Don't Look Back In Anger

In one way it was the perfect weekend: City on Saturday, marathon on Sunday. In another way it wasn’t entirely ideal: with the race number pickup early on Saturday and the match moved to an evening kick-off it meant a lot of hours in Manchester when ideally I would have been resting with my feet up. Some things just can’t be helped and logistics for a race away from home sometimes do come with less than optimal conditions attached.

Steve and me. Photo by Martin Lever

Never mind, as I lined up for the start of the Manchester marathon I was reasonably hopeful of a good race. I knew from my training that a sub-3 marathon was a possibility but only on a good day. It certainly required a lot of things to go right. Since there was a 3-hour pacer it meant I would invariably be running in a group, want it or not. I have never run with a pacer so wasn’t entirely sure how it would work out but it did make for a very simple race strategy: run with the pacer. If at halfway I would feel good I could try and push ahead. If I felt bad I would try to hang on for dear life as long as I could. Simples.

The start area was suspiciously empty 10 minutes before the start but then filled up very quickly. I tried to line up where I thought the pacer would be and got it almost right – when he finally turned up I was just slightly ahead of him. Ideally I would have been just behind him but it had gotten so crowded that I decided against shuffling back. When the start gun went off very loudly (“we don’t start races like that in L.A. for a good reason!”) I got up to pace quickly but took it just a tad easy until I spotted the pacer beside me, maybe half a mile into it. It also meant my friend Marty, who I was staying with and who had to skip the race due to injury and decided to be a photographer for the day instead, missed me as he could not identify anyone in the sea on humanity streaming by.

The early miles passed quickly and the pace felt easy enough but running in such a packed group wasn’t particularly comfortable. In most marathons there are only a handful of runners in the sub-3 group and marathons like Dublin have 3 pacers per time band which helps to spread out the group. In Manchester they can have up to 500 runners under 3 hours and only one single pacer, which meant it was a very big group in a very small space. Invariably people would touch legs and at one point a runner tripped and I think he fell, and I had a few close calls as well, both for being tripped and accidentally almost tripping others. When we passed Old Trafford a bit after 4 miles I somehow got to the front of the group (I think I took a very slight uphill section a bit faster than the others) and decided to skip ahead a bit, not to build up a cushion, just to give myself some space. The difference was huge, just being able to stride out without fear of tripping someone made things so much easier and at that point I actually started to enjoy the race. It’s a bit strange that I very much enjoy running as a pacer but not at all with a pacer but that’s how it worked out.

There was still a group of us and I quickly started to focus on 3 or 4 other runners that seemed to be running well and at just the right pace. At times one of us would be ahead, at other times we would drop back a bit but in general we were running together. The pace felt doable but it was still very early.

The crowd support over those miles was brilliant and half of Manchester seemed to be out and about to lend their support to the runners. The best area was Brooklands where they were on the left, on the right and even on the middle of the road, and they made plenty of noise. Having the name printed on the bibs also meant that people would shout out your name for support, which was even better, even coming from total strangers.

I had expected Marty to be here but could not see him and wondered if I had missed him but what else was there to do than to keep running. The legs started to feel the first bit of strain as we closed in on 10 miles but I knew I would still be able to hold the pace for a lot longer, even if it wasn’t as comfortable any more.

The course is very flat, which is of course the main draw for this race. You do have to go over a few overpasses/bridges but the grade is always very gentle and none of them are very high. The weather was a bit cold with not much wind, though that was supposed to pick up later. All in all it is a great, fast course and we had excellent conditions and no excuses.

Photo by Martin Lever

Just before the halfway point we got to Altrincham and the only bridge that resembled a hill, and the loop through Altrincham itself was a bit hilly as well, but it probably only stood out because the rest of the course was so flat; on most other marathons I’ve done that would have counted as one of the flat parts. Marty was here with his camera, so I gave him a short wave. I didn’t look at  the watch but since I was still ahead of the 3-hour pacer I figured I must have run the first half just a bit under 90 minutes. I had no idea how far ahead of the pace group I was but it could never have been very far. I never once checked the watch for pace, just paced myself off the runners surrounding me, and I’m sure they did the same.

On the back out from Altrincham we saw the slower runners coming the other way, just like we had seen the elites and the wheelchair athletes speeding by shortly before. I noticed all the pace groups from 3:15 to 4:45 but it always seemed to be very, very busy even between pacers.

According to MC, 15 miles is the point where you should have expended a third of your mental energy, though I suspected I had spent more than that, though that has been the case in a lot of my marathons, even the good ones. I was definitely starting to feel tired and that would only get worse. Soon after we had passed the 16 mile marker the runner beside me muttered a slightly exasperated “10 miles left”, though to me that seemed challenging but doable at the time.

At that point, as we headed towards Carrington, the crowds thinned out considerably as we basically left the urban area and headed into the countryside. Fatigue started to play an ever bigger factor and I had to increase the effort just to remain on pace, though I was still holding steady. I started to calculate what my finishing time would be if I slowed down now, which is probably not particularly helpful but something I tend to do a lot. As we got further ahead, to 19, 20, 21 miles, gradually the runners in the group seemed to drift back one by one and I was left focusing on just one runner in a yellow singlet just ahead of me who seemed to be able to hold the pace. It did not help that, as we turned right, we were now heading into the wind for the final miles. There was not much wind but it was definitely noticeable and it definitely became a factor. With about 5 miles left I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to hang on and gradually I became aware that runners were passing me. At one point one runner from Galloway told me he was a fan of my blog, which was a nice surprise as I felt a long way from home, but obviously I do know that I do have readers from across the Irish Sea as well. Anyway, I appreciated the shout-out and tried to hang on to him but didn’t manage it for long because around mile 22 the first spasm hit me.

In Tralee it had been the left calf. This time it was the right one. I have no idea why.

The first thought was that at least the cramps had stayed off for longer than in Tralee but I knew this was only going to get worse, and since I knew that I could not have much of a cushion this really was bad news. I tried to look behind me once or twice and once thought I saw the pacer’s flag but wasn’t sure. Anyway, all I could do was to keep running, try to relax just a little to stop the calf from going into full cramping mode which would have made running virtually impossible, and just hope those isolated spasms would somehow remain manageable. But the pace slowed invariably and seeing the runner in the yellow singlet almost pull up with his own cramping problems was unlikely to help.

I kept it going as fast as I dared for as long as I could but inevitably shortly after 23 miles the 3-hour pacer caught up with me. The group had thinned out significantly, so at least the confined space and danger of being tripped was no longer a factor. I wasn’t going to give up without a fight so I increased the effort, trying to hang on to the group, just as plan B had been before the race. The effort level required seemed to increase exponentially. Again and again I fell a few steps behind and had to put in a big effort to catch up again, constantly on the verge of cramping and by now in serious pain. My breathing had become very ragged and I knew this would not be sustainable for long.

Earlier at the race I had once noticed the heart rate at 165, which seemed just a bit high, but it went down to 163 and then 161, which seemed just about right and on the very few occasions when I checked the watch, that’s where it always was (I was not pacing myself by HR, though). Now it just went through the roof, well past 170. I was surprised that I was able to lift the effort to that level so late in a marathon but with a couple of miles still to go and cramping legs it really was the equivalent of barely hanging on by your fingertips.

From mile 24 on the crowds gradually increased again, finally! I really needed the support right now. Since this marathon was a goal race, but only a B-goal, I had wondered if I would have the gumption to really go into the pain cave when things got bad but I think I can honestly say that I made myself hurt as much as I have ever done in a marathon. Lack of effort was not the problem today.

