Bliain Faoi Thrí

ronanmac · 02-01-2010 8:19pm #1

This is my first stab at a training log, in an effort to “keep me honest”, as someone else put it in the resolutions thread. I have been using the FURMAN FIRST 3 running days a week programme for the past year, but have too often neglected the cross-training sessions (and indeed, many many running sessions!)

2009 was the first year I trained for the year, rather than starting from scratch again for an 18 week marathon programme. So even if my training was a bit haphazard in places, it was definitely my most consistent.

I had promised myself that if I ever ran a sub four marathon that I would then “retire” from 26.2 miles and maybe look at doing triathlons. But after doing DCM in (just) under four hours, and a surprising 1:42 for the Waterford Half, I wondered what I could do a marathon in, could I get under 3:45 or even 3:40, so I decided to give 2010 a shot!

As you can guess from the log name, my first resolution was to give up the booze for 2010, it’s one thing less to screw up my training, plus if I’m lying in bed wondering if I’ll get up for the morning run, I can always remind myself that giving up drink for a year is a pretty pointless exercise if I’m not going to do the training

I’ve used the FURMAN book for 2009 and found it very good, especially the prescribed paces for training. I’m going to start the Connemarathon half training using FURMAN, but from reading a Boards recommendation of Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning (was it Woddle?), I’ve ordered it on Amazon and will weigh up the two programmes. I know three days running a week isn’t much, but 2009 was the first time ever I haven’t suffered from injury so I am reluctant to let FURMAN go. Also on the way from Amazon is Anita Bean’s nutrition book... might as well go the whole hog

(no nutritions pig meat pun intended). Cycling will be my cross-training, mostly on the turbo until the clocks change, and I intend to do some strength training also. Would love to do swimming but just not practical ‘til the weather improves and the sea becomes tolerable (nearest pool is a 84km round-trip :mad: ). By the way, any training feedback/tips/criticism will be much appreciated!

My biggest hurdle this year, regarding training, will be time, as we have a 1 ½ year old, and another on the way at the end of March, plus I don’t get home from work ‘til about 7.45 at night. But after reading MCOS’s inspiring post on getting on with it and doing the training, it’s up to me to get the runs in.

Events I’ve signed up for so far:
Tuam 8k (17 Jan)
Rás na Nollag duathlon (14 February, postponed from Christmas)
Craughwell 10 miler (14 March)
Connemarathon half (11 April)
Gaelforce West (21 August)

Events not signed up to but intend to do:
An IMRA race (Croagh Patrick probably)
An autumn marathon (Chicago ideally, depending on finances and travelling with two tiny tots!)
A 10k
A triathlon (sprint or Olympic depending on how much swimming I get in)
Another half marathon
See what else crops up!

I’m not too sure how to set my time targets for the year, as 2009 was such an improvement that I don’t know if I can go much further with it. I think it’s best to set slightly ambitious targets though and if I don’t reach them, at least I know I will have tried. Anyhoo...
Marathon: Sub 3:40 (yikes!)
Half-marathon: Sub 1:35
10k: Sub 45
Gaelforce: 4:30

Anyway, today is my birthday, 35, and instead of my annual trip down to tí Sé for a few pints, I decided to start a slightly healthier tradition and go for a run:

Distance: 10.15 miles
Surface: Road and half a mile of running along the shore
Weather: Beautiful! Cold but sunny, very little ice on the road
Time: 1:20:03 (7:53 pace)

Hilly running around home, Christmas excess really burning up my chest early on but a nice run to start 2010!

catweazle · 02-01-2010 10:11pm

Where are you living Ronan, sounds like from the races you are doing you are in Galway/Mayo. 84k round trip from the nearest swimming pool....good luck with the log

Blueskye · 02-01-2010 10:23pm

Happy birthday and best of luck with the log. There's a big gang of boardsies heading to connemara in April.

ronanmac · 02-01-2010 10:50pm

catweazle wrote: »

Where are you living Ronan, sounds like from the races you are doing you are in Galway/Mayo. 84k round trip from the nearest swimming pool....good luck with the log

An Cheathru Rua, 42k west of Galway city, downtown Conamara!

Slogger Jogger · 03-01-2010 2:32pm

Best of luck RonanMac. See you in the crowd at the Connemarathon and the (smaller) crowd for Croagh Patrick.

ronanmac · 03-01-2010 3:10pm

Slogger Jogger wrote: »

Best of luck RonanMac. See you in the crowd at the Connemarathon and the (smaller) crowd for Croagh Patrick.

Cheers, looking forward to suffering the "quads from hell" after Croagh Patrick!

ronanmac · 03-01-2010 3:12pm

Blueskye wrote: »

Happy birthday and best of luck with the log. There's a big gang of boardsies heading to connemara in April.

