Oops I Did It Again

I used my weekend in Kerry to get a couple of nice runs in.

The first one, on Saturday, was an evaluation workout, back at the road where I used to do them before running laps in a Dublin Park. It was a very calm day - I felt a bit of headwind going both directions, so I guess it wasn't really wind. The workout was alright - getting the HR up to 160 was easier than it felt in Dublin, but that might have been because my pace was a tad slower than last time round. Basically, it felt a tad easier but it also was a tad slower. I presume I still had last week's marathon in the legs, despite the fact that the legs feel absolutely fine.

I awoke on Sunday to a gloriously sunny morning, so I ditched the usual long run and headed up into the mountains instead. It meant fewer miles but it still took close to 2 hours, and it definitely provided a new stimulus to the muscles. I was actually very pleased by how (relatively) easy the big long steep climbs felt. I did two climbs up to Windy Gap, once each from each side, and was tempted to do at least one more but decided that 2 climbs would be enough for a first outing.

Good call.

On Monday I was really surprised to feel a little bit of DOMS, but it wasn't particularly bad and I did my usual 10 miles, albeit at a slow, easy pace. However, throughout the day the aches got progressively worse and by evening I had long come round to the idea of doing an easy week. I had already planned on doing a bit of a mini-taper before Sunday's race but now I'm extending it from 3 to 5 days.

What I did was not set the alarm at all, and if I sleep in then I would ditch the run and get some much-needed sleep instead, but as it almost always happens I wake up early and go for a run after all. However, I left it at 4 miles, and very, very slow ones at that, but the pain in the quads is quite noticeable today, 2 days after the mountain run. Cassic DOMS. So now I find myself with rather achy legs, 5 days before an ultra.

Oops.

24 Mar

12 miles, 1:27:22, 7:16 pace, HR 147

   4 miles eval in 6:36, 6:39, 6:43, 6:50, 40 sec rest to 130

25 Mar

12+ miles, 1:50:05, 9:03 pace, HR 139

   Windy Gap x 2

26 Mar

10 miles, 1:25:30, 8:30 pace, HR 128

27 Mar

4+ miles, 37:17, 8:59 pace, HR 123

Recap

Why do I have that twinge in the Achilles? Is that my knee starting to hurt again? Why are the legs so heavy? Why are the shoulders so tense?

Because I'm in the middle of taper madness, that's why. Phantom pains all over the place.

And I do miss coffee. There's a little devil on my shoulder telling me that going off caffeine the week before a race doesn't make any difference whatsoever. And you know what? She may well be right. But it's become part of my race preparation these days and a lot of these things are more for the head than the body - which becomes all the more important the longer the race, and a 24 hours race is a damn long one.

Back in November, when I took my loudly complaining body back out onto the roads again, after taking a month off following a disastrous performance at the European champs in Albi, I was wondering if there was any point in trying to get back to international standard. I had been badly overtrained and I would be 47 years old by the time the next championships would come around, and I had serious doubts if I would be able to get back into that sort of shape.

Thanks to MC and his invaluable help, things progressed much better than I could have hoped for. I was still in fairly awful shape around Christmas but then things really took off and my form numbers just shot up like a rocket for several months. It was the biggest improvement in form I had ever seen, and it lasted until late April.

Then I ran the Longford Canal ultra, which went very well, and - unwisely - did a workout 6 days later. The workout itself seemed to go exceptionally well; it was the first time ever I had managed to surprise the coach with my numbers. But the next day my knee was hurting and things went downhill after that. Within a short while my Achilles gave me troubles as well, and we diagnosed it as one of those things that require gentle movement rather than full rest to heal. The Achilles, like all tendons, heals slowly and it took close to 5 weeks to feel mostly back to normal, by which time my numbers had regressed significantly.

It's not all doom and gloom. Eventually they picked up rapidly again and right now I'm pretty happy with my form. It's not what it would have been without that injury, but injuries are part and parcel of running and I have been very lucky over the years to be able to train as consistently as I have.

This will definitely be the ultra race I go into the most rested, no big 100k efforts a few weeks out and no 3:05 marathons (or faster) in the buildup, and chances are my legs will thank me for it, but all will be revealed on Saturday (and Sunday!).

Now it's time to put up the legs, trying not to stress out about the fact that I can't find any of my number belts or that the new shoes that I had ordered 8 weeks ago and intended to wear for the race never arrived. These things will fade into nothing once the race starts, so just relax.

The last few days I just ran a few miles, trying to relax as much as possible and tune into ultra mode. By the looks of it I'm getting better at the shuffle rather quickly.

Bring it on!

26 Jun

5.4 miles, 46:56, 8:41 pace, HR 130

27 Jun

5 miles, 43:09, 8:37 pace, HR 132

28 Jun

4 miles, 35:31, 8:53 pace, HR 125

Frog In Boiling Water

When your weekend long run consists of 7 miles you know it's taper time!

When the coach told me last week to bin all workouts and keep the length of all runs to 7 miles I suspected that he merely took the lowest possible mileage he thought I would accept without revolting rather than base it on any physiological data. Anyway, I stuck to that.

7 easy miles on Monday home from work.

7 easy miles on Tuesday into work.

7 easy miles on Wednesday home from work.

7 easy miles on Thursday into work.

7 easy miles on Friday around some swanky parts of South Dublin.

