Be still my beating heart

RedRunner · 05-08-2014 09:36PM

Well done in the park run. Good to read lots of positivity here;) Many more improvements to come! That's cool to be able to run with the Ma!

My own Mother told me the other day she had signed up for DCM!:eek:
I haven't even signed up yet!

Ososlo · 05-08-2014 09:43PM

RedRunner wrote: »

Well done in the park run. Good to read lots of positivity here;) Many more improvements to come! That's cool to be able to run with the Ma!

My own Mother told me the other day she had signed up for DCM!:eek:
I haven't even signed up yet!

Well mine lives in a different county so it's up to her now to continue it on her own. I've given her a weekly plan and I'll be checking up on her progress regularly!
Does your mother run currently?

RedRunner · 05-08-2014 10:23PM

Ososlo wrote: »

Well mine lives in a different county so it's up to her now to continue it on her own. I've given her a weekly plan and I'll be checking up on her progress regularly!
Does your mother run currently?

Ah no, I forgot to mention in my post that she will be walking it. It's a big challenge for her to take on all the same and I hope she prepares well. She walks regularly and has done 30k in one day before when she did part of the Camino de Santiago so hopefully she will be ok.

rom · 05-08-2014 10:46PM

Ososlo wrote: »

Pity I'm such a unsociable runner but maybe that'll change soon...There ia a truly special group of people on this forum and it would be nice to go for a jog with one or two sometime in the future or get some help with a session.

A running club is simply boards in real life ;D

Ososlo · 05-08-2014 10:50PM

rom wrote: »

A running club is simply boards in real life ;D

hey let's just leave it for now.........

Lovely weather we're having:)

Ososlo · 05-08-2014 10:55PM

RedRunner wrote: »

Ah no, I forgot to mention in my post that she will be walking it. It's a big challenge for her to take on all the same and I hope she prepares well. She walks regularly and has done 30k in one day before when she did part of the Camino de Santiago so hopefully she will be ok.

Cool. Good luck to her.
I'm signing mine up for 2015!

Ososlo · 06-08-2014 05:52PM

Wednesday 6 August
9.86 miles
6 x (3mins @5k, 1 min jog, 1 min @3k) 3 min jog recoveries
aka lactate shuffle session

Excited about this for the last 24 hours. Didn't really know what it would be like in reality by just looking at it on paper. Ran this session purely by feel ignoring the watch but did hit lap to review paces afterwards. This session was to be all about effort and working hard. Paces vary a lot as I did out and back reps as I wanted to run on the shady bit on the Chapelizod road as it was very sunny at mid-day so every first rep is into wind and a slight incline and every second one with the wind on my back.
Going to wear the heavier traning shoes for all my sessions too and just save the racing shoes for races to give me a bit of a psychological boost on the day.

2.5 miles w/u @ 10:30, 10:09, 10:15 (felt good on the warm up. Lots of very friendly runners about the Phoenix Park at mid-day today. I think nearly every sinlge one said hello or gave a slight nod today. Great to see people in such good form. Funny but the runners always seem to appear the happiest people I come across on a run.

3 mins @5k 8:05 (into wind, slight incline)
1 min @3k 7:58

3 mins @5k 7:52 (wind at back, slight decline)
1 min@3k 7:21

3 mins @5k 8:01
1 min @3k 7:44

3 mins @5k 7:42
1 min @3k 7:22

3 mins @5k 8:06
1 min @3k 7:54

3 mins @5k 7:52
1min @3k 7:40

c/d 10:32, 10:43, 9:47

I stayed very relaxed for the reps and kept with my 'light feet' running form mantra and felt really good until the 5th rep where I struggled a tiny bit towards the end but managed to focus on the job at hand and concentrated on form and breathing. I did walk for about 15 seconds of the recovery after the 5th rep but was able to pick it up for the 3k rep without too much hassle. Found the 3 min recoveries between sets ample to have a little sip of drink and was able to jog all the rest of the recoveries and was well rested and prepared to tackle the next rep and feeling good.
I must say I did really enjoy that a lot and maybe a little more than I should have so perhaps should have worked harder for the reps but I wanted to ensure I'd have enough gas left in the tank to finish the latter reps in the session strongly. I did find myself running a bit too hard at times and as the last race was fresh in my memory, I imagined myself in mile 2 of the race and held back the effort accordingly so it stayed at 5k effort and not faster.
Could easily have done another few reps...
So that was 24 mins of 5k and 3k effort running altogether. Happy out with that!

