Storms Never Last

For those who hate long Blog post's

Excellent race, well marshalled flat route yielded a new PB of 1:10:45. Chocolate in the goo-die bag!!, high quality dri fit t-shirt, showers and an all you can eat buffet afterwards for €20. Sure where else would you be on a cold, miserable wet Sunday Afternoon.

John Treacy 10 Mile Dungarvan

Had this pencilled in from as far back as Dublin last year. Back then I mentioned I would love to be in sub 70 shape, last Saturdays PMP run put me there with a chance. Based on that 7:03 was probably my pace but if things came right on the day I might just sneak under it. A week is a long time in anything, all this weeks runs felt harder then they should leaving we wondering if I should go for it or not. Weather forecast on Saturday was a promising day of gale force winds and rain so more bad news.

Warm-Up

Got down early and changed. Went for a Two mile slow warm up around the town. Wind was pretty stiff, when I got back to the Race HQ I had a look at the course map and figured that it would be best to stick with the 70 minute pacers for the first half as it was into the wind. Being in a group would offer some shelter, where as running on my own at a more sustainable pace would most likely take as much effort anyway.

Race

As per usual there was a delay at the start, and again GOD makes sure we get a hail shower while we where waiting around. The MC was getting loads of healthy comments which I will not repeat. In fairness it transpires that there was a funeral procession along the route. On hearing the circumstances it  puts the small issue of having to stand around half naked in the middle of a hail shower for Thirteen or so minutes into preceptive. We get the off and while the start is quite wide there is still the usual jostling for position, I got entangled with a few elbows so lesson learnt pretty quick. Settled in towards the rear of the 70 Min group about 50 to 60 of us. The loop around the town is not really straight forward and several speed bumps and paths that stick out have to be avoided. In fairness there where plenty of marshals around these obstacles warning runners  Once out of the town we where running into the teeth of this blustery hail shower. I was now glad to be tucked up in the group. The pace was manageable, tough on the drags but I was able to stay with them. By mile 4 the shower had stopped and the wind had died down but the pace was starting to take its toll. I knew I would pay for this at the end of the race if I continued but there was 1.5 miles to go before we turned out of the wind. Luckily three to four other guys where in the same position so we dropped off the back of the group worked together for the remaining part of the out section. As we still passed the 5 mile mark and the announcer call 34:59, the next mile is the hardest as after the turn around there is a climb up to six which I hit in 42:18. A big down hill at this point between here and seven but I didn't regain any time, in fact lost more passed 7 mile mark 49:23. The next mile was flat and I started to work hard passing Eight in 56:27, there after the wheels came off. There is a drag back up on to the main cork road and another up to nearly the nine mile mark which was 63:48, I was now not going well but the last mile is downhill so I went as hard as I could aim was to get under 71 mark from here. I really had nothing in the tank, I could not lift the pace. People where passing me and I just couldn't go with them, kept plugging away turned the corner and saw the clock was 1:10:28 surprised me somewhat but at least I didn't have to do a sprint to get under 71 so just finished it out without attempting to like a Bolt. Final result 1:10:45 and pretty much as good as I could have gone today, while it wasn't under 70 it was as fast as I could go. There was nothing left to give and I left everything on the road while just about managing to hold on to the breakfast. In a race you cannot ask for much more then that. You don't get to feel bad for long as reached into the goo-die bag to find yes a Twix bar. All my Christmas had come at once. So proper self indulgence.

Post Race

Finished up and we get another of those hail showers, the HQ is about a mile from the finish so a cool down mile is required but the hail shower made sure it wasn't pleasant. There where showers but these where mental, if you where not a fan of getting your kit off and mixing it the the big boys you would have to forgo the luxury. After 10 miles and a soaking on the way back a warm shower was going to be had regardless of the chaos in the changing room. As expected with events ran by good Athletics's Clubs you wont go home hungry and overall its probably going to be a net gain in Calories consumed. Hats off to West Waterford AC for putting on such a high quality race as Arnie said "I'll be Back."

Tik Tok part Deux

Preamble

Some information that is needed to give the reader some perspective on this run. My last Tik Tok experiment was done before Christmas in relatively ideal running conditions, for the second part Saturday afternoon was one with blustery showers. Since then I have lost 7lbs weight and I am pretty close to my race weight, well family keep remarking on it anyway. I have attempted three of these type runs over the last two years 4-5 weeks out from a goal marathon long PMP run, all have ended in disaster or non completion at target pace. This left me a bit apprehensive going into the session. 18 miles with 14 @ PMP. Well I wouldn't be worrying about the time as plan is not to look at the watch, cover it up and take a split every 3 miles and the last two miles, over the same 5 mile loop as the last time.

