Chapter 2 - Finding Nemo

Kellygirl

Well done P. Nice little confidence boost for you after a tough year. Happy New Year!

Swashbuckler

Limerick Country Club 5M Race Report.

Can't believe I'm back writing a race report! It's been so long. As I mentioned earlier Dunshaughlin was the last time I had raced. Since then there's been a bout off niggles, injuries and new baby. I had really questioned whether I'd properly make it back several times over the past few months. That's one of the many benefits of this boards community that everyone has been very supportive. Even offline I've been in touch with many of you and you've kept me going.

One of the frustrating things about this sport is you start to feel good again, start making plans and them Bam, another injury or setback. What the last few months has thought me is to take it one step at a time, always veer on the side of caution rather than aggressive and don't plan too far ahead. Any thought of marathons or any of that craic are gone out of my head for now.

I didn't really decide I was going to race this until a few days beforehand. Firstly I didn't want to commit to a race and then suffer another setback. I also didn't really know how the Christmas would go with a family of four so wanted to play the whole racing thing by ear. As it worked out, I was good to go. Not in prime shape by any means. The last month or so has been a very conservative road back into sessions after an overly aggressive false start. Thanks to Lukes advice I got back on track. I would say the toughest session I did in the last month was a 1/2/3/2/1min at 10k effort. The rest were very simple sessions like 4x(20/30/40s) hard. No real threshold or tempo stuff. Just getting the legs turning over again. Longest run was 12 miles I think. Body felt in OK shape. I think until the newborn is in his own room I'll just have to accept that my sleeping and in particular sleeping posture isn't going to be perfect. I often wake with a tight back, usually unrelated to training load. Anyway, I'm rambling.

I woke up the morning of the race feeling good, happy that I was back on the scene! As the day progressed the nerves started to kick in and memories of race pain came to the surface of my mind. I decided before I left the house that this wasn't about racing today. It was simply getting back out there, standing on that start line, enjoying the buzz. If we don't enjoy the race, then what's the point of all this training.
I threw on the brand shiny new Nike 4%, gave the family the goodbye kisses and jogged the short 5min journey to the country club. Got there nice and early, met a few friendly faces, got my number and headed off for a warmup with a clubmate. Did a couple of miles and followed up with some strides, drills, leg swings, active stretching and headed to the start line. Decent buzz around. Small enough crowd of about 90 runners.

Last mental note before we set off - just enjoy this P. You don't have to leave it all out there. Just...... Enjoy...... It!

Off we went.

The first mile was all about easing into the race slowly. Forget about who's around me or where I think I should be. I'm not thinking about times, or pbs or anything like that so handy first mile and don't look at the watch.
Settled into a nice rhythm. Almost immediately the lead lady pulled up beside me and asked what I was targeting. She was obviously looking for someone to work with. I quickly explained I was just back after a long hiatus so I had no idea what I might run. She pulled ahead and found a much fitter looking athlete up ahead.
First mile passed by in no time and it all felt very comfortable. Systems check, all good. Watch beeps and I had to take a sneaky peek. 6.03. Surprised to see that. Given how dead my legs felt a few weeks ago running slower than that it was a shock for that pace to feel OK.

The second mile in this race is a pain. Basically mile 1.2 to 2.3 is all uphill. I knew this beforehand so I was very curious to see how the body would cope. Surprisingly good as it happens! Obviously time lost as I had to ease back a bit but I never felt like I was redlining at any stage on the hill. The group ahead of me didn't pull away all that much either. I was happy with my strength going up it. Mile 2 clocked at 6.22 and mile 3 was 6.03. I gave myself a mental pat on the back at the top of the hill. I was really pleased with how things were holding up. I also noted the splits were very very similar to my splits from the same race two years ago. No racing going on as this race usually spreads out. Basically a solo run.

Given the first three miles were almost identical to 2017 I figured I might be in for a decent performance here. The downhill would tell a lot and the lack of conditioning and specific training might tell in the last mile. Most important thing was not to sacrafice form to push a pace. Glutes was a little sore at this stage and lower back a little tired. Basically what happens every time I fatigue in training or a race these days.

