The least important part of this thread is the Title

Thursday 21st Feb - Gym
Today I sent in my entry for the meet on Saturday. I'm down for the 400m, and the 60m just over an hour later. I've never ran a 60m race before, and I have done no starting-block work in training but I want to run it just to see what I can do.

Anyway, here's what I got up to in d'aul gym:

Warm Up: 5 mins exercise bike, hip-mobility floor exercises, lunges, squats.

Hang Clean
20kg x 5
40kg x 5
50kg x 3
60kg x 3
[67kg x 3] x 3

Back Squat
60kg x 5
80kg x 3
90kg x 3
[100kg x 3] x 3

Pull Ups and Reverse Hyperextensions Supersets
5x6 pull ups, with 3x15xRH /w 10kg plate in between sets. Did one set of 20x med ball knee-tucks also.


Good session. I was happy with those squats, although my right knee was wobbling a fair bit on the 3rd rep of each set. That's because my right leg is still not quite on a par with my left, although it has gotten better since I started doing single leg stuff.

Monday Feb 25th – Track

Back to Irishtown for yesterday evening’s track session, sans coach, but plus a training buddy. This new guy’s a decently fit newcomer to track running and sprinting in general but he launched himself into last Wednesday’s 300m session like a trooper, and turned up for more punishment last night. I hope he keeps at it anyway, it’s good to have someone to natter along to in between reps, and keep you honest during them.

8x200m was the prescribed session, with <3min break. The times were:
27(mid), 29(low), 29(low), 28(mid), 29(mid), 29(low), 28(low), 28(flat)

I have to be happy with how that went. The breaks were 200m walk jog from the finish back to the 200m start. The consistency was there, even though I’ve added two reps to the last time I did this session. Next time I’ll aim to keep them all under 29s. It was a cool evening with little wind, so not the worst conditions to run in. I’m looking forward to the temperature picking up a bit as it’s much easier to get the legs moving when there’s a bit of heat.

The new guy managed 7 of them, coming in at about 30.5 for most of them, but fading back a little to about 32-33s in the last 2.

Saturday 2nd March – Hills
I was down in Cork for the weekend so I took the opportunity to get a work-out done on the hill I used to train on with the UCC/Leevale group. It’s a long, straight slope that’s a little steeper at the bottom than the top. I decided to change the focus a bit from more extensive, shorter recovery to more towards max-effort speed development with longer recovery. With this in mind, I picked a point about 170m up and decided to do 4 reps at 95% with 4mins break.

The times were: 25s (low), 25(high), 26(mid) 27(low).

I was in an absolute heap by the end of this. Walking was very uncomfortable for a good 5 minutes afterwards. I was over a mile away from home, and had to take walking breaks as I jogged back because I was being pummelled with cramps and stitches. I then remembered I had an emergency fiver which I used to get a life-saving Lucozade Sport in a shop I passed. 

Judging by the fall-off in times, the recovery wasn’t long enough. The fact that the slope dropped off a little after the first 60m was interesting in that after driving up the first bit it allowed me to open up into a proper stride, with the caveat that having expended so much energy by that point, it was on tired legs. I found it very difficult to hold the form together over the last 40m on the 3rd and 4th reps.

Monday 4th March – Track
I wasn’t happy with last week’s training as I didn’t get a gym session or a long run in. This was mainly due to bad time-management on my part, but also because of some out-of-the-ordinary things I had to get sorted out last week.

Anyway, a new week brings new opportunities, so it was back to Irishtown for some split 400s. This is more max-effort speed endurance work; 300m at 90%, then straight away jog back down the 100m start and do 100m at the same speed, or faster. Unfortunately I didn’t have my spikes with me last night so I was doing them in trainers, and there was a bit of left-over tightness in my legs from Saturday.

I did 3 reps with 15mins break in between. To any middle/long distance guys reading this, that may sounds like a helluva lot of time to take, but when the focus is on quality, you need that type of break to recover properly.

The times were: 42.3s, 14.4s; 42.1, 13.8s; 41.4, 14.6s

These times mean I was running at 55s pace, which is a little behind where I want to be, but a pretty fair reflection of where I am at the moment, given my recent race time of 54.58s from the 23rd Feb. To be honest, I wanted to get under 40s for the 300m reps, but it wasn’t happening last night. I’ll be doing more speed-oriented sessions as we get closer to the summer, so my speed should pick up as it gets focused on more.

Tuesday March 5th - Gym
I was in a rush this evening to GTFO and watch the match, but I had my session written on my hand and wasn't leaving until it was done.

Warm Up 5 mins exercise bike.

Power Cleans
20kg x 5
40kg x 3
[50kg x 3] x 3

Pendlay Row
40kg x 5
[50kg x 5] x 3

Split Squat
[17.5kg DBs x 8] x 3

Pull Ups and Reverse Hypers supersets
5 sets of 5 PUs, with 3 sets of 15 RHs /w 10kg plate in between.

