Decision Time

It was a hard decision.

I spent a lot of time mulling things over and certainly took my time. After achieving the IAAF standard in July, I was contacted by both the Irish and the Austrian ultrarunning authorities and both of them let me know that I had a good chance of being selected for the team to represent them in the next World Championships, in April 2015 in Turin.

My passport is Austrian. My home is Ireland. My parents and siblings are Austrian. My wife and children are Irish. But even though I had kept my options open until now, I was always leaning towards my native country and I finally contacted John O'Regan last week and told him of my decision to run for Austria. Luckily, John is the perfect gentleman and was very understanding. In many ways I am in the same position as Irish national runner Eddie Gallen, who has been representing his native country numerous times even though he has been living in Spain for at least 20 years. Still, while I definitely feel I have made the right decision (I'm sure my parents will be proud of their son), it was not an easy one.

Since my training for Belfast has delivered the goods, this one will take similar shape. There are three major phases. First I'll build up my base, doing plenty of miles at easy pace, very much influenced by Maffetone training, though I don't strictly keep to the HR limits and I'll do one mountain run per week. Then I'll add some speed training, not much and mostly in the form of fartleks or the odd 5k race, and the third phase builds race specific endurance by doing a lot of long runs with plenty of recovery in-between. I very much favour marathon and ultra races over long lonely training runs and got really lucky this year as there was always a suitable race every 2 weeks over the summer. Things don't look anywhere near as good for the winter/early spring. The only races so far are Donadea, which happens to fall on Valentine's Day next year, and Tralee, which will coincide with Mother's Day, and Niamh has already voiced her objections. Getting to the startline in Turin both fit and still married might be a tricky task! That's assuming I will indeed get selected, of course. Things used to be much easier.

My legs aren't too worried about all those capers and continue to recover amazingly quickly from the Dingle ultra. I have kept the effort very easy every day, doing 5 miles early in the week and 8 miles later on. I thought about doing 10 miles on Saturday but decided to err on the side of caution. The pace had improved every day and by Saturday I actually had to put on the brakes a couple of times as I started to get carried away a bit, but I felt so good that I guessed it was safe to do 10 miles on Sunday. The HR on Sunday was a bit high, higher than it had been on Saturday for a faster run. That's not a problem as long as it remains an isolated case, but it shows that I am still very much in recovery and need to be careful.

Now I'll build up my mileage again, which won't take too long, and then I'll see how high I can safely push it while still being able to recover day by day. I also need to make sure that I can comfortably run a 3:10 marathon (7:14 pace, 7:10-ish on the Garmin) at the end of October as I'm pacing Dublin once more, but that should not cause any problems.

11 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:42, 8:05 pace, HR 135

12 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:37, 8:04 pace, HR 135

13 Sep

8 miles, 1:02:16, 7:46 pace, HR 142

14 Sep

10 miles, 1:18:22, 7:50 pace, HR 145

Weekly Mileage: 49

Two-A-Day

On Wednesday evening I decided that while my back was still in pretty bad shape (I was basically in chronic pain), running definitely did not make it worse; quite the opposite in fact, it seemed to provide relief, which may have been purely down to the endorphins. Therefore I didn't have to restrict myself to short runs only, I might as well resume "proper" training and accordingly I ran up to Windy Gap on Thursday morning. The weather has been nice all week with plenty of sunshine, if a little cold, but Thursday morning was probably the least nice time when it was quite overcast and Windy Gap stood up to its name. I only did one climb, which was quite enough only 11 days after Connemara, but the legs were able to take it, no bother.

I must have read dozens of books about running in the last few years. In fact, Niamh keeps complaining that while I read virtually every day, I never seem to read any "real" books. Anyway, it's rare to come across an eye opener after reading so  much but this book definitely is one. I know I am not in the same league as some of the guys in there but then again, if I don't do the training I never will be. I decided to give it a good go until the 24 hours in July. I already implemented one big change; all week I have been doing 2 runs a day. I always knew (or at least suspected) that running twice would make me a better runner but family life always prevented me from doing so. And make no mistake, family will always come first. It was easy this week with Niamh and the kids in Dublin. Now they're back but with the kids still on their Easter holidays, it should be no problem. I'll have to see how it goes once they're back to school. They do have various activities most evenings, which might put a stop to my fancy ideas. I'll have to see if I can work around it without upsetting anyone.

