Various Ailments

As you might know, I have four small children. The fact that they bring home a constant stream of germs from school/preschool comes with the territory. I had plenty of opportunity to test my immune system over the winter, but the usual outcome was that between 2 and 5 other family members became sick while I got away with a little bit of sore throat that went away after a day or two.

Therefore I was not particularly bothered by another sore throat on Sunday. Niamh and Lola had been coughing persistently for at least 10 days but no further symptoms. My throat felt worse than usual on Monday, but it was not until I started spitting blood on Tuesday morning that I took note. It may not have been much because a small amount of blood in a lot of mucus does look like a lot of blood, but it did freak me out. Trying hard not to panic, I decided that I still did not have any symptoms below the neck (my usual test) and went running.

The run went well, the HR was perfectly normal and this morning my throat was still sore but thankfully no further sign of blood. With less than 3 weeks to go to the marathon I was rather worried, but I think once more I managed to get away with it.

It was not the only ailment that has befallen me during this training cycle, but I kept most of them to myself. You know about the blown up knee at the start of December, but only the coach knew about my back pain a couple of months ago. I’ve had that before and I think it is not a running injury, but it can be very painful and it can affect my running as well as everyday life.

I also had a very sore left hip for a few weeks, it was either the gluteus medius or the gluteus minimus that was affected. It made the first half mile of each run rather awkward, but that too disappeared eventually, all by itself. The fact that it cleared up straight after I replaced my oldest pair of runners with a new one may or may not have been the solution.

Still, as the coach let me know in no uncertain terms, if in doubt always rest so today’s speed session was cancelled, to be replaced by yet another easy run. I did one thing though, I ran in extra layers with a jacket on top that had me steaming in my own sweat, to try and get some heat acclimatisation going. The temperature in Vienna at the moment is about 20C, and while that’s not very hot by any means it is about 15 degrees warmer than what I'm used to and I’d rather get prepared, just in case. It meant a very high heart rate today (I guess I should have run slower), my shirt was utterly soaked with sweat and I was over 2 pounds lighter than yesterday, but I felt fine. I would not have fancied running 26 miles like that, though.

With the throat returning back to normal and me calming down, we can get back to normal. Since I’m now in the taper phase there are no major workouts planned anyway.

28 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:48, 7:44 pace, HR 139

29 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:27, 7:41 pace, HR 141

30 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:37, 7:42 pace, HR 155
   Wrapped up in layers for heat acclimatisation

Volume Pickups

In previous training cycles I have often seen improvements at various times of training and stagnation at others. In fact, I have come to see this as normal. Training under Mystery Coach's guidance has been a revelation. Not only has my fitness already been better than ever after base training alone, the improvements have kept coming almost on a week-by-week basis.

Thursday and Friday were both easy days. The main issue was that Niamh and the girls took the train to Dublin on Friday morning and I had to drive them to Killarney, which meant either binning the run, shortening it or getting up at 5am.

I got up at 5am. Just like old times.

I was told once that if you get a babysitter for the sole purpose of going for a run, you're completely nuts. They may well have been right. I got a babysitter for both Saturday and Sunday. Yes, running is important to me.

Saturday's run was another one of what has become a routine run by now, 10 miles with 7 at 10 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace, though I have always tried to run by feel, not by pace. The coach's instructions contained two subtle changes, the target pace window got narrowed down from 6:25-6:35 to 6:25-6:30, and I was to try and switch to autopilot rather than pushing the pace.

I am not sure if the coach can predict workouts with incredible precision or if his subtle hints put subliminal messages into my brain that make me do the workout just like he said. This time, just like he said, I managed to switch to autopilot for basically all of the run and still hit the pace. In fact, since the last mile of the speedy part is slightly downhill I slipped out of the target pace window where I had remained for all of the previous miles, but I did not think it was a big deal. Besides, I knew that Sunday's second part of the back-to-back workout would leave me in no doubt. There is no hiding and no way of faking these workouts. If you don't get it right on Saturday you pay the price on Sunday.

Sunday was a new kind of workout altogether. It was originally scheduled for last week but the coach changed it as part of the re-adjustment to stop me from peaking too early. The idea was to alternate running half a mile in 3:12 (6:24 pace, obviously) with a mile at 7:00. There were two surprises: One, that the miles were the more important part of the workout, not the faster half miles. Two, that I should play around with the pace for the half miles, e.g. run the first half faster and the second half slower, or the other way round, or change pace every 200, or whatever I could think of. Just as long as it would not affect the miles.