A world of pain. Photo by Martin Lever

Something seemed strange about the pacer late on, all the runners in the group seemed to fall back as we neared the finish while he sped ahead. Try as I might I was no longer able to completely hold on but the gap was still very small until we came to a final overpass. It was so gradual that I might not even have noticed it earlier in the race but at that stage even a tiny gradient was enough to send the calf cramping and I had no choice but to ease up and struggle to the top, at which point the pacer was gone. I chased with all I had left, though that was very little. The finish banner just seemed stuck in the distance for ages but eventually got closer.

All hope was not lost. When I pace a marathon I try to come home about 15-30 seconds ahead of target and that was roughly the distance between me and the pacer, so maybe I could just sneak in just under 3 hours. However, when I finally saw the timer it had already gone well past 3 hours and I was still about half a minute away, so a sub-3 was not going to happen today. I think the pacer crossed the line as the timer said 3:01, and I was a bit further back, too demoralised for a finishing sprint, though with my cramping calf that might have ended badly anyway.

My watch said 3:01:03, the official chip time was 3:01:02, and that was that. My first words after crossing the line were unprintable but thankfully I have broken 3 hours before so it was never going to be a major disaster. The margins between success and failure were tiny, just 2 seconds per mile and a finishing sprint.

Maybe if I had spent less time on my legs on Saturday; maybe if I had not gotten sick in January; maybe if I had not have to deal with all that stress of the last few months; maybe if I had not run Tralee 4 weeks before (no regrets about that one, though), maybe, maybe , maybe. Ah well.

Funnily enough, when I uploaded the data onto strava it gave me a sub-3 marathon because the watch said 26.37 at the end, but marathons are run on the road and not on virtual GPS tracks. My mile splits were (according to GPS, so add about 3 seconds for “real” miles):

6:59, 6:43, 6:51, 6:50, 6:45, 6:49, 6:45, 6:49, 6:42, 6:48

6:54, 6:45, 6:48, 6:44, 6:50, 6:48, 6:55, 6:46, 6:50, 6:55,

6:54, 7:04, 7:12, 7:09, 6:57, 6:55 (6:50 for rest)

which looks like a well paced race to me. I did falter after 21 miles but managed to pick it up again when the pacer caught me (btw, the pacer must have run the last mile in 6:20 or 6:30).

It is what it is. I gave it a good go but missed out on another sub-3. I still very much enjoyed the race, can recommend it and may well be back another year.

10 Apr

Manchester Marathon

   3:01:02, 6:54 pace, HR 165, (6:51 pace on the watch)

   420th place, 49th M45

Manchester

City won 2:1.

I ran 3:01:02.

Delighted with the first, obviously slightly disappointed with the second one. Was just that little bit too slow for a sub-3 today, though I gave it a good go.

Oh Manchester is wonderful.

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

Half A Workout

Tapering for a marathon is as much an art as it is science and there are plenty of different basic strategies. Most, but not all, show a stepwise and significant reduction in weekly mileage. Some include a reduction in intensity as well, but others actually see that increase. My present marathon plan is of the later kind. The mileage has been reduced significantly but the fast miles have actually increased recently. Whichever strategy works best is the subject of much disagreement. It probably depends on the individual runner, and even then things change as the runners gets more experienced.

Anyway, after a short and easy run on Friday I headed up on the Kerry Way trail on Saturday, for the first time in a long time as I wasn't convinced the trail was in a safe state during the winter. To my delight,the bit that had been affected by a small landslide last summer has been repaired so you no longer have to precariously pick your way through a stream over slick boulders. The legs felt rather tired initially, clearly remembering Thursday's mile repeats, but felt better with almost every step and by the time I hit the really steep climb up to the gap I was actually feeling pretty good and posted one of my faster times there without even trying.

I have run several good marathons a week after a run on exactly that route. I think it's an excellent way to increase leg strength, especially in the calves, and one week seems easily enough to recover fully. Let's hope for another notch in that tally next Sunday.

The major downside was that I awoke with some discomfort in my left hamstring,

This Sunday was different, just another short easy recovery run. At least that was the plan but reading an abusive post on a social media site aimed at me was not exactly conducive to a slow pace; under the circumstances I think I did well to show enough restraint to keep the pace to 7:46. It sure could have been worse. The same abuse kept gnawing at me for the rest of the day when I had to drive all the way from Kerry to a Dublin hospital and then back again, making an already stressful and shitty day considerably more so. The fact that I slept really badly that night did not come as much of a surprise. And sitting for so many hours in the car did nothing for my hamstring.

However, mentally I somehow felt a lot better on Monday morning. The fact that I had some more mile repeats to hammer out was probably excellent timing, if entirely accidental. As stated in my previous post, the real workouts are already behind me and today I just did 2 miles at 10k pace, though they weren't much faster than Thursday's. I checked the watch halfway though the first mile and was doing just under 6-minute pace so I backed off, probably a bit too much. The second mile was smoother and better, and that was the "workout" already over and done with. It was even too short to feel tired. Of course I had been a bit worried about my hamstring but regarded it as a test. The hamstring didn't bother me, though the level of discomfort seems more or less unchanged. I'm fairly optimistic it won't be a factor in Manchester.

The race is getting close - there aren't even any more mile repeats left. Just easy pace and a few strides - and of course a marathon!

1 Apr

5 miles, 40:00, 8:00 pace, HR 140

2 Apr

10.75 miles, 1:30:17, 8:24 pace, HR 152

   Kerry Way

3 Apr

5 miles, 38:50, 7:46 pace, HR 141

4 Apr

6 miles, 45:13, 7:32 pace, HR 152

   2 x 1 mile @ 6:16, 6:12

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

The Last Workout

So, the good news is that on Saturday and Sunday I started feeling good again. Really good, just like when I'm about to get into really good shape. That's despite the weather which was rather foul but the gale force winds I had to fight had no reply to the good vibes coming from my legs.

The bad news is that I almost certainly got a bit overexcited and ran a bit too hard on what should have been easy days, and of course running into very strong headwinds isn't entirely compatible with easy effort anyway. So, as I kept my easy days not quite easy enough, my supposed hard day wasn't quite as hard in return.

The hard day did cause me a few headaches before it even started. The training plan had this pencilled in for last Thursday but I really did not feel up to it, still feeling the combined effects of Ballycotton, Tralee and that 5k, so I pushed it out to Sunday. The weather was going to be foul again on Sunday and there is just no point trying to run marathon pace into a strong headwind, it's just not working and I can never find the proper effort level. Luckily this was the Easter weekend, so I just postponed it by a day as Monday was a bank holiday and I wouldn't have to worry about having to get up at 5 am to have time for 18 miles.

However, the plan said 5-4-3-2-1 miles at marathon pace with short recoveries. That's 15 miles at marathon pace. I'm pretty sure I've never run 15 miles at marathon pace outside an actual marathon; you need to be in very good shape to recover from a workout like that and there is a pretty good chance it could mess up your goal race. It's risky enough with 17 days until the goal race but since I had postponed it twice already I only had 13 days left, so I decided to tone it down: 10 miles at marathon pace, no more (and even there I'm taking quite a risk of not being able to fully recover).

It was a beautiful sunny cool morning with hardly any wind, pretty much ideal conditions. I did 7 miles at a reasonably easy effort, still feeling as good at 7:30-ish pace as I had done the previous 2 days, and then accelerated a bit. Unfortunately the watch didn't display average lap-pace, which is what I would have used to pace me (my fault entirely of course), so I was left to gauge the effort more or less by myself. I didn't get it quite right and was more at 7-mile pace than 6:50 but as the legs got more and more tired I think any faster wouldn't have been sustainable anyway and it may have been a tad faster than true marathon effort as it was. I got through it but if I can do the same again for the full 26 miles is a bit doubtful right now. Then again, I'll have 2 additional weeks of recovery, lighter shoes and race day adrenaline to get me through, and I won't be running on empty in Manchester either, so that all may help.

