Remember the Red Lion

dermCu

I wasn't going to keep a log this time around but what the hell, the London marathon is a great event and I want to have another crack at it. So I think its worth keeping a training record if only for posterity. I've ran it twice and not done well on either occasion - for very different reasons. I'd like to get it right once. It would be nice to go under 2:45 and earn a championship place for 2012.

What's with the odd title? After finishing last years London marathon I stumbled over to the Red Lion pub on Parliament Street with my wife and sat drinking a pint in stunned shock. As I sat there all the crazy thoughts started going through my head - "Stupid Marathon", "I'm not built for this", "Why bother running?", "I'm retiring" That was a pretty low moment. I don’t want to experience that again if I have any choice in the matter. Maybe I should use a positive experience like Florence instead but being honest fear is usually a better motivator. So on occasion I find myself thinking about sitting in that pub with a happy outcome this time. If I end up in that scenario because of illness or bad luck that’s fair enough but it wont be through lack of training. So I'm going back to that pub on the 17th of April and this time they will be happy pints.

The week after Florence I got sick and it pretty much wiped me out. I felt like crap and was as weak as a kitten for two weeks. I was getting back into it when Christmas decided to get in the way. Kept running but my pattern was all over the place and everything was at a jogging pace. 45 miles last week and hope to hit 60+ this week.

I'm not going to go back and log my running past last Sunday - no point.

Sun 9th Jan 15 @ 7:20 m/m**** Thats a complete guess. I know the route was exactly 15 but I left my watch at home on purpose. I just wanted to trot around and not even think about the pace.

Mon 10th Jan: 8.7 @ 6:58

Tue 11th Jan 10 @ 6:48 Decided to slowly get back to some quicker running so in the middle of this I did 6 x 3 mins and tried to keep the pace between tempo and M pace. A nice gentle welcome back.

Off we go again........

heffsarmy

Fair play to you for havin another crack at the London marathon, it will be no bother to you this time.

seanynova

best of luck derm, be good to put that one to bed!

will be following the log with intrest...

dermCu

Wed 12th Jan 8.7 @ 6:56 I don't know how it managed it but I strained something in my neck when I was getting dressed in the morning. Sore all day and not very comfortable to run with. Couldn't really turn my head left and right when I was approaching a junction. Instead I had to pretty much turn my whole upper body.

Thur 13th Jan 8.7 @ 7:05 Was still suffering on last nights run and on top of that my legs were pretty heavy. On the plus side when I woke up this morning I turned my head on the pillow and there was a loud cracking noise from my neck. The relief was instant. Now I can move my head pain free. Never had that before and don't want it again.

misty floyd

Nice one Derm, good luck with training.

dermCu

Fri 14th Jan: 0 - time for a rest day

Sat 15th Jan 7.9 @ 7:04 m/m The intention was to do 6 x 1/2 mile at a good clip but the wind put an end to that. I felt like I was putting in the same effort for every rep but the wind had my times all over the place.

Sun 16th Jan 17.4 @ 7:00 m/m Pretty tired at the end but I'm glad the long runs are building back up again.

theboyblunder

Im glad to see this log back dermcu. Good luck with the training.

dermCu

Mon 17th Jan 6 @ 7:25 : Pretty tired on this one, I was a little surprised how much the fastish run on Sat and Sundays long run took out of me.

Tue: 18th Jan: Errrrr, not too sure on the stats; lets call it 7 miles in total.
Bit the bullet and went down to my local club for my first ever club track session. I'd say its been 8 or 9 years since I even stepped on a track so I felt a little out of place at the start. It was rally a reccie session to see if it was worth joining.

I couldn't get over how many people they had. There must have been 40+ people there - I don't think I even saw them all as lots were standing outside the door. They had 2 separate groups going out on the road and 1 group on the track. I headed to the track where they were doing 5 x 400 (about 100 m jog rec) and then 3 x 1 mile with about 2:45 rec.

I didn't want to make an ass of myself so I started the 400's right at the back of the group and worked my way up. Stupidly enough I didnt time them.

I had the mile reps @ 5:51, 5:41, 5:42
I really found it hard to get my head around doing mile reps on the track. Especially the first one. Maybe I just hit the 400's too hard. I was only getting into it on the last one. I would have been happy to do another one or two.