On Saturday I was back home in Kerry. I was looking forward to running along the lake again but changed that and did one more heat adaptation run. Technically it was my only heat adaptation run this time round but with the high temperatures for the week before I think I must have gotten some adaptation from that as well. Anyway, after checking my own blog on how to do it I wrapped myself in 4 layers (long-sleeved shirt, cotton t-shirt, fleece jacket, running jacket), donned hat and gloves, and put myself onto the treadmill with the window closed and a podcast in my ear. I chose the treadmill as it's safer than the road when you're wrapped up like that and since I easily tend to overheat on the treadmill anyway it makes it practical for such a workout. I started out very easy and set the pace to 6 mph - 10 minute miles. That was as slow as I could go while still feeling comfortable, though I am aware that it's still faster than what I will be doing in Belfast next week. I soon got hot and I did 50 minutes of that, slowly steaming myself. The heat inside my layers rose steadily but almost imperceptibly. I found the HR graph afterward very interesting, rising almost linearly from below 100 at the start to 150 at the end, apart from one, er, technical glitch a few minutes in. I ran as easily as possible, the treadmill made sure the pace was completely constant, and I was never aware that the HR was rising at all.

I stepped off after 50 minutes, trying not to stress myself too much with a week to go to race day. The leg muscles probably didn't even know this had been a run at all.

Sunday was more conventional, 7 miles along the lake. Actually I had planned to run only 6 but sailed past the 3-mile point, my mind too far tuned out to realise, so I ended up with 7 out of pure habit. Again, I ran as easily as I could without feeling uncomfortable. It was a tad faster than on the treadmill but still slow enough to fall into some sort of shuffling style. I'll be doing a lot of that next week!

I'm not 100% sure what kind of shape I'm in when it comes to running for 24 hours, but the numbers sure look a lot better than before Albi. Back then the last run had been 10 beats higher for a similar pace as today, and the one before that had been 45 seconds per mile slower for a higher HR - I guess I'll gladly take today's numbers.

22 Jun

7 miles, 55:57, 8:00 pace, HR 141

23 Jun

7 miles, 55:06, 7:52 pace, HR 143

24 Jun

5 miles, 50:00, 10:00 pace, HR 126

   heat adaptation run

25 Jun

7 miles, 1:01:34, 8:47 pace, HR 129

Happy Solstice

APOD
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170621.html

For once, solstice actually seems to coincide with some proper summer weather here in Ireland, if you ignore the rain this morning, that is. We're getting some actual heat training done here, with the temperatures predicted to hit 28 degrees in Dublin today (20 in Kerry - ah well, I've left that behind), though when I was running home from work at 6 pm it definitely wasn't quite as got as that. The humidity made up for any shortfall, though. However, that's apparently the last of it, from tomorrow it's back to the usual grey skies. Sneaking a quick preview at the forecast for race day, in full knowledge that they haven't got a clue what the weather really will be like in 10 days' time, it will still be back to normal, clouds with the occasional rain shower. Actually, that would do me just fine.

Following last week's late hard push, this week is all about recovery, and a full one at that. The coach took one look at my recovery and cancelled any further workouts, including the taper workout for next week. I think that suits me fine because I messed up that very workout when I did it as a test before Cork, and I'd rather not go into Belfast with already fatigued legs. Since Albi I know what's it like to start a 24 hours run on already tired legs and I'd rather not repeat that experience.

So, it's all short and it's all easy running, a fairly radical taper. I haven't gone completely mad yet due to lack of exercise and endorphin withdrawal; at least I haven't noticed it yet.

19 Jun

7 miles, 56:26, 8:03 pace, HR 139

20 Jun

7 miles, 57:14, 8:10 pace, HR 135

21 Jun

7 miles, 56:56, 8:06 pace, HR 144

T Minus 6

And so we go into the last week before the Euros. To be honest, I think this training cycle has been a little bit too short for me. It took me a long time to shake off the worsts effect of Belfast. I suspect the concrete surface there has done a number on my leg muscles. The subsequent training was interrupted by a succession of little niggles, never anything serious but it all added up to the fact that I now feel undertrained.

I guess I'll put the theory to the test that you don't need much base training once you have accumulated a certain number of miles and years. It's very hard to predict what I'm capable of in Albi because the training has been so different to anything I've done before. When I look at my pace / heart rate numbers I get nervous because those numbers do look awful. On the other hand, running at 24 hour race pace feels very natural to me now, which has to count on something. With some input from the coach regarding pacing strategy and nutrition I might be able to squeeze some extra improvements out of me, so let's see.

I'm definitely looking forward to putting on the white top with red stripes again. It is an incredible honour to be picked to represent your country at international championships; this will never get old.

Obviously training is only ticking over now. Friday was remarkable inasmuch as it was the first run where I did not feel my knee at all. Unfortunately on Saturday morning I bent down to pet our dog and must have done the same thing to it once more because I've felt it again ever since, though at a much lesser degree. It does support my theory that I hurt it originally by bending down repeatedly in Tralee, but it also means that it is slow to heal and won't be 100% by Saturday. It is what it is; since running doesn't seem to aggravate it I just have to hope that the same will still hold when running for well over 100 miles.

Anyway, the knee held up just fine on Saturday, including when I did some strides, and it did not stop me from feeling really good on Sunday's 13 mile run. This was the first run in the entire training cycle where I felt like effortlessly floating along. A bit late it may be but that's not a bad state to get into one week before race day.

