Brownian Motion

brownian · 02-12-2011 04:37PM

First run in ages today - 5k over the usual ground, about 21 mins.

Osteitis pubis still on at me, but am going to see if I can just run and ignore it. Others seem to have done so. If that fails, look like cortisone injections, as simple rest isn't cutting it.

Shocking change in temperature since the last run - lungs are still wondering what hit them!

Thinking longing thoughts of running up a few hills and hacking about in the mud and mist - I'd like to run up Lug this winter, on a clear and frosty morning - we'll see.

Krusty_Clown · 02-12-2011 04:47PM

brownian wrote: »

I'd like to run up Lug this winter, on a clear and frosty morning - we'll see.

It's alive! Fancy running the DMW in early February? Can't be much more difficult than running up and down Lug!

brownian · 02-12-2011 05:02PM

Welll, it's moving. Or more correctly sitting on its behind, typing

Yes, I certainly fancy running the DMW in February, all going well from a health perspective. Ran bits of it last winter and really enjoyed it, though saw that some geezer ran the full length of it before I had a chance to

Lug'd be a LOT shorter, though, and via the Table Track ought not to be excessively harsh except for the pull onto Cannow. I've done it on/with a bike and it's very largely rideable.

Not mutually exclusive by any means. Let's plan, given a reasonable forecast and clean bill of health (blah blah health blah...but it takes over your thinking when you can't count on it).

Hope the Twin Cities treating you well. As a big fan of John Sandford/Lucas Davenport I feel as if I know them!

brownian · 19-12-2011 12:19PM

Following a successful jog on 3rock last weekend (10 december) I went for a similar spin on Saturday. Another beautiful winter's day- clear skies, cold cold air, ice on the puddles (and flowing in mini-glaciers along the paths), frosty rime on the rocks. Parked at the upper car park, then up the tarmac until you can turn sharp left to the bottom of the boneshaker, up the boneshaker (icy), up to Fairy Castle (icier), down Boulderdash (the DMW towards Tibradden) and across to Tibradden Mountain.

I see the gnomes that build the new tracks are at it again, and have bulldozed what used to be a lovely natural path, with periodic jumps and rocks, and are turning it into the extruded yellow worms-back walkway, between the ridge and the start of the yellow stuff that goes onto Tibradden. While in some places such work is welcome and worthwhile, I think this is vandalism when there's a nice, interesting and natural path already in place.

Anyway, ploughed through the mud in both directions, back up Fairy, back down the Boneshaker and off we go. 10k, give or take, in 1:10, give or take. Fantastic to be running, even better when it's all so pretty.

Cheered by how uninjured I felt on Saturday night, I got up early (for me) on Sunday and joined the Bray Runners for a run in Djouce Woods. I blithely assumed a gentle jog around the paddock lakes, but instead found myself climbing up the side of Djouce as far as where the Wicklow Way crosses the wall and heads towards Ballinastoe, then down to the Dargle, up up up to the Powerscourt path that looks down across the waterfall, back down to Crone Wood, down again to the gate into the Waterfall, illegally scaling the wall into the Waterfall grounds, and up up up again to the carpark. Good clean fun, and quite a solid pace.

Another lovely day weatherwise, a little less cold than Saturday, and the little bit of snow on top of the icy bits made the running much less dodgy than on 3-rock.

I'm a bit stiff and sore today, after the sudden increase in activity. It's great!!

drquirky · 19-12-2011 02:43PM

Good to hear that you are back in the saddle!!!!

claralara · 19-12-2011 03:36PM

drquirky wrote: »

Good to hear that you are back in the saddle!!!!

+1

pgmcpq · 19-12-2011 05:10PM

brownian wrote: »

Following a successful jog on 3rock last weekend (10 december) I went for a similar spin on Saturday. Another beautiful winter's day- clear skies, cold cold air, ice on the puddles (and flowing in mini-glaciers along the paths), frosty rime on the rocks. Parked at the upper car park, then up the tarmac until you can turn sharp left to the bottom of the boneshaker, up the boneshaker (icy), up to Fairy Castle (icier), down Boulderdash (the DMW towards Tibradden) and across to Tibradden Mountain.

