A life without races is a life half logged

druss

Monday 1 July - Mile time trial
Distance: 1 mile
Time: 5:58
Avg Pace: 3:32 min/km

That was a bit rubbish really. I finished 5th again, but a fair bit off the pace. I just felt a bit wrecked from the previous evenings long run.

I jogged out to the track with a bit of urgency as I thought we would be starting at 8. Instead the walkers had their event first.

When the race started, I discovered that my Garmin was in standby and i ended up just tacking the run onto my paused warm-up workout. No real idea what kind of time i was doing as a result. Bloody Garmin dependency!

I missed the shout of the times on the first lap. On the second lap I heard "3 minutes" and knew that I'd messed it up. I reeled in a few on lap 3 without really upping the pace before flooring it on the corner of the last lap to at least save my "under 6 mins" status.

New event record set on the night of 4.48. Decent going on grass!

druss

Wednesday 3 July - Fartlek and strides

Distance: 3.84 km (plus another 10k out and back + another bit where I hadn't started the Garmin for the warm up!)
Time: 20:09
Avg Pace: 5:15 min/km

Out to the track and joined in with a few club mates for a slow warm up, some stretching, and then 6 x 200m strides on grass. These were to be done at "70% effort". I nodded my assent before wondering, mid-200m, "70% of what?".

Anyway, we ran 200m fast, then 200m recovery, and repeated. Max speed was 2.11 min/km apparently!


Thursday 3 July - Speed session

Same again. 8 x 100m strides and 4 x 50 m sprints. Less than ideal, I really should have done a longer run on Wednesday instead of the club session.

I intentionally held back a bit in the speed session to protect myself.

druss

Saturday 6 July - Kilmore Quay 5km
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 20:06
Avg Pace: 4:00 min/km

Not at all happy with that. It was a bit of a scorcher of a day out on the Quay but it was grand come race time.

Probably 4 km of a warm up, some strides, then realised i was warming up near the finish line and not the actual start line..so some more hurried strides to get back into position.

The course is nice and scenic, particularly on the more enjoyable downhill bit. On the first lap I started too far back and then went very wide and fast in an effort to catch up. Lap was done in 3:42, next one dropped back to 3:58, then 4:11, then 4:13 .

Final lap dipped below 4 as well, but not enough to salvage a sub 20 and nowhere near my previous pb of 19:20.

I was lapped by the first three runners (who were all in 15 min territory) and one running in the low 16s. Hopefully I can find another minute somewhere by the time the next 5km rolls around.

Dilbert75

God Druss I was looking at the results and thought you'd run pretty well...

druss

Dilbert75 wrote: »

God Druss I was looking at the results and thought you'd run pretty well...

I was comparing it to my last 5km when i'd been coming off a vomiting bug, hadn't run properly or eaten properly in over a week and managed 19:20.

In reality, that race was very much an outlier for me, but it didn't stop me dreaming that I could do better. Well done to Mrs D btw. And extra kudos to her for doing the long run today!

druss

Monday 8 July - Mile time trial (Week 5)
Distance: 1.67 km
Time: 5:37
Avg Pace: 3:22 min/km

That's a bit more like it! I was really late for main race, but I thought I'd go out anyway and compare notes on the Kilmore 5km experience.

As I expected, the walkers in the second event were just finishing up when I got in the gate. A few of the lads who had done Kilmore and the nights mile race were all reporting progress in their mile times as well.

I was getting ready to head off on my fartlek run when I was asked if I wanted to give it a go on my own, seeing as the walkers were done and the stopwatch and the coaches were still all present and correct.

One of the other lads offered to pace me for a lap, and further if he still had it in the tank. He's faster than me and had done his run for the evening, so I appreciated the offer. I did one very quick fartlek lap as a warm up and we lined up for the official start.

I went out fast over the first 200m. My pacer stuck with me, but did tell me that I was probably going a bit outside my comfort zone. I dropped it a bit, but I still had it in my head that I should experiment with a faster opening lap. First lap was 75 seconds.

