DCM 2014 graduates - the next step onwards

aquinn

HERE I AM! MIA for a while and only on page 3 of thread so have a lot of catching up to do.
Am back doing a few runs a week and getting on well.
Here is my info.
I hope all are well and enjoy the Clontarf Half this weekend for those racing.

1) I'd like to know your PB's and roughly when they were set. I'm most interested in 5k, 10k, 10 mile, half and full marathon. Any three of those will give me something to work with. More is better. If there's anything peculiar about them (e.g. your marathon PB is from the Snowdon marathon) please let me know!

5km Sept 2014 – Flat Docklands run 22.37
5m Simon Fun Run Oct 2013 37.56 PP
10km – Fingal 10km 2014 47.46
10 M – DRS 1.19, last year 1.24 – Loved this
HM – DRS 1.49.39 – HATED THIS
DCM 2014 4.19.58, V Pleased, loved the day.

2) Tell me about your running history including what plan/training you did for DCM.

I followed the Boards plan, I did one recovery run. I cycle 4 miles a day in commute so used this instead.
I only missed on LSR and had one horror run but quickly recovered.
Started to train in Sept 2012 for the Simon 5 mile Fun Run and so gave up bootcamp to run instead and so have since completed 3 10km’s, 4 HM, 2 10m. 10m is a distance I seem to enjoy the most. HM always done in heat no matter what time of the year.

3) What's your sporting history? This can range from you got a note to avoid PE at school all the way up to you represented Ireland at something. Without asking anyone to reveal too much it would helpful if I had an idea as to how far in the distant past the sporting history is.
I was always overweight and on the year I took up sailing and started at Bootcamp (2008) I started fat camp aka Weight Watchers, kept this weight off for four years successfully and last 2 like a yo-yo moaning about the extra half a stone. Still kept fit during all this. Got originally very fit and fast with Bootcamp. Friends like to call me Pocket rocket

4) What other training including strength and conditioning training do you do regularly?
Not much, still hoping to run and get back swimming for Winter. I like to go on cycles on occasion, 20miles.

5) Any injuries/niggles and what are you doing to manage them?
I don’t stretch enough so get tight back and calves.

6) What are your goals for the next 6 - 12 months?
Still undecided.

adrian522

Just wanted to throw in answers to the earlier questions here:

1) I'd like to know your PB's and roughly when they were set.

5K: 23:46 - September 2013
10K: 48:24 - August 2014
10 Mile - 1:18:58 - August 2014
Half - 1:42:51 - September 2014
Marathon - 3:49:23 - October 2014

2) Tell me about your running history including what plan/training you did for DCM.

Started running around the start of 2013, 3-4 times per week with the target of running a sub 2 hour half. Didn't quite achieve that goal coming home in 2:02:xx.

Came back in 2014 with the goal of improving on all the various PB's and running DCM and giving it a good go. I followed the BAA Intermediate plan which had me running 6 days per week. It was a good plan I think but tough going at times. I grabbed PB's at all the distances I raced and felt I was well prepared for DCM even if I didn't quite dip under 3:45.

3) What's your sporting history?

Not much to report at all here, from leaving school onwards virtually nothing. Played a bit of squash over the last 10 years I guess and some Gym work on and off but little to nothing really.

4) What other training including strength and conditioning training do you do regularly?

Not much, Try to do some strength exercises once or twice a week but quite often don't get around to it. Abandoned it completely during the marathon cycle.

5) Any injuries/niggles and what are you doing to manage them?

Nothing at the moment but plenty of niggles during marathon training, but never needed to do much to manage them to be honest.

6) What are your goals for the next 6 - 12 months?

I've the 5K in the Phoenix Park on December 6th. A PB there would round out the set for 2014.

Haven't really thought about next year but I guess I'd concentrate on 10K and Half times for the first half of the year and look at another marathon in the Autumn.

annapr

aquinn wrote: »

HERE I AM! MIA for a while and only on page 3 of thread so have a lot of catching up to do.
Am back doing a few runs a week and getting on well.
Here is my info.
I hope all are well and enjoy the Clontarf Half this weekend for those racing.