I see the gnomes that build the new tracks are at it again, and have bulldozed what used to be a lovely natural path, with periodic jumps and rocks, and are turning it into the extruded yellow worms-back walkway, between the ridge and the start of the yellow stuff that goes onto Tibradden. While in some places such work is welcome and worthwhile, I think this is vandalism when there's a nice, interesting and natural path already in place.

Anyway, ploughed through the mud in both directions, back up Fairy, back down the Boneshaker and off we go. 10k, give or take, in 1:10, give or take. Fantastic to be running, even better when it's all so pretty.

Cheered by how uninjured I felt on Saturday night, I got up early (for me) on Sunday and joined the Bray Runners for a run in Djouce Woods. I blithely assumed a gentle jog around the paddock lakes, but instead found myself climbing up the side of Djouce as far as where the Wicklow Way crosses the wall and heads towards Ballinastoe, then down to the Dargle, up up up to the Powerscourt path that looks down across the waterfall, back down to Crone Wood, down again to the gate into the Waterfall, illegally scaling the wall into the Waterfall grounds, and up up up again to the carpark. Good clean fun, and quite a solid pace.

Another lovely day weatherwise, a little less cold than Saturday, and the little bit of snow on top of the icy bits made the running much less dodgy than on 3-rock.

I'm a bit stiff and sore today, after the sudden increase in activity. It's great!!

I'm particularly pleased to hear about this ! Fingers crossed it just gets better from here on.

Krusty_Clown · 19-12-2011 05:38PM

I followed a similar route on Sunday (we should have synched up!) and was equally disgruntled to have to follow int he wake of the bulldozers down past the turn-off to Tibradden to the road. What an unholy mess they've made of the place and extremely difficult to run. Bagsie not run Leg1 of the Wicklow Way relay next year.

Good to hear you're on the mend.

brownian · 19-12-2011 08:49PM

pgmcpq wrote: »

I'm particularly pleased to hear about this ! Fingers crossed it just gets better from here on.

Hope your own OP is improving, pgmcpq ?

brownian · 19-12-2011 08:53PM

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I followed a similar route on Sunday (we should have synched up!) and was equally disgruntled to have to follow int he wake of the bulldozers down past the turn-off to Tibradden to the road. What an unholy mess they've made of the place and extremely difficult to run. Bagsie not run Leg1 of the Wicklow Way relay next year.

Good to hear you're on the mend.

I hope I am

By the WWR next year, this may be a fast and smooth surface, like it is out near Tibradden mountain.

I'll post if I'm running again any way predictably. Last Sat/Sun it could have all gone horribly wrong, and there's nothing more tedious than some whinger limping along and complaining about the pain, when you're trying to work on your pace

. I'll probably be stuck indoors next weekend, what with the days that are in it.

BTW, was running Sunday with one of your neighbours - Noelle (sp?) who apparently lives on your road.

brownian · 08-01-2012 09:06PM

...with apologies to the Beatles

I've bee remiss about the log, what with Xmas and the annual crisis that is the return to work and all that. Also my running has been pretty hit and miss and not much to brag about..not that anyone ever brags on their ART log :-)

Anyway, here's a short update

- the osteitis pubis is still with me and not enhancing my life much. But it's not actionable stopping me running. I suspect that serious pace might be an issue, but I can hack around a bit. At the start of any run it's a bit sore, and after the run it's stiff and achy, but during the bulk of the run it's just a background thing.
- running has been mainly offroad over the Xmas. Went to connemara on. 28/12 to get lashed on for four days of gale force winds. foolishly agreed to investigate a dotted line on the map going north from the school in rosmuc. Nearly ten miles round trip through bog, streams, mud, rocks, mountainsides. Full on bog bashing. Brilliant fun.
- two days later we picked a nice well established coillte track to join onto the Patrick's well lath that cuts across the maam Turk mountains. Turned out to be. A farmers track through deep deep bog, followed by lake studded trail hemmed in by impenetrable forest. Water and mud up to the jocks within five minutes. Almost a swim. Improved once we got to the open mountainside and emptied our the water proof socks i had so foolishly selected. Just a gale, lashing rain and wet rock slabs, followed by steep soaking grass down a long hillside. Cracking. All this followed by a tough road climb and a couple of fast miles to that Mecca, keanes pub in maam. Toasted special and pint of Guinness never tasted so good.

