DCM 2017 Mentored Novices Thread

Singer

sillymoo wrote: »

Had to run/walk the third mile and near the end of the third mile the unthinkable happened.......

Congratulations, you are now a "real runner"

Spending a lot of time outdoors while putting the body under stress can lead to all sorts of fun situations. It's obviously unpleasant, but, eh, you-know-what happens.

Salty Running, a female US running blog community (or something like that), have a good few articles about these happenings, and they are some of their most popular content (presumably because people don't like talking about it).

http://www.saltyrunning.com/tag/poop/

http://www.saltyrunning.com/what-to-do-when-you-have-to-poop-or-pee-but-there/

AuldManKing

davedanon wrote: »

Really? that's a new one on me, have to say.

A common theme on Marathon talk podcast.

sillymoo

Thanks for the advice, I was wondering if it was a bit TMI but I feel a little better after voicing it here. Will check out the links above and marathonman podcasts.

No it wasn't pleasant, but will try and put it behind me. Was planning on doing parkrun in the morning. Will decide later tonight depending on how I feel. Thanks all for the support

Sheep1978

What is the name of the Marathon podcast.?

deisedude

Sheep1978 wrote: »

What is the name of the Marathon podcast.?

I assume the podcast being talked about is Marathon Training Academy. If you like podcasts "Running for Real" and the Runners world podcast are well worth a listen too.

Wubble Wubble

Halloween Jack wrote: »

Do they all come out now? I'm not running the 10k so I assume mine will arrive just before the 10 mile?

All mine arrived this morning. Not sure what the arrangements are if not running the 10k?

madjack75

ariana` wrote: »

So sorry mad jack. This happened my friend and after a yr she is back faster than ever. T'cate and follow your physios instructions.

Thanks Ariana,Really disappointed but it will be all the sweeter when I cross that line in 2018.Keep her lit.

madjack75

brownbinman wrote: »

Sorry to hear that too. Why not keep the legs moving, swimming or cycling and aim for a marathon further out in the year.

If you've made the conscious decision to sign up, be a shame to let the work you've done fall away

Thanks Binman, yeah a little swimming and probably few cycling sportives. It will be DCM 2018. Looking on the bright side I had only really started the journey. Enjoy the adventure!

El Caballo

D3PO wrote: »

supposed to do a PMP run today. Felt awful from the get go. After 3 miles I couldnt hold PMP and ended up finishing my session at long slow run pace.

I may be throwing a spanner in the works here as it has the potential to get messy but I have a strong dislike for those three letters, PMP especially this early in the plan. The thing with training is that it should be done at current fitness levels and not at predicted levels because tbh, this far out from a marathon, you would not be able to run the distance at a predicted pace, if you could then there would be no need for all the training in the first place. The difficulty in this when you are dealing with an inexperienced runner is that they haven't run a marathon yet so it can be difficult to judge their marathon ability, some could be huge overreachers in their targets and others could be hugely conservative. it also makes it difficult to guage current fitness levels.

Novices also tend to be big gainers in terms of fitness, we've all heard of noob gains so theoretically, someone who may well run the marathon at their PMP, their current M fitness may be 20 seconds a mile slower right now. I'll use myself as an example as I'm currently in a similar situation right now in training for the DCM. I'm coming back from a fairly substantial break from running so similar to all you guys, I will probably pick fitness up quickly as it's a long time since I had trained as much as I am and will over the next few months. My Goal pace is 6:52 per mile and/or 4:15 per K for all you metric kids;). The issue for me is that 6:52 pace is about what I could hold for a 10 mile RACE right now so if I tried to run that for 6 miles in training as part of a PMP run, it would kill me. In fact, I know I wouldn't be able to hold it as it's not a measure of my current Marathon fitness, it's a flat to the board tempo run even for 3 miles so I'd be far ove reaching if I tried to run that as an MP run. I hope you guys can follow what I'm saying here. Even though my goal marathon pace is 6:52, my current Marathon pace is probably closer to 7:30 right now and that's where I will be doing my MP runs right now and hopefully they will get faster while the effort stays the same as I get fitter over the next few months eventually cumulating in 6:52 pace being true MP. you don't train at the pace you hope to be at on raceday, you train at your current fitness levels and hope to progress over time to your goal time pace.

