Running's not just for New Year's, it's for life!

vitani

Thursday

6 miles at an average pace of 10.03 min/mile. Kept it slow as I was still tired after Tuesday, although thankfully, I wasn't nearly as bad as I had been last week.

Sunday

LSR of 10.12 miles with an average pace of 10.09 min/mile. Which I've just realised is very similar to Thursday's pace. Amazing what a couple of days of rest can do. Felt great during today's run. Even threw in a mini-sprint once I hit 10 miles, purely because I could.

The rest of the club are working towards the Bohermeen HM at the beginning of March. I was holding back on deciding until I saw how I'd handle today's run, and with 6 weeks to go, I think I'm in good shape to do it. I might only improve on my previous time by a minute or two, if even that, but I think the experience of running it as part of the club and training with them before and after will stand to me.

vitani

Tuesday

Another club session. I just did the speedwork this time, as my left calf felt quite tight and I didn't want to aggravate it by going out on the road for 5 miles. Especially as I'm running Raheny this weekend.

Friday

Gave my calf two days of rest, and went out this evening for 5 miles. Took the first mile handy in 9.20, the middle three were around 8.53 pace and the final mile was 9.58. It was one of those runs where, from the very first step, it just felt amazing. Well, until the end when my calf tightened up again. Got home and did some yoga stretches, foam rolled and blasted it with cold water in the shower, so thankfully, it's feeling a lot better now. Going to have to keep up some kind of stretching and strengthening routine though. I might see about getting myself to a physio next week for advice. If anyone knows somebody decent in the D15 or city centre area, let me know.

vitani

First race of the year! The weather reports over the past couple of days were predicting near gale-force winds, plus heavy rain showers. A fall of hailstones at about 12 o'clock today didn't help my nerves, but thankfully, by the time I got to Raheny and parked, the sun was out and the wind was tolerable.

Collected my race number, dropped off my bag and had time to do a slow mile as a warm up. It's not something I get to do before every race, but I'll be making an extra effort in future to, because I think it really helped me today.

For the first mile, I made sure not to go all-out, because I know from experience that I usually die a death when I do so. So, I kept the pace to where I could breathe fairly comfortably and only passed people out when a good opportunity arose instead of weaving around the crowd. First mile was 7.54.

I picked the pace up slightly on mile 2 but still felt extremely comfortable. I was delighted to cover it in 7.51. Mile 3 was 7.49 and here's where I made my fatal error - I got cocky. I had a time in mind of sub-40 and I started to believe that it was comfortably in hand.

Mile 4 was down and out onto the coast road and I let the pace fall a bit, knowing that there was a hill coming up at the 4 mile marker and telling myself that it was good to conserve strength for it. Mile time was 8.02, which has been haunting me ever since. :pac:

The final mile started with a steep enough hill. It's something that I'd cover comfortably in training, and I think if it had hit earlier in the course, it would have been ok. But I came to it when I had already started to flag a bit, and it just took everything out of me. My quads felt like lead once I'd reached the top. For the next half mile, it was just about forcing myself to keep going. Pace went out the window completely. I'd come back to myself enough for the last 800m to try and pick it up again, but still only finished with a chip time of 40.02.

I'll be honest - my time amuses me more than anything else. I'm not going to beat myself up over 3 seconds. While times are important to me, I'm more concerned with how I ran a race and what kind of improvement it shows. And during today's race, I knocked an unofficial 40 seconds off my previous 5k time, which was only at the start of December. So, all in all, I'm counting today's race as a success.

vitani

vitani wrote: »

... I kept the pace to where I could breathe fairly comfortably ... but still felt extremely comfortable. ... started to believe that it was comfortably in hand... It's something that I'd cover comfortably in training...

Anyone got a lend of a thesaurus?

Tom Joad

Well done Vitani - great result

vitani

Tom Joad wrote: »

Well done Vitani - great result

Thank you, and well done on your own PB!

Ososlo

Great race and great report vitani! Great things ahead for you. Think what you could have done on a calmer day! Delighted for you:D

vitani

Ososlo wrote: »

Great race and great report vitani! Great things ahead for you. Think what you could have done on a calmer day! Delighted for you:D

Do you know, the wind didn't bother me at all. I was able to shelter behind bigger people during the worst moments, and I actually found it refreshing in a way. It helped to keep me from overheating. I think I just need to take a leaf out of your book and get some proper hill training in. I lost a good 20-30 seconds on that last mile.