I did drop back in the 2nd and 3rd laps (and dropped my pacer on the 2nd lap), but I felt the deceleration was only gradual. It probably wasn't! Anyway on the final corner my coach shouted at me that I was well on to get a good time (everything is relative..he's challenged the 4 minute barrier himself) and my pacer dropped back in beside me. I picked up a bit and was very happy with the new PB taking 12 seconds off the previous one.

It's not a proper race and the pacer adds a different element to it but all cool! The Garmin reports that I was fairly steady, compared to previous weeks. A much better average pace, obviously, but I did hit better max speeds in previous weeks (at the finish probably).

druss

Tuesday 9 July - Hills circuits
Distance: 5.00 km
Time: 23:55
Avg Pace: 4:47 min/km

I was planning to do the hills run at lunchtime yesterday. However the footballers were stuck on 7 players. Given the number of recent cancellations, I thought i should step in. Garmin reports that I am much faster in football games. Reality reports that I am getting worse, particularly at passing.

I insisted that I would still go for the hills session at night. My coach was a bit concerned that this, given the proximity to the mile and as football can also be classified as intensive (Not the way I do it!).

Anyway, 22:30. Toddler is sleeping and I found a nice hill for myself. Certainly a lot nicer than the mountain I attacked the last time I did this rep, although i'll probably go back to that one later on this week.

The main element of the workout was 800m attacking the hill, maintaining decent form and pace. Followed by 800m back down doing the same.

I did this twice. Both times cyclists suddenly appeared, so I think it must have looked like I was showing off as I grunted and groaned my way past them pedalling away calmly.

druss

Hadn't realised that i'd been this long without posting! Anyway log updates...

On Wednesday 10 July I went out for a look at Day 1 of the County Track and Field Championships. I had a vague notion beforehand of throwing on the bib and giving the novice 800m or the novice 3k a go. However I was feeling a bit wrecked after my previous days football and late night hills session. The gear stayed in the bag. I also noted that in the 3k a few people who buried me in Kilmore were well down the field.

A few clubmates tried to persuade me to give it a lash, but I made my excuses and promised to return for the following Wednesday. Still regretted it though.

Thursday 11 July - Medium long run
Distance: 12.00 km
Time: 1:09:49
Avg Pace: 5:49 min/km

Run on grass. Got talking to another jogger enroute and I'd say we mutually destroyed our planned pace.

Saturday 13 July - Hills
Supposed to be 1.5k hill run, 1.5k back down x 2.

But my hill plateaued off at the 1k mark. Some bad planning there. I converted it to 3 x 1k climb instead. Averaging 4:50 for the 1km up, around a minute faster downhill.

Sunday 14 July - Something-or-other

11km of meandering, taking the place of a long run. Just too late to do anything proper, just too lazy to do it quickly.

druss

Monday 15 July - Mile time trial (Week 6)
Distance: 1.67 km
Time: 5:41
Avg Pace: 3:24 min/km

Last mile time trial this year. I decided to hold back a bit for Wednesday and Day 2 of the County Track and Field.

On the other hand, I figured that I might be able to sneak into the top three..given a few absences.

I went out steady enough and held onto the guy in second place for 3 laps (the guy in first was a long way off). On the third lap a young fella went by us both like a train in the night. At which point i decided not to bother. Happy enough with 5:41 given the relative lack of effort. It looks like I have a new floor for this distance anyway.

druss

Wednesday 17 July -County Track and Field Championships

I decided beforehand to do the Novice/Masters 1500m and the Novice/Masters 5k. There was a fair old time gap between the two events in the programme, so I figured i could treat the 5k as a recovery race if I was still wrecked after the first race.

There wasn't a huge crowd of participants, but I seemed to have picked a popular race in the 1.5k. After a bit of discussion, it was decided to split the Masters and the Novices and have two races.

