Not Half Marathon Pace

I felt pretty much destroyed after Sunday's run and was more than a bit worried how my training was going in general as well as how I would recover from this one workout. The way I felt immediately after the run I wasn't sure if I would even be able to run properly the next morning, though it did improve during the day.

Well, at least I was in for a nice surprise on Monday morning. The legs, while tired, were not sore at all and a slow easy 5-mile recovery jog both felt good and made me feel better. I basically repeated the same on Tuesday, a little bit faster for the same subjective easy effort. On Wednesday I did 8 miles still very easy, and the heavy feeling in the legs had completely gone away by then.

The nicest surprise, though, was the heart rate for all of those runs. For the last few weeks, basically ever since I had picked up a bug in that third-rate hospital a month ago, the heart rate had been elevated by a worrying amount for every single run. Looking at the numbers alone you might have thought I was hammering all my runs but they were genuinely at an easy effort. Ever since Monday, that has changed. I have seen this several times before, sometimes one big workout can all of a sudden cause a noticeable drop in your heart rate (or, in other words, a jump in your VDOT). Usually that's a tempo run but on Sunday it was a long run, albeit one with a faster segment in the middle. With that new set of numbers and the legs feeling perfectly fine again, I felt reasonably optimistic that I was ready for another workout on Thursday morning. The plan said 4 miles easy, 4 x 2 miles at half-marathon effort, 4 miles easy again. Tough but manageable?

It was a freezing cold morning but no wind whatsoever, pretty good conditions - certainly better than what we've had to cope with over the last few months. The first few miles passed quickly, so quickly in fact that I almost forgot that I had to start a fast segment at that point.

What happened next was interesting.

I'm not sure what my half-marathon pace would be at the moment but I would hope for it to be around 6:30. My 2 recent 5k races would indicate that to be a realistic target, though the 10k was a bit slower. But this morning I found it absolutely impossible to run that pace. It is far better to run at a controlled effort than try to overreach just to hit an arbitrary pace goal (which I almost certainly would not have been able to hold for 4 segments), but my controlled pace sure was slower than I would have expected. I ended up with 6:47, 6:45, 6:36, 6:44. The positive signs are that the pace held up very well. The heart rate was very steady at about 160, which is definitely lower than a half marathon effort, and I basically had the feeling that I could have run much, much further at that effort (in fact, the recovery breaks felt unnecessary and just served to break my rhythm) but no faster.

The reasons? The cold temperatures might have something to with it, some lingering fatigue from Sunday, the fact that I haven't done much speed work at faster pace (then again, I had no problems with sub-6 pace at those 5ks), and I'm pretty sure MC would point to a lack of recovery and trying to do too much. I don't think it was a bad workout as such, I'm feeling pretty good and energised afterwards and if I had run 10 seconds per mile faster I would have been perfectly happy (albeit still thinking of a few years ago when I would have cruised through those segments at 6:20 or faster). I don't think I'll break any records in Ballycotton next week but I've had some time to come to terms with the fact that I'm not quite in the shape I would like to be in right now. Anyway, there's still plenty of time before Manchester*.

22 Feb

5 miles, 43:01, 8:36 pace, HR 132

23 Feb

5 miles, 41:48, 8:22 pace, HR 134

24 Feb

8 miles, 1:04:36, 8:04 pace, HR 137

25 Feb

17 miles, 2:07:19, 7:29 pace, HR 149

   4 x 2 miles @ 6:47, 6:45, 6:36, 6:44

* btw, fuck you, Damien Duff, Didi Hamann and Liam Brady.

A Workout

The last few days I made sure the mileage would be low, much lower than my usual fare. I was trying to get a bit ahead on recovery and get ready for a workout, following the basic advice that once you move away from base training the hard days should be proper hard and the easy days should be proper easy - a simple enough concept but one I'm finding surprisingly hard to follow at times.

I had not paid much attention to the high HR on the treadmill because that always seems to happen but it was still very much elevated back on the road on Tuesday. Wednesday's numbers looked better already so I, possibly foolishly, decided to finally start running a proper workout the next morning. I vaguely suspected that I might be fighting off an infection, a theory that got some additional weight when the kids started feeling unwell on Thursday and Friday respectively but I wasn't to know that at the time, and personally I felt perfectly fine.

Actually, from the second I decided to do this, I was very much looking forward to it, so mentally at least I was very much ready for it. I did show a bit of caution by cutting the workout down a bit, trying not to completely overwhelm myself. The plan was to do 6 easy miles, with a few strides, followed by 5 or 6 miles at half marathon pace with 1 minute recovery between each mile. For once it was a nice enough morning with very little wind, which made a very nice change and added to my positivity. I felt very good at first and repeatedly had to slow myself down. I still felt good during the first couple of the faster miles, though they were definitely slower than expected. I had ideas of 6:30-6:40 pace but it was about 10 seconds slower. However, I definitely felt that running somewhat relaxed was much more important than hammer out some misguided pace. Alas, the good feeling didn't last and by the time of the fifth repeat it was getting very tough so I skipped the last one. The 3 miles back home were a struggle as it was, so another fast mile would definitely have been a bad mistake. According to Suunto's website, the pace was between 6:39 and 6:53, though I'm absolutely sure the numbers on the watch were a bit faster, something that has happened before. Indeed, the same data on strava has the laps 2 or 3 seconds faster per mile, which I find rather baffling. Obviously it doesn't make any difference to the training effect on my body but my inner maths geek is still hurt by inaccurate numbers.

