Everything Counts (In Large Amounts)

FrClintPower

I started running last June, having never run before or taken part in any sort of organised sport. In fact, I would never have been able to describe myself as fit and the fact that I was a pretty heavy smoker for 15 years probably didn’t help!

I finally knocked the cigarettes on the head three years ago at the age of 32 and immediately felt much healthier, but the old middle-age spread started to kick in and I realised a bit of exercise was required. Luckily I live right beside the Phoenix Park so I started to do laps on a heavy mountain bike, which definitely gets the blood pumping. That started getting a bit boring though so I decided I’d give running a go.

Initially, I followed an 8 week C25K type plan from the Guardian website which was mainly run/walk sessions, and, despite some niggles from my knees and feet which had never had to deal with any sort of sustained impact, I got to mid-September being able to run a constant pace for 5k for the first time in my life. Safe to say I was very pleased with myself, especially considering how hard the first few sessions had been.

After that I decided to follow the Guardian’s 10k plan which would take me up to the Aware 10k in December. The lead up to this involved my first full lap of the Park which was great, and the Aware run itself was my first time to cover 10k in one go. I did that in 49.39, which is my one and only official time over that distance.

Coming into this year I had a couple of goals/resolutions. At about this time I found the forums here on Boards and realised I had been going about things the wrong way – like most beginners I was going for a PB on every run. So the first thing I decided was to try to run at least 4 times a week, and to include an LSR. The goals then were to try to go sub-45 for 10k by the end of the year, and to run the Dublin Half-Marathon in 1.45.

For the most part I’ve kept to that, and there’s definitely been a lot more structure to my running this year. In February I got myself a Garmin and in March I had (unofficially) done 10k around the Park in under 47.

So why start a log now? Well, I'd been toying with idea for a while but running the Terenure 5 mile on Sunday made me more motivated to get it together. I started the race with a goal of 37 mins, but really surprised myself by finishing in just over 35mins. I was basing my goal on my unofficial 10k time, and to see the improvement since then was really surprising. A friend from work did 35ish in Raheny in January and I remember thinking I’d never be able for that, so it was a really great feeling on Sunday to do it, particularly as I went past him in the final straight!

So I hope starting a log will be a great way to keep a record of my running from here on in, which will also help me be disciplined enough to keep improving, as well as hopefully getting some advice along the way.

FrClintPower

Goals

So, up to last weekend I had in mind to aim for sub-45 for 10km by the end of the year, with sub-1.45 for the half-marathon in September but after Terenure I need to aim a bit lower. As well as that, I've only got the two official PBs, for the 10k and the 5 mile, so I want to get some other distances under the belt.

According to McMillan, 35.16 for the 5 mile equates to 44ish for the 10km and 1.38ish for the half. I'm going to be doing the Race Series 10km, 10 mile and Half so I'll be looking to progress as I go through those. At the moment I'm thinking of aiming for -

Swords 10k - 43mins
Frank Duffy 10 Mile - 72mins
Half-Marathon - 1hr35

Anyway, I'll be keeping them under review as I go along. 43mins for the 10k will mean going faster, for further, than I did in Terenure, but sure why not?!

I've got a couple of months before that so I'll look to find an 8 week 10k plan (I'll have to have a good look at the "Best 10k Plan" thread again), and then move on to some sort of half-marathon plan to take me from the end of July to the end of September. The 10k plan will have to accommodate a go at a 5k to get some sort of PB there as well, maybe try for sub-21mins.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes!

blockic

Best of luck Clint, you have got on great so far. This log will definitely give the motivation to get to the next level.

digger2d2

Best of luck with the log... I'm trying really hard not to comment on the title so I'll just say that considering your username I hope I don't hear Blasphemous Rumours..... Right, I'll get my coat... Again

FrClintPower

blockic wrote: »

Best of luck Clint, you have got on great so far. This log will definitely give the motivation to get to the next level.

thanks blockic

FrClintPower

digger2d2 wrote: »

Best of luck with the log... I'm trying really hard not to comment on the title so I'll just say that considering your username I hope I don't hear Blasphemous Rumours..... Right, I'll get my coat... Again

good try!