I found I was a bit shagged on the cooldown jog back to the car. Unfortunately it involved a lot of uphill running and hate to admit this but did have to walk for a a few seconds here and there in the second last mile up through the hilly bits in the park to get back to the car. I hate having to walk at all on any kind of run but so be it, the workout had finally caught up with me I think. I felt super duper on the last mile so finished well.
Some more fun workouts to look forward to in the next week. Can't wait:D

Daily total: 9:86 miles
(I'd normally do a double today but gonna trust the boss on this one and hold back. I'm also going to heed to the letter about my recoveries from now on and will take 2/3 easy days between sessions to give myself the best opportunity of recovering well and letting my body gain the most benefit from the sessions. I'm allowed do the odd double but only on certain days but will only do them if feeling 100%)

tang1 · 06-08-2014 06:05PM

Great session, nice going.

yaboya1 · 06-08-2014 06:18PM

I was in the park a couple of hours before you and it was starting to get pretty warm. Can only imagine what it was like at midday. Nice work.

Laois_Man · 06-08-2014 06:36PM

Ososlo wrote: »

hey let's just leave it for now.........

Lovely weather we're having:)

I'm the exact same. I'm a reclusive weirdo about my running. I know it would bring me on massively if I joined a club but I just don't want to do it.

Although I do want to get my son into a club when he's a bit older so I'll probably have to bite the bullet myself.

barryoneill50 · 06-08-2014 07:13PM

I love the look of that session!
What's this light feet lark about O ?

Ososlo · 06-08-2014 07:19PM

barryoneill50 wrote: »

I love the look of that session!
What's this light feet lark about O ?

I have a tendency to plod so I'm trying to change that regardless of what pace I'm doing or what elevation I'm running. I'm trying to be quicker/lighter on my feet so think 'running on hot coals'! I think the less contact you have with the ground the better it is for running form and running economy.

I'm sure you'll get to try that session at some point;)

saucyjack · 06-08-2014 08:04PM

Ososlo wrote: »

I think the less contact you have with the ground the better it is for running form and running economy.

Don't know if it's of interest Ososlo but the newer Garmins gather a ton of data on 'vertical oscillation' (up and downy-ness), cadence and ground contact time. Can't say I pay much attention (got a FR 620 as a gift and most of the data is wasted on me) but I remember much earlier in your log / the DCM 13 thread you were basing a lot of training on HR zone data etc so might be worth a goo. Great log BTW!

Ososlo · 06-08-2014 08:07PM

saucyjack wrote: »

Don't know if it's of interest Ososlo but the newer Garmins gather a ton of data on 'vertical oscillation' (up and downy-ness), cadence and ground contact time. Can't say I pay much attention (got a FR 620 as a gift and most of the data is wasted on me) but I remember much earlier in your log / the DCM 13 thread you were basing a lot of training on HR zone data etc so might be worth a goo. Great log BTW!

I've got me trusty 305 antique watch and I'll be sticking with it until one of us collapses:D
But many thanks for that! I'll bear that in mind for the next one I buy!
Cheers!

pconn062 · 06-08-2014 08:53PM

Ososlo wrote: »

I have a tendency to plod so I'm trying to change that regardless of what pace I'm doing or what elevation I'm running. I'm trying to be quicker/lighter on my feet so think 'running on hot coals'! I think the less contact you have with the ground the better it is for running form and running economy.

I'm sure you'll get to try that session at some point;)

Have you shifted from a heel strike gait to a forefront/landing on the ball of your foot gait?

Ososlo · 06-08-2014 09:02PM

pconn062 wrote: »

Have you shifted from a heel strike gait to a forefront/landing on the ball of your foot gait?

Nope. I don't think I was ever a heel-striker... was told by the guy in AK that I had a pretty good foot landing.
I'm just concentrating more on quicker, lighter footsteps.

pconn062 · 06-08-2014 09:05PM

Ososlo wrote: »

Nope. I don't think I was ever a heel-striker... was told by the guy in AK that I had a pretty good foot landing.
I'm just concentrating more on quicker, lighter footsteps.

Ah, I understand. That's the first step towards becoming a track runner.

SamforMayo · 06-08-2014 09:27PM

pconn062 wrote: »

Ah, I understand. That's the first step towards becoming a track runner.

Or a boxer. Fly like a butterfly....

barryoneill50 · 07-08-2014 06:33AM

SamforMayo wrote: »

Or a boxer. Fly like a butterfly....

Or a ballet dancer...

Ososlo · 07-08-2014 07:46AM

barryoneill50 wrote: »

Or a ballet dancer...

Ha ha one of my sisters is a ballet dancer. Me...well more a chance of being a boxer than a track runner or a ballet dancer. I'm not a bad little fighter

Laois_Man · 07-08-2014 11:26AM

Ososlo wrote: »

I'm not a bad little fighter

Sounds like it's been put to the test.
I sense a very interresting story there!!!

