Running

[laoislad]

Its part of the Dublin race series,I'm doing it myself. There will be a 10 mile next month then half marathon in September.
I'm sticking to the paces set out for me in my marathon training plan so I'm not going all out for PB's in training or any races.
I can feel myself getting stronger with all these long runs I'm doing (9 miles tomorrow) so I feel it will benefit me when I do go back to trying to best personal bests in the shorter races.

I am seriously thinking of the half marathon you mentioned. I have all but decided against going for the marathon this year. I will need to get some advice on my achilles. It is sore for the first km or so, then fine until about an hours running. Then it gets sore again with the pain spreading up the calf after, say, 90mins. I reckon I need to sort it before looking at a long run.

In the meantime the book Imtommygunn recommended has a mantra in it, train easy - race hard, and I am converted. I had given up all thoughts of a marathon (it was a goal when I was a teenager) but I could see a serious attempt at Dublin next year, or maybe somewhere else. But I need someone to tell me the achilles will stand up to it.

How is your training going? Obviously you will be training at marathon pace a lot of the time. Do you decide now what time to go for or later?

Training is going grand so far,just finishing week 2 tomorrow.
Believe it or not most of the training is far slower than marathon pace. At least 30-90secs per mile slower.
You only do one "pace" run a week. These pace runs do get gradually longer obviously as the weeks go on though.

[magpie seanie]

Great stuff Muppet. Under 40 for 8k is really good going. Your progress is simply amazing. Well done and keep it up.

[laoislad]

I'm finishing week 2 today. When did you start?
It's an 18 week program and I started on June 23rd.
One of us has our maths wrong...

[CD]

Going to do Belleek 10k on Sunday in lovely Fermanagh. Anyone else up for that one?. Heard it's a tad hilly. Hoping for 45ish. Running well this week - enjoying a relaxing fortnight in Donegal with the family and actually getting to run regularly. Feels good!!!

[Milltown Row2]

Going to do Belleek 10k on Sunday in lovely Fermanagh. Anyone else up for that one?. Heard it's a tad hilly. Hoping for 45ish. Running well this week - enjoying a relaxing fortnight in Donegal with the family and actually getting to run regularly. Feels good!!!

Nice beach run in the morning in Donegal are nice, was away last year in Donegal had great runs every morning

[CD]

Good for the soul as well as everything else MR. Getting out every day for 5-12k which is unheard of for me. Might do cookstown half if i continue to feel this good

[moysider]

Clontarf 5 mile on this morning. Have had a great few months until the last week which hasn't been good for some reason.

I did 44:39 in Terenure in May and hoping to beat that by quite a bit.

Good luck to the lads doing the half.

I was one of those doing the half.

When I entered 5 weeks ago it seemed like a good idea at the time but it didn t work out well. Training was poor in June and in last 2 weeks I did a couple of 5ks and a hilly 10k. I ran them tired and thought an easy week would bring me to a peak for Clontarf. Wrong. I felt good before the off though. I set off with the 1:40 pacers but I soon realised I had weak legs from the off and couldn t keep up. I finished a full six minutes slower than the half I did on May 17th. Nearly 30 seconds a mile slower is hard to take.

Still things could have been worse. I drove home straight after the run. Not having slept the night before ( I never do in hotel rooms) and the blast of sun in Clontarf, I was pretty wrecked. To make matters worse air conditioning in the jeep had packed in last Thursday and hadn t time to fix it. I was just coming off the dual-carraigeway when I heard a car horn. It woke me up just as I was crossing over into oncoming traffic. Luckily there is a wide space there in the middle of the road with white markings and I was able to sort things out. Phew!

[Never beat the deeler]

Clontarf 5 mile on this morning. Have had a great few months until the last week which hasn't been good for some reason.

I did 44:39 in Terenure in May and hoping to beat that by quite a bit.

Good luck to the lads doing the half.

I was one of those doing the half.

When I entered 5 weeks ago it seemed like a good idea at the time but it didn t work out well. Training was poor in June and in last 2 weeks I did a couple of 5ks and a hilly 10k. I ran them tired and thought an easy week would bring me to a peak for Clontarf. Wrong. I felt good before the off though. I set off with the 1:40 pacers but I soon realised I had weak legs from the off and couldn t keep up. I finished a full six minutes slower than the half I did on May 17th. Nearly 30 seconds a mile slower is hard to take.

