A Real Runner At Last!

There are some boxes that all need to be ticked before someone can call himself a real runner. That goes from running through all kinds of weathers, getting blisters, getting a few injuries, running until you throw up and, most importantly, having a mismatched number of toes and toenails.

It took me over 11 years and over 30000 miles but I finally can call myself a real runner! Pop the champagne!

The nail on the second toe of my left foot had been dark ever since the Spartathlon. The same had happened after Turin but it just grew out and I expected the same to happen again. However, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the toenail being rather loose - I didn't touch it and tried to be as gentle as possible but I noticed that at some stage during the last few days it must have fallen off. I always thought losing a toenail must be really painful  but not only does it not hurt, I did not even notice it! It has re-grown up to a point, so right now I have nine-and-a-half toenails. I'll spare you the photos and you'll just have to take my word for it.

Training as such is going swimmingly well but yesterdays (Thursday's) run was a series of mishaps.

I decided to do another Kenyan fartlek run (1 minute hard/1 minute easy). Things did not get off to the best of starts when the HR monitor refused to work. I tried to fiddle with the damn thing (and not for the first time either) but to no avail. Never mind, it's not needed for such a workout. A mile later I kept pressing the wrong button on the watch when I tried to turn on the fartlek app, I even turned off the watch completely at one point. I can only imagine that my brain was still in sleep mode at the time. Things went wrong during the workout itself as well, due to the howling wind it was easy to miss the beep of the watch every minute and I ended up with a slightly uneven pattern rather than a smooth 60/60 one, though I think I still ran the same amount of fast reps.

Most annoying of all, there is still debris one the road where the high water mark had been during Sunday night's flooding and on my way back home I promptly tripped over it and did a face plant. This was during a supposed "fast" segment, which did not help. I have a fair amount of road rash on my legs, though it looked a lot less gruesome once I washed off the blood in the shower (once more I'll spare you the photos unless you've seen them already on a dark corner of the interweb [someone made the mistake of "pics or it didn't happen" on FB - it did!]). I picked myself up and walked for a few steps, more out of shock than any real pain, and then continued with the workout. No harm done, though that's the second time I managed to trip up in about a fortnight!

Thankfully Friday was less eventful with 12 easy miles without any mishaps. After yesterday's misadventures I'll take that any day! I also managed to revive the HRM (take out the battery, insert it the wrong way round for 3 seconds, put it back in the right way - HRM works again. No kidding!)

For at least a month I've been planning on doing an evaluation workout but it just is not happening. First I was sick and then the wind started blowing, the two things that make an evaluation rather pointless as they impact the HR data. The sickness is well and truly gone by this stage but the wind doesn't show any signs of abating - that's the price you pay for living on the Atlantic coast, I suppose.

10 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:27, 7:51 pace

   Kenyan fartlek

11 Dec

12 miles, 1:32:31, 7:43 pace, HR 144

Magic

Wednesday morning, stupid o'clock.

The alarm was set for 5:45 but, as usual, I did not need it and naturally awoke a few minute before that (I don't know how that works, but it does). I got up, got dressed, and even before 6 o'clock was out on the road.

It was one of those crispy clear cold mornings that I love. Not even the moon was out, it was just me and a million stars on the dark Kerry night sky, but I had enough light to see the road. Not one car, and in fact not any other creature was to be seen until I got into Killorglin, over 30 minutes later. Killorglin itself was an island of light that I left behind again soon on the road towards Ballykissane, once again entirely on my own. I reached the turnaround point and headed back for the lights once more, but this being the end of November it was still dark when I emerged on the other side of town once more, and I still had the road mostly to myself - I only encountered 2 cars on the remaining 5 miles home.

My breathing was calm and fully controlled, 7-minute miles were passing effortlessly and my running motion was so smooth I felt like floating over the pavement rather than pounding it 190 times per minute.

It was one of the runs I live for. Even when I will no longer be able to run competitively, if I still get to run and experience mornings like that every now and then, I will be a very happy and content old man.

---

On Thursday it was back to Earth. It was a cloudy and windy morning and I ran 5 easy miles on the way out and then used/tested a little app I wrote for the Ambit to do a "Kenyan fartlek" (60 seconds fast/ 60 seconds easy), though since this was the first run of that kind and I am still a bit worried about my hamstring I didn't exactly kill myself on the fast bit (6 - 6:30 pace, recovery was 8-8:30 pace). This explains the slightly higher HR on Thursday's run; overall I'm very happy with how training is going so far.

24 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:58, 7:54 pace, HR 140

25 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:39, 7:52 pace, HR 136

26 Nov

12 miles, 1:31:24, 7:37 pace, HR 141

27 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:17, 7:38 pace, HR 144

Good News And Bad News

I've had troubles with my Garmin yet again, but this time I think I finally figured out what's causing the problem (hint: don't connect it to a computer that is being hammered by your son playing minecraft at the time). I lost the data for Sunday's long run as well as Monday's easy one, but managed to resurrect the thing once more for Tuesday. It did raise the question if it's really worth using that toy, but I also played with the idea of getting a newer one, so I guess re-animating the existing one is some sort of compromise. I'm far too much of a maths nerd to go without numbers.

