Running Aimlessly Down Under - From 54 to 53 sec 400m

vanderlyle

They run a ridiculously tight ship in Templemore. Nearly missed my race in the league last year, went 35-40 mins ahead of schedule. I remember pinning my number on while someone from the club tied my shoes. All the best for round two.

By the way, if you run as a guest, do you have a say where you run, i.e. can you pick Santry or Athlone for R2? Or do you have to go where your club is?

IvoryTower

a guest can run in them all apart from final i believe

Chivito550

vanderlyle wrote: »

They run a ridiculously tight ship in Templemore. Nearly missed my race in the league last year, went 35-40 mins ahead of schedule. I remember pinning my number on while someone from the club tied my shoes. All the best for round two.

By the way, if you run as a guest, do you have a say where you run, i.e. can you pick Santry or Athlone for R2? Or do you have to go where your club is?

No requirement to go where your club is. If the club don't pick you to compete for them, then it is all fair game. My club were in Belfast, but it suited me better to go to Templemore (short train journey to and from Dublin). For round 2 I will be going to Santry, regardless of where my club will be.

I find it hard to get into the whole club spirit on the day of the League anyway. When you are only a guest, you feel so detached. In the Melbourne equivalent, everybody would be able to compete and score points for the club, so you would get pretty into it. I don't particularly like the League set up. It's just another opportunity to race as far as I'm concerned.

Chivito550

My first time at Morton Stadium since Nationals last year when I ran my 200m PB. Weather was perfect really. Warm, intermittent sunshine, tailwinds. It was about 24 degrees, but when the sun was behind the cloud it felt fairly comfortable.

200m: 25.47

I was in lane 7, which was the exact same lane I was in when I ran my PB. I felt I attacked the start well, maybe lost a bit of concentration after about 40-50m, but kicked well coming off the bend and finished well, closing all the time on the lad in front of me, to finish about 2-3 metres behind him, and 4th overall.

The time was a very marginal PB by 0.03. If I had run that time last year I'd have been disgusted, but funny how things change in a year. I was actually very pleased to come away with a season's best. I was in absolute bits for about 10 minutes afterwards. Maybe it was the heat adding to the exhaustion.

No wind was measured for the guest race.

100m: 12.50

I was in lane 10 on the very outside. This didn't really bother me, as it shouldn't really matter what lane you run in when you are running in a straight line. The only bad thing about this lane was the very short amount of space you have after the finish line before clattering into a barrier or people, and if you aren't careful it can be pretty dangerous. I also had to ask an official to go down to the finish and move a bag out of the way, otherwise I'd have tripped over it about 7-8m after the finish line.

Felt I ran well. I was just in a race where I was out of my depth with the exception of one guy who ran 12.28. I was just 0.05 down on my season's best, and 0.08 down on my wind-assisted season's best.

Again there was no wind measured for the guest race. It seems like they just did not bother measuring the wind for the non league races. Crazy stuff. There were legal tailwinds all day, so I'm going to assume I had similar for both my races.

I'm pleased with how today went, and this more or less finishes my season now. I'll probably do the next graded for a bit of fun, but other than that there's nothing left for me as I can't do nationals this year. The GV Ryan is next week, but I've decided I'm going to do this 5000m meet in Leixlip for a bit of fun instead. Madness I know.

MY BAD

What time are you hoping for in leixlip?

Chivito550

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote: »

What time are you hoping for in leixlip?

Haha, well I've entered the sub 22 minute category. My PB for 5K is 19:46 back when I was training for 400m and was very fit, but since changing to 100 and 200 I haven't had to do as much volume in training, so I'm nowhere near as aerobically fit now, so it would be foolish to chase sub 20. I also haven't done a single "long run" since the winter, so I'm just going to go with the sub 22 pacer, and if I'm feeling good with 5 laps to go, I'll just crack on. I'm there for the post race beer!!:D

Chivito550

The GV Ryan meet was on, but the idea of racing it did very little to excite me given my season is as good as done now. So I opted to try out this new meet which looked very promising. At first I was just going to head along and watch, but then when my girlfriend entered, I thought sure I may as well run it myself. Something a bit different.

Nearly every meet in Ireland are so incredibly lifeless, like we are living in the 70s or something. There is no entertainment really. This is the 21st century, and quality athletics is not enough to keep people engaged. Our sport competes against so many more entertainment options now. This meet looked like something that wanted to address this problem. Not only were they trying to bring recreational road runners onto the track, but they wanted to make it a fun day out for all. Music and a fridge full of delicious beer. I had to be part of this.

In terms of the actual 5000m race, I was like a student who showed up for an exam without having gone to a single lecture all year. I hadn't done a "long run" since early in the winter since doing some 3km runs at the end of hill sessions.

My 5K PB is 19:46 in August 2014 from a Marlay Parkrun. 13 months later I gave it another good crack at the Rathfarnham 5K and ran 19:47. All of my other runs over the past few years were Parkruns at Marlay, and all run at 80-90%.

