Confessions of a never has been.....

yaboya1 · 19-05-2014 10:34PM

Duanington wrote: »

19.05.2015

Communion in the family this weekend so not a whole pile of running done unfortunately, lots of good craic though which is always welcome :-)

How does that affect this week though??? :pac:

Duanington · 19-05-2014 10:35PM

yaboya1 wrote: »

How does that affect this week though??? :pac:

Just testing to see if anyone is awake - which you are , thanks

Duanington · 20-05-2014 09:16PM

20.05.2014

LSR night tonight and the plan was to add some HMP miles into the run again ( I'm planning on doing this every 2nd week over the next couple of months)

Took off down the coast at a nice, easy pace , lots of other people out running which was nice to see. Headed down to Fairview, back up the Howth Road through Killester and into Raheny then on into St Anne's to start the faster stuff.

My legs felt heavy enough through most of this run and I wasn't looking forward to this part but I manned up and got on with it.

I tried to keep most of this section on the grass to ease the impact on my legs which was fine in theory but in reality the grass was marsh-like in quite a few spots which made things tough going at times.
HMP splits went as follows:
7:05
7:05
7:00

finished off with 3 miles easy to bring the total up to 14 miles - not too shabby and another decent session, felt tired at the end though!

Duanington · 23-05-2014 09:37PM

23.05.2014

Wednesday

4 miles recovery before work. I'm starting to really enjoy ( yes, actually enjoy) these early morning runs, my legs were a little tight from the night before but felt really good towards the end of this one. The mixed terrain must help in terms of impact.
At a guess I would say the pace was somewhere around 9 min miles.

Thursday

AM - Another 4 easy miles before work, lots of baby rabbits legging it around the business park in the early morning, every single one of them sitting up, gawking at me as I approached then taking off at breakneck speed into the bushes when I got too close for comfort

PM - 45 minutes core\stretching. Planks, various forms of sit ups, press ups and lots of stretching. No running though ( which felt odd).

Friday
AM - 4 more miles, more crazy bunny rabbits and a deranged cyclist ringing his bell at me from 30 yards away.
4 miles @ 8:20

PM Session night tonight - plan was to do 5x1k reps / 90 second recovery

Made my way down to St Anne's for tonight's session, I figured I'd use the avenue as the straight line for the 1k repeats, there was a bit of a gale blowing down the avenue though which would prove to make things a bit tricky on every 2nd rep ( but obviously a little easier on the others I suppose!) . I haven't done this session in quite a while and the last time I did I used 75 second recovery but I remember being unhappy with the consistency on the reps so I hoped to keep things in and around 3.45 per k and stick with the 90 second recovery this time, I'll run these again in 3 weeks time with 75 seconds recovery.

2 miles easy to warm up then got stuck in:

Rep time
1 3.44
2 3.44
3 3.43
4 3.42
5 3.38

Strange session, I felt dreadful for the first two and in fact, about 200 metres into the second one I had fleeting thoughts of packing it in because the effort on my legs against the wind was a bit of a shock initially. Thankfully I told myself to shut up and finish the rep, ignoring the watch.
Once I got past the second one, everything felt good again - no issues with the pace, I was recovering very well , found myself in a nice rhythm and my breathing felt good. I was moving well and while I was moving fast, it was all nice and controlled.

Finished off with 2.5 miles easy to bring the total to 7.6 miles

Total for the day 11.6 miles

Duanington · 24-05-2014 10:08PM

24.05.2014

No run this morning - I actually slept it out for the first time in yonks so missed my window of opportunity.

I waited until tonight and did 30 minutes or so of core work\light weights and then headed out for 4 recovery paced miles. Cool enough out there on the coast this evening but the drizzling rain is nice and refreshing, not a sinner to be seen though - everyone indoors watching the Madrid derby I suppose
Nice easy day - 4 miles : 8:50 min\miles

Duanington · 25-05-2014 09:25PM

25.05.2014

AM- 3 miles easy before breakfast, a very gentle trot down along the coast to bring a bit of life back into the legs.

PM - 9 miles with 6@ tempo (planned around 6:40 - 6:45)
An afternoon of gardening, playing chasing in the park and generally acting the maggot with my 5 year old left me a little jaded before heading out for tonight's tempo run. I knew once I got going I'd be grand so I set off for the 1.5 mile warmup.

