The main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing

RedRunner

Might see you Sunday so. Looking forward to it. I'm sure you'll do well. You've a lot of quality stuff here and you've got the added incentive of it being your own club's race.

overpronator

Great training going on here AMK, fair play.

tang1

Good luck Sunday AMK, i'd say a PB is possible, plenty of depth in the field for you to work with/off.

adrian522

Best of luck Sunday, might see around after!

FBOT01

Best of luck today. Eyeballs out all the way. ENJOY!!

MisterDrak

Well ?

AuldManKing

MSB 5km

17.55 today - was very disappointed with it, wanted 10 seconds faster (at least) but will take the sub 18.
Some folks measured the course long, but my Garmin had it 3.10 bang on.

Splits were 5:43/5:43/5.55 - so the last mile tells it own story. 35 seconds (5.47 pace for the last 0.1, so I couldn't even muster a sprint finish )

I taper'd well- maybe too well - this week, didn't drink Fri/Sat - just one of those days.

Plus points were seeing so many Boardsies running and supporting.
Super Joe was in fine voice, shouting at the start and also at the end of my race but more importantly as I was warming down, he was still there shouting and encouraging. Also a great shout from DrQ - much appreciated.

From a racing perspective it wasn't great as a club mate of mine was just ahead of me and I 'tried' to catch her but couldn't (In hindsight I didnt try hard enough).

Numbers are an amazing thing

2 weeks ago, I done a parkrun with no taper and a big meal with a half bottle of wine the night before and was just 16 seconds slower.
I'd have been happier with 10 seconds faster today - Thats 2 seconds per KM. Longer than it takes to read this sentence

Not wanting to be doom and gloom about it - it was a windy day, there were plenty of twists and turns, it was my 2nd time under 18 minutes and it is early in the season - so there are many positives.

Its amazing how numbers disappoint you, like for example 3-0

Onwards and upwards - next race is Dunboyne 4m in 2 weeks - no pressure on me, never ran a 4m before, so it'll be a PB no matter what.

Edit:
Special mention to Cleanman for his comeback PB & MS for her age category prize.

RedRunner

Nice run today A. I spotted you at the start line but you were too far away to say hello. Really enjoyed the race and got to meet Dan earlier before the race so got to put a face to a name which is always good.. I think my work crowd brought some colour to the race too!:)

Well organised by MSB. More than one person commented to me about this.

RedRunner

BTW MSB have some great little Juniors. Very impressive .

adrian522

RedRunner wrote: »

Well organised by MSB. More than one person commented to me about this.

Agree with this, giving out the T-shirt before hand greatly reduced congestion afterwards.

Easy enough to get the bag from the bag drop etc. Good setup all in all.

Killerz

Nice catching up with you today A. Apologies was in my own world afterwards and never asked how you got on! Sounds like you had a similar experience to me overall - also had a good parkrun last week with little prep, and was a little disappointed today. Also think the course was measured spot on, so no complaints there from me anyhow. Well done on the sub 18 and on we go!

Tom Joad

Well done on the sub 18 - says a lot about the progress you have made that you are disappointed with it. Onwards and upwards.

MisterDrak

Solid Run A, nothing wrong with sub 18...

Doing Dunboyne myself, I might take your taper advice for the Saturday, and down a half bottle of red !!!

Duanington

As others have already said - sub 18 is sub 18 and the fact that you're disappointed with it speaks volumes for where your training\head is at these days. No doubt there's a lot more to come this year

AuldManKing

Sunday PM: Drank my body weight in Wine & Guinness.

Monday: 10m @ 7:08 pace.
One of those angry runs where you throw every conceivable toy out of the pram, then proceed to put them back, in a more orderly fashion.

Plan: Monitor diet, more tempos, fewer 8:30 paced slogs (not recovery runs).

Tuesday: 4.3m recovery @ 8:44 pace - not so much a slog - I stupidly brought the dog to the PP for the 1st time in months, then realised why I dont bring her to the PP anymore. Spent a lot of time waiting for her at roads.
Still a nice recovery run.

Off then for a walk along Killiney beach for St Patricks day..............as you do.

Wednesday: Stop the press - didn't go to club session - done tempo instead.

I kinda felt guilty about not going to the club session, our coach is a nice man and gives his time freely to do this, but in fairness - another set of reps is not what I need and with 2 races coming fairly soon, I wouldn't get a chance for a decent tempo for a couple of weeks.

Found this Tempo session on the Strava Blog as a 'Workout of the Week'.

3x9 mins - the 9 mins are run as 1 continous run but is broken into 3x3min segments (15 sec slower than Tempo / Tempo / 15 secs faster than tempo). Its a great way to break it up pschologically psycholigology mentally .
Really enjoyed it, especially as the legs were still a bit tired from Mondays run.