I pondered where I should run; the Killorglin loop is reasonably flat but there are 3 little climbs and some of the half miles were bound to fall onto those. Eventually I realised the this would not hinder but in fact help alternating the speed and effort during the half miles, and was therefore better suited to that kind of workout than a completely flat course.

Once I got going I found that the pace was no problem whatsoever. What was a problem, one that I had not anticipated at all, was dealing with the constant change of rhythm. It took me half a mile to get into the 6:24 rhythm and as soon as I hit that I had to change pace to 7:00, which felt really awkward. Once I had gotten used to that it was soon time to switch pace again. The Garmin saw some heavy use, I checked it every minute or so and had to change pace a lot to keep within the parameters of the workout, but virtually every time I had to slow down rather than speed up.

After about 4 repeats I finally got used to it, which meant I could start running by feel a bit more, but it had the side effect that I got it wrong on a couple of occasions and a few of the paces were a bit out.

0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 157), 1 mile @ 7:01 (HR 153)
0.5 @ 6:18 pace (HR 163), 1 mile @ 6:58 (HR 152)
0.5 @ 6:23 pace (HR 162), 1 mile @ 7:01 (HR 156)
0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 167), 1 mile @ 6:53 (HR 162)
0.5 @ 6:25 pace (HR 167), 1 mile @ 6:49 (HR 159)
0.5 @ 6:24 pace (HR 160), 1 mile @ 6:52 (HR 155)
0.5 @ 6:22 pace (HR 165), 1 mile @ 6:55 (HR 163)

As instructed (twice!) I stopped after 7 repeats, but I felt like I could have run a lot more. I was not even tired yet, even with yesterday's run in the legs. Mentally this was doing my head in early on, but physically this was the easiest workout the coach has given me, ever.

24 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:36, 7:39 pace, HR 143

25 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:39, 7:39 pace, HR 140

26 Mar

10 miles, 1:05:53, 6:35 pace, HR 161
   incl. 7 miles at 6:24 pace, HR 164

27 Mar

15 miles, 1:42:44, 6:51 pace, HR 156
   Alternating 0.5 and one mile

Weekly Mileage: 72+ miles

Hill Repeats

Fear not, Ewen, I have no immediate plans of kicking this blog into touch just because of the existence of dailymiles, but you never know. One thing I like about dailymiles is that I finally found a use for my facebook account. I did not have to create a new account, just use my facebook one. As far as facebook itself is concerned, I'm still as baffled as ever about the point of it. I just don’t get it. Must be a (yet another) sign of old age.

Talking about old age, right now I can feel every one of my 41 years weighing heavily on me, due to this morning’s hill repeats. After two easy days on Monday and Tuesday, the first one an awkward stumble on heavy legs, the second one a beautiful effortless glide along the road (with a pace of 5 secs per mile faster and an HR of 4 bpm lower than the day before – figure that one out), it was once more time to get serious.

The coach offered me 2 options, either another set of 800s like last week or a set of 90 second hill repeats, depending on what I felt like. The second I read this I felt much more like hill repeats and the mood had not changed by 5:50 am this morning. This was 20 minutes earlier than usual, due to a certain 3-year old demanding food. She completely refused all offers of fruit or yoghurt until I gave in and made her breakfast. I don’t know why I even tried arguing. She’s so much better at arguing than me it really is no contest.

Anyway, after making sure she was fed and happy, I was off. After a long warm-up I approached the dirt road leading into Coillte Forest Park Caragh Lake, which is my standard hill repeats road. The coach had mentioned something about marathon pace or slightly slower, and within 30 seconds I had learned two more lessons.

One, when running up a road of (estimated) 8 percent gradient, you don’t do marathon pace. Slightly slower is what I should have aimed for.

Two, if I had chosen hill repeats over 800s in order to get the easier option, I had just been suckered into the wrong one. Again.

Partially due to me initially taking off like a lunatic, this turned into a 5x90 seconds of torture session. Well, I exaggerate, the first 30 seconds each were reasonable; it’s just the 60 seconds thereafter that formed the torture, enough to raise the HR from about 130 well into the 170s each time. Rest consisted of jogging down very slowly, which took about 2 minutes, apart from the third one when I stopped to get a stone out of my shoe that had started to dig into my heel. Maybe I should have left it there, just to provide a counter-pain to the quads that increasingly felt like being filled with battery acid.

