"If I'm not out there training, someone else is."

ecoli · 06-02-2012 10:52pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Monday|Easy Run|11.5 miles| 6.50 mile pace|1.18.39

Thinking that I was doing well getting the double in after my night shift it caught up on me big time as well as having second night shift of the week. If I was doing them every day I could get into routine but when I had to adjust back and forth throughout the week really messed me up. As a result I didnt manage to get out over the weekend just out of sheer tiredness however thankfully it is the last of them that I will have to do as pending approval I will be moving department soon which means no longer working past 10pm in the evenings woohoo:D

WTD 11.5 miles (1/1 days)
MTD 58.1 miles (4/6 days)
YTD 385.42 miles (33/37 days)

ecoli · 08-02-2012 12:08am

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Tueday AM|Easy Run|4.4 miles| 6.43 mile pace|29.35
Tuesday PM|1500m paced session|10.65 miles| |

Session: 3.12 miles easy, drills, 3x (5x300m w/ 100m rec(45 sec -1 min)) 400m jog between sets 3.12 miles easy

Splits:
(51, 54, 51, 52, 52)
(51, 51, 51, 52, 52)
(52, 51, 51, 50, 49)

Met up with drquirky for this one. Was good to have someone there to chat to for the warm up and to keep me honest in the reps. Its always great to have someone on your shoulder to make sure you dont slip up on the pace. These felt alot more controlled that the last time I did similar session and the pace was nice and controlled. Slipped up on the second rep when took it a little to handy but all in all felt good and was glad to see the last set I managed to progressively get faster and even dip under 50 for it which was nice

WTD 26.55 miles (2/2 days)
MTD 73.15 miles (5/7 days)
YTD 400.07 miles (34/38 days)

menoscemo · 08-02-2012 12:43am

ecoli wrote: »

[
Met up with drquirky for this one. Was good to have someone there to chat to for the warm up and to keep me honest in the reps. Its always great to have someone on your shoulder to make sure you dont slip up on the pace. These felt alot more controlled that the last time I did similar session and the pace was nice and controlled. Slipped up on the second rep when took it a little to handy but all in all felt good and was glad to see the last set I managed to progressively get faster and even dip under 50 for it which was nice

Ahh, so that was Dr Quirky? I imagined him to be a lot taller for some reason. Sorry for getting in your way a few times....

drquirky · 08-02-2012 9:01am

menoscemo wrote: »

Ahh, so that was Dr Quirky? I imagined him to be a lot taller for some reason.

Story of my life Menoscemo :mad:

Stazza · 08-02-2012 10:16am

Session: 3.12 miles easy, drills, 3x (5x300m w/ 100m rec(45 sec -1 min)) 400m jog between sets 3.12 miles easy

Splits:
(51, 54, 51, 52, 52)
(51, 51, 51, 52, 52)
(52, 51, 51, 50, 49)

That's a handy session and dipping under 50 on the last rep augurs well.

menoscemo · 08-02-2012 10:56am

drquirky wrote: »

Story of my life Menoscemo :mad:

Sorry man, no offense, You're the same height as me

I don't know why but I had you down as a 6ft6 lanky basketball player

ecoli · 08-02-2012 3:56pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Wednesday AM|Easy Run|8.06 miles| 6.37 mile pace|53.21

Nice run around UCD trails to disect the interview I had for a new position in work. Was good to get it out of my system though I was running on empty in terms of food but didnt feel it too much

WTD 34.61 miles (3/3 days)
MTD 81.21miles (6/8 days)
YTD 408.53 miles (35/39 days)

ecoli · 09-02-2012 3:08pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
thursday AM|Vo2 max session|10.2 miles||

Session
3.18 miles warm up, 6x800m jog 200 rec (2 min), 3.02 mile cooldown

Splits: 2.32, 2.29, 2.29, 2.28, 2.28, 2.29

Met up wit drquirky again for this one. Was not the easiest session to say the least however was a good workout. My pacing was very poor on these every rep consisted of hitting first lap too fast (72-73) and the last lap too slow despite the effort being hard in the second lap. Was happy though this time last year would have been happy with 1.52 ish splits for the 600s and was coming through quicker than that on course for 800m reps. The first three were not too bad but second half of the session was really work which is suppose is normal for this kinda workout. The last one I pushed hard to maintain the pace. All in all really happy with the splits especially with a relatively healthy wind on the track