March 2015: 22:31 and 20:49 (after 400m indoor season)
September 2015: 21:02 and 21:09 (after 400m outdoor season, as prep for Rathfarnham 5K mentioned above)
January 2016: 22:58 (as part of my return after a dreadful groin tear)
September 2016: 22:36 (after 100m/200m outdoor season)
September 2017: 21:53 and 22:54 (after 100m/200m outdoor season)

I knew I wouldn't be coming close to my PB as that was run off 400m training. I anticipated if I did a 5K after my 100m/200m season last year, I'd probably dip under 21. However this year I haven't been as good shape as last, so thought 21:30 would be more reasonable.

So rather than take the risk of going with 21 minute pacer, I played it safe (or so I thought) by going with Luke, the 22 minute pacer.

Temperatures were around 24 degrees and there were no clouds in the sky at the time I raced. I could tell this was going to grim enough, but I didn't anticipate how much I would hurt.

First 200m was 51.78, followed by laps of 1:42.88 and 1:44.56. However this was feeling way too difficult, way too early, and on the next lap I reached for a water bottle, drank a small bit, then rolled it all over my head, neck, chest and back. The water pretty warm, which was a good thing, otherwise I could have shocked my body by doing that. I ended up doing this about 4 further times during the race, and my singlet was saturated and felt heavy when I was running.

I held onto the group running behind Luke for about 7 or 8 minutes before falling off. I had lost contact on the back straight, in the intense heat, only to find my way back on the home straight when the headwind would cool me down and revive me. I've raced over 100m, 200m and 400m on this track before and have always cursed the headwinds you get at this venue, but on this occasion I couldn't have been more thankful. Laps were 1:49.86 and 1:48.27.

However, I couldn't keep fighting my way back every lap, and eventually the chord was broken, and I was out the back door, with just a few stragglers left behind me. Grim times ahead.

I pretty much suffered away by myself for the rest of the race. I said to myself I am never doing this again. All those Parkruns I've done would feel so handy, but they were in 8 degrees or something tame like that. The heat was defeating me here. I worked with one lad for awhile, sitting in behind him, but eventually I forged ahead of him, so he must have been having an absolute nightmare indeed, because I certainly was not getting any quicker. Laps of 1:53.62, 1:52.97 and 1:52.44 confirmed that.

The race seemed to drag. You'd get a bit of a buzz coming through the finish line each lap, feeding off the crowd, but then you'd be back in hell after about 10 seconds. I'm now at 5 laps to go, about the time I naively thought I'd be moving away from Luke, only Luke is about 100-150mm ahead of me. Maybe more, I couldn't really tell. I couldn't really think. Much of the time I kept my eyes on the track and just focused on plodding on, one step at a time. This was a real plod now. The laps ticked by, each one more unspectacular than the last: 1:56.14, 1:54.96 and 1:55.16.

As I approached 700m to go I realised that the clock was now at the time of my PB, which really hit home just how much I was struggling. The penultimate lap was covered in 1:54.57.

However when I hit the bell, I could feel the end in sight. I gradually wound it up, feeling too awful to properly sprint yet, but I was now moving as fast as the first few laps. On the backstraight I wound it up more and went past somebody. Then with 200m to go I wind it up more, and then coming off the bend, it's just all out. There was somebody about 30m ahead of me as I entered the straight, who I went past with about 30m to go. Last lap was 1:21.76, but with the last 200m probably more like 34-35 seconds at a guess.

I was sprawled across the track after and felt horrific. Anthony was kind to have a beer ready for me at the finish line, which was pretty epic, but it was a few minutes before I could get stuck into that.

My time was 22:38.91. I guess if the weather was cool, I'd probably have run under 22. I found the laps tough too. It felt like a real mental slog at times. At the same time it was pretty cool to do it. I can now say I've raced a 5000m on the track. I can't imagine too many sprinters have done that.

Afterwards I had about 4 beers, and had a blast watching the other races, chatting to people and just in general, having fun. This is why I came. If there was no beer, and it was just another meet, I wouldn't have bothered. There are too many boring meets around, so when somebody makes the effort to be innovative, and make the sport fun, I have to support it.

I said to myself at the time I wouldn't run 5000m again, but maybe next time, I'll do a few runs leading into it, so I don't suffer so badly out there.

Hopefully this will become an event like the Highgate Harriers Night of the 10Ks in London, and it will grow from strength to strength, and everybody in the athletics community will get behind it.

Chivito550

It could be easy to just pretend this didn't happen. I had pretty much wrapped up my season at Santry 10 days earlier after all. But if I'm going to record all the good, then I must record the absolutely dreadful.

I wasn't particularly interested in racing the graded, but given my gf was running, and I was going to watch her, I thought I may aswell run myself. I had zero enthusiasm for the race, and was going through the motions. I probably shouldn't have run.

200m: 27.26 (-1.8)

I was in lane 6 and I just never got going. I never really went flat out. I just don't think I had the motivation to give this season one last crack. I had mentally signed off with 2 good runs a week and a half ago, and I hadn't trained since. I knew the time would be poor as it felt more like a strong training rep than a race, and I was way behind a training partner of mine who ran 24.70. My time confirmed this. Even with the headwind, this is one of my slowest times ever, and the slowest in almost 5 years, and on that occasion I ran into a -7.1 wind. Excluding that, it is almost 6 years since I ran slower.

