Tuesday 24 March 2015

Reading Half Marathon

On 22nd March 2015 I raced Reading Half Marathon. A great day of racing and a new PB for the half marathon of 1:24:33. This is the third year I've run Reading and it remains my favourite race for speed of the course and quality of organisation.

Strategy

After my 1:26:09 at Bath three weeks previous, I was confident at being able to post an improved time. At Bath I had an average pace of 4:03/km and managed to hit sub-4:00/km pace for each of the last 5 kilometres. I therefore had a suspicion I might be able to sustain a 4:00/km pace for the whole 21km race. My goal was therefore to set off at 4:00/km pace and then to back off slightly if it got too tough. (Brighton Marathon is only three weeks after Reading this year and is my A-race, so I didn't want to put that in jeopardy by overdoing it at Reading).

The plan worked well and by just after half way I was on an average pace of 3:59/km. I was feeling good so continued to put my foot down and maintain this pace for the remainder of the race. Slightly tough for the last couple of kilometres, but I was catching other runners and that is always a great motivator to keep going. Finished the race with a 3:59/km average pace, so the plan worked out just about perfectly.

Organisation

Reading has always been an incredibly well organised event. In fact, my only gripe in previous years has been the queues at the baggage collection after the race and the bottleneck of runners at the first two roundabouts. Fortunately this year they solved both of these problems.

In previous years, they seemed to allocate numbers based on predicted finish times. Thus, all runners finishing around the same time were all queueing for the same baggage line while other lines were empty. This year the numbers seem to have been more randomly allocated, resulting in baggage collect being nicely spread out across all the lines. The addition of a one-way system as well, made bag drop-off and collect super smooth. In fact, they had my bag ready and waiting for me before I even made it to my collection point. Nicely done team!

Everything else about the organisation went perfectly for me. Car parking was good, the race village was well laid out, facilities excellent, course marking clear, medal and goody back collection smooth. A definite 10 out of 10. This year's medal is MASSIVE!

The New Course

For this year's race, they changed the course round slightly. In previous years the race would start coming straight out of Green Park onto roads and then round two roundabouts. This was always a massive bottleneck, with everyone jostling to get a good position and into their running flow. Then, at the end of the race you would run down towards the Madjeski Stadium then have to turn off and do a soul-destroying extra mile through Green Park before coming back to the stadium.

This year the course was changed to put the extra mile in Green Park at the start of the race. This worked incredibly well. Firstly, it meant that by the time you hit any road junctions the pack had already spread out a bit and there was less bottleneck at the roundabouts. Then at the finish you just reached Green Park again and ran straight into the stadium, which felt much more satisfying.

The other change to the course was to chop out a bit of Northumberland Avenue and Whitley Wood Road and replace it with some extra time in the Reading University grounds. This also had the advantage of chopping out an extra small hill, which was most welcome!

Overall, I'd have to say that the course change was very successfully and makes Reading an even better place to attempt a Personal Best.

Atmosphere

Reading always has a great atmosphere. There's great support right round the course and the various bands along the way provide a great boost. The finish in the Madjeski Stadium is always amazing and really motivates you for a sprint finish in a way that you just don't get elsewhere. A big shout out should also go to the various cheerleaders around the course. The group on the A33 in the last mile were a great morale booster.

Room For Improvement

The race was so well organised that it's almost impossible to find any faults. There are only two very minor things that I can find:

The first is that the route through Green Park at the start contained a number of speed bumps. Some of these were so well camouflaged with the road that it was almost impossible to spot them until you tripped over them. In fact, one poor runner next to me went over in the first couple of hundred meters on one of these - not how you want to start a race. Even after seeing this I still stumbled on another one, even though I was looking out for them! For next year I'd suggest the race organisers head out with some spray paint and make these much more visible.

