Becoming a Real Runner

menoscemo

Saturday 20/11
I decided to help out at the Boards AC 5k race yesterday instead of running it. I ended up being the starter and the timekeeper. I ended up doing a mile warm up with the group despite wearing jeans a jumper and a jacket. I also got a little bit of fartlek training in the form of indoor soccer before the race :pac: Great day, spoiled by Brianderunner who forced me into double figures in terms of pints of Guinness after the race. I have to stay away from that man, he is a very bad influence and seems to have an unrivalled ability to hold his drink. While I was conked out as soon as I got home, he seems to have spent half the night up on facxebook chat .
Anyway 1 miles

Sunday 21/11 I went down to Tymon the cheer on the boards team a the XC race. I as all togged out for a run myslef after the race, but in my hungover state, forgot to bring my hat and gloves. I ended up going back to the house to warm the hands up and nearly didn't get out at all.
Finally I forced myself out this evening for an unplanned number of miles and ended up doing 9 miles @ 9:06 pace

Weekly total: 3 (and a bit runs) 20 miles

I really need to get back to serious training from next week as my t-shirts are starting to not fit. Hopefully I can hit 35 miles and then look at getting inot a proper Barcelona/connemara training plan in December.

RacoonQueen

Facebook chat at 2am. Win.

Boards A/R/T trip to last LUFC game of the season/Leeds half marathon May 2011 decided upon.

menoscemo

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Facebook chat at 2am. Win.

Boards A/R/T trip to last LUFC game of the season/Leeds half marathon May 2011 decided upon.

Hmmm, interesting, though you'd have to pay me to watch the Leeds game.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Good to hear your back at it so soon.

menoscemo

6.8 miles this evening round tymon with Aimman and the headtorch. Highlights were getting absolutely drenched by the coldest rain ever at the start of the run and then Aimman tripping on a pile of leaves and going head first into the ditch.

I am on my second day of no sweets and chocolate in an attempt to shift these post marathon pounds. I think my body is protesting a lot as I felt very sluggish at the end of the run today.

rainbow kirby

menoscemo wrote: »

6.8 miles this evening round tymon with Aimman and the headtorch. Highlights were getting absolutely drenched by the coldest rain ever at the start of the run and then Aimman tripping on a pile of leaves and going head first into the ditch.

I have a mental image of this which involves Benny Hill music. :pac:

Aimman

menoscemo wrote: »

and then Aimman tripping on a pile of leaves and going head first into the ditch.

Hang on, I just want to clarify that it was a mound of slugde topped with leaves, and I did a great emergency landing by diving away from the tarmac and into the ditch for a soft landing

rainbow kirby wrote: »

I have a mental image of this which involves Benny Hill music. :pac:

All I was short of doing was going face first into a cowpat to top it off.:D

The rain was something else at the start of it, but made it all more enjoyable to run straight through the big puddles.

menoscemo

Met Brian, Aimman and RK tonight for a track session. 10 x 400m with 100 seconds rest. It's a long time since I did these and it was really tough, not least because of the wet track. The lunarracers were definately a bad idea for tonights conditions.

I had hoped to keep Brian in my sights but I only ever managed to hold onto him for the first 200m before he put the turbos on and he seemed to consistently beat me by 5 seconds a lap.

Splits were:
86, 83, 82, 82, 85, 81, 85, 83, 84, 83. The average seems to be about 83 seconds a lap or 5:35/mile pace

With warm up and cool down the total for tonight was 5 miles.

Edit to say I just went through my garmin log and saw that the last time I did this session was back in may and my average lap was 87.2 then compared to 83.4 tonight, so I'm about 15 seconds/mile quicker. I am actually really happy with tonights session now because I ran a 20:14 5k and a 34:15 5 mile a few weeks after that previous 10 x 400m session. That means I am not in too bad shape at the moment...

menoscemo

Normally today would have been a rest day, especially given that my legs were in bits after last nights session. But with the added incentive of the running streak thread I decided to do a little recovery run.
Very slow and extremely cold, but I think this run will be very beneficial, hopefully my legs will benefit from it and be right for a tempo session tomorrow night.