You'll have to come down to the Parkrun in Kilkenny when it gets going in October and I'll give ya a race

Ososlo · 07-08-2014 11:50AM

Laois_Man wrote: »

Sounds like it's been put to the test.
I sense a very interresting story there!!!

You'll have to come down to the Parkrun in Kilkenny when it gets going in October and I'll give ya a race

Sounds like a plan! Hopefully you'll be thinking about marathon tapering though at that stage! Fingers crossed!

Ososlo · 08-08-2014 07:07PM

Thursday 7 August
35 mins recovery
Legs felt super after Wednesday's session. Sleep pretty patchy however so while the body and legs felt good and rested today, the mind felt shattered. Skipped off work a bit early to get home in time to avoid the unleashing of the club runners into my local park but got waylaid on the way so I came face to face with the usual crew in the usual spot. Now there is a DEFINITE improvement and most of them were in lovely orderly groups. There was still one group of nattering women sprawled a bit further out on the path, but in the main they were in neat pairings of 2s and keeping very definitely to one side of the paths:) Result!
Hot, wet and sticky one this... I normally run with headphones in but didn't today. Funny how you feel a lot more exposed without them when you're used to them..

Friday 8 August
40 mins easy
Nightmares back again:( It was absolutely terrifying and took me ages to get back to sleep. I was completely terrorised. Even though I did get a good 7 hours last night the quality of the sleep was dreadful so I felt rotten all day. Really poor form and wrecked tired. The run this evening perked me up a little:D

Took the hr monitor for this just to see what's what. I know you can't tell much from readings for one run but it confirmed to me that easy pace is early 10s these days which is an improvement. I've been recording some really low resting heart rates lately too. Normally it's 50ish but it's around 46 the last week or so so I'm relaxed but very very tired:)
Easy tomorrow and fun on Sunday!

Ososlo · 10-08-2014 04:30PM

Saturday 9 August
Didn't sleep more than a few hours Friday night and had to go wedding dress shopping with my mother which is a harder undertaking than 4 x 1 mile reps as I hate shopping so much but no greater love... so decided to give myself a day off completely and not just force a run for the sake of it. Looking at my weekly mileage total just now I'm glad I did as I've done a bit too much this week. Dress purchased within an hour so not too painful and managed to avoid the cocktails the others were having in celebration, and had myself a veggie juice instead with spinach, courgette, broccoli, lemon juice, apple, kale, celery, parsley, ginger, beetroot and carrot. Absolutely delicious! Wish I could make them like that. Mine always taste vile:(

Sunday 10 August
5 x 90 secs hard (off 60 sec rec), 3 min jog, 6x30secs hard

This was f'king hard! I dunno why, but I thought this would be quite easy but far from it!!! A lot of htfu was required today. I did over 4 miles warmup which was maybe a tad long but logistically it just worked out that way today. I wasn't quite sure what kind of effort I should be putting into these but I vaguely rememberd being told to do them 'hard' so that's what I did. Somewhere between the effort I used to do for the 400s and 800s. Some of the very slow reps were into a stiff breeze and slightly uphill but believe me the effort was the same even though it doesn't look it below. Ignored the watch and just hit lap after each interval to review paces later. They're all over the shop but I worked very hard. I felt totally wasted after the 5th 90 second rep and needed 2 whole minutes out of the 3 to just get my breath back. I wasn't recovered fully (3 min rec) going into the 30 seconds hard section but just did them as hard as I possibly could and really thought they'd all be under 7 pace as I was working so damn hard but they're much slower than that... I was fu'ked after this session and felt sick and just weird... I tried to jog on the first cooldown mile but had to stop a few times to walk. Second cool down mile was a lot better and made it up military hill without stopping and when I got to the flat I was totally fine again. I'll never underestimate again what a session is going to be like just by looking at it on paper.
I'll take 2 days now very very easy until the next session.
I think it's really good for me to be running some sessions at harder than 5k effort so that 5k effort feels a bit more reasonable in the future!!! This was a great workout and I'm very pleased with how I worked today. The 60 second recoveries felt like 20 seconds as they passed by so quickly but I didn't slack off at all and got straight back to work immediately the recoveries were over without taking an second extra even though I dearly wanted to!
One thing I noticed today was that even though this was really tough, I got this lovely sense of elation at running at a much faster pace and enjoyed the sensation of my legs turning over at a much more rapid pace. Must try that 800m on the track soon. I've 4 people who want to do it with me so will give it a go soon.

w/u 10:41, 10:23, 10:21, 10:08, 9:38
90 sec intervals: 7:05, 7:30, 7:01, 7:07, 7:30 (slow ones into wind)
30 sec intervals: 7:13, 7:45, 7:44, 7:20, 7:31, 7:33 (should have been 5 reps but did 6 by accident. Must have been enjoying it more than I thought lol!)
c/d 10:29, 10:02, 10:16
Total 10.40 miles

Weekly total: 42 miles. Oops...

tang1 · 10-08-2014 04:43PM

Tell your Mam i said congrats!!!

