Torture Sessions

There seems to be an impression that I don't like following advice. Not sure where that comes from, maybe from my irrational hatred against anything resembling authority, perchance? Anyway, when MC offered to coach me, it was far too good an opportunity to miss and I have been careful to follow his advice as closely as I could.

With one exception.

When he mentioned ice baths a while ago, I tried to silently ignore his advice, hoping it would go away. This worked for a while, but he was always going to come back to it. Time to HTFU and suck it up.

Saturday's MP effort had a twist. I was ordered to cover up the Garmin during the pace effort and run purely by feel. Instead of covering it up I switched the display. Never having aimed for a certain pace without my little toy, I felt completely at sea. Two miles into the effort I was highly tempted to peek but managed to resist. The MP segment was longer this time, 10 miles, and I did start to get tired towards the end. My impression during the last few miles was that I was running a bit too hard; it just did not feel likely to keep up the effort for an entire marathon. When I did look at the numbers after finishing the run I was both pleased that I had kept the pace pretty much on target (6:44 pace, HR 161), and slightly disappointed that an effort that had felt a tad too hard was “only” 6:44, after thinking of 6:40 as my marathon pace prior to the run.

The real torture came after the run in form of the aforementioned ice bath. The coach called it “cool bath” because there is no actual ice in the tub but who is he kidding! Niamh came to inquire what the tortured high-pitched screaming was all about and left with the immortal words “you f***ing eejit, Thomas!”. No sympathy from that source then.

It did, however, help the legs because they felt surprisingly good the next morning. Just too bad that the rest of me felt like crap. I think that bug that I have been fighting for the last week is trying to gain the upper hand. The heart rate was elevated (resting HR 44 compared to 40 last week) and I felt completely flat at first and like death at the end. The hilly road around Caragh Lake did not help either. The coach had told me to run easily for at least 2 hours but no more than 2:30 and use my own judgment. I'm not sure why I added another 1.5 miles after finishing the loop because that was definitely against the coach's advice. I also can't quite explain why I started hammering along during the second half. The HR was way above the low 140s where it should have been but at that stage I had decided that the germs in my body had raised the HR to new levels, meaning it did not reflect the real running effort. I also figured that if I can run 7:30 pace over a very hilly road while feeling lousy, I must be in good shape. When Niamh asked how the run had been I replied “I'm surprised you can feel so bad and still live”, but had no comeback to her “I learned that during child birth”. Given that contrast, I suppose I was not feeling that bad.

After a week with a sore throat, I have finally decided to take some medication but now I'm wondering if it was the medicine that made me feel so bad. I actually started feeling perfectly fine again as soon as I stopped running (apart from yet another ice bath. This time even the kids came to check why daddy was screaming), so it's hard to know if I'm getting worse or improving but right now I think I'll be fine again soon.

26 Feb

13.1 miles, 1:30:26, 6:54 pace, HR 157
   incl. 10 miles @ 6:44 pace, HR 161

27 Feb

18 miles, 2:14:54, 7:29 pace, HR 153

Weekly Mileage: 77+

Change

Everything is going to be different from today on. Ireland is voting for radical change. According to the media this is the most important day since independence. Everything will be different from now on. Out goes the cronyism, corruption, self interest and outright incompetence of the government. And to get the whole process going, we are going to replace the conservative centre-right party presently in power with the conservative centre-right party presently in opposition.

Big Fucking Change my arse.

Let’s get back to running.

While the legs felt fine, the HR has been a bit elevated since Tuesday. The coach reckons this could be a sign that I’m not entirely recovered from the weekend’s double header, so we’re taking it easy. I basically did a bunch of easy runs all week and Thursday's run had the added spice of a few easy speed sessions. The run consisted of 4 x ( 4 x 30 seconds), separated by 2 minutes of recovery with about 15 minutes between each set. It was a very windy day, which meant running the 2.5 distance from our driveway to Ard-na-Sidhe, back home, and then once again. I did the speed sessions towards the end of each segment which saved me from checking the watch but in reality it meant slightly less than 15 minutes between sets. With so much recovery I did not expect the legs to be affected but was surprised by a feeling of heavy legs from the third set onwards. I cut the last session short by one sprint, partially because I was out of time and partially because I did not want to overdo it.

It was still windy today but I decided to brave the elements on the Caragh Lake road. I was rewarded with some great scenery, lit up by half a Moon, very cool. I love being out there on my own with seemingly the entire world still asleep. I did notice, however, that having a Guns N' Roses tune going round and round in your head is not conductive to easy running pace. I did not even wear an mp3 player, I just could not get rid of that song (didn’t want to; beats the Postman Pat jingle any day). If I can tune into that next Sunday it might help, though.

Spring is definitely here, it is bright when I get back home and I don’t even need my headlight any more when cycling home from work in the evening. No more being blinded by ignorant drivers refusing to dip their head lights – always major bonus.

As alluded to in my last post, the secret to successful marathon training seems to be to run easily in your base phase and then train harder than you ever thought you could on the few workouts closer to the marathon that count. With only 7 weeks to go to Vienna, there seem to be quite a few hard session on the horizon.

24 Feb

10 miles, 1:16:52, 7:41 pace, HR 148
   incl. 4 x (4 x 30sec) [well, almost]

25 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:08, 7:39 pace, HR 147

Recovery

There is not much to report because all I have been doing since the weekend were a few recovery runs, not because I overdid things but because that’s what the schedule said. According to the coach the second back-to-back always seems to feel brutal and I’m not the first runner to experience this. He only told me that AFTER the weekend, of course.

The legs seem to have recovered nicely by now but the HR has been elevated for the last 2 days. This could be a sign that I am still recovering, or it could be down to the sore throat I have felt since Saturday. Lola has it too. I have been ignoring it in the hope that it will eventually go away, which seems to work; today I'm definitely feeling better. The other problem is a lack of sleep, thanks to Maia. She got up at 6 o’clock in the morning 3 days in a row from Saturday to Monday (why do they always do that on the weekend ?) and on Tuesday she woke the whole house by screaming at the top of her voice at 2 am, claiming that there was a mouse in her bed. She totally refused to get even near her bed again and spent the rest of the night wedged in between mummy and daddy, but took 90 minutes to fall back asleep, in which time I was repeatedly being hugged and kicked in the kidneys in quick succession. Niamh also thinks she (Maia that is, not Niamh) is suffering from a urinary track infection, which may or may not be the case (initial tests from the doctor are blank, more are being done), but the laundry pile she is creating at an alarming rate is rather impressive.

