A Slow Journey to Faster Times

Tuesday 24th June - HADD 2400m Test

I've used the results from the previous test to compare against, rather than the most recent one as I feel those were more reliable. There was a dead, heavy heat out there today despite the lack of sun, but I'm happy enough with the outcome. There is either minute improvement or slight disimprovement at all heart rates. I'm not at all disappointed as this tells me is that it's definitely time to move up a notch in my Steady sessions, which I suspected already.


Results are below:

2400m @ 120 bpm (Actual 121 bpm) - 9:10 min/mile average (previous: 8:57 @120)
2400m @ 130 bpm (Actual 130 bpm) - 8:20 min/mile average (previous: 8:27 @129)
2400m @ 140 bpm (Actual 139 bpm) - 7:47 min/mile average (previous: 7:37 @ 138)
2400m @ 150 bpm (Actual 149 bpm) - 6:50 min/mile average (previous: 6:48 @ 149)
2400m @ 160 bpm (Actual 160 bpm) - 6:16 min/mile average (previous: 6:08 @158)

Wednesday 25th June - 60 minutes Easy
7.07m @ 8:29/m average (124bpm avg)

Dragged myself out of bed to get this in before work. Getting up wasn't easy after a night on the beer watching the football, but once I was out there the run felt pretty effortless.


Splits:

Mile 1 - 9:05 (120bpm)
Mile 2 - 8:20 (122bpm)
Mile 3 - 8:28 (125bpm)
Mile 4 - 8:24 (126bpm)
Mile 5 - 8:27 (125bpm)
Mile 6 - 8:22 (124bpm)
Mile 7 - 8:19 (127bpm)
0.07 - 0:36 (122bpm)

I think Mile 2 perfectly illustrates jebuz's point (above). Yesterday at 121bpm, I was running at 9:10min/mile pace. This morning after a night on the beer, I was hitting 8:20min/mile at 122bpm. It took me 130bpm to hit that pace in the test! It was a bit cooler today but I think the point is still valid.

Ferris B wrote: »

Are you running the 5m in the park?

No, I'm heading out on Friday night so will either get a few recovery miles in or a long run if I feel ok. Definitely won't be running that race.
Strong possibility I'll do the beer mile though

Ferris B wrote: »

I reckon you could do some damage there with all the beer running sessions you've been doing. You'll certainly be a good bet.

I seriously doubt that!!
I can't run/drink anywhere near as fast as the favourites. I'll be happy to get around without incurring a penalty lap on my (beer) mile debut.

statss wrote: »

what's the story man, will you be sticking to HADD through to your next marathon cycle, are you doing Dublin?

Think I'm going to go with ger664's advice. Continue with the HADD stuff until 6 weeks out and jump into the P&D 55-70 plan at the race preparation stage. I'm running in Berlin (13.5 weeks) & Dublin (17.5 weeks). Hoping to get a 150bpm Steady Session in before the end of this week.

FBOT01 wrote: »

Holy Sh*te, Batman.....I think I will have to stop following your log. I am not sure I can take reading about how you are knocking these sessions out day after day:p

Great work, P. Keep it up.

..........IMHO, I think you have also done some great training on the beer front for the weekend ahead so a sneaky Northside win in the Beer Mile would not be beyond you;) Our hopes and dreams are with you. No pressure:D

Thanks for the support, but I'm really a Southsider living on the Northside
I've drank and run before, but never at the same time. Would be very surprised if I was competitive but it's all about the taking part, right?

Saturday 28th June - 165 minutes Easy
19.06m @ 8:40/m average (131bpm avg)

Dragged myself out of bed after a late night to get this one in this morning. I've another late night ahead tonight, as well as a round of golf tomorrow afternoon, so I might have struggled to fit it around those if I put it off today. I kept the heart rate around 130 for most of the run, but it rose in miles 13 & 14 as I was working hard straight into the breeze along the beach. I felt the HRM slip in Mile 15, and although the heart rate was in the mid 130's there was no way it was hitting some if the numbers that were showing on the screen After that, I paid little attention the the HR and just made sure not to let the miles go above nine minutes. I'm happy with the workout. I'll have run over 100 miles in the past nine days once I complete in the beer mile later this evening .


Splits:

Mile 1 - 8:28 (119bpm)
Mile 2 - 8:27 (127bpm)
Mile 3 - 8:25 (126bpm)
Mile 4 - 8:33 (128bpm)
Mile 5 - 8:25 (128bpm)
Mile 6 - 8:43 (127bpm)
Mile 7 - 8:37 (129bpm)
Mile 8 - 8:48 (129bpm)
Mile 9 - 8:35 (128bpm)
Mile 10 - 8:27 (130bpm)
Mile 11 - 8:46 (129bpm)
Mile 12 - 8:51 (131bpm)
Mile 13 - 8:53 (132bpm)
Mile 14 - 8:55 (139bpm)
Mile 15 - 8:43 (136bpm)
Mile 16 - 8:48 (137bpm)
Mile 17 - 8:37 (140bpm)
Mile 18 - 8:46 (142bpm)
Mile 19 - 8:44 (144bpm)
0.06 - 0:32 (142bpm)

Saturday 28th June (P.M.) - Irish Beer Mile Championship

11:30 (11th place)

My first time to take part in a national championship event :pac:


Prelude

I knew when I decided to run this race that I was going to be up against it. I had zero experience myself in this type of contest, and was in amongst a field of experienced beer milers who were way faster than me anyway. The result was inevitable and I was completely found out for what I was (a very, very average beer miler).