I hope you guys follow and this is not aimed personally at you(although that could be contributing to your problem on that run) but all of the novices here. If anyone has any questions, I'll try to clarify more on those if you want as I don't want to just open a possible can of worms and leave WW and AMK swimming in mine:pac: although a hand would be good if they are willing;):p

Lazare

Great post.

At what stage do you figure out whether you're overreaching or are conservative?

The half?

Wubble Wubble

El Caballo wrote: »

I may be throwing a spanner in the works here as it has the potential to get messy but I have a strong dislike for those three letters, PMP especially this early in the plan. The thing with training is that it should be done at current fitness levels and not at predicted levels because tbh, this far out from a marathon, you would not be able to run the distance at a predicted pace, if you could then there would be no need for all the training in the first place. The difficulty in this when you are dealing with an inexperienced runner is that they haven't run a marathon yet so it can be difficult to judge their marathon ability, some could be huge overreachers in their targets and others could be hugely conservative. it also makes it difficult to guage current fitness levels.

Novices also tend to be big gainers in terms of fitness, we've all heard of noob gains so theoretically, someone who may well run the marathon at their PMP, their current M fitness may be 20 seconds a mile slower right now. I'll use myself as an example as I'm currently in a similar situation right now in training for the DCM. I'm coming back from a fairly substantial break from running so similar to all you guys, I will probably pick fitness up quickly as it's a long time since I had trained as much as I am and will over the next few months. My Goal pace is 6:52 per mile and/or 4:15 per K for all you metric kids;). The issue for me is that 6:52 pace is about what I could hold for a 10 mile RACE right now so if I tried to run that for 6 miles in training as part of a PMP run, it would kill me. In fact, I know I wouldn't be able to hold it as it's not a measure of my current Marathon fitness, it's a flat to the board tempo run even for 3 miles so I'd be far ove reaching if I tried to run that as an MP run. I hope you guys can follow what I'm saying here. Even though my goal marathon pace is 6:52, my current Marathon pace is probably closer to 7:30 right now and that's where I will be doing my MP runs right now and hopefully they will get faster while the effort stays the same as I get fitter over the next few months eventually cumulating in 6:52 pace being true MP. you don't train at the pace you hope to be at on raceday, you train at your current fitness levels and hope to progress over time to your goal time pace.

I hope you guys follow and this is not aimed personally at you(although that could be contributing to your problem on that run) but all of the novices here. If anyone has any questions, I'll try to clarify more on those if you want as I don't want to just open a possible can of worms and leave WW and AMK swimming in mine:pac: although a hand would be good if they are willing;):p

Great post EC! Surprised there hasn't been much comment about this up to now.

First bit I've highlighted is particularly relevant here IMO. Even some more experienced runners can find their PMP hard to judge. For this reason, I prefer to think of it as a value that isn't set in stone. My take on it is that you can't be expected to run 26.2 miles at your PMP now, but build towards it gradually. Hence, the longest PMP run on the Boards plan is 9 miles, in Week 12 of 18.

I remember that session very well, as I did it the day after coming back from holidays. Not easy (putting it mildly!) but I got it done, and felt great after it. Other than that one, the PMP sessions on the Boards plan do not go beyond 6 miles (excluding w/u & c/d)

Novices may find that their PMP on the day will vary considerably from what it is now. I find that the tune up races are excellent in finding out more about yourself and what you can do. Not too many of them, obviously! As with the race itself, it's important not to set your heart on a particular pace, and be prepared to adjust if and when necessary.

All that said, I understand your points 100%, very interesting! I found a great thread on the subject a few minutes ago while rummaging through the archives, which I've decided to dust off and share with ye

PMP Pace Debate

El Caballo

Lazare wrote: »

Great post.

At what stage do you figure out whether you're overreaching or are conservative?

The half?

It could be at any stage really although as you race the longer races during the build up to the marathon, you will develop a better sense of what you may be able to hold for a marathon.

I'm not going to suggest throwing out the garmin as I know how useful that can be especially for novice runners who may have difficulty feeling out a pace but I think you guys would really benefit from is a more harmonious tech/feel approach to training right now to gauge your effort on these runs to current fitness. what I mean by that is that listen to both and not just commit to the pace on the watch 100%. If your body is saying this is too hard, the watch is lying. A simple rough guide to this is what they call a talk test. During an MP run, you should be able to say about 3 or 4 short sentences loudly without gasping for breath. If you can't and can only get out 1 or 2, you are running too hard. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if you can chat the back legs off a donkey, you are going too easy. This is a rough guide but a very useful one to have to judge if you are in the right area of effort and should give you a guideline up until you start getting a better idea from the build up races but that's something you will still be able to use for the rest of your running life just to check yourself as conditions, fatigue and many different factors all affect what marathon pace effort is from day to day. It's never a constant as our bodies really don't understand pace, that's a man made concept and all our body understands is effort.

As an old DCM mentor(from a few years ago and not as in auld before she kills me:pac:) Dubgal used to say "Do a self check" every so often on a run just to make sure everything is ok and a talk test would fall into that category.

Hope this helped:)

ariana`

sillymoo wrote: »

Got mine today also

Ran 3 miles today, just a small cup of coffee about an hour before run, no breakfast.

Felt good for the first mile, picked up the pace to stretch the legs after all the slow runs and pushed myself.

Second mile had to slow as started to get stomach cramps.

Had to run/walk the third mile and near the end of the third mile the unthinkable happened.......

Had to walk half a mile to my car. So embarrassed. Lots of people about but I don't think anyone could see what had happened and most stayed in shorts and top of leg, but I knew....

Really upset. It was a short run. Maybe it was the pace? I don't know. Had a bowl of porridge when I got home and now stomach is grumbling like crazy and is all upset. I'm upset. Stomach upset. Just upset all round!

I was so excited getting my race series numbers this morning. Now I don't want to run another mile. I'm at a loss.

You poor thing. But honestly you're not the first and won't be the last runner to have problems like this. Didn't Paula Radcliffe have similar problems during London Marathon a few yrs back?

I always factor in a toilet stop around 7-10km into my LSR. Despite running first thing on an empty stomach and have a 'clear out' before I leave the house... needs must!

Are you drinking plenty of fluids all the time, not just before/after a run, keep well hydrated and stick to simple carbs and less fibre for the few hours before you run so white toast instead of brown. I'm no expert but these things help me.

Thanks EC interesting post. And WW for the link. It's really dealing with the unknown for most of us.

LSR done. Slowed it down a lot this week. Actually I didn't specifically slow it down pace happened naturally to be slower and I made no attempt to change it. Didn't quite make the distance, i was about 100m short! Only so many times I could run around the car lol! I'm not doing FG10 so I will do the full 13 next wk :-)

Sheep1978

Ok week 5 of 20 for me done (have already missed weeks due to injury):
Mon: 3.4m @ 8.46
Tues: 6.26m @ 7.51
Weds: rest
Thurs: cross training in the morning. Evening run of 3.86 @ 8.27
Fri: rest
Sat: 12m which consisted of 9m @ 8.34 followed straight into a park run of 3.12m @ 7.21
Tomorrow: rest

Would appreciate all comments or advice from any more knowledgeable runners. Thanks very much.

clickerquicklic

Week 3 done

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 3*2mile at 10k pace
Wednesday - run to work 15k @ 5.30 ish
Thursday - 30k bike
Friday - 30k bike
Saturday - Long run -26k @ 5:06 pace
Ran to Parkrun 8km got there late and straight into it (was the plan not to stop) , ran the parkrun at half marathon pace included 5*200m strides , 2 hill sprints and kept the pace at half marathon pace. Finished parkrun in 21:20 which is around half marathon pace (I expect) .
I quickly scanned my parkrun token took a gel and a cup of water and went on my way , took a long loop home , I felt great was ticking off the km's at about 5:10 pace , got to 20km and I was getting thirsty ( need to start bringing drinks) legs felt fresh so I decided to up the pace .
Felt really good now on km 20-26 I was cruising at about 4:50 pace and legs felt as fresh as when I left the house ,did a few more strides of about 100m's , I think I had another hour or so left in the tank which bodes well.

Thanks to all who give tips and advice for free on this forum , and best of luck to everyone in there training.

choons

Week 3 done. On track with my latest plan.

Day: Planned/Actual

Monday: 3/3km – No bother, discovered a nice park nearby.
Tuesday: 5/5.1km – Latent tiredness starting to hit.
Wednesday: 7/7.6km – First time running on tired legs heading out, felt grand afterwards.
Thursday: 5/5.1km – Felt easy, nothing to note. That was 6 days running in a row.
Friday: Rest / 10mins on Cross-trainer, weights session. Struggled to walk down stars after light squats!! Was not expecting this.
Saturday: 14/13km Was apprehensive heading out. Tired, didn’t sleep great or eat well on Fri and this was the longest run I’ve ever done. Guess I mapped it wrong because I came home a k short. Still a personal record and my pace was extremely consistent which I’m very proud of.
Sunday: Weights / TBD – Considering a rest day.

Next week is a handy one and looking forward to the 10k on Sunday

ariana`

Sheep1978 wrote: »

Ok week 5 of 20 for me done (have already missed weeks due to injury):
Mon: 3.4m @ 8.46
Tues: 6.26m @ 7.51
Weds: rest
Thurs: cross training in the morning. Evening run of 3.86 @ 8.27
Fri: rest
Sat: 12m which consisted of 9m @ 8.34 followed straight into a park run of 3.12m @ 7.21
Tomorrow: rest

Would appreciate all comments or advice from any more knowledgeable runners. Thanks very much.

How did you find upping the pace for PR after 9m @ LSR? I'm tempted to try this next week. I found the LSR very long this wk but I think it was monotony that killed me, maybe PR and running with/near other people might help.

Today was my longest training run ever. It went fine but I did find it long & felt I couldn't have run another step at the end but I've been on my feet all day since at home doing housework and I'm fine. I'm a bit afraid of sitting down to be honest, that I'll never get up again!!

muddypaws

Third week of HHN1 done and dusted.

Mon: Rest
Tues: 5 mile LSR @ 11:40
Weds: 6 mile cycle
Thurs: 3 mile easy @ 11:00
Fri: 4 mile easy @ 11:26
Sat: 3 mile easy @ 10:20

My pace seems to be all over the place looking at that, but I think its due to the different terrain that I covered through the week. The 4 mile on Friday was in Mullaghmeen Forest, which is very hilly, I even walked up one bit of it, as I'm not sure if I'm meant to push hard on an easy run, and could feel my heart rate rising?

The LSR was probably too quick for me, when looking at the easy runs, but I think I had it in my head that I only had to do 5 miles, so didn't slow down enough - I now think of 5 miles as being 'only'!

Today I did a 3 mile bikejore session before Park Run, and then went for a long walk afterwards - after partaking in the delights of Lough Key's coffee shop, so am now absolutely shattered and may be glued to the sofa for the rest of the evening. It was very warm, but it did feel like an easy pace, on a relatively flat trail.

As I did a Park Run freedom run on Thursday, I did slightly more than 3 miles, and sped up near the end, so the pace evened out at 11 minutes, but when I checked it, the 3 miles were all done at exactly 11:06, I would love to say that was planned, but it was a happy accident.

When doing easy and LSRs, is it ok to try and finish a bit faster? Or should they, especially the LSR be run at a steady, consistent pace? I'm trying to pick the pace up towards the end of each run, but not sure if thats the right thing to be doing?

deisedude

Week 1 of my 16 week training plan nearly done

Monday - Speed session at a track. 1 mile, 1k, 800m, 2x400m, 200m with jpgging recovery in between and warm down after. Prob did just over 5 miles

Tuesday - 6 miles at 8.04 with the club

Wednesday - 5.5 miles at 8:30

Thursday - 6 miles in the woods. A few ropey moments where I got lost

Friday - Off

Saturday - 10 miles at 8:28. Was only supposed to do 8 but was running with a group and just went with it

Sunday - I'm supposed to do 6 but contemplating doing a weights session instead in the morning and maybe a 3 mile slow shake out in the evening

In terms of foam rolling I have been very good this week. I have one you hold in your hands, its a bit like a rolling pin but with all these pointy shapes sticking out of it. So much easier than a normal roller

Lazare

muddypaws wrote: »

The LSR was probably too quick for me, when looking at the easy runs, but I think I had it in my head that I only had to do 5 miles, so didn't slow down enough - I now think of 5 miles as being 'only'!

Same! It's a great feeling, there was a time not so long ago where 3 minutes solid running was endurance.

muddypaws wrote: »

When doing easy and LSRs, is it ok to try and finish a bit faster? Or should they, especially the LSR be run at a steady, consistent pace? I'm trying to pick the pace up towards the end of each run, but not sure if thats the right thing to be doing?

I did this last week and felt amazing afterwards, probably from the confidence that I could do it. My (amateur) thinking on it is it's a great thing as it trains the body and mind how to run on tired legs.

Couldn't do it today mind you.

Lazare

Week 3 in the bag, another really great week.