I enjoyed the session, they were all very friendly and there were plenty of guys ahead of me to chase. I think I'll go back.

asimonov

Hey DermCu, good to see you back in action - best of luck with the log and the training.

You got your training for florence absolutely bang on. Do you plan to do anything really different this time or is it more of the same (plus the track work)?

heffsarmy

You must be tired your mon and tues dates are wrong . I think your at the stage were the support of a club will help you alot, also finding guys or girls with similar pace to yourself makes training alot easier.

dermCu

asimonov wrote: »

Hey DermCu, good to see you back in action - best of luck with the log and the training.

You got your training for florence absolutely bang on. Do you plan to do anything really different this time or is it more of the same (plus the track work)?

Thanks Asimonov, ya mostly it'll be more of the same really. I'm not going to rock up to the club coach and say "Do out a plan for me there boss" and start following it straight away. It'll be more gradual so given that London is only ~ 3 months away I'll stick to what I know for now. I'd like to do those track session for at least another 4 - 6 weeks and then maybe switch to the specific stuff. I'd like to start stretching out the tempo runs like you did. It would be great if I could use this cycle as a bridge so that I can build towards doing some sessions like the ones in Daniel's Elite plan next time around.

I might also try to increase my average weekly volume a little bit. My 11 week average (excluding the last taper week) before Florence was 68 mpw. I might try to bring it up to around 75 if I can. If I cant its no big deal as long as the quality is good.

Hows the knee? Are you fully recovered and planning your next marathon? You are due a big one.

heffsarmy wrote: »

You must be tired your mon and tues dates are wrong . I think your at the stage were the support of a club will help you alot, also finding guys or girls with similar pace to yourself makes training alot easier.

Thats what oxygen debt does to you Heff. You are right, I can see how those sessions would drive you along. It keeps you switched on all the time as there's always a guy ahead of you or right on your shoulder. Whether I like it or not self coaching is only going to get me so far. It feels like the right time for me to slowly start taking direction from a club coach. I dont know if I found it easier but it was more enjoyable having something to chase rather than pounding out the reps on your own.

Any races planned Heff?

heffsarmy

The club is the way to go, I'm sure there will be plenty lads doing the London marathon that you could train with.

dermCu wrote: »

Any races planned Heff?

I signed up for craughwell 10mile in march 20th, so that will be my main focus. If I feel fit enough I will run the national intermediate cross country in 2 weeks, ran the national novice last week pulled out off the race second lap went off too fast thinking that I was fit

asimonov

dermCu wrote: »

Thanks Asimonov, ya mostly it'll be more of the same really. I'm not going to rock up to the club coach and say "Do out a plan for me there boss" and start following it straight away. It'll be more gradual so given that London is only ~ 3 months away I'll stick to what I know for now. I'd like to do those track session for at least another 4 - 6 weeks and then maybe switch to the specific stuff. I'd like to start stretching out the tempo runs like you did. It would be great if I could use this cycle as a bridge so that I can build towards doing some sessions like the ones in Daniel's Elite plan next time around.

I might also try to increase my average weekly volume a little bit. My 11 week average (excluding the last taper week) before Florence was 68 mpw. I might try to bring it up to around 75 if I can. If I cant its no big deal as long as the quality is good.

Hows the knee? Are you fully recovered and planning your next marathon? You are due a big one.

That makes sense; you have a good platform from florence and you just need to build on that and maybe push it in one or two places to get some more adaptation.

My knee is 95% better now; still stiffens after anything too long or too hilly. But I'm back to 60 mile weeks (all sub threshold with the odd hill session thrown in) and I won't do another marathon until Dublin - i hit the m40 mark there last weekend so i plan on whoring myself out at every local road race I can find for a while and will then do the connemara half again.

dermCu

Wed 19th 13.48 @ 7:05 Shattered, pure and simple. I felt awful and put it down to having done a couple of faster runs in quick succession. In any case after the run I decided to take a day or two easy.

Thur 20th 8.7 @ 7:20 I might as well have been running 6:20's for the effort it took.

Fri 21st 9 @ 7:19 I felt a bit better and PE was lower but I'm just not moving well. Its hard to explain. I dont have any soreness and during the day I dont feel tired, I just cant get my crusing pace down to what it normally is without working hard.

Sat 22nd 6 @ 7:20 I'm starting to get pissed off now. Even an easy 6 doesnt feel all that easy.

Sun 23rd 20 @ 7:04 Ok, a little bit better.

Mon 24th 0 - Unplanned rest. My wife had to spend a night in hospital so running went right to the bottom of my priority list. Thankfully she's fine.

Tue 25th 0 - Same as Mon, patient home and recovering.

Wed 26th 8.7 @ 7:15 I though I'd be fresh after 2 days rest and I might see an improvment. Nope, felt like I hadnt run in 2 months.

Thur 27th 10 @ ???? Time to do something a little bit different so I left my watch at home. It was just pissing me off looking at it during a run to see a lower than expected pace. At least I enjoyed my run a bit more.


I've no idea where this mini slump has come from. Day to day my energy levels are fine.
Usually if I'm not running well I have an idea why but not this time. If it was someone else describing the symptoms I'd straight away say "Over-trained". But I'm not. If anything my workload is lower than it usually is at this point.
The only thing I can take a random guess at is that maybe its a tightness in my pelvis/hamstrings etc.. that I dont notice but that is resticting my already choppy stride. Thats a pure guess but I'll try to work on stretching to see if it makes any difference.

There is enough time left so no need to panic but I'd rather get back on track sooner rather than later.

If anyone reads this and has any ideas I'm all ears.

heffsarmy

Dermo get your Iron levels checked out by a doctor, if your have low iron or saturation levels this would cause these symptoms. There tones of info on the web, here a link.

http://www.running.net/read_feature/low-iron-may-have-you-feeling-fatigued

TheRoadRunner

dermCu wrote: »

If anyone reads this and has any ideas I'm all ears.

In my opinion it could be a number of things but overall I wouldn't worry about the pace of the majority of your runs at this stage at all. Leave the watch at home and run by feel except for the key sessions. You're getting the miles in and sometimes your just aren't 100%.

If you were a pro and were getting blood tests you might see an elevated white blood cell count indicating there is a small bug in your system. Little things like this are possible even if they don't manifest as illness. There seems to be a higher number of viral and bacterial infections knocking around this year than normal.

Another thing worth having a look at is your iron intake. If you aren't taking an iron supplement it might be worth taking one or eating additional red meat or even liver (assuming you are not a veggie).

Just a couple of possibilities, there are many more. If I were you I'd keep plugging away and you'll be back close to 100% in a couple of weeks

PS I love the blog title and reasoning behind it. Nothing better than a horrible memory to motivate you.

theboyblunder

yeah would go to the doctor dermcu. hope you get back on form soon.

dermCu

Fri 28th: 10 @ 6:52 Hallelujah, at last a run that felt half decent. I'd got back into my stretching for a day or two and I think it made a difference. Between work and study I'm spending a lot of time sitting. Better keep at it now. The only downside was that my hands got one of the worst freezings that I think I've ever got. At 5 miles they were frozen solid. I knew I was in for a world of pain when they defrosted. I was right. I had a good pair of gloves on but the wind chill was nasty.

Sat 29th: 8.7 @ 7:08 Purposely took it a bit easier in advance of the long run on Sunday. I had to stop about 2 miles from home - there was a hobo lying flat out on the ground at a bus stop. I thought he was dead so I stopped to check. He was alive but pretty out of it. It was baltic so I stayed with him for a few minutes. He sat up, surveyed the situation and then proceeded to f**k me out of it in a semi coherent way!! All right buddy you've used up all my good will, I'm off.

Sun 30th: 20.1 @ 6:55 Yea, that felt a bit better. Took it easy at the start and thankfully I was able to up the pace in the last 5. Didn't push to MP but was happy enough at around 6:40's

Mon 31st: 6 @ 7:57 I was feeling pretty good but I really tried to make this a proper recovery. Earlier in the day I was reading Nate Jenkins's (American elite marathoner ) blog and he was making the point that recovery runs should be anything up to 3 mins slower than MP. I know I'm guilty of running recovery too fast and even though I feel good at the time it cant be making things any easier for the next workout. So from now on I will crawl around recovery runs.

Tue 1st: 10 @ 6:58 Was really tired when I got home. It was too late to make it down to the club session so I decided to do my session on Wed.

Wed 2nd: 14.3 @ 6:50 Really happy with this. I wanted to ease back into the harder running to see if I was really getting out of my slump so the plan was to do 4 x 10min off 3 min. Start at 6:30 pace for the first and see how it goes.

3 wu @ 7:21
6:15 - Felt really good. Was holding back if anything.
6:12 - Same as the first one.
6:05 - Feeling a little tired but still well in control
5:58 - That felt hard but manageable.
3.25 cd @ 7:18

Thur 3rd: 6 @ 7:20 - Remember what I said about crawling on recovery runs - well, I'm a liar. Just ran at what felt an easy pace daydreaming away. I'll just have to start paying more attention.


Heffs, RoadRunner, TBB: Thanks for the advice guys. I'm not a veggie but I don't eat a great deal of red meat so iron deficiency was a real possibility.To be on the safe side I've introduce more into my diet in the last week. I'm also guilty at times of having tea with a meal so I've stopped that as apparently it can prevent iron from being absorbed. I've also started to get more Vit C in whenever I can. I don't know if it was the stretching or the diet but I do feel better this week. Either way I'm much happier now. I'll pay more attention to both.

TheRoadRunner

yeah tea can block absorption of iron as they contain tannins. Vitamin C in tandem with iron is the way to go. Apparently the vitamin C helps iron absorption from the gut. Glad to hear you are recovering. Good weeks training as well

theboyblunder

yeah that is true, but its mostly non-heme iron that is sequestered by the tannins (im a chemist by trade). Heme-iron (i.e. from meat) is well-bound to porphyrins already and is largely unaffected.

Im a vegetarian and have to watch these things, if youve had red meat with dinner I think tea is then ok.

Anyway - good to see you back. Hope the training goes well.

dermCu

Fri 4th Feb 10 @ 7:09 Very windy. The watch is a bit of a liability on days like this. Did a mini fartlek from 1.5 - 4.5 when the wind was at my back. The 5 miles home into the wind was very hard work.

Sat 5th Feb 5 @ 7:24 Took it easy in advance of the long run.

Sun 6th Feb 20.1 @ 7:06 Still very windy and still hard work to maintain that pace.

Mon 7th Feb 0 - I had a choice; stay at home and not get divorced or go out for 6 recovery miles at 10:30pm and have an angry little woman to deal with. Close call but I skipped the run.

Tue 8th Feb 10 @ 7:08 Nice dead calm evening. Held a little back in advance of some tempo work on Wed. It looks like I'm going to struggle to get down to any of the club track sessions for the next while. I'm juggling too many different things at the moment and something has to give.

dermCu

Wed 9th Feb: 14.4 @ 6:44
3 w/u @ 7:23, 4 x 10 min @ T off 3 min rec, 3.1 @ 7:14
5:52
5:51
5:56
5:58

Enjoyed that, starting to get some form back at last.

TheRoadRunner

dermCu wrote: »

Wed 9th Feb: 14.4 @ 6:44
3 w/u @ 7:23, 4 x 10 min @ T off 3 min rec, 3.1 @ 7:14
5:52
5:51
5:56
5:58

Enjoyed that, starting to get some form back at last.

nicely done, I like the look of that session. May rob it in future

dermCu

Thur 10th 6 @ 7:36 Bog standard recovery run

Fri 11th 9 @ 7:17 Kept the first few miles very slow as I was planning to do my long run on Sat morning. Easy all the way.

Sat 12th 22.4 @ 6:49 Had a few visitors over for the weekend so had to get up at stupid o'clock to get this done. It worked out well and I was comfortable enough with the last 3 or 4 miles at around 6:30 pace. Maybe time to throw in a few at MP next week.

Sun 13th 0 - Knew this would be a recovery day (from the running and the alcohol on Sat)

Mon 14th 0 - Not planned. Got home late from a very busy day, shattered, brain fried and just did not want to run.

Tue 15th 0 - Found out late on Monday that I'd have an interview for a promotion on Wed morning. Thought I'd be able to swot up for an hour or two during the day on Tue - not a chance, was even busier than Mon. I like running and want to do as well as I can but it'll never pay the bills so sacrificed the run to spend the evening wired up on caffeine preparing my answers.

Wed 16th 10 @ 7:05 I usually do my workout on a Wed but after another busy day I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it. So went for an easy 10 instead and pushed it out to Thurs. Interview went well though, despite the lack of any running related questions.

Thur 17th 11.5 @ 6:46
3 w/u @ 7:12, 4 x 10 mins @ T, .5 w/d @ 7:19 Some days you have it and other days you don't and last night I really didn't have it.
5:56
5:59
6:09
6:06
I had pencilled in 4 x 2 miles for this session but I'm glad I changed my mind at the last minute as I probably wouldn't have finished that session. No excuses really just a poor run.
More than anything I just lost concentration on the 3rd one. Found it hard to dig in and claw my way back from there.
I'd usually do a 3 mile c/d after that session but just cut my losses and decided to try and come back strong for a long run on Sunday.

I don't have my usual motivation for running over the last week or so. Its a struggle just to fit it in. Hopefully that'll change soon and I'll get back to normal. I'm not a million miles away from some good running - a few things just need to click into place.

dermCu

Fri 18th Feb: 6 @ 7:43 Felt like a little bit of a fraud for taking a full on-recovery day after Thursday's non event. In reality I had an eye on Sunday.

Sat 19th Feb: 8.7 @ 7:00 Started off nice and easy and found myself winding it up a little bit towards the end. Not really intentional, I was just daydreaming and lost track of the pace.

Sun 20th Feb 22.4 @ 6:37 Swings and roundabouts, today I just had it; polar opposite to Thurs. I knew it was on when I went through the first mile in 6:48. No matter what type of long run I do in training its rare that I'll run a first mile faster than 7 m/m Felt good. I tried to focus on running relaxed and keeping good form. Upped the pace for the last few miles:
6:25, 6:20, 6:16, 6:22 & .4 @ 6:07
Happy with that considering the pace of the run up to that point.

dermCu

Mon 21st Feb: 6 @ 7:45 recovery. In the first few miles I could really feel Sunday's long run. Started to feel better in the last mile or two.

Tue 22nd Feb: 10 @ 7:09** watch died at 7.7 There are some changes happening at work which might see me travelling a bit. Not the glamorous jetting off in business class type of travel - more like spending hours stuck in a car on the M4. So instead of my usual 15 mins commute I spent 5.5 hours in the car. Really felt stiff and sore for the first few miles of the run.

Wed 23rd Feb: 14.3 @ 6:52
3 w/u @ 7:34, 4 x 2 miles with 3min rec, 2 c/d @ 7:39

5:57
6:01
6:06
6:03

I have to hold my hands up and say that I overcooked it on Sundays long run. I suffered pretty much throughout this session and crawled home on the cooldown. The numbers aren't that great but I'm still happy enough. Every now and again its good to get a little lesson like that to remind you of your limits. If I had another 24 hours recovery I think I would have had a better stab at the session but thats neither here nor there. I really really really didn't want to do the last one. I'm glad I just turned off my brain and got it done. Sub 60 at Ballycotton feels like its slipping away - thats called getting your excuse in early!!

TheRoadRunner

dermCu wrote: »

Sub 60 at Ballycotton feels like its slipping away - thats called getting your excuse in early!!

Sub 60 :eek: based on your recent training sub 58 should be the target at an absolute minimum, well that's my opinion anyway

heffsarmy

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Sub 60 :eek: based on your recent training sub 58 should be the target at an absolute minimum, well that's my opinion anyway

+1

No excuses, you will easily go sub60

theboyblunder

+1 your crappy session would equate to a good session for me and I did 61:05 recently. Gotta be there or there abouts dermcu!
Good luck

Abhainn

dermCu wrote: »

Sun 20th Feb 22.4 @ 6:37 Swings and roundabouts, today I just had it; polar opposite to Thurs. I knew it was on when I went through the first mile in 6:48. No matter what type of long run I do in training its rare that I'll run a first mile faster than 7 m/m Felt good. I tried to focus on running relaxed and keeping good form. Upped the pace for the last few miles:
6:25, 6:20, 6:16, 6:22 & .4 @ 6:07

Catching up dermCu. Nice running there and good discipline, you have to be happy with those last 4.4miles. Do you take any gels etc on LFR's (Long Fast Runs?;))

thirstywork2

Agree with Heffsarmy here,very common in runners.What club did you do the session with?
Nothing like the feeling of doing a session in a group.