But I'm still over the moon with how it went - I can't wait to see what a few more months training will do.

AuldManKing

Nice work, well done. Nice attitude to the race, regarding how you ran etc. I like that:)

vitani

AuldManKing wrote: »

Nice work, well done. Nice attitude to the race, regarding how you ran etc. I like that:)

Thank you.

I still struggle mentally during most races - there's a little voice in my head that moans about how hard it is and how easy it would be to just stop. I'm finding it easier to ignore with every race I do, and to be able to keep pushing through the difficulty I was feeling yesterday in that last mile, to a place where I could pick up the pace again, was huge for me.

career_move

Well done vitani it was tough out there yesterday and you've set a great marker for the rest of the year now

vitani

career_move wrote: »

Well done vitani it was tough out there yesterday and you've set a great marker for the rest of the year now

Thank you! I've at least two more 5 mile races planned this year so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens then. And well done yourself - I know you said you were a bit disappointed with your time but you're still running incredibly strongly. You're doing Bohermeen, aren't you? Will have to look out for you there.

vitani

Monday

The plan was 2 (ish) miles at recovery pace straight after work. The reality was ice-cold rain and wind, so I ended up running the first mile a lot faster than planned. Luckily, the weather eased off (or I warmed up) about one mile into it so was able to slow it down then.

Tuesday

8 x 100m with the club, followed by six miles out on the road. Average pace for the six miles was 8.56 min/mile. I'm glad I did that session now. My inclination would have been to hold off because I only raced a couple of days ago, but I headed down to the club anyway, thinking that I could cut it short if I needed to. Maybe it was just left-over adrenaline but I felt great this evening.

vitani

Had planned a LSR of 10 miles again this afternoon. Headed from home towards the Phoenix Park to do an out-and-back, but at about 5 miles in, realised that I needed the loo so carried on for nearly another mile so I could visit the Tea Rooms. Decided to make my 10 mile into a 12 mile. Average pace was at 10.13 min/miles and while my calves & hamstrings were a little bit stiff by the time I'd finished, I felt strong throughout the entire run.

I have to say, I'm really enjoying my running at the moment. I don't know if it's the club sessions bringing me on, or if it's the effect of upping my long runs, but I feel like almost every single run is going well for me right now.

vitani

Monday
A slow three miles to loosen out the legs after Saturday's long run.

I missed the club session on Tuesday evening. I got home from work, got my stuff together and was on the verge of changing to go out to it, but in the end, the sound of the wind and rain was too much for me. Wednesday, I had family commitments so didn't get out again until:

Thursday
Ran home from work, and added a little bit on to bring the total distance to just over eight miles. First couple of miles were rough - I had to stop and stretch out my calves about 1.5 miles in, but once I hit three miles, everything just came together and I felt like I was running on air. Average pace was about 9.45 min/miles.

Long run planned for Saturday - somewhere in and around the 13/14 mile mark - with a couple of easy recovery miles on Sunday.

career_move

What's your goal for Bohermeen?

vitani

I haven't narrowed it down too much - I'm thinking of aiming between 1:50-1:55.

vitani

Saturday

14 mile LSR. I took the 'slow' part literally and ran the whole thing at a plod - I think the total time was over 2 and a half hours. I think it was the right strategy though - my mileage has gone up quite a bit in the past month, so going so slow took very little out of me. Within about half an hour of finishing, my legs felt normal again.

Tuesday

Club session. 7.25 miles in total - combination of warm up, speedwork and 5 miles out on the road. I stayed with someone a little bit faster than me so found it tough but manageable. I forgot to bring my watch though so haven't a clue what pace we were at. Absolutely fantastic run - I'm not a massive snow fan normally but running through snow showers was something special.

vitani

Ran home from work - a distance of almost eight miles. Calves quite stiff again for the first mile, but I stretched them out while waiting to cross a road and that helped a lot. I was still feeling a little bit tired until about four miles in, where I got a burst of energy out of somewhere and ended up spending the rest of the run tra-la-la-ing to myself about how much I love running.

vitani

Just back from a 14 mile LSR. I went slightly faster than last week - this is my last 'big' run before the half in two weeks, so I wanted to make it count. I was sore enough by the time I finished, but with a two week taper, I'd say all the little niggles I've noticed will sort themselves out in the meantime.