The other big thing is that I'll try and run a marathon or ultra every fortnight. This will either make me or break me.

If someone asked me how my back was, my subjective impression would be that it's just as bad as ever. But if I stop and think about it I realise that it's actually a lot better already. It's still sore and I'm still in chronic discomfort, but my mobility is much better already. On Monday, putting on socks or shoes was a major problem and I only just managed to do so; now I can do it without any troubles and it doesn't leave me in searing pain for a minute either. It's just that improvement is so slow and gradual that it's almost unnoticeable. I won't be doing any gardening this weekend, which is a shame as the weather is so nice, there is plenty of work to be done and I might not get another chance, but I just can't.

After almost posting a PB in the county championship I was tempted to run the Good Friday race in Killarney but in the end managed to resist, mostly because of my back but it would probably have been rather bad for my recovering legs and body anyway. I might feel okay but it's still only 2 weeks since I ran an ultra at rather fast pace. Interestingly, running twice a day does not seem to cause any fatigue. This might be a good thing, but the often repeated warning from my former coach keeps doing the rounds in my head:

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

I'm basically building mileage at the moment, so I'm restraining myself from speed work in an attempt to limit the stressors. I did 12 runs this week, which makes the mileage just shoot up so quickly and easily, it almost feels like cheating.

17 Apr

am: 10.75 miles, 1:34:15, 8:46 pace, HR 140, Windy Gap

pm: 5+ miles, 38:01, 7:31 pace, HR 138

18 Apr

am: 10 miles, 1:16:08, 7:36 pace, HR 143

pm: 5 miles, 37:25, 7:28 pace, HR 141

19 Apr

am: 10 miles, 1:17:27, 7:44 pace, HR 137

pm: 5 miles, 37:45, 7:32 pace, HR 138

20 Apr

16.7 miles, 2:06:48, 7:35 pace, HR 143

Weekly Mileage: 88+

The Best Laid Plans

Training has been rather mundane so far. I've only just started running again and anything fancy will have to wait a little bit longer, so all I did every morning was to run 8 miles. To be honest, I expected to seem some form of improvement by this time already, but so far the pace might have improved but at the expense of a higher average HR. The perceived effort was always the same, so I was a bit surprised by some of the HR readings. I won’t take any real notice of that yet and just have to tell myself to show a little bit of patience.

My next race will be the half marathon in Valentia (no, not the one in Spain) a little over 6 weeks from now, but it will very much be a fun day out rather than a goal race. I really enjoyed the race the last time I did it, 2 years ago, which also happens to be the last time I ran a half. The fact that I set a new PB on a tough course and managed to win my age group helped of course.

After that, well, I will do my annual pacing duty at the Dublin marathon, this time for the 3:10 pace group. In November I will try and wipe the memory of last year’s traumatic finish in Sixmilebridge away (I don’t need to win, just not throw away a winnable race this time) and I am already looking forward to a nice December marathon in Clonakilty, which promises to be a good day already. All of these races are just training runs and there will be plenty more of that in 2014; the plan is to use plenty of marathons as my long runs to whip myself into shape to tackle my next real ultra.

26 Aug

8 miles, 1:05:22, 8:10 pace, HR 141

27 Aug

8 miles, 1:04:32, 8:04 pace, HR 144

28 Aug

8 miles, 1:03:38, 7:57 pace, HR 145

29 Aug

8 miles, 1:03:05, 7:53 pace, HR 149

More Nothings

I've had some interesting comments on my last post, but I'm still one week from resuming running and there is no need to rush a decision. Meanwhile, I remembered that I put my name down for the London marathon ballot, but my chances of getting in are slim indeed. However, should my name get drawn I have to think long and hard about it - running London would be one of the highlights of my running life and I don't think I could treat it as a long training run. Then again, chances are I won't have to make that decision.

