Micilín's Mucky Miles

Micilin Muc

Sufferfest, 2012.

Starting line at Crone Woods, finishing line at summit of Djouce Mountain - an elevation gain of 618m over 6.38km.

I judged by the hill profile that it would be a little bit hard for the first few km and a hard, steep last 3km. It turned out to be very hard for the first few km followed by really, really hard for the last 3km :pac:

I started very near the back with about 30 or 40 people behind me and passed a few people quite early on the forest road. Only a couple of people passed me. Was very impressed with the views of Powerscourt Waterfall - last time I ran this trail it was pitch black and could only hear the waterfall. The only respite in the whole race lasted 400m and was a very steep downhill to the bridge over the River Dargle. From here up to the summit was very tough and had a lot of walking. I power-walked past one runner Repeatedly alternated places with a fella in a purple shirt on to the finish. He finally got me with about 300m to go. The views at the top of Djouce were non-existent - 20 metres visibility! A great race all the same! Probably could have done better without 65km in my legs over the previous 4 days.

Placing: 79 out of 161 (top 49%) (turns out I passed out around 60 people)
Percentage of winner's time: 144%

Currently in 15th place in the league out of 26 (with 7 races).

Garmin Link

Micilin Muc

Friday

Running: 19km around Phoenix Park with Vagga at 6am. The time flew by and was home in no time. He's a mine of information on weight loss!

Micilin Muc

Friday

Swimming: 600 metres or so after work at Seapoint. Out to the first buoy and back, high tide. On the return I badly grazed my toe and knee on underwater rocks west of the Martello tower as the incoming tide pushed us slightly away from the slip. Lesson learned - stay away from those rocks and leave sudocreme and plasters in swim bag. Afraid to look at toe this morning!

Micilin Muc

Saturday

Had to get a tetanus booster in my arm because of the cut I got on my leg and the risk of infection from the seawater. Taking antibiotics too now.

Sunday

No 20-mile run today, my stomach was a bit dodgy. Walked 7km or something

Monday

Cycling: 10km to work

Running: 32km home from work over Three Rock, Tibradden and Cruagh. Lovely evening, a few runners on the trails, traffic-less roads due to the Ireland-Italy match.

Weighed myself at the gym, down to 73kg now. Down another 1.3kg from two weeks ago. Total weight loss of 3kg over three weeks

Tuesday

Running: Didn't feel like a run, but I was 2 miles short of 1000 miles for 2012. Ran 5.9km to work to hit 1002 miles, six months earlier than last year

Micilin Muc

Tuesday

Walking: 5km at lunchtime

Cycling: 10km home from work

Wednesday

Cycling: 10km to work

Swimming: 400m at Seapoint. The lifeguard informed me of the distances between the buoys and the Martello Tower. I have to say I'm disappointed as I thought the distances were longer. Anyway it's all good!

IMRA race on Sorrel Hill tonight. I don't know the area at all so I'll have to check out the hill profile and distance.

Micilin Muc

My best performance in the league by far!

Placing 66th out of 210 (top 32%)
Percentage of winner's time (124%)

I placed myself about 3/4 of the way down the starting field. I had no expectations of a good performance so I was surprised to be passing so many people in the first few km of forest road. In fact I don't think anybody passed me all the way up to the summit turnaround. I was kind of prepared for the boggy section in the middle (my prerace research consisted of finding out the Irish name for the hill from the Placenames Database of Ireland and finding out that the hill is covered in peat!).

The climb up to the summit wasn't runable but I powerwalked most of it and ran past people to gain places. I expected to be passed by lots of people on the descent but I found that my legs were surprisingly fresh and could manage a fast cadence. Only 2 or 3 people passed me and I passed about 10 people :eek: I fell flat on my face into the heather when my foot got sucked into a hole - no damage done! It did take the wind out of me but I picked up speed after about 500m.

The final bit of descending before the forest road was fun but needed full concentration. I was passed by 2 people on the forest road despite running flat out. My final splits were 4:04min/km and 3:20min/km for the last 440 metres.

Very happy with this race - a mixture of good form, less weight to carry and a bit of guts!

9.44km in 53:45
Garmin Link

Current league standing: 33rd out of 55 (top 60%).

claralara

Fantastic result! You must be delighted - enjoy it. Congrats

Micilin Muc

Thanks! Will be hard to repeat for the remaining 4 weeks

Micilin Muc

Thursday

Running: 11.3km recovery home from work.

Friday

Running: 10.4km recovery to work.

Saturday

Running: 17.89km General Aerobic out to Poolbeg Lighthouse and back.

