3:30 or bust!

Friday, 1st June - Rest Day
Took today off to rest in advance of Monday.

Saturday 2ns June - 5.2km Fartlek with 1.6km at 4:30/km
Went out early this morning and got a leg-stretcher in to keep myself ticking over. Threw in a fast mile in the middle.

Went for a game of golf afterwards. Supposed to be 9 holes only but turned into 18...probably not the smartest of ideas! A bit tired as a result last night so hoping / blindly assuming I'll be much fresher again by tomorrow morning.

Sunday, 3rd June - Rest Day
Giving the body complete rest today.

Hitting the road for Cork this afternoon so should be landing about 7pm (Thankfully race number pick-up already sorted!). Hopefully the weather lives up to current expectations on yr.no: Sunny, 12-15deg, only the slightest of breezes (To keep us cool in the glorious sunshine:p) and zero rain (Until 7pm at least):).

Best of luck to everyone else doing this race tomorrow and indeed the mini marathon also! May we all get at least the times we are aiming for, if not what we deserve!!

Month|No. of Runs|Kms Run

Monday, 4th June - 42.2km Cork City Marathon
I was tempted to just cut and paste Outforarun's report seeing as our races were so similar but in the end I decided I needed to peronalise it a bit more, so here goes...

This is going to be a long one…!!

Lead-up to race:
As the title of my log suggests I had a firm target for the marathon this year. My training for the first 5 months has generally been excellent apart from a couple of periods where I was off sick. The first of these was in the lead-in to Connemara Ultra and the other was about 2 weeks ago. This all led to me missing two of my MP LSRs. I was particularly frustrated to have missed the last LSR as the plan was 32km with 19km @ MP. This would have gone a long way to proving that I was capable of 3:30. Missing out on it always left a smidgin of anxiety as a result. Having to take 8 days off training was far from ideal. Some might point out that it happened in the third last week when I should be tapering anyways but at this stage I’m happier to do a 10 - 14 day taper instead so it actually happened at what should have been at the peak of my training cycle. Ah well, just knuckle down and hope for the best I thought.

Day of Race:
I’d stayed with a friend in Cobh the night before the race and hadn’t noticed any obvious traffic constraints in place for the morning but when driving in to the start at 8am there was a traffic diversion from Dunkettle up the Dublin Rd and back towards the Lee via Glanmire. This detour took about 12 minutes and only worked to avoid the 400m section between the two roundabouts at Dunkettle. The rest of the road into the race start all remained open so for the life of me I couldn’t see the justification for the stoopid detour!

This all led to me being a little flustered by the time I parked the car at about 8:30am. I grabbed the essentials and headed for the race start. After about 4 steps I managed to let my phone slip out of my hands and as it was hurtling towards the road I managed to break the fall with my runner. Excellent I thought, maybe today would be a good day. Then I picked up the phone and discovered the screen had smashed in the 2 inches from my foot to the ground! Fcek it, I’ll deal with that later!
 
Start Line:
I evetually managed to track down Philip (and his wife & kids) but by that stage it was about 8:50am so time to jump into the corral. After wishing Phil the best of luck with the 3:15 bus I settled in close to the 3:30 gang. I had a look around for outforarun but given that he told me he would be wearing a green top it wasn’t the easiest colour to spot on this particular day! After checking out the numbers on any vaguely green tops I failed to spot him so thought I’d surely come across him later on the course.
A couple of mins after Jerry Forde was sent on his way we were away.

First 10 miles:
I decided to stay a few metres in front of the pacers for the first km or two as there’d be more space there. The first few miles through the city centre and up and back to Blackpool went pretty quickly. The sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze and no rain. I kept an eye on the HR just to monitor it and by mile 4 I noticed it was remaining in the low 150’s for most of the time. This wasn’t a great sign as it meant I was close to my threshold and I knew if it went much higher I’d be in trouble later on. Even so, I decided to plug away because if I eased the pace at this stage I thought I’d have no chance at the 3:30 target.

We continued on out the Waterford Road and the Tunnel was as enjoyable as I remembered from my previous run in Cork in 2008. Up out of the tunnel and into Mahon I passed though the 10 mile distance in just under 1:20 and still feeling pretty good even if the HR was still more elevated than I’d like.