I was knackered for the rest of the day!

lifted from Liam Smith's FB post

Anyway, I know fully well that someone will utterly disapprove of me running a workout when I could not be sure that I was ready for it. If anything, I wanted to test myself and see how it goes, though if things go badly that would be the equivalent of ripping out your seedlings to see if they had been growing. I ran a very easy recovery run on Friday, feeling a lot better than the day before, not tired and not sore, so maybe I've gotten away with it. I'll see.

10 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:13, 7:39 pace, HR 150

11 Feb

15 miles, 1:54:08, 7:37 pace, HR 152

   incl. 5 x 1 mile @ 6:52, 6:39, 6:42, 6:53, 6:50

12 Feb

5 miles, 41:21, 8:16 pace, HR 140

Aeolus, The Bastard!

I cannot remember when we last had a spell of such high winds lasting for so long; we have basically been battered for a week by now. At least the rain (and hail!) seems to have mostly stopped, though the occasional heavy shower can still catch you out if you're unlucky. And through all this I'm doing my best to keep the training going, which is now in its most crucial stage, with less than 7 weeks left until Tralee.

By the way, they rounded my time from Saturday's race up to 18:00, which did not come entirely unexpected, but which makes it feel a lot slower all of a sudden. On the plus side, I finished in ninth position; a top 10 place always sounds good.

Because the weekend had been a touch more demanding than usual with a week followed by a fairly tough run on Sunday I had to get recovery right. I did my by now customary 8 mile easy run on Monday morning, where the out section felt significantly harder than the back one, the difference being a the gale force wind being in my back rather than in my face. And it was absolutely bucketing it down, after two steps outside I was already wet throughout and the sudden appearance of an entire new set of potholes ensured that my feet got a particularly good soaking. Having said all that, since I was running easily and entirely by feel I just got on with it. There is no danger of chasing a particular pace or HR when you're not looking at the Garmin anyway.

The storm reached its apex on Monday evening, so much so that Niamh refused to have me cycle home from work (and quite rightly so, I hasten to add), but since the worst would be over by Tuesday morning my running would not really be affected. Or so I thought.

What caught me out was the fact that I use an electronic alarm clock and when the storm knocked out the power in the middle of the night, that created a problem. The most annoying aspect is that I was actually awake at the time when I was supposed to get up (I usually am), but did not realise that the time display was wrong. By the time I finally twigged it it was already past 7 o'clock and I rushed out of the door for 4 miles, which was all I had time for. It can be argued, though, that the extra hour of sleep did more good than the lost 6 miles would have done.

With that additional, if unplanned, recovery I hoped I was ready for Wednesday's workout. Canova's specific phase has a lot of long intervals at slightly faster than marathon pace. I admit I chickened out of the original schedule which basically consisted of 30 km worth of intervals for each session (including recovery), something I fear would burn me out rather than  build me up; accordingly I "only" did 5x4k repeats (actually 2.5 miles because I train in miles). The main worry was the continuing gale force wind which shows now signs of abating. Then again, it may well be windy on race day, so it would be beneficial to have run in those conditions before and I went ahead just as planned, but with the caveat that I would not get too hung up on actual pace and rely more on feel for pacing myself.

The first repeat was more a warm-up, the second was all with the wind and accordingly quite fast while feeling easy enough, and then the fun started because the last 3 repeats would all contain significant portions of running right into the gale, with the last one doing so entirely. Add to that the steadily mounting fatigue and you get a good grasp of what it was like.

I sure was glad I had chosen a shortened version of the original workout. I am worried enough about over-cooking myself as it is. The next two days will be easy again (though I am not planning on oversleeping this time), and Saturday will be fun again before a real-world-induced interruption of the training kick in.

28 Jan

8 miles, 1:01:39, 7:42 pace, HR 135

29 Jan

4 miles, 29:52, 7:28 pace, HR 137

30 Jan

17+ miles, 1:55:43, 6:46 pace, HR 158
   5 x 4k @ 6:33 (HR 152), 6:21 (156), 6:31 (164), 6:35 (161), 6:30 (164), 1k recovery @ 7:20 pace

Being An Idiot

Winter Dawn

I've been called worse.

We awoke on Monday to a winter wonderland. I knew the kids would be absolutely delighted, grown-ups tend to be rather less so. My own mood dipped a good bit when I actually ventured outside into the darkness and realised that the stuff covering our driveway by more than an inch wasn't really snow but slush, and in no time at all my toes were frozen numb.

