Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Moraghan Training - Stevie G
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
You'd be an animal on a survival group I reckon
I’d not be challenging anyone at the moment. Week before Covid was my biggest in months: 57M. I’ve just topped 100 for March though so mileage would’ve been closer to normal without this latest set-back.
70 then 77 needs a cut down for sure.
Small trim from 6&4 to 4&4 gentle for starters today.
Might fuse the usual Tue sesh and Wed midweek long into 1.
SC - hopefully it's not too late to wish you good luck! I see Dwain Chambers is out there - I wonder what the vibe is like having somebody who has served a doping ban competing..... I appreciate he has tried to make reparations, but the general belief seems to be that there's a long term benefit to what he did even after stopping.
I'm not going to try read back as it'll take forever, but I hope everybody is going well. I figured I should pop in with an update as to where I'm at.
It has been pretty obvious that I've been yo-yoing from good to bad for a considerable period of time, but I was unable to properly work out why. I decided a while back that I was going to draw a line under things, reset, and try to build up slowly to see if that made a difference, as I was fed up of feeling constantly subpar and demotivated. I was putting a lot of it down to the pure amount of stress and strain I've had in the last year and a half catching up with me, so it seemed like the sensible course of action.
The first week or so attempting to build up was ok, and then things went to hell in a handcart. A copy and paste from my sub-3 thread post below sums it up, but I'll warn in advance not to read if you're of a queasy disposition.
####
I referenced things getting in the way last weekend. Well it turns out those things were the kind of things I shouldn't have put my blinkers on for and certainly shouldn't have tried a run on the Sunday at the one time I felt marginally ok. Saturday was the first time where I felt up to doing any form of exercise since, and even after a very gentle jog today it's very clear I'm still a long way away from being 100%.
Getting a GP appt here is nigh on impossible (even telling the receptionists the extent of it - let's just say it involved significant amounts of blood loss, not moving too far from a toilet, and imodium not being enough to stop things - was met with a 'nothing we can do' attitude).
I've been signed off work sick all week (I work from home so that gives an indication of the severity), but eventually got to see a GP on Wednesday. My suspicion is that I've either developed an IBD, or have had a severe bacterial infection developing over a considerable period of time, and it just peaked.
The GP is inclined to agree that that these are the most likely outcomes, and thankfully nothing more sinister is likely.
Long story short they're arranging a bunch of tests (some underway, and some in the pipeline), and I'm on a very restricted diet at the moment until things have fully cleared up.
About the only good thing that has come out of it is that I no longer need to worry about losing a few kg to get back to a reasonable training weight (3kg down in less than a week), and that it is strangely almost cathartic to know that all of the issues I've been having for the last prolonged period have a cause that can hopefully be addressed and managed and that they weren't in my head.
It has also led to a complete mental reset and I feel fresh and ready to go in that vein in a way I haven't in a very very long time.
After all that though, to finish on a very very positive note however, my stepdaughter is pregnant so our first grandchild is due in about 6 months time
To give an idea of where I'm at, yesterday was an 80min walk (coffee break in the middle), gardening in the sun (got some colour so I look less sickly; lol), and then a walk to and from the pub. 6.5m of walking plus the gardening was enough to leave me completely shattered and falling asleep on the couch last night.
This morning I managed a 45min jog, which was 13s a mile quicker and 5bpm less than the 4m jog I managed on Saturday, so things seem to be picking up quickly, but it's very much going to be a case of play it by ear and take the good days when they come.
It would be nice to be able to get around London in some form, if for no other reason than I'm a stubborn bugger and it would give me a mental boost, but I won't be thrashing myself to achieve it.
Overall, I had been taking steps to completely reset a lot of things, training included, so this has just served to solidify that resolve, and speed up the process.
Have enjoyed the strava group challenge reports, SG. Fun to join in with something a little different. Good luck with the nationals.
I am pleased you got a parkrun/long run weekend in, Jools. Hope you are back 100% soon. Any races in the calendar?
That sounds very rough, TT. Hope you are ok and able to resume things in the right way soon. Congratulations on nearly entering grandfather status!
