St. Anne's Parkrun

Thursday, 9th January 2014 – 7.4km Distance (5:45/km)

This was just a short distance run as the past couple of evenings were pretty intense so glad of the chance to take it easy tonight. It probably helped that the Garmin was very low on battery (stupid thing switched on while it was meant to be charging and then instead of charging properly it actually drained the battery instead!) and so I ran with it as simply a stopwatch. ‘Lapped’ splits at known points but never really bothered with the pace, hence nice and relaxed 5:45/km!

Friday, 10th January 2014 – 14.5km Distance (5:30/km)

Only got out in the evening for this and wasn’t particularly in the mood for it! After yesterdays shorter than recommended run I decided to add a couple of extra kms to todays run. Could feel a little more life in the legs but still kept it easy for tomorrows run…

Saturday, 11th January 2014 – 10.2km St. Anne’s Parkrun (4:04/km) with WU & CD

A long threatening comes at last and after wanting to get a Parkrun in for nearly every of the past 4 weekends I eventually managed to get down for the St. Anne’s run this morning. A short warm-up found me at the starting line area with 5 mins to spare. The run itself was probably about 5 mins late getting started though. I lined up about 25-30 people from the front and in no time we were away!

I settled into a 3:55/km pace as I wasn’t quite so fresh as Wed night. The first lap went smoothly and there was little passing happening. I may have been passed by a couple of people but then passed a couple of others to maintain position. Kept it strong for the 900m avenue run before starting into the second lap. At this point I discarded my cap as I was beginning to overheat by now. The second lap was quite similar with the pace now closer to 4:10/km so things were slowing a bit but I was passing a few people now who were obviously suffering with maintaining to keep the speed til the line. The run-in saw me pass a couple of more people but with about 20m remaining some guy came thundering through to pass about 10 of us – not sure where he came out of but you’d have to think he was taking it handy for the remainder of the race!

Ended up with 20:35 – a course PB – and 27th position out of almost 320 runners/walkers. I reckon I’m not far off a sub 20 performance by now if I ran relatively fresh. Finished things off by going for a recovery run around the park. Even though the plan had included a set of Intervals for the week I replaced it with this race and the 3 mile race on Wed night. I think that was enough 5k paced stuff for the week!

Sunday, 12th January 2014 – 30.8km LSR (5:13/km)

Today called for a LSR of between 31-35km with the final 6km @ MTP (4:36/km). However, after a late night last night I was skeptical about the fast 6km to say the least. The nature of my route meant the final 10km would be into the breeze and net uphill most of the way. This allied with me being tired before I ever set off meant I’d already pretty much scrapped the faster section in my head.

The first 10km were net downhill and into the breeze, so I was relatively pleased to manage to keep the average pace close to 5:00/km around here. The middle 10km came along the coast road and the breeze was now on my back and the route flat. Early in this section I maintained my sub 5min pace but about halfway along here my energy levels were clearly beginning to suffer and the average lap pace was dropping by a few seconds, yet nothing dramatic.

Finally I was heading for home but this helped me nothing! Once I hit the Kilbarrack Road the effort required became so much tougher! The final 10km was like a death march. When I got to Coolock at 25km I had to do the unthinkable and pause for about a minute. My HR was remaining low but my breathing had become very shallow so a few deep breaths and stretches got me back on track a little bit but I was really running off fumes by now! Eventually I made it back to home having covered almost 31km which I was very accepting of, all things considered!

Pretty sure it was mainly down to very poor nutrition throughout the day – I was intending to go ‘any minute now’ for several hours so never planned/managed to eat a sufficient meal. A good reminder to prepare properly for all future LSRs!

Week 1 Summary:

RTW: 7 from 7 days

DTW: 97.9km

DTY: 180.7km

St Anne's Parkrun is launched... and it's very flat!