14 Oct

5+ miles, 47:35, 9:25 pace, HR 131

15 Oct

6 miles, 54:22, 9:03 pace, HR 136

   with strides

16 Oct

13 miles, 1:50:01, 8:27 pace, HR 143

Golden Oldies

First of all, massive congratulations to my mate Svein Tuft on yet another world championship medal, proving once more that age is just a number, not a limiter - something I am very keen to remind myself of from time to time.

Equally big congratulations go to Dave Brady on completing his 600th marathon. If you have run a handful of marathons in Ireland it is absolutely inevitable that you have run into Dave, who also happens to be an even better gentleman than runner.

Back on my home patch, training is tapering obviously. The knee has settled down well enough. It's gotten to the stage where I generally don't feel it any more but on a couple of occasions when running I can just about get the slightest hint of an issue and during my yoga class on Monday I found it impossible to sit on my knees (so I didn't). My yoga teacher thinks it could actually be the hamstrings rather than the knee itself, though I have no way to be certain. Anyway, I'm increasingly optimistic that it won't be an issue in Albi - apart from the interruption to my training.

The coach wants me to rest on Monday but since I hadn't done any training that would require resting from I decided to head out anyway. I took our new dog, a beautiful and very well behaved Labrador, out for a run but it turns out her stamina needs work - she got tired very quickly (and I was running exceptionally slowly even by my recent standards!) and was knackered when I brought her back home after just a mile.

Tuesday and Wednesday were very easy, and Thursday I did one last speed workout, 9 days from Albi, which is pretty standard stuff. The plan said 3 times 5 minutes at 10k effort, which is a mellow enough workout, the biggest problem being not having a clue what my 10k pace is at the moment. I settled at 6:30-6:40 pace, but then again I ran the workout entirely on feel rather than looking at the watch, so I'm not sure why I even bothered to think about the pace beforehand.

The most important thing is, the knee behaved fine throughout. I very slightly felt it on two occasions but that's it, and I'm happy about that. The other details are that I ran 6:53 / 6:34 / 6:42 pace respectively. That's rather uneven pacing but my reasoning is that the first one is almost always slow as I'm still warming up (despite running over 3 miles of actual warm-up in this case) and the third one contained a 180-degree turn, which inevitably slowed me down. Or maybe that's just an excuse. It doesn't matter, training is done now and all that's left is wait until race day arrives (well, that and preparing mentally and finalising the race plan and actually getting myself to France ...)

10 Oct

3+ miles, 31:54, 9:58 pace, HR 127

11 Oct

7 miles, 1:06:30, 9:30 pace, HR 137

   with strides

12 Oct

4 miles, 38:28, 9:30 pace, HR 132

13 Oct

8 miles, 1:04:08, 8:01 pace, HR 151

   3 x 5 min @ 6:52, 6:34, 6:42

The Long Weekend

In normal times, a long weekend for me would signify a long run. Not now. This is taper time and like virtually every runner I hate taper time. The long weekend means waiting for the hours to pass, not really knowing what to do with myself. The options are limited as I'm supposed to get as much rest and recovery as possible. With my dodgy knee enforcing an extra long taper this is even worse than usual; I feel tapered already but I've still go another two weeks of this ahead of me.

I also hate the break in the Premier League schedule. This might be really weird for someone presently preparing for an international competition to say but I hate international football, with all the ugly nationalism that it can produce; I have seen some pretty ugly scenes in my time in England and heard otherwise rational and perfectly balanced people making some hair raising statements; going to a club match I never saw any of that nonsense, one visit to Millwall being the notable exception.

Anyway, while I'm whiling away the time I take a look at my schedule and scratching my head why the coach put on a rest day for tomorrow. I haven't done anything recently that would require a rest day! I can't even ask her because she herself is off-grid on a running camp!

I'm really watching my food intake now; I have completely gone off processed sugar once more, which is a highly effective way to shed some pounds without impacting on training and I'm down about 3 pounds already. Another 2 or 3 before Albi would be good, that would put me down to what I regard as my ideal racing weight, below 145 pounds / 65.5 kg / 10st5.

On the short occasions when I'm out running I marvel how natural 9:30 pace has started to feel. I can't even tell if that's a good thing or not. Should I be happy that I am used to running at the pace I will try and hold for many, many hours in Albi, or should I be worried that my natural pace has deteriorated by 2 minutes? I guess I'll find out in France. In the meantime I keep shuffling along, maybe squeeze in one more workout, and mentally steel myself for running in circle for a whole day and night in the company of Europe's best ultra runners.

The knee, you ask? That's 98% fine. I can feel it on the downhills but that's it.

7 Oct

6 miles, 56:25, 9:24 pace, HR 129

8 Oct

5+ miles, 47:25, 9:23 pace, HR 131

9 Oct

10 miles, 1:33:12, 9:19 pace, HR 133

Getting Over It

Whatever I did to my knee, by last Friday it was already a lot better. To be honest, left to my own devices I would have tried running through it but the coach wasn't having any of that and cut the training right back, which, to be honest, makes a lot more sense so close to the Euros.

Running does not seem to aggravate the knee. However, as it turns out, sitting in a car for 4 hours, driving to Dublin, did. I was feeling rather stiff again on Saturday, and the journey home on Sunday evening wasn't exactly great for it either, so by Monday morning I felt almost back to zero. However, it wasn't quite as bad and it improved markedly day by day. On Wednesday I felt courageous enough to do some strides, more to test the knee than anything else. The stiffness was clearly noticeable when running fast and even more pronounced when decelerating after the strides. But I did not feel any repercussions afterwards and by Thursday morning the only time I felt something slightly off was when running downhill.