Obviously I'd have preferred the last real workout before Manchester to go more to plan. Runners are a fickle lot with too much self-doubt.

25 Mar

9 miles, 39:19, 7:51 pace, HR 139

26 Mar

8 miles, 1:00:41, 7:35 pace, HR 146

27 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:11, 7:38 pace, HR 146

28 Mar

18 miles, 2:11:34, 7:18 pace, HR 149

   incl 10 miles at 7:01 pace

Thoughts On Recovery

I'm not entirely sure how I got bounced into this but I ended up racing on three consecutive weekends, Ballycotton, Tralee and the county championships. That would be okay if we were talking about 5k or 10ks but Tralee was a full marathon and that changes things. The usual rule of thumb is to take it easy for a day for each mile raced, so to run a 5k only one week after Tralee was never in the recommendations. On the plus side, after 75 marathons you do tend to recover quicker because you are so used to it, and none of the 3 races had been 100% all-out efforts (though a 62 minute 10 miler and a 3:05 marathon do come fairly close).

The physiological response after a marathon always tends to follow a certain pattern, albeit with variations. I always put on a few pounds in the week after a marathon and it's not because I tend to eat anything in sight (ok, I did a few hours after the marathon but not since). I think it has something to do with fluid retention, though I have no way to confirm that. Only in the recent 2 days has my weight started coming down again, so it did last 10 days this time.

The immediate muscle ache tends to go away after 2 or 3 days but the legs tend to feel a bit sluggish for a lot longer. Often it's the quads that are suffering, especially after a hilly race, but this time it's definitely the hamstring/glutes. Interestingly, the calves always felt fine, even the day after the race, even though that was the most problematic area during the race itself with all the cramping issues.

One thing I know for sure is that easy running every day leads to faster recovery than full rest. I used to think I'm the only one doing that but have since come to realise that this is a reasonably common recovery strategy. I even came across a scientific study recently that came to the same conclusion, though I have no idea now where to find it and can't therefore provide a link.

With Manchester just two weeks from next Sunday, there isn't much time to play around. Recovery from my recent races leads straight into the taper, so there isn't much serious training going on. There were really only 2 workouts left, and I actually swapped them around because I did not feel up to 18 miles this morning and preferred an extra half hour of sleep, so I did the 15 miles that were originally pencilled in for Sunday this morning and will do 18 on Sunday, IF and only if I feel up to it. 2 weeks before Manchester isn't the time to run myself into the ground again.

I can feel some life creeping back into the legs and the last couple of days were a tad faster than expected, though right now the numbers don't look great - well, Tralee wasn't that long ago, I'm aware of that. Right now I'm not overly optimistic about Manchester to be honest, but maybe the next 17 days will provide an upswing. Ah well. Fact of the matter is that it's a goal race, yes, but only a B one.

21 Mar

5 miles, 41:18, 8:15 pace, HR 139

22 Mar

am: 4 miles,33:03, 8:15 pace, HR 137

pm: 4 miles,33:34, 8:23 pace, HR 133

23 Mar

10 miles, 1:17:03, 7:42 pace, HR 146

24 Mar

15 miles, 1:57:11, 7:48 pace, HR 143

Kerry 5k Road Championships

I only heard about the Kerry 5k road championships being on this weekend last Friday, and my first reaction was to groan. Actually, that was my second and third reaction as well - I knew straight away I wouldn't be in any real shape for a 5k just one week after the Tralee marathon.

Things like that have a tendency to become self-fulfilling prophecies of course; if you expect to run badly you are virtually guaranteed to do so. Maybe I should have gone to a sports psychologist rather than training this week.

My legs kept feeling better each day this week but as soon as I tried to run a few strides on Saturday I could immediately feel that the hamstrings were not going to cooperate. Jogging at 8-minute pace was fine but as soon as I tried to spin the legs things felt off.

Nevertheless I decided to go ahead; I guess I felt obliged to represent the club. I sacrificed my planned long run today, but did 5 miles in the morning to give me a few extra miles and I also tried to test the legs again with 2 or 3 strides, but once more I found the hamstrings less than cooperative.

After a cloudy start it turned into a lovely day, so at least the weather was cooperating. I lined up at the start, had just about time to set up the watch before we set off and then at first just tried to hang on to the back of Declan. He had beaten me at a race recently but I got my own back in the next one and I figured if I managed to stay close to him I was doing alright. Unfortunately it soon became clear that I did not manage to stay close to him, so at least I tried to keep him within a reasonable distance. I always felt slow but in fact the first mile was pretty fast in 5:43 but things fell apart during the second mile when it got a bit hillier and I was sure we travelled into a headwind, even if that must have been exceedingly light. During the third mile I kept swapping places repeatedly with another runner, me being stronger on the uphills but unable to spin the legs properly on the downhills so we kept leapfrogging each other in quick succession on the undulating road. That should have boded well for me at the finish when we had to climb up towards the village again before a flat last quarter mile but somehow he managed to find another gear and I did not and I ended up a second or two behind him. One look at the watch confirmed that I had indeed run as badly as expected, 18:40 being the slowest 5k in quite some time (actually, since last year's championship).

Ah well. I still got two medals, one for third M45 and another one for the team coming third, so it wasn't a complete wash-out, and even with a PB I still would have ended up in the same age group position, so from that point of view I hadn't lost anything.

Later on that day I added on another 5 miles on the treadmill while watching the Manchester derby, trying to make up somewhat for the missed long run (or maybe I was just trying to make up for Yaya's lack of effort). The legs felt rather unwilling at first but after 3 miles or so were actually feeling much better, though I kept the pace and effort very easy and stopped after 5 miles. I guess it was the first recovery run after yet another race, with more to come of course.

18 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:06, 7:53 pace, HR 139

19 Mar

10 miles, 1:21:23, 8:08 pace, HR 138

20 Mar

am: 5 miles, 39:31, 7:54 pace, HR 142

noon: 7 miles, incl. 5k Kerry road champs in 18:40; 6:01 pace, HR 173; 3rd M45

pm: 5 miles, 44:26, 8:54 pace, HR 147; treadmill

Recovery

Comfortably keeping alive my streak of looking awful in every single running photo ...

Last week someone mentioned to me that my training week sure looks like a taper, which I initially denied because I wasn't tapering for a training run, even one of marathon distance. However, looking back right now it sure does look like a real taper - with the obvious exception that I would not have raced a 10 miler 6 days before a target marathon.

This week is remarkably similar to last week, and for the same, obvious, reason, namely that I am recovering from a race. My recovery protocol has been tried and tested dozens of times and it works exceptionally well, at least for me: a 5 mile run every morning until I feel better, than an increase to 8 miles and once that feels as easy I get back to normal training. The worst run is inevitable the first one, which this time round was an uncomfortable slog at 9-minute pace on Sunday, but even then I could clearly notice how I felt better with each passing mile. Since then it's been a little bit up and down, I felt okay on Monday, a bit worse on Tuesday (though the numbers looked a lot better) and gradually better again so I increased the distance to 8 this morning. The legs felt a little bit heavy early on but that settled soon enough.

The numbers have improved with every single day, which confirms that the recovery is working very well. Today's 8 miler was a little bit quicker than planned but I take it as a sign that life is coming back into those ageing legs.

The weather helps, it is clear but crispy cold each morning, and after a rather horrendous winter that makes for a nice change. Thankfully it is supposed to last for several more days, well into next week. We'll see of course - not that we can do anything about it anyway.

