Half Sub 1hr 35, 10k sub 38, 5k sub 18

another world

Thurs: Weights, Climbing, Cross trainer

Fri: 10k (untimed)

It felt great to be running again today. I could barely hold myself back for a lot of it even though I felt it a bit in the chest after not running for almost 2 weeks.

I have just over 3 weeks to the next race, 10k (Nike Human Race). The plan will be 4 days of running per week. One LSR, one hard speed, one medium speed, one standard run. The other days I´ll be climbing so I´ll get on the cross trainer those days and that should help me recover and maintain fitness. Well, hopefully that plan combined with a pretty flat course will result in a sub 39min 10k, hopefully

another world

Sat: Climbing all day

Sun: 8k untimed (keep forgetting my watch!!)

Mon: 16.5k @ 7:26min/mile 5.5k @ 8:02min/mile, 5.5k @ 7:09 min/mile, 3.3k @ 6:37min/mile, 2.2k @ 7:55min/mile(warm down).

Todays run was more of a progression run (I´ve been wanting to one for a while now!) than a LSR. Since my LSRs don´t need to be too long for the 10k race I guess I can get away with doing them a bit faster. It also makes them a lot more interesting

another world

Tue: 2 hrs climbing, weights session, cross trainer

Wed: Interval session 8 * 400m

2.2k warm-up

1. 72secs
2. 79secs
3. 82secs
4. 86secs
5. 84secs
6. 86secs
7. 85secs
8. 84secs

2.2k to finish up

Colombia`s going through a bit of a heat wave at the moment so it`s great getting out in it as much as possible. I enjoyed todays session and it was one that I`ve been badly missing in my training. Obviously enough I`m cr@p at pacing and went out and nearly killed myself on the first one (sounds like all my races!!) but finally got into a better rhythm towards the end. I`ll do this next week as well and go for 10 * 400m at 85secs.

leibniz

Hey Mark!

How have you been doing?

I've been catching up on this thread - sounds like it was quite a run in Guatavita!

When I was in Bogota, that was one of the places we went to visit the week before we returned home to Canada. Here is a link to our Guatavita pictures if you are interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=138439&id=788722994&l=951b84152f

After we returned home, I kept up a slightly moderate running schedule, and ran in my first full marathon on Sept. 13th. Finished in 4:03:46

And then last weekend I ran another half marathon. Weather was great, felt not too bad (except for a sore knee) but managed a 1:46:16.

I'm going to the USA (Virginia) in the middle of November for another full marathon. It should be a lot of fun and I'm really looknig forward to it.

After my first full marathon, my knee started hurting a bit. Nothing serious, but it has been constantly annoying. So, I've been taking it easy (with the exception of the 21.1K last weekend) Feeling much better the last few days, so I'm going to start out slow (maybe 5k) this weekend and then work my mileage back up to a good amount within a few weeks. I'd like to get in at least two long runs, maybe a 25k and a 35k, before the marathon.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello. Glad to see you are still running and logging. I keep my running data at Garmin conenct, and my running stories and other stats on my personal blogging site, www.GoTheDistance.ca

I think that the ability to improve lies in our own self analysis of what works, what doesn't, and the ability to know when to turn up the training, and when to rest. i.e. our individual requirements. In my case, I know that I need to work on core strength, as well as to drop another 2-3 KG. That will be my focus over the winter. Sounds like you've got a good handle on your direction as well. I remember Guatavita - 1:38 is an excellent time for that terrain!


Take care, and happy running.

Regards,
Bill

colblimp

Just had a look at your blog Bill, and I think it's great! Some good stories on there.

leibniz

Thanks! It's just "stuff that happens" but after blogging for a while it turns into a little story.

Hope all is well there in Cork and that everything and everyone is running great.

Greetings from Canada,
Bill

another world

leibniz wrote: »

Hey Mark!

How have you been doing?