I was actually quite amazed by the way I felt on Monday. I expected heavy legs at the least after a tough weekend, both running as well as real life-wise. Instead I was running along completely relaxed and without much effort.

I did lengthen the run on Tuesday by a couple of miles to see how that would feel. It also added an extra hill to the route, which at first had me try and think of an alternative route until I came to my senses and figured that extra hills can only be a good thing.

Wednesday is the day of my special workout and this time it was fartlek, done Kenyan style, as in 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy. I never check the pace or HR during these efforts, just had the watch beep every 60 seconds, which can take a long time, especially uphill. As much as I tried to keep the effort as even as possible, uphill always felt significantly harder.

As for the news from the title, the good news is that I've already dropped over 3 pounds. That was the easy part of course, the next 3 pounds will take an awful lot longer and the 3 after that might never drop at all, but I'm getting closer to my race weight already. There might be a slight setback on the horizon in the form of my upcoming birthday, but other than that I should be okay.

The bad news, however, is that I'm definitely not running Ballycotton this year. I don't know what exactly happened, my cheque must have gotten lost in the post; it never got cashed and my name is not on the list of entrants. The cheque for the Tralee marathon that I sent off at exactly the same time got cashed very quickly and my entry confirmed, so that's a bit weird. However, there's nothing I can do about that. What's more, my Ballycotton mug at work has mysteriously gone awol a few weeks ago and I won't even have a replacement ready.

20 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:55, 7:53 pace

21 Jan

12 miles, 1:33:32, 7:48 pace, HR 141

22 Jan

10 miles, 1:15:29, 7:32 pace, HR 150
   incl. 7.5 miles of 1 min hard / 1 min easy

Thunderbolt And Lightning

When I started my run on Sunday, I immediately noticed that the legs were rather sluggish. This did not come as a great surprise, having run a tempo run on Saturday as well as a too-fast run on Friday. I did wonder if it was wise to be heading out on the loop around Caragh Lake, but of course carried on regardless. Memories of that awful long run a few months ago were playing in my head, but luckily a repeat was not on the cards. In fact, after about 10 miles I started feeling much better and ended the run with a few faster miles. The fact that the weather deteriorated with every minute did play its part in urging me back home.

Monday did have heavy legs again, which came as even less of a surprise, but this time I made sure to take it very easy indeed. It was a lovely sunny morning, very unusual for the last few weeks, and I could see that the Caragh River and Lake were both exceptionally high and the road was waterlogged in a couple of places, leaving me with wet and very cold feet.

Very Very Frightening indeed it was on Tuesday when the weather changed once more. I was undeterred at first, but after about 6 easy miles I saw some lightning with the thunder coming a second later, so this was very close. I was less than a mile away from home so I turned around and hightailed it home at 6-minute pace, which wasn’t exactly easy effort any more. Ironically, by the time I got home it started brightening up but another roll of thunder convinced me that heading back out was not a good idea, instead I accepted the loss of a few miles and called it a day. I still ended the year on 3276 miles, a very similar figure to all the previous 5 years.

New Year’s Day brought some more wind and rain. By now arrived in Dublin, I headed for the Stillorgan Heath and did some laps there. Normally I would not choose to run in circles in training, but I did a workout of 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy fartlek, which broke the monotony. I ran by feel but on the 2 or 3 occasions when I glanced at my Garmin I saw about 5:40 pace, so this was roughly 5k effort. After a while I checked the time, did some calculations and realised that I had already done 22 repeats, which was about twice as many as I had initially planned so I called it a day, did a cool down and headed for home. I had not noticed it while running, but I was completely frozen when I got home; the shower did its bit to thaw me up but I had pins and needles more or less all over my body and I spent a good while hugging the radiator afterwards. The legs, on the other hand, felt just wonderful and apart from being turned into an icicle I had loved the run.

I like to think it was a great start to 2014. Happy New Year.

29 Dec

15+ miles, 1:58:37, 7:51 pace, HR 150

30 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:39, 7:51 pace, HR 145

31 Dec

6.8 miles, 52:09, 7:40 pace, HR 144

1 Jan

10 miles, 1:15:43, 7:34 pace, HR 148
   incl 22x 60 sec hard

Relativity

To ensure recovery after the weekend’s tough back-to-back workouts I decided to take 2 easy days in a row. 8 miles on Monday left me in a reasonably good shape, but I really appreciated the 10 easy ones on Tuesday; I felt really good. What is noticeable is that I ran with a lower HR on Tuesday than Monday even though the pace was higher (effort was just as easy), I guess that’s what we are talking about when we're talking about recovery.

That left me in a fresh state for Wednesday. I re-checked the Canova docs/websites I'm using to get a handle on the system and read that you are still supposed to be doing some of the workouts from the earlier training phase, so I decided that another fartlek was in order. I haven’t done one of those in a few weeks.

I opted for the slightly longer version of 25 x 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy. Obviously, if you use only the watch to determine the workout then the effort you are prepared to put into the workout will determine how hard it is and how tired you will be at the end. I can honestly say that I must have been putting in plenty of effort because by the end I was suitably knackered. I never checked the watch but I'm reasonably confident that all the fast bits were at higher-than-5k effort, which means it all adds up to a significant amount of hard running, far more than in a 5k race.

