Michelinman to Superman

groovyg

Good work...keep it up and you'll be seeing results soon enough. Any races like 5 or 10k planned?

G-Money

groovyg wrote: »

Good work...keep it up and you'll be seeing results soon enough. Any races like 5 or 10k planned?

The half marathon in September is the only thing I'm registered to do so far. I might try the 5 mile or 10 mile races in the Phoenix Park this summer but I have to see how they fit into my half marathon training. Also hoping to join Sportsworld so I'll have to accomodate their training sessions with the half marathon plan. Still waiting to see if my contract at work gets renewed as it's up this month so I'm holding off on lots of buying lots of things in-case it doesn't.

Aiming to use the Hal Higdon Half Marathon Novice plan.

Hopefully I'll be lighter by the time the half comes around. I've lost almost a stone in the last 5 weeks. Just 2.4 lbs to go until it's officially gone.

G-Money

Just reporting in briefly. I've put a tiny bit of weight on, 0.8 lbs to be precise so I need to get my weight heading back in the opposite direction.

I haven't run for about 2 weeks at this stage either, not since the last time I went to the running club. I haven't joined it yet but I've trained with them twice already for free so the next time I go back I'd really need to join. Been holding off on joining until I see what the story is with my job. My contract is up for renewal and the end date is in 2 weeks and I still have no confirmation of it being extended. I think it will be, but I'd really prefer to have it confirmed.

On the other hand the break from running has helped my knee which was nagging me a bit. I've also started taking cod liver oil tablets every day which could be helping too.

In the meantime I'm walking to and from work every day which is about 4.5k per day. I was walking longer distances at the weekend but did flip all last weekend.

G-Money

PS: I think I've kind of decided to do the Dublin marathon in 2012 :eek:

RacoonQueen

If you really want to do the half marathon in September you'll need to get a bit more consistent with your training. Just 3 months to go now, that will fly. Get yourself down to that club and out yourself as much as you can.

groovyg

G-Money wrote: »

PS: I think I've kind of decided to do the Dublin marathon in 2012 :eek:

See how you feel after the half first before getting any ideas of a marathon! as RQ said you need to be getting out and training for the half in September. Also watch the diet - the heavier you are the harder the run is going to be.. if you are training consistently and eating properly the weight should come off as well. If you are around on the October bank hol I'd recommend going out and supporting along the marathon route ...you should get an idea of how long you don't want to be out on the course when you get around to doing a marathon.

G-Money

My job got extended for a few months so I will be joining up with the running club next week.

Yeah going along to watch the Marathon in person might be good alright, although I'm not sure if I will be still living in Dublin then! My job finishes at the end of September, or at least the extension does. Not looking great for it being renewed again after that.

G-Money

For the first time in almost 4 weeks I went out for a run today. To my surprise it wasn't as difficult as I was expecting it to be. I took the pace easy enough and while it felt reasonably fast, a quick glance at the Garmin proved it wasn't. With the Garmin website going down for maintenance about two seconds after I uploaded my details it's hard to be sure, but my pace was rarely faster than 13:54 min/mile.

I just wanted to do a couple of miles today to ease myself back in and I did. The knees felt ok, a tiny bit achy but nothing much. Generally I felt very good and surprisingly good. The only issue I had were my shorts! I have these Adidas shorts and for some reason they tie in a strange way. You pull the cords in the way you'd expect them to tighten around your waist, but they don't seem to do much. This lead to me having to stop several times to pull my shorts up and try to re-tie them, with no success. I had got the initial knot so tight I wasn't going to be able to undo it until I got back to my apartment so I was stuck.

Anyway I persevered until I got over 2 miles done, which was my initial aim, and I then pulled up my shorts once more and headed back to the apartment.

It was blisteringly hot this morning too around 10am when I headed out for run. It must have been very close to 20 degree's. I was completely drenched in sweat when I got back to the apartment.

G-Money

Forgot to update this yesterday.

