Are those my feet?

R.I.P. Boards? I may as well update the log in the hope that this new version improves and survives. It really is shite. Such a pity. Any improvements are coming at a snails pace too.

June and July were decent months, particularly June. Racked up 126 miles in June, which included a week what turned out to be warm-weather hill-training in Dunmore East. I was minding a tight hamstring for June, so kept everything easy, and the week in Dunmore East seemed to aggravate it further. Finally made it to the physio who advised dialling back the long run a touch while I worked on getting the hamstring in better shape. The hamstring also ended up causing a foot pain in the opposite leg as I over-compensated - happily this has now improved, as has the hamstring - I had all manner of 'career'-ending doomsday scenarios in my head prior to the physio visit!

Anyway, managed a still-solid 116 miles in July, and I've gradually worked back up towards 30 miles per week. I had hoped to be well into a base plan of some sort by now, but nevermind - there's no rush. I've a decent foundation there over the last few months and I'll try and progress things a bit further over the coming weeks, testing the hamstring and hopefully starting a base plan if I'm happy with it.

There's a few races popping up now relatively locally, which are somewhat tempting but I'll hold off for a while yet. Target wise, I'd like to train for a half marathon, but I'm happy enough to do lots of base stuff for the next few months and then look to a target race next Spring. I'll hopefully do a race or two before this year is out, but it wouldn't be a major target at all. Gradually building mileage and getting back to some sessions is the main target for the rest of this year.

To add some accountability for myself I've started manually adding my stretching/S&C stuff on Garmin Connect. Anytime I slack off on that stuff I notice a niggle or three popping up, so by logging it on GC I've found I am more likely to do it, and importantly, when I do it I'm dedicating myself to it, whether it's for 10 mins or 25. I would have been terrible for sitting on the mat for an hour in front of the TV and doing the grand total of 2 planks while sipping a cup of tea. At least now I do a strong 10 mins, or whatever. I find it doesn't take much maintenance to keep the niggles at bay.

A short and (mainly) sweet January update as I hoped for. Ended up just about surpassing the 100 mile mark - slightly down on what I'd hoped for, but 100 mile months have been few and far between of late so it's solid progress and I'll happily take it. In the middle of the month, a very tender left hamstring required a few days rest and seems ok again now. Right now, my level of general niggles is at a long-time-low.

All runs have been at a fairly easy pace, and have felt comfortable - HR readings look even enough, even for the longer runs - I'm just very concious of putting too much too soon on the legs and body. My best week in January was 28 miles, with a long run of 9. So for February I'll aim for 4 x 30 mile weeks and hopefully start adding in a liitle bit of stuff here and there. Itching to get back to a parkrun as well, but may leave that until March.

A frustrating February saw a continuation of my struggle to achieve some consistency. This time it was due to a bout of covid tearing through the house at the start of the month. I was physically and mentally spent for a couple of days, and some of the other symptoms (coughing, general aches) lingered a bit longer. I tried a couple of runs after 6 or so days - the runs themselves were fine but being honest afterwards I was still not fully recovered, so gave it another 6 days and eased back into it then. Feel much better now and even managed to log a 30 mile week last week so I'm back on track.

My swimming lessons returned last week after a 2 year hiatus - it was great to get back in the pool again, although there was definitely some rust there! Speaking of swimmimg - we'd a family trip to Center Parcs in Longford last weekend and the swimming pool there is amazing. Great craic for kids of all ages 😊. I managed a couple of runs while there too - found them pretty boring to be honest - kinda like running on a treadmill with the same scenery around every corner.

I'm still planning on running the Mallow 10 miler on March 20th. Hopefully things will go smoothly until then.

Cheers D. Happy out with how it went. Wouldn't say I feel like I'm properly "back" - maybe when I'm running times similar to where I was pre injuries then I will feel different. At the moment I still feel that I'm on the way back. On the other hand, and in complete contradiction to what I just said, when I was out there in the race it felt like I was never away.

Thanks E - great to have the excuse to write a race report again! Apologies for rambling on! The last mile or so didn't feel so good at the time as I lived through it but yeah definitely pleasing to finish the race well.

Thanks E, very nice words. I don't really (or at least try not to) dwell on the injuries or setbacks but yeah I suppose it's nice to get to a start line, run a strong race and hopefully draw a line under the bad luck and start progressing again.

Thanks V. In spite of all the stops and starts I'm actually closing in on 1,000 miles over the past 12 calendar months, 99% of which were easy pace. While that's not near what I'd like to be doing mileage wise, it's not an insignificant total either, and at least gives me a reasonable foundation to build from. Not that I'll be doing anything too extravagant anytime soon.

