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Running in the Real World

annapr

February is the new January. I'm starting this log to help get me back on track after a very low mileage January, caused by an unexpected health issue, not running related. It's time to get back in the running habit, instead of just lurking on logs here and admiring the fortitude of everyone running in wind and hail.

Running History:
Feeling confident after months of treadmill running, I did my first run outside ‘in the real world’ on January 1st... 2012. My OH ran ‘with me’ in St Anne’s Park, but actually took off like a hare and made a show of me… or so it seemed at the time as I struggled to get over my embarrassment and self consciousness. He wisely went on ahead and I struggled through a slow and painful 3k or so.

… my running and our relationship somehow survived that first run... He still claims he was being motivational

). By May 2012, I was confident enough to attempt my first race -- the Docklands 5k, the time was something like 31:30, which I was delighted with as my main goal was to finish it. The buzz of the race got me completely hooked.

Since then, through some serious life events, running has kept me (relatively) sane. 2014 was the first year I trained consistently and I really enjoyed the progress I made.

I had no interest in EVER trying a marathon, right up to the moment when I started the novice marathon training plan in June or July... Then I found the novice thread here and I was hooked, thanks to Ososlo and the merry band of novices. DCM 2014 was a nightmare, but I finished it, swearing never again (report here:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=92808536[/URL]) About 2 days later, I realised I will have to do it again, because I have to do it better :rolleyes:.

PB’s and tentative targets for 2015:

Distance|2013|2014|2015 target
5K|26:24|24:53|<25
5Mile|n/a|43:37|42:xx
10K|60:00 Dec 2012|n/a|<55?
10Mile|99:26|90:53|<90
Half Marathon|2h:19m:24|2h:01:39|1h:59m:xx
Marathon|n/a|4h:43m|<4h:30m

My training has been very basic to date but I plan to try adding some sessions to the base of steady running... some from the Clearlier plan on the DCM2014 grads thread and maybe some of Ecoli’s easier ones. I’m hoping the log here will help keep me motivated and honest!

Sadly, I don’t think it will make me faster

I’ve been lucky so far to avoid running injuries (probably not doing enough running!) but am prone to clumsy ‘real world’ injuries (e.g, stabbed myself in the toe with the point of an iron…painful and bloody!).

I love running, I love being outside in the air and looking at the sky, in all weathers, puffing up hills, cursing the wind, dodging dogs, the buzz of racing, the community spirit of parkrun… and of course the treasure trove of information and support and laughs on this forum.

As I said to Ososlo, I’m superstitious about starting a log — as soon as I do, something is bound to go wrong. Gulp!:eek:

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annapr

Friday: 46 mins easy
7k @ 6:33; 4.3 mi @ 10:33

Wrapped up well for this after work, long sleeves, jacket, even a woolly hat... first time ever. Felt great, full of energy and comfortable rhythm... thought I was speeding along until the first Km beeped at 6:51.... laughed at myself and kept it easy. On the way out the seafront I considered taking off the jacket and hat but suspected there might be a wind chill when I turned around... and so there was. Loved this run, lovely cold evening.

Official OT weigh in: down 4lbs

Saturday: W/u, 6 x short hill sprints with random recoveries, C/d
6.8 km @ 6:30; 4.2 mi @ 10:27

From what I recall, these are supposed to be really short, 10-15 seconds with a standing recovery. I dithered for a bit about choice of hill, eventually warming up on the way to Griffith park in Drumcondra, where I found two lovely hills above the Tolka on either end of a loop. One was short and sharp (11-15 secs), the other longer and more gradual (17-21 secs). I alternated between them.

I tried to remember what BG had told me about hill sprints and concentrated on high knees, head up and not busting a gut. I felt as if I got better at it as I went along. I couldn't cope with a standing recovery, would have felt like a right eejit loitering so I jogged/walked in between without really timing it.

The variation in time on the reps was mainly because I stopped in different places. Not very precise, but I was happy with my efforts.

