Last of the Summer Wine

Yep, version 2.

If it was version 1, there would be no need for version 2. Version 1 is just spin.

The TT idea was too spur of the moment and I had no real commitment when the going got tough.

Week 10 cont.

Second half of the week has been partly built around avoiding another session - have a bit of back pain at the moment, but not sure that’s really why - feeling a little less motivated ever since TbL crushed his “sub-20” warmup. :rolleyes:

Thu 25 Mar

11.8k easy @ 5:46

Seafront and St. Anne’s. Don’t remember much about it. I’m trying to make most of my runs at least six or seven miles. Sometimes it feels like a chore to stretch them out.

Fri 26 Mar

13.4k easy @ 5:48

I say easy, but some of this was tough enough, into a stiff wind on Dollymount Beach. I’d hooked up with FBOT again and it was all very chatty until we turned around at the end. Gasping for air sometimes with the wind. We looked very fetching in our accidentally identical Boston 2016 tops - M’s daughter was apparently horrified when she caught sight of us. Enjoyable trot once out of the gale.

Sat 27 Mar

11.4k easy @ 5:55

The session I’d been putting off could have been done today, but I wasn’t psychologically up for it. Opted for yet another easy one out the Malahide Road and around by Artane. Ducked into a couple of industrial schools - St. David’s and High Park - along the way. Plenty of ghosts in these parts. Also discovered the grounds of Marino Insitute of Education. Been meaning to check it out for a long long time, can’t believe the size of the place and the amount of nice, dry, unpopulated pitches that could be useful for future sessions. And a graveyard. More ghosts.

Sun 28 Mar

LR 17k easy @ 5:45m (HRR 65%)

We are in Donegal on essential family care business. Drove up with plenty of corroborating documentation on hand to present to the Gardai but no checkpoints, or at least where the Guards weren't sheltering in their cars (fair enough, it was pretty wet). Back very stiff and sore after the journey yesterday, but I was happy to get out today to stretch things out. It was pissing down, and another gale to contend with, at my back on the road out through the caravan park, in my face all the way back. Good to puff up those hills again.

Week 10: 432 mins
Easy/Rec: 393 mins (91%)
Moderate/Hard: 39 mins (9%)

This week: 77k (48m)
This month: 278 (173)
This year: 906 (563)

Has my 5k training crashed and burned? If it has, that would be two out of three JD plans that I haven’t made it to the end of. Not that it was too faithful to the original design, but still. I don’t think though that the week off I’ve had to take had any real direct connection to the schedule I was trying to follow. Just a bit of bad luck with a painful muscle strain that didn’t have much to do with running. I’m back at it, easy this week anyway. I’ll work towards the Boards 5k time trial instead - silver linings!

Mon 5 Apr

3k easy @ 5:32 (59% HRR)

Just a couple of miles around the neighbourhood to test the back. Everything holding up OK, although a tiny bit of sensitivity still there.

Tue 6 Apr

8.6k easy @ 5:37 (73% HRR)

Essential visit to Donegal for a few days. The mrs did all the driving this time. Felt good to get out. HR a little high today - found it difficult to keep it in Z2 with the undulating roads.

Wed 7 Apr

14.3k @ 5:53 (69% HRR)

Enjoyable if slightly too long outing, not helped by a wrong turn. Mixture of road and trail with a few decent hills too. Legs a bit stiff afterwards, but the back was fine.

This week/month: 26k (16 m)
This year: 932 (579)

This week - no longer ‘on plan’ but will try to stick to the principles.

Mon 12 Apr

Rest day.

Tue13 Apr

10.9k easy @ 5:37 (66% HRR)

Great to able to (legally) hook up with someone for a run, as opposed to ‘bumping into’ someone on the road. Chatty lap of St. Annes with M, and coffee. I thought I was huffing a bit for the pace but it was probably just the talking. Always a pleasure.