1) I'd like to know your PB's and roughly when they were set. I'm most interested in 5k, 10k, 10 mile, half and full marathon. Any three of those will give me something to work with. More is better. If there's anything peculiar about them (e.g. your marathon PB is from the Snowdon marathon) please let me know!

5km Sept 2014 – Flat Docklands run 22.37
5m Simon Fun Run Oct 2013 37.56 PP
10km – Fingal 10km 2014 47.46
10 M – DRS 1.19, last year 1.24 – Loved this
HM – DRS 1.49.39 – HATED THIS
DCM 2014 4.19.58, V Pleased, loved the day.

2) Tell me about your running history including what plan/training you did for DCM.

I followed the Boards plan, I did one recovery run. I cycle 4 miles a day in commute so used this instead.
I only missed on LSR and had one horror run but quickly recovered.
Started to train in Sept 2012 for the Simon 5 mile Fun Run and so gave up bootcamp to run instead and so have since completed 3 10km’s, 4 HM, 2 10m. 10m is a distance I seem to enjoy the most. HM always done in heat no matter what time of the year.

3) What's your sporting history? This can range from you got a note to avoid PE at school all the way up to you represented Ireland at something. Without asking anyone to reveal too much it would helpful if I had an idea as to how far in the distant past the sporting history is.
I was always overweight and on the year I took up sailing and started at Bootcamp (2008) I started fat camp aka Weight Watchers, kept this weight off for four years successfully and last 2 like a yo-yo moaning about the extra half a stone. Still kept fit during all this. Got originally very fit and fast with Bootcamp. Friends like to call me Pocket rocket

4) What other training including strength and conditioning training do you do regularly?
Not much, still hoping to run and get back swimming for Winter. I like to go on cycles on occasion, 20miles.

5) Any injuries/niggles and what are you doing to manage them?
I don’t stretch enough so get tight back and calves.

6) What are your goals for the next 6 - 12 months?
Still undecided.

Welcome back, Pocket Rocket!!!!

SoundoftheSea

Not getting enough runs in, dark evenings. busy at work and sore legs due to 30 day challenge.

I went to the gym last night and ran on the treadmill. I did 5 *2 mins at a fast pace for me, 5.40 min km.
I have no idea what my 5k pace is but this pace felt like I could keep going for 5k
I took my HR in each 3 min recovery and it was 171/176. I then ran flat out for 4 mins and HR was 182.
After 2 mins recovery HR was 145. Not sure how accurate these readings are.
Hope to get out running more this week and I am on day 12 of the 30 day challenge, had to skip a day or two for recovery but it is definitely working.

adrian522

Out for a run last night, second one since returning. 6 miles or thereabouts. Good to get another run in but the body is complaining a little bit today. I'll probably stick to one day on one day off for the rest of the week and see how things are next week.

crisco10

Did the 5 x 2min @ 5k effort with 3 min recovery session last night. I loved it. A lovely crisp evening and quiet footpaths along the waterfront at Sandymount. I think I may have been more at 5k pace than effort tbh, I just went by feel but looking at splits, they look a bit quick. Avg paces for splits were 3:56,3:46, 3:47, 3:50, 3:55 mins/km.

I think after the marathon cycle, I had forgotten how much fun it was to run fast, recover, go again etc. Didn't have HRM which was also a nice change. :-)

Finally, really enjoyed running to time instead of distance; that was also really refreshing after all the talk of 20 mile LSR etc.

http://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/640619667

JohnDozer

Half thinking of doing a 5k tonight... For a €5 only :-) good idea/ bad idea?

Clearlier

JohnDozer wrote: »

Half thinking of doing a 5k tonight... For a €5 only :-) good idea/ bad idea?

Both! I'm all about enjoying running and if a race is what does it for you then why not? The thing is if you're racing then you're not training so you lose out a little bit on your development. You should normally be fairly quick to recover from a 5k so it's not a huge deal at all but if you raced every week I'd expect your performance to plateau fairly quickly.

