Lurker's Log

hot buttered scones

Well done on the Pb and a well run race. It's a great feeling when a plan comes together.

Annie get your Run

mbarr wrote: »

Enjoyed seeing everyone in McGrattans afterwards, I've been there the last two years following DCM, feels good to be there after running myself. Also delighted to be able to return AGYR's gel belt, thanks a million for the loan AM!

Well done Mark!! Sounds like a perfect way to run DCM . I'm hoping there will be tons of good running karma in that belt now although I may be lending it to you again next October :D. Lovely, as always, to catch up on Sunday.

jake1970

"all "A" goals achieved" Well done M great running.

aquinn

That sounds like a great day out and a plan with no sessions, I like it.

Congratulations.

Younganne

Well done Mark. great running and sounds like a great day.

Now get back to training next week and get those shorter races ticked off.:D

annapr

mbarr wrote: »

Kept the head well in the second half, felt my face going numb and the endorphins kicking in around mile 17 but bit my tongue and slapped my face to refocus, couldn't afford them that early. Seemed to work anyhow.

that's a new technique... will keep it in mind for the future

Good to see you after, and well done on the race!

Mrs Mc

Well done on the sub 4 M well done

mbarr

Right, might give this a shot again.

If I was treading water in 2017, 2018 was a frustrating year of undoing good habits, falling out of love with running, and finally getting a proper boot in the bum from a marathon.

"Ran" DCM in 4:23, was walking from before Terenure. Thought I had done something approximating the training I did for DCM in 2017 but looking back, there was far less running. I think I only ran 600 miles in 2018 in total. I weighted 95kg over the summer, and was still 88 by DCM.

Anyhow, 2019 will be different. I've entered Edinburgh marathon, I'm doing P&D 18/55, 86kg at the moment and falling. Every marathon of the 4 I've run has been slower than the previous one, the goal for Edinburgh is to break that trend. If I do that and run a good block of training that leaves me fit for some shorter stuff over the summer then I'll be happy. No alcohol since 3rd Jan, going to stay off it until at least after Edinburgh, possibly all of 2019.

This week was the first week on plan; so far so good. P&D ramps up the intensity fairly quickly; 13 mile LR with 8@MP in week 2 is already looming.

Looking forward to catching up on how everyone on here is getting on.

mbarr

This week so far:
8 miles with 10x100m strides: Read a few different threads about the utility of strides in marathon training, how fast to run them, etc and ended up none the wiser. Decided to stick with the recommended distance and focus on speed and good form. 10 feels like a lot of strides, 8 miles feels like a lot of miles to be doing them in.

10 miles general aerobic: Freezing cold run in the rain and bit of snow. Felt good though.

I'd been swimming a fair bit late last year, decided to try to keep it up as cross-training during my marathon training. 2k on Monday and Wednesday this week. Not flogging myself in the pool, a couple of faster 100m here or there. Moving up to 5 runs a week on the plan next week will mean either removing a swim, doubling up on a run/swim day or having no full rest day. I'm thinking of moving to doing one proper pool session, 1 really light recovery pool swim the same day as the recovery run, and keeping a full rest day.

mbarr

2 weeks into the P&D 55 MPW plan, 13 miles with 8@MP. Not sure how this is supposed to feel at this stage, but it felt like a bit of a slog. I did this as 5 miles easy, gradually speeding up to MP then 8 miles of that. Positives to take from the session; I managed to complete it (didn't feel like I would be able to 3 miles in), and MP felt fairly dialled in, I didn't have to look at my watch at all except to count down the miles.

Looking back at my training before Rotterdam and Barcelona, I was half marathon fit coming into the training. This time I'm effectively detrained. Lots of gains to make I guess. Not sure whether to dial back the marathon pace to something more realistic to my current fitness or to fake it till I (possibly) make it. Might give it until the 16 mile with 10@MP in 3 weeks time, and make a decision then. Nothing too scary between now and then anyhow.

