EOI B2B marathons in Howth

The back-to-back marathons I ran 2 months ago in Monaghan had gone so well that when I saw that the EOI crowd was putting on a similar event in Howth in the middle of December I decided to do that as well.

I had never run any of the EOI marathons before, even though I'm good friends with all of the organisers. As long as I was living in Kerry it was always a bit too far away and once I had moved to Dublin I still spent most weekends in Kerry, so I had to wait until now. A bit surprisingly, the back-to-back marathons were scheduled for Friday and Saturday rather than over the weekend, but since I happened to be made redundant from work on Wednesday the schedule actually suited me very well.

It sure was a low-key event on Friday, just turn up shortly before nine am and then off we run. You'll be pointed into the right direction on a rather idiot-proof loop, just follow the main road until you're back in Howth. No road closures, so stay on the footpath, and certainly no chip timing or pacing teams, but a table at the end of each loop with drinks and encouragement.

We started pretty much on time. Howth itself was very quiet and there was very little traffic on the road. It was freezing cold, especially thanks to a biting wind, so I wore long sleeves as well as running tights, though at least half of the lads were clad in shorts nevertheless. The loop was to be run in reverse to the standard EOI Howth loop, which meant an insanely steep climb right from the off, about 1.2 miles and almost 400 feet / 115 meters of elevation gain, though those numbers don't give justice to the much steeper first half of that climb. Not only was that the start to a marathon, I would also have to keep my legs fresh for tomorrow, so I tried to take it easy but it's hard to take it easy on a hill like that and after the very first mile I was already knackered! There was some respite on the other side of the hill in form of a much more gradual downhill segment for close to three miles, where once again I tried to take it easy, though with the fastest mile coming through at about 7 minutes I'm not sure I was entirely successful in that. Once we got to the bottom we had about 2.5 miles of flat roads to get us back to Howth, only to do it all over again. The second loop was already more challenging but I held it together alright. It was during the third loop that the suffering started, and once you start feeling the pain on that climb you're unlikely to recover much. At least I had plenty of targets to catch on that third loop because that's where I gradually reeled in the early starters who'd set off an hour ahead of us, and every time I passed one of them and exchanged a few friendly words, the next one was usually in sight already. However, by the time I got back to Howth for the third time I was pretty much cooked and not looking forward to a fourth loop.

Totally wasted after day 1

This time that hill REALLY hurt, and the only reason I managed to survive was because I kept telling myself that this was the very last time I would ever have to put myself through that particular torture because tomorrow's loop would be run in reverse, though I wasn't particularly looking forward to bombing down that steep decline on tired legs either. After what felt like far too many minutes in hell and agony I got to the top, not that the downhill segment felt any easier. I just about held myself together and my pace had declined sufficiently to barely make 8-minute miles on the downhill. Once I was back on the flat bit I gradually managed to get into my head that I was almost done and eventually picked up the pace a little bit again for a reasonable finish. All the while I had not checked my pace even once, just used the watch from time to time to reassure myself of the distance covered but had literally no clue as to what time I was doing, until the moment I pressed the stop button at 3:38:54. I more or less collapsed on the bench, feeling wiped out and totally exhausted. I left soon after because I was getting cold very quickly and drove home, which was one of the most uncomfortable drives ever as my left leg, which had been fine while running, kept cramping every time I had to use the clutch, which was not great timing driving through a very busy Dublin. The cramps kept on coming all afternoon back home, until they finally subsided in the evening. In addition I tortured myself a bit more in form of an ice bath, which was probably the most torturous part of the day, despite everything else.

And as for never having to climb that hill again? As soon as I had finished Gary explained that they would have to change tomorrow's route due to a Christmas market in Howth, and instead of doing 4 loops we would instead run over the mountain and back again three times each, basically leaving out the flat bit and just keeping the hills in it. I looked at him wide-eyed, waiting for the punchline that never came. He was being serious!

My left calf still hurt from all the previous day's cramping when I got up on Saturday morning. It's fair to say I was not looking forward to it. I was nervous about my legs cramping, about running out of energy on the hills, about the pain that was in store.

(most of) the runners for day 2

There were a few more runners in it on Saturday compared to Friday but the vibe was still as friendly and the race was still low-key, with a minimum of fuss, absolutely perfect for a training run with friends. It was even colder than the day before but once we were off that immediately became much less of an issue than having to climb that hill yet again. I started at a measured effort with half the field streaming past me initially, though that included the half-marathon runners and of course plenty of runners who hadn't put themselves through the wringer the day before. Despite my fears, the legs actually felt pretty good without any muscle pain, and the longer the hill dragged on the more I grew in confidence and I started moving up through the field again, without apparently having to increase the effort. Due to the lower temperatures the footpaths were still partially covered by a slippery layer of frost and you had to be a bit careful, on the first loop at least, though thankfully there were no accidents as far as I can tell. I still felt surprisingly good on the first downhill, even going a bit faster than yesterday with a 6:50 mile, not that I was aware of it at the time. I just tried to keep everything under control. We got to the turn-around point after about 4.4 miles and now I would get to experience the hill in reverse for the first time. The one thing I noticed straight away was that it felt a lot steeper than the gradual gradient when running downhill, and this time we had close to 3 miles of climbing to do before we would get to the top (with a dip in the middle). The one bit I was dreading the most was actually the steep downhill into Howth on the other side, I didn't know what that would do to my quads. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how well that went. The footpath was very uneven and the road too busy to be running on it so you couldn't just release the breaks and go hell for leather, but a more measured descend worked very well. Ger asked how I was doing, I responded with "better than expected" to which he encouragingly responded "just wait for loops 2 and 3, then". Thanks, mate! I wasted some time here by drinking my bottle at the table instead of bringing it with me (because it was my son's bottle, not a throw-away, and I didn't want to carry it with me for the next 8.8 miles), but soon enough I was back on the road, climbing that hill yet again, and feeling better than expected yet again.

about to waste a lot of time!

Nevertheless this was starting to become challenging again and my breathing was a bit ragged, but as always I sounded worse than I felt. I still managed to keep going at a decent enough rate. On that loop I once again started to catch most of the early starters, and as always we exchanged a few friendly words along the way, with "looking good" almost always being an outright lie but nobody ever minds. I wasted even more time at the turnaround point when due to fatigue and clammy fingers in the cold I struggled to extract my little ziplock bag with caffeine pills and salt tablets from my pocket, promptly spilling the entire content on the road and picking it up again (not giving a damn about road dirt), which may have cost me as much as a minute. Ah well. I wasn't going for a time today anyway. The hill on the return leg was still steeper than it had been on the downward stretch but I got over it and the steep downhill on the other side was once again better than expected.

There was even more time wasted at the aid station when Ger offered me a Coke and I sure wasn't going to say no but had to walk a bit to drink it without spilling it all over me. I guess I really wasn't in race mode today, which is not a bad thing when you're doing a training run, of course. The hill definitely was a challenge now, alright, but I actually felt a lot better than yesterday. I got over it, again. I caught a runner on the downhill who then seemed to just disappear, not sure what exactly happened but I didn't see him on the return leg. For once I got through an aid station without wasting time and did the glory stretch all the way home.

Much better after day 2

I finished in 3:41:08, just 2 minutes slower than yesterday, which is probably the time I needlessly wasted at various aid stations, on an even tougher course and on pre-fatigued legs, so overall actually a much better run than the one on Friday. I might have exaggerated a little bit when I said I was feeling fresh as a daisy but the contrast to the day before was truly remarkable. Once again I could not hang around for too long because I was getting cold and made my way home, which also went a lot better than yesterday.

I was flabbergasted when I saw I had averaged 138 on the HR on Saturday. Even considering that I had taken it easy, that's an incredibly low reading for a marathon, hilly or not.

All in all it had been a very good set of races, thanks to Gary, Frank and Ger from the EOI crowd, all their helpers,  and all the runners who shared the road with me on those 2 days. I expect I'll be back for more soon enough, though maybe not in Howth.

13 Dec

7.6 miles, 1:00:55, 8:00 pace, HR 141

14 Dec

6.3 miles, 51:56, 8:14 pace, HR 136

15 Dec

EOI B2B marathon p1, Howth, 3:38:54, 8:20 pace, HR 144

16 Dec

EOI B2B marathon p2, Howth, 3:41:08, 8:26 pace, HR 138

17 Dec

5+ miles, 45:11, 8:56 pace, HR 125

All photos from the EOI FB page. Thanks, guys!