Anyway, I had plenty of time to think about my recent training. With every back-to-back run I'm getting more confident that I’m indeed set to break 3 hours; in fact, I think I can go a good bit under that time, but I don’t want to get cocky. I will run as fast as I can in Vienna but any time starting with a 2 will make me a happy camper.

It’s patently obvious that my recent improvement is down to the coach. In the past I have trained faster, slower, more, less, but never managed to hit the spot. During the base phase, things seemed to come round without even trying, which made me conclude that I used to run too hard in previous training cycles. On the other hand, the back-to-back runs have been really tough. In previous years I was happy to run close to 7:00 pace for my “marathon pace” workouts, hoping that the pace would have improved by the time of the marathon, which never happened. The 6:40 pace I have been doing recently would previously have been regarded as a HMP workout. It took the coach to tell me that this is my present marathon pace. Sometimes it takes someone you trust to tell you what you can achieve in order for you to trust yourself. Maybe that’s the real benefit of a coach. That, and the fact that I apparently need someone to stop me from ruining my own training.

21 Feb

8 miles, 1:02:15, 7:47 pace, HR 142

22 Feb

10 miles, 1:19:05, 7:54 pace, HR 145

23 Feb

10 miles, 1:16:49, 7:41 pace, HR 147

Great Day To Be Out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17 Feb

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

18 Feb

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

19 Feb

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

20 Feb

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

Weekly Mileage: 72

A Chip Off The Old Block

Shea had gotten up early and subsequently had half an hour spare after breakfast. He asked me what to do and did not fancy reading, writing, drawing, or any of that thing. Then, not sure how, we figured that 18 laps around our house adds up to a mile. “Why don’t you do that?” “Great, thanks Dad”. Off he went for his mile-long run, adding 2 extra laps to be sure. I think I know where he got that from.

My own training is not going too badly either. After some very heavy legs on Monday, entirely predictable after a tough 20 mile run on Sunday, I felt better already on Tuesday and up for another hill session. Even the high knees drill feels better by now. I managed 2 minutes in one go before a break and then added another 90 seconds. I can’t swear that I’m able to lift the knees as high as at the start, but I’m doing my best. The last drill was thigh drive again, which is the one drill that drives the HR up the highest.

Today was the last of the evaluation workouts. It was a bit windy again, but nowhere near as bad as a fortnight ago and I felt this time the conditions would not interfere. I was a bit apprehensive, not sure if I was worried about a bad score or the fast running. But I felt pretty good during the warm up, and got started.

Mile 1        6:40 (HR 162)
Mile 2        6:48 (HR 162)
Mile 3        6:49 (HR 161)
Mile 4        6:37 (HR 163)

Time to 130:     32 seconds

As you can see I goofed up a bit on the last one, running 2 bpm too hard, but for all I can see these numbers look excellent. I think there is definitely a sharpening effect in there from the faster running during the transition phase, but I’m pretty happy. If you compare the figures to previous ones (look at MC’s post here or a collection of my evaluation posts here), you can easily see an improvement.

Actually, I made one potentially massive error this morning, which I only noticed halfway through the run: I forgot to put on my reflective vest. Thankfully I only encountered about 6 cars all morning and they all managed to see me despite my idiocy. The mornings are definitely lighter now than they used to be only a couple of weeks ago. I don’t even want to think about how easily a driver could have hit me.

I made another mistake, once again I caught myself running sub-7 pace during the cool down, just like on Saturday. I think I'd better stop that. There are times to run at strong pace and the cool down is not one of them.

14 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:40, 7:57 pace, HR 136

15 Feb

8.6 miles, 1:13:45, 8:34 pace, HR 143
    4x30 sec; high knees; thigh drive;

16 Feb

11.75 miles, 1:23:32, 7:07 pace, HR 152
incl. 4 miles evaluation:
    6:40, 6:48, 6:49, 6:37; 32 seconds to HR 130

You Never Told Me This Was Not Waterproof!!

Shea just learnt a lesson about electronic equipment and water the hard way, but somehow he seems determined to blame it on his mum. A bit like his dad who had to learn several lessons about marathon training the hard way but has not found anyone to blame it on yet.

After the very tough back-to-back workouts last weekend, it took quite some time for the legs to feel recovered again, which probably was not helped by the hill workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday. I did 10 relaxed miles on Thursday and could finally feel some bounce returning, something that carried into yet another hill workout on Friday. Luckily there was no major storm to battle against this time and the downhill strides actually felt like downhill strides.

This set me up for another weekend, but thankfully not one featuring another back-to-back workout. This shows the value of introducing things gradually; another such training would have most likely pushed me over the edge. Instead, I managed to keep hanging on.

Saturday was actually very similar to last week, 7 miles at present marathon pace and the coach gave me 3 major points to keep in mind at all times: 1) run relaxed, 2) run relaxed and 3) run relaxed. There were also 2 minor points about HR and pace but the point was made, these were not to be my priorities. He also advised me to imagine those miles to be the ones from mile 8 to 15. Since I don’t know the Vienna course, I imagined myself running in Dublin.

As I started, I visualised myself leaving Phoenix Park, later on Dolphin’s Barn and then Crumlin Road, which was easy to imagine because I was running slightly uphill and against a headwind, exactly the conditions you experience year for year on that blasted stretch of road just before half way. Using those visualisations made it easier to run at a much more relaxed effort than last week, and in fact after a couple of miles I started running on autopilot but still keeping on pace. After going a little bit fast in the early miles, the headwind during the second half made sure the pace stayed realistic and I finished just over 7 miles in 47:09, 6:43 pace with an average HR of 162. While that’s slower than last week at the same average HR I can vouch for the fact that I stuck to the task like glue and ran relaxed at all times. The HR once again was under the threshold the coach had set (162-166) while the pace was inside the set parameters of 6:35-6:45, a bit on the slow side, but as he had stated that was the minor target. On my last miles, on the cool down, I still averaged a pace of 6:50. After 7 faster miles, this felt like jogging along slowly. I did not notice I was going that fast or I would have slowed down a lot more.

