Against Method.

Sacksian · 24-05-2020 4:53pm

63.1 miles for the week. A weekly mileage pb. 25 more miles for the month and I'll have a monthly mileage pb too!

Another solid week, with two sessions and a mileage pb with only one run over 10 miles. The extra session made a difference in fatigue on today's run (also need more sleep anyway), which confirms what I had been thinking about training loads.

Volume is not a problem, if it's all run easy. I'm getting used to running 8-9 miles a day at an honest pace (which is a sentence I never thought I'd write).

But, once I start adding sessions and I remember what it's like to do 2 reasonable sessions a week and a proper long run. And, for me, if I'm doing 2 sessions a week and a proper long run, the running in between has to be recovery, ideally short, or else I'm just building up a fatigue deficit that has to be repaid at some point, probably through inconsistency, illness or injury.

Which, for now, isn't what I need. I need to be comfortable enough with the volume that, when I start adding sessions in to the mix, I don't have to reduce the easy days too much.

As it is, I'm enjoying getting the mileage in, it's something I've never done before and I don't think I'd be able to resist jumping into a session when the club stuff is back on. I'd like to do this year differently, so I'm hoping to repeat this week next week.

This week I also added another mile to the steady run on Wednesday and did an extra session in the middle of a run on Saturday.

I brought the hr with me on Thursday and Friday, just to check what condition my condition was in. It said I was getting fit. Getting fast is a different issue.

Mon: 8.3m @7:42
Tues: 8.86m @7:44
Weds: 9.9m @7:03 w/5 v. steady in the middle
Thurs: 6.92m @7:39
Fri: 8.86m @7:46
Sat: 10.21m @7:02 w/ 8 x 3m30s steady off 60s continuous run
Sun: 9.98 @7:50

As usual, all on trails in the phoenix park, bar the 1.5 miles there and back every day.

Thoughts are turning to August + September.

So, I've been having a look at what my final/peaking session is going to be (probably for 1500m) and will start planning working back from that once I have figured that out.

Sacksian · 31-05-2020 1:30pm

65miles for the week and a total of 276miles for the month - which means another weekly mileage pb and a monthly mileage pb by about 40 miles.

Was short on sleep this week and really started to feel it towards the end of the week.

Mon - 8.8m @ 7:45min/mile
Tues - 7.4m @8:05min/mile inc. 6 x 8s HS
Weds - 9.8m @ 6:59min/mile w/5 v.steady miles in the middle
Thurs - 8.4m @7:45min/mile
Friday - 8.8m @ 7:45min/mile
Saturday - 10.7m @7:02min/mile w/ 8 x 3m30s steady off 60s continuous run
Sunday - 11m @7:55min/mile

The 5 steady miles on Wednesday were avg@6:18 which felt very similar to last week's 6:25 average - 7s a mile improvement over any distance is not to be sniffed at so I'll take that as a good sign.

I was conscious that Saturday's session felt a lot tougher towards the end that it did last week. The main difference was that I hit the 'on' bits harder this week - which makes the recovery parts slower and the 2nd half a lot harder. In future, I'll keep the 'on'/'off' differential a bit smaller i.e. more like last week's than this week's.

So, what to do next?!

I haven't quite decided yet what I'll be doing but the next 4 weeks should see a lot more hills and sessions with hills. I've been actively concentrating on keeping my cadence up for the past two months, purely for injury prevention (it's the only value displayed on my watch at the moment) and it's definitely helped with the toll on the body from the big bumps in mileage. Now I have to get some pop back into my stride, which is what I'm hoping the hills will help with.

I'd like to take a bit of a down week next week but we'll see how that goes. Might put some actual dates + sessions into a calendar after next week.

I know if I take the foot off the gas, I could easily slip down to 20mpw so I'll probably just concentrate on getting out every day for 45mins or so on non-session days rather than the 60-68mins I've been doing, which should keep weekly mileage above 50 up until August.

Definitely need to keep catching up with sleep.

Sacksian · 07-06-2020 8:16pm

A down week that ended with a bit of a downer training-wise. 56 miles for the week.

Monday to Friday was all easy.

Monday - 6.1 @ 7:47
Tuesday - 6.8 @ 7:53 inc 6 x 12s HS off jog-back
Wednesday - 8.8 @7:43 (felt a bit beat up during this I remember)
Thursday - 8.8 @7:27 (included a few 5s surges at the start of every k, which is why the pace is a little faster, as well as the lack of session)
Friday - 5.3 @8:13 inc a bit of random hills + bounding

Plan was just to get through the week with a view to adding hills over the next couple of weeks. However, I got a text during the week that we were going to try a socially-distanced club session (i.e. a group of 4). It’s a bit of a dilemma that I’d rather not have, to be honest.

I’ve been enjoying the easy stuff of recent months but having other people to push me is probably what I need to run 1500m/5000m pbs this year and a dedicated middle-distance group would help that.

So, Saturday was my first proper interval workout since the first week in MARCH!

12 x 400m off 60s active recovery (60s of shuffling around rather than a proper "jog" as such). Strong wind on the polo grounds - which meant a tail-wind on odds and head-wind on evens but, apart from 5+6, they were pretty consistent. Three of us doing the session, taking turns leading them out.

12 x 400m @ 76: 77 / 77 / 76 / 76 / 72 / 79 / 74 / 76 / 75 / 76 / 75 / 75

I was happy with that at the end - and hoping that’s close enough to current 3000m pace, so any progression with that over the next couple of months gets me into pb territory. Sticking on racers/spikes on a track, rather than my everyday shoes on grass, would be worth a second a rep but not too worried about paces right now.

What I did notice is that, after a lot of weeks of just easy running / nothing faster than 6min pace, it was harder to get up to speed. But, more encouragingly, after a few months of 50+ miles I could probably have squeezed another couple of reps out. I didn’t feel fast but I was able to keep going without much extra distress. So, maybe there is something to this mileage business.

We finished it up with some *fast* strides/sprints.

Sunday was 10.7 @ 7:57 - this was, for the most part, lovely. I stuck the HR on and, while I’m sure it’s a little generous, it had me at 118bpm average for the run, which is what it felt like.

Unfortunately, my sciatica is at me after yesterday’s session and was starting to kick in at the end of the long run - it’s something I’ve been getting for about 5 or 6 years now.

When I first started getting it, I thought it was hamstring DOMs or a slight hamstring strain but it’s a back problem that presents itself as a hamstring issue / hamstring strain and occasionally turns into a calf/achilles problem when left to fester - basically the glute stops doing what it's supposed to and the calf ends up taking a lot of strain, getting overworked and the whole right leg goes (more) out (than it is at the best of times).

So, I’ve been managing it fairly well in recent years but I haven’t had to worry about it with all the easy stuff for so long, and I just didn’t warm-up properly yesterday or stretch properly when I got home.

As long as it’s not getting worse, I’ll keep running easy but I might have to take the week off sessions, which would be a shame, especially with all the work I’ve put in the last couple of months.

I don't want to start getting bounced into very taxing sessions because there's a long way to go before any race that I care about will be on the horizon. So, I might keep up the Saturday sessions and do my own thing midweek. Anyway, we’ll see how this week goes.

Sacksian · 14-06-2020 9:44am

62 miles for the week…and hit 1,000 miles for the year on Wednesday (with probably about half of that coming in the last two months).

Started off the week with the sciatica/hamstring issue and just stayed on top of it. It’s neural tension that feels a bit like a hamstring strain - tight quads and a tight back are a killer for it (which is what happens for me after interval sessions early in the season), so my go-to-routine now is: rolling out the quads, doing lots of hip stretches, not stretching the hamstring but keeping an eye on its range of motion and distinguishing where restriction is coming from, along with some very basic glute, calf and hamstring stuff every day.

It meant I could still run everyday but up until Thursday the hamstring was still too restricted to do anything quick. And I was then able to do the session on Saturday:

Monday - 8.8 @ 7:52
Tuesday - 8.8 @ 7:49
Wednesday - 8.8 @7:35
Thursday - 8.8 @7:57
Friday - 7.8 @7:54

Saturday: 14 x 400m off 55s-60s active recovery

K around the Polo Grounds in 3:45 to warm-up and then:

14 x 400m @ 74: 73 / 78 / 73 / 77 / 73 / 75 / 72 / 76 / 72 / 74 / 72 / 75 / 73 / 70

Backwards wind on the Polo Grounds (meaning a tail-wind on odds and head-wind on evens). Overall, very happy with that - although I was massively helped by having someone else lead out every rep! Which is the benefit of group sessions I guess. I was wearing my xc spikes too.

Having just run easy - not even a stride - for the entire week, it was great to see the strength that’s come from the mileage. Worst case scenario, it’s 3k pace.

With a session like this, I want my last split to be my fastest (and to be comfortable doing that), so a good session. Will be interesting to see how the sessions progress. They’re not an end to themselves so they need to! Will be some sort of change up in the session next week so looking forward to whatever that is.

Sunday was a very leisurely 8.8 @ 8:13

There’s no sign of the hamstring/sciatica so it’s definitely the maintenance stuff that makes the difference. DOMS may be an issue tomorrow. Would like to do some hills during the week but happy with the one session last week so will see.

Sacksian · 21-06-2020 10:14pm

Step back…

Monday - 8.8miles @ 7:50
Tuesday - 8.8miles @ 7:45
Wednesday - 8.8miles @7:37
Thursday - 8.8miles @7:25 inc an unplanned 20mins at tempo in the middle.
Friday - 7.8miles @7:54

Foot was sore Monday-Wednesday but it had resolved itself by Thursday so I opened up a bit on Thursday’s run. On Friday, I found out that the Saturday session would be a 3k time trial, which made Thursday’s impromptu tempo a bit ill-considered. I might also have made the morning run on Friday a bit shorter if I’d known.

Saturday - 3K Time Trial -10:03

I warmed up with a k in 3:43.

So, with prepared excuses of tiredness from both the Thursday and the lack of sleep for the week, I was already not looking forward to the time trial.

The morning itself was glorious. Big group down for it. The course was a wheel-measured 3k of 3 grass laps and a bit around the Polo Grounds.

We were sent off at 5s intervals (to maintain social distancing) in order from fastest to slowest. I was hoping to pace off the scratch guy who was just coming back from a lay-off. But the combination of his 5s head start and him doing 69/70s for the first 400 put paid to that.

