Recovery swim for my lazy ass

Wednesday 30th October 2013

Swim (750M / 00:15:00)

A little swim to help my legs recover from the marathon but also to get my lazy ass back in the pool.
It felt tougher than it should have. I now need to build swim fitness big time!

Dublin Marathon RaceReport - Sunday 28th October 2013

Monday 28th October 2013

Dublin Marathon ( 26.2 Miles / 04:00:50 / 00:09:12 per mile / HRZ3)



Overall Position 5492
Category Position 1009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heading in to the Dublin Marathon I was probably feeling the most confident that I have ever been before hitting a 26.2 mile course.

Previously the curse of injuries has to a greater or lesser degree impacted on my ability to get a consistent block of training together and this has ultimately made a difference to my ability to deliver on the day.

I have pretty much come away from every one of my previous 10 stand alone Marathons with a feeling of “could have or should have done better.”

This time I have been more or less injury free in the run up, apart from a slight Achilles niggle last week which was over and done in a few days, and feeling in decent shape.

I have long harboured hopes of cracking the 4Hr mark but it has always seemed out of reach for me, and taking that in to consideration I came in to Dublin with a goal in mind of beating my previous Personal Best of 4Hr 21mins 34secs and the hope to do a 4H15M time.

Training had gone pretty well and in fact I had been knocking out long runs at a pace which was better than that required for my 4:15.  Optimism was abounding.

Fortunately (for me) I “encouraged” my club mate Keith to enter the Dublin Marathon after running with him at the Belfast Half Marathon and he expressed an interest in Dublin. Yeah sure – five weeks training is enough! 

I love the Dublin Marathon and it’s always a great excuse for a couple of days away with the family over the Half Term Break and this year was no exception.

Sunday saw us drive down and hit the Expo, collect my pack, get a new pair of K Swiss Trainers at a silly reduced price from my friend Michaels’ Pure Running stall.  €40 for a pair of K Swiss!! Bargain.

After a bit of wandering round shops we adjourned back to the hotel, put the feet up for an hour or two and then headed out for dinner.

Keara struck lucky at the restaurant, being rewarded with a huge glass of wine for free because they had been so slow in delivering our food.  I was gutted as I was off it ahead of the big race next day.

It’s fair to note that this wasn’t her first glass either!

Back to the hotel and asleep for about 11.30PM meant that I should hopefully get a decent nights’ sleep and feel refreshed in the morning.

After an early Breakfast I met up with Keith and Andy outside my hotel and we made our way to the start area.  This would be the last we saw of Andy as he was aiming for about a 3.30 finish time, while Keith and I planned on something a little more sedate than that.

Now I don’t exactly know what got in to me but at the Expo I lifted a pacing bracelet for a 4Hr finish time and decided that I was going to go for it.  I would aim to stick with the 4Hr pacers and hold on for as long as I could with the view that if I slowed down I hopefully would hold on to get the 4.15 PB.

After what seemed like an eternity of hanging around before the start, corralled in the start pen trying to keep warm and looking like a plonker in my bin bag to keep we eventually got off to the start line for our wave, which was the 3.50-4.15 estimated finish time.  This time wasn’t entirely wasted as unbelievably I was standing right behind another friend, David Patterson.  What were the odds of that among nearly 15000 people?  We had a quick catch up and chat before moving off.

Keith was happy enough to go with my pacing plan as this was his first Marathon and he was hanging his hopes on my experience.  Mad fool that he is!

We got the 4Hr pacer in our sights and as the gun went off we tried to keep them in view through the crowds.

Within about half a mile it became obvious to us that the 4Hr pacers had obviously mistaken themselves as the 3.50 pacers and were racing ahead at a pace well in excess of the 9.08 required for 4Hrs.

Undeterred we pushed on to keep them within range and eventually by about 4 miles we decided the more or less ignore them and stick to our own 9.08 per mile pace as they were clearly going too fast.  At one point they were only 150 metres behind the 3H50 pacers.

At this stage I made a decision in my head to adjust my plan as I was feeling pretty comfortable at the pace we had been holding.  I decided to hold a steady pace at just around 9.00-9.10 per mile, keep relaxed and aim to stay strong for the second half of the marathon and if possible move the pace along a wee bit.

We went through half way at around 2H01 and this was just about right and was OK given the congestion in the earlier part of the  race.

The support along the route was the usual mix of enthusiasm and Dublin craic with a particular highlight being a supporter holding a poster saying “Run like you left the immersion heater on!”

Just after half way Keith started to get a bit of a niggle in his knee, which had been working on him over the last week or do.  This injury led to one of my most memorable Marathon moments ever.

