Festina lente

That went more or less as expected. Tired Thursday, still tired yesterday, and tired again this morning :rolleyes: Conditions in the park were great for racing, but my legs had absolutely no interest. The funny thing was that I could put in surges any time I liked, and was having absolutely no trouble aerobically, but my legs just refused to go any faster when running 'normally' :pac: It lead to a weird race where every couple of minutes I'd lean forward and close a gap or pass some people out then settle back into a regular stride. Let loose on the final downhill (3.17 for the last k), though even that was very stop-start.
Official time 18.19, which I think is about 10 seconds off (didn't stop my watch on the finish line:rolleyes:) but I don't mind too much either way. I felt comfortable, like I was moving well. Slowly! but maybe there's a base there to build on. Masters XC and Raheny next month I should go into fresher, and maybe I'll do another parkrun before then - the one downside to today is I don't think I emptied the tank (or didn't have a tank to empty) and that does need practice...
eta - 18.12 on the chip, sounds about right

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Is 18:19 faster than CL's pb? :P

who? ...
... oh, didn't she post on boards back in the old days?

weekend in the life of the best club in Ireland
...
South Dublin anyway
...
better than Tallaght at least

menoscemo wrote: »

Jaysus, everyone in your club must have won something or other. Medals for all it seems, no wonder there is no winning mentalilty in the club :pac: (in fact your only actual winner won no award :rolleyes:).

We reward excellence, and we have a lot of excellent members:).
(We also have a rule on the adult side that you can't win the same award two years in a row, and she won it last year)

84.5 @ 4.51

Two trips to purgatory this week and two sessions, though both sessions were a little compromised by the weather. Thursday evening was supposed to be the same 4 on/3 off session as last week. I think the laps were coming in a little short last week so I extended them this time, but too far :rolleyes: Anyway, pace was all over the place because of the wind, last week I was speeding up on the downhills and working uphill, this week the wind hit like a wall when I turned to go down and blew me up the hills. Only 5 intervals because I had to get back to the juvenile training for some medal presentations
Tempo run today, 20 minutes jog up to Tymon, 20 minutes at pace, and a cooldown. Crazy wind again, the second half of the run seemed to be into the wind every way I went and was joined by some nice icy rain. 3.52 average pace and I was working hard for it, a lot more running at this pace required...

Monday was another early run, this time up to Tymon and around, couldn't be arsed dealing with the dogs in the local park. Tuesday was Tymon again,this time for a hill session.The wind was mental so I couldn't do the usual session - I would have been blown up the hill and the walk/jog back would have taken twice as long. Instead I did the hill from the playground to the footbridge. 250m long, mostly sheltered from the wind, but not entirely. About halfway up the woods on the left were interrupted by a path, so the wind blew me sideways, and of course the closer you get to the top of the hill the less shelter it offers so the last 50m I was running through treacle. 12 of those were enough, I jogged home as the sun came up, before I froze completely. Enforced rest day on Wednesday
Longish run on Thursday, back to Tymon, groin and calves sore from the day off, took at least 30 minutes before I felt ok. Just an hour on Friday.
Saturday was parkrun day. A few weeks ago I told jcsmum that she should try running some parkruns at an unsustainable pace to push herself out of sheer comfort zone. Also one of my presents this year was The Art of Running Faster, and one of the things the author says he asks new coachees is, when they are running at their limit, what is it that stops them running faster? Between the two I decided that this run was going to be about suffering. I was kind of hoping theboyblunder or someone about that standard would be running too,so I could have chased them for 3k and blown up, but as it happened there were no fast runners along
Got up to Marlay early enough to do a 10 minute warmup jog and then join the DSD-led drills, so by the time we lined up I wasn't feeling too cold. The race sorted itself out very quickly - as usual a couple of kids shot out at the start along with a few other over-eager runners, but by the time we passed the 1k mark (in 3.32) they'd dropped off and I was in 4th. Passed two on the corner and put in a bit of a burst to leave a gap, so there was just one guy in red about 10/15m in front. Worked hard through the woods and around by the football pitch, couldn't hear the guys behind any more, but the guy in front in still 10/15m ahead. Up the hill,running well, but that ****er in red is still 10/15m ahead. By the 3k mark I am toast - mission accomplished! :pac: - breathing is ragged, calves are sore, knees refusing to lift and the gap ahead is widening. At times in the 4th k it was like running on my own, guy in front is out of sight in places, so is the lead bike, and I'm convinced the guy in 3rd must be closing the gap because I'm slowing so much. Finally turn into the concert field again and the sharp left lets me see him, about 15m back, but he must be hurting as much as me because even staggering around the last loop the distance ahead and behind stayed about the same.
Not a particularly good run (and certainly not a great time) but satisfyingly painful. I was wrecked for a good 10 minutes after the race and have been sore all day, well and truly out of my comfort zone.

