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Berlin 2016: Back to Basics

TheRoadRunner

The last time I started a log it ended in disaster but I'll tempt fate and start one again. I kinda enjoy writing down what I've done/plan to do and the feed back I get so I'll give it another bash and we'll see how we go. Short term goals are Frank Duffy 10 mile, national half marathon. Ideally I'd love to run PBs for both but the Frank Duffy 10 miler is a tough cookie and I heard the route around where the half is to be run are undulating.

Once I get through them I'll decide whether or not to run the Dublin marathon. This will depend on how I'm running and also my work/home schedule.

My PBs to date are
5K 15:40 (2007)
4 miles 21.01 (2008)
5 mile 26.45 (2007)
8 mile 45.02 (2005/6 ?)
10 mile 56.10 (2007)
Half Marathon 75.20 (2008)
Marathon 2hrs 47 mins (2009)

This year has been a good one so far. I haven't ran any PBs but in the last 2-3 months I have been in touching distance of most of those listed above. Training this year hasn't been as intense as before. A lot of my running was easy. I ran 2.48 for a marathon in April and apart from a couple of races and tempos all my training running was very slow. What's more my 5k and 4 mile times were really good (21.15 and 16 minutes) which I was amazed at considering I hadn't done any real pace running to talk about. I have an excel sheet with all my running this year. I'll try and post a modified version in the next few days to show what I've done to date. Going forward mileage will vary from 50-65 miles per week. Anymore than this I generally pick up injuries.

I'm going to continue on as before but will try to get some more tempo stuff in the legs. If I feel it isn't agreeing with me I'll drop it and keep plodding instead. I'd rather be a little slower but injury free.

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menoscemo

TRR wrote: »

I'm now expecting 150 male A/R runners to give me some advice and soothing like ososlo got on her recent ditched session. If I don't I'll know you are all a shower of horn dogs!

viva la resistance!

Maybe look into getting a new coach. That or do a park run.

AuldManKing

TRR wrote: »

I'm now expecting 150 male A/R runners to give me some advice

Maybe race more?

Krusty_Clown

Ps TRR. If you and your identical twin decide to go homo, please don't record it or send me a copy.

pconn062

Have you considered a career as a triathlete? Because running clearly isn't for you!

Or maybe do a parkrun?

Gavlor

Your Iron levels could possibly be on the low side during this stage of your menstrual cycle. Do you take any iron supplements?

AMK might be able to recommend a brand to you considering he's turned into such a b!tch lately

RayCun

TRR wrote: »

I'm now expecting 150 male A/R runners to give me some advice

the solution is obvious...

AuldManKing

Gavlor wrote: »

Your Iron levels could possibly be on the low side during this stage of your menstrual cycle. Do you take any iron supplements?

AMK might be able to recommend a brand to you considering he's turned into such a b!tch lately

Bah humbug, chivilary is dead.

TRR

menoscemo wrote: »

Maybe look into getting a new coach. That or do a park run.

Yeah the fellah who is coaching me currently hasn't a clue. I think I'll ditch him AND do a parkrun just to be sure!

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Ps TRR. If you and your identical twin decide to go homo, please don't record it or send me a copy.

I think I speak for everyone interested in man-on-man action when I say that that would be some 4-baller. Would also delight others who've always wanted me to go and fcuk myself. This would be as close as it gets

pconn062 wrote: »

Have you considered a career as a triathlete? Because running clearly isn't for you!

Or maybe do a parkrun?

Parkrun all the way. I blew up on a session I didn't become a cock overnight!

Gavlor wrote: »

Your Iron levels could possibly be on the low side during this stage of your menstrual cycle. Do you take any iron supplements?

AMK might be able to recommend a brand to you considering he's turned into such a b!tch lately

Very good point. I've rang him and I'm meeting him for a few cosmopolitans after he gets his nails done on Friday.

Just back from a treatment with Ecoli. He was complimenting me on how limber I was and how agile my hip flexors and abductors were. At least I think that's what he was saying, I was too busy laughing at his earlier attempts to trash talk threatening to beat me in DCM. He's a gas man!

