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
Tonight was Hercules Wimbledon's 5k festival. Plan was 74s for 15:25 pace to give me some leeway. Bit of a breeze, but the Wimbledon Park track is awesome, because its bounded by a line of big trees that prevent the wind coming into play. Drawn in the fourth heat of five, and it seems this one will be paced at exactly 74s. Perfect!
All I have to do in the initial laps is follow the pacer, who is doing an awesome job in hitting 74s every single lap. A couple of guys fancy a quick one and scoot past the pacer, but I'm not going to be drawn into that kind of malarkey.
Pacer lasts 6 and a half laps and then steps aside after having done a great job, leaving me in no man's land, because I'm the only one who stuck exactly with him. Three are further up the track, the rest are behind somewhere. Having to make my own pace now starts inauspiciously, as I am through 3k in 9:17, meaning the last lap was 76. I up the effort, and get back on pace, and soon enough one of the two ahead is coming back to me. I go past and forge on.
A couple of laps later though, whilst I'm certain my 15:36 PB is going, I feel 15:30 might be slipping away. Determination kicks in again. A km to go, and 2nd place is coming back to me quickly. I give chase, and this must help my pace. 2 laps to go and I need a 2:28 800. I can do this!
One lap to go, and I need a 74 to hit 15:30. I try to up the pace, and manage to summon something from somewhere. Pull alongside Kent chap in second, but he responds. We keep pushing each other, but at 100 to go he gets away. I don't care because I'm certain I've got the time. Resist the urge to look at my watch and just press to the line, crossing third in 15:28.30.
Yes! Well pleased with myself. 15:30 is a decent target in itself, bug doubly pleased as its just sub 5 minute miling. And I wasn't even rude enough to beat Simon's PB.
Great event. For those in the 15s -17s it is well worth looking at next year, assuming they put it on.
top work as ever Dachs.
3k felt plenty of laps, so fair play to you hardcore types being able to drill your brains mentally to keep thrashing it for even more laps.
Nice one Dachs, that's got to be your best run since Wokey in 2015? Looks like a marathon campaign is a must for your summer season
Pete - Thanks for the suggestion, I've entered Fleet and may do that as a speed session if I go for Abbey Dash as well. I think the thing about going all that way for a 10k is it raises the stakes. i.e. I better make this worth the trip, I better keep training properly if I am going to go all that way etc...
great pacing Dachs. under 15.30 is superb. cant believe i havent run a 5k in 3yrs now...will have to get one in next spring.
So who else is up for the big 3000m show down at Watford next week??
It wasn't Chris Greenwood, if he was there he would have been very much in the A race. The guy on the PA kept saying it was ? Phillips?
i might be at watford but i will be chasing the 1500m. (though if i did come down after my race i could pace you for 4 laps or so on 70s to get you going towards a sub 9? and i can watch the rest of the race curled up knackered on the side)
i have a race this sat and potentially a race on tuesday and the following sat. so depends how i go and weather reports to decide if i do the long drive down to watford)
I will be at Watford, together with my son who will be spectating. Would be good to have a showdown/meet-up. 70s would be too much for me though, it's 72s for dead on 9, so 71s is the plan.
It will also be my birthday, and what better way to spend it than running 7.5 laps of a track in Watford.
fingers crossed for a better birthday race than i had last year
and also better than birthday race 2009....not finding the actual venue
ok, if i come down, and you want a pacer, i will pace out 4 laps of 71s.
if not i will watch from the sides, eat chips, shouting encouragement every 71 secs or so.
I'm sticking to 72's at Watford. Can stalk Dachs easier that way
Another bash at the 4x 500m session with 5 min recoveries.
Ambitious target was 1:25, so through 200m in 34s, 400m in 68s and push on.
First one I was through in 34 and about 69, slipped to 1:29 though. Tough.
Then 34s, 1:12, 1:34...
36, 1:12, 1:34
Tried really hard to push on for the last one but it slipped as well. Something like 35, 1:14, 1:36.
Good week of training though. Will get out for my first double for a while at lunchtime and a longer hilly run tomorrow
Oh - and said it on FB but great race Dachs! Sub 15:30 hurts thinking about it.
