Seriously?

It's 10 days into January already? Did I blink and miss half of it?

They say if time flies you're obviously having fun. They also say it's a sign of getting old, and since both apply to me I should not be surprised, I guess.

My HR had been elevated for a few days after New Year's Day. My running HR was slightly elevated but my resting HR was far more affected, at least 10 beats higher than normal. I blame that on my brother-in-law who dragged himself and his family to the big family gathering at New Year's Day despite them all complaining about being sick, with the result that half the clan subsequently suffered from some nasty virus. Thanks, Michael! I strongly suspect the higher HR readings were from the time when my body was fighting off the same infection but it seems to have succeeded, I never got sick and by Sunday I noticed the resting HR gradually starting to come down again. By Wednesday morning it was back to 38, which is just about as low as it gets (I won't say "good" because a low HR isn't necessarily a sign of top fitness).

Anyway, introducing some speedwork hasn't borne fruit just yet. My normal runs have gotten significantly slower, which makes sense as the legs are bound to be tired after workouts and I automatically respond by running slower. My legs aren't used to running fast, so I'll definitely need to give them a bit of time.

I ran 20 miles on Sunday, which I expected to be just another long run but the legs had other ideas. They never felt great but were somewhat okay for the first 15 miles. However, the route I chose had some tailwind for the first half, which I didn't even notice, which meant a 10 mile fight against the wind to get back home. After 15 miles it started telling and the last few miles were a bit of a struggle. After that run I was pretty much wiped out and just vegged away on the sofa for the rest of the day. Ah the luxuries of the rest of the family being on the other end of the country!

Having to fit running into real life is bound to lead to compromises at times, and the only time I could squeeze my next workout into my schedule was on Monday, which is not ideal the day after a tiring long run. I did a few hill sprints, which doesn't tire me out as much as other workouts. The body seems to be handling those better as well, though if that translates into better running performance in general is yet to be revealed.

6 Jan

10.6 miles, 1:23:44, 7:53 pace, HR 145

7 Jan

20 miles, 2:43:46, 8:11 pace, HR 140

8 Jan

7.5 miles, 1:08:52, 9:10 pace, HR 130

   incl 9 x 10 sec hill sprints, 2 mins walk/jog recovery

9 Jan

10 miles, 1:23:19, 8:19 pace, HR 138

10 Jan

9.75 miles, 1:19:33, 8:09 pace, HR 138

Running Fast, Slowly

The new year got off to a reasonably solid if entirely unspectacular start. I've re-started the run commute, but only one way at a time. The mileage will be slightly lower the next few weeks because speed work and long miles don't mix very well, and I want to get some speed into my legs now. There won't be the opportunity to do so later in the training cycle.

I need to be careful. After years and years of injury-free running I then acquired 2 injuries, both related to workouts. Plus, too much speedwork got me into an overtrained state that took a long time to get out of, and I sure don't want to repeat the same mistakes again.

Therefore, my speed workouts will not be spectacular, neither in length nor in pace. I'll try to run faster but not go to the well, and when I feel that the workout should be over, it will be over.

Case in point, I went to our local dirt track this morning. Since a track is 400 meters long, 400s were on the cards as it just makes things simple. There's no light available but it's an almost Full Moon and the night was clear, so a moonlit workout it was. Neither the early time nor the low temperatures were in my favour but you just get on with things. Since it was so dark that I couldn't see the numbers on the watch it was a workout entirely by feel. I also lost count early on and had no idea how many repeats I had done, but at some point realised I was tired because I had inadvertently jogged past the point where the next repeat should have started without realising, and a frazzled brain seemed to indicate that the workout should end soon. I finished with one last effort, a bit faster than the other ones, and went home.

To be honest I was a bit shocked to see such slow numbers. The first and second one don't mean much as I was taking my time to ease into the effort but then I still only ran at about 6:15-6:25 pace. Come to think about it, that is probably reasonably close to my present 5k race pace, which sounds like the right effort for 400s, but I used to run them closer to 5:30 pace, so that was a bit sad to see. But let me repeat what I said earlier, I'd much rather do an easier workout than dig myself into a hole again or get injured, and I think and feel I got the effort level right.

I just need to get used to being older, that's all.

1 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:02, 7:48 pace

2 Jan

7.5 miles, 1:06:10, 8:46 pace, HR 131

   hill sprints

3 Jan

9.7 miles, 1:15:21, 7:46 pace, HR 145

4 Jan

9.75 miles, 1:19:01, 8:06 pace, HR 141

5 Jan

6.7 miles, 57:14, 8:25 pace, HR 136

   9 x 400s, 200 rest

Ho Ho Ho

The weather Gods aren't entirely in the Christmas Spirit this year. The temperatures dropped close to 0 again but were accompanied by icy cold rain and some biting wind, which are just about the least favourite running conditions I can think of. Of course it didn't stop me from running. It might feel a bit uncomfortable for a few minutes but once you're warmed up you're fine. And if you feel warm at the start of your run, you're overdressed.

I stayed in Dublin until Saturday, which saved me from the usual traffic jam on Friday evening that turns the trip towards Naas into a 2.5 hours stop-start session. We left Saturday lunchtime and just breezed past those sections. Now I have a week in Kerry, which means I finally have a bit of a break. I hardly had any holidays this year as I had them pay me off both times I changed jobs and immediately started new employment on both occasions.

I'm getting into damn good shape now, at least damn good aerobic shape. I think the back-to-back marathons are really paying off. I didn't do a long run or a speed session the week after Howth in order to ensure I can recover fully, but now it's systems go again.

I did another session of hill sprints this morning, on the usual dirt road to the Caragh Lake Coillte area. It was freezing cold so I did a few miles just to warm up (7:50 pace, HR 135) before launching  myself up the hill, 8-10 seconds for each repeat, full tilt as fast as you can accelerate, with a long recovery of about 2 minutes, including walking back down the hill. A few things I noticed were that the HR dropped down to 110-120 during the recovery and was still in the 120s at the end of each sprint and only went into the 140s with delayed reaction. The pressure I always feel in my chest started appearing after 3 or 4 repeats but much less bothersome that usual. At the 7th sprint I felt I could no longer produce full power output and called it a day.

I can feel it and the numbers do tell the same story. I'm starting to get into damn good shape.

