So that's "your thing" now is it?

scotindublin wrote: »

How is the recovery going Andy? Tough last few miles by the sounds of it but you showed guts to get through it and still run a PB on Sunday.

What's the plan now? Back on another marathon cycle or a change of goals for the next while?

Thanks for jolting me out of my slumber Craig! Time to catch up.......

24 October: [Planned 6 miles with 2m at MP]
Ran: 6m with 2m at MP
Last small MP run. Pace felt good,nice and steady.

26 October: [Planned 3 miles recovery]
Ran: 3m recovery

28 October: Dublin Marathon
After a great training plan, but possibly not the best taper, I was confident enough of putting in a good run.
Plan was to aim for 3:25 and pace by elevation like last year. A great nights sleep, up just before 6am, porridge, coffee, mix a Hi5 tab, toilet, toast, toilet, go to front door, toilet again, off to the Luas and into town for 8am.
Nice and relaxed beforehand. Got talking to a guy who was running his 14th consecutive DCM. The woman next to him then mentioned that this was her 25th! I felt like a novice all over again.

Miles 1-3: 8:00, 7:41, 7:58
Nice slow start. I had a pace band and I was slightly slower after 3 miles , but that's good.

Miles 4-6: 7:43, 7:43, 7:42
A few seconds up over these 3 which was a bit reckless. Feeling great, but why wouldn't I in the first 1/4 of a marathon. Took water at the 2nd water station and my first gel.

Miles 7-9: 7:47, 7:32, 7:30
Again, too fast. My 3rd DCM and I should really know better. Met Sean during mile 9 and had a little chat about pacing. Water at 7.

Miles 10-12: 7:29, 7:49, 7:40
Around mile 10 I moved aside for a wheelchair and fell behind Sean. Made the choice there that if I stayed with him I will either hold him back or, worse, he will drag me to a pace I can't maintain. I do remember thinking at the time, some people just look like a runner. Sean looks like a runner. I don't.
Water and a gel at 10.

Miles 13-15: 7:44, 8:08, 7:54
I thought I paced this part well. Made a point of keeping a steady effort and allowing the pace to drop knowing that miles 16-20 are flat-to-downhill.
Water and gel at 13.

Miles 16-18: 7:48, 8:06, 7:45
Mile 16 was perfect. Mile 17 took me by surprise as I dropped off the pace without realising. This is where I started working a little harder. Got back into a nice pace on mile 18. At 18 miles I was 40 seconds ahead of my pace band.
Water at 16.

Miles 19-21: 7:52, 8:03, 8:17
Still ticking along, but I'm definitely feeling it. Pass the family at Milltown and that gives me a boost, but at the top of the tiny hill coming out of Milltown my right hamstring tightens and feels like it's going to snap. Slow down, it eases a bit, but as I'm turning onto Clonskeagh Rd it happens again.
Water and gel at 19.

Miles 22-24: 9:02, 8:31, 8:38
Survival mode. Clonskeagh Rd was hell. I was digging in anyway, but every now and then the hamstring would tease me by almost going, causing me to do this strange step as I tried to avoid cramp. In hindsight I might have been better off stopping to stretch, but I was worried I wouldn't get going again. Actually didn't feel too bad on Roebuck Rd and I ran up the hill.
Felt ok down Fosters and better up to and over the bridge. Down Nutley and I'm thinking a strong finish might salvage a sub 3:30.
Water and gel at 22

Miles 25-Finish: 8:54, 8:48
Nope. At the bottom of Nutley my left hamstring threatens to seize up. At this point I just want to finish so I plod along without even a glimpse of a sprint finish.

Finish time 3:31:15. A struggle, but an 8 minute PB.
I'm not sure what caused the hamstring issues. The cold weather? I had made an extra effort to fuel up in the week before on electrolytes so it was a surprise.
Pacing needs to be better though. Miles 4-10 were too fast and I think that had killed off any sub-3:25 chances before anything else.

Plans: Rotterdam or Manchester in April, I haven't decided which yet. I bought Hansons Marathon Method this week and I'm intrigued to see if it will suit me. I'm only 30 pages in and I'll wait until I finish the book, but I may give it a go.
In the lottery for Berlin, but I'll definitely do DCM next year as long as I'm not injured. If I get into Berlin that will be my target race and Dublin will be run for enjoyment only.

118 miles for the month.