4 miles pace 9:40.

menoscemo

The legs have still been sore all day from the track session on tuesday, so I was contemplating ditching todays tempo session. When I got out this evening it was so cold that the only way to warm up was to run really fast so I decided to give it a go anyway.
A fortnight ago I held sub 7 pace for 4 straight miles and the plan tonight was to do it for 5, but from the off that was never going to happen. My breathing felt fine (normally it goes first in these sessions) but the legs were dead. A stiff headwind for several of the miles didn't help either. In the end I was glad to hold onto any kind of pace for the full 5 miles. The splits were:
6:58, 7:07, 7:12, 7:07, 7:07. A full 10 seconds per mile slower than a fortnight ago but I am not overly annoyed by that. I was just not as fresh as I was then.

In good news I am down about 1.5kg or 3.5 pounds since this day last week, so halfway back to normal. My diet has been so clean this week.

Total for tonight 8 miles

kennyb3

menoscemo wrote: »

The legs have still been sore all day from the track session on tuesday

Wouldnt be anything to do with you running reps for a sub 17.30 5k runner would it?:D

menoscemo

kennyb3 wrote: »

Wouldnt be anything to do with you running reps for a sub 17.30 5k runner would it?:D

Lol, he was well clear of me to be fair.
I used to regularly do an interval session and then a tempo 2 days later. Legs are sore due to a combo of not having run 400's in about 6 months and wearing the wrong footwear on a wet and slippery track.

kennyb3

menoscemo wrote: »

Lol, he was well clear of me to be fair.
I used to regularly do an interval session and then a tempo 2 days later. Legs are sore due to a combo of not having run 400's in about 6 months and wearing the wrong footwear on a wet and slippery track.

Brian was prob running 16min 5k reps, you were still running average 82/83 reps which is sub 17.30. Some of it is prob anerobic (and deffo well over Vo2 max) hence the considerate doms now.

menoscemo

kennyb3 wrote: »

Brian was prob running 16min 5k reps, you were still running average 82/83 reps which is sub 17.30. Some of it is prob anerobic (and deffo well over Vo2 max) hence the considerate doms now.

I thought I was supposed to do 400's at mile pace

menoscemo

4.75 miles at 8:53 pace.
Was dreading this run and ended up getting out late so it was freezing. I wrapped up really well though and in the end really enjoyed it. Legs felt really good as opposed to last night. I Got some really strange looks from people standing at bus stops.

9 days in a row running now in a bid to get back in shape (though sadly I can only count 6 of them in the running streak thread). I look like possibly hitting 50 miles for the week If i can get a decent long one in tomorrow.

menoscemo

13.1 miles at 9:26 in the snow and Ice. After a quick reconaissance mission of the local area this morning I decided the break out the 'ice shoes' (an old pair of pegasus into which I screwed cheesegraters, bolts and the like last winter). I probably made the wrong choice as within half a mile there was very little snow coverage on the footpaths and by ballyfermot none at all. Running over concrete in 'spikes' is not a pleasant experience for my poor feet. Once I got to phoenix park the terrain was beautiful but the snow was so frech I think regular runners would have been just as good.

Anyway glad to have covered the distance despite it being really slow. Legs a bit sore now from the unusual gait of the ice shoes on concrete and tarmac.

51 miles in the last 7 calendar days now and 10 days running in a row. Tomorrow will be just a few hungove recovery miles. One more hard week of training and I should be set for the Waterford half.

menoscemo

3.2 miles tonight, just to keep the streak going. Very slow pace in the fresh snow. I wore the regular trainers tonight and they were fine apart from crossing roads.

weekly total: 7 runs 45 miles

menoscemo

5 miles @8.50/mile round Tymon with the head torch this evening. Got off work a bit early due to the weather and the snow was tipping down during the run, really enjoyed it, conditions fine.

My only issue is the knee is a bit sore today. I am probably using different muscles running in the snow so the knee is probably taking an unusual strain. Hopefully I'll get to the gym later in the week to try to strengthen up the quads.

liamo123

Fair play menoscemo...I dont have to balls to brave the snow so poxy treadmill it is 4 me :mad:..Ur training seems to b going well.. Keep it up

menoscemo

Called off the planned track session tonight due to the weather. Did the intervals in the gym on the treadmill instead and at a much lower pace than last week.