22 Dec

10.15 miles, 1:23:40, 8:14 pace, HR 139

23 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:58, 7:53 pace, HR 139

24 Dec

11 miles, 1:28:01, 8:00 pace, HR 142

25 Dec

10 miles, 1:16:06, 7:36 pace, HR 144

26 Dec

8.75 miles, 1:14:48, 8:32 pace, HR 133

   incl. 7 x 8 sec hill sprints

Man In Tights

Winter is here. We even have the fields covered in white, though in Dublin at least that's frost at the moment, not snow. We did have snow as well but it didn't stick. Now we just have the freezing cold temperatures and the icy road conditions (I like the former, not the latter). Nevertheless I get amused by Met Eireann's description of the present conditions as "bitterly cold". Not where I come from, guys. Bitterly cold to me is -20 degrees (ok, -15 qualifies as well) and temperatures around the freezing point are just  - Winter. Suck it up.

Anyway, after taking a good look at my numbers and my training in the past few months I have come to the conclusion that while the base training is getting me into pretty good shape (as witnessed by running a surprisingly easy 3:10 Dublin marathon) this is just about as good as it gets and for further improvement I have to introduce a new stimulus. None of that comes as a surprise, I had been waiting for that point ever since I started training. If anything, I am surprised base training got me as far as that. Also, I didn't want to do any faster running until I was completely sure I had recovered from Dublin/Sixmilebridge, which seems to be the case now. My numbers are good. My resting HR has dropped as low as 36, which equals the lowest number I have ever seen, and that was while taking recordings in a seated position, not lying down. A low HR doesn't automatically translate into being in good shape and well rested but the other numbers, and most importantly the way I feel, supports the same conclusion.

As an introduction into faster stuff I did a set of hill sprints last Saturday, back home in Kerry, which enabled me to do them on the same hill I used to do them on in previous years. Then again, in my memory it had been much steeper and I was surprised how "easy" it felt. I still had the familiar tightness in my chest 20-30 seconds after each sprint, which I now attribute to my exercise-induced asthma, plus a wave of nausea, but I'm used to that by now. What wasn't quite so great was that my right calf started to feel tight; maybe I should have called it a day after 6 repeats rather than 8. The tightness stayed with me over the next few days when running (not noticeable at all otherwise) but it has gotten better. By Tuesday morning I could just about feel it during the first mile but after that it was gone.

The "long" run on Sunday was made interesting by some rather inclement weather, which prevented me from following my initial plan of running around the lake. I didn't want to be caught out on high grounds in a storm, so I remained reasonably close to home but still got one big hill in. I had to be home in time for Cian's birthday party and cut it short at mile 15, though in marked contrast to last week I was still moving well at that time.

Back in Dublin I did one more workout on Tuesday morning. I resurrected the Evaluation workout, which consist of running 4 miles at HR 160 (used to be 161 but I made a small concession to old age) while taking splits at each mile and basically measuring how much you slow down well you can hold the pace while running at the same HR. In this case I was less interested in the actual numbers but more interested in the fitness gains from a moderate workout. Actually, when I say moderate, it didn't exactly feel particularly moderate at the time. I paid the price for not having run at that effort level for many, many months and was breathing rather hard, and my asthma was noticeable as well but all was fine in the end. Then again, once I had finished the workout I very quickly felt fully recovered and rather good, so it can't have been that hard. Oh and the numbers - well, I'm having troubles getting them off my damn watch and Suunto's movescount website insists on rounding them to the nearest 5, so all I can say it was about 6:30, 6:30, 6:40, 6:40, with 40-45 seconds of full recovery for the HR to come down to 130. I need to bring my old Garmin 310 to Dublin with me, it works better for such a workout (the evaluation workout is the one reason why I kept it after replacing it 3 years ago with my Suunto, which is a better watch in all other aspects). Anyway, while I don't have the exact numbers that will do as a baseline. In fact, that's a pretty good baseline, I had not expected to be under 7-minute miles, certainly not for the 3rd and 4th miles.

7 Dec

9.35 miles, 1:13:26, 7:51 pace, HR 139

8 Dec

8.35 miles, 1:06:22, 7:56 pace, HR 141

9 Dec

8.75 miles, 1:17:08, 8:48 pace, HR 131

   incl. 8 x 8-10 sec hill sprints, 2 minutes recovery

10 Dec

15+ miles, 2:01:39, 8:04 pace, HR 138

11 Dec

8.35 miles, 1:06:18, 7:56 pace, HR 139

12 Dec

9.2 miles, 1:07:27, 7:19 pace, HR 145

   incl. 4 miles @ 6:36, HR 160, 40-45 sec recovery to HR 130

Minors

Maybe it's something to do with Kerry. As soon as I got home my throat was feeling sore again. I have no idea why. This time it wasn't the long drive because we took the train instead, which, according to Niamh, is much more relaxing. To be honest, I'm not convinced. We arrived no earlier than last week and I don't find sitting in a train any more relaxing than driving - it does have the advantage that I can read a book but to be honest that was mostly to alleviate the boredom. And when I think of the train tickets prices in Ireland my blood pressure just rises, which isn't particularly relaxing either,

Anyway, that's the way my life is these days, weeks in Dublin and weekends in Kerry, and while I do enjoy both it's the travelling between the two that I haven't cracked yet.

On Thursday I decided to do a bit of a workout again, a fairly moderate one. I did a few hill sprints, this time in Kilbogget park rather than closer to home, which gave me a slightly longer hill to play with. The problem is that I get that pressure in my chest a few seconds after each repeat. I had the same happening last year but this year the thing seems to have grown into full-blown exercise-induced asthma, which makes me question if those hill repeats are a good idea. I love the effect they have on my legs but if I can't breathe properly for 2 days afterwards then that's obviously not ideal.

This has been going on for a while now, so I think I'll start talking to a doctor about it. One problem is of course that I have to be careful about taking banned substances, and inhalers do have a reputation for being abused by athletes that are not actually asthmatic. It needs some careful consideration - my health comes first but under no circumstances do I want to break any doping rules.

Anyway, I was back home in Kerry on Saturday and did that 10 mile Caragh Lake run that I must have done a thousand times by now. My breathing was definitely constricted, which did not feel particularly nice, but I was still able to sustain 8-minute pace without getting out of breath.

On Sunday I ran around the lake, for the first time in a rather long time. It was freezing cold at the beginning and it didn't help that my gloves were in Dublin but thankfully it started to warm up just as I left the house. The long, long climbs showed up a significant lack of leg strength and I suffered a bit through the miles, the legs only just managing to keep running and the lungs only just managing to provide sufficient oxygen - not a great run by any means but I got it done and there will be better ones in store. I need to run more hills, though.

And massive congratulations to Star of the Laune club mate Fiachra Clifford who scored 2 goals in today's minor final at Croke Park. I know football is his major love but if that doesn't work out he will always have another sport t fall back on - he's also quite some runner!

