Once in a Lifetime....for now

cullenswood

When I was going for the sub 90 my key session in my training plan was a 14km tempo at HMP. It was ridiculously hard and I had nothing left at the end of it, but it gave me the confidence to know I should be able to do it on race day.
You did 16.1 km at race pace recently....go for the sub 90 with a confident mind!

Best of luck.

skyblue46

Just thought I'd get this done quickly before all the nice people on Strava convince me that black is white! :pac: Ratoath Half Marathon -- This was a 54 second PB and the worst race I have yet run in which I did everything I never wanted to do in a race!

The Preamble: As you have probably already read a bout of drunken texting led to me committing to going with the 1:30 pacers for this and seeing how long I could hang on. It went against any logic but hey ho a deal is a deal eh.

Met up on a wet dreary morning with Damo, Sheep, WW, Omeceron and coogy. We stayed hidden indoors from the rain and only snuck out for a half mile jog when the rain stopped!

As agreed Damo, Sheep and myself lined up beside the 1:30 pacer and at a couple of minutes after nine, with the rain mercifully stopped, we headed off.
The Race
To be honest this was a race of two halves and doesn't merit the usual mile by mile reportage. There was a group of about 15 in the group after the first mile. The pace became a bit up and down but the group pretty much stayed together. To be truthful I was feeling strong and as comfortable as could be expected and actually beginning to believe it was possible. The first 6 miles were covered in 6:54, 6:46, 6:42, 7:01, 6:49 and 6:51. Mile 7 was bang on pace at 6:48 and as we passed the 7 mile marker we were about 10 seconds down on target pace. The pacer picked things up at this point with a 6:43 mile which reduced the group to about 7. At this stage Damo had dropped about 100m off the group. I was starting to feel it too. It was beginning to get hard. I felt a bit of a twinge in my right quad.

And so began part 2 of the race. The twinge was a perfect reason not to do 4.5 miles of pain. Why jeopardise DCM? Logical yes but I know what was going on in my head. Without any attempt to stay with the group I pulled in and jogged until Damo came along. He said he had a stitch so I was happy to suggest a little stroll :rolleyes: We walked for a bit before setting off at about 7:20 pace, quad and everything else nice and comfortable. Just roll home I thought. Then Damo fell off the pace again so I slowed it again. No sign of him so I plodded along. With about 700m to go the 3rd female came alongside. I tried to encourage her but she said her legs had nothing left. I said I was just plodding in to beat my PB of 1:34. She said I'd be in the 32's. Brilliant says I that means I can have a little walk and still beat it. And I did, for no other reason than I could. After about 30 seconds of walking the lunacy of what I was doing struck home. Ran to the finish in 1:33:16 a truly unsatisfactorily PB.

Results: 75/631 overall, 5/48 M50

That sickened me even more. 2:40 off the first M50, possibly could have been done with the most monumental of painful efforts. 2 minutes off second, that would have been tough. 45 seconds off third which would have required the spine of a jellyfish for me to do. Lessons learned.

Huge congratulations to Sheep for going well sub 90 a really fantastic run, Omeceron on a great PB and to coogy for a super steady and fast PB for a true novice. To Damo, great job at hanging in for a PB when the going got tough. Well done to WW too for battling to a time just a few seconds away from a PB. Well done to one and all.

Swashbuckler

Great chance for some constructive feedback!

Remember how that feels. The sting of it. People will say well done, it was a pb, great run etc and in a way it was but you know yourself how you feel about that race. Don't forget that feeling coz the next time you think about doing it, you'll hopefully remind yourself how crap it feels. You've often said you admire the grit of some of the runners on here, including myself. Well from my own perspective it's probably fear of that feeling that drives me on. So today is a good day! You ran a pb and now you have that sting to use as motivation for future races too!! Don't forget it!

Swashbuckler

Oh and well done on the pb All messing aside you were going very solid up to that point.

skyblue46

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Great chance for some constructive feedback!