Murph_D

mbarr wrote: »

2 weeks into the P&D 55 MPW plan, 13 miles with 8@MP. Not sure how this is supposed to feel at this stage, but it felt like a bit of a slog. I did this as 5 miles easy, gradually speeding up to MP then 8 miles of that. Positives to take from the session; I managed to complete it (didn't feel like I would be able to 3 miles in), and MP felt fairly dialled in, I didn't have to look at my watch at all except to count down the miles.

Looking back at my training before Rotterdam and Barcelona, I was half marathon fit coming into the training. This time I'm effectively detrained. Lots of gains to make I guess. Not sure whether to dial back the marathon pace to something more realistic to my current fitness or to fake it till I (possibly) make it. Might give it until the 16 mile with 10@MP in 3 weeks time, and make a decision then. Nothing too scary between now and then anyhow.

I’d absolutely recommend you dial back the pace to something realistically based on current fitness. Basing it on a hoped-for time and hoping to grow into it is a mug’s game. Start with a target based on where you are now, and you can always adjust faster as you adapt to the training (but even then, based on actual performance in tune up races).

Good luck, M! Good to see you back.

OOnegative

Murph_D wrote: »

I’d absolutely recommend you dial back the pace to something realistically based on current fitness. Basing it on a hoped-for time and hoping to grow into it is a mug’s game. Start with a target based on where you are now, and you can always adjust faster as you adapt to the training (but even then, based on actual performance in tune up races).

Good luck, M! Good to see you back.

+1 to this M, run to current fitness not aspirational.

mbarr

Thanks guys, being honest I'd be hard pushed to race a half in 8 minute miles at the moment so need to dial it back for sure. Next MP run isn't for 3 weeks though so we'll see how I go. Might throw in an early tune up race to see where I am more realistically.

Tonight was 1700m swim with 10x100m roughly 1.43 pace for 100 with 20 seconds recovery.

mbarr

10 miles general aerobic on Tuesday, started too quickly but got it back in hand for the second half and ended at the right effort.
4 miles recovery (too fast) and 1600m easy swim on Wednesday.

8 miles with 4 lactate threshold on Thursday. This mirrors the first session on the plan, 2.5 weeks ago. HR was in the mid 170s for the faster bit of that and I was hanging on in the end. Ran the same route this time to see the difference the couple of weeks on plan had made. Ran it in almost exactly the same time but much more controlled and with HR in mid 160s. Happy with that, nice to see improvement already.

mbarr

A good steady few weeks of running, all on plan so far. 15 mile long run done this weekend in Sligo, hilly and overdid it a little on occasion, I'm not great at toning it down on hills. This evening was a session I was dreading, 9 with 5@LT, it went fine in the end.
Quicker miles were 7:39, 7:32, 7:37, 7:40, 7:37.

Starting to eat all around me, must get that in hand as I'm keen to drop another few kg before things start getting really serious (mesocycle 2, Lactate Threshold and Endurance looks terrifying as I haven't done any interval work in about 2 years)

Younganne

good luck with the plan M, great to see you back logging.:D

denis b

mbarr wrote: »

This evening was a session I was dreading, 9 with 5@LT, it went fine in the end.
Quicker miles were 7:39, 7:32, 7:37, 7:40, 7:37.

Oh, I know that feeling but have to say it looked like you weathered it very well on Strava. Also with you on the weight loss. No less an expert than Bungy Girl once said that a kg loss converts into a second gain per km. I don't forget that sort of advice

mbarr

The rest of the week was enjoyable running, 10 miles easy which felt really nice, 5 miles recovery yesterday.

Today was 16 miles with the last 10 at marathon pace. I had conflicting feelings about this; I know I'm not in shape for a 3:30 marathon at the moment. I haven't raced properly in almost 2 years, since Barcelona marathon really. In that time I've ran DCM comfortably in 3:56 and uncomfortably in 4:2x, and feck all else. The conflict is coming from the feeling that my fitness is improving fast on this plan, I want to give it my best possible shot and this is clearly a key session, and I'm not sure if maybe the voice in my head telling me not to try to even train to run 3:30 is actually just chickening out of the effort involved.