The session

Two mile warm up involved a few stops to try and sort out the footwear, eventually readjusted the socks as a seam was niggling the foot. Started off and tried to settle into what felt like a sustainable pace. Immediately got a shower with the wind picking but luckily it was a tailwind. Flying along but once I hit a few small hills I quickly realised that the pace was a bit too hot. It was maybe 2 miles before I thought I got it under control. Mile 3-6 and 6-9 conditions were good and I was motoring along hard but definitely a sustainable pace. Miles 9-12 started with the part that has a mile of hills and another blustery shower only this time the wind was in my face. Trying to sustain the pace now had become an effort so I had to dial it back a bit. In the final 2 miles I was able to pick up the pace a bit again once conditions got a bit better but things were starting to get a bit tougher. For the first time ever I got through this type of session, the legs where a bit tired towards the end of the run which is to be expected as I am at the peak of my training. It won't be like this on race day as I will have the taper to freshen up the legs before hand. Times below reflect the conditions on the day, I was very happy with the run but even happier when I got back to the car to review the splits. I was expecting an improvement but got a nice surprise when I say the splits

Miles	Time	Average HR	Pace
1-3	0:22:12.4	154	07:24.1
3-6	0:22:41.4	159	07:33.8
6-9	0:22:38.9	159	07:33.0
9-12	0:23:07.3	160	07:42.4
12-14	0:15:10.0	161	07:35.0

Dilemma

The next part of the plan includes a tune-up race. Sunday in Dungarvan has been on the cards for a long time. Ever since the pacer diner in Dublin when I mentioned it at the table John Desmond inquired what time would I like to get. I said I would love to be in sub 70 shape. Now if you asked me before Saturdays run I would have said 71-72 minutes was more realistic but since Saturday a shot of sub 70 is on the cards. Its not my goal race but I will go out with the 70 minute pace group and see how things pan out.

Tik Tok

Your most accurate Watch ?

Most of us runners possess at least one if not two watches. Well I own two a polar RX3000 which I use for Heart Rate Training/Monitoring and Soleus GPS for measure new training routes and pacing. To my surprise I now own Three, my body/mind.
After finishing Craughwell I had completed 6 Months of Base building long runs with some Lactate Tempo Runs Thrown in here and there, loosely structured around Hadd Training. With Seville approaching before Christmas I switched to the Race Prep section of P&D 55 mile program. I used this program 3 years ago in prep for a crack at 3:30 qualifier for Boston. I never got to the start line as I was not able at the time for this program. This section of the program starts to introduce PMP runs, Planned Marathon Pace runs. I have an issue with Planned Marathon Pace, it most likely is never your true current Marathon Pace. If your Marathon Pace is faster than you are only running at the high end of your Aerobic Threshold and not gaining any real benefit. When you Marathon Pace is slower than PMP then you are doing a long LT training session while it does have a benefit it ends up been a harder session which ultimately may cause an injury or worse still end up overtraining. I tend to do these type of runs at what I feel my actual Marathon Pace is at the time not what I would like it to be. So how do you determine your Marathon pace, that opens up another can of worms altogether, as I have wrote about before this depending on what online calculator/resources you use, it can vary by close to ten minutes or 20 seconds/mile. Having come across this article on Runners World (yes I know not the best source for material) I decided to give it a shot and run it blind. So my first session was 15 Miles with 12 at Marathon Pace. I ran a 5 mile loop which is reasonably flat with the exception of One mile which is undulating. Put on the Polar and Heart Rate monitor and covered over with the sleeve of my body armor. One feature of the polar is you can bring the watch to the chest strap and it will record a lap which I took every 3 miles. Two mile warm up and off I went to try and judge a pace that was not slack but one I felt I could maintain for the duration of a Marathon. The first segments went rather easily and I felt I may have gone a bit too fast from miles 3 to 6. Mile 6 to 9 things where a bit harder but still very manageable. The last Three where tough mentally but the legs where still flying around. On finishing I felt that I may have overcooked miles 3 to 6 which may have made the last three miles that bit tougher and probably slower. Well the results shown below where in stark contrast.

Miles	Time	Average HR	Pace
1-3	0:24:01.1	151	08:00.4
3-6	0:24:06.2	158	08:02.1
6-9	0:23:57.3	157	07:59.1
9-12	0:23:56.9	161	07:59.0

Turns out mile 3-6 felt easy because it was the slowest and the last 3 felt the hardest as they were the fastest. The real surprise is that if I was pacing in a race using my GPS watch and constantly looking at it to make sure I was on target I would have been extremely happy to have hit those splits. The HR readings were about right for my Marathon Pace if not a little on the soft side. My final PMP session is this weekend and I will again run it blind just to see if it was a fluke or not.