I don’t like time trials at the best of times. If they’re solo, then there’s no one to push you and, if they’re not on the track or a wheel-measured course, you run the risk of over-estimating the quality of your performance (if your watch/Strava is generous with the distance).

Here, I had no idea who was near me and Josh was too far in front to work off but I had an accurately measured course…

I heard a split of 3:12 for the first k, which was basically what I was hoping for - to end up somewhere in the 9:40s or low 9:50s - but ended up with 10:03 so I obviously tailed off quite a bit on the 2nd and 3rd laps. As grateful as I am to my watch and Strava giving me 9:42 for the 3000m, I think I’ll have to go with the measured course!

I haven’t seen the final results and there could well have been one or two starting behind me who ultimately covered the 3000m faster but I crossed the line in the position I started. I would have preferred to run with some of the guys starting after me, rather than run solo but, for all the excuses, the end result is that I’m disappointed with the time and, rather than trying to contextualise or rationalise, I need to put the base work and easy miles I’ve done in the past few months to some use if I’m going to get close to the 9:10s this summer. Speed endurance matters.

Followed up the time-trial (after a 10-15min break) with 3 laps of 100m on / 100m off around the Polos which was just under 2 miles at about 6:11 min/mile pace.

Sunday 77mins @7:51 - sciatica playing up a bit towards the end but nothing too bad.

Status Check….

I have one of three simple reactions to results: I’m either ‘happy’, ‘satisfied' or ‘disappointed'. Even with ‘happy’, I can’t think of more than 2 or 3 races where I didn’t think I could have eked out an extra second or tenth of a second, an easier win or a better run. So, the ‘happy’ reactions generally involve a little bit of regret too. But that’s moderated by a pb or a medal or a good placing.

In the last year or so, I’m finding myself being ‘satisfied’ with too many races and I’ve noticed the criteria I’m using to interpret a result as ‘satisfying’ is widening: back from break, interrupted training, no speed work, not the focus, not my distance, etc. In reality, most of the time, a ‘satisfied’ result is just a ‘disappointed’ that I’ve managed to successfully rationalise.

So, my two takeouts from this week and Saturday in particular are that a) I need to start looking at my watch at least once or twice when there’s no clock because the difference of having a 10 rather than a 9 in my result from Saturday is really annoying me and, under those circumstances, it’s stupid not to. And b) I need to take the intensity of training up a notch if I’m to get close to the targets I have for the summer.

June’s coming to an end and, while it will be a third good month of mileage behind me, the track season is closing in and I’ve barely started preparing for it.

Shoot me if I post in this log next weekend and I’ve run only one session in 7 days of running.

pconn062 · 22-06-2020 9:30am

In a regular year with the track season starting in May/June I think you would be very happy to be in the position you are in now with 3 very solid months of base building done and no injury interruptions really. And there's plenty of time until August/September races. It's looking good now for when you start introducing more quality work. What's the focus event for the year? 1500m?

Sacksian · 22-06-2020 10:41pm

pconn062 wrote: »

In a regular year with the track season starting in May/June I think you would be very happy to be in the position you are in now with 3 very solid months of base building done and no injury interruptions really. And there's plenty of time until August/September races. It's looking good now for when you start introducing more quality work.

I'm usually going into my first race in decent anaerobic shape though, so this year's different. I'm not worried but it is definitely a new thing for me to have run a lot and to feel a bit off pace.

I do feel fit though. I normally feel unfit but capable of pulling off a decent mile time.

pconn062 wrote: »

What's the focus event for the year? 1500m?

The focus event is 'general improvement'! And I'd really like to be going into xc not fried from track, which hopefully will be as a result of being a bit stronger too. So, I'll be hoping to do a couple of 15s, a couple of 3ks and a 5000m. I don't think there's enough time or events to do anything else.

I haven't really made a big leap in any event (my pbs mostly come from my first or second year at some event - from 800m to 5000m - with low mileage) and I'm hoping that all this aerobic work will give me some sort of additional stimulus. And, once I actually do them, that all the hills I've been promising to do will pay off.

So...

I would like a 1500m pb. My pb is from my first (and last, due to injury) race of the 2016 season and I ran within one second of it about 4 times in 2018 (didn't have a season in 2017, nor really in 2019). I'd like to take 4 seconds off it to get me down to 4:10, which seems really unlikely right now.

I would like a 3000m pb. My pb is from 2018, when I was mostly running 1500m. But it was a small improvement on my first proper attempt in 2014. I'd like to take 8 seconds off it which would bring me down to 9:12, which seems really unlikely right now (but possibly easier than the 1500m target).

I'd like to run 5000m on the track. I've never run 5000m on the track and I'm hoping that, if I run it last of the 4 or 5 races, I'll be used to running very fast and sub-16 will be attainable. Which, of all the targets, is probably the least likely of them all.

Dublin Gradeds should be announced this week so the season will hopefully be two Dublin Gradeds (maybe 2 x 3000m), Leinster (1500m), Nationals (1500m) and Masters (5000m!).

The motivation for this plan is to be in something approaching 'good' XC shape in October, to be able to have a go at doing National Seniors XC and hit the National Novice in better shape than I ever have.

It's all very pie-in-the-sky ambitious and I made similar goals in 2019 and they went absolutely nowhere, so we'll know more by the end of July how ridiculous this is. But it would be a shame if consistently running 50-60mpw made me slower than inconsistently running 30-40mpw.

All this comes with the massive caveat "if I don't get injured", which is pretty much guaranteed at some point.

Chivito550 · 23-06-2020 8:31am

There's also NI Seniors 29th August and NI Masters 5th September if looking for more races.

Sacksian · 23-06-2020 8:52am

Chivito550 wrote: »

There's also NI Seniors 29th August and NI Masters 5th September if looking for more races.

Thanks - the timing is good but I'd be happy with 5 to be honest and if the Leinsters have the open competition and seniors/masters in Morton, that'll be fine for me.

Chivito550 · 23-06-2020 9:32am

Sacksian wrote: »

Thanks - the timing is good but I'd be happy with 5 to be honest and if the Leinsters have the open competition and seniors/masters in Morton, that'll be fine for me.

Lot of confusion about the open competition both at Leinster and Nationals. I have a feeling that is for juveniles.

Sacksian · 28-06-2020 9:35am

Sacksian wrote: »

Shoot me if I post in this log next weekend and I’ve run only one session in 7 days of running.

Hold your fire!

Monday - 8.8miles @ 7:55
Tuesday - 7.5miles @ 8:05 inc. 6 x 8-10s HS off jog back
Wednesday - 10+ miles for the day including session.

5 x Khyber Hill (921m) off jog-back AVG 3:23

Club coach recommended this hill session for mid-week. My first time doing a full Khyber session since 2014!

For those who don’t know it, the Khyber Road is a long - but not ridiculously steep - hill (closed to traffic by bollards at the bottom and top) in the middle of the Phoenix Park.

For some reason, I have the exact distance in my head as 921m. Now, while it’s definitely not ridiculously steep, it does go on a bit and if you’re struggling by the time you get to 600m, the suffering increases because it kicks up again until 800m. It then levels out for the last stretch.

The way we’re instructed to do the session is to be able to kick in the last 100m or so i.e. when you’ve already been running uphill for 800m. It’s very hard to pull this off because you’re generally willing it to end from 500m.

It’s one of those deceptively tough sessions that gets better with repetition.

I set off for the first one at a relaxed pace and was quite happy to do it in 3:24. A little bit harder on the second only produced a 3:23. A little bit harder again and a 3:21. At this stage, I was conscious that I wasn’t able to kick in the last stretch on any of the reps. It was definitely tough, but still felt controlled and I wasn’t worried about managing the 5.

Fourth was 3:25 and the fifth 3:20. I tried to take the first 800m a little easier on the last one so that I could kick at the end but I wasn’t really able to shift gears. For me, the ‘kick’ is a state of mind - a subtle relaxation where you just open up and your legs take over. I’ve noticed in recent weeks that it’s just not there at the moment in sessions but that’s probably a function of the increased mileage and lack of attention to speed.

Average was 3:23 for the 5 reps. In 2013, I did 4 reps at an average of 3:11 - albeit with a pacer, flats and a strong tail-wind but I’d like to do it again in a couple of weeks and see if I can get closer to an average or 3:16 or so - even sub 3:20 would be good.

Thursday - 7.7miles @ 7:53 (fatigued from yesterday, but the good sort of fatigue).

Friday - 7.7miles @ 8:04 (glute DOMS from Wednesday’s session kicking in)

Saturday - 8.3m inc 12 x 300m “snappy” off 180-200m jog

54/55/55/55/56/54/56/54/55/55/55/50
Avg: 54.88

On the Polo Grounds - grass, but good conditions.

Instructions here were to sacrifice a bit of quantity for quality. The 10k and marathon lads did 14-16 300s and the more track-oriented among us did 10-12.

Good consistency and nice to be able to open up on the last rep. Jog recovery was between 60s-80s.

Always hard to gauge these grass sessions against times on the track, but I know 9 x 49-50s on the track with 60s standing recovery is good 1500m shape for me so 12@55 on grass is a bit away from that - but it's another session heading in that direction.

As with previous sessions, I’m doing well strength-wise, just lacking a bit on the speed/speed endurance end of things at the moment.

Sunday 11miles @7:52

61miles for the week (7th 60 mile week in the last 8 weeks).

Next week: density + intensity ups again, with probably a geansaí load of short-hills on Tuesday (15+ if I can manage it) and - if I can walk after Tuesday - something easy/short on Thursday before the session on Saturday.

Race targets and calendar are starting to take shape!

Sacksian · 05-07-2020 2:23pm

60.1 miles for the week.

Another decent week. I’m starting to feel the cumulative fatigue of insufficient sleep on top of lots of miles but the easy days are still getting done.

Monday - 7.7miles @ 8:05
Tuesday - 6.7miles for the day inc. 16 x 20s (very steep) hill off walk-back

This was probably a bit pointless. The hill I was doing it on was too steep to generate any speed, so it was just a pure strength session of trying to push myself up a hill 16 times. However, I did feel a bit more sprightly on Wednesday’s run. Thursday and Friday I had glute DOMS.

Wednesday - 8.8miles at 7:39
Thursday - 8.8miles at 7:39
Friday - 7.7miles at 7:59

Saturday … BACK ON TRACK!

Middle-Distance Pyramid: 200 - 400 - 600 - 1000 - 600 - 400 - 200 all off approximately equal recoveries.

