This Week’s Guest Blogger – Ian Hoskins

To PB or not to PB?

The billionairess TV mogul (and marathon runner) Oprah Winfrey once remarked “Running is the greatest metaphor for life; you get out of it as much as you put in”. Rarely has a truer word been spoken.

I took up running shortly after exiting my twenties, a pre-emptive strike against the looming middle-aged spread. After a few years pounding the pavements I felt confident enough to enter a local 10K without embarrassing myself. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of running with and against others, and felt a warm glow of satisfaction at seeing my name on the list of finishers.

It also gave me a Personal Best time to beat and thus the incentive to crank my training up a notch. Before long I was a fully-fledged PB-chaser, and in those early days, boy, was I spoilt rotten! Virtually every race I entered rewarded me with a shiny new PB to boast about to my friends (none of whom were remotely interested).

Last year I smashed my best times at every distance I ran and was soon setting my sights on a sub-90min half-marathon.

But 2010 proved to be a rude awakening. The new PBs suddenly dried up. I could get close to my previous bests but invariably fell just short, and when I did manage to better them it would be by only the slenderest of margins!

Clearly it seemed I had reached the limit of my potential under my current training regime. If I wanted to keep seeing improvements, I’d have to start getting serious! Upping the weekly mileage wasn’t an option – these creaking limbs can’t handle more than 3-4 runs per week.

Instead I decided to make each session more focussed to maximise their benefits, introducing:

Speed Intervals – these can be done in a structured format (e.g. 4 x 1 mile intervals with equal recovery times), either on a treadmill or round a track. Alternatively, you can include them in a more free-form ‘fartlek’ style simply by alternating your pace between fast bursts followed by slow jog recoveries during a normal run. Over time, gradually extend the fast bits whilst reducing the slow bits.

Hills – make hills your friend and running on the flat becomes a whole lot easier! Find a route that incorporates a few sizeable hills (and really attack them!) or, if you prefer, do a session of hill reps (sprinting up a hill of your choice then jog/walking back down to the bottom, repeatedly).

Both of these training elements will lead to increases in power, strength and speed endurance all of these combined should produce a fitter, faster runner and, hopefully, see me breakthrough the training plateau and onto the next level!

This running epiphany may have come too late to send my 5K and 10K PBs tumbling once again. However, I’m optimistic that there is still time enough between now and October 17th that I’ll have improved sufficiently to have a chance of cracking that magical 90-minute barrier in Cardiff. Only time, dedication and bucket loads of sweat will tell!

Happy training folks!
Ian

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