Looking forward to a SC report.
Long journey up to Liverpool on Saturday morning, arriving just before midday. Quick (probably too quick) lunge and leg swing warm up, before heading out along the waterfront. This looked easy to navigate, flat and traffic free. In retrospect, I wish I have added in a loop or two around Sefton Park, but never mind.
75 minutes easy at 7:44 average. First bit was a little twisty and cobbly, but then straightforward terrain after 1.5M or so. This was SSE and into a filthy and relentless headwind. Got quite cold as well when it started raining. 4.6M before the turnaround. What a difference this made, suddenly quiet and the wind chill all but gone. First of three 20 mins at marathon effort was 6:56 average. I planned on ten minutes tailwind, before turning around for ten minutes headwind. Somewhat concerningly, the opening section was only 6:52 so not exactly banking some time. Put it down to the long drive, but who knows. Buried myself on the return to average 6:56 for the 20 minutes. Five minute jog before repeating for a 6:52 average. I’d had enough by the final block, so did it all with the tailwind, although this did mean the aforementioned cobbles and twists. 6:46 about right. 18 minutes cool down to give 22M at 7:25 average. Good workout for the start of a stag do! Then drank beer from 4pm to 1am, stopping for a Subway, a kebab and a MacDonald’s at various points.
A few hours sleep, then escaped the room at 7am. Too hot, stinky and smelly with the stag lying next to me (strangely this sounds like my wife complaining about me). Six very slow miles (9:27s) taking in the atmosphere of the Liverpool half. 9000 runners! 75M for the week, biggest in a long time.
My stag do in Munich was on the weekend of the Munich marathon, to continue a theme, we just watched them go by over our breakfast. As for Liverpool, I did finish first in the parkrun there on my 40th birthday and we were all shocked at a taxi ride across town for less then £3!
I quite like Dwain Chambers and I am confident he has more than paid his dues and deserves to enjoy a bit of masters running free from previous mistakes.
SG - The club transfer saga continues, this is going on as long as Mbappe to Madrid! Solid week of mileage there, I would have been playing games if I was involved, posting early week runs as private and changing them on Sunday night to get my opponent complacent!
Impressive long training runs SQ and a good effort on the stag-do! You want to make sure you get plenty of recovery early this week with all that burning the candle at both ends!
SC - Well done keeping the thread going in our absences. Hope your race went/goes well, as I am not sure when it is.
I had nearly 11 days out with a foot injury I sustained in the gym. I was limping for a few days but it's mostly recovered now. I think it was one of the flexor muscles and it was mostly a problem when going backwards, or possibly related to the tibialis anterior. I still managed to keep training albeit with the bike substituting in for running.
First run back was parkrun with the family, my wife ran with the 8 y/o and I ran with the 11 y/o. Neither of them had run further than 1-2km before. The youngest had had enough after 2 laps and waited at the finish. The eldest did the whole thing with me. We cruised round in 29:30ish as I knew she'd be put off long-term if we ran hard. She still said it was too far though which is no surprise. There's talent there if I can get her excited about running though.
10k for me on Sunday and I should be ok for 30 miles this week. The 10k felt awful though.
Sq, got to deal with the southerns first!
And that sounds a packed combo there.
Not sure what I'd like less, a huge run with efforts or booze.
Reggie, there's rules to stop shenanigans like that! The most I did was throw in a couple of little comments about some mythical 60mile ultra someone in our team allegedly had in group week!!
SQ - good work getting stuff done on the stag do weekend. Great volume. Well done.
Reg - tough luck on the shin problem, but good that you're getting back at it. How's the sled work going now? Closer to managing the required weight comfortably?
Jr had a few 'false starts' before he took to running. He always enjoyed it and showed good grit when he raced (school xc, the odd parkrun, etc), but he was more interested in football. My youngest is not so keen on running, but is turning out to have decent potential at javelin. I tried to nudge them to be active and let them find their own niche when they were ready. I think once they realise they have potential at something it draws them in, so hopefully the same for your 11 y/o.
