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

ecoli

T runner wrote: »

Hi ecoli. Youve had a couple of bits of ill health, but youre still ticking through it. It wil come together soon and with the work youve done, youll be flying. With tje sessions when my marathon comes around ill be erring on the aerobic side. Dont worry too much about individual sessions, youll be flying in them again like you were a week or two ago. Big picture is most important and youre big picture is excellent. Youre goal now is to get through the work in a sustainable way and get fully healthy. With those mini objectives in mind for this tricky period, then youre doing well. Youre form hasnt gone, just a bit of ill health. It will pass.

Cheers T just a little worried that the nose is a more permanent thing as its a week on and I would have thought I would have got back some of the ability for inhalation in the nostril which has been given me trouble and it has me kinda spooked with regards not just the marathon but my overall running in generally.

ecoli

Sunday PM 1 mile easy, 8 mile tempo, 1 mile easy

Splits 8 miles in 48.42 (6.05 min pace)

6.10, 6.01, 5.59, 5.58, 6.07, 6.08, 6.06, 6.12

Finally a session I am happy with. Yes this was supposed to be 10 on paper and it looks like I suffered in the second half of the run but to be honest I am very pleased with this session for a number of reasons

1) showed me I can still hit the kinda paces at the kinda effort levels I want
2) Nose showed improvement making me think that there might be hope yet
3) Could have kept going if really needed and felt easier than a number of recent long tempos

So why didn't I do the full 10? and why had the paces slowed? Embarrassingly enough this was a stomach issue as a result of a mammy Sunday dinner I thought I had given enough time with 2 hours in between (including a client in for a massage which surely helped digest things a bit quicker)

First mile was sluggish enough but I actually got down to the right kinda paces quicker than the last few times I have done this session (same route as always) from here paces were feeling easy and tipping along at around 6 min pace feeling as happy as larry, after a while though started to get a few burps with the fragrance of Sunday dinner starting to seep into the nostrils (yes both which was a nice surprise ) The pace slowed a bit because I knew if I was to dig in that bit harder I would end up losing the dinner (which would be a shame after she went to all that trouble) tipped along at the pace debating whether or not to do the 10 but I knew the psychological benefit of finishing without slowing too drastically and feeling strong outweighed the physical benefits of finishing this one (and as I said before I was in bad need of a mental boost)

Delighted to be able to manage roughly the kinda splits that I had been hitting before this whole issue with the nose as I think it will lift what may have been a mental block that was on me all week and allow me to push on with training.

Note to self though in future - not used to mammy's fine cooking anymore since I flew the nest so must leave that in future to non session days or post session treat

Dory Dory

Speaking from the dark side, maybe it's the drag caused by your non-aerodynamic beard that's been holding you back? :)

P.S. - You're doing great. Keep up the good work. Rotterdam won't know what hit it when you cross the finish line.

ecoli

Dory Dory wrote: »

Speaking from the dark side, maybe it's the drag caused by your non-aerodynamic beard that's been holding you back? :)

P.S. - You're doing great. Keep up the good work. Rotterdam won't know what hit it when you cross the finish line.

Could very well be as of Feb 1st I am now back to my baby faced self

ecoli

Monday AM 4 miles easy (7.25 min mile pace)

Just a handy plod to wake me up this morning, same old story legs felt good, I felt crap though this could just be the fact that after two weeks I am back to work today

ecoli

Monday PM 8 miles easy (7.07 min pace)

Finally seem to be coming back around to the old me. The nose has improved but still limited inhalation however I think the other nostril has completely cleared to the point where it is overcompensating. This was the first run since pre Raheny that I have actually felt like my old self and not feeling crap.
Ironically I was nearly not gonna do this run as I made a rookie mistake in first day back in work I thought there was money on my card for the canteen but must have used that up before the holidays and forgot the bank card so I was the nutrition was practically zilch all day (coffee, an apple and a bowl of cereal I luckily had stored away as an emergency stash at the office desk). Half of me thought just make up the run later in the week but I wasn't gonna waste the good feeling I was feeling today so out the door with a re introduction to post work late night running.
Was nearly tempted to do the LSR I had planned for tomorrow I was feeling that good but had some wisdom, hopefully this is me over the worst of that bad patch (looking back there was alot of belly aching the last week so god help anyone who reads this log when taper time comes around )

Oregano_State

Jaysus I'd be madder than a bag of cats if that was me! Monday morning, first day back after a holiday, AND no food money. Rough out!

Beef

I'd have been out busking for it. No way would I go hungry!

woodchopper

What juicy workouts have you coming up over the next 8 weeks?

TRR

woodchopper wrote: »

What juicy workouts have you coming up over the next 8 weeks?

