Friday 29 February 2008

Back in the Ould Sod

Tuesday 10.6miles @ 7.22min/mile AvgHR 141bpm
Wednesday, Day Off - First in over two weeks, was travelling home so did n't really have the opportunity to run. I'm sure I could have managed it somehow but decided I deserved a night off.
Thursday: 10 miles + approx, forgot my Garmin but ran for 75 minutes on grass. Was with a friend and joined 2 others so it was very enjoyable. First 'social' run in a long time.
Friday: 8 miles @ 7.04min/mile AvgHR 150bpm. Went a bit fast, but it was miserable out so just wanted to get it over with!!
Incidently was reading an article on Martin Fagan (Ireland's Olympic Marathon qualifier) and it refers to his love of coffee and how it is an ally to the marathoner. That'll do me then as I must admit I'm hooked on the stuff!!!

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Long Run Blues

Had planned my first long run for Sunday 16miles. Did n't anticipate any problems - how wrong I was!! Started off ok, had trouble keeping the pace down. Had planned on running the first few miles above 7.30 pace but went through the first in 7.15 or therabouts. No big deal. The next few miles were ok but by mile 5 I was really starting to feel lethargic. Thought it would pass but it only got worse. By mile 9 I would have gladly stopped but for the fact that I was miles from home!! Laboured my way back to Staines and as soon as I reached the building I stopped having clocked up only 14.75miles. I think that shows how flahed I was that I did n't even do the 400m to make it up to a round 15miles. I can't explain what happened, but I guess I just had an off day. It's a really horrible feeling being so tired and still having to plug away. I guess it's a feeling I'll have to get used to again as it's an evitable part of longer runs (hopefully longer than 16 miles!) and the race itself. I always find myself questioning why the hell I'm doing this, but it passes or at least it always has - so far...

Monday: 5.8 miles 7.04min/mile AvgHR 145bpm. Felt good, nice to be ok after yesterday.

Saturday 23 February 2008

Blistering, and not the pace!

Got my first blister on my foot - ever. My smallest toe on my left foot has been at me for the last few days and this morning was no different. When I took off my shoe afterwards, there was a blister the size of my big toe covering it! I ran early so thankfully it has gone as I'm planning my first long run for tomorrow (16 miles) and the last thing I need is a sore toe! I don't know what caused it - the shoes I have are well worn in at this stage so it's a mystery.

Speaking of shoes I use Nike Air Pegasus for over in England as I picked them up cheap and it saves carrying shoes over and back. I also find rotating shoes is easier on the body, maybe because different models have their own strengths and weaknesses. Back home I use Nike Air Vomero 2's which are really well cushioned. I have a neutral gait so I don't need structured shoes or anything. For racing I use the Nike Vaporfly (pictured) for everything up to 10K. I absolutely love these shoes as when you put them on its like springs because they are so light, and the best part was I got them for £25 off t'internet. Over 10K I wear Nike Zoom Marathoner but I'm still not sure if I will wear them for Cork as I was quite sore after the last 10 miler. I hope I can do as they're fairly light. which might make the difference in the end...


Friday (mostly on a grass) : 8.7miles @7.14min/mile AvgHR149bpm

Saturday: 5.6miles @7.05min/mile AvgHR146bpm

Friday 22 February 2008

Losing my Tempo

Have had 3 runs since last post, here they are not in chronological order.
Tuesday: 10.3miles @7.14min/mile AvgHR 144bpm, felt good th'out
Thursday:10.2 @7.33min/mile AvgHR 142bpm, never got going.
Wednesday:

Had planned on doing another interval session, untill I read this article http://www.pfitzinger.com/marathontraining.shtml , which suggests that tempo runs are better than intervals when training specifically for a marathon. Seeing as I don't have access to a track at the moment this was music to my ears. I still think I will do some interval sessions as I do want to be improve over shorter distances as well, I'll just combine the two of them. The pace suggested was current 10mile race pace. My last 10miler was 59.30 so after a two mile warm up I attempted to maintain just under 6 min/mile pace. In short I failed, dunno if I was just tired or lacking the necessary adrenaline or is that my racing shoes really do make that much of a difference, I don't know. I managed 4 miles with the following splits: 5.55, 6.05, 6.07, 6.06, followed by 2.5miles cool down. I guess normally before a race I won't have ran over 18miles in the previous two days...

Monday 18 February 2008

The Early Bird

Was out on the road at 5.00am this morning, due to flying back to London at 7.30am. I could have waited untill this evening but it's so much nicer running at home and not having it hanging over me all day it's worth getting up a bit early. I also feel there's something really satisfying about pounding the pavement when most people are still in bed. Having said that, last monday I said 'screw it' & reset the alarm for 6!
Felt good throughout, did an ice bath before bed last night (did n't manage one on saturday afterall) so that helped.