I've been catching up on this thread - sounds like it was quite a run in Guatavita!

When I was in Bogota, that was one of the places we went to visit the week before we returned home to Canada. Here is a link to our Guatavita pictures if you are interested:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=138439&id=788722994&l=951b84152f

After we returned home, I kept up a slightly moderate running schedule, and ran in my first full marathon on Sept. 13th. Finished in 4:03:46

And then last weekend I ran another half marathon. Weather was great, felt not too bad (except for a sore knee) but managed a 1:46:16.

I'm going to the USA (Virginia) in the middle of November for another full marathon. It should be a lot of fun and I'm really looknig forward to it.

After my first full marathon, my knee started hurting a bit. Nothing serious, but it has been constantly annoying. So, I've been taking it easy (with the exception of the 21.1K last weekend) Feeling much better the last few days, so I'm going to start out slow (maybe 5k) this weekend and then work my mileage back up to a good amount within a few weeks. I'd like to get in at least two long runs, maybe a 25k and a 35k, before the marathon.

Anyway, just wanted to say hello. Glad to see you are still running and logging. I keep my running data at Garmin conenct, and my running stories and other stats on my personal blogging site, www.GoTheDistance.ca

I think that the ability to improve lies in our own self analysis of what works, what doesn't, and the ability to know when to turn up the training, and when to rest. i.e. our individual requirements. In my case, I know that I need to work on core strength, as well as to drop another 2-3 KG. That will be my focus over the winter. Sounds like you've got a good handle on your direction as well. I remember Guatavita - 1:38 is an excellent time for that terrain!


Take care, and happy running.

Regards,
Bill

Thanks for posting! It was good to see the photos of Guatavita because I didin´t really take many afterwards, was wrecked and just got on the bus back to Bogotá! Congrats on the Marathon, great achievement to have it under your belt and in a good solid time as well. Do you find your running better times or more efficiently at a normal altitude?

Your definitely right about self-analysis being key to improvement. Sometimes we follow plans and what not with out thinking about so many other factors (presonal life, injury history, particular strenghts we might have etc). I guess these blogs etc are great for looking back on and seeing where it all went wrong or right!

Best of luck with the your second marathon!

another world

Thurs: 2hr climbing session

Fri: 11km (7:48min/mile) Felt terrible throughout the whole run stitchs, cramps, and digesting a big meal!

Sat: Whole day climbing

Sun: 12.2km (8:50min/mile)

I ran the first part of todays run with the wife and since she´s only starting out we went pretty slow, so the first 5km we in 33mins! I did 5.5k after that in 25mins and then warmed down.

Last week I did 43.1kms/26.8miles. Happy enough with that considering I got a bit of speed work in as well. Same again for next week.

another world

Well, a mixture of foolishly drinking the local water (3 day stomach bug) and getting drenched and catching a cold left me on the sidelines all week. Both my fault! I`ll be back into the training from tomorrow all going well. I`ve probably lost a bit of fitness I guess...

another world

Sat: 10k untimed but very very slow

Great to finally run again! Went out with the other half and it was really injoyable just to be get the run in in good weather, a new route (I´m fed up of my old routes), and a nice easy pace. Plan for next week is:

Sun: 15k easy
Mon: Rest
Tue: 3k warm up + 5 * 400m + 3k warm down
Wed: Rest
Thurs: 10k easy
Fri: 5k easy
Sat: Race

My rest days are actually pretty intensive climbing work outs and I feel completely exhausted after them, so maybe rest isn´t quite the right word :cool: I still hope to get sub-39mins despite this far from perfect training for the race.

another world

Sun: 13k @ 8:48min/mile

Did a mini tempo in the middle, 2.5km @ 3:58min/km. Felt good enough but it´s going to be tough to maintain that (and a bit!) for 10km on Saturday. The key will be a controlled start, something I don´t think I´ve ever ever done!

pauldry

just done me best 5.4k today - 23min 42sec

winner was just over 15mins :eek:

another world

Mon: 5k RR + climbing session

Tue: 11.5k @ avg 8:09min/mile. 2.5k in the middle @ 3:58min/km

Decided to get the recovery runs in this week, probably for the best and it´ll help my fitness a bit. Today I did the same 2.5k as on sunday at tempo pace, strangely I did it in exactly the same time. Felt a bit better today.

another world

Wed: 5k easy + climbing hard

Thurs: 5k easy

Fri: Rest

Just tiping away this week, no major runs but enough to feel something in the legs.