First 16 kilometre splits were:
05:03, 04:53, 04:52, 04:54, 04:51, 04:44, 04:58, 04:57, 04:54, 04:56, 04:57, 05:52(Tunnel), 03:44(Tunnel), 04:59, 04:53, 04:46.

Second 10 miles:
The miles continued to whittle away and we went past the Half Marathon start with a great reception from all those waiting to start. Last time I ran Cork we went past Blackrock Castle but today we turned right just before it and hugged the harbour for a mile and then turned Northwards along the disused railway path. It got a little muggy along here but nothing too serious. Before long we were out the other end and hitting for Pairc Ui Chaoimh. I was still feeling good along this stretch and every couple of kms I’d look over my shoulder to confirm that the balloons were coming behind me. They were never mosre than 100m in the distance so I was happy I was keeping pretty close to the correct pace.

As we turned South along the link road I started to feel the incline. This was probably the first sign that things would not be smooth all the way to the end. Up and over the steep hairpin and into Turners Cross. About a mile later the first HM’er (Gary O’Hanlon) comes surging past surprising me a little with his speed. I thought there might have been a cyclist accompanying him at least to let people know to give him a bit of room, but no. A few mins later another bunch pass me but they weren’t going to catch him!

At the second lucozade stop I slowed to a walk to get the drink into me. I didn’t fancy spilling it all over myself so that came with a slight slowdown for that km of 5:28. Apart from that I could feel the terrain being pretty undulating. Things were beginning to get tougher mentally but I did my best to fend it off.

Second 16 kilometre splits were:
04:40, 04:50, 04:57, 04:58, 04:54, 04:52, 04:48, 04:52, 04:57, 04:56, 04:53, 05:06, 05:01, 05:28, 05:13, 05:01

Last 6.2 miles:
Just as I went past the Lough the struggles began. This was around the 20 mile mark and perfectly timed with me losing pace the pacers announced to the World “3:30 coming through. Fall-in if you can!”. I didn’t so much as fall-in with them as got swamped by them! There must have been about 25 people with the pacers and they were motoring along. I stayed with them for the next mile or so but once we turned onto the Model Farm Rd I was fading fast. My HR was now residing in the 160s – a number I knew could not be sustained for the remaining 10km. At this point I had to stop for a toilet break in a discreet gateway…

When I returned to the course I saw RunningCoach and his buddy from Donadea 50k. Tom was in a similar way to myself and after exchaning a few war stories I managed to get going a bit faster again. However, this didn’t last very long. The remaining miles consisted of me leapfrogging with RunningCoach along the route and sometimes we tried running together before one or the other fell off again. My HR was oscillating wildly from 160’s back down to 140’s and then back up again within 30-40m! I scrambled along the Straight Road and tried to stay on RC’s tail but never saw him again after the Mardyke. Fair play to him I think he must have ran the rest of the way to the finish and I think I heard he finished in 1:3x so well done!

With about 800m to go I was feeling quite nauseous and had to have a mini walk again. After a few steps a fellow runner demanded I get going again seeing as the finish was so close so that was the gee-up I needed and managed to keep it going from there to the finish.

The last 10km splits make for very poor reading:
04:56, 05:45, 05:14, 05:40, 06:08, 06:16, 06:33, 07:22, 06:44, 06:27, 05:10 (Last 0.2 miles)

Finish:
Finally, I managed to plod onto Patrick's Street and really appreciated & enjoyed the crowd cheering us home. I looked at the clock and realised the 1:3x opportunity was well gone. I wouldn’t have been able for any sprint finish anyways! So 3:41:02 official finish time. I was just happy to be finished and was a little disappointed not to have held it over the closing stages and hit my target time. Slowly I managed to take on board the 10min pb I had just recorded and I began to cheer up a bit!

I met Phil at the finish line and he had just pipped inside 3:20 for a great time but he also struggled from the straight road onwards. Some of the other boardsies mentioned the heat on the day but I don’t think it really affected me too much if I’m being honest. I think the one thing to get me to 3:30 would be more MP long runs and that was partly missing from the past month.