I made decent time going down the hill but you never make it all back. Started to close a bit on the two lads in front of me. I now had a target to keep me focused. Mile 4 clocked at 5.47. Decent. I'd need a very quick last mile to go sub 30. That was the last time I checked the watch (only checked 4 times in total during the race).

Last mile, dig in. I'm not all out by any means but there's not a lot in the legs either. At this point I was accepting the race pain, no longer fearing it. Last mile here is a fecking long, drawn out, straight drag back towards caherdavin. I'm closing on kilmallock lad with each stride. He kept me going. The last mile felt as close to race effort since Dunshaughlin. Pushed him all the way. He had a bit more in the legs especially when he heard me breathing down his neck. He finished one second ahead for a pb. My last mile was 5.55 for a 30.08. My time in 2017 was 30.06. So a net loss of two seconds in two years. Haha. All joking aside I had spent two months training with Luke for that race in 2017. This was an entirely different situation. Was very pleasantly surprised with the result. Met up with the lads from the club. I came tenth overall but that's not important. It was just great to be back and enjoying it. It was the boost I needed to kick start the year.

So there you have it. Another year, another comeback! Like I said in the goals for 2020 thread I've learned a lot this year. Training needs to be patient and smart. I always, always seem to go too aggressive. I even looked back at the plan I had put together in December and even that was a little too aggressive. For now, the focus is completely on building smartly and stick to shorter stuff. I'm going to revisit a lot of lukes sessions from the last couple of years. I need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel. It worked before. The tricky part for me, as always, is balancing things and keeping the consistency going with work and family in the mix. If I'm being completely honest I'd have gone back to being coached (by Luke if he was still taking people on) before now but I just feel like life can so easily get in the way of my training at the moment I'd feel like I'd be messing a coach around. I'm working extremely hard to keep the show in the road at the mo. It's working right now. Hopefully it keeps working. It's good to be back.

I'll keep tipping away. Adare 10k in Feb. Not forcing anything. We'll see how training goes.

Laineyfrecks

I really enjoyed reading that! Well done on a great race

You seem to have a good approach to your comeback & i wish you all the best with that

OOnegative

That’s a super effort P and well executed race. Best of luck with the 2020 goals, your approaching it in a very sensible way.

Swashbuckler

Laineyfrecks wrote:

You seem to have a good approach to your comeback & i wish you all the best with that

Cheers! Yeah I always "think" I have the right approach........ Til I get injured. Haha.

OOnegative wrote:

That’s a super effort P and well executed race. Best of luck with the 2020 goals, your approaching it in a very sensible way.

Cheers B. Hopefully I can push on from this and build slowly.

Back in Black

Nice start to the year!!

ariana`

It's great to see you back here oh wise one! Super comeback race! It does make me think though how important are the sessions? Correct me if I am wrong but you seem to have managed to maintain your ability to produce race pace when required with mostly aerobic training?

I hope 2020 will be good to you P. You certainly seem to have a great approach, I think continuous evaluation will be important, as long as sleep/recovery is compromised you will be vulnerable.... But you know all this already

Swashbuckler

ariana` wrote:

It's great to see you back here oh wise one! Super comeback race! It does make me think though how important are the sessions? Correct me if I am wrong but you seem to have managed to maintain your ability to produce race pace when required with mostly aerobic training?

Haha I thought about that very question after the race. Here are my thoughts.

The sessions are very important but the aerobic base is what really matters. I'm not sure if you've seen the percentage breakdown but even for 10k range the large part of the athletes effort is aerobic. I think I recall seeing something like 85% aerobic. The sessions are really what gives you the icing on top. The leg turnover, the vo2max, the conditioning are all important and the sessions probably fine tune that stuff. If we did all slower aerobic we would have a decent base but would lack some of the key requirements needed for the "shorter stuff". So yeah I ran 30mins. At my peak with proper sessions and a good base that would have been closer to 29mins or lower. I'm not sure if this is correct but I figure the sessions help you run faster (get the body comfortable and efficient running at speed) and the aerobic stuff helps you maintain it.