WTD 44.81 miles (4/4 days)
MTD 91.41miles (7/9 days)
YTD 418.73 miles (36/40 days)

ecoli · 09-02-2012 8:33pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
thursday PM|Easy Run|4.89 miles| 6.44 mile pace| 32.56

Badly needed to get out on this one just to flush the legs out. Bit harder than normal but was just due to the legs feeling the session early. They will thank me tomorrow for getting this one in:D

WTD 49.7 miles (4/4 days)
MTD 96.3 miles (7/9 days)
YTD 423.62 miles (36/40 days)

Mr Slow · 10-02-2012 10:58am

ecoli wrote: »

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
thursday PM|Easy Run|4.89 miles| 6.44 mile pace| 32.56

Badly needed to get out on this one just to flush the legs out. Bit harder than normal but was just due to the legs feeling the session early. They will thank me tomorrow for getting this one in:D

WTD 49.7 miles (4/4 days)
MTD 96.3 miles (7/9 days)
YTD 423.62 miles (36/40 days)

Do you coach yourself or are you too close to it?

ecoli · 10-02-2012 11:11am

Mr Slow wrote: »

Do you coach yourself or are you too close to it?

Went back to coaching myself back in September due to circumstances which made it very difficult for the coach to give time needed due to personal circumstances and it coming into an Olympic year which is understandable. Maybe when things settle down I may join up with him again but in the mean time I am happy with how training is going.

Alot of my training is based off similarities to his style which brought me huge improvements last year (higher mileage, recovery days instead of off days, rhythm running style sessions). I think the biggest difference however is that I am keeping more in touch with speed than last year. Even though I was running alot of good sessions and seeing alot of improvements as a result many of them were in a controlled manner due to my body building up my aerobic base I was even told by him that last year was designed to be a transition year and I think that this year I have now managed to adapt to the point where my body is able to handle the training that I am doing at the moment and reap the benefits. I dont think the training I am doing this year would have been possible had I not put in the year I did last year

BobMac104 · 10-02-2012 11:52am

Would you ever run over 7min mile?

Also how far in advance do you plan you training?

ecoli · 10-02-2012 12:07pm

BobMac104 wrote: »

Would you ever run over 7min mile?

Also how far in advance do you plan you training?

Yes believe it or not most of my easy running up until about 5 weeks ago was anywhere between 7-7.30 miles. This change came about after the Waterford half. Over the christmas I was just doing enough to keep ticking over (30-40 miles tops) but because the mileage was much lower I was fresher and running a bit quicker naturally. Once I got back to the higher mileage I had found that my body had got used to running at a bit quicker paces and since then my paces are fairly comfortable. I run my easy runs off feel so I will go at what i feel is the right effort (i.e the one I am used to for easy running). The fact that I have changed many of my runs from 9-10 miles and a shorter double over the winter to more 6-6 doubles also probably has had an impact on this

In terms of planning I have it broke down into 3 stages; short term, medium length and long term

In terms of the short term this is to do with the specifics (i.e the exact sessions I aim to do) and this I usually keep a month in advance due to being able to suss races and whether I am able to run them or not with work. anything more and I not really able to assure that I am off for them

In the medium term I usually plan out the season ahead in terms of races I would like to fit in during the season and the overall season goals/ target races. I also have a good idea through this of how the training will progress along the season. Right now I can pretty much tell you about how training will look in a general sense till the end of April.

Long term and this is stuff like what I am targeting over the next few
seasons. Here is where I have a general idea of where I wanna be heading such as a possible time frame for marathon debut etc. This is a bit more fluid in terms of it changing but all training does take the long term effects into account like this year for example I am training to get my 1500-5000m times down in the summer which will ultimately help benefit my marathon times in the long run

BobMac104 · 10-02-2012 12:36pm

ecoli wrote: »

Yes believe it or not most of my easy running up until about 5 weeks ago was anywhere between 7-7.30 miles. This change came about after the Waterford half. Over the christmas I was just doing enough to keep ticking over (30-40 miles tops) but because the mileage was much lower I was fresher and running a bit quicker naturally. Once I got back to the higher mileage I had found that my body had got used to running at a bit quicker paces and since then my paces are fairly comfortable. I run my easy runs off feel so I will go at what i feel is the right effort (i.e the one I am used to for easy running). The fact that I have changed many of my runs from 9-10 miles and a shorter double over the winter to more 6-6 doubles also probably has had an impact on this