Picked up the kit yesterday which was pretty good for a 10k race. It had a technical t-shirt, head-lamp and the usual stuff they throw in there (chip etc). As it´s going to be a nightime race everyone (10,000 people!) have to use their headlamps so it should make for some good photos...

Still going for sub-39. Will see how it pans out on the day.

tisnotover

best of luck in the 10k lad...sounds like a mad race with ye all running around with the head-lamps!!

another world

The one thing I was thinking about a lot before this race was what sort of shape I was on. Was I being realistic considering the overall lack of consistency and 10k specificity in my training? Or was I kidding myself thinking I could go sub-40 let alone sub-39? After running this race I now feel in a much better position to answer these questions.

The race was more of a concert or something than a race, with more than 10,000 people, television camaras, helicopters passing over, everyone wearing their headlamps and some wierd salsa type warm-up (it is Colombia after all!).

So myself and my wife got there about an hour and a half early and took in the atmosphere and really enjoyed ourselves a lot. I knew that there was going to be a push for the line with about half an hour to go so we got in what we thought was a good position :rolleyes: only to see a VIP section of atleast 1000 people being let past us. God nows how they got there VIP status but they past us anyway and since everyone was in a good mood it didn´t really bother anyone too much. Nonetheless, pushing and shoving ensued and we were eventually on our way.

There was a lot of weaving in and out of people for the first two kilometres, but especially in the first kilometre. So on arriving at the 1km mark I was pleasently surprised to see a time of 3:58. I went a bit faster in the second but came in in 8:56! A bit confused and desmayed at this I continued on and felt ok up to about 5k which is when I always have to fight the demons! I had passed out a lot of people at this stage so was feeling good despite what my watch was saying (21:13). There was just one hill in the race and it felt alright, obviously not comfortable but alright. I should have gained more time on the downhill but I was trying to be caucious enough.

So we were now into the second half of the race and I felt like I was flying it. I sped up a bit going into the 6th kilometre and thought I was going to start making up some lost time. 5:26. God, what was going on! And kilometre number 7 in 2:42! Obviously the kilometre marks were all over the place. I was breathing heavily enough at this stage but the legs were still ok and in the last kilomtre I pushed it hard and passed out a few more people. The home stretch was great, night time with lots of spectators and there was only about 5 or 6 of running on it despite the overall crowd.

I was a bit disappointed (to say the least!) at the end to see a time of 42:09 especially when I really felt like I was pushing hard all the way. Overall, out of 10,000 people I came in in 167th position, which is helping me get over the time a bit.

Before I started this more intensive training I ran 40:41 for 10k on the back of a 8km longest run, and then ran a 23:59 in Ireland for 4 miles. So I´m completely purplexed about what happened in this race!

On a much more serious and important note, 2 people died in the race. One person was left lieing on the ground for 25 minutes because private ambulances wouldn´t take him to the nearest hospital 2 blocks away. Idiots.

The wife came in in 1hr and 4 secs. She was aiming for under an hour! Very unlucky but she´s only just started really.

Anyway, I´ve gone on a bit, great race in general but more of a show than a race. I´m done with these types of races and I´m going to hold off until February when I´m back in Ireland to run another one. I´ll post a few thoughts on my future training and races planned later on.

another world

Sun: 5k RR

Mon: 4k Pace

Tue: 13k steady

No fixed training schedule at the moment, just run when I have time and energy and it´s pretty much going to be like this for the next while. I really want to focus on doing medium distance runs at steady, controlled pace and hills whenever possible. The main thing will be to enjoy my running, running on interesting routes as much as possible and not squeezing in sessions when I really don´t have the time.

