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From Couch 25k To Where Ever

The Muppet

I've been toying with the idea of starting a log here for quite some time now and today's the day. I hope it will help keep me motivated and help gauge progression. if anyone else starting to run can take anything from it that would be great too. We all run for different reasons some for competition some for fun and others for the health benefits.

About me. I'm 51 year old type 2 diabetic. About 2.5 years ago I was obese , had a zero level of fitness and without going into too many details my illness was out of control. I had two Grandchildren then and my desire to see them grow up inspired me to make changes.

In February 2013 I started the Couch 25k (c25k) program. I used to go out early in the morning so that no body would see me struggle to run. I used to look ahead to the schedule for the next week and just laugh and think there's no way I will be able to do that but I did successfully completed the program in april 2013 without missing a run . Eureka I could run slowly, 2.5 k in 30 minutes non stop .

From April to September 2013 I ran a few miles a couple of times a week but I really missed the structure of the plan, In October 2013 I stopped running, I didn't make a conscious decision to stop I just started putting it of until the next day , that became a week and then the next month. I was out for 4 months.

In Febuary 2014 I started to notice that the benefits I had gained from running were starting to reverse , I really didn't want to go back there so I started up again. I found I could only run for 10 minutes at a time so I started on week 4 of the program and completed it again.

When I finished the program I knew I needed a plan to continued to run so I set a target to run 10k by my 50th Birthday I ran 3 or 4 times a week and ran the 10k with a couple of weeks to spare.

I then started the Hal Higdon intermediate half marathon plan and successfully completed that distance in November 2015 in a time of 2 hours 22 mins.

I lost focus again then and ran very little until April 2015. I started back then I have been running every week since. I am running 5 days a week an average of 26 miles a week . One long Run (8 to 14 miles), One Hill sprint session, and a 4 or 5 mile run three times a week.

Up to this week all my runs were solo efforts, I did the paced mile the other night and I really enjoyed the event. So now I feel I am ready to go to the next level which will involve more events, park runs, 10,ks , Half Marathon and hopefully the full Marathon in 2016 , that's the plan and I know I need a plan so I will see how that goes. I will be using this log to track my progress.

Clearlier posted a plan here following the 2014 Dublin City Marathon , I intent to follow that plan over the next few months to see where that takes me and then next year all being well I will follow the Boards Marathon Training plan.

My PBs to date

1 mile 7:22 Chip Timing Aug 2015
5k 29.14
10 k 1:04:20
13.1 Miles 2:22:00

With the exception of the mile all these times are from solo training runs and timed on my Garmin watch.

My Weigh Loss to date is 4.5 stone

My Diabetes is under control

Apologies for the long winded introduction but its been a bit of a roller coaster to date. Constructive criticism and advice will always be taken on board and appreciated.

Oh Re The Username: It seemed as good as any when I signed up to boards many moons ago for the crack on the soccer forum (*), I'm stuck with it now and as the saying goes I am not my username .

*(I don't even watch soccer these days I'd much rather go for a run.)

Thanks for reading

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The Muppet

eyrie wrote: »

Oh yes, I didn't mean that to sound like I was telling you it was a good plan, just that I agreed with you! I actually read your log and experiences of it previously, which was what prompted me to try it in the first place (hope that doesn't sound creepy but your log was the first one I ever read on here, and was a massive inspiration for me so I owe you!)

I very much hope so (seed is already firmly planted)

Delighted to hear that , thanks, the best of luck with the plan, it's all about time on your feet, build a good base of constant mileage over the winter and the marathon training which is the hardest part of running one will not be a bother to you. Keep me updated on your progress .

Edit: Scrap that I just found your log . I shall he following with interest. I have a similar plan as yourself for the winter months . Might even give Hadd a go .

Btw I didn't think that at all .

Huzzah!