More than a few people were, like me, eligible for both categories. I decided on novices (and inwardly cursed when a few decent runners jumped in the same direction).

1500m race
Distance: 1.58 km
Time: 5:08
Avg Pace: 3:15 min/km

I was 6th I think. I held a steady enough pace, but I think I could have tried harder on the 2nd lap to maintain contact.

Other than that, better than my best mile pace, so I was happy enough with it.

I did a warm down, got some water and watched the 200m races and the 800m Senior race...and was annoyed again about missing the 800m novice race last week.

Next up was the 400m Novice/Master race and I thought "well, why not?". As obviously a lot of other people did. Again, the race was split into two events and again I decided to stick with the novices. There seemed to be a high possibility of making a fool of myself against a bunch of young fellas in a distance that I'd never tried..but I was curious about trying a sprint event.

400m race
Distance: 400m
Time: 1:02
Avg Pace: 2:34 min/km

I nabbed the inside lane, on the basis that I would find that the least distracting and decided to just put the head down and go for it. I steamed off and realised at 200m that I was going pretty well. A mere 100m later I began to tie up a bit and the pre-race favourite (winner of the 800m the previous week) flew by.

I finished second and garmin and time keeper agreed on 62 second. I'll wait on the official results to confirm the time, but very happy with that. Even going back to primary school days, I never got an athletics medal!

Next up was the 5k, I went over to the start line but made my excuses and left it. My head was still thumping from the 800m and I was absolutely parched. Tomorrow is going to be all about recovery.:D

Tom Joad

druss wrote: »

I finished second and garmin and time keeper agreed on 62 second. I'll wait on the official results to confirm the time, but very happy with that. Even going back to primary school days, I never got an athletics medal!

Well done on popping your medal cherry

druss

Thursday 18 July -Recovery Run
Distance: 8.01 km
Time: 43:58
Avg Pace: 5:30 min/km

Another roasting hot day, so I took it easy enough on a GAA pitch.


Sunday 21 July -Long Run
Distance: 22.00 km
Time: 2:09:08
Avg Pace: 5:52 min/km

Still roasting. I chucked in some challenging enough hills into the start and finish of this.

Tuesday 23 July -Hills Circuits
Distance: 10.90 km
Time: 59:24
Avg Pace: 5:27 min/km

I was looking for a hill with a 1600m climb, but settled for a 1km. Instead of 1.6 x 2, i did 1km x 3.

Garmin classed this 1km as more intense than the 1km hill the last time out. This was a 75m change in elevation, compared to 50m previously. on the other hand, my times were much slower. 6.2 min/km climbing, around 4.2 on the return leg.

Wednesday 24 July -Medium Long run (in two parts)
Distance: 5.94 km
Time: 33:55
Avg Pace: 5:43 min/km

+

Distance: 14.08 km
Time: 1:13:44
Avg Pace: 5:14 min/km

A sort of doubling up effort. I started the lunchtime run too late to do anything resembling a long run, so just did it to get out for a bit. Added in the second to make up the balance.

druss

Thursday 25 July - PCR
Distance: 8.51 km
Time: 41:07
Avg Pace: 4:50 min/km

I wanted to make this a nice round 10km. The 8.5 is more or less acceptable, as it the average pace. But I went at 4.2x ish min/km for the first 2 km and I was getting progressively more wrecked.

It's warm and last nights run is still in my legs a bit.

I'm hoping to do a 5km race next Thursday. Another mile race on Monday is also an option. But probably not a good one.

druss

Saturday 27 July - Hills
Distance: 8.01 km
Time: 38:02
Avg Pace: 4:45 min/km


Supposed to be 1.5k hill run, 1.5k back down x 2. Actually was 1k x 3 and another 0.5 for fun.