He has a fancy pants google doc somewhere listing them. Cant find the link ATM. Ecoli should be along soon. I have an inkling the mad fcuker Is out doing a long run in that weather so we may never hear from him again.

ecoli

TRR wrote: »

He has a fancy pants google doc somewhere listing them. Cant find the link ATM. Ecoli should be along soon. I have an inkling the mad fcuker Is out doing a long run in that weather so we may never hear from him again.

Aimed to do it earlier before things got too bad however was a bit of a washout to be honest (pardon the pun) though this was non weather related. The plan is a few pages back basically the next 8 weeks will be made up of mostly following components

- Long Tempos (AeT)
- Long easy runs (few with MP miles tagged on at end)
- Alternations (HMP/MP)

These will be supplemented by small bit of intervals/tempos/steady long runs

ecoli

Tuesday 10 miles easy (7.21 min mile pace)

This was a failed long run not because of the weather or in fact the legs feeling bad but I think I just mentally had myself beaten. Possibly the lowest point I have been since the start of this training phase back in October as when I got to 10 miles I stopped and completely shut off, being a good six miles from home at this point it was a long walk/shuffle home. Its the first time I have actually stopped as I would have been quicker to just jog home even at an easy pace but I just couldn't. Stark contrast to last night when I thought I was turning a corner. Trying not to dwell on it and just reshuffle the rest of the week around and salvage as I don't wanna skimp on the long runs over the coming months

TRR

ecoli wrote: »

This was a failed long run not because of the weather or in fact the legs feeling bad but I think I just mentally had myself beaten. Possibly the lowest point I have been since the start of this training phase back in October as when I got to 10 miles I stopped and completely shut off, being a good six miles from home at this point it was a long walk/shuffle home. Its the first time I have actually stopped as I would have been quicker to just jog home even at an easy pace but I just couldn't. Stark contrast to last night when I thought I was turning a corner. Trying not to dwell on it and just reshuffle the rest of the week around and salvage as I don't wanna skimp on the long runs over the coming months

Jesus you are up and down like a 'hoors knickers. In order of importance you need to do the following

1) Sort out your honker, go get it x-rayed. It's playing on your mind so get a diagnosis one way or the other. Do this today, go to VHI clinic if you don't want to queue!
2) Don't attempt to do a long run late at night in that weather .... ever, reschedule it. It's not a dick measuring competition. I was suppose to double last night and I just said fcuk that, I knew it would do more harm than good. That weather would have drained me mentally. Sometimes less is more.
3) Take a step back and slowly get back into your training. 10 weeks is a long time. You don't want to go too hard too soon. No use peaking the end of February when the race is in April.

You can totally ignore the above if you like but it's the last time I'm going to give you my honest opinion until after the London/Rotterdam marathons. We're at war and if you keep doing what you're doing it will be a landslide to TRR on April 13th. Rant over

drquirky

TRR wrote: »

Jesus you are up and down like a 'hoors knickers. In order of importance you need to do the following

1) Sort out your honker, go get it x-rayed. It's playing on your mind so get a diagnosis one way or the other. Do this today, go to VHI clinic if you don't want to queue!
2) Don't attempt to do a long run late at night in that weather .... ever, reschedule it. It's not a dick measuring competition. I was suppose to double last night and I just said fcuk that, I knew it would do more harm than good. That weather would have drained me mentally. Sometimes less is more.
3) Take a step back and slowly get back into your training. 10 weeks is a long time. You don't want to go too hard too soon. No use peaking the end of February when the race is in April.

You can totally ignore the above if you like but it's the last time I'm going to give you my honest opinion until after the London/Rotterdam marathons. We're at war and if you keep doing what you're doing it will be a landslide to TRR on April 13th. Rant over

Agree with each point times a million.

ecoli

@ TRR appreciate the advice. Don't worry the long run was not a bravado thing it was attempted around midday when the weather was ok (small bit of drizzle)

I am going to bit the bullet and get it looked at this evening (have clients in throughout the day so can't reschedule so I will go down once finished this evening). I think at this point you are right it is going well beyond physical and affecting the mental so need to get it sorted once and for all if I am to get the confidence back

In terms of effort levels frustrating thing is that legs feel good so I am getting in the mileage but sessions seem to be having a mental block (am getting through odd one but not consitency I should be hitting at this stage of training)

menoscemo

ecoli wrote: »

In terms of effort levels frustrating thing is that legs feel good so I am getting in the mileage but sessions seem to be having a mental block (am getting through odd one but not consitency I should be hitting at this stage of training)

Don't worry about it. Having a terrible month myself, it's easy to take a knock in the confidence but now I know from experience of marathon training that form can come back as quick as it left you so you just have to believe it will all come good...If you are getting the miles in despite poor sessions you will still be getting stronger overall.