Wednesday, 25th September, 2013 – 7.4km Recovery Run (5:46/km)

Yesterday’s run appears to have taken a lot out of me. Not sure if it was the distance (just realised it’s only my 3rd 20 miler and I have not gone any further since Belfast!) or the two progression segments in the middle but I found myself with a tight left hammy and the by-now usual abdomen strain. Thankfully this was just to be a recovery run and boy did I need it. The first few kms were coming in around the 5:50’s when I thought they were around 5:30’s. Glad to get it over in the end and did a bit of foam rolling afterwards. Planned to get to bed early too but that fell by the wayside with TV and a few chores to blame!

Thursday, 26th September, 2013 – 7.4km Recovery Run (5:16/km)

Again it was later than planned by the time I got out for this run. Legs felt a fair bit better and after a relaxed first km I upped the effort to around 5:1x/km pace. Probably slightly tougher than it should have been but close to normal.

It was during this run that I had a moment of clarity in relation to my bad runs this year. All of Rotterdam marathon, Portumna marathon, Athlone HM and Dublin HM were in warm conditions. It was probably at least 21-22 degrees for them all so I think the underlying issue is that I perform poorly in warm weather. Certainly the elevated temperatures could well be responsible for an extra 3-5bpm which would be enough to scupper a long distance run. There were probably other mitigating circumstances (like the blisters in Rotterdam and poor nutrition choices for the HMs) but the heat is the one common denominator. Even last year in Valencia in similar temps I faded in the final 10km, albeit I still got my PB there but according to my Athlone ¾ marathon a few weeks before I should have been on for 3:20 or thereabouts. Definitely something to think about for the future!

Friday, 27th September, 2013 – 7.4km Easy Run (5:00/km)

I got up early this morning to fit in an easy run before work. This went well and feel I’m almost back to normal now.

7.4km Recovery Run (5:33/km)

Got back out for another recovery paced run in the evening. Was gonna do a 12km loop but decided to just keep it to 7.4km to prevent and lag in the legs.

Saturday, 28th September, 2013 – 8.1km including 5km St. Anne’s Parkrun (4:10/km)

I ventured down to St. Anne’s Park in Raheny for their first Parkrun. It consisted of a 2 lap course on an extremely flat course with the only thing to slow you down being a couple of tight corners. After a 2km warmup I ran into Mick K. at the starting area and had a bit of a chat. Within a few minutes we were walked to the start and were away.

St Annes Parkrun - two laps, very flat!

I wasn’t exactly clear-minded about how I was going to run this. My thoughts veered between trying for a sub 20 before pushing that out of my mind and deciding to take it at 4:10/min pace instead. Without having my mind firmly made up I spent the first km taking it handy and avoiding racing too many about me. As we got to the playing pitches I started to move up a few places as some people began to fade/ease off already. There were some kids training on the corner of the football pitch where we were due to turn the corner so we had no choice but to cut the apex a little. Before long we were out on the main avenue which runs all the way to the finish on the second lap. Things were going well still and while I am pretty sure I’d have struggled with 4:00/km pace if I had gone for it, the first 2km both came in at 4:10/km and I felt I was putting in a very decent effort without redlining it too much.

As we started the second lap we went through/under a load of trees and so I wasn’t too surprised when the garmin started to suggest my pace was slipping to 4:17 for the 3rd km. I just maintained position as those ahead of me were about 50m down the road at this stage. The next 1,500m were a tad boring for me as it was simply more of the same. The final km began just as we turned back out onto the main avenue for the second time and being able to see the finish in front of you makes for a long kilometre! About 600m to go a local runner called Jim went past me but I was happy to simply maintain pace than try to enter a race with him… perhaps on another day! 

Eventually I reached the finishing chute and stopped the watch in 20:47 which I was neither happy or disappointed with. It just is what it is! Time wasn’t the target today, more a good VO2 session while holding back a little for the 10 miler tomorrow. During today’s run though I made up my mind to run that at marathon pace instead of racing for a 10 mile PB time. Therefore I’ll be aiming to carry a steady 4:40/km (Which I failed at after 8 miles last week!!) all the way to the finish and if the opportunity arises I will allow myself to race the final 2-3 km but not before that. Well, that’s the theory anyways!!

Week 39 Summary (so far):

RTW: 6 from 6 days

DTW: 69.7 km

DTY: 3,103.5 km

Chicago - 15 days (3 weeks, 1 day)