Managing to do a little bit this week. Playing it very much by ear, and whatever I do I have to be 'on it' with recovery, irrespective of the pace. Fed up of the taste of dioralyte and salt/electrolyte tablets but they're allowing me to move so I'll carry on with them.
Off the back of all of that I agree, like you, that he has more than paid his dues, however there does seem to be a belief that he still physically benefits from that doping (I don't know enough of the chemistry side of things to know if that's a valid assertion), so I am a little curious what the general vibe is from his competitors.
Does a Fri eve sesh at fit with doing a short sub 5k race leg at the 12 stage 2pm or so Sunday?
I wouldn't even dare for say a 10k...but maybe it works?
Didn’t Dwain Chambers have a brief foray into rugby league as well?
TT - well done on supporting the kids into their niche. Does the javelin require much supplementary weight training etc yet?
Sorry to hear about the foot injury, Reg. Thought you’d gone quiet. Annoying when the gym goes from building a body to breaking one. Great to hear of the family parkrun. Have your tried junior parkrun? Mine have done a few and the 2km works well.
Any TR updates?
Recovery double yesterday. 5.5M at 8:50s in the morning include 5 x strides, then 3.5M very slow at 9:20s around a surprisingly muddy municipal golf course in the evening whilst my daughter swam.
This week is slightly different to the last few, with two midweek sessions but then no quality in (what is admittedly a very) long run.
Today was 10M at 7:04 average - it included 3 x 8 minutes tempo (6:20, 22, 23) off two minute jogs. A nice (not quite the right word) amount of time to work for. I find one and two minute reps a bit short to get into my stride and very long a bit intimidating.
Used my annual Vitality 50% discount to buy some NB SuperComp Elite v4. Have liked the brand for a while now with a few bits of clothing and several pairs of the excellent 1080s, but this was my first foray into their supershoe offering. Stable, light, bouncy and was running at 7:40s in the warm up for 130HR (although off the back of two easy days). Felt fun at the tempo effort and will go back in the box now until the marathon which I think will probably be the sweet spot for the shoe. Can’t afford it, but would fancy something more aggressive like a takumi sen or similar for 10ks. Might even get the ASICS piranhas back out!
Reg - good one on the family running session.
SQ - I noted your boozing and running well done. Still look in good shape to me.
Knee and (twisted? ) ankle were improving a bit with some compromised running, so I used my number at Salisbury 10m Sunday. Undulating route but the hills are mostly between 3 and 8m, so progressive effort finishing strong in 63:4X. I remember this being around a minute ish slower than a quick course, so 62min ish, which would give me 1.22ish for a HM. Lack a bit of zip but felt strong........missing medium long run miles, longer sessions and longer long runs from decent marathon training.......however did 12m inc 9m av 7.07 (steady pace) av 130 today which was much more comfortable than 12 inc 8 av 7.02 av 135 last week. Got a few weeks to round into better shape.
SQ - They've done the Junior PR a few times and that would be a more suitable distance, this was more about my wife doing parkrun and rather than just support we all joined in, so probably a one-off.
Nice to hear your off-spring found there way into it, TT. I used to enjoy javelin at school. I actually went to Bracknell Athletics club a few times, I must have been about 19. I had some javelin coaching. It was so technical I found it a bit frustrating, much like golf. I had a few good practice throws off a short run-up but the majority were rubbish as I couldn't get the technique.
I stopped going as I had to cycle there. It also hurt my arm! I turned up to just one event for them, I came third in the javelin and was rubbish but filled in in the B string shot put and came first
6.5 miles yesterday, my watch was flat so I used my phone in my pocket and it came out at 6:53 pace.
Looks a good spell of tempo blocks that too SQ.
I'll veto Friday's sesh, would be dim in hindsight.
Especially after the 70 and 77 mile weeks, and then today's sesh, Wednesday, a day later than standard.
4x1.5mile off 2mins.
Reasonably testing session this one without thundering it. Decent sort of route, but obvs with a few turns, slight ups and downs and roads to be cautious on and the usual. And all 4 reps different.