Clearlier

It's time to start thinking about a goal race. You should be thinking about one in April/May time. There'll be a few preparatory races in the lead up to it but like with DCM it helps if you have a specific race that you want to target.

So, anyone got any suggestions? The specific plan for these races will start once we've completed the current plan and I'll happily write specific plans for races from 5k to half marathon. If you want to go shorter I'll give you a plan but it'll probably be copied from Jack Daniels' book. I would be cautious about going longer especially if you're planning to do DCM '15 but if you want to it needs to be in mid to late June to give you the necessary time to prepare properly.

adrian522

I was thinking about the BHAA 10K in the K-Club in April. It's an excellent race and the time frame is about right, though I could be tempted by a half if a suitable one could be found.

ChadHogan

Just wanted to query the racing discussion above. On a one-off basis, If you were to swap out a 45 min easy run for a 5k race with another 30 minutes between warm-up/cool-down, would you be sacrificing anything?

Assuming of course you can manage the training load for the rest of the week and not get injured.

As for goal races I'd recommend the terenure 5 mile for a goal race - have done it the last two years and really cannot fault it- they've even managed to arrange good weather- although maybe last year, it could be argued, was a little too hot.

Clearlier

ChadHogan wrote: »

Just wanted to query the racing discussion above. On a one-off basis, If you were to swap out a 45 min easy run for a 5k race with another 30 minutes between warm-up/cool-down, would you be sacrificing anything?

Assuming of course you can manage the training load for the rest of the week and not get injured.

As for goal races I'd recommend the terenure 5 mile for a goal race - have done it the last two years and really cannot fault it- they've even managed to arrange good weather- although maybe last year, it could be argued, was a little too hot.

Hi Chad, if you grant all of your assumptions then the cost is pretty small, no problem doing it once in a while arguably even a benefit in some cases but if you did it regularly (I'm assuming an all-out effort in the 5k) then it would delay but probably not stop your progress.

A compromise if you're disciplined is to do it as a tempo run. This will have a positive impact on your fitness, the concern about doing it too often would be more injury related. If you're still a relatively new runner then you'll also get the bonus of setting a PB as your aerobic conditioning improves.

Casey78

Anyone else doing Clontarf on Saturday?

davemcmahon

adrian522 wrote: »

I was thinking about the BHAA 10K in the K-Club in April. It's an excellent race and the time frame is about right, though I could be tempted by a half if a suitable one could be found.

The feast after the K-Club 10k is worth the entry fee alone.

adrian522

Yeah absolutely. Well worth doing for the after race refreshments.

Firedance

Clearlier wrote: »

It's time to start thinking about a goal race. You should be thinking about one in April/May time. There'll be a few preparatory races in the lead up to it but like with DCM it helps if you have a specific race that you want to target.

So, anyone got any suggestions? The specific plan for these races will start once we've completed the current plan and I'll happily write specific plans for races from 5k to half marathon. If you want to go shorter I'll give you a plan but it'll probably be copied from Jack Daniels' book. I would be cautious about going longer especially if you're planning to do DCM '15 but if you want to it needs to be in mid to late June to give you the necessary time to prepare properly.

I'm planning the Raheny 5 mile on 25th Jan, followed by the Bohermeen Half marathon on 8th March. Might look at the K club too, food is a super motivation for running :-)

JohnDozer

Went ahead and did the 5k last night. Glad I did it now. A decent enough run around the UL campus with breezy conditions, keeping consistent pace throughout to finish in 21:07 (a PB by only 3 seconds but it does mean all PB's are now achieved this calendar year). Very happy with that at this point in the year and without any specific 5k work done, unless last Tuesday evening counts!!

Plan for goal races at present look something like this, a 5k on 31st January, a 10k on 15th February and a 10 mile on the 12th of April. 5k and 10k possibly a little close together?

