Now I'm Running...

ike

10.2k with villagerunner. more of a recovery run around 5:15/km - suited us both today.

asimonov

Did you run down by the barrow? I did goresbridge to bagenalstown yesterday and it was glorious, pretty dry underfoot and easy to run on.

ike

Yeah went from Bagenalstown to Milford and back, would be very easy to extend it by a few miles by starting at the Royal Oak or even further back to slyguff

ike

Late update

1.5km warmup

5 x 1km @ 4:00/km

400m jog recovery.

Need to book a sports massage, despite doing a lot of stretching my legs feel like something going to give at some stage.

ike

Rest day yesterday

Swapped my tempo run today for a 10 miler at my PMP, a bit early to be thinking of such things but an early indicator is no harm, just to see how I'd feel and what the effort would be. My MP for Berlin is (hopefully) 4:43/km.

Ran 10 miles in 1:16:07 averaging 4:44 - bang on with the pacing just got into a comfortable stride and didn't vary much from it, most of my Km splits were very even. Hopefully in the next few months that will feel even easier

Easy run planned tomorrow although in hindsight, I probably should have swapped today and tomorrow around and ran the 10 on fresher legs.

Todays Run: Warm
Todays Effort: Good

ike

Easy run today 8.2km 41:42 averaged 5:03/km. Not much to report legs feeling really good after it. Will only be able to manage a short on Sunday morning

ike

A couple of updates

Sunday:

8km along the river bank just did 4km out and 4km back wasn't able to get out until 12:30 so was starting to get the full force of the Sun - could'nt really summon up much interest pace averaged 5:15/km.

Today

Much better run this morning got out for bang on 10:00 planned to run out and back on the river back in a different direction than yesterday. Ran 6k out and 6k back. Averaged around 5:00/km for the first 6 and 4:40 for the return, much more enjoyable today.

Intervals planned tomorrow but not look forward to them in this heat

ike

Opted for doing these on the threadmill 27deg out there wil little of no breeze, so decided against the track.

Pretty much the same as last week

1.5km Warmup

5 x 1km @ 4:00/km

But went for a 90 sec recovery

1.5km cooldown.

Seemed to reel these off today without killing myself will add another K next week.

ike

A few updates...

Wed, been toying with the idea of cycling to work one day per for a while now so took the plunge its a 30 mile round trip. Managed to get a puncture on the way in, in the morning so had to walk the last mile. Was really tired and lacking energy on the way home, probably cos I did'nt eat enough during the day, took me about an hour on both legs. Not sure if i'll continue to do this, Wed is a rest day and I place as much emphasis on rest as training. Will see how i feel next week

Thur 04/06

15.4km steady run didn't push it just settled into whatever pace felt comfortable which worked out at 5:06/km

Today Fri 05/06

Tempo run, due to a work issue had to cut this sort 1km warmup and 6km tempo @ 4:16/km which is around my 10 miles race pace. wanted to do at least 8-10k at tempo but thats the way it goes

ike

Headed out with asimonov this morning for a 'planned' 15 mile turned out to be 26.5km (16.46 mile). The Lisburn half marathon in in 10 days so it was good timing to get the distance into the legs. We stopped for approx 3 min to take on liquids, so we finished in around 2:14 averaging 5:03/km - the pace was kept pretty even overall, the last 5k was a bit of struggle with a full on headwind.

Nice to have it done this early in the plan brings me to about - brings me just under 70km for the week.

asimonov

I found an elevation profile for Lisburn. It looks ok, miles 6-7 and 8-9 have the only significant rises in them. The finish is pretty flat.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-kingdom/lisburn/875124181912745921

ike

A couple of updates

Monday
5k easy pace just as a recovery from Sunday

Tuesdays
Rest

Today - Wednesday
10.1km was meant to be a a tempo paced run at 4:20/km, but wasn't feeling it today so averaged closer to 4:35/km. Legs were OK just struggled with breathing

ike

17Km averaging 5:06/km

Steady run felt comfortable added a couple of K's to bring it up to 17, was kept nicely cooled by the breeze. Midweek longish run out of the way.

Won't be doing too much more before next Wednesday's half in Lisburn

Todays Run = Steady
Todays Effort = Comfortable

Woddle

Hi Ike glad to see your going nicely, any time in mind for the half or would you rather keep it to yourself?
Only curious as I still see us as being on par for some reason, so I'll take your half time as being mine

ike

Cheers Woddle, No your right we seem to be similiar across the range, McMillian puts me at 1:32:15 based on my best 10 mile time, but realistically I'm aiming for sub 1:35/34. Going to be on the starting line as fresh as I can, so i'll probably only run tomorrow and Monday. Its still early days but hopefuly it'll give me a very good indication for Berlin.

If I'm comfortable after 8 miles - I'll attack the last 5 - it's all on the night tho sometimes you get relaxed from the off, and some times you never settle

Woddle

Best of luck

ike

A couple of updates

Had a bit of a dull ache in my achilles after thursdays run, I always get concerned about that as its the one that snapped on me a few years ago. So didn't run on Friday, just some gentle stretching, heavy massaging of the area and icing in the evening time.

Was Ok on Sunday morning so just did approx 5km on grass taking it easy.

No pain or discomfort today so just did a an easy 8km

Will either take tomorrow off (or maybe another 5km) and start the race 100% fresh wendesday evening.

ike

This was one of my planned 'prep' races for Berlin to give me some kind of any idea of where I'm at with approx 3 months to go. The last half marathon I ran was the Dublin City Half last year where I clocked 1:45:25~.