Instead of looking too far forward, I tried to gather a few more memories of Connemara.

My crew sent me their photos, but unless someone is incredibly keen of seeing dozens of photos of my backside I don't think I'll post them. They do tell their own story with the changing weather and conditions, but then I'd really have to post them all.

I also have a list of all the things I consumed while running 100 miles; food, drink and Happy Pills. Looking at it now I am surprised that I included hardly any protein - all the sweets are carbs and even the savoury food was potatoes and pasta, again mostly carbs. It's hard to tell if protein would have made any difference - from the way the race went I'd say probably not.

I was in remarkably good spirits for most of the race, but Iain found out that it wasn't all good when after my first lap in Clifden he shouted "5 more laps to go" and I went "What? ..... THAT'S NOT FUNNY, GO AWAY!!!!". In my defence, mile 98 isn't the best place to make fun of a runner and from what I've heard I am not the first runner to suffer a serious loss of humour failure at that point (apparently this is usually Seb's joke). Iain was scared enough to hide in the shadows when I finished - I had to seek him out to apologise!

Unfortunately I missed the last finisher coming through on Sunday morning. I had checked out the facebook messages but miscalculated the expected finishing times - by the time I wanted to head off, the last man had already finished. Ray said during the presentation that this was the fastest ever time for the final runner to come through.

I cannot thank the organisers enough for everything they had been doing. This will never be a big race, it is far too extreme to ever attract a big crowd and there will never be any money in it. And yet there is always a team there who know that they will be out the entire day as well as the night, and still they keep volunteering. The runners are the ones who get all the glory, but they wouldn't be able to do anything without the selfless work of everyone else.

With every runner having a car at his or her disposal, I did worry if there might be the potential for some cheating going on, but throughout the day I kept seeing the race official on dozens of occasions and in different cars as well. Having experienced it, I am now confident that nobody in the race, neither this year nor any other one, ever went even an inch by car.

Grellan got his crew to write a report, and very worthwhile reading it is. Check it out.

For most of it I have recovered very quickly, but there was a tightness in my iliotibial band that lasted most of the week. I noticed an issue there at one point late in the race, but at that stage there was no part of my body that did not hurt, so I did not take much notice. My achilles has been rather stiff most mornings but did not hurt. I'm not entirely sure if that's a running issue or if I'm just getting old, but for the last few months I have been managing this issue rather than getting rid of it.

Lola let me know in no uncertain terms that coming second out of 12 was a lousy result. Second out of 100 or 1000 would be acceptable, but out of 12? That's no good. Who said that one's kids are always your harshest critics?

When running in Connemara, it did cross my mind that I was somewhat the picture of a frugal ultra runner. Almost everything I had on me was cheap - the tops were free, the shoes €40 from a sale, the rain jacket was €10 from Aldi, even the headlamp was 3.99 from the same source. While the shoes were top quality stuff (I'm not THAT stupid), in some ways you do get what you pay for; the jacket's zip is rather temperamental and I did worry if the headlamp would make it to Clifden, but it all worked out well and fancy stuff would not have gotten me into Clifden a second sooner. There might a lesson in there - mind, I would use better stuff for a run in the mountains!

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

Lydiard/Canova

Canute, a very experienced runner whose opinion I very much respect, left a very good comment on my most recent post. It's worth reading in its entirety but I'll pick a few bits and pieces.

Are your hill sessions for strength development, aerobic development or both? They probably qualify as HIIT and hence according to the evidence supporting HIIT, provide a strong stimulus to aerobic development via brief bursts at anaerobic intensity

The hill sprints are for leg strength/neuromuscular development, not for aerobic development. Because of their short length and the full recovery they are mostly alactic, which is why I think they don't interfere with aerobic training. Having said that, I have heard that Lydiard's statement that aerobic development stops as soon as anaerobic training starts is not being backed up by physiological research, though I'm definitely not in a position to comment on that.

