This fat girl runs, breathes and believes

A total up and down week for me...started badly, got worse then improved in such a fast turnaround that I got whiplash!

Monday: Workout with my trainer, mostly weights for upper body and back. Cut short by half an hour due to a dodgy stomach. Seriously, I made it home just in time before I unleashed hell! If there's a patron saint of making it to the toilet in time, I would like to thank them!

Wednesday: 5 mile hard run in 1:09:21. I only realised yesterday that I ran the wrong week of my training plan! This should have been a 4 mile run. Oops!

Thursday: 6 mile easy run that wasn't. This is by far the worst run I've had in the history of my running. It was so bad I'm not going to even give my time. A combination of tiredness, heat and chafing had me walking by mile 4 and crawling by mile 5. The even worse part was realizing later that it was the wrong distance, I was only supposed to go 5 miles. This wasn't a total write off as I DID cover a full 6 miles but I'd rather forget this one and move on!

Saturday: Workout with my trainer. HIIT on the spinning bike for over 20 minutes, pilates and arm work.

Sunday: LSR of 9 miles in 2:14:24. My first 9 mile run and I really enjoyed it! I started out more slowly than usual as it was quite warm out and I wasn't sure of the distance. By mile 6 I felt much more confident and settled into my usual easy pace. I ran about 3 miles of this on grass and that was fun. Given the bad start to the week and terrible run mid-week, this was just the run I needed. I got to see more of the Phoenix Park that I don't normally see and ended the run still feeling energized. And yes, 9 miles WAS on the schedule!

Total mileage: 20 miles

Next week I will run the correct schedule! 5 + 5 + 9 miles.

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Probably hard to judge the slower pace since, as TFGR has mentioned she'd be at walking pace if she slowed them down. I would suspect perhaps the hard pace isn't hard enough.
Though I'm not sure what a 5 mile 'hard' run entails? It strikes me as an odd session I'm not sure what the rationale behind doing this is? Is it a tempo run? I don't read every week but do you ever do intervals TFGR?

No, right now I don't run intervals. The last time I tried that, I got some incredulous responses on my log about it; it seemed people thought it was pointless for me to even try.

Firedance wrote: »

possibly, but if you take this forum alone opinions are varied, some folks swear by X while others will say no way Y is the way to go. One way to look at it is that you get different perspectives and the OP has taken some advice from here and then discussed it with her coach. She will tell you that herself I think. IMO its good to get a variety of view points and then you can make your own mind up (along with your coach if you have one) as to what will work for you having all the relevant information. Sorry for the hijack TFGR!!

You pretty much said it perfectly right there!

Don't forget my coach is also writing my training plan, which I did not have the confidence to do on my own. None of the generic plans available suited me and even the boards plan is a tad too ambitious for me. My coach is taking all my stats/info/abilities into account while she develops my plan. So far, it's worked beautifully and I've progressed to 19 miles per week with no injury.

So I can have a coach, and talk about running with other runners at the same time, and it all works out ok in the end!

Alright! Race report from today's Irish Runner 5 mile race is up on my blog! I'm posting the highlights here for anyone interested.

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Mile 0-1: Was pretty good, not too congested and I was able to keep to the pace I wanted. It was hot though! Really hot despite the wind and for the first time in my running life I was grateful for some wind in my face! I was also really happy when I got to run in the shade! Other than that, mile 1 was pretty easy. I really appreciated two enthusiastic cheerers standing on Chesterfield Ave. You made me laugh and that really helped!

Mile 1-2: Pretty uneventful really except that I realized my Garmin wasn’t marking the mile with the course markers, it was beeping early. This threw me a bit because I didn’t know if that meant my pace was off. I decided to run a little bit faster just to be sure.

Mile 2-3: This was my favourite mile, partly because there was shade, partly because there was a downhill stretch but mostly because I saw three deer running alongside the route. It was a stunning moment and I wished I could have taken a photo. But, I was racing and chasing a PB so I restrained myself and carried on running. I don’t think I’ll forget that moment anytime soon though.