Thanks M. Aside from a little covid enforced layoff and one minor niggle it's been a solid start to the year.

5 months to the day since the last post here back in March after the Mallow 10 miler. It seems that everytime I post with a positive update a setback comes hurtling around the corner, so hopefully I'm not tempting faith with this update. An adductor injury after Mallow meant pretty much no running for the guts of 7 weeks and it was well into May before I was able to gradually pick things up again. Thankfully things have gone nicely since then and I've now put three decent months together.

At the moment my main goal is DCM 2023, so I'm kinda following a rough plan to get me there. Basically, it's lots of base and half marathon stuff for the majority of the next 10 or so months until I'm officially (hopefully) marathon training. Currently I'm broadly following a FRR Base Plan, although I've capped the mileage at low 30's and subbed out some endurance runs for vanilla paces if I think it's merited. My long run has been 11 miles the last few weeks - my first runs north of 10 miles in 30 months. Hopefully I'll nudge the weekly mileage toward high 30's later on this year, and into the 40's regularly in the early part of next year. I'm just trying to string some consistency together and put solid week on top of solid week - nothing too fancy. Starting this week it seems that I'll be adding a weekly 5-a-side game to my schedule, so I'll give that a go for a few weeks and see how it meshes with the running.

I've ran a few races over the past 2 months, from 5k to 5M, and I'd like to continue to drop in races reasonably regularly over the coming year. The two most recent races have been reminders, for me at least, that racing is a learned skill which I'd forgotten somewhat and need to practice. Just learning what race effort should feel like, and also staying focussed throughout - in both races I'd a period where I just lost focus, tuned out and allowed the pace dropped. My times at these distances are way off my PB's but we'll get there.

Speaking of races I've a couple of Half Marathons over the next month or so. Clonmel this weekend, then Charleville four weeks later. Charleville marks the end of the current base plan, so I guess it's somewhat of a target. I'm not really enthused for Clonmel - it's a new route for this year and looks to be a bit of a shocker. My HM PB is pretty soft (1:43:xx) - I'll give it a lash in Clonmel but maybe Charleville will be the better chance - hard to know exactly where I'm at over this sort of distance so Clonmel will give a solid indication.

It's exciting to see so many long runs popping up on strava over the past month or so. Best of luck to everyone with their marathon training. When the late batch of entries for DCM became available early in the summer I gave it about 20 seconds of consideration before thinking better of it. This time next year Rodney....

Cheers K - I've never done Charleville before so looking forward to it. I seem to do well any time I cross the border for a race 😊

Cheers T, appreciate the input. To be honest you've raised some of my own concerns about the football, and I'm not convinced I'll stick with it long term, or even past a few weeks. But for whatever reason I'm keen to give it an initial shot and check out what the standard and intensity is like (hopefully low on both counts!). I figure while I'm in a base phase it's not a bad time to experiment a little. Ideally it will turn out to be something I dip in and out of depending on where I'm at with running, but more likely after a couple of weeks I'll remember that I can't kick a ball and knock it on the head. Or maybe interest in the weekly game itself from others in the group will fizzle out. Either way if I feel like I'm pushing my luck injury wise I'll knock it on the head sharpish.

Thanks E. Great to see you popping up on Strava a bit lately, hope all goes well with your comeback.

I sense some early momentum behind a "Class of 2018" 5-year reunion in McGrattan's 😊

Charleville Half Marathon Report

The 4 weeks since Clonmel fairly raced by. My body needed a handy 7-10 days post Clonmel to allow a sore knee and pec to heal up. A couple of solid weeks followed before a taper in the week leading up to Charleville. Felt great in the few days before the race, and unlike Clonmel, I was preparing well and fully focussed on the race. I'd need to knock 2.5 mins off my Clonmel time for a PB, but felt this was achievable given the flatter course, bigger field and better preparation - so I was pretty hopeful that I'd be there or thereabouts for the PB.

Left home at 8 and arrived in Charleville just before 9. It occurred to me on the journey down that many of my previous PB's had been easily earned on the day, and I hadn't actually done many races where a PB was the main goal - often the target would have been much lower than the previous PB and a big PB was almost a guarantee. In this case it was going to be tight for a PB and so I mentally acknowledged the need to dig in and fight when the time came.