I realised afterwards how much better I feel when I'm running more regularly. Healthier, more energetic, more positive. Best drug ever!

Sunday: 90 min easy
13.6 K @ 6:40; 8.4 mi @ 10:44

Around the Phoenix Park trails and along the Liffey with Laura. A bit windy at times but conditions mostly good. I felt the hill sprints in my legs for this one. And boy do I need to rebuild my endurance, the last 20 mins felt like torture... but Laura wasn't having any of it and made me run past the car and back to hit the prescribed 90 mins. Thanks Laura for the bullying encouragement:p

We heard a loud shout of 'go wan you good things' from a strange woman in Chapelizod village, we couldn't figure out who it was... turned out to be BG on a break from Runner Beans in Donore...

Great to see the rowing clubs out training from the Liffey path... then we came across a runner almost impaled on a gate trying to get back into the park at Islandbridge to go up the steps... about 100m from Islandbridge gate which was open

. Hope she made it over ok.

Week 1 of the plan done... 2 sessions and the longish run... only ran 4 days, but that's ok.

Mileage this week: 21.3 mi

Younganne

annapr wrote: »

Friday: 46 mins easy
7k @ 6:33; 4.3 mi @ 10:33

Wrapped up well for this after work, long sleeves, jacket, even a woolly hat... first time ever. Felt great, full of energy and comfortable rhythm... thought I was speeding along until the first Km beeped at 6:51.... laughed at myself and kept it easy. On the way out the seafront I considered taking off the jacket and hat but suspected there might be a wind chill when I turned around... and so there was. Loved this run, lovely cold evening.

Official OT weigh in: down 4lbs

Saturday: W/u, 6 x short hill sprints with random recoveries, C/d
6.8 km @ 6:30; 4.2 mi @ 10:27

From what I recall, these are supposed to be really short, 10-15 seconds with a standing recovery. I dithered for a bit about choice of hill, eventually warming up on the way to Griffith park in Drumcondra, where I found two lovely hills above the Tolka on either end of a loop. One was short and sharp (11-15 secs), the other longer and more gradual (17-21 secs). I alternated between them.

I tried to remember what BG had told me about hill sprints and concentrated on high knees, head up and not busting a gut. I felt as if I got better at it as I went along. I couldn't cope with a standing recovery, would have felt like a right eejit loitering so I jogged/walked in between without really timing it.

The variation in time on the reps was mainly because I stopped in different places. Not very precise, but I was happy with my efforts.

I realised afterwards how much better I feel when I'm running more regularly. Healthier, more energetic, more positive. Best drug ever!

Sunday: 90 min easy
13.6 K @ 6:40; 8.4 mi @ 10:44

Around the Phoenix Park trails and along the Liffey with Laura. A bit windy at times but conditions mostly good. I felt the hill sprints in my legs for this one. And boy do I need to rebuild my endurance, the last 20 mins felt like torture... but Laura wasn't having any of it and made me run past the car and back to hit the prescribed 90 mins. Thanks Laura for the bullying encouragement:p

We heard a loud shout of 'go wan you good things' from a strange woman in Chapelizod village, we couldn't figure out who it was... turned out to be BG on a break from Runner Beans in Donore...

Great to see the rowing clubs out training from the Liffey path... then we came across a runner almost impaled on a gate trying to get back into the park at Islandbridge to go up the steps... about 100m from Islandbridge gate which was open . Hope she made it over ok.

Week 1 of the plan done... 2 sessions and the longish run... only ran 4 days, but that's ok.

Mileage this week: 21.3 mi

Well done Anna on a great weeks training and losing 4 lbs!! keep up the good work, yes its definitely the best medicine!!!:D

Bungy Girl

That's a good week's work, Anna! Nice choice of hills, I'd say the first one (shorter, sharper) is better for the sprints. Here's a good article about hill sprints and the science behind them.