Lessons. Learned?

Things are progressing nicely so far. Having said that, I'm only 3 weeks into training so it's still very early days, obviously.

I was slightly nervous about doing back-to-back 10 milers at home, though I shouldn't have been - it's only a tiny bit further than my commute and not much more hilly.

The commute itself has added an interesting training component. It's basically a back-to-back workout followed by a longer recovery. If I cycle in on Monday morning then I run back on Monday evening. Less than 12 hours later I am running back into the office on Tuesday morning but then I have almost 36 hours of rest before Wednesday's evening run.

As with all back-to-back workouts, much depends on how you run the first one. It's a lesson I learned (yet again) today. Last night's run was a tad too fast, especially as it was against a steady headwind as well as (slightly) uphill. As a result, I did suffer a bit this morning, clearly not yet fully recovered. The last 3 or 4 miles were definitely dragging, and I ran over 15 seconds a mile slower than the day before, at the same HR, despite this being the downhill leg. Lesson learned? We'll see!

I might do a parkrun this weekend. I probably should take care with faster efforts as it's still so early, but a parkrun is never a full-out race. Hopefully. Anyway, it's such a great institution that it should be supported, and with so many parkruns in Dublin I am keen to visit a few of them over the following months - depending on how many weekends I'm spending in Dublin rather than Kerry, of course.

20 Aug

10 miles, 1:21:36, 8:09 pace, HR 146

21 Aug

9.15 miles, 1:13:57, 8:04 pace

22 Aug

9.15 miles, 1:13:00, 7:58 pace, HR 148

23 Aug

9.2 miles, 1:15:55, 8:13 pace, HR 148

Lessons In Recovery

It's one of MC's favourite sayings, that how you recover from a workout says more about your conditioning than how the workout went.

My workout was the Longford ultra. It had gone very well, much better than expected. Now I had to recover from it.

Cute!

I launched into my standard tried and tested recovery protocol. The day after the ultra I hobbled through 4 uncomfortable miles when I would have preferred to wrap myself in cotton wool, but that's the tried and tested part of the recovery program. Gentle exercise significantly speeds up recovery compared to total rest, as counter-intuitive as it may sound at first.

I kept taking it very easy for several more days, which of course included skipping the weekly mountain run. The legs felt better with each day but I could still sense some fatigue in the quads, which is a bit strange because during the ultra itself it was primarily the hamstrings that were aching. On Friday I felt sufficiently brave to launch into another workout, the usual Fast Friday 7 miles with the HR close to 155, though I was prepared to pull the plug any time, depending how the legs felt.

Well, as it turns out, the legs felt much better than anticipated. I have never managed to surprise the coach with a workout, until now that is. Even he did not expect me to cruise through those mile the way I did, though in all honesty I was even more surprised to post better numbers than 2 and 3 weeks ago.

Turns out, though, it wasn't all as rosy as it looked at first. Saturday was the second part of the back-to-back workout. Nine easy miles followed by 6 at 7:15 pace, or a little bit faster if I felt like it. It looked easy enough, that's slower and for a shorter distance than Friday's fast part, but once I started the workout I could immediately sense that the legs were compromised. If you've heard about the central governor theory, I felt it today as the CG left me with a very limited number of muscle fibres to work with. As hard as I tried, 7:21 pace was as good as it got and I only managed to elevate my HR to 160 on uphill sections, otherwise the legs just would not respond no matter how hard I tried. That's the thing with those back-to-back workouts, they mercilessly show up deficient recovery, so it's back to another week of easy running.

24 Apr

5 miles, 42:35, 8:31 pace, HR 136

25 Apr

5 miles, 42:20, 8:28 pace, HR 133

26 Apr

7 miles, 56:51, 8:07 pace, HR 136

27 Apr

7 miles, 54:53, 7:50 pace, HR 144

28 Apr

10 miles, 1:13:07, 7:18 pace, HR 150

   incl.7 @ 7:04 (HR 153)

29 Apr

15 miles, 1:55:38, 7:42 pace, HR 147

   incl.6 @ 7:21 (HR 156)

30 Apr

7 miles, 58:28, 8:21 pace, HR 136

Back-To-Back

I've been quite lucky this time round with races a just the right time when I needed them. Last week the coach wanted me to run 40 miles and the Glen of Aherlow ultra saved me from having to trot on my own for hours and hours on end, and this Saturday the Kerry 24 hrs Endurance run saved me from a familiar situation. In fact, I had been quite disappointed that I would not be able to take part in this race; a 24 hours race here in Kerry seemed to be too good to miss but the European Championships do beat that and 4 weeks would not nearly have been enough to recover. I am therefore very grateful for the RD, Marcus Howlett, to offer me an entry. I made sure he would not mind if I stepped off after a marathon (the last thing I would have wanted was for him to think I disrespected this race) and was nominally put into the 6-hour race.

There were many familiar faces in Tralee town park, many local runner who would otherwise never have contemplated running a 24 hrs race took the opportunity to take part - it was very much a case of build it and they'll come. It all started with very little fuss and at 12 o'clock we all set off - at a rather leisurely pace.

My plan was to test out as much as I could in realistic race conditions. Therefore I was wearing the same gear I am planning to use in Albi, I was having the same nutrition and following a nutrition plan for a 24 hrs race and I ran at the same effort level I am planning to use in Albi. Basically, I was running the first 4 hours of a 24 hours race. That is, admittedly, very much the easy part.

I set off at basically 4-hour marathon pace because that's a pace I am very comfortable with and can hold for a lot of hours (not 24 though!). I also wore a HR that settled in around the 135 mark, and after that I paid no more attention to either HR or pace and just ran by feel and tried to keep the effort as even as possible. A lap was 0.75 miles, so that makes 4 laps for 3 miles, and 35 laps for the marathon. The distance seemed to match very closely what was displayed on my GPS, so there was no need for me to keep count; just run.

I felt a bit like an impostor. I knew I was going to stroll away happily a few hours later, while the real runner would be close to having to be carried off the track. I tried to ignore that and just, well, run. I ran a few miles with Terence at the start, had a chat with Alex O'Shea (I still can't understand why he's not on the Irish team for Albi even though he has run the standard), also with Mike, David, Fozzy and a few more, and I also made sure to have a few encouraging words with anyone I passed (that didn't entirely work for 4 hours but I did give out plenty of encouragement). My hamstrings felt a bit tight after only a few miles, but coming into this race on the back of probably the toughest few days of training I have ever done that didn't come as a complete surprise and the legs settled nicely as the miles ticked by.

The nutrition plan consisted of taking something every 2 laps, either a drink (tailwind or watered down flat coke) or a small bite (potato or flap jack), which should add up to about 180 calories per hour, just about the maximum you can digest while running. To be honest, even though I have run 4 24 hours races (and a few other very long runs) I have never paid much attention to my race nutrition, always ate whatever I felt like, but that approach seemed to backfire in Belfast in June and I wanted to try and put that on more solid foundations this time with a nutrition spreadsheet and planned calories intake (which will undoubtedly go out of the window after a few hours, I know that). The nutrition bit worked very well, and I am very grateful for John, who was crewing for Aoife, to re-fill my coke bottle when it was empty. The flap jack seemed to sit heavily in my stomach, even though I only ate about  third of it, so I have to be careful with that.

This would have been ground for disqualification in Albi

Keeping track of nutrition was the one thing that kept my mind occupied, apart from that it was just running. My iPod's battery was flat when I put it on (next time maybe bother to check before the start?), but that had the advantage of having to remain a bit more social. I kept very close to 4-hours marathon pace for 18 miles before drifting into slightly faster pace for the last third. The last hour was definitely a bit faster than I would have run in a 24 hours race but I guess I wanted this to be over, especially as the weather got a bit worse with a few rain showers and dropping temperatures.

To be honest, I was a bit worried for the likes of Fozzy and Vinny, who definitely ran a good bit faster than I would have advised (in fact, I did advise them when they had asked) but eventually decided not to say anything as I did not want to put any negativity, or perceived negativity, into their minds. A positive mindset is so important in those long races, I know that better than most.