The other is related to the staggered start. On my entry I specified a predicted finish time of 1:30:00, putting me in the red start zone. However, my training had gone very well and I was now looking for a 1:25:00 finish. I'd hoped to be able to tag on to the 1:25 pacemaker, but they were positioned in the yellow start zone which went off three minutes ahead of the red zone. There was thus no way of catching the 1:25 pace maker. As a suggestion, for future staggered starts, it might be worth including an additional pacemaker at the front of each zone who is set to go 5 minutes faster than the zone pace to support those runners who are faster now then when they entered (there were plenty of us).

Conclusion

Overall I'd have to say Reading this year was a better course and better organised than ever. This is definitely a race that should be on your race calendar for next year.

Monday 9 March 2015

What I Want From an Online Training and Activity Tracking Tool

Someone in our local Facebook running group recently asked members to complete a survey on how they track, record and share their running. This got me thinking about what sites and service I currently use and what features would be required for me to swap them all for a single unifying solution.

Primary Tools and Services

First off, it's worth looking at what I currently use and what features are good and lacking in each service. My current activity tracking and training platform consists of four fairly disjointed websites and services:

Movescount

I use a Suunto Ambit3 multi-sport watch to track all my activities. It's a superb watch (I'll add a separate review later) and it synchronises to Suunto's proprietary Movescount site and app. Movescount is essential in the mix as you need it to get data off the watch, configure activities and update the settings on the watch. Additionally it has a pretty neat app designer for building your own watch apps (as a software engineer this is something I'm using quite a lot).

Also, it has a reasonable training planner feature that syncs with the Ambit3 so you can always find out what your workouts for the day should be without needing to be near a computer or mobile. Unfortunately this planner isn't the easiest to use for actually building a plan and it doesn't work particularly well as a training diary, so I also have to maintain this data elsewhere as well and keep the two in sync manually.

Analysis of activity data is fairly rudimentary, probably just the minimum subset of features you can get away with. There's fairly good data about individual activities, but there's no way to track trends across multiple activities or periods. Fortunately the Movescount site can be configured to automatically export to Strava and TrainingPeaks, and you can also download .fit or .gpx files for manual import into other sites.

The community aspects of Movescount are quite limited, mainly because it's comprised only of Suunto owners.

Strava

I switched over from Runkeeper to Strava about 18 months ago. It's one of the two sites that I actually pay to use the premium services. Most of my individual activity analysis is done on Strava and this is also the place that I use to track shoe usage figures and to plan routes. I like the features that they have for analysing running and bike data. However, as a triathlete, I wish they did a better job on swim analysis.

The recent expansion to start tracking trends across similar runs/rides is nice, but this functionality is still very lacking in it's scope. You can't use it for any serious performance over time analysis as it appears to be only based on following the same identical routes each time, which gets rather boring.

I like the Strava training log and calendar feature, but not being able to use it as a training planner is a real weakness in my mind. Also, Strava doesn't really function that well as a training diary as you can only attach limited information to individual activities and there's no real publishing/sharing mechanism.

However, the biggest value I get from Strava, beyond the activity tracking, is the community aspect. Being able to join clubs, link to races and follow other athletes is great. I've been able to meet some great people and share in experiences and discussions. Being able to send and receive kudos and comment on activities just makes at all a bit more special. After doing a particularly awesome but tough session or race, getting some virtual high-fives is a really nice feeling.

TrainingPeaks

I've been looking for a good training planner/diary tool for a long, long time. I even started writing my own at one point (but work got in the way of finishing it!). First I came across XHale (see below) but it's limited feature set and manual event import weren't working for me. Then I decided to experiment with TrainingPeaks and I've been using it happily for a few weeks. This is the other tool that I now actually pay for the Premium Edition.

The main feature that I use within TrainingPeaks is the Calendar functionality. I use it as an additional activity tracker (in addition to Strava), with activities being automatically synchronised from Movescount. I also use the Calendar functionality to build my future training plans. It's a great plan builder and has good support for libraries of workouts and moving activities around. The ability to expose the Calendar as an iCal feed and also work with it in the dedicated TrainingPeaks iOS app are really useful as well.

In addition to using the Calendar to plan and record workouts, it also acts are a reasonably good training diary. You can record pre and post-activity notes and details of how the session went. There's also pretty good support for adding metrics like sleep, weight, mood, motivation, steps and so on into the Calendar.

