miles	1hr 03mins 02secs
14	17th July ’11	Steady Green, Steady Yellow	9.68 miles	1hr 59mins 23secs
13	15th July ’11	Steady Green	6.57 miles	1hr 00mins 20secs
12	13th July ’11	Yellow & Green Intervals	8.58 miles	1hr 14mins 03secs
11	12th July ’11	Red & Blue Intervals	5.15 miles	47mins 16secs
10	11th July ’11	Steady Green	6.82 miles	1hr 00mins 15secs
9	7th July ’11	Football Training Run	2.14 miles	13mins 46secs
8	7th July ’11	Yellow & Green Intervals	6.59 miles	1hr 00mins 21secs
7	6th July ’11	Steady Yellow	6.98 miles	1hr 00mins 18secs
6	3rd July ’11	Steady Green	6.48 miles	1hr 00mins 3secs
5	30th June ’11	Yellow & Green Intervals	6.63 miles	55mins 5secs
4	27th June ’11	Yellow & Green Intervals	9.27 miles	1hr 15mins 4secs
3	26th June ’11	Steady Green	7.13 miles	1hr 00mins 8secs
2	18th June ’11	Steady Green	6.86 miles	1hr 00mins 28 secs
1	15th June ’11	Steady Green, Steady Yellow	8.79 miles	1hr 16mins 15secs

5th September 2011

What a day today was!! It’s the first day of a hard strength and conditioning week for the player I’m currently working with so she’s had some tough sessions and I was on the bike next to her for a really hard 30 minutes. After that it was back home and out for an hour and seven minutes of Green zone and long Yellow Zone intervals! It was my first run in 6 days and I was actually feeling really good; I’ve just cracked open some new running shoes and despite a few tender spots on the balls of my feet they were perfect. They felt a lot more bouncy than my worn out pair and I flew through the 1st mile in around 6mins 30secs – not bad for a Blue Zone!!

Today was my biggest fundraising day – I started off the day on £405 and ended it on £555 so THANK YOU so much to everyone that donated.

4th September 2011

2 weeks to go!!

With just 2 weeks to go I’ve added up my training miles and I’m up to 283! I’m hoping to run every other day this week and then 3 times the following week as I taper down to the big day. My weight had dropped a little but after a stressful weekend of Massage exams it all might ahve gone back on – we’ll see how it looks tomorrow!

PLEASE, PLEASE DONATE ANYTHING YOU CAN TO HELP CHILDREN WITH LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESSES:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

30th August 2011

I was so pleased to get back out today as I know the rest of the week is going to be busy as I prepare for Sports Massage Diploma exams at the weekend.

It was a 1 hour 5 minute run which started in the Blue zone, moved to Green, then Yellow and finished with a 60 second Red zone sprint. I feel like I’m getting quicker at these runs now as last time I did this run I only covered 8.13 miles in 1 hour but today I ran 9.14 in 1 hour 5 minutes. I really want to push hard to see what time I could do it in if I went hard from the start but maybe I’ll save that until the Great North Run!

29th August 2011

A long run today as I’m trying to make up for not doing as much as I would have liked in the last week or so.

The run started out with a 20 minute Blue zone and then moved onto a 40 minute Green Zone. The problem is I’m not sticking to those zones anymore and I’m really maintaining a Green / low Yellow zone almost from the start of the run. It’s good for me but the micoach is not happy and keeps telling me to slow down all the time!! After the 40 minute Green zone I pushed on again to the Yellow zone and tried to keep the pace up close to the Red zone but a little fatigue started. Another 12 miles in the bank though!

All in all it was a good 1hr 30 minute run and I’m feeling good, from today I’m trying to get my weight down for the run so we’ll see how that goes – currently 83.5kgs!

25th August 2011

I am soo annoyed I’ve not been able to run in the last week; the weekend was hectic with a club Men’s 1 match (where one of the rubbers lasted almost 3 hours!) and then on Sunday I travelled to Halton in Buckinghamshire for my next international tournament. Since travelling here on Sunday the week has been unbelievably busy and I really haven’t had time to get on the road and run. The problem is also that every run is at least an hour and it’s just not possible to fit that in our day (unless I get up at 5am!). However, today was semi finals day and as my player won it gave me a bit of time before we had to go out to dinner.

It was just a steady Green today as I hadn’t run in a while but as I left the place I’m staying at I hit a huge hill and straight away my legs were feeling it! I completed the 1 hour run and felt pretty good throughout but I think I was a little slower than normal as I only managed 8.2 miles. It was still good to get back out and get stuck in!!