Sunday 28 July - Long run
Distance: 22.01 km
Time: 2:08:25
Avg Pace: 5:50 min/km

Big family dinner earlier on in the day. Ventured out slowly and queasily in the evening.

druss

Tuesday 30 July - Intervals

15 mins warm up. 1km fast (3.42 min), 1km recovery, 1km fast (3:55), 1km recovery. 15 mins warm down.

There shouldn't be as much of a drop off between the two fast laps as I started off from the same spot for both efforts.

druss

Over a month without posting!:eek: I have continued to train and race. Training is going ok, racing is a bit meh. No major breakthroughs.

August has been a month of anniversaries. One year since I started running, one year since my first training run logged on garmin and yesterday I had the chance to repeat my first race.

Overall I still haven't, to my mind, been doing as well as I was doing back in February/March. My 5km and 10km times set then still stand.

I did a 5km race in my home village in Cork at the start of August. It was my third 5k ever and my worst result at 20:20 (almost a minute off my PB). I found it hard to visualise the course in advance, but i remembered that there was a pretty challenging hill at the 3k mark. So I hammered out two fast km's, then was far, far too cautious on the hill. Made up a bit, but not enough. Very annoyed with myself. Nevertheless, good to get home for a bit and my sis joined me out racing as well.

I then did a 10km in Oylegate. Very similar profile to the 5k race in a way, in that I was motoring along at sub-40 pace until I hit a hill at the 4k mark. That put manners on me and I came back in at 42:5x which is around 10 seconds shy of my best 10k. Nice to meet Dilbert75 who was out there on pacing duties.

And so onto Ferns and the Mick Murphy 4 Mile. This was my first race last year, completed in 29:10. I hoped to knock a minute a mile off it a year later, but tried to sabotage myself by picking up a knock playing football last Tuesday. Chip time was 26:06, so it was 3 mins better than last year.

Plus points, I (unofficially) broke 20 mins for the 5k for only the second time. Minus points, I finished slowly and didn't fight to get in 25 min territory.

Vdot calculations still show that I am much stronger over short distances. 400, 1 mile, 5k, 4miles. And in, all races, I'm fading a bit in the 2nd half. On that basis, I don't see myself going sub 40 for the 10km this year. I don't think I'm physically there at this moment in time. Looking forward to another 2 attempts at it this month though.

Tom Joad

That sub 40 is a right f*cker to break!!!!

I'm in a pretty similar place to you at the minute and I think everyone probably comes to a stage of standing still race wise and time wise. At the start every race is a PB and you get a great buzz of that but then you hit a plateau. I'd say a lot of people chuck it at this stage but if you plough on through or come up with a better training plan you should see the difference. I know in my case endurance is my problem so am going to concentrate on building this over the winter months - might be something for you to consider too.

I'm sure the PB's will start coming again after some more training - keep at it

druss

I was in Denmark for bits of last week, so most of my running was done in Copenhagen. I'm tapering off a bit as I near another goal race, the Kilmore 10k.

Copenhagen is a nice city for running, and there was absolutely loads of runners out in the parks. It was a bit on the warm side, most of my running was done in the evening and (it being a holiday and all) my food intake wasn't all that it might have been. Summary: I felt a bit lethargic on a lot of my trips out.

Monday 2 September - Long recovery run
Distance: 12.69 km
Time: 1:04:28
Avg Pace: 5:05 min/km

This was completed on Irish soil. :)Yes, it was too fast. Yes, it was short. Yes, it isn't really a long recovery run.

Tuesday 3 September - 10k time trial
Distance: 10.01 km
Time: 47:01
Avg Pace: 4:42 min/km

Also an Irish run and it should have been faster. I was going for 45 mins.


Thursday 5 September - Medium long run
Distance: 10.72 km
Time: 59:13
Avg Pace: 5:31 min/km

Copenhagen footpaths. This was pretty much on target, which was a fair achievement as i didn't really know where I was going!

Friday 6 September - Windsprints
...the evil 50m variety. 16 x 50m with 50m recovery. These were done in a Copenhagen park with this guy staring down at me.