Ran a 2 mile recovery run on Sunday, the first time doing one.

Missed my gym session on Monday morning due to a mistake with the calendar, but was happy for the extra day's recovery.

Got really anxious on Monday due to some pain in my right calf. I was out for two months at the start of the year with an injury brought on by overdoing it out of naivety so I was really fearful that it was back. Was thinking of cancelling Tuesday morning's run but spent a lot of time foam rolling and got a good sleep and woke up Tue morn feeling brand new. Phew.

Tuesday's 3 mile easy run was great, felt really comfortable at 5:35 (km) pace.

Wednesday's session was also excellent, decided at the last minute Tue night to use a pedestrian bridge over the N7 for my hills. It's 2km from my house so I decided to finish at it with the intention of adding a recovery jog home.

The bridge has a wheelchair/bicycle ramp that splits in two halfway up. I ran up, swung around the bend then ran up the second part. About 30 seconds total. Then walked back down. Felt really great after this session. There are no more hills in the plan, but I think I'll add in a few sneaky ones.

Thursday was another good one, slight bit slower than Tue, but only marginally so.

Recovery Friday.*

Last night I tried to plot out a route for today's 13 mile LSR that incorporated finishing at parkrun but I just couldn't figure it out precisely so decided to head for the Garda HQ and set off down the quays.

Did that. Headed down the south quays so I would be facing traffic at the junctions, in and out of Trinity for a nosey, then up Grafton st and into Stephens Green. Came out there at Leeson st and turned left at the canal down into Ringsend. Over the East link and back up the north quays to the park.

The longest run I've ever done up to this point was last week's 10 mile (beat my previous longest by about 400m) so I really felt it for the last 5k. Kept the pace which was good but was thinking how the hell am I gonna do double this?

At a quicker pace.

Really got me thinking about the target I have in my head. I think I need to re-evaluate and accept that I just don't have the requisite conditioning required. It made me realise that this year's DCM is like making pancakes. You've got to fluff the first one and throw it out before you can make the beautys.

A year of proper conditioning training, then attack an aggressive time.


*About recovery. After reading a great article from the link in Singer's thread, 'Middle and long distance training recovery' I kinda get the feeling that we're not putting enough importance on it.

The bit about recovery being the 'training' blew my mind. Basically, your session is all about tearing your body apart and doing 'damage'. The recovery period is where the magic happens, with muscles repairing and regenerating. Sleep being the biggest driver of it, but nutrition and even sitting posture playing a vital role.

I just don't think enough of our focus is on it.

Lazare

Bit of an lol with my LSR today.

I multiplied 13.1 x 1.6 to get the half marathon distance because if I was running 13 miles, I may asell go the extra few yards so I could say I ran a half marathon.

So, decided to run 21k instead of 20.8. Mainly so my garmin records would show I ran a half marathon.

Checked the app afterwards and it didn't show up.

Turns out a half marathon is 21.098km.

I ran 21.01 :P

A few more bleedin yards.

clickerquicklic

Lazare wrote: »

The longest run I've ever done up to this point was last week's 10 mile (beat my previous longest by about 400m) so I really felt it for the last 5k. Kept the pace which was good but was thinking how the hell am I gonna do double this?

At a quicker pace.

Really got me thinking about the target I have in my head. I think I need to re-evaluate and accept that I just don't have the requisite conditioning required. It made me realise that this year's DCM is like making pancakes. You've got to fluff the first one and throw it out before you can make the beautys.

A year of proper conditioning training, then attack an aggressive time.

I think like this as well but if I went out the door and had to imagine running a 5k at the pace I do a 5k race I would think this is impossible as well.
Running in a group is hopefully going to be the difference on the day for most of us , having pacers should be a massive advantage. I'm not going to get too hung up on time for marathon , I'd like to go sub 3:30 maybe sub 3:20 but the marathon for me is more about getting around and staying healthy . If I don't hit my target I wont be that annoyed , compared to missing a 5k or 10k race target.

skyblue46

Lazare wrote: »

Really got me thinking about the target I have in my head. I think I need to re-evaluate and accept that I just don't have the requisite conditioning required. It made me realise that this year's DCM is like making pancakes. You've got to fluff the first one and throw it out before you can make the beautys.

A year of proper conditioning training, then attack an aggressive time.


*About recovery. After reading a great article from the link in Singer's thread, 'Middle and long distance training recovery' I kinda get the feeling that we're not putting enough importance on it.

The bit about recovery being the 'training' blew my mind. Basically, your session is all about tearing your body apart and doing 'damage'. The recovery period is where the magic happens, with muscles repairing and regenerating. Sleep being the biggest driver of it, but nutrition and even sitting posture playing a vital role.

I just don't think enough of our focus is on it.

Agree 100% on the target times. I did 1:48 for the half in '15 and predictors would say this suggests a 3:50 marathon approx. Even the formula of doubling and adding 20 mins gives 3:56. The reality is that I was dying for the last 3 miles. There is no way I could have run double the distance 6 weeks later. I was conditioned for 10/12 miles at that pace but no further. I am in the same position now as I barely ran between September '15 and March of this year. It's a fresh start fitness wise. I will pick a target time closer to the race that I genuinely believe I will do and not a time that will leave me dead at 16 miles from chasing a pace.

On the point of recovery, chocolate milk is a great after run drink as it has a near perfect balance of carbs and protein.

Lazare

Come to think of it, with all my doubts about being able to hold a pace for 26.2 I forgot to factor in that I ran today on empty.

The last few kms felt tough, but of course they were supposed to.

Sheep1978

ariana` wrote: »

Sheep1978 wrote: »

.

How did you find upping the pace for PR after 9m @ LSR? I'm tempted to try this next week. I found the LSR very long this wk but I think it was monotony that killed me, maybe PR and running with/near other people might help.
!!

Definitely helped. Plan was to try the PR @ pace of 8.0 But with people running beside ended up faster. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad

Wubble Wubble

El Caballo wrote: »

As a former DCM mentor Dubgal used to say "Do a self check" every so often on a run just to make sure everything is ok and a talk test would fall into that category.

Hope this helped:)

FYP

normanoffside

muddypaws wrote: »

Thank you. But that does worry me, my LSRs are much slower than my easy runs, so I'm probably running them too slow, but I guess thats what the training is for, to get things right

LSRs should be ran at more or less the same pace as easy runs. By definition 'easy' means you can run the same pace for much longer.
I doubt you are running your LSRs too slow, more likely you are running your easy runs too fast.

Singer

Lazare wrote: »

Come to think of it, with all my doubts about being able to hold a pace for 26.2 I forgot to factor in that I ran today on empty.

I think running your long runs on empty as you're increasing the distance of your long runs is a premature optimisation. I regard running long runs on empty as a reasonably advanced technique to optimise one part of the benefits of long runs. It's more important that your long runs are generally run with good form and without your pace dropping off, and this is difficult enough as you're increasing the distance further than you've ever run before. Once you're used to the distance it could be worth trying out running on empty (or throwing in some MP miles, or finishing fast...).

Also, unless you're planning to run the marathon on empty, you need race specific practice running long distances while eating gels/Lucozade Sport/jelly babies/etc.

quickbeam

My week:

Monday - LSR - 14.16km @ 7:47: actually felt okay, felt very proud to have reached one-third of a marathon, and with the spaces running out fast, I saw it as a sign and signed up that morning. Tried fuel on my run for the first time - raisins (I've already mentioned I don't want to use processed stuff for fuel and remain relatively healthy). I'm not sure I actually needed the fuel, and it was sort of hard to consume too, as it was hard to breath and chew at the same time. But it was more an experiment about how I'd actually feel on them, and I didn't get a stitch or anything, which was my biggest fear, so it could be considered a success.

Tuesday - 6.18km brisk walk

Wednesday - 7.81km @ 7:21: grand

Thursday - rest

Friday - 5.16km @ 7:05: grand

Saturday: 5:03km @ 6:32: Parkrun, actually this sort of felt surprising. It was my best Parkrun in 7 weeks, and not far off my PB from 8 weeks ago, and yet I felt *really* good doing it. I don't mean that it felt easy, but definitely felt good, and that's something I don't think I've ever really felt running before.

Sunday - planned rest day

So, sticking with the HH plan for next week (for once), two 6+kms, a 5km and the Fingal 10K on Sunday. I'm super-excited about it, as it'll be my first ever race, my first goodie bag, my first chipped time. I was looking at last year's results, and based on the times ran then, I'll be lucky to be in the top 95% of runners, but my goal, like my goal for all the races in the series, is just to finish it. Being my first runs ever, each distance will be a PB regardless of how slow I am, so finishing in a healthy condition is all I'm really looking for.