Warm weather training

That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, WARM weather training. It doesn't seem that long ago I was complaining about the sub-zero temperatures, in fact, at one point in January the weather was so bad I couldn't run for a week. Sheet ice inches thick covered just about every pavement in South East London.

We Brits are famed for our obsession with the weather but I don't think anyone could argue that the last four months have not been easy for us lot training for the London marathon. I've ran through sub-zero snow covered streets, pouring rain so bad that it left standing water a foot deep in some places along the River Thames, and today, something completely different... hot sunshine and high humidity.

Not that I'm complaining, one of my worries about the up coming marathon has always been that the later than usual start (a week later than last years) left the event vulnerable to warm or even hot weather.

This morning I woke up and did my usual preparation of porridge, bananas, stretching and circuits. While watching the weather forecast I realised that today was going to be a warm one, "hmmmmm", thinks I, "..here's an opportunity to get some warm weather running in".

Now, I've ran a warm marathon before and I can tell you, I did not enjoy it, not one bit; and that was after months of training through an unspeakably hot German summer in Cologne. Running in warm weather takes some getting used to and after months of training though the coldest winter to hit Europe for 70 years, any opportunity to run in the sun has to be taken.

I actually waited until about one o'clock, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, the heat had built up to 19 Celsius in the shade, making the in the sun temperature well into the mid-twenties. After about 3 miles of running I really started to flag, I started getting worried that if these conditions were to be repeated on the 25th, I wouldn't make it. After four miles I stopped and had a stretch, I started to relax, drinking regularly, pacing myself nicely. I realised that I had gone off too fast, running close to 7:50/ mile pace, I eased off to around 8:10/mile pace and all of a sudden I really started to enjoy it.

I ran around Peckham Rye Common three times (about 5 miles), enjoying the sun beating down on me, the sight of people soaking up the warm spring sunshine, dog walkers, builders and other runners all out there, I just relaxed and got on with it.

I'm planning a 13 mile run on Sunday, apparently it's going to cool off a bit, it will be sunny but not nearly as hot as it was today, shame really, I would really enjoy another thirteen miles just like today.

Hill training

My training week is broken down into three core sessions, a long run at the weekend, a decent mixed paced (either a Fartlek, interval or threshold) run and a long hill session. Today I ran one of the long hill or Kenyan hill sessions which comprised of quite simply running up and down a fairly challenging hill four times. My local hill is One Tree Hill which is close to Honor Oak Park train station, a climb which I have become quite familiar with as it's part of he route I take to get to Peckham Common where I do quite a lot of my running at present. I run up one side, down the other to East Dulwich Road where I turn around and repeat the process. The route is about one and a half miles long so after a few reps the miles start to stack up.

So what's the point? What advantage is there to putting my legs through this kind of self inflicted torture? Well I first read about Kenyan Hill sessions in an article in Runners World magazine just before I started training for the 2006 London Marathon. Having struggled around the Cologne Marathon I was determined to finish the London race with a little more style than the exhausted heap I ended up with in Germany. Reading the article the writer had spent some time in Kenya training with the National athletics team where one day they went out for a hill training session. Our journalist had been used to hill training sessions that comprised of short, fast runs up hills so off he set, pounding his way to the top only to discover that the whole Kenyan national Marathon team wasn't even half way up the hill. The Kenyans were jogging at a steady pace as he passed them on the way back down and by the time he's turned around he had caught up with them again they had only just reached the summit. The Journalist managed a couple more reps before his knees started to ache but the Kenyans went on, maintaining a steady pace, jogging to the top and then recovering on the way down for another four hours. FOUR HOURS!

Kenyan Hill sessions are designed to help build deep muscle strength, the kind of muscle you need late on in a marathon post about 20 miles when all your glycogen reserves have been used up and you're really staring to hurt. There are many advantages to this kind of training for example:

• Developing your aerobic capacity; your body learns to use oxygen more efficiently over longer distances.
• Increased stamina, enabling you to run longer and further.
• Improved running action (biometrics), giving you a spring in your step than enables you to develop a longer stride length and reduced stress with ground impact.

Reading the article I was impressed. This sounded like just the kind of thing I needed to help boost my strength so off I went, looking for an appropriate hill. Fortunately, at that time I was living in Charlton, an area of South East London that is basically on a hill and just down the road from me was Shooters Hill one of the highest points in London. Actually, Shooters Hill is probably a bit too big for a Kenyan Hill session but I did it anyway, starting of with two climbs. I can still remember the way I felt after the first time I did it, I was in absolute agony!

There is another very good reason for doing these kind of training sessions and that's a psychological one. I can pretty much guarantee that the way you feel as you reach the summit on you 4th or 5th rep, your legs will feel not dissimilar to the way you'll feel at the end of a marathon. You will want to stop. This kind of mental preparation is invaluable, you might get it on some of your longer distance training runs but you get it every time on a Kenyan session.