I think that Canova would argue that a runner who has already done many years of base-building, does not need to develop capillaries any further, so neither Lydiard nor Maffetone type base-building are necessary. Perhaps you now have a long enough training history to adopt parts of Canova’s approach – though I suppose Canova is really better for HM and M than for ultras.

That possibility did cross my mind, especially with me coming off a cycle that included running 126 miles in one go and running a very hilly 50 mile ultra purely for fun. I do think that my aerobic base is fairly formidable by now; I just hope that's not just wishful thinking.

---

The base training I'm doing now is at a higher intensity compared to what I would have done the previous two years. There are no killer workouts but I'm working a little bit harder each day.

One problem with Lydiard's training is that the schedules in his books often bears very little resemblance to the training his charges used to do. One reason is that elite runners train differently to the rest of us. Another one is that Lydiard constantly monitored the effect of training and changed it accordingly, something you cannot do when printing a schedule.

Anyway, he said that in base training you should train close but under your “steady state”. There are plenty of opinions what “steady state” is, some writers seem to think it's close to your lactate threshold, others disagree; however, that's not really my point. When I was being coached by Mystery Coach I was surprised by the mellow effort for virtually all training runs in base training. He responded that he did not know where my steady state was, but from my feedback he knew that I was remaining below and that was what counted most. We only went through one training cycle. I think that had we gone through more, he would have increased the training intensity in subsequent ones. In a way that's basically what I'm trying to do now.

I don't know if that will be my last ever shot at my marathon PB, so I'm prepared to take a few risks. But I'm not flying blind. I will still do the evaluation workouts and take that feedback into account; if I am overtraining I hope I will be able to spot that in time.

---

The last few days have gone fairly well and the training has definitely gone up by a notch or two. Thursday's 10 miles were steady, but I ran a much faster workout on Friday. The legs felt flat during the first two warm-up miles but then I was really surprised by how well I was moving with very little effort. Unfortunately, when I reached the halfway point I realised that I had been pushed along by a very nice tailwind and would now be paying the price on the homewards leg. Unsurprisingly the second half felt a lot harder. The average HR was too high for my liking; there is clearly a lot of work still to be done but then I remembered that I had run my last race only 4 weeks ago and then taken 10 days off, so I was back in training for less than 3 weeks and the figures clearly reflect this.

Saturday is our club's group run. I ran to the meeting point at a good clip (almost 7:00 pace), had 4 very relaxed miles with the group and went home faster again, but more relaxed this time (7:20-ish, which felt very easy).

I was back on the Caragh Lake loop on Sunday morning for my long run. The big climbs felt a lot harder than expected; I think I tend to lose leg strength very quickly if I don't keep running hills. But I was moving well on the rest of the loop, despite the windy and rainy conditions. The weather picked up during the second half of the run and so did my pace. I was happy enough with how the legs felt after the first 70+ miles week. Endurance has never been a problem. If I could add a little bit more speed, that would be great.

27 Sep

10 miles, 1:16:35, 7:39 pace, HR 148

28 Sep

10 miles, 1:11:24, 7:08 pace, HR 159

29 Sep

13.25 miles, 1:43:23, 7:48 pace, HR 146
   4.6 miles @ 7:03 (HR 157), 4+ miles @ 9:12 (group run, HR 130), 4.6 miles @ 7:22 (HR 153)

30 Sep

15.15 miles, 1:55:24, 7:37 pace, HR 155

Weekly Mileage: 72+

Looking Ahead

I should not have been surprised, but I was. The quads were rather sore on Monday, following my little mountain run, and the pace was fairly slow. As is generally the case with DOMS, it was a good bit worse again the next day. For some reason, the left leg always seems to be more affected than the right one, and this time was no exception. What was far more important to me was the fact that my shin did not hurt at all, for the first time in well over a month. After carrying this for so long, recovery was amazingly quickly. I guess putting the Kinvaras to rest really was the right thing to do. It's a shame, I loved their light weight and the 525 miles I wore them for is not excessive by my standards, I generally expect to get at least 650 miles out of a pair. I might still get another pair, but will obviously have to be careful once they reach a certain mileage.