15 Sep

10 miles, 1:22:48, 8:16 pace, HR 143

   incl 5 hill sprints and a few laps around Kilbogget dirt track

16 Sep

10 miles, 1:19:56, 8:00 pace, HR 145

17 Sep

16.6 miles, 2:16:13, 8:12 pace, HR 145

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

Well, so I had a chat with my coach and we decided to make a change to the plan and see how it goes. For the first time in well over 10 years I am introducing a full rest day into my program in an effort to boost my recovery. It may well be that after all those thousands of training miles in my legs I don't need the high mileage any more but let's not jump ahead. We're introducing a change and we will assess how it goes and if it's not working then we will make another change.

There was a second workout on the program this week; after the fun session of Tuesday it was hill sprints again on Thursday, and just like on previous occasions I found the sprints themselves perfectly manageable but the heart burn after each sprint far more bothersome. It got gradually worse with each repeat, the first 5 were slightly uncomfortable but manageable but the last 2 or 3 especially were seriously bad. I've tried taking Gaviscon before the session but that seems to have rather limited effect. There aren't any hill sprints on the program next week but I might want to try something else for when they return,

Friday was a full rest day! Gasp!

The legs felt ok, actually, it wasn't a response to some immediate need but something I had decided beforehand, after consulting the coach. I wasn't completely idle, I still did my dynamic stretching and strengthening exercises but running was off the menu.

It was barely back on the menu on Saturday with only 3 miles, and those at mere recovery effort.

Sunday was an entirely different matter. The coach has ramped up the long run mileage very quickly, from 10 to 14 to 18 miles in successive weeks. It was always going to be a bit of a challenge, I knew that already. The first half went okay, though the legs were a little bit heavy, but the second half started dragging with each passing mile. However, running on tired legs is something I am very much used to so I got home still in reasonable shape, if rather tired. The biggest shock of the day came when I looked at the HR data afterwards - I really thought I had kept the effort very easy, and the pedestrian pace does bear that out, but an average HR of 150 doesn't sound like an easy effort to me, so there is a clear disparity between the subjective feeling and the objective data.

My fitness levels aren't anywhere near where I would want them to be. There clearly is still plenty of work to be done.

28 Jul

7.1 miles, 1:10:37, avg HR 140

1 mile w/u, 2 miles progression, 10 x 20 seconds hill sprints with walking / full rest recovery, c/d

29 Jul

0

30 Jul

3.1 miles, 29:07, 9:23 pace, HR 132

31 Jul

18 miles, 2:33:58, 8:33 pace, HR 150

Quads

I have been feeling a bit strange that last couple of weeks. Obviously it's not that unusual for a runner to have hurting quads but my quads are only hurting when I am sitting down for longer than about 30 minutes at a time. As long as I am able to get up and walk around they will be fine again within a minute but I was doing a course at work for 2 days last week and had to stay put - it was agony at times! They are perfectly fine when I'm running, which I find just baffling.

Anyway, after the disastrous attempt at a speed workout last Tuesday I have been trying to dial back. I stopped cycling to work, reasoning that this was the biggest contributor to the pain in the quads, though I'm not so sure now. I also stopped most of the strength training, which may have contributed to a general feeling of exhaustion. Obviously I know that the underlying reason is that I am not recovered from the 24 hrs race, still only 4 weeks ago, and that will take longer still . My basic muscle fibres are fine but my upper fibres take a lot longer to recover, which is why I blew up so badly when I tried to make use of them in a speed workout while running at a slower pace feels perfectly fine.

I did a hill repeat workout on Thursday, which actually felt perfectly good. Short use of those muscle fibres seems to be okay, only prolonged use causes problems.

On the plus side, my pace for the easy recovery runs has increased significantly while still remaining under the HR limit. My HRM crapped out on Friday and I ran entirely by feel, obviously erring on the side of caution. All was back in working order on Saturday when I basically managed to run at 4-hour marathon pace while comfortably remaining under the 136 threshold. I know that's not particularly fast - it's a lot faster than my 24 hour race pace, though!

The sun came out on occasions on Saturday and Sunday, which I used for some badly needed time to work in the garden. This should explain why the legs felt battered for my longer run on Sunday - that and the pretty heft headwind I had to fight for pretty much the entire 7 miles back home from the turnaround point. At least I was not trying to stay at some sort of pace despite the adverse conditions, which is a mistake I've made often enough in the past.

I do hope my quads will settle down soon. Due to being unable to remain seated I can't even write long blog posts any more (Ewen will be happy to know!).

21 Jul

6 miles, 1:00:23, 10:03 pace, HR 143

   10 x 20 sec hill sprints

22 Jul

5 miles, 51:51, 10:22 pace, no HRM

23 Jul

7 miles, 1:04:17, 9:11 pace, HR 132

24 Jul

14 miles, 1:56:22, 8:18 pace, HR 148

   7 miles @ 8:27, 7 miles @ 8:07

Weekly Mileage: 45

Upwards

When I tried my own Maffetone training 2 years ago, my initially high hopes were eventually dashed when I just would not get into proper peak shape. Afterwards I concluded that my base had been very solid but nothing had been done to build on that. The biggest drawback, however, had been that training had just been really uninspiring, The one thing that had kept me going and highly motivated was the fact that I was going to run in a World Championship. That was such an incredible privilege I would have gone through with anything, so I just stuck to it no matter what.

When my new coach filled the training plan with tons of Maffetone-style runs, at an even lower HR than my own training plan, I was a little bit disheartened at first. However, a second glance revealed a different picture. This isn't really Maffetone training, she is just using the MAF HR to ensure that my easy runs will remain easy - very, very easy in fact. I'm still only just at the beginning but I'm starting to sense that the easy days are being kept exceptionally easy because the hard days are going to become really tough in weeks to come.

The speed workout on Tuesday was still a fairly modest one and none that would have filled me with any sort of dread but I think once the dial gets cranked up a bit that might change. Even though the workout had been fairly easy it was followed up by 2 more easy MAF days. I got some sense of foreboding during Friday's hill repeats, though. In some ways they were similar to the hill repeats I did on my own accord, except that the repeats themselves were longer but fewer in numbers. I had no problems with the repeats themselves - 20 seconds of hard work at a time are over quickly, no matter what. My problem was that I got really bad pains in the centre of my chest about 20 seconds after each sprint. I'm reasonably sure it had nothing to do with my heart (I wouldn't have continued if I'd thought that was the case - I'm not fucking stupid. At least, I'm not that fucking stupid). I think it's basically heart burn. I ran the workout on an empty stomach, as I always do, but I' think if I had eaten anything beforehand it would have come up again. Anyone know a solution? Anyway, this happened after every single one of the 10 repeats and it was seriously uncomfortable. I managed to gut it out but unless I find a solution to the chest pains I'm not looking forward to the next one.