Remember how that feels. The sting of it. People will say well done, it was a pb, great run etc and in a way it was but you know yourself how you feel about that race. Don't forget that feeling coz the next time you think about doing it, you'll hopefully remind yourself how crap it feels. You've often said you admire the grit of some of the runners on here, including myself. Well from my own perspective it's probably fear of that feeling that drives me on. So today is a good day! You ran a pb and now you have that sting to use as motivation for future races too!! Don't forget it!

Thanks P. I just don't know what happened. I simply said no somewhere deep inside and used every reason possible not to push. Yes it stings, I'm sick to the pit of my stomach. Lesson one is to run my own race. To date I have been good at predicting my limits regarding times and I knew it was madness to go for it but at the same time I could just have knocked it back by 15/20 seconds a mile with 4 to go and still done a 91. I think the whole "**** or bust" thing made me switch off. Disgusted.

Swashbuckler

It's great to see your reaction. That's a winning mentality to begin with. Use it to drive you forward. For what it's worth I don't think it was madness. It was a stretch but some days just go your way so it wasn't completely off the cards. Worth taking the risk for sure. Fail often otherwise you'll never learn anything.

I don't think your mind was completely committed to it to start with. Put it this way I don't think you'll be having a few craft beers before DCM

skyblue46

Swashbuckler wrote: »

I don't think your mind was completely committed to it to start with. Put it this way I don't think you'll be having a few craft beers before DCM

Haha...I have to admit that your sabotage comment rang true. I just had the one bottle and stopped. :eek:

ReeReeG

Yeah, I get what you mean about the positive comments when you know in your heart of hearts that you're capable of better, but I guess people don't like seeing others beating themselves up.
It didn't seem like your head was totally in the effort alright, which is never a good way to start a race (and I say that from my own horrible experiences).
I guess treat it as a learning experience? You've still got unreal training behind you for DCM, no bad race negates that.

Have some chocolate. Always helps me ðŸ˜

skyblue46

ReeReeG wrote: »

Yeah, I get what you mean about the positive comments when you know in your heart of hearts that you're capable of better, but I guess people don't like seeing others beating themselves up.
It didn't seem like your head was totally in the effort alright, which is never a good way to start a race (and I say that from my own horrible experiences).
I guess treat it as a learning experience? You've still got unreal training behind you for DCM, no bad race negates that.

Have some chocolate. Always helps me ðŸ˜

Star Bar, Lucozade and Hunky Dorys from the goodie bag gone already! :pac: Ah it's just time to turn the page. The future starts now.

Testosterscone

An honest assessment S. A good example that it is not as simple as showing up once you are in shape to run a time. But the thing about it is, you know yourself that the sub 90 was there fitness wise though you did everything to talk yourself out of it. This can happen at times in heavy training or just when things are going on the hunger might not be there.

There will be other days when the hunger is there and that is when the fitness that everyone can see will be capitalized on.

Keep it up the bad days make the good days all the more sweet.

skyblue46

Testosterscone wrote: »

An honest assessment S. A good example that it is not as simple as showing up once you are in shape to run a time. But the thing about it is, you know yourself that the sub 90 was there fitness wise though you did everything to talk yourself out of it. This can happen at times in heavy training or just when things are going on the hunger might not be there.

There will be other days when the hunger is there and that is when the fitness that everyone can see will be capitalized on.

Keep it up the bad days make the good days all the more sweet.

Thanks L. I really didn't believe it was there but that's not really the issue, it was the quitting that's hurting. I'll take 24 hours to think it over. :pac:

Safiri

skyblue46 wrote: »

Thanks P. I just don't know what happened. I simply said no somewhere deep inside and used every reason possible not to push. Yes it stings, I'm sick to the pit of my stomach. Lesson one is to run my own race. To date I have been good at predicting my limits regarding times and I knew it was madness to go for it but at the same time I could just have knocked it back by 15/20 seconds a mile with 4 to go and still done a 91. I think the whole "**** or bust" thing made me switch off. Disgusted.

