Year 4: "It's a game of inches"

Monday PM 4 miles easy (8.42 min pace)

Tuesday AM 5 miles easy (8.08 min pace)
Tuesday PM 6.3 miles easy (7.43 min pace)

Wednesday AM 4.1 miles easy (8.27 min pace)
Wednesday PM 4 miles easy (7.11 min pace)

Tuesday AM 3 miles easy
Tuesday PM 6x800m w/ 2 min rec

Splits: 2.36, 2.32, 2.29, 2.30, 2.30, 2.29

Friday OFF

Saturday OFF

Sunday OFF

Monday OFF

Tuesday AM 5 miles easy (8.08 min pace)

Tipping away nicely for the first half of the week trying to front load mileage a bit given that I knew that I was away for a joint birthday trip with the OH at weekend meaning that there was a chance despite being well intentioned by packing the running gear they didn't see the light of day )

A session with TRR on the Thursday followed up a very solid session on Monday. This was the first Vo2 style workout I had done in a long while. Weather was pretty poor for this but after the first one didn't feel to bad and got into my stride and the rain subsided. By the last two I was working hard but in no way killing myself and was delighted to finish it strong and to have the company. It certainly makes these sort of sessions alot easier and prevents you napping in the middle segments.

Need to get back to normal now after the weekend, mind fresh and focused for the next stretch of training/racing.

Friday PM 7 miles easy (7.36 min pace)

Saturday 6x1km@5k effort w/ 3 min rec

Splits: 3.20, 3.13, 3.15, 3.16, 3.18, 3.16

Sunday AM 2.8 miles easy (8.16 min pace)
Sunday PM 3.2 miles easyish (7.06 min pace)

Monday AM 6 miles easy (7.52 min pace)

Friday night pace was there but the body still tight and tired. Only had a small window Saturday morning for a session which was cut even shorter when I realized that the 6 Nations match was an hour before than I thought (must have been looking on an Italian website for this in work during the week) as such shortened warm up.

Not a morning person for sessions at the best of times so I was dreading this one especially with it being a faster effort. First rep and was thinking they would go backwards however the body loosened out and got into my running nicely.

Rep 4 was a bit of a nightmare as got a stone stuck in the shoe about 400m in. Felt as if the foot was being stabbed repeatedly and I couldn't manage to shift my gait to save the foot. despite this somehow managed to hold pace. The last two were relatively handy after this being pain free.

Very happy with the splits all things considered.

Sunday was just a back and forth run from work with the mother of all hangovers following on from a day on the beer with herself after the match. Haven't been that bad in years so I was just happy to get in and out of work.

Back to normal today though and the muscle aches from last week have been and gone and the body is ready for 1st race of the year finally.

Thursday AM 5 miles easy (8.02 min pace) + 4x1 min w/90 sec rec

Thursday PM 4.1 miles easy (8.01 min pace)

Friday AM 5 miles easy (8.21 min pace)
Friday PM 4 miles (8.05 min pace)

Saturday 3 miles recovery (9.19 min pace)

Developed a bit of a head cold after the session on Tuesday but I think its more playing on my mind than anything and shouldn't hinder me too much tomorrow. All the same I decided to nail the planned session on the head and just do a few short reps at 3k effort to keep the legs turning over a little.

Overdue treatment Friday morning helped open up the hips a bit as between the move and my own clients in I kinda didn't have a chance to get a treatment myself over the last while so definitely needed. Left me sluggish for the rest of the day though and the runs didn't feel comfortable but it was to be expected and to be honest I kinda took it as a good sign.

Today just a few recovery miles to flush out the legs. All in all feeling quite good for tomorrow and looking forward to getting out and giving a bash. As said before not expecting a PB off the bat but I know I am in good shape so a solid performance put down to start the year off (feels weird saying that in late march with nearly 700 miles in the legs since the new year)

1st race of any kind in 4 months and 1st road race since the Road Relays last April. I knew I was in good shape but I was also aware that I hadn't raced in so long that 3-4k was always gonna be unknown territory and how I was going to deal with that "hurt" you only get in a race when it starts to ask questions of you. I had set myself the target of 16.30-16.40 as the barometer for a good run. I felt I was in PB shape from sessions however figured it would take a few races under my belt to get there

Woke up this morning and despite not the greatest of sleep the bit of coughing and headcold I had all week had subsided (may or may not have had to do with the near fatal amounts of green tea with lemon, giner and manuka honey I had been consuming the previous day in work)

Bus into town and met up with the club lads. Great to see the numbers out again from the club for 4th week in a row across a number of races. Warm up a little delayed chatting to a few people but I was generally laid back about things.

Lined up behind TRR and said to myself a fairly conservative start and go from there. Gun went and we took off. The congestion cleared out quick enough despite being a few rows back. I had purposely just set the watch to timer and changed the units to km's to auto lap to set back so I didn't know what sort of pace we had set out at so began combing the field for markers. Saw Kiely pull off a little and knew he was in around 16 min shape so should be a bit back from him then spotted eldiva and Catherina McK so I kinda knew I was in around 16.30-16.50 territory roughly which was exactly where I wanted to be.

1st km felt pretty long but felt controlled and at this point had pushed past Catherina and was on TRR's shoulder. Heard the beep of a Garmin and knew mine would follow shortly. Looked down to see my error despite changing the units to Km I had forgot to adjust the auto lap so was still taking mile splits. 1st mile 5.08. 2 thoughts came to my head at this point 1) Balls I have overcooked this 2) actually wait this might not be too bad I am further into the race than I thought.

Followed this up shortly after with seeing the 2km sign and seeing 6.24 on the watch. Despite the pace I actually wasn't feeling too bad at all. In fact it was almost feeling comfortable. Pace slowed from here however as I came up along the canal was still on the shoulder of TRR however he started to inch away slightly. 3k mark and I was around 9.52-9.54 mark roughly. I had definitely slowed and thought I would start to feel it at this stage as the watch beeped for a 5.20 second mile however at this point I said to myself "only 800m from here to the 4k mark" dug in here and was at 4km in 13.10.

If I could hold a 3.20 for the last km it would still be a very strong performance. I actually managed to pick up the pace and even though TRR was out of sight there were still 3 runners to chase down so upped pace without redlining as I was feeling like if I went too hard the brekkie would lash out against me. A Crusader jersey and a DSD were soon in my reach as I took them on the last bend. Watch beeping again 5.12 and I knew I had managed to recover from the earlier blip in the race.

Finishing strong as I came into view of the finish clock to see high 14s on the clock which had me completely baffled (later saw clock was a min out) and cruised down the finish narrowly being taken in a sprint (admittedly a little bit lacklustred effort on my part to not be taken)

Finishing time: 16.26 (16.25 chip time)

https://www.strava.com/activities/521901393

All in all despite not expecting or even targetting a PB in this race managed to take 2 seconds off my best, all the sweeter is the fact that that PB was from the track last year in June compared to 1st race of the year here. While the PB was great there was still alot of room for improvement. I felt like I ran as hard as I could on the day but at the same time felt like I was missing something. I am hoping that something is just a few more races under the belt and this PB will be short lived.

Roll on Clontarf Monday week