Confessions of a never has been.....

Cleanman · 19-06-2014 01:04PM

Just catching up with your log now D. Brilliant running on Tuesday. All those morning miles are paying off now. Good to see team Aldi are going well:D

W.B. Yeats · 19-06-2014 10:16PM

Duanington wrote: »

Thanks W.B. - I was wearing a green top alright , I was in the club colours ( Club Aldi ) . Just checking the times there, you were so close to getting in under the 19 minute mark, a few degrees cooler and you'd have surely got in under. Am I right in thinking you PB'd ? No mean achievement with the warm weather, well done !

Yep, you were moving well- I thought you were from MSB until we crossed the finish line. I can't remember if we spoke? Yep I pb'ed but should have done enough to get under 19, but there's always another day.

What's up next for you?

Duanington · 20-06-2014 08:05AM

W.B. Yeats wrote: »

Yep, you were moving well- I thought you were from MSB until we crossed the finish line. I can't remember if we spoke? Yep I pb'ed but should have done enough to get under 19, but there's always another day.

What's up next for you?

There'll be other days for sure. I spoke to a few people after the race so I may well have been chatting to you ( I always find the few minutes after finishing a bit of a blur though!).
I'm running the Achill half at the start of July and was hoping to get a 10k in between now and then but time is against me so I'll see how that pans out. What about you? When are you getting under the 19 minute mark?:)

outforarun · 20-06-2014 04:41PM

hiya, lovely sub 19 PB there, good report as well. What's next?

(I hear you on the relentless football, I feel duty-bound to try watch every game, but I rarely get to see them live. Sky box is working overtime and I'm fairly shattered in the mornings (and evenings). World Cup is hard work.)

Duanington · 20-06-2014 09:47PM

outforarun wrote: »

hiya, lovely sub 19 PB there, good report as well. What's next?

(I hear you on the relentless football, I feel duty-bound to try watch every game, but I rarely get to see them live. Sky box is working overtime and I'm fairly shattered in the mornings (and evenings). World Cup is hard work.)

Thanks Outforarun - fairly happy with it alright and a nice place to do it too, I'll be back next year hopefully. Achill half is next up on July 5th a certain Lemon has promised to pace me around to another PB

- I'm still clinging to the hope of getting a 10k in the weekend before too so we'll see.

How is the recovery coming along?

( timed the recovery season smack bang in the middle of the wc - nice!)

Duanington · 20-06-2014 09:52PM

20.06.2014

Wednesday - 4 recovery paced miles before work , nice and early - another beautiful morning for it, I even had a few bunnies for company

Thursday - Work and life got in the way so I had to scrap my planned session and take a day off, might actually be a blessing in disguise, 40 minutes core\pressup work was about it for the day.

Friday

AM - out very early this morning for 6 easy miles before work, another cracking morning and there was even a light breeze to keep things cool. I added on 2 miles to my usual pre-work loop which took me into Corkagh Park, plenty of people out running at 7 am, very surprised!

PM - a few light weights then out for 6 more miles , all along the coast - my legs are feeling great after the rest day yesterday so I threw in 10x100m strides towards the end - running them hard through the middle section.
Splits were all in and around the 19\20 second mark

Back to the world cup :cool:

ThebitterLemon · 20-06-2014 10:15PM

Duanington wrote: »

20.06.2014

Wednesday - 4 recovery paced miles before work , nice and early - another beautiful morning for it, I even had a few bunnies for company

Thursday - Work and life got in the way so I had to scrap my planned session and take a day off, might actually be a blessing in disguise, 40 minutes core\pressup work was about it for the day.

Friday

AM - out very early this morning for 6 easy miles before work, another cracking morning and there was even a light breeze to keep things cool. I added on 2 miles to my usual pre-work loop which took me into Corkagh Park, plenty of people out running at 7 am, very surprised!

PM - a few light weights then out for 6 more miles , all along the coast - my legs are feeling great after the rest day yesterday so I threw in 10x100m strides towards the end - running them hard through the middle section.
Splits were all in and around the 19\20 second mark

Back to the world cup :cool:

Did you return them back to the Playboy mansion when you were finished

TbL

Duanington · 20-06-2014 10:56PM

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

Did you return them back to the Playboy mansion when you were finished

TbL

ha ha - they got bored of me very quickly and hopped off to have the craic somewhere else

Duanington · 21-06-2014 09:55PM

21.06.2014

AM - 5 miles easy before breakfast, legs felt a little tight over the first mile or so but mellowed out shortly after. The grass verge at Clontarf was a busy place this morning - lots of people out running early doors. Lovely morning for it too , warm but with a nice breeze to keep it comfortable.