FrClintPower

Right, time for a recap of the week's running since Terenure -

Monday 20 May - 14.51km in 1.16.49 (5.18/km, 8.29/m)

Managed to get out for a nice easy run by the Royal Canal to Coolmine and back in through Castleknock and the Park. Gets pretty wild along the canal past the M50, but I'm looking forward to exploring out a bit further in future. The legs were a bit sore after the race the day before but I've read it can be a good idea to get used to running on sore legs, so job done.

Wednesday 22 May - 7.21km in 39.50 (5.32/km, 8.51/m)

A short recovery run at lunchtime, down around the quays and Lansdowne Road. Had to concentrate on trying to keep the pace down.

Thursday 21 May - 8.00km in 41.00 (5.08/km, 8.13/m)

Travelling for work, so it was the hotel treadmill at 10pm. Realised a while ago that doing interval-type sessions is less mind-numbingly boring than just running a steady pace on the treadmill, so I did 2km warm-up, 3 x 1km intervals at 4.20/km, 7.00/m, with 3 minutes recoveries, and then a 1.5km warm-down. I'd tried to do similar a couple of times over the last month and had found it so difficult that I gave up early each time, but this time it seemed much easier and I was very happy to have done what I had set out to do. Would have done some more but it was getting late. Either I've gotten fitter in the meantime, or my Terenure time has given me the confidence to "HTFU".

Sunday 24 May - 13.29km in 1.05.38 (4.56/km, 7.53/m)

With work and family stuff I couldn't get out again until 9pm on Sunday evening, so I went for a bit of a medium pace run rather than an LSR. The route was pretty hilly, so the pace varied a bit.

Weekly Total - 43.01km, 26.73 miles

I'll be starting my 8 week 10k plan to take me up to the Fingal 10k this week, I'm going to try the sessions in the "Best 10k plan" thread, so on Wednesday I'll be attempting 6 x 1 mile at 4.18/km, 6.55/m. It'll be tough, but I'm hoping my newly-discovered HTFU reserves will help!

statss

best of luck with it, you've very similar goals/times to me so I'll be following your progress with interest.

FrClintPower

statss wrote: »

best of luck with it, you've very similar goals/times to me so I'll be following your progress with interest.

cheers statss. i've been following your log very closely over the last few months for similar reasons! i hope the injury's coming along well.

FrClintPower

Tuesday 28 May - 8.08km in 42.06 (5.13/km, 8.20/m)

An easy enough run today at lunchtime down the quays and back with a loop around Lansdowne Road. Good to see plenty of people running along the river at lunchtime and the legs are nice and loose before tomorrow's fear-inducing first session of my 10k plan.

FrClintPower

Wednesday 9 May - 15.48km in 1.17.37 (5.01/km, 8.02/m)

Right, today was the first of the McMillan 10k plan sessions, 6 x 1 mile at race pace, with 3(ish!) minute recovery jogs in between.

Travelling for work today but had some free time in the afternoon so I was able to do this session in Jubelpark in Brussels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubelpark), where I've done a fair bit of running over the last few months. There's a jogging trail pretty much the whole way around and it's just over 2km a lap, so it was a good fit to do mile intervals with recovery jogs in between.

I'd been looking forward to/fearing this session for the last few days - in the back of my mind I wonder if the 35.16 in Terenure might have been a bit of a fluke. In order to get 43mins in the Fingal 10k I need to have a pace of 6.55 per mile so the aim today was to hit 6.55 to 7.00 per mile. The results were

Mile 1 - 6.59
Mile 2 - 7.06
Mile 3 - 7.08
Mile 4 - 7.04
Mile 5 - 6.58
Mile 6 - 7.06

Overall not too bad, averaging 7.03 per mile, although only two of the miles were in the target range. But this sort of pace is more 44mins than 43 mins. So from that point of view it's a bit disappointing. The other downside was that the recovery jogs where 3.30-4.00 mins long because I wanted to start each mile in exactly the same place and the lap of the park was slightly too long to get to the start again in 3 mins.

