Quickbeam me to the finish line

quickbeam

(with thanks to Craig for the title).

Here we are, a week and a day after I ran my first marathon, and I've been bullied by my fellow graduates in to starting a log (:D :P).

My history:
Sep 15 - "morbidly obese", changed diet and lost a few stone over the course of the year.
Sep 16 - "severely obese", took up running with C25K.
Nov 16 - ran for 30 minutes straight for the first time.
Dec 16 - ran for 5km straight for the first time.
Jan 17 - "moderately obese", ran Parkrun for the first time completing it in just under 47 minutes.
May 17 - "overweight", had the mad idea to at least train for the DCM to improve fitness without actually believing I'd do it, joined the DCM novices thread.
Jun 17 - ran 10km straight for the first time.
Jul 17 - ran 14km straight for the first time, spaces were running out at DCM, decided one-third of a marathon was a good time to sign up so took the plunge and did it. Ran first ever race, Fingal 10K.
Aug 17 - "normal weight" achieved!! This is what it was all about really.
Oct 17 - ran 16 miles of marathon without stopping, ran 1km off, 1km on for the next 10 miles and completed what I never, ever thought possible.

Goals:

• "Normal weight" was just being in the normal range of BMI. I've continued to lose weight and would like to lose a bit more until I'm about 8-9kg under maximum BMI amount. Or at the very least maintain where I'm at which is just over 4kg under the maximum BMI amount.
• Run 5km under 30 minutes, and be consistent in being able to do so (no official chipped time yet, but Parkrun PB of 31:06).
• Run 10km in 1 hour (this year's Fingal 10K was 1:12)
• Run 10 miles in 1:45 (this year's FD10 was 2:01)
• Run a HM in 2:15 (this year's HM was 2:34)
• Run a marathon in < 5:00 (this year's DCM was 5:45)
• Run more races (Jingle Bells, Raheny 5 mile, IR 5 mile and the race series up to the HM at the very least)
• Possibly join a running club
• Take up some strength exercise
• Get my 50 race goal in Parkrun
• Run 1000 miles (? - seems to be the thing to do)
• Keep injury-free

So, I'm still sorta in "rest" mode after the marathon. Last week I only walked:
Monday - rest
Tuesday - 3km @ 11:52
Wednesday - 4.6km @ 10:45
Thursday - 5.8km @ 10:50 (I did stop and chat to somebody along the way - my excuse for being slower than the day before)
Friday - 6.1km @ 10:08
Saturday - 5.3km to Parkrun, volunteered and back, didn't stop watch in between so pace is anyone's guess.
Sunday - rest.

Plan for this week is to ease back in to the running with three short easy runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, though each a bit longer than the last, with a walk to Parkrun again on Saturday.

The week after that I'll be back in earnest with proper runs (and actually something decent to report on) on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and a Parkrun run on the Saturday.

And that's it ... I've always kept track of my runs on MapMyRun, Garmin and Strava, as well as my own spreadsheet. So having another place to update might be overkill, but we'll see how it goes. Here's to a long and wonderful running career ahead of me!

Sheep1978

Unbelievable to see how far you came from Sep 15 to running DCM just 2 years later. Absolutely brilliant

Wubble Wubble

Best of luck with the log!

scotindublin

Welcome to the training logs and well done on everything you have achieved so far.....brilliant stuff!

Another person for me to stalk/follow.

C

BrownEyes79

Wow..... quickbeam you’ve come so far in 2 years, you’re the first person I’m following here! Looking forward to reading your log

Baby75

Quickbeam look how far you have come amazing! I am looking forward to following your Training log and seeing you reach your goals

I love the title, Well done craig

Guess I better get mine started lol

Annie get your Run

Welcome to the logs quickbeam!! You've achieved so much in such a short time, congrats on the weight loss and completing your first marathon. Look forward to seeing what you will achieve next year!

Singer

Wow, great stuff so far quickbeam! Welcome to the logs. Having a training log isn’t quite as good as the novices thread but it’s the next best thing for support and feedback

Goals all look very achievable, best of luck with them!

denis b

Well done on all you have achieved over the last 2 years. Quite exceptional and no doubt the running will continue to be a kind ally in setting new targets.

hot buttered scones

Welcome to the logs and best of luck with all your goals. I'm sure those PBs will come tumbling down off the back your marathon training,. Well done on all you've achieved so far!

