Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose

denis b

Congrats D. That sure was a nice pb to collect. Have always followed your 5 km journeys and this one must be particularly satisfying after all your rehab. Bring some of that form to Raheny and we'll sort you out for a flapjack.

Mrs Mc

Looks like you're back on form D ... Looking strong for Sunday. See you for flapjacks after

Ososlo

Fantastic! Great new pb and sub 22 not too far off at all . Good luck at Raheny!

Neady83

Nice one diego, absolutely delighted for you. Your restraint during recovery and investment in the treadie is paying off

Firedance

Well done diego! super result, you'll have a great race on Sunday, best of luck!!

jake1970

Well done on the new PB Diego, that sets you up nicely for Raheny.

diego_b

denis b wrote: »

Congrats D. That sure was a nice pb to collect. Have always followed your 5 km journeys and this one must be particularly satisfying after all your rehab. Bring some of that form to Raheny and we'll sort you out for a flapjack.

Thank you kindly Denis, indeed the 5Ks are a nice little acid test I think and give a good indicator as to where things are at. Fingers crossed the weather gods are favourable in on Sunday and a good race for all!

diego_b

Mrs Mc wrote: »

Looks like you're back on form D ... Looking strong for Sunday. See you for flapjacks after

Thanks A, hope to see ye all and looking forward to a run around that area again. The parkrun is on my to do list for a trip up at some stage.

diego_b

Ososlo wrote: »

Fantastic! Great new pb and sub 22 not too far off at all . Good luck at Raheny!

Thank you very much, hopefully so and another marathon cycle starting in the summer should help with things as well. So far so good this year at least!

diego_b

Neady83 wrote: »

Nice one diego, absolutely delighted for you. Your restraint during recovery and investment in the treadie is paying off

Thank you, not 100 percent with the knee stuff yet but doing what I am told so will continue to try do that as it's working! 4 miles tops on the treadmill so far is as long as it goes, it is boring but sure if it helps I will use it. Can get a tv show in as well so not so bad!

diego_b

Firedance wrote: »

Well done diego! super result, you'll have a great race on Sunday, best of luck!!

Thank you, tis such a good feeling when you reach your goals. Hoping to do similar on Sunday with breaking my 5mile PB but January has been good so far so can't be selfish!

diego_b

jake1970 wrote: »

Well done on the new PB Diego, that sets you up nicely for Raheny.

Thanks Jake, going for a PB (currently at 38:53) so hopefully something similar to last Saturday and I should be good for it. Are you running?

jake1970

diego_b wrote: »

Thanks Jake, going for a PB (currently at 38:53) so hopefully something similar to last Saturday and I should be good for it. Are you running?

Yeah im back running since the start of January after a 5 week lay off with injury( im so slow now:(). I have jumped into Myles's graduate plan and im on week 4 of it, its great to be back doing some speed work. Id love to do a race just to see where im at but i will wait another few weeks and probably do a parkrun.
Best of luck in Raheny, do you have a target time for Sunday?

Mrs Mc

diego_b wrote: »

Thanks A, hope to see ye all and looking forward to a run around that area again. The parkrun is on my to do list for a trip up at some stage.

Let's us know when you're coming up to St Annes Park Run will have to get out the good China !!!

Kennyg71

Super stuff Diego,bodes well for Sunday.

diego_b

jake1970 wrote: »

Yeah im back running since the start of January after a 5 week lay off with injury( im so slow now:(). I have jumped into Myles's graduate plan and im on week 4 of it, its great to be back doing some speed work. Id love to do a race just to see where im at but i will wait another few weeks and probably do a parkrun.
Best of luck in Raheny, do you have a target time for Sunday?

Good stuff you're getting back into it, the speed will come back soon enough. Hopefully you've put it behind you now. I had ideas of trying to go for 38mins but I'd be surprised to get that. Under 39 and hopefully under 38:53 would be a nice bonus!

diego_b

Kennyg71 wrote: »

Super stuff Diego,bodes well for Sunday.

