Off the Fence....and looking to go sub 3 hrs

yaboya1 wrote: »

37:06 and it's yours (for a short period of time)

10 days ago I would have almost being willing to put money on hitting that but the run in hasn't gone to plan so I will wait and see tomorrow.

NetwerkErrer wrote: »

All the best man! Have a gud un!:)

Cheers NE.

Murph_D wrote: »

Good luck Mark. I know you will enjoy!

Thanks D. Sure if you can't enjoy it you might as well jack it in

tang1 wrote: »

Nearly didn't recognise him without the shades!!

It was a lot more than the shades there were missing today, B. Sh*te day at the office saw me cross the line in 39:3*.

Official Time - 39:32
Overall Position - 211

I suppose the idea of these logs is to record the good and bad and learn from them all......so here goes with a bad one.

Prerace
After coming through 10k in Ballycotton in 38:11 I decided to sign up for this race to have a go at officially bringing down my 10K PB which stood at 38:42 and was set in July 2014. Training so far this year was going well. I was averaging 50 miles per week and getting at least 2 quality session in each week. A couple of weeks ago I had a rough plan in my head to go out at 6min pace and then either hang on or push on depending on how the hills went.

I picked up a bit of a dose (sore throat/cough/sinus/head cold type thing) about 10 days ago and despite trying rest, drugs, etc. I just couldn't shake it and energy level were very low last week. Even went to Doc to check my chest was clear before deciding on final plan. So after another night of coughing, etc. on Friday night I had 3 options for Saturday's race;

1. Opt out and not run;
2. Run with Ferris who was looking at another come back PB of around 41mins and try to enjoy the run;
3. Ignore the last 10 days and stick to the original plan of going out at 6mins pace and risk ending up trying to flog a dead horse over the last couple of miles.

...and of course I chose option 3!!

Race
Arrived in plenty of time, wished Mrs FBOT good luck and then got a couple of miles warm-up done in the company of Ferris and a couple of other lads.

Miles 1-3 (06:02/06:05/05:55)
Slotted into the orange coral, popped a strepsil in my mouth and then squeezed my way up to a good starting position. Headed off at the gun and got up to pace pretty quickly but even at this early stage the legs felt like jelly and I knew things were going to be tough as soon as I hit military hill. Anyway carried on regardless, tried to grab shelter from the wind where I could and kept the effort level up at race pace. Didn't pay too much attention to the watch other than to glance at it when it beeped at the end of each mile. Went through 5k in 18:5x which all else considered wasn't bad.

Miles 4-6.2 (06:36/06:54/06:22/01:37)
Turned up Military Hill I could feel the wheels come off very quickly. My legs just had nothing and I have to say my head didn't have too much to give either. I would normally be a pretty good uphill runner and would generally be passing rather than getting passed at this stage. However, I got passed by more people in the next 2 miles than I cared to try to count. I made a few token efforts to tag on the back of some of those passing me but couldn't get anything going. When I finally got to the 9k mark I mustered as much as I could to claw back a few places but at this stage I knew that a PB was long gone and that sub 40 was going to be achieved so nothing really to gain by flogging the horse completely to death. I did go toe to toe with one DSD guy from about 800m out and had taken 10yards on him by the 400m mark but when he came back at me with 200 to go I just sat on his shoulder and didn't even try to accelerate again before the line. Even Murph's shout of encouragement failed to ignite any final push.

I crossed the line and spent the next 5/10mins trying to avoid dislodging a lung from coughing. I then joined up with the crew all of whom seemed happy enough with their effort and results for the day.

This was my first time doing this race which was well organised, well supported and had a good buzz around it. Tough enough course and conditions but neither were the deciding factors on the outcome of my day. Sometimes thing just don't go to plan and for me this was just one of those events.

Next up....I think I will sign up for the Terenure 5 as my May race.

yaboya1 wrote: »

Look on the bright side M.
At least you didn't upset me by beating my pb

Every cloud, P

12/04/2015 - Rest

13/04/2015 - Rest

14/04/2015 - 5.28m @ 08:21 avg pace (Easy)

Back on the road this eve with 5 easy miles in the company of Ferris B.

15/04/2015 - 4m @ 09:48 avg pace (Recovery with Dog)

I'll blame the dog for this one. Although I didn't hear myself complaining. It was what it was:)