Wow thats class QB really amazing journey. Those spreadsheets are great for everything

eyrie

Wow, that's quite a journey! Unreal that you've managed to achieve so much in such a short space of time, and run a marathon!! I'll look forward to following along. Welcome to the logs!

Kellygirl

Brilliant journey QB and impressed at how quick you got to work on your log!

Huzzah!

quickbeam wrote: »

[*]Run 5km under 30 minutes, and be consistent in being able to do so (no official chipped time yet, but Parkrun PB of 31:06).
[*]Run 10km in 1 hour (this year's Fingal 10K was 1:12)
[*]Run 10 miles in 1:45 (this year's FD10 was 2:01)
[*]Run a HM in 2:15 (this year's HM was 2:34)
[*]Run a marathon in < 5:00 (this year's DCM was 5:45)
[*]Run more races (Jingle Bells, Raheny 5 mile, IR 5 mile and the race series up to the HM at the very least)
[*]Possibly join a running club
[*]Take up some strength exercise
[*]Get my 50 race goal in Parkrun
[*]Run 1000 miles (? - seems to be the thing to do)
[*]Keep injury-free
[/LIST]

Welcome to the logs and congratulations on your achievements to date! Your goals are very similar to my 2016 goals. You've a great base heading into 2018 - the very best of luck with it.

TFBubendorfer

Welcome to the logs!

I kind of wish you had started it 2 years ago as you already have an amazing journey behind you.

Never mind, there's just as amazing a journey ahead of you!

ariana`

What an amazing journey, you've already achieved so much and no doubt there is lots of more milestone moments and pbs there for you. I'm looking forward to following your progress. Well done:)

The Muppet

Good to see you Logging QB, you've had an amazing Journey to date, The best of luck with the log and the goals.

Sunny Dayz

Great opening post and loving the log title! Well done in how far you have come on your running and weight loss journey and all you have achieved to date. Many of your goals are similar to mine so I will be following your log. Looking forward to what is to come for you, wishing you the very best of luck at it!

gypsylee

Wow, well done on your weight loss and running journeys so far. Impressive stuff.

I look forward to following your log. Good luck with your goals. I've no doubt you will reach them all.

Younganne

Congratulation on all the success so far on this journey. I've no doubt you will achieve & surpass all your targets, as your progress shows that you are dedicated and determined.
Training logs are great place to get information, support & encouragement from others. Enjoy the journey.:D

quickbeam

Thanks all for the lovely comments!!

As mentioned in the OP, the first post-marathon week was about some nice easy walking, and the second week week easing back in the running, so nothing hugely exciting to report, except that I did manage the easy running (would be terribly worrisome if I couldn't!!)

Monday - 2.96km @ 6:32 - knew it'd be a short one so gave it socks. Hoped to come in faster than that as I'll need to be under 6 if I'm to break my 5km in under 30 minutes. But, not too bad either considering it was my first run.

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - 3.83km @ 6:54, didn't try to push it, took it easy.

Thursday - rest

Friday - 5.11km @ 7:05, again, didn't push it too much. Glad that I can at least still do 5km so if I don't break my PB at next week's Parkrun at least I'll know I can make it to the finishing line!

Saturday - walk, volunteer and walk back from Parkrun - 5.06km.

Sunday - intend to rest.

11.9km for the week.

Goals for next week:
Up the distance on Monday, Wednesday and Friday's runs. Add Parkrun in on Saturday and give it socks with the aim of beating my PB, and preferably being under 30 minutes, but I won't be too disheartened if neither of those things happen. There'll still be six more Parkruns in the year to attempt it!

To keep the motivation going, I've signed up for Jingle Bells 5km on 2nd December (my first actual 5km race) and the Trim 10 mile in February. Entering races can be an expensive business, but if I aim to average about one a month next year.

Kellygirl

Nice to have goals in place to focus on. You seem to have a good plan of action.

quickbeam

My week:

Monday - 7.83km @ 7:04 pace
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 6.46km @ 6:47 pace
Thursday - rest
Friday - 9.04km @ 7:01 pace
Saturday - Parkrun, PB
Sunday - planned rest

Mere 28.32km for the week.

Maybe it's the weather or something, but I found it especially hard to get up each of the mornings to do the runs. I always say the hardest part of the run is the getting up out of bed and out, and that it's easy after that. It held true still, and was the only thing that got me out of bed to do them. I also have a fear that if I miss one of my mid-week runs, I'll fall in to a bad habit and it becomes easier to miss more runs, so my aim is to not break my routine and continue, no matter how cosy the bed feels, to head out three times a week.

