#10yearchallenge - times not photos

spc78

Saw all the nonsense on facebook about the 10 year challenge photos - how much you've changed or not in 10 years. got me thinking though about my running - how much has it changed in 10 years

Jan 2009 - I ran a 10 mile PB in just under 69 minutes and my recollection is I was delighted. I also ran a 3k race in around 11:30 - Garmin seems to suggest I was only running around 15 miles/3 days a week on average!

Jan 2019 - only running around 30 miles a week at the moment but wouldn't be too happy with those times as splits in a marathon now. I think the 18 months post Jan 2009 was my biggest improvement, twas very incremental after that.

BeepBeep67

djemba djemba

January 2009: Playing GAA. Total Ran: 0
January 2019: Total Ran :162km (as of 20/1). Just shy of 1000 metres elevation gain for the last three days.

shotgunmcos

January 2009
2 whole years before I got into geeky tables like Beepbeep!

I was still reeling fitness off my 2008 3:27 marathon pb and remember feeling truly delighted about that! I ran 107 miles total in January. Kicked off on 1/1 with a 5 mile race 32:21, did 4 long runs 10-14 miles and hit a training time trial half marathon in 1:34. I also did 2 progression runs aimed at 40 min 10k pace. My goal was sub 40 10k and my first triathlon so I was learning to swim too.

On 1st Feb I missed Dungarvan due to floods and hit a 10 mile training time trial pb 65:37 in the lashing rain feeling amazing. On 1st March I hit the sub 40 10k at Adare: 39:13. Back then Krusty was also aiming for his first sub 40 10k and I beat him to it! It hasn't been the same story of continuous improvement though as I darted off for a number of years doing other stuff. When I read back on the way I approached things then, it reads more like my 20 year old self than my 30 year old self.


January 2019
On 125 miles and should finish on circa 190 miles. 3 weeks into first marathon programme since about 2009 and aim to do a bit better than 3:27 on my next attempt. A bit more care and structure to things these comeback days...

28064212

Event|2009|2010|2011|2012|2013|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018
400m|||||||1:05.49|1:05.51|1:02.78|1:03.70
800m|||||||2:20.75|2:26.37|2:18.25|2:17.99
1500m|||||||4:49.84|4:46.74|4:38.05|4:38.56
1 mile|||||||5:13.00||5:10.65|5:05.48
3000m|||||||10:10.00||9:56.24|9:51.46
5k|||||0:18:09|0:17:29||0:16:57|0:16:51|0:16:21
5 mile|||0:41:39||0:32:47||0:28:36|0:28:20|0:28:08|0:28:21
10k|||||0:41:35|0:38:22|0:36:45||0:35:17|0:34:28
10 mile||1:34:59|1:24:19|1:22:06||1:01:46|0:59:16||0:58:43|
Half Mara||2:19:47|1:49:30|1:46:19|1:31:33|1:22:23|1:18:32||1:15:35|1:17:27
3/4 Mara|||3:25:12|2:44:17||2:13:14|2:03:56|||2:00:08
Marathon|||4:09:10|3:41:29|3:02:05|2:51:21|2:41:33||2:48:14|2:35:59
Yearly Kms|0.00|69.39|596.01|1001.75|2422.36|3859.33|5058.55|3026.87|4489.01|5339.20
Yearly Miles|0.00|43.12|370.34|622.46|1505.19|2398.08|3143.24|1880.81|2789.35|3317.64

Only took up running in 2010. Steady progress through 2015. 2016 was a disaster, picked up a bad ankle injury playing astroturf football. 2017 should have had a marathon PB, but three weeks before DCM, got a minor muscle injury, just enough to put me out. 2018 went much better

aquinn

Those tables are amazing to see the progress. Well done men, presumption based on just number ID.

Your 10 mile and HM progress, wow.