No more racing for the sake of it. Lesson learnt.

I'll come back with a review of my season.

Chivito550

So my season is over. In total I ran 21 races (9 indoor, 12 outdoor). 5 over 100m, 9 over 200m (6 outdoor, 3 indoor), 6 over 60m, and 1 over 4x100m. Overall this was down from 30 races last year (10 indoor, 20 outdoor).

The full list is below:

INDOOR:

60m:

Pre-season PB: 7.80

1) 7.99
2) 8.04
3) 8.02
4) 8.03
5) 7.97
6) 8.00

200m:

Pre-season indoor PB: 25.47 (lane 4)

1) 25.76 (lane 6)
2) 25.75 (lane 3)
3) 25.53 (lane 4)

OUTDOOR:

100m:

Pre-season PB: 12.20 (+1.8)

1) 12.42 (+2.5)
2) 12.45 (+1.0)
3) No Time
4) 12.79 (-1.1)
5) 12.50

200m:

Pre-season PB: 24.87 (+0.9)

1) 25.50 (+2.4)
2) 25.74 (+0.1)
3) 25.52 (-0.3)
4) 25.86 (-1.3)
5) 25.47
6) 27.26 (-1.8)

4x100m:

Pre-season PB: 49.36

1) 47.96 PB

General Thoughts

This hasn't been a good season, and the numbers above don't lie. I've struggled with motivation at times, as other things in life have taken precedence over athletics. That's no bad thing either of course. It can be easy to identify yourself as a runner too much. We need to have other things going on in life. Go back a year, I had an incredible season, I was in the shape of my life. But at the same time I hated my job, the profession I was in. Now I'm in a career and a job I enjoy, and have lots of good stuff going on. Some of that has got in the way of excelling to the best of my ability in athletics this year. Eventually I was able to accept that, that this season was going to be a bit of a write off.

Bono, December 30, 1989 wrote:

This is just the end of something for U2. It's no big deal, it's just...we have to go away and...and dream it all up again."

I have to go away and dream it all up again. What that entails, I'm not sure yet.

Murph_D

Hopefully you’ll come up with Achtung Baby and not Pop.

Chivito550

Murph_D wrote: »

Hopefully you’ll come up with Achtung Baby and not Pop.

I'm ready, ready for the laughing gas
I'm ready, I'm ready for what's next
I'm ready to duck, I'm ready to dive
I'm ready to say 'I'm glad to be alive'
I'm ready, I'm ready for the push
In the cool of the night
In the warmth of the breeze
I'll be crawling around
On my hands and knees

Chivito550

So, it's time for an update. After last season, I decided to shake things up and focus on 200m/400m rather than 100m/200m and I started doing some of the longer sessions over the winter. Started feeling fit, but couldn't get consistent with the training, with other things getting in the way at times.

Having not trained for 400m since 2015, all the residual 400m fitness has worn away over the years, so really to get anywhere close to back to where I was would require probably a full year of really hard graft.

Training was inconsistent, with some weeks managing 5 days, but some weeks only once or twice. I was away 5 weekends out of 9 in October/November which didn't help. Then the distractions of December made training very haphazard at times, but once Christmas came I had so much more free time and fit in a lot of training.

I then embarked on Dry January which I successfully completed and got a bit more consistent at 4 days per week. Just the 1 gym session per week at the moment and 3 running days. I'm fairly hectic with other things at the moment so I'm happy with 4 days per week.

So, I've raced at 3 meets so far this indoor season:

National Indoor League Round 1 - Abbotstown

400m - 60.97 (lane 3)

This was absolutely horrific, in every possible way. I went through the bell in 28.xx and felt pretty gassed with about 150 to go. I was hating every moment of it and didn't have the spirit to try real in the guy nearest to me as the gap was too much. I crossed the line knowing this was absolutely rubbish but still assumed I'd be under 60, so when I saw the time, and that I wasn't even close to breaking 60, I was pretty disgusted. This was almost 5 full seconds down on my indoor PB and over 6 seconds down on my outdoor PB. I felt like vomiting for about 10 minutes after. I don't think I've ever felt so bad after a 400m, and I've run over 60 of them! Worst of all, I hated it completely. I was a bag of nerves beforehand. I had pure fear of what was to come. I didn't feel in great shape and I hadn't run a 400m in years. It all made me realise that, while I loved the 400m once, our relationship is very much over now, and we'll only ever be friends in future (perhaps through coaching). The event gave me so many great memories when I was chasing PBs, but I don't need that level of pain in my life to just run a 57 or something. Far too much work, for very little return that would be. There comes a time when the juice just isn't worth the squeeze. I'd rather stick to the shorter distances and actually enjoy the racing.

So, I've made my peace with the 400m now. A bit of closure. Perhaps there'll be the odd 4x400m if I'm ever needed for one, but I don't envisage doing it individually again.

National Indoor League Round 2 - Athlone

200m - 27.32 (lane 4)

An absolute disaster. Made the journey up to Athlone, felt good in the warm up, much better than the week before. I was pretty excited about the prospect of getting a good run in, then 50m into the race my right calf spasmed. It wasn't a big spasm, but it was enough to throw me off, play havoc to my mind, and for 20m or so I slowed, caught in two minds whether to continue or not. In the end I continued on, but running within myself. The time was fairly meaningless. It was a training run and nothing more. Very frustrating.

