Speed or distance?
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23rd to 29th January
Mon 23rd - Rest Day
Tue 24th - 45min Very Easy - Nice easy plod around with HR in zone 1 and 2 (mostly 1). Nothing too memorable about this at all. 7.5k at an average pace of 6:25/km and avg HR of 135.
Wed 25th - 45min Moderate - I added a 1.5k warmup & cooldown to this but in hindsight that was a bit overkill. Moderate pace is such a clunky pace, neither fast enough to be challenging or slow enough to feel easy. GPS has a mini-stroke at the end so stats are probably a bit off. 11.85k at an average of 5:47/km with avg HR of 146.
Thu 26th - Unintentional Rest Day - I was indecisive about going for a cycle or a run and burned up my available time before coming to a decision. I could have gone out later and run by streetlights but everyone seems to be burning coal/turf/wood these days and I really didn't fancy breathing all that in on a run.
Fri 27th - Rest Day - No time to get out. Decided to leave it as a mini taper for a hard effort at parkrun.
Sat 28th - parkrun day - Tried targeting sub 21:35 and thought I'd set my watch appropriately. Got to the 1k mark and saw it showing me at a minute ahead of pace and figured something was amiss. First km came in at 4:05 and suffered a bit on the remaining laps which came in at 4:32, 4:27, 4:29, and 4:15 to give a "chip time" of 21:51 at 4.24/k avg and 164bpm avg HR. Probably went too hard on the first km there. With warmup and cooldown that was approx 10.5 k for the day.
Sun 29th - 18k Long Run - While heading back to our cars after the post-parkrun coffee/scone P mentioned he was going for an 18k run the following day and I somehow invited myself to join him. We were also joined by T from parkrun. P wanted to run @ 5:30/km. I figured this usually worked out at around my easy pace for my last marathon training block so was ok with that. I'd probably have run at approx 6.00/km if on my own though. The route is rolling with a few short climbs. Normally I'd ease up them slowing the pace but keeping the effort even while the lads attacked the hills. I tried attacking them and that worked well. It felt like I still had some of the strength work in me from marathon training. Neither of the lads were interesting in adding on a few more kms to tick the half marathon box. Still a good run and it feels so much shorter with company. Avg pace of 5:26/km with avg HR of 146.
Total for the week - 48k
I think I'll try to keep weekly mileage at 48 - 56k (30-35 miles) for the time being and see how that works out.
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30th January to 3rd February
Mon 30th - 46.5k Cycle. Looking back over Strava I see I've only been on the bike about 3 times in six months. It shows too as normally I'd do a few extra kms to round this route up to 50k but I was just as happy to roll in the gate. Really felt the fatigue at the end even if average speed and power was relatively low. It will take a bit of time to build the cycling fitness back up. Avg HR of 136 so still zone 2 but Strava relative effort score of 50.
Tue 31st - Club Training. 2x2k with 1k hard and 1k easy. I must have misheard the instructions on this because it was meant to be one lap of our 200m microtrack hard and the next lap easy. The "hard" kms were at 5k pace. With warmup and cooldown total came to 6.3k and HR averaged at 138. Assisted at the club C25k afterwards.
Wed 1st - Rest Day
Thu 2nd - 60min Progression. Just over 11k on this moving from easy to marathon pace. I was finding the pace being displayed on the watch not totally reliable under the trees. It felt like I was pushing too hard towards the end even if it was only a few seconds faster than marathon pace so not a good run from a perceived effort pov. Avg pace came in at 5:25/km with avg HR of 144.
Evening - was helping at the club C25k again so another 3.88km averaging 6/km and HR of 139 avg.
Fri 3rd - 60min Easy. Met up with R for an hour as she was doing a longer run. Agreed on a 5.30/k pace which is probably really a tad faster than tinman recommends but avg HR at the end was 138 which I was happy enough with. It might be garbage stats though as I've got into the habit of taking a break from the HR strap for most of my runs so relying on the watch instead. Distance came in at 10.8k.
I'm still using the boards base phase as the skeleton structure for my running plan atm although I wouldn't blame anyone for not recognising it. Still another 3 weeks to go before moving on to a specific targeted plan.