Since back in Leinster it's been a bit less busy on the running front, with work eating into running times. Got a decent ten k in Clara vale on Monday, then nowt until today.

Today 18.6k, 1550m climbing
Today got a nice run in the dry mild weather, from the long hill car park on djouce across to the paddock lakes, up the rough trail to the shoulder of djouce and over the wall to follow the Wicklow way all the way over to the goat track and onto the easy way into djouce. Onto djouce then back down to the dargle,ulptje steep bit, down powers court ridge and down again to the base of the waterfall
Finally up the zig zags of the earls drive and back to the car.
A bit stiff and sore now, but overall a really nice run, especially when it's nice and mild like today. Plenty of climbing :-)

New years resolution - try to run more regularly!!

brownian · 09-01-2012 11:34AM

Stiff and sore was right yesterday evening - limping around like an old man. That's nothing new for me, but for a change it wasn't tight hams or calves, but instead jabs of discomfort across the pelvis and glutes. Bit better this morning, so will try for a few easy recovery miles later.

Work savage busy (thank goodness, I guess

), but will strive to make some running time. Want to lose a bit of weight too, so it's off the choccie and the booze (off the booze since New Years entirely, the aim is an ethanol-free brownian until the end of Jan:eek::rolleyes:

Savage running by my clubmates BeepBeep, Krusty and Aibhinn over the weekend in the XCs. What's the crack with these "spike" things - surely 12-inch spikes aren't a foot long? It'd be like running on stilts

brownian · 10-01-2012 04:14PM

Back to my old haunts today - a lunchtime run along the linear park from Deansgrange to Ballybrack and back. A nice flattish 10k on car-free tarmac, with the option (muddy) of grass and football pitches. Helped along by Mr Moncrieff and his podcasts on adult ADHD, interpreting for aliens and the history of volcanoes - nothing if not eclectic, our Sean!

Given that this is my first flat run for quite some time, I'm happy with the pace. Certainly working a little in spots, but never gasping or killing myself. If I can manage something similar on Thursday, and a reasonable off-road 10-12 miler at the weekend, I'll feel that I'm "back running" and then sit myself down and do some plotting.

Connemara is the big question - my half marathon PB down there is probably a little soft, but I'd really like to do the ultra, and recent eulogies by respected runners on this forum have been pretty inspiring too. The WWU is also quite tempting, and I can see myself doing a lot of running that would prepare me for that sort of thing, over the coming weeks.

The other option is to work on some speed over shorter distances - something I've never really tried to train for, and which consensus seems to indicate would improve my marathon time... 26.2 is still my top priority, probably a summer run.

Anyway, enough of this self-centred rambling - back to work, you!

drquirky · 10-01-2012 10:52PM

Going well Brownian! If you're taking votes on which of the scenarios to do- I'd go for racing some shorter distances and knocking out some fast times- less stress on the body and you can keep the milage reasonable (for a while anyways)

menoscemo · 10-01-2012 11:34PM

Be quick on Connemara. As of this morning there are only 85 places left (all races) out of 3000. I'd imagine it'll be sold out by tomorrow.

brownian · 11-01-2012 09:35PM

menoscemo wrote: »

Be quick on Connemara. As of this morning there are only 85 places left (all races) out of 3000. I'd imagine it'll be sold out by tomorrow.

thanks, Meno. Got signed up a few months back, though, for the half.... iirc you can chance race up to fairly close to the date.

thanks for the heads up!

brownian · 11-01-2012 09:40PM

@drquirky - not in your league at the mo, Andy. But softly softly.... another short run tomorrow and hopefully I'll be in fair shape for the weekend.

