All set for #DublinMarathon?

Almost there!!

You are just over a week away and you will be hearing all sorts of comments and advice over the next few days.

You may even get to the point of questioning yourself as taper madness kicks into overdrive. Have I trained enough? Are my shoes ok? What will I wear? Have I sorted my nutrition?

Lots and lots of little things will run around your head trying to distract you.

Ignore them all!!

Have confidence in yourself. 

You have done the training, you have sorted your gear, you know what you are doing. 

Trust yourself.

Here's a handy checklist to help you organise everything through next week. Remember don't sweat the small stuff, the big stuff is all taken care of at this stage.

Relax & enjoy!!

#AskAKW... Is it too late for Dublin Marathon?

Dear AKW, 

I have struggled with injury but am now back running again. My longest run to date is just over 14 miles. Do you think I should be ready for Dublin Marathon in 4 weeks?

Troubled Runner

#DublinMarathon Panic Stations

Ok I posted this in jest (kind of) earlier on Facebook, but this is a serious matter.

Post by Amphibian King West.

If you are training for +Dublin Marathon and have not replaced your shoes since you started your training program 9 out of 10 times your footwear is not going to get you to the start line.

There is still 200miles worth of running to be done before that medal is hung around your neck.

Don't leave it to chance, now is the time to change your shoes so you can have them well run in before the big day.



In fairness to the Dublin Marathon organisers they have been on top of the lastminute.com entries and given plenty of warning throughout the day, including this clever "significance of 2:02:57" *tips hat* to the recent World Record in +Berlin Marathon :

Post by Dublin Marathon.

Then following up an hour later with:

Post by Dublin Marathon.

Well done to everyone on the media team. 

Tell us did you get your entry in in time?

Taper Time for our #AKW Intermediate Marathon Schedule

Well done to you all!!!

I'm giving you the entire fortnight of taper sessions here so you can plan ahead for the next two weeks. I don't want you stressing about what you should or should not be doing, so here it is, mapped out for you.

WEEK 15 of 16 (#AKW Intermediate Marathon Schedule)

WEEK 15
Monday - REST (or go for a 4m (6.5k) easy run.)
Tuesday -  5m (8k) - hill running with 10 x 30 seconds efforts
Wednesday - steady 6m (10k)
Thursday - 5m (8k) steady with 3m (5k) at Marathon pace in the mddle.
Friday - REST DAY
Saturday - 4m (6.5k) jog with strides.
Sunday - 10m (16k) steady

Your weekly total volume should be 30-34 miles!


WEEK 16 of 16 (#AKW Intermediate Marathon Schedule)

WEEK 16
Monday - RESTDAY
Tuesday -  4m (6.5k) - Warmup then 2k at race pace plus 5 x 200m (faster) then warmdown.
Wednesday - easy 4m (6.5k) with strides.
Thursday - 3m (5k) easy
Friday - 4m (6.5k) jog with strides.
Saturday - REST DAY
Sunday - 2m (3k) easy with easy strides
Monday - RACE DAY!!!!

Your weekly total volume should be 39 miles!

If there is one piece of advice I can leave  resounding in your ears its this:

DON'T CHANGE A THING!

Nothing, nada, niets, nix, nothing!

Stick to your plan.

You have tried and tested your nutrition your shoes, your socks, your gear. It's all worked well so far, hasn't it? So don't be questioning yourself. I don't want to find any of you in the shop other than to top up your gels, or buy new laces between now and then! :)

Tapering is the biggest curse that the running gods visited on us. It is the time when we question our sanity, we start to worry about or training, our times, will we? won't we?

You will. There is no need to worry. You've gotten this far injury free (I hope) and you are reasonably fit and healthy. The training is done. The miles are in the legs. Tapering is all about watching the miles you've banked accrue interest which you can then cash in on Race Day.

Go with the flow on the day. And, above all else enjoy yourself!!.

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat

Quick update on the past month.

The last time I posted here I was flying high on a solid performance in the morning session of The Caveman down in Aillwee Caves.

The afternoon timetrial was a 4k run back out the reverse of the morning's route for 2km and then back up the final 2k of climbs. Tough, tough route. Not the easiest thing in the world given the morning session is a tough hill run but, hey, we were all in the same boat.

Bursting outta Aillwee Caves

I tired a bit towards the end of the run and finished up dropping one place to end up 10th overall across the two events for the day. Not bad for an auld lad!

All eager at the start.

Day 2 featured a 24k mountain bike circuit which was two laps in reverse of yesterday morning's run route (still with me?) to be followed in the afternoon by a 12k timetrial being one lap in reverse of this bike route.

Either way there was a lot of climbing involved.