It may have been uncomfortable but at least footing was not an issue and I did not think twice about doing my planned easy 8 mile run.

Things changed considerably on Tuesday after the temperatures had dropped significantly below freezing overnight and the ice had frozen solid. I had already dug out a set of spikes, one year old and still unused, just in case. Our driveway was more akin to an ice-rink but the road itself was clear, making the spikes unusable, so that was not an option. As I ventured out on my run I knew full well that this may be a really bad idea, one single slip could lead to serious consequences.

What can I say? As mentioned before I'm comfortable with being an idiot, it works for me. The temperatures were -4C/25F, the road was mainly clear but there were some icy patches and running clearly had its risks. I ran at my normal, relaxed effort and slowed right down whenever I saw the ice glistening before me, something that worked surprisingly well but I'm sure it would not pass any health-and-safety standards. How the pace managed to average a nice clip despite the frequent slow downs, I'm not entirely sure, but the Garmin data doesn't lie.

Surviving an easy run was one thing but I had planned a workout for Wednesday and I knew it would not be possible to do it if conditions were to remain the same. Obviously there was no point in hoping the council might treat the roads (they are too busy encouraging drink driving at the moment [good to see where their priorities lie] ), but the weather forecast offered a glimpse of hope with slightly warmer overnight  temperatures.

As it turns out, it was just the little break I needed. Conditions on Wednesday were definitely improved, just enough to enable me to do my workout, though I still had to mind my step on a couple of occasions. The run itself went well, the pace came naturally. I had planned on running 2 x 5k at 6:20 - 6:25 pace, but for the first 2 miles of the first repeat I never even checked the Garmin and ran entirely by feel, and was very pleased when I finally confirmed that the effort was indeed spot on. The second section was a tad quicker but at the same effort, probably down to being properly warmed up at that point.

I know there's plenty of people who think I'm an idiot for running in those conditions. But I also know that the guys and gals walking away with the trophies in Tralee will be the ones who don't make excuses but get on with training regardless. And anyway, as our county councillors have shown, there are still far bigger morons out there.

21 Jan

8 miles, 58:35, 7:19 pace, HR 141

22 Jan

10 miles, 1:13:04, 7:18 pace, HR 142

23 Jan

10 miles, 1:06:36, 6:39 pace, HR 155
   2 x 5k @ 6:23, 6:18 pace

Shared Pain, Half Suffering

I stopped going to the club's Saturday run. During base training I was perfectly happy running at 8:30 or 9-minute pace (though it has speeded up recently - a few of the boys have obviously increased their fitness levels), but now I need more specific workouts for the marathon. I was all set to run entirely on my own again when Michael called me and asked if he could run with me.

I think he was slightly taken aback when I told him I intended to run 1.25 mile (2k) repeats rather than a continuous tempo run at slightly slower pace but was still happy enough to join me. He still had the 10k from Tuesday in his legs and I wasn't sure how much I had recovered from my 5k at the same day, so it was a bit of "let's see how this goes". We agreed to run back- and forwards on the same stretch of road as that would enable us to run all the repeats together even if one of us fell behind. Target pace was about 6:15 per mile, and we set off together. Initially I found it tough to get into a rhythm and continuously checked the Garmin, trying to tune into the correct effort. The first one was definitely too slow, especially considering that we had the wind on our back, something we definitely noticed on the second one. Running the same pace right into the gale was never going to happen and we had to settle for about 6:35 pace, which still felt tougher than the faster first repeat. The third one went better, Michael asked a couple of times if we were running slower than during the first repeat when we were actually running faster. We would have done 6:15 had the repeat not ended right at the top of a hill. Michael pulled up just short of a mile into the fourth repeat and had enough, and I did a fifth one on my own on the way home.

I had never done workouts like this with company - I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Sunday's run was another long run. I initially intended to run 20 miles but cut that short a little bit when I remembered that I had already run a race on Tuesday and a fairly tough workout on Saturday. Instead of running on the very hilly road around the lake I ran a couple of loops through Killorglin, which should be matching the marathon elevation profile to a certain degree. The conditions were rather rough with strong winds (very strong at times) and quite a few rain showers. I had to keep slowing down during the first 10 miles as I kept speeding up to 7-minute pace when I was not paying attention, but then intentionally accelerated for the last 5 miles. The intention was to run in the 6:30s (planned marathon pace) but the legs weren't quite up to it (the wind certainly did not help) and I ended up with 6:42, just a tad slower. Considering that I had started with already fatigued legs, I was happy enough, though.

This starting to get tough. The real marathon training has clearly started.

5 Jan

11.5 miles, 1:20:47, 7:01 pace, HR 157
   5x2k at 6:23, 6:37, 6:18, 6:36, 6:11 pace

6 Jan

18 miles, 2:09:31, 7:11 pace, HR 148
   incl. 5 @ 6:42 pace (HR 163)

Weekly Mileage: 70+