The least important part of this thread is the Title

Oregano_State

dna_leri wrote: »

Welcome back

I presume you will give the indoor season a miss and focus on the summer?

I don't know is the honest answer.

I'm going to get as much training as I can done over the next couple of months and see where I'm at. At that stage, my course is going to get progressively busier, so I'll have to work harder to fit in time for training. That's not a cop-out, saying I won't have time, but realistically if work starts piling up the training is going to suffer.

The British University Indoor Championships are on around the end of February, and there was already talk last night of using me for the 4x400m team, which I wouldn't be against if I'm happy with how I'm progressing. There are also open indoor races on until the end of march, so I'll probably do one or two of those as well to see how I'm going.

Ideally yes, the outdoor season is always the main focus for the year. Having said that however, from my experience of Athlone last year, and running in Glasgow years ago, I have to say I prefer indoor running (Nenagh excluded!!) due to the controlled temperatures and zero wind.

Edit: I've just checked the programme for the BUCS indoors and there's no 4x400m, so probably won't be competing at them. I've seen a couple of 200m and 600m graded events so I may go for those instead, around March.

Oregano_State

Approach to training this time round
I've tried to learn from what I think were my mistakes last year, in planning my training for this season. The mistakes were basically not listening to my body, doing too much high-intensity work for my training-level, and not programming 'easy' weeks.

Taking that into account, I'm going to split everything into 4-week micro cycles. The first three weeks I will have track sessions on Tuesday and Thursdays, and a hills session on Saturday. Mondays & Fridays will be upper body weights, Wednesdays lower body + core. Every 4th week will be an 'easy' week, where I go for an easy run instead of one track or hills session, and de-load the weights. I'm going to follow the university's track sessions, as that will give me a group to run with, and the coach seems to be pretty knowledgeable from the little I've seen so far.

Before, every weights session was full body, and I think this took too much out of my legs. I was also doing explosive movements like cleans and hang-cleans nearly every session, which was too much given the amount of sprinting I was doing.

Because this week is my first week back, I don't want to push it. I'll do the track session on Thurs, but give the hills on Saturday a miss if my legs aren't feeling up to it.

The first three micro-cycles take me up to the middle of February, so that is going to be my 'winter' training. Will reassess then.

Oregano_State

Thurs 28th Nov - Track
I skipped the weights on Wednesday and my legs were (and still are) feeling the effects of Tuesday's session. My calves in particular are very tight. I did a good half hour rolling the soleus and calf muscles last night but they were still very tight today. Stairs are my enemy at the moment.

Anyway, I went along to the track session with the club tonight. Session was 3x500m off 8min. I think the general system at the moment is to do more volume on Tuesdays, with faster stuff on Thursdays. The times were 86.1, 84.7, 83.4 so I took about 1.5s off each one, for an average of 67.8s 400m pace which is not too bad.

My calves loosened up nicely during the warm up so I didn't have any problems there. One of the guys in the group is a 49.1s 400m runner, so it;s good to have someone to aim at. He was about 3s ahead of me on each of the reps, but my fitness is pretty shocking at the moment, so hopefully in a few weeks I'll be a little closer to him. His 200m pb is in the low 22s range as well, so he's a pretty savage runner. I reckon he's only about 18 as well as he's a 1st year in college.

There's another dude on the team who ran 10.4x last year for the 100m. He's run for England before, and his profile photo on fb is him shaking hands with Dwain Chambers after racing him last season!

Anyway, good session. I'm going to take it easy on the legs over the next few days, probably do an easy run over the weekend and some upper body gym work, and aim to be nicely recovered for the next track session on Tuesday evening.

Edit: After winning a few bob on the soccer Wed night, I ordered a pair of these bad boys. I really like NB, and these have been reviewed pretty well.

Krusty_Clown

Those shoes are bleedin' massive!

Oregano_State

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Those shoes are bleedin' massive!

Ha, that's just a random photo I pulled off the web! I should probably have resized it.

My pair arrived this morning though, they fit like a glove, but my calves were too battered to give them a spin today.

Edit: Resized!