9 seconds or so being my best 50 m.

Saturday 7 September - 2 Mile time Trial

I went back to the same park (20 mins warm up) and took off in the opposite direction. Bad decision.

I was supposed to do the 2 miles in roughly 10k race goal pace, so 4:10 min/km. On the previous evening i thought that most of the park was flat enough. It transpires that it isn't. I took off at sub 4 min/km pace up a bit of a hill, which became a bit more of a hill. I stopped at around 1 mile and pretended to do some stretching to hide my shame from the locals.

The park has some form of a scanner yoke at different locations which seemed to log pace by monitoring progress on a predefined route. I set it up, but went back the way i came in. So the scanner is probably very concerned about my progress.

I went back to the park for a walk the following day. If i'd kept on going for another bit, i'd have found that the next mile was mainly downhill! On the other hand, it wasn't the venue i should have selected for this kind of time trial.

Since then, I've done two more slowish runs on Monday and Tuesday. Yesterday I had a mile run.

Distance: 1.71 km
Time: 6:47
Avg Pace: 3:58 min/km

Two days to Kilmore!

druss

Saturday 14 September - Kilmore AC 10km
Distance: 10 km
Time: 40:55
Avg Pace: 4:05 min/km

That's almost a 2 min PB. This is a very, very PB friendly course it must be said. All my other 10ks had a a few nasty hills tucked away. For the most part this was fairly flat. A few drags here and there.

Overall I am happy with the time. I went through the 5k mark in 19:46 mins though, so I was still thinking that I might even manage a shock sub-40 at that point.

I was still on track to do it after 7k..but my last 3k were pretty slow (4:26, 4:17, 4;15).

Tom Joad

druss wrote: »

Saturday 14 September - Kilmore AC 10km
Distance: 10 km
Time: 40:55
Avg Pace: 4:05 min/km

That's almost a 2 min PB. This is a very, very PB friendly course it must be said. All my other 10ks had a a few nasty hills tucked away. For the most part this was fairly flat. A few drags here and there.

Overall I am happy with the time. I went through the 5k mark in 19:46 mins though, so I was still thinking that I might even manage a shock sub-40 at that point.

I was still on track to do it after 7k..but my last 3k were pretty slow (4:26, 4:17, 4;15).

Well done on the PB - that sub 40 is within touching distance..

druss

Tom Joad wrote: »

Well done on the PB - that sub 40 is within touching distance..

Thanks Mr Joad! I think it'll happen alright. But probably next year. I'm running out of easy 10ks to do in 2013!

Kilmore was a goal race for me, so I'm now at the end of programme. Next step might be to give cross country a lash, something I've never done before. Or another half marathon. Or both.

Tom Joad

druss wrote: »

Thanks Mr Joad! I think it'll happen alright. But probably next year. I'm running out of easy 10ks to do in 2013!

Kilmore was a goal race for me, so I'm now at the end of programme. Next step might be to give cross country a lash, something I've never done before. Or another half marathon. Or both.

I'll be waiting with interest to see what you decide - trying to figure out a plan myself - torn between focussing on 10k or another half.

druss

druss wrote: »

....so I'm now at the end of programme. Next step might be to give cross country a lash, something I've never done before. Or another half marathon. Or both.

After this post i had an enforced week off running (or indeed doing anything very much). Before that I had been thinking about doing the Ferns half marathon, but felt i was insufficiently prepared for it. So, when i started back running on 23 September, I had the Novice Cross country in Wexford as my immediate target.

Overall, I've felt a bit lacklustre since the week off. I was still out of programme, so I didn't do anything too hectic in the last week and a bit. I did a few work outs on grass to get the feel of damp and misery into my legs. Blisters everywhere as a result. I did the last minute panic-shop for spikes and headed out to Kilmore for the race yesterday.

