Running away

Base Week 8
RHR had been rising steadily towards the latter half of last week and on Sunday it spiked at 49. On Tuesday i woke with a sore throat and sinuses were blocked. Decided to park the early mornings in favour of sleep to help knock the lurgy on the head which meant fitting in what i could in the evenings.

Mon
8m GA @ 9:56min/m

Tues
5m GA @ 10:13min/m

Wed
Plan had 8m GA with 8 * 100m strides but i decided to do a very mini session to get a flavour of my planned pace for Saturday's 1 miler. Settled on 400m + 3 * 200m off 30s.

Paces were 6:51 (400m), 6:45, 6:39, 6:26.

The 400m didn't inspire much confidence but with the 200s getting progressively faster for the same effort i knew i wasn't properly warmed up starting the session, rookie mistake. I was kind of sorry after i didn't do 400m, 2 * 200m, 400m as the last 400m may have been more telling but what i did was enough to leave me feeling reasonable confident with my target of 6:45 without leaving me beat up.

Thurs
3m recovery @ 10:35min/m

Fri
Rest

Sat
2.5m w/u + 1m TT + 5m c/d

1m TT - 6:38-6:41min/m depending on Strava/Garmin!
.25m @ 1:41.3, 1:38.9, 1:41.4, 1:38.6

Never having raced a mile i hadn't a clue what to expect, loose plan was to break it into 4 parts - control, control, dig deep, HTFU. The first 400m included a left hand turn after about 350m, i couldn't believe how quickly i was taking that turn and the watch beeped, boom first quarter done but my breather was shallow. As soon as i took that turn i could hear a tractor, FFS i headed out at 6am to avoid this scenario. I was on a narrow country road and for anyone not familiar tractors in the 21st century are huge yokes and this time of year are usually pulling massive balers on the back of them, i'd have to stop to let him by me. There was a few houses up ahead where i could pull in slightly to the verge, come on tractor, catch up with me and pass me there, c'mon, c'mon, where the F*ck is it, nearly at the end of the little strip of houses and at the very last second it's like he copped she isn't going to stop and he put the foot down and went by, literally as i stepped back onto the road in his dust, phew! And what the watch beeped again, 800m done, i didn't even notice that 400m i spent it thinking about a tractor :cool: Ok half-way, this is the dig deep bit just keep this pace, I haven't a clue what pace i did the first 800m in, pointless looking at the watch, it's just a blur but only 3 mins - sure you love 3 min intervals, legs are feeling heavy, yup that's what lactic will do. Over the little hump back bridge and you're on the home straight and boom the watch beeps again, 400m just like that now it's the HTFU part - imagine a finish line up ahead, it's right there just pick up the legs and it'll all be over soon... and just like that the 5 little beeps started, boom, done, 6:41 on the watch i think, paces around the road to catch my breath, thank god there's nobody about. Phew, job done, loved that! Thanks again to the organisers for the effort that went into this, delighted with my AC place

Sun
Planned to do 10m LR but went out without taking any water or food on board which is normal but it isn't normally a heat wave and i don't always have multiple post TT & bank holiday weekend beverages the evening before so after an hour i was really starting to over-heat and felt quite dehydrated, cut it to 80 mins.

8.3m @ 9:40min/m

37 odd miles for the week.

I'm going to park that specific base plan there. I did 8 of 10 weeks of the plan. The plan was up to 45 miles and i'm happy to hover around 35-40mpw now. The last 2 weeks look like a lot to handle right now.

May ended with about 160 miles which is my highest mileage month since September last year. Still only what would have been my average for 2019 but it's great to see it building slowly. As well as that i did about 10 hours of yoga over the month and i got new step records for most steps in a week & in a month and i'm on a new longest step streak. Ok, steps aren't really a measure of running fitness but they are a measure of my commitment to moving more which all helps - between that and the yoga my hip flexors have never felt better

Thanks for reading.

ReeReeG wrote: »

You're sounding like you have more of a pep in your step despite your 'lurgy'!
So have you decided on what's next??

The lurgy didn't develop into much thankfully, a few good nights sleep seemed to nip it before it took hold and you know i really enjoyed the mini session on Wed and the 1m TT. I've missed running fast and forgotten how much i enjoy sessions - though i may rethink that i'm facing a proper tough session :pac: I'm going to do the grads base plan for 6 weeks next with a view to following it up with one of the grads plans.

Hello log, it's been a while!

A bit of an update for the sake of closure.

Things went down hill after that last post in August. I went on a staycation for a week and couldn't really get back into the plan after the week away. The lack of a solid race plan got to me & the long runs in particular just seemed pointless so after about 8 weeks I pulled the plug on the marathon plan. For about 4 weeks I jumped into another generic plan (HM I think). Despite the lack of mojo I knocked out my highest mileage months ever in July and August last year and by the end of the year I was aprox. 350 miles up on 2019 with the only down time being 8 days at the end of Feb for a knee niggle.

