Home Articles Catching up

Catching up

0

Week starting 27th January Monday was a 4-mile recovery effort – 12-minute pace type of thing. I jogged 2 miles with my wife doing the other two under my own steam. Tuesday was 9 miles around Charleville at 8.16 pace, nothing extraordinary. A faster 8.2-mile effort in Mayfield on Wednesday on the hillier route at good pace-8 minutes.

Thursday was 2 miles warm up with a planned 5-mile tempo and a one-mile cooldown. The two-mile warm-up ended up being fast with a faster 5-mile tempo (7.10,7.06, 7.10, 7.14, 7.13) at 7.11 pace. I was feeling good at that stage and ran the warm-up in 7.30 running 8.25 miles in total in an hour. Saturday morning I jogged 2.5 miles with my wife and did 20 miles with the Mallow gang. I ran the 20 miles in 2hr54minutes @ 8.42 pace. Apart from the first 6 miles I was comfortable enough in that long run plodding kind of way. I would hope to cover the long runs at a faster pace in future.

Total mileage for the week – 52 miles

Week starting 3rd February

Same as every other Monday, that is the usual 4-mile recovery jog in the company of my wife. Tuesday was a no show as the weather was pretty brutal – high gales and lashing rain. Wednesday I did 9 miles up in Mayfield at a solid enough pace – 8.17 per mile. Thursday was a pretty brutal/tough workout – 2 mile warm up with 5 X 1 miles repeats. Splits as follows were 6.38, 6.40, 6.41. By the 4th mile the effort was beginning to tell with the split covered in 6.50. I should have quit at that stage but decided to do a 5th repeat. The legs were very heavy and I ambled home in 6.58 per mile. I finished up with 5 X 0.20 mile sprints completed the mile total in 6.50. I finished off with a easy jog home. I probably should have run the tempos at 6.50 pace- next time.

Took the usual Friday off and had hoped to get a few easy miles up on the legs on Saturday but real life events made it impossible. At least by Sunday I had fresh enough legs for the long run with the club. The by now familiar storms had their presence felt along the route- flooded roads, lakes where fields once stood. I had it my head to run 13-15 miles at a marathon pace ideally sub 8 minute average. Started off well enough covering miles 1 to 11 in 1hr 29mins, not bad considering the first few miles were run in 8.10 pace. By mile 13 the legs were feeling the effort and I was happy to cut it short at 13.1 miles, a good half marathon workout. It was a good meeting with the lads. I covered the route in1hr.47mins or 8.10 pace. I walked the last mile to the car. It probably means in terms of a marathon running at a pace of around 8.30 per mile would be more sensible than running at a faster pace.

Mileage for the week 35 miles. Lower than last week but I missed a possible 9 mile workout because of the weather. That said Thursday’s and Saturday’s workout were very beneficial.

 

Dungarvan 10 mile race 2014

Dungarvan 10 mile 2014. Week ending 26th January

 

I will come to the above later but the running was going well. Monday was the usual 4 mile recovery jog thankfully showing no reaction to the 17 mile run the day before. Tuesday was a planned 8 mile run with 7 miles at a fast pace. Very happy with how this went running 8 miles in 59.50 minute. My first run in this range since last May. I felt i was finally turning a corner and this was confirmed on Wednesday running 8 miles at what was meant to be a relaxed pace. I was happy to see I ran the 8 miles in 1hr05mins24mins. Hr was 148, again all very positive. Work commitments meant a day off on Thursday and Friday from the running and I used Saturday to get that stiffness out of my legs.

Headed down to Dungarvan via Mallow. I offered my club mate Tony a lift. He told me later had I not offered him a lift he wouldn’t have ran the race.I was glad of the company.

Down at the race start line I bumped into the usual familiar faces. I had hoped to get in under 75 minutes, perhaps at a push get under 73 minutes. This was my first race since last July and while training was going solidly enough I knew racing was the best way to improve my running.

The heavens opened up the first 2 miles and I was a bit dismayed to find myself stuck behind the 80 minute pacers. However by mile 3 the field had separated out and I was glad to get moving. The 75 minute pacers were in front of me at this point and I was feeling very strong. The splits for the first 4 miles were 7.57,7.45,7.20, 7.03. I was wondering if I had started closer up the field maybe i would have been in a better place timewise. Anyway it couldn’t be helped now.

Tony was over my shoulder all the time and we hit mile 5 in 7.13. At this stage we were level with the 75 minute pacers and it was time to push on. Mile 6 was 6.57 and I was feeling hopeful of getting close to 72 minutes. Tony overtook me at mile 7 and was flying ,all the more impressive when you consider he only ran his first 10 miles in training last week.

After a nice stretch of the course in mile 7 and mile 8 I was recalling how crappy I felt this time last year. At the very worst I was going to get a course PB. I didn’t feel in the least bit under pressure, were this a half marathon I would have been doing well but 10 milers are harder faster affairs. It was time to press on hitting mile 8 and mile 9 in 7.00 and 7.14. The breeze had knocked me back a bit at this stage and I think my lack of race time cost me here.

By mile 10 I crossed the line in a clock time of 1.12.53 which meant a second half split of 35.23. I was happy enough crossing the line. I state happy rather then chuffed, after all I didn’t come close to PB’ing (1hr09mins53secs) but it was a good solid time. Still though lots of work to be done.

A lot of the guys from the club did very well but hats off to my cousin, Don Ryan, who took 4 or 5 minutes of his PB time to finish in 1hr07mins24seconds. Serious running. Amazing what a good diet can do 😉

What now? Forget about races for a while and get back to the marathon slog……………

35 miles this week, a cutback week. Monday 4 miles, Tuesday 8 miles, Wednesday 8 miles, Saturday 4 miles, Sunday 10 mile race with 1 mile warm up.

Thursday was 2 miles warm up with a planned 5 mile tempo and a one mile cooldown. The two mile warm up ended up being fast with a faster 5 mile tempo (7.10,7.06, 7.10, 7.14, 7.13) at 7.11 pace. I was feeling good at that stage and ran the warm up in 7.30 running 8.25 miles in total in a hour. Saturday morning i jogged 2.5 miles with my wife and did 20 miles with the Mallow gang. I ran the 20 miles in 2hr54minutes @ 8.42 pace. Apart from the first 6 miles I was comfortable enough in that long run plodding kind of way. I would hope to cover the long runs at a faster pace in future.

Total mileage for the week – 52 miles