Hold out on going to the Hospital until after you see me tonight BTW I am relying on your treatment to get me through tomorrows session...

ecoli

menoscemo wrote: »

Hold out on going to the Hospital until after you see me tonight BTW I am relying on your treatment to get me through tomorrows session...

Your last in for the day so heading up after that don't worry as I said I won't reschedule any clients in today.

On a side not I appreciate all the posts, PMs and emails that I have got the last few days from everyone (some I have yet to respond to but I will don't worry) wanna thank everyone.

Larry Brent

Hi ecoli,

I hope you don’t mind me piping up with a few thoughts, not necessarily specific to you but more in relation to the ups and downs of running in general.

Sudden changes - people who try to have the 1000 mile challenge sown up by the 3rd of January don’t always fare too well if you take a look back through the years. There seem to be a fair few people who suddenly start pounding the mileage, double runs, running streaks, new running resolutions once a New Year hits. People have to be careful with this, particularly if this means a big jump compared to what they were doing the previous few months. Most people get away with this, although they might suffer a lull come March or so. But a small few people have taken a long, long time (if ever) to get back to where they were before this sudden change. The 1000 mile challenge was initially set up to encourage those who struggle with motivation to get out there, but it seems to also attract those who are over motivated and would be better off doing less than more!

Mileage obsession - this is a killer in running. While the more miles we do the better, they’ve got to serve a purpose and done sensibly. People should not focus on miles per week/month/year. Just focus on getting your training done (which will hopefully include a lot of running) and then whatever the weekly mileage total ends up at, that’s what it is. Don’t set out to do 100 miles a week. Run a lot and if/when you tot it up at the end of the week, it might be 99 or it might be 109. It might even be 79 some weeks, it doesn’t matter once you are getting the runs done that you need to do. The only numbers that matter are race times and position, not the training times, paces or totals.

Racing to train or training to race? - As above, what is done in training pales significantly to what is done in a race. Nothing worse than being ahead of someone in training but behind them in a race. A big sign that something is up, most likely overdoing it in training. Hold back a bit in training so it is there for the race. A club colleague used to ask us if we were racing to train, or training to race. As an aside this seems particularly prevalent in triathlon if the forum here is anything to go by. Always talk of pain caves and hurt lockers - what’s all that about? Train smart, not hard. Save it for the race.

Recovery - I think this is the biggest area where people fall down in running. A number of people, going by the logs here, raced Raheny or Dungarvan and then were doing a session Tuesday or Wednesday night! That will come back to haunt them (I imagine about 3 weeks later minor injury or illness will raise its head and more training will be lost than was attempted to be gained by the Tuesday/Wednesday post race session). Thursday at the earliest would have been more wise. I think you did a 20m run 2 days after Raheny - would you schedule that for someone you coach? No matter how good you feel, legs are probably more beat up than you think and immune system will be compromised after a race, have to allow the body to recover.

Following a plan - Canova says not to follow a plan , let the plan follow you, you won’t get better advice than that. If a session is scheduled for a particular day, but you don’t feel up to it (for a legitimate reason rather than just laziness), just don’t do it, do it the next day, or whenever you are ready for it. Runners often get very het up on plans and feel they have to rigidly stick to them. Listen to your body is often quoted, but rarely heeded, I think.

Peaking too soon - If you feel you have enough time to get your marathon training and all the long runs done, you probably have too much time! Feeling like you don’t have enough time probably means you’ll get it bang on. It’s only turned February and people are already doing 20milers. Where have they left to go? If there’s 10 weeks to go, people shouldn’t even be stated their marathon training yet! Should be coming into fine 5/10k shape right about now...


Enough ranting, don’t let one bad run or spell get to you, it’s all about the consistency as you know. Just get back into it slowly but surely and you’ve plenty of time. Nail it! Best of luck.

Dory Dory

^^^ Best. Advice. Ever.

Printing that off for myself.

TRR

Great post Larry. I think this deserves it's own thread in the main forum just so ecoli doesn't think we are harassing him

The train to race thing is what's key for me. I couldn't give a flying fcuk what tom, dick or harry is doing in training. I'm interested in race times and positions. If cutting your plan by 30% means you will run faster on race day, do it. No one cares what you do in training. It's also one of the reasons I've cut back on my own training log. You can get into a cycle of pushing runs you shouldn't just because at the start of the week you said you were going to do it. Logs are good in that they can hold you accountable but at times they can have negative effects too!

ecoli

Hi Larry.

Great post and definitely some good advice. In terms of my own training (perhaps its a biased view) I feel I can address alot of the questions positively

Sudden changes - I have been a culprit of this in the past but I have been steadily and consistently building mileage since August. I agree with the weekly mileage issue as it is something which I have stopped logging here simply because there will be variation (I have aimed to have sessions 3 days apart pending how I feel and as such a long run can pop up once in a two week period at times so there is much fluctation). Looking at the mileage challenges of the past few years it could look like I fade out but to be honest alot of the time I just stop logging so can be hard to compare year on year.

