Probably my last time doing this run. I’m not dying, just moving (although I felt like I was dying at the end of that run).
75+75+75+75
A follow-up to 75+75.
I started trying to ramp things up over my base of 75 minutes of running a week at the end of 2023 - I just thought it was sad to let go all those years of work building up my distance. And on and off I’ve managed to do it. I managed nine Brimmond Hill (24km) runs last year, plus one Bennachie (21km, but totalling around 27km with the runs to and from the bus to get there). This year I’ve managed three Brimmond and Elrick (30km) runs. None of that is possible with a limit of just 75 minutes running.
I still struggle for time for running, especially now the dog is so old and can’t really be left alone for more than three hours at a time, but I do want to try to keep my distance up a bit so I’m trying a new weekly base of:
- 225 minutes running
- 75 minutes of strength/yoga
Roughly working out as:
- Mon: 75 minutes of running
- Tue: 25 minutes of strength
- Wed: 75 minutes of running
- Thu: 25 minutes of strength
- Fri: 75 minutes of running
- Sat:
- Sun: 25 minutes of yoga
Although I could do with squeezing in the yoga in the week so it doesn’t interfere with weekends.
If I am lucky enough to find the time to fit in a long run (two to three hours) then all the better. But if need be I can also split the 75 minutes between mornings and evenings.
This actually only works out as 3% of my time - 75+75 was 1.5% - which still feels very reasonable and non-selfish to me, but it’s not my opinion that matters. Maybe one day I can have 3% of my wage as well, but that’s staying at 1.5% for the next couple of years at least.
My dog walking has rapidly decreased due to the age of the dog. She just can’t walk very far any more :-(. Doing more walks a day, just very short.
Review Of Omm Ultra 8 Backpack
A brief review. I got this because, as I’ve said before, despite my best efforts to be restrained with my spending I’m not completely immune to consumerism and the pleasures of spending a (small) bit of my wage on myself: £26 on Vinted (although £30 with shipping and buyer protection).
- The top pocket is too small for a phone (very close to fitting my Pixel 7a), but I have got the older model which was released ten years ago so maybe there were smaller phones still knocking about then?
- There is a key clip in the top pocket which seems a bit pointless. I tried clipping my keys to it and they just rattled around. Maybe if your bag is full that wouldn’t happen? But I’ve just gone back to what I always do which is to take one key off my keyring and just take that single key with me when running.
- Fits one bag of Naturo 2kg dog food perfectly. Almost two, but not quite. It just (it was a squeeze, but I got it zipped up) fits 1x Harringtons 1.7kg dog food and 1x Purina Go-Cat 2kg cat food; So should fit 2x Harringtons dog food which is useful (to me)*.
- With a light load it really does lock into place, is comfortable and doesn’t move at all.
- With a heavier load (dog food) it did slide around slightly the first time I used it, but on a subsequent run I realised I could pull it tighter and lock it down (although it was then a little constrictive). Either way was better than trying to run with my none running bag though (also ten years old, but a 20L Case Logic not intended for running at all).
- I struggle to tighten the straps equally and this means one of the ladderlock buckles did start digging into my ribs once - they could do with a bit of padding under them - although it’s also easy to loosen and re-adjust.
- There is no way I can reach around to the side-pockets despite that being the intention - I think this is because it sits higher up on your back. I have to take it off to get to them.
- I should have probably got the 12L one for “running to the shops” runs, but that isn’t really why I got it - I got it for taking food and snacks for longer runs where my daily little 2L Kanken Hip Pack isn’t big enough (great for my phone and couple of butteries or my jacket, but not for a water bottle).
- I’ve used it on a 30k run for chucking my phone, jacket, water bottle and a little packed lunch in and there was plenty of room. Easily comfortable enough that you can forget you are wearing it.
- It comes in a nice bright pink!
* - Confirmed: Easily zips up with 2x 1.7kg bags.
Just under three months later, got my revenge after the first attempt wrecked my knee. Now I need to decide if I’m going to try even further.
Back dated this post to match the run date
Cadence
I can’t say I ever really cared about my running cadence - I just ran at what felt natural and comfortable. Turns out that is about 166 spm which seems to be the most average cadence out there.
I’ve had many knee issues over the years, but I don’t think I’ve had ITB issues until this year - the big difference there was how sudden it would come on and how debilitating it was. This was not a struggling through thing. I had to stop and walk. Which was an obvious concern for me on longer runs - I did not want to be facing a 10k+ walk/hobble back. So I did take it seriously.
I had a full week off running when I just did knee strengthening instead (I found it frustrating that this happened to me as I have actually taken lower body strength exercises seriously for the past three years) and then four weeks of building up gradually, running on the flat only and working on cadence. Cadence and stride/gait alignment (width) seem to be the recommended changes for ITB. I know I have a bad crossover gait as I kick my own feet sometimes when running, but I feel like it’s harder to consciously change this. Increasing cadence means a smaller and quicker stride and so perhaps because I am more conscious of my feet landing closer together this will actually naturally also push out my gait width.