Pre-Race

I only bought my beers on the day of the race as I never got a chance to get to an off licence midweek. This led to me acquiring a stronger beer than required and one not ideally suited to beer miling. I ran my 19 mile LSR on Saturday morning which wasn't ideal preparation either. Going into the race I decided I'd be happy to complete without puking. Time was irrelevant. I wasn't going to push myself too hard either, as it was on this exact weekend last year that I tore a calf muscle when training for Chicago in similar circumstances (running too fast after a week of high mileage). That wasn't going to happen again! I would use tonight as a learning experience and hope to improve significantly on my result next year. I brought the Garmin and turned off the Auto-Lap with the intention of measuring the splits for each beer/lap. The problem was when the gun went off I completely forgot to start it and only remembered towards the end of the first lap when it was far too late.


The Race

Emer911 gave us the shout and we were off. Opened the first beer and downed it reasonably quickly. It was a tasty beer alright, but one that you should be enjoying for hours in a beer garden rather than chugging four of them in ten minutes. I set off with the rest of the field and the first lap wasn't too bad with the field relatively close together. Not too gassy and feeling ok. End of lap one and time for the second beer. This is where the old beer miling pros showed their experience. I took a fair while to get the second one down. The gassy/bloaty feeling in your stomach when you're chugging just can't be described (or seen on camera). Really slows you down. I guess this is where all the training pays off, as the guys who'd been practicing had all set off again well ahead of me. I was given a split of 2:12 when I finally got going for lap two, which I didn't think was too bad considering it was my debut. It was to get much tougher after this. I have no idea how long I was taking to run the laps, but I was afraid to speed up for fear of making myself sick. The whole duration of the loop was spent trying to dispose of the gas in my stomach from both ends. It's quite a skill to master, especially when you're trying to go as fast as you can :pac:. Halfway through now and this is where the beer started to taste really bad. I felt like I took forever to swallow the third can. TRR, dublin runner and Krusty all came and went onto their last lap while I was struggling with this one. I was given a split of 6:xx when I eventually took off and could see TRR was motoring to a second successive victory, having put in a huge spurt down the back straight. DogSlySmile & KU lapped me here as well and I got to watch their duel for 4th from behind, although I couldn't see who got the verdict from my viewpoint. I followed them down the straight at a far slower pace and prepared to drink the most disgusting can of my life. You can hear Emer laughing on the video as she says I look like I'm enjoying it, while having to witness my contorting facial expressions. Got the last bit of froth down my throat and headed out on my final lap. I knew I would achieve my goal now once I didn't push too hard. Menoscemo was too far ahead to catch for 10th and Chickenballs too far behind to catch me, so I ran along at a safe enough pace to make sure the beer stayed in my stomach. When I finally crossed the line I thought I'd run 10:30 (which I was delighted with), until Meno cruelly informed me that there was no way I ran that time as he had been over 11 minutes. Obviously he was right (as he always is) and 11:30 was my officially ratified IAAF time . I'm happy enough with that for my debut (it just looked terrible in such a high class field) and hope to learn a few lessons from it so I can improve next year.


Verdict

I ran this because it looked like so much fun from last year's video. We got much kinder weather tonight and the whole night was very enjoyable, although the beers afterwards tasted far nicer than the one's during the race. Some of the times there are seriously impressive. It's only when you attempt this event yourself that you truly appreciate how good the guys at the top end of the field actually are. I'll definitely be back next year, but won't make the mistake of failing to prepare properly again. I think my long range target will be to at least break ten minutes.


Sunday 29th June - Rest

Had a lie-in and played golf in the afternoon. Nice way to get over the previous day's exertions, especially in the gorgeous weather we're having at the moment.


Monday 30th June - 45 minutes Recovery
5.16m @ 8:43/m average (118bpm avg)

A pretty effortless run to loosen out the legs ahead of my Steady session tomorrow. The legs felt incredibly fresh and I barely broke sweat. Amazing what a day off and a couple of lie-ins can do for you!
I don't have the splits as I turned off the Auto-Lap the other night and forgot to switch it back on before I went out tonight.

Tuesday 1st July - 75 minutes Steady (followed by 10 x 100m Strides)
10.5m @ 7:08p/m average (150bpm avg)
Strides: (20:62, 18:48, 19:44, 19:14, 19:04, 23:92, 17:90, 20:13, 21:37, 20:38)

Ok, firstly I think this is the last time I'll bother recording the time of the strides (as I've already been advised). For different reasons I was forced to pull up early (motor/human traffic) on a number of them and I suppose it doesn't really matter if they're 60/90/100/120m long.
I originally intended to do this run very early this morning or late this evening to avoid the sun/heat, but because I was enjoying my sleep and really don't want to miss any of the football/tennis later I opted to go out and get it over with around 10am. This type of training is designed to get you accustomed to running at certain heart rates, so I suppose it doesn't really matter anyway as the splits are less important than the effort. They ended up being slower than I would have liked but you can see the effect the sun had as I ran my first mile at 6:30 (142bpm) in the shade, yet was as slow as 7:29 (151bpm) towards the end. It's another session at the required HR in the bank and one positive I'm taking from it is how slow the seven minute miles seemed. Considering my MP is not likely to be a whole lot faster than that, it was quite a nice feeling.


Splits:

Mile 1 - 6:30 (142bpm)
Mile 2 - 6:44 (152bpm)
Mile 3 - 7:03 (152bpm)
Mile 4 - 7:03 (151bpm)
Mile 5 - 7:02 (151bpm)
Mile 6 - 7:17 (151bpm)
Mile 7 - 7:17 (150bpm)
Mile 8 - 7:23 (153bpm)
Mile 9 - 7:28 (149bpm)
Mile 10 - 7:20 (151bpm)
0.5 - 3:49 (152bpm)