There is nothing wrong with going for it sometimes, it might go to sh*t or it might not but you never know until you give it a shot. You may not be happy with the time and performance and maybe rightly so but these are still early days in your running progression and better and much faster days are still ahead.

Singer

You f$cked up this race. That's ok, it happens, as Testosterscone said there's a lot more going on than just doing the training and showing up on the day. My own first attempt at sub-90 was over three minutes worse than yours and a far worse performance. Going into a goal race, or embarking on a new goal after a brutal race can be very motivating and will sharpen the mind if you use it the right way. You bailed out early this time, but if you want you can build on this experience, and use the experience to deal with things going wonky during a race so that you deal with it better than this time. A few of my PBs involved things not going the way I expected but managed to kind of push through it, and I think I was able to do this because I could recognise and deal with the agony and horror of falling apart before it destroyed me mentally, as a direct result of running some bad races. When you're improving fast like you are you can run relatively conservatively and still run a great PB - today you probably ran beyond your limit (on the day - you probably are still in sub-90 shape!) but capitulated before you dealt with it.

AuldManKing

skyblue46 wrote: »

Just thought I'd get this done quickly before all the nice people on Strava convince me that black is white! :pac: Ratoath Half Marathon -- This was a 54 second PB and the worst race I have yet run in which I did everything I never wanted to do in a race!

The Preamble: As you have probably already read a bout of drunken texting led to me committing to going with the 1:30 pacers for this and seeing how long I could hang on. It went against any logic but hey ho a deal is a deal eh.

Met up on a wet dreary morning with Damo, Sheep, WW, Omeceron and coogy. We stayed hidden indoors from the rain and only snuck out for a half mile jog when the rain stopped!

As agreed Damo, Sheep and myself lined up beside the 1:30 pacer and at a couple of minutes after nine, with the rain mercifully stopped, we headed off.
The Race
To be honest this was a race of two halves and doesn't merit the usual mile by mile reportage. There was a group of about 15 in the group after the first mile. The pace became a bit up and down but the group pretty much stayed together. To be truthful I was feeling strong and as comfortable as could be expected and actually beginning to believe it was possible. The first 6 miles were covered in 6:54, 6:46, 6:42, 7:01, 6:49 and 6:51. Mile 7 was bang on pace at 6:48 and as we passed the 7 mile marker we were about 10 seconds down on target pace. The pacer picked things up at this point with a 6:43 mile which reduced the group to about 7. At this stage Damo had dropped about 100m off the group. I was starting to feel it too. It was beginning to get hard. I felt a bit of a twinge in my right quad.

And so began part 2 of the race. The twinge was a perfect reason not to do 4.5 miles of pain. Why jeopardise DCM? Logical yes but I know what was going on in my head. Without any attempt to stay with the group I pulled in and jogged until Damo came along. He said he had a stitch so I was happy to suggest a little stroll :rolleyes: We walked for a bit before setting off at about 7:20 pace, quad and everything else nice and comfortable. Just roll home I thought. Then Damo fell off the pace again so I slowed it again. No sign of him so I plodded along. With about 700m to go the 3rd female came alongside. I tried to encourage her but she said her legs had nothing left. I said I was just plodding in to beat my PB of 1:34. She said I'd be in the 32's. Brilliant says I that means I can have a little walk and still beat it. And I did, for no other reason than I could. After about 30 seconds of walking the lunacy of what I was doing struck home. Ran to the finish in 1:33:16 a truly unsatisfactorily PB.

Results: 75/631 overall, 5/48 M50

That sickened me even more. 2:40 off the first M50, possibly could have been done with the most monumental of painful efforts. 2 minutes off second, that would have been tough. 45 seconds off third which would have required the spine of a jellyfish for me to do. Lessons learned.

Huge congratulations to Sheep for going well sub 90 a really fantastic run, Omeceron on a great PB and to coogy for a super steady and fast PB for a true novice. To Damo, great job at hanging in for a PB when the going got tough. Well done to WW too for battling to a time just a few seconds away from a PB. Well done to one and all.

When I seen that you didn't PB in this race, I actually smiled.