Yeah, I figured you and L would be saying 'Who is that loon ....?' :rolleyes:

Annie get your Run

A good solid week there A and a nice run today in the park.

tang1

Annie get your Run wrote: »

A good solid week there A and a nice run today in the park.

+1 to that, good decent week for you Anna and fair play for *toughing it out on the run today.

Mrs Mc

Nice comeback week Anna know what you mean about endurance I'm finding it hard building mine back up again but baby steps and we will get there. Well done on the 4 lbs loss.

laura_ac3

Another good week Anna. Stringing a bit of consistency together, plus the sessions, will be second nature again soon!!!

tang1

All the best Sunday Anna, hope it goes well for you.

RedRunner

Best of luck tomorrow!

Neady83

Good luck tomorrow Anna

Enjoy the race

annapr

Monday, tuesday: Rest

Wednesday, 18: 20 mins easyish
3.4K @ 6:08, 2.1 mi @ 9:52

Well, this didn't work out well... plan was 60 min with 20 at tempo. Tuesday evening, home late from work. Maybe weds morning early... but 6 year old shenanigans at 3am put paid to any hope of getting up at 6... final plan was to do it while the 7 year old was at GAA training. Late out of work again, rushed home, got myself and him out the door... arrived late at training... chatted to a few parents... took a call from my boss.... found myself with 20 minutes left to run before pickup time.

20 glorious minutes along the seafront, lovely evening for it, great way to decompress after a hectic day. Passed fbot along the way.

Thursday: supposed to meet Aquinn for a run, i was really looking forward to that particular reunion but unfortunately couldn't make it in the end.

Official weigh in: down 1.75lbs this week (5.75 total)

Saturday: St Anne's parkrun easy (29:50)
3.5 mi total.
5k @ 5:59; 3.1 mi

Arrived late at St. Anne's, jogged to the start, met up with Laura and had a very pleasant chatty run around, finishing with a bit of a sprint... Laura shouting back at me to keep it up. She has really gained in strength and pace with all her consistent training.

Good to catch up with DenisB at the beginning, and the usual sociable coffee afterwards. There was a record number again today, 500+. In the second lap, a girl said to us, 'the two of you make this look so easy, chatting away, I can hardly breathe'... I felt like an old pro

Well, old anyway.

Sunday 22: 93 mins easy
14.7k @ 6:23; 9.1mi @ 10:16

This felt so much easier than last Sunday's 90 min, possibly because I hadn't done 2 sessions this week or much running at all. Out the sea front, lots of familiar faces out.

I overtook Duanington just before st Anne's park. Ok I admit he was out for a Sunday stroll with his daughter. I did a circuit of the park and included a lap of the Rose Garden in his honour.

Felt great at the end of this run.

So only 3 runs for the week (or 2.5!). :cool:

annapr

oh no, bad habits returning... not getting out often enough...

Thursday, 26th: 20 min warmup, 20 min tempo, supposed to be 20 min cool down, actually about 6
7.7k @ 5:56; 4.7mi @ 9:33

Finally time to try the tempo I had been avoiding for over a week. Seriously, I think I was terrified that this would be a massive fail.

Tempo: pace felt comfortable enough, settled into it, started thinking I can do this, oops only 5 mins gone... but the minutes ticked away and eventually I was down to 5 to go... as always, the last 3 were the hardest, had to force myself not to look at the watch.

tempo: target was 5:23-5:29; actual: 5:22/km

Very happy with how this went… reassured myself that if the MurphD rule (i.e., if you can do half the distance at the pace earlier in the week in training, you can do the whole distance at the same pace on race day) applied and BG’s ‘magic of race day’ theory, I would be ok for Raheny 5

Sunday, 29th: Raheny 5 Mile

8.1k @ 5:20; 5mi @ 8:35

Here’s where my head was going into this: the only time I did this race was 2014, my first 5 miler and the time was 44:01. Last year, Terenure 5 was 43:37 of hell, followed by an even worse Irish Runner 5 mile. PB is Terenure 2015, 41:16. So, after feeling I was going backwards all last year and being demoralised by bad races, I decided I would be ok with beating 44:01 today, but my A goal was to beat 43:37.