I know of course that the issue was caused by running but strangely enough, running then did not seem to aggravate it, Sitting did, in the office chair and even more so in the car. What helped was compression and icing, which I probably should have started earlier rather than waiting for a week. By now this has 98% cleared up and I'd love the coach to put on some miles again in the training plan, though she has given me a bit of leeway anyway.

With the Euros in 2 weeks there isn't much training I can do at this stage, I know that. I am looking at it as a rather long taper and you never know, that might be a good thing anyway.

3 Oct

0

4 Oct

5+ miles, 49:24, 9:46 pace, HR 131

5 Oct

5+ miles, 48:48, 9:39 pace, HR 134

   with strides

6 Oct

4 miles, 38:35, 9:38 pace, HR 131

Tapering

As any runner knows, phantom pains are part of the tapering process. It just happens every time. A few weeks ago I did have some real discomforts, first from my left knee and then from my lower back but both have gone away (actually, the back is only 95% better) but this week I have felt some twinges in my right hip and my right shin and probably in some other bits as well - but I'm sure those are phantom pains without any real physical background.

I need to get my head sorted out. I have to ignore that some trained more than me and that I always could have done more. I have to focus on my strengths. The most important body part in a 24 hours race is not your legs, or heart or lungs, it's your brain, and mine seems to work well for that particular task.

I have generally been pretty calm with regards to this race; it has come round so quickly I barely noticed it was getting so close. I had Donadea and then the relay to worry about earlier this month, which didn't leave much time to worry about Belfast. But here we are, 2 sleeps to go. I had trouble falling asleep last night as thoughts of the race were doing their early rounds in my head but I did get an almost full allocation of sleep eventually, helped by the fact that I didn't have to get up until almost 7 o'clock - a veritable lie-in!

I've started gathering all the stuff I need to bring, mostly nutrition so far; proper packing will happen tonight and this really is about to get real!

Training this week was obviously just a case of ticking over. 4 miles on Monday, an hour on the treadmill wrapped in 4 layers on Tuesday for a last heat adaptation top-up, 5 on Wednesday and 3 on Thursday. Tomorrow I'll run another couple of miles if I wake up in time, none otherwise. I'll do half a day at work and then drive up North.

All running this week was really slow, practicing the ultra shuffle. It did take some getting used to, alright.

The weather forecast is cloudy with the odd light shower and little wind, which sounds pretty good. I don't think I'll need the heat adaptation. There won't be a repeat of the Bangor hurricane (mind, I handled that better than most so maybe I should have hoped for that) and no excuses.

And on Saturday we run.

http://athleticsni.org/News/Event-News/ENERGIA-24-HOUR-RACE,-VICTORIA-PARK,-BELFAST,-JUNE-2526.

20 Jun

4 miles, 37:17, 9:19 pace, HR 129

21 Jun

6.25 miles, 1:00:00, 9:35 pace, HR 133, heat adaptation, treadmill

22 Jun

5 miles, 42:46, 8:33 pace, HR 132

23 Jun

3 miles, 27:02, 9:01 pace, HR 131

Manchester Taper

Tapering. I have to be honest, I'm not a great fan of it. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that it gets the fatigue out of your system, but running no more than 5 miles a day in the last week and even taking a whole day off *gasp* is just not me.

On the other hand I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I used to go to Manchester several times a year, even if I usually only saw the area between Piccadilly and Maine Road, but I haven't been back to Eastlands since August 2003 when David Sommeil headed in a last-minute equaliser against newly-promoted Portsmouth (which was just about Sleepy's only positive contribution all season), and I'm looking forward to Saturday's match against West Brom just as much as I do to the marathon the following day. I can't believe I left it almost 13 years. That almost as bad as some of Un***d's bandwagon jumpers.

The magic number for the weekend is 3. 3 goals for City, sub-3 marathon for me. Let's see.

The standard in Manchester is just phenomenal. The 3:05 that was good enough for 4th place in Tralee would have been 651st in Manchester last year, and that's despite Manchester being only a couple of weeks before the London marathon! The only marathon I've ever done with a similar class field was Boston. Make no mistake, having so many quality runners on the road is a good thing and might help me (at least on a good day).

There is an online tracker, and a mobile version of the same.

Training this week is really just barely enough to keep me ticking over and doesn't deserve to be called that. 5 miles on Tuesday were followed by the same on Wednesday, though with a few fast strides towards the end. Thursday was off (I hated Thursday). Friday was barely a warm-up and in a few hours I'll hop into the car for Dublin and then the plane to Manchester, meeting up with one-man-running-club, ace photographer and fellow City fan Marty.

Here we go.

All the best to anyone running in Manchester, Rotterdam, Connemara or anywhere else for that matter!

5 Apr

5 miles, 40:27, 8:05 pace, HR 138

6 Apr

5 miles, 39:25, 7:53 pace, HR 143

7 Apr

0

8 Apr

3 miles, 24:57, 8:19 pace, HR 131

Another Last Workout

Calling Monday's run the last workout was a bit premature, I suppose. A lot of marathon plans have a workout 10 days before race days, and a lot of them seem to feature mile repeats on that day. Mine was no exception.

