Target Practice

yaboya1 wrote: »

Surely you get promoted to second by default considering AMK is a man?

Well done on the podium. Good racing.

Haha yeah, I knew that moniker was familiar somehow. My AMK has far better legs tho

Duanington wrote: »

Congrats DG - really enjoyed reading your report, big performance today, well done !

Thanks D! I am delighted, a medal for this was never going to be a cert so am really pleased to have managed to scrape one!

menoscemo wrote: »

He must have been wearing his nun's outfit again :pac:
DG, glad to see you beat that SOB anyway although i would have thought that AMK was the SOB :P

Heehee, y'know, I wondered if *anyone* would pick up on that but I was two glasses of bubbly in writing it and couldn't be bothered to do the apostrophe...:p

Back in Black wrote: »

Congrats on a great run DG!

Thanks TJ

jake1970 wrote: »

Well done A, great performance. Take care of that foot.

Thanks! I will, ice bucket time of night coming up (well, chilled water time Am not that hardy....)

Bungy Girl wrote: »

Brilliant report! Felt I was there too. At least half a lap behind but there too . Another set of bling for the collection, super well done

Thanks!! I dunno, conditions would have suited you, you'd have been lepping across that stream and down through the woods with your mountain goat technique....

laura_ac3 wrote: »

Nice one A, not the best prep I'm sure for you with the injury but it shows mixing it at the business end last year wasn't a flash in the plan and I'm sure it all builds into the long term plan and development. Congrats on the performance and I hope the foot is ok.

Aw thanks Laura! Yes, thankfully foot isn't complaining too much today...

diego_b wrote: »

Well done in the race DG, really enjoyed the report!

Thanks diego Glad you enjoyed it!

dintbo wrote: »

Excellent reading. Good stuff DG

Thanks dintbo!

Murph_D wrote: »

Something magical happens when you combine the ability to perform (in any sport) with the ability to write about it, and Jebus, that was bloody fantastic.

Especially impressed since you gave the impression last week that you'd be running this on one leg.

Congrats to you and your team, so well deserved.

Edit: Who was that beardy mystic in the bushes?

Aw, I'm blushing...thank you! Yeah and with my knee, it ended up running on only half a leg....shoulda made that more clear in my sand bagging, shouldn't I?!
Look immediately below your post for the bearded mystic...remember BON50?! Tree hugger stalker extraordinaire

Wild Garlic wrote: »

Very well done yesterday A. It made fantastic viewing indeed.

Thanks B. Still don't know how any of ye men came out of that not dizzy/lacking all marbles!! Well done yourself.

Running week beg Mon 14 Dec 2015

Mon
Rest. Foot not too bad, definitely not as bad as expected it could be after yesterday's race.

Tue
6.5mi on road in new GTs (size 6.5) with S and H.
Not too bad, all conversation pace. No wind or rain and fairly mild. Took in Putland Hill to finish and legs weren't bouncing up but neither were they dead.
Reasonable stretching. Ice bucket to finish.

Got official results form Sunday. I finished 22 secs behind 1st (similar to our Autumn Open differential, maybe a little less. I didn't push at all on this finish as my place was secure) and 15 secs behind 2nd. I was, however, two seconds sub 20 on xc :cool: Even if the course was short, it wasn't by much so will be looking to translate this to the road on Stephens Day. We have had the Wicklow 5k *suggested* to us as a blow out before the county masters the following week...

...[edit: may be looking at Christmas Cracker in Santry due to logistics.]

So the season will finish up with the masters on the 3rd, the nationals on the 24th, Raheny 5 the week after that and if the body is still holding together, Enniscorthy 10k the week after that. Then a break and onto track prep/cycle.

Wed
4.25 easy on road in new GTs (6.5)
Alcohol bad. Was ok up to 2 miles and.....yuck

Thai massage 11am. Oh. My. God. This woman is thorough. I shoulda known when she started by crawling up my back....She knows her stuff. My legs got a right seeing to, at one stage I had a flashback of labour, y'know when you feel another contraction coming on and feel like whimpering cos you know what's coming..... :eek: She was also able to get into my arches quite well without too much discomfort. Apparently there are muscles in your body where you'd never expect....
In there for nearly 80 mins. Every muscle in my body has been pulled, popped and shook back into place. Absolutely, completely and utterly drained after...

Thur
Planned: 2x [3x800m @5k pace, 45 sec rec and 5 mins between sets]
In a strange kind of way, I was looking forward to this session. It was going to be just the right kind of hard vs duration and recovery.

45 secs recovery is v short but only three reps, and a five min break between sets breaks it nicely up....My 5k pace...hmmm. Was going to give myself a range of 3:10-3:20 per rep and see how this panned out vs effort.

Buuut, my foot played up from early on. This PF is very frustrating however this was the third day in a row running on it, probably a too-big ask.
Finished warm up (2.5 miles) and jogged home, 5.5 in total.

Had a chat with coachy and he told me to rest, not to bother with doing the session in the pool, to rest Friday (no pool either) and to just pick up Sat and Sun. He's right, I know he's right but I was really eager to get some sort of session in...As it turns out, I ran out of time to even contemplate sneaking a pool session in....

Fri
Rest....

Sat 19
62 or so mins. Too-fast jog to park to catch start of park run, held up start as pelted head long into their corral and proceeded to jog around with club mates. It was the santa hat run. Wasn't going to miss it

Foot flared up again during day despite reasonable stretching.

Cancelled Sunday run with nop due to this

Sun 20
Foot felt ok on waking and grand throughout day so decided to stretch an errand-jog to town into the scheduled 90 min run. Foot reasonable but a few significant enough twinges persuaded me to call it at 65 mins.

Plenty of general and specific stretching immediately after.

Had intended to do core set and squats but neat Jameson toasting A/R nominees and awardees out paid to that. Thanks everyone and here's to A/R!!

Weekly total: 31.25 or thereabouts
5 days running so not a huge disaster (three days the previous weeks)
1 serious massage :eek:
No session but strides incl on parkrun)
No gym work but a reasonable amount of supplementary squats etc done at home. No core.
Sleep taking a back seat as 'the season' builds....
Diet and alcohol intake still pretty virtuous, even counting neat Jameson intake

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Mulberry wrote: »

Hey Dubgal
Is that your actual or goal real 5K pace? I'm always interested to see the number of people who do the session at the correct pace. I'd have thought you'd be a stickler for it but it doesn't look like it from that session! Open to correction though.
Does anyone actually do those 5K sessions at the correct pace? In our club Emilia Dan is the only one I know who does! And that says a lot when you see how well she races. Actually Firedance probably does as well

Hi Mulberry, your question had me tottering back to splitcalc.com to double check my paces!

My PB, set in April, is 19:29 but November saw me run two parkruns at just outside 20 mins (6:26/mi or 3:13 per 800 pace) so for current form, this range was pretty spot on, even on the conservative side. If my foot hadn't complained and I wasn't killing myself, I would have kept them nearer 3:10 pace.

I've always had an 'empty the tank' mentality when it comes to key training sessions, at least towards the end of the session anyway. I'm sloooooowly coming round to a 'less is more' approach but it's damn hard. However, probably very necessary as a master athlete.

I've made a bargain with myself: ease off on most sessions/do them at prescribed paces (no choice but at the moment with PF) and make it up in the gym. Working so far...., the bargaining anyway, bit early to reap the reward yet.

^^ just did a quick edit on my paces. Bloody maths