Asking for a drink of my water, Keith proceeded to pull out a Diclofenac anti inflammatory tablet from his running pouch only to drop it.

In his own words, he was like a Junkie from Trainspotting, on the ground on his hands and knees trying to gather up the pill like it was his last few grams of Heroin.

It was bloody hilarious with all of these people almost trampling over him as he frantically tried to gather it up.  Priceless!

Shortly after this the pain in his knee got quite a bit worse despite his best “junkie-esque” efforts and he encouraged me to go on ahead.

I Managed to pick up my pace a little bit and set myself the goal of maintaining a 9min mile for the remaining 10 miles.

I surprised myself to see that by and large I maintained this and found myself at the 20 mile mark in around 3H04mins.  This meant I had around 56 Mins to do a 10K.  Ordinarily that would not be a problem but at the end of my fastest marathon to date that might be a tough enough challenge but I was determined to give it everything.

I had a thought bouncing around my head from here on in which was saying, “ Don’t be ‘That Guy’ who finishes just a few seconds over the 4Hr mark – don’t be 4H and 1 second!  Push on. Push on!”

I pressed on with the aim of maintaining my 9 min mile pace.

One thing I began to notice through the latter stages of the race was that my Garmin watch was signalling my mile markers earlier than the official markers on the course.  As the miles progressed the difference grew.  By the 24 mile mark on the course, my Garmin was reading 24.2 miles.  Quite a bit of a difference and one that would come back to haunt me very soon.

At around 23 miles I felt a tap on the shoulder and it was another Facebook Friend Iain O’Kane running up alongside me.  He too was on for a 4Hr finish and we ran together for another mile or so.  Iain urged me to press on which I did and he was following close behind.

Rather unfortunately my hotel was around 24.5 miles in and it was tough to run past this when it would have been very tempting to just pull in and hit the Bar, but I kept pressing on and upping the pace as much as I could.

Tick Tock – time was slipping away and I was getting closer to the finish and the 4 Hour mark.  Keep going hard was my mantra and I did.

I passed the 26 mile point (which was 26.2 on my Garmin) and rounded Trinity College on to the straight to the finish line some 400 yards ahead.

Keara and the Kids were on the side of the road cheering me on and this gave me just another little boost for the final few hundred yards.  I hit it as hard as I could manage, but with about 150M to go I realised that my watch had just tripped over the 4Hour mark and I had missed the goal.  Apart from feeling like I wanted to cry because I was going to be “That Guy,” I also thought I should just slow down and ease the pain as I had missed it anyway.  Then another thought struck me that I should go even harder to the finish as sometimes funny things happen with chip timing and maybe by some miracle my watch was out from the chip and I would sneak under the 4Hr mark.  Imagine if I slowed down only to find that I had only missed it by a few seconds.

I gave the last 100M everything I possibly could and crossed the line completely empty from my efforts but feeling immensely pleased at my huge PB.

My Garmin read 4H0M51secs and 26.45 Miles distance covered!   Bloody Hell, I am ‘That Guy.’

The final chip time would tell me if I was ay closer to the 4hr mark, but in my heart I knew it would never be more than 51 seconds of a difference.

As it turned out, my actual official time was 4H and 50 secs.

On reflection I am delighted with a 21 minute improvement on my previous best time and I am no longer trying to figure out how the hell I could have dropped another 51 secs to get me under the 4Hr mark.

On review, Mile 26 was covered in 8min44secs and the last 0.45 mile was done at 7.45 pace.  That would explain why I was done at the end of it!

I absolutely loved the experience again and felt remarkably good after a few minutes of finishing. I now have a very clear goal I mind and know beyond a doubt that a true Sub 4 Marathon is within reach and perhaps I can take it even lower if I can train consistently.

As it turned out Andy and Keith had great debut Marathons with 3.48 and 4.28 respectively.  Very impressive for first time out and a lot of experience gained from this will lead to improvements next time I am sure.

I will not do another Marathon now before Ironman Zurich in July but this is the best possible lead in to my training block which starts in two weeks time.

A PB at marathon distance to add to my PB at the Half Marathon a month ago are the best possible confidence boosters for the training to come.

 

 

Leave a "tendon" moment alone.

Tuesday 22nd October 2013

Running ( 4.00 Miles / 00:36:31 / 00:09:07 per mile / HRZ2)

So only 6 days to go until the Dublin Marathon and thankfully my sore Achilles felt good enough to take an easy run.  Not that I am planning on doing a lot of running this week but it is still important to get out and keep the legs ticking over.