Sunday 06 October - Wexford Novice Cross Country
Distance: 6.04 km
Time: 25:06
Avg Pace: 4:10 min/km

I've never raced in spikes or raced cross country before. So i could probably have done with a bit more of a warm up. The womens race was already underway when i arrived, so i togged out quickly and warmed up slowly.

One of my clubmates informed me that he had done two laps of the course, once wearing spikes and once with his road runners. He reviewed the course as a bit bumpy, some stones, and so he had felt more comfortable in the lap with standard runners. Of course I hadn't brought a change.

There were 40 plus runners on the start line. I had a look around and could only see one other person in spikes. I had my Garmin on, but was trying not to look at it. The first lap was (in retrospect) comfortably slow. I was in the company of considerably faster road runners and feeling good. In the second lap the pace rose and I stuck with it..still just outside top 10 but starting to feel it. On the third lap, I would quite happily have quit if this wasn't also a team event! I got passed by a few here. While there were no hills on the course, it was a bit uneven which i could feel in the spikes and there was a good old breeze firing straight across us. I really felt that when i was running on my own.

I hauled back a few places in the last lap and finished exactly half way up the field in 19th. We weren't in the running for a team medal, but it was a reasonable performance with two in the top 10. The club hadn't fielded a team for a few years in XC, so it was good that we managed that!

When I look at the Garmin time, it's reasonable enough. XC is a different beast entirely. There were people who I know are far, far faster than me on the roads who finished behind me. Equally, I misjudged the strength of a few people who I can beat in a road race.

It's unusual just to be in a pure race. On the road, I am so focused on the watch. If it's a 10k, I am constantly thinking about holding to that 4:00 min/km pace.

druss

(Steps back into log, looks around sheepishly, dusts away cobwebs)

Two weeks without any running at all.

After my cross country race, I kept plugging away. Nothing too intense. I entered a 5k trail/beach charity fun run three weeks ago and actually won it. There was a 10k on at the same time/location and the more serious runners all seemed to pick that one. There was probably only 30 in my race. Just before the gun, the organisers were advised that the beach part of the 5k run couldn't proceed due to high tides. So the 5k loop was converted into a "out and back". However I didn't catch where I was supposed to turn (My fault. It was a bit windy, and I was late) but i gathered that there was a water station at the turn point.

I took off and then got a bit embarrassed when i realised that I was a considerable distance ahead, so i slowed down to a bit over 4:00 min/km pace. The 10k'ers had gone off first and I was also ploughing into the tail end of that field. I reached a water station at 1.5km and kept going as I thought it was a bit too early. I went on for another 200m before being called back by the lads manning the water station. Two people had since turned for home. I overtook them again (and again felt a bit embarrassed, but a fun run is still a race, right?!:o) . Enjoyable day out and all going well at that point.


Then my wife and toddler picked up some virus. As my wife is pregnant, due at end December, her options were a bit limited but medication was perscribed. Then I caught it. I actually felt better before i went on bloody antibiotics! Hopefully I can get back out there next week.

A new years baby will also impact on my training and racing plans. This is something I haven't vocalised at home! But I do plan on getting back into base-building now, so that I can have some of the heavy lifting done before it becomes less popular to disappear for a prolonged period of time.

Same for races. Closer to home is better.

My current plans are for;

Moyne Rangers 5km in Enniscorthy on Sun, 17th November
(That's dependent on me getting back on my feet between now and then.)
Santa Dash 5km in Ferns on Sun,8th December
Ferrycarrig 5 mile on Sunday, 12th January
(Not far away from home, so it'll probably be ok!)
Enniscorthy 10k on Sunday, 9th February
Ballycotton 10 mile on Sunday, 9th March.
Wexford Half marathon on Sunday 27th April.


Only Ballycotton is a significant distance from home, so i'll combine that with a brief family holiday because I'm really kind and stuff. It's also really similar to last years programme, the main change being that I can't really justify the Dungarvan 10 mile, which is a pity as it was one of my favourite races from last year.

I'll hopefully do the County Novice road race as well. That was mid february this year.