Clearlier

JohnDozer wrote: »

Went ahead and did the 5k last night. Glad I did it now. A decent enough run around the UL campus with breezy conditions, keeping consistent pace throughout to finish in 21:07 (a PB by only 3 seconds but it does mean all PB's are now achieved this calendar year). Very happy with that at this point in the year and without any specific 5k work done, unless last Tuesday evening counts!!

Plan for goal races at present look something like this, a 5k on 31st January, a 10k on 15th February and a 10 mile on the 12th of April. 5k and 10k possibly a little close together?

You should easily recover from the 5k before the 10k. Would recommend avoiding a taper though and just train through them, all going well (if the training is challenging you and making you fitter) you'll get PB's at both anyway.

Mimojo

Hey, looking for some advice please! Since DCM have been really struggling, just feel like I am all over the place really. Recovered well the week after, but ended up on antibiotics the following week so was knocked for 6. The following week had a half decent week, but then last weekend was my 30th so it was a total right off & only coming good again now! I have been doing very little running & a lot of eating! Have had a lot on I guess but feeling pretty slow, tired and sluggish. I was in such a good routine for months before this, now I feel like I don’t know what I am at. And now that it is coming into the silly season I don’t want to fall off the wagon entirely. I figure if I can get a few good weeks in before xmass, then come 1st Jan back on track big time. I have been thinking about goal races for the new year so I think that will help re-focus the mind.

Anyhow enough waffling on! I was hoping to follow this plan, but I also really enjoy the gym and in the run up to the marathon had significantly reduced my visits, so met with gym instructor this week to make a new plan going forward, which would leave me with 3 or 4 runs per week, with plenty of cross training. I suppose I am trying to come up with a happy medium between running and gym work, and not over do it in the process.
I know this thread is about a running plan, I am just hoping something can shed some light on cross training. My plan looks something like this:

Monday: AM Short Easy Run (30 mins) / Weights Session – Upper & Core (1 hour)
Tuesday: AM Run – Intervals or Drills/Hills (45 mins) / PM Toning Class (45 mins)
Wednesday: Swim recovery or Rest day
Thursday: AM Medium Length Run (45 mins) / PM Circuit Class (45 mins)
Friday: AM Weights Session – Legs & Core (1 hour)
Saturday: AM Toning Class (1 hour) / Spin Class (1 hour)
Sunday: Long Easy Run (90mins +)

I had been following something similar during from Sept 13 to this summer, and then reduced the gym work a lot from July/Aug onwards to focus on marathon training. I know I am reducing running in order to get gym work in, there are just not enough hours in the day! I really enjoying the toning & circuit classes & am well used to them at this stage. I also really enjoy spin & used to do it 2 mornings a week, so have just included one class for this plan. On the Wednesday can either have a rest day if needed, or planning to take up swimming properly in the new year, I am very rusty but think it would be good to get into.

So really the plan only leaves me with one day (Tuesday) for the interval or drills/hills sessions. Should I alternative them each week, or am I best to stick with one? With 4 runs in the week I cant fit a second session in, and would like to keep the long run for a Sunday if possible.

Any options or suggestions are very welcome – thanks in advance!

Clearlier

Mimojo wrote: »

Hey, looking for some advice please! Since DCM have been really struggling, just feel like I am all over the place really. Recovered well the week after, but ended up on antibiotics the following week so was knocked for 6. The following week had a half decent week, but then last weekend was my 30th so it was a total right off & only coming good again now! I have been doing very little running & a lot of eating! Have had a lot on I guess but feeling pretty slow, tired and sluggish. I was in such a good routine for months before this, now I feel like I don’t know what I am at. And now that it is coming into the silly season I don’t want to fall off the wagon entirely. I figure if I can get a few good weeks in before xmass, then come 1st Jan back on track big time. I have been thinking about goal races for the new year so I think that will help re-focus the mind.