Rep 1 Ave Pace: 6:31/6:15/6:01
Rep 2 Ave Pace: 6:31/6:07/6:03
Rep 3 Ave Pace: 6:23/6:12/6:01

Next time I'll aim for slightly faster times - I was basing my tempo pace at 6:15, which is conservative.
Enjoyed the session.

With WU&CD brought it close to 9 miles.

AuldManKing

Thur 19th: Rest day - done some core work.

Fri 20th: 6m + strides in PP - easy paced run about 8m/m

Sat: Club session - 25xHills

We do a hill session down at the back of the Furry Glen - 2 trails at right angles leading out of the glen to the Furze/OS intersection.
Typically we'd do 20 or 22 of these and some of the newer runners would do 14-16.
After a v quick start on the 1st few (chasing a faster guy), I was finding it difficult and thought about stopping at 16.
The faster guy stopped at 16 so I went on, do 2 more, do 2 more - then someone said "no one has ever done more than 24" - $hit - why did they have to say that.
My competitive instincts set in and I got a 2nd wind. 25 in the bag.

Sun: $hit - why do my Glutes hurt so much??
Why am I finding 8 min/mile pace tough?
Why am I not doing the full 'planned' 15m and stopping after 13m (8min mile pace)



Mon: 4.19 @ 8:22 - recovery with the Madra across the road from the house - listening to Rob Watson - always makes me laugh out loud and get strange looks.

Mon PM: Gym session - good session. Legs feeling ok now. Have moved from 1 'pull up' to 10. Just champion. and I officially hate burpees.

Tuesday: 6m@ 8 min/miles - metronomic run to the PP and back through Ashtown Gate. Listening to the goings on about the Spen 20 race on Marathon Talk. The joys of social media.
Good to hear of a lad from round here winning a pair of earphones though.

Wednesday Club session - Track - 2x(500/900/5min) 90 secs between reps - 3.5 mins between sets

Was absolutely bucketing down when I reached Santry and very windy on one side (I think its always windy on that straight).
Coach gave us a talking too about respecting 5ks too much and not 'pushing hard enough' or not having the confidence to push hard early on.
I swear he was looking at me.

500: 1.40 / 1.39
900: 3:14 / 3:13
5 mins: 0.86 miles - 5:53 pace / 0.87 miles - 5:51 pace (Aim was to finish further than the 1st rep)

The wind and rain were unbelievable - I dont think I've done a session in weather like it before and definitely impacted the pace. I felt strong through out and was very surprised afterwards to see the pace for the 5 mins was slower than 5km pace.
The effort was certainly there.

I plan to race on Sunday in Dunboyne - no expectations on this - I wont be tapering for it & going out to enjoy it as much as I can. Weather is planned to be rainy & windy - so ideal 'excuse' weather .

Hopefully see a few of you around.

AuldManKing

Thursday: 6.43m @ 8:08 pace around the PP - great to run some parts of the park I haven't ran in a while (the Khyber Downhill).

Friday: No running - going through another reorg at work which is keeping me late - didn't get out til all hours - was at least 5:30pm

Saturday: Am: Top of the table U15 clash with Clanna Gael - Castleknock prevail by 6 points Delighted, but by Chri$t it took a lot out of me.
Followed this by going to watch daughter #2 play a massive part in beating Foxrock Cabinteely by 2 points. My Heart.

Came home and went out with the dog for 4 miles with 6 20 second strides.

Sunday: Dunboyne 4 Mile Race

I really dont like Sunday Races. They mess up your training schedule. Play havoc with your drinking schedule. And ruin your visits to your mother (well, maybe they have benefits )

Sunday was a bit of a strange day anyway as D#1 was off on a friends b'day and sleepover and D#2 was studying all day while wifey was in Cavan and we had a painter doing the house in the morning. Not too sure why this is important, but just throwing it in

I set off for Dunboyne, aiming to get there for about 2:20 - got parking handy enough and registration was done in seconds - great set up. (Note to Ososlo - dont get there so early!! )
Pinned on the number and went for warm down #1 - 1 mile and went back to the car for a few mins to drop the gear and make a key decision on arm warmers or not. I had met PConn earlier (who wasnt running) and knew his camera skills, so given the flak I've given him in the past, I decided to not wear them today .

Warm up #2 was another mile to the start line with some strides and a meet up with some club mates.

I lined up at the start line alongside some illustrious company with many of the D&D Ladies team - as MC, MK & TF (#1,2,3 in the mens race) made their way in to the pen.
Before the race I was introduced to Sara Treacy (female #1) by a Dunboyne running mate who runs with us on Sundays. Lovely girl (both of them).

My target today was originally 23:20 - but had figured with the wind, maybe 20 secs slower??