On the plus side, the pace for the easy runs is finally starting to increase which makes them easier to bear. This might be down to some early sharpening effect from the speed and hill workouts but I'm still glad to see the end of 10-minute miles for a while.

13 Jul

4 miles, 38:44, 9:41 pace, HR 131

14 Jul

4 miles, 38:45, 9:41 pace, HR 129

15 Jul

1 mile w/u, 2 miles progression, 10 x 20 seconds hill sprints with walking / full rest recovery, c/d; avg HR 146

16 Jul

4 miles, 37:38, 9:24 pace, HR 132

Recovery At Last

I know I have been whining a lot last week how tired I was all the time. Well, the good news is that I'm feeling a lot better this week and it doesn't take a genius to work out that it's down to reduced mileage, helping me recover from all the previous running.

Of course I still have one massive run ahead of me on the weekend in Donadea, which I am a bit nervous about. 100k is a bloody long way to run, no matter how you look at it, though the one bit that worries me most is that I'm not 100% sure I will be recovered fully in 3 weeks when Belfast comes round, much sooner this year than anticipated at the start of the year. However, I have studied the training plans of many old-school ultra runners and compared to some, what I am doing is barely a scratch. I do feel I need at least one very long run to prepare the body - 2 might have been even better, as that was proven to work 2 years ago, but 1 is all I have managed to schedule this year.

Anyway, recovery seems to be working great this week, after a rather tired Monday I started feeling better each day and by now running is definitely fun again. I ran just once per day and did my only workout on Wednesday, hill sprints once more, though on a different hill a quarter mile down the road from the usual one because it is a bit steeper which I thought would be better. At the very least I'm better at doing hill sprint now than I was 6 weeks ago, though if what I've read in books is correct then it should translate into better running as well.

Let's see how Saturday goes. Right now I find it hard to look beyond that!

30 May

8 miles, 1:06:22, 8:17 pace, HR 134

31 May

10 miles, 1:17:58, 7:48 pace, HR 139

1 Jun

7.5 miles, 1:07:05, 8:56 pace, HR 135, 13 hill sprints

2 Jun

8 miles, 1:02:21, 7:48 pace, HR 139

Conflicting Information

I'm not 100% where my fitness is right now because I am getting two conflicting sets of information:

1. objectively, my HR data is already looking good and heading upwards towards "very good"
2. subjectively, I am feeling rather sluggish and tired

And where does that leave me? I've been doing rather hefty mileage this week, which easily explains the tiredness and heavy legs. The fact that the HR numbers have continuously been improving over the same period came as a bit of a surprise to me but the upwards curve in the graph is perfectly obvious. This is the main reason why I keep a training log and why I created my spreadsheets with graphs, to have a view of objective data that does not rely on potentially unreliable subjective input like how the legs are feeling.

At the same time I cannot dismiss subjective feelings either. I'm feeling tired, and I do have to take note of that.

There's only one more week of heavy training left. Maybe feeling tired right now is where you'd want to be anyway. Just don't overstep the mark. Don't get injured. And try not to race on tired legs this time!

I did 2 fairly long morning runs this week, 15 miles on Tuesday and 18 on Thursday. Both required to get up rather early but thankfully with the sun rising at 6 am it was bright enough even at stupid o'clock. I felt a bit sluggish on Tuesday and was surprised afterwards by the faster than expected pace, and also by the fact that I had not slowed down towards the end. That just goes to show that you can't entirely trust subjective effort levels. On Thursday I felt better early on but I did get rather tired towards the end, and I could not help but notice that I had run 15 seconds per mile slower than on Tuesday when I would have thought I had run at the same pace and effort.

Sandwiched between those 2 runs were hill sprints on Wednesday. There was some clear improvement to previous efforts: for the first time this year I did not get a tight chest and I did not have to deal with waves of nausea either. I only headed for home because I had run out of time rather than out of steam as usual. At the very least I'm getting better at doing hill sprints.

My left knee remains am issue. I felt a sharp pain the other day when walking down some stairs, but that's the only time it actually hurt, at all other times it just feels a bit funny without being painful. I can just about feel it at the start of each run and have to ease into the effort but within a minute or two it feels fine, and running itself doesn't seem to aggravate it.

23 May

am: 10 miles, 1:21:00, 8:06 pace, HR 136

pm: 3 miles, 20:00, 8:40 pace, HR 127, treadmill

24 May

am: 15 miles, 1:55:05, 7:40 pace, HR 142

pm: 3 miles, 25:58, 8:39 pace, HR 129, treadmill

25 May

am: 7 miles, 1:04:07, 9:10 pace, HR 136, hill sprints

pm: 5 miles, 44:17, 8:51 pace, HR 131, treadmill

26 May

18 miles, 2:22:24, 7:55 pace, HR 137

A Different Stimulus

Very deliberately, this week's training was very different to the previous three. After a bout of heavy endurance training I am now trying to give the body a different stimulus.

The first few days were all about recovery; (almost) 3 marathons in a row are bound to leave some fatigue in the legs and while I might be flirting with overtraining I'm obviously trying not to overstep the mark. Once I felt better, which happened sooner than expected, I did a few extra things: first there were hill sprints on Thursday, which went reasonably well and doesn't ever seem to cause soreness the following days, no matter how sore the legs are for the rest of the day itself. After a few I start to get some tightness in the chest about 20 or 30 seconds after the sprint itself and I start to feel nauseous, which is generally the signal to pack it in for the day.

I followed this up with a parkrun on Saturday. It's been almost a year since my first and up-to-now only appearance at a parkrun. Back then I had gone with eldest daughter Lola but that was also the day I started feeling my injury, though I'm fairly sure the parkrun itself had a very minor role in this. This time round Lola declined my invitation and I went off on my own. With Alan in attendance, who had a few years ago paced 3:15 in Cork with me but who has gotten amazingly good since then, nobody else needed to worry about winning finishing first, but that was never my goal anyway, I ran at slightly below race effort, though it was still enough to put some pain on. I finished in exactly 19 minutes on my watch on a rolling course, though they took a second off in the official results, which gave me a sub-19, not that that is anything to write home about.

Despite some hesitation if it really was a good idea, I added a few more miles in the afternoon, and to ensure that the effort would remain very easy I did it on the treadmill, despite the sunshine outside.

