"It's what you do next that counts"

Letyourselfgo

pconn062 wrote: »

Well done on the weight loss, that will make some difference. More miles and a sensible diet will help shift that pouch!

Thanks for that another 11 pounds will bring me to 161 which is now the new target. Keep up the good work yourself, follow your log with interest and will see how you adapt the stazza system

Chivito550

How you getting on?

Letyourselfgo

Still going strong. 2 speed sessions a week a long run and an easy run is roughly how it's going. Hope to introduce a 5th day again, just letting the body get used to 2 speed sessions first as they were taking a bit out of me (may have been doing them too fast as well?)

Chivito550

How's things going? 800m at gradeds on Wed if you are looking to race.

Wottle

A new year on the horizon and I'm hoping for a good one.

My reason for a log is simply to keep me honest and to try and get back into the spirit of the boards community. I think back to 2008 and 2009 and a log really helped me and I met some great people along the way.

I've been properly back running for 10 weeks, averaging 5 days a week for an almost average of 25 miles a week.
I have the long run up to 10 miles and a tempo of 1x3 miles.
Had my first race in 16 months last Saturday, didn't go as well as I was hoping, finished in 22'27 for 5k, secretly thought I'd be low 21. Never really got going that day and sth seemed off.

Planned races
29/1 - Raheny5 miler
5/2 - Trim 10 miler
2/4 - Berlin Half Marathon

and all that is with the purpose of racing track in the summer. Most of my PBs I feel are beatable as I've never really trained properly or stayed focused for long enough to reach my potential.

6 miles this morning, first time encountering the wind in those 10 weeks and it can fcuk right off


Happy Holidays

Ososlo

Excellent! Looking forward to following the progress here, and well done in getting the consistency back. You'll be back to your best in no time.
Good luck with your goals and Merry Christmas!

Kurt.Godel

Best of luck Wottle for the coming year. Good to see you back. Watch this space

El Caballo

Good to see you get the consistency and gra back chief. Best of luck with it.

Wottle

Thanks for the best wishes guys.

Saturday - 5 miles with my eldest daughter
She's a teenager now and it was like pulling teeth trying to chat with her.

Sunday - Goal Mile
With my two older girls, the younger of which wanted to break 7 minutes, so the plan was for me to pace her, ran the first lap a little quick and then Kate said she didn't feel well and stepped off the track and puked, too many sweets.
So I focused on closing the older one down. It was obvious she wasn't racing it, she ran 5'10 for 1500 back in the summer. I was running steady and closing and with a 100m left to go I reckoned with a sprint finish I'd take her on the line and she wouldn't have time to respond but then good sense prevailed, would have been a rotten thing to do given she didn't know I was after her but good to see a bit of competitiveness creeping back in to my running.
6'37 for the mile (1'40, 1'39, 1'40, 1'38)

Today - 5 miles
Didn't look at the watch much, just ran how I liked. Back to normal from tomorrow.

Wottle

Long run this morning
Kept the pace more controlled apart from a couple of miles uphill, where I didn't really have much of a say. Was a bit stuck for time, so cut the run to 8 miles, enjoyable.

Wottle

Not a great end to 2016, bit of man flu, I think. Whatever it is it's been lingering a couple of weeks, so I decided to take a few days off as I really wanted to finish the year with a 21 sth 5k.
Got up this morning, felt ok, so decided to give shanganagh a blast. As I parked the car my tire blew, changed it straight away but left me only 5 minutes for a warm up, didn't feel too great by now. Managed 1k of the race and headed back to the car.
Wasn't best pleased with myself, it was half being unwell and half quitter.
Not going to dwell on it, I always tell the kids I coach that you can have a bad run but the good guys know how to leave it behind them, so going to do that.
Plan now is to get over whatever is in the system and have a bash at a 5k in 2 weeks.
Happy new year!

UM1

Wottle wrote: »

Plan now is to have a bash at a 50k in 6weeks.
Happy new year!

happy new year D...good to have u
back

Wottle

UM1 wrote: »

happy new year D...good to have u
back

Cheers A, good to be back. Must meet for a run in 2017, plenty of stories to share 😂

Wottle

First run since new year's eve as I've had an awful dose and based on the sweats and headache after , I'm still not 100%.
Still need to get out, even if it's to run easy, which I didn't do tonight.
The eldest was doing 5*300m and I needed to keep her company, her recovery was a 300m jog back, all I could manage was a walk back and by the time she came back down, I'd jump in behind her and was probably doing about 200m.
So 1 mile warm up
1*300 & 4*200
1 mile cool down

Wottle

Haven't had much joy with training logs since the original but going to persevere.
Last few months haven't been great, sick at the end of last year and into January, had tried a couple of runs, only to have the stuffing knocked out of me. I let this get the better of me and instead of focusing on the good weeks pre Xmas, I focused on the bad weeks, missed weeks and my mojo died.