Anyway, I actually felt better towards the end than I did at the start. With just one lap to go I sped up, partially to have a bit of fun, partially to make sure I did indeed have plenty left in the tank, so I ran the last lap at sub-7 pace, which felt good after almost 4 hours of shuffling. After crossing the line I made sure they had all 35 laps in the computer and then said my good byes to all the runners on the track.

My GPS said 26.74 miles but the official distance for 35 laps is only 26.25; I have no idea where the discrepancy comes from, especially since the laps seemed to track very closely at the start. Either way, this is without a doubt the shortest ultra I'll ever run, and of course I am at the very bottom of the results list - which is fine by me, my race is still 4 weeks away.

I did pay one price for the race. Ever since Belfast, my left big toenail has been very dark and did not look good but it stayed on - last night it finally came off. There was a new one growing underneath the old one but it's still only a third of the way of being a full toe nail, so right now I have a mismatched number of toes and nails (which, incidentally, is a sign of a real runner, as I have been told numerous times).

The weekend wasn't quite over yet. For Sunday the coach had put 18 miles into the program. I did feel a bit tired after my marathon the day before and the legs grumbled a fair amount at the mere thought but I kept thinking of the warriors in Tralee town park who had kept going all through the night while I was snuck up in bed. My right knee hurt a bit but nowhere near enough to serve as an excuse to stay at home, so off I went. The first half mile sucked as badly as expected but the legs settled down surprisingly quickly and then it was just a matter of putting down the head and keep going, ticking off mile after mile until I was done. I had actually expected this run to be the worst run of the entire training cycle but despite the weary legs, that never got any worse, it passed surprisingly quickly.

The only thing that failed was my HRM; the battery had been acting up a few times already, so it did not come as a complete surprise and I already had a replacement battery - at home, so that had to wait until after my return, and I just ran by feel - slowly that is. I got home before 12 o'clock, so I even managed to catch the finish of the 24 hours run on facebook (isn't modern technology amazing!).

Congratulations to the real runners!

22 Sep

6 miles, 54:49, 9:08 pace, HR 134

   with strides

23 Sep

3 miles, 28:28, 9:09 pace, HR 130

24 Sep

26+ miles, 3:57:59, 8:53 pace, HR 146

25 Sep

18 miles, 2:50:43, 9:26 pace

Mental

I was quite surprised to see the legs feeling pretty good on Thursday morning; I would have expected a 14 mile run just 4 days after a marathon to leave its mark but it looks like recovery is going remarkably well, even if the marathon did not.

Nevertheless, the next 2 days were easy recovery days, though as it turns out that wasn't just to get over the previous runs, they were there to get me ready for a bit more work over the weekend.

The weather forecast had been nice for Saturday, the only half-decent day of the week really, though it wasn't quite as nice as hoped early on (it did improve for the afternoon, which was good as the Flavour of Killorglin festival was on that day) but it was manageable all the same. The idea was to run 7 miles at easy pace and 6 at marathon effort. The easy miles passed quickly enough and before I knew it I had to speed up. I realised very quickly that my choice of route had not been ideal as most of the marathon effort miles were right into the headwind, not strong but definitely noticeable. What bothered me more, however, was that my left knee started hurting again at times. I had a few twinges a couple of weeks ago but they went away again, though only temporarily by the looks of it. The knee hurts when running downhill, though tensing the quads before foot strike does solve the problem - however, I do not want to alter my gait for a twinge, that only leads to secondary problems.

Anyway, with about 2 miles to go a group of cyclists went by, then another one, then another one, and I soon realised that I inadvertently had gotten into some cycling event. Not a race, thankfully, so there was no problem. However, for some reason all those cyclist passing me made me forget that I was to remain at marathon effort and those last 2 miles were definitely a bit too quick. I wondered if I would have to pay for that on Sunday.

Afterwards I wondered why I had not taken up the option of running this workout on the Kerry Way trail, when the coach had given me the option (MP pace would have been MP effort instead in that case). I still have no idea why I didn't!

I had been groaning as soon as I saw the workout for Sunday on the training spreadsheet. 18 miles, keep the HR under 136. That kind of mileage at such a slow pace was new territory for me, and I really was not looking forward to hours of slow paced shuffling. However, I did dawn on me that this time round is really my first ever "proper" ultra training cycle. Up to now I have been a marathon runner that also ran ultras. This time round I am definitely an ultra runner. It does explain why faster paced running feels so much more challenging. The hope, obviously, is that slow running will feel easier.

The knee did bother me again at times, though at the moment it is more of a nuisance rather than a real problem but obviously it's a bit of a worry that it might turn into something more serious. The run itself was much more of a mental challenge than a physical one. It was really windy, which is why I ran back-and-forwards to Ard-na-Sidhe a few times where it's a bit more sheltered, though thankfully, and unexpectedly, the rain held off until after my run, which made things a lot more comfortable. The effort felt very easy, even with my indiscretion yesterday. I started getting thirsty at mile 14 and tired at mile 16, which I attributed to low glycogen levels due to running without breakfast and no sustenance during the run either, but by then I was homeward bound anyway.

The first back-to-back weekend went well. There will be more to come.

8 Sep

6 miles, 54:39, 9:06 pace, HR 134

   with strides

9 Sep

5+ miles, 46:35, 9:13 pace, HR 132

10 Sep

13 miles, 1:44:16, 8:01 pace, HR 152

   with 6 miles @ 77:47 (HR 160)

11 Sep

18 miles, 2:49:56, 9:26 pace, HR 134

Back To Back

This was always planned as the biggest training weekend before the championships. Six weeks out seems just about perfect for a big weekend, it leaves enough time to recover and big gains can be made that way. When I heard that the Marathon Club were putting on back-to-back marathons that weekend it seemed like a gift from heaven as I was desperately looking for training opportunities, and the thought of running 50 or more miles on my own just never appealed. I signed up straight away.

I did start having doubts when I realised that those were trail marathons. It's not that I hate trails - I do spend plenty of time on the Kerry Way - but I had hated the last trail marathon when the stones on the trail really started hurting my feet. Then they had to change the course completely as the original Loch Derg trail was deemed unsuitable for a race (runners would have had dozens of opportunities to get lost, apparently) and we were switched to a trail loop close to Limerick instead, which was a lot less scenic but much more manageable.

Limerick is close enough to home not to require a hotel and I did not even have to leave home in the dark, which took on extra significance after my car crash three weeks ago. I got there in good time, got ready, and off we went.

When on a training run I prefer not to lead a race as that invariably leads to running faster than planned. However, as I set off at 8-minute pace nobody else took off any faster than that. Instead, Aidan Hogan, who I had run the Oylegate marathon with, joined me up front. Both of us would be back tomorrow and nobody had any inclinations of racing this one, so we just jogged along easily. I checked my watch after a couple of miles and we were just a few seconds per mile ahead of target, which seemed just right.

The majority of the loop was on a trail but there were a few miles on road as well. We certainly noticed how much easier the road bits were and we invariably and unintentionally sped up a bit on those, though we never got carried away. The weather was ideal with nice temperatures and a cloudy sky, but we were all aware of the weather forecast and the Orange wind and rain warning later on, though we expected to be finished before that struck - at least for today!

The course sounded a bit complicated when described the first time, I sure had troubles following once the explanation had gone past the first three junctions, but it actually was rather straightforward, with one little loop at the start, an out-and-back section and one section along both sides of the canal. It left plenty of opportunities to meet all the other runners on the road, but it also meant getting dirty on the muddy bits of the trail, trying to pass each other amongst the puddles.

The first loop passed quickly and the second one as well. In fact, I barely remember anything about them. Aidan and me just kept ticking along, chatting as we did, and not breaking too much of a sweat. However, I definitely started dragging on loop three. I was still able to run with Aidan without slowing him down but the effort was higher than I would have liked. Mostly he set the pace and I just followed. I did contemplate slowing down a bit and letting him go but could never get myself to do so. I didn't care a dot about leading the race - our pace was so slow that a "win" wouldn't have meant much - but I did not fancy running on my own and decided to remain with company.

