paulanthonyanderson.com

26 May 2008 is rapidly approaching, so I guess I should knuckle down to some serious training, rather than the odd circuit of the park on my lunch hour. The last thing I want is for the first time I run 10K to be the day of the race itself. I am aiming to be hitting the 10K mark by the end of the first week in May. If I can do 10K, that is the important thing. If I can improve on the time, that will be a bonus...

Well, the good news is my time has improved. Shaved a minute off of the 5K route.

The bad news is that my fancy ass training software failed to track the route. It got the time, but not the distance. And this after boasting to a colleague about how good the software was...

Oh, yeah, I've let my work colleagues know about the race, given them the URL for the fundraising page, so they now have the link to here. And so my websites. Not sure if that was smart, but never mind. If I work with you, welcome to the site!
Time - 26:21, Distance - 5.18km

With my parents visiting this weekend, we wanted to find a nice restaurant to take them to. Remembering that there are nice places in Old Isleworth, I thought it would be a good idea to jog down to Old Isleworth and back. This was a great idea. Door to door, the circuit is just a touch over 5km. I've found a good 5K route that can be easily extended with just a few turns and some new roads. Probably if I reverse the route then head up to Gillette Corner, I could take in Osterley Park and extend it to 10km.

And with a time of 27:33, I'm on course to do a sub-one hour 10K.  My target time is 55mins, but I'll take the hour for my first race.  After all, a one hour 10K is on target for a 4 hour marathon...
Time - 27:33, Distance - 5.18km

Back to running around work today. Rest day yesterday, and no chance to run in the evening (out at a champagne reception!) so a run around Green Park at lunchtime. I discovered last night that my mobile phone has workout software in it that uses the built-in GPS to track routes and calculate speed etc.

Gave it a trial run today, and it works well. Very well. I completely failed to bring my sports armband though, so spent a bit of time after starting it trying to fit it into a secure pocket inside my running jacket. Still, the tracker works well, and it is good to have an accurate reading of my distance, and the means to calculate speed, pace etc. The results for this run are a little out though, as I had to walk down to Green Park from the office.  There are two hills that kill my knees, and too many tourists/office workers.
Time - 22:43, Distance - 3.8km

A longer run around my local area this time. It started out as one of those "easy" runs, after an extended break. By the mid-point, I decided to see how much further I could run. So kept going, and changed my route. I was disappointed when I got back in to discover this was short of the 5km mark. Should have done one further circuit of the block...
Time - 24:00, Distance - 4.4km

First time running around my home area, rather than where I work, in almost a year! This was a circuit of the local area along an old running route I used to take before I blew my knee out last year. Fairly straight roads, down a long stretch of the A40 (mmm, traffic fumes) and not too hilly. This was more about running for a long period, rather than the distance.

I had plans for this week. Sadly they were not to be. Run on Wednesday, rest on Thursday (when I had a dental appointment), rest Friday (out with friends), run Saturday. Yeah, good plan. In reality, I felt horrible Thursday, and worse when the temporary filling came out on Friday, requiring an emergency appointment on Friday. Managed to get out to see friends on Friday, but partied too hard. Saturday saw me in bed until mid-day, and no inclination to run. There is always next week...
Time - 20:24, Distance - 3.2km