In March I started getting my act together, it helped that my wife had run her very first 5k and I could see the joy she was getting from her own training and her enthusiasm was beginning to rub off on me.

So made the decision to still run the Berlin half, I figured I could still have a shot at 1:59:59.
2 weeks out I ran a 10k in training at required pace, felt tough. 10 days out I ran a hilly 10 miler, felt tough.

Berlin is an amazing city and for both the half and full the locals come out all over the course to support, it creates a really happy, smiling, tingling atmosphere.
Not going to go into too much detail but I was on for sub 2 up to around mile 8 or 9 and then I knew I was working too hard, so decided to walk through next water stop to get the heart rate back under control.
5k splits were 28/28/30
At about 10.5 miles I stopped again, went for a p and took a gel and threw lots of water on myself but stopped for way too long. Even though I rallied from mile 11- to finish, the 15-20k split showed 38 mins.
Still figured I could get in in sub 2:05 but I wasn't too concerned about that but I did see my heart rate in the high 180s and figured I'd really push last 800m and see if my max hr is still my max. Got it to 197, so close enough, my max has always been about 200. I was the only one to puke on the finish line, everyone else appeared to be smiling and waving at the photographers.

My thoughts on the half, proud of myself for running it but also embarrassed of the finishing time 2:05:19...only myself to blame.
In the airport on the way home, I booked our hotel for next year, I've since booked my entry and am really looking forward to putting the above time well and truly behind me.
I've also booked the Bristol half in September, it'll be nice to train in spring/summer.

Took a week off as my body was just shattered, back at it now.

Monday - 5 miles on grass and hills in marlay, I hate running on grass, it just feels much harder.

Tuesday - 5 miles but was hoping to do a heart rate test, similar to Hadd, 2k at 150 and at 160, 170, 180.
The 150 and 160 went well but on the 2nd K of the 170 I came across the club sprinters and they were cheering me on (in a joking fashion) this caused my hr to go up and I was unable to control it, same happened at the 180, so that just became a hard 1k.

The results:
AHR 148 = 10:14 Pace
AHR 159 = 9:22 Pace
AHR 172 = 8:16 Pace (probably can still take this reading)
AHR 182 = 6:40 Pace (definitely cannot take this reading as I was up at 190 when I finished).

Wottle

Wednesday
30 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minute miling, keeping the heart rate down.

Thursday
Into Marlay this morning on the way home from work for a laboured 4 miles at 10:16 pace.
Stayed on the grass but avoided the hills, kept heart rate down.

Wottle

Friday
3 miles on the treadmill, nice and easy.

Saturday
4 miles around marlay and St Enda's park, easy pace but felt tired.

Wottle

Sunday
5 miles on grass in marlay to finish out the week. Had two of my daughters for company, although the 13 yr old left me after only 2 miles to do her own run and the 11 yr old left me at 3, she was only doing 4 though.
We regrouped after for a bit of tennis, which was great fun.
Didn't enjoy the run all that much as I had a belly full of Easter eggs and pizza. I also have cellulitis on my right leg again but am running through it. I've had it since Wednesday but its finally subsiding.

Earlier today I went through my PBs to see if there's one I can tackle in the near future.
What I found was my 3 strongest PBs are over 800/1500/5k and my 3 weakest are over the Marathon/10k/half.
I have a half pencilled in for September, I've no intentions of running a marathon any time soon, so that leaves the 10k, which is 44'10 from the pearl izumi race in 2009.

Wottle

Monday
2 miles easy around marlay with my wife.

Tuesday
5 miles inc 5x500m at 5k pace ( 22:26 from Dec).
The 500m loop is a grass triangle in marlay and the distance is approx but only give or take 15m.
I took a 90 second recovery between each.

Wottle

Wednesday
4 miles easy around marlay as the sun set, lovely pink/orange sky.

Thursday
5 miles with 2 x 2k at approx 10k pace, maybe even slower as I tried to just keep the heart rate between 170 and 175, which represents 85% and 87.5% of mhr.
The first 2k was 9:28 (7'37), 5 minute walk/jog and then next 2k was 9:44 (7'50).

Felt good and in control but the difference in both is telling me my endurance is weak but I know this already from the half.

Really enjoying my running at the moment, have run the last 11 days but need to watch myself and make sure I keep my motivation at the correct levels.

I've picked the Hansons beginners half marathon program. It's a little too early to start it, so I'm just trying to prepare myself for it by introducing a little speed on Tuesdays and tempo on Thursday.

Kennyg71

Maybe 8 weeks of base building would put you in better shape to take on half program, you said endurance is problem, so nothing like building mileage easy pace and gradually, if you get 3-4 regular runs easy as it has to be, have always found to be benifical, speed returns quick enough. Just think of September as stepping stone to next target so no pressure. Best luck.

