Pushing my boundaries and making my physio rich...

RacoonQueen

Good luck tomorrow - I may come down on t'bike to show support. I really should but I probably won't. Enjoy it anyway. If it's raining I'll be raging I'm not running. :pac:

Bally8

Best of luck tomorrow. Enjoy it:)

tHE vAGGABOND

The sportsworld 5 miler. A local[ish] race for me [half way between where I live now and where I grew up], so I only have to fall out of bed and stumble up the road and Im there. Its a nice change from the multi-day escapade of the Conn Half

Its two laps of a course, with a slight downhill drag, turning a corner and a similar slight uphill drag back to where you started.

I knew there were a few boards folks attending, but there must have been somewhere over 10+, which was savage. There must have been more boards tops out there than from some of the large Dublin clubs. So Im not going to name names, as I would be horrified to miss someone out , and for them to think they are being snubbed or something. (I'm totally rubbish with names). But it was absolutely fantastic to meet so many, meeting a bunch of those folks for the first time [but not the last time I hope!]. :cool:

My race - the plan was to do 38/39, sticking between 7.30 and 8 minute miles.

The start was congested, so I stepped onto the wrong side of the road and got passed the initial crush.

A few hundred meters in I was cruising, checked watch and I was doing around 7.30min/mi, and got a big boost, knowing I was well able for this.

We turned and went down Fotfield Road, between miles 1 and 2, and it was a very gradual downhill run, and I was passing people, tipping along. I checked the watch, and I was doing just over 7 min/mi - so tried to pull back a small bit as I did not think I could keep that pace for entire race.

We turned the corner, and went [gradual] uphill, and into a slight wind, and it was tough work and I had no one for protection/wind breaking, but I stuck with it, knowing it was not that long, so it was bound to end soon! I]I always think of HH saying that working hard up a hill is a better work out for your legs than a huge gym leg weight session[/I

The second lap was much the same. I was starting to hurt, but now you know your on the way home, its not too bad. Just keep telling yourself it will be over in 10 mins [or so!].

On fortfield road [2nd time] I found myself speeding up again [between miles 3 and 4], just taking advantage of the downhill, again I was just over 7 min/mi's. But I pulled back just a little, as I was thinking of the uphill and wind waiting to face me.

The second trip up the wee hill was not as bad for some reason. I was hurting, and it was hard work, and would have chopped off a body part [or two] for a cold pint, but when you know the race is almost over you get a burst of energy from somewhere. [thanks to the ladies shouting 800 then 600 meters to go!]

I saw Perkina up ahead, a hundred meters or so at this point, and I let him stay there. If I knew we had a support crew at the finish line I would have sped up and made a sprint finish of it, for the ensuing craic and banter - but Im sure he could have held me off, being a fast young man :P

Getting the cheer for the ladies and gents at the end [including those in middle of their LSR ] gave me a extra boost to put an extra effort in at the end, which got me over the line in 36.59, which is a great time Im very happy with.

Its a gigantic PB, but I only ran this distance once before, right at start of my running, so Im not going crazy about that. What makes me happy, is that I set a target, and got under it comfortably.

1 00:07:21 1.00 07:21
2 00:07:24 1.00 07:24
3 00:07:33 1.00 07:33
4 00:07:17 1.00 07:17
5 00:07:21 1.00 07:23

Avg HR: 116 bpm
Max HR: 168 bpm

Roll on Dunshaughlin 10k, and the obliteration of 50 mins :cool:

rainbow kirby

Very nicely done, good pacing too!

menoscemo

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

Avg HR: 116 bpm

:eek: You must have been sleeping during the race?:D
In fairness you looked very fresh, would have been nice to see a sprint out at the end though. Great time, you are making absolutely massive improvements recently.

maria74

Thats a great run. You must be delighted.

tHE vAGGABOND

Thanks folks!

@Meno - yea that average HR is crazy, I wonder if it started counting it when I was sitting in the back of woddle's car, chatting [garmin was setup and ready to go, but not started?], otherwise battery on strap must be going.

I have been getting better and better lately. Its a mixture of two things [as far as I think], first, better training [including longer and better quality LSR's with you fine ladies and gents] and second [importantly] also doing *everything* my physio tells me, following his stretching routine to the letter [and beyond], not just when Im hurt, when I feel good too. So I have been uninjured and able to train

RacoonQueen

Bloody hell - bet you weren't expecting that. There's something extra satisfying about absolutely blowing your own expectations out of the water and comfortably too. Well done - cracking time.

Brianderunner

Forget about sub 50 in Dunshaughlin. Change it to sub 46! Delighted for you.

chinguetti

Great time Vagga, sub 50 in a 10k is a bit easy from the looks of it. The boy Brian might have given you a better target time.

tHE vAGGABOND

With regard to times, I think your right! These new results and performances at training require the setting of new targets :eek:.