Splits: 33s - 68s - 1:44 - 3:04 - 1:47 - 67s - 32s

Out the door at 7:30 in the morning to meet up with a couple of club mates and coach for my first time on the track in exactly 4 months (last track session was 4th March).

Happy with paces (especially for 8 o’clock in the morning). It’s not a session I’d naturally gravitate towards or one that I particularly enjoy. It’s just a bit intense for me. But, in the spirit of experimentation, maybe that’s what I need to be doing more of.

I’m still feeling a bit heavy-legged with the increased mileage this summer but it’s noticeable that I’m better able to hold on during sessions.

I did this exact same session in June 2018 (at which stage I had already run two 4:15 1500m races in the weeks beforehand and had done quite a bit of speed work) and the splits were: 29s - 63s - 1:47 - 1:53 (600 in the middle instead of a k) - 1:52 - 63s - 30s.

On paper, the 200/400 splits look considerably better but the recoveries and long rep splits tell a much different story.

In 2018, I did a 600 instead of the k in the middle because I was already slowing down so much on the first 600. I also took 4m30s after the 2nd 600 (compared with 2m30s after the k today). And 2m30s after the 3rd 600 (compared with 1m46s today). So, today, I did a k at a faster pace than the 600 in 2018 with 2mins less recovery afterwards and then ran the next 600 5s faster. All the recoveries, including the 200/400 were shorter yesterday. So, fitter/stronger at the moment. How much difference that will make in an actual race is still to be determined!

Sunday - 11.1miles at 7:59 - foot a bit sore towards the end, seems to be worse after a day in spikes.

Foreseeable Future

So, I’m certainly still very slightly off the pace at the moment, but I appear to be better able to hold 1500m speed in sessions.

I expect next week to be my ‘peak week’ in terms of demands on the body. Tuesday’s session will be tough, not intense, but the type of session that you feel stronger as a result of simply making it through. I’m also planning to run a big week in terms of miles. I’ll take whatever session’s going on Saturday.

I will need to add faster stuff in some form before I race again, if I’m to get the most out of the extra bit of strength. That will either mean adding 60s or 100s at the end of track sessions or dedicated sessions of speed 200s.

I would also like to do a 20 x 200m off 100m session at some point in the coming weeks and maybe an old 800m session like 3 x 4 x 200m off 30s.

Maintenance

My knee has been aching after periods of sitting, which is not having any effect on running, but I’d rather not have any aches at all, to be honest. I’m also conscious that I’m going to be lacing up a more aggressive pair of spikes in the coming weeks and that always makes me nervous for my achilles.

However, I think if I can make it through next week without succumbing to injury, I should make the start line on the 22nd for a 1500m.

Sacksian · 12-07-2020 12:26pm

Another week down, a race entered and a mileage milestone.

Monday - the week started with a bit of worry about the knee. It was bugging me sitting down on Sunday and I was still conscious of it on Monday morning so I did my now standard niggle symptom check.

If I get an emerging niggle, I try to think about things that I’ve started doing habitually than I hadn’t done before: surfaces, gait, mileage, new exercises, etc, but also day-to-day changes like different working environments and seating. One of the biggest differences in recent months has been the concentration on keeping my cadence high (to avoid right leg calf injury). And that led me to figuring out that I had been working muscles and striking the ground in a slightly different way on my left leg than I would with a lower cadence, essentially forcing a different pattern than I’m used to and creating a bit of overload. So, I tried a couple of days of lower cadence running and, amazingly, that seemed to do the trick.

For the first lower cadence day, I decided to cycle up to the Park for my Monday run, thus avoiding concrete for the whole run. 6.8miles @ 7:53min/m.

Tuesday - back to the standard 8.8 @8:04

Wednesday 13+ miles inc. Session of 10mins @marhr (effort) / 2km / 1km / 5 x 400 off approximately 3mins /2mins /2mins and 1min between 400s.

10 mins @6:13 approx
~2km @3:30/k
~1km @3:11
5 x 400m @ 82,76,79,79,71

Had hoped to do this on Tuesday but the weather conditions put paid to that so planned to do it on the club track Wednesday. Primarily because it means I can get an accurate distance and also because, well, it’s a chance to run on the track.

Unfortunately, by the time I arrived down to the club on Wednesday morning, the archer that practices on the track infield was setting up and while he offered to share the track with me, there’s something about doing laps of the track while arrows are being fired at 150mph out of my line of sight that doesn’t sit entirely comfortably with me. So, I declined.

As I head off, I’m thinking about the various different sessions I could substitute for the planned one but by the time I get to the Polos, I’ve decided the simplest thing would be to do the session as originally intended.

It turns out pretty well. The pace is a bit more uneven because of the surface and conditions and I’m a bit off the pace for the 2k bits and the 400s are all over the place (a combination of headwinds and the fitness group’s lack of Polo track etiquette parking their prams on the track!).

It’s not exactly what I was looking for (in terms of an accurate measured distance or the desired pace on the 2ks or 400s) but it’s a good workout, I feel strong and in control. It’s 6 miles at 6:20 pace and I feel good going home.

I also manage to get an entry for the Graded 1500m on the 22nd in Morton.

Thursday - 8.8 @ 7:51
Friday - 8.8 @7:38

Saturday - SESSION 3 x (3min/2min/1min off 1 min jog then 30s snappy) and 2mins jog between sets

I’m knackered by Saturday. Sleep has not been good since Tuesday, but I know if I can get through the next two days then I can put a cap on this block, satisfied that I am in about as good shape as I could have hoped coming out of lockdown.

Today’s Polo ground session is a bit different. Instead of the usual distance intervals, the work/recovery sessions are dictated by the coach’s whistle. A set is: 1 minute on - 1 minute off - 2 minutes on - 1 minute off - 3 minutes on - 1 minute off - 30s snappy - 2minutes off. And we go on/off at the coach’s whistle.

The track-focused folk like myself and a few others will do 3 sets, whereas the hardier bucks with their eye on 10000m or half-marathons will do 4. It’s the type of session I really like, where you can run it anyway you like - either hit the ‘on’ sections hard and ‘jog’ the off sections or keep it reasonably one-paced, minimising the gap between the work/recovery sections.

Having someone faster than you to run with also helps - and I’m blessed to have a 4 flat 1500m guy and the Dublin intermediate xc champ to run with in my group! I feel good and, apart from misjudging when I should have started surging on the final 3min section, I’m picking up pace throughout the session and taking a lot of the longer reps out.

Most of the work sections are in around 5 flat pace and we end up with about 5.7miles in 35minutes, just a smidge over 6min/mile pace average - which is good going for me when about 15 minutes of that 35 minutes is recovery jogging.

But, consistent with previous sessions, I’m blown out of the water on the snappy 30s sections by the other guys. And the takeout for me is the same as previous weeks - I’m definitely stronger than recent years but off the pace. I don’t know what that will mean in a 1500m race but we’ll find out in 10 days.

Sunday was 11.9miles @7:44 to bring me up to a total of 70miles for the week! Which is twice the mileage I averaged for the marathons I did when I started running. And a weekly volume total I never thought I’d reach, even at the start of lockdown. I won’t be keeping it up but it’s good to know I can hit it doing two good sessions and a nice long run.

So, the plan for next week is to drop the miles a (good) bit, do something fast (or faster) midweek and whatever next weekend’s session involves.

The long-term conundrum is one that I think faces everyone who ups mileage - how much speed do you have to sacrifice to be competitive over longer distances. Being able to hold a decent pace over a longer distance is a great feeling, but straining to run quick intervals is not.

pconn062 · 13-07-2020 5:41pm

For the sake of discussion, I have a question for you! You seem to do your easy mileage much slower than other guys of your ability with similar PB's. Even I would run 10-20 secs on average quicker than you I would say on easy days, without pushing the pace. Any reason specifically for this? Is the higher mileage forcing this or do you deliberately try to keep it slower? Do you find it leaves you fresher I overall?
Also, will the change as you drop mileage now and increase intensity?
I am looking at my own easy pace and wondering is it too fast, even though it feels easy and heart rate suggests the same.

Sacksian · 13-07-2020 9:57pm

pconn062 wrote: »

For the sake of discussion, I have a question for you! You seem to do your easy mileage much slower than other guys of your ability with similar PB's. Even I would run 10-20 secs on average quicker than you I would say on easy days, without pushing the pace.

Everyone runs their easy days quicker than me! And you're running a bit more than 10-20s faster than me on your long runs these days!!

I think there are a lot of factors to it. I'm taking the opportunity to ramble here, P so excuse the length of the post!

Because of previous injuries, I've been making a big effort to pay attention to my cadence on easy runs, particularly when I'm running on concrete. It means I don't run that freely (and I don't enjoy running on concrete). It's a bit of a chore, to be honest but it means I'm injury free at the moment.

The surface could also be a factor, I run everything on grass and trails.

And higher mileage definitely plays a part. I just go at whatever pace my legs want to go at and, honestly, I'm actually surprised at how quick some of my easy days are! In 2018-19, when I was running strictly by hr and doing decent mileage, my easy days were closer to 8:30 most of the time. So, to my mind, my easy runs are quite speedy these days by comparison!

The time I run at is a factor as well - I'm really f*cking old and it takes me a couple of miles to warm up when I'm out the door at 7 these days. I see a lot of guys doing low- or sub-7s out the gate and that's never going to be me. Unless I'm very fit and I then drop mileage, my opening pace is always about 8min/m and sometimes closer to 9min/m.

It's possibly a bit of a hangover from when I did a lot of training by hr when I really had to warm up very gently to keep the hr low. But I don't mind runs turning progressive if it's not going to impact sessions/recovery. When I ran less, and when I started running, almost every run was progressive, which was fine because I wasn't running every day and the runs were relatively short.

So, the easy run pace would definitely pick up if I dropped the mileage and intensity a bit but I know if I do that, I'll find it harder to get the mileage back up for xc so my intention is to keep it - within reason - at a good level through the track season. That's the intention, whether or not I'll succeed is another matter!

pconn062 wrote: »

I am looking at my own easy pace and wondering is it too fast, even though it feels easy and heart rate suggests the same.

Ultimately, I think that easy pace is very individual. I look at some people's easy pace and think "why is their easy pace" so much faster than mine?! And then I look at the guys who are the guts of 2min faster than me over 5k and wonder why is my easy pace only 30s slower than theirs!!