I'd love to run the Great North Run some day! The very best of luck with it. I'm looking forward to reading the race report already.

denis b

Well Tom, the absolute very best for your International Adventure in Newcastle this Sunday. Brendan Foster was always a hero of mine (there is something about his spirit) and he has instigated a truly wonderful social and sporting event. Not surprised that you chose this race given your own running philosophy.

I hope that your Suunto behaves itself and that you have the race that you have prepared for. Give it socks.

Kennyg71

Very best of luck T, have a great race, have seen race on TV couple of times and looks like a brilliant event.

The Muppet

Huzzah! wrote: »

I'd love to run the Great North Run some day! The very best of luck with it. I'm looking forward to reading the race report already.

Thank you, there will definitely be a race report .

denis b wrote: »

Well Tom, the absolute very best for your International Adventure in Newcastle this Sunday. Brendan Foster was always a hero of mine (there is something about his spirit) and he has instigated a truly wonderful social and sporting event. Not surprised that you chose this race given your own running philosophy.

I hope that your Suunto behaves itself and that you have the race that you have prepared for. Give it socks.

Thanks Denis, The GNR has been an ambition of mine since I learned running the distance was achievable, I have great time for Brendan Foster myself. I will always run just for the enjoyment of it so having watched it many times on tv I guess this was an obvious choice.

The suunto has been behaving itself since I started pressing the correct buttons , I'm hoping for a good run myself.

Kennyg71 wrote: »

Very best of luck T, have a great race, have seen race on TV couple of times and looks like a brilliant event.

Thanks G , 57000 runners this year I believe , the atmosphere the whole weekend is supposed to be excellent. I guess congestion may be an issue for the first few miles I shall report back.

Unthought Known

Best of luck for Sunday Tom. I'd love to run that one day, the atmosphere looks amazing.

The Black Oil

I had a feeling your were following that plan, but wasn't 100% sure. Will be great to put it into practice now. Best of luck.

The Muppet

Unthought Known wrote: »

Best of luck for Sunday Tom. I'd love to run that one day, the atmosphere looks amazing.

Thanks Andy , I shall do my best not to let the class of 2016 down.

The Black Oil wrote: »

I had a feeling your were following that plan, but wasn't 100% sure. Will be great to put it into practice now. Best of luck.

Thanks B , hopefully I can, I was using the 10k half version of the plan using paces calculated on my 5k time from the link you gave me in your log. The calculated pace is probably a little hot for the whole race for me ,I plan to start out 40 seconds or so slower and take things from there , hoping conditions will be favorable for that plan if not I'll alter the plan as I go .

it will be interesting to see if I've improved over the last year, I feel I have so time to put the training to the test.

Singer

The Muppet wrote: »

57000 runners this year I believe , the atmosphere the whole weekend is supposed to be excellent. I guess congestion may be an issue for the first few miles I shall report back.

Wow, I didn't realise it was so big. Enjoy the whole thing T, really hoping the race goes well but more importantly you get to soak it all up. I know this is important to you, so take it all in and enjoy it!

Annie get your Run

The Muppet wrote: »

Thanks AM , No I didn't say , I've only ran one half, last years DHM in 2:12 so anything under that will do .

You're not getting away with that

my PB is 1:56:xx and you're faster than me now - just sayin :pac:. Joking aside (although you are faster!), soak up the atmosphere and have a great run, you'll undoubtedly PB with all the work you've put in.

The Muppet

Annie get your Run wrote: »

The Muppet wrote: »

Thanks AM , No I didn't say , I've only ran one half, last years DHM in 2:12 so anything under that will do .

You're not getting away with that my PB is 1:56:xx and you're faster than me now - just sayin :pac:. Joking aside (although you are faster!), soak up the atmosphere and have a great run, you'll undoubtedly PB with all the work you've put in.

Not at all sure about now (being faster ) I seem to remember coming in well after You in Jingle bells last year.

I'll give it my best as always and I know that should mean improving on last year but if not it, ll be back to the drawing board.