It’s amazing how long a minute can be when you’re running hard, especially when that segments coincides with a climb, and even more so if it’s into a headwind. On the other side, I never knew a minute can pass by so quickly. Einstein was obviously right, time is not a constant.

With the legs suitably sore again, I’m once more looking at two recovery days before the weekend back-to-back runs.

14 Jan

8 miles, 1:01:07, 7:38 pace, HR 141

15 Jan

10 miles, 1:15:04, 7:30 pace, HR 138

16 Jan

9.2 miles, 1:08:09, 7:24 pace, HR 155
    25 x 1 min hard, 1 min easy

The End Of the World Training Cycle

Assuming the world will go on, Tralee marathon will be in 12 weeks' time. For me, that means that base building is finished and the marathon specific preparation is about to begin.

I thought about this long and hard and eventually decided that I will do a hill drills phase, similar to the one I had been doing under Mystery Coach's guidance. There is no hills phase in Canova's training, but I vividly remember how great I felt last year; every single day of the hills phase was better than the previous one and I carried the momentum all the way to my top-10 finish in Connemara and beyond. Of course there is no guarantee this will work again, especially as I am in quite different shape compared to last year, but I will give it a go nevertheless.

This base training phase has gone extraordinarily well, and if things go right for the next few months a string of PBs is basically guaranteed. I'm really looking forward to racing already.

The week has been very good so far, even the easy efforts are now at a pace that a few years ago would have been the goal pace of a tempo run. That's great. There is a voice in my head that keeps reminding me that I'm almost 43 already and the time when my performances will decline can't be too far away, but do far so good and I'll enjoy the ride for as long as I can.

Because last week's fartlek had started to feel decidedly easier I decided to extend it this week, from 20 to 25 repeats. That went well enough, but I could not fail to notice that the pace had been slower this week, even though I could have sworn the effort had been the same.

Wednesday's easy run was probably the most satisfying run of them all, and that's not something I usually say about easy runs. It just felt great, the pace was nice enough and yet I felt like I could go on like that forever, there seemed to be absolutely no effort involved.

That's not to say that today's run was bad. It was a good bit faster, but still very much controlled, less than marathon effort I'd say. It's great to be in sub-3 shape already. Two years ago, when I broke 3 hours for the first and so far only time, I had to give blood sweat and tears to achieve 2:59. This time it will be easier.

17 Dec

10 miles, 1:15:40, 7:34 pace, HR 138

18 Dec

9.25 miles, 1:08:00, 7:21 pace, HR 151
   25 x 1 min hard, 1 min easy

19 Dec

10 miles, 1:13:04, 7:19 pace, HR 146

20 Dec

10 miles, 1:07:15, 6:43 pace, HR 154

Healthy Training

Last week, Maia was fighting off a cold all week. It was just one of the many bugs that a 5-year old brings home from school all the time. On Sunday, both Niamh and me felt a touch of the cold ourselves, but that's where our respective paths diverged. While a good night's sleep did wonders for me and I felt right as rain again, Niamh got it full on. She felt rotten for a couple of days and was only getting better by Wednesday, though she is still coughing quite severely today. This kind of thing isn't exactly unusual. Four school kids in the house mean they bring a lot of germs back home and usually some other family members catch it too, except me. My immune system must be exceptionally strong, and I sure attribute this to my running. It's because of these repeated occurrences that I do not pay any heed to the repeated scare stories about running that get printed in the press on a regular basis, one of them quite recently. While I know that a strong immune system is not an indicator that you won't get a heart attack, I simply cannot believe that an activity that demonstrably keeps me so healthy would be - well, unhealthy.

The training keeps going exceptionally well. After an exceptionally easy 10-miler on Monday it was time again for an evaluation. The last one had produced an excellent set of figures and I was quite curious what this week would bring. The conditions were not quite as ideal as 2 weeks ago, it was a little bit windy and I wondered if that would have an effect. I found it quite hard to get the heart rate up to 160 initially, I felt I had to work unusually hard for it. But as it turns out, once I got going I was flying.

(The numbers in brackets are adjusted pace, 7 seconds for every 2 heart beats off the 161 target):

       
        Mile 1    6:21   HR 160    (6:18)
        Mile 2    6:26   HR 160    (6:23)
        Mile 3    6:23   HR 161    (6:23)
        Mile 4    6:30   HR 162    (6:33)
        Recovery to HR 130: 30 seconds

I think I was still in the process of stabilising the heart rate during the first mile, which is why is was so fast - the HR basically took a bit to catch up. After that it felt smoother and it's another step up from 2 weeks ago. The short recovery time especially is a great sign; never mind that the average pace for these is just getting faster and faster.

Since the evaluation is such a mellow workout that does not require a recovery day I felt it safe to follow it up with a fartlek, which followed the usual formula of 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy. This used to feel quite hard a couple of weeks ago, but after 20 repeats I still felt quite good this time. Time to add more repeats, I guess.

Another fast run would definitely have been a bad idea after that, but I did a medium long run on Thursday, getting up very early like in the Good Old Times to run around the lake. It really was pitch dark, without the head lamp I would have run off the road on a couple of occasions. It was also fairly cold, at least judging by Kerry standards (which is not really cold, I know, I know).

I'm definitely in far better shape at this point in time than any previous year. My main worry at the moment is not to peak too early. Tralee is still 13 weeks away. The specific marathon training has not even started yet.

