Against Method.

dna_leri wrote: »

Well done E. Might not be the time you hoped for but tactical races are always fun.

I did enjoy it - the only possibility of running a fast time would have been with the 035s - and I don't think I could have done better than 2nd with any strategy. Even afterwards, I was still walking around going through the permutations thinking how it would never have even crossed my mind to go for it at 500m out...but the only way I *might* have beaten someone who is as fast as that over 800m would have been to go for it from the gun!! Which I was never thinking of doing (although that's fairly much how I ran it in 2018 when I won). Anyway, new category next year - just hoping to keep the body in one piece and build on this summer's training.

Are you laid up or just sitting it all out at the moment?

This was the week that wasn't.

To save the suspense, I ran the same race I did in the 1500m at the Graded in July (but slower), got caught up with a battle that was happening much further down the field than I thought it was and ended up with too much left.

I'll spare the details of the race but the time for the mile was 4:42.65 - about 7-8 seconds slower than I was expecting.

Other than that, there were 38 miles of mostly easy running (my highest weekly total since the first week in August!)

It's been a good summer in terms of consistency and discipline even if the times haven't been what I had hoped for. I do want to write a review of what went right/wrong even for my own sake. Only 5 days missed since lockdown started on March 28th and three potentially awkward niggles managed in that time.

Looking forward to xc now. And getting the mileage back up.

Here's what summer was for me...

MY BAD wrote: »

What app did you use for that graphic or did you draw it yourself?

It's a slightly adapted version of this python script: https://github.com/OGladfelter/run-heatmap

The text and arrows were just added on afterwards.

I'm hoping to make a very simple version of it that I can put online and people can just generate their own maps.

A down week for no other reason that I started to feel a bit rough on Monday and I decided to run very easy as much as I could and try to navigate the week. So, missed out on Saturday’s club session which would have been back at the Magazine Fort, can’t wait to get back to it. Probably still recovering from last Saturday's hour run too.

Still a good week though. 7 days of easy running (with some uptempo miles on Saturday) and a total of 52 miles, despite not getting into double digits for any single run. Which turns out to be my highest mileage since the first week in July.

Monday - 69mins @7:51 - early lap of the park - ran into a club mate, nice to have some company on the easy runs every now and again.
Tuesday - 72mins @8:14 - a bit under the weather…
Wednesday - 49mins @8:02 - and still…
Thursday - 49mins @8:04
Friday - 50mins @8:05
Saturday - gently progressive 70mins @ 7:05 (started off at 8:20 and the last 6 miles were all around 6:40). A really enjoyable ‘long’ run.
Sunday - 49mins @7:59

And back into sessions next week.

As someone who used to struggle to hit 40 miles a week (and rarely get over 40 more than a couple of weeks in a row), this week reaffirmed to me the lesson from this summer which is that running 50 is actually very easy to do if you run very easy, every day. Even when navigating some sniffles. So, sustainable consistency continues to be my motto!

I also got some very cool running-related post this week, the famed 6 inches to 1 mile map of the Phoenix Park, which is probably the greatest piece of mail I've ever received:

A good week. Committed to upping the mileage a bit, so ended up with 67 for the week - up from 59 last week, and 52 the week before. And it feels sustainable (right now).

A few steady-ish miles on Wednesday but the main focus for the foreseeable future is the one key session on Saturday, which 9 times out of 10 will be the club fartlek over the Magazine / Munich Hills in the Park.

Monday - 69mins @7:52
Tuesday - 68mins @7:44
Wednesday - 70mins @ 7:11 (inc 4 steady-ish)
Thursday - 67mins @7:40
Friday - 49mins @7:56 (bit tired)

Saturday- club session.

This week was a return to the double loop that we did in January (see post #11 in this thread!). However, instead of splitting it up into on/off interval sections - we just ran this steady, pushing a bit on the hills (through the dips and up one long 330m hill from the Khyber car park back to the 15 acres).

It was a very tough session, probably close to race effort by the end (which really isn’t something I like doing in training), but I think that reflected the terrain and conditions - you can’t go up that hill into a headwind off a steady pace AND keep going into a continuous tempo without it starting to hurt at some point.