Not out of any badness or malice, but from the position that you are now at a level where the gains will be tough to get and you need to work harder to achieve.
You've become a 'real runner' - I say that with respect to many runners out there who are constantly improving, but you will hit a level where its hard to improve.
I recall my own intro to running - every race was a PB for ages - then the PB's become fewer and fewer and you need to look at different motivations. You need to bracket every run as a 'goal race' or a 'race in training'.

You'll break 90 - its as sure as night follows day - and when you do, you'll do it again, and again and it'll be hard to run a HM in over 90mins.

Welcome to the club.

eyrie

Sorry to hear it didn't go as planned S. I won't bother saying it's still a great time because I know that's not what you're taking issue with. All I'll say is that there are, and always will be, bad days. Hopefully not too many of them, but they happen. They're important too, I think. We get meaning from the contrast in things I reckon, so the bad is what makes the good good, and vice versa. Doesn't make it fun of course (although the star bar helps - an unusual goodie bag score!).

Also we all know what it's like when your body doesn't perform in a race, and it's easier to point to something specific not feeling right, but sometimes the head just doesn't cooperate either. You had an off day, but it's a tiny part of a whole year of incredible results.

ariana`

I can't add much here, you've got some great replies here already. This may not be a very helpful comment really but for what it's worth, i was very surprised to see you crash & burn but also a tiny bit relieved to realise that you're human after all

Heed all the good advice here and sub 90 target won't beat you next time, in fact you're more likely to blow it out of the water with your usual grace and gusto! Well done on an honest report.

Baby75

well S, you have got some great advice and I am no good at giving it as I look up to you for it but your still amazing in my eyes and this will make you stronger.

skyblue46

Testosterscone wrote: »

An honest assessment S. A good example that it is not as simple as showing up once you are in shape to run a time. But the thing about it is, you know yourself that the sub 90 was there fitness wise though you did everything to talk yourself out of it. This can happen at times in heavy training or just when things are going on the hunger might not be there.

There will be other days when the hunger is there and that is when the fitness that everyone can see will be capitalized on.

Keep it up the bad days make the good days all the more sweet.

skyblue46 wrote: »

Thanks L. I really didn't believe it was there but that's not really the issue, it was the quitting that's hurting. I'll take 24 hours to think it over. :pac:

The 24 hours were taken, everything boxed off, clear head and ready to rumble again.

Safiri wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with going for it sometimes, it might go to sh*t or it might not but you never know until you give it a shot. You may not be happy with the time and performance and maybe rightly so but these are still early days in your running progression and better and much faster days are still ahead.

No regrets over giving it a shot. It was that I settled for nothing when all became impossible. Thanks for the honesty.

Singer wrote: »

You f$cked up this race. That's ok, it happens, as Testosterscone said there's a lot more going on than just doing the training and showing up on the day. My own first attempt at sub-90 was over three minutes worse than yours and a far worse performance. Going into a goal race, or embarking on a new goal after a brutal race can be very motivating and will sharpen the mind if you use it the right way. You bailed out early this time, but if you want you can build on this experience, and use the experience to deal with things going wonky during a race so that you deal with it better than this time. A few of my PBs involved things not going the way I expected but managed to kind of push through it, and I think I was able to do this because I could recognise and deal with the agony and horror of falling apart before it destroyed me mentally, as a direct result of running some bad races. When you're improving fast like you are you can run relatively conservatively and still run a great PB - today you probably ran beyond your limit (on the day - you probably are still in sub-90 shape!) but capitulated before you dealt with it.

Again thanks for the honesty. It means a lot.

AuldManKing wrote: »

When I seen that you didn't PB in this race, I actually smiled.

Not out of any badness or malice, but from the position that you are now at a level where the gains will be tough to get and you need to work harder to achieve.
You've become a 'real runner' - I say that with respect to many runners out there who are constantly improving, but you will hit a level where its hard to improve.
I recall my own intro to running - every race was a PB for ages - then the PB's become fewer and fewer and you need to look at different motivations. You need to bracket every run as a 'goal race' or a 'race in training'.