Ta very much, hopefully you're in good nick for Sunday!

diego_b

Wednesday 27-01-2016

3.1m in the style of 1m easy, 1m hard and 1m cool down. Actually managed to get out on the roads at 5:20 this evening, latest run I've started around my home place in a few months. We are slowly nearly getting to a bit of a stretch in the evenings statements thankfully. Went for 1m easy to warm up then 1m flat out and then 1m to cool down. That middle mile I pushed it to hard in the first half (GPS tells me I hit a top pace of 6:30min/mi) or so pacing was off but I felt like giving a good push over a short distance for a change. I do need to start following a training plan proper soon but for the moment I am enjoying what I am at.

Splits
9:08
7:39
8:52

Also ankle/balance work and glut work.

Firedance

Mrs Mc wrote: »

Let's us know when you're coming up to St Annes Park Run will have to get out the good China !!!

Lucky you! I didn't even get one of kilkerz buns...:p

diego_b

No running since Wednesday as could feel a bit of a niggle in hip/glut area. Silly boy as I over cooked things on that Wednesday session. Heading for Raheny (from Laois) in a few mins so hopefully all goes well.

Kennyg71

Best luck Diego , hope to catch you there.

denis b

See ya there D. Make the treadmill count today!!!

This Fat Girl Runs

Good luck today!

denis b

Hope ye all got home safely D. Great to see you again and congrats to the family on some sterling performances.

diego_b

denis b wrote: »

Hope ye all got home safely D. Great to see you again and congrats to the family on some sterling performances.

We did indeed, bit later home than planned but with the adrenaline I could have drove for hours more!! Ta very much!

diego_b

Thursday 28-01-2016 and Friday 29-01-2016

With the niggle in the glut after my stupid session on Wednesday night I took two rest days to allow it hopefully clear before Raheny


Saturday 30-01-2016

Just the ankle/balance exercises, glut was feeling a bit better so thought I'd be okay to race the next day.

diego_b

Raheny 5 mile, Sunday 31-01-2016

Delayed report as have been over and back to Manchester on Tuesday/Wednesday.

Plan for the race was a PB attempt (stood at 38:53 from a 10K race on New Years Day, only previous 5mile race that I raced I had a time of 39:36 in May 2014). Coupled with my recent 5K PB and the marathon cycle I decided that I would try go out reasonably hard for the race and see if I could hold the pace.
I felt that even with the niggle I picked up on Wednesday that I was good to try this. My planned pace for the race was to run between 7:40-7:45 a minute mile to do this.
Got to Raheny around 2pm having traveled from my parents place in Laois, wasn't ideal prep arriving this late relatively speaking as getting parking was a challenge. Bumped into a few people I knew so was chatting as the time tipped away. Warm up was fairly minimal and I got into the starting pen for around 2:50....again too late as it was difficult to move up through the pack so it meant for a congested start but I suspect given the narrow road relative to the crowd doing the race it's the same for everyone. Maybe as an improvement they could stick a few signs up for 5-10min intervals to give people an idea of how far to stand forward/back.

Mile 1
Found this mile very frustrating as a lot of weaving, more than I have done in a long time in a race but I wanted to try get a clear path in front of me to try get into my pace. As we came to the mile marker I was delighted when my watch beeped and I saw 7:38. On course pace wise so happy days.

Mile 2
Directed up onto the footpath at the corner for during this mile, found that a bit odd as pretty sure last year we were kept on the road for that point but guess it's easier for traffic management to do what they did and that's fair enough. Felt pretty strong on this split and recorded a time of 7:36.

Mile 3
Started to feel the pinch of the pace a bit at this point but again as always for me once we got through the psychological barrier of halfway I started to think that I will be okay, just keep going. This thought process has been with me since I started running 3 years ago, no matter the distance ran whenever halfway through I'd think that didn't kill me so go do it again!
During this mile I got a nice pat on the shoulder from a fellow DCM graduate, Nop. He said he was going to try stick with me for a bit but I think I told him to keep going....wasn't going to be much talk out of me at this pace! Just as we were about to turn into the park and onto the new segment of the race we passed the mile marker....split time was 7:30. Started to think if you just keep it going and don't suddenly drop to 8min miles I should get a new best time.