There's a guy in the club whose easy pace is generally over 8 and often in the 8:30s and there'll be 9minute miles in there too - and I suspect he'll dip under 15mins for 5k this year. And he can rip off 45s 300s when he needs to. There are other guys I know who've taken big leaps after actively deciding to increase their easy pace. It really depends...and which is why I sometimes think that it's very important for everyone to figure out what works for them, and what approach (or environment) will get them out the door consistently - whether that's consistently once a week or twice a day - and sustainably.

There are people who will tell you Kipchoge does his recovery at 9min/mile and there are other runners who never run slower than 6:** but realistically the only thing about easy pace that matters is that it's not too fast to impact on recovery or sessions and not too slow to impact on biomechanics/efficiency.

For me, sustainability in training is often about intensity, I'll get injured or sick if I push it too much so I try to err on the side of caution - especially with the Sunday long runs.

If you're not feeling tired and you're hitting your paces in sessions, you're probably fine. Last week was a big week for me and I was having trouble sleeping - which I'm presuming is partly to do with the training volume. I wasn't that pushed about going out today either. Little things like that tell me that I might be a little bit on the edge, so I just have to navigate those periods without getting struck down.

I'm generally more of an under-cooker than an over-cooker but I have messed up a few races in recent years by just tipping over the edge in terms of training intensity in the final week where I was flying in training and just needed to sit the last session out. Magness is good on this in The Science of Running on st/ft tapers.

TLDR; I like easy runs to be very easy mainly because I am lazy, but also because I am old.

Swashbuckler · 13-07-2020 10:40pm

Super post. Something I've thought a lot about with my own training. Thanks.

pconn062 · 13-07-2020 10:46pm

Sacksian wrote: »

Everyone runs their easy days quicker than me! And you're running a bit more than 10-20s faster than me on your long runs these days!!

I think there are a lot of factors to it. I'm taking the opportunity to ramble here, P so excuse the length of the post!

Because of previous injuries, I've been making a big effort to pay attention to my cadence on easy runs, particularly when I'm running on concrete. It means I don't run that freely (and I don't enjoy running on concrete). It's a bit of a chore, to be honest but it means I'm injury free at the moment.

The surface could also be a factor, I run everything on grass and trails.

And higher mileage definitely plays a part. I just go at whatever pace my legs want to go at and, honestly, I'm actually surprised at how quick some of my easy days are! In 2018-19, when I was running strictly by hr and doing decent mileage, my easy days were closer to 8:30 most of the time. So, to my mind, my easy runs are quite speedy these days by comparison!

The time I run at is a factor as well - I'm really f*cking old and it takes me a couple of miles to warm up when I'm out the door at 7 these days. I see a lot of guys doing low- or sub-7s out the gate and that's never going to be me. Unless I'm very fit and I then drop mileage, my opening pace is always about 8min/m and sometimes closer to 9min/m.

It's possibly a bit of a hangover from when I did a lot of training by hr when I really had to warm up very gently to keep the hr low. But I don't mind runs turning progressive if it's not going to impact sessions/recovery. When I ran less, and when I started running, almost every run was progressive, which was fine because I wasn't running every day and the runs were relatively short.

So, the easy run pace would definitely pick up if I dropped the mileage and intensity a bit but I know if I do that, I'll find it harder to get the mileage back up for xc so my intention is to keep it - within reason - at a good level through the track season. That's the intention, whether or not I'll succeed is another matter!

Ultimately, I think that easy pace is very individual. I look at some people's easy pace and think "why is their easy pace" so much faster than mine?! And then I look at the guys who are the guts of 2min faster than me over 5k and wonder why is my easy pace only 30s slower than theirs!!

There's a guy in the club whose easy pace is generally over 8 and often in the 8:30s and there'll be 9minute miles in there too - and I suspect he'll dip under 15mins for 5k this year. And he can rip off 45s 300s when he needs to. There are other guys I know who've taken big leaps after actively deciding to increase their easy pace. It really depends...and which is why I sometimes think that it's very important for everyone to figure out what works for them, and what approach (or environment) will get them out the door consistently - whether that's consistently once a week or twice a day - and sustainably.

There are people who will tell you Kipchoge does his recovery at 9min/mile and there are other runners who never run slower than 6:** but realistically the only thing about easy pace that matters is that it's not too fast to impact on recovery or sessions and not too slow to impact on biomechanics/efficiency.

For me, sustainability in training is often about intensity, I'll get injured or sick if I push it too much so I try to err on the side of caution - especially with the Sunday long runs.

If you're not feeling tired and you're hitting your paces in sessions, you're probably fine. Last week was a big week for me and I was having trouble sleeping - which I'm presuming is partly to do with the training volume. I wasn't that pushed about going out today either. Little things like that tell me that I might be a little bit on the edge, so I just have to navigate those periods without getting struck down.

I'm generally more of an under-cooker than an over-cooker but I have messed up a few races in recent years by just tipping over the edge in terms of training intensity in the final week where I was flying in training and just needed to sit the last session out. Magness is good on this in The Science of Running on st/ft tapers.

TLDR; I like easy runs to be very easy mainly because I am lazy, but also because I am old.

Great post and nice to get your thoughts on it. "Easy" is very subjective and I think it's right to say a lot of factors play into it like the time of day you run, but also sleep, nutrition, age etc. I too often start my runs at 8.15/20 pace but naturally shift to 7.20-40 by the end. And I'm wondering should I just stay in that slower range, and would I feel fresher? Going to experminet on a few runs this week as I have been feeling a bit flat with tired legs for the last three weeks or so.

It's a great block of training you've put in, will be interesting to see how the first race goes.

Sacksian · 14-07-2020 9:25am

pconn062 wrote: »

Great post and nice to get your thoughts on it. "Easy" is very subjective and I think it's right to say a lot of factors play into it like the time of day you run, but also sleep, nutrition, age etc. I too often start my runs at 8.15/20 pace but naturally shift to 7.20-40 by the end. And I'm wondering should I just stay in that slower range, and would I feel fresher? Going to experiment on a few runs this week as I have been feeling a bit flat with tired legs for the last three weeks or so.

My legs haven't felt fresh for a few weeks now because I know when I'm feeling fresh I start doing random running drills while walking around the kitchen!!

I have pretty much the same conundrum as you - how do I distinguish between fatigue that is part of the adaptation process, which I should train through, and fatigue that is damaging, which I have to allow myself to recover from? If, like us, you've struggled with injury in the past, I would think there's nothing to be lost from taking the easy days easy - especially if you're targeting 1500m+ - unless you feel the slow paces compromise you bio-mechanically. If I was not purposely thinking about trying to run more volume, I'd be happy running 4-5 days a week with quick easy days.

My legs definitely feel tired now but my training tells me that I'm benefitting from the mileage so, from a long-term perspective, I may just have to suck that up.

However, I probably need to be as disciplined about the down weeks as I have been about getting out for the runs. Which is easier when there are no races on the horizon.

Right now, I feel like I've a bit of a psychological hangover from hitting 70 last week and the race coming up. So, I'll probably do the club session tonight rather than my own session because it's mentally easier just to turn up and do whatever's on the cards than over-thinking what I need to be doing.

pconn062 wrote: »

It's a great block of training you've put in, will be interesting to see how the first race goes.

Yeah, I just want the first race to be over so that I can make sense of where I am. The long-term perspective is that I know if I keep this up for the next few months, I'll be in good nick for xc (where you never need to run particularly fast), certainly in better shape than I usually am heading into xc. The idea of holding a decent pace for 6k xc seems doable right now - although how strong I'll feel running in ankle-deep mud remains to be seen!

And keeping that up for xc means I've a better chance of coming out the other side stronger again. Putting 2-3 solid seasons back to back has always been my achilles heel (apart from my actual achilles), and overcoming that would make the short-term sacrifice of speed worth it.

I know from training at the minute that I can hold decent paces better, but the downside is that I'm not really hitting 1500m pace for anything, so it's anyone's guess what'll happen when I get on the track next week. It might take a few races and weeks of sharpening to get the legs moving properly but I'll be disappointed if I'm way off pace.

Sacksian · 14-07-2020 9:35am

UNPOPULAR RUNNING OPINION:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A RECOVERY RUN.

I will provide no evidence to support this claim.

Sacksian · 19-07-2020 5:59pm

Big mileage drop, two truncated sessions and fingers crossed for next week.

As I said in the posts above, I was feeling very tired heading into this week after last week’s exertions. I really wasn’t jumping out the door on Monday and ended up cycling up to the park to run (which I also did on Friday and for the session on Tuesday).

Similarly on Tuesday, I was not feeling the love for getting out so - because I wanted to do something fast this week - I decided to go to the Tuesday club session rather than rely on my powers of motivation. As it happened. I got a text from one of the coaches earlier in the day suggesting I could customise the main distance session, which was 10 x 800m (@ ~10k pace) off 200m on the Polo grounds, for my own purposes.

Instead of the main session, I was doing 2.5 sets of 2 x 800m (@ ~3k pace) off 200m. The way it worked out was that I would run the first 2 800s with the guy leading out the session and then take additional recovery for however long it took him to do his third 800m + 200m recovery. Then jump back in with him for another 2, take additional recovery when he was running his 6th rep, and then lead out my fifth (and his 7th).

So, it turned out to be

2:32 (66s jog) 2:33
2:34 (63s jog) 2:36

And then 2:27 for my fifth. I was so worried about not being able to keep pace leading out this rep that I basically bolted it.

Not ideal conditions on Tuesday evening, particularly for the 2nd 400m, so the times are solid.

Wednesday was a gentle 44mins @ 7:46m.

And Thursday was 55mins @7:45m/min with 4 x 8s hill-sprints at the end.

Friday was a very brief 38mins @7:25.

Saturday session: 3 x 4 (or 5) x 300m (1 lap between reps / 2 between sets)

I jumped in with the club’s Academy squad (u17-u20) for this session. I am, literally, more than twice their age but our distance squad was doing a 5k time trial and I wanted to do something faster than race pace ahead of Wednesday.

Thankfully, there was another guy from the distance squad also doing the session, so at least I wouldn’t be out the back on my own.

This was to be done slightly faster than 1500m pace (which for me would usually be 49.5s-50s). They were doing 3 sets of 4 (or 5) x 300m with a 300m jog between reps and 600m jog between sets.