PM - A bout of kite flying in the phoenix park, 20 minutes chasing an escaped Jack Russell in St Anne's Park ( which left me gasping for breath and with burn marks on one arm by the time I caught the little Ba%&*$d - long story) - home for some core work then out for 5 more easy miles on the coast.

Total for the day an exhausting 10 miles

ZZzzzzzzzz

SamforMayo · 21-06-2014 10:38PM

Duanington wrote: »

21.06.2014

AM - 5 miles easy before breakfast, legs felt a little tight over the first mile or so but mellowed out shortly after. The grass verge at Clontarf was a busy place this morning - lots of people out running early doors. Lovely morning for it too , warm but with a nice breeze to keep it comfortable.

PM - A bout of kite flying in the phoenix park, 20 minutes chasing an escaped Jack Russell in St Anne's Park ( which left me gasping for breath and with burn marks on one arm by the time I caught the little Ba%&*$d - long story) - home for some core work then out for 5 more easy miles on the coast.

Total for the day an exhausting 10 miles

ZZzzzzzzzz

Well it is the longest day of the year:D I had a job to catch the 3 boys at 10.15 and put them to bed!

Duanington · 21-06-2014 11:26PM

SamforMayo wrote: »

Well it is the longest day of the year:D I had a job to catch the 3 boys at 10.15 and put them to bed!

They got off their leads as well? Nightmare!

SamforMayo · 21-06-2014 11:33PM

Duanington wrote: »

They got off their leads as well? Nightmare!

When my eldest fella was a toddler I decided it was a good idea to get those toddlers reins for him. The 1 st time and only time he had them on he lay on the floor of Dunnes Stores and roared Mammy let go of the rope!! Never again. Lets just say they are on a long leash these days.

martyboy48 · 21-06-2014 11:45PM

SamforMayo wrote: »

When my eldest fella was a toddler I decided it was a good idea to get those toddlers reins for him. The 1 st time and only time he had them on he lay on the floor of Dunnes Stores and roared Mammy let go of the rope!! Never again. Lets just say they are on a long leash these days.

LOL, sorry, but the vision I have is priceless, I nearly spat out my wine.... Nearly

Duanington · 22-06-2014 09:04PM

22.06.2014

What another cracking day, I spent the afternoon hanging out with the kids and eating ice cream. Good Times

Had a little more time than I expected to myself this evening so did a bit of work on the chin up bar before heading out for my tempo run.

The plan was for 9 miles with [EMAIL="2x2@10k"]2x2 miles @10k[/EMAIL] pace ( 5 minute easy in between sets). The heat had died down a far bit by the time I headed out thankfully, A nice sea breeze had also picked up a little on the coast making it a really enjoyable evening for running, did my 2 mile warm up on the (packed) grass verge in Clontarf then turned around and headed off towards Sutton to start the tempo stuff.

The aim tonight was to run each tempo mile in and around the 6:20 mark ( I actually feel a little odd even writing that, I'm fairly sure the very thoughts of this type of session 7\8 months ago would have made me feel ill) and work on staying focused throughout ( I tend to drift during shorter\faster temp runs).
Splits went as follows:

6.22
6.21
5 minutes easy then
6.14
6.17

I messed up the first mile on the 2nd set by going out too quick - sounds stupid but I wanted to replicate the feel\effort from the first set so ignored the watch until I was a fair bit into the last mile. At this stage I began to suspect I had gone out too fast because the effort was tough, I was having to work hard to stop myself from easing up.

Still a good session though, slightly less miles than planned this week because I couldn't get out on Thursday but its still 50+ and some very good runs in there too.

Ran the few easy miles home to bring the total to 9 for the day

W.B. Yeats · 23-06-2014 08:34AM

Jaysus- what's your tempo pace? I must be slacking off big time.....

Duanington · 23-06-2014 08:42AM

W.B. Yeats wrote: »

Jaysus- what's your tempo pace? I must be slacking off big time.....

Don't let the timings fool you W.B. - I run most of my 1 mile ( or 2 mile) repeats at either 5 or 10k race pace. 10k pace in this instance. My "normal" tempo pace is more in and around 6:40 and for any continuous tempo work over 3 miles, I tend to stick to that pace. ( sometimes a little slower if the effort feels too much)

outforarun · 23-06-2014 02:56PM

Duanington wrote: »

How is the recovery coming along? ( timed the recovery season smack bang in the middle of the wc - nice!)