My 3 weeks of consistency had morphed into 2 weeks of not getting out much, but the tempo from thursday was encouraging. I was hustled into the car by D, parked very close to the start and looked out at the cold, wet day. Yuck. We wandered over and dropped our bags, said hello to a few people, queued for the toilet (me, not him… Unfair! as the donald would say).

I did a whole 6 mins of warmup, including some fancy drills, skipping, knees up and threw in a stride or two (such a pro… trying to look like all the fast looking dudes).

Went in among the huddled masses, glad of the body heat and then we were off. Laura and BG sped past me almost immediately on the sub 40 quest… I can keep up with them, I thought, then gave myself a good scolding, stop that, no you can’t.

My target pace was 5:22 ish… first mile I was reining myself back in. First shout out from TAFKFD and aquinn (i think) on the Howth Rd, then chickey arrived beside me. I expected her to take off but she said she was just back in action and not looking for a particular time. This was a huge help to me, because we fell in beside each other and she kept me going nearly all the way. She also thinks in Km which helps.

Shout out to KennyG on mt prospect, who was arguing with the local drivers (AKA marshalling). RachelJev whizzed past at this stage, her reluctance to race clearly a thing of the past.

Into St Anne’s and this gave me a great boost, I do love that park and have run so many miles there. Shout out from Redrunner, also marshalling. Up the avenue, watching the speedier people coming down was a great distraction. Spotted Mrs KennyG… and Laura looking strong.

Once the novelty of that wore off, we started wondering when in the hell were we going to turn back. When we turned, it was the lovely run down the avenue towards the parkrun finish… except there was another mile to go. Coming up past the dog park towards the exit from the park, I really started to flag, C started to move away from me and I started entertaining ideas of slowing right down… came out of the park into the dreaded rectangle of doom… a bossy shout out from aquinn and TAFKD got me moving again, another one from D before the almost final turn, Dubgal and kids gave me the final shove and I mustered up a strong finish (passing C at the end… although i’m sure her time was better than mine because she started behind me).

Absolutely delighted with that… nowhere near a PB but better than anything last year and most importantly, fairly strong and consistent most of the way. Having C with me really helped keep me moving. Thanks C!

So no PB but a PB-like buzz!

Delighted to hear that D and Laura smashed their PB’s.

and BG is now up there with aquinn as super pacer! Lovely to meet Singer (another pb), DenisB (thanks for the shout out and the flapjack), The Muppet (who made my day by saying he couldn’t keep up with me

), TFGR, and of course all the usual St Anne’s crew.

Chip time: 43:05

Splits:
KM: 5:16, 5:26, 5:30, 5:06, 5:22, 5:27, 5:27, 5:12, (4:12)
Mi: 8:36, 8:43, 8:25, 8:46, 8:25

Very encouraging start to the year... must keep the momentum now! but that goody bag will not help with the weigh in this week... and the PB Buzz glass of wine won't either

chickey2

Well done today! You really helped me too. As I didn't have a specific target time I was getting a bit lazy half way, but you kept me going.

Annie get your Run

Well done Anna

glad this year is shaping up to be better than last already!! Onwards to the next target, great to catch up as always

RedRunner

Nice work as Strava would say! Something good to build on there now. Keep up the good work.

Kennyg71

Well done today, had my safety vest on today so missed loads, trying to keep
Cars and runners apart.

Ososlo

RedRunner wrote: »

Nice work as Strava would say! Something good to build on there now. Keep up the good work.

+1 to this! All going in the right direction now Anna! Well done today.

laura_ac3

Super Anna, great to see the racing mojo back. Good to have a positive race experience, more to come again this year.

Bungy Girl

Well done on the Comeback PB Anna! QED on the race day magic theory

.

What's up next ?

