Berlin Q or Bust: Road to sub 2:45

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Lol I grew up playing Madden too and now that you mention it give me a pang to drag the PS3 back out!
Have you read the Friday Night Lights book? It's fantastic!

Kaeps jersey eh? I bought a Jarryd Hayne #38 jersey, little did I know...

Yep the book is excellent, one of my favourites. He released an ebook, After Friday Night Lights, a few years back and that was a nice little epilogue, big focus on Boobie Miles.

Yeah Haynes made a decent fist of it to be fair. Those rugby converts just have so much information to download and tactics to learn that it's almost impossible for them to make it. I see Christian Wade made the Bill's practice squad earlier this season but that was it. Haynes was an absolute top drawer league player and he still couldn't make the switch.

OOnegative wrote: »

Bill Goldberg spent 5 years on various NFL Rosters/Practice squads and Brock Lesnar spent a season on the Vikings practice squad. Bo Jackson best multi sport player in NFL.

Bo Jackson! What an athlete.....that 30 for 30 on him was class

I'll get this blog back on track a little after Sunday evening's NFL/Sports documentary tangent

Manchester Week 2:

Mon: 13.2k Recovery: 1:07:15 @5:09/km
Across the plains for this one. Dark, grim and windy.

Tue: 14k Easy: 1:08:07 @4:52/km

Twice now in the last 2 days my watch has died, due mainly to own inability to put it on charge for any discernible length of time, but also to the fact that I've only one charging cradle thing for the 645. Have ordered a couple on Amazon so that will improve matters hopefully. Not a whole lot going on during this run, got out a little earlier than planned so I could catch the Manchester derby...FML

Wed: Session: 6 x 1 Mile @5:45-5:40

Wouldn't say I was exactly bouncing off the walls to do this session, but I'm in a nice little groove at the moment where I just sort of go into auto pilot when needed. Target splits, between 5:45-5:40, weren't overly aggressive but they still had to be ran! Felt pretty decent and if faster splits had of been prescribed then I reckon I could have hit them without too much fuss.

Splits were 5:40, 5:42, 5:38, 5:40, 5:40, 5:41

Big LR session on Sat before heading down to Wexford for the night for the brother in law's 40th. Gonna treat it like a race, watch nutrition, hydration and sleep next couple of days. Weather looks a bit hairy for Sat....

With a big few weeks coming up, I was just looking back at last years training during the first couple of months, and there's a couple of things that I'd forgotten. With a 10 Mile tempo, Raheny & Trim all coming up in the next 3 weeks, I'm just gonna take each run on it's own merits and see how things fall. Workouts and plans on paper can sometimes look a lot more difficult than you might think...

Last year I had the MSB 5k on the Monday where i PB'd (an admittedly soft PB) and the K Club 10k on the Sat where I had a massive PB. I also managed to read the wrong week of my plan and do a 16x400m workout averaging 76s on the Wednesday!! I suppose my point is that some times we can get too focused on a big 4/5 week period, and maybe it can be helpful to just take each workout as it comes (preferably not adding in any though ) and trust the process. I could of course be talking waffle, but I reckon it'll help me through the next few weeks.

Fri: Rest. Had a few bits on that meant I could only fit in a run in late evening which wouldn't really suit as I'd a 10 Mile tempo early Sat morning. Suited me really and I was happy enough to take the day off

Sat: 10 Mile Tempo: 61:01 @3:47/km

Plan had the pace range from 6:10-6:00, so I had something around 61 mins in my head. My 10 mile pb is 60:33 from Frank Duffy in 2018 and I knew that if I was of a mind to, I could have made a dent in that but that would have been a bit gratuitous really. I'll get a chance to do something about that in a couple of weeks in Trim.

Had a route worked out in my head, however the roads around the new Lidl depot in Newbridge were horrendous and, on the fly, I changed route to basically run up and back along alternating sides of the dual carriageway 3 times. Not perfect but it was the only real option if I wanted roads that weren't like an ice rink.

About a mile in whilst passing the Lidl depot I was put on my arse, luckily apart from a bruised ego and backside I was ok and continued on. The run was ok, getting over the grass median at one end of the carriageway presented a bit of a problem and another time I had to wait maybe 10 seconds for a break in the traffic, but apart from that it wasn't too bad. Held the pace well and felt pretty good.

Sun: 30k Easy: 2:17:15 @4:34/km

Glorious morning for a run. Went with a club mate who's also training for Manchester. Headed down to the County Novice 5k to lend a bit of support (was disappointed not to be able to run, but with Raheny and Trim something had to give, would have been there or thereabouts for a medal if things had gone to plan but that's neither here nor there).

114k for the week with a day off.

AuldManKing wrote: »

Tell the truth, you had a 30 minute wait getting across the dual carriageway didnt you!!

Savage training at this stage in the cycle.
You'll do damage in the next 2 races.