The weather forecast for Sunday made timing the run a bit tricky, trying to hit a window after the storm but before the next rain shower. It turned out to be a stunningly beautiful morning when I left at 8 o’clock, blue sky and hardly a breeze. Since there was no back-to-back this week, it was all about time on feet for 2-and-a-half hours. I ran my usual loop around the lake, across the hills, over Blackstones Bridge and back home, and then another out-and-back section past the school to make up the miles. I was flying early on and had to put the brakes on at times. I felt great until about 16 miles when things started dragging a bit, but I made it back home still feeling good, if happy to be done. Looking at the average HR of 150 I think I ran a bit harder than I should have, but, again, I found this pace very relaxing. I also managed to time it right - less than a hour after coming home, it was hail stoning I was glad to be snuck inside.

10 Feb

10 miles, 1:17:77, 7:47 pace, HR 141

11 Feb

9 miles, 1:13:07, 8:07 pace, HR 146
   4x30 sec; high knees; downhill strides

12 Feb

10 miles, 1:08:00, 6:48 pace, HR 159
   incl. 7+ miles @ 6:43, HR 162

13 Feb

20 miles, 2:31:13, 7:34 pace, HR 150

Weekly Mileage: 74

Phew!

I can sleep easily again. The coach’s verdict was not as damning as feared. Since this was my first back-to-back workout under his guidance it was always part of the learning curve. I’ll try and answer a few question from the comments section.

I don’t think 6:35 is my present marathon pace, that would be a 2:52 marathon, and I'm not entirely convinced about 6:42 (2:55 marathon) either, but it sounds more realistic. But keep in mind that the weekend’s pace numbers are straight from the Garmin and experience has taught me that you have to add 3-4 seconds per mile for your real marathon time, taking into account that few of us manage the perfect race line. That means adding up to 2 minutes and Garmin’s 6:48 pace is the slowest you will want to go to break 3 hours, and that pace no longer feels scary.

The HR figures MC gave me are mostly used to avoid going too hard. Had I run 6:55 pace with a HR of 170 it would have been a sign that I'm running too fast. As it happened I had the opposite problem where the HR seemed too low – in that case you have to listen to your own body. I did that to some extend by slowing down a bit after the first mile or two on day 1, but possibly not by enough, which is why day 2 was 7 seconds per mile slower. But I now have a better understanding of what’s involved and will hopefully be able to judge future back-to-back workouts better.

I'm not the first runner to go through all this and as Eric’s comment shows other have gone through similar experiences. Unfortunately that still doesn’t mean that I will be able to run at his pace.

I felt surprising well during Monday’s 8 easy miles but there was a delayed reaction and on Tuesday my legs felt a lot heavier. I could have skipped the hills but didn’t feel quite bad enough for that and decided to go ahead but only do 2 hill circuits. I got a nice surprise when I checked out the dirt road that had been blocked 2 weeks ago by fallen trees. They have finally managed to make it passable again, which means I can return to my usual hill road. For hill training I prefer this to any of the asphalt roads, except maybe for downhill strides.

I have kind of settled into doing high knees every time I'm on the hill because they keep being tough, which I take as a sign that I’ll get the most out that particular drill as long as I don’t overdo it. This time I managed to keep that going for a full minute each and with a little bit of rest I managed 3 of them, with thigh drives as my last drill.

Wednesday morning was almost a carbon copy, except that I replaced the last workout with working the ankles.

On both days the legs felt a bit stiff on the initial set of 4x30 second strides, but according to the Garmin these are getting a little bit quicker almost every time, even though it does not feel like it. The coach thinks I tend to sharpen quickly (which is why Saturday’s pace was faster than expected), which presumably will be taken into account for the peaking phase.

7 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:31, 7:56 pace, HR 138

8 Feb

8.7 miles, 1:14:17, 8:32 pace, HR 142
   4x30 sec; high knees; thigh drive

9 Feb

8.3 miles, 1:12:59, 8:48 pace, HR 147
  4x30 sec; high knees; ankles

Like The 63 From Peckham

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 Feb

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

6 Feb

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

Weekly Mileage: 73

Early In The Morning

Just a couple of minutes after setting off I noticed a car slowly approaching from behind. As I'm running on public roads, that’s nothing out of the usual. What surprised me was the car pulling up beside me and the driver greeting me with a friendly “hello Thomas, I thought I might see you out here!”. Michael was out early, too. As nice as it was to see him, I hope he’s ok (he was out looking for the doctor, at 6 o’clock in the morning).

I proceeded with my hill workout. As always, I started with 4x30 seconds strides. The first hill circuit consisted of high knees, which is the toughest of the lot. However, I think I can feel an improvement compared to last week already. I hope it’s not just in my head. The second circuit was thigh drive, for which I had gotten clarification for the coach:

Try to imagine that you are stepping on to a box then straighten the knee and then extending the ankle, much like a whip where the energy starts with the handle and accelerates to the tip, the drive starts with the upper thigh travels through the straightening knee the finishes with a flick of the ankle extending.

As soon as I started doing that, it felt “right”, certainly better than the bounding that I had done before the clarification.

The last workout was downhill strides, which would have been fine, were it not for one tiny detail: it was against the wind, which was blowing at 50 kph with gusts of 70kph. Worse than Wednesday! Actually, it was quite cool to run down a hill that normally is too steep to run down properly and just lean forward, relying on the wind to keep you upright. But as far as the downhill strides were concerned, it probably was not ideal.

Maia caught a cold a few days ago, which once more has caused a few rough nights (except for Niamh who is able to sleep peacefully through her child’s screams), and now Shea has started coughing as well. As always, I’m hoping it will pass me by.

At least the weather is going to change slightly for tomorrow, heavy rain replacing the wind. I’ve got a very tough weekend ahead of me. The training is clearly hotting up now. I’ll let you know.

