A New Year a new Me

That is the plan, finally cleared the house of all its Christmas temptations and got back to a good clean diet again. This coupled with my regular Doctor issuing me with NSAID suppositories my UC/Proctics as abated some bit. On the first week I went for one of those talk to myself runs to try and maybe set a goal or target for the year. Its probably something that has been lacking since I ran Seville last February. Okay their is a goal in completing 50 Marathons (24 more) before my 50th Birthday in August 2016. While it is a challenge in itself, in my opinion it doesn't require me to push on to the next level. Really all it requires is that I stay injury free and get the job done. I had looked at tackling the shorter stuff but the faster interval training does leave me open to injuries. To other option is to go longer, I am kind of flirting with the idea of racing 50K in Portumna in June, not fully committed to it yet but a crack at a sub 4 Hour 50K would fit the bill of giving me a goal for the next few months.

Baseline Test

With this in mind I decided to run a Hadd Test just to get an idea at what level my fitness was at. The results showed that I had lost a small bit in comparison to where I was the last time I ran one. The lower/aerobic running was giving me 740 BPM/KM over 2K. Last year I was lower at 710 BPM/KM but I am now 7 lbs heavier. So all in all I feel a little more concentration on steady/ high end aerobic together with keeping my hand out of the cookie jar should leave me in shape come the end of February to consider having a go at a 4 Hour 50K

Loving the Trees

After seeing my workload for January, my intention of running MCI Marathon in Liliput was gone leaving me with the 3 hour drive to the sunny south east. Luckily I had some in car entertainment to shorten the journey in the form of Mr Enright. Oilgate been our destination for the day and Marie Chapman our host as Race Director with the ever reliable Vincent lending a helping hand. Great to catch up with the usual few and 60 or so runners took on a five 5.25 Mile laps for the Day. Each lap had a downhill start with a gradual climb back to the main road, and the obligatory tree hug halfway. The first lap fly by in the company of Tom and Paul, I didn't even notice the climb. Lap 2 saw the standard pit stop, but thankfully it was the only one of the day. Lap 3 things where a bit tougher but for the third Marathon in a row I finished much stronger. Lap 4 I put in some 7:30 miles to catch up with Paul after some running repairs with footwear, and on the final lap I was pretty much feeling very strong and able to keep the pace up to come home in sub 3:57.

Words to the Wise

Meet Thomas afterwards and I queried him re what type of mileage running will he do in preparation for 24 Hour Championship in Turin. His answer while vague is a pretty sound philosophy that everyone should bear in mind with regard to running and training. “I will run whatever mileage my body can recovery from”. Afterwards the usual presentations say Gillian and Oggie Winters received their 100 Marathon awards as well as a special award for Brenda M O’Keeffe to mark her record for most Marathons 74 in a calendar year for a Female. Clearly these guys have much better recovery ability then my old body.

Alternating Tempo Run

For us that hate Marathon Paced Runs

A lot of Marathon training schedules call for a certain amount of Marathon Paced runs. These are generally no longer then just over half distance and can be quite tough sessions to complete. Mainly because they are often done in the middle of a Marathon training program on very tired legs. While this type of run will test the runner mentally on tired legs, it is too short to have any benefit on the lactate clearance system. If the Marathon pace is correct your Heart Rate should not be hitting levels that start generating increased Lactate that we would experience in the last 6 miles of a Marathon. We incorporate shorter/faster tempo runs to achieve this. One way I have found to get the Heart Rate up to these levels while running at marathon pace is to run an alternating tempo with 1/3 at 10K pace and then drop back to marathon pace. Repeating this without taking any rest. Normally I do this on a track 400 @ 10K followed by 800 @ Marathon pace. Anything between 10 and 13 reps is a pretty tough workout. Below is one such workout I did 12 weeks out from Seville. Just to give an idea of where my Heart Rate was against pace at the time, I ran a 12 Mile Marathon pace (7:35) the following week with an average HR of 158.

Rep	400	Pace	800	Pace	400 HR	800 HR
1	01:41.6	06:48.8	03:42.9	07:28.4	146	155
2	01:41.6	06:48.8	03:44.5	07:31.6	160	161
3	01:43.9	06:58.0	03:45.4	07:33.4	161	162
4	01:44.9	07:02.0	03:47.2	07:37.1	162	164
5	01:44.5	07:00.4	03:48.5	07:39.7	164	163
6	01:43.6	06:56.8	03:49.4	07:41.5	164	162
7	01:45.0	07:02.5	03:47.5	07:37.7	165	165
8	01:45.3	07:03.7	03:48.0	07:38.7	166	165
9	01:45.9	07:06.1	03:48.5	07:39.7	167	167
10	01:44.0	06:58.4	03:47.5	07:37.7	169	168
11	01:44.8	07:01.6	03:48.0	07:38.7	170	168
12	01:44.8	07:01.6	03:50.3	07:43.3	171	168

From my notes rep’s 8-12 it was very difficult to maintain the Marathon Pace for the first lap after the 10K burst but I was always recovered enough after the second lap to be able to pick it up again for the fast 400. This is quite a tough workout and is not meant to replace Marathon paced runs but rather to enhance them.