I did have a brief moment of '...and you want to run another 12 miles on top of this in October???!!!' Probably the first of many such moments

Calvin Johnson

Any marathons between now and October for you Vitani?

vitani

No, the plan is DCM in October, depending on how training goes. In between now and then, I've a couple of halfs and a few shorter races of different distances. I'll definitely do all of the race series anyway, whether I'm doing the marathon or not.

SamforMayo

vitani wrote: »

Just back from a 14 mile LSR. I went slightly faster than last week - this is my last 'big' run before the half in two weeks, so I wanted to make it count. I was sore enough by the time I finished, but with a two week taper, I'd say all the little niggles I've noticed will sort themselves out in the meantime.

I did have a brief moment of '...and you want to run another 12 miles on top of this in October???!!!' Probably the first of many such moments

Oh there will be many of them thoughts alright! I have not decided if I will do Dublin this year mainly because of them:(

vitani

That bad, eh? On the one hand, I can tell myself that I'm only 6 miles short of where I'd need to be to train for a marathon but on the other hand, I think I just got a glimpse of how tough it will be. There's definitely no slacking off for me for the next few months because if I don't have a decent base behind me, training will be hell. I genuinely don't know how someone can start from nothing and train for a marathon straight away.

SamforMayo

vitani wrote: »

That bad, eh? On the one hand, I can tell myself that I'm only 6 miles short of where I'd need to be to train for a marathon but on the other hand, I think I just got a glimpse of how tough it will be. There's definitely no slacking off for me for the next few months because if I don't have a decent base behind me, training will be hell. I genuinely don't know how someone can start from nothing and train for a marathon straight away.

It was nt that bad really, I found fitting the training in around all the flitting about I like to do in the summer a bit tough, you have a better base than I had too. I found every so often on a long run I would be thinking this is mental. I cant do this, but it was worth it! Do you run with anyone? That got me through the harder times.

vitani

There'll be very little flitting around for me this summer

At the moment, I do most of my runs alone, apart from the club session once a week. I may look at teaming up with some other people later on in the year, although I do enjoy my alone time as well.

SamforMayo

vitani wrote: »

There'll be very little flitting around for me this summer

At the moment, I do most of my runs alone, apart from the club session once a week. I may look at teaming up with some other people later on in the year, although I do enjoy my alone time as well.

I love running on my own as well but liked the company on the Lsr as they got longer! Not sure my running partner enjoyed them as much, I complained a lot! Good luck with the training! Will follow with interest!

vitani

Bit of a mixed week for me. After my LSR last Saturday, my left ITB felt sore - just to the outside of my knee. It wasn't causing me constant pain, but I could feel it when I was going downstairs, and if I'd been sitting down for a while. Which, as I work in an office at the top of 3 flights of stairs, was quite often. I've never had any ITB problems, so was slightly freaked out by it, but at the same time, I knew before my last LSR that injuries/niggles were quite possible and took a calculated risk to go for it anyway, knowing that I could taper off after it.

Spent a few days resting - skipped the club session on Tuesday to be cautious, and went out for an easy three miles on Wednesday evening. Leg was much improved, although it still didn't feel 100%.

Thursday
Ran home from work - just under 8 miles. It took me about three miles to really get into this, but by five miles in, I felt great. Coming near the end, this horrible icy rain started so I sped up just to be out of it, and ended up running my last mile at my goal half-marathon pace.

Saturday
5.5 miles before breakfast. As I was running on empty, so to speak, my legs felt quite heavy for the first two miles. I powered on anyway and felt really good after that. At about 4 miles in, I sped up again, just because I felt like it, and ran the last mile and a half at goal HM pace (which is 8.30-8.40 min/mile).

My ITB hasn't given me any grief since last Wednesday, and those last two runs have really boosted my confidence. I'm going to keep the rest of my runs this week at about 5 miles, or under, plus whatever the club session is.

SamforMayo

Is the HM next weekend? Sounds like you are flying in training:D What are you aiming for?

Darren 83

You will be well able for a 1:50 half, how do you find the club sessions