Update: Several of you have asked about the evaluations. MC has just written 2 posts explaining them in detail here and here. The second post also features a real-life example (yes, you guessed it, me).

3 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:33, 7:42 pace, HR 143

4 Feb

10.5 miles, 1:27:10, 8:18 pace, HR 147
   4x30 sec; high knees; thigh drive; downhill strides

Blowing In The Wind

I was a bit apprehensive before Tuesday’s hill workout because I did not know how much effect Sunday’s long run would have on my legs. There seems to be a pattern emerging, my legs feel fine first thing in the morning and rather trashed in the evening. Every night I go to sleep hoping that a few hours of recovery will give some respite and so far it’s working.

I did 3 hill sessions after the customary 4x30 seconds (where I felt a bit sluggish), namely high knees (very tough again), thigh drive (ok) and ankles (easy). The average pace on these runs is completely meaningless, of course. At one stage during one of the workouts I was moving so slowly up the hill that the pace display on the Garmin went ---. The quads felt trashed as I got home, but I survived.

As the schedule has changed a bit since moving into the transition phase, there was a 3-week gap between the last and today’s evaluation. The coach had warned me in advance not to be disappointed, 10 days into a new phase the body is trying to adapt to the new stresses and the evaluation numbers are bound to suffer a bit.

The weather conditions were by far the bigger problem. The wind kept howling outside all night, which did not help my sleep (neither did Maia getting out of bed at 4:30 and 5:30). Luckily I woke up right on time because the first thing I noticed was that I had forgotten to set the alarm. The second thing I noticed was the wind still going outside and when I left the house I realised it was raining as well. Just lovely.

I made my way to the stretch of road that I had been using for the last few evaluations and started to go back- and forwards 4 times each. Apparently the wind was blowing at 50kph/31mph at times and I’m inclined to believe it. Normally I don’t look at the Garmin when doing the evaluation to keep my concentration entirely on the workout, but curiosity got the better of me and I sneaked a few glances. Going with the wind the pace was close to 6:00, coming back it was slower than 8:00 at times. This must have had an effect on the numbers, I have no doubt, but running is an outdoors sport, what can you do.

Mile 1        7:05 (HR 162)
Mile 2        6:56 (HR 161)
Mile 3        7:02 (HR 161)
Mile 4        7:11 (HR 161)

Time to 130:     39 seconds

Given the conditions I’m not even disappointed with those numbers, but I’m not sure how much information can be gleaned from them. I have no idea how the second and third mile can be faster than the first one, that never happened before.

The weather is going to get even worse over the next few days, I hope the moaners who complained about the cold temperatures are happy now. You got what you asked for.

1 Feb

9.6 miles, 1:23:34, 8:42 pace, HR 142
   4x30 sec; high knees; thigh drive; ankles

2 Feb

11.8 miles, 1:26:00, 7:17 pace, HR 153

Pushing On

I made it through the first week of the Transition phase without injury and with 2 intact, if slightly sore, legs. Doing this for the first time makes it difficult to judge if I’m doing enough, too much or too little, though I trust the coach to help me out if I’m straying too far off the path.

Since keeping your aerobic conditioning intact is absolutely crucial, the weekly long run remains a critical element of training. It was a bit fresh on Sunday morning; every other year I would have called -4C bitterly cold, but after the winter we’ve just had nobody is batting an eyelid at those temperatures. I did not expect to come across as many icy patches as I did, though. The roads we’re driving on are all fine and I did not think the back roads I use for running would be any different, but there were a few hairy bits. At least it confirmed that I had been right to stay away from the loop around the lake during the worst of the cold spell.

The legs were not exactly fresh; the hamstrings especially had plenty of residue from the hill drills in them, but I knew I would manage. In fact, the big climb early on was significantly easier than only two weeks ago. When I’m in reasonable shape I can just switch off at the bottom of the hill and proceed to the top on autopilot, which is exactly what happened. I made a mistake during the second half of the run, though. For some reason I started pushing harder than normal and ran the last 8 miles, over undulating terrain and with a slight net uphill at 7:24 pace, much faster than normal and definitely faster than I should have. It left me with rather sore legs for the rest of the day and I can still feel the effects today, Monday.

I hoped to make up for some of my mistake by taking it especially easy this morning. With the cold spell ending and the warmer air bringing loads of rain and wind it may have been the last run in nice conditions for a while. Once more I undershot the 140 HR, but in this case I’m pretty sure it was warranted. It still did not stop me from having sore quads today but right now I’m still hoping another good night’s sleep will do wonders.

30 Jan

19 miles, 2:26:16, 7:42 pace, HR 148
   last 8 @ 7:24 pace, HR 153

31 Jan

8 miles, 1:03:34, 7:56 pace, HR 138

Weekly Mileage: 73
January Mileage: 341.5

Another Year Older, None The Wiser

Maia might be right, I’m really old. At least I feel it now. There is a picture on my desk, showing me with the twins just a few months old. I look about 18 in that photo. People always used to comment on my youthful appearance. Right when that picture was taken, those comments stopped; looking after baby twins ages you 10 years in 6 months. I never managed to get younger again and I found myself celebrating my 41st birthday on Thursday.

I celebrated this by going out for an easy 10 mile run in the morning. I was jogging along slowly, or so I thought, and was mightily surprised when I saw the average pace in the high 7:30s at the end. I point to the low heart rate to attest that I had kept the effort on the easy side, though.

Inseparable from old age are your constant aches and pains, and par for the course my right shin was quite sore in the evening. I was a bit alarmed because shin splints are just about the last thing I want to experience again, but I treated this niggle the same way I treat all the others: I completely ignored it. It still hurt on Friday morning, but after the first mile it was gone and has not come back since; my treatment must have been successful.

I was back on the hills again on Friday and after Thursday’s relative rest day I added one extra drill. The 4x30 second drills were followed by a set of high knees up a steep road. I can only do about 40 seconds of those at a time before my legs give up, so I jogged down the hill and did another one and a third one for a total of about 2 minutes. For the next drill I selected pushing off using just the ankles, which again felt easy, even after 4 minutes. I have done some gentle bouncing for one minute in the morning before each run for several weeks and my guess is that this has already strengthened my ankles sufficiently for this exercise to feel easy. Either that or I’m doing it wrong. The final drill consisted of driving the thighs again - this is the one drill I’m the least sure about. Unfortunately the coach is not here to show me.

