"Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them"

Dec 11-13

Nada, nothing , zilch except Christmas revelry, work , exhaustion....in that order

Sat Dec 14th

Working again today but managed to get a run in by running home from work.Thank God the wind was at my back, fairly blustery out there

6.73mi@9:18

A bit faster than planned because of wind but effort was easy

Avg HR:127
Max HR:163


WTD|17.87
MTD|43.56
YTD|1054.99

Tues Dec 17th

20 mins on bike followed by core and strength work


Wed Dec 18th

Back with physio this morning. He is pretty happy with the way things are going. I was bit disappointed that it is not totally cleared up by now as it is sore now and again. To that end he suggested a scan might be a good idea. I agreed at time but not so sure on reflection. I think I'll see how it feels over the next couple of weeks before deciding what to do.

Tonight was to be my session:

6x800m with 1 min standing rest in between each rep. @ 7min/mi pace so aiming for 3:30 for each rep

I set it up as workout on Garmin and sent it to my watch but I made a mistake and what happened was the 6 reps of 800 came up followed by the 6 reps of 1 min rest. I realised this after the 1st one so I just counted out 1 min rest in my head. I did this for the rest of them but I know I was probably a few seconds out on the count each time so as a result my times are all over the place.

As best I can tell by subtracting 1 min from each time my reps are as follows:

Note the first three I had a decent wind on my back, the fourth was neutral enough and the last two were into a strong wind.

2miles w/up @10:46
Rep 1: 3:30
Rep 2: 3:28
Rep 3: 3:26
Rep 4: 3:20
Rep 5: 3:54 ( I stretched a bit here so rest was prob longer than 1 min)
Rep 6 :4:12 (Was rubber legs for this one but into strong wind and dug deep to complete it)

Avg HR :135
Max HR: 169

Cool down: 1.37mi@10:10

Avg HR:129
Max HR :138

Between the garmin mess up and the wind this didn't work out like I planned so disappointed with that but it was still a good workout for me. I'd like to try this one again though sometime.

Total for day 6.37mi


WTD|12.90
MTD|66.66
YTD|1078.09

Sat Dec 21st

No run. Planned rest day but did 25 mins on bike and some core work to try sweat out some of the toxins from Friday's "session"


Sun Dec 22nd

Ran from club this morning. Not too many there because of races on in Clonliffe and Raheny. Made the mistake of going out too fast, partially because of being dragged along by group and not wanting to be too rude and just drop back too soon and partially due to wind being at our back for a lot of it. As a result the avg pace is faster than I wanted but after about 4 miles I did take the decision to hang back and run on my own to try and be more disciplined with keep the pace slower.

Got caught in an almighty shower in the last 2-3 miles and running into a strong headwind made it tough. When the rain stopped though the legs felt quite refreshed apart from being freezing. Felt strong at the end of this so that was very pleasing.

13.53mi@ 9:16

HR Monitor didnt register but effort was easy apart from the into the wind/rain section

Target mileage for week was 35-40

WTD|37.54
MTD|91.3
YTD|1102.73

Mon Dec 23rd

Nice easy run this afternoon. Found it really difficult to slow it down. Felt more like a recovery run. I was aiming for about 9:40 was just a touch faster than that. No issues or anything interesting to report otherwise.

5.03mi@ 9:24

HR Monitor didnt register again--need to investigate


WTD|5.03
MTD|96.33
YTD|1107.76

Tue Dec 24th

Another very windy day but at least it was dry. Got it out of the way so I could enjoy the rest of Christmas eve and the excitement building up with the kids.
Went to see the Hobbit movie this afternoon to kill a few hours too...junk food city! ah sure it' s Christmas I can be more disciplined after Christmas diet wise.

Easy run today in blustery conditions


7.63mi@ 9:34

WTD|12.66
MTD|103.96
YTD|1115.39


To anybody that visits this humble log, I wish you and your families the very best for Christmas and see you at the races in 2014

Fri Dec 27th

Planned rest day. Just did 20mins on the bike and 30 mins core work.


Sat Dec 28th- Fat Turkey Run - 10k Race

This was set up nicely to be a good calorie burner after the excesses of Christmas and I rejigged my plan to accommodate this as my session for the week. This is not a course really for a PB as it is pretty tough hill up in first half and then fast on the way down if you have enough energy left. Going into this I'd have been happy enough getting under 50mins and no injury to report.

It was a tough old run. As you can see from the elevation picture below not exactly the easiest first half! When I got to the top of the summit I was exhausted to be honest and had to stop for about 10 seconds and walk until I got my breath again and took on some water. Once I got going again I tried to let the hill down do most of the work and not push it too much. I was afraid of over-striding and maybe tweaking something like a hamstring so I was reasonably conservative on the faster sections going down. There were hills upwards on the way down too I might add so you had to save a bit for them.

Was pushing it at the end and even managed to wretch after crossing the line although I think that was more to do with the bottle of wine I drank yesterday than the effort today!

I got through it ok and no injury issues which is great to report. Great to see so many club mates there today too, well done everyone.

Garmin time was 48:02 but may have hit the button a bit late. I'll take the chip time if it is faster of course ;-) (50:51 in this race last year)

Splits were: 7:44,7:55,8:42,7:40,7:46,6:50,(6:34)

6.22mi@7:44

warmup and cool down brought total to 7.32miles for the day

WTD|34.40
MTD|125.70
YTD|1137.13

Sun Dec 29th

Recovery run. Left hamstring felt a bit tight during this run which I did with the dog. I hate walking the dog never mind running with him! But it suited my
purpose as I knew I wouldn't get to run freely and the pace would
be kept down naturally. Foam rolled the hamstring when I got back so hopefully that will sort it out.

3.08mi@10:32


WTD|37.48
MTD|128.78
YTD|1140.21

Wednesday 1st Jan

Wanted to get this session out of the way early but the weather conditions were putting me off. Took me a half hour to decide whether to go out in it or not. In the end decided I would go out as I could be thanking myself for it come April 13th.

Conditions were atrocious to say the least, strong winds , lashing rain and pretty cold to boot. Knew this was going to be a tough session.
Plan was 3 mile warmup followed by 3 x 2mi tempo (7:30-7:40 pace) with 0.5 mile jog recovery followed by 2mi cool down.

The warmup miles were grand 3 mi@9:00. The first interval was really tough principally due to the elements. Was running into a gale for the last half mile and it really took a lot out of me. So much so that I had to walk the half mile recovery rather than jog. Decided to alter my route for second interval to see if I could avoid the weather ,particularly the wind in any way.

Second interval was hard, mainly i think because of the efforts of the first. Was really tired at the end of this and the thoughts of another one in the prevailing weather conditions was killing me. So I decided to bail as I thought if I tried to do the third it might do me more harm than good and it had been a really good workout already anyway. So ran easy for the rest of the way home and called it a day.

So session went like this:

3mi @9:00
2mi@7:43
0.5mi@14:45
2mi@7:29
0.5mi@11:47
1.57mi@9:33


Total 9.57miles

WTD|15.06
MTD|9.57
YTD|9.57

Thursday 2nd Jan

Recovery run. Weather awful again but on the upside it helped me to keep the pace very slow. Target pace was 10:30+

Nothing major to report about this run except that I got very wet again!

4.22mi@10:41

WTD|19.28
MTD|13.79
YTD|13.79