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4th - 5th February
Sat 4th - parkrun Day! The plan for this was to do the 50min mix plan from the boards base plan and incorporate it into the parkrun. So that was 9min easy followed by 1min hard. I started it pre-parkrun and paused it while doing the first timer's briefing. Just after the start came a one minute hard section so I took off like a shot only to "blow up" 250 meters later when the minute was up. Maybe this kind of interval session looks a bit too weird at parkrun. One minute you're chatting away to someone at a nice easy pace and then the watch beeps and you take off. Way too much explaining to do. I do like this session though. Extended it to 56 minutes with avg pace coming in at 5:25/km and avg HR of 146.
Sun 5th - 1hr 45mins easy was on the plan. The route I plotted turned out to be a little too long as my avg pace turned out to be slower. I capped the HR at 140 or close to it to keep the run in zone 2. This kept the run easy despite the steep gradient in places. There was hardly any traffic on the route and I thought I was overdressed with gloves, hat and snood but I was glad I brought them as it was pretty cold and I never took them off. The finish of my planned route took me to approx 19.5km so I decided to round it up to a half marathon and did a couple more kms. 21.5k at 5.57/km at an avg hr of 140.
Weekly total - 63km or 39 miles which is a few more than planned but not harm done.
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It can be awkward to do a session in parkrun, I've had many fails. Last week I did 8 * 1' on/off. I did a warm up mile before parkrun and then I set the timer up so the first 8 mins of park run would also be warm up, this gave me time to have a slow start and get past the chatty stage before the session kicked in but still gave me time to fit in the little session, knowing I would do it in about 25-26 minutes. It still feels a little weird and I know the 1' recoveries weren't as slow as they would be if I wasn't in parkrun but at the same time it was probably the most successful I've been at doing a session in parkrun aside from just doing a straight 3m tempo/threshold which works very well.
Great week, you're ticking all the boxes with nice mileage, sessions and long run!
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6th February to 22nd February
Mon 6th - Rest Day
Tue 7th - 60min Very Easy (9.96km). Got out a bit late in the evening for this with the headtorch for a run around town mostly streetlight lit but other bits in the dark. Since there was a bit of climbing I aimed to keep the HR sub 135. An enjoyable run and not as smoky/smoggy as I'd feared. Avg pace of 6:24/km (GAP 6:10/km) and avg HR of 135.
Wed 8th - Fri 17th - Unplanned Rest. Initially I felt I was coming down with some bug so pulled the plug on the running and expected the bug to hit but, oddly enough, it didn't. So the symptoms of slightly achy joints, odd taste in mouth and feeling the chill a bit more keenly didn't really progress to anything more than that. Covid antigen test came back negative. Then we managed to persuade my mum to go to hospital as she had been unwell for a while and wasn't getting better. Thankfully she's improved considerably but still at the tests/investigations stage so naturally enough running had fallen off the list in terms of priorities. Once she was settled and comfortable a routine could be established and some more time for running opened up.
Sat 18th - parkrun (4.91km). I arrived too late for a warmup for this and had planned a hard effort. In retrospect this was not a wise decision. I had to pull the plug on the hard effort at the end of the first lap as my heart signalled it wanted to leave my chest by any exit possible. I knocked it back to easy pace for the remaining two laps of the run as the first lap had been too much of a shock to the system. Some combination of the "bug that wasn't a bug" + time off + no warmup were the most likely reasons that didn't go well. Avg pace of 4:52, avg HR of 159.
Sun 19th - (9.34km) The plan here was for 60min easy and I got out early on a nice morning for it. Pace was edging a bit more towards moderate as in the back of my head I knew the junior parkrun was on and sometimes they are short volunteers. The plan then was to amble past a bit before the start and see if they needed any more bodies. Turns out they could do with another pair of hands and I was on scanning duties. A quick nip to the car to change top and get on the trackie bottoms and jacket. I find the junior parkrun so funny - it's a bit like herding cats and such a different event to the 5k version. I had 53 minutes of the run done and paused the watch but, in reality, I wasn't gonna start again for 7 minutes so 5:40/km avg pace with avg HR of 139 for the morning.