Thankfully the tendon held up well and I felt only a slight tenderness.  So a decent result there with my not too tender tendon!

I wish I could say the same about how easy and comfortable the run felt.  As is customary when I do easy runs the week before a Marathon I always come home feeling wrecked as if I have blasted the run.  I'm sure it's all in mu head so I'm not too worried about it as I'm used to it now.

Just one, or possibly two more short easy runs before Dublin.  I'm getting excited now that I'm feeling a bit more positive about the old body holding together.

Recovering in Bristol

Monday 14th October 2013

Running (5.25 miles / 00:49:54 / 00:09:30 per mile / HRZ2)

Unfortunately I have to be away for a few days this week for work and today I'm in Bristol.
Its a place I normally come to for meetings, stay in a hotel and leave.
Tonight I decided to do a nice easy recovery run to loosen the legs after my long run yesterday.
Once again it turned in to a bit of a sight seeing run.
I'm very impressed with the docks and waterside walk area of Bristol.
The run felt really easy and the kegs were good. So job done. 

That's that then!

Sunday 13th October 2013

Running ( 17.12 Miles / 02:36:25 / 00:09:08 per mile / HRZ 3)

Well that's the end of the long runs done ahead of the Dublin Marathon in two weeks time.
My debate as to whether it was worth doing another 21 mile run or going a bit shorter and faster was decided when I agreed that I should join up with Keith and he wanted to do about 17 miles.

Hopefully Keith and I will be running together for as much of Dublin as I can stick with him.
We went out with the aim of doing 17 miles and holding a steady 9.15 per mile.

I think we had a great run today and I'm delighted with how it went.
It wasn't easy the whole way but it is amazing how much easier it is to put the miles away with good company.

I am feeling pretty confident heading in to Dublin now although I would seriously doubt that I could maintain the pace from the run today for the whole 26.2 miles - that pace would give me exactly a 4Hr marathon, which I would dearly love but I think it might just be beyond me at the moment.

Now I am entering taper time hope to do about three runs per week now with nothing longer than 10 miles and hopefully maintain a decent pace in the shorter runs.  The biggest challenge is to stay injury free an get to the start line in good shape feeling fresh.

2 weeks and counting.

Not a bad weekend. Long running and a cake.

Saturday 5th October 2013

Running (20.70 miles / 03:17:39 /00:09:32 per mile / HRZ2)

In hindsight it was pretty likely that I might end up being a bit disappointed in this long run, given that my run last week was probably one of my best long runs ever.  Could I repeat this feeling two weeks in a row.  I would find out pretty soon.

Setting out with a goal in mind to hold on to a 9.15 per mile pace I wanted to see if I could build on from the feeling of invincibility last week.

Conditions were good and I was feeling pretty positive as I put the rubber on the road.

Pretty early on in my run I realised that I didn’t have that feeling of running on candyfloss (not that it felt like that last week anyway) and that holding a reasonably steady pace might not be just as easy as I hoped.  Following a broadly similar route to last week I found my pace yo-yoing a bit although the average was still sitting around the 9.15 mark and this continued through to about 14 miles.

I won’t lie – miles 14-16 back up the hill to home to begin the last little 5 mile loop from home was quite tough.  My pace slowed to around 10 min per mile and I was very glad to get to the drink and biscuit I had stashed that would see me through the last  miles.

Mile 17 is downhill so I managed to get a bit of momentum back again but the cloud of slowness descended on me again at around 19 miles.  The last 2 miles were somewhat of a struggle and mile 20 dropped to about 11 min miles.  Not good but I suppose it was forward motion!

Overall  it wasn’t a bad run and if I can hold on to a 9.30 average pace on the day in Dublin I will achieve a time of around 4H 09M marathon pace.  This would be a huge 12 minute PB and under my goal time of 4H 15M.

I am seriously considering my strategy for the last few weeks now ahead of the Marathon.  I had planned to do another 21 mile run next weekend and then go in to a 2 week taper.  I’m thinking now that I will change that slightly and next weekend replace the 21 mile run with a shorter 16 mile run with the sole intention of trying to maintain an average pace of 9.10 per mile.  

That pace seems pretty quick, however I would feel pretty confident of holding a half marathon at that pace pretty easily, so realistically it is only an extra three miles and should be very much within my level of achievement.

Why would I do that approach rather than another long run? A couple of reasons.

Firstly I’m getting a bit bored of the long runs.  Secondly I’m not sure that the extra 5 miles on the run will do a tremendous amount for my fitness and thirdly, I am worried about picking up an injury at this late stage, so hopefully by cutting the length of the long run I will reduce the chances of that happening.