The schedule changes for this phase mean that Saturday is another day for the hills. My legs were sore to start with and I decided to cut back to only two drills. I reasoned that since the high knees feel the worst, I should do more of them as I obviously need it. On the other hand I must be careful not to overdo it - I do not want to get injured and I do not want to dig myself too deep into the hole of fatigue. Anyway, after the customary set of 4x30 sec I did another set of high knees, again 3x40 seconds each, and then I slowly went to the top of that hill, did a few more minutes of easy running and followed it up with just under half a mile of downhill strides. All these drills were separated by about 15 minutes of easy running, as always.

Twice today on the warm-up as well as the cool-down I caught myself running 7:15 pace when I should have gone much slower. I really need to concentrate on running slowly or else the legs will just do their own thing.

I measured a lower heart rate of 41 this morning. That’s not exactly amazingly low but still the lowest reading for a couple of months. I’m wondering if theses drills are already producing a sharpening effect. Then again, it might be nothing.

27 Jan

10 miles, 1:16:07, 7:37 pace, HR 143

28 Jan

10 miles, 1:27:12, 8:43 pace, HR 142
   4x30 sec; high knees; ankles; thigh drive

29 Jan

9.15 miles, 1:11:06. 7:47 pace, HR 147
   4x30 secs; high knees; downhill strides

Run To The Hills

And to think I was looking forward to that ...

After weeks and weeks of base training that consisted of mainly running well within myself at all times, the next phase is not yet intended to do all the hard work needed to reach peak fitness, but to get me ready to do so. Mystery Coach has explained the concept in great detail in Mike’s old blog and if you’re interested in the training I strongly suggest you go and have a look.

The very first thing I noticed on Tuesday morning as soon as I left the house was the significantly increased temperatures, they had gone up from 1C on Monday to 8C today. I felt seriously overdressed in my long sleeves and tights but did not fancy going back and change. The first “workout” after 15 minutes of warm-up were a set of 4x30 seconds strides with 2 minutes recovery in-between, where I concentrated to run as fast as I could while still being relaxed and in full control. After 15 further easy minutes I was at the base of the hill that I have used for hill repeats many times before. A few seconds later I came across a curtain of dark, which turned out to be a fallen tree across the entire road, probably from the storm that had blown over 2 weeks ago. I scrambled beneath the trunk and then did about 2 minutes of a hill drill, namely using just the ankles to push myself off the ground. This felt remarkably easy, too easy, so I decided to use the ankle action to push myself higher into the air, springing up the hill very slowly. As I was told not to overdo it I left it at that, worked my way back down past two trees that were blocking half the road and underneath the one that had fallen entirely across it.

I figured that crawling underneath a fallen tree in the darkness was not without its dangers and decided to use a different hill for the next drill, half a mile further down the road past Ard-na-Sidhe, leading steeply up to the Devil’s Elbow. The drawback of that second hill, apart from being further away from home, was its asphalt surface but it’s the best I could think of. My third drill, after another 15 minutes of easy running, were high knee lifts going up the very steep road. This was a much tougher exercise as I tried (but mostly failed) to get the knees all the way up to waist level. I did about a minute of that until I reached a flatter piece of road for a bit of recovery and followed it up with about 40 seconds of more high knees. That was enough.

Wednesday morning went similar, but at least I was in shorts and t-shirt. Again the work consisted of 3 different drills separated by about 15 minutes of easy running. The first drill was the same as yesterday, 4x30 seconds. The second one was striding out on a gradual half-mile downhill section, taking longish strides working on pulling the legs through and stretching them out behind me. This felt tougher than anticipated and with the warning in my ear to be careful with that exercise due to its stresses on the legs I pulled out a little bit earlier than planned. The third exercise was uphill again, driving with the thighs, but looking back at the instructions now I think I got that wrong because I turned it more into a bounding exercise when the brief was to initiate the drive from the quads while going up slowly.

Anyway, I can feel the effort in my legs, and that’s after doing only the minimum number of sessions. Tomorrow is a recovery day before 2 further days of drills. Actually it was not too bad, the fact that each exercise was different kept things interesting; in the past when trying to make sense of the Lydiard hill drills I usually did e.g. 4 repeats of bounding in one single session and eventually ended up hating it. I think I will be better able to cope with the coach’s way of doing things.

25 Jan

8.75 miles, 1:12:49 8:19 pace, HR 147
   4x30sec, ankles, high knee

26 Jan

9 miles, 1:10:20, 7:49 pace, HR 148
  4x30sec, downhill strides, driving thighs

Transition

You might not know that, but Niamh is as obsessed about baking as I am about running. She produces mountains of the stuff and it is all just ridiculously tasty. If I ever stop burning 10000 calories per week on the road I’ll turn into Jabba the Hut in no time whatsoever. Anyway, on Friday evening our (overworked) oven gave up and died. Niamh is still in shock and she keeps telling me it’s the equivalent of someone throwing out all my shoes. I don’t know how long it will take to get fixed, but probably not long enough to make a difference to my weight, which seems to be stuck at 150 pounds (10 stone 10, 68 kg).

I got up reasonably early on Saturday and after spending some time with Shea and Maia managed to sneak out for my long run. The fog was so thick you could have cut it with a knife, but climbing 500 feet on the first hill brought the reward on an absolutely magical scene. The valley to my left was completely hidden in fog, the sky was entirely clear with not a single cloud, just one lonely vapour trail. The Moon was hovering above the horizon, which itself was covered in pink, about 45 minutes before sunrise. Immensely beautiful and pretty much indescribable! It helped that climbing the hill already felt easier than last week, despite the fact that the hamstrings exhibited some leftover fatigue from yesterday’s run. The fog eventually lifted and I was running in glorious sunshine along the lake, until about 2 miles from home when I turned a corner and all of a sudden was right back in the thick fog.

Recovery consisted of 2 hours in the Kerry County Museum. I don’t think there are too many 9-year olds who beg to be brought to the museum, but Lola is one of them and the others did not complain, so that was our afternoon’s entertainment sorted.