Still things could have been worse. I drove home straight after the run. Not having slept the night before ( I never do in hotel rooms) and the blast of sun in Clontarf, I was pretty wrecked. To make matters worse air conditioning in the jeep had packed in last Thursday and hadn t time to fix it. I was just coming off the dual-carraigeway when I heard a car horn. It woke me up just as I was crossing over into oncoming traffic. Luckily there is a wide space there in the middle of the road with white markings and I was able to sort things out. Phew!

Jaysus moy that is scary reading. A lot of people never get a second chance at that....

[Never beat the deeler]

So for those that have never tried the heart rate training, will add my own experience so far.

Bought the book at the recommendations of a few posters on here - I already had the GPS watch so I bought the strap to go along with it.

A bit of background - I am a beginner runner, go through bursts where I will go out for a run 2-3 times a week for a few weeks. Usually start out doing 5km runs and building up to longer runs but I found that I was very one-paced. My average speed for 5kms was remarkably similar for 10kms.

After a couple of weeks messing around with the HRM - making sure I had my calcs right, finding the right type of flat course to do it on - I set out for my first 'recovery run' at 70% HR on 24th June. As it predicts in the book, I had to do a bit of a run/walk combo to stay below my threshold and ended up completing 10.6kms.
I have since completed a further 4 runs over the 2 weeks at 12.9km, 9.2km, 15.6km and 10.2km last night. Over the course of these runs, my average time per km has dropped every single run, and I have knocked 73seconds/km off my pace at 70%. (Now would be a good time to remind you that I was starting from quite a low base, albeit fit enough to run a very slow 10km at the start)

From reading the book, he repeatedly asks for patience and to stick it out for a month, so I thought any sort of results would be much longer coming, but I suppose the book is aimed both at seasoned runners and beginners alike.

A further benefit of the 70% runs, is I can now exercise multiple nights in a row without coming in knackered!
I have been mixing in a couple of boot camps a week to get the heart pumping in between.


A couple of months ago I signed up for my first half marathon, which is on 31st August. I didn't realise at the time that I will be flying home from Perth for a friend's wedding, and will only land back in on 30th! So I am going to train as if I am doing the half marathon, and just see how I feel.....
Am I crazy to be even suggesting this? It is quite a hilly course, but I am just looking to complete and I still have 5.5 weeks before I go home

[laoislad]

Do you start off doing all your runs at 70% or just your long slow runs?

[Never beat the deeler]

Supposed to do all for the first month, although as muppet said earlier he is throwing in one harder run a week to keep himself interested.

I am doing boot camp as well, so have just been doing the 70% runs. After the month is up, then you go to the more traditional hard run / easy run

[Milltown Row2]

Clontarf 5 mile on this morning. Have had a great few months until the last week which hasn't been good for some reason.

I did 44:39 in Terenure in May and hoping to beat that by quite a bit.

Good luck to the lads doing the half.

I was one of those doing the half.

When I entered 5 weeks ago it seemed like a good idea at the time but it didn t work out well. Training was poor in June and in last 2 weeks I did a couple of 5ks and a hilly 10k. I ran them tired and thought an easy week would bring me to a peak for Clontarf. Wrong. I felt good before the off though. I set off with the 1:40 pacers but I soon realised I had weak legs from the off and couldn t keep up. I finished a full six minutes slower than the half I did on May 17th. Nearly 30 seconds a mile slower is hard to take.

Still things could have been worse. I drove home straight after the run. Not having slept the night before ( I never do in hotel rooms) and the blast of sun in Clontarf, I was pretty wrecked. To make matters worse air conditioning in the jeep had packed in last Thursday and hadn t time to fix it. I was just coming off the dual-carraigeway when I heard a car horn. It woke me up just as I was crossing over into oncoming traffic. Luckily there is a wide space there in the middle of the road with white markings and I was able to sort things out. Phew!

Jaysus moy that is scary reading. A lot of people never get a second chance at that....