We´ll see how that goes for the next month anyway.

I´m feeling somewhat inspired by a lot of the marathon reports over the last two days, some great times and stories. I´ll definitely do one in a few years but 2010 will be about 5k/10k/half marathon (maybe).

another world

Thurs: 8k easy (ate too much beforehand, wanted to get sick for most of it :eek:)

Sun: 8k Hill run

I think sunday´s run was probably my favourite run of the year. It´s one I´ve been planning to do for a long time now. Up a 300 metre mountain (hill for colombia) called Cerro de la Teta or the "tit shaped peak". It had to be done. Started out from the in-laws house, which is just below it and was confident enough about the whole affair, acknowledging it´d be tough but confident nonetheless. Oh, how I was wrong. After about 50metres I felt like stopping. The incline was unreal, but once I got into a rythm I kept it going for a good while before I broke (about 3/4 of the way up), took a quick break and got going again and eventually I had to stop again and then walked the last piece. Bloody tough, I got up in 36:40secs and got down in 27:57. The reason it was so good is because it was in the countryside and I don´t get too many chances to do runs there. My aim is to get the run to the top (of the tit :P) under 30mins and without stopping.

I´ve broke on the race front already. I have another 10k race in 2 weeks and one on 31 December. They look like good ones so I may aswell, no specific training although, just turn up with good enough fitness. I´ll get more technical in the new year.

another world

Wed: 10k @ 7:52min/mile

Nice enough run today. I hate those runs where you just drag yourself around and get the mileage in, so I´ve decided that if I´ll try my best to up the pace to below 8min/mile for most runs except on recovery runs. Hopefully, I don´t get injured :eek:

Lacking consistency in my training right now due to work but hopefully I can rectify that over the next few weeks as I´ll have less work and more free time.

another world

Sat: 3.5k Washout. Had planned on a 20k LSR, then I saw the clouds and said 10k overall with 3k tempo pace, started the tempo pace and it came down really hard so I had to skip the run. Did some core strenght training in the safety of my house later on.

Sun: 10k @ 9:07min/mile

Today, I decided to run the route of the 10k race in two weeks. Did it pretty slow as I was helping the other half break an hour for the first time and she did (56:41). The route looks good. Strangely enough it starts on an uphill (I've never seen this before) and then for the first 5k it's rolling light hills (but nothing too major) and then it's flat for the last 5k. Should be a good run. I'll aim for sub 42mins.

another world

Mon: 5k easy, climbing and core strenght

Tue: Hill repeats

This consisted of 150m or so of a steadily increasing hill. I ran 3K to get to the place I was doing them and 3K home after that. Here are the splits with the recovery time in brackets (this was a light jog down the hill back to the start, no stopping).

1. 35:25 (1:14)
2. 37:57 (1:13)
3. 36:20 (1:13)
4. 36:61 (1:14)
5. 36:45 (1:16)
6. 34:77

Pushed as hard as I could on the last one. Overall it was a good session and you definitely feel it in the chest while your doing them and legs afterwards. I´ll aim for 8 repeats next time and try to do the session every 2 weeks as a general rule.

another world

Wed: 5K easy

Thurs: Rest (wasn´t planned, I was just being lazy)

Fri: 6.6K Steady pace, not really sure how fast.

