Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard

chickey2

After the parkrun on Saturday decided I'd move my long run to Monday as it was a bank holiday. As it was warm I took extra time to put on sun cream and brought water and jellies with me which I don't normally do. About 1k into the run I remembered the mini marathon was on that day and wondered to myself why I didn't sign up for it this year. Then I remembered. I was supposed to be in work! Panic and I made a quick u turn and headed home quite fast! Lucky for me I hadn't gone too far so was able to get back, changed and into work before an important delivery arrived. Total 2.8 km @6:32 HR 155, hardly worth logging!

Tuesday was spent in hospital having tests after the blood in urine episode. Long story short I had some needles, scans, general anaesthetic and lots of nasty things I'm glad I was asleep for! In the end the doctor said I'm grand! He thinks the prodding around he did should fix things. I'm not to run for three days but should be fine after that. Two different nurses asked me was I a runner, as my HR was so low! In the pre op room the monitor was alarming as it kept dropping to 45.

So hopefully I'll get back to running at the weekend and that will be the end of my disruptions. So much has happened in the last few weeks I just need to get back into a routine.

annapr

Glad to hear all the tests ok, C and had a chuckle at your rush to work... Although I'm sure you didn't.

Definitely that 5k PB is soft for you... I'm sure you'd smash it when you're back in consistent training.

chickey2

Finally getting some time to post. I've actually been out running instead if just talking about it!

Tues 14: eased in to it with a run to the luas, quick trip to the red cow and then ran from there to work. I set the watch to be so I'd no idea of pace til I stopped. was quite surprised to be under 6:00. The old hayfever is bad so there was lots of sniffling but felt great after.
Total 8.2 km @5:55 HR 164

Thurs 16: full run to work. Saw lots of baby rabbits in tymon on the way!
Total 11.5km @5:58 HR 162

Sun 19: thought I'd stick to the three runs this week so waited for today to do a "long" run. Headed out early into the drizzle but it was warm at least so not unpleasant. Headed up to the reservoir which was very quiet, only a few hard core runners! Took it slow and even walked a couple of the steep hills as my hr was so high. I was planning on doing 16 km but after 14 I was wrecked so headed home.
Total 14km @6:34 hr 164

Week total 33.7km

Tues 21: commute. Can't remember this! Total 11.2@6:07 hr 158

Wed 22: red cow run. It's not particularly pleasant running along the n7 but it's nice to be going faster than some of the cars! Total 8.2km @6:12 HR 157

Fri 24: another commute. I'm looking forward to increasing my distances so I can start doing different routes to work as this one (the shortest) is getting a bit boring. Saw more baby rabbits though! Still suffering from the hay fever
Total 11.2 @6:01 hr 165

Drank way too much wine last night so suffering now, lucky it's a rest day.

chickey2

Just adding today's long run to finish up the week. It was raining again but warm so I didn't mind. I checked on the 24 hour runners before I left, they had done 20 hours and we're still going. Got home and they were still running!
Lots of people out running today despite the rain, I think marathon season has started.

16.2km@6:26 HR 164

Weekly total 46.8 km. Getting better.

chickey2

Tues 28: commute to work. Happy enough with this. Got a bit wet but felt good. Total 11.3km @6:10 hr 151

Wed 29: I've just been doing a lot of slow running recently so thought I'd throw in some pmp kms today. It was pouring rain in the morning so I decided to take the luas and run home instead. Bad idea. First if all I was tired after a long days work and had a bit of a cold. I thought it was hayfever but I've been coughing a good bit too and resting hr was high so might be more. Also, home is all up hill. I did a 3 km warm up which was fine, then 2 km @pmp (5:29/5:39). I was in bits after that! Hr was skyhigh so decided that was enough pmp. I've no idea how I can run over 40 km at that pace if I can't do more than 2km now Kept going at easy pace but got a stitch and had to walk for a bit. Not sure if it was because my breathing was all over the place or due to food earlier (most of my runs are done on empty first thing in the morning). I was in foul humour when I got home!
Total : 11.2km@6:25 HR 162

Thurs 30: was supposed to do a recovery run but felt awful and ended up going to bed at 8pm!