Wed 14 Apr

10 x 400 (400), 5 x 200 (45s)

It’s been a while since I’ve tackled a few speed reps, as the JD Phase IV is tempo only. I thought it was time, so headed up to the Marino Institute. I noticed in BG’s log she said it was a mile around the perimeter and it was almost exactly that, meaning I could squeeze in two reps and recoveries per lap. The two ‘speed’ sections of each lap couldn’t have been more different - one on mostly decent tarmac with a couple of speed bumps, the other on the firm, dryfootball pitches. Took equal distance recoveries, walking the first 100m.

Splits:
98 98 97 90 93
91 94 93 97 96

I wasn’t checking the watch much so was surprised to see how much variation there was - didn’t feel that way. Probably mostly to do with distance variations and the different conditions on each side of the lap! Towards the end of the session I decided to add on a few 200s at the end, at around 45s.

A decent session, although I have a nagging feeling my speed is not what it used to be. Natural deterioration? :0

This week: 24k (15m)
This month: 86 (53)
This year: 992 (616)

This week, a 5k TT. Will try to be in some sort of shape. No beer so far!

Mon 19 Apr

10k easy @ 5:22 (no HR mon)

The fast end of easy, out along the seafront and Dollymount.

Tue 20 Apr

6.4k recovery @ 6:02 (61% HRR)

Another Marino tour. HR a tad high for recovery maybe, although there are a few hills that take you out of zone 1.

Wed 21 Apr

9.6k with 1k @ 5k pace

I’m kind of fascinated by my dread of the 5k distance. Probably because I’ve had more fails at the distance than any other. And because it’s just so damn hard to face all that pain - no other distance asks you to be in discomfort for such a relatively long time. Even running 800m or the mile, the first half isn’t so bad.

Ananyway.

I decided a single km at race pace would be better than no session at all. To give me some sense of the pace and what it feels like. So I warmed up on a run down the port and reeled off the 1k with a lap and a half of the Terminal 10 block.

Yes, it felt a bit thrilling for a little bit, then just unpleasant. But I did have the sense that I might be able to reel off a few more on the day. If I can get myself sufficiently psyched up.

This week: 26k (16m)
This month: 161 (100)
This year: 1,067 (663)

Murph_D wrote: »

Is there? What are miles anyway?

Edit: Get you now. Well spotted!

Thu 22 Apr

6.5k recovery (no HRM)

A few slow miles on the now regular Marino Institute/Charlemont/St. Vincent's loop.

Fri 23 Apr

3.8k recovery (no HRM)

Short outing just to try out some new shoes, Adidas SL20, which I picked up on sale. They’re black with a multicoloured sole. Disco shoes. Nice!

Sat 24 Apr

Boards 5k TT: 20:26

I haven’t made any secret of my dread of this one, but finally it was time. At least I’d get it out of the way early in the day, which has been the rule for all of my lockdown TTs to date.

Just a banana and some water before driving to St. Anne’s for a 7am start. A minute or two late after a last-minute pitstop but the starter - Ferris, with stopwatch and bike - had kindly waited. I’d had a decent enough dynamic warmup with some strides, so the body was as ready as it was going to be, after some good training over the last few months, even if the last few weeks were injury-interrupted and a bit disjointed.

Set off around the parkrun course, settling in fairly well to the first km, which clocked around 4:02, so no problem with going out too fast anyway. I don’t seem to have much tolerance for discomfort at the moment however. The second km felt harder than it should, despite a good bit of it being on the downward drag of the main Avenue. I was glancing at the watch at the splits. This one came in 4:09 - not good, but maybe a bit off as I’d made the time back at halfway, the timekeeper calling 9:58, 9:59 as we reached the designated tree. Could I keep it going for lap 2? L, M and D had joined for some support before and during their own runs, which was very welcome. I got some good shouts here, heading up the drag past the dog park.

