Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
semper currere
Options
Comments
-
-
Fri 13/4/2012
4.05 km in 22:30 @ 5:33/km
My running week schedule asked for a 2 mile easy run today, just to keep me ticking over, so I kept an eye on the variable conditions, and darted out during a clear spell. Motivation was helped somewhat by writer's block for the current PhD chapter.
This was nice and easy, my breathing was controlled and my legs felt much lighter than Wednesday. After this, I'm a bit more confident of kicking on for Sunday. I think the target will be 1:25 for the 10 miles, anything under will be a bonus. Apart from that, I have everything set up including a cheerleader for the finish line! Roll on Sunday. 
Week (8) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
Apr 9th - 15th | 2 | 13.86 km | 56.27 km | 237.45 km0 -
Sun 13/4/2012
Warm up run +
Great Island Run 10 miles in 81:58.7 seconds.
(Total 17.13km)
I honestly thought this was going to be a disaster, with a poor tempo run on Wednesday. I got up early, had some porridge and berries, and drank loads of water, before heading down to Cobh about an hour before the start time. Had my first experience of toilet queues, friendly locals with tasty cakes, and the general buzz of a community race event. The weather was gorgeous, and I got myself set up in no time. On advice from folks on the DCM continuation thread, I did some warm up running, which really helped, and I was all set. I decided in my head that I would keep things calm for the first four miles, and then try as hard as I could to get somewhere around 1:25, but the main thing was to beat 1:30. I positioned myself towards the rear of the throng, and waited for the whistle.
About a minute before hand, I suddenly needed to 'go'. 'Too late!', my brain cried, as everyone shuffled off in pursuit of the starting runners. The first four miles consisted of wistful glances at narrow country lanes and internal debates on the ethics of going in public. I held strong, and it went away by the fourth mile. By that stage, I had two draining hills to distract me. I finally settled into a rhythm, helped by some kindly positioned downward slopes, and by the time I hit 5 miles, I was feeling pretty good. The split time was 42 minutes and 7 seconds, so once I grasped the significance of that (that a 1:22 time was possible and all I had to do was run a time I had done a few times before), I started to work harder from mile 6 to mile 9. At this stage, I was running with the same people mile by mile, so I was able to concentrate on keeping up with them. The tenth mile, I would have given my left hand for a single haribo or jelly baby, but I had nothing, so I had to rely on stupid old willpower. Suddenly it was all over, I was holding a mars bar and a bottle of water, and it was like it never happened at all!
It was beautifully sunny, running by the water was fantastic, and we were well looked after by the locals. And it felt magnificent to finish!
Week (8) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
Apr 9th - 15th | 3 | 30.99 km | 73.4 km | 254.8 km0 -
-
Wed 25/4/2012
Easy/Recovery paced run: 9.34km in 58:16.
My first run since the Great Island Run, some 10 days beforehand, due to a family bereavement up the country last week, which took 4 days out of my PhD writing time. All my spare time since was dedicated to catching up, while making it harder to go out each time. Throw in the rainy weather, and I was seriously unmotivated and stressed by yesterday. Somethingh had to give!
I ran this straight after my lunch, and had a permanent(if manageable) stitch throughout. It wasn't a particularly pleasureable run, akin to cycling a bike in top gear up a hill, but I knew it had to be done, and that things will improve from here on in. Plus, I got to test out my aldi rain running jacket, which worked out just fine.
Table skips to week 10, since week 9 has a grand total of zilch.
Week (10) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
Apr 23rd - 29th | 1 | 9.34 km | 82.74 km | 264.14 km0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
Sun 6/5/2012
16.67km in 1:38:41 @ 5:55/km, 140m climb
This was lovely until the thirteenth kilometre, where I lost all energy. I went out on an empty stomach and a glass of water, which no doubt contributed. The plan was to do 20km, with the half marathon next Saturday, but this was still useful. More miles, some of them good.
Week (11) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
Apr 30th - May 6th | 2 | 16.67 km | 16.67 km | 318.95 km
Very light week next week, following Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half:
Tue: 6.5km
Wed: 30 min tempo
Thurs: 3.2km
Fri: rest
Sat: Half Marathon
Slightly worried that I've never ran this distance before, but hopefully I'll have enough to get by. The aim is to get in under 1:50, which means sub 8:25 miles. Should be manageable, although the last mile and a half will be unknown territory! Looking forward to it!0 -
Wed 9/5/2012
1.51km warm up, followed by 6.34 km in 30:06 @ 4.45/km
Appalling weather, but this was a really good tempo run. Felt very strong, and the thinking was to give the body a bit of a jolt before the race on Saturday. Breathing and control was good, and I'm much more confident of maintaining around 5:10/km for a sub 1:50 half on Saturday.
However, I'm going to have to take every precaution in protecting my nipples. Two owies.
Week (12) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
May 7th - 13th | 1 | 7.85 km | 33.09 km | 326.8 km
Maybe a light couple of miles on Thursday, but otherwise ready for Saturday morning.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
red face dave wrote: »I like running half marathons its a distance that you can enjoy. 13 miles is far but you should be able to enjoy it. The best thing about the marathon training is that especially up until mid September all your LSR are in or around 13 miles so plenty of opportunities to do half marathons.
Well that's the plan. I think I will really like the sub 2 hour nature of them (touch wood) also. I'm in two minds whether to commit to a marathon this year, since it coincides with a remarkably busy period of my life - but there's no harm in training for one anyway, and fitting a load of halves in! 0 -
Gnngh! Felt a slight twinge in my right hamstring towards the end of tonight's game of five-o-side, hope it's gone for Saturday!