On top of that, the runs themselves felt hard, especially Wednesday's. But when I checked my time when I got home, I saw that I was much, much faster than any other run of similar distance, so that would explain why it felt hard. Which is good - I'd hate for it to feel hard, and yet still come in slowly. At least it felt hard for a reason.

Today's Parkrun, I met leesider77 (hi!!). My aim was to run it as hard as I could. If my fitness due to the marathon meant that got me a PB (preferably under 30 minutes) then well and good. If not, then so be it, I'd put it down to still being in recovery status. I headed out and came in, according to my watch just over 30 minutes, beating my previous PB by just under a minute. I was delighted!! Official results just came through and it has my official time as 29:39!!!!! So actually under 30 minutes after all!! I'm not sure I quite believe it as usually my watch and the results aren't that much of a disparity, but I'll take it anyway!! I'm absolutely thrilled!!! FINALLY!!!! :P

Happy days!

BTW, while I'm here, anyone know when Raheny 5 mile is open for registration?

scotindublin

I think the Raheny 5 is open for registration already......worth doing for the goodie bag alone!

Great time today!

The Muppet

congrats on the parkrun pb qb. It is tough to be motivated to go out in this colder weather.

Huzzah!

Woot - congrats! Took me a long time to go sub-30 for a 5k, so I know how sweet it feels. Really well done!

quickbeam

scotindublin wrote: »

I think the Raheny 5 is open for registration already......worth doing for the goodie bag alone!

Great time today!

Ahhh, when I Googled, I got this which didn't seem to do much. Further digging led me to this which looks more like it!! Thanks for that, or I'd not have known to dig deeper.

quickbeam

.... and, Raheny now booked!

Wubble Wubble

Congrats on the sub 30! Well done and now you have another race to train for

Baby75

Well done on the sub 30 fantastic

Rururun

quickbeam wrote: »

.... and, Raheny now booked!

You’ve inspired me and I booked In to Raheny!
Do u know is it a hard course or nice and flat?? I should have checked this before booking!

quickbeam

Couldn't tell you to be honest.

I found this though which was for this year's route (ie, the last time it was ran). I presume next year's will be the the same, or very similar: http://rahenyshamrock.ie/?p=1095

gypsylee

Well done on your sub 30 Parkrun. Its a great feeling to finally get under that 30 minute mark. No stopping you now.

leesider77

Well done on your PB quickbeam! Great to meet up.

I'll be expecting you northside for some parkrun tourism in the new year. But definitely see you in Raheny.

ariana`

Well done again QB. Really well deserved.

scotindublin

It is a fair course....with a bit of a hill the last mile or so and an uphill section in St Anne's Park unless the route has reverted to taking in the shore round.

Very popular event and famous for one of the best goodie bags out there.

Rururun wrote: »

You’ve inspired me and I booked In to Raheny!
Do u know is it a hard course or nice and flat?? I should have checked this before booking!

quickbeam

scotindublin wrote: »

... and famous for one of the best goodie bags out there.

What do you get?

quickbeam

I've a confession to make. Parkrun details updated after I received the email. Still a PB but no longer sub 30. Will have to aim for that another day though I might take this week's easy enough and conserve energy for Jingle Bells.

Baby75

quickbeam wrote: »

I've a confession to make. Parkrun details updated after I received the email. Still a PB but no longer sub 30. Will have to aim for that another day though I might take this week's easy enough and conserve energy for Jingle Bells.

Ah do not worry it is within your grasp

scotindublin

Enough sweets to turn you diabetic! Also a nice Plaque which makes a change from getting a medal.

quickbeam wrote: »

What do you get?

quickbeam

For posterity, if not for interest, here's my week (fairly uneventful):

Monday - 3.85km @ 6:53
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 3.82km @ 6:53
Thursday - rest
Friday - 7.38km @ 7:04
Saturday - Parkrun in 31:25.
Sunday - plan to rest

Grand total of 20.05km for the week!

I had intended to up the mileage this week, and continue to do so until I'm back to 20km+ distances, enough that I could do a HM anyway. But I found the motivation quite low this week. Monday's conditions were perfect, except I felt a bit tired. Maybe because of the Parkrun push I'd done the previous Saturday?? Wednesday was the day of lots of rain. Friday, I'd aimed for 10km, but ended up doing just two circuits of a planned 3 circuit route due to the freezing temperatures. Was happy enough that at least Parkrun wasn't going to be my longest of the week.