I figure it's why I see so many marathon lads doing really well at the shorter stuff. That huge aerobic base built from marathon training really makes a difference.

ariana` wrote:

I hope 2020 will be good to you P. You certainly seem to have a great approach, I think continuous evaluation will be important, as long as sleep/recovery is compromised you will be vulnerable.... But you know all this already

You've a wise head on you! That's absolutely spot on. So for me adjustments will likely need to be made on the fly based on sleep/recovery being compromised. For me over the next few months it's really a case of having a plan, on paper, written in pencil that can be changed on the fly.

MY BAD

Delighted to see you back racing again. Great race and a nice confidence booster. That was a fairly big hill looking at the elevation gain too. Nice and steady as she's goes in a few months you'll be back to where you were before the bad spell, you know the craic yourself.

Swashbuckler

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote:

Delighted to see you back racing again. Great race and a nice confidence booster. That was a fairly big hill looking at the elevation gain too. Nice and steady as she's goes in a few months you'll be back to where you were before the bad spell, you know the craic yourself.

Cheers man and cheers for being so consistent with your log. Seeing what you've done since a major setback has kept me going.

Swashbuckler

Monday - Off
Tuesday - Easy 7M
Wednesday - Limerick Country Club 5M
Thursday - Recovery 7M
Friday - Easy 7M
Saturday - Off
Sunday - 4x5min at 6.30ish off 90s/3min Jog/1x 20/30/40s Hard off 60s

Total miles this week:38

Gonna do my best to keep this log up to date. In fairness I get so much out of peoples logs on here it's only fair I make an effort to share my own training. Apologies though, at times updates may be short and lazy. I won't talk about any easy runs unless something of note happened. Most of my easy or recovery runs are between 8 to 8.30min/mile.

For now the weeks should look like;
Monday long
Tuesday easy
Wednesday easy
Thursday session
Friday easy
Saturday off
Sunday session

We'll see how manageable that is.

This week I couldn't get the Monday long run in. Tuesday was standard and Wednesday see above.
Thursdays recovery run was good. Glutes sore and legs a little dead but nothing major. Really improved as the week went on.
Good session today. These types of sessions will feature a bit for a while. Over the next six weeks I plan to have one session a week where I hover around 10k pace and every now and then throw in a faster 300m session maybe. The second session of the week I plan to have a strength based session. Hovering around paces from 6.10 to 7.00. Basically high end aerobic and threshold. I'll build these as time goes on. Today's session was a nice conservative dip of the toes back into some strength sessions. It went very well. Kept effort where it should be. Kept an eye on heart rate. Wanted to stay between 155 - 160. Didn't want to move into lactate threshold yet. Some nice turnover at the end of the session too. Running fast on tired legs.

I have a rough outline of the next 6 weeks. After that I'll hopefully start adding some mixes to the sessions. Nothing race specific for a lonnnnnggg while yet.

Well done to all the awards winners. Good to see AMK's log get the recognition it deserves.

MY BAD

The Sunday session used to mean something different to me in the early 00's :eek:

Swashbuckler

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote:

The Sunday session used to mean something different to me in the early 00's

Haha yep I thought about calling it Sunday session on Strava. Good old days....

Lazare

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Limerick Country Club 5M Race Report.

Only reading now. Cracking stuff P, delighted for you.

Swashbuckler

Monday - Easy 12M
Tuesday - Easy 7M
Wednesday - Easy 7M with strides
Thursday - 12x90s off 60s @6.00/mile pace
Friday - Recovery 6.5M
Saturday - Off
Sunday - 3x10min off 2min @6.35/mile pace
Total of 48.5 miles for the week

First week back at work..............

Quickly remembered just how difficult it is to balance work/life/running.

This was a solid week. Long run Monday was enjoyable early in the morning before the world woke. The doom of work hanging over me but as always, it takes a few days to adjust and then it's like you were never gone.

Easy runs all week were slow (roughly 8.15 to 8.30 as the body gets used to adapting to three hard runs and 45-50 mile weeks).

