As I type this it is pouring rain outside as it has been for the last few days. It seems to be constantly dark with not even a glimmer of Sunshine breaking through the gloom - perfect cross country weather then!
No more can be done other than recovery & fuel up. Got a massage yesterday & just went for an easy 50minute run in the evening. Will take today off completely (first since 21st of September) & just do a 3 mile jog in the morning to stay loose. Think I've prepared pretty well, but at the same time I don't have the 'mad to get out of the blocks' feeling that I've experienced after tapering for a marathon. Only time (or finishing position rather)will tell how well it's worked I suppose...
Total mileage for week: 39.5miles
Friday 30 October 2009
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Last session
Into the home stretch now so for a session last night I did 8x400's instead of the usual 12. The times were n't great 72-73secs & I felt pretty crappy doing them. That said the track was very wet & there was a fairly stiff wind on the back straight. I remember last year on my last session before the counties my first 400 was in 67secs & I ran terribly so maybe the opposite will happen this time. Really clutching at straws now am n't I??
Tuesday 27 October 2009
East Cork Cross Country Chmpionships
No I'm not running the marathon. If I had to say this once over the weekend I had to say it 100 times. Went out for a few drinks (well Ballygowan) with some buddies on Saturday night & they were asking was it the marathon I was doing & when I said it was a 6k cross country race the inevitable 'shur I could do that' was the reply.
Anyway enough whingeing, did a brief 4 miles at the beach on saturday morning. Had planned on having a dip afterwards but the water was seriously choppy & I would have had to walk through a tonne of seaweed to get to it so I wimped out. Onto Sunday, a total of 11 men toed the line for the East Cork CC champs, we were the only club with a team (4) so we were always going to retain the trophy. This was one of the strangest races I ever did. Two of my clubmates who are undeniably much faster than me went to the front but the pace was easy enough to stay with them. We mustn't have been going too slow though as everyone else got burned off within a lap or two. By the the 3rd lap it still felt a bit easy so I took it out, don't know why - I suppose I knew I wasn't going to win so might as well get a decent workout. I dropped back again after this but the pace was still very manageable. Finally just starting out on the 6th & final lap one of the lads took off, I tried in vain to give chase. The other guy came around me with half a lap to go & even though I stayed with him for a few strides I decided that resistance was futile so let him on his way. With about 150m's to go he was however still in reach so I decided to give one last effort & as the line hurtled towards me I thought for a split second I had him but he copped me coming and put on a little burst himself. Still, was happy enough with my run & my first senior medal. A good preparation for next week.
Did a handy 8 yesterday morning - was home before 25,000 feet hit the streets of Dublin.
Last week: 53 miles total
Anyway enough whingeing, did a brief 4 miles at the beach on saturday morning. Had planned on having a dip afterwards but the water was seriously choppy & I would have had to walk through a tonne of seaweed to get to it so I wimped out. Onto Sunday, a total of 11 men toed the line for the East Cork CC champs, we were the only club with a team (4) so we were always going to retain the trophy. This was one of the strangest races I ever did. Two of my clubmates who are undeniably much faster than me went to the front but the pace was easy enough to stay with them. We mustn't have been going too slow though as everyone else got burned off within a lap or two. By the the 3rd lap it still felt a bit easy so I took it out, don't know why - I suppose I knew I wasn't going to win so might as well get a decent workout. I dropped back again after this but the pace was still very manageable. Finally just starting out on the 6th & final lap one of the lads took off, I tried in vain to give chase. The other guy came around me with half a lap to go & even though I stayed with him for a few strides I decided that resistance was futile so let him on his way. With about 150m's to go he was however still in reach so I decided to give one last effort & as the line hurtled towards me I thought for a split second I had him but he copped me coming and put on a little burst himself. Still, was happy enough with my run & my first senior medal. A good preparation for next week.
Did a handy 8 yesterday morning - was home before 25,000 feet hit the streets of Dublin.
Last week: 53 miles total
Friday 23 October 2009
Did I mention I forgot to do some hills?