I wasn't planning on racing again until Manchester but a couple of days ago heard that the 5k county championships are on again this Sunday. Somehow they always seem to be on either the week after Tralee or Connemara, I cannot remember how long ago it was that I last raced them with fresh legs. It's far from ideal, the plan for next Sunday was 22 miles but only if the legs feel up to it (doubtful), so I'm still undecided. It's not entirely clear if I can make it at all because Niamh might have to go back to Dublin, in which case I'd be on parenting duty instead (which isn't any easier!).

Either way, once that weekend is over, the last phase for Manchester will begin. There isn't much training left as the taper will start soon, and this is the one marathon I'll do a proper taper for.

14 Mar

5 miles, 41:56, 8:23 pace, HR 134

15 Mar

5 miles, 41:08, 8:13 pace, HR 136

16 Mar

5 miles, 40:47, 8:09 pace, HR 136

17 Mar

8 miles, 1:02:40, 7:49 pace, HR 142

Honours In Tralee

Today was my 75th marathon.

A few months back, when I first drew up my racing schedule for 2016, I pencilled in Tralee as my goal marathon. When I saw the proposed route I quickly changed my mind because it clearly was not conductive to a fast time. Typically, that route was changed completely with about 3 weeks to go and we were back on the initial route that had been used in 2013. I have a love/hate relationship with that one: I love the fact that I set my marathon PB on it but I hate the fact that it's actually not very fast and the same effort on a flat route would have given me faster PB; I especially dislike the ridiculously steep climb at Barrow, only to turn round again and run the same hill down. It feels like an artificial attempt to make this into a particularly tough marathon.

Anyway, I haven't missed any on the Tralee marathons yet and I'm not planning on missing out in future years either, so once more I was at the start line as the start gun went off. The weather forecast had been very good, so for the first time this year I was actually wearing a singlet. I'm not sure why, but very late last night I had made the decision to wear my Austrian singlet, I guess I was trying to draw inspiration from it. Apparently Irish national runners are told not to wear their top in any competition outside a championship but nobody ever said anything like that to me, so I wore it, for the first time ever in fact apart from one short test run.

Anyway, I figured I was roughly in 3-hour marathon shape but since it was only 6 days since Ballycotton, which is too short for a full recovery, that might not be entirely true that day. Worse, I had been dealing with a cold all week and while I had felt better with every single day, this very morning had been the first one when I woke up without feeling my chest being restricted. So, I was fine when idle; how my body would cope with the stress of a marathon at close to race pace was another matter. One way or another, I was going to find out.

I was in about 10th place after half a mile but a few runners had clearly gotten well ahead of themselves at the start and within a mile there was a group of 3 of us in 5th-7th place, myself, John and Denis, running pretty much 3-hour pace. Before mile 4 we caught another runner, who was looking suspiciously young and was breathing heavily, which made me feel a bit worried for him, but he kept going, albeit at a slower pace. The first 6 miles into Ardfert just flew by and felt almost effortlessly, but there we turned a sharp left corner and were faced with an unexpectedly strong headwind. I quickly decided that it didn't make sense for all of us to fight the breeze directly and suggested taking turns, which worked very well, all three of us taking their turn up front for 0.2 miles each for the next 2 miles when a right turn took us out of the wind again. By this time we had caught up to yet another runner, who hung with us for a bit before falling back, so we, very much to everyone's surprise, found ourselves in 3rd-5th position. The top two runners, Gary O'Hanlon and Alex O'Shea, were very much out of our league but to be right behind them, at least position-wise, was mind boggling. John and myself had the additional advantage of running in an age group (different ones, so we didn't even have to fight each other), so it already looked rather likely that we would go home with a trophy tonight, a very nice position to be in for sure. We saw the two top guys at the out-and back in Barrow, cruising along comfortably and with a big gap already in place. Barrow hill was as brutal as expected, we just tried to get up and down without completely frying our legs with 16 miles still to go, and must have taken it just a tad easier over the next couple of miles for recovery.

"It's only 15 miles to the finish!"
"You're full of fun today, Thomas"

Our pace had dropped a little bit and we reach halfway in just over 91 minutes, so a sub-3 marathon was definitely not going to happen today but I had stopped caring about my time today when it was becoming clear that I had a chance of either a podium place or an age group award. We faced a couple of very tough miles into the wind and with some tough climbs into Fenit but I was still feeling surprisingly comfortable. At one point we took turns leading into the wind again.

"John, you should put on some weight, you're not making much of a difference"
"Well, you weren't much help either".

"Denis, you have forfeited your turn", when we turned into Fenit just after Denis had taken the lead, though I thought he might still get a chance to make amends later on.

Fenit was another out-and-back section that enabled us to check out the opposition. One runner in black was fairly close behind us, certainly no further than he had been in Barrow, nobody else was particularly close. The pier was quite wind-swept but once we got off it we would have the wind at our back for about 6 miles, what a luxury! As we tackled the climb away from the pier John told me to make a move, just like I had done 2 years ago. Truth to be told, I did not intentionally make a move, neither today nor 2 years ago, but I was feeling good and kept the effort going while, I think, my 2 companions started to feel the strain and slowed down, which made it look like I was dropping them. Either way (and even if I had been dropping them intentionally, this was a race after all!), I was soon on my own with the footsteps behind me gradually fading away, albeit slowly.

For now I could dream of finishing in a podium position, which would have seemed utterly ridiculous at the start. A few minutes later I thought I heard something behind me and caught a glimpse of a black t-shirt out of the corner of my eye. Was it possible that the runner in black had overtaken my two erstwhile companions already? Never mind, I just ran my own race, still feeling quite comfortable, with energy levels surprisingly high. Team Austria might actually pull one off today!

I got to about mile 17 when the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps became impossible to miss. A runner was closing in, and at quite some pace. He caught up very quickly, by my estimation he must have made up 30 seconds in considerably less than 2 miles, but once he was right behind me that's where he stayed and didn't try to pass. The sun came out at that point, feeling nice and warm (and making me glad I was wearing a singlet) and I could see a shadow right behind my own, not that I needed additional confirmation. I was kind of looking forward to battling it out for a podium place, even if the speed of his catching up wasn't a great sign for me, when things went pear-shaped pretty much without warning.

Cramping has been a long-standing problem for me. In at least half of my marathons at race pace I have suffered from calf cramps, sometimes more, sometimes less, and at about mile 18 I got some rather painful spasm in my left calf, and I knew from experience that things would only get worse from here on. I tried to run as relaxed as possible, which may have helped a little bit. I tried to heel-strike because in theory that should put less strain on the calf muscle, but if anything that made it worse. Mostly I could just about deal with it, but on two occasions close to the 19 mile point I got a really strong and painful shock and when it happened the second time I shouted out in pain and had to slow right down for a few steps to get things back under control. The other runner asked what was wrong, very sportingly offered me some of his drink, but eventually and inevitably he went past and gradually started disappearing in front.

At that point we also merged with the half marathon course and one of them passed me straight away. I kept thinking that now I would not know if anyone passing me would be a half or full marathon runner but for the time being I was on my own. The left calf kept being very painful, which was a shame because everything else was feeling great, I wasn't particularly fatigued and I sure could have run faster. It did help to be an experienced runner at this point; I had been there before and more or less knew how to nurse the calf along without going into complete cramping which would have been a disaster, but it sure shows how the whole is only as strong as the weakest link.

The climb up the Kerries wouldn't be that bad usually but with over 20 miles in the legs it feels tough and with cramping legs it feels even tougher so I was mightily relieved to eventually come out on top, surprised that nobody had caught me in the meantime, not even another half marathon runner. The run down towards Tralee seemed a little bit easier on the calf but I still had to be very careful not to strain it past breaking point, and of course I still was in agony.