Thanks a million, I'm in south Connemara, away from the mountains and the Connemarathon route, but still no shortage of hills around here for training!

MCOS · 03-01-2010 11:56pm

Happy birthday man and fair play for sticking up a log! I'll follow your progress for sure...

ronanmac · 04-01-2010 11:00am

MCOS wrote: »

Happy birthday man and fair play for sticking up a log! I'll follow your progress for sure...

Thanks a million, MCOS. If I start fading away from my training, I'm going to have to PM you to remotivate me!

ronanmac · 04-01-2010 11:11am

Ok, first morning of my Connemarathon half programme. Set the alarm for six, crying baby at 5.30 proved a more natural wakeup call!

I'm going with the FURMAN half programme, which is 18 weeks, but with only 14 weeks between now and Connemarathon, am starting on week 14.

Today was a cycle, did 45 minutes on the turbo, eased by watching Peep Show on DVD.

The FURMAN book seems more vague on cross-training than on running, however, and am wondering if I'm getting enough out of it, or putting enough into it. Today's workout, for example, was 8 minutes easy spinning, 30 minutes moderate, 7 minutes easy; cadence about 95 to 100 rpm.

I've no way to gauge what my cadence is on the turbo, dunno if HRM-based training would be more efficient?

ronanmac · 05-01-2010 1:06pm

Until today, I had forgotten that I really don't like intervals or running in the mornings. It didn't help that I took a tumble 100 metres into the run, coming onto the main road from the road my house is on. Crossing the road, my left foot went from under me, and I came down on my elbow, hip and knee. Sore sore sore... So much for trail runners being the anti-ice solution!

I got up, and after briefly considering turning around and going back to bed, headed very slowly down to the local pitch. Am pretty sure after today that my target time for the Connemarathon half is waaay too fast for me as I really struggled to make my interval times. I picked 1:35 as my target time and took the FURMAN-prescribed paces based on that. Needs reevaluation, I think.

Intervals were supposed to be 6:08, they were 6:34, 6:37, 7:02, 6:44, 7:25, 6:55. Really missed the mark today, possible excuses are falling, ice, starting morning runs again. More likely too much too soon for me.

Distance: 5:35 miles (1 mile warm up and warm down, 6 x 800m intervals, 90 sec rests)
Surface: Road and grass
Weather: Icy icy icy
Time: 49:40

ronanmac · 06-01-2010 11:46am

40 minutes on the turbo, a bit rushed as was late for work. I think I need to definitely get a more focussed turbo plan, going to have to google HRM training.

rigal · 06-01-2010 11:59am

Best of luck with the log ronanmac. It'll be interesting following your progress.

I also have a turbo with no cadence sensor and I just count the revs for 15 seconds, then multiply by four to get rpm. Not very accurate but it's better than nothing.

ronanmac · 06-01-2010 4:05pm

rigal wrote: »

Best of luck with the log ronanmac. It'll be interesting following your progress.

I also have a turbo with no cadence sensor and I just count the revs for 15 seconds, then multiply by four to get rpm. Not very accurate but it's better than nothing.

Now why didn't I think of this!? Thanks for that, I have a feeling if it wasn't for the log and the good wishes, I would already have reconsidered getting out of bed some of these mornings

ronanmac · 07-01-2010 3:22pm

Alarm went off at 5:45, couldn't face ice in darkness after my tumble the other day, so switched it off and went back to sleep

. Luckily, was working in the office today so could head out at lunchtime.

Again, my target times seem too steep for what I'm able to do at the moment but am going to stick with them for a few weeks to see if my lungs open up. Today's tempo run had a warm up mile, three miles at 7 minute pace, and a cool down mile. Struggled bad with the first tempo mile, so bad I had to stop briefly as my lungs were burning up. Strangely, I had no problem meeting the target times after stopping. Maybe my warmup mile should have been more intense?

Mile times were: 7:59 (warmup), 7:09, 7:01, 7:01, 7:32 (cooldown)

Distance: 5 miles
Surface: Road
Weather: Nice and sunny, a few icy patches in the shade but pretty much thawed out
Time: 36:40

ronanmac · 10-01-2010 11:00pm

Spent yesterday morning defrosting pipes with a hairdryer and shovelling sand, and it worked! Set with the prospect of a shower when I'd come home, I headed out for a ten miler. Once again, I failed to make the prescribed pace, but am still going to stick with it for another two weeks before resetting my half marathon target time.

Target pace was 7:40 miles, averaged 7:52

Distance: 10 miles
Surface: Road, with a very short trek by the shore
Weather: Cold, sunny, some ice in places but managable
Time: 01:18:43

Sub430 · 10-01-2010 11:28pm

Where are you getting your target paces from ronan?

ronanmac · 11-01-2010 11:44am

Sub430 wrote: »

Where are you getting your target paces from ronan?