10 x 400 at 15kph (6 min/mile) with 1min 30sec at 10kph between repeats. 3k warm up and 2k cool down made 11.4km in total. My longest ever threadmill run :pac:

7 miles

menoscemo

Just realised it's not really that bad a month at 128 miles. Sort of where I was as an average before marathon training started in June. Hopefully I can get back up to the high 100's or about 40 mpw in December. That will be tough with all the festivities though.

Month|Miles
January|112
February|73.6
March|117
April|141.8
May|155.7
June|152
July|201.1
August|166
September|215.7
October |162.8
November |128.2
Total|1626.1 miles

menoscemo

5 miles at 9:30 pace along the canal Pathway. Conditions fine apart from corssing roads. Snow is deep in place which makes the running very heavy. Beats a tradmill though any day.

menoscemo

Yesterday the running streak ended at 14 days. I had a bit of a cold a tough day with work and there was a blizzard outside so I gave the running a miss for once.

Today I set a new PB. Longest consecutive time on treadmill. With all teh talk on the main forum and thawing bringing icy footpaths I went to the gym and managed to lst an hour before the machine shut itself down telling me I had reached my maximum time limit!! I took that as my cue to quit.
I did something like 7 miles at approx 8:30 pace.

menoscemo

I was let down on todays group session, so I had a lie in. It was probably just as well. When I finally got to the Park, conditions were terrible. I had my home made snow spikes but the ground was a mixture of show Ice and slush and it kept giving way underfoot. You never knew what you were going to land in. It was a real recipe for breaking an ankle.
In the end I just managed 3 painfully slow miles. The only real option was to run on the main roads but the spikes don't suit that either. I'll maybe try a few miles on roads tomorrow. Hope this stuff clears now or it will be treadmill all next week :mad:

Aimman

menoscemo wrote: »

Yesterday the running streak ended at 14 days. I had a bit of a cold a tough day with work and there was a blizzard outside so I gave the running a miss for once.

Today I set a new PB. Longest consecutive time on treadmill. With all teh talk on the main forum and thawing bringing icy footpaths I went to the gym and managed to lst an hour before the machine shut itself down telling me I had reached my maximum time limit!! I took that as my cue to quit.
I did something like 7 miles at approx 8:30 pace.

Yeah, its annoying when the machine shuts off after the time limit. The things aren't designed for the LSRs

menoscemo

I Didn't get anything done yesterday. I had planned to do a few laps on the raod in an industrial estate but I had a hangover and the temps were in the minus zone giving probable icy conditions so I passed. That means last week was a very poor week: 5 runs 27 miles

Tonight I went back to the Gym and did another hour on the dreadmill. That included 10 intervals of 400m at 15.5 kph (I learned that lst weeks 15kph is not 6 min/mile). This felt really tough, much more so than it would be on a track.

Anyway total today 11.8km or 7.5miles (I think)

Brianderunner

menoscemo wrote: »

Tonight I went back to the Gym and did another hour on the dreadmill. That included 10 intervals of 400m at 15.5 kph (I learned that lst weeks 15kph is not 6 min/mile). This felt really tough, much more so than it would be on a track.

Anyway total today 11.8km or 7.5miles (I think)

6 min miling is 16.1 kmph isnt it?

menoscemo

Brianderunner wrote: »

6 min miling is 16.1 kmph isnt it?

Not, sure, I think it's a bit less than that. Seriously though, give me a track any day over a dreadmill.

What's the craic anyway? Are you gonna get back for waterford? There is no certainty it will go ahead by the way.

Brianderunner

menoscemo wrote: »

Not, sure, I think it's a bit less than that. Seriously though, give me a track any day over a dreadmill.

What's the craic anyway? Are you gonna get back for waterford? There is no certainty it will go ahead by the way.

16.093 kmph to be exact. Waterford is a no go for me, too dodgy/expensive/awkward etc. My dads over the wknd after too. Dungarvan 10 or Raheny 5 deffo. Barcelona couldbemy next A/R/T drinking session imagine that. :eek:

rainbow kirby

Brianderunner wrote: »

Barcelona couldbemy next A/R/T drinking session imagine that. :eek:

Going to have to be a lot of making up for lost time! :pac: