The Hundred mile week dream.

dermCu

Nice running sarsfieldsrock. Is it also known as the Sparks half marathon? I did this one last year but they seem to have changed it around. Last year it was all one race and started and finished from the other end of the lake to the club house. The course is as fast as you'll get but if there is any wind its horribly exposed. Ran a 10k there once on a windy day - nearly broke my heart.

Aimman

Well done on the times, thats a great result. Barca 3:30 should be no problem for you. Looks like I'll have my work cut out for Connemara now.

sarsfieldsrock

dermCu wrote: »

Nice running sarsfieldsrock. Is it also known as the Sparks half marathon? I did this one last year but they seem to have changed it around. Last year it was all one race and started and finished from the other end of the lake to the club house. The course is as fast as you'll get but if there is any wind its horribly exposed. Ran a 10k there once on a windy day - nearly broke my heart.

I don't know if it was the sparks but this war organised by some organisation called Human Race.
http://www.humanrace.co.uk/events/run/race-your-pace-half-marathon-2011

It was fairly open to the wind all right but we were okay on Sunday anyway. It would make more sense to have it finish outside the club house if you could use it as they did on Sunday. Theres a nice viewing area on the club house balcony from where you can view the entire course.
I will probably go back again next year for another attempt at a PB.

sarsfieldsrock

Easy 5 miles

The rain was just starting when I finished this. It was just a nice run to loosen out the legs after the weekend. All was fine and after a slowish first mile when I had to adjust the mp3 player twice I got into a nice rythym.
I have been trying to get my easy pace down to less than 4 hour marathon pace and it looks like I have succeeded in that.

Oisin11178

Eddie great progress with the new half pb. You have a better half pb than me now:D

RacoonQueen

Great work at the weekend, you've left me in your dust now. This has to be rectified. :pac:

sarsfieldsrock

Wed Track

This was supposed to be 5x1000m at at 4:10-4-120 per 1000m.
And for the first 3 1000m intervals it was. The last two were run on legs of what felt like jelly though and the times dropped right off.
I only got through the 4th by telling myself that it would be the last and that I would do one less than planned after the weekends exertions.
When I had done the 4th I managed to talk myself into the 5th one for completeness sake.

RQ. Maybe you will have a go at Barca yet and out do me there?
Frank: You will surely have a go at a sub 1:30 half this year? You should be well able for that at this stage. Or even 1:20 now.

Oisin11178

Training for barca has killed me eddie. Ive smashed my 10k and 10 mile pbs in training runs. The training is so tiring. Ill deffo race a half this year. Just finding the right one that doesnt clash with something else is the problem.

sarsfieldsrock

6 Miles

This Sunday run was supposed to be 10 miles at planned marathon pace which is 8 min.
I stopped after 6 because I felt completely drained. I had had a very rough weekend before this so when I was feeling rotten after 5 I decided to pack it in shortly after.
I am worried that I might blow up in Barca now but I will have to go out and try for it. I have not been able to stick to the plan for this race and have only had a longest run of 18 miles.
Well we will see. Theres only a few more runs this week before I fly out on Friday morn.

sarsfieldsrock

Barcelona Breakfast Run

This turned out to be my only run since last Sunday with work taking over for the week.
I met up with some other Boards posters for the brekkie run. It was over part of the 1992 marathon course and finished in the Olympic Stadium. It was my first ever time running on a proper track and I managed to outsprint my pacer for tomorrows race which was nice.
It seemed very warm in the stadium itself as we took a few photos but it was much cooler outside thankfully. The last thing we want tomorrow if for it to be too warm.

RAL3

Best of luck tomorrow

sarsfieldsrock

Barcelona Mar

Went fine until 30K when I just blew up. I kind of knew that might happen as I hadn't got the long runs done in the last month but I said that I would have a shot at the sub 3:30 and see what happened.
What happened was that I sacrificed my chances of sub 3:40 but that was always a risk.
From 30k on was not pleasant but I got around anyway.
Maybe Amsterdam will be an option for another effort at 3:30.

chinguetti

Tough luck today but at least you know the sub 3.30 is there, its just a matter of when you get to do it.

Enjoy the pints, they're well deserved.

sarsfieldsrock

Recovery 5 Miles

Why couldn't I run the last 5 miles in Barcelona at this pace?:(

sarsfieldsrock

Barcelona Marathon Race Report.

Well this was a bad day at the running office for me. I went off way too fast and paid the price for it big time. Around the 18 mile mark I bonked and cramped in my thighs. I had to take walk breaks from then on and had two miles over 10 minutes after that.