In the end, I just did 2 sets of 4. While I could have eked another set, it would have meant putting pressure on my achilles and also putting the chance of toeing the line on Wednesday at risk.

The reps were:

Set 1: 48/48/47/47

Set 2: 47/48/48/47

47s and 48s convert to around 62-64s for 400m (about the same pace I ran the 800m in March). Our club track is a tight 300m one, so happy with both the pace and the consistency.

As I was putting on my runners to go home, the young lads were doing their first rep on the 3rd set in 42s for 300m (about 56s pace for 400m). I was wondering if they’d be able to see that sort of pace through to their 15th rep (the lead guys were doing 3 x 5 x 300m). By the time I got home, one of them had uploaded their splits from the session, including an eye-watering 38s for his 15th 300m, which converts to approximately 50s 400mm!! (There is obviously a big difference between 38.0 and 38.9 when you get down to those paces, but still...)

The future is bright…

Sunday was a creaky 78mins @ 8:00min/m pace.

It’s hard to know if I got this week right. I’m more banged up than I’d like after yesterday’s session. My quads are sore and my sciatica, which had been *okay* on this morning’s run, has been worsening throughout the day. I’ll just keep doing my usual routine and see how I’m fixed on Wednesday - I’m already checked in!

Normally, the first race of the season is just a chance to blow some cobwebs off but with the restrictions tightening, it feels like this could potentially be my only race this season. So, I’m hoping it goes well.

68s per lap all the way around doesn’t seem crazily aspirational and anything under that would bring me close enough to a pb. I know I went out pretty hard (relatively) when I got my pb so, if I don’t manage to execute that part, I’ll be disappointed. Now is the time to see what difference a bit of strength makes.
The only potential flies in the ointment are a) the sciatica not clearing up in time or b) that there’s no one to pull me around (which seems very unlikely). Fingers crossed for both!

—-

Separately, one of the things that occurred to me - based on how I felt by the end of the week - is that, for a proper down week, rather than tapering, it’s possible to maintain volume and simply reduce intensity. I think a week of v. easy running - even 60+ miles would be more restorative than mid-40s with two sessions. Which seems very uncontroversial written down but not something I would necessarily have committed to before this past few months of training. Something I’m going to keep in mind following races when xc comes around.

IvoryTower · 19-07-2020 7:05pm

Numbers look good pal best of luck

Sacksian · 26-07-2020 10:30am

Return of the Track + Back to the Grind.

The week started with bad quad DOMS and sciatica. I cycled up to the Park and just did 5k on both Monday and Tuesday. Was stretching and doing my usual sciatica routine all day Monday and Tuesday (I even did two Yoga with Adriene sessions!) and there was a definite improvement on Tuesday. Quad DOMS were still there. By the time I finished my 10min shakeout on Wednesday morning, I was tired but knew I would be good to go that evening.

Monday - 24mins @7:59
Tuesday - 23mins @7:35
Wednesday AM 12mins @ 8:33

Wednesday PM - Dublin Athletics Graded Meeting 1 - 1500m AB1 4:17.6 (5th of 13 finishers)

Very different atmosphere to a normal graded with all the safety protocols, but really well organised by Dublin Athletics. I was in the AB1 race, the ‘A’ race was won in 3:52, so dodged a bullet there.

In my race, I recognised a couple of people - one a Masters athlete who ran 4:09 a couple of years back - and a young guy who finished 10th in the National Novice last year. The guy who won has PBs of 1:53/4:06. So, I presumed that sitting off them would mean a good run.

The gun goes and, after a few gentle elbows exchanged, I get into a good position on the rail. At this stage, I’m thinking I must have got out well. I’ve got the Masters guy a few metres ahead of me and I feel pretty comfortable (in about 8th or 9th position). Which was essentially the end of the PB pursuit.

One of the club coaches had sent me a text on Tuesday advising a 65-66s first lap to get into the race and that was my plan going into it: to hit 800m in about 2:14.

Ultimately, I overestimated how fast the leaders would be/were going on the first laps and mistook my sense of comfort on the first lap/600m as evidence of incredible fitness rather than evidence of going too slowly.

Usually, there’s someone calling out splits at 400/800/1200 for the Gradeds which was missing on Wednesday, but I presumed staying within a couple of seconds of the leaders on the first lap would set me up when I should have been right up with them at that point.

One of my club mates clocked rough splits for me: 70/69/68/50.

So, I ran a negative split 1500m, which isn’t the optimal way to run a PB at this distance and, as with other 1500s in recent years, I continued my recent habit of thinking that sitting off someone who I presume is faster than me will get me a PB.

Disappointing time but great to be back on the track and the finishing 300m (which is 4:10 1500m pace) is evidence of decent strength. Hopefully another couple of races this season to put it right.

Lessons learnt from the race are, again, about mentality.

1. Turning up isn’t enough.

I’m fit and I’ve trained well for the last few months. Physically, I’m prepared to run a good time for 1500m. But the training is pointless without a similar level of performance on the night.

2. I need to get back to racing, rather than pacing, middle-distance races.

At no point before the race, or during the first half of it, did I think I should be racing to win or even challenge. But, even if I had completely blown up trying, it’s the only way I might have learnt something about what shape I’m in.

3. PBs should be hard to break.

I ran most of my pbs in my first few attempts at each distance and I guess having run a lot more and (I think) now training smarter/harder, there’s probably a part of me that’s been thinking it won’t be much of an achievement to beat them. But I’m realising now how hard they will be to break, which makes breaking them all the more motivating.

Thursday - 69mins @ 7:52min/m
Friday - 69mins @ 7:52min/m

Saturday - SESSION - 16 x 400m off 30s (100m)

I was given the option of doing the Academy lads’ pyramid session or the distance squad’s 400s (up to 20). And I really wasn’t up for the injury risk or the 5 days recovery involved with the pyramid session so I went with the endurance session on the Polo Grounds.

Also, after the race on Wednesday, I didn’t want to fry myself too much this week. So, staying safe while topping up the stamina levels felt like the best option. And the addictive thing about getting fitter is that, once you actually arrive at a point of feeling fit, you want to get fitter.

Anyway, this was a tough session without ever getting close to redlining. The prescribed pace was 10k for the first half and 5k for the second half, but it ended up being a bit slower than that. The hard part about a session like this is the recoveries - 100m in 30s is trivial for the first 6-8, but as you pick up the pace and the 400s roll on, the short recovery starts to pinch a lot more. A 76 into a headwind on the final rep was about as speedy as it got.

16 @ 84 avg off 100m (avg. 100m recovery in 32s)

Average 86 for the first 8 (avg. 100m recovery in 32s).
Average 82 for the second 8 (avg. 100m recovery in 32s).

Sunday - 76mins easy @ 7:53m

Good week - 51miles. Probably won’t go back up to 60 again until the end of the season.

Will probably do club sessions (whatever they might be) on Tuesday and Saturday and hoping to get down to the track for a few 100s or 200s with lots of recovery on Thursday.

Chivito550 · 26-07-2020 8:04pm

I've run a couple of 100m races so far and have been much closer than usual to guys running well into the mid 11s. I took this to be a good sign, but the reality is that they're just in terrible shape this year.

Probably best to throw the form book out the window this year and don't give any athletes such respect based on prior year performances. You've no idea if they trained away or just shut up shop during the lockdown.

Sacksian · 27-07-2020 11:08am

Yup, that's the plan for the next race!

Sacksian · 03-08-2020 2:17pm

I think this is the third week in a row where I’ve barely scraped over 50miles for the week. Without a conscious focus on easy mileage, there were a couple of times this week where I had to drag myself out the door or force myself to tag on another few minutes or miles.

Were it not for public commitments to discipline and application like this log (and a 3-4 month running streak), I think this week could easily have been in the low 30s. Maybe that would have been better.

I had the feeling there was an achilles niggle brewing this week (which more likely stemmed from excessive phone usage than excessive training). Things are a bit creakier at the start of runs so I have to keep an eye on it as this is the way my achilles problems have developed in previous seasons.

Monday - 52mins @7:33 easy
Tuesday - club session: 13 x 200m on/off on the Polo Grounds

One of my favourite sessions is 20 x 200m off 100m in/around mile pace on the track, so this looked much handier than that on that. Even if the combination of grass and wind meant it didn’t really seem that way.

We were doing it on laps of the Polo Ground, so there were 3 x 200s on odd laps and 2 x 200 on even laps, I was given 5 laps, so 13 x 200 (3/2/3/2/3). Mostly 36s, which is a little off mile pace and I probably could have done another couple of laps but finished off with a 34s and a 30s last 200 to make it a quality last lap. As usual, nice to have Josh pacing me around - he did the full 20 at that pace.

Wednesday - 39mins @7:40 easy.

Thursday - Experimental strides! 10 x 120-ish strides off walk-back.
(7 miles for the day)
I’d seen these suggested in a Lydiard training manual a while back as a ‘leg speed’ drill. He described it like this:

Find an area that is nearly flat but with a gradual decline and about 120 to 150 meters long. Warm-up for at least 15 minutes and then, run over the course ten times as follows, with a three minute interval. Do not rush through this training and realize that it is important to have a full three minute interval. Each time during the run, think of moving the legs as fast as possible and do not be conscious of stride length. Keep as relaxed as possible in the upper body. The same action can be obtained by going down stairs one at a time as fast as possible. You will find that the legs do not seem to move fast enough. So run with a normal stride, thinking of only one thing: MOVING THE LEGS FAST. This way, it is possible to overcome viscosity in the leg muscles and develop fine speed. After the tenth repetition, cool down for at least 15 minutes

So, I did 5 concentrating on stride length + 5 of the Lydiard-style concentrating on stride rate.

Friday - 19mins @7:27. Purely for the purposes of maintaining my streak.

Saturday - had to get out early so missed the club session and did a fairly perfunctory continuous run made up of 20mins w/up - 20 mins steady - 3mins jog recovery - 4 x 30s hills off jog back - and then home. Ended up around 9miles @7:39 pace.

Sunday - 84mins @7:52 . A no-fun trudge.

Logging this now, I’m conscious that the paces on my easy days are a little faster and I suspect that’s contributing to the creakiness.

I’ve also entered the 1500m at National Seniors. I’ve only done one National Seniors before in 2016, where I ran my second fastest 800m, so I’m hoping it can inspire me to a 1500m pb this year.