Anyhow enough waffling on! I was hoping to follow this plan, but I also really enjoy the gym and in the run up to the marathon had significantly reduced my visits, so met with gym instructor this week to make a new plan going forward, which would leave me with 3 or 4 runs per week, with plenty of cross training. I suppose I am trying to come up with a happy medium between running and gym work, and not over do it in the process.
I know this thread is about a running plan, I am just hoping something can shed some light on cross training. My plan looks something like this:

Monday: AM Short Easy Run (30 mins) / Weights Session – Upper & Core (1 hour)
Tuesday: AM Run – Intervals or Drills/Hills (45 mins) / PM Toning Class (45 mins)
Wednesday: Swim recovery or Rest day
Thursday: AM Medium Length Run (45 mins) / PM Circuit Class (45 mins)
Friday: AM Weights Session – Legs & Core (1 hour)
Saturday: AM Toning Class (1 hour) / Spin Class (1 hour)
Sunday: Long Easy Run (90mins +)

I had been following something similar during from Sept 13 to this summer, and then reduced the gym work a lot from July/Aug onwards to focus on marathon training. I know I am reducing running in order to get gym work in, there are just not enough hours in the day! I really enjoying the toning & circuit classes & am well used to them at this stage. I also really enjoy spin & used to do it 2 mornings a week, so have just included one class for this plan. On the Wednesday can either have a rest day if needed, or planning to take up swimming properly in the new year, I am very rusty but think it would be good to get into.

So really the plan only leaves me with one day (Tuesday) for the interval or drills/hills sessions. Should I alternative them each week, or am I best to stick with one? With 4 runs in the week I cant fit a second session in, and would like to keep the long run for a Sunday if possible.

Any options or suggestions are very welcome – thanks in advance!

Hi Mimojo,

If you look at the plan you'll notice that there are 3 blocks of 5 weeks, they amount to 4 weeks on then 1 week off. Within the 4 weeks for Tuesdays there are 2 5k effort sessions, 1 marathon pace effort session and 1 tempo.

If you never get injured then just do the Tuesday session.
If you started getting lots of niggles in the lead up to DCM then replace one of the 5k sessions with the long hills session.
If you got a running related injury that prevented you from running for more than 2 weeks within the past year replace both 5k sessions doing one long hills and one drills/short hills session instead.
If you've got your physio on speed dial do the Friday session on Tuesday.

Do look to progress the length of time that you spend running in accordance with the plan, so after 5 weeks your 45 min run will become a 50 min run etc.

Let us know how you're getting on!

Mimojo

Clearlier wrote: »

Hi Mimojo,

If you look at the plan you'll notice that there are 3 blocks of 5 weeks, they amount to 4 weeks on then 1 week off. Within the 4 weeks for Tuesdays there are 2 5k effort sessions, 1 marathon pace effort session and 1 tempo.

If you never get injured then just do the Tuesday session.
If you started getting lots of niggles in the lead up to DCM then replace one of the 5k sessions with the long hills session.
If you got a running related injury that prevented you from running for more than 2 weeks within the past year replace both 5k sessions doing one long hills and one drills/short hills session instead.
If you've got your physio on speed dial do the Friday session on Tuesday.

Do look to progress the length of time that you spend running in accordance with the plan, so after 5 weeks your 45 min run will become a 50 min run etc.

Let us know how you're getting on!

Cheers Clearlier, sounds like a plan! I will stick to the Tuesday sessions so & aim to progress time spent running - will keep u posted, thanks again!

Dub13

I was not near any hills today as I went for a run along the promenade in Clonfarf. I did a 3k warm up followed by 10 x 100 metre strides, the seats on the promenade are roughly 100 meters apart so was very handy. Was this an adequate replacement for what was in the program..?

I am off to Liverpool tomorrow for the game, not sure why I punish myself. So I did not rest Monday and will rest tomorrow instead.

Avg HR: 150 bpm
Max HR: 166 bpm

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/641373720

laura_ac3

Dub13 wrote: »

I am off to Liverpool tomorrow for the game, not sure why I punish myself. So I did not rest Monday and will rest tomorrow instead.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/641373720

A glutton for punishment dub13 - a 20 mile lsr would bring you less suffering

adrian522

Getting back into the swing of things now, 6 miles yesterday and 10 today as a kind of LSR. Probably went a bit too fast this morning but wasn't really paying attention to the watch.