I was up around 6 am and breakfasted on milk with a ciabatta and bananas. I also had my first can of red bull. After getting my gear organised I went down to the start for about 8am. The start was only 5 min walk from the hotel and I had a second car of red bull as I looked for an entrance for the 3:30 - 4:00 pen. Eventually I realise that I had to walk around the back of all the pens to get into it. I managed to get a position about 4 rows from the barriers at the front and was then a bit annoyed to see a lot of yellow numbers in the pen ahead of mine. I was there for about 8:10 and only then realised that the start was for 8:30 and not 9:00 am as I had thought. I spotted the 3:30 pacers and the 3:45 pacers in the pen ahead of me which was a bit confusing. Shouldn’t they both be in my pen?
There were announcements that the elites would be starting before us and then the barriers in between the pens were removed. There was an immediate surge as people flooded forwards intent on getting directly behind their respective pacers. A few minutes later the race started and we were soon over the start line. I was a long way behind the 3:30 balloons so I said that I would give myself until mile 10 to catch them and then tuck in behind them.
The first few miles were your typical big city marathon where it is taking a while for the course to string out a little. There was lots of weaving and overtaking and annoyance at runners who were obviously in the wrong pen but overall it wasn’t too bad as I quickly enough got into a good rhythm. Maybe it was too good of a rhythm but the first mile was 8:03.
From there until mile 10 I tried to be consistent in my pacing but I did get ahead of myself. I had the Garmin set for a training option of 26.45 miles in 3:29:45 and I was ahead of that target after a couple of miles but not by too much. I got the bottle of water at each stand and drank the full bottle. I took my gel every 3 mile and everything seemed to be going fine.
I caught the 3:30 pacers around the 8-10 mile range and pushed on past them instead of settling in behind them as I should have done. I had planned to merely stay in front of them but didn’t. Instead I pushed on and even did a 7:18 mile on mile 11. Looking back this was way too fast.
I did the half in 1:43:37.
Before two weeks ago my PB for the half was 1:43:35 so this is some indication of the speed I was trying to go. The most I should have been up at this stage was 20 secs but I wasn’t watching this. I got caught up with passing people out instead of going for a conservative positive / negative split.

If I had dropped the pace off at the half way point then I might have ran for longer than I did but the damage was probably done by then. That was over 1 min 20 secs ahead of schedule and that is about 1 minute too much. Mile 14 was 7:37 and I did manage to rein my pace in then or I was maybe starting to flag anyway. Miles 15-17 were 08:00, 08:04 and 08:02 so they were spot on but then I just went bang in the space of about 50m in mile 18. In the course of these miles it started getting appreciably warmer as well. I started to really notice the sun when not running in the shade whereas earlier in the morning it hadn’t seemed that warm.
Just before I got to the 30k mark the thighs cramped up and I had to stop and walk. I took a gel and started running again but it was an 8:45 mile. I tried to keep running but every time I went above a certain pace I cramped and had to walk. Mile 19 was 08:48 and that was the last one under 9 minutes. It was a long way to the finish from here and there was a lot of walking and swearing to and at myself.
I started taking 2 bottles of water at aid stations. One was for over my head and the other for drinking. Neither had much affect as I had to keep taking walking breaks and I was really feeling the affects of the heat now.
In the last few miles I was trying not to walk but I couldn’t maintain a run for long as loads of runners passed me by. I was still trying to run as much as possible in an attempt to beat my fall back targets for the race.
The first was to at least break 3:40 and this didn’t happen.
I did think around the 35k mark that I should be able to break the 3:40 barrier but I had spent too much energy in the first 18 miles to do so and was only going backwards at that point.
The last was to get a PB, previous best was 3:42:31 and this didn’t happen either. In fact I was lucky enough to get under the 3:45 in the end.
The last few miles were fairly torturous. I was out on my feet, boiling hot and there was more cement flagstones than there had been in the race so far.
The last 7 miles were timed at 09:16, 09:43, 09:36, 10:18, 09:25, 09:31, 10:04 and the last bit of 0.45 was 04:18. At the 40k mark I was 3:29:53 so I knew the sub 3:40 was probably gone but I still thought that I might get a PB out of it. When you start taking walk breaks it is very difficult to get back to running non-stop again. The last 2.195k took me 13:20 and I finished in 3:43:13 so I was 42 secs outside of my PB.
Coming up to the finish was pretty confusing as I mistook one of the arches for the finish and sped up for that finish only to realise there was another few hundred feet to go yet.
I got there and then managed to mess up the garmin stop and start. I had 3:42:58 but the official time gave me 3:43:13. My time was for the 26:45 that I had the watch set for so it was close enough distance wise.
The finish area was fairly mobbed as well. There was a fairly small exit chute and then you were out into the main crowd. I was amazed that there was nobody walking into the fountains but there were a lot of people bathing their feet in them. I gave up looking for familiar faces after a minute and headed back to the hotel.
It was great afterwards to meet so many Boardies at the George Payne. Almost everybody else had gotten PB’s but they had also ran more sensible races so well done to all of them.
Even thought 25th March next year will probably be just as warm I think that I cannot leave the race with my memories of it being so disappointing.
So I shall return.