On the positive side, my fastest mile was the second from last which is nice. Most importantly I managed to do all 6, despite some serious negotiating with myself during the 4th mile! I have to admit the fact that I'd be writing the results in this log certainly helped to keep me going, I've no doubt I would have bailed out earlier a couple of weeks ago. I can probably also give myself a couple of seconds per mile because the park slopes from one end to the other, and I was running uphill for over half of each mile, and getting some of that back during the recovery jog, so each mile probably had a net climb of 7 or 8 metres .

Anyway, I'm going to stick with the 43mins target for the moment and see how I get on in two weeks with the 1 x 2 mile + 4 x 1 mile session before making any decisions. That 2 mile interval is going to be one tuff mudder though!

career_move

That was a good session. I wouldn't worry too much about the recoveries being a bit longer. Well done. I have that session pencilled in in about 8 weeks

statss

Good session, well done. I've no doubt your in the condition to hit a 43 min 10k time, based on that 5mile time. I'm doing the race series too all going well so we can pace each other over the line in the 10k for 42.59 :-)

FrClintPower

statss wrote: »

Good session, well done. I've no doubt your in the condition to hit a 43 min 10k time, based on that 5mile time. I'm doing the race series too all going well so we can pace each other over the line in the 10k for 42.59 :-)

Deal!

FrClintPower

career_move wrote: »

That was a good session. I wouldn't worry too much about the recoveries being a bit longer. Well done. I have that session pencilled in in about 8 weeks

thanks for that, i was looking at the garmin data today and noticed that the recoveries got much slower as the session went on as well. and best of luck with it yourself!

FrClintPower

Thursday 30 May - 4.50 miles in 41.18, 9.10 per mile

I had no problem keeping the pace down today during an easy recovery run in the Park. The legs were pretty stiff after the session yesterday but they loosened up a fair bit after the first couple of miles. Lovely weather for it too.

I've decided to finally make the jump to miles for good as well. I tried to switch before but kept mentally converting back to kms all the time, but now I keep mentally converting to miles. While I'm using mile intervals over the next few weeks seems as good a time as any to change over.

Ososlo

FrClintPower wrote: »

Thursday 30 May - 4.50 miles in 41.18, 9.10 per mile

I had no problem keeping the pace down today during an easy recovery run in the Park. The legs were pretty stiff after the session yesterday but they loosened up a fair bit after the first couple of miles. Lovely weather for it too.

I've decided to finally make the jump to miles for good as well. I tried to switch before but kept mentally converting back to kms all the time, but now I keep mentally converting to miles. While I'm using mile intervals over the next few weeks seems as good a time as any to change over.

yah! great news:D

FrClintPower

Friday 31 May - 4.47 miles in 35.41, 7.59 per mile

Legs felt much better after yesterday's slow run so I went out at a quicker pace this evening. First and fourth miles were at about 7.30 pace, slowed it down a bit in the middle as I went cross-country and then up the Khyber Road, and jogged the last half mile very slowly.

Slight niggly pain in the left knee which I'll have to watch, but nothing planned tomorrow and then a 10-12 mile LSR on Sunday morning. Pretty sure this has been the first time I've run four days in a row, which is nice, and it feels like they've been quality days of running too.

FrClintPower

Sunday 2 June - 12.00 miles in 1.44.09, 8.41 per mile Ave HR 143

Got up early for an LSR today, was cloudy for the first half but lovely and bright for the last 6 miles or so. Took in most of the hills in and around the Park, including White's Road, Military Road in both directions, Khyber Road and Upper Glen Road. Thankfully there was no problem with the left knee which had been a bit sore on Friday evening, but I tried to limit the impact on it, particularly by walking down Knockmaroon Hill. Overall, an enjoyable slog.