I decided to change my route tonight and stick to a largely flat route along the coast, abandoning my usual route through clontarf\raheny. I've been thinking about it for a while and although that route gives me a nice climb around Mile 3, the last 1.8 miles or so are mainly downhill which defeats the purpose a little for me.

I wanted to keep splits nice and even tonight, staying away from race pace but still very much in the "tempo" zone. Splits went as follows:

6.48
6.46
6.45
6.43
6.41
6.40

While the splits weren't quite as consistent as I had hoped, the last 2 miles felt a tad tougher than my usual 6 mile tempo route which confirms my suspicions and is actually quite welcome. I plan to run longer tempos like this at "proper" tempo pace ( and run them every 2\3 weeks) while taking on one mile and 2 mile repeats at the quicker ( race) pace on alternate weeks.

1.5 miles easy to finish up the 9 miles

A good session to end of a good ( but tough) week - back to 60+ miles and I can feel it!

ThebitterLemon · 25-05-2014 09:28PM

Double D, Solid session and solid week, you're going very well.

TbL

Duanington · 26-05-2014 08:53PM

26.05.2014

AM - 4 recovery paced miles before work, my legs felt like two dead weights this morning at the start of this one, I kept the pace right down and as I warmed up over the first mile or so I felt a hell of a lot better. As usual with recovery runs, I felt better at the end than the start.

PM - late home from work but I still squeezed in 35 minutes or so of core\pressup work - found a great Prodigy mix on Youtube which made this one a bit of craic.
The sun was still shining by the time I got out to run which was beautiful, the pace was very easy and I headed down to St Annes to bask in the sun and choke on the flies that it brings with it..

6 miles @ 8:30ish to bring the total for the day to 10 miles

Duanington · 27-05-2014 09:44PM

27.05.2014

LSR night tonight, back to bog standard long running. The planned route was up over Howth and back, taking in the hills, the village and of course the coast road. Planned distance was 17 miles.

Took in a couple of easy miles on the grass on the coast before heading up the coast towards Howth , perfect evening for it and there were lots and lots of people out running, walking, cycling, hanging around eating ice cream.

Headed up to through Sutton, on up to the hills, took them on a little and eased off the effort once I got over the top..Howth village was packed this evening, I passed one of the many restaurants at one stage which had a handful of cyclists ( who had zipped past me on the way down the hill) sitting outside drinking tea and eating apple tart ( or some such delight), I wiped the jealous tear and moved on for home.

My legs started to feel a little heavy towards the end but I ate well today, a little better than normally because I have noticed that I start to get very hungry late on in my LSRs which I find to be absolute torture, this evening I had no such problems and energy levels felt good right up until the end. ( lesson learned)

Total miles 17 @ 8:32 min\miles

shafto · 28-05-2014 08:01PM

Hope you are getting ready for achill!

Duanington · 28-05-2014 09:35PM

shafto wrote: »

Hope you are getting ready for achill!

I most certainly am ! Looking forward to it JD - enjoying your log too by the way

Duanington · 29-05-2014 09:23PM

29.05.2014

Wednesday - rest day , a very enjoyable rest actually. My legs were fine but I was starting to feel the effects of a tough week or so.

Thursday - 9 miles with 3x1 mile @ race pace ( 6:05)
I had to change a few things around this week due to time constraints - I had originally pencilled tonight's session in for Sunday but time wise, I may not have a window on Sunday so I gave it a bash tonight instead to make sure I get it in this week.

Didn't sleep too well last night and had a very busy day at the office so I was a little sleepy heading home this evening. Stuck on the tunes and did some light weights\core work to snap me out of it and it did the trick ( 2many DJs again).

Took in 2.5 easy miles on the grass in Clontarf to start me off and I felt a hell of a lot better before getting started.
My aim was to run these reps at around 6:00-6:10 pace and stay consistent, taking 2 minute walking recovery between each one.

The coast was quite busy tonight and I was a little worried about running off the beaten track on the grass and going over on an ankle, thankfully I seemed to pick a steady path between the various runners\walkers\dogs that were out and about, everyone was SUPER polite this evening in leafy suburbia !