It said 5-6 mile repeats, no faster than 10-mile race pace. I happen to have run a 10-mile race not so long ago but truth to be told my legs are still not feeling all that great, not since Tralee, and I could still feel Monday's run, so I toned it down by 10 seconds per mile: the first one at 6:30, the rest at 6:20, and, as always, finish when you think you have one more repeat in you.

Conditions were nigh on perfect, if a little bit cold, though a 2-mile warm up followed by a few strides took care of that. The first repeat was more to get into it, though it was a tad slower than planned. No matter. The other ones were all around 6:20 pace; I had the effort tuned in pretty well and managed it even without checking the watch. After the fourth one I reckoned I had energy for 2 more and therefore decided that this would be the last one, though a quarter mile into it I came to the gradual realisation that I barely had that one in me, so I probably should have left it after four.

If you've ever done mile repeats you know that one mile can feel pretty damn long, even if you don't run them all-out.

It took a while to catch my breath again after that, wondering how I had managed 10 6:11 miles in a row last month, though for some reason Ballycotton always makes me run faster that what I would think possible.

This really was the last workout. The rest is just ticking over, with the odd mile at marathon pace, and if the weather cooperates I'll run on the Kerry Way over the weekend to get a little bit of much-needed strength into those calf muscles, though none of that will be even close to exhausting.

I'm still not sure what to expect in Manchester. Just let the legs recover a bit and I might feel a bit more optimistic. After all that's what the taper is supposed to be for!

29 Mar

5 miles, 41:54, 8:22 pace, HR 136

30 Mar

8 miles, 1:04:02, 8:00 pace, HR 140

31 Mar

9.5 miles, 1:11:41, 7:33 pace, HR 152

   incl. 5x1 miles @ 6:35, 6:21, 6:18, 6:17, 6:20

Taper Madness

On Monday my right ankle hurt.
On Tuesday my left knee hurt.
On Wednesday my left calf felt very tight
On Thursday my left hip hurt.
On Friday my right hip hurt.
On Saturday my left hip hurt.
On Sunday my calves are both tight, my right hip hurts and my hamstrings are feeling tight.

Goodness gracious me, I do hate tapering!

On Thursday I did yet another heat adaptation run. It was hard work but I could tell there was some progress being made, so I was pleased with it.

On Friday I intended to run 10 miles. I got up in time and got ready, only to decide at the very last minute to cut it down to 8. The Spartathlon was only a week away, which must have been on my mind I guess. That was when I mentally accepted that I was tapering, I guess but I had been taking it reasonably easy for a while already.

On Saturday I once again donned the 4 layers for my heat adaptation run. I can definitely tell that my body is adapting: my HR is lower, my pace is higher and the required effort level well down. Heat adaptation is supposed to last for about a week; I'll do one more just to keep it all topped up.

I went up to Windy Gap on Sunday morning. Ideally I would have swapped the weekend runs around
but I did not have time for a mountain run on Saturday, real life not taking a break just yet. The weather was pretty wild when I left home and on the first climb up to Treanmanagh I was wondering what it would be like once I approached the Gap but in actual fact it calmed down considerably over the next few miles and it was almost pleasant. I took it easy and ran most of it on autopilot. If I can run that brutal climb up to the Gap on autopilot I must be in good form, I guess. On the way back home my calves felt unreasonably tight but when I tried to work on them with The Stick afterwards I could not feel any sore points.

This was the last run resembling a workout, I suppose. In 3 days we're flying out to Athens and in 5 days ...

17 Sep

8 miles, 1:05:32, 8:11 pace, HR 155

   heat adaptation

18 Sep

8 miles, 1:05:05, 8:08 pace, HR 139

19 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:52, 8:06 pace, HR 150

   heat adaptation

20 Sep

10.7 miles, 1:39:46, 9:19 pace, HR 142

   Windy Gap

Mini Taper

I had a busy weekend so far. I registered for my 4 summer races, all of which will be used as training runs, for a combined mileage of 153.837 miles

Which, incidentally, almost exactly matches the length of the goal race they are going to prepare me for. It's a sign!

The other thing I did was going for 3 short and easy runs. Since I still don't have full confidence in my legs I thought I'd better do a mini-taper for Cork, 8-5-5 miles. This will hopefully leave me nicely rested for the task of running 26.2 miles at an unaccustomed pace (Christ, what have I let myself in for!).

The legs always felt a bit stiff and tired over the first mile, but they pretty much always do that so that's not really a cause for alarm. They always loosened up pretty quickly for the rest of the run. The faster miles from Thursday don't seem to have taxed me too much, so that's good. One thing the numbers showed me is that I am a lot less efficient at 7:20 pace, though that did not come as much of a surprise, seeing as I did not exactly spend a lot of time at that training pace. Sunday's run was bit faster because the legs felt really good and I had troubles keeping them at bay. I guess that's a good sign for Cork - they were raring to go at bit faster.

Let's hope the geriatric pacing duo that's supposed to take care of the 3:15 runners (combined age a whopping 94 years!!!) won't have too many troubles with the course. The weather forecast is pretty bad, though slightly improving as we're get closer to race day, so maybe we'll be spared the worst (the slower runners might not). Or else it will be just like 2010 again. Actually, there is now a yellow rain and wind warning on for Munster for teh duration of the race. We might be revisiting the miniature hurricane of 2010, alright.