Easy and Slow

Recovery and Racing

Took all of last week to recover from my efforts in Sixmilebridge, but on Saturday Morning there was a charity 5K to be ran. Only about 30 showed mostly ladies from various meet and train groups around the area and it looked at one stage that I was odds on for the win until one of the hares from Ennis Track appeared. I had to settle for a gallant second but was made to work for it all the way. Course was a bit long 5.3K but 8 min mile pace was enough to take it. It felt tough so clearly the Sixmilebridge race was still in my legs. I also meet with a pacee from Dingle who thanked me for helping her to the finish under the 2 hour mark.

Baby Steps

Another Evaluation done in perfect conditions on Tuesday Evening. I was a bit worried about this because of how the legs felt on Saturday Morning. Results showed a slight improvement but again after three laps @ 180 I was hyperventilating badly and pulled up. This clearly shows that I will need to do some serious track workouts if I am to get 5K times improved. Its is probably my biggest weakness and I will have to bite the bullet and join a club if I want to improve the fast end of my running. The main target is still sub 3:25 in Portumna next June. So I will continue with another cycle of Long,LT and Steady runs before I go into a more specific plan for the Marathon.

Date	Temp	Weight	140	150	160	170	180
17-Sept-2012	12°	169 lbs	8:43 (0:44)	8:10 (1:00)	7:36 (1:30)	6:56 (2:12)	6:40 (N/A)
27-Nov-2012	6°	170 lbs	8:42 (0:39)	8:06 (0:56)	7:29 (1:15)	6:51 (1:47)	6:37 (N/A)

The racing Gods hate me

Will I wont I

That was my dilemma all week. I felt my fitness level have really improved since I have got my mileage back up to 40 mpw region. So I should go for sub 45 on Saturday but the 10K specific runs have been curtailed or pace cut back due to tight Hammer was it worth the risk. Friday put paid to that, Thursday evening Resting HR was 65, early warning sign something was amiss. Friday sore throat when I woke up, after work that evening felt like shit so I do what always works for me. Throw on extra duvets on the bed a large hot whiskey with honey and cloves and stay there for the next 24 hours. Arose Saturday evening feeling a lot better.

What might have been

On Monday I decided to do some sort of a test where I can evaluate my progress over the coming months in the winter. Having read a bit on this over the year I have opted to loosely follow a Hadd type training program. He has a test where the runner runs 2.4K at various heart rates with 90 sec recovery intervals. I adjusted this slightly as it was based on a runner who was capable of 5 min miles. So I reckon that this test requires the runner to at least run 8 minutes at any given effort. This meant I would use a 2K interval instead. For the rest I was going to use another pointer which may be useful, recovery time. So I will record the time it takes for heart rate to return to 120 bpm.
My current stats are as follows. Max Hr is 191 and Resting Hr is 47-54. Based on Hadd my marathon HR/LT Heart rate should be between 170-175 (15-20 bpm below Max HR). Something tells me if I did 26.2 at this effort I would no longer be on this earth. Test will run 2K intervals for 140,150,160,170 & 180 b. After each interval I will record the time it takes for HR to return to 120BPM. Results of my test are below with comments on how the effort felt.

Date	Temp	Weight	140	150	160	170	180
17-Sept-2012	12°	169lbs	8:43 (0:44)	8:10 (1:00)	7:36 (1:30)	6:56 (2:12)	6:40 (N/A)

 This was a bit of a mixed bag.

• I was very happy with my 140 through to 160 paces. Felt like I could hold these quite easily and never felt under any pressure to finish them.
• I have in the past run 10K with 175-180 average but I was very glad to see the end of the 2K @ 170.I do not think I could have held this effort for too much longer. 
• The 180 just did not happen got to the start of the 3rd lap where HR was not above 178 and when I pushed it my running form just fell apart and hammer started to feel tight and I was sucking air in like it was no tomorrow.

Typical plodder that I am can suffer through miles 20 to 26. of a Marathon but ask me to go all out for 2K and I wimp out like a pussy. Looking at the numbers and how I felt I reckon the last 12 months my LT threshold has dropped under 160 so over the winter concentration is on getting this back up to 170 region.

To infinity and beyond

Training going forward will be as follows with 3 Key sessions.

• One long run of 2-2.5 Hours @ 140-150 effort/pace.
• Tempo run of 75 Minutes @ 155 effort 
• LT Run of 60 Minutes @ 160 effort.

Currently I have only got the Tempo and LT runs to 4 miles so over the next 5 cycles I will build them up to the required level. Each session will be separated by 2 easy days of swim/easy running and some aerobic cross training. I may or may not take day 10 as a complete rest day. This has been working well for me so far since end of June and I do need the extra recovery time as I am an old fellow.

Sept 20 
           7 Miles 5 Miles 38:35 7:43 pace , HR 155 with 1 Mile WU/WD