Fri 01: felt a lot better after a decent night's sleep so ran in to work. What a difference a day makes! Or maybe it's just the early morning run with an empty stomach that suits me! (Plus it's all downhill)
Total 11.4km@6:05 HR 156

Sat 02: hungover. Very little done.

Sun 03: Paced mile in Phoenix park. I'd been meaning to do one of these for ages but it never suited. Today did though, kind of! I should have done a long run, but the marathon plan doesn't start officially til tomorrow so thought I'd give it a go. It's a great event and catered for all abilities from 5 to 12 minute miles. There were two runs, one for the 8-12 mins and one for the 5/6/7s. I was hoping for 7 minutes so joined the second group but right at the back (well behind Dubgal!) David Carrie was the pacer for the 7 mins and he was great. I did ok for the first 800 m but after the turnaround I started to fall back. I managed a very small spurt at about 1200 but it wasn't quite enough to stay in the group. Crossed the line in 7:08. It was the best I could have done that day so I was happy. Had shakey legs for a bit after but recovered soon enough. Had to head home after but got a short recovery run in later with a five year old on a bike so lots of stopping and starting!
Total : about 8 km between warm-up/mile/recovery

Wrecked now so lying with my legs up on the sofa. I can't believe dogslysmile ran the beer mile faster than I can run a regular mile! Actually I can believe it Garmin tells me I beat 4 records today, not only the mile, but 400m, 800m and 1km!

Firedance

Well done on the paced mile!! I wouldn't be worrying about how mp feels at this point especially if you weren't feeling 100% it'll be grand and the Wednesday runs gently ease you into the mp runs over the next few weeks

chickey2

Just checked the official results and my chip time is 7:06! Just shaved another 2 seconds off my pb.

chickey2

Firedance wrote: »

Well done on the paced mile!! I wouldn't be worrying about how mp feels at this point especially if you weren't feeling 100% it'll be grand and the Wednesday runs gently ease you into the mp runs over the next few weeks

Thanks. That's why I thought I'd give the mp a go in a Wednesday as the meno plan is slightly different days to what I'm used to.

chickey2

Week 1 of marathon training done! Happy enough with how it went. I was off work so out of the routine but managed to get most of the runs in.

Mon 4: I was hoping to get out for a recovery run after the paced mile on Sunday but had way too much to do so didn't manage it. I don't usually run on Mondays but I might try and start getting a short run in to keep up the distance.

Tues 5: I was only in work for one day this week so ran in. My poor legs were in bits this day thanks to not doing a recovery run the previous day. At least I know I really did put in the effort on Sunday. Took it easy and felt a bit better by the end.
Total 11.1 km @6:25 HR 156

Wed 6: On my holidays in Galway for this one. It was the first session of the plan and I wasn't really looking forward to it as it's been so long since I've done anything but easy running. The plan was a progression run with 8min steady/8@MP/8@HMP/8@10k pace. I headed along Lough Atalia towards Salthill to do an out and back. The first three km were warm up and I didn't feel great. Kept thinking I could just do an easy run as I was on my holidays but then had a chat with myself and said just HTFU and do the session! As I got the the end of the warm up I hit the promenade in Salthill and the wind hit me! Jaysus it's windy! Sped up anyway and did the 8 min steady while being sandblasted. I hadn't managed to program my watch so was just counting down the minutes and managed to go over as I was so distracted by the wind! Sped up again to MP and really started to enjoy myself! When I hit the turnaround point the wind was much better and I was flying along, finished up at slightly faster than 10k pace. Was delighted with myself! It was made even better to arrive back at the hotel to a bottle of chilled Cremant waiting for me!
total 12.3km
warm up 3km @6:29
Steady 8 min@6:07
MP 8@5:40
HMP 8@5:10
10K 8@4:55
Cool down 3km@6:08

Thurs 7: Recovery 6.3km@6:47 HR146 Took this very slow, its rare for my HR to be below 150! Felt good though. I headed out early and came back to a fab breakfast buffet and then relaxed in the spa and had a massage. I could get use to this!

Fri 8: rest

Sat 9: Hoped to get out for a few kms but we were staying with relatives and didn't get the chance. Felt a bit rubbish anyway and was coughing a lot so it was probably no harm.

