Don't get injured and go from there

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Monday 26th
6.5 miles easy @ 8:10 pace.

Wednesday 28th
5 and a bit miles easy @ 8:00
Inspired by NE I decided to take out the HRM for this run just to see how easy is easy. I have a new thing of not looking at the watch so just running by feel so not using the watch to determine pace. Averaged out at 153 on a bumpy enough trail, it seems highish, but must do a max heart rate thing at some point and see if I'm still doing these a bit too hard.

Keeping up the daily S&C routine too at the minute, so will be interesting to see if I see less niggles from the old calves as a result

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Thursday 29th

8 miles easy at 8:45
Heart rate: 144
Tight calf again around mile 5, stretched it out and it loosened out after. Maybe the daily calf exercises are fatiguing the muscles and I'm not getting enough recovery into them between runs, so going to reduce the number of reps for a few days and see if that helps.

Other than that one of those days. Supposed to head out after work for a few drinks so wife and kids headed off to grandparents for the night. Then the work crew bailed so long awaited drinks were cancelled.
Got home, went for a run and when I came back lights are working but nothing else. All other electricity gone and nothing tripped on the fuse board. So had to head back out 20 minute drive to the local pay as you go gym for a shower and now sitting at home not even able to watch a bit of telly. Terrible waste of a rare night off..

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Saturday 31st
9 miles LSR at 8:12
Average Heart Rate: 144

Weekly Mileage: 28.5 (Unless I do a few miles tomorrow)
Monthly Mileage: 149.5 (Highest ever:))

Shorter LSR this week, just not feeling brilliant at the minute so dialed it back a bit this week. Calves felt fine today though.
Hopefully will go ok for the next week and do a 10k next Sunday. Then reckon I might take a week or two off to freshen up before getting stuck into the prep for Dungarvan and Ballycotton, might even finally succumb to a more formal training plan then..

Also starting to think about doing the Cork Marathon on 6th of June. It's probably about 12 weeks after Ballycotton so that should be ok in terms of prep for Ballycotton goes well. If I go down this path then I will definitely succumb to a training plan

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Monday 2nd

Decided to make the club session today as needed a bit of a loosener before the 10k on Sunday. So 2 mile warmup and then 4,3,3,3,2,2,1 off 2 minute recovery on grass. No real company for all bar the 1st rep but felt great. Conditions were a bit slippy and if we're staying on grass for a while I might need to invest in a set of spikes as I was slipping from time to time.

4 mins at 5:59
3 mins at 5:46 (too fast and lost my company here)
3 mins at 5:54
3 mins at 5:56
2 mins at 5:56
2 mins at 5:54
1 mins at 5:45

Another mile cooldown for 7 and a bit miles total.

Max HR: 181 so it's probably a bit higher in reality as my stomach contents were never threatened

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Tuesday 3rd
4.5 ish mile recovery. No watch but very easy pace and legs felt the session the night before but loosened out after a while.

Thursday 5th
5 ish miles at 8:18. Took it out real slow and sped up a bit towards the end.

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Friday 6th

4 Miles Easy Lunchtime at 8:05 pace.
This felt all wrong. Felt like I was plodding around at 9m pace (or so) and working really hard to do so. But was going so slow didn't reckon that slowing down any futher would be of any benefit.. Legs heavy and lifeless for no real reason.

Anyway when I got back and checked later I just totally misjudged my pace and really should have slowed down. Splits were 8:06, 7:59,8:17,8:01. Can't really explain this and maybe for once I should have checked the watch for pace.
Average Heart Rate: 151

Sunday 8th

10k Rebel Run: 41:46 for 16th place.
Max Heart Rate: 184
Average Heart Rate: 176

This was rubbish.
All week was planning on going pretty close to or sub 40:00 but it was an awful morning down here. Lashing rain and blowing wind and the race was very nearly cancelled, anyway had paid in advance do decided to go although kinda knew in those conditions sub 40 would be out of the question. Planned on keeping shelter from the wind and hopefully going sub 41 anyway.

All ready in the morning and when I arrived when to take my inhaler only to find it had disappeared from the car, this didn't help with the mood and I was feeling a bit tight around my chest so could have done with it today.
Between that, Fridays crappy run and the weather wasn't feeling the love but warrmed up in rain and heavy winds but didn't do any strides or pickups and legs already felt heavy..


Lined up near the front and off we went. Conditions actually improved a lot just before the race and the rain stopped and wind died down a good bit.