Somehow I started feeling better again once we started on loop four. Maybe I could start smelling the finish line but whatever the reason was, running definitely felt easier again and also a lot more enjoyable. I no longer had to worry if the effort was too high, it felt just right again. However, with a couple of miles left Aidan enquired if we were on time to break 3:30 and a quick look at my watch - the first one in over 20 miles - revealed that we were basically on 3:20 pace, definitely faster than planned, though overall the effort had not been hard, a few rough miles after the halfway mark notwithstanding.

We finished together in 3:19:41. We had been the fastest runners that had set off at the main 9:30 start but a couple of lads from the early 8:00 start had run faster than we had done (not that I actually cared). A lovely hot shower and a few sandwiches later I hit the road. The legs felt a lot more sore than expected in the evening but a good night's sleep took care of that and I felt right as rain when I woke up on Sunday morning.

Rain was the operative word. I might not have noticed much of a high wind in Kerry but it was raining a lot, and to make things worse it got heavier the closer I got to Limerick. I expected the trail to be rather messy and brought my trail running shoes (Inov-8 Terrafly) instead of my usual road runner. Those shoes work very well on mixed road and trail events and I hoped they would stop me from slipping and sliding all over the place. They were heavier than my roadies but that seemed a price worth paying for a change.

We were still all in the tea room at the designated start time of 9:30 and I joked that we would start as soon as the rain would stop ("what, some time tomorrow?"). I was gobsmacked when we went to the start 10 minutes later in bright blue sunshine - a gift from the Gods, just in time.

I made a point starting a couple of runners behind from the front and let Aidan and his new buddy go off the front straight away. Today I really wanted to run at my pace, not somebody else's. I ran the first two miles with Ruthann but decided that she was running a tad faster as well and dropped behind. A guy in a red jacket joined me for a bit but eventually he also pulled ahead. It was perfectly clear that I would be running the next 20+ miles on my own. If you really want to run at your own pace that's basically inevitable, I suppose.

The legs felt surprisingly good early on. After a couple of miles I (and probably everyone else as well) decided that there was absolutely no point in prancing gingerly around the puddles in the slippery mud and started running straight through them, which was easier and still left you with the exact same amount of dirt on your legs. That was fine with the fellow runners but I bet a few local hikers out for a walk on the trail that day got a bit more splattered than they would have expected.

I was going at just a few seconds below 8 minutes per mile, just as planned for a change. I hoped to avoid the rough few miles from the day before by eating a gel after each lap and I also had brought along a bottle of Perpetuem, my protein sports drink for Ultras, which I hoped would keep me fuelled and going.

Just like Saturday, the first loop went by quickly. The second loop was more noticeable, not because of my legs but the rapidly changing weather. First it started raining, pretty much right as I started that loop, which did the trail no favours. The sun came back for a bit but then the wind picked up considerably and it started hail stoning. It caught me at probably the worst possible part of the course, heading right into the wind and without the shelter of the woods that would have been there for the majority of the course. Thankfully it did not last long but the wind kept blowing.

Starting my third lap the wind picked up a lot and now things were quickly turning rather wild. Gale force or even strong gale force winds had me almost running on the spot for a bit, the trail was totally churned up by now and my spirits were dropping like a lead balloon. Once more I had a few very rough miles, four or five of them, where I started to feel rather sorry for myself and started wondering why on Earth I was doing this to myself. The thought that a bit of suffering was good training for an ultra runner was quickly losing its shine (those things always sound better in theory) and I really wanted this to be over. The pace started to suffer and I started to doubt that I would finish under 3:30, though to be honest I did not particularly care. Back-to-back marathons are not something you do if a good finishing time is of any importance. With about a mile left of the third loop my toe somehow seemed to catch the only stone on the entire trail and I promptly dived head first into the mud, getting a mouth full in the process. I was more in shock than hurt, though my calf muscle threatened to cramp so I got up as quickly as I could and proceeded as if nothing had happened, except that I was covered head to toe in muck, of course.

Miraculously, just like yesterday I started feeling a lot better again on the last lap. Funny how things work at times and I do wonder if an adrenaline boost following my fall had something to do with it. I should have been utterly exhausted after almost 50 miles in two days but was feeling surprisingly good. I caught the runner in the red jacket, though that was entirely down to him hitting the wall rather than me giving chase. The course had become very quiet by now because most of the early starters had finished by now (they even had a 7 o'clock start so that people would be able to watch the rugby) and it was just a matter of putting one leg in front of the other until I reached the finish. Some local youngsters were looking rather confused, asking if the marathon was on today (yup, but I guess they meant the Great Limerick run which is still a few weeks off).

The pace picked up again, which at this point was almost certainly down to me sensing the finish. On the last mile of trail I got closer and closer to a bike rider and just as I was wondering how best to pass I once more stumbled while going over one of the little concrete humpback bridges, this time catching the fall with my left shoulder instead. Again I was not hurt and I quickly got up and ran the last quarter mile before yet another mishap had time to catch up with me. I finished in about 3:28:30 (give or take a couple of seconds), happy to be done but actually feeling surprisingly okay.

On the drive home the legs actually felt better than they had on Saturday, though once I made it home I started feeling rather wrecked with the legs, the stomach and the shoulder all complaining.

Recovery is one the card again. Five easy miles every day - it really works.

27 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:06, 7:53 pace, HR 141

28 Feb

Loch Derg trail marathon; back-to-back, day 1

3:19:41, 7:37 pace, HR 154

1 Mar

Loch Derg trail marathon; back-to-back, day 2

3:28:30, 7:57 pace, HR 150

Weekly Mileage: 93

Train and Recover, Recover and Train

When Tuesday's evaluation workout indicated that I am in need of some recovery, I dialled down the rest of the week's runs. I didn't do any major workouts, just short and east recovery runs on Wednesday and Friday sandwiching a set of hill drills on Thursday. I find that those drills can feel rather uncomfortable when I'm doing them but I'm perfectly fine again soon afterwards, which made them a good choice for a recovery week.

Saturday came and it was time to see if the recovery had been sufficient. The plan was 4x3k repeats at 6:20 mile pace, with half a mile of recovery. Michael joined me again, though he voiced his doubts how long he would be able to stay on pace. Last week's workout had not been great as we never managed to hit the right effort. I think I had a tendency to slow down whenever Michael slipped behind a little bit to help him catch up. This time I just tried to hit the pace myself, acting as somewhat of a pacemaker, and as it turn out Michael was perfectly capable of staying with me. We didn't make things easier for us by running the first and third on a slightly uphill road (well, you try and find a flat 3 km stretch!) but the pace was good. Michael then cut the second and third repeat short, dropping out soon after the 2k mark, but we caught up again on the recovery section. The fourth was bang on pace again. I was quite impressed with Michael who managed to run about 11k at pretty much his 10k race pace, but I was just as pleased at nailing the workout myself; feeling challenged but always keeping plenty in reserve and always managing to run controlled and relaxed.

Sunday would show how much I had really recovered by doing a long run. You can't fake those back-to-back workouts, if you're not in shape it is going to show up. The legs were a bit sluggish during the early miles but I settled into 7:30 pace quickly enough. With these kind of workouts I usually have to slow myself down considerably during the first half, but this time that was not an issue, the legs did not feel like going faster anyway, at least not at first. I must have accelerated at some point after the halfway mark because the next time I checked the Garmin I was doing close to 7-minute pace and the average had dropped to 7:23, though that was still perfectly acceptable. Initially, with the sluggish legs, I decided to just run 20 miles at an easy effort but when I started to feel better I decided to run a few faster miles at the end after all, and I pushed the effort from the 15 mile point onwards. The effort now became rather challenging but it felt sustainable enough and I averaged 6:30 pace until I got home. That's a bit faster than planned marathon pace, and indeed the effort felt tougher than marathon effort, but I got home just fine.

I take from that that a few easier days managed to get me back on a even keel. Now it's time to recover again from that weekend and then build on that once more.

Tralee is nine week away. I am feeling really positive about it.

