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KielyUnusual wrote: »Fair play J. That's some running. It's the toughest distance out there in my opinion so to be able to pick it up for the last few miles when running at that pace shows great strength. You're in great shape for Chicago.
Thanks M, looking forward to catching up for 90 mins on Saturday.
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Fantastic Blocky what a super run, you're in amazing shape for Chicago
And thanks for a fab report - I always love reading your race reports...the emotion, optimism, energy...great stuff 
Thanks Runchick, have dreaded thoughts at times that my reports might be uninteresting scribbles! 0 -
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Missed this...yes definitely...I had planned to put it up on the group sessions later this week.
I want to waste no time at the end though so I'm gonna start again fairly lively I'll come back for ya after 20 mins...I might be doing up to 8 anyway.
Ok cool, come back to me after 3 miles and I'll do 5 with ya, we can jog down to Ryans as part of the 5. talk saturday 0 -
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Missed a week along the lines there somewhere....better catch up a bit
Tuesday
Run 1: 4.2 miles recovery / 8:38 average pace
I took Monday off to give the legs a bit of extra recovery and erring on the side of caution as there were two items of concern, no point risking anything now with most of the work done. My left calf/ achilles seemed a bit inflamed and also my good oul regular the flexor digitorum longus on my right leg behind my knee giving a bit of soreness after the HM. I keep making note of this when it is noticeable on here for record purposes. Just done a search on the log and it was an issue, 6 months ago, 2 months ago and now this week so need to get a permanent solution. It is never really an issue/ bad when I’m running, more when I’m not running after a fast race. Up to now it is non-existent again after a day or two and this week was no different, by Tuesday it was all but recovered.
So, back to Tuesday, First run done at lunch time on the usual out and back route around work.
Run 2: 6.2 miles recovery / 9:20 average pace
Second run of the day I was joined by a mighty man by the name of Aimman. Gave me a text saying he would be around so said I’d give him a tour of some of the running strongholds in Kilkenny. I was happy to keep the run in around 9min/ mile for another recovery run to get the blood flowing into the damaged muscles. We did a nice loop around the castle before going along linear park by the river my usual short route. Great to have company and the time flew chatting.
Wednesday
13 miles MLR / 7:52 average pace
I was timing the club 3,000m time trial on Wednesday so didn’t get out on my run until after 8. I dropped the car home and headed out on my long run for the week around the ring road...legs STILL not happy so kept it on the slow side and finished slower than what I started. A very quiet and peaceful night on the ring road and I actually quite enjoyed it. Was 10pm when I got home...resulting in a late trip to bed at 1am after things settled down.
Thursday
5 miles recovery / 8:48 average pace
This was planned to be 9 miles easy but soon realised that it wasn’t going to happen so slowed it down. Legs in a jock with tired quads and calves (story of the week) and telling me that this better be the last week before taper, enough is enough! My main run this week was always my 20+ miler with 13 MP on the Saturday incorporated into the Dublin HM so with an eye on that I called it a day at 5 miles a little concerned but hoping that with another day and good night’s sleep things would improve. Good news was that the left achilles seemed back to normal.
Friday
6.8 miles easy / 8:16 average pace
Went out to Gowran to do this with the club session and the legs finally were showing some life again. A handy up and down seven miles with darkness creeping in as we finished. All systems go for the following morning.0 -
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Saturday
20.4 miles (incl. 13.1m @MP)
Incorporating Dublin Half Marathon (1:30 pacer)
1.3 miles easy (8:20 average)
13.1 miles @ MP (6:47 average)
6 miles easy (7:45 average)
An early start for me Saturday morning (6am) as I got the train to Dublin to pace the 90 min slot in the half marathon, this slotted in nicely with my 20LSR with 14PMP in my training plan so I decided it would be easier to do it in the HM as motivation was fairly low training wise as we are coming to the end of the training cycle. Great to meet everyone again and after a short warm up with belcarra we lined up for the start nearly at the front of the first wave.
It was wicked humid and I remember KielyUnusual and I both remarking how we were thirsty before we even got going! Quick chats with village runner and davemcmahon and we were off. The time flew as we whipped around and I quite enjoyed the route. Roro2, Kiely and myself took turns leading the pace group and we let a gap between each of us where possible to spread the group evenly as there were a few narrow points along the way.
I tried to get the crowds going as much as I could and they seemed to react well. We kept it even until the 7 mile mark when we then gained about 30 seconds on the downhill so we had some time to play with for the tough finish. Once we hit back into the park for the final 3 miles we tried to get the gang to the finish by giving a few seconds back here and there and I think it worked well. I was even feeling it a bit in the legs at this stage with some slight fatigue from last week’s HM still there. At mile 12 we saw an ambulance coming toward us in a rush so we moved everyone into the right as it passed but I didn’t really think much else of it as I had a task in hand. As we got to the final straight we managed to get a bucket load in just under the 90 before crossing for a chip time of 1:29:56.