Probably the only major features that seem to be missing from the Calendar are the ability to record notes and goals against weeks or training meso-cycles as opposed to individual activities (I think the classic view supports this to some extent, but it's not yet present on the new view) and the ability to publish a summary of my training diary to a blog. It would also be really nice if the TrainingPeaks app was HealthKit integrated so that it could automatically populate metrics into the calendar from the other apps that I use to capture this info already (SleepCycle, Nudge, MyFitnessPal, manually entered weight etc.)

The other parts of TrainingPeaks that I make good use of are its ability to define Annual Training Plans (which help with training plan building) and the Dashboard. On the Dashboard, the Performance Manager is by far the best component in terms of assessing ongoing levels of training load and stress in order to get the right balance between training enough to get improvements versus over-training. Being able to add custom charts and graphs to the visiualisation on the Dashboard is also a great feature.

Blogger

I maintain two blogs, one about software development and another about running and triathlon (this one in fact!). I do these via the free Blogger platform, mainly because I can't be bothered with the hassle of administering anything myself! My blog entries tend to be just observations, thoughts or reviews.

I don't record a training diary on my blog mainly because, again, I can't be bothered with all the pain of exporting and duplicating the information from Strava/TrainingPeaks into yet another location. I make do with the minimalist Strava activity summary and activity feed blog widgets.

Other Tools and Services

There are some other tools and services that complete my platform or that I found useful but stopped using for one reason or another.

Facebook

Unfortunately I can't avoid Facebook as most of my friends and family are on there. I usually share major runs or important races from Strava on to Facebook so that all my non-running contacts can see what I've achieved.

Twitter

I don't normally tweet all my runs as I find that frustrating when other people clog up my feed with that level of noise. I do tend to announce any new blog posts that I write via a Twitter post as I know a good proportion of my followers will find them of interest.

XHale

A few months ago I started using Xhale as my training planner and diary. It's pretty good for a free tool. Unfortunately it has very minimal ability for analysis, limited import functionality (I was exporting .fit files from Movescount and manually uploading them) and it also doesn't provide any way to export or expose the training diary. These are the main reasons I swapped to TrainingPeaks. It also doesn't provide any way to publish the training diary to a blog. It does what it does well, but it's yet another location to visit rather than a unifying point for my data.

Smashrun

I only came across this new site a few days ago. I've uploaded a few runs and so far it looks promising. What I do like so far is that their focus seems to be on detailed analysis of individual runs plus also trends over time. If they get the trend analysis right then they will have a real differentiator in the market.

Downsides seem to be at the moment that they only track runs (not other activity types like bike or swim), they have limited sync capabilities (so data import is manual TCX files for me), and there is no training planner / diary support. Still early days, but I will continue to watch this one, although not actively use it for the time being.

Swim.com

I was using swim.com with my Pebble watch to track and analyse my swimming sessions. I found their service very useful and the analysis features were nicely optimised for swimming. Unfortunately they don't support or plan sync for Suunto devices and they only seem to be able to handle Garmin specific FIT files.

I therefore don't use their site any more and I haven't yet found anything as good for analysis of swimming data.

iSmoothRun

Before I got my Ambit 3, my main activity tracking was via the iSmoothRun app on my iPhone. This is by far the best app on the market and has a huge amount of configuration and export options. It also has great support for audio cues, interval sessions and so forth. Having a dedicated GPS watch is much nicer, but I do miss many of the iSmoothRun features.