Recovery coming along fine so far. I followed P&D's recovery for 2 and a half weeks and now I'm trusting my own judgement. Officially this is my 4th and final week of recovery, ends with a bang at the weekend when I have a sub 32:00 shot in the Irish Runner. Then I aim to follow McMillan's 10K plan with the Blessington Lakes 10K as goal race. I'm thinking targeting sub 38:30, sure we'll see how it goes. Fingal 10K is all about logging an official sub 40, and come 8K, if I feel it's on, a sub 39 might just be on the cards.

Every second year CCM is followed, usually on the following Friday, by a WC or an EC. I take a long long weekend for the marathon and usual another day or two off around the start of the tournament. Great way to start June.

Duanington · 23-06-2014 04:09PM

outforarun wrote: »

Recovery coming along fine so far. I followed P&D's recovery for 2 and a half weeks and now I'm trusting my own judgement. Officially this is my 4th and final week of recovery, ends with a bang at the weekend when I have a sub 32:00 shot in the Irish Runner. Then I aim to follow McMillan's 10K plan with the Blessington Lakes 10K as goal race. I'm thinking targeting sub 38:30, sure we'll see how it goes. Fingal 10K is all about logging an official sub 40, and come 8K, if I feel it's on, a sub 39 might just be on the cards.

Every second year CCM is followed, usually on the following Friday, by a WC or an EC. I take a long long weekend for the marathon and usual another day or two off around the start of the tournament. Great way to start June.

Nice one - if you hit that same consistent stretch during the next training block, I've no doubt you'll hit those targets

Duanington · 24-06-2014 09:57PM

24.06.2014

LSR night tonight and I had lined up a real tester for myself tonight.
The plan was to run 15 miles with [EMAIL="5@hmp"]5@hmp[/EMAIL] ( around 7 min\miles) and take in the hills in Howth.

I was late getting home from work so didn't hang around when I did get home, got the gear on and headed straight out the door.

Took it nice and easy up the coast road heading for Howth, keeping things in and around the 8:15 mark. The route up to Howth was busy with walkers, cyclists and fellow runners - lots of people taking advantage of the fine weather. Although it was warm, I think the system has gotten somewhat used to the heat, the run up to Howth was quite pleasant.

Once I got to the start of the hills, I upped the effort levels a bit, keeping the pace just about the same ( with considerably more effort), although I did start sweating quite a bit and had to pump the arms\lungs a fair bit harder - the 3 miles to the top moved by quite quickly, before I knew it I was hurtling down the far side towards Howth village and decided to open things up a bit on the way down and move into HMP mode.

The first 2 miles at HMP flew by, no real problems, I wasn't keeping an eye on the watch so I just ran at what felt like a pace just shy of tempo pace.
I heard the watch beep for the start of mile 3 and shortl afterwards things began to get sore - beep for mile four and the pain level increased again...it took a good mini lecture to keep myself going ( " do you actually want to improve?" , "would you pack it in during a race?" that kind of thing!) and eventually the watch beeped for the end of mile 5 of the HMP section.......fooked, truly fooked.

I checked the watch to see what the splits were and was surprised to see they were a little quicker than I had planned:

7:00
6:54
6:49
6:50
6:49

Got myself together after a minute or so and ran the 2.5 miles home nice and easy.

A very tough session which left me shattered at the end, have to say I'm happy in one sense and intimidated in another sense - maintaining that kind of pace for 13 odd miles is where I want to get to eventually but I feel I've a way to go to get there

Total miles : 15.5 @7:48 min\miles

FBOT01 · 25-06-2014 01:19PM

Duanington wrote: »

24.06.2014

LSR night tonight and I had lined up a real tester for myself tonight.
The plan was to run 15 miles with [EMAIL="5@hmp"]5@hmp[/EMAIL] ( around 7 min\miles) and take in the hills in Howth....................

Nice run D particularly taking Howth Head in along the way. Haven't been up there since Connemara. I think it may be time for a return. One small point though you might want to drop the "S" from LSR for these ones as I think I read somewhere that LSR stands for Long Slow Run

ThebitterLemon · 25-06-2014 01:28PM

FBOT01 wrote: »

Nice run D particularly taking Howth Head in along the way. Haven't been up there since Connemara. I think it may be time for a return. One small point though you might want to drop the "S" from LSR for these ones as I think I read somewhere that LSR stands for Long Slow Run

With the crappy music Double D listens to it's more likely to be a LSD run

TbL

Duanington · 25-06-2014 01:35PM

FBOT01 wrote: »

Nice run D particularly taking Howth Head in along the way. Haven't been up there since Connemara. I think it may be time for a return. One small point though you might want to drop the "S" from LSR for these ones as I think I read somewhere that LSR stands for Long Slow Run

ha - thanks FBOT01, its a cracking place to run alright. Trust me, I was moving verrrry slow by the end of this one but I take the point ha ha!

