Running away

It should be a given considering all the miles consistently clocked since last time i did it and even more miles since last time I did it with intent. I seem to suffer from a serious case of doubting myself though which is rather tiresome even for me never mind anyone reading my log 😳

Week 1 of ???

Monday: 5ish miles @ 9:31 (easy pace, avg hr 136bpm)

Tues: 6ish miles with 4 * 100m strides, avg pace 9:25, avg hr 146bpm (*interesting this was 10bpm higher than previous night - combination of being slightly longer and the strides?)

Wed: 5 * 2 @ 10 effort (7:39, 7:28, 7:25, 7:22, 7:42), 5 * 2' @ 5k effort (7:10, 7:10, 7:17, 7:09, 7:09)

Thurs: Rest

Friday: Just yoga

Saturday: 2.5m warm-up + Parkrun in 23:06 (7:26min/m avg pace, avg hr 167bpm).

Enjoyed this, well not so much the running part but it was nice to do parkrun again. Ran alongside another runner from 600m - 3.2km until he dropped back and I was on my own til the end. Felt tough at the time but in hindsight pretty sure if I had some other runners around me I could have found a bit more to run closer to my 5k pb or at least under 23mins. Your man that dropped back at 3.2k was breathing hard the whole time and I was conscious my breathing was fine but I didn't really try to pull away, bit of a cop out on my part. But good to run hard and a reminder of what 5ks feel like - last 5k race was May 2019, 2.5 years ago now, mental that 😱 Splits were fairly even & fairly mediocre @ 4:34, 4:38, 4:38, 4:41, 4:34

Sunday: 6.3m easy @ 9:26min/m, avg HR 144 bpm.

30 odd miles for the week

Do you do it regularly? It is a nice flat one though right. I can't remember the rain though I know it certainly wasn't a particularly pleasant morning, it was a bit blowy too. I'll give it a bash again in a few weeks time. I'm doing nice little sessions at the moment with 10k & 5k efforts mixed in so hopefully a few weeks of those will make a difference.

Glad to hear it was just the day.

Yeah, lovely sessions coming my way at the moment, I'm really enjoying them. I'll give parkrun another go in January.

Dec 20 - 26th

Week 3 of ????

Monday: 7m vey easy @ 10:20min/m, avg hr 130

Tuesday: Session, 2 * (5', 4', 3', 2', 1') off 90 seconds rec, 3 mins between sets.

Really enjoyed this but ran the 2nd set waaaaaay too fast - was supposed to be 5/4/3 reps @ 10k effort and 2'/1' reps @ 5k effort. The 2nd set was more like 5k for the longer reps & 3k for the shorter reps - I blame the shoes 😉 First time to wear the new NB Fuelcell TC (an early Xmas present). Loved them.

Set 1

5' @ 7:43

4' @ 7:37

3' @ 7:33

2' @ 7:14

1' @ 7:05

Set 2

5' @ 7:18

4' @ 7:20

3' @ 7:13

2' @ 6:55

1' @ 6:54

Wed: 6.6m easy @ 9:33min/m, avg hr 137

Thurs: The day we got the dreaded +ive text from my 9 year olds PCR test. he was a close contact in school the previous Thurs and had done umpteen negative antigen tests but for peace of mind before spending Christmas with my 81 year old immunosuppressed mother I dragged him for a PCR and got the shock of my life when it came back +ive 2 days later.

4.5m easy @ 9:44min/m, avg hr 135bmp

Fri: Nothing - road trip to get the rest of us PCR tested and coming to terms with isolation.

Sat: Nothing except a food, drink, board games & movies! Very lucky & grateful to have our immediate family together.

Sun: 5m easy + strides

32 miles aprox for Christmas week.

The shock and the rollercoaster of trying to figure out what happens next is the worst bit. Not to mention all the conflicting information, even the contract tracer who rang us on Christmas day didn't seem to be too sure of herself, the advice seems to be ever changing 🤔 but we weren't the worst effected, it just feels a bit surreal, like that very first lockdown when were all on a 2km limit 🤷‍♀️

Interesting about the shoes. I haven't worn them since but will have to keep an eye on that so.

2021

I feel I need to write something about 2021 before I can begin to think about 2022.

It was a funny year, sparse on tangible results - 1 TT, 1 race, 1 parkrun 🙃

I started coaching in late 2020 so 2021 was my first full year of coaching and started with a continuation of the build phase which began at the end of 2020 and culminated in a 10m TT in March (1:16:56 @ 7:41min/m, a 10min PB roughly). I also scored an even less official 10k PB (2mins 39seconds) during this 😆

This TT is probably my best performance ever, gutted it was a TT, however i believe it paved the way for the sub 4 marathon which came about later in the year (3:51 in October, down from 4:25). Anytime the uncertainty set in I found myself looking back on it and knowing sub 4 was possible. Finished the year with a parkrun in December, 23:06, a parkrun pb, 5k pb still stands at 22:42.