What I'm Looking For

Basically, I want it all! However, at the minimum, I'm after something that:

  1. Allows me to upload, comment on, tag and analyse (in detail) individual activities (must support: run, bike and swim, plus multi-sport events like duathlons and triathlons)
  2. Identifies and presents me with performance, fitness and training load trends over time for different types of activities, sessions and metrics
  3. Provides a training planner tool that easily allows me to build and modify my plan
  4. Provides a diary so that I can review sessions, comment on how sessions went, link activities to sessions, comment on weekly and other training cycles, define and track goals, and track usage of shoes and bikes
  5. Support for capturing and analysing other metrics (e.g. sleep, body measurements, food intake, hydration, mood, motivation, injury etc.)
  6. Route planning and sharing
  7. Allow me to write blog entries and then publish my training diary, activities and blog entries to a single common page
  8. Allow me to share content via Facebook and Twitter
  9. Have a community element where I can join clubs and events, follow other user's activity feeds, diary and blogs, give them a virtual high-five and comment on their content

Secondary features that I would like to see include:

  1. The ability to sync activities directly with Movescount so that they are automatically added just by syncing my watch (but I guess this is Suunto dependent)
  2. The ability to sync my training plan with Movescount so that upcoming activities are always available on my watch (again, probably Suunto dependent)
  3. The ability to customise and extend the data and trend analysis platform so that I can define my own additional metrics to track and which activities to include, display custom graphs of and so forth
  4. Support for a wider range of activities that can be tracked (e.g. mountaing biking, hiking, yoga, pilates, strength, stretching, spin, skiiing, football etc.)
  5. The ability to expose my training calendar using standard calendar exchange formats so that I can view my training plan from the Calendar application on my phone/laptop
  6. An iOS app so that I can see, update and publish my training calendar and diary on the move
  7. HealthKit integration on iOS so that metrics that I capture from other apps are automatically synced into my training diary
  8. An open API, so that I (or other devs) can write our own tools, apps and site integrations on top of an open service/data platform
  9. The ability to have a coach account so that (when I can finally afford a coach) they can build training plans for me, review my session stats and diary entries, add their own comments and track the long-term trends associated with my performance, so that they can continually improve my training plan

That's a lot to ask of a platform and its a very crowded market place to be entering. However, I'm currently playing for two services, each of which does part of what I'm after, but even together not the whole. I would certainly pay for a platform that meets even just my primary requirements (provide it's not too expensive – ideally less than £120 per year [5% of my training, kit and race entry budget]). I would hope that there is a significantly large body of athletes with similar requirements to me in order to make it viable.

Wednesday 4 March 2015

Plans and Specificity

I'm currently training for Brighton Marathon in April, and following the Pfitzinger and Douglas 'up-to-55-miles per week' training plan. There's no denying that the plan is tough, especially completing both a long (up to 20 miles) plus a medium-long (up to 14 miles) run each week. However, I'm finishing the long runs feeling strong and that's giving me a lot of confidence for what will be my first ever marathon.

Chatting about training plans on a forum, someone mentioned that they weren't keen on the P&D plans as they don't include a large amount of speed work sessions. They are correct: most of the sessions are focussed towards endurance and marathon pace work. However, to my mind that's why I picked this plan. I'm not currently looking towards building speed and going faster.

This got me thinking about specificity of training. My goal is very specific: take my existing 5K/10K/HM pace and scale it up so that I can maintain the same level of performance over the marathon distance. To achieve this requires endurance and longer distance marathon pace work: exactly what the P&D plan offers.

If I want to run faster, I'm not going to try to achieve this as part of a marathon training programme. I'd first be looking to scale back and focus on improving my speed over the 5K-10K distance as these are more speed-specific distances. My training would be specific to these events: more intense VO2 Max and interval sessions, more threshold runs. Then, once I've locked in these speed improvements into my general running, I'd then be looking to switch back to a plan focussed on endurance and allowing me to apply these new performance gains over longer distances.

My take-away from this is that when your training time is limited, trying to improve multiple performance aspects at the same time just isn't going to work. You'll just get mediocre improvements across the board. Instead, work out what your main priority is and build a plan specific to that goal. When that goal is complete then is the time to decide if you want to change the focus. If so, build a plan specific to the new objective.

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Bath Half Marathon 2015

This weekend I raced the Bath Half Marathon. I had a great race and ended up with a new half marathon PB of 1:26:09 (which you can look at on my Strava account). Overall, the day was superb, well organised and very enjoyable.

