The main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing

Wednesday: 4.7m recovery @ 8:27 pm - legs didn't get going til the last half mile of so - the 4x2 took a lot out of me.

Thursday 11th:
Done this early - due to working arrangements I'm going to have to get a few early morning runs in. So up bright and early and set off just after sunrise for a 9am run in the PP :pac:

A slowish 1st mile (8:30) then picked up to a few good steady miles progressing to 6:45 for a mile, before slowing it down again in the last mile.

7.5 miles @ 7:34

Friday: Rest day - No running. 30 mins core work and about 15-20 mins on the foam roller.

Saturday: Club session - 4x1500 (5k pace) with 2 mins rec

2.25m warm up down to the area in front of the Papal Cross in the PP - theres a few trails there that our coach has measured (to the inch it seems ).
He was considering 2k reps but changed it to 1500's.

Pace wise - he left it open to us as there were 3 different groups going off - I was considering going with a slower group and complete them at just over tempo pace - but felt I had enough tempo sessions in the legs and decided to go with the last group for a good lung busting session.
We done the usual 5-6 strides as part of the warm up.

Rep 1: 5:02 - 1st time running at this pace in a while - took a while for the lungs to get going!
Rep 2: 5:05 - felt better - went in opposite direction this time.
Rep 3: 5:03 - Actually felt great on this lap - lungs and breathing were in control.
Rep 4: 5:05 - Another change of direction - Finished strong.

Pace was it was 5:35-5:40 - so a bit faster than 5k pace.
All recoveries were 2 mins standing recovery. (anyone lying down or even standing with hands on legs gets shouted at by the coach - 'keep the lungs open'.

1.5m cool down

Enjoyed that session - really needed that sort of a run as haven't ran a session like that since early August (5x1km)

7.4 miles @ 7.29 pace

KielyUnusual wrote: »

Were ye feckers not having some sort of club race around the Acres in Phoenix Park this morning?

Good session by the way.

Not us, we had our club race 2 weeks ago, did I not mention I won it

Sunday: Up early for this - very foggy out. Met a couple of lads at 7:45 in PP for a few miles before joining up with the rest of the group an hour later.
Was happy to keep the pace around 8:00 min/miles - legs felt good - tired, but good - towards the end of the run.
Great to be home and have had breakfast by 10:30am.
Happy with how training is going right now (but I'd still like another couple of weeks before the half )

Wont do too many miles this coming week with the HM in mind on Saturday. Plan to run most days, but just 4-6m easy with strides or a couple of miles at HM pace.

16:07 miles @ 7:58.

51 miles for the week.

Good to get the question.
The question of pacing has been on my mind too - not specifically on yesterdays session but since I joined the club. At one stage I was questioning the wisdom of joining a club, specifically for that reason.

Before joining the club, my typical sessions would be controlled at the required pace (5k / 10k etc) - more so in my AMK days than my RK days
Since joining the club my intensity has increased a lot - The coach we have is very old school - he doesn't read Daniels, P&F etc but would be more of a Steve Jones type of guy

He wants us doing the 400's / 800's consistent - if our last 2 are at same pace as the rest - then all is well in his book.
The 5x1km reps from the summer he wanted them done at 2m/3k pace - so I think that was ok.

Any talk about vDots & "Jack Daniels specifies........" would not go down well.
But you are right, I haven't converted that into a good 5k time......just yet. But I've only done 1 since I joined the club and suffered going out too hard in the 1st mile.

The session yesterday was 1500's and as we were only doing 4 of them, I pondered the benefit I'd get from doing them at HM pace or even 10k pace. Had we of been doing 6-8 reps, then the pace would have been adjusted.

What is interesting is that the coach reckons that some of us don't try hard enough in races - he thinks we look too comfortable and are afraid to have a little pain in the race.
He encourages us to make the sessions like the race - the first few are settling in, the middle few are about passing people and gaining strength and the last few are a grind. That's the philosophy he brings to our training - all while keeping the reps consistent.

Now - summing it all up, do I feel I've developed as a runner since joining a club in May??
Well - I'm only happy with one race I've done - the 5m Race Series - the 5k and 10m were disasters.

Could I have done sub 30 without the benefit of joining a club? Yes - definitely.
So in all honesty, from a racing perspective, I don't feel I've benefited too much just yet from quicker intensities at club sessions.

But I feel much more comfortable at the thought of training hard or doing a hard session - some reps used to scare the $hit out of me when I seen them (I recall a debate on mile reps last year) but not any more.


Another thing worth calling out here are the thoughts you get while training - for example;
I know that at times I've ran a quick first rep - and then vowed to hold that pace for later reps rather than slow down and "show myself up by slowing down" - when in hindsight, the only person who would know that I'm slowing down are myself and the readers of this log when I post the splits. So that's silly games that I need to watch for.

Then again - I've read on other more experienced logs that on certain days you want to have a good 'blow out' (........expecting Diggers FYP anytime soon.....) for a good V02Max session.

It would be an interesting experiment to spend a few months comparing the speed sessions to the 'conventional wisdom' of vDot / McMillan etc.

Thanks - Good question.

Race Series Half Marathon


Despite me feeling very confident at the start of a 1:23 finish, my race finished just after the 5 mile mark when my right thigh (I'd say hamstring, but it didn't feel like a hammy - but was in that general area) and my calf started acting up.
Felt it initially at the North road about 4 miles in (just as the adrenaline was leaving me ) and gave it a mile to see if it would improve.

It didn't improve, so I stepped out just before we entered Farmliegh.
I was using Raycun as a pacer from the start til I dropped out (- so Ray your 2 missing miles were 6:08 / 6:20 )

I was going to jump back in with the 1:40 pace group for the craic, but would've got nothing from that only the possibility of 2-3 weeks out.

Great to see so many Boardsies- I think RFR is my new stalker and I think I heard Gavlor say that he was happy BB was there to pace him to pace the others


So - I could think of this summer as being a total write off as from 5 races I had 1 good 'time' that I was happy with but I did get prizes in 3/5 races - so not a bad return overall - also got a new found love for tempo runs

I'll take it handy for the next couple of weeks, I plan to pace Athlone 3/4 and DCM and have a good training plan kicking in from November - but no races lined up for the coming few months. Must fix that.

Onwards and upwards.

Meant to add, highlight of my day was shaking Mr Stews hand.

Gavlor wrote: »

It has been confirmed that Mrs G won't be accompanying me to this years dcm..... I'll see beefs life savings and raise it a euro millions ticket.....

By my form, either I'll not finish or you'll be 2 sips ahead of me.