Mile 1: 6:20 (HR: 162)
Felt ok here, didn't rush off and settled in nicely

Mile 2: 6:44 (HR: 177)
Big long rolling hill here. Passed a good few people but pace had already dropped a lot and after seeing the split knew I was in for a long day

Mile 3-4: 6:34 (HR: 179), 6:33 (HR: 180)
Good bit of wind. Took some shelter from a guy in front of me but eventually passed him. Lost a good bit of time at the water stop at 5k, just totally lost concentration for a while and a guy came flying out past me.

Mile 5-6: 6:36 (HR: 181)-6:42 (HR: 182)
Just wanted to get home. Course got twisty and turny along here. 4 guys about 20m in from but I couldn't get to them and the stopping and picking up out of corners was really annoying me. Just wanted to get home and stop. Got some company for mile 6 for a bit which helped

Last Bit: 0.35 6:29 (HR: 176)
No even effort to sprint and course measured a good bit long on my Garmin even though I thought I'd kept a pretty good line

So overall very disappointing and even though the conditions and the course might have contributed a bit this wasn't even a PB, which would have been goal C. It's a long way still to sub 40. Not a fast course but the speed just wasn't in the legs today from early on and there were no positives from today. It wasn't endurance that got me for once, I don't think I'd even have run sub 20 for 5k today. Hopefully just one of those days and don't think anyone ran a decent time today but still....

Cooled down so between that and warmup probably about 9 miles total today

Weekly Total: 29.5 miles

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Week beginning Monday 9th

Took the week off running. It was planned but also crappy run on the Sunday confirmed it.
Anyway did a couple of gym classes to keep things ticking over.

Probably the race last week wasn't as bad as I thought. Everyone reckons the course was well over (about 200m) and despite the speed not being in the legs on the day my endurance has improved as I kept it going pretty consistent.

Monday 16th
Club session

3x10 minutes off 2 mins recovery. Miserable wet night and pitches were soaked so we went with the roads and in particular a killer completely unlit hill. Had the head torch but it was crazy sending a load of people off in those conditions.

Rep 1 was a bit easier than I wanted as I was keeping some company with unlit runners

Rep 2 was too fast as I picked up some pretty quick company for it and ended up racing a bit of it.. Hadn't really recovered by the 2 minutes.

Rep 3 slowed a good bit especially up the hill but once I got over the hill picked up again.

Warmup and cooldown for 6 miles total

Overall happy with the session but clearly need more hill work.

Need to find a training plan now for dungarvan and ballycotton as I reckon I need more structure and quality sessions. The making it up as I go along worked for me to date but time to try something new.

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Real hangover in the legs from Mondays session which I ran too hard and paying the price for it all week.

Tuesday 17th
3 Mile recovery on the treadmill. Way too windy for outside today.

Wednesday 18th
Legs hangover continuing. Bad case of DOMs around my calves.

Thursday 19th
4 miles recovery at 8:16 pace.
Recovery run MkII but calves starting to loosen out a little at last. Hopefully I'll get me something a bit better in tomorrow.

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Friday 20th
Calves loosened out but came down with a heavy cold so another missed day.

Sunday 22nd
14 mile lsr at 8:12 pace.
Finally felt better so headed out. Calves got quite tight after a while, then loosened out and then tightened up again. Having already missed a few runs this week I decided to keep going anyway. I'll know in the morning if that was a bad idea or not. Other than that felt great and really comfortable.

Weekly total 27 miles.

Also following some advice from the main forum I'm going to loosely follow p&d 55 mile for Ballycotton. Plan basically is to use a lot more LT running to improve endurance. Won't quite hit 55 mile weeks as I'm going to limit the lsrs to 2 1/2 hours but at least now I have a plan. Let's hope week 2 goes a bit better than week 1.

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Monday 23rd

4.5 mile recovery.
Calves weren't too bad today actually but skipped the club session and just did a few easy miles there with some nice company. Had a chat with the coach after last week's troubles and he just said to avoid the hills for a while and eventually build back into them slowly. (Which makes a lot of sense). That was way to hard way to soon.

Also booked the Physio for Wednesday. Both to get a bit of a rub down and get some S&C advice and try to get on top of the calf niggles that have been ongoing lately. He worked wonders with me earlier in the year with his advice so hopefully more of the same.

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Generally a pretty crappy week.