Mile 4
This mile sucked a lot I found, the up and back section seemed endless and I felt I was slowing down despite best efforts to maintain effort. When we joined the avenue some pretty bloody fast people were running the other way so figured we've a bit to run up/down here given the calibre/pace of what I am seeing opposite us. Was dying to see Nop again as he'd pushed on again a bit from me but knew he was probably only a minute or two ahead so once I saw him again I said yippee the turn is coming soon. I hate 180 degrees turns like this, feel I drop right down in pace to do them....maybe I should try take them wide to slow down less. Once we turned I got a bit of a boost and what wind we had going up the avenue seemed to be gone now or moreso well sheltered away. Mile marker 4 and I had a mental checkpoint of make sure to hit that before 31mins and you're laughing. Just going past the marker I checked my time and saw 30:40...delighted with that it gave me a boost. My split was 7:45 so I had slowed a bit.

Mile 5
First half of this mile I pushed it a bit, passing a few but once we hit the final loop I was fairly fecked. I was keeping an eye out for some familiar faces as between work colleagues and Dubgal I was expecting to see a few people.
For some reason after going around the first corner on the loop I went up onto the footpath, no idea why I did that....have a vague idea it was to try past someone on the straight but can't recall. I spotted Dubgal and Firedance I think it was, and gave them a hello ladies and I got a good cheer back with my name which was nice. I think I went around the corner and then took myself off the footpath as realised I had just cut a corner. Got a good cheer off a mate from work which was nice to go for the final push around the final bend and down the home straight. I ran my best down the last 100 metres or so, could see the clock ticking and it hit 39:10 as I passed it (I started at 01:00). Very happy and felt I gave it my best. Final split was 7:34 and a total distance of 5.02miles ran.

Official time was 38:10, 43 seconds off my last 5mile PB set on New Years Day.

After the race I bumped into denis b at the final corner and we wandered back to the GAA hall catching up on what each has been at training wise. Met Nop and Singer then in the entrance hallway before we were joined by a good few other boardies. Especially nice to catch up with my fellow DCM novices/graduates whilst tucking into some tasty flapjacks, really liked those denis b!!
My father and wife who also ran the wife came back to the hall for a bit then so a bit later we hit the road for home. Dinner at my parents place in Laois and picked up our daughter before hitting the road for Kerry around 7:30pm. Thought I might be too tired to drive but the adrenaline contradicted that and could have drove all night, twas just the four to five hours I actually ended up driving on Sunday on top of the race but no ill effects thankfully.

diego_b

Monday 01-02-2016

5K recovery run on treadmill in 31:30 or so, going between 9.5-10kph and 0-1% incline. Very handy session to ease out the legs.


Tuesday 02-02-2016

Travelling


Wednesday 03-02-2016

Ankle/balance work and glut work.


Plan to do a longer run with my clubmates tomorrow night and 1-2 runs at the weekend to get to around 20 miles for the week.
Have a 10 mile race on Sunday week so will probably do a progression run at the weekend to get a few miles at race pace. Planned race pace for that 10miler is 8min/mi to try for 1:20 and a pb at this distance too.

diego_b

Monday 01-02-2016

5K recovery run on treadmill in 31:30 or so, going between 9.5-10kph and 0-1% incline. Very handy session to ease out the legs.


Tuesday 02-02-2016

Travelling


Wednesday 03-02-2016

Ankle/balance work and glut work.


Plan to do a longer run with my clubmates tomorrow night and 1-2 runs at the weekend to get to around 20 miles for the week.
Have a 10 mile race on Sunday week so will probably do a progression run at the weekend to get a few miles at race pace. Planned race pace for that 10miler is 8min/mi to try for 1:20 and a pb at this distance too.

Mrs Mc

Great report D congrats on the pb looks like the injury has been managed well patience and following the plan definately paid off for you. Onwards and upwards. Ballycotton is next for you isn't it ? Will see you there me and FBOT doing it.