2 November: 4m recovery on a treadmill
I hate gyms and I hate treadmills.

Congrats on the PB. You're consistently improving your times in nice increments, despite the issues with your hamstrings. Well done.

5 November: 6.8 mile commute at 9:21. Avg HR 138

8 November: 6.8 mile commute at 9:04. Avg HR 139
A little quicker than Monday's run, but I felt pretty good. Hamstrings still a little tight at times.

11 November: 5 miles at 8:24. Avg HR 143
More of a steady run with a fast finish.

A massive 18.5 miles for the week.

Hansons book been an interesting read and I've decided to give the advanced plan a go for April. Not sure if it's too "advanced" for me, but there's only one way to find out. The plan will start on 3/12 so I'll be using the next 3 weeks to build mileage back up with easy runs and to get ready for 6-day weeks.

Still not decided between Manchester and Rotterdam. I would like another crack at Manchester, but I've only heard good things about Rotterdam (apart from some bag-drop issues this year). Hotels booked in both for now.

Huzzah! wrote: »

I'm no expert but I doubt it's too advanced for you. It's probably of a similar level as the plan you've just finished.

FWIW, I've done both the Pfitz and Hanson half plans and found it easier to do the Hanson six days than the Pfitz five days. Similar mileage but spread out a bit more.

Thanks. That's the impression I got from the book so it's nice to hear that from someone who's done both. I just need to make sure that my easy runs are at the correct pace.

Oh yeah, training log........

Not too much to report for the end of November. Work and other stuff meant I only ran a few commutes and only 1 run at the weekend. Hanson's plan for Manchester started on Thursday 6th (Thursday?!)......

3 December: 4.2 miles easy at 8:49. Avg HR 138

4 December: 6.8 mile easy commute at 9:06. Avg HR 134

6 December: 6 miles easy at 9:01. Avg HR 134
First run of the plan and the first of 3 consecutive runs on the same route. I'll be running this quite a bit as the plan has a lot of 6 mile runs.

7 December: 6 miles easy at 9:08. Avg HR 133
Really windy. Miles 3-5 seemed to be fully into the wind. Probably not as easy as it should have been.

8 December: 6 miles easy at 8:53. Avg HR 142
A late Saturday evening run in the pouring rain. Again, the wind made it harder than it should have been and I was guilty of pushing a bit just to get home. I'll get away with it in the first week, but the book stresses the need to run the easy runs easy and if I don't do that I'm setting myself up for failure.

9 December: 8.1 miles easy at 9:09. Avg HR 137

37 miles for the week.

scotindublin wrote: »

Good luck with the plan for Manchester A. Tough time of year to get structure to training.

Thanks C. Yeah I know what you mean. I'm hoping the simplicity of the plan helps me get into a routine.

Catch up time....

Hansons Advanced week 3

17 December: 6.1 miles easy at 9:08. Avg HR 134
Honestly, I can't remember anything about this run.

18 December: 1.5m wu, 8x600 off 200 walking rec, 1.5m cd. 6.8 miles total
Found a nice rectangle for this measuring 600X200. Plan was for a 400m jogging recovery, but I changed it to 200 walking. I found this easier than the 12x400 session last week. Same target pace so I was looking for around 153 seconds.

Intervals: 152, 150, 153, 150, 151, 150, 149, 150

20 December: 2m wu, 6 miles marathon pace, 1m cd. 9 miles total
After a day off Wednesday it's straight back into the 2nd session of the week. Have to get used to this and I really have to take care to run my easy miles easy. Target marathon pace is 7:38. Felt like I was struggling the first 2 miles, but got into it after that.

Splits: 7:34, 7:29, 7:31, 7:31, 7:33, 7:29

21 December: 7.1 miles easy at 9:26. Avg HR 150!
A memorable run only because my HR was apparently all over the place. The run itself felt very easy, but checking on Strava I could see that my HR suddenly spiked to 215 (way over my max) after about 7 minutes and remained high (160-170) until around mile 5 when it dropped back down to the normal 130-ish range. Not sure if it was a problem with the watch or not, but it makes you think all sorts of bad things.

23 December: 8.5 miles easy at 9:12. Avg HR 128
After the HR issue I took Saturday off and was a bit worried about this run. Set the watch up to show my HR so I could keep an eye on it during the run. All good, but I'll keep the HR display in case it happens again.

37 miles for the week

Nice going so far. Happy with it?