Started Hal Higdon's Novice Half Marathon training programme yesterday. I checked the calendar a few weeks ago and planned it so I would start this week and finish it the week of the half marathon which is factored into it. As luck would have it, week 3 involves a 5 mile run which just so happens to fall on the weekend of the Dublin Race series 5 mile in the Phoenix Park. Funny how that works!

I did the strength work yesterday just using dumbbells I have lying around the apartment. I followed the strength portion of the guide where it says to use 50-60% of the weight you can do 12 reps in for an exercise, and do 2 sets of 12. I thought that was a bit silly in a way but I guess it was the macho gene kicking in where I thought I should only be lifting heavy.

Anyway the 50-60% ratio was more than enough as I'm fierce sore today and found it challenging enough yesterday so it seems ok so far.

Then last night I was laying on the couch watching TV and wondered why my stomach seemed to be getting sore. I only really copped on this morning that it was from the 45 sit-ups that I did. The first time I've done situps in at least a year, if not more. Doh!

G-Money

I joined the running club tonight! Brought my completed application form and the money so I'm officially a member now

They were doing a different session tonight, 400 metre sprints with 1 minute recovery between. I did a lap of the park as a warm-up and then did two of the 400 metre sprints. I was running reasonably fast (for me anyway) but I was still miles behind everyone else. The coach then said not to bother doing the sprints for the moment and instead do bigger laps of the park and if I feel up to it, try and go a little faster for the last 50 metres.

To be honest though the sprint took it out of me so I didn't have much left in my legs when I started the 2nd lap of the park and I forgot to restart my Garmin too. The legs felt very heavy and tired and I felt quite slow.

I did about 3 laps of the park in total I think along with another shorter lap and I'm 99.9% sure I was over the 3 mile mark as I had done about 2.6 miles not factoring in the partial lap where I forgot to restart the watch.

I also walked to and from work today which was another 2 and a bit miles. I've also ate quite healthy today too.

G-Money

Just back from a nice relaxing 2.5 mile walk. Today was supposed to be a 2 mile run/cross training day. My legs desperately need a rest after yesterday's sprinting and everything so I took the cross-train option and went for a walk. I wanted to do 2 miles but I was almost back at my apartment and the mileage wasn't up so I took a short detour.

It's a nice way to work off your dinner a bit and to avoid a stitch or indigestion.

Also entered the Race Series 5 miler! :eek:

G-Money

Went to the running club again tonight. They were doing fartlek sessions but I just kept doing laps of the park. To be honest I have so little speed as it is, I think sprinting type sessions are best left until I'm fitter and lighter. My average pace tends to be around 13 min/mile

Again at times I felt a bit stupid trundling around on my own with people passing me but the feeling itself went away after a few minutes. I ended up doing 4 miles this evening when I only really wanted to do 3. I did a warm-up lap as i was early and then kept going until I hit the 3 mile mark and decided to keep going and finish the lap rather than starting over.

Added to that, walking to and from work which came to about 2.5 miles in total as well. So not a bad day's innings. I ended up leaving about 15 minutes early as I had done more than the distance I was supposed to and I don't want to push it. Felt pretty good too actually.

I noticed I was kind of trying to talk myself out of going tonight but the evil voice didn't win

RayCun

G-Money wrote: »

Went to the running club again tonight. They were doing fartlek sessions but I just kept doing laps of the park. To be honest I have so little speed as it is, I think sprinting type sessions are best left until I'm fitter and lighter.

Yes, I'd say so, but if going to the club keeps getting you out on Tuesdays and thursdays, keep it up.

Mr Marri

Bushy park can make it's-self big when it wants to..... hang in there with the club, you'll soon start to reconise a few faces and there's alway somebody at your/our level.

G-Money

No running last week but back to the running club tonight, did about 3.5 miles which is what was expected on the HH Half Marathon Novice plan. Felt like I was going very slowly tonight too, about 13:40 min/mile at my fastest

runrabbit

Well done for getting out there again – the club will really bring you along.