The half marathon runners were almost finished when we reached Strand Road but the full marathon takes another sharp right turn and we headed towards Blennerville, the windmill soon visible in the distance, and unfortunately right into the headwind again, something I could have done without at that point. I consoled myself that I had managed to nurse the calf along for 5 miles already and there were only 3 left, albeit rather painful ones. We actually didn't go towards the windmill but kept it well to our left and past it before reaching the last water stop at mile 24 where two 90 degree turns in quick succession give you another good view of the runners behind you.

I did not even want to look. I was convinced that there was at least one runner bearing down on me and with my cramping calf I would not be able to hold them off, and my only hope was that they would not be in my age group, but to my surprise there was absolutely nobody in sight, not for at least a couple of minutes. I wasn't wearing my glasses and, short-sighted as I am, wasn't sure if I could entirely trust what I saw (or didn't see), but it seemed reasonably clear that I wasn't going to be passed again. I guess I must have taken it a smidgen easier from that point on because my pace dropped by another 10 seconds per mile, though that had the beneficial effect of putting less pressure on my calf and the cramping seemed to lessen a little bit. Mind, at that point the fatigue had well and truly caught up with me and I was knackered; I guess having to deal with that cramping calf had sucked my energy levels dry. I also took a strong dislike to the gravel path we were on, it really hurt my feet. But I kept going, at about 7:20 pace a good bit slower than previously but still holding things together reasonably well considering and gradually Tralee came closer again. Then we merged back to the half-marathon route, took three corners and finally the finish line was ahead of us and I finished in 3:05:05, in fourth place, just missing out on a podium place but having secured my age group, which I would have taken gladly before the race and I was more than pleased with that outcome.

Niamh and kids soon came over and were there at the ceremony, which was nice. Niamh then had to leave for Dublin and I was on family duty for the rest of the weekend - real life never stops!

I'm more than happy with my race, it definitely was one of my better days. It was my fastest marathon in almost 3 years and 4th place is so much better than what I could have expected. I'm perfectly aware that the standard wasn't the same as in previous years but that's not my fault, if the faster runners didn't run today that's up to them.

Unfortunately right now the published results are not correct, there are three runners listed ahead of me that did not finish the marathon in the published times (even in the haze of marathon running I can correctly count to 3 as in the number of runners who were ahead of me) and at least one other runner has an incorrect time to his name. I hope they'll manage to sort that out.

11 Mar

4 miles, 32:31, 8:07 pace, HR 138

12 Mar

2016 Tralee marathon

   3:05:05, 7:03 pace, HR 158

   4th place, 1st M45

13 Mar

5 miles, 55:46, 8:59 pace, HR 134

Two More Things About Ballycotton

... and then I move on:

1) someone asked how my HR compares with previous races there. I averaged 171 last week compared to 172 in 2014. Previous races had been higher, 177, 176 and 175 in teh 3 years preceding that. If your max HR falls by about 1 per year then this would be reasonably stable, though in my experience it declines less than that, at least in me. I could come to the conclusion that I did not push myself to the total limit, which is entirely possible.

2) my age-rated performance has actually improved compared to my previous race there. 61:52 as a 46-year old is 78.84%, while 61:31 as a 44 year old was only 78.02%. Maybe I am ageing very well. But before anyone makes an unnecessary comment, races are run on the road and not in calculators, I know that perfectly well.

The legs had been a little bit heavy on Monday and the quads were rather sore on Tuesday, which is classic DOMS of course, but all felt fine again on Wednesday.

The one thing I mostly took away from Ballycotton, however, was a head cold. I felt cold during the walk back to the car, despite putting on a thick warm hoodie, and I cut my cool-down short a bit because I was feeling a bit cold during that as well, but it might have been too late. I felt absolutely rotten on Monday night with a bad headache and didn't sleep very well but was feeling much better already by Wednesday.

The HR was very slightly elevated initially but I would expect that during race recovery anyway, so the cold didn't have much of an impact there. On Thursday morning I extended the morning run to 8 miles and after about 5 miles did one single mile at 6:50-ish pace to test out what that would feel like, especially with Saturday's marathon in mind. Well, one mile isn't particularly long and it felt ok, and the HR at 161 was very much in the green zone, but the problem was that it then did not come down for the 2 easy miles after the fast one and remained at 157 despite the much easier pace.

I might make a very late decision on what pace I'll run in Tralee. My friend Chris Grayson keeps badgering me to run as one of the 3:15 pacers with him but I keep resisting. Tralee is my home marathon and I'd prefer to run a decent time, even if it's not the wisest decision with Manchester 5 weeks away. I won't race it all-out but I might wait as late as mile 1 into Tralee to make that decision. If things don't feel right I can still fall back and join Chris as an un-official pacer for company.

Tralee will be my 75th marathon (or, to be precise, my 50th marathon plus 25 ultras). While not exactly a round number it's a significant one anyway. The MCI certainly thinks so - I'm due yet another special award :)

7 Mar

5 miles, 41:06, 8:13 pace, HR 138

8 Mar

5 miles, 41:57, 8:23 pace, HR 137

9 Mar

5 miles, 39:51, 7:58 pace, HR 138

10 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:18, 7:40 pace, HR 148

Ballycotton Return

Obviously, Thursday's workout was followed by 2 easy days,. That would have been the case in any situation but with Sunday's race in Ballycotton on the horizon, it was an absolute no-brainer.

I had a bit of a diversion on Saturday with the Kerry Athletics awards night. My club, Star of the Laune, had been kind enough to nominate me for an award and, lo and behold, I was picked for a special merits award. In fact, they gave me just about the biggest pot they had on that table. It was a very nice evening, and who would not be honoured to receive an award like that - the only downside being that we had to leg it once the entertainment started in earnest as the next day's drive would be long and the race would be hard.

I've done some local races but nothing what I would call serious in the last few months, and Ballycotton felt like a step up again towards "real" racing. The standard there would be frightfully high and I was nowhere near top shape, so expectations were muted all along. Considering my very modest 39:10 in a 10k on New Year's Day, 63 minutes seemed the best outcome possible, and that felt optimistic. However, there is something about Ballycotton that always makes me race faster than I think possible and so it proved once more.

I woke on Sunday morning with a sore throat and a sore left hamstring, neither of which filled me with confidence that this would be a particularly good day. However, I would neither of which put m off my race.

2 miles. Photo by Graham Nudds

I have run this race on many occasions and this year was the first time I encountered a serious organisational glitch in the massive queue for the drop-bags. Every single runner in that queue had to share a small part of the responsibility for turning up later than advised but it was moving ridiculously slowly and that needs to be sorted out for next year.

Because of that, my own warm-up was very short, no more than 5 minutes, and then I really had to make it into the start area. In the past I have gotten stuck there with 20 minutes to go, so I was actually pleasantly surprised that I managed to squeeze all the way to the "under 58 minutes" sign. Obviously I was not going to run under 58 minutes but I have learned from bitter experience that lining up according to that sign would have been a bad mistake - as it happens, I still started too far in the back, as I do every year, and spent much of the first mile weaving around slower runners ahead of me on a very narrow road. Business as usual, really.

Photo by Alan Bannon

With a recent 10k pace of 6:19 a similar pace for a 10 mile race seems suicidal but I felt I dialled into the effort very well, hard but comfortable. For pretty much all of the race I kept gaining on groups ahead of me, would then sit in the back for a minute or two to catch my breath before pushing ahead again to repeat the same process with the next group. For the first 2 miles I shared that tactic with a runner dressed in black, before I managed to get a look at him; hang on, I know that guy, that's John. He pulled away from me after 2 or 3 miles but I caught him again between 5 and 6, gave him a pat on the back with some encouraging words but he didn't really take the hint and didn't try to hang on as I chased yet another group.