Finished up with 10k continuous - 6 laps - at 6:01 min/mile pace (about 3:44/km pace). Very happy with that as an indicator of current fitness on a really good xc circuit.

Sunday - 97mins @ 7:38min/m - not as slow as I’d like.

Same again next week. Probably have a club race in two weeks over 6k, which should be a good indicator of where I am in terms of race sharpness.

Bit of a step-back week this week, coinciding with the return to lockdown. No harm after two big weeks. 58.9 miles consisting of:

Monday 40mins @8:25 min/mile
Tuesday 53mins @8:22 min/mile
Wednesday 76mins @7:39 min/mile
Thursday 64mins @7:46 min/mile
Friday 36mins @7:44 min/mile
Saturday 62mins @ 6:21 min/mile

Continuous session on the grass in spikes @15 acres in the Phoenix Park consisting of 20mins slower than lt - 3mins jog - 8 x 80s on / 40s off - 3mins jog - and then another 20mins somewhere between two thresholds.

Paces were 6:10 and 6:05 for the two 20mins sections, happy with that.

Sunday 78mins @7:46

Also finished Sunday with my 2,020 miles in 2020. I’ve only gone over 2,000 miles once before so well up on that already.

A bit busy with other stuff at the moment but lots to think about what I can do with the next few months. Right now, the way I’m thinking is that, even when club training returns, I have one ‘free’ session a week to do whatever I want to do.

So, the plan is to do something similar to the club session on Saturdays for the foreseeable future and Wednesday is Sacksian’s choice…based on where I want to be when races return.

Saturday will always be a strength session and the training of the last 9 months will surely continue to stand to me, so if the next race is 10k xc, I should be reasonably well-prepared.

Which means I can afford to do something a bit different - and probably faster - on Wednesdays. This will probably mean a lot more LT / LT+ work but I'd also like to do 5k sessions with lots of 200s-400s at 5k pace. Lots of rest too, but just a decent volume while getting comfortable at goal pace. A few months of that would be a nice complement to the strength stuff I've been doing.

I had in mind running a 5k pb this year and the session of 10 days ago tells me that pace is a bit beyond me at the moment so I would like to get back into a condition - and sense of comfort with that pace - where it's not.

Double week update.

I’ll skip past two weeks ago, wasn’t much of a week - 45 miles.

I did a hill session on the Khyber (3 x 30/45/60/45/30 off jog back and 4mins b/t sets) on the Thursday but was feeling it for three days afterwards so I didn’t do another session that week. It also coincided with some deadlines and a week of bad sleep so I missed a day. The length of time it took me to recover from the hill session also suggests I could do with a few more specific hill sessions (and I have a few ideas for some).

This week was much better - two decent sessions and 59 miles.

Monday + Tuesday —> two phoenix park short trail loops around 7 miles each.

Wednesday

The Lumberjack: 2 x (6mins LT off 90s easy & 4 x 1min on/1min off)

This was tough. But enjoyable (afterwards). Supposed to be by HR but my HR wasn’t working and probably working harder on the 2nd 6mins than I was supposed to be but I still held it together for the 1min reps, so it probably wasn’t too far off.

Paces were approximately: 5:25 (first 6mins) and then 5:06/5:07/5:09/5:18 (for the first 4 x 1mins) straight into 5:29 (2nd 6mins) and then 5:22/5:23/5:12/4:46 (for the 2nd 4 x 1mins)

The acres is never a very forgiving place to run but it was actually okay for this session. Ground was a bit cut up but the 7mm spikes were fine for the conditions.

I was pretty pleased with the pace on the 6min sections and it made me think that I might actually be fit enough to do more/longer harder stuff closer to my 5 mile pace - a pace I tend to shy away from in training.

Thursday + Friday —> two canal runs around 6 miles.

Saturday

While club training is off, I’ve decided to lean in a bit more to the idea of experimenting a bit more. So, on Saturday, I did a marathon pace/hr session and ended up with my longest run since March 2019.