Starting at the bottom of the hill, climbing up to the Cave entrance and then dropping down through the woods before scooting across the field and up through the mud and a looonnng drag up the back of the hills before dropping off the edge of a cliff.

The views were spectacular and looking at some of Chris Deakin's photos from the day you get to appreciate some of the views that I missed on the day:

He has tons more over on the Caveman Facebook page well worth checking out.

One of my 'favourite' shots of the day was this one which he took shortly after my race was over:

I'd done all the hard work, controlled the tricky descents and passed Chris on a bend and came off the bike. Nothing fancy, nothing stupid, just came off on a corner.

Hockeyed my left leg out of it. Realised during the clean up in the ambulance, elbow, forearm, hip, thigh, shin and most of all my knee took all of the impact. Inspecting the bike, it took a passting too, with the front derraileur attempting to relocate to the back of the bike. No damage to my Kask helmet though! :)

Race over, limped back on a bruised bike with a slowly seizing knee. Brave face to wife & kids who couldn't understand what had happened me as I'd passed them earlier in the top 6 or 8 of the field going out on the lap. They thought I had gone though when they weren't looking and reckoned I was just finishing the race, well I was, just not how they expected.

Race over, home, rest, icepacks, elevation and compression or something like that.

Roll forward two weeks of Zero exercise, Zero running and two weeks of progressively less hobbling and I'm standing on the start line of Dublin Marathon with the 3:30 pacers. I only came clean to my coach Fran the day before (he was wondering why my blog had gone quiet) so I was quite sheepish about an ambitious starting spot.

Anyway, I was going out the way I'd planned, if it goes pear shaped I was happy to stop and I'd always race another day.

Well it did.

Go pear shaped, that is.

I was sore from the start. I ran to plan though, even had time to pee in the park, the world's biggest public urinal once a year, and stayed with the pace plan.

Around the 10 mile mark the pain was solid, I could run, but I knew it was now going to be a case of just getting there. Around me Chris, George & Adrian were all aiming for the same sub 3:30 goal and we traded places a couple of times, shared the water bottle etc. No chatting, just running in the moments.

At halfway I was out. Hit the halfway mat bang on the mark for the target but I was going no further. I rounded the Kestrel corner, had to stop to pick up a water bottle and next step with weight on my left knee I was done. A wall stopped me from falling over in agony.

Nee, naw to the finish line (I won't joke about asking to be wheeled across the line in light of the idiots who did cheat) into the mediacl tent and a couple of painkillers later, a foil blanket, couple of twists and pokes of my leg and the Doc advised that I'd inflamed cartilage in my leg. Rest, ice, compression and elevation or something like that.

He did like my "I hope not!!" answer when he asked me "if it was a recurring injury?"

Almost 2 weeks later of progressively less hobbling and I'm considering my next move. The knee is getting one more week of rest and then its time to build everything back up slowly again.

Watch this space, cos there's going to be changes around here!!

Race Week -4

Its so much easier to create excuses in hindsight.

20/20 vision looking backwards means all the excuses will be well founded, beyond challenge and appropriate to the lack of action involved.

Last week was a fertile breeding ground for creative excuses but a running disaster.

Race week -5 Recovery week

Not a good sign when I start a recovery week with a sore throat.

This was something that always seemed to happen when I started a taper or just took the foot off the gas, the body breaks down a little.

Home from work and started into some Lemsips to try and avoid the inevitable.

Race Week -5.5 Catchup & Wrap

With my tail firmly between my legs after the disappointing performance last night it was time to have a look at things and address my training priorities.

I had been tinkering with my diet and training purposes. I was brought to ground very quickly last night on account of these factors and woke to the realisation this morning that I need to focus on the marathon first. I will explain what I'd been up to in another post.

For now, on with the week.

Race Week -6 - Volume going up!

This is my first full week officially following a training program. I spent a little bit of time transferring the program into my Polar Personal Trainer so that the sessions could be uploaded to the RCX5 ready for me to hit the roads.


Despite a long training week last week, and a busy day on my feet I still felt ready for the sessions that this week was lining up for me.

Race Week -7 Wrap up & Review

Sunday (cont'd)

Got a lovely little run in this afternoon. It was short and sweet, down through the woods and back. Nice to run the trail again, its been a while and the change of surface was actually quite a welcome break. The surface is relatively rough (relative to the road) but due to the recent rain quite 'squishy' underfoot so glad the old shoes came out.

All I wanted to do was turn over the legs so no main pace or time , goals, just a run to enjoy.

Sunday: 6.11km, 32:59, AHR 138bpm, APace 05:24/km

Sunday 16/09/12 - Training File

All in all, this was a great week of running / training for me. I have never put as much focused effort into my run training and hooking up with a proper training plan has given me a major kick in the backside.