I enjoyed using the HR monitor on this one too. I hadn't used it in a while because I couldn't find it, but after a good half hour of searching the house I eventually found it in a bag full of plastic bags in the garage - why didn't I look there before !?!?!

I reckon 140 is about 70% of my max HR so I tried to keep it at or below that, and only let it creep up a bit when going uphill, and I found it great for keeping an even effort - I can subconsciously get caught up in keeping an even rhythm of paces rather than even effort. I've been messing around with it a bit, but I think I'll try to get a better handle on my Min and Max HRs so that I can use it properly.

Weekly Total - 35.65 miles

I managed to run 5 times this week which was great, and I'm happy with 35ish miles. That's a bit more than I've generally run in a week so I'll be aiming to keep it at about that level. Next week I'll be trying to get a hill rep session in.

FrClintPower

Tuesday 4 June - 5.31 miles in 44.00, 8.17 per mile Ave HR 143

A nice lunchtime run in the Irish summer sun in the usual loop down around the quays, Lansdowne and the Canal. Had intended to go a bit slower, but I was running with someone else which can tend to bring the pace up a bit (depending on the other person of course).

Thursday 6 June - 12.53 miles in 2.00.05, 9.35 per mile Ave HR 144

Travelling today with work, but had a few hours to kill in the afternoon. I had thought I'd do some hill reps today to fill the "off-week" between the mile intervals in the McMillan plan, but I had enough time to get a long run in so I thought I'd get it out of the way and do the (shorter) session at the weekend. I've got the next McMillan session pencilled on for next Thursday.

I decided I'd really try to keep the pace down in this one, I've seen in the other logs how much more slowly people do their LSRs compared to their normal runs. To do this I started off trying to keep the HR below 140, and generally succeeded up to about halfway, but after that I would have had to start walking to get it to go that low. I'm not sure why that was, although I'd imagine the heat had something to do with it - 25 degrees today in Brussels.

I decided to go for 2 hours, so today's run is the longest I've ever done in both time and distance.

FrClintPower

Friday 7 June - 3.98 miles in 37.13, 9.20 per mile

Early morning recovery run after the long run the day before. The legs were very stiff for the first mile or so, so it was definitely worth it.

Saturday 8 June - 2.85 miles in 22.32, 7.55 per mile

I could still feel some stiffness in the legs today so I went for a late quick run to loosen them out ahead of the hill session tomorrow. First couple of miles were at 7.30 pace and then slowed it down for the rest. Nice to pick up the pace a bit after so many slow miles earlier in the week.

FrClintPower

Sunday 9 June - 7.50 miles in 1.01.03, 8.08 per mile Ave HR 147 Max HR 176

Right, so yesterday evening I had my first hill rep session to fill in the week between McMillan mile interval sessions. I'd decided that Upper Glen Road in the Phoenix Park would be the best place for this, it's steep, steady and long enough, so I had a nice 2 mile run there at about 8.00 pace. I couldn't get going straight away though as there was an oul' lad slowly wheeling his bike up the path, so I hung around for a few minutes stretching until he was out of the way.

I'd decided to try for 8-10 * 60-70 secs, depending on where the handiest landmark to mark the distance was. In the end the distance was 0.19 miles per rep and I did 8 as follows -

Rep 1 - 1.08 @6.01 Max HR 166
Rep 2 - 1.05 @5.39 Max HR 171
Rep 3 - 1.04 @5.36 Max HR 174
Rep 4 - 1.08 @5.59 Max HR 173
Rep 5 - 1.09 @6.07 Max HR 174
Rep 6 - 1.07 @5.51 Max HR 174
Rep 7 - 1.09 @6.07 Max HR 171
Rep 8 - 1.07 @5.56 Max HR 175

Overall I was happy enough with them, they're nice and consistent from 4-8. Having not done them before it took a couple to find the right pace effort to hold for the distance. On the "Best 10k Workout" thread it was advised to only do them so long as the time wasn't slowing by more than a few seconds or the HR wasn't getting higher each rep so I think they were fine from that point of view. I think the HR was lower on the first two because I'd had to wait around before starting. I was happy to get 8 done in the end as well, I was pretty wobbly for the 7th rep but got it back together for the last one.

