Take Your Lumps Like a Man, Private Twinkle Toes!!!

Cheers Dubgal

I only have two more weeks of speed sessions left so I'll do the parkruns for those assuming I'm around. After that those sessions change to longer intervals (1 - 2 miles) closer to HM pace so the parkruns won't be a suitable replacement for those. I'll either not run them for a few weeks and volunteer a little, or run the odd one when my Sunday run is only 10 miles.

I like your point about breathing in a 5k. I have definitely ended up breathing very heavily at the beginning of some 5ks and some speed sessions as well. It's something I must pay more attention to.

Dubgal72 wrote: »

Ah good, glad to help
On the speed sessions, I'm not an expert, I'm wondering if parkruns are a good enough substitute for purpose-specific speed sessions?

Almost certainly not, but I've gotten to the stage where I really dislike them, so I figure I'm better doing something I enjoy and getting close to the stress that a speed session is meant to bring rather than hating them and avoiding them at all costs!! I wouldn't suggest this for anyone else as a good idea I follow plans very loosely, using them mostly as a template because the enjoyment I get from running day to day is more important to me than one or two big goals in a year. I wouldn't be this quick to mess with the strength sessions (HMP) or tempo sessions (MP) though as they are more marathon specific.

I'm am thinking of concentrating on 5k/10k for the first half of next year so I'll need to take my speed sessions more seriously then.

I have thought about it many times, I just haven't done anything about it. I do think it would be a logical next step for me though Not that I've ever let logic interfere with my decision making before :D

Saturday 22nd: 7.6mi @ 8:58 - This was a nice one. nothing spectacular, just felt nice and leg-loosening. Took a route that includes a couple of sharp inclines to get the legs working without stressing the joints too much.

Sunday 23rd: 14.9mi @ 8:41 - I decided to turn this 15 mile lsr into a sort of fartleky progression run. Basically my plan was to start off easy for a few miles, and if I felt like it maybe go up a gear for a few miles, and then maybe go up another gear again, possibly, or something like that :eek: I planned a route that took in a few miles of the Wexford half marathon course. After the first loosening mile I kept the pace in or around 9 min/mi for the next 5. In retrospect I should probably have done these a little slower but it felt good and I was breathing very easy and chatting away effortlessly (to myself!!). Gear shift number 1 and I spent the next three miles around 8:10 - 8:20 min/mi. I decided during these to head for the slowest end of my marathon pace but couldn't decided to go for 2 or 3 @ MP. I was in my second MP mile (7:50) when I realised if I went for 3, I'd end up doing the third into the wind on a drag that has made me come unstuck on a number of occasions when trying to keep some kind of pace. So in the interests of being able to run this week I decided 2 would do, and for the remaining 4 miles I headed back towards 9 min/mi. I was pretty tired by the end of this one, but happy with the effort.

Two things struck me during/after this run. The Hanson plan I'm following maxes out 16 miles for the long run which means I'm almost at the longest mileage for one run. I really want to follow this part of the plan properly,as the main reason I'm doing it is to see how a marathon feels with only 'short lsr's done. I know I will be tempted to throw in an 18 or 20 miler or 2! Must resist.

Also, when I finished I pressed the button to stop the watch at my door, and the distance read 14.99 mi. It didn't even strike me to run a little extra to round up the number. Conclusion - definitely not OCD

Monday 24th: 5.8mi @ 8:48 - Beautiful morning for a run. Bright but not too warm. Took it handy. Job done!

Thursday 27th: 8 mile tempo (7:50) with warm-up and cool-down - I've settled on 7:50 as a good PMP for the moment. I had hoped to find 7:40 easyish by now but that's not the case. I'd be very happy with 7:50 pace in DCM so I'll stick with it unless it starts to feel too easy. Baring that in mind you'd think this was the perfect tempo run by the description, but I'm not so sure.

There are different meanings to the word tempo depending on what plan you follow. For some, like me, it's marathon pace, for others it's faster. But one thing I think all tempo runs have in common is that they are meant to be evenly paced, and that's where I failed slightly!