Sunday

Running: 23.91km Long run with 19km PMP

I was ready to beat my 10-mile and half-marathon PBs by more than 10 minutes each but met some friends halfway through the PMP miles and I stopped to talk :rolleyes:

This was my last run before going into marathon training for DCM. Over the past 9 weeks I have built up my mileage to 50+ miles per week and have done a few PMP long runs at 8:00min/mile pace. I'm not 100% comfortable doing these PMP runs yet but that'll be OK in a few weeks I reckon.

Starting tomorrow I will follow the P&D 55-70 plan for eighteen weeks :pac:

Micilin Muc

Monday

Rest or cross-training. I chose cross-training.

Cycling: 21km to and from work.

Swimming: 750m at Seapoint. Saw some jellyfish.

Walking: 10km - up to Bushy Park and back. Counted 57 runners.


Tuesday

Walking: 2.5km to bus to work.

Swimming: 750m at Seapoint.

Running: 14km with 6km at Lactate Threshold pace (4:52min/km). Left the office at 9.30pm so was wrecked. A very warm evening too! LT kms were hard, but felt good to finish it.


Wednesday

Cycling: 10.5km to work.

Swimming: 1000m at Seapoint at lunchtime.

Running: Will run 18km Medium-Long Run home from work later. I'm not doing IMRA tonight. I want to focus more on DCM training at the moment!

Micilin Muc

I'm finding this tough already. Last night's 18km went well, but it certainly wasn't easy. This morning's 8km recovery was very welcome and I do feel slightly better for it.

I have a feeling I may be overtraining (cross-training wise) and I may not be getting enough calories. 3 days straight of OW swimming and 1 long walk on Monday is a lot on top of what I'm used to.

Weight-wise, I've lost weight which is always good. But I've been on a 750-calorie deficit diet for the past 4 weeks and I think it's too much for the amount of exercise I've been doing for the past 7 days.

Will decide later today, but will probably cut back on the swimming and will up my calorie intake. Just a bit of tweaking!

Thursday

Running: 8km recovery to work.

Cycling: 10.5km2.5km home from DART & a pint of Guinness

Swimming:750m at Seapoint. I couldn't resist as the weather was so nice

tHE vAGGABOND

had some similar thoughts on diet versus training levels/intensity...

Micilin Muc

Friday

Running: 13.83km General Aerobic to work. I kept the pace at the slower end of the prescribed range. I don't feel too bad at all this morning

If weather is nice I'll go swimming again at lunchtime.

The only decision I made re overtraining is to up my calorie intake. Crosstraining isn't taking that much out of me.

Aimman

Micilin Muc wrote: »

I'm finding this tough already.

It gets better. The first week of P&D is usually a bit of a wake up call. unfortunately, I practically slept through this week. :eek:

Micilin Muc

Saturday

Running: 8km Recovery in Spiddal. I kept the pace way down - 6:19min/km. It was recovery in the true sense of the word!

Sunday

Running: 26km Long Run. This was supposed to be 24km but I didn't have my plan with me while away so I didn't know what I was supposed to do! Pace was good - 5:40min/km over a relatively hilly course.

A good finish to the first week. It was surprisingly hard.

My build up to the start of this plan consisted of following the first 9 weeks of P&D-55 weekly mileage and weekend Long Run. Although the final few weeks were around the same mileage as the first week of P&D-70, the mid-week running is now a lot harder. Something to bear in mind for anybody trying P&D-70 for the first time.

Micilin Muc

Monday

Cycling: 10km to work

Running: 11km General Aerobic & Speed home from work. Rest day was scheduled but I'm shifting my runs back one day each so I can spend more quality time on Sundays!


Tuesday

Running: 18km to work. Misread the schedule, should have done 19km. The rain caused a lot of chafing :mad:

Cycling: 10km home from work.


Wednesday

Cycling: 10km to work

Swimming: 1 hour in the water at Seapoint after work. Tide was way out so it was hard to find a deep enough stretch to swim properly. Realistically it was about 35 minutes swimming, 25 minutes walking. Good fun all the same.

Running: 9km Recovery home. Mild hypothermia had set in by the time I was getting dressed. I couldn't even pull my 1000 Miles running socks on. Had to run home in office socks!

The run itself was really tough. I didn't have my Garmin watch so I turned on the tracker on my phone and left it in the bag on my back. My legs were very heavy and I had no bounce in my step! I guess that's why the triathletes call it a 'brick'!


Thursday

Running: 14km General Aerobic to work. A beautiful early morning run along the coast and West Pier. Very humid, but not many people about Still found the running hard (had a heavy bag today). Should be fine tomorrow.

Micilin Muc

Thursday

Swimming: 1000m at Seapoint at lunchtime. Our group of lunchtime swimmers has grown to three - the third addition went off like a rocket today so there was no time for messing about. Following on from some feedback from my colleague, I started stretching my arms out further to get more power into the stroke. I certainly feel it in my arms today but the direction of the tide made it difficult to tell what kind of difference it made. Will have to do something about all the rolling about too. I think my legs kick too far apart.

