Garmin has been serving me various sessions over the past months. Many I’ve done, but an increasing number I’ve adjusted because for whatever reason, they were not appropriate (either to my plans or likely to disrupt things in the body). But adding in a number of runs per week that don’t fit anything tends to completely confuse Garmin. But it’s a guide at the end of the day; I know how to structure things and I know my own body, hence already having to stray off from “the plan” set by Garmin. A plan that I have less and less confidence in achieving what it was supposed to achieve. I’m also conscious that the Garmin ‘plan’ only considers running, despite there being a catalogue of strength workouts in its system. Strength-work is important (and I know I don’t do enough of it) and should be factored into any plan.

But we’re jumping ahead. Let’s get into the weekly details.

The first week in question is actually the last of August, and thus the last of the summer madness. Which generally meant that workouts were shoehorned in where possible, and sometimes involved stop/start trips to jobs as part of a run-commute. Needs must, but to be honest it’s a great way of getting a run in without the end of the day arriving with a long list of excuses of why I can’t drag myself out to do a run late on.

Ironically, the first run was exactly one where Garmin wanted 40 minutes easy and I fell out of the door late on. The standard 5 mile village loop was the decision, even though I’d only done it a week earlier, and in the same direction. And, quicker too last week…..

Another day and another short and slow run (Garmin, why?). Only notable because it looks like I was trying Strava art self-portraiture, despite neither being on Strava, nor being an artist. And also another run stuck at the end of the day because of work.

Finally I managed to get out during the middle of the day and not do another Garmin 40 minute slow run. I can’t remember whether Garmin had suggested a speed session or whether I’d just become too frustrated with its choices, but I created an intervals session along the following routing:

• 10 minutes warm-up
• 3km at HM pace
• 5 min 5km pace (1 min recovery)
• 4 min 5km pace (1 min recovery)
• 3 min 5km pace (1 min recovery)
• 2 min 5km pace (1 min recovery)
• 1 min 5km pace (1 min recovery)
• 14 min cool down

Total distance was about 7.3 miles with the aim to nail the 5k pace efforts throughout which, looking at the data, I managed. This is definitely the advantage of programming the sessions into Garmin as it means the data analysis is a lot easier for each section. The only issue I had was that  my Garmin doesn’t react quickly to sudden changes in pace and with the recoveries only being 1 minute the watch floundered  with what my pace was and frequently complained I was going too fast in the recovery unless I stopped and stood still until it caught up, which wasn’t the idea.

My last run of the week was my long run, a 11.3 mile stop/start working route. I had hoped to do 12 miles and whilst the legs felt fine, my stomach was protesting. So I went straight home rather than extending, just to avoid any “mishap”…..!

Total weekly mileage: 28.2 miles.

With the end of August and work subsiding from the peak season, I was able to start thinking about returning to leading the groups in Lyme Park.  This is a double edged sword for me; getting out onto the trails is definitely my happy place, however it seems my dodgy foot begs to differ. Over the summer, whilst it has ached quite a lot (normal service) it hasn’t actually been painful. So the prospect of taking back onto the terrain that seems to aggravate it is less than thrilling from a pain-management point of view. It also means that some of the running I’m doing is not for my own benefit.

The first week in September was my biggest mileage overall in a long time, because I led two trail runs during the week. They act as a useful recovery and, as they’re in the hills at Lyme park, serve to partly cross-train and work more specifically on hill strength. But Garmin doesn’t know this and just complains that I’ve done something slow that it didn’t expect. yay technology.

Coincidentally, the first run of the week was to coach a hill session. I had a slow jog around Brabyns Park first, partly to get some miles in on my terms (a happy Garmin), partly to check nobody had moved the hill I was planning on using (hill present and correct) before meeting my group and running the session. It was one I could partially join in with (10x 45s hill efforts with 90s recoveries) although I had to cut my own ones short to be able to find and blow the whistle at the end of each one! So I got about 90% of the benefit of my session, which is better than nothing. And with the cool-down added on I covered a total distance of 6.3 miles. Not to shabby.

My first visit to Lyme since the summer was as hilly as they come with a drag straight from the carpark up to the Bowstones and down the other side, picking up the Gritstone Trail alternative route working out at 5.6 miles and 860ft climbing.

Wednesday we were back to a Garmin slow run which I incorporated into a work commute.  Nothing too interesting to report except it worked out at 6.3 miles, partly due to a shortcut that turned out to be closed off! Garmin sulked decided to knock back my VO2max figure and state I was merely “maintaining” fitness. Which was very odd given that its own estimates of my race predictions were still at their flattering, yet entirely unlikely figures.

Thursday was the second Lyme trip and  5 miles of trail and a chunk of canal on the grounds the weather was awful; going up high into the clouds just didn’t  inspire any of the group! A trip to the physio in the afternoon meant that my bad foot had a good seeing to; I’d intentionally arranged the appointment after 2 Lyme runs with a hope that it might help give the physio some chance to see what my foot was doing after being off-road. Seemingly the wringing out a fortnight earlier had certainly helped ensure it wasn’t too gnarly and to be honest, despite suddenly being back in the hills the foot didn’t seem to be protesting too much.

Friday, I wouldn’t normally have run having been out each of the 4 previous days. However I felt good and at the same time felt I was lacking in the speed department. Hence it was intervals time. This time I wanted to do something at a sustained effort. Short intervals are great for really pushing the pace but I hadn’t done anything to hold anything faster than Garmin’s slow pace for ages. This is what I chose:

• 10 min warm up
• 3x 8 min at 10k pace (2 min recovery)
• 10 min cool down

(Yet) another 6.3 mile outing and a reasonable consistency in pace.

I took Saturday off to recover because I wanted to actually try running a half-marathon distance on the Sunday. Garmin didn’t want to do this, asking for (yet another) 45 minutes of meh pace. I mean, I’m genuinely not sure how it was planning to get me up to 13.1 miles in October if all it serves is 35-45 minutes recovery pace runs all the time. So we compomised; I ran at broadly marathon pace and covered 13.1 miles, albeit with a stop off at a job to drop off a key. Overall time was just a shade under 2 hours, with moving time of 1h53m.

Whilst this is probably one of the slowest times I’ve run a half marathon distance, it proved to me that I could still get under 2 hours, which was my benchmark goal. I’m unlikely to touch the times I could do up until 2019 which I switched away from road running, and equally unlikely to touch the suggestions that Garmin’s own race predictor are making, but it gives me confidence that, should I actually head out to run a half-marathon in race mode with mid-2024 fitness levels, that I might be able to make a reasonable account of myself.

I just don’t know if I dare to try.

Weekly mileage was my biggest in a long time, coming in at 42.9 miles in total. Accepting that about 11 miles of this was done whilst leading runs in the hills  and thus not at a pace dictated by any plans. But hill miles provide wider strength to the ankles and the lower pace benefits overall running economy. So they’re far from being ‘junk’ miles, even if Garmin isn’t able to understand their purpose within the overall scheme!