Decent enough session. I was feeling pretty tired, but pushed through. The power cleans were awful, never really done them before but I'll have to do a bit of work there.

The pull ups were very good, felt much easier than previous weeks. I was using a different grip though (a bit narrower, with palms facing each other) which probably made them easier. Tried 20kg DBs for the split squats, but felt terrible so went back to the 17.5s.

Thursday March 7th – Gym

It took a fair bit of mental effort and a strong dose of coffee to get myself up off the couch and out the door yesterday evening. Was still feeling DOMmy so I took it pretty easy on the legs.

Warm-Up: 10mins on bike, hip-mobility floor exercises, leg-swings.

Bench Press
20kg x 10
50kg x 5
60kg x 5
70kg x 5
75kg x 4
80kg x 3
85kg x 1

Front Squat
20kg x 5
50kg x 5
(70kg x 5) x 3

Mini-Circuit
Med ball knee-tucks, Plank, Dips
[KT x 20, 30s plank, 10 Dips.] x 2 rounds w/ 90s rest

Pull Ups
4 sets of 5

Little bitta stretching to finish up.

I haven’t benched in aaages, about a year I’d say, so I’m pretty happy with getting 116% of my bodyweight. The front squats were tough enough, the 5th rep on each of the 70kg sets was all over the shop.

Sunday March 10th - Recovery Run.
I haven't gone out for an easy jog in a good while, so it was refreshing to be in that zone once again. Conditions were sharp enough, I'm glad I'd put on a hat and gloves, as it took ages to get warmed up properly. I took the pace very handy, as I could feel the week's training in my legs. I ended up doing 7.1km in 36:56, so 5:09/km pace. I'll plan to do a good foam roll and stretch this evening in anticipation of the track session I'll be doing tomorrow.

Tuesday 12th March - Gym
It was a relief to be in the gym this evening, sheltered from the horribleness outside, although I don't think it was quite as bad today as yesterday. I felt fresh enough today, maybe my body's finally getting to grips with recovering from these tracks sessions.

Warm Up: 5 mins on the bike, hip mobility, leg swings, walking lunges, BW Squats.

Hang Clean
20kg x 8
40kg x 5
55kg x 3
70kg x 1 PB
70kg x 1 [3 x box-squat jumps for height after HC]
70kg x 1 [3 x box-squat jumps, as above]

Back Squat
20kg x 8
70kg x 5
80kg x 5
[95kg x 3] x 3

Split Squat
[15kg DBs x 8] x 3

Conditioning
Mountain-Climbers, Plank, Pull Ups (wider grip than usual)
2 x [MC x 40, 30s Plank, PU x 5]
1 x [MC x 50, 30s Plank, PU x 5]


Happy with the HC. Squats were solid. Good session.

Saturday March 16th – Easy Run, + Very easy run
Considering the few beers I’d had on Friday night at a wedding, as well as the week’s training, I figured some easy running would be good for the legs, the soul, and most importantly, the hangover. I headed out for my usual loop, and took the pace handy enough. I threw in a 150m-ish hill sprint which falls just before the 5km mark, because I don’t like jogging up hills. Total was 6.7km in 35:48, 5:18/km average pace.

I then came home, had a pint of trusty Milk, and headed out again shortly after with the girlfriend on her C25K session. She’s still on week 1, after, well, more than a week, but it was a grand little trot around the local green area all the same. We did 3.7km in total, at 8:08/km average pace. I think I need to start slowing down a bit on my recovery/easy runs, because my legs have felt amazing for the past couple of days since doing this.
So, 10.4km in all for Saturday, not bad.

Tuesday 19th March – Gym
So with Paddy’s day and all that comes with it, I took Sunday and Monday as “rest” days. I had a very long Tuesday, involving a 5am start and a Cork-Dublin work commute, so I took a well needed nap once I got in the door after work, and forced myself out it again just over an hour later, in the direction of the gym.

Warm Up: 5mins rowing machine, managed a tougher-than-necessary 1270m for this. Time was tight so that was it for the warm-up apart from a few leg swings.

Hang Clean
20kg x 5
40kg x 5
50kg x 5
[70kg x1, x1] x 3 w/ 3x squat-jumps for height after each double

Front Squat
20kg x 10
50kg x 5
60kg x 3
[75kg x 5] x 3 PB

Dips and RLE Split-Squat Supersets
[Dips: BW+5kg x 10, SS: 17.5kg DBs x 8] x 3

The gym was closing at that stage so I didn’t have time for the conditioning stuff I wanted to get done but I was happy enough with how everything else went. The Hang Cleans were supposed to be doubles, but I could only manage singles separated by about 20s. My technique still needs some work, but that will come with more practice. For the front squats, I was only supposed to be doing 72.5kg but got my sums wrong and did 75kg unbeknown to myself until I thought back on it afterwards. I’d found 70kg a real struggle the last time I’d done these so I’m pretty happy with my first BW front squats.