The problem with the 1500m at nationals is that the heats are usually ridiculously tactical. At indoors this year, the first heat was stupidly slow for the first 1300m so just the first 4 qualified and the fastest time qualifiers came from the second heat. Which meant that a guy who has a pb of 3:47 ran 4:09 to finish 5th in the very tactical first heat (less than 3/10ths of a second separating 1st from 5th) and didn’t qualify.

If I’m in the first heat, it might be hard for me to run a pb in a tactical heat. If I’m in a later heat, I stand a chance of getting dragged around.

Sacksian · 09-08-2020 9:30pm

The achilles niggle continued to brew this week and indeed threatened to boil over into a full-blown injury.

I managed to get one quality session in on Tuesday - which was more marathon-paced than the 5k session I originally had in mind - and then just ran easy for the rest of the week.

It was getting a bit hairy on Thursday and Friday but I just kept doing my calf-raises and running very, very purposely with a high cadence (which seems to help) and staying on the road (which also seems to help). Saturday and Sunday were definitely better so, in the last 48 hours, I’ve gone from thinking that there’ll be no session for a week to wondering if I’ll get one in on Wednesday.

Monday - 40mins @ 7:48

Tuesday - SESSION

Worried about the achilles, I opted against doing anything faster than 5k pace for the midweek session. The original plan had been to do 5-6 ks at 5k pace on the club track but the archer was there and, like last time, I didn’t fancy getting an arrow in the back at 5k pace.

So, I went back up to the Magazine Fort and considered 1200s, still worried about the calf. Ultimately, I opted for a session that I had programmed into my watch years ago but was never fit enough to try:

20mins @mar hr/effort - 3mins jog - 8 x 80s on / 40s off - 3mins jog - 20mins @mar hr/effort.

This is a big session for me but it went really well.

It ended up as 62mins/9.58miles @6:28 pace, on grass, which definitely backs up my feeling that I’ve built up a bit of strength the last few months.

I have done LT sandwich sessions before like: 8mins LT either side of 8 x 1min on/off or something similar but I always had the idea that if I was concentrating on strength again, that I would try to do a marathon hr/effort sandwich of 20mins either side of something faster.

This one had 20 mins @6:11 and 20mins @6:18 (with the 8 x 80s/40s in the middle) so, I got a bit of confidence and I didn’t make my calf/achilles any worse, which I definitely would have if I’d done the faster session

Wednesday - 44mins @7:44
Thursday - 47mins @7:45
Friday - 47mins @7:48
Saturday - 58mins @7:47
Sunday - 68mins @8:07

There’s two weeks left until the 1500m at Senior Nationals (if it goes ahead) so I really need to get at least two sessions in to get back into it, sharpen up and settle my nerves about the achilles before then.

If I think I’m okay to do a session on Wednesday, I’d like to do 4 x 1500m with decent rest around 5k pace.

And if Saturday is an option, I’m hoping to do 6 x quality 600s with the club Academy Squad on the track.

Looking at the entries for men's 1500m at nationals, I’m about 10th slowest of 62 entered so far.

Which either means I’ve the chance to be pulled along or I'll be stranded after the first lap.

Sacksian · 16-08-2020 7:50pm

Ok.

Monday 60mins @ 8:09
Tuesday 39mins @ 8:04

Wednesday (SESSION)
6:52 @ 6:43 inc 15mins @MarHR/6:10 (3mins jog) / 8mins @LTHR/5:43 (3mins jog)

Planned to do 6 x 1min on/off at the end but cut session short due to “gastrointestinal” “issues”.

4 years ago, I did a similar session with 10mins @ MarHR and 6mins @LTHR a week before running 4:14 for 1500m so I thought I’d keep the sessions before next week’s race fairly closely matched. I added a bit of extra distance to both the MarHR and LTHR sections because I’m fitter now (although older and so probably not as fast!). Did these on the road around the OS/Furze loop. It’s straightforward and flat, although ideally you have the wind behind you on the OS rather than the Furze (which I didn’t today).

First run in the Brooks Hyperion Tempo. Running feels very easy in them. They get you up on your toes. I felt like they had transferrable benefits to my form in other shoes after my first run with them. They just seemed to make me more fluid. I’m not really sure what to make of them.

They’re not light enough for a 5k or anything faster but I’d say I could do a very decent half-marathon in them. They don’t have a plate but if they’re any indication of what the plate shoes can do, I really can understand how people are running the times they are in the Nike shoes. However, based on my limited experience with the Hyperion Tempo, I suspect the benefits you get are - to some extent - a function of your running style. I don’t think they’ll give the same benefit to everyone.

Thursday - 38mins @ 8:01

Friday - 43mins @ 7:16 - accidentally progressive, starting with an 8:20 mile and with the last 2 miles around 6:45.

Wore the Hyperion again to protect the achilles. I could wear them everyday.

Saturday (SESSION)
5 x (400m / 100m jog / 400m snappier) 85s active between sets

Polo Grounds were in Polo use for once so we were on the Garda Loop. It’s a 1000 yard trail loop directly across the road from the Polo Grounds. Love this loop, first half of it’s uphill so you get a chance to open up on the second half when you get the downhill back. It’s not the most even underfoot and you’re generally running into the wind on the way up so it’s a bit of strength work at the same time.

Splits

(77-33s jog recovery-75)
(76-38s jog recovery-73)
(76-41s jog recovery-73)
(76-44s jog recovery-71)
(78-42s jog recovery-72)

Sunday - 41mins @ 7:55

Another week down. 40-odd miles for the week. Emerged unscathed and it’s the first week under 50 miles since the first week in April. I don’t have a lot of pace work or under-distance speed work done. But I’m reasonably healthy and I’ve got a lot of miles in.

1500m on Saturday. The worst case scenario, which really would be a pain in the arse, would be running the same 1500m race that I’ve run about 10 times since 2016. Which is 800m in 2:15 and then run steadily to a 4:14/15/16 finish.

What I want to do is to get to 800m in 2:13 and have enough strength, and be close enough to someone else to get around the last 700m in less than 1:59. It doesn’t seem impossible and yet I haven’t managed to do it in the last 10 or so 1500m races.

There’s still the possibility of a mile race before the season’s over - I don’t think the National Masters is going to happen, unfortunately - but I would love to go into the mile race off a good race next weekend.

Next week will probably be 20mins @MarHR on Tuesday w/ an easy 6 x 200 afterwards - don’t care about times or recoveries.

Friday I’ll do 2 x 100m and some drills.
 Race on Saturday.

I’ll probably run everyday but I doubt I’ll get up to much more than 30 miles for the week.

Dubh Geannain · 21-08-2020 9:57am

Best of luck in the race at the weekend

Sacksian · 22-08-2020 9:44pm

Weekly report to follow tomorrow but race execution didn't go to plan, despite being set up perfectly, but small consolation of the world's smallest pb of 0.06 seconds. Finished 9th of 12 in 4:14.00 (would it really have killed them to round me down to 4:13.99?!) in a heat won by Seán Tobin in 3:58.15.

Finished very, very strongly so there's definitely another couple of seconds out there.

Really enjoyed it tonight. Even if I never figure out the 1500m, it's great to be fit and uninjured!

Mile race to come next month - I'd like a few seconds off my pb, please.

Dubh Geannain · 22-08-2020 11:44pm

Well done on the PB. Was it windy?

The race is around the 1:22 mark below. It was a great finish to the race too.

https://youtu.be/IP87zUhatwU

Sacksian · 23-08-2020 3:32pm

Dubh Geannain wrote: »

Well done on the PB. Was it windy?

The race is around the 1:22 mark below. It was a great finish to the race too.

https://youtu.be/IP87zUhatwU

Windy on the home straight, with a good tail wind on the back straight - I didn't think it was a massive problem at the time, although it probably did mean I was a bit cautious in overtaking the last guy between 600m-700m when we turned into the home straight. Which is when I lost touch with the main group and the gap opened. You can see in the video how much he had started slowing down even before I overtook him, so he was moving farther and farther away from the group before I went round. I think that error was probably worth a second (or two!).

Sacksian · 23-08-2020 3:50pm

Dubh Geannain wrote: »

The race is around the 1:22 mark below. It was a great finish to the race too.

https://youtu.be/IP87zUhatwU

Heats 3 and 4 are a perfect demonstration of how ridiculous (and self-defeating) tactical heats can be in a 1500m. I was very, very lucky to be in Heat 1.

Sacksian · 23-08-2020 7:16pm

In the end, I ran just over 36 miles this week.

Monday was 31mins in the rain @8:10 inc 6 x 8s hill sprints in the People’s Flower Gardens in the Phoenix Park.

Tuesday was a session starting with 3k @MHR (just under mar hr) - 11mins30s approx 6:10 pace.

Followed by a shoe test of 3 x 200m off 100m walk in my old pair of spikes (which I’d run my 1500m + 3000m pbs in) and a new pair of spikes (which I’ve never worn before, but are v2 of my old pair of spikes - Saucony Endorphins).

Old shoes:

32.49
32.06
31.05

New shoes:

30.19
30.33
29.76

So, even though some of it was psychological and some of it was probably due to having warmed up on the first 3 reps, I had to go with the new spikes…

Wednesday

DOMS - 33mins @7:49

Thursday

Bad DOMS - 35mins @ 8:05

Yoga with Adriene…

Friday

29mins @8:15 with two tentative hill sprints.

More Yoga with Adriene…

But I was starting to feel quite good.

Saturday AM

12mins @9:00m

Legs were starting to feel light here.

Running late -

Truncated warm-up

Race - National Seniors Championships 1500m Heat 1 - 9th (of 12) - 4:14.00

I probably should be disappointed. I didn't really run the race I had planned to run. Was set up perfectly at 600 but didn’t go around the guy who finished last quickly enough (as you can see in the video above) and ended up getting a bit detached from the group by 800.

Had no clue what time I had run until I got home but I knew I had left a couple of seconds on the track due to the slow 500-900m section. After the race, I heard one guy say that we went through the first lap in around 64 and slowed right down. There were no splits being called but I caught a glimpse of the clock on 3:0* after I passed 1100m and I knew I had a reasonable last lap (particularly the last 200m). So, I knew it was possible - but unlikely - that I might have squeezed out a pb. Found out when I got home that I had ran the world's smallest pb (of 0.06 seconds!). My old pb was from the first graded race of 2016 (during / or after which I tore my achilles and missed the entire summer - so it was nice to finally put that to bed).

