The Macmillan Running Calculator

The Macmillan Running Calculator says [I am deceased] that I am running my tempo runs slightly too slow, and my endurance and EZ runs slightly too fast. Chris! If I become a good runner it's because of that article you sent me and one I found on The Boring Runners Site.

It looks like I'm doing it wrong. That's probably why I seem to be trending the wrong way in pace times. Great that I could discover this now - but I need to introduce some better time goals into my running.

When I type in 30 minutes as a 5k target it tells me that my:

(1) 2k tempo run should be between 12:00.1 to 12:20.8 minutes time (compare 13:01 now)

(2) longer endurance runs should be 7:16 to 7:53 minutes pace/k (compare 7:23 /k)

(3) EZ runs should be 7:16 to 7:35 minutes pace/k (compare 8:01 /k pace)

So to me that means I can slow down the longer runs and not try so hard to run them as quickly as I am and set my mind to run the tempo runs on Wednesday much faster.

Dietitian was Impressed!

Not the best run, but I ran on about 4 1/2 hours of interrupted sleep, and the relative humidity was about 38°C. I did not break gate at any time, was in a run the whole way even with the demon voices telling me to stop. [BTW if I wanted your opinion, demon voices, I would shove my hand up your ... and work your mouth like a puppet - get out of my head you negatives!]

So 5.6k in 42:59 mins @ 7:40/k pace.

Split	Today	Friday
1k	7:12	6:52
2k	7:20	7:17
3k	7:28	7:29
4k	7:36	7:15
5k	7:27	7:25
5.6k	5:40	4:57

My dailymile.com graph of the Kms run since I started these running programs are shown in the graph above right (weekly kms run). This week's 5.6 k is rounded to 6 in the last column. The first 3 columns represent the first 21 day program I was on to get me to 30 mins a day while the 6 remaining weeks are the current program to run the 5k.

I have enough data now (I think) to do a little calculation so show how I slow down over time. I'd like to know how to build up a pace plan for the race so that I know what pace to run each k at. This will help me as I slow down over time. The Captain showed me a few calculator for this that I will probably copy and put in my calculator page.

Saw my dietitian today (with my wife for honesty) and she gave me a few pointers on my "carbing up" pre-run nights. She suggested I lower the overall size of each snack/meal and increase their number. She also wanted me to mix all food groups in proportion to the daily allowance for these meals. She didn't want me just concentrating on carbs alone. I also need to work in more whole-grain options, keep low glycemic index carbs, remove the high GI carbs, get more green vegetables in the diet and eat more freshly grown produce (glycemicindexfoods.pdf). The last thing is she will schedule a BMI and fat% assessment at their sister-clinic (for diabetics) soon to help me monitor my weight loss. As I have sort of stopped losing weight but my pants are getting looser - she thinks there might be some muscle building happening. P.S. I'm not a diabetic.

Food Experiment Last Night

Rather than my normal 600 or so calories in carbs last night after 6 p.m. I reduced it to 400 calories and ate at 5 p.m. - fasted for 14 hours before running. I did feel less energetic today. So my experiment suggests I need to eat more closer to the run. So on Thursday, I experiment with carbs at around 5 p.m. and then a big carb snack at around 9 p.m. I also took a longer than normal warm-up jog. My goal is not to feel to full, and time the p@@ing so I can be as empty as possible for the run. Also ran on my own today.

So my run today looked like this: 2.5k in 17:23. Pretty bad I know, since my race-pace target is 6 mins. But I have valuable information about how long I can fast before I run.

Split	Today	Last Wednesday
0.5 k	2:52	2:45
1.0 k	3:12	3:14
1.5 k	3:47	3:30
2.0 k	3:46	3:32
2.5 k	3:44	3:24

Incidentally, I've lost 2 lbs [Alert: Metric Police, Andrew is using pounds again] since last Wednesday. I have also dropped 5 belt-holes since I started running about 3 months ago.

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I've limited a lot of chatter about my life because my home is now home to another person who is troubled in our family. There's not a lot of funny things to say about the situation and it consumes a lot of my thought and some of my time.

He's a young 19-year-old man who has a lot of big challenges waiting for him, but is sweating the small stuff like going to work, and sleeping regularly. He's been staying with us for the last 3 weeks, and our picture of hope has slowly deteriorated. My first reaction is to get angry and I want to tell him to grow up, and then force him to live properly in the basic areas of his life. But my wife, the nest-builder, says wait. He comes from a troubled home, and his father was shot and killed by police 4 months ago (it was a mistake - his father suffered from schizophrenia and did not apparently understand what the Police were asking him to do - the Police are being investigated by the SIU).

The unfortunate thing is the three simple rules the young man had to keep each day while here have been broken regularly without any consequences - and this is my wife's lead so I follow and give her support in what she is doing. But my image is the following: I don't care if he doesn't love me after this whole experience, I need to know that he has the proper life skills to live in the real world, right now he doesn't, let's start working on changing these improper behaviors.

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On perhaps a lighter note, has anyone seen the Robin Hood Series from a couple of years ago on the BBC with Jonas Armstrong as Robin and Richard Armitage as Guy of Gisborne? I've seen a trailer and want to watch them ... but I don't want to waste my time. I'm actually waiting for Caprica to start again on Sci-Fi or Syfy or what every stupid name they thought up for the network.