Sun 10: 21 km LSR. When I looked at the plan I thought I might shorten this a bit as I haven't run this far in ages. Decided to go out and see how I felt. Started off rubbish. I was tired, my calves were stiff, I was coughing, I'd a million reasons why I should go home, but I didn't! Kept going along the Dodder and before I knew it I was in Rathfarnham. Felt great at this stage so kept going and turned around at the 10k mark. On the way back I decided to change the route as there was a few paths in Dodder park that were overgrown and loads of nettles so went home via Tymon instead. It ended up being more than 21km, but I stopped and walked at the 21km point as I didn't want to over do it. Really glad I stuck with it and feel great now.
Total 21km@6:29 HR 157

Weekly total 50.7km. Happy to break the 50km but slightly off planned distance (56km). Not bad for a holiday week though.

Firedance

That's a great start to the plan

aquinn

I was like WTF, wow

Steady 8 min@6:07
MP 8@5:40
HMP 8@5:10
10K 8@4:55
Cool down 3km@6:08

Then spotted the km so they mean nothing to me.

Week one done, well done.

chickey2

aquinn wrote: »

I was like WTF, wow

Steady 8 min@6:07
MP 8@5:40
HMP 8@5:10
10K 8@4:55
Cool down 3km@6:08

Then spotted the km so they mean nothing to me.

Week one done, well done.

Ha, that's why I use kms, it makes me look much faster! It's only since I started using Strava, which converts everyone's runs to kms for me that I realise how most people are much faster.

Firedance

chickey2 wrote: »

Ha, that's why I use kms, it makes me look much faster! It's only since I started using Strava, which converts everyone's runs to kms for me that I realise how most people are much faster.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: nooooooo! that shouldn't be allowed :D

chickey2

Week 2
My garmin is driving me mad. It keeps putting the wrong dates on runs so when I went to check them just they're wrong. Strangely they're correct on strava which takes the info from my watch so I guess it's just the garmin software that's crap.

Anyway, this week started well but ended bad

Mon 11: rest. If you can call shopping/cooking/cleaning etc rest.

Tues 12: 11.2 km commute. Nothing to report. 6:09 pace HR 152.

Wed 13: progression run. This was a repeat of last week's session. Since it went so well last week I wasn't dreading it. Happy enough with this, the paces were quite similar to last week despite the lack of wind and the fact it's mainly downhill.
3km warm up 6:24
8 min steady 5:59
8 min mp 5:35
8 min hmp 5:14
8 min 10 k 4:56
3km cool down 6:10

Total 12.8 km

Thurs 14: recovery. Had to split this in two with a brief luas ride in between! Missed a luas so had to get off a stop later to get to work in time so this was slightly shorter than planned. Total 6 km @6:30

Fri 15 rest.

Then it all went wrong. The plan was 5k easy on Saturday then 23km lsr on Sunday. I had just changed into my gear on Saturday to head out when my 9 year old started to complain of a sore tummy. To cut a long story short I ended up in tallaght hospital with him all day (still in my running gear!) and he had his appendix out that night! I stayed over in the hospital with him so got very little sleep. He made a great recovery though so they were happy to let him out after lunch. I eventually got a chance to run just after 4pm but I had to be home by 6 so just headed out to do as much as I could. It was so hot and I was so tired and my hr was all over the place. It wasn't great, but at least I got out. Total 13.3 km @6:35 hr 164.

Strava says my weekly total is 43.4km. Rubbish but I'm too tired to care. Off to bed now.

denis b

First off, hope the little soldier is recovering well. Secondly, if that is your "rubbish" week then I don't think you will have too much to worry about . Rest up and tomorrow starts a new week.

Our times are not too dissimilar so will be watching.

Murph_D

Glad the little fella is recovering. You've made a great start so wouldn't worry about missing a little bit at this stage especially. Know what you mean about the Salthill wind!