I have not really done this before, but feck it, I need these times to target training:

Dunore 5k [2 Weeks] - Sub 22 [so 7 min miles and then puke!]

Dunshaughlin 10k [6 weeks away] - Sub 46 [Circa 7.20 pace]

Clontarf Half [7 weeks away] - Sub 1.50 [Circa 8.20 Pace]

[Im away at a wedding for the race series 5 mile]

tHE vAGGABOND

Thanks to DotComDolly for finding this

I know there this was too, its at the top at the top of the second hill, by the Pines pub, as I was on my own, and the camera lady was looking right at me, and took a bunch of pic's

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3663/5723106667_ea0144f538.jpg

claralara

Well done yesterday! Great running!

tHE vAGGABOND

4 mile recovery run in just over 36 minutes minutes

Was not going to go out, and had my dinner and everything, but caved and went out for a couple of miles.

Was a touch stiff, but Im thinking more from the new stuff physio has me doing, which I did last night and this morning for the first time - as much as the race yesterday.

All good now tho :cool:

theboyblunder

congrats on the big pb - great running

The new targets sound bang on IMO - except the half, according to bob glovers book (the performance comparison tables are weirdly accurate for me) your 5m time equates to a sub 1:43 target for the half if you get the lsrs in etc.


Think big!

well done again

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

With regard to times, I think your right! These new results and performances at training require the setting of new targets :eek:.

I have not really done this before, but feck it, I need these times to target training:

Dunore 5k [2 Weeks] - Sub 22 [so 7 min miles and then puke!]

Dunshaughlin 10k [6 weeks away] - Sub 46 [Circa 7.20 pace]

Clontarf Half [7 weeks away] - Sub 1.50 [Circa 8.20 Pace]

[Im away at a wedding for the race series 5 mile]

tHE vAGGABOND

For me, Clontarf was always a "a run somewhere interesting in Dublin I have not run before" race - so I *never* planned a run all out there. As it is, by doing this, Im doing it faster than I had planned :eek:

I think if I successfully run at the pace I listed [8.20 per mile] will be a PB by 6 minutes, and a decent bit faster than I usually do LSR's! That will be a great result.

Also Im racing twice in the couple of weeks before it, so I dont want to burn out or get injured tbh. So I dont think killing myself to get over the line3 or 4 minutes faster will be worthwhile in this instance.

If Im in great shape in September, I may well do that killing of myself for Dublin Half :cool:

tHE vAGGABOND

Met up with the ever fantastic Tuesday UCD track session gang, for the first bash at the McMillan "best 10k workout" 6 week plan.

So due to time pressures I went right to week 2, 10 x 400m @ 5k pace, so I ran it at the 5k pace I hope to do Dunore in next week, just under 7's
[Week one is 5 by 1 milers at 10k pace with rest inbetween, so will take a longer session, so I may do that Saturday or indeed next week].

Looking at the Garmin, I averaged around 6.25/30 min miles over the 10 laps - going that fast I cant judge pace for ****, but its all good hard work, so I dont mind at all.

Avg HR: 140 bpm
Max HR: 180 bpm

Overall, not a million miles short of 5 miles total distance [with warm up and warm down]

Good, tough hard work and an enjoyable session :cool:

Aimman

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

Overall, not a million miles short of 5 miles total distance [with warm up and warm down]

You should have gone over the 5M. I did the same warm up and cool down, but did two reps less and ended up with 4.8M, you should have had about 5.3M clocked up

And dont worry about pace for the laps on the track, keep an eye on the time for each.

tHE vAGGABOND

I figured out what happened there - as I had the watch setup arseways - I never started it for one of the runs

re: Lap times - I was doing between 1.39 [once I think] and 1.44 for all 10 runs

tHE vAGGABOND

Feel like **** tonight for no reason at all really, so while I wanted to go out and run, I was feeling sluggish and just a bit crappy so was going to do a short recovery style run..

As I was out I was thinking about work stuff and one or two other things, so I went further than planned and it also turned into a tempo run.

6.5 Miles in 54 Minutes

Avg HR: 146 bpm
Max HR: 168 bpm

tHE vAGGABOND

I had to drop something up to my sisters and wish my nephew well for tomorrow [and slip him some spending money on the sly :cool: [he won the competition to be the Leinster mascot, gigantic excitement all around]

I turned it into a run, and did just under 5 miles in between 43 and 44 minutes [hard to track time exactly, as I forgot to turn off garmin in their house].

I will likely do a LSR tomorrow morning, to get it done, so I can get messed up after winning the cup tomorrow and not have to get out of bed to do a long run

tHE vAGGABOND

So the Phoenix Park is closed for everyone, ****! I was *really* looking forward to it this morning.