Splits went as follows:

6:01
6:04
6:00

The last one definitely took a bit more out of me than the first 2, I was breathing quite heavily from about 1\2 way onwards but holding the pace throughout each one wasn't ever going to be a real issue - it just required a bit of work.
I toyed with the idea of doing a 4th rep but given the high mileage this week , I think it would be high risk for little gain ( and to be honest, I don't think I would have held the pace for a 4th - that one will wait for another day)

Very happy with this session, I could feel my whole system working hard towards the end of the last one and yet had the confidence to know I would hit the target.

3.5 miles easy on the grass to finish ( think I spotted Yaboya1 too actually, it only dawned on me when he ran past though)

Total miles 9

yaboya1 · 29-05-2014 09:26PM

Duanington wrote: »

think I spotted Yaboya1 too actually, it only dawned on me when he ran past though)

Yeah, I was out there tonight but I have no idea what you look like?
There was one guy I nodded at that I thought might be you. Whereabouts did we cross paths?

Duanington · 29-05-2014 09:29PM

yaboya1 wrote: »

Yeah, I was out there tonight but I have no idea what you look like?
There was one guy I nodded at that I thought might be you. Whereabouts did we cross paths?

I think it was down around the area across from the Yacht ( on the grass) - I was quite possibly still in a daze from the mile reps but I thought I recognised you from the recent 10k race picture. Sound right?

yaboya1 · 29-05-2014 09:34PM

Duanington wrote: »

I think it was down around the area across from the Yacht ( on the grass) - I was quite possibly still in a daze from the mile reps but I thought I recognised you from the recent 10k race picture. Sound right?

Yeah, sounds about right. I was in the same t-shirt so that was definitely me. You'll have to call out to me next time :pac:

Duanington · 29-05-2014 09:36PM

yaboya1 wrote: »

Yeah, sounds about right. I was in the same t-shirt so that was definitely me. You'll have to call out to me next time :pac:

I sure will

ThebitterLemon · 29-05-2014 10:35PM

yaboya1 wrote: »

Yeah, sounds about right. I was in the same t-shirt so that was definitely me. You'll have to call out to me next time :pac:

Wear the gardening gloves P, and D will definitely recognise ya

TbL

Duanington · 31-05-2014 11:16PM

31.05.2014

Friday

AM - 4 miles recovery pace around CItywest before work

PM - 6.5 miles easy , up into St Anne's nice and easy and took in 4 miles or so on the grass which I always enjoy. Kept the pace down all the way through and enjoyed watching some of the hurling on my way around the park.

Did some press up work when I got home then headed out to meet a few pals in town with a plan of taking that easy too...I normally fail miserably at those types of plans and wipe myself out for the next day but I managed to get home at a kind of reasonable hour, although the lack of alcohol intake over the past few months was very apparent - my tolerance is almost non existent , cheap date these days!

Total for the day - 10.5

Saturday

AM - woke bright and early this morning with a thumping headache and a seriously dehydrated gob so I really had to force myself to get out the door for a few easy miles. The first mile was complete torture, my whole body was screaming at me to pack it in, get some panadol and a breakfast roll - once I got past the 1 mile mark I started to feel a hell of a lot better and by the end of mile 3 the hangover was just about gone - happy days !
Left it at 3 miles

PM - 4 miles easy on the grass in Clontarf ( with 10x 60 metre strides), beautiful night for it, warm, clear and a nice atmosphere around the place. I was late getting out but I could still smell lots of bbqs around the place and there were still quite a few people just chilling out on the grass enjoying the mild evening.

Felt great during the strides , kept them relatively short and probably peaked at 70% effort - working to maintain good form and turnover

Total for the day : 7

Duanington · 01-06-2014 10:05PM

01.06.2014

After swapping things around earlier in the week I was left with a relatively short but tough enough session for tonight, the plan was for;

6 miles with 12x20 second hills sprints ( walk back recovery) + 8x20 second hill sprints ( jog back recovery)

After a bit of laboured work on the chin up bar, I started off with 2.5 miles easy, making my way to my chosen hill to get started. The first part of the session ( walk back rec) flew through, I ran the 20 seconds hard and worked to keep the effort at the same level right the way through ( resisting the urge to ease off as I approached the 20 second mark).