Gavlor

AuldManKing wrote: »

Bah humbug, chivilary is dead.

Ah crap, Really? Costa Rica will be fooked without him for the World Cup

theboyblunder

You could maybe join a club? Running with clubmates can really bring you on....

TRR

Thursday: 6 horrible miles @ 7.30 pace. Was feeling a little run down and was also stuck for time. Just happy to get out and about to be honest.

Friday: 8 miles @ 6.55 pace. Feeling a lot better than Thursday but still a little rusty. Nice run along the canal.

Saturday: 7 miles total. Parkrun in 17.15. Did this in Grifeen, was theur first year anniversary and some small celebrations were planned so the family came along for the day out. Stuck with a little group for the first lap and pushed on over the last km to crush the field wolf.ie style

Very happy how good this felt. Nothing to write home about but a nice honest effort.

Sunday: 14 miles @ 7.30+pace with Drquirky. Great run around the memorial gardens and the trails of the Phoenix park. Really enjoyable.

Monday: 7 miles @ 7 minute pace. Run along the canal but hit some dodgy long grass sessions. I don't like running in long grass! Lots of effort for the legs and hayfever didn't appreciate it either.

Tuesday: ~10 miles @ 7.20 pace with ecoli. We headed from ecoli's house towards bushy park with the aim of finding ecoli a WoG (wife or girlfriend). Plenty of young and older ladies around but none of them gave ecoli a second look. I'm thinking of changing tact and trying to find him a HoB (husband or boyfriend) next week. He definitely seemed more interested in the lads in hindsight!

Wednesday: 9 mile with 5 @ 6 minute pace. Did this with Drquirky in the park. We were out early but it was still very warm and we both suffered in the heat. Plan was for 6 miles but we just about eeked out the 5.

Rest of this week is a bit of a disaster running wise. Won't get out tomorrow and will be tight other days but hope to squeeze some runs in! Have decided that come the start of July I'm completely off alcohol again. Need to start taking things a little more seriously and get a bit more structure to my training.

ecoli

TRR wrote: »

Tuesday: ~10 miles @ 7.20 pace with ecoli. We headed from ecoli's house towards bushy park with the aim of finding ecoli a WoG (wife or girlfriend). Plenty of young and older ladies around but none of them gave ecoli a second look. I'm thinking of changing tact and trying to find him a HoB (husband or boyfriend) next week. He definitely seemed more interested in the lads in hindsight!

Significant others only slow you down and screw up your hip flexors

TRR

ecoli wrote: »

Significant others only slow you down and screw up your hip flexors

I give up!

dublin runner

How's the hayfever? Reckon it takes much out of your system. I was dying today!

TRR

dublin runner wrote: »

How's the hayfever? Reckon it takes much out of your system. I was dying today!

I've been taking my regular nasal spray and that has been keeping it under wraps. Some sore eyes and a little sniffle but overall ok. I forgot to take the nasal spray for a couple of days last week and I was in bits. Can't function to be honest and just have to go to bed when that happens

dublin runner

TRR wrote: »

I've been taking my regular nasal spray and that has been keeping it under wraps. Some sore eyes and a little sniffle but overall ok. I forgot to take the nasal spray for a couple of days last week and I was in bits. Can't function to be honest and just have to go to bed when that happens

Might try that nasal spray. Hayfever is a pain in the ar$e, want to enjoy the sun but can't! Have to drag myself out of bed every morning. Back in action next week so give me a shout for a run if around.

TRR

TRR wrote: »

Rest of this week is a bit of a disaster running wise. Won't get out tomorrow and will be tight other days but hope to squeeze some runs in! Have decided that come the start of July I'm completely off alcohol again. Need to start taking things a little more seriously and get a bit more structure to my training.

Well that was an understatement!!!! Was in Galway with work and had two late nights Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday nearly killed me. I'm glad to say I've gone past the point of enjoying eating crap and drinking for Ireland. Maybe a few beers this weekend at the beer mile night and then clean living until DCM

Thursday: OFF

Friday: 7 miles with ecoli in Corkagh park. Was in a heap. Had to make a run for a tree when I stopped running.