10 Jan

10.7 miles, 1:32:48, 8:40 pace, HR 141
   Hill Drills: strides, thigh drive, downhill strides, high knees

11 Jan

8 miles, 59:46, 7:28 pace, HR 137

12 Jan

12.5 miles, 1:26:43, 6:56 pace, HR 151
   4x3k at 6:22, 6:15, 6:18, 6:21, 6:20 pace

13 Jan

20 miles, 2:23:07, 7:09 pace, HR 146
   15 miles @ 7:23 (HR 141), 5 miles @ 6:30 pace (HR 162)

Weekly Mileage: 79+

Progress

The ideal training scenario is to improve a little bit from week by week. In reality it's never a linear progression, some bad days are mixed with the good days, the conditions are never quite the same and real life might interfere, especially if you have small children.

But right now I'm in the enviable position of being able to look at my recent training log and see clear improvements week by week by week.

Wednesday's volume speed workout had felt great, but I did pay the price on Thursday with some heavy legs. Nothing too bad, but it was clearly noticeable. I responded by running very easily, both on Thursday and Friday. I did raise my eyebrows after Friday's run when I saw that the HR had been particularly low, and for once even wondered if this time I had taken it a bit too easy?

Silly me! Like Andrew said, that's definitely the right side to err on, and if you run your easy days very easy, you might just be able to run your hard days very hard.

The proof was to come over the weekend with its back-to-back workouts. I had to drive Cian to Cork again and did my workout while he was in class. The plan was to do 7 miles at half-marathon pace, maybe a bit slower, for 10 miles in total.

Like the week before, I felt very good from the start and the pace kept dropping as the run went on, without me forcing the issue. I did sneak a few peeks at the Garmin and liked what I saw, but also eased up on a couple of occasions when I seemed to run a little bit too hard. The result was much faster than I had expected, 6:16 pace, and I can honestly say that it was nowhere near a race effort, this was a controlled training run, finishing with plenty left in the tank.

The Sunday run will always show if you overdid it on Saturday, every second too fast on Saturday makes you suffer a little bit more on Sunday. The idea this time was to run entirely at 7:15 pace; I want to get efficient at that pace, and you do that by running at that same effort in training. I eased into the effort over the first few miles, let the pace come naturally and then pretty much tuned into autopilot for the next 2 hours. There was never any question of not being able to finish and I didn't take either of the two gels I carried with me just in case.

Again, the legs got a little bit faster as the run went on and I finished a few seconds ahead of target, with an average pace of 7:10.

Please excuse my language, but fuck me, I'm in awesome shape. So much for my fear of slowing down once I hit 40. If I were training for a marathon right now, 2:55 would be my minimum target, and I would even eye a more ambitious time. What could I achieve on a good day? 2:52? 2:50 even?

The biggest worry right now is not to peak too early. Connemara is still 7 weeks off and I don't want to stand on the start line feeling exhausted and worn out.

Anyway, I'm not training for a marathon, Connemara is an even better target. Next week is Donadea, which will be my one and only really long training run and I need to show plenty of resolve and discipline not to race it. The most important aspect will be to recover from it. It's a bit risky, but with big potential benefits; I'll find out, I guess.

9 Feb

10 miles, 1:19:50, 7:59 pace, HR 135

10 Feb

10 miles, 1:20:21, 8:02 pace, HR 131

11 Feb

10 miles, 1:04:33, 6:26 pace, HR 159
   incl. 7 miles @ 6:16 (HR 167)

12 Feb

20 miles, 2:23:29, 7:10 pace, HR 147

Nice

Despite the not entirely universal approval of taking it easy during the week, I did manage to reap some benefits this weekend - which is the entire point of doing easy runs, of course. Run your easy runs easy so that you can run your hard runs hard. Otherwise you just end up with medium runs all the time.

Anyway, after yet another easy 10 on Friday (the fourth one in succession), I had to drive the kids to Cork on Saturday morning, because their CTY course has started again. The choice was either to get up at stupid o'clock and run in Caragh Lake before driving to Cork, or to drop them off and do my run while they're in class. I chose the latter.

I ran two loops from Blackrock castle, following the Cork marathon course from about mile 11 to 15 but heading towards Blackrock from the Marina. Each loop was just under 5 miles and I added an out-and-back section to make up the distance. I believe this is his playground. The run also doubled for breaking in my new pair of Lunaracers - the old pair was literally falling apart after 650 miles. Wearing these shoes always makes me run fast, even first warm-up mile was at 7:00 pace. The plan had been to run at about marathon effort for 10 miles, but I just got faster and faster with each mile, but still without going anywhere near race effort. The 10 mile segment ended up averaging 6:29 pace, which until 4 months ago would have been faster than my half-marathon PR pace. One fast looking lady runner gave me a "moving well" comment, and for a while I wondered if that by any chance had been Sonia O'Sullivan (I wasn't wearing my glasses and am blind as a bat, which is why I can never identify people while running), but as far as I know she's in Australia at the moment, so it wasn't her. I got another ego boost when a cyclist told me I was doing very nice pace - during my cool-down mile!

1:26:38 for a half-marathon distance training run. I must be in good shape!

I was back on my familiar Caragh Lake loop this morning, and when the big climb started after the initial 3 flat(-ish) miles, the quads immediately started protesting, telling me to go home. Instead I somehow managed to tune into autopilot and since I kept feeling better and better with each passing mile I decided to put the foot down over the last few miles. Last year, Mystery Coach had given me some back-to-back runs that really pushed me to my limits, this year they feel easier, because the effort is a little bit easier, owing to the slower race pace of the Ultra I'm aiming for. Still, the numbers of this weekend have been nothing but spectacular.

3 Feb

10 miles, 1:19:05, 7:54 pace, HR 147

4 Feb

13.1 miles, 1:26:38, 6:37 pace, HR 160
   incl. 10 miles @ 6:29 pace, HR 160

5 Feb

18 miles, 2:16:23, 7:34 pace, HR 143
   incl. 5.5 miles @ 6:56 pace

Weekly Mileage: 79+ miles

Back-To-Back Again

One the features of the training system I got introduced to by Mystery Coach a year ago was that base phase should not really feel like training. When things went the way they should I kept sending emails saying “it feels so easy, am I really training?”. It's fair to say that I went off the rails a bit after Dublin this year, but managed to correct course after Sixmilebridge. In fact, ever since that marvellous day, I have felt good every single day.

So maybe this weekend was a mistake. Not having the coach makes training feel like a tightrope walk without a net at times. Am I doing the right things or am I falling off? Am I doing too little or too much? Are the runs too slow or too fast? My mileage is a bit lower than at the same time last year, but of course I had to recover from those 30 miles at a strong pace 4 weeks ago. That was fine, until I remembered that last year I was working to being able to run 10 miles fast/20 miles/15 miles over Friday/Saturday/Sunday, and decided to up things a bit this weekend.

Friday's fast pace was shelved because I had inadvertently run that on Wednesday already. In fact, the legs felt a bit heavy early on, but came round very quickly. It was over the weekend that I upped to ant a bit, not 20/15, but 15/15, both times on the very hilly loop around Caragh Lake.

Saturday went very well indeed. I expected the legs to struggle on the big climbs during the first half, but I went up totally on autopilot, always a good sign. It had been raining and hail stoning over the first 5 miles but then the weather changed and I really enjoyed the beautiful sunny, calm day for the final 10 miles.

Sunday was always going to be more of a struggle. The legs might have felt fine after Saturday's run, but you never recover fully after only one day. I had to get up early, at 6:30, and was out of the door before 7 o'clock; the early start probably did not help. I still felt fine on the big hills but the legs definitely started dragging during the second half and while I got home still in fine shape, it was unquestionably a lot harder than all the runs since Sixmilebridge. They felt a bit sore for the rest of the day, which makes me wonder if the whole thing had been a bad idea.

Then again, the second leg of a back-to-back run is always tough. That's just the way it is. Anyway, what's done is done. I'll take it easy again early next week.

The reason for the early start today had been a trip to Dingle's climbing wall. Shea has been a regular recently, and today the entire family made the journey, including little Maia. There is some pedigree in that regard in my family, and all four of them kept climbing up and down for almost 90 minutes, Shea entirely without fear and the others with increasing confidence. It was great to see.

I just realised, I passed the 5000k mark this morning for 2011. I'll leave the champagne in the fridge, though.

