Do the One Hour Runner (OHR) program

Had a nice run this morning. I intended to do 30min, but ended up doing 39min, about 5K. No giving up thoughts, no stings, it really was a good run. Ran the new route, so not sure about times, but that doesn’t matter. First time in a while with music, so that probably influenced my run too.

I ran again this morning, as planned, and earlier than last time. The run started off as a bit of a struggle, but after a while it went okay, and I managed to finish the 30 minutes, running 31,5 minutes total, about 4K. I ran my old route again, and my times were:
1km 6,5 min
2km 8,5 min (total 15)
3km 8,0 min (total 23)
4km 8,0 min (total 31)

So that’s 7,7 km/hour, not too bad. More importantly: another 30min run done. :)

Yesterday I felt good enough for a proper restart of this goal, and that feeling was spot on. Using the new route I did last time, I ran 31,5 minutes. I think I ran about 4K, but I’m not yet sure, because I think I mis-measured something. But in the OHR it’s the duration that counts, and I definitely got that.

It was a good run, I really like the new route, and it’s easier to extend this one, compared to my regular route.

The plan is to run every other day again, so tomorrow I’ll do this again. A bit earlier hopefully, I keep ending up running around noon, and that’s not such a great idea in this weather…

After the official run in April, I hardly did any more running to my regret… I had a few runs, but not a lot, and for the past few months I don’t think I did any at all. Today I went running again. I tried out a new route, and ran 11+11+2, with walking breaks in between. The 2 minutes at the end should have been a lot more, but I was definitely out of shape. That’s okay, at least I went out again. It was a nice run, a bit hot (wrong time of day), but the new route had several shady bits that were nice.

Woohoo! I was hoping to run the 6,6 km within 50min and my time was … 49min58sec. No kidding. And I didn’t even check my time during the last kilometer :D I did have a bit of trouble at about 4,5km and had to walk for 200/300 meter, then I resumed running. Why the trouble? I started out too fast of course. It’s hard to control your speed when you’re running in the middle of thousands of other people… When after about 400 meters I got a bit of room in front of me, I was just trigger happy I guess, and ran way too fast for the first 2 kilometers (6,15 both K’s). But after that I slowed down a bit and for the last few kilometers my speed was pretty much a steady 8 km/hour. Lots of cheering people too, which was actually more intimidating then encouraging, especially when I had to walk for a bit, I was afraid they would boo me (other walkers had been booed earlier on…), but fortunately they didn’t, and I didn’t walk for long anyway.

All in all a successful run, although it was a bit above my level, because the furthest I had run so far was 6,1km, and not very often at that. I think it’s best if I get back to the official OHR program for a while, and I’ll pick out a nice 5K somewhere in the neighbourhood for my next run, mostly because I like a date to work towards.

I did an evening run a few days ago, in preparation for the coming run. I had drunk wayyyy too little during the day and I had eaten not that long before my run, so no surprise: it was really hard. I didn’t finish the 6K run that I had planned, instead I ran 3,8 K, then walked until the 5K mark, and ran the last 1 K. I still think I’ll be able to make it, but the plan now is to eat a warm lunch and just have a sandwich in the evening before the run. And drink lots of water all day, and go to bed early the night before. That should do it…

Today I ran a shorter run. First I ran 2,5 km in 18 min (average 8,3 km/hour), then a 5,5 min walking break, then I ran another 0,8 km in 6 min (8 km/hour).

I ran my first kilometer today in 6min15sec (9,6 km/hour). I keep starting waaaay too fast, I really need to try to go extra slow next time.

[I typed a long message here, but my computer gave up on me, so I’ll just summarize.]
Did another 6,1 lap today, official run is coming up! It turns out to be an evening run, so I’ll have to practice that too. Run today went fine, great weather, a lot of traffic lights on this route though. Next time I’ll run a more traffic-light-less route, because it’s annoying. At one point I had to wait for 2 whole minutes :(

My times:
1km 6,5 min
2km 8,5 min (total 15,0)
3km 6,75 min (total 21,75)
4km 7,75 min (total 29,5)
5km 7,5 min (total 37,0)
6,1km 8,0 min (total 45,0)

Overall average speed: 8,13 km/hour. Yay :) With these kilometer marks I can easily keep track of my pace. I started out a bit too fast, the 3rd km was maybe a bit too fast too, but I didn’t collapse at the end. I’m most proud of the last 2 kms, because I didn’t really slow down, especially compared to last time.

Although I didn’t run since last post (where did my routine go, boohoo…), this morning I decided to try out the route of the official run I’m still planning to participate in, in a few weeks time. Earlier this week I had already done the route by bike, to check it out, and I’m glad I did that, because that made sure there were no surprises while running. Before leaving this morning I checked where exactly the kilometer marks were, so that I could easily check my progress and speed while running.

The run was long, but fun. Very beautiful sunny weather this first spring day, and the few other runners I encountered were clearly as happy to be out running as I was, I shared a knowing smile with each of the them :) The whole run, 6 km, took me 46 minutes and a half. Again the longest and farthest I ever ran, how cool is that :)

My times: (First time I’ve got km times, I like it!)
1km 7,5 min
2km 7,0 min (total 14,5)
3km 8,0 min (total 22,5)
4km 7,5 min (total 30,0)
5km 8,0 min (total 38,0)
6km 8,5 min (total 46,5)

Overall average speed: 7,74 km/hour. I want to try to be able to run this route under 45 minutes at the official run, that’s at least an average of 8 km/hour. I can check it easily while running by aiming for 7,5 min km’s and under.

Edit: almost forgot to note for next time: I mustn’t start my end “sprint” too soon! You can’t tell by the 8,5 min the last km took me, but the last 4 minutes or so of that km were me running a lot faster, and the last 20 seconds were a real end sprint. Although that last bit is fine, the 4 minutes faster speed were definitely too long…

Ehm… “But I was planning 2 rest days anyway.” Yeah, right. How about more than a week full of rest days?! Anyway, this morning after a sleepless night I went running. The weather is dreadful today, chilly and windy and rainy. My body didn’t feel in optimal condition, which makes sense of course. My ankles and left knee felt a bit weird too, ankles at the beginning and knee at the end of the run. I ran 20 minutes, then had to take a break to let a train pass, and then I ran another 10 minutes. I ran about 3,9 km, so that’s about 7,8 km/hour. I felt reeeeeally slow and apparently I actually was this time. First time another runner passed me by, too! But I didn’t feel bad about that. Considering the circumstances I did pretty well.

Oh, and I need tiny windscreen wipers for my glasses.