Photo by Joe Murphy

The last 1.5 miles were as tough as ever with a bit of climbing to do on very tired legs but I surprised myself by being able to hang on to people I had a minute ago thought of being too fast and I even managed to pass and basically out-sprint an entire group of 5 or 6 runners right at the end, which is basically unheard of for me.

The official (chip) time was 1:01:52, which was over a minute faster than my supposed best-case outcome, so I was very pleased with that. My sequence of finishing further ahead in the field with each subsequent race has come to its inevitable end, though. In fact, 145th is a fairly modest placing for someone who has finished 101st and 103rd 2 and 3 years ago. Still, it was 9th in my age group, which isn't all that bad even for a senior citizen. I did meet a proper fast old man during the walk back to the car when interrupting Gary Condon's cool-down for a minute to have a brief chat.

I never even noticed the sore throat in Ballycotton and the hamstring did not bother me once I was a minute into my warm-up.

I was more than happy with my time as well as my own running, feeling I had paced myself very well and pretty much squeezed the optimum outcome out of myself today. This week's mileage is lower due to the lack of a long run, and next week will be low again as a week of recovery is in store with the Tralee marathon this Saturday, even if that is primarily yet another training run.

4 Mar

5 miles, 41:23, 8:17 pace, HR 136

5 Mar

6 miles, 46:23, 7:44 pace, HR 144

6 Mar

13+ miles, including:

   Ballycotton 10, 1:01:52, 6:11 pace, HR 171

   145th place, 9th M45

7 Mar

5 miles, 41:06, 8:13 pace, HR 138

Weekly Mileage: 59+

Chasing Away The Demons

I probably should give some kind of explanation for my last post. It's a long story and there is much more to it than I would ever divulge publicly but basically a family member is in hospital with a serious condition. When it first happened we felt helpless and alone but since then we've had offers to help from so many people and so much support that it all becomes a lot easier to bear. Thank you to everyone who has sent us some form encouragement, you have no idea how much this helped!

I am actually amazed that my training didn't break down completely with all the stress and sleepless nights but somehow I always kept feeling very good physically. Despite all those extra factors I can suddenly feel my training coming along, after weeks of stagnation of even seemingly going backwards. Running in the last week or two wasn't really focused on training as such but more on getting the head sorted and enjoy some hours of freedom but the training effects accumulated nevertheless.

I felt pretty good after Sunday's run but still kept Monday to a very easy 5-mile run. I did up teh distance a little bit on Tuesday but kept the effort at the same easy level.

Because I felt surprisingly good and also because of Sunday's 10-mile race in Ballycotton I toyed with the idea of doing this week's midweek workout on Wednesday rather than the usual Thursday but the weather solved that problem for me with storm Jake striking on Wednesday. While it is possible to run in orange weather warnings it is probably not really advisable as there is a certain amount of risk involved, even if it's a small one. But it's definitely not possible to do a proper workout in a mini-hurricane; believe me, I've tried.

So it was an easy hour on the treadmill watching a recording on the telly to pass the boredom while teh storm was raging outside. It was actually by far my best treadmill run yet, maybe I'm getting used to it or maybe the wind blowing through the slightly opened window ensured I did not get as overheated as usual.

The real workout followed as scheduled on Thursday, a very calm if surprisingly dark morning. The workout was 15 or 16 miles with 4x1 mile repeats at 10k pace bang in the middle. Seeing as my last attempt at a long run with a fast middle section had almost killed me I was a bit nervous but once I got going it went much better than expected. I ran 39:10 in a 10k last month, and even though I was definitely disappointed with that time it pointed to a present 10k-pace of about 6:20, maybe a couple of seconds faster and that was the target.

I ended up with 6:20, 6:13, 6:21 and 6:13. There was very little wind and the road was reasonably flat in either direction so I can't really tell why one direction was faster than the other one but with such a small sample size it may well be just coincidence, or just plain old bad pacing. However, I felt pretty good and definitely had at least one more repeat in me, which is how you want to feel at the end of a speed workout, especially so if the plan calls for an extra 5 or 6 miles! Those miles went pretty well as well, very much in contrast to the horror show back in February and I figured that had been my best workout in that training cycle yet. While I would gladly swap every single ounce of fitness for a healthy family, I'll have to be content with what I have at the moment. Having a race to look forward to helps with dealing with all the other stuff, though.

29 Feb

5 miles, 41:22, 8:16 pace, HR 138

1 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:16, 7:55 pace, HR 144

2 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:16, 7:55 pace, HR 138, treadmill

3 Mar

15 miles, 1:53:52, 7:35 pace, HR 145

   4 x 1 mile @ 6:20, 6:13, 6:21, 6:13

Cortisol High

I am actually surprised I'm still standing, never mind being able to run tough long workouts. As of now I have been without proper sleep for two nights. I am feeling sick with stress and worry and whenever I try closing my eyes, no matter how exhausted, the thoughts keep spinning in my head and I am unable to sleep. On both recent nights I have been wide awake but exhausted until about 4 o'clock, and then I manage to drift off for a few minutes at a time but never for long and never into a proper sleep. The story around all this may well be worth telling, but not here and not now.

The world was still standing on Friday morning and I did 5 easy miles for recovery after Thursday's workout. The legs were a little bit heavy but reasonably fine and I did a few fast strides over the last mile or two, which probably explains much of the yet-again-elevated heart rate. Things started to unravel over Friday afternoon and when I got up on Saturday morning, no longer being able to cope with the bed any longer, I got dressed and ready to go. Except then I just could not get myself to open the door and go running. It wasn't the physical exhaustion from lack of sleep, it was the fact that I was emotionally drained and just could not face the freezing cold rain outside. I knew the weather was going to improve later and I would have time for a run around lunchtime, otherwise I guess I would have managed to go out regardless.

When I did go out on my second attempt several hours later the weather had turned really nice, cold but crispy clear. I decided to do 6 easy miles. By the 3 mile point I did not want to turn around and ran for another mile before finally executing that u-turn. At some point I caught a glimpse of the watch and saw a HR in the 150s when I would have expected it to be in the 130s at the time. I guessed the stress levels were playing havoc because the effort was completely easy, or so I thought. It wasn't until I came back home that I realised that what had felt like a slow recovery jog was in fact 7:21 pace. I had messed up my Sunday run last week by running too hard on Saturday, so I was definitely worried about tomorrow's long run. At least that long run was a plain old long run with no faster segment, which made it feel much more do-able, even with the pace too high on Saturday.

Another sleepless night later I got up early again but actually had a bowl of cereal and a banana before going out. I have not eaten before a training run in years but last week's horror show was too much on my mind and I preferred taking some extra calories onboard instead of running for miles on empty again, fat adaptation be damned. The weather was beautiful again, which undoubtedly helped my clouded mind, and I opted for the very hilly loop around Caragh lake, followed by a loop to Ard-na-Sidhe to add up to 22 miles. It all went very well. I started feeling tired after 17 miles and fought side stitches for a mile at 18 but even then preferred to be out running rather than sitting at home with my demons. The fatigue and the stitch faded away again and I was still running well at the end. A marathon wouldn't have taken much out of me today either. At least my endurance is still good.

26 Feb

5 miles, 40:50, 8:10 pace, HR 144, with strides

27 Feb

8 miles, 58:49, 7:21 pace, HR 150

28 Feb

22 miles, 2:50:57, 7:46 pace, HR 149

Weekly Mileage: 70

Not Half Marathon Pace

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

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

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

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

What happened next was interesting.

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

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

22 Feb

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

23 Feb

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

24 Feb

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

25 Feb

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

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

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

"You Look Like Shit!"

Niamh's assessment was brutal but it perfectly matched how I was feeling. Sunday's 21 miles had knocked the stuffing out of me and I was totally knackered. I have finished 50 mile races in better shape!

