If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.

Strawberry Swan

Hey K, I hope you don't mind but I thought I'd ask for a bit of advise on your log as maybe others might be interested to know about it. ReeReeG said you had experience of aqua jogging.

Have you done much and how did you find it? Was it difficult to do and beneficial for your fitness? I have the beginnings of a stress fracture in my tibia and have to swim/cycle for the next month and I was thinking of doing aqua jogging as I read its the best way to keep fit for runners.

Kellygirl

Strawberry Swan wrote: »

Hey K, I hope you don't mind but I thought I'd ask for a bit of advise on your log as maybe others might be interested to know about it. ReeReeG said you had experience of aqua jogging.

Have you done much and how did you find it? Was it difficult to do and beneficial for your fitness? I have the beginnings of a stress fracture in my tibia and have to swim/cycle for the next month and I was thinking of doing aqua jogging as I read its the best way to keep fit for runners.

Hey there M. That’s not good news. Hope you can get it sorted with rest. The pool running is great. You need to find a deep pool and you can ask them if they have a pool running belt - it’s like a floaty belt. Then you just stay upright and ‘run’ away to your hearts content. That in itself is boring but Hillside Runner gave me a workout that made time pass quickly. Here’s the post on my log about it:

“Hillsiderunner kindly sent me a brilliant pool running workout so back to the pool I went, grabbed the belt and then I did a real pool running workout. The workout was 8mins w/u, pyramid "tempo" session of 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 mins with 1min rest in between, then 10x(30secs sprint, 30sec rest), 7mins w/d. Hope you don’t mind me sharing it Hillsiderunner. It was great as time passed quite quickly. I set it up as a cardio workout on my watch which was very handy. Not sure whether I hit the right effort levels but I tried.‘

Also, Lazare was injured around the same time and found a class in Dublin in I think the Mespil and that sounded brilliant. You could probably google or find some info on YouTube.

eyrie

I'm amazed at how much running you got in on the holiday and in that heat! Fair play. Looking forward to seeing what the new plan has in store! Sounds like it's suiting you well so far

Kellygirl

eyrie wrote: »

I'm amazed at how much running you got in on the holiday and in that heat! Fair play. Looking forward to seeing what the new plan has in store! Sounds like it's suiting you well so far

In all honesty it was easier to get the running done over there in terms of logistics than it is now. At least there the kids played ball and stayed asleep so my husband could stay in bed now and not complain about having to get up to the kids every morning. The hard part was when the alarm went off but once I was up it was fine. Now the kids are off school and husband traveling with work so have to plan childcare to run which is slightly annoying!

The plan isn’t too far off the Grads plan which is why I chose it and chose that coach. It’s keeping easy easy and hard hard - though the sessions look a bit harder alright I think. First test will the Rose 10km in Tralee at the end of August. Hopefully I’ll pb in that and continue this year’s trend!!

eyrie

Kellygirl wrote: »

First test will the Rose 10km in Tralee at the end of August. Hopefully I’ll pb in that and continue this year’s trend!!

I'd put money on you at this point! (Although no pressure either, no one can PB all the time!)

Kellygirl wrote: »

In all honesty it was easier to get the running done over there in terms of logistics than it is now. At least there the kids played ball and stayed asleep so my husband could stay in bed now and not complain about having to get up to the kids every morning. The hard part was when the alarm went off but once I was up it was fine. Now the kids are off school and husband traveling with work so have to plan childcare to run which is slightly annoying!

True I hadn't thought of it like that, I see what you mean now though. Still though, the motivation of running in that heat and getting up early after the nice holiday dinners is no mean feat!

Swashbuckler

Kellygirl wrote:

The plan isn’t too far off the Grads plan which is why I chose it and chose that coach. It’s keeping easy easy and hard hard - though the sessions look a bit harder alright I think. First test will the Rose 10km in Tralee at the end of August. Hopefully I’ll pb in that and continue this year’s trend!!

Ah nice one. Didn't realise you were running that. Will see you there. Much easier to find you there than in Killarney!

Kellygirl

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Ah nice one. Didn't realise you were running that. Will see you there. Much easier to find you there than in Killarney!

Yep - unless a handy one comes up closer to me but I don’t mind driving down anyway for it.

Baby75

That was a great explanation on why recoveries are so important after hill sprints I have some in my plan coming up soon thanks for sharing

Glad the swelling is going and you are great to get out so much on holidays not easy to do at all

let us know how it goes on Thursday

Kellygirl

Baby75 wrote: »

That was a great explanation on why recoveries are so important after hill sprints I have some in my plan coming up soon thanks for sharing

Glad the swelling is going and you are great to get out so much on holidays not easy to do at all

let us know how it goes on Thursday

I’ve more next week :eek:

Strawberry Swan

Kellygirl wrote: »

Hey there M. That’s not good news. Hope you can get it sorted with rest. The pool running is great. You need to find a deep pool and you can ask them if they have a pool running belt - it’s like a floaty belt. Then you just stay upright and ‘run’ away to your hearts content. That in itself is boring but Hillside Runner gave me a workout that made time pass quickly.

