Am I Running Or Jogging?

Maximus Alexander

A bit of a weird one this week. I was really disorganised and only managed to fit in three runs, but I still made up the mileage. Probably not the best way to do things, but sure feck it.

Thu 24th: Longest run in a while, took it nice and slow. 10.13km @ 6:09/km

Sat 26th: I did a few tempo kilometers in here. Felt good, really enjoyed it. 9.04km @ 5:31/km

Sun 27th: My better half decided to try C25K again today. She's done it a couple of times before but always sort of peters out at some point. I decided to tag along for moral support. The running parts added up to 1.36km @ 5:55/km

When she started her cooldown walk I headed off for my own run. I was a bit dehydrated and with the wind and the legs feeling a little heavy after yesterday there was a bit more effort involved than expected. Still quite fresh and pleasant. 6.03km @ 5:33/km

Maximus Alexander

Wed 30th: I was feeling very heavy and tired from the outset here. I was surprised to see the pace at the end because it felt much, much slower and more laboured. 5.42km @ 5:29

Thu 31st: A nice easy run this evening, the sun was out and it was very pleasant. Made me really glad that I didn't fail and give up running this winter like with all my previous attempts. 6.27km @ 5:54

I'm ending March on a high. This was my highest mileage month since November at 111km. While still very modest in the grand scheme of things, it's only 2km less than my highest mileage month ever and given how poorly the year started, it's great to have things moving in the right direction again. Onwards and upwards!

The Muppet

Good to see your going well again . Are the niggles sorted?

Maximus Alexander

I wouldn't say I'm niggle free, but I'm not injured which is nice. Easing into things seems to be a sensible approach, I was trying to outrun my abilities before I think.

Singer

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I wouldn't say I'm niggle free, but I'm not injured which is nice. Easing into things seems to be a sensible approach, I was trying to outrun my abilities before I think.

Nice! Any racing plans?

Maximus Alexander

I signed up for the Dublin Race Series a while back, so I've those four, but I've nothing planned between now and then. I think I'll dip my toes back in with a parkrun or two and go from there.

I might be doing the Bray Cliff Run on Saturday but it's very up-in-the-air at the moment.

Hannibelle Smeeeth

Ive just realised that 'last edited' part of all your posts is your feckin sig :pac:

Do you have any time targets for the race series? Or plans you'll be following?

Maximus Alexander

It might be time to change that sig, it must make me look like a proper weirdo.

To be honest I haven't thought about target times yet because the first race is still a good way off and I've never raced any of the distances before. I'll be doing a couple of parkruns soon to see where I'm at which should give me an idea what to aim for.

As for plans, I had started the HH 10 mile plan when I hurt my knee so I may go back to that. I'm a bit dubious about going back to running 5 days a week though because it always seems to lead to injuries for me! I'll need to sit down with a calendar and have a good think about it.

Hannibelle Smeeeth

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It might be time to change that sig, it must make me look like a proper weirdo.

To be honest I haven't thought about target times yet because the first race is still a good way off and I've never raced any of the distances before. I'll be doing a couple of parkruns soon to see where I'm at which should give me an idea what to aim for.

As for plans, I had started the HH 10 mile plan when I hurt my knee so I may go back to that. I'm a bit dubious about going back to running 5 days a week though because it always seems to lead to injuries for me! I'll need to sit down with a calendar and have a good think about it.

Hah! Not at all. I was just wondering what you'd typed to warrant a midnight edit across the board

Best of luck with it. Hope you avoid injuries this time round!

Maximus Alexander

LSR:

The Bray plan fell through, so I headed out for my LSR today and inadvertently ran the farthest run of my life to date. :rolleyes:

I had planned on following a rough 10% increase per week, so today was to be around 7 miles / 11.5km. I headed down towards Marlay Park and roughly took in the parkrun route in reverse before taking a different route home.

I had a couple of my favourite albums on and was running by feel, so I never looked at the watch and was really enjoying myself but... I lost count of the beeps and:

13.36km @ 5:54/km

My form got pretty poor towards the end and now that makes sense. I suppose I better go get the foam roller...

Maximus Alexander

5k Easy:

An uneventful run which didn't reveal any issues resulting from yesterday's shenanigans, apart from a generous dose of fatigue.

Total: 5km @ 5:56/km

Weekly total of 30.07km, which is the most in a long time.

Maximus Alexander

5k Easy:

I was ill the last couple of days and still not 100% today, but recovered enough that I thought I should get out and have a crack at this. I took it very easy, but I didn't have a whole lot of surplus energy anyway. After about 4k I felt like I'd done 10 already and I realised it was probably the drugs that had made me think I was up to it. :pac:

Total: 5.3km @ 5:59

Maximus Alexander

Since Wednesday's run I've been experiencing Sickness Part 2: The Illenning. I feel worse today than I did on Tuesday! It doesn't make sense that I felt well enough to run and then took a nose dive and got worse. :mad: Another setback is annoying, I was looking forward to hitting 15k on Saturday.