We were set off and as usual I made a bad start by going off too quick - 1st 0.5m was clocked in 5:30 - reigned it back in the 2nd 0.5m. The wind wasn't too noticable until we left the village then it could be felt - Jaysus.
1st mile was 5:44 - a little too fast and I'd knew this might bite me later.

Between mile 1@ 2 the wind was a fecker - it wasn't in our face but was strong enough at an angle to be very troublesome. Pace was skirting around a lot in this mile and I noticed a female club member (5th lady) being blown a few times to the left onto the other side of the road.
Mile 2 was 5:52 and I was on my target for 4 x 5:50 miles and a 23:20 finish.

1st part of Mile 3 was on the motorway and I know I lost some time here - a guy who beat me in Hartstown PR & I beat in MSB 5km was just ahead of me, I wanted to keep him close, but he looked very comfortable today.
As we rounded the roundabout, we felt the breeze at our back for the 1st time, heaven, I noticed the pace increase, but could do nothing about the overall average pace for mile 3 which was 5:54. Still ok and still feeling ok.

At this stage I reminded myself about form and tried to lean forward in my running rather than run tall as I normally do - I think this lasted 5 seconds
It was great going through the town again and got shouts from loads of people, an amazing number of people, before I realised that their was a guy beside me called Alan who was wearing a Dunboyne vest!!

We hit mile 3 and I was starting to feel the burn - 5km was in 18:10 which was ok and in the ballpark of what it should have been.
We turned the corner after the school and my God - it was like running in a wind tunnel.
The next 0.6-0.75 miles were into a firece headwind and really knocked the stuffing out of us. I managed to overtake about 5-6 guys who were around me for the whole race, but then realised that I was running into the wind on my own.

We rounded another corner into the village and I knew we had about 400 left. quick check of the watch showed a very tough mile 4 was about 6:20 pace at that stage - I took heart from overtaking some other people and tried hard to give it welly - I felt I was going at 5:00 pace, but looking at my final 0.25 split later it was actually 6:02 pace! I managed to finish mile 4 in 6:14 and finish the whole race in 23:52.

Once finished, I dry reached, which I was quite happy about. Nothing says you ran a good race quite like a dry reach

Overall - initially disappointed, but satisfied - after talking to others - I'm happy - but the guy from Hartstown PR beat me by quite a bit. I need to fix that!!

Great race and done a partial warmdown with the clubmates before getting my jacket and meeting Ososlo for a good chat.

Into the community center and had some nice cake and more cake and more cake and then more cake, and seen my name on the top 10 Over 40's, new entry at #8 - my life is so-so complete.

Training wise, something has to change. I cant keep doing the usual 5km distance training at 3km pace which is our customary diet. I think I need to do some 2m reps, more tempos etc - so will need to mix things up a bit.

K-Club in 2 weeks: I need to see if this is worthwhile racing - someone mentioned to me today to do it as a quick tempo rather than a race, it may help with a lot of aspects!

Great reading all the reports tonight. I haven't been on Boards as much recently, but it really reminded me why I am here in the 1st place.

FBOT01

Yoga mid-race may not be the way to go

AuldManKing

Monday: AM: 8.5m @ 7.57 pace - nice early pre-work run through the park.
PM: Gym class - keeping up with the 10 pull ups. Might try 11 next time 'cos I'm a devil like that.

Tuesday: 5 miles @ 8:09 pace - out with the dog - 10x0.5m laps......exhilarating. For a bit of fun, I changed direction a couple of times. Yep - I'm a party animal.

Wed: Club session - 3x(500m/5mins) (90s between reps / 3:30 between sets)

"dont be going through the motions on the 5 mins......focus yourself each lap." were the words of the coach as we were doing this session.
Definitely rang through for me as I felt myself slowing only for his shouts to wake me up.
I wonder how often I do this 'uncorrected' in races.

Set 1:
500: 1.33 - much too fast.
5 mins: 5:43 pace / 0.88m (1st lap was wayyyy to fast)

Set 2:
500: 1.40 -
5 mins: 5:47 pace / 0.88m (legs a bit jelly after this)

Set 3:
500: 1.39 -
5 mins: 5:49 pace / 0.87m

What I found amazing about this session was that despite Jelly legs before the 3rd rep, on the 5 minute rep I felt like I was crawling and going at tempo pace. I was amazed that I finished the 5 min just short of my last 2 efforts. I thought I'd be further back.

During the longer reps, the coach was giving constant feedback on form and times - telling me to lean more fwd - focus more - I'm going too slow etc.

After the race on Sunday, this was a good session - I was well and truly spent after it. No doubt I still had it in my legs.

total mileage: 7.77

AuldManKing

Thursday: Got a call about a game of football followed by PGF drinks - too hard to turn down. 1st game of football in a while. Silky skills were still there though.....cough cough.....

Friday ouch....ouch....ouch...... 6.7m 8.24 pace - cant believe how sore and tired the body was.