Hi Sub430,
I'm getting my target paces from the Run Less Run Faster book I use for training. Basically, it's a three day running week, and 2/3 days of cross-training.

You base your target on times run in previous races, and the book provides you with your paces. I'm doing it a bit wonky for my current half-marathon schedule, however, as my best HM time is 1:42, but rather than use that time, I'm using an aspirational target time of 1:35. As you can see from my log, I'm not doing a good job of achieving the target paces, so if I'm still struggling in a week or two, I might go with a more realistic target time.

An example of the paces would be this week's schedule:

Run 1 is 10-20 min warmup, followed by 3 x 1600 intervals (1 minute rest intervals) and 10 min cooldown: 1600m pace is prescribed for me as 6:23

Run 2 is 6 miles at long tempo pace: 7:26 per mile

Run 3 is 11 miles @ half marathon pace + 20 sec/mile: 7:38 pace

ronanmac · 13-01-2010 3:32pm

Some sort of throat infection, coupled with zero energy, has me scuppered at only one week into my 2010 log :mad:

Supposed to do an 8k in Tuam on Sunday, so I reckon I'll do nothing until then and see how I feel. Either way, seeing as it's my first 8k, it's going to be a PB :rolleyes:

ronanmac · 18-01-2010 11:34am

A wet and breezy morning in the west, no frost, snow or ice. Things are back to normal finally!

I headed up to Tuam after not running for eight days due to some sort of throat infection that left me drained of all energy. I didn't have much of a gameplan for the 8k, this being the shortest distance I had ever raced. I reckoned if I could stay under 7.20 per mile, it would be a good day.

However, when I arrived in Tuam, a friend of mine who was also running had brought along his brother in law, who declared he was going for 35 minutes, running 7 minute miles. I decided that I would try to stick to yer man and see how I would get on. If I faded, I faded, no big deal.

The day had dried up by 2.30, about 270 of us gathered at the start line on the Dunmore Road. There was more Tuam interest, I imagined, in Joe Kernan's debut as Galway manager in nearby Tuam stadium. I was a bit uncomfortably close to the start line, right behind the "elite", but I guess that's the upside/downside of small races!

The siren went, my mate's brother in law went off like a shot! I stayed on his shoulder, but when I looked at my watch and saw we were doing six minute miles, I said "feck this" and dropped off the pace. I'm in enough debt as I am without being in oxygen debt after one kilometre!

Anyway, while running at about 6:40 pace, way quicker than I had ever envisaged, I noticed that the inlaw wasn't getting away from me anymore. Sure enough, by the 2k sign, I passed him, and he was breathing heavily. He admitted himself he went out way too quick, as he definitely had a better time in him.

I kept going, running into a nasty breeze and up an equally nasty hill before coming back into Tuam for the first of two loops. With the wind at my back going through the town, it was a case of trying to stay the pace. From 6k on, though, I really began to feel the pace. To make matters worse, there was a woman stuck right behind me, using me as a windbreaker for the next kilometre. Annoying!

Of course, she flew past me coming up the hill into town. At that stage, I was more concerned with keeping my lungs inside my chest. Strange, though, no matter how shagged you are, that there is always just that little bit left to produce the "impressive" sprint at the end!

I finished in 33:35, average pace of 6:47. I was genuinely delighted, as I had no expectation that I could run successive sub 7 miles. If for nothing else, the occasional race is great to focus your mind and renew your enthusiasm for training!

A thanks to Tergat for his advice in another thread on warming up for races, a thanks to the friend's brother in law for the pace setting, and a thanks to Tuam AC for the coffee, cake and for organising a well-run race!

catweazle · 18-01-2010 11:43am

Well done Ronan, I was stuck up near the front as well (on purpose though), I am getting cuter I thought it would be a close thing to break 40 minutes so seeing as there were no chips the closer to the front the better.

There was a fine bit of food laid on after alright

Sub430 · 18-01-2010 11:46am

ronanmac wrote: »

I finished in 33:35, average pace of 6:47. I was genuinely delighted, as I had no expectation that I could run successive sub 7 miles.

Good running ronan, McMillan has you at 1:34:11 for the half so you are closer to your target than you thought.

djpm · 18-01-2010 3:43pm

Ronan, well done yesterday. You mentioned turbo sessions before. I've a DVD, the gist of which is as follows:

45 minute session:

Warm up for 12 minutes. From 5-10 minutes ramp up the effort gradually until you're going hard out for 30 seconds towards 10 minutes.

4 x 30/30 (30 secs hard with 30 secs breather)

4 mins easy, including 2x30 secs one leg on each leg in mins 2 and 3

3 x 60/60

4 mins easy with one leggers as before

4 x 30/30

4 mins easy (no one leggers)

2 x 90/90, climbing from 4th-3rd-2nd highest gears at 30 sec intervals, with 10 secs in top gear at the end.

