Once in a Lifetime....for now

OOnegative

Well done on the win Sean, great to see!! Your better at the shorter stuff than you think and get your hatred for them, it’s over very quick is the only good thing!!

Swashbuckler

Great stuff S. Well done on the win.

That session isn't an easy one in that heat!

As for hating the shorter stuff I don't disagree. It's painful haha. One thing you shouldn't forget is since Luke has been working with you it has been a lot of strength building. Sometimes you won't even realise it but you're doing mostly base building. Training to be able to run fast. So you're not yet primed for the shorter stuff. It'll come. And you'll still hate it. Haha.

shotgunmcos

Well done on the win! Great to read about you and Oonegative rocking podiums this week.

coogy

Well done on a great result S! Sounds like being in a running club is right up your street!

Dealerz2.0

Great win S-well done

scotindublin

Great stuff good to get the hands on a trophy!

tbukela

Congratulations, sounds like a brilliant idea for a club race. I hope you take it as a sign that the hard work is paying off.

skyblue46

tbukela wrote: »

Congratulations, sounds like a brilliant idea for a club race. I hope you take it as a sign that the hard work is paying off.

Yeah it's a great idea to add a bit of interest to the prize giving afterwards. I suppose unless you have run a stinker you can feel that you have a chance. As for the hard work, that will take a while to pay off... September will do me just fine!

skyblue46

Swashbuckler wrote: »

Great stuff S. Well done on the win.

That session isn't an easy one in that heat!

As for hating the shorter stuff I don't disagree. It's painful haha. One thing you shouldn't forget is since Luke has been working with you it has been a lot of strength building. Sometimes you won't even realise it but you're doing mostly base building. Training to be able to run fast. So you're not yet primed for the shorter stuff. It'll come. And you'll still hate it. Haha.

Yeah Paul I have noticed from what I have been doing that there has been no speedier stuff whatsoever. It'll be a bit of a shock to the system after 10 months and counting since I did specific 5/10k stuff. It's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to go out hard and back myself in the mile races.

Swashbuckler

skyblue46 wrote:

Yeah Paul I have noticed from what I have been doing that there has been no speedier stuff whatsoever. It'll be a bit of a shock to the system after 10 months and counting since I did specific 5/10k stuff. It's one of the reasons I'm reluctant to go out hard and back myself in the mile races.

I get you. I just think you have nothing to lose really. One of the benefits of this regular racing is to try some different approaches. See what works for you.

I don't really think it will be a shock. Very rarely have I felt a shock from Luke's approach. It's usually pretty sensible and before you know it one day you're running a belter of a session and you wonder how you got to the point of finding it 'ok'. You'll be eased into it don't worry

skyblue46

Swashbuckler wrote: »

I get you. I just think you have nothing to lose really. One of the benefits of this regular racing is to try some different approaches. See what works for you.

I don't really think it will be a shock. Very rarely have I felt a shock from Luke's approach. It's usually pretty sensible and before you know it one day you're running a belter of a session and you wonder how you got to the point of finding it 'ok'. You'll be eased into it don't worry

The plan for this week included some 5k pace work for the first time. Unfortunately it's trials night tomorrow for the road relays so it will have to wait.

OOnegative

Best of luck tomorrow Sean, thought you hated the short stuff!!! Run well man.

skyblue46

OOnegative wrote: »

Best of luck tomorrow Sean, thought you hated the short stuff!!! Run well man.

Thanks B. Nail on head there. All I can do is run well, run my best race on the day. Oh I do hate it....LOTS! :eek:

Murph_D

skyblue46 wrote: »

Thanks B. Nail on head there. All I can do is run well, run my best race on the day. Oh I do hate it....LOTS! :eek:

Give it a little bit extra just for me. Good luck!

skyblue46

April 22nd-28th

Monday 22nd: Planned rest day.

Tuesday 23rd: Another all grass Phoenix Park easy run. 6.3 miles @ 8:58 HR 131.

Wednesday 24th: Raheny One Mile trials. A smashing evening for a race. Nice to see aquinn and MisterPaul here for this one. My plan was to go out a bit faster than the previous one and see if I could hang on. I passed through the half mile in 2:54, six seconds faster than my first effort. Strangely enough I still felt strong. I moved onto D's shoulder shortly after that as he closed up on a small group ahead. As we approached the last corner, about 350m from the finish I decided to move past D. This wasn't done because I felt great but because he hasn't been passed on the finishing straight during the league and I didn't want to be added to the list that had tried and failed! :pac: No sooner had we rounded the last corner in a group of 5 but one guy took off like a bullet out of a gun. I felt good enough to try to chase him and we quickly put a gap into the lads behind. I never got past him but I was thrilled with the finishing effort. Strava gave me my best 400m, half mile, 1k and mile records. I have to admit to being surprised, in a bad way at a 5:42 which was a 6 second PB. I was six seconds ahead at half way and finished great. I must have slowed right down when I settled in with the few lads with 600 to go. Great to see P break the six minute barrier at his first attempt too. I'll be seeing nothing but his back very shortly!