16 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:39, 7:52 pace, HR 141

17Dec

15+ miles, 1:56:40, 7:45 pace, HR 149

18 Dec

15+ miles, 1:59:41, 7:57 pace, HR 144

Weekly Mileage: 78+

Let Them Eat Cake

I would show you a picture of the birthday girl and the presents and the party and the cake, but all of a sudden Niamh has reached that stage where she is dreading the birthday instead of looking forward to it and she is in deep denial. Even mentioning this will probably get me into trouble. Again. Instead you will have to take my word for it. The cake is great. I should know. I made it.

That's Niamh's big news, of course. Mine is that wearing the knee strap 24/7 has made a massive difference to my knee. I have been testing it out plenty over the last few days. During the last weeks, whenever I got into double figures I'd be in agony at some stage the next day. Now I'm fine. There is some slight discomfort over the first minute of each run and once I'm over that I'm perfectly fine for the rest of it, including yesterday's marathon prep run. I really think I'm finally getting over this issue and this time it is not just wishful thinking.

I was getting increasingly worried about my pacing job for Cork. Not only was I in doubt if the knee would hold for 26 miles, my lack of proper training over the last few weeks made me wonder if I would even be able to hold 3:15 pace for any meaningful stretch at all.

Therefore I set off on Friday with the idea of running at 7:21 pace for a short 6 miles run. I'm a slow starter and was slightly behind pace after 1 mile, more than made up for that on mile 2 and then just let the legs do their thing, which is why I ended up way too fast, but happy enough.

When training for Vienna the coach had me do a lot of back-to-back sessions where I did 7 or so miles on Saturday 10 seconds per mile faster than MP, and then a long run with various amounts of MP at the end on Sunday. Since I had unwittingly done the first part of the job on Friday I decided I might as well finish it off with a few marathon miles on Saturday. My plan to run the first half relaxed at 7:30-7:40 pace failed when the legs felt too good, the wind was on my back and no warning voice of the coach in my inbox and I ended up doing the full 15 miles at marathon pace instead.

Some of you might think this was a stupid thing to do, 9 days before the marathon, but I'm really happy about this. It was much more for the head than the legs; the serious doubts if I would be able to do the pace at all are dispersed and I'm confident I will be able to recover sufficiently to tackle the Cork marathon course. Thinking about it, this is 30 seconds per mile slower than my pace in Vienna. 30 seconds per mile is massive. I'll be fine.

The fact that I was able to bake a cake after my run was a bonus. Sometimes I really manage to surprise myself.

26 May

12 miles, 1:33:32, 7:47 pace, HR 153

27 May

6.05 miles, 43:17, 7:09 pace, HR 161

28 May

15 miles, 1:49:45, 7:19 pace, HR 161

29 May

8.1 miles, 1:00:30, 7:28 pace, HR 153

Sign O' The Times

It's yet another sign of old age, but time is certainly flying. I can hardly believe the marathon is only a fortnight away. I could even look up the long term weather forecast for marathon day, but I have yet to come across a forecast that far out that was actually correct so I won't even bother.

The last week was the first of the taper, but it never feels like that because the mileage is still relatively high. My main worry was a health scare earlier on but that seems to have passed, even though I still have a bit of a sore throat and the rest of the family are affected to various degrees. We binned the planned speed workout because “if in doubt, always rest” (I'll have to put that somewhere visible). I could tell on Thursday that the legs were getting restless as keeping the pace down turned into a constant struggle with my inner autopilot. I guess that's why the coach put on a session of hill repeats on Friday. Nominally to wake up the system for the weekend (his words) but probably to stop me from going gaga and doing something stupid (my interpretation).

He said 2-3 x 90 seconds uphill, which to me means 3, to be honest. Since I vividly remembered me almost running myself into the ground by taking off like an idiot last time, I started at a much more measured effort. Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when the twin terrors of lactic acid and shortness of breath engulfed me once more after only 30 seconds. I struggled to the top to raise an eyebrow at the readings on the Garmin that had my HR at 179. Last time I only got up to 175, and I thought I had taken it easier this time! The second repeat was more of the same but the third got off to a bad start mentally when I immediately questioned the need for it (remember, the coach said 2-3) and worried about the weekend's back-to-back workouts. When a wind gust came halfway through it was enough to put me over the edge and I bailed out. Interestingly enough, I did not even feel guilty.

Saturday's runs have been very similar in recent weeks, today's had two variations. It was shorter, due to the taper, and I was encouraged to play around with pace and effort a bit.

The weather at night had been scary all week, I woke up frequently to the sound of very heavy wind and rain but it generally brightened up for the morning, except on Friday and only to a certain extend on Saturday. It had stopped raining but the wind was still a major factor and it definitely had some effect on the run. After a few miles at 6:25-6:30 pace I put the foot down, accelerated to 6:20 and held it for a while, but it became apparent that I was overcooking myself, the HR went well over 170 and the breathing became ragged so eventually I backed off again. Maybe it would have gone better without the wind, but in all honesty the legs never felt particularly fresh and I wondered if yesterday's hill repeats had put some dampener on them. Still, it was not a bad run by any means and I had timed it exceedingly well – 2 minutes after coming home the heavens opened; even an ice bath was preferable to being outside (Niamh still declined joining me, though).

Sunday again was easier than on previous weeks with 7 miles easy and 7 at marathon effort, with the added twist that I was to run the fast half without the Garmin's help. I got off to a very late start as Niamh's main wish for Mother's Day was a long sleep and by some miracle she genuinely got this. For once all 4 kids were well behaved and quiet all morning (this really is a miracle, you have no idea!), and it was almost lunch time when I made it out of the house.

The seven easy miles turned into one of the most frustrating runs of the entire training cycle with me constantly having to put on the brakes as I was going sub-7 even though the effort felt like jogging and the HR was in the low 140s. It took me 5 miles to realise that I had been pushed all the way by the wind, which also meant that the majority of the marathon effort would be into the wind, not something I was particularly looking forward to. After 7 miles I pressed the lap button on the Garmin and changed the screen to make sure that I would not peak at it. Unlike the last “blind” run I was not overly bothered by the fact that I had to rely on pure feel alone; battling the wind took enough mental effort alone. After 5 miles in these conditions I was worn down, it felt harder than marathon effort and I was really looking forward to the end, worrying a bit about Vienna (but not too much). Eventually I finished, was a little bit disappointed that all the effort had only yielded 6:40 pace (then again, it was against the wind), and realised that I had just finished the last longish run before the marathon.

31 Mar

10 miles, 1:15:32, 7:33 pace, HR 146

1 Apr

8 miles, 1:01:14, 7:39 pace, HR 149
   incl. 2x90 sec hill repeats, bailed on third

2 Apr

8 miles, 53:21, 6:40 pace, HR 159
   incl. 5 miles @ 6:28, HR 163

3 Apr

15 miles, 1:45:25, 7:01 pace, HR 154
   incl. 7 miles @ 7:19, HR 146, 7 miles @ 6:41, HR 163 sans Garmin feedback

Weekly Mileage: 65

Volume Pickups

In previous training cycles I have often seen improvements at various times of training and stagnation at others. In fact, I have come to see this as normal. Training under Mystery Coach's guidance has been a revelation. Not only has my fitness already been better than ever after base training alone, the improvements have kept coming almost on a week-by-week basis.

Thursday and Friday were both easy days. The main issue was that Niamh and the girls took the train to Dublin on Friday morning and I had to drive them to Killarney, which meant either binning the run, shortening it or getting up at 5am.

I got up at 5am. Just like old times.

I was told once that if you get a babysitter for the sole purpose of going for a run, you're completely nuts. They may well have been right. I got a babysitter for both Saturday and Sunday. Yes, running is important to me.

Saturday's run was another one of what has become a routine run by now, 10 miles with 7 at 10 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace, though I have always tried to run by feel, not by pace. The coach's instructions contained two subtle changes, the target pace window got narrowed down from 6:25-6:35 to 6:25-6:30, and I was to try and switch to autopilot rather than pushing the pace.

I am not sure if the coach can predict workouts with incredible precision or if his subtle hints put subliminal messages into my brain that make me do the workout just like he said. This time, just like he said, I managed to switch to autopilot for basically all of the run and still hit the pace. In fact, since the last mile of the speedy part is slightly downhill I slipped out of the target pace window where I had remained for all of the previous miles, but I did not think it was a big deal. Besides, I knew that Sunday's second part of the back-to-back workout would leave me in no doubt. There is no hiding and no way of faking these workouts. If you don't get it right on Saturday you pay the price on Sunday.