RacoonQueen

Even thought 25th March next year will probably be just as warm I think that I cannot leave the race with my memories of it being so disappointing.

That's my thoughts exactly on Barcelona. Don't think I'll be there next year but maybe in 2013.

sarsfieldsrock

Monday Run

I was out sick all last week and this was the first run since the 5 mile warm down after Barca. I am trying to whip the brother into shape for the Kildare half in May so this is his designated long run night. We hope to get get him up to 10 miles running non stop before the half itself.
Nice and slow this evening and he ran the first 4 miles before taking 2 (very short) walk breaks in the last mile.
A good start but there have been a few false dawns with this lad before so we will not get too optimistic yet.

sarsfieldsrock

Wed 5 Miles

Its not much of a run but at least I got out the door and did it. I am still very flat after the does of antibiotics and being sick all last week.
This week and last week was supposed to see the ratcheting up of milage for a few weeks but that has been shot to pieces now.
Connemara is only going to be a training run now as is every race up to the Portumna 100k. After that I will decide if I can push on and try the Conn 100 in August.
So there probably won't be any more races with target times this year.
The next one might actually be Barcelona again if things go well this year.:rolleyes:

Macanri

A bit late to this one sfr, Nice to meet you over the weekend in Barca. Funny how a lot of the Barca heads have picked up colds or bugs in the week after the race.

All the best with the ultra training. I don't think - actually I'ld be fairly sure that my legs (joints mainly) wouldn't be able for that kind of sh!t.

rainbow kirby

Macanri wrote: »

Funny how a lot of the Barca heads have picked up colds or bugs in the week after the race.

I'm the exception, got mine 5 days before the race :pac:

sarsfieldsrock

Sun Long Run

Well it was a semi long run anyway and my longest since Barcelona. I went out to the Curragh and did a lap of that before heading home. There was a nasty enough headwind there at times but it is a lovely place to run.
It was nice and sunny for most of it today and I felt a bt too warm with my under armor top and tshirt.
I am doubtful of the ultra in Connemara now. I haven't the training done for it and it would be a painful experience. I might drop down to the marathon or defer it to next year yet.

RacoonQueen

Macanri wrote: »

A bit late to this one sfr, Nice to meet you over the weekend in Barca. Funny how a lot of the Barca heads have picked up colds or bugs in the week after the race.

Even those of us that didn't run! :mad:

sarsfieldsrock

But some of ye will always complain!

Monday 6

I will run the Conn Ultra, or that is what I think today but it may change, so I got out and did a bit of a warm down run today. It was difficult to keep the pace down but I would be delighted if my slow run pace was around the 9 minute mark now.

menoscemo

sarsfieldsrock wrote: »

I will run the Conn Ultra, or that is what I think today but it may change,

You better. I need to collect that money off you straight after the race. I've built my whole last 6 months dreaming of you handing me over that €50 note.

sarsfieldsrock

menoscemo wrote: »

You better. I need to collect that money off you straight after the race. I've built my whole last 6 months dreaming of you handing me over that €50 note.

Oh I will be there all right but I might not be doing the Ultra. If I run the marathon it would only give you a target to chase so I might drop down to the half altogether as I have never ran it.
After 3 marathons and 3 ultras there it would be nice to run the half there.

menoscemo

sarsfieldsrock wrote: »

Oh I will be there all right but I might not be doing the Ultra. If I run the marathon it would only give you a target to chase so I might drop down to the half altogether as I have never ran it.
After 3 marathons and 3 ultras there it would be nice to run the half there.

Best of luck. Will they let you switch at this late stage or is the deadline just for deferals?

shazkea

Finally got round to reading your report on Barca - well done again and best of luck with Conn, whichever one you do!

sarsfieldsrock

shazkea wrote: »

Finally got round to reading your report on Barca - well done again and best of luck with Conn, whichever one you do!

Thanks. It will be the Ultra. Even though I probably shouldn't I will.:rolleyes:
What are you up to next? You doing the Kildare half? I thought you said so but can't be sure.

Tuesday 7

I like this route and with the evenings starting to lengthen it is now safe to do again without being lit up like a Christmas tree.
I did a second loop of the main road out past the dog track and up by Hawkfield. That little lap is a handy 1.25 miles and has a nice tough hill and descent in it so it will be much run in the coming months. 5 laps of that and the rest of the course will make a nice testing 10 mile run when the evenings are brighter.
Not too quick tonight but I am off to the track tomorrow and wanted to keep a good reserve for that.

Aimman

Are you heading to Mallow for the 10M on the Sunday with the bunch on the train?

sarsfieldsrock

Aimman wrote: »

Are you heading to Mallow for the 10M on the Sunday with the bunch on the train?

No. I am heading to Parc Ui Chaoimh for the Tipp Cork game at 2:30.
I will be getting the 5:30 train from Cork back up to Dublin though.