I'd surely have gone under 60 if I'd 30mins recovery in there

Raheny is an absolute free roll of the dice and a blow out. If I don't PB I won't be too disappointed but i'm going in with the intention of breaking it. Trim is be a little more of a target. I'm in a slightly weird situation in that 60mins is a natural target and has been a big target for me over the last 18months, but I actually think I'm in a bit better shape than that....Will see get over Raheny before I start planning for Trim I suppose. Either way, looking forward to racing both

Manchester Marathon Week 3

Mon: 14k Treadmill: 1:10:00 @5:00/km

Have decided to do the Monday recovery run on the treadmill from here on out. Mindless stuff, accompanied by Second Captains.

Tue: AM: 7.5k: 37:01 @4:56/km
PM: 5Miles: 37:54 @4:42/km

Pair of dark and wet commutes.

Wed: 4x2k off 2mins

Meant to be 5x2k but was breaking in a pair of Zoom Fly 3's and laced up the left shoe a bit on the tight side. By the end of the 4th rep my left foot was fairly numb, and as my hands were too cold to actually untie the damn thing I just called it a day after 4 and warmed down i the Epic Reacts.

Had been working hard enough during the session. Thes last couple of Wednesdays have been tough enough to get the session in on time. Might have another look at the Wed session and see what my options are.

Splits were; 7:20, 7:17, 7:18, 7:19

My planned 10 Mile pace give or take.....wasn't exactly shouting about this workout from the roof tops. About 10 Miles for the day.

Thu: 10 Miles Recovery: 1:20:07 @4:59/km

Up in Citywest for a conference for a couple of days, got a nice run in and around some old Tallaght haunts.

Fri: 10k: 46:37 @4:40/km

Got away from conference and headed over to the Raheny course for a little trot.

Sat: 5 Miles inc strides: 37:31 @4:40/km

Shakeout

Sun: Raheny 5 Mile: 28:12 @3:31/km

The plan was for a bit of a blowout with an eye on being sharp for Trim next weekend. I knew I was in decent nick and while, unlike last year when I trained for Raheny, I wasn't doing a whole lot of shorter, fast stuff in training...I was still hopeful of a good result.

Got up there in decent time, parked in my sisters place on the Howth Rd and ran over to the bag drop. Got about 5k of a warm up in and headed for the pen, determined not to get stuck too far back like last year. Lined up with Mellow Yellow from these parts and we had a good chat. Even though we got there in good time, we were probably still too far back, but once the gun went and we negotiated a bit of traffic, the first corner proved uneventful this year thank God.

I set off with the plan of 3:30 k's, knowing the 3rd and 7th km would be tricky but if I stuck in there I might get close to 28mins.

Just tried to not get carried away in the first km and managed to do so. Went through in (3:28) but it would have been very easy to throw in a 3:20 or something and maybe put my race at risk.

2nd km was more of the same, settled in a decent group. Not feeling like I was flat out but safe in the knowledge that a tough km was coming. 2nd km in (3:29)

Stuck in with a couple of guys for the drag in the 3rd km, but was feeling pretty ok. Glanced down at the watch a couple of times and I could see I wasn't gonna bleed too much time here. Through 3rd km in (3:34)

Down Sybil Hill Rd? for the 4th km and I knew I could make those seconds back here. Didn't force things, and found myself passing a good few here who might have gone out a bit hard over the first couple of miles. 4th km in (3:25).

Through 4k on the watch in 14mins. Still on for 28mins or so at this stage as the watch had been a couple of metres behind at the mile marks thus far.

The stretch coming down towards St Anne's was quick and I found myself starting to feel the heat here a little. Got a little isolated for maybe 20 secs but made a decision to make up gap to the group ahead before we got into the park. Km beeped at 3:31.

Into the park now and I'm going hard at it, hoping to make a bit of time before we hit the avenue. 6th km in (3:30)

Up the avenue to the dreaded 180° turn. Decided to sit on a small group of about three guys to shelter from the breeze, but after about 50m I decided they were moving too slow and set off on my own. I was running by myself then but I was racing now so I wasn't too bothered. The hairpin was horrendous! 2 ACL tears would have me wary enough of turning sharply, add to this the vaporflys and disaster was a possibility even though I slowed up almost to a standstill, I still took the corner comically wide and I'd say I lost at least 7/8 secs here....it was that bad! Anyway, didn't lose any positions as I had a bit of daylight behind me, so I set about finishing as strong as I could muster...(3:39) for Km7.

I just went as hard as I could from the exit of the park until the end. Ended up racing a chap from Raheny I think, and we definitely got each other a couple if extra seconds around the last loop. 3:31 for the last km and 28:12 for the 5 Miles which is a 16sec PB.

Really happy with that. Wasn't sure if I was sharp enough to PB so this was a nice bonus. Will hopefully carry this into Trim next week.

Met Mellow Yellow afterwards who had a strong race, and then AMK and Singer in the Hall. Went for a cool down with Alan and even availed of his taxi services to my sisters place

95k for the week.