10 Dec

10 miles, 1:15:59, 7:35 pace, HR 135

11 Dec

12 miles, 1:23:32, 6:57 pace, HR 148
   4 mile eval: 6:18, 6:23, 6:23, 6:33 (adjusted), 30 sec recovery

12 Dec

8 miles, 56:43, 7:05 pace, HR 153
   20 x 1 min hard / 1 min easy

13 Dec

15+ miles, 1:45:14, 7:33 pace, HR 142

Not A Kenyan

I was reading this book recently and I have to admit I am deeply envious of the author. Living in Kenya for a few months, concentrating on nothing but running (well, and writing a book, I suppose), would be just great. Unfortunately, I don't think Niamh's reaction would be the same as the author's wife if I suggested dropping everything and moving to Africa (admittedly, I never asked), so my chances of doing the same are probably rather slim.

So, instead of getting some high-altitude training with the world's best distance runners, I am stuck at sea-level, running on my own in the dark in temperatures only just above freezing (mind, that's still almost 20 degrees warmer than this time 2 years ago). The one Kenyan-like thing I'm doing is a fartlek workout that is also mentioned in that book, consisting of 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy, in my case repeated 20 times.

This was sandwiched between 2 easy runs. The legs felt distinctly heavy on Monday, which was probably caused not only by Sunday's 20-miler but also the increased pace of last week in general. Luckily, 10 easy miles seemed exactly what was required to get them back by Tuesday. The fartlek workout was challenging again, just like last week, but this kind of speedwork is mentally easier than, say, quarter-mile repeats where you are trying to hit a certain pace, which is why I find it much more agreeable. I was concerned when I saw the high heart rate reading afterwards, but a look at the graph later indicated that it was more a glitch of the HRM, which was not picking up the signal properly over the first mile and recorded readings around the 200 mark, than an actually  raised HR. That's something that tends to happen with Garmin HRMs, especially in cold conditions.

By the way, there is still time for you to click on this link and give a vital donation to a very worthwhile charity. Thank you so much to the ones amongst you who have already donated (or pledged to do so).

3 Dec

10 miles, 1:16:21, 7:38 pace, HR 137

4 Dec

8 miles, 57:52, 7:12 pace, HR 160 (not!)
   20 x 1 min hard / 1 min easy

5 Dec

10 miles, 1:16:19, 7:37 pace, HR 140

Evaluation, Again!

It only feels like yesterday that I did my last evaluation workout. I'm not sure where all that time went. However, there was a significant event since the last evaluation, namely the 30-mile race only 9 days prior.

It was because of that race that I approached Tuesday's evaluation with a slight sense of trepidation. My legs have recovered very well but I do know from past experience that a marathon can show up for weeks in the evaluation numbers, an ultra, even a short one, should do even more so.

For a change the conditions were pretty much ideal, in contrast to what the weather lady had predicted, but I always forgive her. The evaluation workout is rather mellow as far as workouts go and time passed very quickly. It wasn't until I got home and checked the numbers on the Garmin that I started to raise an eyebrow or two.

       
        Mile 1    6:24   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:25   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:29   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:32   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 35 seconds

These are the best numbers I have ever produced in an evaluation. I might have messed up Sixmilebridge as a race but as a training run I seem to have gotten it absolutely spot on. I'm not sure if my former coach would claim that there was a sharpening effect from the strong last mile, but I've had sharpening effects before and still the numbers were never as good as that.

I'm pretty excited about that. It sure bodes well for Tralee. Considering how well I seem to be able to recover from fast long runs these days I'm all the more sorry that I will miss Clonakilty, but there's nothing I can do about that.

Since the evaluation is such a mellow workout I didn't worry about following it up with another workout on Wednesday. Following Canova's guidelines I added a hilly fartlek run to my weekly repertoire, and in Kenya they're doing fartleks by running a minute hard/a minute easy (at least according to that book). Apparently they're doing it for an hour at a time, I thought it prudent to start with the less ambitious target of 40 minutes, plus warm/up and cool/down of course.

Twice during the faster repeats I caught a glimpse of my pace on the Garmin, and both times it showed 5:3x. I wasn't entirely killing myself but it sure amounted to a lot of fast running, more than 5k at faster than 5k race pace, apparently. I survived by concentrating on my breathing and trying not to start hyperventilating, an old problem of mine at high effort levels. After about 17 repeats I pretty much had enough, but slavishly followed the watch for three more; not sure if that was a good idea or not, but I survived.

It's a nice enough introduction to speedwork, nowhere near as daunting as quarter-mile repeats on a track but it keeps the legs moving nicely. Interestingly, Ron Daws in his excellent book on Lydiard training recommends fartleks at the end of the base phase as well; just goes to show that there's nothing new under the sun.

It's not all plain sailing, a few days ago as I was reaching the top of a hill towards the end of an easy run I felt a pain in my right adductor, or maybe just my right adductor tendons because that seems to match the area I felt the pain on. It didn't last and I made it home without problems, but Tuesday morning I felt it again after getting up. It went away completely when I was running but became rather sore later that day.

I wan't sure if running at fast pace on Wednesday was such a smart idea with that niggle, but (as always) went ahead anyway. Just like yesterday I did not feel it at all when I was running but it came back during the day.

