The tribulations of ThisRegard

ThisRegard

So this is the third January in a row where I've mused over setting up a log so I might as well get down to it.

Background is that I pretty much train on an ad hoc basis. Although I've read plenty of training plans I suppose work and family circumstances (that may be a lazy excuse) often make it hard to follow one rigorously. My wife travels a lot for her work and on a day to day basis can't always say what time she'll be home at, so it'll be often me doing the crèche runs and childrens evening entertainment so I'll either say feic it I'll just have dinner and stay in for the night, or I'll run an aimless local 5k. A second kid arrived before Christmas so there's a bit of extra work now.

All racing I do is off road, last time I ran a road race over a specific distance was the Great Ireland Run in 2011 I think it was, I just find it easier and more interesting to run around the hills and mountains. But the majority of training is on the roads.

In 2013 I had an average season, some races I did well and improved on times from previous years, others I ran poorly in my eyes, there was no consistency.

So I'm going to start this log so I can see what I've been doing and identify specific sessions that I may have been skipping or completely ignoring, I'm looking at you intervals and speed work.

I ran only one day during December, 5k, so started easily into it during the second week of January. I'm familiar with local loops of varying distances so never brought my Garmin with me for training unless I was going for a long run. But I've now started to use my long idle Strava account for every run as people have set up a lot of segments around the area, knowing you're virtually racing against that local guy you see occasionally makes you put that extra bit of effort in.

So my first week back consisted of 3 handy 5k runs to ease back into things and to lay down some markers in the segments to see where I'm currently at so as to monitor my progress against. So first week of January I ran 15k in total.

Second week, last week, was pretty much the same with a Thursday afternoon run around Ticknock to get the legs feeling the hills again in preparation for the Howth IMRA race yesterday.

I made decent jumps in times on the same routes I ran the previous week, jumping a good few places in the local segments leaving me second in a couple with plenty more I've yet to lay down a base time in.

The Howth IMRA race is always a race I just want to get out of the way, there's usually a big crowd with a fast and frantic race out of the GAA pitches and plenty more ups and downs you'd expect for such a short race.

Surprisingly I ran it in my best time yet, 20 seconds faster than last year, and about 4 or 5 faster than 3 years ago. Maybe there's something to be said in taking the whole of December off.

A couple of guys I'm usually finishing in or around with came in a good few seconds ahead of me, so there's another incentive to make the training sessions quality ones. So last week I did 22km in total.

Today I'm taking a rest day and will get my first longish run in some time this week.

ThisRegard

Disaster this week. Took a rest day on Monday after the IMRA race and ran an easy 8k/5 miler on Tuesday. Woke up Wednesday morning feeling as if I had ran a marathon the previous day which usually means one thing to me, I'm coming down with a bug. Head became all fuzzy as the day went on and developed a full blown cold by that evening. So there went the weeks plans out the window. My wife blames my lack of adenoids and tonsils for me basically being the sink for any germs and bacteria entering the house, anything that goes around my daughters creche, I get it. Although I managed to miss the scarlet fever going around the last couple of weeks.

Brought my daughter to her swimming lessons on Saturday morning and spend another hour or so in the pool afterwards running around with her on my back so at least my legs got a workout.

Ran 4k on Sunday in the crappy wind and rain just to get out and didn't arrive home coughing my lungs up so I'll be starting off all over again this week.