This is always the worst part of the course and the hurt was starting to bite. I could feel myself slowing but knew the worst would be over after a couple more turns. 4:20 split - uh oh - for km 3. I don’t think this fully registered with me, because the alarms were starting to go off all over the place. I’d given a Swashbuckler-inspired pep talk to my legs, lungs, heart and head before the off, but the signals between them seemed to be getting mixed up. Then the dry heaves started. As a few of ye know and some have witnessed, this is a recurring problem for me, while racing anything between 2 miles to 10k especially. It’s distressing and undignified, but more importantly it's debilitating. It might sound like an excuse, and I tried my best to run through it, but I think I always lose a few seconds per bout, and it was coming in waves. The only way to stave it off seems to be to get the HR down slightly - in other words, slow down. So km 4, despite M’s shouts to dig in and do the job, was a bit of a sh!t show, and the 4:14 split meant I was surely finished as far as the sub-20 was concerned. The last km is favourable, mostly long and straight and down the avenue. By now I was in a world of distress and definitely feeling sorry for myself. I was picking it up but still being seized by the heaves. It felt very stop start. With about 500m to go I suddenly decided I’d had enough, but a nearby L and C weren’t having any of it and made sure I kept turning it over. Inevitably, with the end in sight, I was able to finish hard, but far too little, and far too late.

I’d said to Ferris beforehand that I might continue past the finish line to ensure the watch clicked to 5k, but there was nothing left for such luxuries and I chose instead to collapse onto the damp and cooling grass.

Target: 19:55
Actual: 20:26
AG: 78.14%
Verdict: Ugly barf-fest

It felt like I’d given it everything, but yet I was able to cool down with a couple of miles that should have felt harder than they did. No real post race burn. So I think I need to be braver, but also find a way around these damn heaves. It used to be stitches, but now this seems to be my curse. Am I the only one who gets them?

And yet it was great to be doing something hard and painful, and I'm glad to be out there having a go. Fair play to the organisers for the motivation. Total for the morning: 11.6k

Sun 25 Apr

LR 19.6k easy (71% HRR)

Another beautiful morning. Ran up through Phibsborough and Cabra to the Phoenix Park. The Cabra Gate was closed but I managed to squeeze around a barrier at the side. :cool: Wasn’t sure what was going on - North Road was deserted, then remembered they are doing some roadworks and it was blocked off. Squeezed around another barrier (it’s Ireland, and I wasn’t the only one) near the Visitor Centre and did a lap of the ‘Lainey Loop’. There was a bit of a breeze up and I thought it would be a challenging enough route today for a TT, but it looks like she did just fine. Back down the N Road - would be a great place for a weekend session at the moment, I’d say. Was plodding along slowly enough but the HR was a little higher than normal after yesterday’s exertions I suppose.

And that’s that. What next?

This week:
Easy/Rec: 356 mins (94%)
Moderate/Hard: 24 mins (6%)

This week: 68k (42m)
This month: 203 (126)
This year: 1,109 (689)

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Not to get too philosophical on you but what's the draw of the 5k for you? Is it the normal marathoners approach of splitting the year between alternating marathon blocks and Speed work?

Fair play on the run. I think you're better at it than you think.

Not sure that the 5k has any real draw, apart from the satisfaction on the rare occasions when I manage to pull one off well. Also, it’s one of only two distances where I’ve managed the (admittedly fairly arbitrary) Round Number that used to be a thing around here. The satisfaction of that original sub-20, more than three years ago now, will always be a running highlight. Have only managed it once more since.

But yes - I suppose ultimately 5k training is a means to an end for me - whether it’s building strength and endurance for shorter events like 800m, or ‘speed’ for longer events like the marathon. In that sense the 5k result itself isn’t particularly important.

I appreciate the kind words, and while I know I can execute a 5k reasonably well and better than many (78% AG is no easy run) it’s still not as good as I’d like it to be. I can tell from the cooldown, and how I felt running 12 miles the next day - should I be able to do that at all? - that there was more in the tank.