I've had plenty of niggles over the last few years but despite never following the usual advise of taking a rest break I haven't been injured in ages, and that's just another niggle along the way. If I had taken a rest break every time something starts bothering me I would have missed a lot of training over the years (not much so recently, my body seems to be holding up very well indeed these days).

26 Nov

10 miles, 1:15:51, 7:35 pace, HR 140

27 Nov

12 miles, 1:22:39, 6:53 pace, HR 155
   4 mile eval: 6:24, 6:25, 6:29, 6:32; 35 sec recovery

28 Nov

8 miles, 58:11, 7:16 pace, HR 152
   20 x 60/60

Bitterly Cold

were the words used by the weather forecast last night to describe the –6C degrees expected overnight. I did laugh at that, pointing out to Niamh that in countries where it actually does get cold, this would not qualify for the term bitterly. She agreed, but mentioned that it’s all relative, and for Ireland that’s a lot colder than usual.

The weather has been good recently, and I did not have to run in rain for weeks. Since this caused my pneumonia a year ago, I’m rather grateful for the break. We did have some overnight rain on Monday, but luckily, and against the forecast, it had already cleared by the time I started my run.

With yet another race on the calendar for Sunday I decided to train through again but take the edge of some of the workouts to leave a semblance of life in the old legs. Accordingly I cut my long run from the originally planned 20 miles down to 18. Last Friday my legs had become progressively heavier over the Caragh Lake loop, but on Monday they felt so much better. I took a few sips of water after completing the 15 miles loop and then added another 3 miles. The pace on those dropped to 7:24, and I could have run faster. After feeling rather flat since basically the Dublin marathon I slowly notice some fizz returning. I’m nowhere near where I want to be yet, but I do notice an improvement.

The temperatures didn’t quite reach –6C here in Kerry, that was reserved for the midlands, but it was about –2C/28F both today and yesterday morning, and if you’re not used to that it does indeed feel very cold. Maybe the weather forecast on the telly had been right after all. Yesterday I was really slow, but the day after a long run I do not take much notice of the pace. It would have been interesting to get some HR data because I can usually tell from the HR on those runs where my fitness is heading, but I won’t be wearing the HR strap until the chafing on my left side has abated (next week, I suppose).

I was supposed to go faster today, as a fartlek was on program. Since I had so much fun last Sunday I decided to do that again rather than try to run mile repeats at some set pace. This didn’t quite go as planned; each time I tried to dip below 7:00 pace I ran into troubles, and I wasn’t too happy with that performance. I have two explanations for this. Either the unaccustomed temperatures are affecting my legs, or the fact that a very nasty work situation is very heavy on my mind is playing havoc with me. I’m very grateful to be a runner as it is the only release I have at the moment. I have never felt as low and depressed as I did on Tuesday, and the knowledge that things won’t improve in the near future doesn’t help.

5 Jan

18.1 miles, 2:23:59, 7:57 pace

6 Jan

12 miles, 1:41:30, 8:28 pace

7 Jan

12 miles fartlek, 1:32:08, 7:41 pace

Brooding

I forgot to mention the most important thing about Thursday’s race. I used it to test my hurting ankle. I expected to have to grit my teeth as the miles wore on, and worried a bit if I would end up damaging the area even further. But I had bought an ankle strap a few days ago, and it seems to have made a huge difference. Not only did I manage to finish the race, the ankle didn’t even hurt. And while I can still feel it on a few occasions, the difference to last week is huge.

Since I had been training all the way through that race there was never a question of taking it easy afterwards. I just continued on with my normal training schedule, and since 15 miles were marked in on Friday, 15 miles it was going to be.

The most daunting task was to get up at 5:30 in the morning. Since I have been able to sleep in all through the holidays (apart from Christmas Day), I was no longer used to getting up in the middle of the night, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the alarm going off. However, I surprised myself by waking up a minute before time. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for the entire day. I ran at what felt like pretty decent effort, but the Garmin had me crawling along at snail’s pace. I do of course realise that the legs were tired from the race, but the extend of the slowdown surprised me. This became particularly apparent on the last 5 miles where I tried to put in a stronger effort, but only managed a very pedestrian 8:10 pace. Since I obviously still had the race in my legs this didn’t bother me, but I was quite shocked by realising just how much the legs were affected.

I was knackered when I got home, and the 5 miles cycle into work against the wind just about finished me off. And if I thought that the first day back in the office would be easy, I was badly mistaken. I had the most unpleasant experience of my entire career, which not only left me shaken for the rest of the day, it ruined my entire weekend as I spent the days brooding about the incident and the nights staring up at the ceiling. And I still don’t know how this will be resolved.

Apart from that, the runs over the weekend were a lot better. I took it reasonably easy on Saturday and was pleased to see some live returning to the legs. During the 8 miles I felt better with each step, which also helped to clear my head, at least partially. Today was even better. I ran a fartlek session, but this time I ran it the way I understand fartleks to be, unstructured, with surges and recovery jogs just like I felt. Again, I felt better with each step. During the first few miles I surged at about 7:20 pace and wondered how I had ever managed to run 7:05 for a marathon or 6:21 for a 10k just 3 days ago. But as the miles went by I felt better and better, and by the end I was flying.