I parked up in an industrial estate very near the start line and race HQ. Short walk down and took advantage of the plentiful portaloos. Back to the car and I put on my Novablasts (I probably need to up my race shoe game at some stage!). Another trip to the portaloos followed, before I returned to the car and put on my race number. Decided I needed a third trip to the portaloos, but after queuing it turned out to be a false alarm. By this stage I hadn't left much time for a warm up, but managed to squeeze in almost a mile before heading toward the start line. Spotted Mick Clohisey out for his warm up too. Conditions were perfect - no sun, no rain, no wind.

The starting gantry was moved into position which turned out to be bang in the middle of where everyone was lined up, so the whole field had to shuffle back under the gantry. My plan going in was to line up back from the 1:45 pacers and reel them in over the first 3 (gentle downhill) miles. I figured they'd be going at about 8:00/mile, so if I caught them I'd be ahead of my target and could settle into that group for a while. Took off and looked at my watch after maybe 300m and it was saying 6:xx pace - I knew this was wrong so just ignored and kept up an honest pace. First mile beeped at 7:14 which I knew was way too hot, but when we passed the actual 1 mile marker the watch read 7:50 which was bang on what I wanted. Every mile after that the marker came 0.1 after the watch, and looking at the strava trace after confirms that the GPS was off at the start.

The 1:45 pacers were up the road ahead as I kept up the 7:50 ish pace without making any real inroads into the gap. It seemed to me that they were going a touch too fast. I was a bit perturbed that I hadn't caught them and was cursing not asking them at the start what pace they were going to run. I decided not to force a big effort just yet to bridge the gap as there was plenty of road left to cover and I was happy with my pace. The roads were closed for this race which was really excellent - of course one lad in a Focus managed to not spot any signs and wound up weaving through the field. As we approached Kilmallock a steward had thankfully managed to get him off the course. I kept ticking off the 7:5x miles in these early miles.

I took a gel as we approached the 6.5 mile water stop in Kilmallock. Not sure there was any need, but think it mentally reassured me as much as anything. After Kilmallock we were onto country back roads for a bit and a nice downhill section allowed me to close in on the pace group. As the road flattened out again I counted approx a 20s gap to the group, so went about closing it down. By now we were getting a decent headwind at times, so figured it was worth expending the energy at this stage to ensconce myself in the group and by around mile 9 I was firmly on the back of the group. I took a caffeine gel in advance of the 10 mile water stop - had done similar in Clonmel, except earlier, but felt it had helped for a mile or two. Again, possibly just a placebo effect. As we returned to the main road the headwind was definitely a factor at times - not outrageous but enough to have you seeking shelter in the group. By now I was delighted that the pacers were going at 7:45 ish pace as this was right where I wanted to be - in fact I knew a PB was in the bag if I could just maintain 8:00 min miles from here, but 1:42 was now on the cards if I could maintain 7:45's. I hadn't even considered that a 1:42 might be within range.

As we passed the 12 mile marker I moved onto the shoulders of the pacers and eventually passed by - the last mile has a gradual uphill into Charleville and we were still into a decent wind so it was hard work. Gave it my all anyway and kept motoring - there was no real significant kick, more of a sustained effort to maintain and slightly quicken the current pace. Took the final left turn toward Race HQ and saw 1:42 on the gantry. Quietly clenched my fists as I crossed the line. I'll run quicker (hopefully) but this was just immensely satisfying. Chip 1:42:32 for a PB of 1:05.

There was a time when I took PB's for granted - back in 2019 I PB'd almost every time I raced. But my last PB was Dungarvan 2020, over 2-and-a-half years ago. So it's immensely satisfying to knock one off again. Still buzzing today.

Charleville was a great race - a flat course on closed roads, with handy parking in close proximity to Race HQ and start/finish. Also, the spread afterwards was top notch.

What's next? Well Dublin 2023 is still the main goal, and so I want to continue working on my endurance for now. Maybe Waterford AC Half in December, or the Border Half the same weekend. Leaning towards WAC for the bigger field, but have a few other things to pin down before deciding for definite. Charleville was ran off a base plan, so be interesting to see how a HM specific plan helps, although WAC and the Border (I think) are both pretty hilly courses. I don't mind that as there are plenty of local hills I've been avoiding over the last while as I kept things flattish with an eye on Charleville.

17th October - 23rd October

Monday - Rest

Tuesday - 6 x 12s hills, plus 6 x 100m strides. Covered 6.8 miles on this one. Wore the GlideRides for it. I found them very stiff initially but I have about 60 miles in them now and I'm liking them more and more with each run.

Wednesday - 8 miles endurance. These type of medium length midweek runs are a staple of the FRR plan, but in my modified version of the plan I've replaced them with a shorter recovery type run, as that normally suits my Wednesday schedule when in the office. However, took advantage of a few free hours this week to get in the extra miles. Kept the route hilly(ish) too with Waterford in mind.