I’ll make up my mind as I go through the week and decide ahead of the weekend.

Sunday 6th October 2013

Cycling (37.62 Miles / 02:27:28 / 15.30 mph / HRZ2 / Cadence 74rpm) Elevation gain 660M

 

We are one year old!  Lisburn Triathlon Club that is.

To “celebrate” we got a great group together and headed out for a group ride for a couple of hours and then back to our Sponsor “The Hillside” for coffee and scones.  It was fantastic to see about 20 folks out and sporting the Club gear.

The pace of the ride started out fairly sensible although early in it was clear that a lot of the guys are in better shape than me on the bike and were raring to get stretching the legs a bit and crank things up.

We more or less stayed together through to about 20 miles or so, and then some of the competitive juices started to flow and it was at this point that I lost tough with the main group.

Thankfully (for me anyway) Stuart was lumbered with me as his gears got stuck in the big ring meaning hat he had a hard time on the hills with his gearing.  I have no doubt at all that had his gears been working, he would have been up with the main bunch.

I really enjoyed getting back on the bike as it has been four weeks since I last cycled and it is so clear to me that this is the area where my fitness disappears very quickly and where I stand to make the biggest gains for Ironman.

I’m determined to improve on the bike and it would be lovely to be able to ride with the “Big Boys” in the not too distant future.

It’s definitely worth a mention that Claire made a fantastic first Birthday cake for the Club and we all got stuck in to that, along with the great hospitality from The Hillside it made for a terrific day.

The good thing is that despite a 21 mile run and a hilly little bike ride, my legs feel very good.  Just as well really as otherwise I might need to spend some time on the torture instrument which I purchased last week.

I’ve heard  so much about Foam Rollers and the benefit of using it for recover to flush Lactic acid out of the muscles that I decided to buy one.  I don’t really have much of an idea yet on how to use it but I will do a bit of research.  However, what I do know is  that the two minutes I spent just trying it out, were enough to tell me that it is going to hurt – A LOT!  Now there’s something to look forward to.

 

Running Naked

Wednesday 2nd October 2013

Running (6.00 Miles / 00:50:04 /00:08:20 / HRZ 3)

I’ve been running naked!

Before you all start getting mental images of my perfectly toned and tanned manly torso shimmering in a film of reflective sweat, and my muscles rippling under the intense Northern Irish sun, you need to calm down and cool down.

I’m talking about not bothering with any information from my running watch.  Thankfully for all mankind, I am fully clothed – albeit clad in Lycra! Hmmmmmm.

Following on from my successful “naked” run last week where I didn’t bother to look at the watch, I decided to do the same again last night.

Just head out and ignore the watch and try to hold a steady but reasonably challenging pace for the whole run. The goal was for 6 miles and see how it went.

Last week I averaged 8.27 per mile and felt OK with it – this week, on what I must admit was a bit of a hillier route, I managed to average 8.20 per mile.

I am pretty pleased with this and it has given me a clear thought that I will build this type of “naked” run at tempo pace in to my Ironman training plans as I think it helps to develop a greater awareness of natural pacing, and I also believe it will help to drive my average speed upwards.  If it warms up next summer, I might even try NAKED running – watch out Lisburn!

 
Thursday 3rd October 2013

Swimming (1150M / 00:27:33) 18M Pool in Gym

Plan 1350M
Achieved 1150M
Reason – Crap swim!

If ever there was story of two halves, my swim today was it.

The first 750M were knocked out in the now customary 14min 30secs and it felt very comfortable.  By the time I got to about 850M, I started to feel almost sea sick and entirely wobbly.

Not a great place to be.

To be honest I am slightly stumped as to the reason and the only thing I can think of is that I need to get used to adding in more metres to the sessions as I have focussed a lot on building  a base of set speed over 750 metres recently – and perhaps not fuelling correctly before a swim.  I do seem to be quite susceptible to dipping energy reserves in the pool.  Something I will need to look after.

Anyway I’ll put it down to experience and brush away the thought that it took me almost as long to swim the last 400M as it did to swim the first 750 Metres.

Could have been worse – I could have puked in the pool.  Thankfully not!

Positive consistency

Tuesday 1st October 2013

Swimming (750M / 00:14:34)

This was a bit of a recovery swim to help loosen up the legs after the long run yesterday.  They felt pretty good anyway but a quick swim couldn't hurt.
The swim was about 10 seconds slower than last time but I see it as a positive that I'm able to consistently hold this place for 750M.

Over the next month or so I will get back to the club swim sessions and increase the distance.