Today a total waste of time from a running perspective - all day meeting, the total exercise was walking up the stairs to get in to the car to drive home. Urgh.

I almost think I"m getting the hang of a simple tom petty song on the geetar, though, so that's something to spend the next 90 minutes on - just too whacked to get stuck into work at this hour.

brownian · 12-01-2012 04:18PM

Same run as Tuesday, about a minute faster. Pleased with the pace, though there wasn't a huge amount left in the tank, so we're not exactly in a competitive place here. Still, coming back from weeks off with a lingering injury (which, I'm delighted to say, gave me very little trouble at all, even in the first few minutes, when it usually kicks up a fuss), today's pace is reasonable enough.

All Naked Oceans on the iphone today...how many times can they plug their website in a half hour show?

Manic work this week...looking forward to weekend

brownian · 12-01-2012 09:03PM

ouch - the old groin is irritated after today's efforts all right. Decent bit of stretching (yes yes, innuendo noted) this evening, hopefully will be ok tomorrow or at least Sat, when I plan a reasonable length of mountain bashing. Sorest it's been in quite a while, though, so...:mad:

BeepBeep67 · 12-01-2012 09:24PM

Good to see you back, don't get caught up in doing too much, too fast, too soon.

Bally8 · 13-01-2012 09:52PM

BeepBeep67 wrote: »

Good to see you back

+1

brownian · 13-01-2012 11:42PM

Groin still a bit sore, though better than yesterday. Have postponed longer weekend hill run to Sunday, and may just let it slide. Beepbeep is quite right - it's actually a bit daft to be smug about leaping back into 40-45 minute 10ks with no slower, shorter,easier ramp up. I have some time in hand, so I'll throttle back a little.

Shame though, have been enjoying the "I'm running again" feeling.

Thanks for good wishes etc, folks!

brownian · 17-01-2012 01:49PM

I took BeepBeep's comment to heart over the weekend - there was still a bit of pain at the top of the right hamstring, and a fair amount of overall stiffness. So I wore my compression socks all weekend and restricted my exercise to a couple of hours of hillwalking and some cold, wet sea-kayaking. Pretty big ugly waves you get in Dalkey when there's a F4+ SE blowing against a strong ebb tide. Glub glub, say no more

Anyway, was going to run yesterday but work took over my life, and my run window was solid phone calls. So headed out first thing this morning, just to move the legs a bit, with the express aim of running slow. Garmin battery was low (silly me), but reckon I ran about 8km in 35 or 36 minutes. Feel fine afterwards, but no doubt a day in front of the PC, plus a meeting in town, will stiffen up the legs. Still, great to run!

Tomorrow's plan is go straight from the crack of dawn school run to the gym, get in a couple of slow and easy miles and do some core... my core sessions of late have been of the 15 easy situps and a few leg lifts variety - I am shown up by the Clown with his 15 x 15 and such like.

When I should have been working I was checking out a running B&B run (in the other sense) by two British athletes in the pyrenees (velopyrenees.com). I stayed there a few years ago for a mountainbiking week, and really liked it. Since then, I've evolved into more a runner than a biker, but they have really attractive options for a week of sun, trails and (I can confirm) lovely grub, in a great spot. Wish I had a week of leave to spare...

Krusty_Clown · 17-01-2012 07:06PM

brownian wrote: »

reckon I ran about 8km in 35 or 36 minutes. Feel fine afterwards, but no doubt a day in front of the PC, plus a meeting in town, will stiffen up the legs. Still, great to run!
I am shown up by the Clown with his 15 x 15 and such like.

15 x 15 is just the dimensions of my sofa. It's quality time.