Generous offer from Dean there. I'd offer a pro rata one, but offering to turn up to "pace" a one lap of 71seconds probably wouldn't do much of a job
That looks a very tough ask pace wise on those CC82. Reminds me of my 12 weeks sesh plan, with first 9 sessions achieveable, then 5x400 (rather than 4x500) pretty undoable, with 3min recoveries. Furious stuff.
Off to Old Trafford tonight. Appalling arrangements for my spare ticket. A long time ago pal was meant to be taking it, for weeks definite, and he'd pay "tomorrow", then pulled out last night, set me in touch with his pal, who was meant to pay this morning, didn't, has disappeared, and now i'm meeting some forum random up there!
This aint good for the breathing/stress levels I can tell you. Watch is off for this!
6miler beforehand, and i'm gonna keep this weekend sensible, no crazy thoughts of a parkrun, or combining with Blackpool game tomorrow. Get up there., see the game, relax overnight, get back....ready for a nice long un Sunday.
Last time I went to see Liverpool FC I combined it with a Liverpool Parkrun FF, you're duty bound, SG.
CC that does sound like a pretty tough target, why so quick?
Half Ironman this weekend then I am into an 11 week 10k training plan. Maybe.
The reps are supposed to be done at 800m pace. That's a theoretical pace for me off recent 3k time, but it comes out on McMillan as around 2:17. It's basically balls out speed work. It's pretty good fun actually - knock 4 of those out absolutely caning it and struggling to walk or stay upright at the end of it, but then feel fine about 10 minutes later. 7 miler at lunchtime at about 8s. My watch died right at 7 miles, so not able to check what the actual average pace was until I get it plugged in again.
nice ambitious target CC. to get fast you have to run fast... but as you say when doing them with proper long recovery that they have to be done eye balls out. i wouldnt feel bad about missing the original target...that will come the more of them you do and getting used to working at that pace.
Cheers Dean - I feel vindicated now
I didn't feel bad about missing the target because I know I was going hard as fuck...! I think I went a bit easier on myself on the 3rd one because I went through the 200 about 2 secs slower but then that was a bit more even paced throughout the rep. But then despite trying to push hard on the final rep, I was a bit slower...
I wasn't going to enter any 10k races for a while, but there are bugger all shorter races up here, so I've decided to throw in a couple of hill races and a couple of local 10k races over the next few months. Hopefully banging out some solid 10k sessions, balls out speed sessions and hills sessions, hit the XC over the winter and then start the year a good bit faster than I started last year...
Going to go for 8 (or up to 10 if I'm feeling good) x 1,000m on the track on Monday @ target 10k pace. Then next "proper" speed session will be the following Monday with 5x 200m @ 1500m pace (with a 1500m race 3 days later and a 10k race 3 days after that).
10 x 1k sounds fun! I reckon I would struggle to do that at the moment.
Went for an easy run at lunch and continued on to the track for a bit. I ran round the track at around 7:30's doing random 200/400s.
It was fun actually, I did the last 2 x 200's as negative splits 20 secs for the first 100 and 15secs for the second 100m. It wasn't flat out but made me realise 60 seconds pace for 400m feels quite fast at 40
Didn't want to risk injury with a Half marathon to run on Sunday so just kept it light.
I think I would find it hard to look at my watch and check the time if running as fast as I could! CC82 - I know it's a bit of a trek for you, but you should consider doing Stirling 10k for the Scottish champs on 11 September, as it's a fast race with a good quality field.
With modern watches you just need to press buttons and look at it later
Oh, I thought he was checking the 200m split to see if he was doing the right pace. If I could be arsed looking at it later I suppose I could do that. I mostly just leave the watch running and forget about it.
Managed to get out and do a few miles without problems. The mixture of cycling and running seems to work for me.
Highlight of the run was stopping for a chat with another runner who was on the comeback trail.
I mentioned a few ideas which worked for me, and he seemed mightily relieved that it didn't seem compulsory to bury yourself in order to progress.
I should mention that in his day, his standard steady pace was sub six minute miling!
Oh, and that his HM pb was 64 minutes, and marathon 2:17!
🙂
Week in Lyon. Really nice place for a run as the hotel was near the confluence of the Rhône and Saône so three ways to run along banks and plenty of bridges so out and backs were a little more varied. Next week in New Hampshire, USA, and a few Strava segments need recapturing after a few work colleagues have had cheeky pitches at them.