I should learn to read the coach’s clues. When he says things like “Watch your legs on these because they can sneak up on you quickly leg fatigue wise”, he really means it.

Cycling into work with fried quads was another, unexpected, extension of the joys of today’s workout.

Actually, once the immediate session is over I quite like the feeling of sore legs. It tells me that I'm working hard enough to improve. Then again, that exactly used to be the very problem that caused me not to improve. It was running easily at all times during base training that caused me to improve this time round, but base training feels like a long time ago, right now.

Anyway, the taper is not far off.

21 Mar

8 miles, 1:02:18, 7:47 pace, HR 142

22 Mar

10 miles, 1:17:04, 7:42 pace, HR 139

23 Mar

9+ miles, 1:12:26, 7:55 pace, HR 144
    incl. 5x90 seconds hill repeats

Reverse Fatigue

Since we waited until Thursday to do the interval workout it was inevitable that I would not be fully recovered by the weekend so the coach binned the back-to-back workouts and told me to do a "normal" long run on Sunday instead.

Saturday was unchanged though, so I went out for 10 miles with 7 faster than MP. It was a nice sunny morning but with plenty of wind, which did not help. I made things worse by starting out too fast. You'd have thought that I should have learned to control Saturday's pace by now, but you'd be wrong. I paid the price for my stupidity towards the end of that run; not only could I feel the fast early pace but also each of Thursday's intervals, and I could not help but think that I really should have known better.

I had initially toyed with the idea of running my workout in Cork in the afternoon as I had over 2 hours there during the twins' classes, but was glad that I did not because it was a truly miserable afternoon with plenty of wind and heavy rain. Be grateful for small mercies, Thomas.

Well, I sure was grateful that I did not have to kill myself today. When I'm aiming for a certain pace I tend to run the reasonably flat loop through Killorglin but when I'm out for a plain old long run you can always find me on the very hilly loop around Caragh Lake. Climbing up almost 600 feet was very hard work, especially after the two hard runs over the last three days, but every time I glanced at the Garmin I saw that I was clipping along at a good pace. The HR, however, was really high, much higher then I would have expected from perceived effort alone. I guess it's down to fatigue from the past few days. I found it basically impossible to slow down; I ran the entire run on autopilot, and every time I tried to slow down I was back in the old groove as soon as I switched back to automatic.

The legs had been very heavy at the start of the run but felt better with every mile. It was like fatigue was working backwards today.

One loop is 16.5 miles; as I passed our driveway I wondered how much I should add on. Initially I had planned on doing 20 miles but with the high HR that seemed unwise, so I decided to do only 18. However, when I reached the turnaround point a little devil on my shoulder whispered seductively into my ear to go on for a wee bit longer. It did the same again on the turnaround point for mile 19, but this time I did not listen and turned around anyway, a last token effort towards sanity.

The high HR today was really abnormal. I felt better and better the longer I ran for and the effort level seemed to drop as the HR kept rising. I haven't seen this before, but after intervals on Thursday, faster than MP on Saturday and a long run on Sunday it does not take a genius to work out that I'm fatigued, no matter how good I'm feeling.

By the way, I've started logging my daily workouts here if you want to keep track, but since I've only just started, there is not much there yet. I'm toying with the idea of putting the entire training cycle up there, but that would take a lot of work so don't hold your breath.

19 Mar

10 miles, 1:06:34, 6:39 pace, HR 162
   incl. 7 miles @ 6:32 pace, HR 166

20 Mar

19 miles, 2:20:36, 7:24 pace, HR 154

Weekly Mileage: 75

Intervals

For the first time in the entire marathon training cycle, with just over 4 weeks to go before the marathon, the coach sent me out for a classic interval session.

Try 3-? X 800 starting on 5 minutes, (I'm thinking you should be able to run about 2:55 or so without straining) ... the workout will factor a lot of things in together (speed efficiency, recovery capacity, latent fatigue, fuel supply, etc)

I wasn’t too worried, for a start 5:50 pace seemed reasonable enough after the pace I had run in Ballycotton, and three intervals were never going to kill me, though I knew I was going to do more than 3.

It had been raining overnight but it cleared just in time for my run. In marked contrast to previous days it was overcast and a little bit gloomy looking. Maybe that’s why my heart was not really into it as I set off. I did not feel like torturing myself today. Turns out, I did not have to.

Repeats were half a mile each. The odd numbers against the wind, the even numbers with it, but there was very little wind, just enough to notice it when you're trying to run at interval pace against it.