The plan was 4-3-2-1 miles at marathon hr (144-149bpm) off 1 mile. I cut the recovery of the first one a bit short and then had to run a bit longer at the end to make up the HM distance.

The final run total was 85mins @6:30, with all of the marhr sections at around 6:18 and the off miles around 7min/mile. I found the first 4 miles very handy and they averaged 144bpm, but as I got into the 2 mile and 1 mile sections, I just found my legs harder to move. I didn’t feel particularly tired, I just couldn’t get my legs to ‘go!’. Just shows me how important the muscular endurance side of things is for long runs.

I’ve done two 10 milers at 6:06 or so in recent months, both on more challenging surfaces (and both of which I finished pretty strongly), so I was surprised at how timid my finish on this run was - I just presumed I’d be able to blast out the last mile, but not to be!

I’m not going to do any longer runs but I might repeat this in 3 weeks or so, just to see if repeating it has any impact. It’s not a particularly demanding session aerobically and works out as a good aerobic refresh.

Sunday - 53mins @8:40! Very gentle recovery

Next week, some more LT stuff midweek and probably something with hills at the weekend. Or the other way around.

Swashbuckler wrote: »

I'm struggling to wrap my head around 5.25 LT pace?

Sorry to hear that!!

My LTHR range is about 152-157bpm which would probably be around 5:40 in these conditions.

I did this session two years ago with a working hr monitor and it was 5:40 pace for the first 6min section and 5:41 for the second (but I’m fitter at the moment!).

My hr wasn’t working for Wednesday’s session, so I was just running by effort. That’s the pace it came out as. And, as I said above, I was aware that I was probably above LTHR.

So, this was possibly about 10-12 seconds faster than LT pace on the first one, but it’s a 6min effort and I’m generally quite conservative on LT efforts so it’s not going to kill me.

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Wasn't meant to come across as judgemental or anything. I just see 6.06 pace for ten miles (granted on a tough route) and the two just didn't add up to me.

I didn't take offence at all - I absolutely don't mind questions or comments, but expect very long answers, and just ask if you have a question!

One of the difficulties of interpreting training logs/Strava is that there is an infinite amount of context/detail (even the tone!) that gets obscured: background, sleep, diet, true effort, conditions, sporting history, amount of activity during the day, genetics!! I can fill in the blanks on mine, but I don't expect anyone else to be able to.

LT is a physiological threshold, not a pace threshold so, if it is measured, there's nothing to add up, other than making sure the effort's in the right zone! Different people use different terminology for various thresholds - I use my MarHR threshold and my LTHR threshold and they're based on heart rate and were professionally measured (by Emmett Dunleavy, who is an absolute gent).

The 6.06 for 10 miles is a reference to a club session (a 10mile tempo!) where my first two miles were 6:33 and 6:28 so it's not reflective of a 10 mile race time - not that I think I could maintain my LTHR for 10 miles!

And, also, everyone's different.

My physiology generally suggests I should be faster over longer distances/xc than I am, but also slower over shorter distances than I am! And my mile and 5k pbs don't seem to bear much relation to my LTHR and I suspect will always be stronger than pbs for any distance 5 miles and longer.

Solid start but a sickly end to the week...

Monday - thought I might be coming down with something but got out for 53mins @ 8:09min/mile. Was thinking of leaving session until Wednesday at this point.

Tuesday - woke up still feeling a bit tender after the combination of hills and neighbourhood clean-up over the weekend but wanted to get the session done and leave the option of doing the second session on Friday and possibly fitting in a 5k progression on Sunday.

So, this was 8 x 1k off 90s on the acres on the same k stretch as last week’s session. Again, quite warm and the usual wind (although blowing in the opposite direction). Grass was firm underfoot. They come out as:

3:23.4 / 3:28.9 / 3:27.2 / 3:30.7 / 3:27.9 / 3:27.4 / 3:26.1 / 3:22.7 = AVG. 3:26.8

I misjudged the first one a bit because I didn’t really twig that the wind direction was favouring me but, otherwise, I held it together pretty well. And happy that I was able to pick it up for the last rep.