I'm surprised nobody called me out on the last paragraph of the previous entry (that's assuming that there are still some readers out there, of course). I do not want to put myself through yet another gruelling marathon training cycle, but have no qualms targeting an ambitious ultra time. I just like the slower pace of the ultras; it was the long marathon-pace and faster-than-marathon-pace workouts that I found really challenging in the build-up for Vienna. On the other hand, I have always loved the slower long runs and never worried much about the distance.

I will try and put a few things into place that I learned from last year's Dingle training cycle. There won't be back-to-back 5 hour runs this time; they undoubtedly built up my endurance but cost me a lot of speed, and my easy cruising pace in Dingle was 30 seconds per mile slower than in Connemara. That won't do.

What I will do is run a couple of long races around the 50k mark for training purposes. I've already signed up for 2 and I might throw in another marathon, depending on how recovery goes.

The pace for a 5 hour Connemara is 7:38. It does sound eminently doable, but I will have to build up a cushion over the first 26 miles because of the 2 tough climbs over the last third. If I can cruise through the marathon at 7:30 pace while still feeling good, sub-5 will be on the cards.

Actually, I'm getting way ahead of myself here. There is the small matter of Dublin yet to come. With my shin now healed, that doesn't worry me, though.

10 Oct

10 miles, 1:19:17, 7:55 pace, HR 142

11 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:55, 7:59 pace, HR 143

12 Oct

10 miles, 1:17:33, 7:45 pace, HR 145

Moving Swiftly On

Running a marathon at 8:21 pace has the distinctive advantage of not requiring any real time for recovery. I went out for 5 miles on Sunday feeling perfectly fine, but I did spare a thought for Gerry and Ken; running another marathon would not have been at the top of my wish list that day; it reinforced the magnitude of their undertaking and I am even more in awe of the lads now. I’m glad to read that things are improving for Ken; after Saturday I had great doubts if he would be able to continue, but it looks like he’s pulling through.

I followed the weekend with another easy run on Monday, and then I started thinking about my training. Ever since Connemara in April I have not been training but recovering, first from that Ultra and then from the Cork marathon. With less than 8 weeks until Dingle, it is high time to get serious again. I found a training schedule on Runner’s World, possibly the first ever piece of information from that source that I have looked at (not true, I liked the core workout videos as well). I printed it out and hung it on my wall, though of course I’m jumping in halfway through the program. But since I have just managed to run a marathon without feeling tired I think I should be fit enough to keep up.

Niamh took one look at the schedule and said “I’m going to be a running widow!”. That’s true to some part; for the first time since taking up running 6 years ago I intend to do my long runs on the weekend. Running 5-hour long runs before work just isn’t feasible, not even for me. But Niamh and the kids will be in Dublin for the next 2 weekends and there will be a taper later on, so the really long family-abandoning runs will be limited to about 4 weekends, which I can justify, both to Niamh and to myself.

Then she took a second look and theatrically proclaimed “What’s this? Do my eyes deceive me? What’s the meaning of the word ‘rest’?”, at which point I obviously pointed out that this schedule would be only a rough guideline, not to be followed slavishly. Actually, now looking at it in a bit more detail, it isn’t all that impressive. The weekdays are pretty much the same all the way through. Instead of following to the letter I will try and listen to my body and adapt training accordingly.

Tuesday called for a set of repeats, and since I had not looked at the program properly I thought it would be miles at marathon pace when they should have been at 10-mile pace. Never mind, 3 days after a marathon this felt fast enough as it was. I did 7 repeats, and the target was my (Garmin-adjusted) pace from the Cork marathon of 7:15. What I did was 7:04, 7:07, 7:00, 7:07, 7:20, 7:20, 6:58, which was just a tad fast, but the differences between each repeat closely match the elevation profile and the effort was very constant. I might do a few faster miles tomorrow to make up for the mix-up but will see how the legs feel first.