It looks like this week's grand total is going to be 5km. :pac:

Maximus Alexander

In the end I lost a whole week to illness. But on the bright side I was back in the game this evening.

5k Easy:

The above was the plan, but once I was out there I felt I needed to blow the cobwebs off. It was tough right from the off and it was pretty startling how much you can lose to a week of illness and no running. For the first km or so I felt like I'd gone back in time a few months, but I gradually picked up the pace throughout the run. My lungs were still pretty gunked up which probably made it more difficult to get air in, but then there's nothing like a run to help clear them out (TMI? ).

Total: 6.1km @ 5:31

It was a lovely evening for it. I have to try and avoid falling into the trap of trying to make up the lost miles now.

Maximus Alexander

6k Easy:

Easy run didn't feel too easy, but my average HR was still roughly what it would usually be for a run like this, so that's odd. I'm going to assume it's still a hangover of sorts from having been ill. No problems to report otherwise, it's good to be running.

Total: 6.5km @ 5:53

Maximus Alexander

LSR:

Conditions were perfect today for a long run; cool but not cold; a light breeze without strong gusts; light cloud with a bit of sun every now and then. I felt good too, back to my pre-illness self. Perhaps even better. And so it was that I went out and ran my longest run to date, both in terms of distance and duration. And I really enjoyed it.

Total: 15.23km @ 5:51 (1hr 29min)

Maximus Alexander

30 Min Recovery:

This was intended to be very slow but I took it too fast. Tomorrow is a rest day anyway, so it'll be grand. Legs were very tired, but they did the job without fuss. I think I'm fitter now than I've ever been in my life which is a great feeling.

Total: 5.2km @ 5:46

That's 33km for the week.

Maximus Alexander

5k Easy:

My legs felt heavy and I was a bit lethargic today so I kept it short. I suppose that was a lot of mileage for me over the weekend, and I've learned from past mistakes not to overdo it. 7k was what I had intended for tonight but it's better to be sensible.

Total: 5.35km @ 5:52

Maximus Alexander

I was unexpectedly busy on both Thursday and Friday evenings and ended up missing a run, there was just nowhere I could fit it in. I felt pretty guilty about it until today.

LSR:

The plan was 10 miles and to break my longest distance / duration record from last week. I headed out in the evening around 730 and went to Marlay Park for a couple of laps. It was glorious out. Mild, calm and with the sun beginning to set. I really, really enjoyed this run. Because I couldn't fit this in until evening, I had to cancel other plans to do it. So while I was out running all my friends were in the pub, and I didn't even care. Something is broken inside me.

My legs were fierce tired for the last couple of kilometers, once I was out of the park and heading home. I was walking a bit funny afterwards, but the foam roller and a baseball seem to have put things right.

Total: 16.1km @ 5:48 (1hr 33min)

Maximus Alexander

Despite doing my longest run yet, last week was actually a terrible week for mileage because I missed two runs through poor planning. This week, normal service resumes.

6k Easy:

I still had a lot of tiredness in the legs and a bit of DOMS today, which suggests that I was going too fast for my long run. That's definitely something I need to work on, so I started today. I find it very mechanically awkward to run slower than about 6:00/km, but I've been told by others on here that, like anything, it's just because I'm not used to it and need practise. In that sense this run was a huge success.

Total: 6.12km @ 6:12
(How satisfying are those numbers)

Maximus Alexander

I had to defer last night's run as, with the LUAS strike, I needed to run into work this morning.

9k Easy(ish):

I'm not a morning person, so getting up in the morning and straight into the running gear is theoretically the stuff of nightmares for me. It wasn't too bad though in truth. The route to work is overall downhill, though with the odd decent incline. Having a bag on the back really seems to crank up the toughness (heart rate was a good 15bpm higher than I would expect at this pace), but overall it was grand. Not a bad way to start the day actually, though I don't know if I have it in me to make a habit of it.

Total: 8.93km @ 5:49/km

I will also be running some of the way home, but probably not the whole 9k because my legs like to injure themselves too much. We'll see.

Maximus Alexander

Well that went a little better than expected.

9k Easy(ish) (again):

The plan was to run some of the way home and stop to walk as soon as anything complained. But nothing complained and it was a sure sign that my endurance has improved a lot over the last couple of weeks. The last time I ran for my commute I ran home one night and back in the following morning and I was an absolute crock. So you could say I'm pretty pleased with myself today.

My heart rate for the return trip was lower than this morning, which is peculiar, because the return route has more inclines and was into the wind a lot of the time, but I'm not complaining!