Tuesday
18 hour working day so no running

Wednesday
Physio appointment for a look at the calves. Said I was in pretty good shape and strength and flexibility was fine all round. Worked out a few bits especially in the left. Has planned a few miles in the evening but working till after 10 so got set aside

Thursday
Finished work at midnight so no running..

Friday 27th
Headed out of work early and got about 9 miles done with 6x100m strides. No watch so no idea of paces etc but felt pretty good. Left calf still a bit tight but making progress.

Anyway this plan is not starting out well but sometimes it's just out of my control.

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Saturday 28th
5 miles easy at 8:16.
Left calf still tight and this had been going on too long so went at it later and found a pretty sore spot at the top. 10 minutes on a tennis ball seems to have made progress

Sunday 29th
13 miles with 6@MP

Plan called for 13 miles with 8@MP but decided to just go and see how it felt. Calf was definitely better but not perfect so just did 6@MP

Easy: 8:35,8:42,8:47,8:32,8:30,8:25
MP: 8:05, 7:42, 7:30, 7:28, 7:17, 7:32
Cooldown: 8:14,8:21

Happy enough with this bar MP miles being too quick. Was aiming for about 7:45 pace and lost a bit of concentration and was going a little too quick. Was nicely tired at the end end.

Weekly total 31.5 miles

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So I've been a bit silly lately and generally making a balls of attempting to follow this training plan. This was pointed out to me here a week or so ago but the post disappeared but it took me another week of messing around to figure it myself (Thanks NE).
I started this plan with a niggle and haven't fully gotten over it as I tried to keep to the plan and if I missed a run tried to catch up etc etc which has been making everything worse. Ran 27 miles in 3 days last week all while trying to get over a niggle which was just stupid.

So started to figure it all out this week I think. Going to forget about the plan until I'm truly niggle free (hopefully just a few more days) and then start back at the start cautiously with all my paces slower. While the mileage is roughly what I've been doing the make up is different and I need to adjust accordingly. So slower easy runs and no catching up on missed sessions. Also increasing the S&C and have my own little daily routine until Myles puts his one on the graduates thread. Going to wear the hrm for a while to to put some manners on me.

Monday 30th
3.5 mile recovery at 10ish pace. Never ran this slow before and it was great. Finally figured out what a true recovery run is.
Average HR 127ish

Tuesday 1st.
Foam rolling and lots of digging around my calves. Found a few more tight spots and hopefully got to a few pressure points.

Wednesday 2nd
3 mile recovery at 10ish pace. Calves starting to loosen out further but left still a little tight.
Average HR 124

Notwork Error

Yeah, I deleted that post because I thought it came across as taking a pop which wasn't the intention, glad you didn't see it that way. I think it's the way forward anyway and will hopefully help you with the niggles. Here's the article I posted again if you want to have a read over it anytime.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/

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Notwork Error wrote: »

Yeah, I deleted that post because I thought it came across as taking a pop which wasn't the intention, glad you didn't see it that way. I think it's the way forward anyway and will hopefully help you with the niggles. Here's the article I posted again if you want to have a read over it anytime.

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2006/09/wejo-speaks-why-i-sucked-in-college/

Thanks and all the advice is really appreciated. Nice article too and I do like the simplicity of the approach, another thing to absorb and try to remember.

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Thursday 3rd
Lunchtime Spinning Class just cos I wanted to get out of the office at lunch and it was p***sing rain.

PM: 5 Miles very easy @ 9:15 pace
Average HR 135

Friday 4th
4 Miles easyish @ 9ish pace. Very windy out there so hard to keep effort levels down. Could have been running backwards at several points.
Average HR 143

Legs feeling much better. Calf not really stiff or tight anymore but did feel a little fatigued towards the end of the 5 miles. Still doing plenty foam rolling and it's definately getting better. Hopefully will get in some form of a longish run on a short loop over the weekend

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Sunday 6th
10 mile lsr @8:38 pace
Average HR: 139
Wasn't braving the weather yesterday and had a lovely run this morning on a beautiful day. Legs felt great and think I'm finally over the niggles. Effort levels felt very easy and was thinking that I might do a few more miles at the end but decided that after the last few weeks 10 miles pain free was a good result. Legs had really loosened out by mile 7 so pace picked up a little for last 3 miles but nicely slower than my usual lsr.