I reckon the splits for me were probably around 65.* / 69.* / 68.*/51 or something like that.

I wasn’t doubled over at the finish line but, in contrast to previous races, on the way home and afterwards I just felt pleased with how I was feeling - being fit and uninjured, being able to run national seniors and not embarrass myself against guys (some more than) half my age. And taking those few places in the home straight - from guys with faster pbs than me - has convinced me that 4:10 is not a pipe-dream, even if it’s not going to happen this year - will need an IMC race. I feel like I’m closer to figuring out the 1500m.

So, even acknowledging that I could have run quicker and even if I never figure out how to run the 1500m properly, I really enjoyed being out there racing and I still love the track!

Also, first race in my new Endorphin 2s with a pb.

Home from race 27mins @ 8:06

Sunday

Very enjoyable 49mins @7:56

----

Still a mile race to come and I'm looking forward to reviewing the whole summer's training. There are things I did right and things I got wrong. On the whole, though, very happy with how I navigated a couple of sketchy moments with niggles to keep the training on the road and get a decent run at Nationals in. I can't remember the last time I was as fit as I am although the hard part is going to be sustaining it, without getting ill or injured. I have some ideas already!

Sacksian · 31-08-2020 7:48pm

A week that begin with me the most positive about my running since about 2014…but ended disastrously…

Monday

68mins @ 7:43 pace - back to the grind and my old Phoenix Park loop. Ran into a club mate who I hadn’t seen since before lockdown so it was nice to have an easy run with company for a change.

Session Tuesday - 6 x800m on POLOS off 180m brisk jog (45-50s)

Windy and wet night on the polo grounds. Was hoping for something a little gentler but got it done.

First 5 800s were around 2:49-2:52 and last one in 2:46. This was supposed to be at self-directed “tempo” effort. Probably slightly faster for me because I was only doing 6 whereas the full session was 8 and one of the lads did 10.

This was tough as there was a very strong headwind for the entire second half. I just rolled into and ended up with a total of 3.65 miles at about 5:55 pace.

Wednesday 34mins recovery/easy at 7:58min/m

Thursday 60mins @ 7:25min/m

Was wearing the Hyperion Tempos and just ended up running 7min/pace in the middle of this. It’s too fast - could probably be legitimately considered “junk miles”. I don’t mind doing that pace when the mileage is way down and sessions are easy but it’s not sustainable for me to do easy days at the pace when there are hard sessions to be run on other days. Maybe that’ll change in the future but at the minute I don’t think there’s any benefit from that pace if it just means greater recovery is required, especially when sleep is always at a premium.

Friday - 31mins @ 8:16 easy with 6 x 8s hill sprints in the phoenix park.

Saturday - SESSION 2 x 4 x 400m off 100m jog + 5min b/t sets on Polo Grounds

Just me and another guy doing this. I was really rolling on these but, unfortunately, something went in my left hamstring on Rep #6 and that was it. I pulled straight up and stepped off. Didn’t feel that serious and it’s definitely not a tear. Dr. Google tells me it is at worst a grade 1 strain but I wasn’t able to run Sunday, couldn’t run today, and not sure when I’ll be back at it. Walking isn’t sore but I’m walking with a limp. I’ve never had this particular injury before so I’m not really sure what the best approach is. Might and try get into the physio on Wednesday if it’s no better tomorrow.

I suspect it was some stuff I did with the resistance band might have made the glutes overly tight and a combination of that and tiredness caused my hamstring to spasm but it’s about getting better now anyway.

I was looking forward to next Sunday’s race after last Saturday’s experience but my chances of racing are about .01%. And no idea if I’ll make the following Friday. Was very optimistic Sunday morning. Not at all optimistic today about any running in the next couple of weeks.

Even though Sunday wasn’t a goal race, I was really looking forward to getting involved in the front of the race - which is really the most enjoyable part of track racing, where you’re actually competing to win!

The standard in this year’s Masters is very, very high for some races and middling for others. I suspect the 035s will need to run under 15minutes to medal in the 5000m (Tom Fitzpatrick has a pb of 13:58) and possibly 15:40 could be required for the 040s and 045s to get on the podium. Probably under 16:30 or so for the 050s. Obviously, it will depend on conditions and the tactics involved but my gut feeling is that a lot of the road guys are just going to go after it like a road race, which will mean good times in the 5000m.

There’s a guy with a 1:50 pb in the 035s 800m and one of the 035s in the 1500m has run around 8:40 for 3000m in the last couple of years. So, there are some class athletes in the middle distances too.

The 15s at the masters are sometime torturously tactical, farcically even, but I think with so many capable of 4:05-4:10, I was hopeful the 035s would be very honest. There are a few 040s with pbs in or around mine (with definitely at least one a bit faster that I know of) but I would probably be in or around the front.

However, I was less focused on that than the Mile the following Friday in Morton but both could have been chances of a pb, given my current level of fitness (at least up until Saturday!).

There may or may not be any running to update next week.

KSU · 06-09-2020 5:05pm

With all the talk about not racing I am expecting an epic race report after that run. Well done man great running

Sacksian · 06-09-2020 7:40pm

KSU wrote: »

With all the talk about not racing I am expecting an epic race report after that run. Well done man great running

Beaten by the better man is the whole report!!

National Masters Championships - 1500m M40 2nd

If I had been taking closer order at the front instead of running most of the race in 4th, it might have been a bit tighter but I went through 700 in about 2:16 and then ran 2:10 for the last 800.

So, it was a really classic tactical 1500m race. We were tripping over ourselves for the first 100m and through to about 400m in, it was very funny but then there were a couple of surges and I think the last two laps were 67s/63s!

Looking at the video, it looks like I was barely moving on the last lap but that's because the guy who won must have closed in 59-60s. He went for it at 500m and I can see from the footage that I didn't think that was "the" move because I was still sort of looking at another guy. And I still didn't think at 300m that the race was over, because I thought he'd come back to me. Of course, he didn't. I didn't realise that my last lap was actually reasonably fast - until I saw the clock on the video - because I was making no inroads on his lead.

It turns out that he ran a sub-2 800m last week so, while I thought the tactical race would suit me, he would have beaten me any which way I ran. The thing about a tactical race is that you have a poor time next to your name but I really enjoyed it, the nip-and-tuck of those races is something different. And given how I felt on Monday when I couldn't even walk properly (at one stage, I thought that I was going to miss the entire winter with another of my unresolvable niggles), it's nice to go home with a silver medal in your pocket!

Here's how the week went, training-wise. About 12 miles?

I was still limping on Tuesday but on Wednesday I ran 6 x 1 min jog (starting at 11min pace working down to 8min pace) with 1 minute walk in between. I realised I would probably need a bit more of a test if I was going to race today so on Thursday I did 8 x 2min off 1min walk and the last rep was 5:35 pace with no feedback. Friday I jogged to the track and did 4 x 100m at 16/17 pace and then on Saturday I did 30mins jog with 6 x 8s Hill Sprints. So, at that stage, I knew I was going to be fine to race. No excuses on that front - I could have run that race a thousand different ways and still lost today!

I also did Yoga with Adriene every night, which made a huge difference. I'm much more proactive with injuries/niggles now so I do as much as I can in terms of stretching my back and all the muscles around the injury - do as much strengthening exercises as I can with the muscles around the injury and that has worked with 3 niggles (knee, achilles and hamstring) this summer.

Mile race next Friday evening where I am expecting a new PB!

Current pb is 4:37.53 which is 4:19 1500m pace. 4:32 is 4:14 1500m pace. At this stage, I'd take anything under 4:37!

IvoryTower · 06-09-2020 7:51pm

Well done m8

Dubh Geannain · 07-09-2020 11:40am

That's super time on the last 800. Congrats again and best of luck in the mile.

Sacksian · 07-09-2020 4:37pm

Dubh Geannain wrote: »

That's super time on the last 800. Congrats again and best of luck in the mile.

Cheers - looking forward to seeing you out on the track next year!

dna_leri · 08-09-2020 8:48am

Well done E. Might not be the time you hoped for but tactical races are always fun.

Sacksian · 08-09-2020 2:06pm

dna_leri wrote: »

Well done E. Might not be the time you hoped for but tactical races are always fun.

I did enjoy it - the only possibility of running a fast time would have been with the 035s - and I don't think I could have done better than 2nd with any strategy. Even afterwards, I was still walking around going through the permutations thinking how it would never have even crossed my mind to go for it at 500m out...but the only way I *might* have beaten someone who is as fast as that over 800m would have been to go for it from the gun!! Which I was never thinking of doing (although that's fairly much how I ran it in 2018 when I won). Anyway, new category next year - just hoping to keep the body in one piece and build on this summer's training.

Are you laid up or just sitting it all out at the moment?

dna_leri · 09-09-2020 12:06pm

Sacksian wrote: »

Are you laid up or just sitting it all out at the moment?

Recovering, sorry to have missed the masters. Would not have won the M50 1500m anyway but the 800 was there for the taking...

Sacksian · 13-09-2020 10:53am

This was the week that wasn't.

To save the suspense, I ran the same race I did in the 1500m at the Graded in July (but slower), got caught up with a battle that was happening much further down the field than I thought it was and ended up with too much left.

I'll spare the details of the race but the time for the mile was 4:42.65 - about 7-8 seconds slower than I was expecting.

Other than that, there were 38 miles of mostly easy running (my highest weekly total since the first week in August!)

It's been a good summer in terms of consistency and discipline even if the times haven't been what I had hoped for. I do want to write a review of what went right/wrong even for my own sake. Only 5 days missed since lockdown started on March 28th and three potentially awkward niggles managed in that time.

Looking forward to xc now. And getting the mileage back up.

Here's what summer was for me...

MY BAD · 18-09-2020 10:03pm

What app did you use for that graphic or did you draw it yourself?

Sacksian · 20-09-2020 9:51am

MY BAD wrote: »

What app did you use for that graphic or did you draw it yourself?

It's a slightly adapted version of this python script: https://github.com/OGladfelter/run-heatmap

The text and arrows were just added on afterwards.

I'm hoping to make a very simple version of it that I can put online and people can just generate their own maps.

Sacksian · 20-09-2020 9:58am

45.7 miles for the week, slightly less than expected due to a few days away.

Monday - 48mins @7:54 - reduced loop in the Park

Tuesday - 27mins @8:13 - away for a few days and got lost on a golf course.