Every training cycle seems to have at least one training run that turn into a total sufferfest and this one fulfilled that function for the present one. I now hope that I can recover - if I can't I'll have to dial back.

There were several factors that contributed to today's exhaustion. I had gotten Saturday's effort completely wrong. It was supposed to be an easy run but I had already violated that by running the first 3 miles into a very strong headwind. I was in Tralee for the day and the unfamiliar surroundings somehow threw me - I'm sure at home I would have managed to slow down. It left me far more tired than I should have been.

As someone had asked in the last post, I never take anything with me when I run, no water, no gels, nothing. I drink plenty of water before I go out but otherwise I'm running on empty. I'm used to that and I'm sure I'm reasonably well adapted to burn fat as fuel but today's run also incorporated 3 marathon pace miles from miles 12-15, and during those I must have burned off most of my energy reserves because the last 5 miles felt like I was running totally on empty. The marathon effort did not quite go according to plan either, 7:07 pace was all I could manage, though the strong wind had some direct input into that, so it wasn't a complete failure.

It wasn't just the legs, my stomach felt awful as well. For a start, by the time I finished the run I hadn't eaten for over 15 hours, but I've done that many times before without feeling unduly stressed. This time I felt ravenous but at the same time unable to hold down any real quantities of food. I gradually felt better as the day passed by, but still not quite 100% in the evening.

"Why exactly are you doing this to yourself?" (Niamh again)
"For the sex, money and fame" (hey, she asked)
"You're not getting any of those!" (no surprises here)

19 Feb

5 miles, 41:13, 8:14 pace, HR 142

20 Feb

9 miles, 1:07:17, 7:27 pace, HR 151

21 Feb

21 miles, 2:44:39, 7:50 pace, HR 148

   3 miles @ 7:07 pace

Thursday Workout

Tuesday morning saw the rare occasion of seemingly all my muscles aching. I know the sore shoulders and arms came from Monday night's yoga session (my arm strength is pathetic, I knew that already), but if the sore legs were a hangover from Sunday's run or the same yoga session, or from both, I could not tell. But I think as long as I have a demanding yoga class on Monday it would be unwise to do a midweek workout on Wednesday, which pretty much reduces the midweek option to Thursday only.

After three nice and dry, if freezing cold, days, the weather had turned nasty yet again. I had hoped that the winter storms would be behind us, but while Tuesday's weather system did not qualify as a full-blown storm it sure was bad enough. I did contemplate running on the treadmill instead when I heard the wind and rain against the kitchen window as I got ready but headed out onto the road nevertheless. After all, a bit of running in character-building conditions doesn't do any harm. The run itself went well enough, especially considering that I wasn't exactly feeling on top of the world with all those aching muscles, but I was a bit alarmed but the sky-high average heart rate of 148 which would usually indicate a workout rather than an easy run. That's something that has been with me for a while now. It can be an alarm signal for overtraining but I don't think that's quite the case - I don't have any of the other symptoms.

I reckon that three easy days should be enough to recover from any but the most brutal workouts, even with a tough yoga session thrown in for good measure. Actually, my yoga muscles were still achy on Wednesday evening but thankfully that was the shoulders rather than the legs, and I was ready to run another workout on Thursday morning.

I took the fact that I was really looking forward to the workout as a very good sign. Mentally at least I was ready.

Conditions were decent enough, at least at the start. I did get caught by a couple of icy cold rain showers and the wind seemed to pick up during the second half of the run, or maybe my fatigue had me take notice eventually.

The respective paces for the faster miles were:
6:46, 6:43, 6:45, 6:51, 6:50, 6:49, 6:53, 6:52

Some of the pace differences are due to hills and/or wind direction as I was trying to keep the effort reasonably level rather than the pace. The last two were tougher than the previous ones when the fatigue started to make itself felt, especially in teh hamstrings and glutes.

The paces for the moderate miles were:
8:22, 7:16, 7:29, 7:33, 7:26, 7:46, 7:34, 7:42

with the first one being a warm-up and the rest all around 7:30 but with wind and (small) hills all having some influence.

Running the middle part of the workout in 5 miles loops had the unintended side-effect that on the second loop all the previously easy parts were part of faster miles and vice versa, which made for a nice contrast, even if I felt slightly differently on one particular hill.

All in all I'm pretty happy with how that workout went. It was much better than last week's and even the HR/pace relationship has returned to a level not seen in almost 4 weeks. to me that shows that I am recovering, from previous workouts as well as from whatever bug has been affecting me for the last few weeks.

16 Feb

8 miles, 1:02:59, 7:52 pace, HR 148

17 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:04, 7:42 pace, HR 149

18 Feb

16 miles, 1:55:58, 7:15 pace, HR 154

   alternating miles

Workout And Recovery

"How you recover from a workout tells you more about your fitness than the actual workout itself"

I am putting the above wisdom to the test right now. Thursday's workout hadn't exactly gone to plan with me running slower than expected and still ending up totally knackered. However, I felt surprisingly good on Friday and Saturday, so recovery was certainly going well. Well enough to dare another workout on Sunday, again a slightly cut-down version of the workout that had been in the original plan. I did 18 miles with the last 2 at marathon pace, and since I ran around the lake it was a very hilly workout as well. I felt pretty good and wasn't exactly hanging around when climbing up those big hills but from 11 or 12 miles onward I was suddenly heading into an unexpectedly strong headwind which seemed to suck the strength out of my legs and I very much doubted I'd be up for 2 fast miles at all. However, when I got to mile 16 I gave it a go anyway, waiting to see how long I would last. Well, turns out I lasted until the end but truth to be told this was probably more than marathon effort.

I marked contrast to Thursday's workout I felt pretty good for the rest of the day but suffered from sore legs on Monday, so almost the reverse reaction. I'll see how it goes tomorrow before I decide if I will do another midweek workout.

Now that the base phase is finished, I have changed training. As long as things are going to plan I will run 2 workouts per week, a long run on Sunday and a midweek one either Wednesday or Thursday, depending how recovery goes. All other days are short and easy and all about recovery. The mileage will be lower as well, in case that's not obvious already.

Having a treadmill turned out to be helpful when I was finding myself a single parent for a day, looking after a sick child on Saturday. There was no way I could have gone out leaving her alone for an hour, but I managed an hour on the treadmill while she was asleep. Thankfully she gradually started feeling better as the day went on.

My high HR continues to be a concern. I suspect I have the same bug in my system that Maia is still suffering from but I seem to be able to hold it off without any actual symptoms. Apart from the elevated running HR I do not notice anything being amiss.

---

Last week I posted something on facebook, more thinking out loud typing away than asking a real question. Spartathlon is in September, the European 24 hrs championship in October, which caught me by surprise as I had not expected there to be a championship this year at all. My gut reaction was to run the Spartathlon but the response was 2 for Sparta, 2 for doing both and 18 for the Euro, which was enough to sway my mind (or maybe I was changing my mind anyway). After a few more days of contemplation I fired off an email to the national team manager and confirmed my availability, and he straight away confirmed that my selection was secure as long as I was fit and healthy. So that's that. A return to Sparta will have to wait for a year.

13 Feb

8 miles, 1:04:07, 8:01 pace, HR 144, treadmill

14 Feb

18 miles, 2:16:29, 7:35 pace, HR 154

   last 2 miles @ 6:53 pace

15 Feb

6 miles, 49:31, 8:15 pace, HR 140

A Workout

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

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

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

I was knackered for the rest of the day!

lifted from Liam Smith's FB post

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

10 Feb

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

11 Feb

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

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

12 Feb

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

Treadmill Running

It's Pancake Tuesday! I love Pancake Tuesday!

