Ain't nothing gonna break my stride....

career move

Friday:

Nothing. Had a sh1tty day and all I felt like doing was drinking tea an eating everything I could find in the cupboard. So thats what I did :mad:

Saturday:

Bike: 37.4k to and from the pool

Swimming: For those of you who don't frequent the TDAR forum, Kurt Godel is helping to coach a group of us to swim properly. I did the first exercise today

12 x falling backwards into the water while exhaling
2 x 25m bs
2 x 25m fc
2 x 50m fc
1 x 100m fc

All the above was focussing on breathing and in particular exhaling fully into the water. When I'd finished I swam 1k nonstop. Mostly backstroke. I was watching the ceiling for when to turn so I didn't hit my head off the wall and when the rafters change direction I flip over and do fc to the wall. Except for the time I was daydreaming and forgot to turn. Ouch! Mostly though it works well because when I get to the wall I can kick off straight away on my back and I don't lose any momentum. I forgot my bike lock but there was a lovely lifeguard on reception and he let me bring it in and put it behind the counter I've committed to swimming 3 times a week so I took out a swim membership and bought myself some toys My ankle was a bit sore yesterday but it was fine on the bike and in the pool. I'm hoping to be back running on Monday!

pistol_75

career move wrote: »

Friday:

Nothing. Had a sh1tty day and all I felt like doing was drinking tea an eating everything I could find in the cupboard. So thats what I did :mad:

Saturday:

Bike: 37.4k to and from the pool

Swimming: For those of you who don't frequent the TDAR forum, Kurt Godel is helping to coach a group of us to swim properly. I did the first exercise today

12 x falling backwards into the water while exhaling
2 x 25m bs
2 x 25m fc
2 x 50m fc
1 x 100m fc

All the above was focussing on breathing and in particular exhaling fully into the water. When I'd finished I swam 1k nonstop. Mostly backstroke. I was watching the ceiling for when to turn so I didn't hit my head off the wall and when the rafters change direction I flip over and do fc to the wall. Except for the time I was daydreaming and forgot to turn. Ouch! Mostly though it works well because when I get to the wall I can kick off straight away on my back and I don't lose any momentum. I forgot my bike lock but there was a lovely lifeguard on reception and he let me bring it in and put it behind the counter I've committed to swimming 3 times a week so I took out a swim membership and bought myself some toys

I think the time has come?

Not a single mention of running in that post ;-)

career move

pistol_75 wrote: »

I think the time has come?

Not a single mention of running in that post ;-)

Haha

I've rectified that for you :P:D

SamforMayo

Swimming 3 times a week! I'm committed to swimming once a week, it's so time consuming compared to running!

career move

SamforMayo wrote: »

Swimming 3 times a week! I'm committed to swimming once a week, it's so time consuming compared to running!

I know. That's why I had to have a good think before I joined the group! It makes sense though because I wouldn't see any improvements if I was only running one or two days a week and it's the same with swimming. And sure the evenings are dark anyway and I might as well be in the pool as out running into potholes :rolleyes:

career move

Just for the purists around here ....

Sunday:

3m @ 10:28

Foot felt good when I woke up so I chanced a run. I started off very tentatively at about 12:30 pace and once I didn't feel any pain I gradually increased it to 9:30 pace over the course of the 3 miles. I was pretty happy after the run but during the course of the day it got a bit tender and I really want to run tomorrow so I said I'd stick it in a bucket of hot salty water because it definitely improved after being in the pool yesterday.

I couldn't find any salt but what I did find was a tin of bextarter (best before date Aug 1995 :eek:) The chefs among us use this as a raising agent. I thought as I was throwing it out anyway I might as well see if it had any magical healing powers .......

and I can state categorically that it didn't make my foot any worse It actually feels good enough now so I suspect I will do a few easy miles tomorrow

SamforMayo

I'm at a loss to know what to say!

career move

Monday:

3m @ 8:58

Foot about 80% right. Don't remember much else. Started the 30 day kinetic revolution challenge Clearlier posted on the graduates thread. Find it good especially as it's mostly focussed on hip stuff at the mo. I was getting a bit bored with what I was doing although I included some of that in my workout as well.

Tuesday:

Nothing except for core stuff in the evening. Was really pushed for time this morning because had to get a foal loaded into the trailer and three horses exercised before I left for Kildare at 8. I walked into a steel bar and gave the front of my head a right smack. Double ouch

Wednesday:

4m @ 8:59

This was bleugh. It was really foggy and I could only see about a metre in front of me. Going through the fog with the head light was disorientating to say the least. Foot about 95%. I'm a small bit concerned about doing any speed work this week so might just keep to varying length easy runs and maybe a MP run on Sunday.

The good news is my foot is healing and I've finished the course so hopefully those very early morning runs will be the exception now. I've got a few miles in so far this week and I'm 3/3 with my core work

The bad news is I've done no swims yet this week. I had two excuses 1) my toys only arrived in the post today and 2) getting up at 4:30, when it comes to 6pm I'm nearly ready for my bed never mind driving 25 min to the pool and not getting home till half 9/10. This does mean though that I have 4 days to do, what I think, are 3 tough swim sessions ...... what doesn't kill you right????

career move

Thursday:

Had my running gear on and was all ready to go but when I did a small warm up my foot felt a bit dodgy so I abandoned it. The fact that I was heading for the treadmill probably made my decision a bit easier I did my first swim session after work. It was good. I enjoyed it and I found it easier than I thought I would. 1400m in 70 min

Friday:

5.5m @ 8:46

Middle 2m @ 8:35, the rest around 8:55 pace. Foot about 98%. Glad I did this. I haven't been feeling great today. Head is a bit congested. 6/6 for the 30day challenge. My calves are tired and a bit sore tonight after last nights **bonus drill**. I'm not going to get 3 swims done this week. Plan is for another on Sunday and then 4 next week. I'm fairly confident I can deliver on that

career move

Saturday:

The less said about Saturday the better

Sunday:

6m @ 7:46
(8:06, 7:51, 7:44, 7:39, 7:45, 7:36)

I wanted to do a longer run with more of a focus on speed endurance today. Really just went on effort the whole way which is why the first mile is a bit slower. I generally find when I run first thing it takes about 10 minutes before I get into a rhythm. Very happy with how this worked out. The last mile is up my 'hill repeats' hill so I'm pretty pleased that I held a good pace on that mile. Finished off with 0.5 mile @ 10:06 just to help with the recovery.

career move wrote: »

I'm not going to get 3 swims done this week. Plan is for another on Sunday and then 4 next week. I'm fairly confident I can deliver on that

The road to hell is paved with good intentions ..... there was stuff that I had to get done on Sunday and because the pool closes at 6pm at the weekends, I just didn't have enough time for a swim!

Monday:

A.M: 3m @ 8:53

Felt great. I love it after a session when you can feel yourself improving. Like today I felt my breathing was a good bit more relaxed than it usually is at this pace. Foot almost perfect ~ 99.9%. 8/8 for the 30 day challenge.

P.M: Swim 1550m

Delighted with myself. Finding the swimming much easier now

tang1

Kona here we come!!!

career move

tang1 wrote: »

Kona here we come!!!

Nah not my thing

Bulmers74

Any races planned?

career move

Bulmers74 wrote: »

Any races planned?

Hopefully a parkrun on Saturday if I get myself organised

career move

Tuesday:

5m @ 8:21

Foot felt pretty good so I decided to throw in some faster stuff in the form of 2 pyramids with equal recoveries:

Time|20sec|40sec|60sec|60sec|40sec|20sec
Pace|6:34|6:01|5:49|5:55|6:52|5:58
2min recovery jog

Time|20sec|40sec|60sec|60sec|59sec|45sec|29sec
Pace|5:37|5:23|5:59|5:39|5:43|5:43|5:23
I got a bit confused with the times on this section and had to walk the last four recoveries. All in all a good workout though

Bulmers74

career move wrote: »

Hopefully a parkrun on Saturday if I get myself organised

Thought you might be giving the Stook another blast.

career move

Bulmers74 wrote: »

Thought you might be giving the Stook another blast.

Ah well it was on my original to-do list but then with the injuries I decided against it and now I'm going orienteering with Dad on Sunday. Are you doing it yourself as a pipe opener for Waterford?

Bulmers74

career move wrote: »

Ah well it was on my original to-do list but then with the injuries I decided against it and now I'm going orienteering with Dad on Sunday. Are you doing it yourself as a pipe opener for Waterford?

Had planned to as well but it's not going to happen now as other (non running) stuff has been planned for me :rolleyes:

ThebitterLemon

Some speedy stuff going on there Dora.

What's happening, map reading not floating your boat (kayak) lately


TbL

pistol_75

Which Parkrun? Vicarstown?

Have you done it before? Might try it the Sat after Xmas as I'll be down in the area. That's if I don't do the Tinyryland race on St Stephens day.

career move

ThebitterLemon wrote: »

Some speedy stuff going on there Dora.

What's happening, map reading not floating your boat (kayak) lately


TbL

Do you mean why am I running so fast or why am I not map reading or why am I not map reading while running fast

If it's the former I like to throw in a bit of speedy stuff to keep the running zealots happy so that my log isn't banished to the darkside

If it's the later then no map reading was required ...... it was an out and back route

pistol_75 wrote: »

Which Parkrun? Vicarstown?

Have you done it before? Might try it the Sat after Xmas as I'll be down in the area. That's if I don't do the Tinyryland race on St Stephens day.

Ya Vicarstown was the plan. I've not done it before or heard anything about it really but it's the closest parkrun to me

career move

Wednesday:

Swim: 1800m

Tough session for me and I was quite tired after it so although I had intended going for a little run when I got home I actually couldn't be bothered

Thursday:

5.5m @ 8:33

Pretty straightforward easy run. Pace is a little faster than usual because I sprinted the last 100m and during the last mile when I was going uphill I decided to do 5 hill accelerations. They weren't proper hill sprints where you go flat out and then walk back. Instead I just accelerated for 10 seconds and then jogged for 10 seconds x 5

career move

Friday:

Zilch

Felt a bit of a head cold coming on Thursday evening. Didn't sleep well and felt like crap on Friday. My eyes were sore, my nose was sore, all my muscles were sore and I had no energy whatsoever. Couldn't wait for the day to be over. Luckily :rolleyes: I was busy all day so I didn't have time to feel guilty about another rest day. Well I did briefly feel a little remorse that I wasn't going swimming as I was looking forward to today's session and I'm now a full week behind everyone else. Swim sessions take a lot out of me compared to running though so I didn't think there'd be much benefit from slogging through one when I was sick just for the sake of it. I tried to do day 12 of the core routine. Only because I was after slagging off Marty for not doing his when he was sick but I got into position to do the split squats and it was abnormally painful so I abandoned it. I'm not sure if the pain was because I was sick or from the previous day's routine. Split squats are a bit of a killer

Saturday:

4m @ 10:01

Feeling better today and much more energy but I didn't want to do too much. I kept the pace slow enough that my breathing was just slightly faster than normal so I didn't make my throat raw. Back into the 30 day challenge. I did day 12 and because the routine seems to change every 6 days and I was so happy to see the back of the split squats I did day 13 as well

Sunday:

Orienteering in Kilkenny castle

Fab day for it. This was another grudge match with my Dad. We had a choice of a short/medium or long course and we went for the long one. 5.6k and 21 controls. Mindful of what happened the last time in Castlecomer quarries I took my time starting off and made sure I knew exactly where I was and where I wanted to go. Dad took off across Archers field towards C1 whereas I decided to play safe and follow the path. My tortoise tactics payed off and I found C1 before him. C2 was in a thicket and it took me a few minutes to find it although I was pleased with the way I was able to navigate to it. Didn't see Dad again until I was up around the castle looking for C5. He was a couple of controls ahead of me at this stage. While I'm a faster runner and much fitter, he's the better map reader. All those years in the boy scouts paying dividends I was pretty happy though with how I was going as I was reading the map well and finding the controls quicker than usual. Compared to the quarry, it was much easier today in the park to follow the map and find distinguishing features on it. Met Dad again at C14 along the river bank. I had caught up to him by now and passed him out on my way to C17 by the pond. Not for long though because I got a bit confused after C18 and he was ahead of me going across the field towards C19. I got to C19 and C20 before him but then victory slipped through my fingers because I went the wrong side of the castle wall for C21 and he finished a minute and a half in front of me. It was good fun though Did Day 14 when I got home.

Plan for next week is to get 3 swim sessions done, a 5k workout that I robbed from pconn's log and a tempo run and if I get all that done I will be good to go for the JB5k

career move

Monday:

4m @ 8:51

Squeezed this in before I went swimming. I wanted to make sure I was well enough to do some faster stuff tomorrow so I only checked my watch for the mile splits and focussed on keeping my breathing as relaxed as possible. I was delighted to see it was proper easy pace.

Swim:

2000m in just over an hour

Today was a really good swim. I love the technique sessions because you have to focus on lots of different things and they just fly by and today everything seemed much easier than last week

Runchick

Eh swimming?? Things have certainly changed around here

career move

Runchick wrote: »

Eh swimming?? Things have certainly changed around here

Multitasking my dear ..... us women are pro's at it

career move

Tuesday:

Session: 2 x (6 x 400m @ goal 5k pace)

I borrowed this from pconn's log. Thanks dude. I added a couple of reps to bring it up to nearly 5k of the faster stuff. Pretty delighted with how this went as I'm still coughing and snifflling. The first rep was slow. i knew it was slow but I couldn't get the pace down and I thought the rest of the session was going to turn into a war of attrition. That was the only rep I struggled with though so I must have just needed a kick up the derriere. I took 100m recovery after each rep .... started off jogging the recovery but I thought that I wasn't getting enough of a break and it was going to make the session too taxing so after the first one I walked the rest. I did almost 6 min jog between the sets. *I did an extra 100m on the 8th rep because the sun was in my eyes and I misread my watch

Rep|1|2|3|4|5|6
Time(sec)|103|95|96|95|92|92
Pace|6:44|6:15|6:23|6:13|6:08|6:05

Rep|7|8|9|10|11|12
Time(sec)|89|*111|87|92|92|92
Pace|5:52|5:53|6:02|6:04|5:57|6:03

career move

Wednesday:

Swim: 1600m total
200m easy
4 x 50m k
20 x 50m steady supposed to be 5 sec rec think mine were more like 15
200m east

Run: 4.23m @ 8:50

This was not very nice. Did it around 5pm and it was dark, there was lots of traffic (relative to normal ) and it was foggy so I couldn't see much and I was terrified I was going to hurt my foot again

Thursday:

5m @ 9:07 incl 6 x 120m strides with walk back rec

This was darkish as well but I went a different road so I only met a couple of cars. Legs feeling good. I haven't done the 30 day challenge for the last two nights because I wasn't recovering well enough and my muscles were getting sore. I think this is possibly a bit of a flaw with the challenge and I can imagine it would be easy to overdo it because some of those exercises are quite difficult. Anyway back at it tonight

career move

Friday:

Swim: 1800m

200m backstroke
4 x 50m kick (split these up cause my quads were aching after the first)
100m
200m
300m
300m
200m
100m (got bad cramp in right foot after ~30m so did backstroke back to the wall and started again)
150m backstroke

Very happy with this. Managed all the longer reps without taking any sneaky breaks although I did take longer than the prescribed 15 secs between reps. Still it's progress Didn't feel like running when I got home as I got some bad news but I was only going to do a recovery run anyway and my mileage is good enough for the week so doesn't matter. Just checked there now and last year, the week before the JB I was running 50mpw comfortably. This year I'm happy that I'll be over 30m

Saturday:

5m @ 8:48 with strides

Tried out my new garmin 910xt. It's massive but surprisingly comfortable. I was going to try out the HRM just for the fun of it but I forgot to switch the pairing thing on and it didn't work. Wore the strap anyway but I don't really think I'll be using the HRM too much cause the strap would drive me nuts. I wore the new pair of Adidas Adizero that I got as well (thanks to SfM for her discount code on sportsdirect) and they were lovely Strides felt good. Going to do a 4m tempo tomorrow hopefully around 7min/m pace

SamforMayo

Glad to be of help! I'm obsessed with codes at the moment. Every time I read this log the swim gets longer. I'm expecting to read you have swam the channel soon! Fair play to you, you have made huge improvements in a short time.

career move

Sunday:

2m easy @ 8:36

4m T @ 7:06
(km splits: 4:26, 4:35, 4:21, 4:25, 4:21, 4:24, 2:45)

2m rec @ 9:43

Happy enough with this. The last four mile tempo I did was @7:15 pace 25days ago. I forgot to change my watch back from km so I was getting a bit confused with the pace. I thought I should be aiming for 4:30 pace but that's a bit slow. It doesn't matter much as I kept the effort the same and I did the last 100m @ 5k pace.

career move

Monday:

Run: 3m @ 9:58

Recovery run. Bit faster than normal. Started off too fast and then I stopped to move 2 horses into a different field cause they were up near the road when I was passing. We moved them yesterday to get the calves out of their field but they needed to be moved back because otherwise they'd have my hurdles destroyed. Also I wanted to take the headcollars off them. Anyway, couldn't get into my usual recovery rhythm when I started back.

Swim: 1600m

Few different drills and 2 x 100m time trials. There was a lady in the lane beside me for the first one. We had the pool to ourselves apart from that. It was good because she was swimming just a bit faster than me and when I was on the fourth length she was just ahead of me which made me push myself a bit harder. Then she left and was replaced by a guy that was motoring up and down so he wasn't much good to me. 2:50 for the first TT and 2:49 for the second. It's slow but four weeks ago I would have struggled to swim 100m without stopping so I'm very happy

career move

Tuesday:

6.5m total with interval session

2m warm up: 8:15, 8:21

Intervals:
4 x 30 sec: 5:51, 5:26, 5:24, 5:44

2 x 1 min: 5:30, 5:42

1 x 2 min: 5:55

2 x 1 min: 5:21, 5:29

4 x 30 sec: 5:42, 5:46, 5:35, 5:31

2m cool down: 8:55, 8:56

Very happy with this. First time I've kept all the reps under 6min/mile

career move

Tues pm

Day 17 of the 30 day challenge + a few exercises from the other days + 100 clams each side

Wednesday:

Swim: 1200m
200m alternating fc and backstroke
4 x 100m alternating pb and kick
8 x 25m alternating breathing on 2 strokes and 3 strokes
2 x (50m fingertip, 50m pb, 50m armpit, 50m swim)

Run: 4m @ 8:14 (8:27, 8:30, 8:34, 7:25)

I've had a funny, sentient kind of a day. First of all, I was talking to my friend in work. She sometimes does vet duty on long haul horse flights when they're shipping horses to America or Australia , and I was asking had she any coming up. She said she'd turned down flights in the spring when she was busy and they hadn't rung her since. Two minutes later her phone rings and she's got a job shipping horses to Kentucky on xmas day!

Then I was in the pool and the first few sets were fine but then I got this feeling that I needed to leave and it was really hard to make myself stay in the water. I ended up cutting the session short and skipping the cool down bit and when I got out to the car I had 4 missed calls from 3 different people.

I was bringing in the horses from the field at 5 o clock and it was fairly dark. Somedays I wash their legs, somedays I don't. I decided to do it tonight and I thought I could see drops of blood on the ground when I was doing Valbucca and Mireya. When I turned the yard light on, it transpired that Valbucca had sliced the top off the heel on one of her front legs and needed a bandage and some tlc.

