With one exception.
When he mentioned ice baths a while ago, I tried to silently ignore his advice, hoping it would go away. This worked for a while, but he was always going to come back to it. Time to HTFU and suck it up.
Saturday's MP effort had a twist. I was ordered to cover up the Garmin during the pace effort and run purely by feel. Instead of covering it up I switched the display. Never having aimed for a certain pace without my little toy, I felt completely at sea. Two miles into the effort I was highly tempted to peek but managed to resist. The MP segment was longer this time, 10 miles, and I did start to get tired towards the end. My impression during the last few miles was that I was running a bit too hard; it just did not feel likely to keep up the effort for an entire marathon. When I did look at the numbers after finishing the run I was both pleased that I had kept the pace pretty much on target (6:44 pace, HR 161), and slightly disappointed that an effort that had felt a tad too hard was “only” 6:44, after thinking of 6:40 as my marathon pace prior to the run.
The real torture came after the run in form of the aforementioned ice bath. The coach called it “cool bath” because there is no actual ice in the tub but who is he kidding! Niamh came to inquire what the tortured high-pitched screaming was all about and left with the immortal words “you f***ing eejit, Thomas!”. No sympathy from that source then.
It did, however, help the legs because they felt surprisingly good the next morning. Just too bad that the rest of me felt like crap. I think that bug that I have been fighting for the last week is trying to gain the upper hand. The heart rate was elevated (resting HR 44 compared to 40 last week) and I felt completely flat at first and like death at the end. The hilly road around Caragh Lake did not help either. The coach had told me to run easily for at least 2 hours but no more than 2:30 and use my own judgment. I'm not sure why I added another 1.5 miles after finishing the loop because that was definitely against the coach's advice. I also can't quite explain why I started hammering along during the second half. The HR was way above the low 140s where it should have been but at that stage I had decided that the germs in my body had raised the HR to new levels, meaning it did not reflect the real running effort. I also figured that if I can run 7:30 pace over a very hilly road while feeling lousy, I must be in good shape. When Niamh asked how the run had been I replied “I'm surprised you can feel so bad and still live”, but had no comeback to her “I learned that during child birth”. Given that contrast, I suppose I was not feeling that bad.
After a week with a sore throat, I have finally decided to take some medication but now I'm wondering if it was the medicine that made me feel so bad. I actually started feeling perfectly fine again as soon as I stopped running (apart from yet another ice bath. This time even the kids came to check why daddy was screaming), so it's hard to know if I'm getting worse or improving but right now I think I'll be fine again soon.
- 26 Feb
- 13.1 miles, 1:30:26, 6:54 pace, HR 157
incl. 10 miles @ 6:44 pace, HR 161 - 27 Feb
- 18 miles, 2:14:54, 7:29 pace, HR 153
Weekly Mileage: 77+
Cold baths aren't that bad Thomas, Niamh said it all. Solid running - keep it up.
ReplyDeleteI think that if you were bug free the 06:44 @ HR 161 would have probably been nearer 06:40. Regardless, still very encouraging statistics.
ReplyDeleteThose longer tempo sessions look to be the 'bread' & butter' of the program, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, it'll take much more than your encouraging words to upset me. Don’t worry; I realized it was a joke/motivation. My response was in jest and full of sarcasm (some Ally tells me I need to work on).
You're good at following good advice. When I told Scott Brown to take ice baths, his wife said to me "no way, he's small enough as it is!"
ReplyDelete