Running Man: Six Weeks Half Marathon Training, Week Two 18.71 Miles

Week one of half marathon training had gone well and I was determined to continue my progress by upping the miles in week two. Because of my unique situation of trying to cram enough training into 6 weeks but also building up slowly having had 6 weeks out with injury, I had dismissed the many half marathon training plans I had looked at in favour of creating my own as I go along. My plans for this week were do about 5 miles on Tuesday and Thursday at medium effort, do a 5k as quickly as possible on Saturday and then do a slow and steady 9 miles on Sunday.

I got off to a good start on Tuesday by doing 5.6 miles at a fairly good pace of 9:16 minutes per mile. I continued my route of running up and down the hilliest part of Downham Market, running up to and then doing 4 laps of my Bexwell Road/Howdale Road circuit before heading back home. I felt strong and could notice my stamina improving – 5 and a half miles seemed fairly easy now.

I was going to repeat this on Thursday but a text from my physio Howard reminded me that I had a follow-up appointment that evening, meaning no time for running. He checked that I was still doing fine and noticed that my right hamstring was still weaker than my left and that my glutes were not as strong as they should be so gave me some more core strengthening exercises. I’m meant to do these every day and I know that I need to and that they’ll make me stronger and improve my running but they’re not fun and quite hard to do! I really do need to do them regularly though so will make an effort to do so next week.

Whist waiting for Howard in the reception of Advance Performance in Peterborough I listened to a conversation between a girl in her twenties and one of the shop assistants. She was talking about how she was doing the popular couch to 5K routine and had thought about getting some proper running shoes. I thought ‘great, well done, that’s really good of you to push yourself and get into running; you’ll feel great for it.’ That’s not what I first thought though; my first thought was ‘you’re training to run 5 kilometres? You amateur!’ That’s the thing about running – on one hand all runners are part of a community supporting each other, on the other they all want to be better than each other.

Saturday was my quick 5k day and what a better place to do a 5k than at the 100th Parkrun in Chantry Park at my hometown of Ipswich with one of my oldest friends who has also got into running this year. I got up a 6:45 bleary eyed but excited about the morning ahead. After getting ready I made myself a banana and blueberry smoothie for the journey and set off towards Suffolk, the roads clear and the sun shining strongly.


When I left my house I hadn’t realised that it was the 100th Ipswich Parkrun that day and I was pleasantly surprised by this landmark occasion. The crowd was bigger with about 100 more runners than my previous Parkrun in Kings Lynn and the atmosphere was great. The race organiser got things going by completing an ice bucket challenge and then we all stood in the formation of a 100 to have our photo taken and be filmed by the drone camera they had to record the event – a really nice touch from the organisers.

Image: The 100th Ipswich Parkrun. I’m bottom left of the middle zero wearing a white Ipswich Town away shirt from the 2000-2001 season.

My old friend Dan and I set off at a comfortable pace before speeding things up a bit and overtaking some runners. I soon realised that this was a completely different proposition to the wide and flat paved surface of Kings Lynn Parkrun – the Ipswich Parkrun at Chantry Park was a mixture of gravel paths and grass tracks, with twists, turns, narrow sections and worst of all steep hills! There were two that really slowed me down – in the middle a very short and steep climb, and then at the end with a longer but equally steep climb up a grass bank to the finish.

It was quite cruel finishing the race with a climb up a grass bank but it certainly added another element to the event. I finished in 26:01 at an average pace of 8:23 per mile – a minute and a half slower than my best 5k time but that was done on flat roads whereas this was on challenging trails. Dan beat me in 25:50, breaking 26 minutes for the first time, as I had expected him to. It was great fun, a good atmosphere and an interesting and challenging route and I will definitely do it again when I’m next back in Ipswich. I ran quicker than I had done for 2 months and my time was still pretty respectable considering the bumpy terrain.

I had hoped for a good sleep after a long week and a long day and early start on Saturday but woke up early on Sunday morning dreaming about running! I was on some sort of survival course, eating berries from bushes and practising running by pretending to run from wolves, I was joined by people I went to school with and people I work with. So I got up, had breakfast of Weetabix and coffee, and wrote some of this blog.

Sunday was long run day and this time I wanted to do 9 miles. I had roughly planned a route into town and then around some of the roads that form part of the Ipswich Half Marathon route before heading back east towards my mum’s house. I took a bottle of Lucozade Sport with me again and also an energy gel in case I needed it this time. After a 10 minute warm up walk I headed into town, the route downhill and so the first mile was done at a fairly decent pace of 8:26.

Bounding along and feeling good I headed uphill along Westfield Road towards Christchurch Park and then through the park itself before turning right onto Henley Road and then onto Valley Road. From here I headed back eastwards onto Woodbridge Road, through Rushmere and past the Heath and into Kesgrave. I knew at some point that I’d need to turn south and somehow managed to find the correct road that would take me towards Foxhall, past Foxhall Stadium and then onto Foxhall Road for my final leg back to my mum’s house.

The route had included quite a few hills which was good training for my upcoming half marathon but at 8 and a half miles in, the miles and the inclines were starting to take their toll and I was running out of steam. I had just finished another hill section and was starting to feel the effects of my efforts – my right knee, right heel and left hamstring were all starting to give me discomfort and for the first time I questioned whether I could do the distance. So I pulled out the Science in Sport energy gel from the small zip pocket in the back of my Asics running shorts, teared it open and slurped down the sticky goo.

Whilst it was no Popeye eating spinach transformation, it did give me some extra energy and I was able to keep going. I got back to my mum’s house at a distance of 9 and half miles so decided to do a lap around the block to make it a nice round 10.Mile 9 was my slowest at 10.33 but the energy gel had seen me home and helped me to complete the last mile 15 seconds quicker.

I was exhausted when I got back and it was not surprising – in one hour 35 minutes and 22 seconds of continuous exercise I had burned off over 1200 calories. Taking my time to do my stretches I then gulped down my protein shake, ate a sandwich and a banana and then drank a pint of squash. I then reflected on my achievement: TEN MILES. Just over 5 months ago I started running and wondered if I could do a mile, I could now do ten. Double figures:  it’s another big step in my running adventures.