That's great thanks so much. I read that it's quite boring and hard to get motivated. I'll give pyramid a go. I have been looking for classes but couldn't find any so far. Will check out Mespil.

Kellygirl

Phase 2 - DCM plan

Monday: 60 mins easy: 5.71 miles @ 10:31 min miles

First run after the holidays. Can’t remember much about it really.

Tuesday: 45 mins easy plus strides (3x20s, 2x30s, 3x20s)
Pretty uneventful run - in other words I can’t remember much about this one either. 6.01 miles in 1 hour.

Wednesday: 3 x (5x1’ on/off), 3’ rec between sets, 5x 30s hard on/off

The paces for this were 7:25 for the first set, 7:10 for the 2nd and 6:50 for the 3rd. Fairly hot for me and also once I’m trying to run those paces I’m no good at judging effort. I set up the watch with 10 second ranges for each pace but they are still a bit all over the place. It doesn’t help that I don’t trust the GPS on one side of the park so even when I felt my paces were similar to the previous rep the watch was claiming they were different.

1st set 7:25: Actual: 7:13; 38; 13; 6:55; 7:14
2nd set 7:10: Actual: 7:01; 22; 30; 08; 38
3rd set 6:50: Actual: 7:25; 6:44; 7:26; 6:37; 7:02

30s hard: Actual: 6:12; 39; 7:07; 7:06; 7:13

I very much needed the 3 min recoveries after each set and while I was disappointed about my pacing not being very even I was happy I achieved the session with all jogging recoveries except for 1 min walking after the 3rd set and after the 30s set. These reason for this session was: “This session is good for biomechanical efficiency and it increases the amount of muscle fibres available to do the work in the marathon. This will increase your strength and power and most importantly make your marathon pace feel more comfortable on the day. The end goal here is to increase high end aerobic abilities and establish a level of comfort also at faster paces.” 6.51 miles done in 1 hour.

Thursday: Physio and 45 mins very easy planned
Had booked physio while on hols just to check a few niggles and make sure I was ok as training ramps up. She said I was fine to do my run that night if I wanted. I realised later that the Coachford 5 mile race was on so decided I’d go do that altogether as nice to run around that route for a change of scene, it was for a good cause and 5 mins away from the house. Felt funny sticking the number on me when I knew I was planning on starting at the back. I tried to stay nice and slow but even at the back I was going faster than very easy. My legs were like dead weights after the previous day’s session and the physio. I considered stopping after 1 mile as I passed my car! Kept going and eventually loosened up. I spent the entire race just plodding along passing people out. It was nice. Crossed the line in 49:44 so 5 mins slower than my 5 mile PB and then got presented with a medal and a goodie bag which felt daft - and a good goodie bag at that. There was an amazing spread but I’d served up steak and chips and bearnaise sauce for dinner just before I came out so was stilled too stuffed to attack the cakes! It’s a great race - 700 people did it and one thing that amused me was at the start of each incline they had a sign saying “300 meter incline” or whatever.

5.11 miles @ 9:42 min mile.

Saturday: 90 mins easy: 10 miles @ 9:27 min mile
I did the first hour before parkrun adding a little on so that parkrun would have started and I could just run into the back of it. Timed it fairly well and caught up with them just as the tail walker crossed the start line. It meant a fair bit of weaving to get round people and once I got to the pitches I ran on the grass to pass people out. I spent the entire time just slowing passing people out and was gloating a bit to myself that I’d already 6 miles done and was feeling so strong still. I crossed the finish line at 87 mins so grabbed my token and ran on for the last 3 mins and back to get scanned and jogged back to the car then which brought the distance up to 10 miles. Paces a bit fast for easy maybe - maybe I should be paying more attention to the watch to stay steady. I made it look like a progression run. Would have happily kept going at the end.

33.3 miles for the week.

Kellygirl

Monday: 65 mins easy: 6.3 miles @ 10:25
What it says on the tin. Can’t remember anything about it really.

Tuesday: 25min easy, 7x12second hill sprints with 3 min recovery
Took myself to the woods for this as I felt strange doing my 3 min standing recoveries outside somebody’s house the last time. I used onthegomap.com to check the gradient of various hills and toddled off for my 25 mins easy checking out the hills as I went. This felt anything but easy. It was roasting, sunny and I was dragging myself around. As I came round to the hill I’d chosen the 2nd time I started into the hill sprints after doing various drills. I’m very self conscious doing some of these so handy nobody was around. I’m not actually sure it was steep enough but hopefully was. The sprints were grand. Strolled down after each and played with my phone looking up recipes for dinner and planning my shopping list until the 3 mins was up. I didn’t have the motivation to jog after so jogged a bit and just walked then.