A few days ago I noticed a painful red mark on my left side; the HRM chest strap must have rubbed against my skin, and I decided to give the strap a few days off until I can wear it again without discomfort. This is strange, I have used the HRM without problems for ages, and I haven’t got a clue why it started hurting all of a sudden. Despite being a numbers geek I can live without HR data for a while, I suppose.

2 Jan

15 miles, 2:07:08, 8:28 pace

3 Jan

8 miles, 1:03:28, 7:56 pace

4 Jan

10 miles fartlek, 1:13:59, 7:23 pace

Weekly Mileage: 84.5

Raw

I guess I have to come clean about the remark regarding my weight in my previous entry. I hesitate even to say it, because it might make me sound like a fully subscribed member of the self-reliant earth-centred revolution, which I most definitely am not. Well here’s the thing. Nearly a year ago I decided to follow Niamh in her vegetarianism (well, almost. We still eat fish and shellfish), but the practical change was minimal, as all food at home had always been vegetarian, and we don’t often go out to eat. Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided to take the whole nutrition thing one step further and started experimenting with a raw food diet. It’s not entirely raw food, I still have a cooked dinner, but I only eat fruit in the morning, and have a salad for lunch, usually with things like self-sprouted beans and such. I feel pretty good about it, I certainly have a lot of energy, and I think I might keep it going for a bit longer. One side-effect was that the pounds have melted away from my frame at the rate of about one pound per week. All this was achieved without going hungry, because I certainly was not looking to lose weight. In fact, when I look into the mirror I keep thinking that I look almost too thin, and I thought the same about the video from Ballydavid. However, if it is true that you run 2 seconds per mile faster for each pound lost then I certainly won’t deliberately try to regain the weight; at least not until after Dublin.

You might think this is a bit radical, and it probably is. I’m getting ever so slightly obsessed with my sub 3hr target and I’m prepared to push the boat out further than ever before. If it requires a few radical steps like eating raw food, then so be it, as long as it doesn’t have any negative effect on my family.

The last few days have been pretty good running-wise. Thursday saw the last fartlek workout, and because it required a lot of running at very fast pace I decided to wear my racing shoes; all other workouts in the training cycle were done with normal trainers. I was supposed to run 8x2 minutes at my 3k pace, which, after my blazing fast 5k last Saturday is now allegedly 5:41. I didn’t quite hit that pace, but I came close. The paces were 5:58, 5:45, 5:46, 5:49, 5:40, 5:45, 6:09, 6:01; the first and seventh were uphill, and the last one ended in a steep hill sprint because I ran out of flat road. All in all I did close to 3 miles at nearly my 3k pace, which made this a rather strenuous workout, but I was pretty happy with it.

Since I do my long runs immediately following a fast workout I ran 17 miles on Friday. I had to get up at 5:15 am, which is not something I am used to any more, and it felt awfully early. It took me a while to wake up properly, but the initial sluggish pace increased soon enough. I’m always trying to end my long runs strongly, and I started accelerating after 11 miles. I wasn’t sure what pace I would tune into, and ran by feel. 7:15 felt good, and that’s what I kept at for the first 3 miles. Then I lost my concentration on the next mile, which took 7:40. This annoyed me sufficiently to accelerate further, and I ran the final 2 miles at almost 7:00 pace. Rather surprisingly, the legs felt much better than last week. I never felt tired, and even after 17 miles, including 6 fast ones, I still had plenty in the tank, and could have kept it up for longer. Things were looking quite good, but my left achilles started hurting a bit towards the end. I didn’t pay it too much attention, and it didn’t bother me at all for the rest of the day.

However, it was really sore as soon as I hit the road today for an easy 7-miler. The first mile was rather painful, things improved over the next one, and I was ok for the rest of the run. I think it was just the endorphins kicking in rather than a real improvement though, because it hurt quite a bit once I returned back home. It’s not too bad yet, and I’m still hoping that it will go away all by itself soon enough without interfering with my training. The last thing I need is an injury.

24 Jul

9 miles, 1:08:11, 7:34 pace, HR 153
incl. 8x2mins @ 5:58, 5:45, 5:46, 5:49, 5:40, 5:45, 6:09, 6:01

25 Jul

17 miles, 2:14:06, 7:53 pace, HR 145

26 Jul

7 miles, 54:25, 7:46 pace, HR 142

At Home

This is a very unusual day for me; I’ve taken the rest of the week off work, and I’m not going anywhere, just chilling out. As Niamh pointed out, I had never done that before. At least chilling out was the idea, but Maia is still not back to normal and needs a lot of TLC. She has been crying basically non-stop on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so much so that Niamh called me at work just to have someone to talk to – and then I could hardly hear what she was saying because Maia was screaming at the top of her voice. Anyway, she seems to be better today, but in the previous days she had gotten worse as the day wore on, so we might not have reached the end of it just yet.

Yesterday’s run started very slowly, I was stiff and tired (again!) from the hill repeats, and maybe from Sunday’s race as well. The first mile took 9 minutes, but I felt better the longer I went on, and by the end I felt like flying again.

Since I didn’t have to go to work I got up late today and slowly got ready for my run. Only when I was about to head out of the door did I realise that this would mean Niamh had to get the entire gang ready on her own, so I stayed home for another hour until everyone had had their breakfast and was dressed, clean and ready for the day. The kids are at summer camp this week, which makes things just a bit easier, at least until they come home again.