Firedance

Crikey C! Glad he's on the mend now though and +1 to what the others have said.

chickey2

Thanks guys. Think I was being hard on myself as I was tired and fed up of hospitals! Hopefully that's it now!
Rest today and since I'm stuck at home with a recovering patient it might actually be a rest day!

kit3

Hope he is recovering well - scary to see how quickly they bounce patients out the door now ! Real life will always interfere in a plan at times - that's life as a parent

Bungy Girl

Glad to hear he is recovering well. Must have been a scary time for you all. He's probably raging it didn't happen during term time :rolleyes:

That was a nice progression run you got done before things went south. Missing a couple of runs at this stage won't have an impact as others have said.

chickey2

Bungy Girl wrote: »

Glad to hear he is recovering well. Must have been a scary time for you all. He's probably raging it didn't happen during term time :rolleyes:

Yeah, he's very disappointed it's the holidays! He's recovering very well. I think it'll take longer for me to recover!
He's missing summer camp which means one if us staying at home with him which messes up my running schedule! I'll figure something out.

chickey2

Turned out to be an alright week despite tending to the patient (who didn't take much minding to be fair!)

Mon 18: rest

Tues 19: easy. No work today so had to wait for oh to get home from work before heading out. I really don't like evening runs! It was hot (25C) and there was lots of traffic and people. I much prefer the 6am runs to the 6pm ones. I was tired and slow
Total 8.5km @6:44 HR 155

Wed 20: plan was 3*2miles tempo. As I don't speak miles I decided to do 3*3 km tempo but I got distracted when programming my watch and put in 3*2km. I only noticed on my first interval but as I still felt tired and rubbish I just did the 3*2km. Paces were 5:34/5:23/5:27. I ran it by HR (85-90%) so I guess the paces were about what I would expect.
Total 11km

Thurs 21: recovery run. As this was going to be short I decide against a commute so drove to work and ran up to phoenix park and back before starting! It was a gorgeous morning and I really enjoyed this. Very slow but happy!
Total 5.7km @6:39 HR 146

Fri 22: easy. Long busy day at work so didn't get out til nearly 8 which is very late for me! It wasn't too hot though and i felt good. Stuck with HR again (aiming for 155-160) so was delighted with my pace when I finished. It felt easy and my hr was easy but I was way faster than Tuesday.
Total 5.7km @5:50 HR 157

Sat 23: rest.

Sun 24: LSR. Up early today as it was the little ones birthday and she was up at 6:30 (which coincidently the same time I woke with contractions the day she was born 6 years ago!) It was raining but it was just a light drizzle so was quite pleasant. I git a flip belt during the week so tried it out today and found it great. I took a gel but didn't use it. Had an electrolyte drink and that was enough. I've been doing all my lsr up to now on empty but had a bagel this morning. Happy enough with this. Even managed a fast last km (relatively!)
Total 26km @6:22 HR 155

Week total 56.9 km. Still slightly under the planned distance but I was aiming for 10% under so not doing too bad.

chickey2

Mon 25: rest

Tues 26: back to the morning commute. I added a bit extra on to increase the distance though. It was a wet morning and I spent most of the run dodging slugs. I hate them but I really don't want them squashed on my runners. I saw one which I can only describe as slugzilla, it was massive. It made me run faster so I could get away from it!
Total 13km @6:03 HR 149 (I'm not convinced this HR is correct as it seems very low)

Wed 27: 10x400m. Thanks to the random question thread I found a nice path on dodder Valley Park to do these. I had to guesstimate the distance using my garmin so picked two points about 400m apart and used these. Turns out it was only about 380m I'd had a look at mcmillans training paces which said I should be doing these in 1:45. My actual times (for 380m!) were 1:41/1:35/1:39/1:39/1:44/1:34/1:44/1:32/1:42/1:38
I was delighted to get them all done!
Total with wu/cd 9.3km

Thurs 28: recovery. After reading the thread about the Kenyans and their mad slow runs I decided to see how slow I could run without walking! Legs were a bit stiff today so I thought it would do me good. I decided to head out for about 40 minutes and see how far I got.
Total 5.7 km @7:40! (that's 12:16 minutes per mile for the imperialists). Ave HR was 133 which is very low for me. It was nice though, even if I looked a bit stupid.

annapr

Catching up here, C, you are doing some great training... Even with hospital visits doing their best to disrupt. Glad the young fella is ok.

I share your reaction to slugs... They make my skin crawl... Give me spiders any day.