Thursday 25th: 6.8 miles @ 8:57 HR 122 Very easy recovery miles.

Friday 26th: I found out I had made the 2nd Raheny M50 team so the plan changed to a rest day.

Saturday 27th: Easy 3 miles and 4*20 sec strides

Sunday 28th: National Road Relays. Firstly, what a wonderful event. For any of you in clubs I'd encourage you to organise teams for it next year. There was a great atmosphere, lots of support and some amazing senior races to watch.

Nice to bump into Scotindublin and Wubble beforehand. C is looking in great shape and his run proved this to be fact. J was a sub and gave the strong impression he hoped to be an unused one!

The race...It is a 1 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile relay with 3 runners per team for us masters. I was to run the last leg which would probably be lonely as the 35s would be up the road as would be the best of the 50s. I suppose most of my attention was on our 3rd team and wanting to beat them! :pac:

The first one mile leg left us behind the 3rds but MK ran a steady leg to close the gap after the first loop of his two mile leg. One by one the last leg runners were sent on their way until there were 12/15 of us left. After a bit of a gap the next group of 2nd leg runners appeared around the last corner. There was a 30 sec gap to the team ahead so no prospect of gaining a place. MK was amongst them, a group of 5 I think (our team, the 3rds, Donore, Castlegar and Sportsworld were the vests I picked out). In a fraction of a second a million thoughts went through my head. I had no idea how good 3 of the other 4 were. G from our thirds always starts faster than me. Could I do my usual steady start and let the 4 get ahead of me? No was my answer. It was time to change the habits my short running life and go out hard. Time to fight to keep ahead of them! I was second of the 5 to be let go but I quickly surged past the Castlegar lad ahead. Now I was going to try the balls out and hang on style of mile racing. This put me in a position where I was finding it tough at an earlier stage than I'm used to. Got a nice shout from A, P and L as I turned onto All Saints Road but all I could really hear were shouts of 'Great running Ciaran' from Donore supporters roadside and the sound of said Ciaran's runners hitting the ground not far behind me. A quick glance over the shoulder and I could see we had begun getting away from the other 3. I eased it off along All Saints in the hope I could save a bit of fight for when Ciaran came to challenge. With 300m to go I got some great shouts from annapr, Murph, and Mr & Mrs FBOT. I also got a shout from voice unknown telling me I had 10 yards on Donore and to keep the fooker there!!! :pac: I picked it up a bit on the finishing straight and the footsteps behind thankfully got quieter as he dropped back. Crossed the line wrecked and was expecting a bit better than the 5:45 it showed. Even allowing for a couple of seconds I pressed it before the handover I could expect no better than a 5:42 or 3 to be the official time. Delighted to have won the mini race but other than that I think I hoped for a few seconds better.

I did a couple of miles cooldown before joining Murph and gang to see the senior races. There were some cracking legs run. My highlights were John Travers and Brian Fays legs in the men's senior. Huge congrats to all in Raheny on a fantastic medal haul and on a superbly organised meet. I was thrilled to see HelenAnne of these parts run an amazingly good anchor leg to get bronze in the O35s. A proper little fighter she is!!

When I got home and saw the results online my mood picked up a bit. My 5:42 leg was the same as Wednesday but most of the club seemed to be a few seconds slower than midweek. Perhaps that was from running 2 raced miles in 4 days or maybe it was the slight breeze in our faces on All Saints Road. We finished 6th of 14 M50 teams which is better than I hoped for. Most importantly from a personal point of view was that I wasn't out of place. I think I might like this running lark:D

Kellygirl

Well done Sean. That’s a great and exciting week.

HelenAnne

skyblue46 wrote: »

Sunday 28th: National Road Relays. Firstly, what a wonderful event. For any of you in clubs I'd encourage you to organise teams for it next year. There was a great atmosphere, lots of support and some amazing senior races to watch.

Nice to bump into Scotindublin and Wubble beforehand. C is looking in great shape and his run proved this to be fact. J was a sub and gave the strong impression he hoped to be an unused one!