8:09 - The summer is my easiest time of the year, free time wise. Now that's all over (sniff sniff), I'm left with the choice of early mornings or evening running. I'll take morning over evening any day as long as I wake up early enough. I've decided to blame this early start for the pace of this mile. After I saw that mile time I decided to forget pace and run by effort.
7:59 - I didn't even look at the watch when this mile finished. I was happy enough with the effort so kept on as I was.
7:47
7:52 - Well this is more like it.
7:39 - Ah hang on now, where was I off to with this one. I think I looked at my watch for the first time during this mile and noticed the average was creeping down. I'm pretty sure I made a subconscious decision to go for it a little. Not necessarily a good habit to get into.
7:44
7:41 - Still trying to get that average down and not really thinking of the point of the run.
7:50 - It was kinda pleasing to finish bang on a 7:50 for both last mile and average.

Overall I was very happy with this one. I could try to argue that it was good race practise, starting slow, then getting faster as opposed to starting too fast!. But really what I need to be doing is practise even pacing as much as possible. Next time!

Firday 28th: 6.2 mi @ 8:56 Nothing particularly interesting about this one. Legs started off tired and grumpy but didn't complain for too long. I was surprised to be at the top end of my easy range but I didn't feel under pressure at any stage. Two 10 milers to finish off the first week in a long time that I followed the plan to the letter, give or take a decimal place or two.

Monday 31st: 8mi @ 9:07 - Every Monday run in the plan so far has been for 6 miles easy, not that I've always done that. I was just setting off on my 6 miles when I had a quick look at the plan and noticed it was for 8. Figured I'd have the time so off I went. Handy run and a nice way to start the week.

Tuesday 1st: 6x1 mile w/400m rec (10.3mi @ 8:23) - Today marked the biggest change in the Hanson plan. This is where the speed sessions stop and the strength sessions begin. These are longer intervals at slower pace with less recovery that the speed session. I had misremembered the details about these from my first reading of the book. I thought they were meant to be run at HMP, but the actual pace is meant to be 10 seconds faster than MP, which would be HMP for a lot of faster runners, but certainly not me. As I have been using a pace range of 7:40-7:50 for my MP runs, I figured I'd go for 7:30-7:40 for these intervals. As it was my first time running then I know I spent way too much time looking at the watch. Miles were:

7:31 - So I kinda cheated here a little and picked a route where I knew the first mile would be a fast one. Hit the pace well, but didn't get a good read on the effort required
7:33 - I had to work a little harder for this one but still felt in control.
7:33 - Well you gotta love consistency!
7:36 - I remember this mile being pretty tough. This session is meant to help improve lactate clearance and tolerance. I felt that familiar sting in all of the miles reps but this was the first time one that didn't really clear before the next rep began. I decided to take this as a sign that the session was working perfectly (ever the optimist ).
7:20 - Dam it anyway, I had such as nice consistent streak going but I have my excuses ready. I hit a head wind in the first part of this rep, nothing too strong but enough to make you have to work a little harder. It didn't last too long though, but I think I forgot to reduce the effort. Oddly enough this mile didn't really feel any harder than the previous 4.
7:24 - After the speedier last mile this felt about right for 7:30. Guess my internal clock isn't quite there yet.

Overall I'm very happy with this one. I definitely enjoy this kind of interval session over the 5k paced ones Which is good as there are 6 more to go.

Saturday 5th: 6mi @ 8:41 - It had been a while since I ran on grass so I figured why not this morning. the plan was to do 4 laps which would have brought me close enough to the 8 miles on the agenda for today. On the third lap I started to get a pain in my back that I've never had before. It wasn't very sore by any stretch but I get nervous about back stuff so I finished off the third lap and left it there. It didn't hurt again after the run so I'm assuming it was nothing. maybe some awkward foot falls on the grass?

