Be still my beating heart

aquinn wrote: »

What an incredible log and journey. Your persistence and schedule alone are really fantastic.

Well done on all you have achieved so far and I wish you every success with your 2015 goals, am looking forward to actually being able to track in real-time

Am a s*it sleeper too. Tried all the Valerian tea (stains teeth badly so rinse with water afterwards) and tablets. Melissa recommended too. B12 recommended too so maybe worth a try. A bath is generally great but again not always works and then the disappointment when it doesn't is frustrating to say the least.
Try a relaxation app before bed and I think it was mentioned already, but pen and paper beside bed and write down concerns/worries.
If all else fails then nurofen plus. Not recommended by pharmacies for this purpose as you can imagine. Banana snack in the middle of the night too can help.

Can't believe you actually read the whole thing in the end! I thought you were joking! You deserve a medal for that! There's some crazy sh1t in there. Sometimes I say too much:o Thanks for your kind words though:)

Regarding the sleeping stuff, yeah I've tried most of those remedies. The problem with the pen and paper beside bed is that I have no real worries or concerns to write about:) I could write about how happy I am I guess:):)
I just can't sleep!
I do take B12 sometimes as I'm vegetarian and it can sometimes get a bit low. I've gone down the neurofen plus road a few times too to be honest and it is genuinely the only thing that helps a bit (not always though!)
Thanks again! Must look up that app thing!

Monday 23 February
6 miles recovery
AIS, Lunge Matrix pre run

Next to no sleep Sunday night and had a horrific headache Monday afternoon after a 'triumphant' morning so went to bed for a few hours. A bit better when I work up. Probably shouldn't have run today, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't run, so I did, 'cause I am, so there you go.
10:38 avg pace

Tuesday 24 February
3 x 6 x 40 sec @ mile effort & 2 mins @ 3k-5k effort (600m jog btw sets)
AIS, LM pre run
Loved this! It really is my favourite session of all. It's hard work and you get to run really fast for short periods but the recoveries are quick to come. I won't bother relaying all the 40 sec reps but they were all in the 6:40s and 50s with just one above 7min pace. After the last recovery I had the 2 mins to do but I forgot what effort/pace it was supposed to be at so I just ran it hard and it came in at 6:57 pace. I realise now it was supposed to be a lot slower than that. Oh well... but it felt good! After the 18 reps and the 2 mins fast I thought I'd feel shagged but I didn't, I felt wonderful and my legs felt really springy, so after a few mins recovery jog I ran a few more easy cool down miles.

Running just gets better and better. It an activity that just keeps on giving, day after day, month after month, year.... Very few things in life like that!
10 miles total
9:38 avg pace
Myrtl post run (first time I could kneel down without hurting since the fall so did full the full workout)

RedRunner wrote: »

Just out of interest, how did you figure out what your "mile effort" is/should be?

Hey R. I know I probably run most of the reps too fast. It's a hard one to judge on such short reps. I just imagine I'm racing a mile and run to that effort. Reps each week can vary anything from 6:30s to 7:10s (doing them by feel). My real mile pace would be something in the 6:50s I'd imagine.

menoscemo wrote: »

I would go to see a really good physiotherapist/physical therapist about your stitch. The former Ar/ist known as claralara got them regularly for a while and ciaran fitz in Ballinteer sorted it out.
I think it was a trapped muscle under the ribcage (possibly caused by corework?), there might be something about it in her old log i think...

There certainly is a lot of talk of stitches in her old log:eek:

Thursday 5 March
5 miles recovery
AIS, Lunge Matrix pre run
Easy peasy after work. Had to leg it for one of the miles as I was in the local park and it was getting dark and there were 2 scary men with a big dog behind me and my imagination was running awry and my legs followed.
10:23 avg pace

Friday 6 March
3 miles easy
AIS, LM pre run
Knew I'd be doing a lot on Saturday so this was just to stretch the legs out a tad and not feel like a completely lazy useless good-for-nothing waster of a biatch for the day.
10:45 avg pace

Saturday 7 March
AIS pre run
.5 mile warm up and then Poppintree Parkrun pacing my sister to around 32 mins. This was just to see where she's currently at really. She's just recently getting back into her running and we've decided to do a Parkrun each month with me pacing her to do a little bit better each month. We started running around the same time a few years ago and we were similar level until about a year ago when she fell in love and suddenly her running didn't matter to her anymore
I've never paced anyone before and it's very hard to know how much/little verbal encouragement to give during the race.
We planned about 10:18 pace for the first mile and take it from there. She shot off like a hare starting out and I had to reel her back in and tell her to slow down as we really didn't know how things would pan out. She hasn't done a race in a year or more so best play it safe for this one. The pain started for her and those around her around the end of mile 1. It was palpable... Mile 1: 10:15. All these people really suffering so early on in the race who had gone out too fast. Not nice to be in the middle of really:( She got a stitch and started feeling sick during mile 2. Lots of people starting to walk. Her breathing was very laboured at this point so I told her to slow down a tiny bit and gain control over it. She had to slow down a lot. Mile 2: 10:43. She was dying... More people starting to walk. The sounds of the gasping coming out of some people was quite concerning! Towards the end of Mile 3 she picked it up a bit but went out too hard too soon and had to slow down again. She put in a good spurt with 100m to go but went the wrong way and missed the finish section to the right and had to backtrack so lost a precious few seconds. Finish time 32:25
Anyways, she learned her lesson today. You get out what you put in. Well in most cases She also didn't walk at all so that's very encouraging. She's a very stubborn person and that's a fine trait to have in the racing game!
I suspect she might be getting the fire in her belly to start taking it seriously again which I will be strongly encouraging obviously! ....

