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Running in the Real World
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Saturday, Sept 9: 5ish miles easy
Nice trot around the local loop with D, fretting about plans for Charleville (him, not me). Very pleasant and easy despite wind and showers. Forecast for LSR tomorrow is a bit daunting though. :eek:
Sunday Sept 10: 20 mi LSR
32k@ 6:31; 19.8 mi @ 10:30
The actual weather here this morning was even more daunting than the forecast. Forced myself out the door at 10am on a break between showers, with an 18 mile loop in mind, thinking that's all I would do, what with Charleville being next Sunday.
Really enjoyed the first 18k or so when the wind was mostly at my back, even though it was a long uphill drag. The occasional shower wasn't too bad and at least hydration wasn't a problem. Much more comfortable than the heat last week.
I didn't bring gels or anything other than small water bottles on my belt, realised that I had a fantastic source of nutrition along the way -- blackberries. Helped myself to some every few miles, lovely. I did recall when we were kids being told that there were 'maggots' in them when it was raining but I think that's a myth, and anyhow a bit of extra protein is no harm
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When I turned around into the wind, jayzis this became a very tough run :eek:. Battered by horizontal rain and gales on the climb back to the top of the ridge. I walked briefly a couple of times, gathering myself for another assault on the wind.
For the last few miles the showers had merged into steady downpour so it was a slow slog. Misjudged my planned 18 mi loop and ended up doing 19.8. So while it wasn't the 20miles with 'stuff' in the plan, I am counting 1200ft climb and gales as 'stuff'.
Very happy with this run, my energy levels were so much better than last week even in those conditions. Hopefully I haven't wrecked myself for Charleville now but DCM is the 'main thing' so not too worried.
Definitely character building
41.5 mi for the week. And now up to a nice round 800 mi YTD.
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Week of sept 11 (the easy part)
Monday: rest. I do enjoy my rest days on Monday.
Tuesday 12th: 45 min easy
About 7.2k/4.5mi -- no idea of the pace.
Watch went haywire. Very enjoyable, felt like a good steady pace but I'll never know. Anybody else ever get that, two days after a long run, you get this sudden bounce in your legs? I felt like I could run a HM PB today... hope I haven't peaked too early in the week.
Wednesday, Rest.
Thursday 14th: 5 miles easy.
8.3k @ 6:16; 5.1 mi @ 10:05
Met up with aquinn for this and did a loop of her new favourite park, Albo. After the first loop, we were starting a second.... I looked at the watch which said 3k... but then realised it was 3 miles... so headed for home instead. No idea how my watch settings got changed, but they are now restored to km. Anyway, nice cool evening, lovely sociable run, all good.
Friday: more rest, I'm very good at tapering, maybe overdoing it.
I'll do a few miles today to stretch my legs.
So I've been dithering (as usual) about plan for tomorrow -- A) go for the PB 1:55:17 (and risk blowing up), or
be more conservative (and have a good race but no pb).
Turns out Charleville has 1:55 pacers and 2:00 pacers... which roughly corresponds with A and B above... so, I think I'll throw caution to the winds and try to stick with the 1:55 pace. :eek:
So, A goal is 1:55
B goal is sub 2 hours
C goals is sub 2:01 (would be my second fastest HM ever).
Worst case scenario is it turns into a training run.0 -
All the very best A. Enjoy your race and no Smeara Dubha until the racing is over ��
...but I'm not bringing gels, was looking forward to those Cork blackberries
Thanks Denis and everyone for the good wishes, they will be ringing in my ears in the tough moments tomorrow.
Also, remembering DenisB comment leading up to Frank Duffy: if you do the training, the racing takes care of itself.
Hope that works for me this time!!! 0 -
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Charleville Half Marathon: Race Report (short version below!)
13.1 mi @ 8:58; 21.15K @ 5:34
Pre-race
Pre race was all very smooth, arrived in Charleville on Saturday evening just in time to pick up our race numbers. Had a functional fish and chips dinner (not ideal i suppose but safe enough) in the nearby hotel which had a strange mix of wedding goers and runners. Said hello to Adrian522 outside the B&B and settled in for a quiet night, interrupted only by family angst about tickets for Croker.
The B&B was of the old fashioned Irish type.... Any chance we could check out a bit later and have a shower here after the race... Nooooo, says yer man, the girl will be gone at 11. What time would ye like breakfast? 7, says D... Nooooo, says yer man, so D settled for 7:30.
Breakfast was weak coffee and half a bowl of porridge, but chatty with other runners, including Adrian who was looking very confident.
We drove the mile or so down towards the start, and as advertised, there was plenty of parking. It was cold and misty, good running conditions, but cold for waiting around. I wished D well in his quest for the NYQ, then joined a very short queue for the toilet before dropping my bag. I did briefly wonder if it was too early for the last trip to the loo (only 9:15).