Mileage obsession - in terms of mileage I try to remain consistent as the primary goal and even though I have a general idea of the kind of mileage I aim for it is not a target set in stone. I think this balances listening to the body with keeping me honest in regards the laziness element

Train to race - I have actually felt I have improved in this sense dramatically. Looking back through my log there has only been three sessions where I have ran at 5 mile or quicker pace in 5 weeks, The 1 mile session I ran 3 weeks ago was actually bang on comparison to my 5 mile race time (which taken into account the nose puts it at a slightly conservative pace). My Long tempos have also been based on current fitness and feel and I have progressed in these without trying to race the workouts (still slower than PMP)

Recovery - Something which I have been quite attentive to, your example of the 20 miler might look to be contradictory but I placed it there as the intensity of the run was based off easy feel despite the duration. Recovery paced runs have been added frequently after sessions and sessions have been pushed back where needed on the basis of feel. There was an issue a few weeks back where I made one or two judgement calls (pushing a session back to the point where congestions in build up to race meant that I was slightly under recovered during this week and ended up sick but reacted to this fairly quickly and immediately pulled things back). Overall I feel that I have made positive in roads in this regard overall within my program.

Following a plan - This is something which I have actually followed quite religiously. I think I gave a few posters a copy of the overall plan when I started would probably have a bit of difficulty in matching it with training done over last few months. My plan drawn up has provided a good reference point so that I do not veer too far off track however it is just that, a reference point and as such has not dictated the training done to the point of it being counter intuitive.

Peaking too soon - I think this depends on the plan to be honest. I have been running 17+ milers since November but time on your feet is more important than the arbitrary distance (a 20 miler is very different for a 3 hour marathoner and a 3.30 marathoner so why would you have a 3.30 hour marathoner training harder than a 3 hour marathon). However the plan is still progressive in so far as the mileage of the long runs will push me up to the 3 hour mark on some runs and the inclusion of higher instensity (MP miles tacked on to Long runs) means that the plan still has progression. I agree with you regards the 5k/10k fitness and so far that is where I have progressed to as this is only week 2 of the specific marathon block of my training

(I know this advice was solely based on my training however I felt I needed to answer these questions for myself as well as the advice is well thought out and would be along the lines with my own thoughts even though you may find some parts of my training which contradict it)

cianc

Larry Brent wrote: »

Always talk of pain caves and hurt lockers - what’s all that about?

Freudian. Definitely Freudian

ecoli

Wednesday 90 min gym work

Good solid gym session, was gonna do a few easy miles in between treatments but didnt get a chance. Followed this up with a 10 hour wait in A&E to confirm the nose is broke and I have a narrowed air passage (long wait to confirm the obvious considering nose is slightly crooked and can't breath out of one nasal airway :rolleyes: ) There is still significant swelling high up in the nasal passage which in my mind is a good thing as it means that hopefully the blocked passage is more soft tissue based and could be a case of just time as a recovery rather than a surgical solution. Waiting to get confirmation on the appointment with the specialist which will either be Friday (tomorrow sorry lost track of days) or early next week.

This confirms my first ever broken bone (hopefully will be another quarter century till the next one )

BED TIME

kit3

Can't believe you raced the day after this happened and ran so much since. Trying to decide if you are a very tough cookie or a space cadet best of luck with the recovery !

TRR

Give me two minutes. Just two minutes and ill have your nose back pointing in the right direction

career_move

TRR wrote: »

Give me two minutes. Just two minutes and ill have your nose back pointing in the right direction

A little sympathy wouldn't go amiss - the poor lads probably only cut his knees before and a broken nose, well that's nearly as bad as manflu

ecoli

kit3 wrote: »

Can't believe you raced the day after this happened and ran so much since. Trying to decide if you are a very tough cookie or a space cadet best of luck with the recovery !

Sure we all have to be a little loopy to do what we do for "fun" . To be honest in terms of pain it was only a minor fracture so not that sore just more an annoyance with regards the implications on breathing.

ecoli

TRR wrote: »

Give me two minutes. Just two minutes and ill have your nose back pointing in the right direction

I'm still convinced the fear of me putting down a tangible in Raheny drove the fear of god into you so you sent your lackey's down to sort me out.

Now you looking to "correct" it shortly before my next race? Sensing a pattern

TRR

ecoli wrote: »

I'm still convinced the fear of me putting down a tangible in Raheny drove the fear of god into you so you sent your lackey's down to sort me out.

Now you looking to "correct" it shortly before my next race? Sensing a pattern

whatev's. When are you racing next? The half?

ecoli

TRR wrote: »

whatev's. When are you racing next? The half?

Probably depending on what the specialist says on corrective procedures