I´ve definitely been feeling the effects of the hill repeats on Tuesday, especially in the lower legs. They were even sore to touch at one stage. But now I feel stronger for doing it and as long as they´re not overdone it seems like a really good session. Aiming for 15K tomorrow at around 5:10 Min/km pace.

another world

Sat: 15K (4:49 min/km)

I felt strong starting off today so I said I´d go a bit faster than planned. I did the first 10km in 47mins, and was trying to hold myself back. Thankfully I could and managed to do the last 5 in around 25mins. Felt good all the way around and especially happy with my breathing. 50k/31miles this week which is the most in a long time.

another world

Sun: Climbing all day

Mon: 5k easy, hiking

Tue: Total rest

Wed: Rest/Climbing Session

Not the best few days for my training, especially with the race being this sunday. I injured my ankle climbing on Sunday, took a stupid fall and hit it against the wall, first thing I thought about was the race. Pretty sore at the time and that night. I`ve taken the last 2 days off as a precaution more than anything else. There`s still something there but I think it should hold up. I`ll test it again tomorrow.

another world

Thurs: 6.6k mini-tempo (1.6K c. 4:15min/km)

Ran everything at a pretty steady pace today. Felt terrible at the start but then got very comfortable and went for a bit of a tempo in the middle, that felt bad at the start but then good after a minute. Happy with the session, no aches or pains so all good for the race on Sunday.

another world

As you can see from the time, everything went pretty good for me in this race. I have no idea why or how but here´s the report anyway.

Training was pretty minimal for this race. I did 2 or 3 good sessions in the last 3 weeks, one being a big hill run, another being a 15k run at a nice steady pace and the other being hill repeats. In general all my runs had a few hills in there somewhere. I have also being focusing a lot on my core strength with a lot of climbing and light weights work.

The race was at 10am and my only real worry was if it was going to be the same as the Nike 10k a few weeks earlier with lots of people. Thankfully, it wasn´t that bad (around 3700 people) so being held up wasn´t really a problem. And there also wasn´t a VIP section, although the city mayor and his bodyguards (about 10!) tried to skip everybody but they got booed so bad they had to get in line with the rest of us

So the race began a 10am on the dot, the weather was warm enough but not enough to be a factor and there was a great vibe among everybody. A small bit of skipping past some people at the start and it was clear going all the way after that. I am really bad at knowing my pace so I just go with what feels right. I can´t say for sure that the pace I was doing felt right exactly but it wasn´t killing me. The first few kms where up and down and I arrived at half way very surprised at 19:05 but I was wrecked! I kept it going although, but felt like stopping all the way from there to the end (I really have to work on this). I dropped the pace slightly but not much and got to 9km at 34:30 and I knew it was going to be a good time for me. I did the last km in 3mins 41 secs to finish in 38:11. Despite resigning myself to just over 39mins I found a burst over the last 200 metres and I passed around 5 people. One guy wouldn´t let go and we sprinted it to the line, I beat him by a head, he wouldn´t even look at me afterwards :rolleyes:

All and all everything clicked today. I wasn´t comfortable at any stage so I know this is my limit at the moment. I´ll need to step it up a good bit in the new year with a specific 10k program.

asimonov

Great run AW, time spent doing core work and climbing is obviously doing you good. Well done.

tisnotover

Excellent, great to hear ya clocking such a good time!! ya did well to keep going with pace, despite thinking ya went thru half way too fast, well done!

another world

Mon: Climbing 3.5hrs

Tue: 7km Easyish, core strenght

Legs have been fine since the race but were heavy enough during todays run and even more so now after the run...

My next race is on 31 December, 15k. I´m hoping to do it under 60mins. I´ll get 2/3 good weeks training now and then I´m gone for a week or two on a climbing trip so I´ll be staying fit but not running fit. Hopefully, I can build a bit of a fitness reserve beforehand.

another world

Wed: Climbing, weights, core-strenght

Thurs: 13K (7:43 min/mile)

Felt far too good today! The weather was excellent, a class was cancelled and for some reason I had lots of energy. Very nice run, and my breathing was extremely comfortable (a rare thing!). I have started getting my minimum distances to around 7km and minimum speed to about 8min/mile. I´m feeling better because of it.