AAI Games - Abbotstown

60m Race 1 - 8.17

While I'm focusing on the 200m now, the 60m would give me a chance to work on my speed, which has been neglected more this winter than in the past. The time was fairly awful, but the run was actually ok. My reaction was 0.327 which is absolutely horrendous. I was asleep in the blocks. Had I got my usual 0.18 start, I'd have been around 8.02. I wasn't expecting to break 8. There were a lot of positives to take from this.

60m Race 2 - 8.13

My reaction time was much improved this time at 0.178, but alas the run was not as good, and so I only improved by 0.04. Happy to get two runs in though.

200m - 25.84 (lane 6)

I felt a bit shattered after the 2 races, but still wanted to give this a good go. I got a kind lane draw and I used it to my advantage. I really attacked the first 50m and felt like I was flying as I flew down the slope. I tired a bit on the second bend, but that second downhill came at just the right time, giving me a boost to pull away from the guy in lane 3, who was close to me entering the straight. I beat him by about 0.4. I felt I ran very well, and I was relieved and delighted in equal measure, after what had been a very poor season up to this point. I was 0.37 down on my PB from 2 years ago (which was run from lane 4 it must be mentioned), but this run signals a return to some kind of form.

I'm feeling in better shape. I haven't drank since NYE (33 full days) which has helped too (I'll break that tonight for Super Bowl). When I feel like a quiet drink at home I've been sticking to the non-alcoholic beers. Open Gate Home Brew is delicious, and I rather like the Heineken Zero too. Definitely a good alternative to have when I want to have a bit of time off the booze.

I was unsure about running Nationals, but now after this 25.84 clocking I'm 100% going to run, and am really looking forward to it. The 200m will be the target but I'll run the 60m too as I think it will be good to have a run in the legs beforehand. It didn't do any harm yesterday.

IvoryTower

Very nice 200 time , sorry to hear about the 400, dreading my first one as well.

Chivito550

IvoryTower wrote: »

Very nice 200 time , sorry to hear about the 400, dreading my first one as well.

Caught your race yesterday. Great running. Dug in well in the closing stages. Don’t lose the Henrik Ingebrigtsen mo!

IvoryTower

Chivito550 wrote: »

Caught your race yesterday. Great running. Dug in well in the closing stages. Don’t lose the Henrik Ingebrigtsen mo!

its gone, the missus patience has officially worn out

Chivito550

IvoryTower wrote: »

its gone, the missus patience has officially worn out

Ah, what a disaster.

Chivito550

A couple more meets to update on:

National Indoor Championships

I was really pumped about being back at Nationals for the first time since that memorable weekend in July 2017 when I set my 200m PB, and came within a whisker of doing likewise in the 100m. I knew there would be no PBs here, but after missing both National Championships last year because of family weddings, I was so thrilled to be back competing at them. My encouraging 25.84 run over 200m at the AAI Games was enough to convince me to enter, after some horrendous runs this season up to then.

60m: 8.03

I felt I ran a very good race. I got my best start of the indoor season to date, and carried it through to the end. I was slightly behind a lad who I knew would run in the mid 7.80s, so I took this to be a good sign. I beat him and lost to him over the two 100m races in Waterford last year, and easily beat him over 200m last season, but I felt over 60m, I'd need to be in PB shape to take him. I stayed close to him and was rewarded with a big season's best of 8.03, improving on the 8.13 from two weeks ago. I was pleased with this run. It was probably as good as I could have expected this season. Better than I expected perhaps. It was 0.23 down on my PB, and 0.06 down on last season, but I'm happy, given I only made a very late decision a month ago to race 60m this season (after aborting my plans to do 400m), so I didn't have enough specific work done. I didn't get a reaction time for this race unfortunately.

200m: 27.12 (lane 2)

In 2016, I ran the 200m in Nationals and ended up in lane 2. The heats were seeded based on PBs. I vowed there and then never to run the 200m at National Indoors again. However, in 2017 I had a change of heart, as I was informed that the heats would not be seeded this time, and that everyone would have a fair shot at getting a decent lane. I ended up in lane 4 and I ran an Indoor PB, which remains my PB to this day.

However, it only took one heat of the women's 400m for me to realise that they were going to be seeding the lanes throughout all the 200m and 400m heats, and so it transpired. I was given lane 2 as expected, and I knew I had no hope of running a season's best. My goal was to simply run as close to it as I can. Not really an exciting goal on the day of Nationals.

For those unaware, the 200m indoors is a farce of an event. It is fundamentally unfair. The guy in lane 6 runs a big net downhill, starts pretty much on a downslope, has only half a bend to run on the first bend, and the bends are considerably more gentle than on the inside lanes. In contrast, the guy in lane 2 has no net downhill, has to run a full bend for the first bend, and the bends are ridiculously tight. So tight that I would run out onto the outer line to make the bend as gentle as I could. It is very hard to get up to full speed starting from the inner lanes, and it the event hasn't been included on the World Indoor Championship programme since 2004 as a result, because the placings were known before the race started. 6 would win, 5 would come second and so on and so forth, right down to lane 1 coming last.