Warm down for a few minutes...

If that's a bit complicated you could just do some 30/30's, 60/60's, etc, with a breather between sets.

MCOS · 18-01-2010 6:36pm

Well done on the recent pb.. great running

ronanmac · 18-01-2010 8:23pm

Sub430 wrote: »

Good running ronan, McMillan has you at 1:34:11 for the half so you are closer to your target than you thought.

Yeah, I also notice that it has me at 3:18:44 for the marathon. Ha!

I was very happy with my time yesterday, looking forward now to the Connemarathon half to see how I get on. It's actually exciting to be running at a pace other than my usual plodding. A 7:30 pace, resulting in 1:38:19 might be a more realistic (if still not really tough for me!) for the half-marathon. Dunno if Connemara hills will allow for that pace though. Might use McMillan's prediction for Craughwell 10 miler, see how I get on there before I decide on the HM.

ronanmac · 18-01-2010 8:25pm

djpm wrote: »

Ronan, well done yesterday. You mentioned turbo sessions before. I've a DVD, the gist of which is as follows:

45 minute session:

Warm up for 12 minutes. From 5-10 minutes ramp up the effort gradually until you're going hard out for 30 seconds towards 10 minutes.

4 x 30/30 (30 secs hard with 30 secs breather)

4 mins easy, including 2x30 secs one leg on each leg in mins 2 and 3

3 x 60/60

4 mins easy with one leggers as before

4 x 30/30

4 mins easy (no one leggers)

2 x 90/90, climbing from 4th-3rd-2nd highest gears at 30 sec intervals, with 10 secs in top gear at the end.

Warm down for a few minutes...

If that's a bit complicated you could just do some 30/30's, 60/60's, etc, with a breather between sets.

Thanks a million, djpm, that's exactly what I was looking for. Out of curiosity, what's the DVD?

ronanmac · 18-01-2010 8:27pm

MCOS wrote: »

Well done on the recent pb.. great running

Thanks, MCOS, I think a lot of it is forcing myself to run quicker than I think I can!

djpm · 18-01-2010 8:38pm

ronanmac wrote: »

Thanks a million, djpm, that's exactly what I was looking for. Out of curiosity, what's the DVD?

Realrides - "Power" by Robbie Ventura. Former American pro. I got it on wiggle or chainreaction for 20 odd quid. He's not too annoying, though I hope you're not allergic to the word "awesome". There are longer sessions on it too, it builds up over 8 weeks.

BTW, do all of the above at a cadence of about 90 RPM, and only do it once a week, twice if you're feeling brave. Other sessions you can tip along at a fairly steady rate, vary it slightly to get into different HR zones. Just listen to music or watch TV.

ronanmac · 19-01-2010 1:05pm

Back training again after a week's hiatus. Dreaded intervals. Once again, I didn't make my prescribed times, don't know exactly by how much as I don't have the watch with me. I followed Tergat's race warm-up advice, however, and the intervals were definitely easier. I think some of the toughness might have to do with morning running. I really, really don't like running in the mornings!

From memory, the three 1600m intervals were something like 6:35, 6:45 and 6:55...

Distance: 5 miles (1 mile warmup, 3 x 1600m, 1 mile cooldown)
Surface: Road
Weather: Dry but very windy (my head was freezing, I think that wearing a hat during the icy spell has wussed me...

)
Time: 40 minutesish

ronanmac · 21-01-2010 11:19am

The alarm went at 5:45, I hit the snooze button while listening to lashing rain and wind on the window. I got up when the alarm went again ten minutes later but was seriously tempted to get back under the quilt!

Ran along the main road today, the only downside being a piece of grit hitting me in the eye as a car passed. No damage, it made it's own way out of my eye after I finished my run, but it would make you think :eek:

Anyway, didn't hit my mile pace targets again, but I am not too concerned as running in the morning is definitely tougher for me than later in the day. As long as I can make my long run pace on Saturday, I'll be happy!

Distance: 6 miles
Surface: Road
Weather: Rainy and windy
Time: 46:12 (7:42 average pace, was supposed to be 7:26)

ronanmac · 24-01-2010 9:43pm

Saturday's long run was put back until today, as the wife and I abandoned our first-born (not in Carlow cathedral, I hasten to add, but with his grandmother) and went away for the weekend for her birthday.

Today's run was an 11 miler, with a prescribed pace of 8:10. I decided earlier that I would try and do all of my long runs for the Connemara half at sub 8 pace, so went along with that. No real struggle with the run, but I feel it in my legs this evening. Didn't feel the greatest heading out on the road, felt better after.

Distance: 11 miles
Surface: Pavement
Weather: Foggy and cool with no breeze, perfect!
Time: 1:25:48 (7:48 average pace)

Bliain Faoi Thrí

Comments