#1: 2:57, avg HR 164, max HR 170, ~80 seconds jog recovery to 130
#2: 2:52, avg HR 167, max HR 173, ~80 seconds jog recovery to 130
#3: 2:54, avg HR 169, max HR 177, ~60 seconds walk recovery to 130
#4: 2:53, avg HR 169, max HR 176, ~55 seconds walk recovery to 130
#5: 2:55, avg HR 171, max HR 177, ~55 seconds walk recovery to 130
#6: 2:52, avg HR 168, max HR 176, ~52 seconds walk recovery to 130
#7: 2:55, avg HR 170, max HR 177, ~55 seconds walk recovery to 130

I was never even close to a maximum effort, every single repeat could have been done faster. The one thing that worried me was the long time for the HR to drop back to 130, which is why I switched from jogging to walking recoveries (walking until the HR reached 130, jogging thereafter).

While never exactly comfortable, I always felt in total control. Neither the pace nor the HR suffered during the later repeats and the one reason I stopped at 7 is that I started to worry about the weekend. The seventh repeat felt pretty much the same as the first.

I think this was the first time I ran an interval session the way it’s meant to be run. There was no need for HOK or dry heaves at the end and I stopped before I had run myself into exhaustion. I’ve never walked away from an interval session feeling good before. Good stuff!


And the coach’s verdict?

no doubt you're in great shape

It feels good to read that, believe you me!

The Glenbeigh St.Partick’s Day parade was mercifully short, which was welcome especially by Cian who was just about to reach his whining threshold as we got to the end, but they all agreed that the bag of sweeties at the end made the entire effort worthwhile. Lola ran one full mile later that day. That’s my girl!

17 Mar

8 miles, 58:00, 7:15 pace, HR 155
8x800+: 2:57, 52, 54, 53, 55, 52, 55, (2:54 avg) felt good, great stuff

18 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:20, 7:38 pace, HR 141

Easy Running

Roberto, taking time from running a sub-2:40 marathon, had a perfectly valid point:

I am quite puzzled by how fast your run your "Easy" run... Because let's say that the general rule would be recovery-easy run: max 75% HRmax

75% of my HRmax of about 190 would be 142 and if you look at the two runs Roberto was talking about, the HRs were 145 and 147 respectively. I guess it’s mostly a sign that I started getting impatient with plodding along after 5 consecutive days of easy running following the Ballycotton race. If you look at the HRs of the 3 previous easy runs, you get HRs of 139, 140 and 140, well within Roberto’s range. He definitely has a point, though. I believe that running the easy runs too hard is the single most common mistake runners make, and I sure have been guilty often enough myself. Having said that, the coach seems to be fine with it. At the start of base training he kept telling me to run slower but he has not brought it up again in the couple of months since.

After the epic weekend training I felt surprisingly sprightly on Monday. I particularly noticed this on Monday afternoon when I realised that my hips and glutes were very slightly sore but the quads, which almost always are by far the worst affected part, were absolutely fine. Those magic ice baths are working, I’m telling you (I should tell Niamh as well).

Of course the running since then has been all easy, and incidentally within Roberto’s parameters, not that I tried specifically to stay there. Monday was very easy, but Tuesday’s numbers had me do a double take. The combination of low HR (141) and fast pace (7:28) was new, and running had never seemed so easy, floating effortlessly over the pavement at sub-7:30 pace. The coach, however, was significantly less enthusiastic and immediately sounded a warning. That kind of feeling is dangerous; it may well be a good sign but it’s very early, we are still over 4 weeks away from the marathon, and there is a danger of me being worn out come race day.

As a result, he is monitoring my pace and HR figures very closely and will decide on the next training accordingly. This is where training becomes a black art to me. I think I have understood most of it so far, from base training to preliminary speed work, but were I left to my own devices at this point in time I would not have a clue on the best way forward.

Good thing I have the coach advising me, then.

14 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:35, 7:57 pace, HR 136

15 Mar

10 miles, 1:14:44, 7:28 pace, HR 141

16 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:44, 7:40 pace, HR 142

Back to Back-to-Back

Following the glory of Sunday's race it was time to knuckle down and get serious about training again. Marathon running isn't all about glitz and glamour, you know, at times you have to do some work.

The coach had prescribed 5 full days of easy running after Ballycotton, almost certainly more than I would have done on my own accord but definitely needed, seeing as the last remnant of soreness did not disappear until Thursday. By Friday I felt good again and started itching for faster work. I did not have to wait long.