Thursday - Rest. Well, no running, but got in a short walk at lunchtime and had swimming class in the evening. Something clicked for me in the pool a few weeks back and my breathing has improved immeasurably. I'll finish up the lessons after this block as I've progressed as far as I can really there, but hope to get in a swim every week or so now that I'm going that bit better.

Friday - 5-a-side (well 6-a-side this week) covering 3.7 miles, plus a 2 mile warm-up jog. I've kept the 5-a-side appearances pretty sporadic - this was my third time going. Will probably squeeze in one more before Waterford.

Saturday - 3.5 miles recovery around Ennis. Was at a function in Ennis Saturday night so squeezed in a few miles before the pints. Hadn't researched a route but ended up randomly happening upon a path that allowed me to do a nice little loop around Clare Abbey.

Sunday - 10 miles easy when I got back home. Was tender enough after the pints, so nothing more extravagant than ticking off some easy miles.

34.4 miles for the week which is my best week in over 2.5 years. Step back week this week before hitting the meatiest weeks of the plan. I'll be in Dublin on a supporting role on Sunday so will keep an eye out for any familiar faces on the course. Best of luck to all running it - some fantastic blocks have been put together by many runners here.

Waterford AC Half Marathon Report

It's been a busy month since my last update, with a lot going on, but I got in all the planned runs and arrived in Waterford feeling good. In the end, I'd adjusted the FRR HM plan so much that it wound up being more Base-like than HM specific. Still I did get in three good LT sessions over the 10 weeks, plenty of strides and most of the Long Runs were Endurance, so easy progressing to moderate. Perhaps the biggest key was that I made sure to get in plenty of hills in all my runs (bar the recovery runs, which I tried to keep as flat as possible). Given that Charleville is a renowned PB course and as flat as could be, my target here was to get as close as I could to that time (1:42:32), and maybe steal a PB is things went really well. I'd done 2k at the planned HM pace (7:45) as part of a 6 mile run on the Monday before the race and this pretty comfortable compared to the same workout pre-Charleville - I didn't dwell on it too much, although in hindsight it was an indicator that I was in decent shape.

I'd done a good bit of research on the route and had a plan on how I was going to attack things, all of which went out the window on Thursday when the route was changed (almost completely). The new route looked approximately as hilly as the original, but seemed easy enough to plan for. Steady climbing for about 2+ miles from mile 1.5 onwards, and what the Facebook comments indicated was a backbreaker of a climb around mile 9.5. The plan was to take it very handy on the early climb and hopefully have enough left after the late climb to kick for home.

The 9:30 started meant we were on the road early, but we got to Waterford in good time. Happily the morning was not as cold as advertised - I'd brought throaway layers, gloves and a hat, but none were required. Barely a breath of wind and the rain was holding off too. Ideal conditions. Got in a mile warm-up, which itself was hillier than I'd like, but there wasn't much flat ground to be found around the parking area. On the walk to the start I met a guy I know from other races (P) and we had a great chat - we were both targetting 1:42 or thereabouts, although he mentioned he'd love to dip under 1:40 someday. I nodded in agreement - in my mind I reckoned cracking 1:40 would be on the cards in Limerick next May. After a 10 minute delay we were off.

The start was pretty narrow, and it was hard to get into a rhythm early on as there was many slower runners who were obviously too far up the pack and had to be negotiated. P took to the grass verge on a few occassions to get through the pack. I didn't weave too much and bided my time - surging through as and when gaps appeared. After half a mile we turned left, the road widened and progress could be made unimpeded. The first 1.5 miles were downhill so I was concious not to lose time, and bank some if possible, ahead of the hills to come. Mile 1 beeped right on the mile marker at 7:26 - 20 seconds banked, and although I was kind of wary, I was fairly sure I hadn't gone off too hard. Things flattened out in Mile 2 which included a nice out and back around a roundabout. Most runners took horrible lines through this section. Saw Aoife Cooke and more of the leaders flying along on the far side as we made our way out, and then some familiar faces from the local running group as we made our way back in. A nice distraction. Mile 2 beeped at 7:30, so another 15 seconds banked. Everything had felt just a bit frantic until now, but it was around here that I finally felt like I settled down, assessed the task at hand and knuckled down.