Mon 20th - 60min Moderate (10.67km) - This was a tough run even though it was at a pedestrian enough pace. HR was a good 10 to 15 bpm higher than it should really be for that avg pace on a fairly flat route. I have Adare 10k on Sunday and between this run and the parkrun I'm not really sure how I'm going to approach it. I'll have to listen to the body which atm is telling me it's not in shape for hard efforts or even mildly hard efforts as a moderate effort is eliciting HR rates more appropriate to a hard 5k run. Then again I think I was using the HR from the watch rather than the strap. I'm going to blame after effects from the "not a bug" and also it felt quite warm as I was wearing a thick long sleeved top which was a bit stuffy with the sun out. Avg pace 5:34/km (5:29/km GAP) Avg HR 153.
Tue 21st - 60min Very Easy (10.72) - After the previous day the plan was to try to keep the HR low which meant aiming for 135bpm or less. Since the route has approx 150m elevation that meant slowing down quite a lot in places but also I could let the pace go on the downhill. Overall the HR averaged out at 137 so slightly higher than planned but not too bad. It was quite a bit cooler than the previous day with a bit of mist/drizzle and gloves, buff and cap all on and needed. Avg pace of 6:26/km (GAP 6:12/km) with avg HR of 137.
Club Training (3.33km) - Since I was coming in later to assist with the club C25k I decided to go to the training beforehand as well. I haven't been making the Tuesday sessions for a while so managed to confuse myself regarding the start time and arrived 30 minutes late so I missed the warmup and drills. It was a drizzly evening so happy enough with the somewhat shorter session and slower than usual pace. Avg pace 5:11/km (4:42 GAP), avg HR 141.
Club C25k (6.16km) - The group has reached week 7 so the volume of time spent running has increased a bit. This week it was 3 reps of 8-minute runs with 90s rest between runs. Unfortunately, the rain seemed to get heavier as it was time to start so we all got saturated fairly quickly. As the reps progressed, I ran faster than I'd planned just to keep warm. Fair play to all that turned up on a crap night weather-wise. Avg pace 6:06/km (5:42/km GAP) with avg HR of 139
Wed 22nd - Rest Day.
I've booked in with my GP for an "NCT" next week. I had some unexplained chest pain around the time of the "not a bug" which might just have been some indigestion but was a bit alarming at the time.
Racing weight is something I have to get serious about as well. Currently I'm floating between 83 and 85kg (About 13 to 13.5 stone). That hasn't really budged in 12 months. Time then to start making changes to the diet. First up will be the low hanging fruit option of cutting out anything that could be considered junk which has worked reasonably well in the past and I didn't miss them when I'd stopped eating them but they slowly crept back in. Hopefully cutting them out will work well again but I may try intermittent fasting also. I suspect though that the main thing will be changing what I eat, when I eat it and how much is eaten. I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this so a bit of research to be done. No matter how much training or racing I do I know I'm not going to reach the targets I feel I should reach unless I get into some sort of appropriate racing weight.
#Nigglewatch - The slight groin strain that I picked up in the Valencia marathon made a reappearance after the parkrun after I had thought it had self-cured. No warmup was most likely the reason. I also have an irritation under my right sole. From what I can gather it's most likely not plantar fasciitis. I may book in with the physio to get them looked at but neither are painful or show-stopping right now.
Upcoming Races - The Adare 10k is coming up on Sunday. I will, most likely, run it by feel judging off HR but I'm not expecting anything from the race and it's not a goal race anyway. County Roads (5k) is coming up 12th March which I will most likely do with the club. Munster Roads are on earlier on 5th March. I probably won't do that one but I do have half an eye on the MTU 5k in Cork on the 5th. I've a load of running tops I want to get rid of and they are collecting them for charity on the day.
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Hope your mum is doing better now there D.
I can imagine how nasty that parkrun felt, a break in running and then a hard effort like that is too much really....any effort at all there was probably going to feel hard on a first run back after a break...be nicer to yourself!
Good luck in the races ahead. Due to the indoors competitions over the next 3 weekends will miss all of those. The MTU 5K in Cork caught the eye as well actually but not sure if I want to drive two hours away for a 5K but I do like the idea of the collection they are doing too!
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If there are any Sanctuary Runners groups near you they will always be delighted to accept running gear. That may be an option for you both?