Five weeks before the marathon is a rather crucial time, the taper is not far away but some of the toughest training workouts are yet to be done. The coach had devised the next back-to-back session, the hardest one so far.

Saturday was 7 miles at 10 seconds per mile faster than marathon pace, but as always the coach gave me a window to aim for, 6:25-6:35, rather than a sharp time target, with clear instructions not to run any faster.

As it turned out, running faster was not on my mind anyway. I had done an identical Saturday run three weeks ago but had run just a tad too hard. I tried to avoid making the same mistake again and kept myself in check at all times. The weather was not great, it was icy cold and raining; higher grounds got snow, we just got freezing rain but if you're running at 6:30 pace keeping warm is not a problem. Luckily it was not windy, which actually made for decent conditions.

I was quite pleased to see that the pace matched the previous workout but the effort level was a good bit easier. I felt in full control at all times and even though I got rather tired towards the end I always knew I would finish with plenty spare.

Another ice bath followed in hope to revive the legs sufficiently for Sunday's run, but that did not work as well as hoped for. The legs were rather sore when I went to bed and I was not looking forward to Sunday.

Sunday surprised me with beautiful sunshine, very little wind and temperatures around 8 degrees, pretty much perfect. I would not be able to use the conditions as an excuse for a sub-par performance.

The plan was to run 10 easy miles at 7:35 pace, followed by 8-10 miles at marathon effort, 6:40 pace. The ominous bit was the coach's warming about the last few miles feeling like the last miles of a marathon. Normally he sets me a maximum heart rate, this time he told me not to be surprised if I needed to raise the HR up to 175 to stay on pace. This was going to be tough.

10 easy and 10 fast miles has been a key workout in previous marathon builds, but I always ran it well rested, not after a tough Saturday. I started out with already tired legs and rather worried about the second half.

Usually I do not even bother with bringing water on my long runs, but I went completely the other way today. Two gels in my pocket were complemented by a bottle of sports drink, which I stashed by the road side. I ran 3 loops through Killorglin, which enabled me to pick up the drink on my way.

The first 10 miles were a tad on the fast side, but not by much. I kept myself well in check and found a groove that brought me through 10 miles on autopilot. There are 3 little climbs on each loop and I was really questioning how I would feel like on these later on.

10 miles came and went, and as soon as I upped the effort I knew I was way out of my depth. There is no way I would want to feel like that on mile 16 of a marathon with 10 miles yet to come. I came up with a whole list of excuses, the best one being that Ballycotton was still in my legs. But before I had to use them, I had to at least try and get as far as I could.

I just ran step-by-step, minute-by-minute, not thinking too far ahead. I was bang on pace for the first 2 miles but then I turned into the wind and two of the aforementioned climbs followed and by the time I was going through town for the third and final time I was behind, 6:43 pace. Luckily I knew that the wind would be at my back for a couple of miles, but I tried not to look at the Garmin too much, run purely by feel and relax as much as possible.

I would have been perfectly content to keep the pace at that, after all that's still sub-3. But I rather surprised myself by slowly catching up again. I started to suffer at the last climb, doing my moaning with each breath and fully expecting to be falling off pace, but the hill passed by, I was back on pace and all of a sudden I realised that there were only three more miles to go and that I would be able to finish this after all and not need to use my excuses after all.

The HR never reached the high levels I had been warned about, barely touching 170 even when the going was tough.

Mind, I was rather glad to be done. Another ice bath followed. Niamh declined to join me but found the whole spectacle highly amusing as I was moaning my way through 10 minutes of being tortured and cursing the coach. She came up with a string of very helpful suggestions, from “you do not HAVE to do this, you know” to “are you sure this is going to help anyway?”. Thanks honey!

There is no way I would have gone through today's workout had the coach not shown confidence in me hitting the targets. I would have pulled out way early, bemoaning the fact that I'm unable to do the required work. It shows yet another advantage of being coached. Not only did he draw up a schedule, he is also able to actually make me do it.