You'll break 90 - its as sure as night follows day - and when you do, you'll do it again, and again and it'll be hard to run a HM in over 90mins.

Welcome to the club.

Erm....put that smile away. It actually was a PB :pac:

eyrie wrote: »

Sorry to hear it didn't go as planned S. I won't bother saying it's still a great time because I know that's not what you're taking issue with. All I'll say is that there are, and always will be, bad days. Hopefully not too many of them, but they happen. They're important too, I think. We get meaning from the contrast in things I reckon, so the bad is what makes the good good, and vice versa. Doesn't make it fun of course (although the star bar helps - an unusual goodie bag score!).

Also we all know what it's like when your body doesn't perform in a race, and it's easier to point to something specific not feeling right, but sometimes the head just doesn't cooperate either. You had an off day, but it's a tiny part of a whole year of incredible results.

ariana` wrote: »

I can't add much here, you've got some great replies here already. This may not be a very helpful comment really but for what it's worth, i was very surprised to see you crash & burn but also a tiny bit relieved to realise that you're human after all

Heed all the good advice here and sub 90 target won't beat you next time, in fact you're more likely to blow it out of the water with your usual grace and gusto! Well done on an honest report.

Baby75 wrote: »

well S, you have got some great advice and I am no good at giving it as I look up to you for it but your still amazing in my eyes and this will make you stronger.

Thanks ladies! If ye and the lads above don't mind I'm not going to go into long individual replies explaining why I did this and that, what I didn't do, what mental or physical pressures I responded well too and which ones badly. I've made sense of it all. I'm not scarred by it in any way, but spurred on. Not spurred on in a "I'm going to double my training" sort of way. I'm happy with the plans I have followed. I'll just continue where I left off. Thanks again for all your responses. They mean more after a bad day out.

AuldManKing

skyblue46 wrote: »

Erm....put that smile away. It actually was a PB :pac:







Thanks ladies! If ye and the lads above don't mind I'm not going to go into long individual replies explaining why I did this and that, what I didn't do, what mental or physical pressures I responded well too and which ones badly. I've made sense of it all. I'm not scarred by it in any way, but spurred on. Not spurred on in a "I'm going to double my training" sort of way. I'm happy with the plans I have followed. I'll just continue where I left off. Thanks again for all your responses. They mean more after a bad day out.

Great response - take the feedback, internalise it and use it if you see fit - discard the rest. Don't let it become a psychoanalysis of your training/mindset etc.

And Massive CONGRATS on the PB

skyblue46

Monday 10th: Rest day.

Tuesday 11th: I headed over to the PP to get myself reacquainted with the tracks and trails, trying to avoid running on the roads as much as I could. I've been doing too much running on the concrete footpaths of D9 and D11! Beautiful day for it. A nice easy hour at 9:00/mile.

Wednesday 12th: Time to get back to the sessions. This was to be a 25 min threshold but as that should work out at a touch below 6k I changed it to a 6k threshold run. Splits for this were 4:14, 4:13, 4:12, 4:08, 4:06 and 4:06....a bit faster than the 4:14-4:20 that they should have been. Felt good though.

Thursday 13th: 9 miles @ 9:27. This was a lovely run in the company of dearest beloved J down at Donadea Woods. The mad thing has entered the 50k and wanted to see what the place was like. A few laps and she is hooked and February can't come quick enough. :pac:

Friday 14th: A run in Marlay after the overnight rain passed was sheer bliss. 6.7 miles at a slightly brisker than very easy 8:52. I love running up the hill from the 3k mark on the Parkrun course up to the top path.