The race...It is a 1 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile relay with 3 runners per team for us masters. I was to run the last leg which would probably be lonely as the 35s would be up the road as would be the best of the 50s. I suppose most of my attention was on our 3rd team and wanting to beat them! :pac:

The first one mile leg left us behind the 3rds but MK ran a steady leg to close the gap after the first loop of his two mile leg. One by one the last leg runners were sent on their way until there were 12/15 of us left. After a bit of a gap the next group of 2nd leg runners appeared around the last corner. There was a 30 sec gap to the team ahead so no prospect of gaining a place. MK was amongst them, a group of 5 I think (our team, the 3rds, Donore, Castlegar and Sportsworld were the vests I picked out). In a fraction of a second a million thoughts went through my head. I had no idea how good 3 of the other 4 were. G from our thirds always starts faster than me. Could I do my usual steady start and let the 4 get ahead of me? No was my answer. It was time to change the habits my short running life and go out hard. Time to fight to keep ahead of them! I was second of the 5 to be let go but I quickly surged past the Castlegar lad ahead. Now I was going to try the balls out and hang on style of mile racing. This put me in a position where I was finding it tough at an earlier stage than I'm used to. Got a nice shout from A, P and L as I turned onto All Saints Road but all I could really hear were shouts of 'Great running Ciaran' from Donore supporters roadside and the sound of said Ciaran's runners hitting the ground not far behind me. A quick glance over the shoulder and I could see we had begun getting away from the other 3. I eased it off along All Saints in the hope I could save a bit of fight for when Ciaran came to challenge. With 300m to go I got some great shouts from annapr, Murph, and Mr & Mrs FBOT. I also got a shout from voice unknown telling me I had 10 yards on Donore and to keep the fooker there!!! :pac: I picked it up a bit on the finishing straight and the footsteps behind thankfully got quieter as he dropped back. Crossed the line wrecked and was expecting a bit better than the 5:45 it showed. Even allowing for a couple of seconds I pressed it before the handover I could expect no better than a 5:42 or 3 to be the official time. Delighted to have won the mini race but other than that I think I hoped for a few seconds better.

I did a couple of miles cooldown before joining Murph and gang to see the senior races. There were some cracking legs run. My highlights were John Travers and Brian Fays legs in the men's senior. Huge congrats to all in Raheny on a fantastic medal haul and on a superbly organised meet. I was thrilled to see HelenAnne of these parts run an amazingly good anchor leg to get bronze in the O35s. A proper little fighter she is!!

When I got home and saw the results online my mood picked up a bit. My 5:42 leg was the same as Wednesday but most of the club seemed to be a few seconds slower than midweek. Perhaps that was from running 2 raced miles in 4 days or maybe it was the slight breeze in our faces on All Saints Road. We finished 6th of 14 M50 teams which is better than I hoped for. Most importantly from a personal point of view was that I wasn't out of place. I think I might like this running lark:D

Really well run! The road relays are so daunting (I think!)

Re your time - that loop is longer than a mile, that's why we're all a few seconds slower. You know the way in the usual mile races we run from around the corner and then finish up a house or two before that corner? That's a mile. The road relay loop starts and finishes at the same spot, so it's just over a mile.

Thanks very much for your praise! I was running scared - terrified I'd drop the team out of the medals. I have mad, desperate eyes in all the photos I've seen. I'm delighted!

Well done to all who ran, especially all the Raheny runners!

mister paul

skyblue46 wrote: »

Great to see P break the six minute barrier at his first attempt too. I'll be seeing nothing but his back very shortly!

I doubt that, considering how easily you breezed past me on Wednesday, and the MSB 5k, and...

Swashbuckler

That's a great run Sean. Proper racing and happy to see you try 'The Davey Method'. You just ran 5.41/5.42 twice in a week. You need to give yourself more credit. Great stuff.

eyrie

Fantastic. Love seeing all the variety going on in this log of late, you're really getting into it all. Well done, sounds like a great run to me!

skyblue46

mister paul wrote: »

I doubt that, considering how easily you breezed past me on Wednesday, and the MSB 5k, and...

Remember where you heard it first!

skyblue46

Swashbuckler wrote: »

That's a great run Sean. Proper racing and happy to see you try 'The Davey Method'. You just ran 5.41/5.42 twice in a week. You need to give yourself more credit. Great stuff.

Thanks P. I have to say that having now tried two contrasting methods which brought about a similar result that I think it's time Davey tried the Sean Method...it's a lot less painful!

skyblue46

eyrie wrote: »

Fantastic. Love seeing all the variety going on in this log of late, you're really getting into it all. Well done, sounds like a great run to me!

Thanks C. Yes I am loving the bit of variety. It's why DCM is something I have no interest in doing this year. I want to try different things, not be overly concerned about how races fit in a plan, not to worry about low mileage weeks if I'm running shorter races, know that I'm doing no distance specific training and not caring about PBs etc etc.