Thursdays session was great. These style sessions are purely to get me comfortable running 10k effort again. I'll build on these over the next while. It went well. Very controlled and all focus on effort and form. I'm retraining myself mentally again on how to feel these out so it took a few to be able to hit the right effort and paces without the watch. Some were a little quick. Target was 6min/mile pace. Range for the 12 was 5.43-6.12 but most hit close to 6.00. Body was perfect after.

Sundays session was all about building up that strength and aerobic base targeting 6.35ish. Solid throughout again. I can feel it coming back to me.

Physio was on Thursday. She's delighted. She has a test for checking what range we're getting in the quad. Gone from 40% in July to 85ish% now. Had a rub out. All good. The patience is paying off. I'll keep these visits up every 6 weeks for now.

Baby75

Well done on the race, that is a great result

and that is great on the quad well done

Swashbuckler

Jan 13th to 19th
Monday - 1hr40min on treadmill
Tuesday - easy 7M
Wednesday - easy 7M with strides
Thursday - 6x3min off 75s. Target 6:00 pace.
Friday - easy 7M
Saturday - Steady 5M at 7:00min per mile
Sunday - Off

Treadmill needed on the Monday thanks to storm Brendan. Got some texts and messages on my Strava asking how I didn't quit on it. Don't worry folks, I'm not some superhero. It was as boring as it looked on paper and didn't enjoy it atall but needs must. I hate being forced onto a treadmill for a long run especially. I don't know how I spent so many years running on one.

Thursdays session was another "getting comfortable running at 10k" session. Went really well. I had programmed the option of a seventh rep in the watch but thought better. The session was executed well and form was solid throughout. All reps were more or less bang on 6min pace. Finished feeling refreshed and buzzy. Like the old days!

The latter part of the week was a bit tricky to manage. Christening on Sunday which was a great day but meant my usual Sunday session was not happening. That meant deciding on Saturday how the legs felt and see from there. I don't like have sessions that close together. I adjusted the session accordingly to something still strength based but less aggressive than what I would've run. Nothing of note really from Saturdays session other than I felt good and really enjoy running in that pace range. Why wouldn't it be enjoyable I guess, its meant to be running reasonably comfortably.
All in all a really good week and strongest I've felt in a while which is a good sign.
Total for the week was roughly 51 miles.


Jan 20th to 26th
Monday - 13M progression to steady
Tuesday - easy 7M
Wednesday - easy 8M with strides
Thursday - 16x300m off 60s.
Friday - Recovery 6M
Saturday - off
Sunday - 18/12/10min at 6.30 off 2min

Monday was as good as I've felt on a run in a long while so I just went with it. Progressed it to steady in the last couple of miles. Felt great.

Thursdays session was an absolute lung and leg buster. I wanted to get some proper turnover at much faster than 10k effort and work the lungs and legs a bit. I remember this was always a session I suffered on with Luke and this was no different. That being said I'm really really happy with how it went. Was nice to do some anaerobic stuff. Nice to be getting back to what I know has worked in the past. Legs felt it after this and felt it for a few days! I love how much I hate this session.

Today's session was solid. At the moment my sessions are pretty much set up for some "faster stuff" and some "strength stuff". This week I'll be introducing a little threshold stuff depending on how I feel. Felt rock solid today and had that lovely sense of runners buzz at the end. For anyone that's interested for the last four weeks my Sunday session has been geared to be slower than threshold so working on the aerobic side of things. I'm basically building myself up to be able to get cracking on the harder threshold stuff over the next period. So essentially this is training to train.
Total for the week was roughly 52.5 miles. Last three weeks have been 50,51 and 52.5 miles. Somehow managed to get all my sessions and long runs in. Very very happy. Adare in a few weeks but that will be whatever it is. Building nicely.

MY BAD

1 hour 40 on a treadmill. :eek:

Damo 2k9

Some solid weeks in there pal, looks like your settling back into it very nicely.

I know you have Adare in a couple weeks, but what’s it looking like for the rest of the year? I know there was talk of a marathon, still going ahead?

shotgunmcos

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote: »

1 hour 40 on a treadmill. :eek:

Yuck.. I'd run into a wet freezing headwind for 1hr40 before that! The risk of falling off the thing from dozing from sheer boredom would be too much..