10 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:58, 7:42 pace, HR 145

11 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:40, 7:40 pace, HR 147

12 Mar

10 miles, 1:06:27, 6:39 pace, HR 161
   incl. 7 miles @ 6:29 pace, HR 164

13 Mar

20 miles, 2:21:39, 7:05 pace, HR 154
   10 miles @ 7:31 pace, avg. HR 146,
   10 miles @ 6:38 pace, avg. HR 164

Weekly Mileage: 76

Race Reflections

Before I get sued, let’s rectify one mistake in my race report. Gary has pointed out that he has already run a 2:48 marathon and has a more ambitious target for later this year (I vaguely remember something about a 2:42 marathon?). All the more reason to confirm that he is out of my league, of course (though I’m used to being out of my league, generally. I'm married to Niamh after all).

I found a good few photos of myself (plus a great one of Grellan), thanks to Paudie Birmingham, Andy Gibson, Gearoid O'Laoi and Evin.



As for what this result means for the marathon, I’ll let myself be surprised. In the past I always had to add at least 5 minutes to MacMillan’s predictions, but maybe Mystery Coach can put an end to that. Even so, things are looking good for a sub-3. I know there are plenty of signs that point to an even faster race, but I don’t want to get my hopes up too high. Thing is, if you’re in 2:55 shape you can have a bad race and still break 3 hours, and I'm still going to be happy with anything that starts with a 2.

My legs were not very sore, but what soreness there was is very slow to clear. There is still a sore spot in my left quads that’s very reluctant to budge. Must be old age.

Accordingly, there is very little to report on the running front, I took it easy every day since Sunday and I'm going to take it easy for 2 more days. Training under the coach’s guidance isn’t all about hard work. In fact, it seems to be more about recovery than anything else.

Actually, putting my time and age into the WMA calculator gives me a rating of 75.78 and the equivalent time of 58:34 for a younger man! I did not even realise that I'm so old already that the calculator makes such a difference.

Mind, I did finish 3 places behind Pat O’Shea from Caherciveen, aged 60. He is a former 2:2x marathon runner. No matter what I do, I have never finished ahead of him in any race we’ve both done and there have been quite a few. He’s always just that little bit faster than me and nothing seems to have changed in that regard.

On the way home I did philosophise about always wanting to run a bit faster, no matter what. Running sub-62 over 10 miles was completely out of question until Sunday. Now I’m ruing the fact that I’m so far away from breaking the hour mark, and that the top 100 finish is still as far off as ever. It’s all relative, of course. Jason Reid, who finished in 20th position, is just as rueful about the gap to the top 10 as I am with regards to the top 100. And if we kept following that thought we’d probably kept finding runners that want to go just that little bit faster until we arrive at Kenenisa Bekele.

7 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:32, 7:55 pace, HR 139

8 Mar

8 miles, 1:02:02, 7:45 pace, HR 140

9 Mar

10 miles, 1:18:26, 7:51 pace, HR 140

Personal Bests

I had absolutely no idea what today’s race had in store. I have not raced since September 4th , more than half a year ago (I have done races at less than race pace since), and that was an ultra. The last time I raced a “fast” race was back in July. I haven’t done any speedwork in the classical sense under Mystery Coach’s guidance. I was not tapered. Ballycotton is not a particularly fast course. Even though training had been going very well, had I been mad to even mention the hope for a PB prior to the race?

I arrived at Grellan’s place at 10:30, we picked up his neighbour Pat and the 3 of us arrived in Ballycotton in good time. Pat was sick and overdosed on various medicines as we were driving (good thing he was not called up for a doping test), Grellan was running this for fun, and I was the only one with high hopes. Grellan also intended to run this in his Vibram Five Finger shoes, which prompted the clear instruction to stay as far away from me as possible. I mean, who wants to admit he knows that langer with the Gorilla Feet?

Sitting around freezing an hour before the start is part of the Ballycotton experience, as is meeting plenty of friends, but I was glad when it was time to strip down to the vest and start warming up. This was my fourth Ballycotton in a row and so far I have always gotten stuck in the field at the start. To avoid this I resolved to be at the start line half an hour beforehand. This might sound extreme at any other race, on the very narrow street of Ballycotton with 3000 runners it is a necessity.

I was just a few minutes late, enough to have to fight my way to the front, but for the first time ever here I got where I wanted to.

It took me just 8 seconds to cross the line after the signal had sounded and for once I was not stuck behind hundreds of slower runners who had started ridiculously far forward. I got it spot on, virtually everyone around me set off at the same pace and for the first time ever I could take advantage of the first downhill mile instead of weaving my way around. I took it easy; I could have run much faster but I knew how fast you go with the immediate rush of adrenaline. Running a 6-minute mile at the start of a race feels like jogging when the same in training would have you almost keel over with the effort.