Sunday 6th: 16.5mi @ 8:53 - I was down in Waterford for this one so I decided to do an out and back to Tramore. I knew it was 7 miles to the very outskirts so I figured a little loop around would bring me up to the 16. Just as I was leaving the house I had a slight change of heart and decided to head out on the back road and come back in on the main road. What I didn't figure was that it made the run a little longer. In fact I knew leaving Tramore that I was gonna be one mile over. My plan is very specific about not extending long runs, so I compromised and decided to run half the extra mile and walk the rest of the way home.

This run felt good. My legs were a little tired but that is the point of this plan, running those 16 miles to simulate the last 16 of the marathon, as opposed to the first 16. I do think I went a little too fast though, but the effort felt very controlled throughout. I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in the amount of empty gel wrappers thrown on the side of the road. We are lucky to have such nice places to run, it's a shame to see that kind of rubbish. Surely if you can carry a gel, you can carry an empty wrapper. (/rant)

Wednesday 9th: 6.2mi @ 9:12 (I think) - When I plugged in the watch to upload this run a message appeared, which I stupidly clicked OK to without really registering what it said. Just as the window disappeared My eyes and brain caught up with each other and I noticed the word reformat had been in the message. Not really important anyway. I have been taking Wednesdays off recently, but was going to be out on Wednesday night for dinner and a couple of drinks, so I figured I'd enjoy the 'lie-in' more on Thursday. Easy run, nothing special.

Friday 10th: 6.1mi @ 9:04 - Again nothing crazy, just a little flush of the legs before the half marathon tomorrow.

Saturday 11th: Ferns Half Marathon in 1:36:34 (Garmin time) - Pretty close to a P.B. and definitely a little better than I thought I was able for so very happy with this. I couldn't hang around to see the results posted up, so waiting for them to appear on-line before I know my official time. There was no chip timing today so I expect the time to be a few seconds slower. report to follow.

Ferns Half Marathon Race Report:

I went into this race unsure of what I was able for, but willing to give it a good go and see what happened. My thinking was to aim for 7:20-7:30 pace and see what happened. There was a lovely atmosphere around this morning, especially as the sun decided to come out just before we started to brighten everyone's morning. We were gathered together for a pre-race group photo, before setting off pretty much bang on time.
Miles 1-5: 7:24 7:24 7:18 7:37 7:19

I was very happy with the way the start went. I didn't get too caught up in that initial stage where your legs feels fresh and the excitement of the start line makes you run like an idiot! I paid very little attention to the mile splits during the race, just glancing at the average pace every now and then to make sure I wasn't running like a twat. Looking at them now I'm surprised at the pace of mile 4. I don'remember running that slow but looking at the pace of the previous mile I was probably pulling myself back after going too fast on a downhill. There was a good bit of overtaking during the first few miles as you would expect. I knew the course was basically a triangle and by the time we got to the first junction, I couldn't see any runners in front of me so I was glad of the marshal to tell me to turn So far so good!

Miles 6-10: 7:13 7:26 7:23 7:27 7:22

As far as I can remember no body overtook me from here on in and I did manage to pick off a few people who maybe started a little too quickly. The section of the course is pretty similar to the start, undulating road with a decent bit of tree cover (probably why my watch only measured 13.03 miles). Having people to chase during this section definitely made it a little easier to keep going. I started to think about motivation at this stage, when I started running first, I figured people ran races because having people cheer them on made it easier to keep going. This is definitely true, but even in races with very few spectators, most of us are still able to muster a greater effort than we could if we were running on our own. Having even one person in front of you is definitely a great motivation. I think I passed three people on this stretch of road which gave me a much needed boost.

Miles 11-13: 7:30 7:40 7:19

Onto the final stretch and now everything is getting harder. Though this was my first time running this race I knew the last few miles were mostly uphill, and on the hard shoulder of a main road so I was expecting them to be difficult. As well as the inclines and the traffic there was one more thing to contend with. No more tree cover meant it felt much warmer, and this started to worry me. I had a short moment of 'should I just slow down and make my life easier' but I didn't really entertain it as long as I have done in the past. Full effort till the finish, otherwise I may as well have stayed at home. I wasn't the only one finding the going difficult. I passed four runners on this stretch and didn't see anyone else in front of until I saw some of the fast finishers on their cool-down. Mile 12 was a real killer so I wasn't very surprised to see it as slow as it was. I'm quite proud of the 7:19 last mile. I feel like that was the best finish I've ever had in a HM/FM. A big part of that was knowing I was close to my P.B and not having the mathematical faculties to work out I wasn't going to beat it