When I went for a run, it was dark and I was imagining all sorts of silly things like what if somebody drove past me and then waited till I'd turned down the lane where there's no houses and then followed me down the lane with their lights turned off. Stupid imagination, I couldn't switch it off. So then when a car passed me just before I turned down the lane, I was getting slightly freaked and that may have contributed to my run being a wee bit on the fast side

Dubgal72

That's me all over, such a chicken s€@t, the minute a thought like that gets in my head, I'm off! Sounds like you do a fair bit of quiet and dark running, fair play :-)

career move

Dubgal72 wrote: »

That's me all over, such a chicken s€@t, the minute a thought like that gets in my head, I'm off! Sounds like you do a fair bit of quiet and dark running, fair play :-)

Ha thanks I'm better in the morning cause I feel safer

career move

Thursday:

Swim: 2100m

200m easy/backstroke
50m kick
2 x (50m slow, 300m steady, 50m slow, 400m pb
50m slow
200m easy

This went well. I'm so much more comfortable in the pool now and my breathing is way better and that's the most front crawl I've done in one go Only did 1 kick rep because I didn't want my legs to be in mush on Saturday. I was swimming for about 75 min I think. Forgot my watch. I went to tesco's to get some lunch after and I don't know what I was doing in there because when I got back to the car I only had 8 minutes to eat lunch and get to work. D'oh. Had to stuff a banana into a bread roll and eat it on the way in the door ..... not idea recovery nutrition. I was pretty tired after so I'm glad I got it done before work anyway.

No run today. I was a bit concerned I may have overcooked it with the last two hardish days so I'll only do a couple of miles tomorrow and some strides and maybe some core if I feel like it. I'm thinking of going with a conservative approach in the JB. Based on last Sunday's tempo, sub 20 will be touch and go so my plan is 1st k in 4 - 4:05, first mile around 6:30 pace, 2nd mile just keep the effort up and then foot down to the finish. Sounds easy .....

RedRunner

Jeez, All this swimming. You don't do things by half do you?! Just catching up here. Great to see you are back to your old

Superwoman

self;)

career move

RedRunner wrote: »

Jeez, All this swimming. You don't do things by half do you?! Just catching up here. Great to see you are back to your old

Superwoman

self;)

Hey Robbie. How are you? How's the rehab going? Are you able to come to Ryan's on Saturday?

SamforMayo

Best of luck tomorrow.

career move

SamforMayo wrote: »

Best of luck tomorrow.

Thanks Sam. Not sure if your 10k is tomorrow or Sunday but I hope you rock it

RedRunner

career move wrote: »

Hey Robbie. How are you? How's the rehab going? Are you able to come to Ryan's on Saturday?

Rehab not going as well as planned. Had a big set back and now just trying to get back to where I was a few weeks ago. I'm working hard at it though, probably harder than I ever trained! It's back to square one and i'm hoping for a return to running in January at some stage. After that I'm not setting any targets anymore as I just keep getting disappointed and ultimately depressed about it. If I'm back in jan and things are going well then I'll set my next target and so on.

Funny you should mention Ryans.I'd been searching around these parts to see if any Boards Xmas drinks had been organised and it seems like Ryans is it. I'd love to drop in even for a few but realistically it's unlikely I'll make it. Enjoy the race and post-race drinks.

SamforMayo

career move wrote: »

Thanks Sam. Not sure if your 10k is tomorrow or Sunday but I hope you rock it

It's Sunday! Thanks.

career move

SamforMayo wrote: »

It's Sunday! Thanks.

Ya just checked your log there now ..... you don't seem full of enthusiasm for it :P
Think of it as 650 calories in the bank to do with as you please

SamforMayo

career move wrote: »

Ya just checked your log there now ..... you don't seem full of enthusiasm for it :P
Think of it as 650 calories in the bank to do with as you please

I like the way your thinking!

Dubgal72

650 calories....that's a bottle of wine and large take away, yes?

career move

Dubgal72 wrote: »

650 calories....that's a bottle of wine and large take away, yes?

It is if it makes you run faster

Tom Joad

Best of luck tomorrow and the sub 20 - might see you there!

yaboya1

Good luck in the morning CM

pistol_75

Best of luck today CM