Despite all that, my run was not good. I would have considered 26.3 to be a good run from that lane, but 27.1 is extremely poor. I felt pretty drained at the end of the warm up. I think the long wait between the 60 and 200 I struggled with on this occasion, and I recall being in the call room before the 200 feeling pretty tired. I did get somewhat close to the guy in lane 4 which had me thinking that maybe I ran ok, but whoever he was, he must have put down an outdated PB, as he shouldn't have been near lane 4 with the seeding system that was in place.

I'll have to seriously consider the value of running the 200m at National Indoors going forward as I will always get lane 2 unless they scrap the seeding. Also not particularly nice to see such an awful time beside my name at Nationals.

Overall it was a decent day because of the 60m. The 200m was one to forget.

NIA Live

3 days later it was back for another couple of races. I left work near Dawson Street at 5:30pm, and didn't make it to Abbotstown until 7:05pm (including a 5 minute jog from the bus). This is one of the big reasons I don't run the NIA meets (despite them being absolutely brilliant meets). Unfortunately this problem will only get worse as we seem allergic to long term rail investment in this country. Sin sceil eile though as they say!

I had the morning off work, which allowed me a rare opportunity to do an evening meet not feeling absolutely shattered from a full day at work.

I thought I'd be pushing it tight to get any sort of warm up done for my race at 7:30pm, but as it turned out they had all the women's races first, so I had loads of time.

60m: 8.12

My reaction time was 0.187 which is about normal for me. I didn't feel my first 20m was powerful enough, but managed to get up to take 4th out of 8, getting past two lads in the closing stages. The time was almost a tenth down on my run from Nationals, but pretty much in line with what I ran at AAI Games.

200m: 26.19 (lane 6)

I got the golden ticket of lane 6, and the difference between this run and my run on Saturday from lane 2 was almost a second! Overall it was a decent run. I thought the time would be better as I felt like I was much closer to the winner (24.45) than the time suggests. I was certain I'd be a good bit under 26, and threaten my season's best of 25.84, but alas it was not to be. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me. My reaction time was 0.208.

The NIA Live is an absolutely brilliant event. It doesn't really suit me because it is mid week, but it is a cracking event. They should scrap the Dublin Graded Meets, which many people seem to hate, and rebuild it in the manner of the NIA Live. Won't happen of course.

What's next?

I thought my season was over, but I found out today that the media race for the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow will not be an 800m this time, but actually a 60m. Music to my ears. So I'll give that go before drawing a line under the indoor season.

El CabaIIo

Cathal is screwed for the European gold so...pressures on you for you to do the country proud:p

Chivito550

El CabaIIo wrote: »

Cathal is screwed for the European gold so...pressures on you for you to do the country proud:p

Think the pressure is on David Gillick, not me.

dna_leri

Chivito550 wrote: »

The NIA Live is an absolutely brilliant event. It doesn't really suit me because it is mid week, but it is a cracking event. They should scrap the Dublin Graded Meets, which many people seem to hate, and rebuild it in the manner of the NIA Live. Won't happen of course.

.

I did not get to race NIA Live yet.
What could Dublin Graded Meets learn from it?
[The late finish is a disadvantage for NIA Live]

Chivito550

dna_leri wrote: »

I did not get to race NIA Live yet.
What could Dublin Graded Meets learn from it?
[The late finish is a disadvantage for NIA Live]

Agreed re the late finish. I think that's down to them trying to facilitate every event, every night.

I find Graded Meets to be incredibly disorganised. The amount of times I've been standing around waiting for start lists to come down is laughable. The NIA meets are extremely efficient. The meet just flows. One race finishes, the next one begins. Everybody fills out a little sticker with their name, club and event upon checking in at the desk (entry in advance). You stick this onto your singlet for safe keeping. Then when they are doing up the heats for a particular event, they ask for the fastest guys to come forward first, then the next fastest and so on. Everybody picks a number at random which determines the lane. At this point they get the stickers back off each person and stick the sticker beside the lane number on their sheet. The race takes place, and these sheets are handed up to the guys at photo finish, who match the times up against them. No need for race numbers, no need for pre-determined heat draws, and athletes waiting an age for the startlists to make their way down to officials.

Add to that the fact David and Fintan do their best to make the event exciting and atmospheric, and the music definitely helps. Graded meets tend to be like morgues!

Murph_D

The music isn’t really to my taste (unsurprising) but at least it’s not too loud. Hardly noticed it really - only after I was done and watching some later races. The sticker/lane draw process you describe was different for the 800 for some reason. Sticker stayed on til after race (I think) and lanes were assigned without draw. Last time I was out it was exactly as you describe though.

It’s a great meet alright, but are you being a bit hard on gradeds? I dont have much history, but the few I did last year at Morton and Tallaght were very efficient, except for a quite slow check in process (even if you’d registered and paid in advance online). Everything else seemed ok though, especially with the online results system at Morton anyway. Maybe I’ve been lucky. All volunteer driven of course - maybe it depends on who turns up to help out.

