"If I'm not out there training, someone else is."

Week 9 day 6

Intervarsity Road relays: 2 mile

legs felt tired from the wek training io had put in but i didnt mind to much and i was pretty calm to be honest. I was on the fourth leg of the relay and by the time that i had started i was in a bit of no mans land with no one to near ahead or behind. Despite this i pushed hard enough in the first leg and was happy with how i was feeling. Second mile and as i didnt have a watch on me i had no idea what kind of pace i was going at. Didnt feel too bad so i assumed wasnt anything amazing.with 800 to go i began to see DCU people cheering and as i am UCD i knew thath this could only mean one thing; the DCU A team was coming barreling down on me and needless to say when i looked back i saw 20 m behind me. their last miler was chasing me down. He had caught up with me at 300m to go so i said to myself "hold on to him for as long as possible and try not to let him lap you. This guy is a low 1.50 800m runner so i knew he had me for a kick but i was feeling good so i went for it and was shocked to see that i was actually leaving him behind. Granted the fact that DCU were so far ahead of second he didnt have to push that hard like work was already done but i was still delighted with the kinda strength that i showed i have so all in all i was happy. The next day i got the official time 10.43. I was kinda gutted thought it was faster but lookinga t last years results it was two seconds faster and given that i was fully rested for the race no sessions that week, looking back now i am really happy with it.

Finishing Time : 10.43

Week 10 Day 1

AM 30 min easy

PM 60 min moderately steady

Pace was nice and honest till the last ten min which saw horrific wind as we were coming up the final hill so the pace suffered (as well as us)

Racing Flat wrote: »

Looking at your log and your race times I think you could be leaving a bit on the track - i.e. doing your sessions too hard, e.g. this session:



Based on your 2mile time of 10.43 (5.21 pace), you're essentially training at your 2mile race pace, AND FOR 10K at that pace, with only a minute recovery!!! Personally I think this is madness. I think if you wanted to do 10k of reps you should be down at about 5.40 pace, max, and maybe you'd be aswell do 5 x 2k.

Or if you wanted to work more on speed you could have done only 5 x 1k at 5k pace - but more than that might be overkill. Also, did you only do this session a few days before the race? If so, I think the fast pace in training and the sessions being close together, not easing up before races is asking for trouble in terms of illness and not performing at your best.

I remember a while back you or one of your training buddies doing 4 x 1k in 3mins - must be close enough to your 1mile race pace! I've run into trouble with this before and the explanation given was that training at such intensity lowers the pH of the body, eroding aerobic fitness. So I'd now favour doing longer slower intervals (up to a 10k max) with occasional faster sessions, but the faster sessions are limited to 5 to 6k with longer recoveries if needed.

Best of luck with the half marathon training.

Thanks for the input.
First off though looking back through my logs many of my training sessions are based around 5.40 pace. Int my next session will be 3x3mile at this pace This was a session designed intentionally running at below race pace to give my body a chance to adapt to changes in pace within a race as they can be unpredictable and if your body cant adapt to slight pace changes it can ruin your chances at achieving your time. Having researched the target race there are many junior African runner who come over to race this half which are in around the 75 min mark or lower. One of the attritbutes of African running over the years has been to kill off competition not through better fitness but the ability to adapt to the change in pace.
The fact that i did not ease up for this race was intentional. I have set out target races and the run on Saturday was not one of them it was an obligation to the college. This is to allow me to continue my training uninterrupted which can allow me to peak perfectly for the half marathon. The idea is to have your body constantly tired (not exhausted) so that come taper time i will be in top shape.
Looking back on my training partners training log you are correct in the session he did however this was over 3 and a half months ago when he was targeting track season (which he PB ed in the 8 and 15) this was before he had begun his half marathion training over even his base building.
In terms of the idea of the PH balance within the body leading to eroding of aerobic fitness i would have to disagree as this is still in fact an aerobic workout. An anaerobic workout takes up to 10 seconds to attain maximal ATP production and can be maintained for a maximum of 90 seconds after this performance is cannot be maintained due to the lactic acid accumulation. If you take these 1k s into account which were 3.20 s. the fact that they were maintained throughout indictates that these were in fact working the aerobic system. The fact that maximal oxygen uptake was achieved in each rep was the underlining determenant in the ability to perform at this level with the recovery bouts in between.