Mrs Mc

Well done Anna your week of training sounds a bit like mine not enough hours in the day !!! Well done and a great start to the year.

The Muppet

Delighted I made your day, that's a plus for me from a day with very few plus's . That's a really good time Congratulations

denis b

Well done Anna. It was hard to process all the faces rushing by St. Paul's but your smile shone out. Great racing.

Younganne

well done great race, and lovely report too. Keep the training going and you'll have lots of PBs and good races throughout the year.

aquinn

A super report Anna, well done. Delighted for you. You looked well when we saw you. I had expected a miserable head on you so delighted this wasn't the case and you got on great.

Congratulations, a great start to the year. We should be back training together soon so I'll be the poke you need to get out.

tang1

Well done Anna, great to see you moving in the right direction again.

Singer

Great stuff! A good day in the pr/_d household

annapr

Wednesday, feb 1: 46 min easy
7.4k @ 6:21; 4.6 mi @ 9:57

Up early for this, for once convinced myself to get out of bed. Out the sea front in the dark, not many runners about but i was struck by the number of people (mostly women) walking to work... before 7. New year's resolutions maybe. I felt great after this, but I do find that when I go out early in the morning i get very sleepy early afternoon.... struggled a bit in meetings at work to stay awake :eek:

For some reason, Strava made this run a lot shorter and slower than Garmin...

Anyhow, good way to start the month!

Thursday, Feb 2
OT weekly weigh in at work.... another 2.25 lbs down... for a total of 8lbs to date. Whew, that was a relief.

Friday, Feb 3: c.44min easy
7k @ 6:15; 4.35 mi @ 10:04

Home from work in freezing rain. After some online motivation (nagging) got myself out for a run around the neighbourhood. Avoided the sea front as it looked like it was mostly under water. Nice run, felt great during and after, full of energy.

Saturday, Feb 4: Poppintree parkrun (30:24)
5K @ 6:05; 3.1 mi @ 9:47

Nice trot around Poppintree with Laura_ac and the irrepressible aquinn, who was making her comeback to parkrun. Lovely crisp cold morning and very chatty easy run. Good to see a big crowd at Poppintree, around 150 i think. And great to have aquinn back in action, not a bother on her.

Sunday, Feb 5: 90 minutes easy
13.9k @ 6:29; 8.6 mi @ 10:26

Out early to volunteer at the inaugural St Anne's junior parkrun, what a fantastic morning in such a beautiful park. 220 juniors, massive numbers and all so good humoured and positive. It really is good for the soul. Mrs KennyG is the Event Director and has done a brilliant job organising it, with the help of Killerz, Mrs Mc and other St Anne's regulars. And of course kennyG himself

#lovejuniorparkrun

Coffee and token sorting after then 90 mins easy with Laura. Round the park, Bull Wall and back along the beach. A really spectacular morning and we are so lucky o have such beautiful places to run. 90 mins felt very long, I was tired but Laura nagged me into running past the car to add the last 20 min and I was glad i did. So sleepy every since....

Weekly total: 20.7 miles/33 Km, happy with that, got out 4 days.

Neady83

You're really dropping the pounds Anna, fair play to you ... and your running consistency is paying off by the looks of it

What a comeback

You must be feeling great.

annapr

Neady83 wrote: »

You're really dropping the pounds Anna, fair play to you ... and your running consistency is paying off by the looks of it What a comeback You must be feeling great.

Thanks Neady, I am feeling great, I feel so much more energetic when I'm running regularly. And getting weighed once a week at work is a great motivator!! Although I missed a week, so this week was a bit misleading.

laura_ac3

annapr wrote: »

90 mins felt very long, I was tired but Laura nagged me into running past the car to add the last 20 min and I was glad i did. So sleepy every since....

Weekly total: 20.7 miles/33 Km, happy with that, got out 4 days.

It wasn't nagging so much as threatening. I believe I said that I had the car key so unless you wanted to stand by the car and wait for me you were running the full 90 minutes. You're welcome.

:D:D