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There's one in Tralee so will drop them a mail. Nice tip, thanks K!
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Hope your mum is doing better now there D.
Thanks D. I appreciate that.
I can imagine how nasty that parkrun felt, a break in running and then a hard effort like that is too much really....any effort at all there was probably going to feel hard on a first run back after a break...be nicer to yourself!
I may have over-dramatised my report 🤐 I will admit that I'm particularly poor at "listening to the body". I usually need a few clatters around the head from it to get the message.
The MTU 5K in Cork caught the eye as well actually but not sure if I want to drive two hours away for a 5K but I do like the idea of the collection they are doing too!
Yes, I'd be similar in relation to driving a good distance for a 5k. Exceptions would be if the course is very favourable for a good time and I'm near PB shape. However in this case I know the crew involved with the MTU 5k and also a race before the county roads would be good. An added bonus is that I really want to offload those t-shirts. 😄
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I'm actually a member of the local one and they're all good for t-shirts at the moment. Thanks for the suggestion though.
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23rd February to 26th February
23rd February - 60min Very Easy. Morning: A nice brisk morning run with the sun out but chilly so long sleeves, buff and gloves were employed. For sure a touch faster than stipulated by tinman but well within HR. I underestimated the loop distance so ended with an extra ten minutes to complete it. Threw in some strides at the end also. Avg pace of 6:00/km (GAP 5:55/km) with avg HR of 138.
Evening : Helping out with the club C25k. This evening's session was 10min, 5min and 10 min runs with 2 minutes rest. Another chilly evening but nice to be running on the soft track. Avg pace of 5.36/km (5:17/km GAP) with avg HR of 140
24th February - Rest Day
25th February - 50min easy with the last 5min at Threshold. Incorporated parkrun into this but struggled a bit to get into threshold pace for the last 5 minutes. I think I was 5 seconds slower or something for the threshold section. I might just have been going easy on myself. 5:49/km Avg pace (5:42/km GAP) Avg HR of 139
26th February - Adare 10k Report - 46:03 Chip Time
This was probably the most enjoyable 10k I've run. I wasn't feeling in good form coming into it and knew I wouldn't be out and out racing it. In the end I decided to run it to HR at slightly lower than lactate threshold. I seemed to have difficulty holding the faster paces lately so figured something around 4:50 pace might be as well as I could go with sub 48 being a target. Adare is far from flat and is a series of drags and descents - mostly minor. I was surprised to see the first km come in at 4:35 followed by 4:29 for the next two laps. I was feeling comfortable and decided to keep the HR where it was - in the low 160s. The 45min pacers came by after 3k and I was tempted for a milisecond to try and stay with them but quickly scotched that idea. A County Limerick AC runner in a red club top passed me here also moving strongly up the drag. The 4th km was a bit more lumpy and came in at 4:43. I eased back whenever the HR started to climb to the high 160s and left it drift back down to somewhere in the 161 to 164 range. From here on I just looked at HR. Strava tells me I came through 5k in 22:55. A lad in a Sanctuary runner top steamed through here going well. Kms 5 and 6 came in approx 4:37 pace. A female runner eased past me on the drag in the 6th km. I was mindful of the HR so let her off but quickly caught her again as the road flattened out. Into km 7 and I was feeling ok to let the HR drift a bit towards the high 160s. We were approaching the long straight section where we had faced a strong head wind the previous year. There was a bit of wind this year also but not as strong and it was coming more diagonally from the front and left. I didn't intentionally speed up to the group in front of me for shelter. It seemed more like they came back to me. I slipped in behind one and noticed how the running had suddenly become that bit easier but he started to slow. I stepped out and felt the blast and wondered if I should have stayed where I was. Fortunatley there was a group so I was able to step from shoulder to shoulder and work my way forward which worked well. We were into the last couple of km now and I was picking off runners seemingly with ease. I took the brakes off the HR and targetted more runners ahead. I could see Sanctuary Runner and the County Limerick AC's red top up ahead. However they were putting in strong finishes too. The second last km came in at 4:45 which was my slowest km thanks to a stiff climb. However the last km was my fastest at 4:16 thanks to the downhill from that climb. Sanctuary Runner and County Limerick had both managed to keep their lead. I could have probably pushed a bit harder over the last km but partly wanted to keep it relatively comfortable. I was surprised to see the clock quite close to my time from the previous year. I didn't quite get in under that time but forgot that I had started a bit further back at the start so my chip time ended up quicker by a few seconds from last year.