The NIA certainly gets it mostly right, although the schedule was pretty shot by 8pm the other night, despite fairly low (average?) participation. Perhaps runnign late from earlier junior meet. Car park was certainly still full at 7:30 so maybe that was it.

Chivito550

Murph_D wrote: »

The music isn’t really to my taste (unsurprising) but at least it’s not too loud. Hardly noticed it really - only after I was done and watching some later races. The sticker/lane draw process you describe was different for the 800 for some reason. Sticker stayed on til after race (I think) and lanes were assigned without draw. Last time I was out it was exactly as you describe though.

It’s a great meet alright, but are you being a bit hard on gradeds? I dont have much history, but the few I did last year at Morton and Tallaght were very efficient, except for a quite slow check in process (even if you’d registered and paid in advance online). Everything else seemed ok though, especially with the online results system at Morton anyway. Maybe I’ve been lucky. All volunteer driven of course - maybe it depends on who turns up to help out.

The NIA certainly gets it mostly right, although the schedule was pretty shot by 8pm the other night, despite fairly low (average?) participation. Perhaps runnign late from earlier junior meet. Car park was certainly still full at 7:30 so maybe that was it.

Yeh the new online system is great for the gradeds. Perhaps I’m being harsh. I sort of wrote them off a few years ago, mainly because I’d always be wrecked from work and would generally run badly at them. Consequently I’d find it hard to get into them, which probably made it hard for me to overlook the annoying things like delays. I hear you on volunteers, and I think some of them are fantastic people.

Chivito550

I thought my season was over after I finished the NIA meet a couple of weeks ago. However, once I found out that the media race in Glasgow would be a 60m instead of the usual 800m I opted to keep training, and delay the short end of indoor season break.

60m: 7.95

There were 5 heats in the men's competition, with 34 entries. In the end 30 showed up. I was in heat 1 in lane 5 and up against me in lane 7 was Frederic Xhonneux of Belgium, who competed in the decathlon at the 2008 Olympics and has a PB of 8142 points. He was close to 2 flat in the media race in London 2017. I assumed he would beat me easily. He looked to be taking it seriously as he was doing a good warm up, with plenty of strides and practice with the blocks. He didn't have spikes with him though, so he was probably giving me a couple of tenths there. The other lads in my heat were from Bulgaria, Poland and Greece. Judging by their block practice I knew I would have nothing to worry about there.

Warm up was short at less than 30 minutes. That's the disadvantage of being in the first heat, as we weren't allowed out onto the track until a certain time, so those in the later heats got longer out on the track. However I warmed up well and was sweating bricks quite quickly. It really was warm down on the track.

I got a flying start and after about 10m I knew it was a race between me and the Belgian. He was up with me to start but I felt great, and I could slowly see him disappearing from my side vision. I kept my form and dipped at the line, and a couple of seconds later I hear the announcer say 7.95. I was absolutely delighted to hear this. It's a big season's best, improving on my time at Nationals by 0.08, and it is my fastest time in two years, beating my 7.97 best from last year. It is still 0.15 down on my PB, but I didn't expect to get under 8 seconds this season, let alone by that much. My time was actually 7.941. The rule is that the time gets corrected up. If I was one thousandth faster I would have had a 7.94.

The Belgian ran 8.30. Not often you beat an Olympian. I'd like to think I'd have still beaten him had he spikes on, given the gap was 0.35. The other times were 9.36, 9.72 and 11.69.

Then it was a case of waiting to see where I'd finish overall. Feidhlim won heat two in 7.82 with a British lad in 7.90. Gillick won the third heat in 7.44, and a Belgian lad, who was sitting in the same row as us in the press tribune, won the fourth heat in 7.81. The final heat was won in 8.01 so nobody passed me there. Overall I finished 5th of the 30 competitors, with Ireland taking 1st, 3rd and 5th. The women's race only had 4 in it and was taken out by a Polish woman in 9.49.

I got a mascot teddy thing as my prize for winning my heat, which are actually a ludicrous £15 to buy.

We tried to get them to do a final with all 5 heat winners and the 3 fastest losers but they were having none of it.

The whole event was a great laugh, and I got a great buzz about running a season's best at it. The more media races that are sprints the better as far as I'm concerned.

It's funny how much traction these races got. The athletes were even watching them on twitter, likely bored out of their brains sitting around in a hotel lobby. Ciara Mageean congratulated me in the pub that night on my media race win and said she was watching it, after I had congratulated her on her far more impressive display!

The video of the race is here with lots of other funny coverage of the media race: https://twitter.com/Cathal_Dennehy/status/1102215597583200257

There's also a really great production here:
https://twitter.com/DavidGillick/status/1102257908568543232

AuldManKing

Thats super - I enjoyed the twitter coverage of it - congrats on the seasons best.

Mulberry

Same here, saw the twitter coverage, such fun! Well done on your time.

Do you think the fact that it was such a fun occasion and you might have been more relaxed than at a championship event contributed to your excellent time?

Chivito550

Mulberry wrote: »

Same here, saw the twitter coverage, such fun! Well done on your time.

Do you think the fact that it was such a fun occasion and you might have been more relaxed than at a championship event contributed to your excellent time?