8:55,8:48,8:51,8:47,8:44,8:43,8:32,8:21,8:22,8:22

Weekly mileage 26ish

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Monday 7th
Club session
Day 1 (Mark 2) of Ballycotton training plan

8 miles including 3x10 minute at LT off 2 minute recovery. This felt good. I eased a little off the effort on the tempo sections as wanted to run them a little easier as would usually have run these flat out. Was pulled along a little quicker than I wanted but still nice to run in a group. The out was mostly into a strong wind and then turned back into tail wind so quicker on the way back.

1 mile warmup
Rep 1: 6:49,6:33(0.49)
Rep 2: 6:49,6:27(0.5)
Rep 3: 6:57,6:33(0.47)
2.5 miles cooldown.

Very happy with this session. Legs felt strong and no calf issues.

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Tuesday 8th
4 miles recovery at 9:09
Average HR: 136

Thursday 10th
9 miles easy at 8:39
Average HR: 142

Legs felt good. Body tired after a few nights of crappy sleep so pace and HR all over the place but glad now that I dragged myself out.

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Friday 11th
6 miles easy at 8:41
Average HR: 140

Legs a little tight at the start but eased out nicely after a mile or two.

Sunday 13th
Abandoned LSR. Total about 6 miles.

Plan was for somewhere between 10-13 miles depending on how things felt but about 3 miles in left calf started to tighten. Full on cramp by mile 3.5 when I stopped and stretched to no avail. Called a halt and started the long walk home but it eventually loosened out enough to jog 2.5 miles back before having to walk the last bit again. Very disappointing as legs felt great all week and not any sign of trouble so strange that it went 3 miles into a very easy run. No warning at all. Anyway it's still very tight and quite sore so probably going to miss a few days.

I feel like the calves are strengthening with the daily exercise but I'm obviously missing something or doing something wrong. Maybe I'm losing some flexibility or something.

Good week to that point where I'd been feeling good and hit all the planned runs.

Weekly total 33 miles.

Notwork Error

Do you foam roll or use a tennis ball to get into the calves? I'm no expert but I think getting stuck into the muscle to release it with either of the above before stretching would help.

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Notwork Error wrote: »

Do you foam roll or use a tennis ball to get into the calves? I'm no expert but I think getting stuck into the muscle to release it with either of the above before stretching would help.

I do both (although only restarted recently when the calf problems started a few weeks back) and it makes a big difference. I've managed to loosen it out a bit this evening alright so hopefully won't be too long.
I have a new foam roller on the way for Christmas too as the old one just doesn't seem as effective any more.

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Monday-Wednesday
Enforced rest due to calves. Did a TRX class on the gym instead and spent the rest of the week unable to use lots of my upper body. Physically couldn't straighten my arms until Saturday..

Thursday-Friday
General lack of enthusiasm coupled with busy work and crappy weather meant no running. No excuses though was just bring lazy and lacking motivation for the first time in a long times.

Saturday 19th
4 miles easy.
Finally dragged myself back out the door and felt the better for it. Constantly thinking oh that's a tweak or that's uncomfortable but really all was fine.

Sunday 20th

Cloyne 4k race: 15:24

In an attempt to freshen up and get the motivation back popped down the road to do this race this morning instead of long run. No expectations of how it would go but thought a good old blow out would do me no harm mentally or physically. Only out of bed about 1 hour before the race and quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and a coffee. 2 mile warm up with strides and some pick ups and legs felt pretty good surprisingly.


Decided in advance that i'd wear the watch but no looking at it for pace and i'd just run by feel and race it so to speak.


Mile 1: 6:12
Took off near the front and was straight into the top 10 or 15 or so. 4 lads took off and made an early lead and I was sitting at the back of a bunch deciding who I would go with. Knew a few of the lads up ahead in the second bunch and decided they were a bit quick so picked 1 guy just behind them and decided he was my target for the day. Sat just behind him and let him take the pace and just settled in. One guy came past early on but I decided just to let him go.

Mile 2: 6:12
More of the same, I just sat behind my marker and the group of 4 were gone and the next 6 or 7 were just up the road a bit and began to break up. Gained on them a little bit not enough to think about bridging the 15m gap. Anytime my guy got more than 2m ahead I'd just surge and close up again. I drew up alongside him a few times but probably that was just wasted energy. Was starting to work pretty hard now but had a big gap behind me.

Mile 2 -4k 6:22
Stayed tight to my man until about 300m to go and with a slight hill he picked up and I couldn't go with him. Really suffering now and kept going as hard as I could to the finish but no real kick. Knew the pace had dropped a little and with no one behind there was nothing to be gained. Over the finish line to the now customary dry retching.. I think 11th place which I'm really happy with.