A job well done and thanks to Kiely and roro2 for the company. Good job lads. After a couple of minutes of dropping back the backpacks and a quick chat, Kiely kindly offered to accompany me on my additional miles to make it up to 20 on the day and boy was I glad of it, the first couple went fine but then the legs were just wrecked for the last four and it felt like miles 23-26.2 for me if I’m honest. Thankfully I got dragged around the last couple by Kiely as I was really starting to suffer. Legs were bonked and surprisingly happy that I managed to keep it around 7:45 pace. However I didn’t gain much confidence from it if I’m honest.
As I met meno and others back in Ryans after, news soon filtered though about the death of a participant, a truly awful tragedy to come to terms with.
Really puts everything in perspective and it really hit home for me as I started to get flashbacks of my collapse a few months back and how medical assistance and spectators arrived to me within seconds, the same from what I have heard happened on this occasion. The emergency services, first aiders, stewards and spectators and even organisers really need to be applauded for their planning, work and assistance when such a situation occurs as seconds count, they really got there in double quick time Saturday. Albeit tragically to no avail on this occasion. I still think about it at times to this day on how lucky I was back in April.
So a day which had a great beginning but a very tragic ending. I heard of a suggestion on FB to put black arm bands in the runner’s bags in the expo next month as a mark of respect that people could wear if they wished for the marathon and I for one would certainly welcome that if it was possible.
Sunday
Run 1: 3.1 miles recovery / 8:50 average pace
Headed out on this one after breakfast (1pm) and while the legs were in bits Saturday evening they felt quite good Sunday morning, mostly due to the 11 hour sleep I reckon!
Run 2: 4 miles recovery / 8:28 average pace
Another routine recovery run which I headed out the door for at 9pm on Sunday. Things awfully boring on the streets and nothing exciting happening around the town. I did mistakenly jog past the nicest chipper in Kilkenny...aghh...why do I always do that to myself!
So overall, unfortunately not much quality last week as the body just wasn’t feeling it but continued to get in the miles. The last 6 miles Saturday after the race didn’t instil much confidence in me but I guess there are lots of miles in these legs at this stage. A wise man summed it up nicely earlier in the week to me when he said that “the hay is in the barn” so I need to make sure now that I don’t do anything stupid and get to the start line fresh and in one piece. I know that my target time is in me, that I have trained well up to this point and I’m in sub 3 shape. If all the uncontrollables work in my favour and I don’t pick a stupid strategy, I’m confident in getting what I will set out for. But no matter how good you train/ prepare things can still go wrong, it’s all on the day, I lesson I know well from Rotterdam.
So, I won’t be getting complacent either and waste all my work by going too easy for the last 3 weeks, I need a healthy balance. It’s taper time, so a reduction in mileage but not a reduction in intensity!
Week Mileage Summary:
Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Sunday
Rest|10.4m|13m|5m|6.8m|20.4m|7.1m
Week Total|Month to Date|Year to Date
62.4m|192.7m|1672.5m0 -
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I agree with Peckham, I know you don’t want to be overly confident and cocky, but you have to take the positives when they are there. Your training has been fantastic, your HM PB is impressive, you cruised around Cork in 3:12 (did you even break a sweat?) You have a large number of quality miles done.
I know you don’t want to count your chickens after Rotterdam, but don’t let the negative thoughts get comfy in your head. Most people would chomp the hand off you to have a week like you did last week and you’re saying it was lacking in quality miles???? It was the week after a HM, of course the legs were going to be a little sluggish!
You should be very proud of the training you have done and especially bouncing back the way you did from Rotterdam, that would be enough to have some people never pulling on their pink trainers ever again Not to mention that you will have four marathons done by the time the anniversary of your first marathon comes around. 0 -
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I agree with Peckham, I know you don’t want to be overly confident and cocky, but you have to take the positives when they are there. Your training has been fantastic, your HM PB is impressive, you cruised around Cork in 3:12 (did you even break a sweat?) You have a large number of quality miles done.
I know you don’t want to count your chickens after Rotterdam, but don’t let the negative thoughts get comfy in your head. Most people would chomp the hand off you to have a week like you did last week and you’re saying it was lacking in quality miles???? It was the week after a HM, of course the legs were going to be a little sluggish!
You should be very proud of the training you have done and especially bouncing back the way you did from Rotterdam, that would be enough to have some people never pulling on their pink trainers ever again Not to mention that you will have four marathons done by the time the anniversary of your first marathon comes around.
+1000 to this & Peckhams post.
That's a solid training cycle you've went through and you're in great shape physically and mentally.
You've kept the log 'negative free' over the year - Don't start now.
* Q onslaught of over analysis on Blockys mental state......... 0
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