Wednesday 29th December 2010
Since listening to a fascinating interview with Tim Noakes on the Marathon Talk Podcast a few weeks ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about the extent to which athletic performance is controlled and limited by the athlete’s brain. I am no psychologist but am keen to know more about how to train your brain (or more specifically the Central Governor, as Noakes calls it) to produce better performances. I will write about this in more detail soon, but am going to read Noakes’ ‘Lore of Running’ first – a fat textbook on sports psychology and exercise science. It may take some time.
Monday 27th December 2010
This is what I want to have achieved in 365 days’ time. Wish me luck!
Target 1: Run 42.2 km in 2:35 or quicker
Target 2: Run 21.1 km in 1:12 or quicker
Target 3: Run 10 km in under 33 minutes
Target 4: Run 5 km / 5000m in under 15:40
Target 5: Run 3000m in under 9 minutes
According to the McMillan formula, the order of difficulty of these is the exact opposite to the order listed here, but I go into this challenge with a slight skew towards speed rather than endurance so these targets should be roughly on a par. Personally, the 10k and the 3k look the meatiest, though according to personal bests, the marathon needs the most work.