Northern Ireland Running

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  • lisburn runner here too!!!!
    suppose i should be lisburn runner and not belfast runner as my login name.
    neil
  • Hi Neil - Do you run with a club? Just being nosey..

    Mrs Taz
  • no i dont Mrs TAZ.
    still very much a plodder,10 minute miler.
    usual run 3.5 - 4 miles 3/4 times a week around pond park/prince william/ballymacash area or hillsboro park.
    maybe consider a club when my fitness/ability is improved.
    how about you?

    neil
  • Neil - I'm a early morning plodder so I have to stay on the main roads, I try to stay on a route where the CCTV cameras are...:-)

    I used to run around Prince William area but stopped when there were reports of the flasher in the area....

    Mrs Taz
  • Morning all, and best wishes for new year. Good to see many people on this thread.

    James, am only doing around 13-15 miles at the moment as I only have time for about 3 runs per week. (hard to combine with work and evening classes!) I expect this will increase, but I'd like to do some speedwork as well and start it earlier than last year.

    Do you have any suggestions as I would like to get a bit faster..
  • CartmanCartman ✭✭✭
    hi all,

    I'm moving back to Belfast in a couple of weeks and am a keen runner. Main races for me next year are FLM and IM Switzerland. Although I will do he Belfast M as well (but very slowly).

    Currently doing about 60-65 miles per week.

    Have to be honest I was pretty worried about the running scene at home (given my mum keeps going on about how crap it is compared to England), but that website does have quite a few races.

    Are there any good running clubs around South belfast ?

    Jape, I'd forget about the speed work, you will just get injured and get tired, just run lots and lots of slow miles (<75% max HR)... Its working for me.
  • hello everyone back there in norn irn. I went to school in Coleraine up til 1988 then moved to England - living in Portsmouth now. Got into running about 4 years ago and regularly compete in 10ks, and the occasional 5, 10 miler and half marathon. There are loads of 10ks round here so I always have a training objective. Training now for Stubbington 10K, en route to the Reading half in March.

    My folks live in Lisburn so I might see some of you out plodding later in January (i'll be over for a few days).

    cheers!
  • Hi everyone happy new year.

    Hi James
    Hope you have recovered from Glenariff. The stiffness has only just gone away. I have been told that Saturdays conditions were the worst in the ten years the event has been running.

    Jape it would be unwise to try speed work if you don't have the miles built up. You could try incorporating speed it into you normal runs. Try upping the pace when you hit hills and jog down the far side or use lamposts or telegraph poles and increase the pace for a couple jog the next two and repeat. This way you anre still doing the miles but adding a bit of speed.
  • Sorry if I’m teaching you to suck eggs here, but a great piece of kit is a heart rate monitor - I've had one for 6 months and have reduced my 5 mile PB from about 49 to 42:01. You work out your max HR (bit of a punishing but only once a year session), and then your resting HR. In my opinion, there are only really two important heart rates - your 70% level and your 85% level. 70% is your recovery ceiling - the rate you do your long distance runs at (also your marathon pace)...85% is your threshold level - equivalent to your 10k race rate...and you would do your fast runs at this rate.

    The idea is as your fitness improves you can run faster at the same heart rates. In my case when I started using the HRM, I was doing 11 minute miles at 70% effort - that's come down to about 9:30 per mile in 6 months.
  • James, there's even a section on this very website covering HRM training. No, it's not just for potential heart attacks ;-) It's a very effective tool for monitoring and improving your performance. Like I said, I got my 5 mile PB down from 49 to 42 in 6 months. I've been using the HRM for 6 months.

    http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=176
  • Pompeyrunner, that sounds useful. Did you just run faster (i.e. kept your heart rate up) while doing your long runs then?
  • my long runs are all done at 70% effort - the way you calculate it is you take 70% of the difference between your max HR and your resting HR, then add your resting HR.

    * My max HR is 179 (measure this by doing hill runs, or in my case 4x400m sprints on the flat - you only need to measure this once a year thankfully)

    * My resting HR is 44 (measure this first thing while still in bed - you can do this daily and change your percentages accordingly - it's a good measure of your day to day fitness, and can give early warning if you are coming down with something)


    So for me 70% effort is:

    0.7(179 - 44) + 44

    = 139 bpm

    When I started using the HRM, i would run 3 miles at 70% effort (139 bpm) in about 33 mins. I now do it in about 28 minutes. What happens is as you get fitter, you run faster at the same effort level. Hope that's clear.
  • by the way i notice theres a lot of cross country in NI...i think the HRM would be less useful if you are running XC, as you are going to get random spikes in your heart rate, as you hit hills, jump over rivers etc. But its great for road running.
  • I use a heart monitor on some of my runs. The links on this site are very good and tell you how to use it. I find it very useful for the long runs on a Sunday morning as you can keep an eye on your pace, you can set upper and lower values and it will beep when you go outside this zone. During speed sessions you can monitor your heart rate during recovery if your heart rate hasn't droped you can take a longer recovery time. I sometimes wear it during races to keep a check on my heart rate during races to see if I can push myself a bit further. They have come down in price and are alot cheaper than they use to be.
    James if you go to the international cross country on Saturday you will be in the same race as the international runners and top local runners. I am lucky as a vet we run earlier in the day and can have a shower and enjoy the main races of the day. I wouldn'd recomend running if you don't have spikes as the ground will be soft and slippy after all the rain we've had recently.
  • hi all

    and greetings from north down, which by the way has a great club www.northdownac.co.uk. caters for all ages and abilities.

    check out the belfast 2005 thread on events for a pirate copy of this years route.

    good luck if you are doing the international on sat, fast and furious and no prisoners taken!!

  • James, it's true - at first you do feel a bit restricted. Before I started, my natural easy run rate was about 10 min miles. The HRM initially kept me down to about 10:30 min miles - a bit slower than I was used to. But after a month or so, as I got fitter, my times at the same effort level got quicker and quicker. My current 70% pace is about 9:30 per mile.

    The other advantage with a HRM is you can wear it in races - for example I run 10k's at 85% (159 bpm for me) - it gives you the confidence that you are running at quite a fast but not excessive pace and that you can maintain it for the whole race. Without the HRM, I had always started off a bit too slowly and never really caught up.
  • I agree with pompeyrunner, when I started using the HRM on the long runs I thought I should be running faster and could have gone faster. You tend to forget that these runs should be at a pace were you can carry on a conservation. But I kept within the limits and found that I could run faster and still keep within the zone.
  • James

    Look at Belfast 2005 thread on events not on teh NDAC site!!

    Didnt do glenariff, on way back from torn calf, may do bangor relays with club otherwise it will be the Junior Jan 29 which is tough going.

    I am 3hr mara standard and i use my hrm for tempo runs, and long runs where i am not looking at time and distance, just time in the legs.

    dont use it much for shorter steady runs or my shorter reps/hills. The fact that i cant breath works on those days.

    best to look into the ranges properly, many are just estimated guides and may well be 10% out, i used formula in Advanced Marathoning which takes into account resting HR and a work out for your Max HR

    good luck
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