I ended the week and base training with a short 8-mile run on Sunday that was supposed to be very easy, but I did raise an eyebrow when I got back and saw the 7:35 average pave on the Garmin. I never checked it during the run and thought I was doing about 8:00 pace. I’ll learn some day, I'm sure.

Maia has turned into an early riser all of a sudden, much to the disgust of her mother who does not particularly appreciate being woken at 6 o’clock in the morning. Preparing first breakfast and then a DVD for the miniature tyrant meant a shortened run for Daddy but thankfully a quiet Monday morning after all for Mummy. Hence the first run of the Transition Phase was nothing but a short, slow 7-mile run on the Caragh Lake Road. The first workout will be tomorrow; I still have to take it easy and gradually work my way up. The efforts will basically consist of short repetitions, usually involving a hill, done every 15 minutes during a medium distance run of 8-12 miles. I’ll let you know how it goes, of course.

22 Jan

18+ miles, 2:20:33, 7:48 pace, HR 146

23 Jan

8 miles, 1:00:43, 7:35 pace, HR 145

24 Jan

7 miles, 55:19, 7:54 pace, HR 139

Weekly Mileage: 74+

No Offense Intended

There is one thing I did not mention about Tuesday’s school evening, though it was very much on my mind. Niamh noticed it as well, and that’s when I realised just how big a deal it is: the number of overweight children is just staggering. All of the children on stage were between 6 and 12 years old and thinking back to my own school years, there were maybe one or two overweight kids in my class, and none of them would have been what I call obese. How things have changed! My own impression was that the majority of heavy kids were girls, but I'm not sure if that’s generally the case. I found it pretty shocking, especially as this was a school in rural Kerry where outdoor pursuits and sport are still valued highly. If we could get those children to exercise more it would make such a difference to their lives. Instead the politicians are talking about getting rid of PE altogether.

Anyway, my own training is continuing nicely. Another nice and easy run on Thursday once more got close to 7:30 pace. I’m getting used to this. Today I did another “Fast Friday” but with the preliminary speed phase just around the corner I was very careful not to overdo it. As a result I ran it at a slightly lower average HR than last week; in fact, most of the time I did not even get out of the 140s. Despite that constraint it was still faster than last week. For a while the average pace was a tad faster than 7:00, only to drop back on a couple of uphill miles after the halfway point. I was tempted to put in a stronger effort over the last 2 miles to get back under 7:00 again but thought the better of it to avoid the wrath of The Coach. At all times I was relaxed and comfortable and felt like I could have run at that effort for much, much longer.

The weather is cold and clear at the moment, with temperatures a little below freezing point in the morning and lovely and sunny during the day. I love it. Maybe I get reminded of the Alpine winters of my youth, sans the skiing of course. It did cross my mind that the faster running pace might be related to the lower outside temperatures because the last time I ran that fast was back in November when we had equally cold mornings, but that may well be complete coincidence.

Right now I'm looking forward to being allowed to run fast again a bit more often, but I have the sneaking suspicion that I may come to regret these words.

20 Jan

8+ miles, 1:01:08, 7:36 pace, HR 144

21 Jan

10 miles, 1:10:25, 7:03 pace, HR 151

Aerobic Endurance

For most of my base training phase I have been feeling very, very good. Even though my fitness clearly improved it felt like I was not really training. On every run (ok, almost every run) I was running well within myself and day-to-day recovery was never in question. This disappeared over Christmas when I managed to overdo it over one weekend; it took several days to shake off the worst of the fatigue, but the feeling of effortlessly gliding over the pavement did not return.

Until a few days ago. All of a sudden I’m back and I'm loving it. The coach told me last week to relax a bit; I followed his advice and all of a sudden the legs are floating again. The effort level is as low as before but the easy pace is knocking at 7:30 again. It was there at the end of November, but that was due to a sharpening effect after the Killarney race series. By now I have not been racing for over 8 weeks, any sharpening should long have gone and I’m left with just me aerobic conditioning. I skipped a lot of races in the mean time and racing would have been fun, but with my eyes firmly set on an April marathon, it sure feels like a sacrifice worth doing.

It suddenly got cold again, but nowhere near as cold as in December. The temperature is close to freezing point in the morning, cold enough to dig out the long sleeved shirts once more. On Monday morning the legs were still suffering a bit from Sunday’s long hills, so I kept the effort very, very easy and was really surprised to see me averaging well below 8-minute pace anyway. I'm supposed to keep the HR between 140 and 155 beats, so an average of 137 is actually too easy but I’m pretty sure the coach prefers me to undershoot the target by 3 beats rather than overshoot it by even one.

Still, I pushed a little bit more on Tuesday and was once more genuinely surprised by the pace, in the 7:30s on average. I'm definitely not used to that being my easy pace. The moon was still out as I left home which made for my favourite conditions, cold and clear and no need for an artificial light source. Just perfect.

Since the boys’ school had closed a week early before Christmas due to the severe weather, their Christmas play had been postponed, but I did not escape for long. Niamh claims to be looking forward to that each year; personally I cling to the hope that the evening will be over before I lose the will to live (and if that makes me a bad parent, so be it). In the end it was the uncomfortable seat that provided the biggest problem, being squished into a chair designed for a primary school kid for several hours is just not my thing, but I do wonder how some others with higher BMI than me coped. Anyway, the plays were actually funny at times, the standard of acting, while uneven, wasn’t too bad and I survived after all. The boys did just fine and stage fright is not something they suffer from.

I even felt inspired enough to run past the same school building this morning, doing a loop through Cromane. The stormy weather on Saturday managed to produce an astounding array of entirely new potholes that I’m not familiar with, none of which I could not see in the morning. There was one I must have hit twice, on the way out as well as the way back, but I managed not to twist my ankle and I'm gradually learning to slalom around them even in the dark. I reckon I could run most of my routes with my eyes closed by now.