P.s. I'll race u in next year's DCM to put this faster nonsense to rest. I did read you are planning on running it didn't, I . Good to see that.

The Muppet

Singer wrote: »

Wow, I didn't realise it was so big. Enjoy the whole thing T, really hoping the race goes well but more importantly you get to soak it all up. I know this is important to you, so take it all in and enjoy it!

Thanks B

Driving in from the airport this morning it's all they were talking about on the radio. Spoke to some locals who run it every year with little or no training . One told me he applied three years in a row before he got a place .

If it's as they say it's going to be really good , it will have some going to outdo the atmosphere in Castleknock for DCM 2016 all the same.

OOnegative

Best of luck Sunday TM, hope it goes well for you.

Annie get your Run

The Muppet wrote: »

Not at all sure about now (being faster ) I seem to remember coming in well after You in Jingle bells last year.

I'll give it my best as always and I know that should mean improving on last year but if not it, ll be back to the drawing board.

P.s. I'll race u in next year's DCM to put this faster nonsense to rest. I did read you are planning on running it didn't, I . Good to see that.

SUSSSSSSH!

We'll see, they're holding it on my birthday (very nice of them!) so if I can, I will but I'm not pinning any hopes on it (much....!).

The Muppet

That's nice of them w. Will it be the 2018 AGYR dublin city marathon then ? Fingers crossed things remain good for you and you get there . I think ill probably do it myself all being well of course .

jake1970

Best of luck tomorrow, have a great race and enjoy!

diego_b

Best of luck, "Great" race to be doing...always catches the eye.

The Muppet

Well that's that off the bucket list . Finished in 2.10.33 , not what I planned but the route was congested from start to finish. people the whole way so just could not maintain the paces I planned with the crowds. Had a great run none the less , loved every minute of it , a slight pb . I'll post a race report when I'm home

The Muppet

Wow what an experience that was , its difficult to gauge the enormity of the Great North Run until you run it. 57 000 entries 43 000 finishers . its just a sea of people from start to finish.

Up early breakfast of Porridge and a banana and then drove out to South Shields to the finish line for 8, My wife was with me so I though this was the best plan. I had done a recce the day before and got my bearings for parking and bust stop for the journey back to the start . I though traffic would be bedlam but it was fine. I was back at the start just after 9. At 9.40 I decided to for the loo, 10.30 still in the queue, I decide it'll have to wait and head for my starting pen , Discarded my warm clothes and Jogged up to the pen gate , I couldn t get over the amount of people , saw some lifting up barriers for others to crawl under to get into pens, madness. My own pen was jammed when I got there and there was a lot of people starting form outside the pen, I fell in behind them. It was now nearly 10.40 , start time I was only there a minute or so and the race started.

It starts on a 3 lane motorway using both sides , 6 lanes. There are no waves , us mortal runners start with the elites except we are walking toward the start line from our pen position , I was in White G , crossed the start line 25 minutes after the official start, Mo was nearly at the halfway point by then.

My strategy was to run around 9 minute miles and pick it up if I felt ok later on. I high 5'ed Brendan Foster the offical starter and I was off,The first 2 miles are handy enough Pace was spot on and I was felling really good . It was busy but there was room to run on the motorway ,The motor way funnelled down to the Tyne Bridge, this was really the first place I realised the congestion wasn't good but I though it would thin out a swe progess as it usually does in races.

The next 2 miles are uphill, I was passing people but pace is slower than I want, we are back on a dual carriage way and the other side looks clearer so I made my way across and get back up to pace , We come to an overpass, incline and pace just drops off , there is nowhere to go but run at the same pace as those in front, Runners and walkers.