1 January: 5 x 1000m off 400 rec (+ wu and cd). Total 7.1 miles
Back to the Tuesday intervals and another slight increase in distance. Overall I was pretty comfortable, but again knew I was working harder on the last rep.

Splits: 4:11, 4:07, 4:07, 4:08, 4:08

3 January: 9.2 miles with 6m at MP
The Thursday tempo session and once again I ran it round Sandyford Business Park. Not the greatest views, but it's well lit and pretty quiet in the evenings. These sessions will increase over the course of the plan to 10 miles at pace. Comfortable again and I'm feeling my way into the pace more and checking the watch less.

Splits: 7:34, 7:32, 7:27, 7:35, 7:30, 7:33

According to Garmin my VO2 Max reached 57 which apparently is in the top 1% for my age/gender. I'll take that.

4 January: 7 miles easy commute
The watch went crazy on this and turned itself off about 50 yards into the run. I couldn't get it to turn on again so just ran by feel. Not sure what pace I ran for the first 3 miles, but it felt easy. Watch then decided to turn itself on so I started tracking again. It then didn't sync. Madness. Anyway, the run felt nice and easy.

5 January: 6.1 miles easy at 9:12. Avg HR 126

6 January: 12 miles at 8:28. Avg HR 139
The longest run so far and, following the book, I ran this at the fast end of easy and included a few moderate pace miles (~8:20). I felt strong, but not fresh, for the whole run. I can see the logic behind the 6 day week and Tuesday/Thursday sessions. This is the first run where I felt the purpose of the week was to leave me feeling a bit fatigued for this run. They talk about how the long run is trying to simulate the last x miles of a marathon and it certainly makes you focus a bit more on quality. Again, it also means the easy runs really do have to be easy.

47.4 miles for the week.

scotindublin wrote: »

Brilliant week A; great start to 2019. Give it a few weeks and your body will adjust to the 6 days a week.

Just make sure that the prescribed easy days are easy.

Thanks C. Starting to get used to them now. My wife asked me tonight "don't you get sick of running 6 days a week?". I said no then went out for a run so that's a good sign. For running. It may not be a good sign for my marriage!

aquinn wrote: »

Heya,

You're doing great. Fair play A.

Sorry for freaking you out on that HR spike. I think I know what's happened as P has noticed of late that the HR can lock onto his cadence and that is what is causing the high HR at the start of the run and then it realises and settles on HR. That might have been it?

Yeah that happens me from time to time as well. Normally settles in a half mile or so.

Unthought Known wrote: »

Thanks. How does that work? I suppose it can happen when the watch is a bit loose? I've kept a pretty close eye on HR since and haven't noticed anything unusual so hopefully it was a one-off.

I use a chest strap. I had to tighten it a bit and wet the contacts before putting it on. I now also put it on a few minutes before I head out. Cannot see that there is one solution for both chest and optical monitoring

Might as well do the weekly update now as I doubt I'll be running for a few days.

14 January: 6.5 miles easy commute at 9:16. Avg HR 131
The usual run home from work. Nice and easy.

15 January: Pyramid 400,800,1200,1600,1200,800,400 at 6:45-6:50 pace off 400 rec. Total 8.4 miles
In all honesty I was dreading this one. I think I've done just one pyramid session before and I hated it. I also had to be a bit creative with the route to keep it relatively flat as there's a 200m hill I only wanted to use for recovery. Warm-up was all downhill to the industrial estate which was great, but it did make the cool down a bit of a pain, all uphill.
All reps were ok. First 4 were easy enough, but I started feeling it on the second 1200. By the last rep my legs felt like I'd raced a 5k flat out, but it was great to get it all done.

Splits: 1:40, 3:20, 5:00, 6:42, 5:03, 3:22, 1:40

17 January: 7 miles at MP + wu/cd. Total 10.5 miles
If anything the Tuesday sessions make these marathon pace sessions seem easier. I do still feel like I'm working a bit too hard, but that's probably due to doing this on tired legs.

Splits: 7:35, 7:34, 7:31,7:33, 7:32, 7:34, 7:27

If you feel like something's going too well.............
Getting back into the car after the run I felt a tweak in my back and when I got home I could hardly get out of the car. I now feel like I have a trapped nerve or something so definitely no running, I can hardly walk, until that's sorted.

About 25 miles for the week.

Hopefully nothing too serious with the back A you have had some start to this training block....hopefully this is only a bump in the road