70.45 @ 5.05 for the week
Supposed to do a longer run this morning but still very sore so only managed a short recovery

44 miles at 8.08 average?
350 furlongs, a minute each?

pconn062 wrote: »

Are you running BHAA x-country on Saturday Ray?

No, next race is the Dublin Masters. I don't like to miss the BHAA races in Tymon and Cherryfield because they're home turf, but four weekends in a row would kill me

AuldManKing wrote: »

Love that tactic you used in the Park Run, would love to try it sometime, guess it takes a different way of approaching the race (run).

It didn't work exactly as planned. I guess what I really wanted was a 3k race at my limit and the idea was that if I was following someone fast enough, their first 3k of 5 would be the same as my 3k flat out. As it happened, there was only one guy ahead of me and he had a good lead from the start (judging by his PB he must have relaxed after the first k) so I didn't get the same effect as if I'd been sitting behind someone for 10 minutes trying not to be dropped. But the main thing I got out of it was that I pushed harder in the first half of the race than I would have otherwise, I knew as I was running that the effort was not sustainable. I think I was getting a little too comfortable recently, and if you're not going to blow up in a parkrun where can you do it?

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

menoscemo wrote: »

Booo!!!, what are we tallaght ac boys going to do for a laugh now in the evenings?

Please! I do not want to know what the Tallaght boys club gets up to in the evenings. I'm glad you're all happy together, but also that you don't live next door:P.
(you notice that claralara and digger don't set up their binoculars outside your houses)

would you believe that I wrote a brilliant update yesterday, full of tears and laughter, poetry and philosophy, but the boards turtle ate it?
of course not :pac:

88.32k @5.15/km last week
Lesson learned - check the training plan before your first run of the week. Was only supposed to be a 70k week, maybe without that longer run I would have been able for the session on Wednesday. Or maybe not.

I was feeling full of energy this evening as I left work for the run, and set off at a faster pace around UCD. Felt a bit stiff around the ankle after a few minutes and thought about slowing down but ran it off instead, and decided as long as I didn't push too hard there was no problem running a bit faster today, I'd be recovered by Wednesday, no problem. Kept a decent effort up all the way home, and finally stopped my watch to see how fast I'd been going. pace :pac:

ecoli wrote: »

Not with Ray, I am waiting for the day he announces he has bought a bike, Reckon those Tri heads left him here as a spy

I already have one, which I use for commuting as god intended The day you see me going out for a cycle and calling it a training session :rolleyes: or pedalling furiously in a shed to go nowhere :pac::pac:, shoot me and put me out of my misery;)

digger2d2 wrote: »

Normally I'm not a snitch but I saw him swimming in the Poddle river!

Nah, that was just cross country practice in Tymon

Tuesday - run into work, strides at the end
Wednesday - 'character-building run'. Home from work, eat dinner, running gear and tracksuit on, out for an hour of Little Athletics, tracksuit off and around to the local park for 25 laps in the rain :eek: Getting very bored of this park, but it's an even tarmac path, reasonably well-lit by the streetlights outside, and is almost exactly a km/lap, which is handy. Round and around and around, counting laps, each lap is 4% of the total, so counting percentages... after 15 laps I switched to counting down, but for some reason that was much harder :pac: so back to counting up... about 27k in 2 hours 10, pace did slip a bit in the last few k though.
Thursday - run home from work, strides at the end
Friday - back in to work
Saturday -just up to Tymon and one lap around, strides afterwards

Going to be over distance again this week, just hard to get my head around running less, and when I realise at the end of the week that I'm ahead I don't want to take a day off...