My Garmin gives me a time of 1:36:34 which is 7 seconds slower than the chip time from the Wexford half in April. I'll update here with an official time when they are posted on-line. I really enjoyed this mornings race. Not too sure if they planned to have as many water stations as they did (7 by my count), but they were most welcome. Will definitely return to do this races again
Official time was 1:36:37 for 40th position

Sunday 12th: 5.7mi @ 9:22 After the half the day before this was always gonna be a slow one. After the pints on Saturday night this may not have even happened, but when I woke I fancied a head straightner so this was it. Legs weren't as stiff as I thought they would be. I ended up walking about 4 miles during Saturday and I really think this made a lot of difference to how the legs felt.

Monday 13th: 8mi @ 9:20 Another slow one, but it was good to get 8 miles in before work. A nice start to the week.

Every year when I go back to work in September there is always a good chance of coming down with something, surrounded by coughing spluttering teenagers all day. As Monday went on I knew a head cold was on the way. I know there is some conventional wisdom which says that if it's only in the head then it's ok to run. To be honest I'd happily follow this for an important race, but when it comes to training, I find a couple of days off could possibly save you a more serious illness later on so so that's what I decided to do. I had intended on running easy until today anyway so I wasn't missing too much.

Thursday 17th: 5.5mi @ 9:09 After a couple of days off I was raring to go. I was still a little snotty so I decided to postpone today's tempo until tomorrow. I started off to do an easy 4, but it felt too good not to continue on for a little extra. Released quite a lot of snot on the way so If you were out in the early morning in Wexford and saw an lanky lumux evacuating his nostrils on the street, apologies. These things must be done from time to time. By the end my breathing was a little more laboured than it should have been so I think postponing the tempo was definitely a good idea. Hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow, otherwise it may be a tempo and an lsr back to back.

Monday 21st: 6mi @ 9:31 - I can't believe how fast September is chugging along. This was one of the first thoughts that struck me on this run, and was the reason I finally entered DCM. I prefer to pay the extra money feeling far surer that I will make the start line, but if I left it much longer I possibly would forget. I'm wishing I didn't wait so long to book a hotel though, I know I was earlier than last year, and it was a good bit cheaper. Run was good as well!

Wednesday 23rd: 3x2 mi w/.5mi Rec (10.1mi @ 8:24) - I had a pretty crappy night's sleep Monday, so there was no way I was getting up to do a session early Tuesday morning, but I knew I would be finished late and not in the humour. So I moved my week around a little, took a day off (running) and slept a little longer. I was looking forward to this strength session as I had missed a couple in order to do the Ferns HM. I picked a loop and ran two varied versions of it. I kept moving during the recoveries, but kept it super slow. All in all this felt good. I was under a little pressure towards the last mile but had no real difficulty finishing. Aim was between 7:30 - 7:40:

Rep 1: (7:26, 7:31) - slightly fast at the beginning, which is odd for me. Happy with the effort. I could have kept going but was glad of the recovery.
Rep 2: (7:34, 7:27) - First mile of this was mostly up hill and the second one was down. I reckon the effort was about even. I had noticed at this stage that I hadn't felt that lactic sting at all. Maybe I need to do these a little faster.
Rep 3: (7:31, 7:38) - Well now it was time to feel the sting. While it wasn't a struggle the last mile certainly wasn't as comfortable as the others. Was happy to see the end of it!

I knew even on the jog home that tomorrows (todays) tempo would have to wait so I decided to move it to Saturday and do Saturdays 10 miles easy tomorrow (today)! Or something like that

Thursday 24th: 10mi @ 8:54 Nice morning for it, once I got over the initial cold in the air. I like the cooler mornings but I do miss the sun sometimes. It can be pretty limiting running where there are only street lights. I may invest in a decent headlight.