In terms of planning I have it broke down into 3 stages; short term, medium length and long term

In terms of the short term this is to do with the specifics (i.e the exact sessions I aim to do) and this I usually keep a month in advance due to being able to suss races and whether I am able to run them or not with work. anything more and I not really able to assure that I am off for them

In the medium term I usually plan out the season ahead in terms of races I would like to fit in during the season and the overall season goals/ target races. I also have a good idea through this of how the training will progress along the season. Right now I can pretty much tell you about how training will look in a general sense till the end of April.

Long term and this is stuff like what I am targeting over the next few
seasons. Here is where I have a general idea of where I wanna be heading such as a possible time frame for marathon debut etc. This is a bit more fluid in terms of it changing but all training does take the long term effects into account like this year for example I am training to get my 1500-5000m times down in the summer which will ultimately help benefit my marathon times in the long run

ok so for your easy runs go just by feel. Same for pure recovery runs? from your log it seems recovery and easy runs are done at the same pace.

The planning stuff is very interesting and something i should try work out for myself as i don’t really have any and i think it would help.

I found what you said about the transition year interesting too. Kind of training to be able to train better in a sense. Any sources of info on this type of plan off the top off your head? Sorry for hijacking your log.

Thanks again.

ecoli · 10-02-2012 12:52pm

BobMac104 wrote: »

ok so for your easy runs go just by feel. Same for pure recovery runs? from your log it seems recovery and easy runs are done at the same pace.

The planning stuff is very interesting and something i should try work out for myself as i don’t really have any and i think it would help.

I found what you said about the transition year interesting too. Kind of training to be able to train better in a sense. Any sources of info on this type of plan off the top off your head? Sorry for hijacking your log.

Thanks again.

My recovery runs are the complete opposite you will see that I do these once a week (though not this week as I had the weekend off) usually on a Monday and this is the one when I religiously watch the pace. I will stay as close to or over 9 min miling as possible.

In terms of the transition year thing this was more a case of building mileage mainly and getting consistency in training rather than a year of transition solely. I still managed alot of PBs last year but it was more aa case of the higher mileage fully coming to fruitition this year as my body fully adapted to this. In most coaches training philosophies you will find this idea of year on year progression one in particular would be Arthur Lydiard. Some athletes took this to the extreme like Lasse Viren who aimed to peak once every four years (Olympic year) The idea is a more grand scale version of building a base as your body adapts and assimilates the mileage.

It can take years of consistent training to max out a persons aerobic capacity and is a thing which many athletes never fulfill. If you think of it when you get injured or take time off you spend the next few weeks/months building aerobic capacity back to the point it was before pushing on as such many people due to injury or whatever never reach these limits. Good news about this is that there is nearly always room for improvement amongst nearly every event given fact they all derive energy by aerobic means from 400m+

BobMac104 · 10-02-2012 1:02pm

ecoli wrote: »

My recovery runs are the complete opposite you will see that I do these once a week (though not this week as I had the weekend off) usually on a Monday and this is the one when I religiously watch the pace. I will stay as close to or over 9 min miling as possible

.

ah yes sorry i must have missed that.

ecoli wrote: »

In terms of the transition year thing this was more a case of building mileage mainly and getting consistency in training rather than a year of transition solely. I still managed alot of PBs last year but it was more aa case of the higher mileage fully coming to fruitition this year as my body fully adapted to this. In most coaches training philosophies you will find this idea of year on year progression one in particular would be Arthur Lydiard. Some athletes took this to the extreme like Lasse Viren who aimed to peak once every four years (Olympic year) The idea is a more grand scale version of building a base as your body adapts and assimilates the mileage.