Total training distance: 261 miles

PLEASE SPONSOR ME TO HELP CHILDRENS DREAMS COME TRUE:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

19th August 2011

Even though today’s run was just a steady Green I wanted to push a little more and cover more distance than my last steady Green so my target was to run over 8.77 miles in the hour. I started a little slow and due to being a little tired and the feedback not being accurate I couldn’t tell if I was running at the right speed or not. Things seemed to be taking longer than normal so I pushed on after about 20 minutes and tried to keep that going all the way to the end of the hour.

As I turned the corner into my road I again thought I was slow as I had gone a few minutes over the hour mark but as it turned out I had run 8.83 in 1hr 3mins 40 secs which I think it better than 8.77 miles in 1hr 2mins 42 secs (it’s probably exactly the same!!). Still, it’s another 8.83 miles banked and there’s just over 4 weeks to go.

17th August 2011

I’ve been looking forward to this run for a couple of days as I really wanted to push on through the yellow zones and get bit more of a feel for how fast I’m going to be running in Newcastle. The Adidas micoach seems to be getting more accurate but it’s not 100% and it does throw you a little when one second it’s telling you to speed up and then next it’s telling you to slow down!!

The six yellow intervals seemed good and I was finding a strong pace throughout, I felt as though I could continue with the Yellow zone pace all the time so things must be getting better. In total I ran for just over an hour as I wanted to make it the whole way home and I covered 9.02 miles, my leg felt good so I’m hoping to do the next run in the next couple of days.

14th August 2011

Another hectic few days has meant that I’ve missed a couple of runs so I knew that today I had to get out and “just do it!” I only managed to get out at about 8pm but I was feeling good and quickly got into a solid pace – it wasn’t that fast but it was well into the Green zone.

I remember when running 15 minutes felt horrible but now I’m finding that an hour goes quite quickly, it’s just the runs over an hour that start to hurt; even in the easy Green zone.  After 1 hour 5 minutes I hit a two tough hills but knowing that I was only 3 or 4 miles home gave me a boost and at just after 9.30pm I arrived back home having completed 11.9 miles. I really want to have a run to test myself against my proper half Marathon pace so if there isn’t a programme with a longer Yellow zone soon I’m going to have to do one myself! My left quad was a little sore after the run so I’m going to see how that goes before heading out again for the next one.

TODAY IS 5 WEEKS TO GO SO PLEASE, PLEASE DONATE ANYTHING YOU CAN TO HELP CHILDREN WITH LIFE-THREATENING ILLNESSES:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

11th August 2011

It’s been hard to keep up the training in the last couple of days as things have got busy at home and at work so I’m findng it more difficult to find the time or energy to get out on the road – I’m sure it’ll be back soon though!

Today was one of the longest runs I’ve done so far but to give me some extra motivation I linked it in with meeting up with some of the football team for a run with them followed by some intervals that apparently the football referees have to do as part of their testing! I left home and completed 55 minutes of steady Green zone running before I met up with the boys and did another 2.34 mile loop. After that we had planned on doing 6 x 40m sprints but because it took us a while to decide how far 40 metres was we probably ended up doing 10 of them!!

After that I continued the loop back to my house which included a couple of nasty hills! I wasn’t pushing that hard today as it was just a Green zone run but I was very pleased to drop down to the Blue zone with 10 minutes to go and have a nice relaxing jog to the end. In total I covered 14.2 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes – I think I’ll be feeling those sprints in the morning!!

8th August 2011

Due to the baby taking up a lot of time and me feeling exhausted most days I’ve been running every 2/3 days for the last week or so but after yesterdays 1 hour Blue and Yellow run I wanted to get back out today and put in some more work. It was one of the easier runs so my aim was to stay either at the top of the Green or into the Yellow from start to finish.

I think I did that well but the GPS didn’t really keep up with the pace I was running at for the first 20 minutes and it kept telling me to speed up when I knew I was already going fast enough. Today I upped by personal best for the hour Green zone run; the last time I covered 8.13 miles and today I managed 8.77 (I did go over but a few minutes but it still counts!!)

7th August 2011

** BROKE THE 200 MILE TRAINING MARK TODAY**

Today’s run was a little different as it went from a 20 minute Blue zone to a 20 minute Yellow and then back to a 20 minute Blue to finish. I’d been getting a little bored with long Green runs or ones with short Yellow intervals so it was great to get out there and push hard for 20 minutes in the zone that I’m looking to run the whole half Marathon in. I’m also a little concerned that the programme hasn’t got me doing long periods in the Yellow zone, I thought by now it might have had me doing 50 minutes to an hour but I suppose I’ve got to trust it!!