Younganne

Well done S, that's a great weeks racing there. The relays sound like such exciting time for the spectators and terrifying for those running:D

skyblue46

Younganne wrote: »

Well done S, that's a great weeks racing there. The relays sound like such exciting time for the spectators and terrifying for those running:D

Terrifying it definitely is! Even to be warming up on the same roads as most of the best shorter distance road runners in the country is terrifying :pac:

That being said it was also exhilarating. There was a very mixed standard through the age groups and I don't think I saw anyone from first to last who didn't love the whole thing. In fact those of us towards the back probably got more support than anyone. The running community really is fantastic in the way it shows its appreciation for anyone who gives something a go.

Baby75

Great stuff S, that sounds terrifying but exhilarating and very rewarding at the same time

skyblue46

April 29th- May 6th

Monday 29th: 4 miles @ 10:24 HR 115. My first Monday run of the year! It's normally a rest day but after the relays I felt like a very slow leg loosener.

Tuesday 30th: Another first of the year...a lap of the Phoenix Park. I normally stay on grass and make use of the acres triangle but today I continued on around the roads. 7.1 miles @ 8:49 HR 126

Wednesday 1st: Session Day. 12*90 secs off 40 sec jog. Not a success at all. Seemed to be finding it very tough from the off and had to take a couple of minutes walking break after 9 repeats. That's the second time that I have used the local park for sessions and both times I haven't hit the mark. GPS is terrible in the park and I think it's possible I'm going out too fast to try to hit paces on the watch that might be wrong. Either that or I'm simply not up to the sessions yet.... 6:09, :10, :10, :07, :10, :17, :11, :11, :11, :15, walk, :12, ,11, :16. Total miles incl WU and CD was 8.3

Thursday 2nd: 6.2 @ 8:55 HR 120. Stopped off in Santry Demesne on the way home from work for a few very pleasant easy miles. I bumped into Ultrawoman at the end of my run and stopped for a little chat. Really nice to hear how she is progressing towards Belfast.

Friday 3rd: 4 easy miles and 4*20 sec strides. Local loop. Nothing to see here. 8:58, HR 126

Saturday 4th: I decided not to do the customary session today as I knew I'd be doing the ARC 10k on the following Monday as a tempoish run. 7.5 miles @ 8:55, HR 123

Sunday 5th: 12.1 miles @ 8:39, HR 131. As usual I did this a few seconds per mile faster than my normal easy run. It's something I have carried over from the Grads plan where midweek runs were very easy and long runs were to be easy paced. The 9am start got me the best of the day with some lovely sunshine. I ran down by Glasnevin cemetery to Cross Guns Bridge and then out the Canal to near the M50 and then turned and retraced my steps. Really enjoyed this one

Monday 6th: ARC 10k. 44:30. There's no need for a race report as it wasn't raced. I had entered it to support the cause and when I saw that WW was planning to do it as a HMP run it suited me perfectly. He was hoping to do 7:25 pace and we over cooked it by a few seconds a mile. This was mainly caused by banking a few seconds on the faster stretches and then not slowing down as planned on the couple of ascents out of the Furry Glen. A smashing morning, a great cause and a nice relaxed run. 6.2 miles HR 151

This week will be a fairly low key week. I'm running the Terenure 5 on Sunday so won't do the dog on it before then. To be honest I don't know what to expect. I'm still not feeling I'm in PB shape even if I might not be far from it. That might be my inherent pessimistic side or it might be caused by some sessions not going to plan. 32:14 is my PB. Anything sub 33 would more than please me. I'll be giving it a rattle though as I want to find out where I'm at right now....a reference point is badly needed.

coogy

skyblue46 wrote: »

=

This week will be a fairly low key week. I'm running the Terenure 5 on Sunday so won't do the dog on it before then. To be honest I don't know what to expect. I'm still not feeling I'm in PB shape even if I might not be far from it. That might be my inherent pessimistic side or it might be caused by some sessions not going to plan. 32:14 is my PB. Anything sub 33 would more than please me. I'll be giving it a rattle though as I want to find out where I'm at right now....a reference point is badly needed.

Blows my mind that just one lap of the PP is over 7 miles! :eek: Need to get myself down there for more of my longer runs.

I'll be doing my first 5 mile race in Dunboyne at the end of the month. Really looking forward to it but not sure yet about pacing. I'm thinking slightly faster than HMP, (between 7:00 - 7:15) might be doable........

skyblue46

coogy wrote: »

Blows my mind that just one lap of the PP is over 7 miles! :eek: Need to get myself down there for more of my longer runs.

I'll be doing my first 5 mile race in Dunboyne at the end of the month. Really looking forward to it but not sure yet about pacing. I'm thinking slightly faster than HMP, (between 7:00 - 7:15) might be doable........

Have a look at the pace calculator on the grads plan and look at the race time predictor. 7:00-7:15 would seem to be ultra conservative in my eyes.

scotindublin

See you in Terenure on Sunday.....its a cracking 5 mile.