Wednesday: 45 mins very easy: 5.13 miles @ 10:03
Had to return a pair of Hoka’s that were the wrong size so decided to try out Tramore Valley Park for my run. I seemed to have a spring in my step for some reason. At the same time I could feel my hamstrings a little bit from the hills the day before. I did 3 laps, got nice and wet and called it a day then after just over 51 mins. Handy to run there if near by but hopefully they plan on doing it up. It’s very overgrown and a bit eerie. I won’t be making the trip especially again.

Thursday: 6x1Km @ LT(8:05-15) w/ 1’ jogging recoveries
8:13; 8:05; 8:01; 8:16; 7:58; 8:11

This wasn’t too bad. Warmed up and straight into the km repeats. The problem running laps of the park is tree cover on one side and it screws with GPS. I was really trying hard to get my pacing correct and within range so it didn’t make for very smooth running at times. Had to stop once for the loo after the 3rd rep which was annoying. Running to the bathroom the watch was telling me I was too slow the whole time yet it was my 2nd fastest rep and my 4th rep was my slowest yet the watch was giving me fast readings.

All in all this was a tough but doable session and I could hit the paces. When I was programming my watch I discovered a similar session programmed a day later a year ago but 6X1mile@ 8:05. I looked back at Strava and I couldn’t hit the paces and I remember I was going as fast as I could and really struggled. I was a bit tempted to repeat that session out of interest but I know I could do it now if I wanted and nice to know that progress is there.

Passed the 800 mile mark for the year on that run- one day earlier than last year on that similar session.

Friday: Rest day but booked flights and a place in Seville half marathon next January 26th
Flattest half marathon in Europe and generally 9-13 degrees and no rain. Sounds perfect for a pb but chances are I’ll just toddle round taking in the sights ... maybe :D

Saturday: 40’ easy; 40’ mod (9-9:20); 20’ @ 8:50; 11.27 miles in total
Chose to do laps of the park and finish with parkrun for this one as it was to be my 50th parkrun. A friend who’s also training for DCM asked could she join me. We set off at 8:20. First mile was grand and easy but we started picking up after that while we were chatting and not paying attention. It meant that I didn’t have to step it up by much moving into the 2nd 40 minute so at least that was all within the correct range. We tried to delay as much as possible running into the back of parkrun but they had lots to say and started 5 mins late so we were running round in small circles at the back of the pack for a bit and they finely took off. There was lots of weaving and my friend decided she was calling it a day so I took off by myself. The first 2 miles of that stage were a little fast @ 8:43 and I was tired in the last mile. I’d only half a kilometer to go approx when my 20 mins was up and I just slowed to a jog and finished out parkrun, fairly tired. My official time later was 28:05 which wasn’t bad really. A few years ago I’d have killed for that and here I am now doing it at the end of a long run.

32.5 miles for the week.

Swashbuckler

Things seems to be really clicking for you K. Glad to see it. You're making great progress

Kellygirl

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Things seems to be really clicking for you K. Glad to see it. You're making great progress

Thanks P. I hope so. I had a wobble last week. Don’t know why - maybe because when I was looking after myself and following the Grads plan there was no pressure on me to pb as such. Now I’ve signed up with a coach to move me to the next stage and I hope I can have the sense to not wreck races by piling too pressure on myself or something. I know I just have to follow the plan and stay calm and I am loving it as it’s so similar in structure to Grads etc.

Swashbuckler

I wouldn't worry. Handy thing about having a coach is you can blame them when it goes wrong (messing )

Huzzah!

I HATE hill repeats for all the reasons you state. I get so bored hanging around and feel like a bit of a tool too.

But, SEVILLE, how exciting! I was there for a wedding earlier this year and got some lovely runs in. It was an unexpected delight.

MY BAD

Kellygirl wrote: »

[. I used onthegomap.com to check the gradient of various hills

Thanks for that! Looks to be a great resource. I actually love hill repeats :pac:

Kellygirl

Huzzah! wrote: »

I HATE hill repeats for all the reasons you state. I get so bored hanging around and feel like a bit of a tool too.

But, SEVILLE, how exciting! I was there for a wedding earlier this year and got some lovely runs in. It was an unexpected delight.

Mellow Yellow 26.2 wrote: »

Thanks for that! Looks to be a great resource. I actually love hill repeats :pac:

Ha ha - I’m laughing at the two posts! I don’t mind the hill itself but it’s the hanging around recovery time that bores me to tears. When I’m only doing 12 second sprints it feels like barely a workout at all but I know from the explanation the last time that it is and also it was clear the next day when I could feel my hamstrings etc.