Ah I don't think so to be honest. It's probably more that I've been getting into better shape as the indoor season has progressed and the other meets have come a bit too soon for me. I also only decided to do 60m this season after my awful 400m in January, so I didn't have enough specific work done for it.

My outdoor 200 and 400 PBs and my indoor 60, 200 and 400 PBs have all come from the National Championships and my second fastest 100m time is also from Nationals. So championship events don't phase me, but rather bring the best out in me. Even this year I ran 8.03 at Nationals which I was happy with as all my other races were only 8.12, 8.13 and 8.17.

Regarding the media race, yes it was a fun event, but I was taking it seriously and wanted to do well. I didn't drink much the night before (compared to other nights) and was in bed just after 1am (again, unlike other nights). Despite the different circumstances of being away from your normal environment compared to normal races, and the challenges that brings regarding pre-race preparation, I still prepared as best I could regarding eating a certain amount of time before the race, doing my usual warm up, having all my running gear with me, my massage stick etc.

There was also the added pressure that half the Irish athletics community would see the race on Twitter if I had a howler, though I wasn't thinking too much about this! I just wanted to run fast and rank as highly as possible, against admittedly terrible opposition.

Chivito550

So the indoor season is now officially finished for me and my results were as follows:

INDOOR:

60m:

Pre-season PB: 7.80

1) 8.17
2) 8.13
3) 8.03
4) 8.12
5) 7.95

200m:

Pre-season indoor PB: 25.47 (lane 4)

1) 27.32 (lane 4)
2) 25.84 (lane 6)
3) 27.12 (lane 2)
4) 26.19 (lane 6)

400m:

Pre-season indoor PB: 56.04 (lane 4)

1) 60.97 (lane 3)

In total I had 10 races and just 3 of them were good (7.95, 8.03 and 25.84), but better to have 3 good races than none. The season ended on a high so I'm now looking forward to outdoors and hopefully going faster than I did last season (12.45 and 25.47). I've gone faster than last year in the 60m, so no reason why I can't in the 100m and 200m. I don't expect to approach the times from 2017, but with not too many weddings and stags on the horizon this year (unlike last year), I would hope that I can better last season's performances.

Looking back at my training, it has been pretty good since and including Christmas. Where I lost it was the month leading into it, where I missed a lot of training, for a whole range of reasons. My season came good in the end, but I was only getting into good shape towards the end of it. Hopefully I can be more consistent heading into the summer and be in good nick for Ton le Gaoithe in May. I've always run well there and would like to continue that.

I had done this table for the 10 year challenge thread, but decided to copy it over here and update it for 2019 performances so far.

Event|2008|2009|2010|2010/11|2011/12|2012/13|2013/14|2014|2015|2016|2017|2018|2019
60m|||||||||8.05|8.19|7.80|7.97|7.95
100m||||13.8h|13.36|12.82|12.63|12.97|12.68|12.35|12.20|12.45|
150m|||||||||||19.15||
200m||||28.2h|26.92|25.62|25.44|25.42|25.45|25.10|24.87|25.47|25.84i
300m|||||||||40.47||||
400m||||63.9h|58.68|56.26|55.00|54.88|55.61|58.35|||60.97i
800m||||2:34.9h|2:27.6h|2:23.8h|2:15.2h|2:19.70|2:14.98|2:26.73|2:25.03||
1500m|||||5:27.98|5:04.36|4:52.06|4:53.84|||||
1 Mile|||||||5:29.0h||||||
5km|21:46|21:02||||||19:46|19:47|22:36|21:53|22:38.91|
10km|46:59|45:32||45:24|||||||46:24||
Half Marathon||1:49:06|||||||||||
Marathon|||4:07:35||||||||||
4x100m relay||||||49.36||||50.71||47.96|
Long Jump||||4.17m|4.32m|4.40m|4.83m|4.20m|4.95m||||
Triple Jump||||8.93m|9.28m||||||||
High Jump|||||1.25m|1.26m|1.31m|1.29m|||||
Pole Vault||||||1.30m|1.40m||||||
Shot Putt||||5.67m|6.51m|6.21m|6.75m|5.95m|||||
Discus Throw||||14.65m|14.17m|16.67m|16.59m|15.31m|||||
Javelin Throw||||13.21m|10.83m|8.37m|12.05m|14.66m||17.53m|||
Decathlon|||||2290|2561|2903|2546|||||
Beer Mile||||||8:19*|8:27|9:07|10:36|8:43.37|9:21|9:53|

Chivito550

So after a brilliant end to the indoor season, with that 7.95 in the Glasgow media race, I had about 10 days off before slowly getting back into it. Training has been solid since then. I’m pretty inconsistent with getting to the gym though. With other things in life competing for my time, I can’t train as much as in years past, and the gym sessions always end up being the ones that take the hit, rather than the track sessions. I’m probably averaging between 3 and 4 days training a week at the moment.

I’ve done two meets this outdoor season so far.

Greystones IMC

Weather was lovely. About 10 degrees but very sunny so it felt warm. It was pretty breezy on the homestraight though so I ended up with headwinds.

100m: 12.81 (-1.2)

For a first race, with the inevitable rustiness I was pretty happy with this. I was way out of my depth in a race containing just 4 athletes. Adjusting for wind this equates to 12.69, so it was a decent start.