I left at the same time I would usually leave for work, but instead of cycling towards Killorglin I was running towards Cromane. Today’s workout was a fartlek, with 8x90 seconds at my 3k pace, which, according to the book, is 5:52. I felt pretty good, and while some of the repeats were made a bit more difficult by the breeze coming from the sea, others were easier for the same reason. Anyway, I was really pleased with the way it went, the paces for the fast bits were 6:05, 5:32, 5:45, 5:40, 5:42, 5:35, 6:21, 5:40 (avg. 5:47), and the two slower ones were both uphill, which makes this a very good workout. What surprised me was the heart rate, it went up to 188, higher than the HR that caused me to tense up in Sunday’s race, and it was definitely the first time ever I managed to raise my heart rate so high in a training run. I think it means that my body is opening up to that kind of effort, but once again, I’m not even sure if I want my body to adapt to that kind of pace so far out from the marathon.

On the other hand, raising one’s 10k pace is a good way to better your marathon time as well. Damn it, Thomas, just trust the program. After all, you’re committed to it.

16 Jul

7 miles, 55:44, 7:57 pace, HR 144

17 Jul

8.1 miles, 59:53, 7:23 pace, HR 162
8x90 sec @ 6:05, 5:32, 5:45, 5:40, 5:42, 5:35, 6:21, 5:40 (avg. 5:47)

Lonely

I really miss Niamh and the kids, and I can't wait until Sunday when they come back from Dublin, but there is no doubt that running life is much easier in a single household. There are no problems with delays in the morning because the boys are awake and want breakfast and/or entertainment, I can do my strengthening exercises without an interfering baby or 4-year old, and I have plenty of peace and quiet in the evening to relax. I guess I should make the best of it while it still lasts. The barely controlled chaos that comes with 4 young children will return in 2 days.

In the last few weeks, Wednesday's workouts have always been slow, because I'm always stiff and tired the day after the hill repeats, and this week was no exception. The first mile took more than 9 minutes, but luckily I found a groove thereafter and managed to bring the pace down to almost average 8-minute miles at the end. The biggest mishap of the day happened in the evening when I managed to spill an almost full cup of tea all over my computer's keyboard, which promptly expired. Luckily I work in an IT department, and there were plenty of spare old keyboards around, one of which is now at home. As a work colleague mentioned, I should count myself lucky it was not a laptop. That would have been expensive.

Yesterday, Thursday, was fartlek day again, with 8x75 seconds at 1-mile pace. Again, I aimed at 5:40 pace, which is my mile pace according to the book's charts, even though I cannot imagine running an entire mile at that pace. I was already knackered after 75 seconds of that, which covered less than a quarter of a mile. I ran the repeats along the Caragh Lake road towards Killorglin, which is fairly flat, but not quite. I was quite surprised afterwards when I checked the results that the first seven repeats were all within a few seconds of each other, despite the fact that some would have been on a net uphill, and others on a net downhill part of the road. The last repeat was at 5:18 pace, but don't get excited, there was a drop of almost 30 feet over the length of it. Still, it was cool to see such a low figure on the screen. I was really pleased with myself when I got home. This was a tough workout, but I had nailed it.

I'm basically phasing in the double headers, where you run tempo one day and a long run with a strong finish the next. The fartleks are standing in for the tempo runs at the moment, and I upped my long run to 15 miles today. Since that happens to be the distance of the loop around Caragh Lake I was back on that old favourite of mine, for the first time in about 7 weeks, well before the Cork marathon. The hamstrings were both rather tired from yesterday's workout, and I wondered how I would be able to get over those major hills, but I managed ok. I was a bit slow, but from a cardio point of view I was doing fine. It was just the legs that were not really cooperating. By mile 7 fatigue crept into the system, and I was wondering if I would be able to stick to the original plan and speed up from mile 10. Speeding up I managed, but it was very, very hard work. The faster section starts with a hill, so if you try to hit a pace you're playing catch up almost from the start. I didn't quite hit the pace I wanted, 7:27 was all I could do. That was a lot faster than what I would have thought possible at mile 7, but a lot slower than the marathon-pace figure I had in mind when writing the schedule. It didn't help that I was running against an increasingly strong wind, and that it started raining at that point.

The rain never stopped, and after breakfast it was lashing no holds barred. This gave me the perfect excuse to take the car to work for the first time this week instead of the bike, but in all honesty I had made that decision at mile 7 already, and not even beautiful blue skies would have gotten me on the bike today. I kept telling myself that I should not be so exhausted after only 15 miles, but I guess I have to take the lingering fatigue from Thursday's workout into account.

I won't be at my best for Sunday's race, of course, but that's fine. The target is again to suffer as much as possible. I just hope this time it's because of the pace rather than a stomach upset.

9 Jul

7 miles, 56:10, 8:01 pace, HR 144

10 Jul

7 miles 53:28, 7:38 pace, HR 154
incl. 8x75 secs @ 5:41 pace average

11 Jul

15 miles, 2:00:13, 8:01 pace, HR 147
last 5 @ 7:27 pace

Settled

As the week goes on, our stomachs seem to have calmed down as much as I have over Saturday's disastrous race. After two vomit-less nights I think we're definitely over the worst, even though the appetite hasn't quite returned yet. Niamh found a positive spin on the entire situation when she stepped off the weighing scales yesterday, though I can't quite share her enthusiasm over one or two lost pounds. Must be a gender thing.