Cycling: 10km home from work.

Friday

Running: 8km Recovery to work. Nice and handy.

I may do the Clontarf Half tomorrow. My schedule calls for 26km with 13km @ PMP so I'll register on the morning if the weather is nice!

tHE vAGGABOND

Think it's sold out?

Micilin Muc

Saturday

Running: 26km with 13km @PMP (5:00min/km)

Previously I would have done this session with a 6.5km warmup and 6.5km cooldown on either side of the PMPs. Having reread the description in Advanced Marathoning, it appears I've been doing it wrong all along.

So this time I ran it the correct way: 13km warmup and the final 13km @PMP. Needless to way it was a lot harder than before. The humidity didn't help either. Still and all I had the energy to have a final km split of 4:49.


Sunday
My first day's rest from running in 13 days and my second day's rest in 21 days. Yesterday's PMP Long Run has had a good effect on me as my legs feel surprisingly fresh and have no soreness at all.

Second week over and it was a lot more manageable than week one Next week will be a good bit tougher, especially as there are three Medium-Long Runs :eek: - 18km, 21km and 24km. It's hard to shake the feeling that I'm doing nothing but running all the time!

Marthastew

Micilin Muc wrote: »

It's hard to shake the feeling that I'm doing nothing but running all the time!

Knightmove

I get tired just reading your log! Well done on the mileage so far....

tHE vAGGABOND

I am also hoping to do a MidWeek LSR of around 24k, as I'm away for weekend and I want to get one longer LSR done this week as I have not been over half marathon distance in ages and need to start building that up.

Let me know your plan for doing this [or something close to it] and we can do something interesting before or after work this week sometime

Micilin Muc

Monday

Cycling: 10.5km to work

Swimming: 1000m OW swimming at Seapoint.

Running: 18km home from work. Kept the pace slow, at 5:55min/km.

Eating: Two breakfasts, two lunches and a massive dinner. Still felt hungry.


Tuesday

Running: 21km to work. Added to Monday night's run, I ran 39km in one 12-hour period Discovered how to access the second breakwater wall (red light) in Dún Laoghaire harbour - nice and quiet.

Swimming: 1400m OW swimming after work at Seapoint. A great session!

Cycling: 9.5km home from Seapoint.


Wednesday

Cycling: 10.5km to work.

Swimming: Will swim at lunchtime, no doubt!

My final IMRA race tonight - Ballinastoe.

ronanmac

A serious workload there, Micilín Muc! Are the abs beginning to show?! (despite, of course, the two breakfasts, two lunches and the massive dinner!):D

Micilin Muc

ronanmac wrote: »

A serious workload there, Micilín Muc! Are the abs beginning to show?! (despite, of course, the two breakfasts, two lunches and the massive dinner!):D

Yes, but only in my dreams! A few weeks in the Conamara hills and I'd be sorted

Micilin Muc

Placing: 83 out of 174 (top 48%)
Percentage of winner's time: 136%

A fantastic race. As was stated on the forum 'there was something for everyone'. Fast descents, forest road, forest trail, lots of mud, some steep uphills but not too steep, longish course (11.33km by my watch).

For me this race was about improving my league standing and I did just that. I paced myself well throughout the whole race. Highlights for me were the forest trails where I was dodging branches like a boxer and bouncing around like Sonic the Hedgehog. Coming towards the end of the last trail I had another runner breathing down my neck and ready to pass me. I held off all the way to the forest road and from there I let rip and left him in the dust with a top speed pace of 3:01min/km He shook my hand at the end so it was all good friendly competition.

Very disappointed that the league is now over for me (can't make the final race next week). I improved my league standing by a few percentage points (was in top 64%, now in top 61%). Final standing will be confirmed next week.

11.33km in 1:16
Garmin Link

belcarra

Micilin Muc wrote: »

I held off all the way to the forest road and from there I let rip and left him in the dust

Not surprised you held him off!!:D

Fair play - you seem to be progressing well with the training/racing!

Micilin Muc

belcarra wrote: »

Not surprised you held him off!!:D

Fair play - you seem to be progressing well with the training/racing!

When you gotta go you gotta go

Thanks! You doing any more IMRAs this year?

nerraw1111

Great race wasn't it? Had a massive smile hurtling through the trees.

Well done on holding someone the runner off. Very satisfying to hold runners off on the fireroad. Equally, it's a pain in the arse to get taken there.

belcarra

Micilin Muc wrote: »

When you gotta go you gotta go

Thanks! You doing any more IMRAs this year?

Planning on doing the Half Marathon 'PLOD' this weekend.
I'll certainly be plodding as I'll be using it as a training run.

You doing it?