2017 - 1,001 miles
2018 - 1,464 miles
2019 - 1,547 miles
2020 - 1,893 miles

Heading into Q4 I was ticking over, running consistently but with no goal. I'd already followed a couple of base plans early in the year and with no races on the horizon I was feeling rather meh about running. At the end of September completely on impulse and with very little research (quite unlike me) I signed up to a month with a coach (online). A month later I signed up to 6 months so I'm currently about half way through that.

I always thought coaches were for "proper" runners and I don't class myself as a "proper" runner more of a hobby jogger or a middle age mammy trying to combat the affects of the decline of youth :eek: I certainly never thought I/it (running) was worth investing in. But then Covid happened. After 6-7 months of various degrees of lockdowns I realised that running was the only constant in my life (outside of my little family unit) and with little else to spend my hard earned money on, why not!

So far I've no regrets. I may not be any faster (I'm probably slower in fact :pac:), I may not be stronger (but I think I am ) but what I definitely am is a more content hobby jogger! I just do what I'm told (most of the time ) and when it doesn't work out there is someone to off-load too, when it does work out there is someone there to share that with too and always some titbit of feedback that is different to how I interpreted the particular session/week.

The main goal for the year is the same as last year - an Autumn marathon. In the absence of a race the focus will just continue to build on getting stronger, I definitely won't be doing a marathon TT. Shorter term, I signed up for Cara Bundoran 10m last March, that entry is carried over to this year and has gone virtual so I'm aiming for a 10m TT in March.

Right now it's hard to see myself getting any faster over 1m-5k but I think I can take some time off over the longer distances especially 10m-marathon. I have some aspirational times that I wrote on a post-it a couple of years ago and I still have my eye on those times over the next couple of years.

Covid has thought me it's a privilege to have running in my life. I don't know how I'd have got through this past year without it to keep me sane! I'm looking forward to the day we can combine running with travel & socialising again! Parkrun seems like a lifetime ago now, I admit I wasn't a regular parkrunner (mostly it clashed with kids' sports) but I've missed the opportunity to go along occasionally and have the banter before/after. I've missed meeting up with runners at races this year, DCM of course being the highlight, I look forward to the day we can all congregate in McGrattans again. Despite the fact that in the 3 times I've been there I've never managed to stay very long it's always been a highlight and one I'll appreciate even more after all of this.

It's lovely to see so many logs revived here lately. And new loggers too. Best of luck to all. Hopefully 2021 will bring an end to Covid and a return to some sort of normal life again.

Thanks for reading (for anyone who made it this far ).

aquinn wrote: »

Ugh, shutters at the thoughts of a jogger. Stop that. You are most definitely a runner.

Good for you on the coach and glad you're enjoying it.

Only said yesterday we are lucky to have a hobby that we love and with no injuries able to get out daily and run. I feel for others who must be so bored.

I miss parkrun, see there was a new parkrun record at the weekend? Still getting Australian and NZ updates. Lucky F8ckers get to enjoy it weekly. I did feel a bit weird watching the Melbourne start last week, so many people ALL IN ONE PLACE. WEIRD.

Thanks A - runner I am so

Yeah, i follow a few of Strava who are back doing Parkrun and I watched the live feed for the Zapotek:10 in Australia on Tuesday morning - Sinead Diver was running in the 10,000m... It's so strange to think that in some parts of the world life as we once knew it has resumed. It will feel very strange whenever things do open back up here - the thought of sitting around in a Cafe with even a handful of friends seems alien now, never mind a busy parkrun or race start! But hopefully those things will feel safe and normal again

I've been away so long the whole place has had a makeover. As a bit of a dinosaur I'm not sure I like the new look 😕 Maybe it will grow on me.

So apparently I'm running a marathon in less than 10 weeks time so I figured I should pull the finger out and start training for it! I've spend all this year base building which was all going fine until about 3 weeks ago when I rolled over on my ankle to avoid being mowed over by cement truck who came flying around a blind bend (apparently the councils won't cut the hedges in rural Ireland because of the birds & bees, never mind the crazy hobby joggers / dog walkers 😔). From there a few days rest to let the swelling go down rolled into 2 weeks annual leave from work and lots of family fun - Tayto Park, Dublin Zoo, the beach, the types of days that definitely require a few drinks to recover from, throw in the hot weather & not sleeping well which all just left me feeling generally lazy & lethargic towards running! Everything was a struggle, the easy days felt hard, even when the HR clearly indicated that I wasn't running them too hard 🙄

So the temperature has dropped about 10 degrees today, I'm back to work, feeling good, no excuses! Planning to post here for the next 10 weeks to keep me honest even if I am talking to myself 😊

Yep i think so if it goes ahead. Would love to see you there! Will you be doing the full D?

That should be an option. I entered the HM in 2019 and deferred it to 2020 when i changed to the full, paying the bit extra. As we know it didn't go ahead then.