Asimonov has an excellent report in his log and i'll echo everything he said about the entry fee, facilities, water stops etc. Still not sure how he managed that at 2 in the morning! The journey up from Carlow flew despite both villagerunner and asimoniv needing various pit stops on the way . The plan was to get there early and get a bite to eat around lunchtime so we wouldn't have that feeling before the race. Lunch sorted than a bit of a stroll around and then we drove the course which was a great tactic on asimonov's part. Plenty of surprises in terms of uphill and downhill would have awaited otherwise, so we knew what to expect.

I've firmly switched to Km so my pacing was based around that so for me it was a ~21km trip. I stated in a previous post that I wasn't 100% sure what time to expect based on my 10 mile time McMillan had me down for a 1:32 but I knew I wasn't up to that so I mentioned 1:35/34. The plan was to reel off 4:30km and keep it steady. For the first 10km I was very relaxed shoulder downs, slight lean forward and just going with the flow.

I the way up I decided to break it in to 2 x 10km splits and a 1 km finish, went through the first 10k just under 45min, hardly deviating off the 4:30 pace but it was in the second half that I went off the pacing and after examing the splits I lost nearly 90 seconds in the second half. I found the course tough for the second half with too much up and down and some of the downhills were very steep which I found worse than the uphills. The field got very spread out in the second half and I was kind of in no mans land at times, so maybe I lost concentration. A guy caught up with me and we ran together for about 2 miles and I was back on the money with the pacing, he faded on an uphill around mile 11, so I was on my own for the last 2 miles. I lost nearly 40 seconds between K's 18-20.

Anyway my finish time was 1:35:22. I don't think the chip time when available will bring me under 1:35 (although running faster might!). My overall average was 4;33/km, but the one thing about KM pacing is that a few seconds of a slide adds up to a lot more than the equivalent slide over a mile

Positives.
Happy enough with the time
A PB by 10min from last Sept Dublin Half
The first 10k went exacly to plan
I know where I'm lacking in my training

Negatives
Losing 90 seconds over 11k
Knowing it could have been a much better time
Should have been sub 1:34


Chip times added Official time 1:35:11

asimonov

good run ike, nice benchmark for where you stand at this point of your training for Berlin. Long way to go yet. Thanks for doing all the driving.

Peckham

+1 - you're in good shape with a long way to go until Berlin. Assuming all goes well with training, you should be on track for 3:15 (which I think is your target?).

Krusty_Clown

Great running Ike, and great report. Looks like we'll be aiming for similar targets in Berlin.

ike

Thanks Lads

Peckham - I know its a long way but 3:15 dosen't "feel" realistic now, just as 1:33 for the half didn't feel realistic before yesterday, right now 3:20 is the target. I'm kind of suffering from lazy patches particularly on long runs and tempos , where I not so much switch off, but rather stop pushing myself. thats what I really need to work on - I think might be also known as a kick in the arse!

Krusty_Clown, hopefully there will be a stream of boardies, crossing the line within a few minute of each other!

ike

20 minutes of gentle jogging...and I'm pretty sure it was jogging not running! Don't think I even broke a sweat.

A few gentle lengths of the pool and a nice long hot sauna, feeling pretty good now (another reason why I don't think I pushed hard enough yesterday)

Peckham

ike wrote: »

I'm kind of suffering from lazy patches particularly on long runs and tempos , where I not so much switch off, but rather stop pushing myself.

I think visualisation is the answer to this. You've got to put yourself in a race mindset, and picture yourself in Berlin marathon trying to keep the pace up. Sounds cheesy, but it works!

ike

Your absolutely right - I used to do this before and found it great, Its amazing what a few good training sessions can do for morale.

ike

Still in recovery mode.

8.2km in 44:28 averaging 5:25/km.

Been looking at my training over the last 2 month and whilst I've been putting in the miles and the key sessions I don't think I've gotten as much benefit out of them as I should have. I keep all my training on a spreadsheet so its very easy to look back quickly but the one thing I've noticed is the amount of slow runs that I've done (or rather the lack of them). The majority of my regular/easy runs have been done around 8:00/mile pace or below but I've been doing practically no 8:30/40 paced runs.

The 8:00/mile pace feels fine at the time but I'm probably not leaving myself with enough in the tank for the faster sessions. So I'm going to consiously introduce 2 slower paced runs during the week and will hopefully see the tempo sessions getting better.

Peckham

ike wrote: »

The majority of my regular/easy runs have been done around 8:00/mile pace or below but I've been doing practically no 8:30/40 paced runs.

I'm in the same boat. I really struggle to get my recovery runs slow enough and generally do them around 7:45/mile pace. I get frustrated going any slower.

Did 6 miles last night which were meant to be recovery. Legs were quite tired after tempo the previous evening, so that slowed me down a bit, but struggled to get HR below 80%Max.

ike

Weird isn't it! - struggling to run slow!

Will be sticking to my guns with this for the next few weeks as I'm planning to run a 5 miler in Dungarvan next month so that will be a good test...

...and of course visualising winning the olympics on my tempo runs!

ike

Just under 13km this morning again at a slow pace averaging just under 5:20/km. Finish the week just under 55Km.

ike

Easy 12k at lunchtime with village runner average pace 5:13/km, very warm conditions.