Wottle

Kennyg71 wrote: »

Maybe 8 weeks of base building would put you in better shape to take on half program, you said endurance is problem, so nothing like building mileage easy pace and gradually, if you get 3-4 regular runs easy as it has to be, have always found to be benifical, speed returns quick enough. Just think of September as stepping stone to next target so no pressure. Best luck.

thanks Kenny and you're of course correct but the thoughts of just easy running is soul destroying, so just trying to break it up a little with sth quicker but not too hard. This week I'll run about 30 miles, 4 of which were in the 7 minute bracket and the rest 9 and 10 minute miling.
I do need to keep the faster stuff in check as I tend to get carried away, too much too soon and then motivation is gone, so Ill make sure I get plenty of easy as well, thanks.

TRR_the_turd

Wottle wrote: »

thanks Kenny and you're of course correct but the thoughts of just easy running is soul destroying, so just trying to break it up a little with sth quicker but not too hard. This week I'll run about 30 miles, 4 of which were in the 7 minute bracket and the rest 9 and 10 minute miling.
I do need to keep the faster stuff in check as I tend to get carried away, too much too soon and then motivation is gone, so Ill make sure I get plenty of easy as well, thanks.

To be honest don't get too bogged down on paces etc. I'd have a similar opinion to kenny, just make sure you keep getting out frequently. If you think a few faster sessions will help you well and good. More mile = racing smiles. Youre last week or so look good. Keep it up and maybe pick some realistic short term targets to keep motivation up.

Wottle

TRR_the_turd wrote: »

To be honest don't get too bogged down on paces etc. I'd have a similar opinion to kenny, just make sure you keep getting out frequently. If you think a few faster sessions will help you well and good. More mile = racing smiles. Youre last week or so look good. Keep it up and maybe pick some realistic short term targets to keep motivation up.

Cheers TRR, 9 years on and your still offering encouragement, appreciate it.
A couple of short term goals/ideas include running streak, 10k pb and race non standard distances, like a 6k or similar as won't get near some of my other pbs for some time.

Chivito550

What are your PBs?

Wouldn't waste your time with distances like 6K. You know well that these distances are fairly meaningless. Chasing your former self should serve as sufficient motivation.

Wottle

Chivito550 wrote: »

What are your PBs?

Wouldn't waste your time with distances like 6K. You know well that these distances are fairly meaningless. Chasing your former self should serve as sufficient motivation.

3 strongest are
800 - 2'30
1500 - 5'13 or 14
5k - 19'25

Funny thing with those pbs is that I never trained for those distances, the 5k came a couple of weeks before a disappointing marathon 4:05 and the 8/15 came the month after same marathon

3 worst Pbs are
10k - 44:10 (have run faster but not in 10k race)
half - 1:38:10
Full - 3:37:45

Wottle

Friday
30 minutes very easy on the treadmill. Really like these recovery runs, treadmill surface is so forgiving, bit of music and just tune out.

Saturday
7 miles, had to do this early as kids are competing today in Irishtown.
Felt good, although last mile couldn't come quick enough, needed the toilet, serves me right, 5 wheatabix the night before.

Wottle

Sunday
A little over 30 minutes on the treadmill at easy pace.
Left this till the end of the day, which meant I nearly talked myself out of doing it, plan better is the answer.

Monday
Decided to bring Tuesday's run forward as tomorrow is going to be a busy one.
5.6 miles which included 5x500m at approx 5k pace, in reality this was not done at 5k pace, they were too quick. The reason been I had the new head coach of UCD running towards me for 2 of the reps and subconsciously I guess I sped up for both.
Last weeks were all around 2:12/13
2:02
2:12
2:01
2:11
2:09
Enjoyed the faster stuff, I ran them on a grass triangle shaped course in marlay. I use it for the juveniles on the weekends as well, so good to get a feel for what they do.

Wottle

Tuesday
Knew I wouldn't have a lot of time for this but managed to get 33 minutes on the treadmill at easy pace.

Wednesday
Feeling a little tired, not from the running though, its my busy time in work.
Again jumped on treadmill for 34 minutes at easy pace.

Happy to get these runs in and continue the streak (17 days in a row).
Tomorrow the plan is 2x2k tempo, same as last week but have no idea where I'm going to find time.

Wottle

Thursday
30 minutes easy on the treadmill.

Friday
40 minutes easy on the treadmill.

Although the runs above say easy, they don't tell the full story. I've been extremely active and doing a lot of sprints that have had my legs in bits and questioning whether or not I get my proper run in. I had an after school Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We play cops and robbers, so my sprinting consisted of chasing 30 plus kids for an hour on each of the days above (only 15 on thur). My ankles and knees are a bit sore from the twisting and turning but I'm certainly feeling stronger, if not faster.