By the way, I program sessions into my Garmin in miles and it helpfully converts them to Km on the watch when you download. I keep Garmin in Km for actual running and Strava in miles so I can understand what everyone else is talking about

chickey2

annapr wrote: »

By the way, I program sessions into my Garmin in miles and it helpfully converts them to Km on the watch when you download. I keep Garmin in Km for actual running and Strava in miles so I can understand what everyone else is talking about

Thanks, that's useful to know!

chickey2

Fri 29: rest. Hoped to get out but was late out of work and then had to make a cake!

Sat 30: more rest. Travelling and cake eating!

Sun 31: 16 km with 10@MP. Headed out the Ennis ring road for this. It's handy enough as theres not many junctions just a few roundabouts. A bit boring though. Lots of slugs in Clare too The MP section went well. It was quite undulating but I kept the effort steady and the average for the 10k was 5:38min/km.

Total 44km. Once again I only managed 4 runs. Must do better.

mel.b

Yep, the Ennis bypass is tedious. Lots of nicer runs in the area. Are you on holidays in Clare?

chickey2

mel.b wrote: »

Yep, the Ennis bypass is tedious. Lots of nicer runs in the area. Are you on holidays in Clare?

I was just there for the weekend. I'll be back again at the end of the month so will have to get some recommendations for a long run!

chickey2

Tues 2: runmute. Did a bit extra around tymon to make up some distance. Felt great on this run, lots of energy and HR stayed fairly low.
Total 12.4km @6:04 HR 148

Wed 3: progression run. 20 min easy/20 steady/20@MP/10@HMP/20 cool down. As usual I started off slow thinking I'd never make it to HMP pace, but as usual I was wrong!
Easy 6:24 HR 134
Steady 5:53 HR 158
MP 5:34 HR 167
HMP 5:11 HR 150 (this can't be right)
Cool down 6:26 HR 147

I really like progression runs. Happy with this one.
Total 14.2km

Thurs 4: recovery. Did another Kenyan shuffle.
Total 7km@7:09 HR 133

Fri 5: ended up in work late and then had to babysit so no run.

Sat 6: does walking around Dundrum count as cross training?!

Sun 7: 29km (18 mile) LSR. Headed our early in my new running gear. It's the first time I've worn a singlet so I felt like a real runner! I got new shorts too so wanted to try them with the flipbelt. Shirts were comfy but the waist band is a bit low so there's a gap between it and the flipbelt. It wasn't a problem when running but when I lifted my top to get money out to buy a drink at halfway the poor shop assistant got a good look at my pale flabby stretch marked belly
I ran part of this on the marathon route. The bit from dolphins barn to walkinstown roundabout was as hellish as I remember it in 2014! The wind was awful and it was very warm. Tough, but glad I did it. Can't imagine doing it at mo though!
Total 29km @6:21 HR165 (just checked, I ran DCM in 2015 @6:26!)

Weekly total: 62.6km.

Firedance

I really loved those progression runs too nice job on the 18 miles.

chickey2

Tues 9: easy commute. Extended this a bit to add milage but kept it easy. Felt good
Total 13.7km@6:19 HR 150

Wed 10: plan said 10-12 miles with 2x4@MP, so I converted it to 18km with 2x6km@MP. Had to be up early to squeeze this in before work, 5:30 uggh! It was barely light. You can really feel autumn now. Good thing is I don't need my antihistamines anymore though. I left my watch at work the previous day so had to use my old one with no HR. MP felt quite relaxed once I got into it. I even went over on the second rep so did 6.3km by mistake!
Warm up 3km@6:37
MP 6km@5:38
Jog 0.6km@6:45
MP 6.3km@5:34
Cool down 2.2km@5:57
Total 18.2km

Thurs 11: recovery. Nice and slow 7.3km@6:50

Fri 12: I'd planned on doing 6-7 km easy on the way home from work but when I got out I realised I'd no luas card and no money so had to run all the way home! I kept it easy and even walked up the hill near the playground in tymon.
Total 10km @6:40

Sat 13: I almost died of a hangover. It was a planned rest day anyway but really could have done without the dehydration. Drank several litres of water and went to bed at 9pm.