Saturday pm
5 x 2 mins @ 5k w/3min rec
Had a bit of a snooze around lunchtime and then headed to Phoneix Park in afternoon. 15 degrees! Shoulda worn my shorts and woulda except for the fact that I only apply tan from knee to ankle in the winter so woulda looked a tad strange! I think it's time to extend application!
This moderate session didn't pose too much of a problem at all but I did run some of the reps too fast (done by feel). There's no way my 5k pace is in the 7:30s but it felt like an honest effort today. It was probably due to the very easy day yesterday as the legs felt very fresh and the run this morning put an extra spring in my step I think. Plus I had a little wind assistance for some of this.
Paces for the reps were: 7:43, 7:33, 7:34, 7:41, 7:41
8 miles total
Myrtl post run
12 miles daily total

Sunday 8 March
AIS, LM pre run
am
4 miles recovery
Laps of local park. Nice run. Interesting how some days my recovery pace is so much "faster" than other days. Possibly faster today due to the 10 hour epic sleep-fest I had last night! Maybe if I slept well every night I'd be generally faster.
10:11 avg pace

pm
AIS, 6 miles easy
Great afternoon watching athletics on the tv and following the Boardsies online.
Nice pleasant little local run, legs feeling great and felt very strong.
9:46 avg pace
10 miles daily total

Weekly total: 56 miles

Long run tomorrow with 'stuff' and looking forward to heading strongly into another week.

menoscemo wrote: »

Interesting.
I did 30 minute pacer yesterday in a Dublin parkrun and I was very surprised at the lack of heavy breathing of people. Most were talking away until 3/4km but started dropping off at the first sign of discomfort/heavy breathing.
Normally at faster paces, people are breathing much heavier right from the start but often hold to the pace or even speed up. Even at the HM today people who seemed to be breathing really heavily ended up finishing ahead of me

They mentioned there were a lot of newcomers so I'd say a lot were racing for the first time and just went off way too fast for the first mile.
Well done today!

Monday 9 March
2 x 15 mins @ 1hr race effort off 5 mins rec
Last 3 mins of 2nd rep working from 10k to 3k effort
AIS pre run
Crazy crazy wind so wasn't sure how this was gonna go and had a B plan in place if it wasn't possible to do this today.
As I'm a day or two behind where I need to be on the plan (I hate not being on the right day!!! OCD much?) I decided to do a shorter run than the designated 90 mins today so I'll be fresh enough to do sessions on Wed and Fri and get back to doing my long run on Sundays without wearing myself out.
So did a short 2 miles warm up and straight into the session instead of the 4 mile warm up I'd normally do. It was impossible to do any kind of controlled progressive warm up due to the wind.

Delighted with how this went in the end.

First 15 mins:
8:00, 7:55 (pace) Felt good. Very strong and felt form was good and generally a very controlled run. All done by feel.
Then 5 mins recovery at 10:50
12 mins:
8:04, 8:19 (was able to maintain a good effort until about 10 mins into this but I had to turn a corner then into a stiff wind and lost momentum and form faltered and it shows in the pace over the last 2 mins)
3 mins:
7:52 (1 min), 8 (1 min), 7:14 (1 min) pace
Was happy to really push it for the last minute even though I was wrecked and I did feel a little pukey when I stopped but I think that's a good sign as it shows I genuinely pushed hard on tired legs and lungs.
A good day at the office on the road.
7.5 miles total @ 9 pace
Myrtl post run

Have decided to bin the idea of a spring half marathon. I need and want to keep plugging away at the shorter distances and make some more decent inroads with the speed side of things first. Obviously my biggest weakness likes there. Endurance has always been my forte.
It's funny but my outlook towards what I want has changed a lot over the last year or so. All I cared about before was the prospect of jogging marathons and half marathons whereas now I'd be much prouder of myself doing a decent 5k and 10k this year more than anything else.
I will however still do an autumn half when I've gained some more "speed".
I'll still plan on doing DCM 2016 but if I don't feel I'm ready by then then so be it...