Back to the Future

RedRunner

So the gradual building back up continues:

15/10 - Easy paced run Raheny/Coast road loop - 4.2 miles @9:01

16/10 - cycle commute

17/10 - Easy lunch run over to ringsend park and back with work running club member 3.3mi @9:29

18/10 - Cycle commute . Evening : Easy effort 4.7mi @8:34 . From home out to Sutton Church and back along coast.

19/10 - No running/cycling - Big night out

20/10 - Write off

21/10 - more Rest

22/10 - Cycle commute and starting to feel normal again

23/10 - Cycle commute. Evening run when I got home from work. 5.5mi @ 8:59


No issues with the Achilles so all seems to be going well with that. The back has been giving me some pain lately so need to keep an eye on that but it is manageable.

RedRunner

Wed 24/10 - Fit4 Life 2 mile Race Series Rd 1.

14:10 placed 11/50

Pretty happy with this to be honest. Its well off my best (13:12) but it is a good marker for me to work off over the next few weeks. Also think this course is slightly longer than the 2 miles ( 2.03 according to my watch).

Probably went a bit too hard of lap 1 coming in around 6:57 ish I think but I was pretty much running alone for the second lap so just trying to keep a reasonable pace going with something in reserve for last stretch. This is the first of 6 races so plenty of time to improve on that.

thur 25/10 - 3.64 mi @9:18 avg- Easy run to recover from last night

I'm purposely keeping standard run around 4 miles for moment and increase mileage ever so slightly over next few weeks.

Fri- 26/10 - Rested

Sat - parkrun St Anne's : 23:20. Happy with this as I felt reasonably strong and didn't kill myself. 2 miles w/up and cooldown brought the days total to 7 + miles. Hoping to gradually bring that time down over the next several weeks but not necessarily on week by week basis if you know what I mean.

Sun - Rested . Watched the marathon on live stream before heading into spectate and got to Northumberland rd in time for leaders and got to shout on the great Mick Clohisey. Delighted to see him post an impressive time in Dublin. Managed to spot a number of legends from Boards too as well as other club members who in general all had great performances. As a club, we did really well overall.

20 miles done for the week. I'm feeling generally well about my running again and hoping to build on the last few weeks.

Race wise on the horizon is BHAA XC on 17th Nov and Jingle Bells 5k on Dec 1st.

RedRunner

Am retiring this log folks as I haven't been very regular with my updates and training has been a bit stop start although did improve in the latter half of this year. I'll still bump into many of you I'm sure at parkruns or other events but I'm going to use the Christmas period to reflect and decide what my goals should look like for 2019. I may reappear in the new year with a new log title and a whole new set of goals. Til then , don't you go changin!:)

RedRunner

Ok so its about time I came back here and started logging. So what's happened in last year?

Summary:

• Some injuries ( sure what's new), mainly achilles/hamstring
• Learned to appreciate running more and being able to just get out there
• Upped the game a bit with the running club I organize at work and introduced track sessions each week.
• Had an LT test done in the summer. A stark reminder that I was overweight, unfit and had a lot of work to do.
• Changed training method to running by heart rate, with some success
• Ran Dublin City Marathon. I know! It's amazing, I actually made it to the start line this year and I finished it AND I ran a course PB of 11 mins based of no speed training at all, just consistent slow runs and the occasional progression run. 4:02:48 chip time.
• Registered for DCM 2020. ( I couldn't not!)

So what's the plan for 2020?

• Stay injury free
• Consistency in training
• have a go at getting the 5k times back down to where they were 5 yrs ago 20/21 mins
• Give track a go. I'm thinking about maybe having a go at 800m

In meantime;
Stay injury free
Consistency in training
Do some cross country.
Strength work
Change diet ( not radically, just some tweaking here or there)


See you soon!

R

OOnegative

Don’t forget consistency in training R!!! Delighted you got to start and finish DCM, well done.

AuldManKing

RedRunner wrote: »

So what's the plan for 2020?

• Stay injury free
  
  R

Great to see you back.