Not as intense as last week’s session but still tough, particularly the psychological burden of getting through 8 on your own! It felt long. Once you get to 5 or 6, it’s fine.

Wednesday - again, stuck for time. Off.

Thursday - back to 9 miles. 70mins @ 7:47

Friday - 60mins @ 7:40 /m

And then struck down by a bad lurgy Friday night. In bed all day Saturday.

So three days off so far. Feel fine today but will probably wait until Wednesday to run again.

I usually get one of these things a year. It generally comes off the back of a couple of hard sessions with inadequate recovery, whether through insufficient sleep or food. I’ve been able to dodge it in the past by heading it off but a combination of things in the last couple of weeks meant I just wasn’t cautious enough.

Missing days when I hadn’t previously and mentioning tiredness are signs it's on its way. I wrote the Monday entry for this log on Tuesday, where I said I thought I might be coming down with something, and in my run description on Strava on Tuesday, I think I mentioned that I was still recovering from the weekend before the session. Those combined, and a bit of a bug going around the house, were the perfect storm for succumbing.

It always take me ages to feel like I’m back 100% again so I’ll take a step back in intensity with the sessions for 10 days or so (was supposed to be doing the “lactate stacker” last Saturday!!).

Club sessions return from this week with a rumoured first session of a 5.5k xc threshold tempo followed by a three-quarter session of 200s - both over our usual Magazine Fort loop. Which is exactly the type of session I'd love to do but I’ll have to skip that this week.

And going forward I have to figure out what the priority for me will be midweek when I’m back at the club sessions.

Midweek I’ll either be hitting 2mile reps @MAR —>LT (in advance of the Stephen’s Day 10mile xc race, which probably won't happen), hills (in advance of needing to be quicker come March, which probably won't be needed) or…..

At some point, I want to rerun an 80 x 100m session I did years ago. I was reminded of it by a post in the “Random Running Questions” thread.

I was actually a bit injured at the time I did it in 2016 but I ran three races shortly after doing it (a BHAA 4-miler, the Great Ireland 5k, and the road relays) that went really, really well and I’ve always thought it played a big part in those races.

Just a huge amount of volume at a good speed without killing yourself (although it is mentally challenging). If there’s the possibility of a mile either at Christmas or in the New Year, I might get it done before then.

Beyond that, I think Athletics Ireland are coming under increasing pressure from athletes and clubs to lobby harder for some form of return to competition and I suspect they will try to organise a National Senior XC late February or so. I would say the demand would be incredible and it’d certainly be special to do it, so I’d like to do a couple of 10 x 1k off 2mins sessions before then. One on the grass same as last Wednesday and, if I can squeeze another in, hopefully one on the track.

Not sure whether I'll recover quickly enough to do a TT before the end of the year but either way it's been a very productive year in terms of running, if not in terms of races. Hopefully I can keep the consistency going for another few months.

IvoryTower wrote: »

80 x 100? what the **** :pac:

Dude - this is exactly what you should be doing!!

Have you ever heard of someone doing an 8 x 1000m session?

Or 20 x 400m?

Now, just keep going....

Actual session took about an hour:

https://www.strava.com/activities/520220396/laps



It's about 5 miles of running in around 5/min pace. Now, maybe I was in ridiculously good shape at that time (unlikely) and I wouldn't be able to get near it now (quite possible) but I still think it was one of those beautiful training experiments that simultaneously makes absolutely perfect sense, and no sense whatsoever.

Can't wait to do 40 x 200m @ 3k pace and 100 x 100m @5k pace in the new year!!!

dna_leri wrote: »

How do you keep count?
I get confused if there is more than 10 reps.

I'm the same - that's why the 800m is my favourite distance!

I think most of my sessions of either 20 reps or 2 x 10 reps have ended up being 21 reps because I lose count and just want to be sure.

But, for this one, I made sure from the start that I could tell by the lap no. on the garmin where I was. I really, really didn't want to run 79. I think I was breaking it up mentally into sets of 10 as well and I do remember around rep 50 being a bit dubious about the possibility of completing it.