Happened to me one morning on the way to Dublin, driving a white van full of welding gear and metal, would have been a gonner had it not been for the passenger beside me. Scary scary stuff

[magpie seanie]

So for those that have never tried the heart rate training, will add my own experience so far.

Bought the book at the recommendations of a few posters on here - I already had the GPS watch so I bought the strap to go along with it.

A bit of background - I am a beginner runner, go through bursts where I will go out for a run 2-3 times a week for a few weeks. Usually start out doing 5km runs and building up to longer runs but I found that I was very one-paced. My average speed for 5kms was remarkably similar for 10kms.

After a couple of weeks messing around with the HRM - making sure I had my calcs right, finding the right type of flat course to do it on - I set out for my first 'recovery run' at 70% HR on 24th June. As it predicts in the book, I had to do a bit of a run/walk combo to stay below my threshold and ended up completing 10.6kms.
I have since completed a further 4 runs over the 2 weeks at 12.9km, 9.2km, 15.6km and 10.2km last night. Over the course of these runs, my average time per km has dropped every single run, and I have knocked 73seconds/km off my pace at 70%. (Now would be a good time to remind you that I was starting from quite a low base, albeit fit enough to run a very slow 10km at the start)

From reading the book, he repeatedly asks for patience and to stick it out for a month, so I thought any sort of results would be much longer coming, but I suppose the book is aimed both at seasoned runners and beginners alike.

A further benefit of the 70% runs, is I can now exercise multiple nights in a row without coming in knackered!
I have been mixing in a couple of boot camps a week to get the heart pumping in between.


A couple of months ago I signed up for my first half marathon, which is on 31st August. I didn't realise at the time that I will be flying home from Perth for a friend's wedding, and will only land back in on 30th! So I am going to train as if I am doing the half marathon, and just see how I feel.....
Am I crazy to be even suggesting this? It is quite a hilly course, but I am just looking to complete and I still have 5.5 weeks before I go home

Thanks for posting that up. 

[Bingo]

Moysider - that's a close call. Type of situation you say would never happen you...until it does.

Did a local 10km race on Friday evening, done the same route 2 years ago and found it a tough 10km, plenty of ups and downs with a tough finish. Went off fast but steady, let some guys go who I'd thought started fast and was confident I'd reel in. Worked through these lads and a few put up some resistance but I kept running at my own pace and soon shook them off.

Finished in 41.02 and was happy at that. I reckon on a flatter course, I'd have been close to sub 40m as I knew I was moving well. It will come though!

[ballinaman]

Clontarf 5 mile on this morning. Have had a great few months until the last week which hasn't been good for some reason.

I did 44:39 in Terenure in May and hoping to beat that by quite a bit.

Good luck to the lads doing the half.

I was one of those doing the half.

When I entered 5 weeks ago it seemed like a good idea at the time but it didn t work out well. Training was poor in June and in last 2 weeks I did a couple of 5ks and a hilly 10k. I ran them tired and thought an easy week would bring me to a peak for Clontarf. Wrong. I felt good before the off though. I set off with the 1:40 pacers but I soon realised I had weak legs from the off and couldn t keep up. I finished a full six minutes slower than the half I did on May 17th. Nearly 30 seconds a mile slower is hard to take.

Still things could have been worse. I drove home straight after the run. Not having slept the night before ( I never do in hotel rooms) and the blast of sun in Clontarf, I was pretty wrecked. To make matters worse air conditioning in the jeep had packed in last Thursday and hadn t time to fix it. I was just coming off the dual-carraigeway when I heard a car horn. It woke me up just as I was crossing over into oncoming traffic. Luckily there is a wide space there in the middle of the road with white markings and I was able to sort things out. Phew!

Jaysus moy that is scary reading. A lot of people never get a second chance at that....

Scary stuff Moy. You'd be rattled after that. I was on a coach coming back from Worthington Cup final in 2000 from Wembley when Leicester beat Tranmere 2-1 ( fcuk you Matt Elliott). Bus driver fell asleep at the wheel coming up the motorway, took us onto the grass next to the hard shoulder...peoples shouts woke him up.
Great stuff everyone here, am only dying to get back, I miss the pain badly!haha