It's just a really minor twinge, that would normally be gone in 1-3 days. Hopefully lots of frequent gentle stretching should see me right.
Otherwise a long distance to do one-legged.
0 -
-
-
Sat 12/5/2012
1.6km warm up, followed by Bandon HM in 1:49:01 official time.
(Warning: report may involve use of mileage rather than km, I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the mental arithmetic gymnastics converting one to the other after half way through the race - normal coverage resumes next run)
The weather has been shocking in Cork since God knows when, but I was greeted at 6.30am by the sun streaming in through the blind this morning. Helped with the hopping out of bed, and the general clumsy dressing that usually accompanies any of my early morning activities. Got some porridge, berries, banana and water in me, and headed down to Bandon. Being particularly noobish, I was ridiculously early, but it allowed me relax and think about what sort of pace I wanted to do. Plus the start time wasn't long coming. Did my 1 mile warm up, fumbled with safety pins, and made my way to the line. Chatted to a couple of familiar faces, and compiled an image (almost completely incorrect) of what the course would be like ("grand, no big hills, like!").
Started off the first 4.5 miles fairly comfortable, at a pace of about 8:05/mile. Got more difficult in the middle section, I even got a stitch on a long hill around mile 7 marker which took a few minutes to shake off. I found the course challenging, every time I crested a hill and went downhill, I thought that was it, but there always seemed another hill in reserve! There was a lovely fast downhill around mile 11 which I thought was the end of them, but another long one came up, which nearly killed me. I felt like hailing a cab! I was running a bit slow at that point, so I had to put in two near 8 min miles to come in at my target. Which was sub 1:50.
The end involved a crazy sprint race with another guy who thundered up behind me out of nowhere. I was matching him stride for stride, but then there was a steward in the way, trying to point me onto the first mat. I hadn't a clue what was going on, went around him, then went back to hit the mat, then went on towards the line (again, noobish behaviour!). I lost, but it was fun! And the sprint finish certainly helped with the time!
On the race itself, while I'm not qualified to comment on how quick a route would be, I've a feeling Bandon might not be a place for hunting PBs. Having said that, it was well organised, with lots of locals manning water tables (a mix of cups, and little bottles). Stewards were good craic too. Tea and sandwiches were great at the end, as were the oranges. Everyone was friendly, and the parking seemed well organised. I'll definitely be back next year, hopefully with a stronger base to deal with its particular challenges!
Week (12) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
May 7th - 13th | 2 | 30.54 km | 55.78 km | 349.49 km0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Tue 15/5/2012
8.04 in 46:50 (easy run) 5:51/km pace
First pre-work run in weeks, but this is a necessity if I want to get some decent kilometres in. Still feeling a little tiredness from Saturday's exertions, but I need to get cracking again. This was fine, the best achievement was dragging myself out of bed an hour earlier than normal.
Finished the run with 2 x minute hills. While hard work as usual, I felt much more control and power than the last time I did it. Progress I guess.
Tomorrow it's intervals, as prescribed by the sage Ecoli on the DCM 2011 continuation thread.
Week (13) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
May 14th - 20th | 1 | 8.04 km | 71.13 km | 364.84 km0 -
Wed 16/5/2012
8.2 km in 45:35 (1.6km warmup, 6 x 600m intervals, 1.3km cool down).
|Interval|1|2|3|4|5|6|
|Pace/km|4'22"|4'23"|4'14"|4'39"|4'27"|4'10"|
Following ecoli's plan for the week, the intervals were to be 5k pace -5 seconds. My (training) 5k pb is 23:34, which works out at about 4:43/km pace. Hence the task was to run these intervals @ 4:38/km. I decided to simply run quickly for 600m, and if the interval was quicker then what was required, so be it. It's difficult to control pace in such a short distance with technology.
Another morning pre-work run, which I'm delighted with. Sunny morning, the local park was open early, so I got to do these on grass too! Spent extra time stretching my calves both before and after, which seems to have eased tightness completely. The intervals are a little varied :P, but I figure I gave the lungs a good work out there, so no harm done. I feel less tired today than yesterday. Go figure.
Also creeping towards 400km, which should be reached some time Sunday - 1/4 of the way to my 1600km.
Will try work out some race target times soon. I'd like to do a 10k just to get a starting time down for it.
Week (13) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
May 14th - 20th | 2 | 16.24 km | 79.33 km | 373.04 km0 -
-
newbie runner wrote: »looks like the Emer Casey Foundation 10k this weekend in Youghal would be a good one to start with so???
I was thinking that, only I'm a bit stuck for time at the moment, all over the place with things that must be completed. I'm keeping my options open, and if I'm free, I'll head down. 0 -
-
-
-
Sun 20/5/2012
16.56 km in 1:41:43 @ 6:09/km (90 min run prescribed).
Nice enough, a bit of sunshine to begin with, before it got a little muggy. This wasn't too tough, but I could feel heaviness in my legs, and my breathing got laboured every time I went a little quicker! Still, it's been a heavy ten days from my perspective, so that's to be expected. Delighted to get four sessions in this week, I think the key to it was the early morning midweek runs, so that's the plan for next week.
Week (13) | Sessions | WTD | MTD | YTD
May 14th - 20th | 4 | 43.68 km | 106.77 km | 400.48 km
400km! Roughly 25% of the 1000 miles target for the year. Hopefully 40km weeks will now become the baseline standard for the rest of the year (famous last words...) 0 -
Advertisement
-
Advertisement