I’m training for the Dublin half too – I’m not experienced enough to offer any real advice as most of the races I’ve done are 5ks/5-milers and a couple of 10ks, so I'm still learning about the longer distances myself. I will just say this – give the distance the respect it deserves by getting out there and getting the training done. The half is not a short race - it’s all too easy to read the logs here and see all the amazing achievements people have at marathon-distance and even longer and think that the half is easy-peasy! But for many people (myself included) it’s not! I had a nightmare at the 10-miler and half last year even though I had all the training done, but I got my pacing and hydration all messed up (I’m someone who needs to take on salt during longer runs – I didn’t know this last year!). I’m hoping this year will go better for me – I'm doing all 3 races of the series. I’m having a shocking week training-wise but I know I’ll knuckle-down from next week on and get it done.

Get out there regularly and get used to the weekly LSRs. They’re not easy, especially in the warm weather, but you need to get them done! Are you doing the race-series 5-miler this weekend?

G-Money

runrabbit wrote: »

Are you doing the race-series 5-miler this weekend?

I'm not sure yet. I may have to go home this weekend so I need to wait and see what the story is with that first.

G-Money

Did about 4.3 miles last night instead of my scheduled 3.5. Felt quite good and surprisingly not awful seeing I haven't been running consistently. I guess the weight loss is helping although I'm still horrificly slow averaging about 13:50 min/miles!

G-Money

Did the National Lottery 5 mile race today in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Slept kind of ok last night but woke about 3.15am and not really sure I got fully rested after that. The alarm went off at 6.45am as I wanted to be up and get my breakfast into me at 7am.

Drove to the Phoenix Park and got there just after 9am. The car park I was hoping to use wasn't even open then for some bizarre reason so I just drove on and found another place to park which was handy enough.

Got to the start-line in plenty of time and did a short 3 or 4 minute warm-up jog. It was a bit cold and with drizzle around I wanted to keep warm. I was half thinking I should have brought my tights

I placed myself in Wave 3 which was the slowest of the three groups and moved towards the front. I met up with a friend of mine and her husband so I chatted to them as we walked to the start line but I had no intentions of trying to keep up with them. As I was getting closer to the start-line I started to get this smirk over my face and the phrase "Go out hard" kept running through my mind.

I decided to try and pace it anyway and ignored that voice for a while and it was an easy and comfortable enough first few miles. I did have to weave through a few "amateurs" who insist on zig-zagging in front of people and then stopping suddenly to walk. I noticed a few people walking briskly and keeping up with me which I wasn't too keen on so I put the hammer down a little bit to put a bit of distance between me and them.

I think I passed a few people who might have been adopting the run/walk/run strategy as we seemed to be having a private game of swap the leader. They'd be in front, I'd pass them, then they'd pass me. I got to the water stop at mile 2.5 and aimed to try and drink it while running which quickly turned out to be impossible so even though I didn't feel like I needed to, I stopped and walked for about 90 seconds to 2 minutes so I could drink the water.

I had noticed my pace picked up quite dramatically in the lead-up to the water stop and even more after it, at one point I was going 2 min/mile faster than I was at the start.

About 3 miles done and the legs felt ok so I kept thinking to myself "keep going and walk a minute at the 4 mile mark". Then I got there and I just thought "Ah keep going, you're grand, save it for the Kyber road". I got to the bottom of the Kyber road and walked for about a minute then seen the 800 metres to go sign so I started running again and kept going until the 400 metre sign and stopped again for a minute or two.

Then I passed this guy on the side of the road who said "keep going, it's only 60 seconds to the finish-line". I looked at the watch and I was just over the hour and couldn't really believe it so I put the hammer down and crossed the finish line at 1:03.39 which was much, much faster than I was expecting. To put it in perspective, I ran 4.3 miles on Thursday night and that took me 1:01.15 so to only take 2 minutes more to cover the extra 3/4 of a mile, was for me, a big surprise. I started the race thinking I would be lucky to break 1hr 10 so to get it in 1:03 was a big surprise.

I was almost doubled over with the hunger though coming up the Kyber road and I was thinking "I hope there is some bars or something in that goody bag". Thankfully they were giving out banana's too so I scoffed one of those, skulled the free sports drink and ate one of the bars and that helped a lot.