Came across the lads just arrived from Dublin (FBOT, Ferris, yaboya and KennyG) and exchanged good wishes... told them if they see me again before 12 it will be a good day.
The start was no nonsense and easy to find, after a brief warmup I spotted the 2 hour pacer and told him I was hoping not to see him during the race.
The Race
The race started with a minimum of fuss, a bit of a downhill drag to start, which of course meant an uphill drag to finish. Started about 10 seconds behind the 1:55 pacers, intending to keep them in sight but not to fret about staying too close. I needed to keep the Km's at 5:27 or less. The first km buzzed at 5:04... too fast but felt comfortable.
Passed the first mile marker with 8:33 on the watch. Just after that a woman came up beside me. I asked her was she following the 1:55 pacers, she was but said they're going a bit fast... as they got further away from us. So we agreed to work together and also not to talk. We paced each other well up to just before Kilmallock (about 6 miles), when she dropped back. At this point, I was feeling great, thought to myself, this is the most enjoyable race I've done in ages. Went though the village, grabbed some water at the water station around the halfway mark, still feeling good.
We were into small country roads now, the pacers were still visible and not too distant. I could feel myself starting to flag a bit. The woman I had been running with caught up with me again here. The pacers are still visible I told her, she was encouraged by that and pushed on. I didn't go with her.
Around halfway, my watch seemed to go haywire again, I noticed it was beeping for Km's at odd intervals... e.g., at 11.4km... huh? What's that about? Did i press a lap button or something. Decided not to worry about it because all the Km alerts were less than 5:30 so far so I was going well. I was also watching the time at the mile markers -- right up to 10 miles I was well under 9 min/mile.
I could feel myself slowing and was isolated at this point, but thought I might even be on for a 10 mile PB if i could keep it under 87 minutes. But I really needed to pee... there were Portaloo's at each of the water stations, and the next one couldn't come fast enough. It was just before the 10 mile marker though so no PeeB... (groan) Ten miles in 1:28:33... including pit stop. I would have been very happy with that time at Frank Duffy!
Now if I could just do 9 minutes miles all the way to the end, I would be within shouting distance of a PB... 11th mile was 9:00 min. I don't know what was going on with my maths but at that point I think i gave up on the pb... I knew I had the sub 2 in the bag so slowed down a lot -- 9:29, 9:31 for the last two miles. The sun had come out at this point too, so that didn't help me.
As we finally came to the corner to turn back towards the finish, D appeared looking fresh and very happy with his own PB and ran with me for about 400m giving me a great boost. He left me at the car park and then I got a great shout from FBOT (I assumed, it just about registered) as I turned the corner for the finish and picked it up for the final stretch. (8:05/mi pace for the last bit!).
Crossed the line very happy to stop my watch at 1:57:40. Met yaboya, Ferris and KennyG just across the finish line. Everyone seemed happy with their results. Fantastic PB's for Ferris and D.
Didn't sample the goodies afterwards because we headed straight to the car to get to Croker for the match. On the way, D wondered whether he would trade his PB for the three in a row, only for an instant though.
Reflections (Short version):
Yesterday: Finished very happy with the time, delighted to be under 2 hours with time to spare.
Today: wondering what happened to the PB... At what point did i give up on it? I don't remember consciously deciding not to keep going for it. Should I have pushed myself more in the last 3 miles... I was tired, I was flagging, but I didn't push through it. I'm annoyed with myself over that.
I looked up the woman who I had been running with earlier in the results -- she finished in 1:55:14... I would have had my PB if i stuck with her. :cool:
Then I looked at my splits uploaded on garmin and realised that my watch wasn't beeping every km, but every .97km... WTF??? No wonder those faster 'KMs' were feeling comfortable at the beginning... over 21.2km that's 636m :rolleyes: Turned out the autolap on the watch was set for .97km... no idea how that happened, duh.
Can't use that as an excuse though because I was paying more attention to the mile markers in the second half.
So, I hit my B goal comfortably enough in the end, but I can't help thinking the PB was there for the taking and I just didn't grit it out.
Still it's encouraging overall to even be close to PB territory. And putting yesterday's time into McMillan suggests a 4:07:38 marathon... 6 more weeks of training to get me there.
Splits (miles, no point in providing .97km splits)
Target 8:47
8:33, 8:49, 8:39, 8:40, 8:58, 8:53, 8:39, 8:41, 9:01, 9:42, 9:00, 9:29, 9:31, (8:05)
Charleville HM review: very well organised, no razzmatazz or fuss, easy parking and registration and yes a flat course (although not 100% flat).
And we made it to our seats in Croker at 3:20, just in time for the national anthem 0 -
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