The run started well but I struggle to stay in the Blue zone and I find that I increase my speed to the top of the Green zone or even straight into the Yellow from the start – probably not ideal but it seems comfortable. In the hour I ran 8.13 miles which is the same distance as I had been covering in the 1 hour Green zone runs so I’m feeling pretty good and it was even better to get home and work out that I’ve now covered 209 miles since I began training 🙂

5th August 2011

Ok, so I’m not getting much sleep and it’s hard work with a week old baby but all in all I can’t really complain compared to the children that I’m raising the money for so today I made sure I found an hour to do the next training run. It wasn’t a nice one as the zones progress from Blue to Green then Yellow and finishes with a flat out 100% Red zone.

It was a good run from the start, I felt a big stitch come on after 11 minutes but for once I managed to take my focus off my breathing (I know a lot of people / coaches say to focus on deep breaths but for me that only makes it worse!) and think about something different. It took a while to go but by the time I hit the Green zone I was fine and feeling strong. The Yellow zone was tough, it was only 9 minutes long but there were a couple of big hills and all through it I was focusing on making sure I had enough left to go flat out in the Red zone. When I got to the Red zone I was almost home and had another long hill before the route flattened out – I pushed up the hill hard and it was a great feeling when I got to the top and my Adidas micoach announced “Blue zone 10 minutes”.

Altogether I managed 8.13 miles in the 1 hr and when I look back to the last time I did that run on the 18th July I only managed 7.02 miles – things are looking good and I’m getting close to the 200 mile mark now (currently on 192.57 miles!)

PLEASE SUPPORT MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION BY SPONSORING ME:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

2nd August 2011

Quite a relaxing training day today as the sleepless night have been taking their toll a little! I wasn’t able to run during the day but I met up with the guys from the football team to complete 2 sets of hill runs. The first set I did with the guys and tried to push them a little but the second set I went flat out and beat the time before by 2 minutes 15 seconds – legs were burning by the end of it but as I keep saying the more hills I do now the easier they will be in Newcastle. Or that’s the plan anyway!!

2nd August 2011

Inside 50 days to go until my 1oth BUPA Great North Run and I have to say that the baby has taken quite a bit out of me in the last few days!! It was another hot one today and it just so happened that the time I had to run was right in the middle of the day!

I started well and the 20 minute Blue zone was very straight forward but as I went through the 40 minute Green zone the heat and tiredness started to take it’s toll. I fought on though and added a slightly longer route to the run so that I didn’t get too close to home before the 20 minute Yellow zone finished. The last part of that zone was very hard and I contemplated stopping at a local shop to get a bottle of water but as soon at I heard “Blue zone 10 minutes” it gave me a boost to finish.

With around a mile to go I grabbed my shirt to wipe my face and noticed that there was blood on the right side of my shirt. Straight away I knew what is was – split nipple!! I’ve had this before and it’s not pleasant; because of the heat I was sweating more than normal and the rubbing on my shirt had caused my right nipple to cut – must remember the plasters next time:

I ended up finishing the 1hr 30min set programme before I got home but I continued for a few more minutes as I’d rather finish it running than walking.

According to Adidas micoach in the 1hr 34mins and 27secs I burnt a total of 1590 calories!!

My training day was not done there and at 6.30pm I met up with the football team and completed 40 minute of intervals – this time I had plasters on my nipples though to stop them bleeding!!

31st July 2011

As you can probably see I’ve had a few days off since my last run and that’s due to the birth of my first child on the 29th July 🙂 Despite being very sleep deprived I knew I had to get back on the road and it just so happened today was a hot one.

It was a nice run to get me back into things as it was a steady Green for an hour and I felt pretty good running the 8.13 mile course. My Adidas micoach scored me a huge (!!) 98% for the run but I know I’m going to be feeling it a little in the morning especially after not having much sleep tonight!!

28th July 2011

I thought I’d change it up a bit from my normal route today and try to avoid the 4/5 big hills that I usually hit! So, instead of them I managed to find 3 very long and exhausting hills; one of them was just under 3 miles long, it was tough but once again great preparation for Newcastle. It was also Yellow intervals today which meant I warmed up as normal in the Blue Zone then I had 2 minutes in the Green Zone followed by a fast 7 minutes in the Yellow Zone. I completed 6 of them in total including 2 as I went up the big hill!

It was a good sight when I got to the top of my road and I was very pleased with finishing the 11.34 mile route.