As I mentioned in the last post I hadn't really done any hill work recently (which wasn't strictly true as I had done 4 x 1200's at some stage in the last month or so). Anyway I decided to put this to rights yesterday & decided to go to Walshtown wood where we do our club hill sessions. I couldn't remember what times I had been getting last year so just went by effort. The session consists of 3 x 0.3mile which gets gradually steeper, followed by 0.2 mile all out sprint on the flat followed by 4 x 0.2mile up a gradual slope & finishing off with 3 x 0.28 mile up a slope that's gentle at the beginning tough in the middle & not too bad at the end. It felt like I was putting in a decent enough effort although in truth I probably was n't pushing as hard as if I was chasing one of my faster club mates. This might come back to haunt me Sunday week as it was exactly 10days away so was supposed to be my hardest session before tapering for the county champ's. Still it's done now so there's no point in mulling it over too much.
Just did 8miles easy this morning as I woke early - nice to have it out of the way!. The East Cork XC champs are on this sunday so will do another easy run in the morning & then relax...
Just did 8miles easy this morning as I woke early - nice to have it out of the way!. The East Cork XC champs are on this sunday so will do another easy run in the morning & then relax...
Wednesday 21 October 2009
East Cork 3K series:Race 1
After a hiatus of nearly a month from blogging, I can thankfully say I've been a bit more consistant with my training. It is now less than 2 weeks to go to the county cross country championships which is my main race of the winter. My training has gone pretty much to plan (so far) with my endurance phase leading up to the Cork half Marathon. Since then I have been trying to build stamina (using 800's,1000's & long 7 mile tempo runs).Over the last week or two I have started doing 400's & shorter faster 5 mile Tempo runs & also cut my mileage back from 70 to 55ish to enable the quality work to be done. The one thing I have lacked really is hill work but hopefully this won't count against me too much. I managed to squeeze in a XC race 10 days ago & it went well, without being spectacular.
So onto last night & the first race (of 7) in the East Cork 3K series. I love these races, they were my real introduction to racing and as it's over the same course your time really lets you know where you are. My best time from last year was 9.52 but I was confident of bettering it. I had it in my head to try and do 3.10 per lap which would give me 9.30. I felt like I was flying when I was doing my strides beforehand - better than I've ever felt before so went to the line brimming with confidence. On the first lap I found myself a few seconds down on the leading 2 after the first 600m. Then amazingly without any extra effort they started coming back to me & I actually caught them coming down the hill which ends the lap and first Kilometre. Our time was called as 3.06. As we rounded the corner I left the two lads to their own race & just concentrated on holding my pace. Even though I still felt ok I had slowed down a bit over the second half of the 2nd K & my time was 6.21 at the end of the lap, a second behind schedule. The last lap was a struggle (as it always is!) but even though I was really tiring my time was almost as fast as the second lap so I ended up with 9.37 (3rd place) which I was happy enough with. Conditions were n't ideal so hopefully the 9.30 barrier is achievable before the winter is over...
So onto last night & the first race (of 7) in the East Cork 3K series. I love these races, they were my real introduction to racing and as it's over the same course your time really lets you know where you are. My best time from last year was 9.52 but I was confident of bettering it. I had it in my head to try and do 3.10 per lap which would give me 9.30. I felt like I was flying when I was doing my strides beforehand - better than I've ever felt before so went to the line brimming with confidence. On the first lap I found myself a few seconds down on the leading 2 after the first 600m. Then amazingly without any extra effort they started coming back to me & I actually caught them coming down the hill which ends the lap and first Kilometre. Our time was called as 3.06. As we rounded the corner I left the two lads to their own race & just concentrated on holding my pace. Even though I still felt ok I had slowed down a bit over the second half of the 2nd K & my time was 6.21 at the end of the lap, a second behind schedule. The last lap was a struggle (as it always is!) but even though I was really tiring my time was almost as fast as the second lap so I ended up with 9.37 (3rd place) which I was happy enough with. Conditions were n't ideal so hopefully the 9.30 barrier is achievable before the winter is over...
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