Oregano_State

Friday 29th Nov - Gym
Late night gym session on a Friday night with the place pretty much empty. Usually the university gym is jammers 24/7, so it was a relief to have a bit of space and not have to queue for equipment. Every time I go it reminds me of how good a facility Morton Stadium is: Very cheap, top class equipment, and chronically underused.

Warm Up 5 mins easy on tread mill, then 5 mins foam rolling + mobility work

Incline Bench 70kg 5x5

OHP 30kg 3x12

Shoulder Press 30kg 3x10

Lateral Raise + Rear Delt Flyes SS 8kg DBs 3x[10,10]

Tricep Pushdown + Face Pulls SS 20kg 3x[10,12]

The 5 mins on the treadmill and foam rolling really loosened my legs up. The rest of the session was grand, felt strong enough.

Oregano_State

Saturday - Off
Sunday - 20mins easy + 5-a-side soccer
Monday 2nd Dec - Gym
w/u 5mins easy on treadmill, then 10mins mobility

Bench worked up to 85kg 4x2 handy enough.

Chest Press 65kg 3x12

DB Row 36kg 4x5, 40kg 1x5 e/s

Inverted Row 3x10

Lat Pulldown 67.5kg 3x8

Gym was very busy and about to close so had to substitute DB Row for barbell bent-over row. Session was grand other than that though. Calves have loosened out a good deal, hopefully they'll handle the track sessions a bit better this week.

Track this evening, looking forward to trying out the new racing flats.

Oregano_State

Tuesday 3rd Dec - Track
Last night's session was a mixed bag. The session was 2x[4x300m] off 90s, 5min rest. It was pretty cold, so I took a bit longer than usual to warm up. Once I was ready to go I slipped on the racing flats and immediately noticed the extra firmness in the midsole, difference in weight, and extra grip. My plan for the session was to start off with a 48/49, and try to keep it at that. Needless to say it didn't exactly go as planned.

The times went: 45, 48, 47, 52, -5min- 49, 54, X, 47.2

edit: avg rep time 48.8, avg pace 65s.

I'm still getting used to running quickly again, so my idea of what a particular speed feels like is a bit off. I was doing the session was one other fella and about 4 girls and mistake of keeping up with him for the first one as he took the pace out. I felt really relaxed but should have let him go because I think I really paid for that first one. The next two were ok, I was handling the 90s pretty ok, but I really tied up in the home straight of the 4th. I tried being a little more conservative for the first one of the second set, but the second was a nightmare, crawled over the line pretty much. I would have struggled to get the next two under a minute without a longer break, so I skipped the 7th, and joined in again for the last, after about a 4min rest.

The other lad managed to hold 47s for the lot of them but then knocked out a 43 for the last one. This is not the same guy with the 49.1s PB, so there's at least two very decent 400m runners there for me to chase. I'll have to be careful to not kill myself trying to keep up with them in sessions though.

Overall I was happy-ish with the session. despite the missed rep. The speed seems to still be there thankfully, and my stride felt pretty smooth, even when I was tying up. I've an idea where I'm at now, so next time there's a similar session I'll hopefully be more sensible at the start. There's not much you can do when lactic builds up like that, but I'm definitely ahead of where I was in January so that's good to know. Ideally that session would be built up to a straight 8x300m off 90s, which seems frightening to me at the moment.

Oregano_State

Friday 6th Dec - Gym UB
The 7x300m session really hammered my legs, so much so that they were in no state to carry me through another track session on Thursday. Instead I took a couple of days rest, just doing a bit of foam rolling and stretching out my whole lower body. Hit the gym then on Friday, jogging the 15mins it took go get there and back, saving time.

Incline Bench 72.5kg 5x5
OHP 40kg 5x5
Dips BW+10kg 4x5, BW 1x5
Tricep Pushdowns 20kg 3x10
Front Plate Raise 10kg 1x20

Sunday 8th Dec - Gym LB + Core
Back Squat 80kg 5x5
Leg Press 120kg 3x10
Pull Up BW 4x5 (gym has terrible pull up bars, I have been neglecting them as an exercise, and have gotten really bad as a result)
Russian Twist + Plank SS [16kg Kettle bell x 40, then 30s plank] x 3


Also before both gym sessions I spent about ten minutes stretching. I've been working on the couch stretch recently. I've been finding it pretty tough on the hip flexors, but getting a little easier each time I try it. It's enjoyable finding new weak points and targeting them, even if often the solution is painful!

