10-20-30 Training!

I have been reading a lot lately about the 10-20-30 training system and have decided to give it a go.

It's interval training where you walk or jog slow for 30 seconds, run at a normal speed for 20 seconds and then sprint for 10 seconds. This is done for five minutes, between two and five times in each session with two minutes rest between each five minute bout.

I'm still going to keep my hill training (for Madrid anyway) and my long run but will swop my short runs for the 10-20-30 system.
Test studies have shown an improvement of one minute for a 5k run using this system. I don't have anything to lose by trying it. In fact it should make my training a little more interesting :-)

By the time I start training for Berlin I will be able to see if I am improving my 5k and 10k times and can then decide to continue training this way or not.

Before I start I will run a test 5k as I am now and then run the same 5k every four weeks thereafter so we can see if I really am improving or not.

Of course, I will keep my blog up-to-date about the training.

To read more about this see 10-20-30 training

Wish me luck!!

First Run in the Snow this Year!

When I awoke this morning the world was white outside :-)

I had already planned to do some hill training so I had to add a run in the snow to my training today.

I did 4k of hill training today!! As the snow had drifted into 'my hill' (the car park) I just ran up and down the top slope which is the steepest and therefore the hardest.

Afterwards I went for a run on the trails through the golf course near me. This was a lot of fun in the snow. I just love to be the first person to make footsteps in the snow :-)

I don't think this cold weather will help me too much for Madrid Marathon but I enjoy it anyways!

Why are the Spanish Laughing at Me?

After my blogpost yesterday about how the Madrid Marathon isn't nearly as hilly as expected, Spanish people started laughing at me!!
From sources which are Spanish it seems that the Madrid marathon organizers have messed around with the elevation chart until it looked appealing to foreigners!

The truth is that the course is pretty much the same as last year and the hills are still very much alive!!

Official Madrid Marathon Elevation Chart

Reality Madrid Marathon Elevation Chart

The Hills AREN'T Alive with the Sound of My Screams!

The route for the Rock 'n' Roll Madrid Marathon 2012 has just been announced and it's much better than last years!!

The hills are nowhere near as bad! Yippee......

Here's the route and the marathon elevation:-

Madrid Marathon Route

Madrid Marathon Elevation

2013 Marathons!

My training is going really good so I've been thinking about which marathons I should run in 2013.

Dubai

Winter in Denmark doesn't seem as depressing this year and I'm putting that down to having 2 great weeks with sunshine in Dubai in December. Therefore I will be running Dubai Marathon 2013 which is held in the middle of January!

My second marathon of 2013 will be.........Brisbane Marathon!!!

We are doing a home swop with a couple from Brisbane next summer so, of course, I checked out if there were any marathons in the area and found out that Brisbane marathon is right at the beginning of August! How cool will that be?

Brisbane

Lynne is going continental in 2013!!

Hill Training for Madrid Marathon!

Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration!

Last Sunday I started my hill training for Madrid Marathon :-)

The only problem is that I live in Denmark and hills are hard to find!

My Hill

Luckily I live very close to a multi story carpark. It is quite high and has 4 slopes I can run up with the last one (for some strange reason) much steeper that the others.

Last week I ran up and down 3 times! Today I ran up and down 4 times! Next week I will run up and down 5 times and so on and so forth until I travel to madrid. If that doesn't get me ready for the hills out there then nothing will.

I hate hills!!