Mile 1: 6:02, Mile 2: 6:05

Halfway through the second mile the road flattens out and for the next 6 miles it is as flat as it gets in this part of the world. There are plenty of tiny drags up and down but nothing you’d notice were you not running flat out. One thing I did notice was that after less than 2 miles I started overtaking people by the bucket load. Most runners start too fast. This makes racing a lot more fun if you pace yourself correctly.

Mile 3: 6:09, Mile 4: 6:12

After about 3 miles I passed Pat, who looked a lot less sick than an hour or two earlier. The timer there read about 18:25 and I knew I was flying, especially since this was gun time, obviously. I also felt I was running well within myself and was optimistic I would be able to keep the effort going until the end. John D became a victim another mile later. I always know I have an excellent race if I’m passing him, normally I have no business beating sub-3 marathon runners.

Mile 5: 6:13

I think the timer at the halfway mark showed 30:25 as I passed it, but looking at the numbers from my Garmin now it says 30:42. That’s still a personal best for 5 miles, even considering that the course up to here had been net downhill. I was still overtaking people. I think one runner passed me here, the first one since just after the start, but I caught him back later on. That’s where I started to falter. Luckily I remembered the gel in my pocket. I took it and within half a mile I felt a big boost. Maybe it was all in my head, but even that would be good enough for me. Whatever works!

Mile 6: 6:16

There was a line at the 10 k mark but no timer and I did not want to mess around with buttons at the Garmin at the time, but I did see an average pace of 6:09, which confirmed that this was a new personal best for 10k. Looking at the Garmin now, the time was 38:18. I had no idea I could run so fast over 10k and still have the legs for more!

Mile 7: 6:06, Mile 8: 6:10

The next 2 miles were the best ones as far as effort is concerned. By now I was really hurting but I tried to do a Yuki and ran as fast as I could, even with my face distorted into a painful grimace. I just hope for everyone’s sake that there are no photos of me from that stretch, it would not be pretty. But the pace was a fast as I could possibly go and I gained yet another few positions.

I knew that last year a time of about 61:40 was enough to earn a top-100 finisher shirt. I had very faint hopes of reaching that time but around here I realised that this was just out of reach, considering the uphill finish was yet to come. As it turns out, the cut-off time for top 100 was 59:38 this year, the fastest in a long time I’m sure and a sign of the absolutely perfect conditions today. Top 100 was never even remotely on the cards for me.

8.5 mile was where the climb started. I started suffering immediately and promptly lost 2 places, one to a guy in grey and one in blue. I’m not a strong climber, never have been and probably never will be. But the steepest bit does not last long and everything from there on is much more manageable. So much so that I passed the grey shirt again and pulled level with the blue one. Together we made up another few places.

Mile 9: 6:19, Mile 10: 6:03

The final mile is still uphill, but very gradual. Everyone around me seemed to have one spot where they were recognised and fired on by name, and with about half a mile to go my own cheering corner came, which gave me a big boost. Thanks, Nora! I tried to up the effort once more, but lost one place when Gary stormed past me at incredible speed (he’s aiming for a 2:46 or 2:48 marathon this year. That’s out of my league), a flash in black. With about 400 to go I put everything that was left into it. I passed 2 more runners (I’ve never passed so many runners at the end of any race), the only one that managed to hold me off was the guy in blue and I finished right behind him, with Gary another place ahead. The clock was still under 62 minutes, which meant I had just improved my personal best at the distance by over a full minute! (The quoted figures are Garmin miles. There were still 14 second left to cross the line at the end)

Provisional results are here.

To say I was immensely pleased does not even half describe it! My old 10 mile PB had been my best ever race, according to MacMillan’s calculator, and to vaporise it like that is just out of this world! According to the calculator, today’s chip time of 61:51 is the equivalent of 2:53:14! While I have learned to take this with a pinch of salt, it sure bodes well for a sub-3 marathon 6 weeks from now.

3 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:16, 7:39 pace, HR 142

4 Mar

10 miles, 1:18:58, 7:54 pace, HR 137

5 Mar

7 miles, 51:53, 7:25 pace, HR 147

6 Mar

14.5 miles, including:
   Ballycotton 10 miles, 1:01:51, 6:11 pace, HR 175, 145th overall
   Personal Bests over 5 miles, 10k and 10 miles

Weekly Mileage: 70+

Volume Speed

By Monday I had figured out what had knocked me sideways during Sunday’s run. It was not fatigue, it was not the cold, it was the medicine. After a really rough first half of the night after taking the medicine one more time, I slept soundly once the effects had worn off and when I stopped taking it, I suddenly felt so much better, it was a complete transformation.