Total: 8.91km @ 6:01/km

There was more stopping for traffic lights on the journey home, which was a bit annoying. So the actual running pace was a little faster than above.

Maximus Alexander

LSR:

My legs were still tired from Thursday so the plan was to keep this slow and a relatively short 7 miles. Even so my form was poor and I was gassed by about half way. I saw it out, but my legs spent quite a while saying "Ah here Max, you're pushing your luck now. Time to wrap this up." The lazy feckers.

When I left the house it was overcast, windy, cold and with some spitting rain. So I wore full length bottoms. Later the sun came out and I nearly baked to death. :rolleyes:

I'm perplexed as to what happened with my pace because the few times I checked it early on it was at about 6:15 and I thought I was slowing down throughout the run.

Total: 11.4km @ 5:58

Can't say I particularly enjoyed that one, but it's done and now I get to have cake. Also, despite missing a full week at the start of the month through illness, April has become my highest mileage month to date with 113.46km (by a hair, from November at 113.28km). So that's good!

Maximus Alexander

I've spent the last while working on building my endurance and there's been a lot of easy pace running, so it felt like time to start introducing some pace back into things.

4x800m @ 5k pace (jog recovery):

I based my 5k pace on my last race, but that's a while ago so I don't know where I'd actually be now. Could be faster, could be slower. But anyway, target pace was around 4:45/km.

1km warm up: 6:10

1: 3:43 (4:39/km)
2: 3:45 (4:42/km)
3: 3:50 (4:49/km)
4: 3:49 (4:47/km)

1km cool down: 6:17

Weather being completely nutbar made it difficult to keep the paces consistent. I struggled with the last one as conditions were sadistic at that particular point. There was a powerful headwind in my face and hailstones were hitting me like machine gun fire, such that my lungs felt ready to pop like balloons. I felt pretty good afterwards, need to do these more often.

Total: 7.08km @ 5:35

Maximus Alexander

LUAS Strike Runmute:

I only got about 5.5 hours broken sleep last night so I wasn't really full of the joys this morning. I was also running a bit late so had to kick the pace up a little. I don't know what to call this pace wise because my HRR% was close to 90, but the pace was slow enough. I guess that's down to the bag? The poor sleep? Both? I dunno.

I missed a turn so the distance is slightly longer than it ought to be. Hope I have it in me to run home now. :pac:

Total: 9.22km @ 5:46/km

Maximus Alexander

Opposite of the above:

My legs were definitely feeling the fatigue for this one. The first few km were handy but the drag up towards Goatstown was murder; legs were already flagging and I had a headwind most of the way. I thought about stopping a few times but I just slowed down instead. I can't get over the difference the bag makes, I mean it's not particularly heavy - there's only a bath towel and a change of clothes in it!

Weirdly enough, once again the run that felt tougher by a large margin had the lower average HR by about 10bpm.

Total: 9.12km @ 6:11/km

I know it's close to nothing around these parts, but on the run home I was reflecting on how at any time in the first 30 years of my life I couldn't have come within an asses roar of what I just casually did today. On the one hand, that seems like such a waste, but on the other it makes me really excited to see where running might take me in the coming years. I love it. Just love it.

Maximus Alexander

6k Easy:

I had to head out for a drink after work this evening to see off a colleague who's heading for new pastures . I questioned the wisdom of running after drinks on the Random Running Questions thread and liked the depth of experience on show in this response, so off I went.

I can now confirm that a couple of pints of Hop House, followed by a pint of water and 4 easy miles is a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a Friday evening. The only possible drawback is that it might inadvertently turn your easy run into a tempo...

Total: 6.2km @ 5:19/km

Maximus Alexander

LSR:

Should have been an LSR but I had to keep it relatively short as the weekly mileage is ramping up too quickly. As it was, my legs were feeling a bit rough today. Niggles are creeping in and I might have overdone it a bit this week so will have to dial it back a shade next week.

Total: 10.1km @ 6:06

41.3 km for the week, which I think is the most ever.

Maximus Alexander

6k Easy:

I have had a couple of niggles since Friday / Saturday. I'm hoping they'll clear up if I take things very easy this week. With that, I think I just did my slowest run ever!

Total: 6.07km @ 6:15/km

Maximus Alexander

I fell mysteriously ill on Tuesday night and was in a terrible state on Wednesday. I just as rapidly and mysteriously recovered yesterday afternoon to the point that I felt like going out for a run last night. I didn't though! I'm sensible.

Strike Day Pt 1:

I was running late for work this morning so instead of the roads I got onto the LUAS tracks, which are a little more direct. I also cheated and took a Dublin Bike at Charlemont to save some time, so this was shorter than a normal run commute. It felt so great to be well again and running today in the glorious morning sunshine. Shame I didn't get out of the house on time because I would have liked to run the full distance.

Total: 6.11km @ 5:51/km