Saturday: Didn't go to the club session - had decided to go 8x1km at 10k pace later in the afternoon. Got a call with a free ticket to the Leinster match - went along to see a dour drab affair. Even Johnny wont fix it.

Didn't do post match drinks & Got back at a reasonable hour so set off to the polo grounds for the session.

WU & Strides 2.25miles

reps were;
3:45 (6:00 pace)
3:45
3:45
3:43
3:40
3:47
3:39
3:40

Recovery varied between 45-60 seconds.

2m warm down.

After many sessions of 3k-5k paced stuff - this felt great to do.

Total mileage: 9.6m

Sunday: 13:11 miles @ 7:48. Done and dusted by 10am. Tired legs.

51 miles for the week + 1 game of football. Not too shabby.
Will ruin it all next week as I'm in Galway with the family

Micilin Muc

AuldManKing wrote: »

Will ruin it all next week as I'm in Galway with the family

Nice! Where are you staying?

I would offer to bring you on a run but my VO2 max pace is slightly slower than your recoveries

AuldManKing

Thanks F - much appreciate it.
Staying near the city, wont be much running done next week, maybe 3-4 miles each day if I'm lucky

ThebitterLemon

AuldManKing wrote: »

Thanks F - much appreciate it.
Staying near the city, wont be much running done next week, maybe 3-4 miles each day if I'm lucky

I'll offer my dating services, seeing as you didn't ask!

Could meet you for a few miles any time that suited you.

Just don't be embarrassing me by wearing a singlet AND gloves (as in pic above )

TbL

AuldManKing

Work is bedlam right now - wouldn't be an American multinational without a regular reorg - hence the lack of updates.

Mon: 6th No running - travel to Galway for a few days.

Tuesday: big set of pitches beside the hotel, so found an hour to do a mini session.

2m WU + Strides.
2x1m + 4x30 seconds: (5:52/5:54 for the miles - 3 min Rec)

6m total.

Wednesday: Hotel Gym - 2m treadmill and some upper body work. - only had 30-40 mins for this.

Thursday: No running - slight Hamstring/Glute niggle. - rolling it with a sliothar.

Friday 4m inc 6 100m strides.

Sat 11th: KClub 10k - BHAA - 37:42

Not a goal race by any stretch, but I wanted a few things from the race;
(1) Experience at 10km pacing (only ran 1 last 12 months)
(2) No massive last mile slump like Dunboyne.
(3) Get a good fast tempo effort into the legs.

The race ticked all 3 points, the fact I got a PB was a bonus - although I had a soft PB - still disappointed as a guy I'm normally close to in races ran 36:4x

It gave me a confidence builder on pacing, so I'd be confident of a faster outing in my next 10km or 5m race.

2 things for me to build on;
* Running through discomfort - I've been very 'soft' in last 3 races.
* More tempos - some done, more planned.

On the social side - it was great meeting up with so many Boardsies at the race. I forgot Meno was my coach

10.5 miles total inc WU/CD

Sunday: 8.8m@8.18 pace - About 6-7 out for this.
Running through horizontal rain for some of this. Turned out to be a very good laugh and one of the most enjoyable & memorable runs in a while.

Monday: DOMs central today. Had a massage mid day which helped somewhat. Didn't do the Gym session - opted for a 4m recovery instead.

Tues: 6.2m @ 7:42 - nice run to the PP and back. Legs still a bit 'meh'.........

Wednesday: Club Session 3x(5min/500m) - started with a 5min - 3 min R - 500m - 90s R - 5 mins etc

The 5 minute run seems to becoming a staple in the last few weeks.
All my 3 '5 min' efforts finished in a similar part of the track, which was a lot further along than previous weeks - so progress being made.

I pushed hard in 2 of the 500m (90 secs - 1st and last) – my middle one was also 5secs faster (95s) than the previous weeks.

Coach told us afterwards that these are good for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that you see visibly that you can run the last effort as far as the 1st one, despite the feeling of fatigue and tiredness in the legs.

PaulieC

gotta love the reorgs. I've had three managers in the last month.

Duanington

Well done on the PB AMK, even though it wasn't a goal race - it sounds like you got exactly what you needed from it ( even if you were a little disappointed with the time)

tang1

Think it shows how much you have improved when your disappointed with a 37.42 10k, and still want more. I'd say if you were told a few years ago you would run that you would have been more than happy. Well done on the PB.

menoscemo

AuldManKing wrote: »

On the social side - it was great meeting up with so many Boardsies at the race. I forgot Meno was my coach

And you still don't listen :P

For the record, I was telling AMK that I think his strengths would lie as a middle distance runner and encouraging him to do some of the graded meets!!

Anyway as I said also, well done on the PB, no need to be disappointed when you set one!!

FBOT01

Nice going, AMK. Every PB counts

The Officer

You are very tanned!