To be honest, I was running up there thinking how they were going to protect Obama in the US Ambassadors Residence if the world and his brother can see into the windows of residence from the acres. So problem solved, USA subtle style, close the entire park for a week so he can crash there for a few hours :rolleyes:

So I ran up to park, got told to move along by some 12 year old Garda, so took the route we did for a bit of the LSR a couple of weeks ago, so I ran around the outside walls, down to Chapelizod <?> and back down the liffey, watching the rowers. Which was a nice change I guess, but Im still a bit bitter about missing my run in the park.

I then went home via usual route down canal.

So 10 miles in almost dead on 1.28, so just under 9 min mile pace overall.

Good to have it done and dusted as I have a few jobs to do before I settle down to the business of watching my nephew lead out Leinster and get drunker and drunker :P

rainbow kirby

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

watching my nephew lead out Leinster

Hope he has a great day, that will be one to remember

chinguetti

The first time i read your last post Vagga, i thought your nephew was going to be the one to get drunk!

Whatever happens later, he'll remember the day.

tHE vAGGABOND

Nephew and Leinster both played blinders! Your author got blind drunk, and running was the last thing on my mind this morning. Coffee and comfort food was all I was interested in

A couple of movies and whole pile of coffee later [god bless fancy coffee machines] it was sunny outside and I was feeling slightly more human so I went out for a run.

Plan was to take it easy enough and just get out and about for 60 minutes and work off some of the crap I have eaten and drank over last 24+ hours :cool:

Did 7.2 Miles in 65 Minutes, a fraction over 9 min miles

Avg HR: 135 bpm
Max HR: 158 bpm

I feel much better now, having gotten out there and done something rather than sit on my ass all day feeling sorry for myself :cool:

tHE vAGGABOND

Legs like absolute lead today - so its a day off anyway. After 37/38 miles last week [more than half over weekend] I guess its somewhat to be expected.

Very small pain in my left ankle last night and today, better check out my runners medical bible thing, to get some stretches and exercises for it

Major plans this week:
Dunore 5k on Saturday morning [and watch Barca and Leinster hammer their respective opponents afterwards!!].

I'm also going to do a LSR on Wednesday evening [midweek for the first time]. My marathon training plan calls for 5 LSR's midweek due to various weekend plans over the summer. So I want to do a 10 miler this Wednesday to get a feel for how easy or hard it will be after a days work, what routes to consider etc etc. [With that in mind, I dont know if I will do Tuesday speed session atm].

Woddle

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

Looking at the Garmin, I averaged around 6.25/30 min miles over the 10 laps - going that fast I cant judge pace for ****

Hi Vagga to help judge the pace you need to learn your 200 meter tables by far the best way to pace and there is a visible line at the 200 meter mark.

200m in 40 seconds = 5'22
200m in 41 seconds = 5'30
200m in 42 seconds = 5'38
200m in 43 seconds = 5'46
200m in 44 seconds = 5'54
200m in 45 seconds = 6'02

Also just saw raycuns comment on the DM novice thread and I have to agree with him, far too many fast miles. I'm the worst person to give advice as I'm only starting to listen myself
It's easy when your new to running to get carried away and start running too fast and too many workouts. You probably feel really good about doing the fast running but your body won't thank you. It's accumulating all this stress and somewhere down the line will let you know what it thinks in the form of injury or a lack of motivation.
Your currently ahead of me in your training, the sportsworld 5 miler proved this but if you want to stay ahead of me I'd advise training smarter or else...

tHE vAGGABOND

So my Wednesday plan is fecked, as I have to do something right after work [which will take most of the night], and now have to be in work very early too [7am] - so Im totally booked all day and night tbh. Wont even get a 2 or 3 mile run in, let alone a LSR - damn real life

I appreciate the sensible advice Woodle [and Ray in other thread] - when things are going so well it is indeed easy to loose track of yourself and put the foot on the accelerator a bit more than you should be

tHE vAGGABOND

A manky day in work for several random reasons:(. I then had lot of messing around to collecting and then dropping something off for a family thing [bus and taxi, not having a car]. I therefore missed all the fun and games in UCD this evening [sounds like a good session :mad:.

So to clear things and keep up in my head I did what I had planned to do, but did it in the the reopened Phoenix Park.

So I did 6 x 1 mile repeats @ 10k pace with 3 mins jog inbetween - Week 1 of the McMillian 10k program [where I did week 2 last week!]

1 00:07:46 1.00 07:46
3 00:08:15 1.00 08:15
5 00:08:01 1.00 08:01
7 00:07:50 1.00 07:50
9 00:07:41 1.00 07:41
11 00:07:54 1.00 07:54

Holy crap that was hard work [he said it would be, to be fair]! Its even harder on your own. Also after a crappy day in work, I really REALLY had to work hard for them, the earlier ones really felt like I was running 5 minute miles or something, I was really breathing hard. I guess what made things a fraction easier is that I have become quite good at the whole focus and talking to yourself to encourage yourself into taking that next step..

Tomorrow - nothing, as I have a crazy 12-14 hour day in work:eek:

Woddle

Well done vagga on getting it done, strangely looking forward to mine on Thursday.