So, Spring has finally sprung and we are all looking forward to some pleasant, hopefully warmer, running. Our April route of the month takes in some spectacular views of The Avon Gorge in historic Bristol, so if you are in the area why not take the opportunity to combine your running with some great sightseeing. Of course, there are plenty of other beautiful routes to choose from.  We have spent the last few years searching out and mapping the best running routes throughout the UK, so if you fancy having a change from your standard route (or are visiting a new area during Easter) then have a look at our running routes and running parks sections for inspiration.

Louise at GRG
www.GoodRunGuide.co.uk

Marathon Taper

Many of you have been training diligently all winter in preparation for a spring marathon. Two mass participation ones, London (25^th April) and Brighton (18^th), take place this month. Most advice on marathons describes the last 3 weeks as the most important in the whole build up. The reason for this is that this is the taper phase where the mileage is reduced in preparation to run the race (hopefully of our lives). The hard work is now done and in any case if it isn’t, its getting a bit late to start now as it takes at least 10 days for the physiological benefits of a training session to take full effect as the body adjusts to and rebuilds from the hard training.

Schedules and coaches advice varies considerably in the length and amount of taper required. The length can be from 3 weeks to as little as 1. The intensity varies as well. The consensus seems to be:  3 weeks to go do 80% of max training volume, 2 weeks 60% and the final week 30%. However this last week could be little as 10%. There is likewise disagreement as to what, if any, speed or tempo work should be done in the last week(s).

Whatever your goals it is very important to do a decent taper and give your body a chance to rest and be fully able to take advantage of all the training come race day. The worst thing to do is to start a race, especially a marathon, in any way tired. If you are running a marathon this month whatever your goals we hope you achieve them and have a great race.

Whatever your experience we’d love to hear about them either by a race report for the newsletter or via the forum.

My First 10K Race

Report on the Fradley 10K by GRG Member Derek Bolton.

It's been nearly a year now (March 09) since I took up running, mainly to lose weight but also reaching the dreaded big 5-0. By Christmas I thought to myself why not try a race, so the new year resolution was to book a few 10k's and a couple of 1/2 marathons for 2010.

The first 10k was Fradley and I was told this is a fast, flat 2 lap race, the flat bit appealed to me more than the fast part but hey ho, rough with the smooth and all that I submitted my entry fee. A month before the race I did have the luxury of jogging around the assumed course just to get a feel of the course and set some indications of timing. This did help me a lot on the race day although the start and end bit was somewhat different.

The day was reasonably bright and dry but breezy and the organisation was very good with fruit before the start although the porta-loos were a little scarce (4 between 550 runners excluding guests), and for us first timers, instruction on how to secure the timing chip card things to our shoes.

When we started off it seemed to go quite smoothly, but I was aware of not going too fast and not race those in front. I knew for the first mile I would be quite breathless and then it would even out after that, always checking my heart monitor I set my run to 150 - 155 bmp for the first lap, but as the adrenalin flowed I was running at 155 - 160 and still felt ok so I kept this pace up. Quite a few people overtook me during this time but I found I was also catching up with some later on as my pace was constant all through the race, I did find satisfaction when overtaking club runners and those much younger than myself, which was the majority!!

On the second lap at around 8k I think one poor girl was suffering badly just in front of me as when I passed her I could hear her muttering to herself a few ungodly expletives, but she kept on trudging on. The 9k marker came and I thought to myself shall I start increasing the pace as there was a group of 6-8 runners around 100m in front of me, so I slightly increased, quick look at my monitor, it was up to 165bmp I carried on and started to close the gap. By now my breathing was getting a little heavy but I still felt I could increase a little more, so I waited until the last 200m then I had enough left in the 'tank' to go into sprint mode, by then the monitor went out of the window and I managed to pass two of the group who were flagging. Then unexpectedly 30m from the end we were marshalled sharp left through a farmers gate onto the grass field finish line next to the hall, that somewhat affected my charge as the marshal was shouting the directions but I did manage to finish in the middle of the bunch across the line.

The results sheets were pinned up 15 minutes later and I was overjoyed that I was near the top of the third sheet at 119th with an all time best of 44.07 mins. So now the race bug has well and truly bit me I have entered my next challenge, in a month’s time the 10k Midland Lung Run in Sutton Park, another 2 lap 10k but with hills!!It probably won't beat my PB at Fradley but I will want to get somewhere near it.

League Talk

The members leagues are continuing to be a popular and motivating feature, with some even more outstanding performances at the top.  The fastest runner league provides a fascinating look at how performances at different distances compare to each other.  If there are some good times in the upcoming marathons then more of these may be appearing on the league.  This month we have just launched a league which should be popular with non-racers, which takes into account age graded percentages for training routes.  However, bear in mind that these are members' own times and routes so we can not avoid all erroneous results, and also remember that we don't recommend running all your training runs at race pace!

Members' Challenges

Good luck to all of you training for Spring Marathons, let’s hope the weather improves for the final training. Let us know how you get on, it would be good to list any results in a future newsletter and you could always consider sending in a race report.

The following are GRG members that we know are busy training for a marathon in the next couple of months:

• Steven Foster (London 25th April )
• Lisa Alston (London 25th April)
• James Fletcher (London 25th April)
• Matthew Fletcher (London 25th April)
• Vicky Bishop (London 25th April)
• Kate Groundsell (Brighton 18^th April)
• Andy Bickerstaff (Brighton 18th April)
• Phil Watson (Edinburgh 23^rd May)
• Richard Mintern (Hamburg 25th April)
• Jonathan Trotter (Hamburgh 25th April

Site News

When we first started developing Good Run Guide we made the decision to design the site for a standard screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Over the last few years, technology has improved, screen resolutions have increased and larger resolutions are now more common, particularly on laptops. On high resolution screens our website pages appeared on the left side of the screen so, last month we implemented changes to over 250 pages on the site to position them in the centre of the screen instead. As well as hopefully creating a visual improvement, this also enabled us to standardise the page headers and footers and add a login/logout link to every page.

The other major changes over the last month were:

• new Route Viewer tool with route scroller, 3D maps and additional print options
  
  
• enhanced Saved Routes page with better folder management support and simpified options list
  
  
• a new tool for downloading routes directly to Garmin GPS devices

Looking ahead, we are planning to start work soon on developing a mobile friendly version of the site, which has been one of the most requested additions. Many smartphone users can already access Good Run Guide on their phones, but as the pages are designed for a larger screen and for use with a mouse, they are not as easy to use as they could be. So, we plan to develop a lightweight mobile site that will focus on functions that would be of most use from a mobile phone. It will probably be quite limited to start off with, so that we can resolve any technical issues early on, but we would add more functions over time as we establish the most useful features and content to have available on your phone. If you have any suggestions of tools or information that you would most like to see on a mobile version of the site, we'd be very interested to hear them - please get in touch.

As always, if you have any feedback about changes to the site or have a suggestion you would like to put forward, please let us know.

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