Wednesday - 41mins @ 7:33 - had a go at a few local Strava segments - got one and missed two.

Thursday - 30mins on treadmill - 6k. God, I hate treadmills. Last time before this was 2015. Hopefully, another 5 years before I experience one again.

Friday - 26mins @ 8:05 - went out to have another go at a Strava segment. Thought I nailed it but misjudged the start/end points and failed by 5 seconds. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Saturday - the Donore End of Summer Polo Grounds Hour Run.

Literally, a 60mins run around the Polo Grounds grass loop (a bit under a k) in the Phoenix Park.

Was thinking of 6:20s at the start but checked my watch after about 3 miles and saw I was averaging around 6min pace so just kept that up until the end. Had started a minute behind main group so intentionally started off a little bit faster and had people to work off the whole way. Worked together with the lead woman from 5-9 miles and then pushed on again.

Garmin gave me 60mins @5:55 pace (10.13 miles). Unfortunately, our coach had accurately km / mile markers set out over the loop so we knew exactly how far we’d run. So, I was actually around 9.8miles or 6:06 pace.

Sunday - 71mins @ 8:06

Very creaky after yesterday as demonstrated by a 9 min opening mile.

Really happy with Saturday’s hour run as a baseline heading into xc training. And it’s evidence that the mileage over the summer was doing its job. I also really felt the benefit of the track season in that 6minute pace feels bio-mechanically very easy at the moment. Just have to keep in touch with that over the next few months.

The plan for the next month or so is to go back to what I was doing in April/May. 70mins most days and club session on Saturdays (would also like to add the odd marathon hr longs run midweek as well in a while). Just keep adding to the existing base and get stronger over winter.

Sacksian · 27-09-2020 9:46pm

A down week for no other reason that I started to feel a bit rough on Monday and I decided to run very easy as much as I could and try to navigate the week. So, missed out on Saturday’s club session which would have been back at the Magazine Fort, can’t wait to get back to it. Probably still recovering from last Saturday's hour run too.

Still a good week though. 7 days of easy running (with some uptempo miles on Saturday) and a total of 52 miles, despite not getting into double digits for any single run. Which turns out to be my highest mileage since the first week in July.

Monday - 69mins @7:51 - early lap of the park - ran into a club mate, nice to have some company on the easy runs every now and again.
Tuesday - 72mins @8:14 - a bit under the weather…
Wednesday - 49mins @8:02 - and still…
Thursday - 49mins @8:04
Friday - 50mins @8:05
Saturday - gently progressive 70mins @ 7:05 (started off at 8:20 and the last 6 miles were all around 6:40). A really enjoyable ‘long’ run.
Sunday - 49mins @7:59

And back into sessions next week.

As someone who used to struggle to hit 40 miles a week (and rarely get over 40 more than a couple of weeks in a row), this week reaffirmed to me the lesson from this summer which is that running 50 is actually very easy to do if you run very easy, every day. Even when navigating some sniffles. So, sustainable consistency continues to be my motto!

I also got some very cool running-related post this week, the famed 6 inches to 1 mile map of the Phoenix Park, which is probably the greatest piece of mail I've ever received:

Sacksian · 04-10-2020 9:29pm

Not much to report.

7 days of running - 59.8 miles. If I’d known, I might have made the effort to hit 60.

Monday - 66mins @ 7:34
Tuesday - 67mins @ 7:37
Wednesday - 32mins @7:38
Thursday - 67mins @7:43
Friday - 47mins @7:40

Saturday - Club session…

First session back on the Magazine loop.

So, today’s was 7 laps of the Munich/Magazine loop broken up as 400 on - 200 off - 400m on - 375 off. The first 400m is a net downhill, usually with the wind behind you, whereas the 2nd 400, is through the Munich dips, a net uphill and, today at least, with a pretty icy wind in your face heading back towards the trees.

You run it as you want. You could hammer the first 400m, hammer the second 400m, and keep the recoveries handy or steady, as you like.

I kept the 200 fairly steady and pushed the 2nd 400m a little harder than the first and ran the whole session fairly progressively. Splits were

82 (56s jog) 87 (1:50 jog)
80 - 53 - 84 - 1:53
79 - 49 - 85 - 1:47
80 - 52 - 83 - 1:46
78 - 47 - 85 - 1:46
76 - 51 - 85 - 1:47
74 - 50 - 79 - 2:06

If you consider the 2 400s and 200m steady as a single k, it worked out something like: 3:45 / 3:37 / 3:33 / 3:35 / 3:30 / 3:32 / 3:23. Which is fine for an honest xc loop.

I really love these fartlek sessions. They’re broken up enough that, if you’re not feeling particularly fit, you can still hammer a couple of 400s and take the recovery nice and easy but if you are feeling super sharp, you can just roll through. I’m probably somewhere in between at the minute. Definitely fit but probably lacking a bit of strength endurance at the faster paces.

Sunday was about 11 miles at 7:51 - miles in the middle were with the club long run and they were clicking off 7:10s or so by the time I turned for home. It’s great to have company for the long runs, always good chats, but I much prefer to run 8min miles when I’m going longer and my legs aren’t usually in the mood for low 7s the day after a session.

I haven’t been doing sessions so everything was a bit quicker this week. I’m going to rein that in next week so that I can up the mileage - sustainably - and still do a decent session.

It looks like it may be a while before there are any races so I’m just going to keep thinking about strength for the foreseeable future. So, I might do something longer/faster midweek rather than Sunday in the coming months.

Sacksian · 11-10-2020 10:46am

A good week. Committed to upping the mileage a bit, so ended up with 67 for the week - up from 59 last week, and 52 the week before. And it feels sustainable (right now).

A few steady-ish miles on Wednesday but the main focus for the foreseeable future is the one key session on Saturday, which 9 times out of 10 will be the club fartlek over the Magazine / Munich Hills in the Park.

Monday - 69mins @7:52
Tuesday - 68mins @7:44
Wednesday - 70mins @ 7:11 (inc 4 steady-ish)
Thursday - 67mins @7:40
Friday - 49mins @7:56 (bit tired)

Saturday- club session.

This week was a return to the double loop that we did in January (see post #11 in this thread!). However, instead of splitting it up into on/off interval sections - we just ran this steady, pushing a bit on the hills (through the dips and up one long 330m hill from the Khyber car park back to the 15 acres).

It was a very tough session, probably close to race effort by the end (which really isn’t something I like doing in training), but I think that reflected the terrain and conditions - you can’t go up that hill into a headwind off a steady pace AND keep going into a continuous tempo without it starting to hurt at some point.

Finished up with 10k continuous - 6 laps - at 6:01 min/mile pace (about 3:44/km pace). Very happy with that as an indicator of current fitness on a really good xc circuit.

Sunday - 97mins @ 7:38min/m - not as slow as I’d like.

Same again next week. Probably have a club race in two weeks over 6k, which should be a good indicator of where I am in terms of race sharpness.

Sacksian · 18-10-2020 10:12am

Packed a fair bit in to this week.

66.9 miles in total.

Monday - 71mins @8:06
Tuesday - 49 mins @7:44

Wednesday - went down to the track. I was thinking about the amount of mileage I’ve been doing and the fact that I keep on saying that I’m feeling strong on the longer sessions.

So, having gone pretty well over 1500m during the summer, I thought I’d see if I could hammer a 5k session off the back of that. Whether it was a hangover from last Saturday’s session or not, the answer was: “No. I can’t currently hammer a 5k session”.

The plan was 5 x 1k off 200m jog (but a slow jog) and to go out - sustainably - hard from the start. Did a warm-up (not part of the 5x1k) in 3:37 and then into the session.

The first one clocked at 3:14.06 with an 85s jog. Thought that was pretty good. The second was 3:14.67 and a 93s jog. Getting harder, but happy to stay close to the first one. Third one was 3:14.05 and a 105s jog and I was really working on this. I got 400m into the fourth one and just felt that the effort was too high, too early into Winter and I didn't want to go too deep trying to finish it out. So, I pulled the plug.

Maybe if I'd started with a 3:20, or had a longer recovery, I would have felt more in control but I didn't realise how quick the first one was until the end.
I’ll move on…but I want to go back and see what starting at 3:23 or so would be like. If I need to prove anything to myself, I can do it on the last rep.

Thursday -74mins @7:19 (few brisk miles thrown in)
Friday - 52mins @7:50

Saturday - another tough session. A 10 mile tempo involving three circuits of the pretty testing Donore Harriers Khyber Lap. First time doing it and not being a fan of hills, tempos or running on the road, I wasn't looking forward to it.

"10 mile tempo” are not three words I ever thought I’d hear myself write, but here we are. I’m a changed man since March. 

It ended up as 10 miles @6:07

We started off from the car park at the bottom of the Khyber and headed away from it turning left up Wellington Road and then right onto Chesterfield Avenue, right out the main gate at Conyngham Road and then back in the Islandbridge Gate bringing you up to the start of the Khyber (which is where the Khyber lap starts, obviously).

The Khyber lap is then: Up the Khyber, left at the top down acres road towards St. Mary’s Hospital, left again towards the triangle at the Chapelizod Gate, right to do a lap of the triangle, back up through the s-bends and then down Military Road and left back up to the start of the lap. A total of 2.9 miles (if you remember to do the lap of the triangle, which we didn’t on the first lap).

It was very tough. I took the first 2.8 warm-up miles handy-ish and then from then on, it averaged 6 min/mile pace for the three Khyber laps.

Last Khyber lap (which included the triangle!) was 17:08 about 5:52 pace so, again, happy with that strength. Was chasing a group of 3-4 ahead of me for the whole 10 miles, catching up with 2 on the last lap, but not getting near Barbara.
 
I had been hoping to reel them in by the start of the third lap but, fairly near the start of the first lap, I got caught up in a Mexican stand-off with a hairy biker in one of those big wide low-rider three-wheelers who was trying to usher me across acres road when I didn’t actually want to cross the road - I was going to be running down towards the triangle, which would mean running down a blind corner in front of him so I wanted him to keep moving. Lost all my momentum and was losing time on the others so was a bit annoyed with him. Anyway, it all ended up peacefully enough with him shouting “**** you” at me while he sped off, having taken umbrage with me exasperatedly shouting “just move” at him.

Sunday - lovely 81mins @ 8:16min/mile.

Same again next week, I think - possibly a club xc race on Saturday.

Against Method.

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