I did manage to soak up plenty of rays on Sunday morning to make up for that by running on the mountainy Kerry Way trail over Windy Gap into Glenbeigh and then back again for a second climb, Since the legs left me in no doubt that the race parkrun had left its mark I kept the effort as easy as possible, though "easy" is relative on a mile-long climb that averages 17%.

The mileage has been fairly low this week due to the recovery part. I'm going to crank this up again but will try and make sure it will be done mostly at easy effort. Belfast is only 5 weeks away. There are really only 2 weeks of proper training left!

My left knee is a little bit sore. Not bad but obviously I don't want it to get any worse. I'll take it easy on the squats and the other S&C training for a bit.

19 May

7 miles, 1:03:35, 9:05 pace, HR 137, hill sprints

20 May

am: 8 miles, 1:02:58, 7:52 pace, HR 143

pm: 4 miles, 34:11, 8:32 pace, HR 130, treadmill

21 May

am: ~7 miles, including Killarney parkrun in 18:59, 6:12 pace, HR 173 (3rd place)

pm: 5 miles, 44:33, 8:54 pace, HR 136, treadmill

22 May

12+ miles, 1:54:45, 9:27 pace, HR 143, Windy Gap

Weekly Mileage: 68

Hills And Recovery

After the heavy training block of 3 (almost) marathons on 3 consecutive weekends, right now I am in recovery mode. Results are somewhat mixed. On Wednesday morning I was really pleased with how the legs felt and thought that recovery was going exceptionally well. Thursday morning things looked a lot bleaker again with heavy legs and feeling a bit tired. I’ve had similar ups and downs in previous weeks as well, so this is nothing new. With no marathon this weekend to mess things up again I should soon be okay again.

My heart rate/pace data is looking reasonably good considering what I have subjected myself to in the last few weeks. The idea was always to overreach a bit but still be able to recover in a reasonable timeframe. So far I think this is going pretty well.

I have done a couple of evening runs as well, and like in previous weeks I did them on the treadmill. There are two reasons for that. First, I don’t like running on our windy roads with all that traffic. It’s not exactly busy but in the morning I usually see maybe 2 or 3 cars in an hour; in the evenings it’s closer to a car a minute or two. That’s not exactly a major highway, I’m perfectly aware of that, but it is a lot more traffic than I am comfortable with. The second reason is that the treadmill makes it easy to keep the effort at an exceptionally easy level. I always found it hard to run easily in the evenings – the subjective effort was always a bit off compared to morning runs and I always tended to run faster than planned. On the treadmill that is easily avoided, the only drawback being my daughter’s disapproval for being disturbed in her Netflix binge viewing.

The nice weather seems to have gone again after that gorgeous weekend we’ve just had, but even that comes with a major plus: all of a sudden the cloud of blood sucking midges that has repeatedly disrupted my S&C morning workout has gone. That alone is almost worth the rain, though I strongly suspect I won’t find much agreement on that point.

I decided to do some kind of workout this morning, though one with very little hard running: hill sprints. They always work the same: a good, long warm up and and then a few hill sprints that last about 15 seconds, followed by walking down the hill and a short jog at the bottom before the next sprint. Each circuit takes about 80 seconds, though I certainly don't time them. After a few sprints I always start getting a tight chest and get hit by a wave of nausea, maybe 20 seconds after the sprint, and once that starts getting seriously uncomfortable I go home.

The legs tend to hurt for the rest of the day after such a workout but will be fine again the next morning.

16 May

5 miles, 43:21, 8:40 pace, HR 132

17 May

am: 5 miles, 39:37, 7:55 pace, HR 142

pm: 3 miles, 25:05, 8:22 pace, HR 124

18 May

am: 8 miles, 1:02:08, 7:46 pace, HR 142

pm: 4 miles, 33:07, 8:17 pace, HR 132

19 May

7 miles, 1:03:35, 9:05 pace, HR 137, 12 hill sprints

Clarifications

Spartathlon is your B race? To a 24 hour track event? How is that possible? Anyhow, best of luck with all of those races!

The reason why I put Belfast as my main target is the fact that in 2017 the next world championship will take place and I want to make sure I am on the team! I am reasonably optimistic that I will be selected as only one single Austrian has run further than me in the last 7 years in 24 hours but a good run in Belfast would guarantee my selection no matter what. Spartathlon is a great race but a world championship would be greater still.

The legs felt really heavy on Thursday morning, so I decided to cut back the mileage for a couple of days. I still went ahead with the planned hill sprints that day but went home once I felt I had maybe two or three more repeats in me, and I kept the effort low for Friday. I also ruled out any second runs of the day on either occasion.

The hill sprints were very different to any other kind of training, pretty much all-out but only for about 10 seconds or so, and with long recoveries (walking back down the hill and a slow jog for a bit). It was a different day as well: when I opened the door I could see a myriad of stars in the clear night sky, something I hadn't seen in a very long time. With the clear sky came the cold temperatures but I was perfectly fine with that. Unfortunately it wasn't to last, by the time I was on my second hill sprint it was hailstoning; the combination of all-out hill sprints and hail stones made for an interesting multi-stimulus of pain! Still, it was all over very quickly and the legs felt fine for the rest of the day, something I cannot always say.

Friday's run was at the easiest effort in quite some time. I was quite pleased that the pace was still fairly close to 8-minute miles, something I had to work for a couple of months ago, now it is my recovery pace. The HR was exceptionally low. I can count the runs with a lower HR on the fingers of one hand, I think.

On Saturday it was time to rev it up again. I wanted to tweak the format of the fast day and instead of running 10 miles at a good effort I opted for 2 x 3 mile repeats at HM pace. The last two races indicated that the pace should be somewhere between 6:30 and 6:40, so that's what I aimed for. The weather has finally improved a bit, the wind has died down though we are still seeing the odd shower. It's also quite cold, about 3 degrees in the morning, but I like it cold anyway. All in all it makes for very decent running conditions. The first 3 mile segment went well but I probably ran just a tad too fast early on and started to struggle a bit towards the end. A rest interval did me some good and I managed the second segment better than expected and this one felt like I ran the correct effort.

The legs felt that effort the next day, of course, but it could have been worse. I gave myself the option of either 18 or 20 miles, depending on how I would feel towards the end. I started out reasonably well but towards the end of the big long climb I started labouring when at previous runs I had managed pretty much on autopilot, so I certainly wasn't firing on all cylinders. I managed just fine for the rest of the loop around the lake but I did opt for the 18 miles, in an effort not to overdo things.