26th July 2011

I was still felling very stiff from the run on Sunday but I knew I needed to get back on the road and keep up my training plan today. It wasn’t a nice run that my Adidas micoach had for me either – 1hr 30mins in the Green Zone. My old Green Zone was 7.45 – 8.55 mins / mile but yesterday I decided to manually change them to challenge myself more so my new zone is 7.15 – 8.26 mins / mile.

I was up and out by 7.15am and during the 1 hour 30 minute I covered 11.32 miles. My Adidas micoach gave me an overall score of 99% for the run which I was rather pleased with :-).

My training day wasn’t done there though as I met up with a couple of the boys from my football team and took on the short 2.14 mile loop that we’ve been doing for a couple of weeks. Today I set another personal best of 12mins 59secs so all in all it’s been a great day.

I think I’m going to have to take tomorrow off to try to reduce the stiffness in my legs and then it’ll be short Green and long Yellow intervals for 1 hour 24 minutes on Thursday.

Thanks for reading and please donate anything you can.

24th July 2011

I decided not to run yesterday as my legs were a little sore from Friday and I also started to get a pain in my LCL on the side of my left knee. I had planned on running today and the scheduled run was 1hr 50mins in the Green Zone but late last night I was driving through Dartford and I saw signs for the Dartford half marathon so I thought I would research it a bit online. I found out I was able to enter on the day before 8am and the run started at 9am so at about 9pm last night I thought I might as well use it as a practise run!!

I was up at 6.45am, had a good breakfast, packed my bag and left at 7.30am to go to Dartford Park. I was all signed in by 8am and despite my legs and knee still feeling a little sore I was feeling quite good about the run. I always say that the hills in Newcastle are tough but the hills today are a different level!! There are 4 big peaks with the highest being 80 metres above sea level but the one at 10 miles was the most painful.

In the end I finished in 1hr 29mins 59 secs; I wasn’t aiming to break PBs on this one as I just wanted to use it as a training run so I’m very pleased with my time. My fastest mile was 6mins 26secs and my slowest was 7mins 12secs – my aim is to keep each mile inside 6mins 30secs.

7 weeks to go until the big one and I feel I’m on track to beat last year’s time of 1hr 28mins.

PLEASE SUPPORT MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION BY SPONSORING ME:

www.justgiving.com/rmsmith

22nd July 2011

Today was supposed to be quite a light 1 hour run in the green zone but for some reason the Adidas micoach just wasn’t picking up the GPS while I was running and so it wasn’t giving me any speeds or accurate distances. I had been thinking on previous runs that it was out on measuring the miles but today confirmed it – at the end of the run it said I had done 7.44 miles but when I drove it later it turned out to be 8.1 miles – not a huge difference but it’s enough to throw out my timings.

In the end I just completed the run at a pace I wanted to do and ignored the micoach!!

21st July 2011

Lighter day today, it was a day off from the Adidas micoach training plan but I was still up for a little training so I met up with one of the guys in my football team and we completed some hill training. We did 2 sets of 5 long hill runs; 1st set took 10 minutes and the second set was a little quicker at 9mins 35secs. After that I still wanted to do a little more so I completed the normal 2.14 mile loop and today I did it in a PB of 13mins 15secs – happy days :-).

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE AND HELP ME HELP CHILDREN WITH LIFE-THREATENING ILNESSES.

20th July 2011

Sore and soaked but helping to make the wishes of seriously ill children come true.

It was a tough run as today’s run consisted of Yellow intervals for 5 mins and then slower Blue intervals for 5 mins. It was made more difficult as I decided that I’d run up some steep hills and they just happened to coincide with the Yellow Zones!! To make matters worse after 45 mins the Heavens opened and down came some serious rain, luckily I had Jonny Wilkinson and Busted to get me through!! During the 1hr 15min run I completed 9.38 miles and burnt a total of 1340 calories!

19th July 2011

Rest day today from the Adidas micoach schedule but I met up with one of the guys in my football team to tackle the 2.14 mile loop that I’m trying to get the whole team to compete against each other on. The hardest part of the run is a hill that is almost 1 mile long and the elevation increases by 137 feet – great practise for the hills of Newcastle! Personal Best today of 13mins 21secs 🙂

18th July 2011

Just over 2 months to go and my first running Blog! It was a tough run today as it was pouring with rain for most of it but I got through the zones and managed to complete the 1 minute Red Zone at a full sprint before I cooled down in the Blue Zone. The runs are getting tough now but it’s a great feeling to get through them. Legs are going to be sore tomorrow!