It can take years of consistent training to max out a persons aerobic capacity and is a thing which many athletes never fulfill. If you think of it when you get injured or take time off you spend the next few weeks/months building aerobic capacity back to the point it was before pushing on as such many people due to injury or whatever never reach these limits. Good news about this is that there is nearly always room for improvement amongst nearly every event given fact they all derive energy by aerobic means from 400m+

Ok cool. Thanks for that. much appreciated!

ecoli · 10-02-2012 4:07pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Friday|Easy Run|8.57 miles| 6.50 mile pace| 58.39

Nice run around Corkagh park in ideal conditions for running. Took it very handy at the start of the run after yesterdays session even though no stiffness in the legs i could still feel the session in them but as the run went on the legs freshened up a good bit

WTD 58.27 miles (5/5 days)
MTD 104.87 miles (8/10 days)
YTD 432.19 miles (37/41 days)

ecoli · 10-02-2012 6:03pm

In the spirit of all this talk of planning this is gonna smack of irony but what the hell. Found out I have next saturday off and would be a shame to waste it so I thought rather than come into the Inter Clubs cold as my only XC race since the same race last year I noticed the Garda XC from the BHAA calendar is on that day so I may as well hop in that and run it as a bit of a session

ecoli · 11-02-2012 1:02pm

smmoore79 · 11-02-2012 6:55pm

ecoli wrote: »

In the spirit of all this talk of planning this is gonna smack of irony but what the hell. Found out I have next saturday off and would be a shame to waste it so I thought rather than come into the Inter Clubs cold as my only XC race since the same race last year I noticed the Garda XC from the BHAA calendar is on that day so I may as well hop in that and run it as a bit of a session

Doin that race too next week. The course should be tough enough with a few big hills. Was there this morning and the ground was very slippy. 300 expected next week so there'll be a few good seniors for us to try and catch:rolleyes:

ecoli · 12-02-2012 12:39am

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Saturday PM|Tempo Session|11.5 miles| 6.42 mile pace| 1.17.04

Session: 2 miles easy, 5 miles tempo, 4.5 miles easy
Splits: 29.20 (5.53, 5.55, 5.49, 5.49, 5.56)

This was probably the hardest session I have had to do in a good while not in terms of the sessions difficulty but simply the legs were heavy as hell after this week and I was mentally not up for it. I knew I was gonna have to use every mental trick I could think of to get today in. I started the day Resigned to taking it as an easy day and adding some miles @ MP to my long run tomorrow. This took session off my mind for the day in work so was grand. When starting out on the run however I started to justify why giving the session a lash tonight made more sense (had done a good few MP miles over last while but very few tempo ones and also session today meant an extra day to recover for the next session).

Once started the session I was feeling grand in the first miles so said make it a 6 mile tempo sure which progressed to the point of "well why not add .25 and make it a 10k tempo". This probably sounds a bit mental to most people when I mention that I was struggling for motivation for this session but by adding that 1.25 miles to the session it made me do more before calling it a day. Rather than cut a 5 miler tempo short I quickly tricked myself into pretending I was doing a longer session and by cutting that short I was actually getting the full session I had originally planned

Now for a few hours of quality Milrose action

WTD 75.81 miles (6/6 days)
MTD 122.41 miles (9/11 days)
YTD 449.73 miles (38/42 days)

ecoli · 12-02-2012 10:48pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Sunday |Long Run|12.32 miles| 7.08 mile pace| 1.28.03

A long week of training was catching up on me. Felt crap before going out so took the first few miles very handy but despite this was still not feeling great throughout this run. Body was just crying out for my recovery day tomorrow so rather than over do it for the sake of things I cut this one a little shorter than the intended 15

Total Weekly Mileage 88.13 miles (7/7 days)

MTD 134.73 miles (10/12 days)
YTD 462.05 miles (38/42 days)

ecoli · 13-02-2012 10:08pm

Mr Slow · 13-02-2012 10:15pm

ecoli wrote: »

Body was crying out for this legs still feeling crap after the run but hopefully will be better for it come tomorrow

Ditto

ecoli · 14-02-2012 11:30pm

Day|Training|Distance|Pace|Time
Tuesday |Fartlek Run|13.1 miles| 6.44 mile pace| 1.28.17

Session 2 mile warm up
5 min on/off, 4 min on/off, 3 min on/off, 2 min on/off, 1 min on/off, 1 min on/off, 2 min on/off, 3 min on/off, 4 min on/off, 5 min on/off
2.23 miles cooldown

Splits|1st Set pace| Distance (mls)|2nd Set pace|Distance
5 min|5.40|.88|5.44|.88
4 min|5.22|.75|5.40|.71
3min|5.22|.56|5.35|.54
2min|5.22|.38|5.22|.37
1min|5.08|.2|5.07|.2
Total|15 min|2.77|15min|2.70