I was still a bit sore yesterday, probably from Tuesday's hill sprints, and initially I was excruciatingly slow. When it took over 9 minutes for the first mile I thought that I must be in the middle of an involuntary slow-running week, but after another mile I started to accelerate, even without any noticeable increase in effort. I felt better the longer the run went on, and by the time I got home I had cruised to an average pace of close to 8:00. Even though I really don't want to push myself hard on those easy days, I was still pleased to see the pace come down from the initial sluggishness.

Another fartlek run was on the menu today, and just like the hill sprints they are starting to get serious. I still don't quite know what pace I should run them in; I had hoped Saturday's race would give me a proper 10k time to gauge my fitness level, but that didn't happen. I think running the fast bits at about 5:40 pace is what I should be aiming for. Of course, those bits don't last long enough to get some usable feedback from the Garmin as regards to pace, so I end up running them purely by feel, and can check afterwards if I did ok or not. Today's speed sections featured paces ranging from 5:21 to 6:00, but since I ran them over fairly undulating terrain that was more a direct reflection of the up-and downhill nature of the course, and not a sign of an uneven effort. The average pace was pretty much exactly 5:40, which is what I was aiming for anyway. After being so slow during Tuesday's hill sprints I was relieved to see that I was able to hit the right pace. I'm still amazed just how much tougher the hill sprints are in comparison to the fartlek workouts. Don't get me wrong – of course I know that sprinting up a hill is harder than doing the same thing on a flattish piece of road. I just didn't realise how much harder.

Maia has gotten a new boyfriend. Our next door neighbours had a baby boy a few days ago, and our kids are all very excited about having yet another friend to play with, in good time. They (the neighbours, that is, not our kids) had been trying for a baby for a long time, and she had quite a few scares during the pregnancy, so we're all delighted with the happy outcome. As you can see in the photo, Maia has learned a new skill to celebrate the new arrival. That girl will be walking soon, and she's only just 8 months old! She'll be overtaking Daddy on his training runs soon.

2 Jul

6 miles, 48:35. 8:06 pace, HR 143

3 Jul

7.1 miles, 54:29, 7:40 pace, HR 157
incl. 8x45 secs @ 5:40 pace average

Various

I'll keep the running bits short, or this will be a very long entry. I woke early yesterday, and eventually got up 20 minutes before the alarm went off because staring at the ceiling was starting to lose its lustre. I got slightly delayed because I had to fix some breakfast for the boys, but still managed to go out early enough to add one mile to the scheduled run, not that one extra mile 4 months before the race will make any difference whatsoever. The run would have been nice had it not started raining with a mile to go. I was drenched by the time I got home.

Today was the second "fartlek" workout of the program, but this time it included 6x30 seconds of fast running rather than the mere 2 of last week. I programmed the Garmin to help me count the repeats (the interval workout feature on the Garmin is a godsend), because I tend to have trouble counting to 3 when I'm running, never mind all the way up to 6. The pace during the speed sections on the average was faster than 5:30, which is a little bit quicker than I was supposed to go, but not by much. I can tell you that running 30 seconds on reasonably flat road is a lot easier than 30 seconds of hill sprints! I still cannot imagine running an entire mile at that pace, though. My legs are sore from that workout, and that was only about half the distance with big long breaks in-between. The run would have been nice had it not started raining with a mile to go. I was drenched by the time I got home. Again.

At lunchtime today a colleague asked me out of the blue "if there is a 10k road race and it's only 9.6k, would the runners be upset?" After some discussion, where he kept skirting around the issue, he eventually believed me that yes, a fair amount of runners might end up being a bit upset. Eventually I found out that he is organising a 10k road race on the Dingle peninsula, and I think he will try and find an extra loop for his route. In any case, I've added that unexpected race on July 13 to my schedule.

Niamh might have been right with her baby genius comment. Yesterday she carried Maia into the kitchen, and as soon as she saw me she said "dada". Coincidence? Well, possibly, except that she did the same again today. Maybe Niamh is secretly coaching her. Of course, being the subject of the only word she can say is flattering. Especially since that girl is so gorgeous.

We're heading off to Ennis in county Clare tomorrow afternoon for a family weekend, and, not entirely coincidental, there is a 10k race on Saturday. When I wrote my training schedule, I tentatively put that race into the spreadsheet, for no other reason than that it was held at that date. I did not really expect to actually go there, because driving more than 2 hours each way for a 10k run might be a bit excessive. However, when I mentioned it to Niamh the other day, she was suspiciously enthusiastic. Of course, what we ended up doing was booking a fancy hotel for the entire family, and she has every intention of being pampered for a day, in exchange of me being able to run the race. She's cunning, that woman. Anyway, my target for the race is "to suffer as much as possible". If that yields a good time, it would be a welcome bonus.

25 Jun

7 miles, 55:04, 7:52 pace, HR 150

26 Jun

6 miles, 46:33, 7:45 pace, HR 156
incl. 6x30 secs @ 5:26 pace avg