After that, 2.2 miles home which turned into a short progression run, paces were 10.20 (immediately after the last rep), 8.40, 8.00, 7.30 for each half-mile and 7.03 for the last 0.20 miles.

The legs feel good today after it as well, but I'll just have a couple of easy runs this week before doing the 1*2 mile and 4*1 mile session on Thursday.

Edit - Weekly Total - 32.17 miles

Got out for 5 days again this week, but slightly less mileage than last week. Still happy to keep it over 30 miles though.

RunningKing

Great session. Is that the hill by the Magazine Fort?
What recovery did you take?

FrClintPower

RunningKing wrote: »

Great session. Is that the hill by the Magazine Fort?
What recovery did you take?

Thanks, although I'm not sure I paced it right. It's the hill to the left as you come in the Chapelizod gate - not quite as steep as the hill by the Magazine Fort but it's steep enough! I started just opposite the entrance to Cara Cheshire Home, there's a metal post there marking a neolithic mound, and then ran up the hill about 300m to where there's another metal post just as it starts to flatten a bit.

The recoveries where between 2.00 and 2.30, getting to the higher end of that range towards the end. They probably could have been a bit shorter, but I was jogging nice and slowly back down the hill and then giving myself a short jogging run up to the next rep.

I'm looking forward to trying it again in a few weeks and seeing how I get on next time.

FrClintPower

Monday 10 June - 3.30 miles in 28.55, 8.46 per mile

Headed out for an easy few miles this evening as I definitely won't be getting out tomorrow with travelling for work. Left home just as it started raining and it only got stronger as time went on - amazing scenes!

First time I've run 5 day in a row, although 3 of those days only amounted to 10 easy miles in total.

FrClintPower

Wednesday 12 June - 9.13 miles in 1.20.51, 8.51 per mile

No running on Tuesday because of work travel, which was even longer than expected because of the air traffic controllers strike, so I was really looking forward to a good run yesterday, and I finally got to head out around 9pm. I was in Strasbourg, which I knew is close to Germany, but I didn't realise it's right on the border, so I thought I'd run over the border and visit Germany for the first time. Beautiful evening for a run and Strasbourg is actually a really nice city to have a look around, and I took my phone with me to take photos of the Rhine.

Unfortunately I didn't have a map though, and the river I snapped was not the Rhine. In fact it wasn't even a river, but a canal on the edge of the city - I'd stopped about half a mile short of the border. Fail.

Thursday 13 June - 10.90 miles in 1.28.55, 8.10 per mile Ave HR 151

A more successful day's running today though. Got home for the airport in the afternoon and headed straight out the door for the second of the McMillan mile interval sessions, 1*2 mile +4*1 mile.

Headed down to the Fifteen Acres in the Phoenix Park and took my time getting there to let the muscles get well warmed up after yesterday evening's run. The weather was nice and clear but very blustery, which was hard work when I was facing into the wind on part of each loop, which can be seen in some of the half-mile paces (in brackets) -

Interval 1 - 2 miles in 13.41.7 @6.51 (6.23, 6.51, 7.12, 6.57)
Interval 2 - 1 mile @6.55 (6.45, 7.04)
Interval 3 - 1 mile @6.51 (6.53, 6.48)
Interval 4 - 1 mile @6.57 (7.02, 6.52)
Interval 5 - 1 mile @6.53 (6.58, 6.49)

I went off way too fast on the first one, and a combination of that and the wind meant the third half-mile ws much slower. Overall though I'm extremely happy with how it went, especially how consistent it was. I got through the 6*1 mile a couple of weeks ago with an average pace of 7.03 when I was hoping for 6.55-7.00, so the average of 6.53 for this session is great. Recoveries were 5 mins after the first one and 3 mins after that, I walked the first minute of each of them and then jogged. HR peaked at around 170 on each interval, which is 90%+ of my max HR.