Ososlo · 10-08-2014 04:45PM

tang1 wrote: »

Tell your Mam i said congrats!!!

That was a bit unclear:D
She was buying an outfit for herself for my sister's wedding!

tang1 · 10-08-2014 04:50PM

Ososlo wrote: »

That was a bit unclear:D
She was buying an outfit for herself for my sister's wedding!

Ah sh!t, thought we'd all have to buy a hat!!

Ososlo · 12-08-2014 07:51PM

Monday 11 August
35 mins recovery
Got some more running-form tips today which I put into practice on this. Problem is it's making me go too 'fast' or maybe it doesn't matter if it's helping my running form in the long run. I realised that I tend to look downwards a bit too much when I'm running, especially when I'm running easy/recovery effort so I'm going to look forward onto the bright horizon from now on:D Pace under 10min/mile which is fast for me for a recovery run.
Foam rolled the **** outa my calfs and did a little self inflicted torture massage trying to find trigger points and loosening them out. Found a good video and followed that.

Tuesday 12 August
9.6 miles with 20 mins @ 10k effort
Lovely bruised calfs when I awoke this morning but they didn't feel sore walking so felt I was ok to do the run. Did a little more foam rolling on top of the bruises ouch:o... Nice relaxing AIS session followed.

I am supposed to be leaving 2 days between sessions from now on but was off work today so thought it'd be good to do this while I had loads of time to myself. Turned out not to be a great idea as I've clearly not recovered from Sunday's session and was a bit tired. Will I ever learn:rolleyes: I seem to be very good at giving advice around these parts but less good at receiving it!
The warm up was slow which is never a good sign for what's to come and the first 10k mile came in at 8:20 but the second mile slowed more (I should be well able to do under 8:20 pace for 10k). I was still tired from Sunday, no doubt about that and should have left this another day... I won't do anything hard now until Saturday as it's pointless doing these workouts if I'm not fully recovered as I won't be performing to the best of my ability. (listen to your own advice Ososlo!)
Enjoyed it all the same and took in some of the lovely Clontarf seafront in the mid-day sunshine. Did a bit of a tour around Raheny village and back to St. Anne's for the 10k effort which I started in mile 6.
9.6 miles total

I set myself a target on the 19th July to lose 4lbs.
Starting weight: 8 stone 9 lbs / 121lbs / 54.8kgs
Target weight: 8 stone 5 lbs / 117bs / 53kgs
Target achieved this morning:D

I've just been a little bit more sensible with my food intake and haven't been hungry once since I started the new regime. I've cut out extras snacks on non-session days and no white bread anymore and smaller dinner portions on easy/recovery days. Wholewheat/spelt pasta instead of the regular stuff and I'm eating more good fats. It's all very balanced with lots of protein and a humungous amount of greens and other veg and plenty of fruit so I ain't gonna waste away

As God Stazza is my witness, I will not do another session until Saturday! And after that not until Tuesday....and have at least 2 days break between sessions from now on..

Ososlo · 15-08-2014 06:42PM

Wednesday 13 August
35 mins recovery
9:50min/mile

Clearly too fast for a recovery run but I was putting all my new running form tips into practice and I can't seem to slow down whilst changing my form. I am running very relaxed though so I'm not going to worry about it. I'd normally do anything up to 11min/mile or even slower for recovery runs.
I reverted to my old running form during this run a couple of times just to compare to it to what I'm doing now and boy was it dreadful and sloppy! My head down, my limbs akimbo, and everything basically all over the shop.

Thursday 14 Aug
2 nights with next to no sleep so decided to give the body a rest.

Friday 15 Aug
40 mins easy w/6x10sec strides
9:41min/mile
9 hours sleep last night:D No nightmares:D:D did wake up with a headache though. My body didn't know what had happened to it with all that delightful sleep!

Again, a lot faster than my usual 'easy' pace (see above). I'm doing the 'light-feet' thing automatically now which is great but still have to very much concentrate on keeping my head up and shoulders relaxed. Even though I'm sure I still look like a plodder, I don't feel like one when I'm running these days. I feel more like a runner!
Decided to throw in a few strides at the end as I was in a hurry to get back for the 800 final which was TOTALLY worth it!!! Bronze for Ireland! Yay! Now let's see what the ladies can do in the morning!
Session day tomorrow:) FINALLY!

barryoneill50 · 15-08-2014 07:06PM

Snap on the head up tip.
When running up hills I had a habit of looking down at my feet. Over the last week or two I've kept the head up. Not sure if it's purely a coincidence or not but I seem to be gliding up the hills lately.....

Be still my beating heart

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