Saturday 15th: Long run day. I had a bit of a decision to make here. The grads plan alternates LSRs with progression or tempo runs every second weekend. This was to be a progression run, 30 mins easy, 30 moderate and 30 tempo. However races over recent weekends had fallen on LSR days so I felt low on proper long runs. The solution...do the tempo but bookend it with a few very easy miles. Again for a change of run I decided to run out to Ashbourne and back on the old N2 partially for personally sentimental reasons. 5k very easy, 6 easy, 6 moderate, 7 tempo and then a cooling 7k was the plan. Suffice to say it was my most enjoyable run in ages. Paces for each segment were 9:34, 9:01, 7:47, 7:06 and 8:30

Another good thing happened. I love seeing or learning new things from running. Today was one of those days. Just before I turned at Ashbourne I passed an old stone milestone at the side of the road. It's known to the locals as the 9 mile stone. I knew of it but had never given it any thought. However after I passed it I started to wonder what it referred to. I knew it was more than 9 miles from the GPO, less than 9 miles from Finglas village. So where was it 9 miles from? A bit of research when I got home answered the question. Prior to those evil Brits taking over our country we had our own mile measurement. It was 2240 yards, 2.048kms in modern money. So the 9 mile stone is 9 Irish miles from the GPO. Many Irish place names have references to miles which are in old Irish miles. Especially for Swashbuckler ..... Sixmilebridge is so named because it is 6 Irish miles from Thomond Gate.

Sunday 16th: Due to work and impending darkness I had to return to local concrete. A handy recovery run. 6.7 miles @ 9:10

Weekly miles: 56.4
Monthly miles: 114.7
YTD miles: 1,778

Swashbuckler

Well now... Every day is a lesson. Thanks for that!

Unthought Known

Great week S. So you'll be running 53.65km on 28th October?

skyblue46

Unthought Known wrote: »

Great week S. So you'll be running 53.65km on 28th October?

The patriot in me deems it absolutely necessary :pac: I'll run 11.45kms into town before the reduced marathon.

coogy

S, apologies if I have asked you this before but are you currently following a specific training plan or are you managing your own?
Reading about your sessions always leave me amazed at just how varied they are.
Just looking ahead to next year and wondering if I can expect something similar?

skyblue46

coogy wrote: »

S, apologies if I have asked you this before but are you currently following a specific training plan or are you managing your own?
Reading about your sessions always leave me amazed at just how varied they are.
Just looking ahead to next year and wondering if I can expect something similar?

I'm following the Grads Plan at the moment. When the novices thread reaches its end days and ye have all successfully completed DCM a shiny new thread will be set up, The 2018 DCM Graduates thread. You will get a shiny new mentor too! Just as the novices thread has plans attached so does the Grads thread. There is a 5/10k specific plan, a 10m/HM and 2 marathon plans. They are great plans and will help bring you on.

Baby75

Great week Skyblue and a bit of history as well

coogy

skyblue46 wrote: »

I'm following the Grads Plan at the moment. When the novices thread reaches its end days and ye have all successfully completed DCM a shiny new thread will be set up, The 2018 DCM Graduates thread. You will get a shiny new mentor too! Just as the novices thread has plans attached so does the Grads thread. There is a 5/10k specific plan, a 10m/HM and 2 marathon plans. They are great plans and will help bring you on.

Ok, cheers. So, what I was wondering was, if there was another marathon that you had your sights on, say sometime in 2019, is there an allowance for the fact that you've already completed a plan and run a marathon or is it like starting from scratch?

skyblue46

coogy wrote: »

Ok, cheers. So, what I was wondering was, if there was another marathon that you had your sights on, say sometime in 2019, is there an allowance for the fact that you've already completed a plan and run a marathon or is it like starting from scratch?

Your training and racing history comes into all plans. One thing that never changes is that you train based on recent results. The more you have done, the more you can subsequently take on but a steady progression of training is the key.

eyrie

Any you tempted by the 50k yourself??
Great week as usual. I'm starting to wish we weren't following the same plan - you make my efforts look bad! :rolleyes:

skyblue46

eyrie wrote: »

Any you tempted by the 50k yourself??
Great week as usual. I'm starting to wish we weren't following the same plan - you make my efforts look bad! :rolleyes:

You make my races look bad!

As for being tempted by the 50k.....I could be tempted....some year soon :pac: