Berlin Q or Bust: Road to sub 2:45

healy1835

I'll post now so I don't have too much time to dwell on things

Felt pretty positive before the race, was greeted by Kellygirl in the warm up area and took my place towards the front of the field.

Km 1-5: 18:32 (3:38, 3:41, 3:44, 3:49, 3:40)

Felt decent, sort of in and around a group of 4/5. Feeling pretty comfortable, had to check myself about 2k in and reel it in a bit.

Km 6-10: 18:43 (3:44, 3:45, 3:49, 3:45, 3:50)

10k Split: 37:15

Starting to feel a bit off about 7k. But still moving decent enough. Knew there was a couple of drags coming back into the city, traffic from the marathon kept my mind occupied. Pretty quickly as we came back into the city I'm starting to struggle. Breathing heavier than i should, and about 7 miles in I just walk in off the course. I could probably have comfortably ran in with a 1:21 or 1:22 but I just didn't want to. Not injured, just a big lack of energy.

11.73km: 44:14 @3:45km......

Had to wait around for my mate who was in the Half and ran a 1:30:30 for a big PB. Saw Swashbuckler's relay team come second, Mike break 3 hours and Martyboy break 90 mins. Get back to car and allay my nearest and dearest's fears as I had dropped off the tracker.

On a probably related note, on the phone to my wife, she tells me that the two boys have slapped cheek syndrome and that when the rash actually shows on the cheek the virus has been there for a 7-10 days. Adults don't get the rash but it would explain the last little while.

Anyway, enough WebMD'ing. Hopefully I'm out of the woods and will be back 100% pretty quickly. First ever DNF and watching the finishers was a little frustrating but I'm not overly disappointed. I've achieved everything I wanted to this Spring except a PB in the half. Onwards and upwards, not exactly sure what's next. Will touch base with the man and charge and figure out the next move.

OOnegative

Unlucky J, no doubt you’ll bounce back stronger again. Right to put it behind you straight away to and move on.

Kellygirl

I’m sorry to hear that J. Nice to meet you this morning beforehand.

shotgunmcos

Cheers for the roars on the home straight!

Sorry to read about the DNF. My only DNF was also Limerick in 2011. You will bounce back of course. Good thing to post, put it away and move on. These things happen. You have a great positive pragmatic attitude. I hope the kids recover soon too.

Singer

I feel bad for diagnosing taper-itus now... chances are you probably did have some bug. No harm in pulling out of a run before you wreck yourself needlessly. Do you have HRM data to see if you were working out harder than expected?

AuldManKing

healy1835 wrote: »

I'll post now so I don't have too much time to dwell on things

.

24 hours - thats all!

overpronator

Sorry to hear about the DnF J. Sh*t happens, forget about it, if anything it'll make you hungrier to cash in that great training in the legs over the last few months.

Duanington

J - hopefully you're back feeling good before too long. I think the way you've gone at the training over the last couple of months leaves you open to episodes like this, you train hard, have made huge progress but it has to leave you depleted at times and exposed to bugs or just weeks of low energy where the body says no.

Looking at that week with the 16 miles steady run, 12x500s and then another long run (where you felt like crap) - that's a huge week given you felt rough the week before ( 2x2 mile session I think?). The signs are there that something has been off for a few weeks now if you ask me and I would suggest you're due to give the body a little breather before ramping back up again.

We're all human and even though we want to go at these weeks 100% every single time, family\work\life doesn't always allow it. You don't hold back in some of those sessions so maybe its time to look at that too.

Anyway, you've another year of progress ahead I'm sure when you do start feeling good again, great to watch it happening.

Lazare

Gutted to read that. You've a great attitude though. Such poxy timing with getting ill.

healy1835

Duanington wrote: »

J - hopefully you're back feeling good before too long. I think the way you've gone at the training over the last couple of months leaves you open to episodes like this, you train hard, have made huge progress but it has to leave you depleted at times and exposed to bugs or just weeks of low energy where the body says no.