The Dips and Split Squats were done without too much hassle, so apparently Paddy’s weekend didn’t ruin me completely. Let’s hope that continues to be the case for my track session later this evening.

Parsley wrote: »

whuuut. I must commence slagging.

The lurker reveals himself.

And she'd probably beat you in fairness!:pac:

It's been a bit of a mish-mash of a week, training-wise, between the terrible weather and various matters conspiring against me, but it wasn't all bad either. Writing this post is as much a 'what did I actually do?' exercise for me, as a recording for future reference, but, anyway, I better get on with it:

Sunday 24th March - Easy Run
8.1 km @ 5:21/km average pace. Threw in a 250m hill sprint along the way. Cold.

Monday 25th March - Track Fartlek Easy Run
I couldn't make it to Irishtown in time to meet with the club, so I headed out to Santry later on to get the session done on my own. Unbeknownst to me, however, there was a football game being held on the infield. No problem I thought, the plan was 4 x 425m off 10mins break so I'll have the full floodlights run under, and some football of questionable quality to look at during my long breaks.

Unfortunately, I was informed by the staff that because of the soccer game, the track was off-limits "for insurance purposes". "A ball could roll out in front of you, we couldn't be having that..."

I headed home, cursing, and went out to do some fartlek around the loop I usually use near my house. By that stage though it had gotten very very cold, I was absolutely starving, and still very annoyed about having my track session thwarted, so the run ended up being more of an easy session, with a few half-hearted strides thrown in. 6.49km @ 5:39/km avg pace.

Tuesday 26th March - Track
I'd usually do weights on Tuesdays, but wanted to make up for having missed a track session the day before. I also had to be mindful of not doing too much so I'd be recovered for my Wednesday track session. I decided to do 2x425m at 90%. The cold weather and stiff breeze that greeted me when I got out to Morton Stadium meant that again, conditions were far from ideal, so I did my warm-up in the gym.

Warm Up: 5mins bike, hip-mobility floor exercises, leg swings. Threw a jacket, gloves, hat, and spikes on and did a couple of stride-outs.

Session: Times for the reps were 63s, 61s with 11mins break. I headed inside and kept the legs ticking over on the bike during the break. I also did a 10min warm-down. There was a fair bit of lactic build-up after the second one.

Wednesday 27th March - Track
I got a text from the coach on Wednesday afternoon saying that training was off because of the blizzard that was going on outside. Undeterred, I said I'd see what the story was once i was home from work. Sure enough, the sky had cleared up so I headed off to the track. I decided on a pyramid; 150m, 200m, 250m, 250m, 200m, 150m off 4mins break.

I did a similar warm-up to Tuesday's.

I messed up the time for the first 150m (started from 5m behind the green 145m mark), but after that they went 26, 35, DNF, 27, DNS.

The DNF was because a young girl (12-15 estimate age), ran straight into my lane, headed the wrong way down the track, just after I'd entered the home straight. When I saw she was coming towards me, I shouted, and moved in a lane, but she kept coming towards me, so I had to pull up suddenly and grab her to stop her bouncing off me. She was part of a group from Raheeny I think, and was being chased by one of the others in that group. The guy who was coaching the group caught my eye just afterwards but didn't say anything to me, instead choosing to give his usual "watch the track" order to the group.

I didn't do the 150m because I was getting a bit of tightness in my right hamstring and didn't want to risk it in the cold. I'm not sure if pulling up suddenly to avoid the girl had anything to do with the tightness.

Thursday 28th March 1/3 Home bodyweight circuit
One round of: 25 push-ups (3 variants), 40s plank, 30s side-plank each side, 50 mountain-climbers, 20 squats, 10 single-leg squats each side. 10s between exercises.

The plan was 3 sets, but I was rudely interrupted.

Friday 29th March Fartlek run + 2/3 bodyweight circuit
GPS watch wouldn't sync with the satellite for some reason, so no exact distance figures, but roughly 8km in total. I did 10mins-ish easy as a warm-up the 3x20s at 70%, 2x40s at 80%, and 3x20s at 70% with 2mins active recovery in between. I was conscious of going easy on the hammy, I could feel a few minor twinges when walking around during the day, but nothing painful.

I finished off the previous day's circuit when I got home.

Saturday 30th March - cross training
Probably not the best idea to play 5-a-side astro with a hamstring niggle, however small it may be, but I didn't have any trouble with it. My problem was that I was home in the Kingdom, but had left my boots in Dublin so had to resort to wearing an old pair that had never fitted properly. The result was a fair bit of pain in the latter half of the game, and a large blood blister on my right big toe, along with a few smaller blisters and cuts on both heels. Serves me right I'd say!