Dying to see Seville Huzzah - it’s supposed to fab. One of the Athletics clubs here in cork is going as a group outing and a few of us following their lead.

eyrie

It’s brilliant to be able to feel progress like that from a past session to now - the hard work is working!

Also, Seville!! This is very exciting!

Kellygirl

Monday: 65 mins easy - 6.31 miles @ 10:18 min miles

Decided not to just do laps of the park for this and headed off around Ballincollig instead. It was very hot and humid. I was sweating very early on and normally I wear a sweat band on my wrist but had forgotten it. It was a lovely run though and I enjoyed it.

25 mins Strength and Conditioning
Been neglecting this lately as just hard to fit everything in with kids off school. My husband was off so I decided to do to as soon as my run was finished. Did the warm up as planned and started into the legs sets. First one was grand, started the second and when I was doing a right split lunge I felt my quad go. I just couldn’t drop down. I tried once more and left it. Tried the left lunge and right leg too sore so I finished everything else, skipped the core work and called it a day.

Tuesday: Planned 3x(2km@MP, 1km@LT, 3’ rec); 4x400m@VO2; 90sec recovery

As I walked down the stairs that morning my quad was not too happy. I decided to go and try the run hoping that would loosen me out. Started the warm up which I normally just do for 10 mins and stretched it to 15 while I debated whether the leg was ok or not. No difference and figured mp wasn’t that fast so moved into the session and while I could feel the leg it was fine, moved into the LT km and once I slowed down into the 3min recovery I knew I was in trouble so called it a day. I was really disappointed as it’s the sort of session I love and had been looking forward to it. My paces were spot on for the 2k and 1k (9:02; 9:08; 8:05).

The rest of the week was spent hobbling around and nothing I could do but rest ... and grumble and eat all the wrong foods. Have to cop on big time food wise.

Sunday: Planned 110 mins easy

Went out planning on staying relatively close to the car to see how I was. After a few days off I was full of beans and could have run forever. I felt the leg whenever I was on even the slightest downhill but on the flat and uphill it was perfectly fine. It was just a tightness though so I kept going. I got my timings wrong in the park and did an extra lap around a pitch which meant I was then going to do over 110 mins to get back to the car - I was fine with that as had missed so much training during the week even if not the wisest. Got to 11.6 miles and was tempted to keep going to 12 miles but then I knew I’d have kept going until 2hrs15 so I behaved myself and stopped. Had a good stretch after and foam rolled when I got home. Can feel the quad a bit walking down the stairs again but hopefully will ease out for an easy run tomorrow and I’ve a sports massage booked for Tuesday.

21.6 miles for the week which is disappointing.

Swashbuckler

I won't lecture you given my current state. Haha. But be very cautious or you'll end up worse off. It's a fine balance between nursing a niggle and running through it and all out full blown injury. That's a big run today. Mind yourself!

Kellygirl

Swashbuckler wrote: »

I won't lecture you given my current state. Haha. But be very cautious or you'll end up worse off. It's a fine balance between nursing a niggle and running through it and all out full blown injury. That's a big run today. Mind yourself!

I know - it’s a hard call to make. On Tuesday I knew it was getting worse and was silly to continue. Today it didn’t get worse. It was literally a tightness if I was going downhill. Anytime I was on a downhill and I felt it I wondered should I call it a day and next thing I’d be on flat or uphill and feeling totally fine. Hopefully I won’t regret doing the long run! Seems fine so far but I currently have the feet up anyway ... for now :rolleyes:

Baby75

How are you today

Kellygirl

Grand really. Definitely felt it a bit while running and stopped and stretched round 2.5 miles and was prepared to stop if no difference. Seemed fine so kept going and finished the run. Physical Therapist tomorrow and no running so hopefully he’ll fix me.

Bluesquare

Good look with physio tomorrow !Hope you get sorted.

Lazare

Fingers crossed for you K.

Kellygirl

Thanks guys.

eyrie

Hope it all gets sorted tomorrow!

Kellygirl

Thanks all. Good news. Sheer torture session but nothing weird showed up and no lumps / bumps / scarring in the quad. IT Bands both ridiculously tight, hips rotating or something and my form wasn’t good lunging so hopefully all fixed and good to do my session tomorrow. Phew!

Bluesquare

Kellygirl wrote: »

Thanks all. Good news. Sheer torture session but nothing weird showed up and no lumps / bumps / scarring in the quad. IT Bands both ridiculously tight, hips rotating or something and my form wasn’t good lunging so hopefully all fixed and good to do my session tomorrow. Phew!

Phew - glad your good