Looking at that week with the 16 miles steady run, 12x500s and then another long run (where you felt like crap) - that's a huge week given you felt rough the week before ( 2x2 mile session I think?). The signs are there that something has been off for a few weeks now if you ask me and I would suggest you're due to give the body a little breather before ramping back up again.

We're all human and even though we want to go at these weeks 100% every single time, family\work\life doesn't always allow it. You don't hold back in some of those sessions so maybe its time to look at that too.

Anyway, you've another year of progress ahead I'm sure when you do start feeling good again, great to watch it happening.

Yep, I think you're on to a couple things D. Shoehorning in that 2x2 mile session at 9pm of a long Saturday was stupid. I needed to back off there and then ( I was pretty close to doing the 3rd rep as well I might add )

Despite how good I felt, following it up with 16miles under 7min pace probably wasn't any better of a decision.

I have been conscious about not overdoing the sessions as DR observed a while back, and the paces have generally shown this.

I tried to convince myself that yesterday was gonna happen but in hindsight it never was! I suppose i just didn't want to waste the training and the thought process was along the lines of "it's only a half, I might get away with it". This idea that, a week after completely bonking on an easy run and 5 days after been forcibly told to go home from work because of how rough I looked, I'd run a 1:18/1:17 is laughable.

I'm approaching AMKs 24hr time limit so I'll put it to bed now, and tomorrow launch into DCM training......

Will ramp down intensity for a couple of weeks and then figure out what the summers training is gonna look like. Looking forward to to it. Thanks to all for the messages here and in other places.

Swashbuckler

healy1835 wrote:

I tried to convince myself that yesterday was gonna happen but in hindsight it never was! I suppose i just didn't want to waste the training and the thought process was along the lines of "it's only a half, I might get away with it". This idea that, a week after completely bonking on an easy run and 5 days after been forcibly told to go home from work because of how rough I looked, I'd run a 1:18/1:17 is laughable.

We've chatted offline already so I've nothing really new to offer in terms of input. Despite what people say, running is not easy. It's very hard to know sometimes when you're pushing too hard or not getting it right. Especially good runners like yourself tend to be very driven, so pulling back (or even distinguishing the difference between what normal training fatigue and over training fatigue) can be very hard at times.

One thing I will add is a training block like you have done is never "wasted". The output of a block you have just put down is not a race result. It's long term gains. Takes a bit of foresight to see it especially when us runners are an impatient bunch but you'll see. You keep your training as consistent (and backing off at the right times) as you have been and 1.18 will eventually be a walk in the park.

My advice sounds great in theory. I wish I could listen to my own advice sometimes. Haha.

healy1835

The log is still ongoing! I get a lot from being on here so there's no sign of me departing anytime soon

Have followed my own, and other's, instincts by having a bit of a down period. I got bloods done just to see if anything was amiss, but I can feel myself coming back and I'm fairly sure that the virus was the main reason for my crap performance, but as discussed on here, there were other contributory factors that I can ensure don't happen again.

Gonna take the rest of this week easy again and then maybe introduce a couple of smaller sessions next week just to ease back into things. Will have my DCM plan finalised by the weekend, a couple of weddings and stags will mean I'll probably build in an extra couple of weeks to counter those weeks.

Don't see a great deal changing as regards the general plan, two sessions and a LR, make up the rest of the mileage as I see fit. Probably will run the DCM race series, but am considering Kilcock and Charleville vs Frank Duffy and Race Series Half. But I haven't gotten the plan so I'll wait and see what happens there. Training paces will be based on a sub 2:50 marathon, and that's definitely in my crosshairs, but that sort of talk is for another day.

I have been running, and will bring up 1000 miles on my run home today (a couple of weeks later than scheduled ).

Mon & Tue: licking wounds

Wed: 10.7k: 53:38 @5:01/km
Thu: 10.6k: 51:27 @4:51/km
Fri: 5Miles: 38:55 @4:50/km

Sat & Sun: Detective Pikachu, Kildare game, Red Bull Cliff Diving. Didn't exactly plan on not running....but downtime is downtime, and the amount of crap in my system didn't exactly entice me out the door

Mon: 12k: 59:01 @4:55/km

Tue: AM: 7.5k: 37:04 @4:56/km
PM: 7.5k: 36:02 @4:48/km

In and out of work.

Wed: AM: 7.5k: 37:11 @4:57/km
PM: more of the same I imagine.....

Swashbuckler

Glad you're hanging around.

Will be I teresting to hear more about the plan in terms of the types of sessions and long runs with "stuff". Presume coach is providing?

healy1835

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Glad you're hanging around.

Will be I teresting to hear more about the plan in terms of the types of sessions and long runs with "stuff". Presume coach is providing?

Thanks P yeah he's still here alright, although he'd hasten to call himself a coach! Yeah, I've gradually been moving towards doing more with the LR as the training cycles have gone by, and DCM will see them taking on more 'stuff' as they say'.Theres always a decent mix of shorter stuff like 20x400s all the way up 8 Mile tempos. He puts a high value on the warm up races and I like that tbh, I think it works for me. I know there's other ways to skin the marathon, but I love the gradual build up in race distance as the big day approaches.....I'm looking forward to seeing it myself!

healy1835

Wed PM: 7.5k: 35:57 @4:47/km

Thu: 7k w/pooch

Fri: AM 7.5k: 36:22 @4:51/km
PM 8k: 36:38 @4:35/km

Raining when I was running home, suddenly I had an urge to run a bit quicker...finished with a 3:59km. Mojo is returning. Definitely can relate to Scullion's last few podcasts about being a little patient, taking a step back and letting 'that' urge come back naturally.

Sat: Had an hour for a run this morning. Was gonna run easy but had the notion to do a little session. Threw on the Zoom Flys and took myself to the Industrial estate where I did 10x1min off 90secs. Not exactly a ball buster of a session but it was a nice little return after my (almost) two weeks downtime paces for the mins on ranged from 3:19/km to 3:01/km, but that 3:01 was probably GPS based, more like 3:08/9.

11.8k: 50:49 @4:18/km

Gonna do maybe 20k tomorrow. Some serious mojo has returned wont get too excitable though. Another light session or 2 next week, see where I am then.

healy1835

Sun: 13Miles: 1:46:14@5:04/km
Mate was doing 20miles down Monasterevin direction, drove down early, did 13 with him. Home and hosed by 9am. System feels great and ready to rock, but not going to push it.

97k for the week.

Debated doing a couple of shorter races, but don't feel the need to tbh. I'm happy going into DCM block without them. Have been asked to pace 90mins at the Thoroughbred Half Marathon in June so will probably just do that.

AuldManKing

healy1835 wrote: »

Debated doing a couple of shorter races, but don't feel the need to tbh. I'm happy going into DCM block without them. Have been asked to pace 90mins at the Thoroughbred Half Marathon in June so will probably just do that.

So no racing over the summer??

healy1835

AuldManKing wrote: »

So no racing over the summer??

As in before I start DCM training still haven't locked down races for the summer yet.....

Swashbuckler

healy1835 wrote:

As in before I start DCM training still haven't locked down races for the summer yet.....

Nice 10k in Killarney in July. Perfect place for a family getaway!

healy1835

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Nice 10k in Killarney in July. Perfect place for a family getaway!

Actually considered that, but my wife is starting a new job in July so we've had to put holidays on hold for this summer. You targeting that? I think the DCM race series 10k is on that weekend as well, will prob re-enter the racing world for that.

healy1835

So after weighing up as many variables as we could, the plan is to up the mileage and keep intensity levels down from here until the end of June. I was probably over excitable and wanted to launch into another block. My training partner is doing Berlin, and we're hoping to be able to cross over a bit where possible so this was probably influencing me a bit. But I'm not running Berlin so patience has been urged from all quarters and I am listening. Plan is to hit 130k fairly consistently during June and go into July with a strong base and ready to work.

Swashbuckler

healy1835 wrote:

Actually considered that, but my wife is starting a new job in July so we've had to put holidays on hold for this summer. You targeting that? I think the DCM race series 10k is on that weekend as well, will prob re-enter the racing world for that.

I don't think I'll target anything specific. Dunshaughlin next and still figuring out what to do beyond that. Baby due in Sept so racing will be off the cards for a while. That means it's a straight out decision between a bunch of 10ks or shorter in July/August or a HM.

aquinn

Are you going to do Arthurs Way 5km again? We are.

healy1835

aquinn wrote: »

Are you going to do Arthurs Way 5km again? We are.

That godforsaken race? No way!! Ah no, I'm taking a break from racing for the next little while. Arthurs Way is, however, on the list of races that I've messed up and would like to give another shot Arthurs Way 5k, Rotterdam & Berlin Marathons, Tullamore & Limerick Half Marathon's...the list is ever growing :P

healy1835

Mon: 14.2k: 1:09:28 @4:53/km
Tipping around the plains on a nice sunny afternoon.

Tue: 10 Miles: 1:16:26@4:45/km
Was up in town for a meeting so got out to the PP for a run. No real plan in mind beforehand, decided to run the Frank Duffy route, and after a quick glance at the route map, had a very enjoyable afternoon. I'd forgotten how similar to the half marathon route it was. Not the easiest but very familiar. Probably gonna race it in August.

Wed: 12.2k: 1:00:09 @4:55/km
See Monday.

Thursday: 5 Miles: 38:55 @4:50/km
Awake late/early with Erin. She went back to sleep, her father did not! Stared at the ceiling for an hour before heading out @5:30am for a run. Watch doesn't seem to want to upload the run to Strava so I think it's trying to tell me something Feeling decent, if I'm not tired I'll head out again tonight for a few.

The next few weeks will require a certain amount of discipline to keep the mileage decent whilst also keeping intensity levels low....but the eyes are on the (long-term) prize.

shotgunmcos

Same here- need to keep the intensity under wraps. My legs didn't appreciate the reps yesterday and that fiecin hill beyond the Chapelizod bridge :eek: I don't remember that from DCM, you turn off before it right?

skyblue46

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Same here- need to keep the intensity under wraps. My legs didn't appreciate the reps yesterday and that fiecin hill beyond the Chapelizod bridge :eek: I don't remember that from DCM, you turn off before it right?

That one is Chapelizod Hill Road. In DCM you turn left after you cross the bridge and go up the hill at St Laurence's Road rather than straight on up "that feicin hill" :pac: The first 200m of Chapelizod Hill average out at 12% gradient and touches 14% in places. Come to think of it that would be an ideal hill for full recovery 10 second hill sprints.

healy1835

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Same here- need to keep the intensity under wraps. My legs didn't appreciate the reps yesterday and that fiecin hill beyond the Chapelizod bridge :eek: I don't remember that from DCM, you turn off before it right?

Yeah you go left off the bridge alright you've come out the other side of Limerick in good fettle though. You've pencilled in a couple of warm up races before Dublin right?

shotgunmcos

@skyblue - fair play if you can get up that hill in 10 secs! More like 90secs and 3 or 4 reps of those and you'd be crawling up in on all 4s

@healy - aerobically yeah. 2 niggles though and put the weight back on. Just the Charleville HM. B goal for the year I think was 1:25:××

skyblue46

shotgunmcos wrote: »

@skyblue - fair play if you can get up that hill in 10 secs! More like 90secs and 3 or 4 reps of those and you'd be crawling up in on all 4s

@healy - aerobically yeah. 2 niggles though and put the weight back on. Just the Charleville HM. B goal for the year I think was 1:25:××

Haha...I mean sprint a 10 sec section of it and then fully recover before going again.