8miles @7.00min/mile @ 149AvgHR.

Will do a core work out tonight if I can muster up the enthusiasm. Will have to start doing these on a regular basis to prevent injury as the mileage builds up.

Sunday 17 February 2008

Cork county Novice & Masters road championships

What a brutal course!! Up hill for virtually all of the last mile and a half. Don't feel like I performed well at all. Started too fast and paid for it later on. Was in a group of 3 in 4th, 5th and 6th up untill mile 2.5. Then one by one runners went past, with one or two offering encouragement as they went - b*stards!! Ended up in 10th overall in 22.56 , 6th place in the Novice category due to some of the guys ahead of me being masters. Imagine my surprise when I was announced in third place when the results were being called out! Must be something to do with the novices ahead of me being medallists in the more prestigious masters (O35, O40 etc) categories. Still only put me in 4th by my count, so I won't hold my breath for the medal to arrive...
We came 3rd in the novice club event (East Cork AC) narrowly pipped by Midleton AC, for 2nd and a long way behind Grange-Fermoy AC who won.

My Splits were as follows:
Mile 1: 5.06 @174bpm
Mile 2: 5.17 @184bpm
Mile 3: 5.54 @187bpm
Mile 4: 6.37 @188bpm

Did a 3.5mile warm up and 6 miles after giving a total of 13.5 for the day.
Total for week 1 of 16 was: 61.5 miles which is not too Shabby. No races planned now untill the Ballycotton 10 in 3 weeks time so should be able to concentrate on getting some long runs in at the weekends. I can hardly wait...

Saturday 16 February 2008

Easy like a Saturday morning

Just an easy 4 miler on grass this morning. Body felt fairly tired, first full week of training since christmas.
4miles @7.22min/mile AvgHR 147bpm

Cork county novice road championships tomorrow so hopefully will be recovered enough. Will do an ice bath before bed tonight, I find it really helps with recovery. Looks like it's going to be pretty tough course - 4miles with a long uphill finish.

Friday 15 February 2008

Running Hours Apart

Today I found myself in the situation where my run began less than 12 hours after the previous one had finished. Reason being I'm flying home this evening so I won't have the time to get one in when I get there. Normally I don't mind finding myself in this situation as it sort of gives a rest day 'for free' before the next evening run. This time however it wasn't ideal as I was out for a colleagues leaving do so only managed 5 hours sleep or so! (I did however manage to stay off the sauce:-)) I definitely find lack of rest takes away at least some of the good of training, but you can't shut yourself off from the rest of the world, or can you...

Thursday: 9 miles@ 7.25min/mile 144bpm AvgHR. First 3.5miles were at 8min/mile with a buddy.
Friday: 5 miles@ 7.14min/mile @ Avg HR 150's.

Wednesday 13 February 2008

Intervals

Tonight was my first interval session in a while. Had been doing a regular tuesday night session at the track in Cork, but have been working in England since the end of last year so trying to get a regular routine has been difficult. Anyway enough of the sob story, bit the bullet tonight and managed to do 4x800 metres with a 400m recovery. Thankfully the Garmin enables doing this accurately even on unknown roads. Times were a bit dissappointing, but I'm going to put it down to the length of time since my last session and the fact the terrain was undulating and all my 800s seemed to be uphill, except for the last(honest!)
3mile warm up
800m in 2.40 AvgHR 174
400m in 2.18 150
800m in 2.53 172
400m in 2.07 159
800m in 2.58 175 (mostly uphill)
400m in 2.12 156
800m in 2.47 174
400m in 1.51 165
4mile warm down.
10 miles total. Noticed that my heart rate stayed quite high during warm down even though pace was 7.30mi/min+. Must research this... Quite tired afterwards. I guess it's been a pretty

tough few days...



...

Tuesday 12 February 2008

A good start is...

Right, first post obviously. Yesterday was 16 weeks to D-Day, 2nd of June 08 and the date for the Cork Marathon (www.corkcitymarathon.ie). This will be my second attempt at this particular marathon posting of time of just over 3.30 in last years event. This was 40minutes quicker than my debut in Dublin the previous October. This time round then aim is the break 3 hours, and I'm using this blog as a means of tracking progress as well as a motivating tool.
Before officially starting training I was logging anything between 40 & 65 miles a week. The plan is to build to 80-90 before the end of my program.
Anyway down to business:
11/02:
10.15miles 1.11.20 AvgHR 149bpm 7.01min/mile
12/02:
10.2miles - Don't know HR or distance as I forgot my Garmin, d'oh! but I'd say I averaged about 7.40min/mile as the first 4miles were 8+ as I was running with a work mate