Around 4 miles I took a pitstop which only took a minute or two , The next four miles were the same getting a bit of pace and then trying to pass people with little room to do so, I noticed another runner doing like wise and I fell in behind him , we are running the right side of the left carriage way and jumping up on the central reservation and back down to pass people , I did think to myself I shouldn't be doing this I'm going to injury myself as the ground was uneven or tapered and I was up and down of the kerb. I dont know if the other guy had the same idea but he just stopped running, i went by him and continued on.

8 miles in we came to a roundabout and just after that there was a shower to cool us off but it was single lane, loads just funnelled in to take the shower and we came to a complete halt. It was at this stage that I decided to just finish out the race and forget about pace.

The next thee miles I'm just running with the pack around 10 min miles, it hasn't thinned out at all, its like running at the start of a normal race.

Mile 12 is uphill and the pack slows even more , feels like we are crawling along, legs are tired but I'm not breathing heavily at all actually i feel good., Steep down hill then and into the last mile along the seafront, I know my wife is on the right hand side 400 meters from finish as we'd prearranged so I move to that side and there is a little more room, I pick up the pace again and actually get to run at 8.30 for a little while but theres little point after a few hunderd meters I'm back into traffic, I do pick my way though a few. I cross the line and thats it I have just ran a race I used to watch in awe on tv.

I dont even check my watch, in fact I wore 2, I stopped the garmin all right but the other one has a mind of its own , I will have to edit the rest of the days driving out of that. I made my way through the Medal presentation and individual presentation for each runner which was nice , picked up up my goodie bag , posed for my offical photo and headed out to meet my wife.

She was tracking me on the app , she said she saw I had started at 11.07am and they had given an estimated finish time of 1 .27pm , when she checked again they had changed my estimated finish time to 1.15 pm , I came in at 1.17pm , 2 hours 10 minutes and 33 seconds a new pb by 2 minutes over my only other half dublin 2016.

My thoughs on the day : The atmposphere was good but nothing like I remember DCM to be, The whole route was lined with spectators but they were not as vocal in their support as the DCM crowd. Initally I did feel dissapointed with my time as I did think somewhere around the 2 hour mark was achievable. Looking back on my race data I can see all the variations in pace , I'm not one for making excuses but I do feel with a clearer run I would have been quicker. I was on the race facebook page this morning and there are numerous people making the same obsevations about congestion and a lot mentioning they were running from the white pen.

The event itself is brilliant , it's so well organised from a logistical viewpoint, I wouldnt blame the organisers for the congestion, If the entrants were honest about ability it wouldnt have been half as bad, but to see people walking in the first mile which is downhill shows what they are up against. A lot of the locals seem to run it with little or no training and are econimical with the truth about their ability when applying in order to get a place.

That's my Great North Run experience, I really enjoyed the run , I feel I had a good run which is all i aspire to do with my running, I ran every step apart from pit stop and coming to a halt at the shower and I did run a 2 minute PB.

mile splits

9.14,8.55,9.23,9.40,10.25 (pitstop) 9.27,9.15,9.25,10.43,9.43,10.18,10.22,9.29

Annie get your Run

Sounds like it's more an event to enjoy than race T but a PB is PB!! Congrats on that, and great you got to take part in something you've been watching for years too

No doubt you can take a lot more off that time though, any plans to do Dublin Half? Although that's probably too close?

Singer

Great stuff T, nice report and delighted you enjoyed it. A PB in those circumstances is very much well deserved.

diego_b

Well done on the pb! Good report and it certainly sounds like a challenging event but pb'ing was excellent going.

Kennyg71

Well done on pb T, have to say have looked at this race on TV a few times myself and definitely looks like a difficult one to get momentum in, sounds like you enjoyed it anyway and an iconic race completed.

Wubble Wubble

Brilliant report T. I was watching the coverage on BBC. That downhill near the end looked really steep on the telly all right. Oh and congrats on the PB

The Muppet

Annie get your Run wrote: »

Sounds like it's more an event to enjoy than race T but a PB is PB!! Congrats on that, and great you got to take part in something you've been watching for years too No doubt you can take a lot more off that time though, any plans to do Dublin Half? Although that's probably too close?