Solid week P. Particularly feeling strong at the end of it

Swashbuckler

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote:

1 hour 40 on a treadmill.

Dreadmill.

Damo 2k9 wrote:

I know you have Adare in a couple weeks, but what’s it looking like for the rest of the year? I know there was talk of a marathon, still going ahead?

That's a good question. I had notions of the marathon when I was on the road back, and then a setback in December got me rethinking. I think I fell into the pitfall of being one of those lads that gets injured, starts to feel better and then sets really lofty goals getting ahead of himself.
So I had a sit down with myself and asked myself
1. What do I want from 2020 and
2.what do I enjoy most about running.

I guess the conclusion I came to was I still see myself as a 5k/10k guy. I just love the training for it and I like the idea of racing and recovering within a day and back to training again. Also like the idea of not placing everything on one huge race.
It also made me realise I needed to stop trying to reinvent the wheel and to get back to what worked before with Luke.

So with that I'm just going to see how I am come summer time. Right now I'm running Adare, maybe Ennis 10k in March. Probably HM in Limerick in May and 10k in Tralee Summer solistice in June. Tralee 10k is probably what I'll gear up towards in terms of specifics but that could change depending on how Feb and March go. I also like the thoughts of throwing in some 5k stuff at some point. Maybe that'll come after June but we'll see.

As for Dublin, who knows. The main thing for me is to exit the year in better shape i came into it and head I to 2021 with momentum.

In the middle of all of this is balancing work and family, hence the lack of a clear cut plan. I've learned from my mistakes. My plans for 2020 are in pencil and subject to change. I'm lucky in a way that I learned so much from Luke that I can kinda structure my own year.

Swashbuckler

shotgunmcos wrote:

Yuck.. I'd run into a wet freezing headwind for 1hr40 before that! The risk of falling off the thing from dozing from sheer boredom would be too much..

I also have to play nicely with the missus. Heading out into a storm in the dark at 6am is a no no

Swashbuckler

Monday - 13M finishing steady
Tuesday - Easy 6M
Wednesday - Easy 7M plus strides
Thursday - 5x3min off 75s/3min Jog/4x1min On/Off. Target 6min pace for the 3mins. Target "hard" for the 1min.
Friday - Easy 8M ish
Saturday - off
Sunday - 3x1M off 2min/1M Easy/2x1k. Target 6.30 pace for the 1M and 6.10 pace for the 1k.

Another solid week although its time for a step back week this week. Feeling it a little after the last few weeks. Was horsing around with the little one yesterday and felt a little twinge in the right hip. Just a reminder that these little niggles or injuries don't completely disappear. I can't ramp things on a linear line. Has to be a few steps forward, one step back. It's so easy to fall into the trap of progressing every week but my body just won't allow that right now.

Mondays long run was super. Felt great and nice company with shotgun for the first couple of miles. After that I ventured off on my own. Felt great. Its been a long time since I've felt that good consecutively on long runs. Progressed it to steady for the last 10ish minutes.. Those Monday morning early starts are a challenge though! The whole week of work stress lays ahead, up early in the dark. Funny how the mentality changes after the run though. The easy runs on Tuesday and Wednesday followed suit with the strange feeling of being "fit".

Thursdays session seemed pretty straight forward on paper. What's the big deal. 800m reps at 10k effort. Easy right? Not quite. Found it tough. Just a nice reminder not to take anything for granted. Legs felt it by the end of the 1min reps. Made sure not to sacrafice form so I went as quick as I could while still keeping everything as it should be. Still the usual happy buzz after a session though. Everything felt good the following day. The Saturday off works pretty well for me at the mo as I'm usually feeling like I could do with a break by Saturday.

Sundays session was another from the archive. And another early start. These were the type of strength sessions I used to love. No signs this morning of yesterday's niggle but still conscious of it. My first venture into threshold again. This is a nice session. The 3x1M get the legs nice and tired and then into the threshold stuff. I can't say I felt a huge difference in effort level between the tempo and threshold. By the end the legs felt tired but not in a bad way.