Glad I did the race. I had debated with myself and wasn't sure I was actually going to do it and with some worries on my mind at the moment, it really gave me a massive mental lift, which I kind of needed.

huskerdu

Good man. Delighted to hear that you did it faster than you aiming for.

The mental boost will be really good for you.

Congratulations

G-Money

Went to the running club tonight and did 4.1 miles in 57 minutes. I arrived a bit early and ended up doing two warm-up laps and they were having a 2 mile race this evening so I somewhat reluctantly agreed to do it. It was staggered with the beginners going off first. I was part of that group but it was a bit embarrassing as they all took off and promptly disappeared. There was no chance I would have been able to keep up with them.

I wasn't even sure of the route so I was just half hoping to keep someone in sight so I could see where I was supposed to go. About half way around my pace had improved again to about 11.50 min/mile but I was still miles off the pace and miles behind the beginners. Although eventually my pace slowed down a bit.

By the end I was passed out by everyone which is somewhat embarrassing but what can you do.

My knee was at me a little bit but it wasn't sore enough to stop me running. More discomfort than anything. Cardio-wise I felt fine.

I would like to buy a club singlet and jacket but there's no point doing so yet. I'm currently losing weight so eventually it would just be too big for me. Hopefully by Christmas I will be down to my goal weight or not far off it, so I can hopefully buy a suitable fitting size then.

G-Money

Missed out on my run on Thursday and after a bit of procrastination, I made myself go out and do 5 miles this morning. It was tougher than the 5 mile race I did last week for some reason, not sure why. Perhaps it's because I missed the Thursday run or that I had some food before the 5 mile race.

The knee was giving me some jip but nothing insurmountable. Also noticed the 5 miles I did today took me almost 10 minutes longer than the race last week.

5 miles, 71:25.

Splits:

13:52
14:17
14:06
14:17
14:31

G-Money

Went to the running club tonight even though I was kind of trying to talk myself out of it. I wasn't feeling fantastic this evening, but strangely I felt much better after the run. I did 4.1 miles which is just a tad over the 4 miles I was meant to do. I thought about continuing the lap of the park but I decided to hold off at just over the 4 miles as that was what was specified in the training plan for today.

I'm still quite slow even though I think my pace has improved somewhat.

4.1 miles - 52.40

Splits:

13:36
14:41
12:43
12:56

G-Money

I've been slacking off over the last week or two. I went training with the running club on Tuesday of last week, then I had to go home to the north on Thursday and missed training then and didn't do anything over that weekend, or this week until today.

I went out and did 6 miles this morning around Deer Park in South Dublin. It went reasonably well despite not having ran for over a week. The only downside was that I had to stop about 3 times to tie by bloody shorts as they kept sliding down. I used those times to have short walking breaks of about 60-90 seconds but other than that, it was grand enough.

I somehow managed to get some sunburn, even though I went running before 10am and even though by the time I got back to the car, it was starting to rain. Only in Ireland!

I can't upload to Garmin Connect as it's down but I think it took me about 1hr 24 mins to do the 6 miles.

I went to the National Athletics Championships then afterwards to see how the pro's do it. It was my first live athletics event and it was enjoyable. Might go again tomorrow.

G-Money

Not sure why but I feel the urge to go for a reasonably easy 3 mile run this evening. Am supposed to do 4.5 miles tomorrow as part of my training plan.

I also think ahead of these longer runs at the weekend now, I'm going to have to start either taking on gels or having something to eat a couple of hours beforehand. I did 6 miles on Saturday morning on an empty stomach not having ate since dinner the night before and I could feel myself fading towards the end. Was wishing I'd had some porridge oats or something a couple of hours previously.

I'm seriously thinking of adopting the run/walk/run strategy for the half marathon. Maybe walking for a minute after every mile run. Will see how it goes.

G-Money

I did a 4.5 mile run this evening around Deer Park once more. The running club were hold another club race tonight and to be honest I really didn't want to do a race, so I just trained elsewhere.

I was a bit daunted when I got into the car just after 5pm to drive there and saw the temperature reading say 25 degrees! By the time I got to the park though it had reduced to a slightly more acceptable 19 degrees.

The run went ok but I started to find it tough after the 1st mile. I then took to my usual thing of breaking the distances down into shorter pieces. A lap of Deer Park is 1 mile exactly so it's kind of a handy place to do laps of in that respect. There's a couple of nasty inclines as well which I guess are good.

4.5 miles - 58:02

Splits:

12:40
12:39
12:52
13:03
06:46

I have to head home to the north tomorrow after work so I won't get to the running club on Thursday night either. I might come back on Friday depending on how things are going. I need to do a 7 mile run this weekend :eek:

elvis jones

Just seen your log, whats the next race.........you joining us for the challenge part 3 ??

G-Money

Next race is the Dublin Half Marathon next month.

Definitely doing the next weight loss challenge, I haven't lost enough weight yet.

G-Money

Been off the radar exercise wise for about 3 - 4 weeks at this stage with no real excuses really. I kind of got out of the way going and just got lazy. I was off last week and meant to start back training. I went home for two days and planned to come back to Dublin however something came up unexpectedly and I had to stay home for the full week and as a result, I only had 2 days worth of clothes with me, none of which was running gear.

Anyway I'm back in Dublin and with the negative voices trying to talk me out of running, I forced myself out this morning with the aim of doing 30 minutes. I figured the Garmin battery was going to be low so when I turned it on and it said "Low battery" I figured "It will be grand, I only need it to last 30 minutes". About 2 minutes later the screen was completely blank, so I guess the battery had no juice left.

I went to my local park and I know the lap to be about 0.4km so I decided I would do 10 laps and see how I got on. It was ok. I didn't feel completely wrecked, but wasn't super full of energy either. I had some trouble sleeping last night, mainly because I live in an apartment and there was a huge banging noise coming from the neighbours balcony. The gas boiler is contained in an outdoor compartment on each balcony and for some reason, AGAIN, the door was open and with the wind it was constantly banging against the wall and railing and making an incredibly loud noise. This must be the 3rd or 4th time this has happened in the past couple of months and I'm getting pretty f****g p****** off with it. I don't know why it keeps happening as the latches on the doors are pretty strong and stiff and don't open that easily. So unless it's either broken or the neighbours are just stupid and don't close it properly.

Anyway I went to do 10 laps and ended up doing 12 and decided to leave it at that. I think I roughly did about 30 minutes which is what I was aiming to do. I'm thinking of supplementing my running with more walking each day. Perhaps doing an extra 3 or 4 miles walking each day on top of the walk to work, and hopefully a 30 minute run most days.

Will see how it goes anyway.

I'm still registered to do the half marathon in a couple of weeks time but I'm in no shape to run it all. Today was my first training session for about 3-4 weeks and even then, it was just an easy 30 minutes to ease me back into it. I'm not even that bothered about doing the half marathon either. For some reason the longer distances are starting to lose their appeal to me, at least from the point of view of running them myself.

Will see how it goes when the time comes. I will either do it and do some sort of run/walk/run strategy, such as run 1 mile, walk 1 minute or something. Or I will skip it entirely.

G-Money

After a few days of self sabotaging my efforts to go for a morning run, I finally did so this morning. Set the alarm for 6.45am but was tossing and turning from 5am. I think when I know I need to get up early, I tend to wake even earlier. Not great when you're going to be tired as it is at 6.45am never-mind 5am.

Got up about 7am and was out the door just after 7.30am. I decided to go to my local park and do half an hour. I ended up doing just short of 35 minutes consistent running and it totalled about 2.5 miles. Pretty slow I know, but I'm trying not to worry about that. I would like to have done more but the clock was ticking and I have to go to work.

About to have breakfast now and walk to work, which should be another 2.5 miles roundtrip today.

Not sure if I will run tomorrow morning too. I'm easing myself back into it but I want to do more running than I was before, possibly 4-5 times a week. Anyway if it's tomorrow morning, I'm going to aim to be up earlier and out the door earlier.