2022

I'm like a child in a sweet shop. I jump between being excited about trying to break 22 mins for 5k to trying to get another big marathon pb like a child going between Skittles and Smarties! And then there is the reliable sensible HM distance (Dairy Milk) sitting there looking a bit boring but tempting none the less 🤷‍♀️ @Swashbuckler don't even bother mentioning 10k to me 😂

For now I will continue to build. Coach has me doing 1 session (mix of HM, 10k & 5k efforts, usually around 25' of work), 1 easy + strides, 2 easy runs, and 1 vanilla long run at the moment. Long runs suffered over the Christmas/New Year so need to get back on those and I'm not overly excited at that prospect but routine will help I know. If I could settle on goal/plan for the next few months then the mojo will follow too but for now habit & routine 🤞

I really should drag them along shouldn't I although I feel the youngest is still too young to be running 5k - he's 6!The oldest (12) has done it but not for a few years now, wouldn't be a bad idea. A girl from his class there does it in 20mins so I could see him getting quite competitive and I'm not sure I could handle him getting competitive about another sport, he does so much already 😅

Thank you AGYR! It was a good year and I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to be consistent for a few years now. I hope it lasts. You've had a good year too, with a variety of stuff, cross fit, cycling & running coming back to the fore now too! It's great to see it and I hope you get to build on it in 2022. You've inspired me with the variety, I've recently taken up yoga again, not sure I mentioned that in my log but I did 6 * 1-1 sessions and now I've joined a small group class (only 6 per class), I love it, I really look forward to the class every week (despite it the 5:30am alarm) and do a bit every day myself.

A happy coincidence D ☺️

Well there seems to be an appetite for a bit of a report. My limited history with the half has mostly revolved around the watch and getting under milestone times.

Oct 2016 - 2:09:25 (goal sub 2:10)

June 2018 - 1:56 (goal sub 2:00, this race was deferred from March so the extra months got me a good bit under the goal)

Sept 2018 - 1:52 (no goal, part of marathon build up ahead of DCM)

Sept 2019 - 1:48:42 (goal sub 1:50, it took not 1 but 1 pacers to get me this time, huge effort on the day)

This time was a bit different. Not feeling the best of late the decision was made not to target this race as a big race effort but the entry was there none the less and it's an event I enjoy going along too so a hard effort was what was on the cards. I won't lie though I did realise that even with a hard effort there was a possibility of walking away with a PB. It's been 2.5 years since the last race and I am (very fortunately) still making decent gains just with consistency month in, month out. I had no goal but I figured anywhere between 1:47 & 1:51 was a likely outcome but I was determined not to be driven by the watch.

The day dawned a beautiful bright clear sunny day. I couldn't believe it. The first time i signed up for this event in 2018 it was cancelled due to snow and was rescheduled for the June Bank Holiday week and that was the only and last time i saw sun & blue skies in Kinvara. The years since have been wet & wild. I didn't have too much time after parking up and spent a few minutes chatting to a group I knew and in the end didn't get a warm up but as I wasn't racing per se I knew I could just ease into it and my first 1-2miles would be a warm up. I started just behind the 1:50 pace group as I figured that is where I'd be about right and we were off. This race starts at the bottom of a hill so it was nice to scale that first hill and get going properly. The first 2 miles were crowded and fairly quickly found myself dying to move past the pace group which I did and that set the theme for the rest really. I have never run past so many people in my life, I was just moving along, closing gaps and moving past again. Not intentionally, I felt I was running at a fairly consistent effort and I was breathing very comfortably (I became more and more aware of this as I came alongside individuals who were not breathing comfortably) but I had obviously started too far back and/or a lot of people had started too far forward. I wasn't looking at the watch very often but I did glance down at about 10m and I remember thinking was running about 1:46-1:47 pace, very happy thought indeed. It got a bit harder at about 11m, the hills seemed to keep coming but I wasn't afraid to back off on them, it was nice not to have the pressure of the watch and a big goal hanging over me, I definitely appreciated it in the latter couple of miles. And during these last 2 miles the odd person passed me back so I definitely slowed a bit although I continued to pass people right up to the finish line. Round the last bend there is only 50m to go and I saw 1:45 on the clock in front of me, I couldn't quite believe it but I put a spurt on to cross it in 1:45:39 and a PB of 3:03. I momentarily berated myself for not targeting the event more specifically and racing it as in hindsight sub 1:45 was there for the taking but I put that out of my head quick enough. I had a super, enjoyable run, a big pb, a big confidence booster and I've laid the foundations for the next one.

March 2022 - 1:45:39 (no goal, a hard effort)

So that's it. Hopefully I will get the shoulder sorted in the Summer and maybe target a half around Sept/Oct time. There definitely won't be a marathon this year. Maybe some 5-10ks as well at some stage but a HM seems the most obvious big target if/when things come good 🤞

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the lovely supportive comments above, this is some community 😊

A month gone by... in fairness there hasn't been much running to write about 😕

I ended up doing an unplanned 10 mile road race on Sunday March 20th @ 7:57min/m (Chip time 1:19:55 - a race PB but 3 mins slower than a TT on the same date last year).

The following day my better half got the dreaded + on an antigen test after a couple of days of a sore throat. And 3 days later I went for a PCR (antigens were negative but I had all the symptoms) which came back + the following evening. And that really is that. We both had mostly head cold type symptoms though I had a heaviness in my chest which he didn't have. I felt like there was a weight sitting on it especially doing any kind of exertion e.g. walking up the stairs🙄

April

Recovered reasonably well after about 7-10days in time for April's arrival. I got in a couple of "easy" (felt anything but easy) 5ks followed by a fabulous 4 days in London, no running but walked the legs of ourselves doing all the sights. I realised on Saturday morning that the hotel was right beside a parkrun so was sorry I didn't have a pair of runners in the bag but so be it, next time.

April 11-17th

Monday: 5m @ 9:47

Tuesday: 5m @ 9:51

These both felt awful and HR confirmed effort was way to high for "easy" runs, dropped 3 VO2 Max pts on the Garmin fwiw. I assume (hope) this is just a temporary drop in fitness after 3 weeks with little-no running and not any lingering effects from Covid. This is the longest lay off I've had since I started running and my first experience of Covid so I don't really know what to expect but I will continue with a gentle return to normal running levels over the next couple of weeks and hope that things come good again. There are no races in the pipeline at the moment so that's good, I have time, it's just a horrible feeling that is all 😏