Overall really happy and I think will give me a bit of enthusiasm back. Will run this race again in a few weeks as a marker for fitness. Legs felt fine afterwards too.

4k cooldown for about 7 mile total.

Weekly mileage: 11 miles but could easily have been 0..

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Monday 21st
4M recovery at 9:10 pace
Legs felt light and pretty good. Few little sore spots at bottom of calves found on the foam roller and hopefully worked out. I reckon daily foam rolling is a necessity for a few weeks and going to skip or reduce the reps of the calf raises for a while too as I may have just been over stressing them between the running and the S&C.

Tuesday 22nd
50 mins easy (5-ish miles) including 8 x short Hill Sprints with walk back recovery. Legs felt great and had a bit of bounce, as a result was pulling back the effort levels all the way around.

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Thursday 24th

3 mile tempo at 6:50ish pace.
Captains run 5k so just decided to use it as a tempo. Brought the kids so minimal warning up and no cooling down but a nice little run ahead of hitting the road for the holidays.

Saturday 26th
11 mile lsr @8:04 pace
Wet and miserable morning but dragged up the enthusiasm to get out and really enjoyed it. Legs were really bouncy and mile 1 beeped at 8:15 which is about a minute quicker than my usual mile 1. Just went with it and the pace stayed higher than target but effort levels were bang on. Calf tightened a little around mile 4 bit a quick shake out l later and didn't feel it again.

Weekly mileage
24 ish but good week actually. Some nice runs in there and starting to feel a bit better all around.

Annual soccer match tomorrow so expect the legs to be in bits afterwards.

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Sunday 27th
2 hours of soccer. Been a year to the day since I last played. Ran a lot but running fitness and football fitness are very much not the same thing.

Monday 28th
2.5 mile recovery run.
Every muscle in my body is sore. Can't lift my legs more than a few inches off the floor. Big bruise on the ankle, quads shredded, ab muscles in bits but it was worth it. Surprisingly my running related niggles (calves) are absolutely fine. Anyway managed an afternoon shuffle in the rain, followed by a long bath and felt a little better.

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Tuesday 29th/Wednesday 30th
Rest with a bit of horse riding thrown in for good measure. I'll call it cross training. Planned on getting out on Wednesday but gear all on at 7pm and walked out into a storm that wasn't there 5 minutes earlier so gave it a miss.

Thursday 31st
3M recovery at 9ish pace

Most of the soccer legs hangover has passed. Plan was 60 minutes easy but left knee got uncomfortable after about a mile. No ease up with stretching so shortened the loop and headed for home.
It's a bit of tightness around the kneecap and manifests as a fairly sharp pain on any slight misstep or extension. I have noticed a little tweak there in the last week or so but thought it wasn't much and hoped that a bit of easy running and additional stretching might shake it out but off to the Physio with me.

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Friday 1st
Miserable day so so planned cycle cancelled and off to Halfords to buy a turbo for the bike. . Hopefully a good investment but it was only 60 quid so if I use it once a week as my criss training it will be a good investment.

50 minutes turbo at 140ish HR

Sunday 3rd
Knee little better but not running better after a kick around tester so 80 minutes turbo at 140ish HR.

Physio appointment tomorrow so hopefully will get this knee sorted and start running some miles in 2016

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Monday 4th
Physio appointment for left knee.
Tried a new guy closer to where I live and not sure really. We couldn't induce the pain between squats,lunges and no manipulation he attempted caused it. He reckoned my quads and hip mobility are a bit reduced especially on the left side and did some pretty painful stuff. Added in dry needing on troublesome calf and quads which was really uncomfortable. I actually had trouble walking out of the office and had to pop out of work after to get some painkillers after. Don't know if this amount of pain was a good or bad thing.

Had planned on a short run that evening if things had felt better but he said no running for the week and I couldn't walk properly anyway

Made an appointment for next week but not sure if I'll go back. Might just bite the bullet and go back to my usual guy and suck up the 40 minutes traveling time.


Tuesday 5th
35 minutes very easy on the turbo as legs had eased out a bit. Felt a good bit better after.

Thursday 7th
50 minutes turbo.

Knee is still twingy though and no better. Getting annoyed and a bit impatient with it now, would expect it to be feeling some bit better.

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Friday 8th
40 mins turbo

Monday 11th
35 mins easy.
First run of the year and nice to get back into it. Knee was fine, not perfect but no real pain, so hopefully will get a few days of running in this week if there's no flare up.