I followed this up with another easy run this morning. The thought of a couple of long runs on the weekend ensured that I kept the effort very, very easy. That’s a good thing, and I hope I can keep this going for all of my recovery runs. I suspect they have often been too fast in the past, leading to less than ideal workouts. Then again, I also suspect this is a very common mistake amongst runners.

My resting HR was 43 this morning, a good bit higher than the 39 I measured 2 weeks ago, but then again I DID run a marathon at the weekend. With that in mind, I think this is a pretty good reading.

12 Jul

6.1 miles, 51:18, 8:25 pace, HR 134

13 Jul

10 miles, 1:15:05, 7:30 pace, HR 153
incl. 7 miles @ 7:04,7:07,7:00,7:07,7:20,7:20,6:58

14 Jul

5 miles, 43:04, 8:37 pace, HR 133

The Way to Dingle

As my legs slowly regain their running ability, I’m already looking forward to training properly again. Recovery from a marathon is very much a mental thing. Eventually I reach the point where I really want to run again, and can’t wait to get out. This is exactly where I am now.

The last 3 runs have all been short but too fast. I have to learn to run slowly and relaxed again. I remember the same happening after Dublin. I set out easily, and within half a mile the legs are at 7:30 pace. I reign them in, but as soon as my mind starts drifting, they’re accelerating again. And all the while they still feel heavy and awkward, and after 5 miles the quads are tired as if I’d just done a long one. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it again soon enough.

The weather has been abysmal. On Tuesday, it was very windy. On Wednesday, it was even windier and raining. Today, the wind and the rain were heavier still, and at the moment it is hail stoning and I am so glad I'm not out there. It can only get better.

I have another experiment planned for this marathon training. 2 years ago, when training for Loch Ness, I managed the highest mileage I have done to date, especially in a three weeks spell of 100 miles each. Ever since I have wondered what would happen if I did this for much longer, 10 weeks or even more. The idea now is to check this out for real.

I might not reach 100 miles per week because I don’t want to slow down too much just to reach a mileage target. I want to incorporate a tempo run and a hill workout each week as well, and might have to sacrifice a few miles for that. As for faster training, I won’t be doing any 30/30 or 60/60 workouts this time round. They were fun, and they gave me a decent finishing kick, as witnessed in Ballycotton, but I don’t think they did much for me as a marathon runner. My plan for now is to race often, ideally every 14 days or so, and get my speed workouts that way. Since I can only manage to run fast enough with a number on my chest, this should be at least as effective as struggling to attempt some repeats on the roads around here. At least that’s the idea.

At work, my team has gained 2 more members, and wouldn’t you believe it, both have run the Dublin marathon last year, and both have caught the bug. One just ran Belfast as his second marathon, and the other one has targeted Dingle as her second. She managed a very decent time in Dublin, 4:07 on not a lot of training (which, incidentally, is almost exactly the same time I did on my first marathon, on little training as well). I think she could become really good and I have given her some suggestions, but I don’t want to give the impression that I'm telling her how to run. I certainly don't want to give too many details about my own training - it might scare her off.

5 May

5 miles, 38:50, 7:46 pace, HR 158

6 May

7 miles, 53:02, 7:34 pace, HR 161

7 May

5 miles, 39:03, 7:48 pace, HR 157

Easy

I have to be careful what I’m writing these days. Niamh occasionally reads this blog, some work colleagues have mentioned it, and now my kids started reading when they saw the Halloween pictures of themselves. Niamh asked me slightly worried if the content is suitable for them. I assured her it is. I think I swore once or twice, but apart from that it’s child friendly. Apart from the fact that it makes Daddy look like a nutcase, that is.

Case in point, I went running yesterday and today even though the weather was all but inviting. I somehow managed to time both runs to perfection; both Saturday and Sunday featured downpours of biblical proportion, and yet I managed to squeeze in a run into a nice window of opportunity. I hardly got wet, and the rain either held of or was down to a mere drizzle. I got lucky, because on both occasions it started raining very heavily within minutes of my return.