Anyhow, I avoided thinking about it for the week, didn't programme a pace or session into the watch, just headed off into Phoenix Park and thought I'd see how I felt. 6 miles easy around the back of the park, out the castleknock gate and down blackhorse, back along the Navan Road, then I picked up the pace. Decided to forget about pace completely, just run by feel, with the watch switched to HR so I could make sure it was roughly in the ballpark. The first few miles felt great, paces were 8:17, 8:07, back in the park, 7:59, 8:11. Things started to feel a bit more difficult then, 8:03 despite it being mostly down the Upper Glen, 8:08, then up the Kyber nearly killed me even though I backed off the pace. 8:23. I had an 8:09 then and entertained thoughts of running the last 2 miles easy. I was thinking that 16 w 8@MP is still a good session, no point in killing myself, etc. Decided to stick with it and run another MP mile at least, gave myself a talking to during that. This is arguably one of the three most difficult sessions on the plan, it's not supposed to be easy! So gritted my teeth and put in two nice fast although mostly downhill miles 8:00 and 7:49. I think the average for the MP stretch was 8:07.

Delighted with that, delighted to have survived mesocycle 1 of P&D 18/55. Recovery week now followed by mesocycle 2 which has almost no intervals in it despite my post above, but is still terrifying looking in its LT intensity.

mbarr

It was all going a bit too well, picked up a hip niggle of some sort. I can run on it but after a few miles I can feel some pain and my gait changes and I'm worried I'll properly injure myself so I've backed off for a week.

Thrown myself into the pool instead, this week's been great with session and long swim, session was a 4x100, 1x200, 4x100, 1x300, 4x100, 1x400 with 20 seconds rest that I messed up a bit by heading out too fast on the first 4 100m (1:43ish when I should be aiming at 1:46) and fading a fair bit on the final 4x100 and 1x400. Thursday's swim was my longest ever, 4km.

Apart from that, I've been concentrating on core exercises and trying to be patient about getting back to running.

run_rabbit

A couple of weeks of easy running off plan, dropped the longer runs and sessions, back on plan distance wise this week but without any fast running. This weekend on plan calls for a 20 miler but I'm going to try for 18 and see how that goes. I feel that P&D was overly ambitious from the base I had at the start so I'll be looking at something that fits my current fitness for the next 10 weeks up to Edinburgh. Might just carry on with the P&D mileage and throw in a few makey-uppey sessions depending on how I'm feeling. Definitely enjoyed the plan until the body started breaking down, will be back to it when I'm ready.

Hip is fine while running, occasionally achy first thing in the morning and after a longer run but in general seems to be healing. Weight is down to 81kg which is helping.

Getting completely obsessed with swimming which is distracting somewhat from my running enthusiasm; want to fit in 3 swims a week minimum so I might need to start getting up earlier in the morning. Noticing huge improvements in speed and endurance week on week, reminds me of my first year of running. If I mention the T word does my log automatically get moved to their training log forum? seems very quiet over there. Need to measure my inner leg this weekend for a road bike just in case.

mbarr

Oops. Reckon I registered that account when I first joined and forgot about it.

mbarr

Edinburgh is this weekend, time to reflect on the training block. I did the P&D55 mile, 18 week programme. I didn't really have the base fitness to start the programme so it was probably too tough in the early stages due to me being overly optimistic, this led to a mild injury which resulted in me missing a few of the tempo runs from the middle stretch of the programme. I hit all the long runs though, and really enjoyed the speed work in the closing section; the last few weeks of 5k pace repeats from 600m to 1600m have been really fun.