When I was coached by MC he spent a lot of time stopping me from doing too much. In fact, I think I can feel strong vibes from across the Atlantic that I am indeed overdoing things already, so a little bit of holding back today was almost certainly a good thing. I am still in base building mode, though I've started the transition to the marathon training block, which will start in earnest early next month.

7 Jan

6.7 miles, 1:02:28, 9:19 pace, HR 131

   11 short&sharp hill sprints

8 Jan

10 miles, 1:21:50, 8:09 pace, HR 131

9 Jan

10 miles, 1:11:12, 7:06 pace, HR 152

   2 x 3 miles at 6:29 (HR 159), 6:33 (HR 161)

10 Jan

18+ miles, 2:21:38, 7:48 pace, HR 142

Weekly Mileage: 84

Happy New Year

While everyone else was busy nursing their hangover, I did what I enjoy the most - running! It might make me odd in the eyes of many people, especially here in Ireland, but I've long ago stopped giving a damn what anyone else thinks of me, and I just happen to prefer running to drinking.

Anyway, I finished 2015 with a double workout, hill sprints in the morning and a recovery run on the treadmill in the evening. The hill sprints are what I want to do this training cycle instead of a hill phase doing drills, because it was doing those drills that got me injured last summer. I know it was down to me making a silly mistake but I really don't feel like doing another set of the same drills this time round.

If the treadmill run helped or hindered my race the following day I cannot say but after last week's surprisingly fast 5k I was fairly optimistic of a good race on New Year's Day. The race itself was in slight doubt as storm Gerturde was to hit us at the exact same time but thankfully it mostly steered south of Ireland and all we had to deal with was heavy rain and gale force winds - I've run in worse but it sure wasn't ideal race weather.

Me in the customary orange club colours

Once more I was left in the dust by a lot of runners at the start. My ageing diesel engine just needs a bit longer to revv up, but then again I did start with a sub-6 mile, albeit aided by a strong tailwind. I gradually made my customary way through a sizeable crowd of fast starters in the first mile, caught up to a group of 3 ladies again, same as in Farranfore, and when I went past them without much trouble I figured I was having a good race today. Eventually I was left on my own with another group quite some distance in front. Things got a lot worse after 4k when we turned into the wind and the stretch from km 5 to 7 was particularly tough against a gale force wind, uphill and on tiring legs. One runner in the group ahead started to struggle, was dropped and I eventually caught him before km 7. I was tempted to stay behind him and use him as a wind shield but he was going a bit too slowly and I went past - of course he immediately hung on to me and used me as a wind breaker. Perfectly understandable, I would have done the same. His footsteps seemed to fade away eventually and I thought I had shaken him. With about a mile to go there was a junction without a marshall, and if there was a sign then I did not see it without my glasses. I was reasonably sure I had to go left but hesitated for a moment until the runner behind me shouted "left". I was slightly startled because I had not realised he was still right behind me, and after my short hesitation he was now in front of me and obviously recovered because I had to work hard just to hang on to him. Due to a complete lack of finishing speed my only chance of beating guys to the line is to take off hell for leather with a fair amount of distance still to go and hope I can hang on and push through the red mist. This worked surprisingly well and I regained my place and kept it until the finish. Unfortunately one look at the watch told me that this had been a good bit slower than expected. I pressed the button a bit after the finish and estimate my time to be about 39:10 when I sure expected a better time. Without a doubt the conditions played their part but I was still a bit disappointed. Due to a technical breakdown the chip timing did not work and results still have not been published - I still hope that will happen soon. Things improved when I received a prize for second M45, so I actually brought home some loot today, hurray!

No rest for the wicked! The weekend training is always a set of 3 days, fast-long-medium, and I did 20 miles on Saturday. The legs felt better than expected but not exactly fresh. 20 miles were perfectly doable and I kept the effort at a reasonable level but the course was slightly unreasonably hilly, doing the Devil's Elbow loop with its nasty steep 500 feet climb three times. I very strongly believe that running up steep hills makes you a better runner. My usual climbing spot is Windy Gap on the Kerry Way but at the moment I don't think that is safe after all the rain we had the last few weeks and I prefer to stay on the road instead. Roads aren't as steep as that trail but the Devil's Elbow climb sure does its best to ape a mountain run. I felt okay while running but was knackered once I had finished. I even had a bath instead of a shower afterwards, for the sole reason so that I could lie down instead of having to stand up!

I closed off the week with 15 miles on a flatter course on Sunday. Once more the legs felt better than I could have expected but it wasn't exactly like floating on fluffy clouds. I kept a reasonable effort, similar to the day before, and was pleasantly surprised by the pace when I thought I'd be lucky to average 8-minute miles.

I'm in pretty good shape. Not race shape, but the base training has worked very well indeed and I couldn't be happier so far. There are still 6 weeks to go until the race specific training starts. I do hope I'll be able to convert the good work I've done so far into a good race, something I have not always managed entirely in the past.

I'll speak about my racing plans for 2016 in my next post. It took me a while but I think I've got it all worked out now.

The mileage this week is slightly misleading because the race on Friday meant the week got compressed by one day and I ended up doing the 15 miler on Sunday when it would normally have been on the following Monday. Next week goes back to normal and in all likelihood the mileage will therefore be lower again by the same amount.

Late update: 20th place, official time 39:13

31 Dec

am: 6 miles, 52:01, 8:40 pace, HR 137, hill sprints

pm: 5 miles, 39:52, 7:58 pace, HR 140, treadmill

1 Jan

11+ miles, including Beaufort 10k New Year's Day race

   39:10, 6:17 pace, HR 167, 2nd M45

2 Jan

20 miles, 2:37:05, 7:51 pace, HR 146

3 Jan

15 miles, 1:55:21, 7:41 pace, HR 142

Weekly Mileage: 97+

Taper Week

Even if I hadn't started the taper a bit earlier than planned, by now it would be upon me. The run on Monday was easy again, easier even than Sunday. The only remarkable thing was that I pressed the "stop" button exactly 1 hour after starting, on the dot and not by design. I guess if you do enough one hour runs you'll eventually end up with one that is exactly one hour.

I awoke Tuesday with a slightly sore throat, very similar to a couple of weeks ago and because back then I had continued running without any issues I saw no reason to change this time. Good call, when I was running I could not feel any soreness in the throat and completely forgot about it. The workout I did was a set of half-mile repeats, just like last week, and since last week had gone well I wasn't too apprehensive this time round either.