Thanks AM, I am happy with the PB and I enjoyed the run. It's definitely an event to start from the correct position , I think I used my marathon time on the entry form as I applied the day after DCM . I'm pretty sure I am fitter now than I was then but how were they to know that

. I never envisage it being as busy on the road as it was , I have never experience that in a race up to now.

I did consider the Dublin Half but though it would be too soon especially considering the new course, that first half will be tough going.

I'll definitely be working to improve my running over the winter, hopefully with the correct training I can take more time off all my PBs . I know i'm not the most competitive of runners but I do have personal targets which I would like to achieve in all distances.

Just chilling this week, I havn't felt like going back out yet.

The Muppet

Singer wrote: »

Great stuff T, nice report and delighted you enjoyed it. A PB in those circumstances is very much well deserved.

Thanks B ,

diego_b wrote: »

Well done on the pb! Good report and it certainly sounds like a challenging event but pb'ing was excellent going.

Thanks D , definitley a challenge but the route itself would be a quick one , its net down hill and there are long gradual declines which would be easy enough to maintain a pace on with a clear road.

Kennyg71 wrote: »

Well done on pb T, have to say have looked at this race on TV a few times myself and definitely looks like a difficult one to get momentum in, sounds like you enjoyed it anyway and an iconic race completed.

I did enjoy it G , I am delighted to think I ran it, I have the medal, if anyone had told me I would do that a few years ago I'd have laughed at them.

Wubble Wubble wrote: »

Brilliant report T. I was watching the coverage on BBC. That downhill near the end looked really steep on the telly all right. Oh and congrats on the PB

Thanks J, Yeah that hill is really steep , not good for the quads and the mile before it is steep uphill. I had driven the route the day before so I was aware of it. You could also assume the finish it at the bottom of that hill when you see tetheh sea but there's a further mile to go from the bottom.

Good to see you back , hope the warm weather training recovery went well, your novices seem to be doing really well, they are a great bunch.

The Black Oil

Interesting one re the congestion alright, congrats on taking on an international run (and the PB), the motorway and all that. Hope you have not returned with a funny accent.

The Muppet

The Black Oil wrote: »

Interesting one re the congestion alright, congrats on taking on an international run (and the PB), the motorway and all that. Hope you hav saturdaye not returned with a funny accent.

Thanks B , No funny accent, My wife picked up an entry form (for me)for the Seville full at the expo last saturday so if she has her way i will be doing some more international runs. She says I could do with some sun. Not a hope I'm going though. Dublin in Ocober will be warm enough for me.

The Muppet

The Muppet wrote: »

Was in the diabetic clinic today for my annual review.

Great news all around . All levels were normal. I had my meds cut again , that's the second time they have been cut since i took up running. I am on very little now and my goal is to get off meds completely.

They don't want to see me for 2 years now which is great . At one point I was in every few weeks.

It was really busy in there today .I half joked with the doctor to prescribe running to lessen her workload.

Just putting this here for anyone else who may find themselves in a similar position to where I was a few years ago.

Taking up running from a zero fitness level is not easy but its definitely worth the hard work

Those two years flew: I was back in the Diabetic Clinic for my checkup yesterday .

I have been taken off all diabetic medication and discharged, I'm done with the diabetic clinic. . The Doctor actully told me I had cured my own Diabetes.

I know you can't really cure it or at least that's what your told when first diagnosed and I need to continue doing what I am but sure that's no bother I was planning on doing that anyway .

Running has had such a positive effect on my life .

I'm posting this here for anyone with diabetes just to show that massive improvements can be made by lifestyle change.

That's another goal met, running out of them now, I will have to get my thinking hat on.

Annie get your Run

That's really fantastic news T, congratulations, your journey is an inspiration to anyone whether battling with an illness or not. Delighted for you