Week 10 Day 2

AM 30 min easy
PM 2 mile warm up 10x400m with 1 min recovery 2 mile cool down

Target Time: 70-72

Actual times: 65, 67 ,69, 68, 73 ,69, 72, 69, 72, 70

Due to work etc had to rearrange all my sessions this week.First Anaerobic workout in the best part of a year and made a rookie mistake went out way to fast on the first one which pretty much ruined the session. Was weird to feel the legs flooded with such lactic during a session been so long

1500mrunner wrote: »

Firstly Im not DJS, Secondly I was just highlighting the fast that 6 out of your 70 reps were under 70s seconds which was your goal time. Now im just unsure why a half marathon guy would be doing faster then 1500m race pace trainin in november when he wants to peak for feb. Thats all im saying I not sayin that I know alot into that distance training wise

A bit of speed incorporated to work slightly on my anaerobic system once in a while does not erode the aerobic base i have and consulting one of my training partners who is well experienced at this distance . He has been very helpful between him and his coach who is a recognised coaching qualifications i have been given insight into the distance which i did not have before hand as I am also new to the distance. People may think my training is mad and they are entitled to it if that it was they feel but I think the main thing about any training programme is that the person who carries it out has faith in it which i do and that is why i dont mind defending it

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Hey Ecoli. When is your next race? One in which you will proerly rest/taper? Might help validate your training to posters who have questioned your methods. Personally I think you are overcooking (I've done it myself in the past ) but everyman to himself.

The Aware 10k is a race which i will look to taper for and PB in and given all the negative attitudes towards this training i feel that breaking my PB (36.15) wont be enough so i am laying it out there showing my faith in my training in the target for this race will be very low 34

Week 10 Day 5

roughly 15 mile long run (V. Hilly Course)


Hadnt done this route in a while and by the end of it i remembered why. Two of the lads i ran with despite feeling i was going faster left me two min behind them. I was in really struggling and thought i was running so slow it was only after the uphill part of the run finished (which is nearly an hour constant climb) that i realised why. Despite being left by training partners i was still five min faster after only an hour into the run and once the ground levelled off legs started feeling okay again so i pushed it on to catch up. While i didnt catch up the run was nearly 12 min faster than last time which is a good indication of my improvement in strength since then which was almost 6 weeks ago so altoghther i happy with it

thirstywork wrote: »

the mile workout you did a few days ago was fine but 10 x 400m just makes no sense at this time of the year training for a half marathon in feb.
you will probably run around 34.40 in your 10k based on your trainign and races.
also i wouldn't get caught up in racing your 15mile training runs.

Despite being left by training partners i was still five min faster after only an hour into the run and once the ground levelled off legs started feeling okay again so i pushed it on to catch up. While i didnt catch up the run was nearly 12 min faster than last time

Sorry prob wasnt the best words to use while the pace did pick up it was still all quite comfortable. it was downhill for most of this and it was one of the reasons for the pace picking it up but. Thanks for the advice though like i said the 400 was not a regular session just to give the anaerobic system a little shock

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Fair enough and best of luck to you but it's a bit juvenile to invite constructive comments and then term them negative !

Terms like "your mad" and "suicidal" i wouldnt consider to be constructive terms or maybe that is just me. I do want to say though that not all the feedback (including some of the comments against my training plan) i would tar under this brush and i do appreciate the feedback

shels4ever wrote: »

Don't think people are been too critical, I think its a case when you put up a training log people will give advise, from the session when you gave your two mile time it did look far too fast, But if thats not your actual two mile race time its hard for people to know that. Might be a case that your running off planned race times and not actual race time? One bit of advise I was give was to always use your current race times and not your planned race time for sessios ie my 5k pace would be 4:12 but at the time i wanted to go sub 20 so was doing reps @ 4:00 pace which was too fast. Just make sure that come race day you dont leave all your hard work back on the training field.

AWARE 10k should give you a good idea where you are. Best of luck with the target.

I can see where you coming from here and it is not that i am predicting my two mile time. What i am saying is that a full week of of doubles including 2 hard sessions was obviously doing to tire so i think that people assuming that this the session is my two mile race pace as it is not an accurate race to judge my pace as being "two mile race pace" which is what people seem to be indicating.
I can see the logic behind running your current times but which their is a paradox here in do you take your PB or your most recent. If you take most recent which i assume you are then take an example of mine 17.09 but put this down to running first mile too fast (4.41). This would mean that i would actually be training slower than my ability and as such am not stressing my body enough to gain improvement. Also it would mean that in order to keep paces accurate racing regularly fully rested would be a must and in order to do this I would sacrifice full weeks hard training for a race and to keep it accurate that would mean doing this regularly. So your training begins to suffer as you are losing countless weeks so i think we must gauge are ablility off training, to an extent. I do have target races that i will rest for but these are few and far between Aware was one which due to college i am looking for a replacement, Raheny 5 and one other before the HM will be what i am aiming for