Transport

I'd very sensibly booked in for the Park and Ride service provided by Bath Racecourse. While, this was slightly more expensive than other options it was lovely to arrive to a nice warm waiting room with tea and coffee on tap. The coach into town departed spot on time and deposited us just a short walk from the race village. The return journey was just as smooth. I'd definitely go with this option again another year - but book early as it sells out quickly.

Race Village

The race village was nicely organised, if a tad muddy. Not a great deal to do if you weren't a charity runner, but that just allows you to focus on race preparation. Changing tent was a nice size and dry - which was very welcome during the short shower about an hour before the race. There seemed to be plenty of toilets and I didn't have to queue for too long. Bag drop-off and collect ran very smoothly.

The Start

Getting everyone into the starting pens was very smooth. With a predicted sub-90 minute time I was able to secure a white race number, which got me into the second pen, just behind the elites. Organisation of the pens was very smooth and it was very pleasant standing chatting with the other runners in the sun. The race started spot on time and I was across the line about 30 seconds after the gun.

The Course

The course starts on nice wide roads, which meant it was easy to get into a good running flow quickly. By the time we hit any narrower points the field had already spread out a bit. Much better than the early bottlenecks you get on some courses. It then turns into a 2-lap circuit round the A4/A36 area of Bath, running parallel to the River Avon. The outward leg of the loop has a few undulations to get the legs working, but nothing too steep. The return part of the loop felt much flatter. It was a breezy day and there were a couple of spots where the wind really hit you head-on, which made for some tough sections. Mostly the route was sheltered enough that the wind was only an occasional annoyance. The final section returns back along the start route to finish at the same point you start from.

On the first lap you run to the left of the cones (which are positioned down the centre of the road) and for the second lap, you run on the right. In the mass field I can imaging that space is tight and the danger of running into a cone is quite high. However, in the leading groups I didn't experience any problems with space or cones.

Water and Lucozade stations seemed to be well spaced, well staffed and easy to use. However for a half marathon I'm only taking on a few sips of water from a couple of the water stations so I can't say how well they functioned for the main group of runners.

The only downside I could find with the 2-lap course was that at about 8 miles I started to catch tail-end runners who had just reached mile 3. I'm not sure how those runners actually felt, but were it me I would find it quite tough knowing I've got 10 miles left to go while fast runners go whizzing past in the final stages of their race. Still, I suppose you know it's a 2-lap race when you enter.

Support

The supporters along the route were amazing. Being a 2-lap course it meant that there wasn't a single point in the course where there weren't spectators cheering. Additionally, by the time I had reached the 9-mile mark, on my second lap, I was lapping many of the runners still on their first loop. It was therefore possible to benefit from the great cheering and support being offered to those runners. A great experience compared to some half marathon courses that leave you with a few miles of isolated running before heading back into a supported area.

The 'Battle of the Bands' feature really helped the atmosphere. Every mile or so you ran past a local band belting out some excellent music. A great way to put a spring back in your step.

The Finish

After crossing the line, the finish process ran smoothly. We were funnelled down a path to pick up water and the finishing medal. Then it was on to finishers t-shirts, goody bags and a good supply of Soreen malt loaf bars. The goody bag was nice, with plenty of chocolate to restore lost energy (or so I like to pretend!). The finishes t-shirt is a nice memento of the day. It's a good technical t-shirt as well, although the size did come up quite big.

When I reached the finish funnel it was very quiet and I passed through very quickly. However, it's quite narrow, so I can imagine that it got very busy once the mass-finish began.

Overall

A thoroughly great race. Nice fast course, perfect for attempting a PB. Organisation was superb and everything happened very smoothly. I'm definitely considering this race again for next year. Bath is a beautiful city, and while you don't get to explore the most scenic parts, it's certainly a nice location for a race.

For those planning on attending in future, my main advice would be to make sure you plan your travel well in advance. Also, if you are in the 1:45 – 2:15 finish range you may find the course rather crowded, which may hamper a PB attempt, but probably not any more than other large field city half marathons. For a sub-90 minute attempt it's just about perfect.