Duanington · 25-06-2014 01:36PM

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

With the crappy music Double D listens to it's more likely to be a LSD run

TbL

Now THERE'S an idea !

Duanington · 26-06-2014 09:01PM

26.06.2014

Wednesday

Very tired waking up after the HMP session on Tuesday night, dragged myself out of the bed early doors and headed over to work to get 4 recovery miles in before 8 am...kept the pace down and felt much better afterwards. No run Wednesday night, went to Mammy D's for a good feed :-)

Thursday

AM

4 miles easy before work, sluggish enough to start with but I could feel myself getting into it after a mile or so. Very enjoyable run , pace was around 8.15

PM

a small bit of core work while I charged the Garmin then headed out for tonight's session;

9 miles with 14x20 second hill sprints ( walk back recovery)

I made sure that I warmed up well before starting this one so I took in 5 easy miles along the coast before making my way to the hill of death.

The plan was to run the 20 seconds at a sprint then walk the recovery back down, turn around and go again...14 times.

I've done this one before a few times now and although its tough and it hurts, I don't find it intimidating because the reps are so short.

This time however, I knew I would still have Tuesday night's session in my legs, while they weren't sore, my thighs definitely felt stiffer than usual yesterday\today.
The rain started to come down heavy enough just as I started and after 4 or 5 reps it was providing welcome relief on the walk back down the hill...I did start to slightly doubt that I would complete the 14 reps at this stage because although I was able to keep running flat out right up the hill for the full 20 seconds...it was hurting.

Anyway, I got on with it - the rest of the reps did hurt and I was blowing very hard by the end of the 14th but doing so with the satisfaction that I had genuinely put in a good shift tonight that will hopefully add something to the system over the coming months.

The paces for each rep were all in and around the 4:40 mark which is pleasing because the pace stayed pretty consistent all the way through.

Ran some easy miles home to bring the total to 9

Total for the day: 13

Duanington · 01-07-2014 09:29AM

01.07.2014

Friday

AM
5 recovery miles before work, around Citywest and into Corkaigh Park again, lovely morning for it but my legs were feeling the efforts from two tough sessions on Tuesday and Thursday.

PM
5 easy miles on the coast, legs were still feeling a little stiff so kept the pace right down again and scrapped the notions of running some strides. Fijnished off the evening with some core work

Saturday
AM
3 miles before breakfast - I didn't actually have this in the plan but I was awake early and the morning looked nice so I took off before anyone else woke up.

PM
6 miles with [EMAIL="4@HMP"]4@HMP[/EMAIL] - Really enjoyed this one - I had actually intended to just run strides during the 6 miles but my legs felt good for the first time since Thuirsday so I ploughed on into some hmp miles. The pace stayed in and around the 7 min\mile mark quite steadily throughout which was pleasing because the effort felt quite manageable

Sunday

8 miles easy , lovely day for it again and I've noticed that my easy pace is starting to dip a little closer to 8 min\miles these days ( from 8:25 or so).

The end of a high mileage week with some good workouts, Achill Half this Saturday and then I'm taking a week off running altogether so I'll be going easy this week to make sure I'm running on fresh legs on Saturday

Duanington · 03-07-2014 09:54PM

03.07.2014

This is a very strange week...bundles of energy and not much running happening. I feel a bit like a coiled spring at the moment.

Monday - off

Tuesday - 4 miles easy, cracking day for it. Got out at lunch time up and down the coast and sweated bucketloads...kept everything nice and easy

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - 6 miles easy with 8x100 metre strides. Again up and down the coast and again sweated bucketloads. I kept having that sensation that there was a pebble in my shoe so stopped a few times to empty out the shoe, dust down the sock etc...still had the sensation over the last mile and I can only assume that I'm getting a verruca or something ( I know, I know gross) which is perfect timing for Achil on Saturday.

Going to freeze the jaysis out of my foot tonight with some stuff I found in the back of the press and see how that works out ...

It won't stop me running but I found it very distracting over 6 miles, 13.1 miles will be a nightmare!

FBOT01 · 03-07-2014 10:03PM

Good luck at the weekend. Enjoy!

SamforMayo · 04-07-2014 08:59AM

Good luck, hope Mayo treats you well!

ecoli · 04-07-2014 09:30AM

Best of luck with it this weekend.

Could be one of the rare people who actually see's Achill in nice weather, make it count

Tom Joad · 04-07-2014 09:31AM

Best of luck in Achill - hope it all goes to plan.

Confessions of a never has been.....

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