Van.Bosch

28064212 wrote: »

Event|2009|2010|2011|2012|2013|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018
400m|||||||1:05.49|1:05.51|1:02.78|1:03.70
800m|||||||2:20.75|2:26.37|2:18.25|2:17.99
1500m|||||||4:49.84|4:46.74|4:38.05|4:38.56
1 mile|||||||5:13.00||5:10.65|5:05.48
3000m|||||||10:10.00||9:56.24|9:51.46
5k|||||0:18:09|0:17:29||0:16:57|0:16:51|0:16:21
5 mile|||0:41:39||0:32:47||0:28:36|0:28:20|0:28:08|0:28:21
10k|||||0:41:35|0:38:22|0:36:45||0:35:17|0:34:28
10 mile||1:34:59|1:24:19|1:22:06||1:01:46|0:59:16||0:58:43|
Half Mara||2:19:47|1:49:30|1:46:19|1:31:33|1:22:23|1:18:32||1:15:35|1:17:27
3/4 Mara|||3:25:12|2:44:17||2:13:14|2:03:56|||2:00:08
Marathon|||4:09:10|3:41:29|3:02:05|2:51:21|2:41:33||2:48:14|2:35:59
Yearly Kms|0.00|69.39|596.01|1001.75|2422.36|3859.33|5058.55|3026.87|4489.01|5339.20
Yearly Miles|0.00|43.12|370.34|622.46|1505.19|2398.08|3143.24|1880.81|2789.35|3317.64

Only took up running in 2010. Steady progress through 2015. 2016 was a disaster, picked up a bad ankle injury playing astroturf football. 2017 should have had a marathon PB, but three weeks before DCM, got a minor muscle injury, just enough to put me out. 2018 went much better

What age are you if you don’t mind me asking, would be interesting to see the progression versus age.

28064212

Van.Bosch wrote: »

What age are you if you don’t mind me asking, would be interesting to see the progression versus age.

Turned 25 in 2009, so 35 this year, and still very much expecting to PB at all distances (ok, the 400m is more of a hope than an expectation)

dna_leri

400m
2009 - 56.3
2013 - 55.1
2016 - 56.3

800m
2008 - 2:25
2013 - 2:02
2018 - 2:15

Mile
2008 - 5:52
2013 - 4:49
2018 - 4:57

5K
2008 - 19:36
2013 - 16:29
2018 - 16:51

10K
2008 - 44:15
2015 - 35:51
2018 - 37:02

2008 was first full year of training.
Peaked around 2013.
Still trying to hold back the tides of time.

Lazare

28064212 wrote: »

Event|2009|2010|2011|2012|2013|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018
400m|||||||1:05.49|1:05.51|1:02.78|1:03.70
800m|||||||2:20.75|2:26.37|2:18.25|2:17.99
1500m|||||||4:49.84|4:46.74|4:38.05|4:38.56
1 mile|||||||5:13.00||5:10.65|5:05.48
3000m|||||||10:10.00||9:56.24|9:51.46
5k|||||0:18:09|0:17:29||0:16:57|0:16:51|0:16:21
5 mile|||0:41:39||0:32:47||0:28:36|0:28:20|0:28:08|0:28:21
10k|||||0:41:35|0:38:22|0:36:45||0:35:17|0:34:28
10 mile||1:34:59|1:24:19|1:22:06||1:01:46|0:59:16||0:58:43|
Half Mara||2:19:47|1:49:30|1:46:19|1:31:33|1:22:23|1:18:32||1:15:35|1:17:27
3/4 Mara|||3:25:12|2:44:17||2:13:14|2:03:56|||2:00:08
Marathon|||4:09:10|3:41:29|3:02:05|2:51:21|2:41:33||2:48:14|2:35:59
Yearly Kms|0.00|69.39|596.01|1001.75|2422.36|3859.33|5058.55|3026.87|4489.01|5339.20
Yearly Miles|0.00|43.12|370.34|622.46|1505.19|2398.08|3143.24|1880.81|2789.35|3317.64

Only took up running in 2010. Steady progress through 2015. 2016 was a disaster, picked up a bad ankle injury playing astroturf football. 2017 should have had a marathon PB, but three weeks before DCM, got a minor muscle injury, just enough to put me out. 2018 went much better

2012 to 2013, swoon. Other than the big increase in mileage what if anything did you do different in 2013 to achieve such progress?

Itziger

Lazare wrote: »

2012 to 2013, swoon. Other than the big increase in mileage what if anything did you do different in 2013 to achieve such progress?

