So now the marathon is over what do I aim towards now? My initial thought is to work on speed again and to that I am looking therefore at what my PBs are for each distance and what the club silver Standards are as with three silver standards for the year you get a nice certificate from the club.
So the figures (of which I love – someone just asked me about marathon times and I reeled off some stats on GFA (good for age) stuff). There is so much to look at with running – there is WAVA which gives you your age grading as well as this was something that came up at the club on Tuesday where my friend a mum of 53 ran her mile time trial in 7.23 which gave her an amazing age grading of over 70% (the higher the better) and her son who was 17 ran his in around 6.30 (so whilst he was faster his age grading was a lower percentage and he would have needed 5.32 to match his mother’s percentage!! My time trial was not great by my standards but feeling under the weather it was 7.12 with a 64% age grading. I would be much happier at the 70% but would have needed to have knocked another 20 seconds off I think. Based on this mile is suggested by 5km distance would be 24 minutes and that for a 5km for me isn’t particularly great – see figures below, although I’d be happy to run that at the moment as I am feeling really tired – perhaps my body still fighting after the marathon and all those long miles.
So to make my life easy I just grabbed my times from the Power of 10 website. If you have entered any events you should be able to find your times and details on this page: https://www.thepowerof10.info
5K: 22:41
5 miles:36:59
10km: 47:29
Half:1:47:29
Marathon: 4:19:57
Obviously as I was aiming at silver standards last year and achieved this for 5mile 5 km and 10km I’ll probably go for something similar this year. I am long long way from gold!
So 5km is the first challenge. Ideally I want to get below 22.41 which is my park run time at the “long” Warrington park run course. And I need to get at least 23.27 to get my silver standard at this distance. Which does seem achievable, but I need to get to a 5km first to see where I am at!!!
I missed the Hale 5 mile this year where I ran my PB last year in 36.59 so ideally I would like to find another flat 5 mile course and either beat that or achieve under 38.21. I run 42 minutes for a 5 mile when on a practice run so it should again be achievable.
And finally the 10km distance. My PB I hadn’t realised last year when I ran Wilmslow in 47.49 was 47.29 so I could have actually achieved a PB that day if I hadn’t started to get a really nasty tummy ache around the 7-8th kilometres which meant I really slowed down for that part. So this year obviously the silver standard is 48.24 and I was only 97 seconds off that at High Legh last month which I was only running as a tempo run so I think I’ll manage the silver. Suppose it is something to aim for over the next few months, I just have to decide what I am going to run. I really want to do something different but it’s difficult without then having to go further afield.
With that in mind I worked at improving my speed on this lunch time run although I still don’t feel 100%. I started off with a slow 9.26 mile to get me warmed up and then managed 8.06 and 8.23 along the Bridgewater canal toll path. Feel reasonably happy with this as my left leg started to tighten up. I did have rest breaks at the end of each mile so they were not continuous. A steady and comfortable 8.51 to head home. Not sure what my running schedule will be for next week until I know if I am out running with dogs or am alone. If alone then the plan is to further improve on the middle mile speed. At least it gives these runs a focus rather than just plodding about.
If anyone has any ideas of races not too far from Warrington then suggestions are most welcome. I am considering a 10 mile race challenge as well but not sure I’ll manage the 1.19 time although I’ve close to that on training runs before.
Next time I plan on writing a bit more about how marathons are graded in difficulty and perhaps the age grading and how that works.