Sunday was a new kind of workout altogether. It was originally scheduled for last week but the coach changed it as part of the re-adjustment to stop me from peaking too early. The idea was to alternate running half a mile in 3:12 (6:24 pace, obviously) with a mile at 7:00. There were two surprises: One, that the miles were the more important part of the workout, not the faster half miles. Two, that I should play around with the pace for the half miles, e.g. run the first half faster and the second half slower, or the other way round, or change pace every 200, or whatever I could think of. Just as long as it would not affect the miles.

I pondered where I should run; the Killorglin loop is reasonably flat but there are 3 little climbs and some of the half miles were bound to fall onto those. Eventually I realised the this would not hinder but in fact help alternating the speed and effort during the half miles, and was therefore better suited to that kind of workout than a completely flat course.

Once I got going I found that the pace was no problem whatsoever. What was a problem, one that I had not anticipated at all, was dealing with the constant change of rhythm. It took me half a mile to get into the 6:24 rhythm and as soon as I hit that I had to change pace to 7:00, which felt really awkward. Once I had gotten used to that it was soon time to switch pace again. The Garmin saw some heavy use, I checked it every minute or so and had to change pace a lot to keep within the parameters of the workout, but virtually every time I had to slow down rather than speed up.

After about 4 repeats I finally got used to it, which meant I could start running by feel a bit more, but it had the side effect that I got it wrong on a couple of occasions and a few of the paces were a bit out.

0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 157), 1 mile @ 7:01 (HR 153)
0.5 @ 6:18 pace (HR 163), 1 mile @ 6:58 (HR 152)
0.5 @ 6:23 pace (HR 162), 1 mile @ 7:01 (HR 156)
0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 167), 1 mile @ 6:53 (HR 162)
0.5 @ 6:25 pace (HR 167), 1 mile @ 6:49 (HR 159)
0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 160), 1 mile @ 6:52 (HR 155)
0.5 @ 6:22 pace (HR 165), 1 mile @ 6:55 (HR 163)

As instructed (twice!) I stopped after 7 repeats, but I felt like I could have run a lot more. I was not even tired yet, even with yesterday's run in the legs. Mentally this was doing my head in early on, but physically this was the easiest workout the coach has given me, ever.

24 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:36, 7:39 pace, HR 143

25 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:39, 7:39 pace, HR 140

26 Mar

10 miles, 1:05:53, 6:35 pace, HR 161
   incl. 7 miles at 6:24 pace, HR 164

27 Mar

15 miles, 1:42:44, 6:51 pace, HR 156
   Alternating 0.5 and one mile

Weekly Mileage: 72+ miles

Back to Back-to-Back

Following the glory of Sunday's race it was time to knuckle down and get serious about training again. Marathon running isn't all about glitz and glamour, you know, at times you have to do some work.

The coach had prescribed 5 full days of easy running after Ballycotton, almost certainly more than I would have done on my own accord but definitely needed, seeing as the last remnant of soreness did not disappear until Thursday. By Friday I felt good again and started itching for faster work. I did not have to wait long.

Five weeks before the marathon is a rather crucial time, the taper is not far away but some of the toughest training workouts are yet to be done. The coach had devised the next back-to-back session, the hardest one so far.

Saturday was 7 miles at 10 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace, but as always the coach gave me a window to aim for, 6:25-6:35, rather than a sharp time target, with clear instructions not to run any faster.

As it turned out, running faster was not on my mind anyway. I had done an identical Saturday run three weeks ago but had run just a tad too hard. I tried to avoid making the same mistake again and kept myself in check at all times. The weather was not great, it was icy cold and raining; higher grounds got snow, we just got freezing rain but if you're running at 6:30 pace keeping warm is not a problem. Luckily it was not windy, which actually made for decent conditions.

I was quite pleased to see that the pace matched the previous workout but the effort level was a good bit easier. I felt in full control at all times and even though I got rather tired towards the end I always knew I would finish with plenty spare.

Another ice bath followed in hope to revive the legs sufficiently for Sunday's run, but that did not work as well as hoped for. The legs were rather sore when I went to bed and I was not looking forward to Sunday.

Sunday surprised me with beautiful sunshine, very little wind and temperatures around 8 degrees, pretty much perfect. I would not be able to use the conditions as an excuse for a sub-par performance.

The plan was to run 10 easy miles at 7:35 pace, followed by 8-10 miles at marathon effort, 6:40 pace. The ominous bit was the coach's warming about the last few miles feeling like the last miles of a marathon. Normally he sets me a maximum heart rate, this time he told me not to be surprised if I needed to raise the HR up to 175 to stay on pace. This was going to be tough.

10 easy and 10 fast miles has been a key workout in previous marathon builds, but I always ran it well rested, not after a tough Saturday. I started out with already tired legs and rather worried about the second half.

Usually I do not even bother with bringing water on my long runs, but I went completely the other way today. Two gels in my pocket were complemented by a bottle of sports drink, which I stashed by the road side. I ran 3 loops through Killorglin, which enabled me to pick up the drink on my way.

The first 10 miles were a tad on the fast side, but not by much. I kept myself well in check and found a groove that brought me through 10 miles on autopilot. There are 3 little climbs on each loop and I was really questioning how I would feel like on these later on.

10 miles came and went, and as soon as I upped the effort I knew I was way out of my depth. There is no way I would want to feel like that on mile 16 of a marathon with 10 miles yet to come. I came up with a whole list of excuses, the best one being that Ballycotton was still in my legs. But before I had to use them, I had to at least try and get as far as I could.

I just ran step-by-step, minute-by-minute, not thinking too far ahead. I was bang on pace for the first 2 miles but then I turned into the wind and two of the aforementioned climbs followed and by the time I was going through town for the third and final time I was behind, 6:43 pace. Luckily I knew that the wind would be at my back for a couple of miles, but I tried not to look at the Garmin too much, run purely by feel and relax as much as possible.

I would have been perfectly content to keep the pace at that, after all that's still sub-3. But I rather surprised myself by slowly catching up again. I started to suffer at the last climb, doing my moaning with each breath and fully expecting to be falling off pace, but the hill passed by, I was back on pace and all of a sudden I realised that there were only three more miles to go and that I would be able to finish this after all and not need to use my excuses after all.

The HR never reached the high levels I had been warned about, barely touching 170 even when the going was tough.

Mind, I was rather glad to be done. Another ice bath followed. Niamh declined to join me but found the whole spectacle highly amusing as I was moaning my way through 10 minutes of being tortured and cursing the coach. She came up with a string of very helpful suggestions, from “you do not HAVE to do this, you know” to “are you sure this is going to help anyway?”. Thanks honey!

There is no way I would have gone through today's workout had the coach not shown confidence in me hitting the targets. I would have pulled out way early, bemoaning the fact that I'm unable to do the required work. It shows yet another advantage of being coached. Not only did he draw up a schedule, he is also able to actually make me do it.

10 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:58, 7:42 pace, HR 145

11 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:40, 7:40 pace, HR 147

12 Mar

10 miles, 1:06:27, 6:39 pace, HR 161
   incl. 7 miles @ 6:29 pace, HR 164

13 Mar

20 miles, 2:21:39, 7:05 pace, HR 154
   10 miles @ 7:31 pace, avg. HR 146,
   10 miles @ 6:38 pace, avg. HR 164

Weekly Mileage: 76

Great Day To Be Out!

So said Kathryn as our paths crossed on Sunday in the pouring rain. I was just past the 12 mile point and working too hard to give much of a reply, but I found solace in the thought that I was not the only one out running in those conditions.

It's been 4 days again since the last update, mostly because there was not much to report by Friday. Thursday's run was yet another very easy 8-miler along Caragh Lake, pretty much unremarkable but with fairly heavy legs after Wednesday's evaluation. Friday brought the last hill workout. I can't quite believe that the hill phase is already coming to an end - I haven't had the chance to start hating the hill workouts yet. This has happened on every past occasion when I tried to come up with my own training strategy; I really learned to loath the hills and I expected the same to happen again. I suppose the varied nature of the coach's hill drills has prevented this. There sure is a lesson in there.

