The second coming of a runner

Week Starting July 1st - 55K for the week

Weight: 86.6KG On Sunday morning, so still heading the in right direction. Was fairly decent all week, but did increase the amount I was eating a little to try stay on top of the extra KM I was doing.

Also had the guts of a cheat day Sunday, nothing crazy but I was visiting a friends house and actually partook in some of the snacks. Definitely didn't do the dog on it or anything!

Plan: 

Deliberated on different plans for a bit, but I never found one that resonated with me. In the end I decided to make a hybrid plan. First half of the week the sessions are from Graduate boards beginner plan, the weekend runs are from Hal Higdon intermediate 1 (same as I did last year). The boards plan is only 14 weeks compared to 18 of HH (and im already a week in…) so I repeated a few of the boards sessions to make up the extra weeks. I break down my thought process behind it a bit more on the graduate thread

Week 1 of 17: 60min V.Easy | 5 X 8 min Threshold | 60 min V.Easy | Rest | 8k Easy | 15K Easy | Rest/Cross

Monday: 60 min Very easy (8.55KM at 7:01/km)

Legs still pretty tired from Roscommon. It's amazing how well the massage gun works though as I did a light session on my right hamstring the night before, which was the worst feeling one, before one of the kids interrupted me and I never got back to doing my left, and my left was much worse than my right when I went to run. Was fine though, just took the pace very very easy

Tuesday: 2 ish Km warmup, 5 X 8 min Threshold + 4 min recovery, 2 ish KM cooldown (14.13KM @ 6:09/km)

Firstly, I misread the boards plan, it was only 4x… whoops. Was ok though, probably could have done a faster pace than 5:40 for threshold, but my legs are still a bit tired so didn't want to push too hard.

Ballinasloe has a lovely running track, that on Tuesdays is open from 10am to 5pm, so kind of no use to me! So I'll probably be doing the speed sessions on the road.

Wednesday: 60 min Very easy (9KM at 6:37/km)

Legs feeling much better than the monday so the pace is a little higher. I do really like that I'm back to the stage where my legs can feel better despite a decent amount of running Monday and Tuesday

Thursday: Rest

Was tired, was happy enough to get a rest day.

Friday: 8K Easy (6:44/km)

It was a nice morning but for whatever reason I just found it a slog, just wasnt feeling it.

Saturday: 16K Easy (6:27/km)

Some people from the run group are doing 10K, so I decide to do an extra 5k before we meet up. I get my timing wrong so I decide doing an extra KM at this point is probably better than standing around for that time.

Big gang doing the 10k and they went out way to fast for me for a easy run (sub 6:00/km) so I let them off. It is kind of nice to know that I'm doing it deliberately rather than just not being able to keep up with them as it was slower than my 10 mile pace from last week.

Eventually caught up with a few people where one of them was struggling a bit so finished off the run with them.

Seems like the numbers doing the marathon from our group are way down this year, I'm currently the slowest of them and probably am the person who puts the most faith in the run slow mantra, so I've a feeling I'll be doing a lot of these long runs on my own. Not the end of the world, I run on my own most of the time anyways, but I'm sure the 3 hour+ long runs might drag a bit more with only my own company :)

Summary: First time going over 50Km in week since the marathon training last year I'd say, feeling pretty good though, especially considering I raced last week. Bit of a step back week next week, which is fine, plenty of tough weeks ahead!

Signed up for the Tullamore half at the end of august to get some more race day experience. I think I lacked it a bit last year at DCM.

Oh for sure, I'm definitely more comfortable with the dropping back than I was in the past but even still my pace was probably a little fast!

Week Starting July 15th - 60K for the week

Weight: 85.4KG On Sunday morning (down 1kg). Fairly decent week, but pretty similar to other weeks. Did a good few walks at lunch time which probably helped.

I think the big drop is really a combination of last week too where the weigh in was artificially high.

Plan: Week 3 of 17 (Hybrid Boards beginner with HH intermediate 1)

60min V.Easy | 60min Moderate | 60 min V.Easy | Rest | 10k MP | 18K Easy | Rest/Cross

Monday: 60 min Very easy (9.29KM at 6:28/km)

Legs were fairly tired after a busy weekend of DIY, but felt good after 3 or 4k

+ 2K walk at lunchtime

Tuesday: 60 min Moderate (10.41KM at 5:47/km)

What's moderate pace!? Decided to just go at a pace where it felt like I was pushing a bit but not really goings for it. Wasn't easy for sure but I felt pretty good after it.

+ ~3k walk at lunchtime

Wednesday: 60 min Very easy (9.35KM at 6:24/km)

Was the perfect morning for a run, little sunny with a nice breeze. More of them please!

+ 2k walk at lunchtime

Thursday: Rest from running. 2.5K walk at lunch

Friday: 10K Marathon Pace, with 2K WU and 1K CD (13K @ 5:59/km overall, Maybe about 5:50/km for the marathon pace bit, so need to ease that off a bit.)

This was essentially the same run as Tuesday, but I found it much harder. It was a good bit warmer and I had much less sleep

I did walk today too, probably 3k, but I never started my watch so I guess it never happened.

Saturday: 18K Easy (6:26/km)

First time going over 10 miles in a while.

Went out on my own for 2k, met up with another group of early people for about 5K, then met up with the main group for 10K and did the final 1K on my own after.

Pace was a bit better today than last week, but need to keep on top of it!

Was sleepy tired after the run. Legs were ok, the bigger muscles were fine but my knees felt a little tired.

Summary: 60Km for the week.

The most I ran in a week last year was 72Km so starting to get up to those numbers again. Feeling pretty decent so hopefully can keep it up!

Signed up for Streets of Galway in a few weeks time. It's 8k on a Saturday night, so I will have to do some plan juggling to make it happen, but I'll probably drop the 12K @MP that is scheduled for the Friday and do the LR on the Sunday evening or something.

Not sure what pace/time I should be aiming for it. I will Probably aim for 40mins cause its nice and round, but it could well be a few minutes north of that.

My 10k PB is 55 mins from the 10 mile race, so could I do 30 seconds per KM faster for half the distance as the 10 miles, maybe? We'll find out I suppose!

A 40 minutes 8K would give me a 5K PB though, A PB that has stood for nearly 10 years! (although I don't race 5ks much)