Saturday: OFF, kids parties etc then the mrs was heading out in the evening. I honestly think it takes her longer to get ready than the amount of time she actually spends out.

Sunday: 8 mile @ 7 minute pace. Felt like a ball of ****. Still feeling stodgy.

Monday: 10 miles @ 7.2x pace with drquirky in the morning. Had planned on doing 16 but was in a jocker and had bad calf and hamstring spasms so played it safe. Actually amazed and chuffed I got 10 miles in.

Finnt

TRR wrote: »

I honestly think it takes her longer to get ready than the amount of time she actually spends out.
.

I think every woman is the same!

RedRunner

TRR wrote: »

Well that was an understatement!!!! Was in Galway with work and had two late nights Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday nearly killed me. I'm glad to say I've gone past the point of enjoying eating crap and drinking for Ireland. Maybe a few beers this weekend at the beer mile night and then clean living until DCM

Thursday: OFF

Friday: 7 miles with ecoli in Corkagh park. Was in a heap. Had to make a run for a tree when I stopped running.

Saturday: OFF, kids parties etc then the mrs was heading out in the evening. I honestly think it takes her longer to get ready than the amount of time she actually spends out.

Sunday: 8 mile @ 7 minute pace. Felt like a ball of ****. Still feeling stodgy.

Monday: 10 miles @ 7.2x pace with drquirky in the morning. Had planned on doing 16 but was in a jocker and had bad calf and hamstring spasms so played it safe. Actually amazed and chuffed I got 10 miles in.

I believe that red lipstick takes ages to put on !

Hope next week goes better for you.

Gavlor

RedRunner wrote: »

I believe that red lipstick takes ages to put on !

Hope next week goes better for you.

Despite the accent, Mrs TRR is above red lipstick

RedRunner

Gavlor wrote: »

Despite the accent, Mrs TRR is above red lipstick

Even classy birds wear it!

http://thoughtcatalog.com/ella-ceron/2014/04/what-girls-really-think-while-wearing-red-lipstick/

Now that's the last ill say on the topic...back to the serious business of running :-)

TRR

Tuesday: 8.5 miles @ 6.49 pace. Was looking like I wouldn't get out for a run but luckily was able to finish work a little early and squeeze it in before heading home. Had stuff on in the evening.

Wednesday: 8 miles @ 7 minute pace. Was after 9pm when I headed out to do this and I was physically and mentally shattered.Plan was for tempo pace but I felt crap on the warm up and decided against pushing it so skipped the tempo. Was initially cursing myself but in reality it was the right call.

Thursday: 13 miles @ 7.12 pace. Another minor blip. Was supposed to do 16 but I was very tired after 4 miles. Slogged out to get the 90 minutes in.

Friday: 5 miles @ 7.25 pace. Nice recovery run early Friday morning. Had a lot on in work and evening was looking dodgy too so happy just to fit this one in.

Saturday: am 10 miles including parkrun run in 16.34. Delighted with this run. Was hoping for 16.50 as that is probably a realistic snapshot of where I thought I was. Lad who eventually finished behind me tore off so I had someone to try and keep in touch with for 3k and then with a mile to go I seen him look over his shoulder a couple of times so knew I could probably catch him. It's only a parkrun but they have the feel of a mini race, I could never push that hard in training so delighted I did it.

pm: 1 mile @ 6.56 pace. Boards beer mile. What a cracking evening. Total contrast weather wise to last year. Weather really added to the enjoyment as we could stand around in the sun slagging off meno for loosing his mexican moustache and drquirky for cheating and using 330ml bottles. To make matters worse they were Canadian beers!!! Then we hopped into a taxi (as buses were not available even though meno promised me explicitly they would be) and headed to O'Briens for some more beer. Great evening amd great to meet a few new people. And apologies to those who I was ranting and raving at, you know who you are

Sunday: 6 miles @ 7.40 pace. Slog of shame. Feeling a little fragile so took this nice and handy. Even drove to my local park so I could do it all on grass. Legs and body feeling grand though all things considered!

My DCM training officially starts tomorrow. Last few weeks haven't gone to plan at all. Time to stop messing around and make sure I start hitting my weekly targets. I'm off the booze 100% now. Next time I have a pint in my hand hopefully I'll be toasting a sizeable marathon PB

AuldManKing

Disappointed the pirate costume stayed away.

TRR

Monday: am 6 miles @ 7.20 pace. PM 4 miles @ 7.40 pace. Pretty uneventful. Just a handy double day. Legs feeling good.

Tuesday: 9 miles with 5 miles in 28.30. Club have a league during the summer and this was the 4th one so I went along instead of doing a 6 mile tempo solo. Was expecting to be out on my own as a few of the lads were missing. Found myself tucked in beside one of the newer guys to the club. He's been only running a year and has made great strides and recently cracked 3 hours for the marathon. I wasn't feeling great as it was a little warm but decided I'd try and drop him going up a couple of hills around 2.5 miles in. We had been averaging 5.45 up until then. Third mile was 5.29 for me and I was the one who had been dropped

Managed to get back behind him at 4 miles and then he experienced pretty bad stomach issues :pac: Won't go into details but it severely knocked him back. I finished well and was happy with the time as it's a tough little rolling course. Great evening for it and was a great turn out. Nearly 50 club singlets pounding the roads of brittas.

Wednesday: 10 miles @ 7.25 pace. Did this with the angriest man on boards.ie (drquirky). Ideally would have done another recovery double today but mrs TRR is off at a concert so no getting out in the evening. I'm away with work tomorrow so not sure how run situation will go so wanted to get the 10 in. Legs a little tired but we ran a good chunk on the trails which helped ease some of the aches.

RayCun

TRR wrote: »

Nearly 50 club singlets pounding the roads of brittas.

sounds like you got the entire club down to Brittas, very impressive

TRR

Thursday: 6 miles @ 6.57 pace. This was a poxy run to be honest. My weekly plan had a double of 6&4 but was at a meeting all day in work so couldn't get out early in the morning. Was in the car for close to 3 hours on way to meeting, ended up sitting down most of the day, then back in the car for another 3 hours on the way home. Another busy evening at home but had a chance of getting out before heading home. Was very stiff from inactivity all day. I usually get up and walk around from my desk every 30-40 minutes. Only had a long sleeve top and it was quite warm so I was sweating like a mad man. I was tempted to take the top off and run "jumping the gun style" but I decided there were enough strange men running around topless in Ireland without me adding to the numbers.

Friday: 16 miles @ 7.03 pace. Got this done early and it was a struggle. Lucking I had company for the last 12 and that helped massively. I always find the first couple of longer runs the toughest. Hopefully this has broken the psychological barrier and they will improve in how they feel and distance in the coming weeks.

TRR

Saturday: 10 miles including 17.39 park run. Down to volunteer in Grifeen parkrun this week so asked could I do scanning at finish as I guessed I'd be one of the first finished. This was great as I ran over to the parkrun ~6 miles, ran the parkrun itself. And after scanning jogged back towards home where the mrs picked me up and we brought the nippers swimming. Didn't wear a watch for the 5k itself and had targeted on running 17.30. Ran by feel and reckon I would have been bang on the money but took it a little too handy for the first 2k. Having said that I'm glad there wasn't anyone faster there as my legs were a little tired.

Sunday: 10 miles @ 7.18 pace. Up first thing this morning and out the door for this one. Was heading to the beach with the family and didn't fancy a run after sand/ice cream and the sea air

Cracking morning. Blue skies, bright sun and nice cool temperatures.

So not a bad week all in all just about 70 miles. I ran the club race instead of my tempo and a parkrun instead of my planned mile reps. Not exactly by the book! If I'm honest I should have done the mile reps but would have found it hard to fit them in after volunteering at the parkrun so that's why I combined them! Anyway I'm not going to beat myself up over it. It was an enjoyable week apart from Thursday's run. This time last year I was injured so I'm just glad to be getting any sort of training in. Will do another club race (3 miles) on Tuesday and may do a couple of other mid week races in July just for the fun of it. First weekend off the booze and I can already feel the positive effects!

TRR

Weekly roundup

Monday: am 7.5 miles @ 7.12 & pm 4.5 miles @ 7.50. Two nice runs. Legs feeling ok. Evening jog was a multifunctional recovery

Tuesday: 10 miles with 3 mile club race in 16.26. Holy fcuk this club race destroyed me. Not allowed to wear a watch and you must predict your time. Closest to the prediction wins. I wanted to give this a really hard effort and had predicted 16.10 but after finding out about the loop, I lowered that to 16.30. Wasn't feeling particularly great so I thought that was a more realistic goal. First 2 miles are quite fast and the lad with the stomach cramps from last week hared off so I went with him. I didn't want him to get any ground on me because he put a gap on ecoli 3 weeks back and beat him

Anyway first 1.5 miles were crazy fast. Lactic started a slow down and an absolute viscious hill at 2 miles nearly brought me to a standstill!!! Got over that and there was another minor gradient but it felt like everest with the lactic party that was in full swing in my legs. Thankfully the other lad was suffering too and I finished a little ahead of him in 16.26. Amazingly only 4 seonds off my prediction. The after effects weren't great to be honest. Was awake at 4am with a really weird feeling. Hard to describe but my blood felt acidic

anyway I think the pacing was so bad it just pushed me severely over my lactic threshold.

Wednesday: 6 miles @ 7.50 pace. Really handy recovery run. Was all I could manage after the club race. Was supposed to do an evening recovery run but I knew it was counterproductive so got a massage from ecoli instead. Definitely helped the legs but I felt quite woozy after it. Had to stop off in the petrol startion on the way home and get a bottle of water. Felt like I'd had a couple of whiskeys. Head was groggy and legs had than drunk feeling

Thursday: 8 miles @ 7.05 pace along the canal and through the grounds of Carton house. Nice run feeling a lot better thankfully but decided to keep the days efforts under an hour.

Friday: 10 miles with 6 miles @ 6.02 pace. Bit of a tempo with company. Was very warm and we both suffered. Effort levels were way higher than the pace suggested so we left it at 6 miles

Saturday: 6 miles @ 7.07 pace. Just a handy afternoon run to shake the legs out. They were very heavy but once I got 2 miles into the run I started feeling a bit better.

Sunday: 18 mile @ 7.05 minute pace. Was determined to get this run in. Was an absolute slog and not very enjoyable. Out the door and running by 7.30am. I hate running this early especially for a long run. Long gone are the days when I couldn't make 10am starts with my old club as they were waaaay too early in my opinion. First 5-6 miles were OK, but was a little concerned that I was only one third into this run. Air temperatures were cool but I found the humidity quite tough. Was sweating buckets and hadn't left any water out. At mile 8 I ran by the sisters grass track so I threw in a couple of laps to add a bit of class to their training field. Easily broke their 800 metre record and probably their 400, 200 and 100 records too. Stomach was at me and contemplated having a dump (again, just to add a bit of class) outside the door of their cabin but decided against it

Up through Tymon park and managed to get some water at the club house before starting the final 6 mile slog home. Purposely avoided running near the Luas as I was worried I'd cave and hitch a lift back to the house. All in all an unpleasant run but as I said last week I always find the longer runs the toughest especially when I'm just getting back into the swing of things.

ANother ~70 mile week so I'm happy enough with that. Nothing stellar but steady! I'm running the race series 10k next Sunday. I'll be giving it a good lash but won't be easing off too much as I'm not exactly in shape to run a quick time anyway. Having said that I'll try and get tempo and long(isn) run in by Thursday and then 2 handy days so I can try and push a little in the race.

menoscemo

You doing the 5.5 mile race on tuesday? It's two loops of last weeks race (but starrting at the finish line) so it should be a good distance for a tempo run...

TRR

menoscemo wrote: »

You doing the 5.5 mile race on tuesday? It's two loops of last weeks race (but starrting at the finish line) so it should be a good distance for a tempo run...

Probably not. I plan on doing a 6 mile tempo Tuesday all right so it fits in but I'd be afraid I'd get carried away and run too fast so might be better getting it done earlier in the day.