Reassesing my goals and training for the year Last year I pushed myself and broke myself (almost). I won’t go over the details again, they are all in my older posts. I had some big goals for last year and injuring myself put a complete stop to attaining some of them. If I had been training less I would still have become injured, just less so – such was the nature of the injury. Having said that, I got a PB in all but one race I ran last year!
I have learnt a lot about myself due to the injury and issues from last year and early this year and I now think I’m much better at listening to my own body and realizing when to ease off in training and when I can push myself a bit more. I’ve also become quite familiar with my running/racing pace and know by feel where my threshold is – that fine line between running at a sustainable pace and blowing up. There’s only a few seconds in difference in your pace.
I went on a 10k local training run a few weeks back and came back badly blistered (in spite of what I just said in the previous paragraph!). I felt no pain on my right foot, but three blisters on my toes had burst and were bleeding. My left foot felt like it had a small pebble under it for the last 4k or so and I had a 4cm or so blood blister on the ball of my foot at the end. The mid-foot section swelled up and I could only walk properly again 3 days later on the Wednesday. On Friday I tried 3k on a treadmill and felt good, so I then did the Great Ireland Run 10k on the Sunday. As you might imagine my time wasn’t as good as I would otherwise hope for, still I got 48:19, so happy enough.
Last year I was on a tough training plan that had me running 7-8 hours a week and cross training too, for a total of around 11 hours training a week for 16 weeks straight. I had "easy" weeks immediately after a race, but then it was back into top gear again. On reflection I miss the time I could have spent with the family. My kids are 5 and 4 and are just getting their independence, so it’s great to be there for them.
With that in mind, I’ve refocused and will be (mainly) training for and racing 5 and 10k races this year, with an adventure relay race in the autumn. I might do the Dublin half marathon, but I’ll see closer to the time.
So goals for the year are to break my 5k and 10k PBs (23:24 and 47:08). Ideally I’d like to get under 22 in the 5k and under 45 in the 10k. I think they are both attainable. The key is consistency!
Keep running,
Eoin
I have learnt a lot about myself due to the injury and issues from last year and early this year and I now think I’m much better at listening to my own body and realizing when to ease off in training and when I can push myself a bit more. I’ve also become quite familiar with my running/racing pace and know by feel where my threshold is – that fine line between running at a sustainable pace and blowing up. There’s only a few seconds in difference in your pace.
I went on a 10k local training run a few weeks back and came back badly blistered (in spite of what I just said in the previous paragraph!). I felt no pain on my right foot, but three blisters on my toes had burst and were bleeding. My left foot felt like it had a small pebble under it for the last 4k or so and I had a 4cm or so blood blister on the ball of my foot at the end. The mid-foot section swelled up and I could only walk properly again 3 days later on the Wednesday. On Friday I tried 3k on a treadmill and felt good, so I then did the Great Ireland Run 10k on the Sunday. As you might imagine my time wasn’t as good as I would otherwise hope for, still I got 48:19, so happy enough.
Last year I was on a tough training plan that had me running 7-8 hours a week and cross training too, for a total of around 11 hours training a week for 16 weeks straight. I had "easy" weeks immediately after a race, but then it was back into top gear again. On reflection I miss the time I could have spent with the family. My kids are 5 and 4 and are just getting their independence, so it’s great to be there for them.
With that in mind, I’ve refocused and will be (mainly) training for and racing 5 and 10k races this year, with an adventure relay race in the autumn. I might do the Dublin half marathon, but I’ll see closer to the time.
So goals for the year are to break my 5k and 10k PBs (23:24 and 47:08). Ideally I’d like to get under 22 in the 5k and under 45 in the 10k. I think they are both attainable. The key is consistency!
Keep running,
Eoin