17 Jan

8 miles, 1:03:10, 7:54 pace, HR 137

18 Jan

10 miles, 1:16:03, 7:36 pace, HR 142

19 Jan

12+ miles, 1:30:55, 7:33 pace, HR 145

Taking It Easy

The coach sent me a quick email, telling me not to be too hard on myself as the last evaluation had been very good. He also told me to relax a bit for the rest of base training to be ready for the next phase. The last bit was very timely advice. My legs had been a bit sore every evening this week and I had already decided to cut the long run from 20 to 18 miles. After getting the coach's advice I cut down a lot more - I binned the faster run on Friday and cut the long run down further, to just one lap around Caragh Lake.

Conditions on Friday were not too bad but the wind must have been close to gale force. That's not really an issue, I have run in those conditions dozens of times and 8 miles at relaxed pace just seemed to float by. I was quite surprised to see 7:45 average pace at the end, the effort had felt easier than that, which can be seen by the low HR. Not that I'm complaining.

Saturday's weather was a different kettle of fish altogether. The twins had yet another CTY day on Cork which required an early enough rise for my run. Since I really did not fancy yet another 6 o'clock alarm call I had already decided to move the long run to Sunday before I had even seen the weather forecast. They always seem to wheel out Jean Byrne for the most severe forecast these days (and yes, Ewen, she really is our weather girl). A massive storm front was promising some, er, interesting conditions, and so it proved.

There was a second storm to handle when Maia's stomach revolted yet again. We thought she had recovered but were proven wrong and a rather rough night followed. I'll spare you the details, but it was not pretty.

I always use the Ard-na-Sidhe road when the wind speed goes past a certain point and the storm shaking the trees sounded quite scary at times, but my hour of running seemed to pass in no time at all and once safely back home I figured I had run in much worse conditions.

Since Maia needed recuperation and Cian did not fancy a long car drive, Niamh brought the twins to Cork and I stayed home with the other two. Good call. I was wrecked for the rest of the day and my stomach felt rather queasy at times. I was a bit worried but a good night's sleep got me over the worst.

On Sunday I was finally back on the long, steep Caragh Lake hills and was surprised to find the running rather tougher than expected. I made it up to the top in good time but it required more work than anticipated and my hip muscles kept hurting for the rest of the run. After 30 hours of storm weather the conditions were much nicer, pretty ideal for running in fact. Still, with my hurting legs I was looking forward to being done and pressed the effort a bit over the last 5 miles, averaging about 7:30 pace over some undulating terrain with a net uphill. It was fast enough to get the legs going without wearing me out. I was reasonably happy with my run, but I could clearly tell that my long absence from these hills has left the legs significantly weaker than I'd like them to be. A few more runs over that road will sort that out. After a few weeks I will be able to run up the hills without a bother again.

P.S. You can win a free Garmin310XT at Ray's blog.

14 Jan

8 miles, 1:02:02, 7:45 pace, HR 141

15 Jan

8.5+ miles, 1:06:17, 7:45 pace, HR 145

16 Jan

16.6 miles, 2:09:20, 7:47 pace, HR 145

Weekly Mileage: 73+

Shanghaied

Someone in the office got the idea to get a group of us running the Cork marathon as a fundraiser for Cancer Research, in honour of a colleague that passed away last year. It's a great idea, but when XX asked me to run I tried to explain that it's only 7 weeks after my Vienna marathon. She cut me off, pointing out that YY is going to do 3 triathlons in 4 weeks in June. I tried to get a word in, pointing out that 3 sprint triathlons still only amounted to 15k of running, but didn't get very far. Normally that sort of thing would not bother me, I am perfectly aware that the majority of people can not tell the difference between a 2 hour sprint triathlon and a 3 hour marathon, and would not give two hoots anyway. But she must have caught me on a bad day and I was really pissed off. After 75 minutes of battling wind and rain during my run and 20 more minutes of the same conditions cycling into work, the last thing I needed was someone giving me grief for not running enough marathons.

It's a good cause and in memory of a colleague and I might try to snag one of the pacer slots which I could still run for charity, I presume. Next time I'd really prefer to be asked nicely, though.

I just chucked out a pair of runners after close to 700 miles. The wear pattern was quite interesting, I thought, and I've noticed this on the last few pairs as well. On the right shoe the pattern on the back of the shoe's sole is still in good condition, considering the mileage. But on the left it is worn down completely and the difference is a few millimetres. I must have an asymmetric gait. This is a fairly new development, until about a year ago both of my shoes always wore most at the heel. Did I really switch to land more on the forefoot, not deliberately, and only on one foot? I also just realised that all of my recent injuries were on my right leg, but that may well be just coincidence.

12 Jan

9.25 miles, 1:13:43, 7:58 pace, HR 139

13 Jan

11 miles, 1:26:26, 7:51 pace, HR 142

Evaluating Recovery

From what I’ve gathered so far, base training is all about recovery and ensuring that you get enough of it. Accordingly I made doubly sure to run very easily on Monday. The rather demanding set of runs over the weekend had left some soreness behind and the legs felt rather heavy at first. My mood was not exactly helped by the fact that it was raining as I left home. I almost wished for the ice to come back instead, but sadly the weather is not up to me. What is up to me, though, is the effort of my run and this time I produced the lowest HR of my training cycle yet. I’m actually supposed to keep the HR between 140 and 155, with far more time spent at the lower end, and this time I undershot the band by a good bit. Never mind, I felt the legs would thank me for it at Tuesday’s evaluation.

Before it came to that, there was another problem to be tackled. When first Cian and then Niamh got a nasty stomach bug we kept saying it would be ok as long as Maia did not contract it. Those hopes were dashed on Monday evening when she started to throw up. To make matter worse, Niamh was in Killarney for the evening and I had to clean up the mess and console the girl on my own, as was well as keeping an eye on the rest of the brood. Luckily she is a very resilient little girl and between her spells of throwing up violently she was remarkably cheerful. By the time Niamh was home, the worst was actually over. We braced ourselves for a tough night, but she slept through – until 4:30 that is, from when on she demanded to be entertained, but hey, that's better than the state she had been in 10 hours earlier. Shortly after 6 o’clock I managed to get out of the house, her big sister taking over the entertainment duties (they both fell asleep again soon anyway).

