Everything Counts (In Large Amounts)

Competing agendas this week. On one hand, this week is probably the key week as far as the Fingal 10k is concerned, sessions this week would probably be key to getting the best time possible. On the other hand, I've been on holidays and the legs have definitely been feeling it since I've upped the mileage over the last few weeks. In the end, the path of least resistance won out so it's been a pretty low mileage and easy-running week so far. Great weather down here all week, and heading home tomorrow for another two weeks off with a heatwave on the cards, hurrah!

Tuesday 2 July - 4.00 miles in 35.26, 8.52 per mile

Trails around the hotel again. Heavy tree cover in places so the Garmin's not been very accurate - according to its track I managed to run significant distances across water during this run.

Thursday 4 July - 4.17 miles in 38.01, 9.06 per mile

Garmin acted up again on this, so it recorded no distance for the first couple of minutes before I noticed.

Friday 5 July - 6.25 miles in 56.08, 8.59 per mile Ave HR 141

Got up early and drove over towards Cobh for a change of scene this morning. Parked by the Cross River Ferry and set off towards the town, lovely bright morning but the hands were chilly for a while. I'd decided to knock the 400s session on the head this week to give the legs a rest, but came across a hill in Cobh (Spy Hill) which was made for hill sprints so I did 5 30-second sprints before the legs turned to jelly. Would have liked to have gone further on this run but the sprints really took it out of me so was happy enough to call it a day at 10k.

Monday 8 July - 4.43 miles in 41.18, 9.20 per mile

The legs are feeling pretty good despite yesterday's session, but I was glad to go for a recovery run all the same. Came down to Kilkenny for a few days this morning so I jogged down to the Castle Park and did 3 easy laps before jogging home. I doubt there were many nicer places to run in Ireland today, although it was flipping scorchio. I hadn't intended to go out in the hottest part of the day, but I'd just spent half an hour pumping up a large paddling pool so I was a sweaty mess anyway, thought I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Plan for tomorrow is to go for a 10-12 mile easy run in the morning, there's a walking trail along the Nore out towards Bennettsbridge so I'll do an out and back that way.

blockic wrote: »

About to head out in that heat now in a min! :eek: Have yet to venture out on that trail, only went as far as the ring road on it. Let us know what it's like!

Will do. It really is a belter out there today and tomorrow's supposed to be even hotter - hence the early start!

Wednesday 10 July - 3.68 miles in 35.03, 9.31 per mile

Back up to Dublin on Wednesday morning and went for a short recovery run in the afternoon. Very easy to keep the pace down in that heat, my breathing felt quite laboured for most of the run. Followed it up with a good hour of core/stretching/foam rolling in the evening.

Friday 12 July - 5.90 miles in 46.53, 7.57 per mile

Ended up just taking a total rest day on Thursday, but went out for a good run this afternoon. Having read an article that Running King linked on his log about how long it takes to benefit from runs, I opted for a tempo run today, which is not something I'd specifically done before. As I'm aiming for 6.55 pace in Fingal I decided 3 miles at 7.10 -7.15 pace would be good for this run, particularly with the heat in the afternoon. I set off on the trails around from the Cabra gate to the Castleknock gate and picked up the pace as I went, overall it was a warm-up of 1.87 miles in 16.01. The tempo run was then from the Castleknock gate down Chesterfield Ave to the Zoo roundabout and back up. To keep to the required pace would mean half-mile splits of 3.35 to 3.38 and they ended up at 3.30, 3.35, 3.32, 3.29, 3.33, 3.32. So, faster than required but pretty consistent and I definitely felt I could have kept it up for a good bit longer (which is handy considering I'm looking to go faster for longer next week). In fairness, I did have the help of a slight downhill for the first two miles before turning back for the last mile, but I felt the effort was fairly consistent throughout.

So that's the end of the hard running between now and Fingal. Easy-ish miles over the next week or so.

Sunday 14 July - 7.18 miles in 58.00, 8.04 per mile

Went out this evening for a faster-end-of-easy run, so that I could avoid the crowds coming out of the concert in the Park, but also mainly because I wanted to get back in time for Masterchef. I used to always run at around 8.00 pace before I started to structure my running a bit, but it felt strange to be running at that pace this evening, neither easy or a session.

Rather than run in the Park and possibly inflict Mumford and Sons on myself, I headed out the canal to Castleknock and then back through the village and along the Navan Road. Lovely evening for it, definitely have to get out along the canal more frequently.

Weekly Total - 37.69 miles

6 runs in total this week, including my longest run yet and a decent tempo effort on Friday, so a good week. The week ahead I reckon I'll run every day except Friday, I think that would probably be the best day for a rest before the race on Sunday. Looking at the weather forecast this evening it looks like it's still going to be hot, so I might be revising my target on the day.

RunningKing wrote: »

Mumford rock..........master chef......meh.....

The advantage for Masterchef is that there's a hell of a lot less banjo.

Wednesday 17 July - 4.42 miles in 40.12, 9.05 per mile

Short enough run down in the Park yesterday afternoon, pretty warm and oppressive. Was really hard going and the legs felt very heavy, I stopped about a quarter of a mile short of where I would normally have finished and strolled home.