The legs are in much better shape now after the few days off. I'd love to be able to launch right back into 3 quality sessions a week, but I think it's better to keep things sensible.

Oregano_State

Monday - off

Tuesday 10th Dec - Track
Coming into this session I was aware that previous Tuesday's set of 300s really knocked the stuffing out of me for a few days afterwards, causing me to miss the Thursday track session. This week I wanted to make sure that I got both in. Most of the better sprinters from the uni's team are opening up their indoor season with an open event in Manchester this Sunday, so were doing relatively low volume this evening compared to last week.

Considering that I hadn't done any running above 80% since before my injury, and haven't had any trouble with it so far, I decided to jump in on a 3 x [2 x 150m] session with walkback, 5mins recovery. The effort was supposed to 90% plus, but I decided to build up to 100%, being conservative with the acceleration.

My glutes and hamstrings were a bit sore from the squatting on Sunday, but nothing that would cause me to worry about training.

All I can say about this session is WOW, I did not expect that to be so difficult. The group was split up into boys and girls, and started off with me and 3 other lads, two of whom are 400m runners. I think that this was their first 'speed' sessions of the season also, as people started dropping like flies!

There were no times for the reps, but on the first I was roughly tied for 3rd, with the other two a fair bit ahead, but I slipped back compared to the other lads with each successive rep.


I should say now that I only managed to do two sets, so 2 x 2 x 150m, such was the havoc the session played on my body. The fastest lad had to stop after the second, and the guy I was roughly level with sat out the third and 4th.

During the break after the 4th rep I started to feel nauseated and was very close to throwing up. I was initially determined to finish, but it got progressively worse as the break went on, and I knew that I had given enough abuse to the system for one evening. My body is just completely unused to sprinting at that volume, given the gap it's been since I last did it. My hamstring help up perfectly, no complaints there, but I didn't feel relaxed at all while running; I almost fell over on the second rep as I accelerated. The strain on my CNS must have been huge, and my anearobic ATP-CP system hasn't been used like this in a while, so I'm really glad that I did the session.

It's still very early days as far as this season goes, so plenty of time to improve on the raw speed, although I'm of the view that everything should be worked on concurrently (obviously emphasising different aspects at different times of the year).

The bottom line is that next time I do a session like this it won't hurt as much, and I'll be a little closer to the lads in front.

RandyMann

Well done on the above, back in the game!

Oregano_State

Friday 13th Dec - Gym
For the second week in a row, my legs got a battering on the Tuesday track session, with my hamstrings getting really tight over the next day or two. I left off the track session and gave the legs a rest, as I'd clearly gotten a huge training stimulus from Tuesday. My core was also pretty sore after Tuesday, particularly deep in the lower obliques.

The legs were still pretty tight yesterday evening, although loosened out a fair bit on the 15min run to the gym. I lashed into my hamstrings with a foam roller once I got there (I really need to pick one up for home use), and they felt a lot better after that. Had a good stretch, and then got stuck into some weights.

Bench 87.5kg 1x1 , 3x2 PB; 70kg 1x8, 1x10 PB, 1x5
DB Row 38kg 5x5
Inverted Row BW 3x10
Lat Pulldown 70kg 1x6, 1x8, 1x10
Front Plate Raise 10kg 3x20
Shrugs 2x20kg 3x30

My bench is feeling really strong at the moment. I know it's not really an important exercise for athletics, but while i was injured I started doing it again as I couldn't do any lower body work, and I'm going to keep at it now until I get a 1RM at 100kg. I'll phase it out of my program once I get to that, which has been a bit of a target for a few years now if I'm honest!

Gavlor

http://t.co/0bj8jRtkbD

A few hamstring stretches courtesy of runners world

RandyMann

Oregano_State wrote: »

Friday 13th Dec - Gym
For the second week in a row, my legs got a battering on the Tuesday track session, with my hamstrings getting really tight over the next day or two. I left off the track session and gave the legs a rest, as I'd clearly gotten a huge training stimulus from Tuesday. My core was also pretty sore after Tuesday, particularly deep in the lower obliques.