Regarding the above - are you going to do anything different in 2020??

Baby75

Congrats on DCM

RedRunner

AuldManKing wrote: »

Great to see you back.

Regarding the above - are you going to do anything different in 2020??

Thanks AMK. In 2019 I changed training method to keeping all runs easy or steady, no sessions or such and that seemed to serve me well for marathon. For 2020 I want to get that 5k time down and try track but i'm worried about the session work i'll need to do.

This fear became reality almost immediately when as a result of session on Tuesday I've suffered another hamstring strain:mad: Was doing 3 sets of 800/400/200 and on the last 200 of third set I felt a twinge so slowed down and jogged it out. Felt fine for few mins and then after the session while walking away it seemed to spasm and cramp up . Following day while walking to dart on way home from work, same thing happened and now it feels even worse than Tuesday.

So i'm not sure what to do now. Will more strength work help or are my hamstrings just permanently dodgy? Who knows. I guess I'll give this a few weeks to recover and then zone in on the strength work focusing on hamstrings and see what happens. Totally frustrated. I think I jinxed myself by reactivating this log:cool:

RedRunner

Baby75 wrote: »

Congrats on DCM

Thanks so much!:)

laura_ac3

Aside from the looking at the obvious places (overtraining, recovery days, going too fast) is there a pattern on when you get the hamstring strains? Is it a particular type of speedwork that flares it up? I no longer go to PH 200m club session because I was told that they don't agree with me and my woes. I still do some 200m but not as part of the same type of session. I also think sessions that have longer recovery times and breaks between sets work better for me. I may be imagining it for me but maybe reviewing your flare ups might be a place to start, see if certain speedwork might be better than others for you.

I hope this one settles quickly.

Annie get your Run

What's your pre session warm up routine like? Some of us take longer to warm up muscles than others. Do you just jog easy for a while or do you jog easy and then do some dynamic stretches? Also, congrats on DCM!

RedRunner

laura_ac3 wrote: »

Aside from the looking at the obvious places (overtraining, recovery days, going too fast) is there a pattern on when you get the hamstring strains? Is it a particular type of speedwork that flares it up? I no longer go to PH 200m club session because I was told that they don't agree with me and my woes. I still do some 200m but not as part of the same type of session. I also think sessions that have longer recovery times and breaks between sets work better for me. I may be imagining it for me but maybe reviewing your flare ups might be a place to start, see if certain speedwork might be better than others for you.

I hope this one settles quickly.

Thanks for the post Laura. I think if I break it down in two parts, #1 the recent injury and #2 General hamstring issues, I ca give you some idea of my current thoughts on the topic

I've been think a bit about recent workload and perhaps post marathon, the run the line and a session a few days later was just too much to handle for the body and it complained. In terms of rest since marathon I rested 6 days and then ran every other day some short distances. I thought that was conservative but perhaps not conservative enough. So maybe workload/overtraining was the issue this time.

In general terms I don't think I've been doing enough core conditioning and strength work, therefore maybe glutes are weak and contributing to hamstrings overworking. The back is an ongoing thing too that has an impact and while I've been managing it to a certain degree, maybe I need to do more to strengthen that area too. Searching the web the generally common thread in advice is to strengthen glutes,back,hamstrings and maintenance on surrounding muscle groups too. So sounds like I need to do a bit of everything and more regularly.

I've been wondering also if changing my diet could help in any way. Recent viewing of "The game changers" on Netflix has me thinking on a couple of dietary points too. Not going full vegan or anything but maybe introduce more plant based stuff into the diet to see if it helps in any way. Cant do any harm anyway.
I need to up my hydration too. Got a bit lapse there too.

RedRunner

Annie get your Run wrote: »

What's your pre session warm up routine like? Some of us take longer to warm up muscles than others. Do you just jog easy for a while or do you jog easy and then do some dynamic stretches? Also, congrats on DCM!

Pre session warmup routine for this session is jog from work to Irishtown Track ( about a mile) then coach led dynamic warm up routine. THat should be enough shouldn't it?

Thanks re DCM:)