Finally out of the door and free of worries for the little one, I embarked on yet another evaluation workout. During the warm-up I was quite confident that this would go well, as I was jogging along easily at about 7:40 pace with a HR in the mid 130s, something I had not seen in a while. After close to 4 miles I started the evaluation proper. It took a while to get into the rhythm, I seemed to have to work harder than usual to get the HR up to 161 and I needed the Garmin’s alarm more than usual to stay at the target HR. When I felt like running uphill towards the end of the third mile, even though I knew the road was flat, I realised that I was getting tired, but at that stage I also noticed the wind for the first time. If it had just picked up or if I was just getting overly sensitive, I’m not sure.

Mile 1        6:44 (HR 161)
Mile 2        6:47 (HR 161)
Mile 3        6:49 (HR 162)
Mile 4        6:52 (HR 162)

Time to 130:     39

Once I finished the evaluation I came to a complete stop and was surprised that it took 39 seconds for the HR to come back down to 130. It seemed to take an age to get to 150, but once it finally started dropping I came down reasonably quickly. The overall pace compares favourably to previous evaluations but kept fading a bit more that I'd like to see, really. I guess the slower last mile together with the long recovery afterwards is a sign that I have not recovered from the weekend yet. Maybe I should have waited a few days with the evaluation, but what’s done is done.

10 Jan

8 miles, 1:04:19, 8:02 pace, HR 136

11 Jan

11.75 miles, 1:26:47, 7:23 pace, HR 151
incl. 4 miles evaluation:
    6:44, 6:47, 6:49, 6:52; 39 seconds to HR 130

Base Training

Back in October, at the start of training, the coach sent me an email containing a slightly cryptic message:

“This is good: 10 at 7:13 pace, 20 at 7:54 pace, 15 at 7:54 pace. It shows you recover and increased work capacity which will be needed in the peaking phase.”

I couldn't quite figure out what he meant at the time, but just got on with my training. The weekend runs are quite demanding and for various reasons there was always a reason why one run had to be curtailed or another ended up slower than planned. It's only recently that I have reached a level of consistency that I am happy with and the plan for Friday/Saturday/Sunday was 10 miles at faster effort (with a max HR of 155, I used the Garmin's HR alarm feature), then 20 and 15 at easy pace.

Friday's basic temperature was right around freezing point, just like the previous mornings, but a strong and biting cold wind added a significant windchill to the conditions. I felt fairly cold, even with the long sleeves, especially when it started raining on two separate occasions. Anyway, after a slightly slower first mile I got into the effort. While faster than the other days it was still very manageable, slower than marathon effort, I like to think. I settled into an effort slightly below the allowed max, in the low 150s, but I noticed that the pace increased only by a miniscule amount when I tried to push a bit harder, so I eventually left it at that. Usually the first half of these runs is a bit faster as I tend to slow down on the return leg as fatigue and a few gentle climbs take their toll, but this time the wind had me slower during the early miles but pushed me along on the way home and I ended up with an average pace of 7:06, a bit slower than a fortnight ago, but with the knowledge that I had left enough in the tank for the next two days.

Three days after Cian's very rough night, it was Niamh's turn. She must have run half a marathon between bed and the toilet bowl, and eventually I retreated from the scene, trying to get a few hours of sleep in Shea's room, which didn't entirely work either but I'm sure Niamh's second part of the night was still a lot worse than mine. I subsequently felt rather guilty as I closed the door behind me at the beginning of Saturday's run. I usually scoff at people who call running a selfish pursuit. It is a stupid thing to say, solitary does not equate selfish, but on this occasion I admit it, leaving Niamh behind with 4 children was a selfish thing to do; I really wanted to get my run in and was prepared to put my own needs first.

Anyway, selfish pursuit or not, I was soon absorbed in the effort. The next cold snap had arrived, there was snow in the fields and ice on the road and I had to be really careful, there were some seriously icy stretches and I decided that the Caragh Lake loop was out and the road to Killorglin the only sensible option. It was still borderline (read: I should not have run, really). I did three loops of the Killorglin/Rangue road, 5 miles each, and during the second loop the sun finally rose and conditions improved markedly, apart from one or two shady spots but by the third loop I had figured out the best line through the ice. Very much unlike the previous 20-mile run on St. Stephen's Day, I felt very good throughout and was still in fine form when I got home to find a surprisingly peaceful home; the children were all playing nicely with each other and Niamh was getting her much-needed rest after all. The rest of the day was a bit hectic, having to take on Niamh's duties in addition to my own, but I was glad to be able to make up for my earlier absence. Cian even had the cheek to say that Mummy should be sick more often, it's fun to be around Daddy all day.

I was a bit worried about the third part of the weekend program. Two weeks ago the first two days had gone well but the third knocked me out for the rest of the week and I did not fancy a repeat. The quads felt a bit heavy as soon as I got up, but at least Niamh felt much, much better again after sleeping significant amounts of the previous 24 hours, avoiding another guilt trip. It had been raining overnight and subsequently the road was covered in black ice, very dodgy, keeping me away from the Caragh Lake hills once more, or maybe that's just an excuse. I ran the Cromane Loop instead, adding a few miles at the end to make up 15 miles. During the first half I caught myself again and again running far too fast, doing close to 7:00 pace at times but each time I slowed down I soon found myself speeding up again as soon as the mind started wandering. This only stopped when I started getting tired during the last few miles. After countless miles on icy surfaces over the last few weeks today I finally slipped and fell as I was going through a junction turning right. I did bang my right knee, the dodgy one and it was a bit painful over the next few miles but I don't think there was any harm done. The right calf felt a bit tight at times and the quads finally became heavy during the final miles but all in all this went very well.

As mentioned earlier on, the coach's prediction months ago had been 10 @ 7:13, 20 @ 7:54, 15 @ 7:54, and keep in mind that these are training paces, to be run without straining yourself and ensuring good recovery from day to day. Just as I am nearing the end of the base training phase I feel I have finally reached this level.

7 Jan

10 miles, 1:11:03, 7:06 pace, HR 152

8 Jan

20 miles, 2:38:26, 7:55 pace, HR 145

9 Jan

15+ miles, 1:57:17, 7:47 pace, HR 143

Weekly Mileage: 86