Anyway, if you're going to run in Cork, come and say hello. Unfortunately I won't make it to the Expo this year (family life interfering) but I'll be there at the start, big promise!

29 May

8 miles, 1:04:58, 8:07 pace, HR 138

30 May

5 miles, 41:44, 8:20 pace, HR 137

31 May

5 miles, 39:24, 7:52 pace, HR 143

Training And Recovery

It is just past 6 am on Friday morning and the Dingle pre-race nerves have truly taken over. I've been awake since 5 am, totally unable to sleep, thoughts of the race coursing through my mind. I very much doubt I will be able to sleep much tomorrow, so that's basically it.

Somehow, on an emotional level, I don't feel prepared because I haven't done much training over the last 7 weeks, even though rationally I know perfectly well that it's what I've done over the last 7 years that is much more important and will get me through the race. Anyway, I'm not even planning on racing this, this is a fun run and I am out to enjoy the 50 miler for the last time.

To alleviate my fears, I can look at my this:

This is a very simple graph where I plot the ratio of pace and HR. It ignores any other variables, including distance or temperature, which explains a few of the dips (usually long runs, where the HR tends to go up for the same pace as the miles are building up), but the general trend is obvious.  I wish I had such a nice upwards gradient every month! It clearly shows how recovery is progressing after I returned to running after Belfast. This graph is for the month of August and the early September figures are showing further progress.

My legs are fine.

The Dingle Ultra this Saturday will obviously have an impact on recovery. After that I have almost two months before the Dublin marathon, but since I am running that one as a pacer and not all-out, recovery will be significantly quicker.

Training this week has been fairly low-key, I ran up Windy Gap on Tuesday, a day earlier than usual to give me 3 easy days before Dingle. The rest was easy running and with a reduction in mileage since Wednesday. I've done this before and I'll be just fine - so why can't I sleep!

1 Sep

10 miles, 1:19:16, 7:55 pace, HR 135

2 Sep

10.8 miles, 1:33:20, 8:38 pace, HR 139, Windy Gap

3 Sep

7.5 miles, 58:35, 7:48 pace, HR 139

4 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:19, 7:54 pace, HR 137

Expectations

It must have been around 3 o'clock in the morning of the 2012 24-hours race in Bangor. I could see the rain coming in horizontally, the first lane of the track was completely flooded, I was more exhausted than I had ever been before, people kept running past me and I was barely a quarter into the race. It was probably the lowest I had ever felt. After months of preparation I had to face the fact that I sucked at ultra running and my greatest wish was that Niamh would all of a sudden turn up at the side of the track and get me home into a warm, dry, soft bed.

Of course, things didn't turn out that way. It wasn't Niamh who turned up at 3 am but Finn O'Mara and she kept encouraging me and joined the fun herself for the second 12 hours. My exhaustion eventually switched itself off after a few more rough hours and a few hours later I was running in second position, a place I would never relinquish even though an Irish international runner kept battling me for hours, and all of a sudden I had moved straight from no-hoper status right into the middle of the elite field. Unreal.

I was rather taken aback after the race when chatting to Eoin Keith, the Irish record holder, when he told me it would be interesting to see where I could go on now after that performance. I had just run the race of my life and all he wanted me to do was to go on and better it?

He was absolutely right, of course. That race had become history the second the horn had sounded and there is no point in resting on one's laurels. Can I push on? Can I better my performance? If so, by how much? Might I even achieve the IAAF standard?

During the first lap of the Donadea 50k, all the way back in February, Don Hannon (later this year the winner of the Wicklow Way Race) grabbed my arm and asked me if I was going to win the 24 hrs championship this year. Initially I just looked at him blankly until he explained that the European/World championships would take place only a few weeks before Belfast, possibly taking the entire Irish elite squad out of contention. This was news to me but I refused to get excited, which saved me from feeling disappointed when those championships were cancelled, allowing the full contingent of our elite runners to take part in Belfast and more importantly, to be at their best. I immediately came to the conclusion that I preferred things this way. A stacked field might inspire everyone on the track to up their game, including myself. I'd much rather come, say, fifth and reach my mileage goals than come second with a result that would leave me slightly embarrassed.

Besides, even had the top elites been taken out of the equation, there is always at least one runner who comes seemingly out of nowhere and races him or herself into contention. I should know. Two years ago that runner was me.

Two more sleeps / sleepless nights. I'm torn between fear and anticipation.

14 Jul

5+ miles, 44:20, 8:47 pace, HR 125

15 Jul

5 miles, 43:20, 8:40 pace, HR 128

16 Jul

5 miles, 43:45, 8:45 pace, HR 125

Tapering

I know I'm not the only runner who hates the taper. It goes completely against my nature and my running OCD isn't being properly satisfied. I can count down the days before the race to remind myself that this won't last long, but I'm still itching to go out and just run.

After Wednesday's tempo effort I did some recovery runs in the following days, much more recovery in fact than I am used to. I only ventured out for 5 miles on both Thursday and Friday, and at crawling pace. It didn't feel all that great on Thursday, it just felt awkward and not properly running. I got much more into the groove on Friday when I managed to tune into that effort, in marked contrast to the previous day when I had to force myself to run slowly and had to consciously put the breaks on on far too many occasions. As a result, Friday's HR was a whopping 5 beats lower than Thursday's, even though the pace had be quicker!