I had the best sensation I've ever had running on the slow run home as well, I was pretty thirsty and hot and the heavens opened - really heavy, cold rain - which felt absolutely amazing.

Anyway, next week's "off-week" session might be either the Docklands 5k on Thursday or the Pride 5k on Friday to see what kind of pace I can sustain over that distance. I'll be hoping for sub-21 as that would mean I'm probably on track for my sub-43 target for 10k. It'll be a PB no matter what as it'll be my first 5k.

RunningKing

Well done - it can be a horrible session, but rewarding - the wind can be a factor too, but it'll stand to you in races.
The important thing is that your reps are all consistent.

I see you ran home - Do you live near there?

Have a look at the Docklands 5k thread - seems they changed the 10k course, so looks like there'll be more congestion.
Have you tried the Park Runs yet? Good for a 5k session.

FrClintPower

RunningKing wrote: »

Well done - it can be a horrible session, but rewarding - the wind can be a factor too, but it'll stand to you in races.
The important thing is that your reps are all consistent.

I see you ran home - Do you live near there?

Have a look at the Docklands 5k thread - seems they changed the 10k course, so looks like there'll be more congestion.
Have you tried the Park Runs yet? Good for a 5k session.

Yeah, thankfully it didn't feel horrible but I was glad when it was over! Definitely a lot more confident now about going sub-43 based on those reps.

I live just outside the Cabra Gate - I think being so close to the Park was a big part of me taking up running in the first place as well as making it stick. Great to have it on the doorstep.

I hadn't seen the Docklands thread, but I'm leaning towards the Pride Run anyway as I know some people doing it. And it's in the Fifteen Acres which would be really handy!

FrClintPower

Saturday 15 June - 4.00 miles in 35.55, 8.59 per mile

A really enjoyable short, easy run up and down a bit of Chesterfield Avenue, a lovely evening to be out and about even if the sun isn't splitting the stones any more.

I stayed on the grass as much as possible, I've had a bit of pain in the joint in the ball of my right foot so I wanted to keep the impact down. I've had the pain before and it's gone away without too much trouble, but I'm conscious that I've upped the mileage a fair bit over the last few weeks, from 20-25 miles (in a good week) to 30-35 miles, so I'll be trying not to take it for granted.

I'm planning on an early morning 10-12 miles in the morning to round the week off, the weather's meant to be nice.

FrClintPower

Sunday 16 June - 8.24 miles in 1.15.06, 9.07 per mile Ave HR 139

Didn't get out for the hoped for 10-12 miles this morning because my alarm clock/two-year-old son didn't wake up as early as expected. Probably for the best as I woke up with a pain in the outside of my left knee (ITB?) this morning and didn't shake it during the run. I stuck to the grass and trails around the Phoenix Park and was overtaken in style by Cathríona McKiernan at one point.

Weekly Total - 35.26 miles

Another 5 run week, including a good interval session, so I'm happy with that.

I'm going to give the legs a bit of a rest this week, apart from the left knee the ball of right foot is still a bit sore and there's other general aches and pains. I'll probably just have a couple of short easy runs between Monday and Thursday, maybe go a for a cycle too, before hopefully taking part in the Pride 5k on Friday where I'll be hoping for sub-21.

I'll be investing in a new pair of runners this week too, my entire running career (about 650 miles) has been in the same pair of Nikes which are starting to wear out a bit. I think I might go for a foam roller too to see if that helps with the left knee. It can't do any harm anyway.

RunningKing

Try the Nike outlet in Blanch if you like Nike?
Great value in there.