With my former coach's warnings ringing in my ears to be taking it easy in training in order to be able to race well I cut the number of repeats down by one to five, but the target (2:50-3:00) and the rest (2 minutes) all remained the same. Nature provided a spectacular background as I ran my repeats back- and forwards on the Caragh Lake road with the moonset in one direction and sunrise in the other, though I could only admire that during the rest intervals, certainly not during the fast segments. It went even better than last week with slightly faster pace feeling a little bit easier at a slightly lower heart rate - just the kind of progress you want to see.

2:54 (HR 150), 2:54 (152), 2:51 (158), 2:51 (166), 2:51 (163)

Unfortunately, my werewolf genes came to the fore again that night as I was unable to get to sleep. I get that fairly regularly, and always at or close to Full Moon. It has nothing to do with light in our bedroom as we have perfectly good blackout curtains, but something is stopping me from falling asleep those nights, and staring at the ceiling until 3 am really doesn't do it for me. Thankfully the lack of sleep does not seem to affect me. After the previous day's intervals it was an easy day again, and the sore throat had cleared already. It was one of those effortlessly-floating-along-the-road kind of runs where everything comes so easily. The former coach has this axiom that he likes to throw at me at regular intervals:

"When you get toward peak shape your brain ignores fatigue, this is good for racing but bad for training".

Up to now I had always denied that I was in that state - workouts had left me tired and sore often enough to conclude that my brain was not ignoring fatigue, but now I think I might have indeed reached that state. And with Tralee less than 3 weeks away, that's exactly where I want to be.

With an eye on Sunday's race in Ballycotton I did another little workout this morning, namely a set of hill sprints in an attempt to sharpen up the legs. I did a few of those earlier in my training cycle on the same hill. The main difference this time round was that it is now much brighter in the morning and I could actually see the road I was running on, which does indeed have its advantages. I stopped once the sprints started feeling a little bit tough, which was pretty soon to be honest, but it was never meant to be an exhausting workout.

There will be more easy days, then Ballycotton, then recovery from that, followed by maybe one or two mellow workouts and next thing I'll be at the Tralee startline.

25 Feb

8 miles, 1:00:00, 7:30 pace, HR 135

26 Feb

7 miles, 50:21, 7:11 pace, HR 151
   5 x half mile in 2:54, 2:54, 2:51, 2:51, 2:51

27 Feb

8 miles, 58:33, 7:19 pace, HR 138

28 Feb

6+ miles, 47:48, 7:42 pace, HR 148
   hill sprints

Gone In 65 Seconds

It's hard to figure out what works best for you. You can follow an online training plan, you can buy a book with training schedules or you can get a coach and follow his or her guidelines to take the thinking out of training. The problem is, you will invariably come across a multitude of opinions, and how are you supposed to find out which on works best? The whole conundrum is made even trickier by the fact that we all react differently to the same kind of training. What is a man to do?

I am lucky enough to have been coached to one marathon by Mystery Coach, and the lessons I learned ion those months still stand me very well; my running has definitely moved up a level, and stayed there even when I had to look after myself again (he still gives me the odd nudge when I do something particularly silly, though).

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I am trying to add a few sprinkles of Canova to an otherwise firmly Lydiard-base training schedule. One of the recommended things are hills sprints. Other coaches, like Brad Hudson, swear by that as well; he also includes that in his base training. That's similar to strides, which feature in a lot of training manuals as well.

In a word, that's what I did this morning. Monday and Tuesday had been standard runs of 8 and 10 miles each, neither of which was particularly noteworthy, maybe apart from the fact that the legs were feeling pretty good, despite Sunday's faster-than-planned pace.

I kept an open mind on the number of hill sprints I was going to do. The hill was about 2 miles from home, it's the same hill I have used on numerous occasions for sprints and drills and general hill repeats before. 2 miles form a nice warm./up, because you definitely do not want to start sprinting with cold muscles.

It went all very well at first. There is a gate across the road that took me about 17-or-so seconds to reach, so that was the length of each sprint. I walked down the hill, making sure not to hyperventilate (that's a lesson from last year). I was fine until the fourth one when all of a sudden I was hit by a wave of nausea and started feeling lightheaded. I even had stars in front of my eyes for a few seconds. That was the sign to stop. Next time I'd hope to stop before reaching that point, but I had felt fine right up to that point, it was amazing how quickly the hit came. It all only added to just over a minute of real work; I find it quite amazing that so little work is supposed to have a real impact.

Such a short, sharp workout is always over very quickly. I had allocated an hour but was home again after less than 50 minutes. In a way I am looking forward to the next one. It makes a change from the usual constant, steady (and yes, at times boring) effort.

Oh, and the mention in this article was nice. It's not often that my mother-in-law is impressed by what I'm doing.

24 Sep

8 miles, 1:02:04, 7:46 pace, HR 144

25 Sep

10 miles, 1:16:25, 7:32 pace, HR 149

26 Sep

6 miles, 49:04, 8:11 pace, HR 148
   incl. 4 all-out hill sprints

Year's End

I felt surprisingly sore after Tuesday's sprints, which really surprised me; after all there had not been a lot of sprinting. I guess I'm just not adapted to that kind of running. I therefore took it easy on Wednesday, just 10 miles at very relaxed pace before we all got into the car and made it to Dublin to visit the grandparents. For some reason the kids had been really good during the journey itself but went completely off the rails once we reached our destination. I half expected to be asked to turn around again and take the misbehaving brood with us. I wouldn't have blamed them.

Anyway, after being treated leniently and being allowed to stay, I did a few hill sprints on Thursday morning in Deer Park. I expected the hill to be a bit steeper. I tried one repeat on grass, but that was too slippery so I did the others on road. I don't remember them being so tough - after 5 repeats I almost threw up, despite my empty stomach, so it left it at that and only did 6 miles in all. That was a lot harder than expected.

Having said that, the hill sprints were a lot better on the legs than Tuesday's sprints on the flat; I wasn't really sore the next day. I did 8 rather boring miles in Stillorgan, made up of loops just under half a mile in length. I find running short loops mentally much harder than out-and-backs or long loops. At least when I'm running on my own; the 30 1-mile loops in Sixmilebridge were fine, probably because of the 100 other runners keeping each other company.

I ended the year with a run from our house in Stillorgan to Ticknock and then up the mountain towards Three Rock. That's as far as I had intended to go, but when I saw that nice trail going up further I could not resist and went all the way up to the top, where a big cairn awaited me; Fairycastle, according to some hill friendly walkers I met on the way. The wind was quite strong and there was no view to be had thanks to the clouds, but that's not what I had come for anyway. The elevation gain from Stillorgan was about 1500 feet, but it was only just over 6 miles each way, which made this not really a long run, but a fun run instead. Still, I decided I had already sufficiently sabotaged any chances of a good race tomorrow, so I went straight back home.