The HR was higher up on Saturday again, but on that occasion I blame the very humid conditions. It wasn't particularly pleasant and I was absolutely drenched in sweat even with the low effort. I noticed a few reasonably local runners complaining about the humidity as well, so I clearly was not the only one.

I went up to Windy Gap on Sunday again, enjoying the views once more, even if the weather could have been better (mind, it could have been worse). I pushed the effort a bit on the final miles home, just to get the legs moving one last time. They won't be doing that again in a while!

The taper madness is definitely trying to take hold. Early during the week my left knee started hurting; phantom pains like that are just part of every taper and the less notice you take the better. One thing I did not imagine was a cough that developed midweek one evening and was followed by a headache the next day. I might have been fighting off some mild infection, who knows, but that is now gone as well. Better last week than the next week, I suppose.

The effort I ran on Friday was exactly what I am hoping to do in Belfast. If I can get into the groove early on like that, I will have a good race. Of course I am not expecting to run 8:45 pace in Belfast for 24 hours, but if I can start out at that effort, I know I can hold it for a very, very long time. I averaged 8:15 in Portumna for 100k and on a decent day 8:45 should therefore be maintainable for many hours. Mind, I'm not sure what running through the night will do to me this time round - it was by far the worst aspect of last year's race.

5 days to go. Time to start getting scared.

10 Jul

5+ miles, 44:46, 8:51 pace, HR 131

11 Jul

5 miles, 43:42, 8:44 pace, HR 126

12 Jul

8 miles, 1:09:26, 8:40 pace, HR 132

13 Jul

10.75 miles, 1:32:51, 8:38 pace, HR 144

   Windy Gap

Tick Tock

The countdown for Belfast has reached single digits. This is about to get real.

Like so many runners, I am never quite sure what amount of training would be appropriate during the taper. I used to do a fairly conservative taper with a big reduction in mileage, but I did notice a few funny things happening that way. For one, my best races always used to be tune-up races, hardly ever goal races. And last year I did manage to surprise myself on several occasions, most notably the 2:56 marathon I ran in Killarney last year after no taper at all; in fact, that had come at the end of a fairly tough week.

However, an ultra, especially a long ultra, may well be different and I am still left guessing. The choice was easy last week as I was recovering from the Waterford marathon, even though the legs never even felt like I had been running a marathon (or almost a marathon). This week is trickier, do I add a few workouts and if so, how many and what kind of workouts?

Following the (not universally accepted) idea that the taper should see a reduction in mileage but slight increase in intensity, I eventually decided that I would do a mountain run on the weekend and one faster run midweek.

The mountain run was one I have done many times before during this training cycle, twice up and down Windy Gap. I never once pressed the pace and recorded one of my slowest times on that route but was very pleased that I was able to run up the very steep ascent to the gap more or less entirely on autopilot. Not so long ago that run used to feel so tough that I thought it might kill me.

Two easy days followed and I did a tempo workout this morning, nine-and-a-half days out from race day. Many programs contain such a run to rev up the engine at this point of training, the 3x1 mile repeats I used to do when following the Pfitzinger/Douglas program being a prime example. After not doing any fast running for so long I did not quite feel up to mile repeats, so I settled for 2-mile repeats instead. I plugged a figure of 6:30-ish pace out of thin air, but in fact ended running almost entirely by fell, I checked the pace maybe once or twice early on each repeat and not at all after the first minute.

It felt like hard work at times but was perfectly doable and I never pushed too hard. One thing I noticed straight away when looking at the numbers afterwards was that my pace/HR ratio was well down, the VDOT number was significantly lower than any training runs I have done in weeks. I actually take this as a good sign, I'm much more efficient when running at a slow pace than at tempo pace, which is what I want to be for an ultra.

And now even the mellow taper-workouts are more or less complete. I'll do some very short and slow runs at ultra pace, one more mountain run, and not much more.

This really is it, training is done.

6 Jul

12+ miles, 1:50:42, 9:02 pace, HR 146, Windy Gap x 2

7 Jul

8 miles, 1:02:33, 7:49 pace, HR 135

8 Jul

8 miles, 1:04:34, 8:04 pace, HR 135

9 Jul

10 miles, 1:10:36. 7:04 pace, HR 157

   3 x 2 miles, 6:23 pace (HR 160), 6:26 (168), 6:29 (167), ~4 mins recovery

July Already!

Well, there certainly has been plenty of talk on the usual running websites about the Waterford marathon and its shortcomings. The organisers are keeping a rather low profile all of a sudden, which is a shame. In a way, I do feel sorry for them - they clearly put a lot of work into the organisation and got just about every little detail right, but obviously took their eye off the big things and forgot to get the single most important item right.

Personally, I was probably the least affected marathon runner of the field. I was only using this as a training run and I got exactly that. Another 2 minutes of running would not have made any difference. It still counts as a marathon in my list, but I sure am glad that it was not a PB run.

Recovery has been going remarkably well. Only 2 days after the marathon I could no longer tell by the feeling in the legs that I had run a marathon, it just felt like I usually do the day after a normal long run. As such I am reasonably confident that I did not do myself any harm by leaving my Belfast race out on the roads in Waterford by running too fast.

Which brings me to the next point. At the time of writing Belfast is only 17 days away. Usually I'd have been counting down the days for ages by now, becoming increasingly impatient like a little kid before Christmas. This year, however, I always kept focusing on the next training race and since they kept coming thick and fast there was always something big coming in the very near future. I was always either recovering from the previous run or getting ready for the next one, which left no opportunity for impatience.