One of the reps I had to change the route midway, as some lights weren't in my favour, so instead of across a section, I had to go round an estate.
All between 9.03-9.05, so pretty much a sort of 6.02/6.03 sort of lick.
Hard to say what effort level this is really. If it's HM, it's decent, if it's 10k, not quick enough
But I'd never have done 6miles of effort at 10k pace ever. 8x1km, or 5miles after a long block at absolute most back in the day, and never more than the 1mile rep.
So that'll do. Had "vaguely" thought sub 6, but hard to judge.
A few more races and zones will become more apparent I guess.
Must admit early on I thought how am I going to do 4 reps of this, but warmed up and was decent effort job in the end.
Jr started some weight training over the winter with her group. She seems to be disproportionately strong (one of my sisters is the same) for her size. She is showing some interest in doing a bit more of that.
TR - that steady pace/HR comparison looks good!
Reg - I was ok at anything that required technique (I've got a bunch of county medals at javelin, discus, high jump and long jump, as well as running), but didn't really have the explosive power to make use of decent technique - I was more in danger of breaking my toes than breaking records with the shot-putt, and if it were possible to be lapped in a 100m race I'd have probably had to suffer that indignity too!
One of my brothers was exceptional at under-age javelin and has an All-Ireland medal (silver I think), but never grew so got left behind.
I'm with you on golf - I could rarely manage a straight drive. A mate who played a lot tried to teach me once but I got fed up and resorted to changing my stance to aim to the left knowing it would curve back to the right
SG - nice reps. Big volume the last two weeks too!
Two 5ths and a team bronze in the xc, so not too bad. 9.06 in the 3000m, about what I estimated from the Lee Valley races.
TT - my sizing thoughts re SComp are the same. Slightly worried they were too small but absolutely fine whilst running. Good price for the Takumis but that disappearing from our joint account wouldn’t go down well
Seems a good session to me, SG. Hope the relays went well.
Pleased you are back to it, Reg. I got annoyed with a club mate earlier. He was really moaning about parkrun being ‘100m too long’ according to his watch. On Strava he claimed a 19:45 Garmin vs 20:06 parkrun time. Frustrating for h but simply not the way it works.
TR the king of multiple marathon places. May one be a still day for you!
Good week (so far), with 11.6M at 6:48 average on Thursday consisting of 1M warm up, 10M marathon effort (poss a little sharp) at about 6:42s. Longest continuous effort in a while. The relatively old Adios Pros felt good!
After two midweek sessions it was a long and easy/steady job today. 3h, 23M at 7:45s including parkrun. Pretty knackered now; looking forward to a return to one session and a long run workout next week.
70M Mon-Sat, tomorrow is bonus miles.
A local 20M road race today had some strong efforts, but an awful lot of my Strava feed consists of ‘20M at MP’. Too much, I reckon.
That's a decent session SG , HM training?
SQ - good going on that 10m tempo, pits you nicely under 3hr shape. Well done on the 23m too........I will probably aim London only.
I did a slow and lumpy 21m in 2:57 as a time on feet long run today. Decent week with 10m race, long tempo, 10x3min and long run. 88m total. Better late then never.
1:46:29 for me today at the Forest of Dean Spring Trails Half Marathon to round off my 1st week of training since Covid: 43M (& over 70 on the bike).
I last ran this race in 2022 in 1:30:38 before going on to run 3:13 in Manchester.
Assuming I was slightly compromised by Covid still I should be around 3:40 in Newport in 5 weeks.
Set off with a mate running his first HM aiming for sub2. Started at the back so wasted energy weaving in the first couple of miles & failed to take full advantage of the huge downhill in mile 2: 274ft! Realised I was going to stress him out &/or overstretch him so pulled away gradually after 4M, upped the effort til 7 then held that til 11 when I pushed hard on the final stretch. Mile 12 is a killer with a 136ft climb which ramps right up at the end, there’s a bit more climbing in Mile 13 then the final 400m was round a soft, rutted grassy field & also featured more climbing. Hardly conducive to sprint finishes on tired legs.
6M at 8:40s today for a 76M week. Quietly pleased to find a couple of new fields now from my doorstep. Mass house building is strangely enough opening up a few routes.
Cheers TR - Good race Jools!
Relays were good, had a chat with SG and a warm up with him too. I did 29.33 for my 8.6k leg, not too bad but 40 secs slower than any other Herne Hill B team runner. Good turn out for us, A team 8th and we were 19th, so qualify for the national.
Will try and find time for a Poland report...
Friday 15th - Red eye from Luton to Bydgoszcz. Met Steve Hallas (V50 from Preston Harriers) and his mate Al on the flight as I overheard them discussing getting the bus from the airport to Bydgoszcz bus station. So did this with another spriner we picked up. Got the Bus to Torun and got there about 1ish. Found my apartment, this brilliant loft conversion for £350 for 5 nights. Landlord was a friend of a friend of one of the HHH gang.
Dumped my stuff, then went to the venue to confirm the races at the venue. Then went out for some food that night with @DeanR7 of this parish (he was one of the team managers this time) and few others.
Sat 16th
Got the tram to Parkrun with Dean, met Joseph Gonzalez there (He's a V55 from London). Jogged round in 21/22 mins. Quiet afternoon, made myself dinner, watched some footie on phone.
Sun 17th (3,000m 18.50)
Woke up with a headache! Decided not to take any Anadin extra incase it affected my stomach. Quiet morning, went to track at 2.30 to watch Nikki from HHH in the 3,000. She was going well, but as she was going around the spaniard to win with 50m to go, something went in her hammy and she went down! Gutted.
Watched a couple more races, then started warming up. Chilly warm up outside in the light snow showers. Then inside for some strides - then to the call room. Stupidly long wait as the B race had someone who took about 14 mins to finish.
Nice chat with Tony O'Brien - supervet basically! Sub 15.00 as a youth, GB vest etc etc. Knew I had an outside chance of a medal, the french guy took it out in front like I did in 2019. There was a group of about 6 of us running about 9 min pace and generally the pace was quite samey, so coming to the bell the group was still intact until the last 75m when Tony, the good Spaniard Crespo and a Danish guy, Laurst pulled away a bit. Oscar the spaniard and I tried to close the gap, but couldn't do it. So 5th in 9.06.
Happy with the time, just a bit frustrating I wasn't closer to 9.00m form.
Few beers that night with Steve, Al and Dean after dinner with Tony also.
More later....
Tues 19th - Cross country.
Started at 2pm, so easy morning then down to the course. Reminded me of a park in Bournemouth - dry pine forest, lots of fir cones, sandy bits too. Lots of little hills though!
It was 8k, 4 laps. Declan Toal was there, beat me by 30 odd seconds in Dublin. Laurst the Danish guy was there and Oscar the Spaniard. Nice conditions, sunny and a bit chilly. Thought i'd go out quite hard- there was a group of about 5 of us, with a Polish guy plus another Spaniard added to me and the other two already mentioned.
The lap was pretty brutal - lots of little hills and one long downhill that was very hard on the quads. Declan moved away up every hill throughout the 2nd half of the first lap and at the start of the 2nd lap Laurst and the new Spaniard moved away. So for the rest of the 2nd lap and the third lap I was running with Oscar - but then he left me during the last lap.
Very tired going over the line! for 5th again. Had a photo with Laurst and Oscar - the '3-4-5 gang'.
We managed to get the V50 Bronze team medal, with Steve and a Pentathlete called Chris.
Back inside to watch some 400 finals, then food and a few beers again!
Back home on Weds, £18 for a 2 hour first class train to Warsaw, then flight back to Heathrow.
Great trip all in all.
Just booked our accommodation and flights to Gothenburg in the summer for the World Masters..
Seems to be the main place I ever see Mr C, but always a good check in, and for once timings worked so we could have a little jog around.
The 12 stage was one long day!