Tigerandahalf

I have been looking in here now and then to see the sessions that Clearlier is posting. I am going to pick out what suits me for race prep. I am hoping to break 40 mins for the 10km before the year is out. I broke 19 mins for the 5km a couple of weeks back.
Today I did a 6 x 1 mile session. Well to be exact the distance was around 1600m as I did 4 laps of a track each time.
My hamstring has been tender the last week. I was hoping to do this session on Tues but just did an easy 5 miles each day this wèek to let the hamstring heal.
I did a mile and a half warm up and then set off.
Splits
5.59
6.09
6.14
6.19
6.17
6.14
I did a 400m slow jog (around 2/3 mins) after each set to recover.
The session went well and I feel these are a great benefit. My last one of these sessions was a 3 x 1 mile and my splits then were 5.55 6.14 6.14 I think so I feel there is a bit of progression there. The last time I also did an 800m jog recovery after each set. Overall I am very happy and the hamstring feels ok.

smashiner

MaggotBrain wrote: »

In the exact same boat. Pain will stop me running though after 1km. Physio said it was an extremely tight IT band, but stretching is not helping at all. Going a bit psychotic now without running.

Quick update: Went to my physio on Friday afternoon and it turns out that I was knotted up like a set of last years fairy lights (festive or wot). I was so knotted up, I have to go back to him for a FOC 10 minutes on Monday to get the last few knots out!

He reckons that although my IT band is sore, it is not really my IT band that is the true root cause as they are really tough, rather I am mechanically out of sync, one leg was slightly longer than the other, hips and lower back are stiff etc. He thinks that foam rollers and stretching are fine but not always the solution to IT band problems.

Back on Monday evening with him, feeling semi confident that I might be off the scrap heap soon

Pacing Mule

Ok time to get in here properly

Recovery from the procedure seems to be ok now. Went out during the week for 1 hour easy running with no ill effects. Went out this morning again for a little over an hour and again all seems ok.

This morning I wore the heart rate monitor and ran to the heart rate targets set out on the spreadsheet. My max HR is 192 based on a self administered test back in August. At the time I posted ...

Anyway onto the test itself. I may have sold myself slightly short on this. The test is to do 800m flat out, rest for 2 min and then do another 400 flat out. I was however bunched by the end of both segments and actually cut the 400 short. I had ran out of energy / oxygen / leg turning ability but I did suspect I may have had another couple of beats higher that I could have gone with a dose of HTFU. Tried a third go at it but was unable to sustain a high pace for a full 400m and didn't get the HR up over the first 2 segments max. For the moment my max HR is 192 but as I said I may be a couple of beats short there.

During the test I broke my PR for half mile 3:04 and 400m at 1.28. Also broke my 1k @4:23 but that was from a 200m gentle jog into the 800m dash.

Plugging my best performance race to date - a sub 40 5 miler into Mcmillan would put the half mile (800m figure) at 3:06 so the test was probably accurate enough.

So that's an easy rate of 135-155 if the above is accurate. I made a concious effort to run within this zone for 6 miles in total. Started off slow heart rate spiked up close to 170 at start but then settled down. Was aiming for 140 for first 2 miles to see what pace that gave me (didn't look at the pace at all until the mile split each time) Decided on the 3rd mile to bring heart rate up a bit towards the higher end of easy rate and then dropped it back for mile 4. Had to slow quite a bit at start of this mile to get it to come back down but still was a bit shocked at the time split. Went back up then for mile 5 and 6 coming in at 10:15ish again.

Splits / HR
11:15 144bpm
11:00 139bpm
10:19 150bpm
11:40 143bpm
10:15 154bpm
10:16 152bpm

So it seems consistent enough that at the top end of the scale I'm hitting 10:15 pace for an easy run. I would normally have "felt" my easy pace would be just under 10:00 miles. The 11:00 and 11:40 miles were painfully slow and difficult to maintain.