I guess the lesson is not to take medicine for the first time as you’re about to go for a long run. Who would have thought! I really have to stop doing daft things like that at some stage, but I know I’ve said that before.

Anyway, I felt really good on Monday and was immensely pleased to see the pace/HR numbers come down significantly. I initially worried about having run too fast but the low HR and the fact that I was feeling great allayed my worries. I could have run repeats on Tuesday but decided to play it safe and did another easy run that day. The repeats were pushed to Wednesday.

"Two to Four repeats 1.5 mile to 2 miles in length with 1 mile at 7:15 pace between. The paces for the fast segments try 6:30 for the first then 6:20 and maybe 6:10, if you do 1 more try for another 6:10."

I only really read 6:30 and 6:20, knew I could do that and did not worry about the rest. As a result, I did not wake up to the dreaded thought of “Oh no, speed work!”, just a vague Fear of the Unknown. Ignorance is bliss.

I ran back and forwards on the last mile of the Caragh Lake road towards the Red Fox Inn. It’s not entirely flat, but it’s as flat as an entire mile gets around here, really.

The first repeat caught me out slightly by the fact that the required effort was a bit harder than anticipated. I had run that pace during a tempo run last week and must have forgotten what it felt like. But I managed just fine.

The “recovery” at 7:15 pace meant there was no hanging around. That’s pretty much the pace of most of my recent marathons. It’s not what I would call recovery. I had missed that bit in my initial assessment but reality caught up straight away.
The second repeat was ok but for the fact that I lost concentration after the turnaround and the pace suffered a bit. I could have caught up but decided against it. In the end, I was only out by a couple of seconds.

As soon as I took the first step of the third repeat, I knew I was in trouble. Not only was this the pace of my 10k PB, I had already run 8 miles at that point and was tired even at the very start. What got me through was the thought of my new hero, Yuki Kawauchi. Cheesy as it sounds, the vision of his pained grimace kept me going. The coach had told me to mind my breathing and if it got too ragged I should back off, but it was mainly the legs that were the limiters. The second mile especially felt like I was running all out, deeply in pain, wondering who on Earth would dream up a torture session like that and just how long 2 miles can be. For most of it I did not think I would make it to the end, but eventually I did. Thank you, Yuki.

The first thing that went straight out of the window at that point was the 7:15 “recovery” (haha) pace, I just staggered for the first quarter of a mile until I felt better. I really did not think I would be able to run that pace again, but one mile later had recovered sufficiently (and the memory of the pain must have dissipated already) to give it another go.

“I’ll just do half a mile”. Surprisingly enough, I was bang on pace after half a mile, so I added another half mile. What really surprised me was the fact that my pain threshold seemed to have been re-set slightly, the pace that had felt like pure hell a few minutes earlier now seemed just a tad more tolerable and I was running slightly more relaxed. I was still almost on pace at the 1-mile turnaround point and decided to give it one more half mile. The coach had clearly stated that the repeats were 1.5-2 miles, so I would not even be cutting the repeat short. What sustained me over those final 3+ minutes was the focus on the road sign that marked the end. I never even dreamed of running past that. As soon as I was done I checked the Garmin and was really surprised to see that I had been bang on pace. Immediately the guilt trip started, surely I could have added a final half mile?

2 miles @ 6:29 (HR 161), 1 mile “recovery” @ 7:19
2 miles @ 6:22 (HR 166), 1 mile “recovery” @ 7:13
2 miles @ 6:12 (HR 171), 1 mile recovery @ 7:46
1.5 miles @ 6:10 (HR 169)

I eventually managed to push that thought to the side and was actually really pleased with the workout. Let’s hope I did not burn myself out 4 days before Ballycotton.

I even voluntarily jumped into another ice bath back home, if only for 5 minutes rather than 10, because being late at work would not have been particularly clever.

The coach has promised that MP effort would become easier once the volume repeats kick in. This better be true!

28 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:06, 7:38 pace, HR 143

1 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:27, 7:39 pace, HR 142

2 Mar

13.1 miles, 1:30:01, 6:52 pace, HR 159
   2 @ 6:29, 2 @ 6:22, 2 @ 6:12, 1.5 @ 6:10

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