By now I'm getting the details for Belfast sorted. I do have a crew and I do have a race plan. Last time I had great success with my strategy of walking 5 minutes every half hour right from the start. I thought long and hard about this but despite the staggering success this strategy has brought me, this time round I will try and run as much as possible and only revert to walking once I can no longer run. I am definitely taking a risk here, abandoning a highly successful strategy, but at the very least I want to see how the other plan will work out. I know I'm in great shape and capable of running for many hours without break, even if I don't know how things will differ when running through the night.

I guess I am officially tapering now, but since this week was always going to be reasonably easy after Saturday's marathon, that's hardly noticeable. I still need to get my head round it, no more 100 mile weeks, probably no more double days, what am I going to do all day? I might even start fixing things in the house (easy now!).

29 Jun

5 miles, 42:59, 8:36 pace, HR 131

30 Jun

5+ miles, 40:04, 7:56 pace, HR 134

1 Jul

5+ miles, 38:58, 7:43 pace, HR 139

Untapering

I used to very much believe in the taper before a race, and to some extend I still do. But I have come to the conclusion that there are exceptions to that rule. A taper does not guarantee a good race and you can have a very good race without being tapered. My 2:56 in Killarney after a heavy period of training last year was one such case in point, I really surprised myself that day. Since Connemara is not my goal race I decided not to disrupt my training for Belfast any more than necessary and because I've just had 2 easy weeks after Tralee I suspect I don't have a lot a fatigue in the legs left that would require tapering anyway.

Mind, I could certainly feel the two faster weekend runs in the legs on Monday and took it easy. I took it even easier on Tuesday when I ran only 8 miles instead of 10. I also seem to have recovered from that cold during those days, my chest feels perfectly clear again.

While you don't want to tire yourself out with a massive effort, four days before I race is usually a good day to perform one last decent workout. Like last week I went up into the clouds again, and with the drizzly rain you can take that literally. It was still dark when I left the house and I was unpleasantly surprised that light levels were still low when I reached the trail which required a rather cautious approach for the first couple of miles there. It was also the perfect opportunity to test the the Terraflies in tricky circumstances and was very happy to see them perform admirably, I never once slipped even on the steepest sections, be it on stone, grass or mud, neither uphill nor downhill. I did up the ante compared to last week by climbing up to Windy Gap twice but the overall effort was rather measured.

I have four days to recover from this before Connemara, which should hopefully do the trick, and even if it doesn't then I can find solace in the fact that it's not my main race. As you can tell I am going into the race with a rather relaxed mindset, which may well work in my favour, you never know. I'll find out, I guess.

31 Mar

10 miles, 1:18:06, 7:48 pace, HR 139

1 Apr

8 miles, 1:01:35, 7:41 pace, HR 137

2 Apr

12+ miles, 1:51:04, 9:04 pace, HR 141

   2 x Windy Gap

From Recovery Straight Into The Taper

The previous week was basically a recovery week for me following the Cork City marathon. In some ways it was the opposite of the aftermath of the Killarney marathon, instead of getting sick I was getting healthy again. I could see straight away that the HR values had returned to normal levels, exactly what I would expect to see so soon after a marathon basically. Great!

Since I ran a marathon that Monday and will be running a 50k on Saturday, I took it easy on the weekend, at least as far as running was concerned, and limited the “long” run to a mere 13 miles. What surprised me was the pace, I never intended to run faster than easy pace, maybe the bright sunshine inspired me. I kind of had to pay the price for that on Monday, though that may well have more to do with the fact that I spent the entire weekend working in the garden and was suitably knackered. It probably had more effect on me than the running.

Initially I had planned on doing another mountain run on Wednesday, but since Portumna will be on Saturday I moved it to Tuesday to give me an extra day of recovery. I think those mountain runs are the key workout of my week even though I take it reasonably easy on the trail, but if you’re running a 20% grade for over 10 minutes at a time, taking it easy is rather relative. I had not done a mountain run in 4 weeks and expected it to feel very tough but the legs must have remembered it and it felt much easier than anticipated.

Unfortunately the beautiful summer weather is a thing of the past, it was quite wet up there on the Gap and the wind is a given anyway (the name speaks for itself). On the plus side, it was quite nice out this morning, in marked contrast to the weather forecast, but I always forget that the weather forecast is for Dublin only, no matter that they pretend otherwise. The legs felt a bit heavy early on today but the spring returned within the first mile; I might still have to pay some dues to the mountain tomorrow. As long as the fatigue is gone by Saturday, that;s ok.

I will do a mini-taper for the next 2 days, maybe 8 tomorrow and 5 on Friday. With a 50k to come the weekly mileage will be decent enough anyway, no need to push things unnecessarily.

The 10in10 is getting scarily close! According to the munsterrunning blog, 20 participants have signed up for the full 10 marathons; apparently this is the biggest field anywhere in Europe to tackle this kind of challenge. Wow – history is being made!

9 Jun

13 miles, 1:34:55, 7:18 pace, HR 150

10 Jun

9 miles, 1:09:40, 7:44 pace, HR 137

11 Jun

12.3 miles, 1:50:30, 8:59 pace, HR 144
    mountain run, Windy Gap x 2

12 Jun

10 miles, 1:14:08, 7:25 pace, HR 144