As I mentioned a few days ago though I still have plenty of opportunity (2 marathons hopefully) to hit the 3:30 yet this year. Perhaps if I had stayed 100m the other side of the pacers I might have got closer to the finish in one piece...?

Well done to everyone else that ran the race – There was some great times from fellow boardsies and a couple of very near misses which I’m sure will be rectified next time out!

So, I guess I better get organising the second half of 2012 now…!

Month|No. of Runs|Kms Run

So, a few days have passed since the marathon and I have had a chance to do a bit more of a review.

Since the race I have been laid low with the same symptoms of the virus that struck me down 2 weeks ago and again back at Connemara in March/April. Based on this alone i have to believe that it affected my race, at least in some way, on Monday. With this in mind I decided to put the numbers into a graph and came up with the following:


*MP RangeL = Lower MP HR threshold (From P&D (73% of HRR, 138)).
*MP RangeU = Upper MP HR threshold (From P&D (84% of HRR, 152)).
(Resting HR = 45, Max HR = 172, HRR = 172-45 = 127)

The purple line represents my MaxHR per each km and the blue line the AvHR per km. It's obvious that from the beginning the AvHR was touching the upper threshold throughout the race. Even so I felt fine for the first 32km but once I got to the Model Farm Road I was done for! and the Pace fell off.

So, I figure the HR was partially driven by remnants of the virus (Perhaps 5bpm?).

So, trying to fully recover in advance of Poland but I think a clear break from running for a couple of weeks might benefit the body and allow me to finally, fully kick it!

Let's see...Now for the start of the footie on RTE!

Saturday, 7th July - 24.0km LSR
My last run was the CCM on June 4th and I have been sick for most of the time since then. There was a trip to Poland thrown in as well for good measure to avoid any chance of a quick recovery. So, I was happy to feel myself slowly get better last week and earmarked a run on Saturday to get me back into the swing of things. I’d planned a mini-session just to see where I was in advance of some shorter races coming up. However, that plan was soon scuppered when I got a text from my brother asking if I wanted to join him for a 15 mile run instead. Ever-willing to do stupid things I agreed and so we did a nice loop in my home village on Sat morning.
A nice easy 5:45/km gently progressed throughout the next 130mins to become a 5:34/km av pace. The final couple of miles were approx 5:20/km which should normally be grand and easy but today I could feel myself struggling along. The HR was in the 160’s at this stage which confirms that it was by no means easy-pace for me today. Anyways, finished the 24km and did a stretch/cool-down to avoid being sore the next day. It didn’t work! DOMS for the past 3 days which is just easing off now! No one to blame but myself!!
But at least I’m back running at last so time to finalse the plan for the rest of the year…I have a feeling there could be more than 3 marathons included in that but short races for the next 6-8 weeks anyways.
Month|No. of Runs|Kms Run

sayno wrote: »

24km is a hell of a way to ease yourself back in and at a very lively pace as well. Ye must have been halfway to Ballinrobe at that stage!

Hence the DOMS!!:eek:
No way I should have done that distance first day back but stupidity burns strongly inside me!

Sunday, 15th July - 21.1km IMRA Dublin Mountains Half Marathon Plod
Signed up for this during the week so that I would get hill work to build up power in the legs and also quick leg turnover on the descents. I'd planned on taking it as a training run but as ever once your in the thick of things it's tough to let people just cruise by! The race was very well organised and the course was pretty good. First time in Masseys and I thought it was a nic spot but some of the rockier technical parts came at a time when energy was low so at that stage I was mainly concetrating on not tripping. Kicked on for the downhills but after going pretty flat out coming off Cruagh I didn't have quite enough left coming down Kilmashogue and was being passed by quite a few. Last 4km I was looking constantly at the watch to see how far I had remaining. That incline on College Road is a b@st@rd after 6km of constant downhill!
Managed to eventually get across the line in 2:03:57 - had been targeting sub 2hrs but by the end I was just happy to be finished. For the most part I was motoring at about 95% effort but wouldn't have been much faster today even if at 100%!
A good workout all the same!

Month|No. of Runs|Kms Run