It was during storm Desmond in December that I decided to purchase a treadmill. I had been running through some fairly wild weather on more than one occasion but having gotten old and soft cautious decided that this could be dangerous and an indoor option would be a good idea. With storm Imogen hitting the Southwest of Ireland this weekend, that felt like a good decision. It spared me a few painful hail stones on Sunday and I'm pretty sure Monday's run would have had to be binned entirely, the orange warning that had been in place sounding understated for once.

Sunday's planned workout had been cancelled and replaced with an easy run, though that had nothing to do with the weather and all with an email I had gotten from my Guardian Angel former coach who still stages an intervention whenever he thinks I'm doing something particularly stupid. In this case, I would have violated one of his golden rules, namely only to do a workout if you are sure to be able to recover from it, and, as stated in my previous post, that was not the case this time. I followed his advice and did 10 mundane miles on the treadmill instead.

I got asked a while ago how I'm going to compensate effort on the treadmill. The standard advice is to turn the incline to 1%, which allegedly makes the effort closer to road running. From what I can tell, on my treadmill at home that doesn't apply. If anything, 8-minute miles on my treadmill feel tougher than 8-minute miles on the road, and that is entirely consistent (for the record, 6-minute miles feel easier on the treadmill but that's not my training pace). I don't use the treadmill for workouts, just easy runs and recovery runs, and the actual numbers and how they compare to the road don't particularly interest me - I just run at the effort that feels easy and don't pay much attention to the actual pace.

One thing I noticed is that my HR on the treadmill is always high, which I attribute to a lack of cooling that builds up after a while. It certainly does not reflect the subjective effort. If I run at HR 150 on the road I'm working hard. The same HR can be reached on the treadmill without much trouble - though the sweat will be pouring off me.

One other thing that baffles me is that the timer on the treadmill and my watch never agree. For example, on Monday the treadmill said 63:41 after 8 miles, but the timer on my watch said 64:22, and that kind of thing happens every single time. I know treadmills can be out when it comes to distance but I would have thought an accurate time should be a given. Anyway, I always go with the watch.

Despite the high HR, the legs felt very good on both occasions, better so than on any road runs during the past week when the hamstrings and the glutes had always felt rather achy ever since my break.

I felt a bit weird on Tuesday morning. Not tired, just a bit - odd. It may have been because of the yoga session on Monday evening after which my shoulders and hamstrings had been rather achy. Obviously I'm not using my shoulders much when running but the hamstrings made up for it. If that accounts for the high HR, this time on the road rather than the treadmill, I'm not sure.

But you know - who cares! It's Pancake Tuesday! I love Pancake Tuesday! It's my favourite holiday of the year!

I can't think of anything to give up for lent. In past years I usually gave up sweets and chocolate, which then would go on and drop my weight by about 5 pounds over the next few weeks. As I'm already as low as 142 lb / 64.5 kg / 10 st 2 lb right now, I don't think I'd want to drop any more weight so I'll give that one a miss. Any suggestions?

7 Feb

10 miles, 1:18:15, 7:50 pace, HR 152, treadmill

8 Feb

8 miles, 1:04:22, 8:03 pace, HR 148, treadmill

9 Feb

6 miles, 46:44, 7:47 pace, HR 152

Fatigue Deep, Heart Rate High

Although, right now, there is another Tina Turner songs that springs to mind.

The forecast for the next 5 days are rain, rain, rain, chance ofr rain and rain. Christ!

So I've been back on the road for three days now, and if you include the 2 treadmill runs at the start of the week that makes 5 days of running after a break of only 4 days. I would have thought that's more than enough to get back to your previous level because apparently you do not lose any fitness over such a short amount of time. That's what they said.

Well, they obviously need to re-think what they know. I can see my own numbers as clear as can be. My VDOT values went from 58 last week to 51 this week and have only gone back to 53 as of Friday. I keep the effort as easy as ever but if you look at the HR you'd think I've been doing a couple of tempo runs, which I absolutely did not, neither by pace nor effort.

If I had not gotten sick I would have done my first marathon-specific workout on Wednesday. I still had vague hopes that I might be able to squeeze it in on Thursday, possibly even Friday, and get on with the rest of the program.  But I always knew that if I were advising another runner in the same situation I would have urged her to bin the workout and only start doing tough workouts once you have fully recovered. It's much harder to tell that to yourself, though. In the end I managed to get through to myself, Wednesday and Thursday were both easy 8 mile runs and that was that. From the way my legs have been feeling on such an easy load, a workout would have been a complete disaster.

When my hamstrings felt tired on Wednesday I could only think of Monday's yoga session as the most likely culprit but they still felt unhappy on Thursday and Friday, though surely that cannot come from overtraining after 21 miles last week and still a low mileage so far this week, can it? By the way, the yoga teacher told me that she can see progress already, though truth to be told I suspect she was merely trying to be encouraging because I sure can't see it. As far as I can tell my hamstrings are still as tight as ever (not that that causes me any actual trouble - apart from my yoga positions being less than stellar).

The weather isn't exactly cooperating, particularly on Friday morning when it was pretty wild with gale force wind, heavy rain and f***ing freezing, probably my least favoured conditions. The shower after such a run becomes a way of warming up rather than getting clean.

I'm still in hope that I can do a workout on Sunday (in the wind and rain?). Maybe it's a mistake but at some stage I need to get back to training.

3 Feb

8 miles, 1:02:58, 7:52 pace, HR 150

4 Feb

8 miles, 1:03:12, 7:54 pace, HR 149

5 Feb

10 miles, 1:19:42, 7:52 pace, HR 145

6 Feb

5 miles, 38:59, 7:46 pace, HR 146

Tentative Comeback

The reason I haven't written anything the last 5 days was obviously that I haven't run anything, and this is very much a running blog. I did try to aid recovery by getting more sleep, which worked as far as sleep time was concerned but I have no way of telling if it made any difference with regards to recovery. I also went to the local pharmacy and bought some Vitamin C and Zinc supplements. If you google the effectiveness of supplements you get very mixed results but I reasoned that even if they would not help they were very unlikely to make things worse, so why not.

By Saturday I started getting rather fed up, not with the "no running" but the fact that the bug was still in my system after 2 weeks. I resolved to go to the Doctor on Monday but then I felt a bit better on Sunday and a bit better again on Monday, so decided to wait a little bit longer. I did 5 very, very easy miles on the treadmill on Monday morning, more to test the system than anything related to training, and the 5 miles spooled off without any bother - at least I can still do a bit of exercise without overextending myself. I did the same again on Tuesday but wasn't feeling 100% so I was still unsure if I'm okay to venture out again.

I felt about 90% throughout last week, 95% on Monday and 98% on Tuesday evening. This time I'm pretty sure I'm just about recovered.

I sure missed some interesting running conditions with not just one but two orange warnings in just a few days. The treadmill came in handy the last 2 days for that reason alone. In fact, it was while watching the havoc caused by storm Desmond 2 months ago when I decided to purchase a treadmill.

I'm not even sure if complete rest is better than easy running in this case. I know from experience that a day of easy running is better for recovery from a minor injury than full rest but if the same holds true for an infection is a different thing altogether. The main reason why I took a clean break is because I still remember getting pneumonia 8 years ago after stubbornly running with a chest infection until one morning I could not even get out of bed.

I got this bug while in hospital and would resolve to stay away from that place but I had that resolve already and it wasn't exactly a case of wanting to go there in the first place, so who knows.

I had hoped to start the next training phase this week but obviously that plan did not include getting sick. I'll wait and see how tomorrow goes.

1 Feb

5 miles, 42:55, 8:35 pace, HR 140, treadmill

2 Feb

5 miles, 41:35, 8:19 pace, HR 143, treadmill