Mile 3-4: Probably the toughest mile as it included the dreaded first hill. I was doing fairly ok for time and feeling really good coming up to it, so I kept on running, although at a slower pace. I made it up the hill and didn’t feel like collapsing so that was good!

Mile 4-5: This mile was the hardest in terms of heat, not a lot of shade and the wind was against me so I had to struggle against that too. There was also something going on around me that really annoyed me and I had to battle hard to ignore it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from running; you need to be strong in mind as well as in body! Anyway, I passed the water station but didn’t take any as I had my own water with me. I also knew I was slowing down some and so needed to save on time! I ran up another hill then began to speed up until I was closer to the finish line. Saw some more deer on this stretch, they actually ran across the path in front of some other runners ahead of me. So cool! After that I sped up even more and really, really appreciated the huge crowd of people who were still cheering at the finish line, including my trainer, Michael of @myptdotie. Honestly, having a loud crowd cheering you on at the finish makes such a difference!

I crossed the finish line in what I thought was good time but because my Garmin had been mis-marking the miles I wasn’t entirely sure if I had beat my previous time. I was going to have to wait for the official result! As I crossed the line I did feel like collapsing for a moment, I had really pushed hard over the last half mile so was really feeling it!

Luckily I didn’t collapse so after collecting my goodie bag and mug I met up with Michael as we went to collect our bags. Afterwards we went back to his gym and did a half hour of stretching instead of doing a full PT session. It did me good!

And, as it happens, I DID run a PB!

I finished in 1:06:29, 2 minutes faster than my last 5 mile race and 7 minutes faster than the same race one year ago!

This was pretty much the kind of time I was hoping for and again, it’s proof to me that my training is paying off and making a difference. It is a huge relief to see the tangible changes for the better that have come with the kind of hours I’ve been putting in running. It makes it all so worth while!

spaceylou wrote: »

Well done on the pb, sounds like the heat was pretty tough in Dublin today

Thanks!

I just looked up the weather as I was curious...it was a high of 19 degrees today!

menoscemo wrote: »

Hi TFGR, I don't want to sound like a broken record but I'd still be quite concerned at your training paces based on Saturday's race.

The first post I quoted is from 2 months ago and you seem to have done a standard 5 mile run at the same pace as Saturdays race?

A few weeks after thay you have logged a 4 mile 'hard run' at a pace of below 13 minutes/mile, yet Saturdays race was about 20 seconds/mile slower.

Tempo runs (or 'hard runs') are an important part of most training plans but it is important not to do them at your best possible pace, rather maybe 90%. Typically a 4 mile tempo should be done around you 10 mile pace; it certainly should never be faster than your 5 mile race pace or else you are just racing all your training runs.

Perhaps the reason you feel you can only run 3 times per week is because your runs are all done so hard that you need more recovery?

Hi meno, just to answer your questions.

Firstly, I've worked hard the past two months to make sure I'm running the right paces, including slowing them down. You'll notice my 5 mile runs recently have been at the correct pace.

My race pace for this 5 mile race was bang on what it should have been. 13min/mile.

Keep in mind that my training run times don't include times I spent on autopause, waiting for a traffic light or doing my stretches after my warm up or taking a break for water or air or whatever. So even if it looks like it's the same as a race, it's not. Maybe I should be posting my 'time spent moving' as well? That 4 mile run you're referring too...I spent 52 minutes running but it took me an hour and 2 minutes to do. Looking at my Garmin stats I stopped 10 times. 8 of those times were for traffic lights.

This 5 mile race I had no pauses or stops, it was a straight run from start to finish.

Secondly, I run 3 days a week because I also workout in the gym 2 days a week and I value my 2 rest days so I take them and make the most of them. That's all. My recovery times are pretty good because I'm taking care with my stretching and doing all I can to make sure I don't get injured. So far, so good knock on wood!!