Today's Parkrun, as I mentioned already I wasn't going to push it too hard after last week, save my strength for Jingle Bells next week. It was freezing too. The legs felt like lead. So taking all that in to account I was actually rather pleased with my time.

Even if the distances aren't huge, I feel it's a good thing to at least get out for some sort of run three times mid-week. It's the routine I've built up and I think if I break that routine it'll be even harder to get back in to it when I start to train for some of the longer races that are coming up early next year. So, that's my plan for next week - get out Monday, Wednesday and Friday, go as far as I feel like energy-depending and weather-depending, but don't worry too much about the distances either if they're not increasing massively. Do what I can - some exercise is better than no exercise, eh?

Baby75

That was not a bad week at all, more consistent than mine

I only got out twice

Kellygirl

4 runs is great and no point forcing the distance if you aren’t up for it yet. Will only put you off I think. Once you have a race to train for you’ll be motivated again.

quickbeam

Another week down:

Monday - 5.10km @ 6:44km - legs felt leaden and I felt slow, so was surprised that this was actually a PB, by over 30 seconds.

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - 5.14km @ 6:45km

Thursday - rest

Friday - 5.15km @ 6:39km - another PB on the course, knocked a whole three seconds off!! All of the above are the same circuit, but distances are just what the watch recorded. Fridays recorded longest but quickest, hence a decent pace difference, even if only three seconds overall between it and Monday's.

Saturday - Jingle Bells 5km
Was flupping freezing waiting around, but grand, perfect even, once I got going. I started in the 25+ minute area, ahead of the walkers, but I found a lot of those ahead of me were a lot slower than me (and it's not often I say that!!) so found it hard to get a pace going. I looked at my watch at 1km and could have nearly cried as the average pace was 6:34, well outside what I needed if I wanted that PB. I continued on and things started to thin out along Chesterfield and Ordinance Survey, so I picked things up and saw my average pace drop steadily. By about the half way mark, I thought I was actually still in with a chance of getting that PB if I kept up the pace, and with the downhills I thought that very possible. I pushed on hard. It felt like I was on skates or something and I was passing people out all over the place. The only time people passed me out was in the last 100m during the uphill to the finish line, but I'd clawed back enough time that my pace was under 6 minutes and I felt confident of getting my PB. I stopped the watch at 29:35. Absolutely delighted with that!!! Though I'm still waiting on my official time. My first sub-30 minute 5km!!! My splits: 6:34, 6:11, 5:55, 5:39; 5:16. I've never seen a pace that low on my results before!! Overall, pace of 5:55. Great event! Really enjoyed it! Elated with the result!!

Sunday - planned rest.

20.39km for the week.

I've some musings about my future - how to motivate myself to do longer distances again; how to manage proper training (as I'm from the school of C25K and HH which don't really involve proper training); whether to join a club or not. But I'll gather those thoughts and post about them another time. For the moment we'll leave it with the elation of a sub-30 min 5km race!

Wubble Wubble

Congrats on the PB! Sorry I missed you afterwards.

scotindublin

Brilliant time today delighted to hear you got your sub 30....it was lovely morning for a run.....about as nice as it could be at this time of year.

Take some time to savour that PB!!

Baby75

Well done huge congrats on your PB enjoy the great feeling, you did fantastic sounds like you paced your self brilliantly well done again

Sunny Dayz

Congrats on your pb, that’s a great milestone. Those km splits look great!

ariana`

Well done QB. Great PB and a great milestone to break the 30 min barrier, congrats!

quickbeam

So, now that I have my sub 30 min 5km I'd like to work on getting the same in my local Parkrun. It doesn't have to beat the JB time (yet!) but just be sub 30.

I had little by way of planning done for JB except to run as fast as I could. I certainly hadn't planned to do negative splits like I ended up doing due to congestion. But it seemed to work out well that way as it happened. Though who knows if I'd have done better or worse with even splits.

My question is, for Parkrun should I try for sub 30 by running even splits or by emulating JB and running negative splits? My Parkrun is fairly flat but obviously doesn't have the long downhill advantage that JB had.

I'd assume even splits are the answer but just wanted to check others' opinion.

Sheep1978

Probably not much in it but I would say the first half of your parkrun is slightly tougher with the loop up toward peregrines clubhouse included in it