I think if you look at the mileage increase from 2012 to 2015 that is a big part of the answer. Also remember there was a massive jump from "nothing" in 2010 to that later stuff so improvements were going to be big based on that alone. Then you'd have to guess there is an increase in type and quality of workout too.

Very interesting info though.

Lazare

Incredibly interesting. Inspiring too.

With that mileage increase goes injury risk. Must have been a lot of S&C and smart recovery to sustain it.

TFBubendorfer

Lazare wrote: »

With that mileage increase goes injury risk. Must have been a lot of S&C and smart recovery to sustain it.

Not in my experience. Injury risk comes from speedwork, not mileage.

Chivito550

Event|2008|2009|2010|2010/11|2011/12|2012/13|2013/14|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018
60m|||||||||8.05|8.19|7.80|7.97
100m||||13.8h|13.36|12.82|12.63|12.97|12.68|12.35|12.20|12.45
150m|||||||||||19.15|
200m||||28.2h|26.92|25.62|25.44|25.42|25.45|25.10|24.87|25.47
300m|||||||||40.47|||
400m||||63.9h|58.68|56.26|55.00|54.88|55.61|58.35||
800m||||2:34.9h|2:27.6h|2:23.8h|2:15.2h|2:19.70|2:14.98|2:26.73|2:25.03|
1500m|||||5:27.98|5:04.36|4:52.06|4:53.84||||
1 Mile|||||||5:29.0h|||||
5km|21:46|21:02||||||19:46|19:47|22:36|21:53|22:38.91
10km|46:59|45:32||45:24|||||||46:24|
Half Marathon||1:49:06||||||||||
Marathon|||4:07:35|||||||||
4x100m relay||||||49.36||||50.71||47.96
Long Jump||||4.17m|4.32m|4.40m|4.83m|4.20m|4.95m|||
Triple Jump||||8.93m|9.28m|||||||
High Jump|||||1.25m|1.26m|1.31m|1.29m||||
Pole Vault||||||1.30m|1.40m|||||
Shot Putt||||5.67m|6.51m|6.21m|6.75m|5.95m||||
Discus Throw||||14.65m|14.17m|16.67m|16.59m|15.31m||||
Javelin Throw||||13.21m|10.83m|8.37m|12.05m|14.66m||17.53m||
Decathlon|||||2290|2561|2903|2546||||
Beer Mile||||||8:19*|8:27|9:07|10:36|8:43.37|9:21|9:53


Been a busy 10 years of athletics since deciding to run the Great Ireland Run in 2008 for charity. The MSB 5K a few weeks before this was my first race since the few track races I did at West Leinster and Leinster Schools from 2000-2003 (mainly the walk, but once tried the 1500m). Quite a hiatus before starting running again.

My road running life didn’t last too long. Shortly after I finished the Rotterdam Marathon in 2010, I went travelling and moved to Australia, where after some settling in time, and trying various events, eventually dedicated myself to sprinting (400m specifically). I had 3 thoroughly enjoyable full seasons there, the last of which (2013/14) I have never been fitter (before or since). Moved home in 2014 and got stuck into the Irish track scene, finally running sub 55 for 400m at Nationals. There was to be no further improvement in 2015 however, and I slowly lost the love for the distance. I switched over to 60m/100m/200m after the 2015 season, and improved over the next 2 years, finally running sub 25 for 200m at nationals in 2017, which was possibly the best season I’ve had. Found the training, time commitment and motivation quite unsustainable after the amount that went into 2017, and I’ve experienced a drop off since.

I don’t see any of my track PBs falling at this point. I’ve one more full season as a senior before I become a master. Perhaps that might bring new motivation. I’ll most likely stick to the shorter distances as I’ve no desire for the pain of a 400m anymore unless a PB is up for grabs.

Lots of field events in the above table, but I never trained for any of these events specifically, with the exception of a brief period training for long jump, which ended quite swiftly with a torn groin.

It would be wrong to not include the beer mile. The * beside one of the times denotes an unofficial time as my beer didn’t meet the criteria.

I’ve also included some parkrun times in my 5k season’s bests for completeness, even though most of the time they’d be just used as off-season training runs.

El CabaIIo

Just curious why you say you haven't ever been as fit since you left Australia Chivito because it's not something that sticks out in the results with all your target pb's coming after moving back. Do you mean all around fitness or what?