I suppose the question I have now is to ask does that make sense versus the max hr. I feel from the effort levels this morning that for them to make sense I should have a max hr over 200 ! or maybe it's a general lack of conditioning on my part. I will give the heart rate test another go at some point in next couple of weeks. Don't want to push things too much from a recovery from the procedure point of view yet.

Going forward my target race is the bohermeen half in March so I will end up having to deviate from the set out plan at some stage but for the moment am looking forward to getting stuck in.

chickey2

Bad week running wise for me. I took monday off but then woke up Tuesday feeling awful. Sore throat headache etc. Didn't manage to get out til Thursday so I did the 5k intervals which I really liked. Missed Friday too but managed a pool running session on Saturday and then did 12k today very slowly! When I was halfway through today's run I was wondering should I have shortened the "long" run as I'd done so few during the week. If you are sick and miss a few sessions is it better to just keep following the plan or ease off a bit? I should be grand to get back on track from tomorrow.

Clearlier

chickey2 wrote: »

Bad week running wise for me. I took monday off but then woke up Tuesday feeling awful. Sore throat headache etc. Didn't manage to get out til Thursday so I did the 5k intervals which I really liked. Missed Friday too but managed a pool running session on Saturday and then did 12k today very slowly! When I was halfway through today's run I was wondering should I have shortened the "long" run as I'd done so few during the week. If you are sick and miss a few sessions is it better to just keep following the plan or ease off a bit? I should be grand to get back on track from tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that chickey. Definitely ease off until you're sure that you're 100%. If you've only missed a few days then you should be able to pick up the plan where you left off but don't try and make up any runs that you missed. Just continue on as if you had done them.

Look after yourself!

Clearlier

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Ok time to get in here properly

Recovery from the procedure seems to be ok now. Went out during the week for 1 hour easy running with no ill effects. Went out this morning again for a little over an hour and again all seems ok.

This morning I wore the heart rate monitor and ran to the heart rate targets set out on the spreadsheet. My max HR is 192 based on a self administered test back in August. At the time I posted ...



So that's an easy rate of 135-155 if the above is accurate. I made a concious effort to run within this zone for 6 miles in total. Started off slow heart rate spiked up close to 170 at start but then settled down. Was aiming for 140 for first 2 miles to see what pace that gave me (didn't look at the pace at all until the mile split each time) Decided on the 3rd mile to bring heart rate up a bit towards the higher end of easy rate and then dropped it back for mile 4. Had to slow quite a bit at start of this mile to get it to come back down but still was a bit shocked at the time split. Went back up then for mile 5 and 6 coming in at 10:15ish again.

Splits / HR
11:15 144bpm
11:00 139bpm
10:19 150bpm
11:40 143bpm
10:15 154bpm
10:16 152bpm

So it seems consistent enough that at the top end of the scale I'm hitting 10:15 pace for an easy run. I would normally have "felt" my easy pace would be just under 10:00 miles. The 11:00 and 11:40 miles were painfully slow and difficult to maintain.

I suppose the question I have now is to ask does that make sense versus the max hr. I feel from the effort levels this morning that for them to make sense I should have a max hr over 200 ! or maybe it's a general lack of conditioning on my part. I will give the heart rate test another go at some point in next couple of weeks. Don't want to push things too much from a recovery from the procedure point of view yet.

Going forward my target race is the bohermeen half in March so I will end up having to deviate from the set out plan at some stage but for the moment am looking forward to getting stuck in.

Might be worth taking your resting heart rate Pacing Mule. I do it by lying on the ground for 2 minutes, relaxing completely - in my head I'll go through the whole of my body starting at the top and make sure that every muscle is relaxed, then see what your heart rate monitor says. Plug that number into the 2nd (bottom one) heart rate zones calculator and see what your zones are. The higher your resting heart rate the bigger the difference to your training zones. In any case if it doesn't feel too hard then don't be afraid to run at the upper end of your range for the moment.