I was tempted to remove the whining last paragraph from Friday’s entry as soon as I posted it. In reality, running easy isn’t as bad as I made it sound, and most of the time I’m perfectly ok with it. I can relax, and enjoy my me-time. If the weather is nice I can also enjoy the surroundings because after all Caragh Lake does have some stunning scenery, and I never get tired of it. As I found out today, mentally I find it easier to run for 10 miles; 5 miles are so short that it hardly seems worthwhile.

My Garmin started acting up this morning. Initially it didn’t report any HR data at all. When I re-paired it, it picked up the signal again, but as soon as I started running I noticed that the HR was stuck around 100 bpm, which cannot be right. I suspected the battery in the chest strap might be empty, but after 4 miles it suddenly started behaving again, and the readings were fine afterwards. Because of these problems I didn’t get any initial feedback on my HR and it didn’t sound the alarm if I went over 152, so I might have run a little bit fast on the inclines. It was still an easy run, and I enjoyed it. Our garden is water-logged, some local roads are closed, parts of the country are bound to be flooded, but at least I managed to get my runs in.

I started working on my training plan for Boston. I will be following the training schedules outlined in Ron Daws’ book Running Your Best, which is basically Lydiard training. Starting tomorrow there will be 4 weeks of building the mileage, 6 weeks of aerobic base, 4 weeks of preliminary speed, 4 weeks of anaerobic training, 3 weeks of sharpening and 2 weeks of taper. I haven’t got the details worked out yet (and they’ll change as the weeks go on anyway), but I know what I’m going to do over the next few weeks at least.

8 Nov

7 miles, 57:56, 8:15 pace, HR 145

9 Nov

10+ miles, 1:22:12, 8:10 pace, HR 144

News

I hope everyone in the states had a great Thanksgiving, and everyone else had a nice weekend. Let me give you a short recap of the last 3 days before I get to the rest of the news.

The alarm went off early again on Friday, at 4 am. I only got 5-and-a-half hours of sleep, but somehow felt reasonably refreshed. I also felt warmer for some reason and decided to leave the long sleeves at home and go out in shorts and t-shirt. Maybe I should have checked the weather forecast because it had gotten a bit colder again, the temperatures had gone down all the way to 0C/32F, and that’s definitely long-sleeve territory. In fact, if I could go back in time, I’d change two things about my run: I’d wear long sleeves (brrr), and I’d wear two sets of pants (ugh). The run itself was pretty good, I was slightly faster than on Wednesday, not that I had been racing my time. Once again I ran the last 5 miles strongly, and when I got to the 1-mile point I thought to myself “stop hammering the last mile, that doesn’t do much for your fitness”, but as soon as I passed that point I couldn’t help it and the legs took off once more. Maybe I’ll stop that kind of behaviour once I’ve grown up, but I was still please as punch to run the last mile in 6:40.

I needed an easy run on Saturday and got it, though I can’t quite explain why the heart rate was higher than on Friday, despite this being slower run. The weather probably didn’t help; it was very windy with plenty of rain showers, but still. Maybe the shoes made a difference? Or was I just in need of recovery?

Whatever the cause, I felt a lot fresher today and felt a good effort was in store the second I left the house. I covered the first mile in 7:11, and took it from there. It was still a bit windy, which meant plenty of head wind on the way out and plenty of help on the way back. I felt good all the way, never particularly pushed the pace, but always kept it at a moderately high effort. Again I couldn't resist pushing a bit more on the last mile, and when I got home my first words to Niamh were “that’s the best 10 miles I’ve ever run in a training run”. She more or less ignored me.