Once the first part was done I went straight into the second part - putting in a little less pace on the sprint but still working to keep everything consistent, both going up the hill and rep to rep. By the 3rd or 4th I could really feel the effort on my legs...and my stomach actually, I might have eaten dinner too close to this one.
The jogged recoveries ( as opposed to walked) coupled with the effect of the first set on my system made for a lot of teeth gritting and arm pumping to get through the session - but get through I did.

I didn't check the splits but effort wise I was very happy with tonight's work, a good bit more volume than normal on my hill sessions which left me good and jaded at the end. Jogged slowly home to finish another good week's training - easier week mileage wise coming up next week.

Duanington · 02-06-2014 08:40PM

02.06.2014

No run this morning so took it easy and had a nice chilled out morning with the kids. Stuck on some music and attempted to do some core work with my youngest joining in for the craic - I may as well have been pouring tea into a chocolate tea cup, I was in stitches at some of the shapes out of her so I didn't get a whole lot done.

Headed out this evening for 6 recovery paced miles along the coast road..mainly on the grass again. Beautiful evening for it again , calm, mild and a the ground underneath the grass wasn't too hard either.

Took it very easy and enjoyed the fresh air tonight - 6 miles@ 8:40ish pace

Duanington · 03-06-2014 09:24PM

03.06.2014

Plan for tonight was 12 miles with [EMAIL="5@hmp"]5@hmp[/EMAIL]

Made my way home verrrry slowly through the pouring rain which had me dreading the thoughts of heading out running ( funny how short our memories are, it was constantly lashing not too long ago and that never had me dreading it!).
Got in the door, stuck on the music and did some light stretching\weights before heading out to get started.

I took in 5 miles easy up and down the coast road and felt awful for some reason, the pace was nice and slow and yet I was beginning to doubt I would complete this one at all.
After the 5th mile, I bit the bullet and started the hmp section, taking in some of the coast road, moving up into Killbarrack , Donaghmede and Raheny where there are some decent climbs and rolling hills, avoiding any substantial downhill stretches.
Funnily enough, the pace felt a lot more manageable on my legs for the first 2 of these, no idea how that works! Anyway, I ticked along nicely, keeping the pace in and around the 7 min\mile mark before finishing up in St Anne's park on the main Avenue

HMP Splits:
7:00
6:59
6:55
6:53
6:53

Dropped straight back into easy mode at the end of the 5th HMP mile and made my way home to total 12 miles for the night.

Good session, tough but manageable with a bit of toughening up

Total miles: 12

Duanington · 06-06-2014 08:05PM

06.06.2014

Wednesday - 4 miles recovery before work, nice and easy - legs felt superb afterwards

Thursday - given this is an easy week, I took a day off from running and just did some core work\stretching in the evening ( 45 minutes)

Friday

Had planned a double today but I was late getting across the M50 this morning so missed my chance.

Had scheduled in a good session for this evening.

8 miles w\ 10x400 ( 200 jogged recovery)

I have a love\hate thing with these sessions, hate the thoughts of them and love them when they're done.
I was late (again) getting home from work so quickly got the gear on and headed out the door before anything else came along that could distract me.
Took in 2.5 miles easy on the coast and made my way up into St Anne's to the track ( rose garden) to get started. There were a few other runners around the place which kind of added to the lovely evening for some reason, lots of people out walking dogs too which is always a bit of a risk when I'm doing these sessions.

I've struggled to stay consistent a lot of the time on these sessions so this evening I had 2 main aims:

1 - get more consistency - aiming for around 1:20
2 - lose the break in the middle of the session that I've been taking ( 3 minutes walk) and run the 10 consecutively

Reps went as follows
1:15 ( stupid and too fast)
1:19 ( copped on and focused a bit better)
1:19
1:20
1:21
1:20
1:22
1:21
1:20
1:15 ran hard on the last one to end on a high ( in a heap)

Very happy with this session, possibly the best set of 400s I've done yet, I felt good throughout and even though I overcooked the first one, I copped on and found the pace quite well on the rest without having to check the watch etc..I found the effort quite tough over the last 2 or 3 and went up a notch on the last but always knew I had it in me to hit the pace ok

Finished off with a couple of miles easy to bring the total to 8.2 miles

Another tough\good session

ThebitterLemon · 06-06-2014 08:09PM

That's a great session DD, have you done that session recently, those splits are impressive, be interested to see how much you've improved over last few months

TbL

Ososlo · 06-06-2014 08:14PM

Lovely! I have a few questions if you don't mind:D

- Why would you not do those on the avenue as opposed to the 'track'? Would you not find it easier doing them in a straight line?
- What pace were you aiming to do those at? I get to do mine a 1 mile pace::rolleyes:
- What recoveries exactly did you take today? I'm a bit slow tonight

thanks!