Thursday 18 July - 6.01 miles in 51.53, 8.38 per mile Ave HR 126

Went out a bit later this evening, and although it felt like it was going to be a re-run of yesterday, thankfully the legs loosened up and it was a very enjoyable run in the end. I wore my HR monitor out of curiosity after yesterday's run (I don't usually wear it for shorter easy runs because it can be a bit uncomfortable) and it was great to see my HR staying pretty much under 130 for the whole run, that's a good bit lower than it would have been a while ago.

Turned out to be great weather for the run today in the end, loads of lovely cloud around. Got out to Swords in plenty of time, feeling well-prepared and ready to go, although I probably didn't warm up as much as I should have.

Heading towards the start the stewards told us to go left unless we were aiming for sub-40, fair enough. There were no signs up anywhere about the waves and I presumed there were only two (the course map refers to Wave 1 and Wave 2) so I just lined up where I ended up. Turns out that was in the sub-50 wave, and there was a sub-45(?) as well, which ended up being a bit of a pain in the arse as I spent the entire race overtaking people (although psychologically that kinda feels good too). Looking back, in fairness there was at least a thousand people in the pen in front, so it would have been a pretty good field if they were all going sub-40!

Anyway, the course profile showed a fast couple of miles at the start, followed by a flattish 3 miles and then uphill towards the end. With the aim being sub-43, or 6.55 per mile, I planned to go out at 6.40 or so for the first couple of miles, steady things up in the middle and then see how things went from there.

Felt great for the the first two miles south through the town and then out around the bypass, had clear road in front of me for most of this, and they went by in 6.45 and 6.42. Turning on to the country roads, things started getting a little congested and I found myself having to weave around a bit to get past people. I also decided it would be a good idea to stop at the water station (it wasn't) to have a bit of a drink. So the third mile ended up at 7.15 :eek:. I wasn't checking my watch overly frequently so I didn't notice the drop in pace for a while, and it was a bit of a shock when I checked the Virtual Partner and saw I only had 3 seconds to spare. Having started so confidently that gave me a kick in the arse and I got it together a bit, and focused on making sure each half-mile split was a good one. Miles 4 and 5 then both went in 6.50 along the country roads before coming back into town, and a killer of a hill towards the end. So even though the effort levels went up a bit, mile 6 was 6.51. Managed to pick up the pace a fair bit towards the finish, there was one guy in particular who I'd been in and around for most of the race and who was about 10 metres ahead coming into the final straight so I put the afterburners on to get past him and finished pretty well, last bit was at 6.05 pace. So overall, 10k in 42.38, a PB by 7.01 (although in fairness my only previous official 10k was also the first time I'd run 10k).

Given that I set myself the goal of 43 mins a couple of months ago, I'm really happy to have come in at 42.38, but reckon I could have got 42.20 today if (a) I hadn't stopped to take on some water (there's no need for that in a 10k, especially when it's cloudy!), and (b) if I'd put the hammer down a bit further from home. When I kicked towards the end I was surprised by how much energy I had, so I could have gone a bit earlier. Anyway, you live and learn!

So Sunday 21 July - 6.23 miles in 42.38, 6.50 per mile Ave HR 165 Max HR 181

I'll definitely be doing this race again, although they could really do with sorting out the signage for the waves. Well organised and marshalled (other than the waves), plenty of parking, a decent crowd, a nice t-shirt and for €15 entry fee by itself you can't say fairer than that.

Weekly Total - 31.09 miles

Good way to the end the week, another 6-run week, and up to Thursday I ran 7 days in a row for the first time.

Now I'll be turning to thinking about the Dublin HM in 9 weeks as the next goal race. I haven't done much thinking about that yet in terms of target or training schedule, but I will do over the next couple of days. One thing I do know is I'll be making sure my LSRs are 14-16 miles over the next few weeks.

I'll be doing the 10 mile in 5 weeks as well, I don't know whether I should go the full gun in that or make it part of a longer run with some HMP miles thrown in, but I'll decide closer to the race itself.

blockic wrote: »

Great time Clint, Congrats!

Thanks Blockic, fair play on your PB today as well! I see you had a run down the Nore the other day, did you go out towards Bennettsbridge or just through the town city?

Monday 22 July - 4.85 miles in 48.55, 10.10 per mile

Back to work yesterday after three great weeks of holidays in Ireland, so back to lunchtime running. Took it very easy on this one, out to Fairview Park and back and a bit of a loop down the quays. The legs didn't feel too bad really, although my calves threatened to seize up waiting at traffic lights after the first two minutes. My right quad is pretty sore too, so I spent a good 30 mins giving my legs a thorough foam rolling yesterday evening, painful stuff but in a good way.

Tuesday 23 July - 4.76 miles in 38.59, 8.12 per mile Ave HR 131

I'd intended to take things very easy again this evening, but there was a really heavy shower of rain here at around 7 so all of a sudden things felt a lot fresher and it was a really nice evening for running down in the Park. I really enjoyed this run, faster than I'd usually take an easy run, but really comfortable at the same time and there were no aches or pains at all. Great to see my HR average at 131 as well, it seems that the work I did coming up to the 10k has really paid off. Looking back over previous runs that's about 10-15 bpm less than that pace would have required 6-8 weeks ago or, to put it another way, it's about a minute per mile faster for the same HR. Sweet.

Before I went out I did a solid 45 mins of stretching/core/foam rolling. The right quad is still a bit sore, so I really focused on that.