I want to tell you about a little scene before Saturday’s run, but let me give you a little background information first. The training over the last few weeks had gone really well, I seem to have found a workable way to combine a young baby with high mileage, and I’ve been thinking about races in the spring. I know I said at the beginning of the year that I want to concentrate on lowering my marathon time, but somehow that has lost its priority. I guess I’m reasonably happy with 3:12, and I’m still optimistic I can improve my time further in one year’s time (sub-3 at Boston 2009? I can always dream!). Anyway, I did weigh up two possibilities. First choice, bettering my time at the Connemara Ultra. I think I might be able to run the 39 miles in 5:15 (8:00 pace), which would have given me a top-10 finish last year. Then I could run the Bantry half-marathon in May, like last year. And if (and only if) my legs somehow made it through all that punishment in decent shape, I could run the Cork marathon in June, 8 weeks after the ultra. The second choice is to run a 53-mile ultra in Scotland, called Highland Fling, in April. I’d really fancy that one, but if I do it I can do none of the other three races, and that’s why I was already tipping towards the first choice. Anyway, on Saturday I decided to wear long sleeves, and just happened to pull the Connemara shirt out of the cupboard. When I went into the kitchen, Lola’s eyes lit up like candles. “Connemara, I love Connemara. We had such a great time there. Daddy, daddy, can we go there again?” “Funny you should say that Lola, …” I gave a sideways glance to Niamh, and she was smiling knowingly. “I think Daddy can race there again, Lola, and we can all come with him”. And then, 10 minutes later, as I was about to leave the house, Niamh called after me “The marathon or the ultra?” This time I just smiled. I think I’d better sign up soon.

23 Nov

17 miles, 2:09:30, 7:37 pace, HR 144
last 5 in 36:30 @ 7:18, last in 6:40

24 Nov

11.5 miles, 1:31:22, 7:56 pace, HR 148

25 Nov

10 miles, 1:10:38, 7:03 pace, HR 154
last mile in 6:40

Weekly mileage: 91

More Thoughts

I did expect a few comments on my training plans, and it’s pretty much what I expected, with one exception. The one item that worries me the most is the hill running, yet nobody even mentioned that. Funny.

I want to try out 7 days of running because I always felt better after an easy recovery day than after a day of complete rest. Besides, if I wanted to increase my mileage, the easiest way to do so was to run a few miles that used to be a big fat zero. I’ve also got an eye on future training cycles. I want to try Lydiard’s schedules one day, and despite Mike’s assurances that anyone can do it, I want to gradually ease into that kind of intensity. Upping my days from 6 to 7 seemed a logical step.

The no-breakfast rule attracted the most comments, which was predictable. The benefits are outlined in articles here and (to some extend) here. Mike wrote a thoughtful entry about this before he started on that course; though if you read it please ignore his awful mushroom analogy. Basically the idea is to train the body to run in a glycogen-depleted state. This will benefit anyone in the later stages of a marathon, and it’s of even greater benefits in an ultra. There is no way your glycogen will last, and you simply have to get used to running on empty. The biggest disadvantage is a higher risk of injury, and if I feel it doesn’t work for me, I’ll reconsider. But it did work ok during the last training cycle; I could finish 8 or 9 miles without feeling any worse than usual.

The other Mike mentioned the fact that many ultra schedules often contain 2 long runs on consecutive days. I’m aware of that, and I will consider doing that towards the end of the training cycle, closer to the race. I want to see how the other changes in my training work out before turning the screw even tighter.

Those were my plans, until yesterday that is, when I happened to read an entry by Mike’s Mystery Coach, which confused the hell out of me regarding the principles of Lydiard training. There was some discussion on the comments page afterwards, with my main contribution being “I don’t get it”. I’ll have to think about that more. I also remembered the “reduced schedule” from “Running with Lydiard”, a 7-day cycle of 60-90-60-120-60-120/180-90 minutes, which contains quite a few things I was planning anyway, like at least 2 long runs of 2 hours or more, with 3 shorter days. The one thing that stops me from latching onto that schedule is that you run the shorter runs faster than the longer runs, meaning you never get what I consider a recovery day (which to me means 5-7 miles at 9:00-ish pace or slower). That’s the opposite of what I’m used to, and it seems like a fundamental change. I think Marc is following a comparable schedule at the moment. I'll have to try and prod him for his opinion.

I’ve still got plenty of time to think about all that. I’ll start running on Monday and will gradually increase my mileage over the next few weeks. I should be reaching 75 or 80 miles around Christmas, and by then I hope to have made up my mind.