200m: 26.05 (-1.5)

Despite being last again, this race was a bit more competitive and I tried to stay as close to the Lucan athlete who ran 25.2. Only two years ago I was beating him in 200m races mind you! I wasn’t happy to be outside 26 but for a first race it was ok. I had no real power coming out of the blocks on the bend though, but ran a good straight.

Ton le Gaoithe – Waterford

A lovely day at Ton le Gaoithe with plenty of sunshine and tailwinds.

100m race one: 12.54 (+2.3)

In my race was a lad who I raced a few times last year over 100m and 200m and this winter in the 60m. He’s a bit ahead of me in 60, we are usually neck and neck in the 100 and then I’m well ahead in the 200. I pipped him by 0.02 on this occasion and was pleased with that. I felt I ran a good race but lacked a bit of strength from 40-70m section of the race where I felt I could have moved past him but didn’t seem to have it. Fortunately I held my form better to get by him in the closing metres, but he’s definitely not running as well as last year.

100m race two: 12.59 (+1.2)

I was happy how I ran this race, which is a marginal improvement on the first race, adjusting for the wind. It was good to get a legal wind time too. I was 4 tenths of a second ahead of the same guy on this occasion. Endurance is important to get through these races in close succession.

200m: 26.32 (+2.3)

This was a poor run. I had no power out of the blocks on the bend. Granted I was tired from the two previous races and the wind was extremely strong for the first 50m, but at the same time, I haven’t done enough bend specific speed work and I felt rusty running out of blocks around the bend. Bend running is harder than straight running so more work needed here.

Chivito550

Bit of a strange day. I made the call during the week, having entered the 200m and the 100m, to sit out the 200m, so I could be fresh for both 4x100m and 4x400m at the end of the day. My thought process was that I had a much better chance getting something out of the relay events. Last year was a great buzz, running sub 48 in the 4x100m to win a bronze, so was hoping for more of the same.

Weather was all over the place really. 4 seasons in one day. The wind was blowing at the perfect angle for 200m though, as I watched on as my squad mates all ran fast times with such an ideal following wind. I made my call though, and suspected this would be the case having looked at the weather forecast during the week, so there was no point dwelling on it.

100m: 12.50 (+4.2)

The tailwind was very strong which caused me to lose my balance a bit in the closing periods of the race. I was told I was overstriding. Basically, I do not like following winds this strong as it plays havoc to my form. Fastest time this year but it is very illegal.

4x100m: 49.82 Gold

The relay sneaked up on us really quickly due to the really low numbers competing in the 400m. As a result we didn't get to do any baton practice beforehand. I had done my best during the week to get relay teams together, but with niggles etc it ended up being a bit of a last minute, throw a team together type job.

Unfortunately no other men's team entered which was incredibly disappointing and made the event a bit of a no-win situation. We raced against 3 women's teams and expected to comfortably win. I was on the third leg, and having done no meaningful baton practice all year, I completely underestimated the amount of distance I had to allow between me and the incoming runner when I started running. He was up on my in no time, and the changeover was a real horror show and must have cost us at least a second. I felt I ran decent, determined to make up for the error which was my fault, and the handover to the fourth runner went off without any drama. Because of the time lost on the poor changeover, I left him with a bit of work to do to stay ahead of the leading women's team, which we managed by about three quarters of a second.

4x400m: 4:12.20 Gold

Again we were the only men's team, this time against two women's teams. I went on the second leg, and while I didn't go at 100%, I went comfortable and controlled for the first 200m, started working harder at half way, and very hard in the home straight. I handed the baton over at around 2:02/2:03. I think I picked up the baton at around 61 (our first runner ran about 10m longer than he needed to, as he didn't break when he should have, as we were breaking in the first lap, rather than the usual second lap). At a guess I ran my leg in about 61, maybe 62 seconds.

By the time we handed the baton to our final runner we were at around 3 minutes flat, but he made the decision to cruise around, which was the sensible decision after a hard day's racing. We were a good 40 seconds ahead of the leading women's team.

I didn't know how to feel about those medals to be honest. It was good fun running with the group and I enjoyed it a lot, but the medals didn't feel like much of a personal achievement, other than the effort put in to make sure people stuck around and made themselves available for the relays. I'm disappointed no other teams showed up, which made the medals feel a bit hollow. I don't like getting a medal just for showing up. But what can you do! We have zero control over other team's showing up. Last year a few teams showed up and we had a great race. This year nobody did. Just the way it goes. Better the medals are in our hands than back in a storage box somewhere I guess.

It was a strangely muted Leinster Championships. Numbers were considerably lower than previous years. Would love to know why. The weather? The new online entry system? Declining interest? It was very disappointing to see such low numbers, and the majority of events in the senior ranks, and almost all of the masters events only had 3 or less participants. The percentage of people who came away with a medal must have been very high.

They were very low on volunteers too. I had a lot of free time because I opted out of the 200m, so I helped out with the women's triple jump, which had just 4 competitors across all age groups. I actually enjoyed volunteering for this. It was very relaxed and the competitors were all sound out.

So overall it was an enjoyable day, but it's worrying to see such low numbers.