I'll be trying this plan again in the future, probably for a spring marathon next year, possibly Rotterdam again. I've entered the race series for the summer, and the docklands 5k next month (for fun, and to kick off training for the race series). Another round of half marathon training in the Autumn with a view to breaking 1:30 and 3:30 in 2020! I've already run more in 2019 that I did in all of 2018, this year is shaping up to be a good rebuilding year.

Goals for Edinburgh have always been to try to break my trend of running each marathon slower than the last; for the purposes of keeping it somewhat interesting I'll discount last year's DCM effort and try to beat 3:56 from Dublin 2017. A similar run to that would be great, happy all the way, finish strong, negative split, etc.

aquinn

Excellent, all the very best.

chickey2

Good luck!

OOnegative

Best of luck in Edinburgh M, run well!! Might be a reunion on the cards for Rotterdam........

Singer

Great stuff Mark, it's been good to see you get back into the swing of things! A summer of non-marathon training sounds good to me too. Best of luck in Scotland, hope you have a satisfying run!

Murph_D

Good luck Mark, run well.

Younganne

Best of luck Mark, have a great run.

annapr

Best of luck in Edinburgh, Mark! Hope it all goes well for you.

mbarr

3:37, I'm absolutely delighted with that! All goals accomplished except for the negative split, although with the course profile and a strong headwind for the last 8 miles that was never going to be realistic.

I'd highly recommend Edinburgh marathon, it's a fast course with a great start, well organised, better support than I was expecting given it's mostly outside the city.

Lined up in sheets of rain at the starting line dressed in a bin bag to delay the inevitable soaking, the forecast was for heavy rain and wind for the morning. Over the past few days of thinking about the race and my training there have been hints that I'm in relatively decent shape, however I couldn't really settle on a target. A few weeks ago I had been thinking of starting with a few 9 minute miles, get to half way and reevaluate and push on if feeling good. I revised this to 8:30 miles, then this morning thought it would be silly to hold back at the start when the course is actually helping (downhill for the first 5 miles!) So I just let the legs go, figuring I would slow down once it flattened out. In my mind I was thinking "graceful degradation" rather than a negative split.

Once we hit the coast I had the watch switched to heart rate and cadence, HR under 150 and cadence over 180 and I was happy. Someone nearby said "if you get to half way feeling like you haven't ran anything at all, you're on target" which sounded roughly right, I got to mile 13 starting to feel it a bit though. I kept doing what I was doing, for me the miles from half -18 always seem to fly by pleasantly enough so I held out for that.

On the out and back course we had a good view of the front runner when he was at around mile 22, barely breaking a sweat on his way to winning in 2:31.

The turning point is around mile 18, at which stage we were facing into a stiff headwind with very little shelter. Hit mile 20 feeling good, disinclined to increase the pace though, thought I had just about enough to finish at current pace. Around mile 22 I started counting in my head, 1 1000, 2 1000, 3 1000 in time with my stride, get to 100, repeat, this helped hugely. I pushed thoughts of the finish aside, told myself at mile 25 I'd start to think of it. For now I had half an hour of counting. I started passing lots of people in this section which also helped, I felt like I was finishing strongly. The last mile was incredibly difficult, i couldn't count as i kept losing my place, i had a vague idea that sub 3:40 was in the bag but wasn't sure, the real thing that kept me running was the idea of running the whole thing, which I had only done in 1 of 4 marathons to this point. Amazing crowds out at the finish (which is about 8 miles from Edinburgh in a place called Musselburgh, everybody in the town seemed to come out to cheer us on) which helped get the legs pumping and finish with what felt like a sprint down the finishing stretch.

I don't think I left anything out there, ran to the best of my ability and current fitness, and I feel this is a better template for future marathon success than my 2 faster performances. In the process of training for it I've become much better at fitting running into my life without it becoming my life, I'm hoping to keep it up over the summer alongside sailing and swimming, rather than one passion overriding all others.

Cheers everyone for the well wishes here and on strava