Overall I was very happy with that since I was going in with pretty low expectations. I don't think Adare anyway is a PB course as there's too much up and down even though the overall elevation gain isn't that much. Also it was absolutely baltic on Sunday. I'd thrown the arm warmers in the gear bag specifically thinking I won't need them as temp is forecast at 8 Celsius but when I nipped out of the car to collect my t-shirt it felt like it was freezing. It had warmed a little for the first few kms but by the end I was glad I had the arm warmers. Anyways that was a nice little boost and on to the next one.
Just over 68km for the week.
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27th February to 5th March
27th February - Rest Day - Took the day off after Adare the previous day.
28th February - (Morning) 60 min very Easy (10.04km) Nice and handy undulating, lunch run with a bit of elevation gain. Avg pace 6:06/km, 5:51 (GAP), avg HR 137.
(Evening) Club Training. Intervals of 3x300 off 2 mins and 3x600 off 2mins. (3:10, 3:15, 3:16) and (2:27, 2:27, 2:32). I took off a bit too hard on the first interval and was paying for it by the end. (5.9km in total with cooldown etc). P came to training this week. I'm usually the fastest in the group but P was pushing me so was putting in more effort than usual. Probably going a bit too fast. More on that later.
(Evening) Club C25k (5:41km) - Helping out with the C25k group. Avg pace of 6:11 with avg HR of 138.
Probably not a lot of joined up thinking on display here with 3 runs on one day!!
1st March - Rest Day
2nd March - (Morning) 70min Progression (12.68km) Tbh I found this one tough and didn't think I'd make the marathon pace step at the end. It just seemed that little bit more difficult than it should have been. Managed to see it out though and happy to press the stop button the exact moment it ended. Avg pace of 5:31/km, 5:24 (GAP), and avg HR of 147.
(Evening) C25k group again (4.96km) - An easier session for the group ahead of the weekend full 5k at parkrun. Avg pace of 6:01/km, 5:28 (GAP) and avg HR of 131.
3rd March - 60min Easy (10.86km) - (Morning) Met R early in the am who joined me for most of this but she was just doing 45 min. Pace worked out at 5:36/km which would put in the moderate rather than easy bucket. Strava still said it was all zone 1 and zone 2 so I'm still counting it as easy. Or perhaps tinman's paces are overly conservative? Avg pace 5:36/km, 5:24 (GAP) avg HR 133.
(Evening) - Club Training (3.77km) - 10x 100m sprints. (20, 21, 21, 22, 22, 22, 22, 23, 23, 22) I could feel my left hamstring was not 100% so eased off a tad after the first couple of reps. It was probably due to going too hard on Tuesday night's club training. Finished off the session with planks. These were torture. They are so much easier to do when done on a consistent basis but I've left them slack for too long.
4th March - Rest day. Volunteering at parkrun while our C25k crew ran their "graduation" run.
5th March - Long Run (21.6km) - Ran this somewhat undulating loop with P and T. P tends to run his easy runs a little faster than I so I hung back a bit with T but pushed on a bit towards the end when the hills were mostly over. So much easier with company. Great conditions for running and was happy I chose this run over the 5k race I'd contemplated last week. Doing the 5k race would have potentially meant missing 3 long runs in a row. I'd missed last week's one with the Adare 10k. I may bring forward this week's one if I can. Avg pace of 5:26/km 5:13 (GAP, Avg HR of 147
Next week is the last week of the six week base building block. It only took me eight weeks! I always feel like base building is waiting and waiting until you get to do "the good stuff" like race specific training but maybe the base building is the good stuff itself.
Just over 75km (almost 47 miles) for the week.
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Things seem to have gone quiet here. All OK?
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Health issues have me out of action until I don't know when. Running wouldn't be sensible at the moment but otherwise I'm ok.
Running will still be there when I can get back to it again.
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Sorry to hear this, hope all is okay and you're back at it soon!
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