The legs were still pretty tight yesterday evening, although loosened out a fair bit on the 15min run to the gym. I lashed into my hamstrings with a foam roller once I got there (I really need to pick one up for home use), and they felt a lot better after that. Had a good stretch, and then got stuck into some weights.

Bench 87.5kg 1x1 , 3x2 PB; 70kg 1x8, 1x10 PB, 1x5
DB Row 38kg 5x5
Inverted Row BW 3x10
Lat Pulldown 70kg 1x6, 1x8, 1x10
Front Plate Raise 10kg 3x20
Shrugs 2x20kg 3x30

My bench is feeling really strong at the moment. I know it's not really an important exercise for athletics, but while i was injured I started doing it again as I couldn't do any lower body work, and I'm going to keep at it now until I get a 1RM at 100kg. I'll phase it out of my program once I get to that, which has been a bit of a target for a few years now if I'm honest!

Yes it would be nice to get that elusive 100kg. I would like the same even though its not very relative to our game

Oregano_State

The past week has been a bit of a disaster for training. I had a lot of college work to finish off before heading home for Christmas, but up until Monday/Tuesday I was still feeling the effects of the previous Tuesday's speed session in my legs. This week was scheduled to be an 'easy' week, although it ended up being a lot easier than I'd planned! I only got out the door for one 30min run.

Saturday 21st Dec - Gym: Legs + Core
Squat: 90kg 5x5
Leg Press: 120kg 1x10, 130kg 3x10
Pull Up: 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3 for a total of 25
Core Circuit: [Toe-touch, Russian twists w/ 15kg plate x25, Med-Ball Knee-Tucks x 20] x 2

Got back on the horse today, my first full day home in Kerry . I was a bit disappointed to find out they've put the price up in my local gym, but sure what can y'do!

I hadn't squatted in two weeks and increased the weight by 10kg compared to last time, so I found them tough. Bumped up the leg press too. I expect to be walking like a penguin for a couple of days now! I threw in the pull ups as I need to get back doing these more regularly. Good session overall.

Oregano_State

Sunday - Hungover

Monday 23rd Dec- Track: 2x4x200m
I was planning an easy run for Sunday, but Saturday night put paid to that. Hadn't seen my friends in a few months, and ended up overdoing it a bit...:pac:

I was still feeling a bit ropey this morning, but was determined to get some training done. Headed out to the track Castleisland for the first time in a few years and got a decent session done. I was still very stiff from the weights on Saturday but nothing a decent warm-up wouldn't fix. I left my racing flats in Leeds so I was just wearing trainers on a very wet track.

The plan was jog recovery between reps and almost full recovery between sets. I was hoping for a sub-30s average, but 29-31 would do fine.

Times were: 28.8, 32.8, 30.6, 30.4, *8mins*, 28.8, 30.6, 29.9, 29.7
The jog breaks were mostly in the low 2min-range, with the last two slightly longer. The Average rep time was 30.2s, although I'm not sure what happened on the second one, so if it wasn't for that I'd have gotten the sub-30s I was aiming for. I was hoping for a fast one at the end and I really put the effort in, but it was pretty much the same time as the previous one. It goes to show the importance of staying relaxed while sprinting. It's easy to waste energy needlessly if one is not careful. Control is key.

Anyway I'm very pleased overall. I can feel myself improving every time I step onto the track. Training consistency could be a little better, but at the same time I need to be careful that I'm recovering properly.

Happy Christmas to anyone reading this. I'll do up a report on the year at some stage over the next few days.

Oregano_State

I'd have to say overall 2013 has been a pretty successful year for me running-wise. I didn't race a whole lot due to picking up a pretty nasty injury in May, but I had 5 decent months of training, followed by 4-5 months of no running, and a have managed to get back to a decent-ish routine in towards the end of the year. I think that there is no question that I am fitter now than I was in January, so if I can keep plugging away at the training, then good things should come in 2014.

Races 2013
800m
2:08.16 Tallaght

400m
54.58 (indoor) Athlone
54.31 CIT

200m
25.17 CIT
24.75 Santry

100m
12.36 Tallaght


My baseline, minimum requirement goals this year are to beat every one of these times. Ideally in the 400m I'm aiming to get under 53.0 and hopefully under 52.5. I'm also aiming to make the Leeds University 4x400m team for the outdoor British University Championships (BUCs) in May.

I would also like to increase my squat and DL, to 140kg and 160kg respectively, although I will mainly be working on those over the first couple of months of the year and they are not a priority.


Edit: The reason I haven't posted much over the pat week is that I was hit with a nasty cold/flu/general nasty virus that has had me stuck to the couch/bed for the last 5 days. I was out for one 30min run on Steven's day but have been in a decrepit state since. I am on the mend now though, and should be fit to do some form of exercise tomorrow.

Happy New Year people!

Oregano_State

After my last post on new year's eve I decided I was recovered enough to go out and celebrate, and I had a great time. Unfortunately it set the recovery from a very nasty man flu back to square one, and I was coughing, spluttering and sniffing my way through the first week of the new year. I then had to concentrate on exams, and with trying to make up the time I'd lost with the books while sick, training went out the window. I did manage a couple of easy runs but they were so sporadic I didn't think they warranted logging.

Thankfully I've gotten back into the swing of things over the past few days. I've definitely lost a bit of sharpness but hopefully I'll get back up to speed relatively quickly.

Wednesday 15th Jan PM - 30 min easy
Found this a lot more of a struggle than it should have been. Was stiff afterwards too.

Thursday PM - Track - 3x[150m,120m]
This was my first session back with the college group. Thursdays tend to be quicker and shorter type workouts, and 3x[150m, 120m] was on the menu. The breaks were slow walk-backs, and 7mins between sets.
I didn't time the reps individually, but the coach called out the seconds as we crossed the line. Roughly, I did the 150s in 18-20s and the 120s in 15-17s. I was really pushing it to try and keep up with the other guys. Found it pretty tough overall.

Friday PM - Gym - Chest/Back + Core
In order to save time I've been running to the gym lately. It's about 1.5miles from my house.
Bench Press 75kg 3x5
Chest Press 60kg 3x10
Bent Over Row 70kg 5x5
Inverted Row BW 3x10
Upright Row 25kg 3x10
Core Circuit
2x[Toe-Touch x 9 e/s, Russian Twist w/ 16kg Kettle-bell x 30, Med-Ball Knee-Tuck x 20]

Good session. I'm a little stiff today afterwards, but nothing horrific. I haven't regressed too much strength-wise.

Saturday 18th Jan AM - Steps Session
I did this with the college crew. Calling it a steps session make it sound like a class in a gym, but that wasn't the case. It was basically a mix between a hills and plyo session, using stairs/steps. The set of steps we did these on was pretty long, but the steps weren't uniform, it was broken up into different parts, some with wide-ish slabs between them. The altitude gain was about 25m at a guess, possibly more.

We did 3 sets of 3 reps all the way up, but each set was different. The rest was walk-back between reps and 5mins between sets. The first set was one foot on each step, the second was two feet on each step for the 1st and 3rd reps, with bounding as the 2nd rep. The third set was one foot hopping, so one rep on each leg, then the last rep was an all out sprint. Overall the session was difficult, but in a different way to hills.

ecoli

Oregano_State wrote: »

Saturday 18th Jan AM - Steps Session
I did this with the college crew. Calling it a steps session make it sound like a class in a gym, but that wasn't the case. It was basically a mix between a hills and plyo session, using stairs/steps. The set of steps we did these on was pretty long, but the steps weren't uniform, it was broken up into different parts, some with wide-ish slabs between them. The altitude gain was about 25m at a guess, possibly more.

We did 3 sets of 3 reps all the way up, but each set was different. The rest was walk-back between reps and 5mins between sets. The first set was one foot on each step, the second was two feet on each step for the 1st and 3rd reps, with bounding as the 2nd rep. The third set was one foot hopping, so one rep on each leg, then the last rep was an all out sprint. Overall the session was difficult, but in a different way to hills.

Sounds like you are in race specific phase

http://www.nyrr.org/races-and-events/2014/empire-state-building-run-up

Oregano_State

Sunday - Off

Monday 20th Jan - Gym
I had planned to do this session on Sunday, but after four days on the trot I needed to take a day off. Warm up and cool down was the hilly 1.5 mile jog there and back. I then did about 15 mins of mobility and stretching before hitting the weights.

Back Squat 90kg 3x5
Pull Ups BW 3x5, 1x6
SLDL 12kg DBs 3x10
Leg Press 140kg 2x10, 180kg 1x10
Lat Pulldown 67.5kg 5x10

Tuesday 21st Jan - Legs were pretty sore today, although I would have been ok for a track session. I have an exam tomorrow though so I didn't train. I did spend about 15 painful minutes foam rolling (on my new roller, a Christmas pressie to myself . Sad, I know.) and doing a few push ups though, so the day wasn't a complete write-off.

Oregano_State

Catch-Up: I've been lazy with logging over the past week so I'll try to fill in from where I left off:

Thursday 23rd Jan - Track - 2x3x300m
I did these in flats on a very cold, wet evening, so much so that there were patches of ice on the track that got slippier as the session went on. The ice really affected the running, as I slipped on more than one of the reps and had to chop my stride a few times. Despite this, I felt ok. We had a long break between the two sets as we waited for one of the group to come back from the bathroom. It turned out she was getting sick, so we got on with the rest of the session! The break between reps averaged 3min.
The times were: 46.4, 48.8, 50.1 [13mins], 46.7, 48.5, 49.9.
Avg: 48.4, which is 64.5s 400m pace
Consistency wasn't great, although the ice could have had something to do with that.

Saturday 25th Jan - AM - Gym
I only had 90mins to get this one done, including jogging there and back, so I didn't get everything I'd like to done. I spent a good 15mins on foam rolling and mobility before getting down to the weights. Keeping on top of that side of things is a pretty high priority. Will try to fit in a sports massage in the coming week to help with this.
Back Squat 95kg 2x5, 90kg 3x5
SLDL 14kg DBs 3x10 e/s
Lat cable pulldown 65kg 5x10 [was supposed to be pull-ups but the bars were all being used and I was running out of time.

Monday 27th Jan - Gym
Deadlift 100kg, 110kg, 120kg 1 x 5 on each
Bench 75kg 5x5
Dips BW 5x8
Upright Row 30kg 3x12
Circuit: [3 core exercises + single leg squats] 2 sets. Need to start doing three of these but am usually wrecked from the weights beforehand. Dose of HTFU required.

Tuesday 28th Jan - Fartlek Run - 30mins
I did this one on the roads near my house. Ten mins easy, 5x90s on, 80s off, ten mins easy, although the 5th was only 70s due to traffic. Good workout.

Thursday 30th Jan - Track - 4 x 250m
It wasn't as cold last night on the track, so it was good to have no ice to deal with this time. I was wearing flats again. Times were 35.7, 35.8, 37.2, 38.6 off 3mins average.
Average rep time: 36.8, or 58.9s 400m pace.

I felt really good on the first two, fast but controlled. The third was bit harder, and I was hanging on for dear life on the 4th rep, really fading at the end. I got a huge dose of lactic at the end, really sore on the glutes and hams. That hasn't happened in a while. I'm still feeling way off race fitness, and could stand to drop a couple of kg closer to race season, although I'm probably being a bit neurotic saying that.
Not a terrible sequence of training, not brilliant either though. Too many gaps, although the training sessions themselves are going well. Onwards and upwards.

Oregano_State

Friday 31st Jan - PM - Gym
It was touch and go with this session after a long week, but I picked myself up and got out the door. 15min jog later, and found myself at the door of the gym, feeling much better. I like going late on Fridays as there's not many people there and I don't end up waiting around for equipment. Spent the usual 15mins on mobility and rolling. My right hip flexor seems to be permanently tight at the moment, despite hammering into it twice a day on the foam roller. Will have to get a sports massage this week .

Back Squat
60kg 1x10
80kg 1x5
100kg 1x5
Incline Bench 70kg 5x5
BOR 60kg 5x10
Inverted Row BW 2x10 [should have been 3 sets but my forearms gave up]
Front Plate Raise 10kg 3x20
Circuit 3 core exercises and single leg squats. Did the 3 sets this time. Happy enough with that, although it made the run home a lot more difficult!

Saturday 1st Feb - AM - Steps
Up bright and early again for a repeat of the session two weeks ago, although there were 11 reps this time instead of 9. Single leg hops all the way up were ridiculously tough, although marginally easier than last time. I still had trembling feet and calves afterwards as my legs wondered what I had just attempted to do with them. Went for a big breakfast afterwards with the club mates. Interesting bunch, I learned that one of them went to Eton, and played their weird hybrid of rugby/football against Prince William.

Good start to the weekend.

Oregano_State

Sunday - Off

Monday 3rd Feb - PM - Gym: Lower Body + Core
Back Squat 95kg 5x5
Leg Press 140kg 3x10
SLDL 14kg DBs 3x12 e/s
Pull Up BW 4x5
Lat Pulldown 65kg 3x10
Circuit 2 rounds of [Toe-Touch, Med-Ball Knee-Tuck, Single-Leg Squat, Russian Twist w/16kg kettlebell, Burpees]

Added in the burpees this week, so dropped back to two sets. I think I deserved it after my best ever squat session. Was very happy with my depth and felt like I could have done another five sets. 100kg next week. Also got to watch my bet on Chelsea come in . As a United fan, making a few quid is the only enjoyment I've had from football of late.

Tuesday 4th Jan - Track: 3x2x300m*
The legs weren't feeling the best this evening after the heavy squats last night. It's tough to fit in a heavy leg day in the training week, it's always going to affect at least one of the workouts that follow it. I foam-rolled a fair bit during my warm-up, and the legs slowly responded. I was expecting to be doing something like 500s or 600s this evening, so was taken aback at the 3 sets of 2 300m, which were to be done faster than the recent 300m sessions we'd done. The plan was 3 mins between reps, 7-8mins betweens sets. It wasn't a great evening for running; thankfully the track was not icy, but there was a bitter wind coming down the home straight, which is less than ideal to have to face into, coming off the bend. There were 3 of us doing the session. One guy who ran 51 flat just before Christmas, and the other guy did 49.1 in the summer, but has been off the past few weeks with a niggle. We took turns leading out.

My rep times were: 42.9, 43.9, [7mins30s], 45.7, 46? [10mins] 42/43

I found this one really tough. The first two reps were good, felt like I was cruising and the times were decent, but I started to go lactic during the break. I knew that this did not bode well for the remaining 66% of the session. The next rep felt terrible, really not strong at all, and the 4th was only marginally better (and I messed up the timing). I started to feel really bad during the second long break, lots of lactic, stomach turning, and a bit of the spins. Coming up towards the 7minute mark I knew I had two options: I could run two really crap reps, and struggle to break 50s on both, or sit out the 5th rep and smash out the last one. I chose the latter, even though I hate skipping reps. This session was about quality, and I should be aiming for consistent times, rather than tailing off. I stupidly messed up the timing of the last one as well (the coach was calling out the seconds as we finished so I had a rough idea), although I felt really good, and finished a good bit ahead of both the others. The 51 flat guy was the only one of us who managed to complete the full session.

Despite only doing 5, I was happy enough with this. The speed seems to be coming back slowly but surely. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to knock out sub-40s reps a fair bit earlier than April this year. That is one of the markers I'll be using to guage race-fitness.

Oregano_State

Wed - Off , apart from 20min of foam rolling and stretching.

Thursday 6th Feb - Track: 150m, 200m, 250m, 200m, 150m
I felt pretty decent going into tonight's session, the day off having worked a charm on the legs. I had thought about heading to the gym last night for upper body but felt a bit run-down so I left it off. No need to push it. Decided to pack the spikes before heading out the door, as I knew it would be a faster session. I haven't worn my spikes since I injured myself last May, so this was a nice little milestone to brighten up a wet and dreary February evening.

A pyramid session was on the agenda. I like these sessions, they combine speed and speed-endurance pretty well. I didn't get the timing bang on for all the reps, but they're not too far off.

150m - 19.7
200m - 27.5ish
250m - 34.1
200m - 28.5
150m - 19.8

Breaks were 4min, 5min, 5min, 4min.

This was a decent session, although I went lactic after the 250m, turning the last two reps into a struggle. The first 150m rep was great, I felt really strong and controlled. Similar to all my sessions recently though, I haven't been able to maintain the level through the whole session. I had to work a lot harder on the last 150m rep to get a similar time. It's early days yet though. Keep on keepin' on.