Was late home from work tonight which meant that I was not gonna make it down to the track which was probably a good thing as I am still as heavy as hell so the daunting task of trying to hit splits wasn't appealing to me anyway. Decided seeing as I am racing XC the next two weekends might as well do a bit of fartlek. This would get me away from aiming for splits and just focus on running steady. This session is not supposed to be too bad as you have equal recovery but the way it is set up you end up pushing the reps pretty hard on the way down but on the way back up your recovery is half of what the next rep is gonna be which makes it mentally as well as physically tougher as you aim to maintain the effort on the way back up. Happy with how this went despite feeling **** I was hitting all the paces though by the last few on sections I was really working hard to maintain the pace but that is exactly where you want to be for a session. When looked back at the splits was delighted to see how well paced they were and no major fall off in pace in the second half of the session which shows I am still in good aerobic shape

WTD 18.13 miles (2/2 days)
MTD 152.86 miles (12/14 days)
YTD 480.18 miles (40/44 days)

smmoore79 · 15-02-2012 4:56pm

Great splits!! Id be well chuffed with that session. What kind of surface did you hit those times?

drquirky · 15-02-2012 6:30pm

ecoli wrote: »

a good thing as I am still as heavy as hell )

Kinda relieved someone else was feeling a bit rough- last week was a tough week for me anyways seems like it might have been for you as well? Excellent fartlek session there man- hopefully I'll see you at the Garda race on Saturday- still waiting on the baby so I reckon I'll get out....

ecoli · 18-02-2012 3:46pm

smmoore79 wrote: »

Great splits!! Id be well chuffed with that session. What kind of surface did you hit those times?

They were on paths with a odd incline / decline but nothing to dramatic. Wanted to do it on the XC but was too dark to attempt it by time i got home from work

ecoli · 18-02-2012 3:51pm

ecoli · 18-02-2012 4:18pm

This was thrown in last minute due to the fact that I am doing the Interclubs next week for a team and seeing as I have not even done so much as a XC session in the last year I knew cross would be a shock to the system so decided best to get a race in before hand.

Last night however I was in no mood to race and just had no interest. This was made clear from my actions which were fairly uncharacteristic of me the night before a race. I did everything wrong from late night to take-away and a few beers while watching a film (only three early in the night but normally would never touch them night before a race)

Debating whether or not to do it logic intervened and I said even if I ran and did badly it would spark the motivation again so decided just to give it a lash and get it into the legs

The conditions themselves were typical of my previous experiences of XC windy as hell and soft underfoot after early morning rain. Though despite this sun was shining

Race started and I took a pretty conservative start. A heavy wind on our back at start meant that there would be a good few heading out way too quick. Feeling good I positioned myself well coming down by the magazine fort as we turned back towards the wind. Coming down by Kyber I slotted in nicely into a group and slotted in with the pace which slowed up the climb

First lap was a short one and we came around and I started to move quite healthy again passing people for fun after they were suffering from the climbs. As a result of this however I came around to Kyber completely isolated with a few tailing me but staying far enough away that I was having to do the work. Suffered badly at this point by the time I got up the long climb I was hurting. Turned out of the wind to see drquirky hot on my heels and I could tell he had me in his sights after the last few sessions we have done together.

Tactics kinda came into play here and I knew he was working hard to catch me so I steadily wound up the pace as had the wind on my back. He caught me just before the turn down by the magazine fort so slotted in behind him to regroup and go again and as we came into the wind I thought we could work together so I passed him though he didnt seem to respond.

This time coming up Kyber I had someone to track so worked away. Body was feeling the effects of being not used to cross and the lower back and calves were tightening up. Again was fairly jacked from the hill once got to the top of the climb but came around the corner and wound it up again and finished with a comfortably quick pace though didnt really top out with a sprint finish.

Splits:
5.34
6.07
6.00
6.17

All in all happy to get the XC experience in for next week. Performance itself was not stellar but I am not expecting it to be as have no XC sessions done and all my sessions have been rhythm running and track and road work. Think the lack of hills in my training showed up in this race and is something I have been aware of recently but aerobically felt good throughout the race and the ability to change paces and recover paces when struggling after the climbs was an optimistic sign

"If I'm not out there training, someone else is."

Comments