Chivito550

El CabaIIo wrote: »

Just curious why you say you haven't ever been as fit since you left Australia Chivito because it's not something that sticks out in the results with all your target pb's coming after moving back. Do you mean all around fitness or what?

I suppose I mean aerobic fitness and speed endurance. In terms of speed and power I was at my best in 2017. My coach in Oz always used the term “fit” to mean endurance and “fast” to mean speed and I guess it just stuck with me. Your right though, fitness is a vague term and differs depending on the event.

That last season I had in Oz, I unfortunately was made redundant and had the impossible task of finding another company to sponsor me to stay in the country. The upshot of that however was that I trained like a full time athlete. An opportunity I didn’t have before, haven’t had since, and hopefully won’t ever have again. Not working makes a huge difference with recovery though. Make no mistake about that. I was hammering out 6 days a week pretty much throughout, as opposed to 5 since I moved home.

While my 400m PB came the following season, it was just an improvement by 0.12 of a second. It was a one off performance, while my last season in Oz, I ran under 56 seconds 8 times (while I managed it just 5 times in the next 2 seasons combined).

Hope that makes sense.

28064212

Lazare wrote: »

2012 to 2013, swoon. Other than the big increase in mileage what if anything did you do different in 2013 to achieve such progress?

I'd assign 90%+ of the progress to increased distance. Went from running 2-3 times a week to 4-5. There were two other factors, but both were directly related to increasing the distance:

• This was the first year I did a Spring marathon as well as an Autumn one. Previous two years I only ran an Autumn one.
• Moved from largely treadmill running to running outside. Prior to 2013, most of my midweek runs were in the gym, with long runs at the weekend outside. Once I started doing all my runs outside, it made it a lot easier to increase the mileage

Itziger wrote: »

you'd have to guess there is an increase in type and quality of workout too.

Lazare wrote: »

With that mileage increase goes injury risk. Must have been a lot of S&C and smart recovery to sustain it.

Nope and nope Almost all of my training up to 2014 was at an easy pace. The exception was some of the long runs, where I'd include progression runs and race pace kms. I practically never ran faster than marathon pace. My plans was mostly based around the Hal Higdon plans (Novice 1 through to Intermediate 2). It wasn't until training for DCM 14 when I started using P&D's plans that I included anything that could be called speed work. And I've always been fairly poor with S&C, didn't even get a foam roller until 2015!

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

Not in my experience. Injury risk comes from speedwork, not mileage.

Definitely find this to be true

Cabaal

Wasn't running in 2009.
But did first half in 2010 in 1.56. Last half I did was 1.30 in the summer.

Never considered myself fast and never specifically trained for a half marathon, all improvements mainly came from training for 50k plus runs.

TFBubendorfer

This would look a lot better if we had done this 2004-2014

5K:
2008: 18:07
2014: 17:51
2018: 20:30-ish

Marathon:
2008: 3:05:37
2014: 2:55:07
late 2018: 3:31:57

Ultra:
2008: 39 miles in 5:50
2012-17: 225k over 24 hours, 2 medals in Irish champs, 2 Euros, 2 Worlds, top 100 word rankings, a handful of low-key wins
2018/19: just finishing is an achievement

I think somewhere along the way I did myself some subtle damage, constantly pushing a little bit harder, constantly trying to reach yet another level. Subtle because it's not noticeable at all in day-to-day life but damage all the same because my performance levels have fallen off a cliff and as soon as I get to even easy training levels my body starts falling apart.

Any lessons? Pushing too hard? I'd love to pass them on but in reality I have no regrets and would do it all again. I reached a level that I wouldn't even have dared to dream about back in 2009, and while I was not able to sustain it it was a hell of a ride!

rainbow kirby

January 2009: Raheny 5 in 46 mins
January 2019: 4 Villages Half Marathon in 2:21

The best of my running was from 2009 to 2012, there was a sub 4 marathon, 1:50 half, 37 min 5 mile etc in that. I started running in 2008.

Got injured in a fall at the Limerick half in 2012 and took 18 months to run pain free, did triathlons for a bit because cross training helped, had babies in 2016 and 2018 and am carrying a lot of baby weight/mid-30s spread.