Mile 3 was pretty much all uphill - I backed off a touch, kept the effort honest but intent on not blowing a gasket too soon, and trying to save something for later. This mile clocked at 8:08, which was faster than I'd planned, but I felt fine. Kept asking myself was I going too hard, but the answer was always no, it feels ok. And judging by some of those around me I was right - most were working way harder than I was at this stage. Mile 4 featured more climbing but some downhill relief too - 7:55 for this mile, and through 4 miles in 31 minutes. Bang on the 7:45 average target pace. Had thought I'd be behind that at this stage, so again questioned if I'd done too much too soon, but the answer again was no - you feel good. Mile 5 was nicely downhill, with one of those downhill bits that often are too steep to fully take advantage of - I pegged it down there anyway, which felt great! 7:20 for this mile.

Things flattened out now... still plenty of undulations, but everything was much more gradual than before. I was happy to hit 7:45 pace here for a mile or two and see how things unfolded. Mile 6 featured a short out-and-back down towards the river. I passed a guy here who must have had the keys for half of Waterford in his pockets. He had his shorts folded up towards his hips, but the pockets hung down the side of his legs with the keys slapping of his legs with every stride, jangling away the whole time. I resisted the urge to make a smart comment, or even a curious query as to what the hell he was doing. Mile 6 was a 7:43 as we hit the Greenway. The watch showed 8:00 pace for a while here - I didn't think tree cover was an issue, ao upped the pace a touch until I read 7:45 again, and mile 7 came in at 7:44 in the end.

Had a brief chat about all things Cahir with some guy along here as I moved alongside him, then the path in front of us was gently downhill and looked so inviting so I eased away. 7:23 for that 8th mile and now I'm pretty confident a PB is almost in the bag, barring an almighty blow up which doesn't seem likely. I'm just feeling so bloody strong. My mental maths through 8 miles tell me I'm 50 seconds inside PB time. I'm concious that the hill at 9.5 miles is still to be negotiated, so I don't go mad just yet but I do increase the effort a touch. I'm trying to work out if I could dip under 1:40 - I figure it's unlikely. Mile 9 passes with a 7:31, as I steel myself for the hill to come. It was steep alright, particularly at the bottom but I tore up it. A 7:41 for this mile and now I was heading for home. P had been maybe 100m ahead of me since mile 1 but I caught him as we crested the hill - a few brief words were exchanged before he encouraged me to give it socks. I obeyed and eased away. Two guys in front of us who overheard our conversation slagged me for stalking P for 3 miles, then commented "effortless" as I moved ahead. That throwaway comment gave me another boost, as I thought "they are right, I feel so strong."

From there on it's all a bit of a blur as I just gunned it towards home. 7:03, 7:02, 6:39 (it was a nice downhill) for miles 11, 12 and 13. I passed the 1:40 pacers on the final bend and even had a kick for the final little uphill to the finish. Stopped the watch at 1:37:47. I was genuinely shocked at that time... in my wildest dreams I never expected that, especially on what looked on paper to be a tough course. P also broke the 1:40 barrier and was rightly delighted with himself. I've felt strong in races before, but never anything like this, and I've never smashed my pre-race expectations out of the water like this either - doubt I ever will again either tbh - it was/is a special feeling.

I wore the Saucony Endorphin Speeds for this, and they felt great. In Charleville I'd worn the Novablast - so probably a few minutes explained away there. The morning was ideal for running, with just a hint of breeze in mile 12 the only time the weather made it's presence felt in anyway. Then again Charleville was run in lovely conditions too. Just looking for excuses to explain this performance tbh.. the truth is probably that 6 months of consistent injury-free running have seen me build a nice strong base.

The legs are in ok shape since - bit of tightness in the left quad but nothing major, and I've physio later this week to hopefully sort out that and any other issues. I've an entry for the Newmarket 5K on Sunday so wil hopefully give that a rattle before easing off for a few weeks. I ran a 21:25 5K over the closing miles in Waterford, so another PB (21:08) will be the target if I do race on Sunday.

Thanks a mill E - this post has me grinning from ear to ear. This is definitely one race I'll remember fondly for a long time.

It could be argued that I've been too cautious at times lately, both in terms of volume and quality of mileage, but I'm happy to play the long game, stay consistent and build that foundation.

I read a tweet by Steve Magness a few months back that really struck a chord - the jist as I took it was to limit increases in average weekly mileage to 10 miles per year. So basically most of this year I've been in or around 30mpw, and lately slightly more. In the first 6 months of next year I'll hopefully try and nudge it towards a regular 40mpw and establish that as a comfortable baseline.

Thanks very much R. Still buzzing tbh 😊

Cheers G. The running regularly is the most important bit for me. PB's are great, but just being able to get out the door 5-6 days a week is the most pleasing aspect of 2022 for me.