I'll have to be careful with the hip. That's three 50 plus mile weeks in a row so time for a little step back this week. Not a big one but maybe a little reduction in intensity. I'll decide Thursday whether to change the planned session.

All in all a good week. In or around 53 miles for the week. We'll done to all the racers today. Between Trim, Milford and Dungarvan it seems like everyone on my Strava was racing today.

Swashbuckler

Following in Barry's footsteps I said I'd better check in on my log and tell similar tales of woe in terms of mojo.

Been a weird few weeks. As has happened all too often in the last couple of years stress takes over. Had been feeling the effects of the recent training so last week (Feb 3rd to 9th) was a little bit of a step back. If I'm honest I didn't feel any better by the end of the week leading to the usual questioning of my training, work worry, life worry etc etc.
Body wasn't in great shape either and physio currently getting up and running in a new job so I have to wait a couple of weeks for an appointment.

This week (Feb 10th to 16th) was literally about trying to keep the show on the road. I have no idea how I managed to get out on six days and also not sure if I should have. Stubborness I guess. I don't really see the point in getting into the specifics of training in the last couple of weeks. It's been fine, a slog at times. Probably enjoyed 2 of the 12 runs. We'll see what this week holds although I have a lot on at work. In two minds about skipping Adare next weekend.

In terms of work I just need to manage that whatever way I can. Unfortunately the running is suffering. I may need to rethink my approach. Perhaps what I was doing was a little too aggressive. I'm not sure. Need to get my mojo back anyway. On the plus side, I'm still getting out there. Keep going and hope for the love to return.

I'm telling you, strava is a tough place to be when you're struggling. Some monster training and racing going on and a 10k pb from two years ago seems like a distant memory.

Anyway, we'll keep trucking on. What's on the plan for this week? Will have to play it by ear.

OOnegative

Snap, you’ll get there, your to good a runner not to P.

Swashbuckler

OOnegative wrote:

Snap, you’ll get there, your to good a runner not to P.

We're getting sympathy mojo loss.

Laineyfrecks

Sorry to read you are feeling like this but also happy to see such great runners(B also) writing about this aspect of running. We love running & fit it in to our lives as best we can but with all the stresses of life & work it's not easy at all. It's all to easy to write about the amazing PB's we get, sure that's the fun part but writing about the not so fun parts is hard! I appreciate your honesty...

I hope you find your mojo again soon enough, in the meantime look after yourself

shotgunmcos

I was going to post here but meandered into B's log and posted there with you in mind too. Pretty much what Laineyfrecks said, I echo. The mojo will return.

How about running Adare with no watch, not your best shoes, no goal and purposely leave something in the tank to blast out the last mile. The sheer joy of being on your toes to the line...

MY BAD

Don't worry too much about your mojo. If you're simmering away in the background without trying to over cook it by chasing fitness and getting aggressive with training. I think you'll come good soon. I always find it a bit of a struggle this time of year. It will come good, don't give up and stay positive.

Swashbuckler

Laineyfrecks wrote:

Sorry to read you are feeling like this but also happy to see such great runners(B also) writing about this aspect of running. We love running & fit it in to our lives as best we can but with all the stresses of life & work it's not easy at all. It's all to easy to write about the amazing PB's we get, sure that's the fun part but writing about the not so fun parts is hard! I appreciate your honesty...

Cheers E. I'm always very open with that stuff. Helps me manage.

shotgunmcos wrote:

How about running Adare with no watch, not your best shoes, no goal and purposely leave something in the tank to blast out the last mile. The sheer joy of being on your toes to the line...

Yeah that thought had crossed my mind. I guess it's not just a mojo thing. The body isn't in great shape either. Part of me fears a hard effort could throw me over the edge. And I'm not sure I'm bothered to head out to Adare for an easy run.

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote:

Don't worry too much about your mojo. If you're simmering away in the background without trying to over cook it by chasing fitness and getting aggressive with training. I think you'll come good soon. I always find it a bit of a struggle this time of year. It will come good, don't give up and stay positive.

I dunno about simmering. Haha. I thought I was building smartly but the body is saying otherwise.

Cheers for the words of encouragement everyone.