Oregano_State

Friday 7th Feb - Circuits
Decided to go along to the athletics club circuits session today to see what it was all about, and get a bit of conditioning done to boot. We did two rounds of about 12 exercises, for 50s on, 10s off, 5mins between the sets. Usually circuits are arranged so that you cycle through body parts, for example push-ups might be followed by sit ups, followed by squats. This one, however was set up so all the core exercises, and all the lower body exercises were in a row, making the whole thing a lot more difficult. After the circuits, we did the "Bring Sally Up" squat challenge, as demonstrated in the following video:

Warning: it's not as easy as that guy makes it look.

Cleanman

Sally up's are well tough. Good fun to do with a group too. You should try it with push ups too....puke!;)

Oregano_State

Saturday 8th Feb - AM -Steps
Same as last week, up early to meet up with the club and run/hop up a load of steps. We did 9 reps this time: 3 x one foot per step, 2 x one leg hops (one on each leg), 1 x two leg hops, then 3 x all-out. The one leg hops are getting easier, but my lower legs were still trembling for about 20 minutes afterwards. We all went for a big breakfast , and I am feeling like the king of the world right now, an hour later .

I'm all set to watch the epic battle that is taking place at 2:30pm, Lansdowne Road. There's been a decent bit of back and forth between me and one of the Welsh lads in the club over the past week, so hopefully it turns out to be a good day for the boys in green.

Gym is planned for tomorrow, and I'm aiming for 100kg 5x5 which would be a pb. The past week of training has been very good, I'm going to do my best to keep it going. It's also been great to see some of the performances from Irish athletes over the past couple of weeks, there's a really good buzz around Irish track and field at the moment, and I'm loving what the lads are Jumping the Gun are doing. Tom Barr is all set for a huge season if he stays fit, and the same for Mark English. Niall Touhy and David McCarthy are looking good too. The number of lads that have gone under 7s in the 60m bodes really well for the future.

Oregano_State

Sunday 9th Feb - AM - Gym
My hip flexors have become unmercifully tight over the past couple of weeks, despite daily foam rolling. There is a free sports massage clinic on Fridays at the university, for sports team members. I went down to it this week, but they were short-staffed and there was a long queue which meant that they couldn't fit me in before I had to head off. I will try to go to these weekly in future, although I'm away this weekend so it will have to wait two weeks. Luckily, this is going to be a lighter training week because of the travelling. I'm planning to hit the gym again tomorrow evening, track on Tuesday, and gym again on Wednesday. Thursday will be off, and I'll probably just do some light running over the weekend, before getting back at it from Monday onwards.

All going well, I'll have completed a decent 4 week block of training by Wednesday evening. My times in training have been heading in the right direction, and I've been getting stronger in the gym too, but I can tell that it's about time to take it back a notch before going hard at it again. Anyway, here's what I did this morning:

Back Squat 100kg 5x5 PB
Romanian Deadlift 70kg 3x10 supersetted w/ 3x3 squat-jumps
Dips BW 5x10
Upright Row 30kg 3x12

Left it at that because my core is still sore from the circuits on Friday. Happy enough though. I was dreary-eyed as I started the squats, even after the brisk run to the gym, but as soon as I did the first set at 100kg, I got a serious rush of endorphins (or something!), it was mad. I was very happy with the small PB, hopefully I can keep pushing on from here. It's the little noticeable improvements that keep me going.

Oregano_State

Tuesday 12th Feb - Track - 2x2x300m
It was very icy out there this evening, and I didn't have spikes with me for grip, so I cut short what was supposed to be 3x2x300m. The the constant slipping was giving me a dodgy feeling in my right hammy. The 4 reps I did were in the 45/46s range, although the effort needed was a good bit higher than normal due to the conditions. I will be bringing the spikes to training from here on out, as I don't want a repeat of tonight.

Other than the conditions, I was feeling good today. The legs had recovered pretty well from squatting on Sunday. The plan is gym tomorrow morning after which I'll be taking it relatively easy until Monday. I'll start into a new training block then.

Chivito550

Good stuff with the squats. Just wondering how far do you lower yourself down when doing them?