I felt really stupid when I first tried to increase my cadence. It felt very unnatural, but having a boring out and back flat route was very useful for practising with this. I tried both slow paces with a high cadence and then my natural pace (between 4 to 5 mins per km) at a high cadence as well. I was mostly my own metronome and counted to myself, but some high paced punk (Snõõper) or dance (Ela Minus) does help. After some experimentation I found a smaller step cadence and pace that felt ok. I think it’s actually slowed my pace ever so slightly.
There aren’t many practical steps for increasing cadence (and not increasing pace at the same time), but basically it means intentionally taking smaller quicker baby steps. If you do high cadence running on the spot and then also at a slow a pace as possible then you should find your cadence increase at your natural pace. At times I’ve also found it helpful to think about moving my feet from my glutes as opposed to my knees (i.e. barely moving my knees) and also taking lighter floaty steps (almost skipping). It is 100% worthwhile doing all this on the flat as it’s harder to keep a consistent cadence uphill and off-road.
I have managed to make this change stick. Doing a before and after with my last six runs (i.e. some of my common routes) I’ve gone from an average of 164 spm to 175 spm. I’m happy with this. If I can keep it around 175 that is a decent difference.
Garmin Forerunner 55 Vs Apple Watch Series 3
No one is buying either of these in 2026*. Unless you are me. And you got a Forerunner 55 for £60 on Vinted. So these are just observations and notes for my benefit really.
- It turns off and on so quickly! To be fair, I didn’t often need to restart my Apple Watch and have only got in the habit of restarting the Forerunner after charging because of this bug.
- I can almost do my base level of exercise and charge once a week going from 80% to 20% battery.
- On that note, it’s a little depressing that I got this so I had the battery to do longer runs again and immediately injured my knee doing a 30k. Fortunately my knee is much better now and I’m back at half-marathon distance already
- I like that Garmin tracks Intensity Minutes. My base level of exercise is based on hitting 75 minutes of vigorous activity and then doing the same amount of strength because I didn’t think I could fit in 150 minutes of moderate exercise. I’ve never counted all the dog walking so it’s been interesting seeing my actual Intensity Minutes end up much higher - last week I had 551 Intensity Minutes made up of 113 moderate and 219 vigorous (which count double).
- WormNav is pretty cool. I have found an issue where it appears to get a GPS lock, but then isn’t actually updating or tracking. A restart will help. I suspect where I start might be in a GPS dead spot because I’ve noticed the same issue with Mappily. Mappily is a closer match to WorkOutDoors which is a fantastic Apple Watch App. I’m going to play about with Mappily and WormNav since there are pros and cons to both: WormNav can have a white background which is very visible, it also refreshes a bit faster; Mappily has a cadence field and having some context (background maps) for the route is very helpful.
- Buttons are great. I don’t miss a touch screen.
- I don’t miss the altimeter - it was great novelty value for steps climbed when moving my daughters from third floor flat to third floor flat, etc.
- The MIP screen is fine for me. I love being able to glance at my wrist and see Pace, Cadence, etc without fully having to raise my wrist.
- The vibration is more noisy than vibratory. Apple’s vibration is a LOT stronger and more discrete. But it is enough to wake me up.
- It’s a round display so I’m using a round watch face, like how on the Apple Watch I used a square one.
- The heartrate monitor on the Forerunner 55 is a billion times better. I thought the Apple Watch was bad just because it was my wrist. Nope.
- The Apple Watch is still my favourite Apple product. Being able to run ssh commands and web-browse from your wrist is pretty amazing even if not really necessary.
Since the Series 3 was a couple of years old when I got it I thought of replacing it with an equivalently old device such as a Coros Pace 3 or a Garmin Forerunner 165. I was also interested in “something different” like a Suunto Run or 9 Peak Pro. I.e. watches around £200 new, but that can be found for £150 on Vinted, but then realised there are so many Forerunner 55s it is easy to pick a barely used one up cheap (it seems a lot of people buy them to run a marathon and then discard after one season). It is my price point after all as nothing really changes; £37 of the £60 was contributed by my Dad for my birthday.
* - Especially since recently Garmin finally replaced the Forerunner 55 with the 70
First decent length run after injuring my knee. Had one full week off and then four weeks of flat-work (no hills) working on my cadence; More on that soon.
The whole reason I got a “new” watch (I’ve yet to write a post about this) was so I could try to do runs over two hours again - forgetting that my knees and not watch battery might be the limiting factor. Technically I did it today, the longest I’ve done in five years, although I struggled on the way back. Knees felt ok at the time, but I knew it’d by what they were like afterwards that could be the problem. I am walking a bit like I’m crippled. Hopefully I wake up and everything will be fine.
Undecided if I’m going to try for even further again.
Beautiful.
Just keeping things ticking over in January. Did all my week’s running in one go again. For some reason has taken me over three years to go and run this great bit of trail. I picked probably the worst time of year to do it.
Also, that’s now just over six years for this watch, although it did die right as I got home.
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