Where do you find this myriad of internationals/best In country types Ric, I've never heard of someone coming into contact with as many
Nice jet setting Phil.
Bit more glamorous than my weekend, which saw the usual 2.30-3hour trip to the north instead become a 5 1/2 hour horrible motorway slog. Evening game was good though.
Was delighted I sacked off the possible haul 50miles further up to Blackpool the next day, as I couldn't bear the idea of a late evening haul the 220miles back south after what turned out to be horrible weather and a 0-0. I reckon that probably would have taken 6-7hours the way the roads were!
Back to an actual run today, 13, 6.53 pace. Monitor (for what it's worth) reckoned a HR av of 157, with a top recording of 171!
As we all agreed the other day, too many variables, no history to work from, and no definites on the key factors like true Max HR to get too hung up on at this stage.
Still have the perception that I'm not breathing like I used to, but it's so hard to be sure, as you tend to tint the past as all very comfortable.
Sort of have a free run at it until about April next year when they're going to re-do the tests, so will look to do a couple more parkruns when they fit in, then possibly a 5miler, with no expectations other than keeping a good pace going, and not collapsing
Just a note on parkruns, I had a spare 20mins so got sniffing through some of the stats.
I think I clocked a guy who had won 230, out of 255 events. My first reaction looking at his recent record was that there were some slow winning times, but looking at his best, in the 15 and 16s, he probably only turns it on if he has to now, so tempo or cruises some.
Noticed some people have done a few hundred different events too. Think there are 400+ different ones.
Imagine taking a solid 8 years turning up at them all! In all sort of heck holes.
Now I'm comfy I won't collapse over a 5k race pace effort, I fancy racking a few different ones up, perhaps not 200+ though
There used to be people who set out to run every parkrun but now more than one a week starts up and you can only clock one a week so impossible task now.
SG, I have no fear about approaching top rate performing athletes. Never did. Where I live, there seemed to be internationals at every corner.
The guy I was talking to was at a 10k race just watching when in a moment of audacity; and in front of a mass of other spectators, I remarked, "Didn't you once run a HM at a pace faster than this?".
'Er, yes', I did once!
And then he had an audience all wanting him to relate in great detail how he worked it up a class field.
He got a round of applause for that one. About ten years after the event.
A load of us ended up in a pub with the stories of victories being described in a fashion that made them seem like our own. I guess sharing the moment makes it somehow valid and worthwhile.
The point is, the winners of races can't bring up the subject of their victories and then tell everyone about it, without appearing to be showing off.
It's different on the thread since we're all hoping for the story.
I discovered it's ok for 'me' to broach the subject (of others great deeds) and that gives the guy; often the first chance, to re-hash the race.
It can be very isolating to win most of the time. Not much common ground with the masses.
I give them a chance to join in.
I know this is appreciated. Which cheers me up no end.
It certainly puzzled many who couldn't understand why some runners ( even Olympians) choose to go running with some clod who never even made a county team at anything.
🙂
So, Olympics done - I can get my life back for a while...
The standouts for me were, Mo (obviously) securing his place in running history. The last 4 years have been tremendous for him. Doing the double at consecutive Olympics and Worlds is impressive. Hopefully he does it again next year and then has a good crack at the marathon in Tokyo 2020.
Other standouts were the 4x 400m ladies team - especially Emily Diamond. What a third leg! Callum Hawkins getting top 10 in the marathon. Andy Butchart running strong in the 5000m final. And the women's hockey team!
Back in the real world of mere mortals, a hilly 13.4 mile run for me at the weekend (with tender calf muscles after that track session on Friday - first time doing a session in spikes!), rest on Sunday and then 8x 1000m on the track this morning. Was going for 3:38 pace - pretty pleased with it, given I haven't done anything like it for ages:
1. 3:35.0
2. 3:37.6
3. 3:38.3
4. 3:38.2
5. 3:38.6
6. 3:40.1
7. 3:38.2
8. 3:39.4
Rep 6 - I think I lost my concentration in the final 200m and it drifted a bit. The final one was definitely due to being a bit f***ed though.