The real training had to wait for the weekend, though. I got up reasonably early on Saturday (something to do with a certain 3-year old) and was out of the house just after 8 o'clock. The weather forecast had not been too kind and I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a nice sunny sky, very little wind and 7 degrees temperature. Perfect.

I set off towards Killorglin, on the same reasonably flat 10-mile loop that I always use for that kind of workout. I posted the chart of the run so you can check if I'm talking porkies. The first 2 miles are the warm-up where I steadily increased the effort. The workout part (marked by the 2 yellow vertical lines) starts with a gentle downhill section that makes judging your effort a bit tricky because you can't go by the Garmin's pace, it will always be a bit too fast. On the way home I also realised that this was wind-assisted, but at the time I was oblivious to this and there was not much of a breeze anyway. The orders from the coach had been to run 10 seconds faster than marathon pace. Present MP is estimated at 6:42, so the goal was 6:32 with a window of 5 seconds either side, 6:27-6:37. I should also imagine this being miles 15-22 of the marathon, the 10 seconds pace increase helping to make the effort feel tougher than last week's simulation of miles 8-15.

I was a bit ahead after the first couple of miles, but the climb into Killorglin pretty much brought me back into the zone. I kept at that pace for the next few miles, but looking at the chart now show that I definitely ran a but too hard. The brief was to stay between 163-168 and I was pretty much at the top of that window most of the time, even going above it on a couple of (gentle) climbs. I had made the same mistake 2 weeks ago and thought I had learned that lesson, but apparently not. As you can see, I relaxed a lot for the cool down. Initially the pace was still around 7:00 (what can I say, after running 6:30, 7:00 feels really slow) but the thought of tomorrow's long run put the Fear Of GodCoach into me and I slowed down a lot more. One thing I noted was that I found it much harder to imagine myself on a marathon course than last week. Last week I ran marathon effort, which helped. Today I was definitely running harder than that and I felt it almost impossible to translate this to being on the course.

I did admit to myself afterwards that I had focused far too much on pace rather than run at a controlled effort. I was not really looking forward to Sunday.

Sunday came anyway, a bit earlier than anticipated thanks to the same 3-year old again. There was no sunshine to be had and as much as I delayed going out, hoping for an improvement in the conditions, I eventually admitted defeat and headed out into the rain. The first 10 miles at relaxed effort went by quickly enough. I felt surprisingly good, my main concern being slowing down enough because on several occasions I found myself going much closer to 7:00 pace than planned. In the end I average 7:35 pace at HR 144 for just over 10 miles.

That's where the real work started and I was soon left in no doubt that I was in for some tough few miles. The plan was to do 6-7 miles at MP, about 6:42 pace, but of course always with an eye on the effort. After only 2 miles I started wondering when I could bail out of this without completely losing face. I did not even think I would make it to mile 4, never mind anything beyond that. I hung on but when I was going up a small hill just before the 4 mile point I felt like running almost all-out, certainly not at marathon effort. At the top of the hill my brain started functioning again and I figured that I was nowhere near the prescribed effort and had to ease up considerably. To my big surprise, relaxing a lot meant the HR dropped back by 5 beats but the pace remained more or less the same! There sure is another lesson on there, it felt like an epiphany at the time. All of a sudden completing the workout seemed not just possible but likely. I managed to add 3 more miles and came home feeling much better than after the equivalent run a fortnight ago, feeling pretty happy with the way things had turned out eventually. Just looking at the cold, hard numbers shows that I ran a longer distance at a lower HR and faster pace than 14 days ago. That's progress, especially considering that at mile 13 I thought I was in for a complete disaster.

17 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:59, 7:44 pace, HR 141

18 Feb

8.4 miles, 1:11:52, 8:33 pace, HR 144
   4x30 secs; thighs; ankles

19 Feb

10 miles, 1:06:49, 6:41 pace, HR 162
   incl. 7 miles at 6:29, HR 166

20 Feb

17+ miles, 2:03:31, 7:13 pace, HR 151
   incl. 7 miles at 6:40, HR 163

Weekly Mileage: 72

Like The 63 From Peckham

It’s Sunday afternoon, I'm knackered and I am left in no doubt that, yes, I am training for a marathon. For the first time since starting my training under the coach’s guidance I was doing marathon pace runs, and under MC’s training they are like the London buses I used to take into work, many years ago: you are left waiting forever and then they turn up in pairs.

The storm had stopped blowing around 5 am, to be replaced by the predicted heavy rain. I decided that was fine by me, I prefer rain to wind, even heavy rain.

The instructions for Saturday were clear enough, do whatever you need for warm/up and cool/down and run 7 miles at your present marathon pace, not goal pace, which the coach estimated at 6:57-6:43, basically 6:50 with 7 seconds up or down (6:50 being the estimated present marathon pace). That would be a little bit faster than the evaluations at a HR of about 163-164. Since it was the first one, I could expect it to be tough and I was told not to take too much notice of the numbers.

All that sounded fine and well, but less than half a mile into the supposed MP effort I was left with a dilemma, should I follow the pace or the HR recommendations, because they did not match. I was going a bit faster than 6:20 pace (!!!) with a HR in the high 150s, but it was slightly downhill so I did not take too much notice of the pace. It eventually became clear that I had gone out a bit too hard as the pace did not feel sustainable for 26 miles. I slowed down, only a little bit, which soon started feeling much more comfortable but of course still below the HR the coach had set me. I did not check the HR monitor too often, but every time I looked it seemed to be in the high 150s, only going over 160 on a few climbs. When looking at the chart afterwards I saw that it was a bit higher than I thought. Still, I did the prescribed 7 miles at 6:35 pace, at least 10 seconds per mile faster than would I would have thought of as best-case scenario and with a HR that was lower than the one set by the coach.

But I knew perfectly well that I might have set myself up for a complete disaster on Sunday. That second brief was to start with 10 miles at relaxed pace, 7:30-7:45 (I like that sort of pace being called relaxed, it makes me feel like a half-decent runner), and then 4-5 miles at the same pace as yesterday, with the HR not too much above 167. Considering he does not like to give out numbers, this was a precise as the coach was ever going to be.

The rain wasn’t as heavy as on Saturday but the wind had picked up once more. I decided to run 3 out-and-back loops to Ard-na-Sidhe of 5 miles each. It’s not the most exciting way to get the miles done but it’s my standard route when the wind is too strong. As soon as I set off I knew this would not be easy, yesterday’s fast miles had left their mark. I had my doubts if I would get even close to yesterday’s pace. Despite the sore legs I kept frustrating myself by running too fast, around 7:00 pace, every time I lost concentration. Time and time again I had to put on the brakes and slow down. This only stopped during the second loop when fatigue must have started to creep in. In the end I did the first 10 miles at an average pace of 7:25.

When I passed our driveway for the second time, things got serious and I increased the effort. For three miles, this was tough but do-able. I reckon this was more like the last 5 miles of a marathon than any training I have ever done, and once I passed the 4-mile mark, I was toast. I probably should have left it at that, instead I went on to torture myself for one more mile, almost certainly violating the golden “train, don’t strain” rule, but at the time I wasn’t thinking straight and only thinking about getting this done, no matter what. I averaged a HR of 168 over each of the last 2 miles; if you’re generous you could argue that I did not get “too much above 167”. Looking at the 5 mile segment in one block I ran 6:42 pace with an average HR of 165.

I would have bitten your hand off had you offered me that kind of pace beforehand. Now I’m a bit worried the coach will give me hell for running too hard, but to be honest, I’m feeling rather good about this. Sub-3 in Vienna looks very much achievable all of a sudden.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I woke at 6 am on both mornings and since I had nothing better to do, ate some porridge so that I would have energy for the training runs later on. Normally I run on an empty stomach and it may explain why I ran faster than expected. Maybe.

And if you haven't done so yet, I still highly recommend catching up on the coach's explanation of the evaluation runs, here and here.

5 Feb

10 miles, 1:07:39, 6:46 pace, HR 158
   incl. 7+ miles @ 6:35 pace, HR 162

6 Feb

15 miles, 1:47:37, 7:10 pace, HR 155
   incl. 5 miles @ 6:42 pace, HR 165

Weekly Mileage: 73