You do realize that 8 kms in 35 mins, is approximately 7 minute mile, which is only slightly slower than sub-3 marathon pace, which is probably not great for rehabilitation? You can set up a workout on your Garmin that beeps every time you go faster than a specific pace (e.g. 8 minute mile). Might be an idea in your case? There's no speedy way to repair thyself!

brownian · 17-01-2012 08:25PM

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

15 x 15 is just the dimensions of my sofa. It's quality time.

You do realize that 8 kms in 35 mins, is approximately 7 minute mile, which is only slightly slower than sub-3 marathon pace, which is probably not great for rehabilitation? You can set up a workout on your Garmin that beeps every time you go faster than a specific pace (e.g. 8 minute mile). Might be an idea in your case? There's no speedy way to repair thyself!

Hmmm, you are (of course) right. All messing aside, it's not much easier to run slower - I have to keep consciously cutting back. But I do see it's a bit fast, if I'm rehabbing (as I'd like to be). And indeed I'm a bit stiff this evening, despite my plan to go easy on the run.

brownian must try harder, to try less hard.

brownian · 18-01-2012 10:09PM

This being an off day, and brownian being filled with new tears resolution resolve, I hit the gym instead of the road. Fortunately, Mrs b. had plans, so I had only an hour or so, and thus couldn't do anything too foolish.

- five mins w/u on the seated bike
- 2 km on the dread mill (god, what a pain...just doesn't ring those running bells). Ran at 6-min-km, which was certainly easy, but my calves got tight from boredom and lack of variation - every step is the same as the last. Put on the incline for the second bit, which was a bit more interesting. This is basically meant to be a recovery run.
- having defined a new unit of exercise for the core (the Krusty==15 reps), I did three sets of situps, then one set on a range of weights machines (mick rice said some interesting stuff about weights for strength when running ultras), until the time ran out.

Apart from the mill, the rest was ok; hope to get a short easy run (like yesterday's) tomorrow, and mebbe another gym session Friday.

brownian · 20-01-2012 04:00PM

Left the Garmin behind for this one. Plan was a reasonably easy run, to contribute to an overall "get back to speed" objective. I need to be a bit realistic - work is insane at the moment, and there's not a lot of spare time or energy around.

Anyway, pleasant enough spin down the usual kilbogget park run, listening to Freakonomics radio podcasts about boo-ing (enjoyable, good books too). Found out why it was so pleasant when I turned to come back against the wind

Return was a bit more of a slog, with tightening calves and a bit more effort - wind nearly stopping me in my tracks a few times.

Plans for the weekend involve a conflict between sleep, kayaking, MTB and running - hopefully get a few miles in anyway.

Bally8 · 20-01-2012 06:54PM

brownian wrote: »

Plans for the weekend involve a conflict between sleep, kayaking, MTB and running - hopefully get a few miles in anyway.

Oooh kayaking - is it not too cold to go out yet? I have my own kayak but never venture out before April. I definitely wanted to head out much sooner than that this year and was thinking from next month on. Is it ok to head out this early in the year? Are there hardy souls out there who do it all year round?

brownian · 20-01-2012 07:06PM

Bally8 wrote: »

Oooh kayaking - is it not too cold to go out yet? I have my own kayak but never venture out before April. I definitely wanted to head out much sooner than that this year and was thinking from next month on. Is it ok to head out this early in the year? Are there hardy souls out there who do it all year round?

Yes it is too cold. But where there's water there's idiots

:)

Kayakers out there include www.ecskc.eu and iska.ie

brownian · 21-01-2012 07:06PM

Out on the mountain bike today for a few pretty tough hours on 3 rock. When you don't bike regularly (just like running), you suffer. So, I suffered. But got a good workout, got outdoors and did something where the excessive wind didn't cause too much of an issue. Then back to empty the garden composter (eurghh) and then get in a few hours work (which is why I'm in front of a PC on a Saturday).

Plan to get a few miles in tomorrow - next week is a meetings-week-from-hell, so running may get disrupted, though I hope not.

Happy weekend all

Brownian Motion

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