I'd felt a few little coughs coming in the day or 2 before, but everyone has their little blagger story don't they. Knew it should be ok to get a 5k off (or 13metres lesser) and not let the team down, as it'd be unthinkable to try and put them through finding someone else this late.
We'd had a young whizz kid pull out in the midweek before, he's a 16.35 achieved 5k, but on his training should probably be in the 15s for sure.
Luckily we had a travelling sub who even tripping up on his ass at the Dulwich parkrun still managed an 18.04, so essentially we had all 12 sub 18 level for the first time ever.
We'd qualified in 2017 in my time, and apparently 2013 before my time.
Big Phil Minestrone Jones was part of both teams.
So it's certainly not a given for us, and we always have a few big hitters away meaning we comfortably miss out. Always a pure lotto who turns up of course to. But you guarantee some powerful AC teams will turn up - the likes of whom have all 12 better than our quickest.
MK is about 1hr 10 or so from me for a mere 40miles. Motorway route was apparently a bit snarled so did the slow assed across country route.
They give you a random postcode and leave you to just dump your car somewhere non specific. Luckily found a clubmate in a random carpark that had about 10 spaces, and trudged in.
Forgot to take my foldable seat, but never mind.
12pm start and I'm probably not up until 2.50 or so.
Eating at 8.30am and then one banana at about 11.50 was not the stuff of fuelling magic, but again, for 5k you can suck it up.
Lucozade and tictacs made little top ups with the odd cough thrown in.
I'm leg 8, the lowest down the order I've ever been, but finally got my short leg in, after 4 times on the long leg.
Makes sense though. A 42 year old SG needs to be mid/lower order in this level of event for the team to have any sensible chance of progressing.
I'm ranked 10 in the 12, with the 11th and 12th guys slotted in 6th and 10th, leaving a whizzkid at 12th.
Stare at it for a second grateful i've not taken a toe off, and think that would not have been a magical pre-start
To think I thought my main problem was whether I risked having a sip of some random's drink offered up, feeling a little clammy. I didn't risk it
Samson brings us back a couple of seconds behind a geezer. I go off behind him, but he's stretching off a bit so I'm certainly not going to overdo it here, as I'm not feeling mint condition, and having walked the course, i'd remembered it's a bit more slightly undulating than I'd remembered.
Although the truth of it is probably that if you're in top shape you smash it, if you're not it holds you up a bit, like a lot of course. In my superb 2022 form I'd got the long leg off at 5.40 ish...
I was slightly disturbed to see myself at 6.00 dead pace whenever I checked my watch.
Similar to that Hyde Park one, so maybe my watch is having difficulties recently...but on I went.
Some gimp who has clearly done his leg already decides to do a tempo about 5metres ahead of me, looking over his shoulder the whole time.
I'm unsure if this is good for pacing, or whether I should side sweep him into the cud.
Bearing in mind he's quicker, i'm in a race, and i'm not exactly hench, i decide to just carry on as we are.
Foster the team captain gives a "what the heck's going on here" look at me and my forward "shadow" and later says he assumed it was my mate.
I love the fact he knows I always pop up chatting to randoms for him to assume that
The course finally starts a slight down and I finally see a random 5.35 jump in. Goodness knows what's going on here.
Having missed the 2km sign, I get a weird 1mile split, and then about a 1min 21 to the next km, so it's all over the place
Matey shadow, who must be a decade younger at least decides to "go on son" me, which I chuckled at and the end is coming..
Down, flat, up gently into the track, then attempt to storm the last 200m or so, round some vet woman, and i'm trying to scrape under 18.
17.59.80 on the watch, obviously 18 on the results, and it's 13metres short of 5k anyway, so in reality 2/3 seconds off.
An exceptionally tight battle with Peterborough, and animated removals of the B teams and we actually have done it.
25th team, and thus qualifying for the Birmingham finals.
Noooo in the back of my head
But Yess for the actual team etc
Assume the motorway route would be "fine" hours later. It wasn't. Took about 1hr 40 to get the 55 or so miles of that route home, garhh.
Got home 7pm utterly wrecked, which for 5k raced and 4miles jogged sounds utterly madcap.