It was a great run to end a great year! Happy 2012, everyone!

28 Dec

10 miles, 1:19:11, 7:55 pace, HR 144

29 Dec

6 miles, 48:48, 8:07 pace, HR 147
   incl. 5x15 sec all-out hill sprints

30 Dec

8 miles, 1:03:23, 7:55 pace, HR 140

31 Dec

12.5 miles, 1:50:03,8:49 pace, HR 145
   mountain run to Fairycastle

Change Of Seasons

No doubt about it, autumn has arrived. There is a constant debate in our household on the exact calendar dates of the seasonal changes (“Spring on 1 Feb? You’ve got to be kidding!!!”), but if you go by weather/temperatures/general feel then the summer we’ve never had has now given up even trying and we’ve moved on. It’s pitch dark when I get up, it’s still pretty dark when I start running and I’ll soon be reaching for the despised head lamp on my way out.

As much as I wrote a few flippant sentences regarding the pain in my shin on Wednesday, it actually had me worried a bit as the pain seemed to worsen as the day wore on. I tried icing it when I got home, but the real salvation seemed to arrive via the compression sleeve I wore at night and for my next run. By the morning the increasingly sharp pain had been reduced to a dull ache and right now I can only feel it because I’m actively thinking about it, otherwise I would not even notice it. Another niggle successfully overcome without the need for taking time off.

10 miles easy seems to be the default for me at the moment. In order to shake things up a bit I did something different on Thursday, namely hill sprints, once more of the all-out variety for about 15 seconds each, not that I'm timing them. One thing I noticed is that the HR didn’t want to go up very high, it barely scratched 160. The other thing was that the wave of nausea that hits me about 10 seconds AFTER each repeat seemed worse than usual. Some runners seem to take pride in the fact that they can run repeats until they puke but I am definitely not one of them. I was thankful for the fact that I was running on an empty stomach, and when the nausea became a bit too much I called an end to the workout. The best thing about losing count after only 3 or 4 repeats is that you don’t feel the need to do a certain number of repeats, you can just call it a day any time without feeling guilty.

I also added a few minutes of drills on our lawn when I got home. First I did them in my shoes and then in bare feet. As much as I’ve heard good things about that sort of thing I'm not sure I’ll continue with it, the overwhelming feeling was that my feet were bloody freezing on the cold ground. One thing is for sure, you won’t find me running down the road or trail in pretend barefoot shoes that cost more than my real shoes.

On the subject of shoes, one thing I usually do whenever I get a niggle is to throw out my oldest pair of runners, and as the oldest pair in active rotation had over 800 miles on them, they picked up a one-way ticket to the bin, the same reward they all get after half a year of faithful service.

15 Sep

5 miles, 44:07, 8:49 pace, HR 142
   9 x 15 seconds all-out hill sprints, walking recovery down the hill

16 Sep

10 miles, 1:17:38, 7:45 pace, HR 146

Home Alone

Sometimes Niamh refuses to take responsibility. Isn't there a law that children need to be watched all the time? Instead she trundled off to Dublin for her mum's birthday, and it took several hours of tense negotiations to get her to agree to take two children with her. The other two were abandoned – with me! I even had to take 2 days off work.

It meant a very early start on Tuesday so that I could get a few miles under the belt before driving to Killarney to drop them onto the train. Getting up at 5:45 for mere 5 miles does not sound worthwhile so I spiced things up with a set of hill sprints. I can't tell if they make me a better runner but I can tell that I'm getting better at doing hill sprints. Once more I did not have a set number in mind, but I did 10 before returning home, 2 more than last week. Or so I thought, because when I counted the spikes in the graph afterwards, I got 11. Don't blame me, it's hard to keep count when you're charging up that hill at full belt.

I had accepted the fact that I would not be able to run today, but Niamh suggested taking them to Killarney National Park with their bikes and run alongside. I did not expect them to agree when I suggested it, but they were all for it and off we went. It was a gorgeous day, which helped. I let the kids decide the route and we went from Knockreer to Ross Castle. Cian especially set a ferocious pace and I was just about able to hang on at sub-7 pace at times. We had a long break there and since he was tired on the way back the pace was much more civilised. I got just over 3 miles done; while running like that won't do for marathon training, spending a couple of hours of quality time with the kids more than makes up for that.

15 Aug

6 miles, 48:58, 8:09 pace, HR 137

16 Aug

5+ miles, 46:47, 9:08 pace, HR 144
   incl. 11x15 sec max effort hill sprints

17 Aug

3.2 miles, 23:41, 7:24 pace, HR 144

Faint

I'm back on my familiar routes in Caragh Lake, but since I'm still in recovery mode I'm not exactly accumulating a lot of mileage. But it’s enough to keep me from going bananas, which is at least something.

After yet another short, easy run on Monday I added a bit of spice to Tuesday’s workout in the form of hill sprints. These are meant to be short sprints at maximum effort, not enough to get anaerobic but enough to activate your muscle fibres. It’s supposed to train your neuromuscular system and is apparently effective at increasing running efficiency, but I have to take their word for that.

I did not have a specific number of repeats in mind but I ran each effort from the beginning of the road to the gate, which happened to take about 15 seconds, not that I was timing the efforts, and then walked down the hill slowly for recovery. Each sprint is hard enough to raise the HR by 30-40 beats, but the max HR is reached several seconds AFTER the end of the sprint. Another few seconds later I would be hit by a wave of nausea, but by the time I had walked back down the hill I always felt fully recovered. After the fifth repeat the nausea was accompanied by feeling dizzy, which was magnified again after the sixth; I was dizzy, light headed, tunnel vision with stars in front of my eyes. I have fainted on a couple of occasions in my life and that’s exactly what it feels like immediately before the blackout so I left it at that. Running until you faint may be quite some story, but not one I was particularly keen to add to me repertoire that day.

This may sound a bit dramatic, but it only lasted for a couple of seconds. I immediately felt right as rain again and had no issues on my slow jog back home.

Niamh had a girls’ night out on Wednesday and got a taxi back home. In the morning I took the key and ran into town to collect the car and drove it back home. It’s always good to remind your better half that there are advantages to having a runner in your house from time to time.

2 Aug

6.1 miles, 47:48, 7:50 pace, HR 142

3 Aug

5 miles, 44:14, 8:51 pace, HR 144
   incl. 6x15 max. effort sec hill sprints

4 Aug

7 miles, 53:49, 7:41 pace, HR 147