Tom Joad · 06-06-2014 08:25PM

That's an animal session especially off 200mtr recoveries!!

Ososlo · 06-06-2014 08:26PM

Tom Joad wrote: »

That's an animal session especially off 200mtr recoveries!!

missed the recovery bit in your original post! Scrap that question I asked D!

Duanington · 06-06-2014 09:30PM

TBL - kind of, I've done lots of 400s but more recently I've divided the session into 2 sets of 4 or 5 with a walking break of 3 minutes between sets. Looking back, I was probably running these a little quick. I haven't done 10 straight through in quite a few months ( from memory I was running them at 1:25 or so) so need to get more of these in.

Ososlo - I'm not sure to be honest, I used to run them on the avenue or out on the coast but I like the momentum that you get on the "track"...no turning around etc. Plus its usually a little quieter than the avenue. Its kind of just become habit at this stage ( I think I first started using it to escape a gale one evening)
Re the pace, when I started off doing these, I used various calculators online (McMillan) etc but I found that they all varied so to be honest I kind of made it up, based on my 10k PB, McMillan has me doing them at 1:22 - I've tried that and it doesn't quite feel as testing as it should (or at least as I think it should) so I settled on 1:20 recently as a reasonable target. Based on tonight, it feels right to me.

I'm also allowing for the fact that I'm relying on a garmin to tell me when the 400m are up - I know its not entirely accurate so I figure the tougher end of the pace scale is best to allow for any inaccuracies

Duanington · 07-06-2014 09:53PM

07.06.2014

AM - 4 miles easy before breakfast - I've become a real creature of habit on this one, up and out bright and early and I love the fact that you start to wake properly about a mile in and are fully awake by the time its all over.

Nice and easy - recovery pace ( no watch but I would guess around 9 min\miles)
4 miles in total

PM - bit of work on the chin up bar ( first time in a while so it was a bit of a struggle) then out for 3 easy miles - sent to the garage to get M&Ms for the house so I ran down and back nice and easy again

7 miles for the day

Duanington · 08-06-2014 09:31PM

08.06.2014

Last day of my step-back week today so just tonight's tempo to contend with. Busy day with the family today, out for lunch, watched the dubs win, bit of craic with a new dog in the house then the car broke down so I was a bit worn out by the time I got out to run

The plan was for 8 miles with 6 @ tempo pace

I decided a couple of weeks back to ditch my old tempo route because the last 1.5 miles were basically downhill and I felt I was getting too much of an easy ride over the latter half of the route - even if there were a couple of decent climbs in the first half.
My new route takes in some of the coast road before turning up towards donaghmede then left onto Raheny - all basically gradually uphill with a couple of humback hills along the way - much more challenging.

I ran this route earlier in the week as part of a HMP session but running it at the tempo pace on a mild night like tonight was noticeably tougher. Worked hard on the uphill drags to keep the effort going while steering just out of range of race pace...

Splits went as follows:

6.41
6.37
6.38
6.40
6.38
6.39

Really happy with this session, because although the splits are roughly the same as most of my previous 6 mile tempos, the route was a lot less forgiving and it will hopefully serve me better for the future.

Ran the 1.5 miles easy home to make the total 8.5 miles

A good week this week, 3 good sessions which should set things up well for the next few weeks

Duanington · 09-06-2014 07:37PM

09.06.2014

AM
Working from home today which meant I wasn't up and out before 7 for the first Monday in ages so I took in 4 recovery paced miles along the coast road.

My legs were tired from last night's tempo run, definitely more tired than previous tempo runs so that's either a good thing in that the new route is more testing or a bad thing in that I don't recover quick enough!

PM

Being at home today meant no long commute and no delays getting out the office door so I took full advantage, did some core work and headed out much earlier than normal ( around 6:30) for 7 easy miles.
Headed up to St Annes to do these, keeping to the football pitches where possible. Legs felt much better than earlier on thankfully

7 miles : 8:15

Total for the day : 11

Confessions of a never has been.....

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