Sun 14: felt much better after all the sleep and water yesterday. I decided to do another section of the marathon course so headed to terenure and followed the course to the top of fosters avenue. Roebuck Road was nowhere as bad as I remembered it. It helped that there wasn't a stupid cardboard wall telling me I'd hit the wall! I headed back home via Dundrum and balinteer. By pure luck I hit 29km about 500m from my house! It took 3 minutes longer than the same distance last week but my HR was lower.
Total 29km@6:28 HR 159

I'm delighted with this week. I got my fifth run in and extended some of the others but still feel good.
Weekly total 78.1km

Murph_D

Nice week, C. That MP session is a good sign!

chickey2

The exhaustion is finally hitting me this week! I swapped this week and next on the plan to take in to account the Frank Duffy 10 mile. It was actually part of the plan but it must have been a week later in 2013! So this week is a step back week and I skipped the Wednesday session. I was still wrecked yesterday though. My alarm went off at 6am today and I just couldn't face getting up so texted my boss and told him I was taking a duvet day. I went back to sleep and ended up sleeping for over 13 hours in total! I feel so much better now.

Just easy running this week

Tues 16: 11.85km@6:17 HR 148

Wed 17: 11:4km @5:58 HR 154

Will try and get a slow recovery run this evening and then rest tomorrow before the race on Saturday.

Depending on how I'm feeling on Saturday I think I'll aim to run it somewhere between PMP and HMP. My current 10 mile is 1:28 which is quite a soft one as that wasn't all out and I've done a lot since then. Mcmillans says I could do it in 1:23. I'll be happy with a pb but I'm not going to push too hard as I need to keep the main thing the main thing!

Bluesquare

Good luck in race tomorrow !

Bungy Girl

Best of luck for tomorrow! Hope all goes to plan .

tang1

Best of luck tomorrow, PB all the way, run well.

Kennyg71

Best Luck tomorrow. Have a good one.

adrian522

Best of luck tomorrow, by the way I'd be a fan of racing it all out rather than at MP!

Murph_D

Have a good one, C, whatever you decide!

Mrs Mc

Best of luck tomorrow see ya there well hopefully I've never met you so will have to guess !!!

Singer

Have a good race!

chickey2

Thanks for all the well wishes!

I got a 2 minute pb so I'm happy! As I said it was a soft one and I really don't think I ran my best today so I'm not delighted, just happy

The weather was horrendous. I was drenched by the time I got there and had to ask myself several times what was I doing there. I remembered that it was "character building" so just made the most of it!
The start was horribly congested as usual. The amount of people in front of me who were barely jogging and having a great old chat with their mates really annoyed me. It was a few km before I could get past the worst of them. On the plus side, I had to concentrate so much trying to get past them without bumping in to anyone or tripping that I barely noticed the kms go by.

Once I thought I was clear I suddenly hit what looked like a pace group. They were all wearing black which looked really strange amongst the sea of luminous yellow and pink. They all looked quite fit but weren't running that fast (if slower than me!) Very strange. Got past them and then I was grand.

Can't really remember much more. I felt comfortable and was really enjoying myself most of the time. The wind on the acres Road was pretty tough but I had latched on to a girl in front me so just concentrated on her back and kept going. The last hill was tough but I knew we were close so tried to speed up.

Hit the finish line in 1:26. I was glad of the pb but knew I could do a lot better. Another day I'll target it properly and do it justice.

The bag collection took nearly as long as the race! I felt sorry for the poor volunteers who had to deal with some very impatient people.

Mrs Mc

Think that group were the Air Corps they passed me as well in fact they made me speed up for a while !!!:D

Bluesquare

Well done in the lovely weather! I have heard a lot of bad reports on congestion in several parts of the course ! Doesn't make for a nice race .

Ososlo

Great run, well done. You'll smash it up again for sure next time out. Recover well!

mel.b

Well done on the PB

annapr

Mrs Mc wrote: »

Think that group were the Air Corps they passed me as well in fact they made me speed up for a while !!!:D

Yep, the men in black... They looked very impressive running en masse! Well done on the PB today C, in those conditions!

Murph_D

That's a great result C, wouldn't sniff at any PB in those conditions on that course! Nice to chat briefly beforehand.

chickey2

Mrs Mc wrote: »

Think that group were the Air Corps they passed me as well in fact they made me speed up for a while !!!:D

Ah that explains it. It's so unusual to see runners all in black with no logos at all!

Younganne

well done, a PB is a PB and lots more to come off that in better race conditions. You can move forward and concentrate on the next one which will hopefully have better weather!!