Weekly totals:
Duration: 08:04 (hh:mm)
Distance: 95.1km
Calories: 8414kcal

Race Week -6.5

The second half of the week brought drier weather and a tendency to train more in the morning that at night. It doesn't matter much to me when I get out and don't mind running early or late.

Friday

A nice clear morning with a call for an easy recovery run (still working off my Polar plan) of 01:15 run. The new plan was a 45min run, easy, so I was happy enough with the overlap.

Felt really good and relaxed. Struggled a little with holding an easy pace at first, just seem to want to slot into a steadier 5:00/km pace.

Friday: 12.02km, 01:05:51, AHR 133bpm, APace 5:27/km

Friday 14/09/12 - Training File

Saturday

First official "Fran's Plan" session which was involving the Dublin City Half Marathon today for most of the group. I modified my session by recalling one of the previous weeks long runs.

What I like about this plan is the lack of traditional LSR (Long Slow Runs). I have the aerobic fitness and am working on specific race fitness and pacing. These are Long Progression Runs (LPR) and involve doing a little more work on tired legs.

So this LPR called for 30mins @5:20/km, 40mins @5:00/km and 3 x 15mins @4:45/km with 5mins easy in between. Great plans to be up and on the road by 06:30 but thanks to the Clarinbridge Oyster Festival & kids there was not a whole lot of sleepage, so late start, but I'd cover in work for the morning so not a complete disaster.

‏@amphkingwest

To the DJ playing music 3k away after midnight, it's not dollars you need, it's the belt of a hurl! Try it again tonight, I dare you.

Hitting the road, I'd plotted a nice route with some drags & exposed to wind too, again I found the easy pace awkward to run steadily to, but it worked out nicely. I wasn't using gels but did carry 600ml of High 5 4:1 (Carbohydrate : Protein) which I sipped at throughout.

In the review it turned out the pacing was spot on! 30mins @ 5:17, 40mins @4:55 and 3x 15mins each at 4:45, 4:45 & 4:41 all with 5mins recovery at bang on 5:00.

Saturday: 26.51km, 02:12:53, AHR 152bpm, APace 5:00/km

Saturday 15/09/12 - Training File

Sunday

Up early with the kids, Edel going out for her LSR. So doing a bit of active recovery, bobbing around doing housework to the tunz of David Guetta. Kids loving the action and dancing along with their spinning umbrellas.

A bit of stretching to loosen the hamstrings and hip flexors. Other than a little bit of tightness there are (thankfully!) no ill effects of a big week of running. I have a short, easy run to do this afternoon but first we are going swimming with the kids.

Full week review coming up later.

Race Week -7

Starting the week following my Polar program meant runs every day. Its only at the end of this week that I start to integrate Fran's plan into the greater scheme of things.

Monday
Night run in the lashing rain. I've an approximate 8k loop that is mostly off main roads so I decided to tackle this tonight to give me the added mental push of being cool, wet and having to pass the house before starting loop 2.

Loop 1 I bumped into a neighbour, Barry, who normally runs a Functional Fitness group on Monday evenings (I did a lot of Winter / Spring stuff with him earlier in the year). As there was just two of them they decided to run the first section with me & Barry came on and finished the first loop. Dropping him at his door, I'd pushed on, did my second loop, finishing with a km of extra push and home to dry off.

Monday: 16.05km, 01:20:07, AHR 152bpm, APace 5:00/km

Monday 10/09/12 - Training File

Tuesday

Tempo Tuesday has been a regular feature of my run this season. Expecting a 16-17k run in the planned time of 01:29 I reckoned on a few loops of a quiet section of road, to avoid any traffic & disruption to the runs.

Only thing bugging me was I forgot to clear the watch memory so after 15 mins 'Memory 0%' flashed up. Bugger!! So the plan stayed visible and I could monitor the sessions but I thought I needed to momorise the phase results. Not so! The clever people in Polar factored in silly people like me and the full workout was available. (Not all the HR data, but the summary and pace average for the whole thing was there)

Plan was 15 mins warmup, x3 of 15 mins (Zone 4) followed by 8 mins (Zone 3) with 5 mins cooldown.

Held 4:30-4:35/km for the intervals and 5:30 for the recovery on a windy wet night, happy days!

Tuesday: 18.01km, 01:29:22, AHR 151bpm, APace 4:57/km

Tuesday 11/09/12 - Training File

Didn't get to run Wednesday, had planned a light 8-9k easy run so considered a double day Thursday.

Thursday

Sleep would be nice! Early morning run. Set out with 15k intentions (01:15) and a short evening run. Made a complete hash of the turnaround figuring continuing on and taking a left would get me back round. Ended up going in a big circle (see the map) but with so many twists & turns I got befuddled when I hit my regular road again.

Only for a plastic bag in the ditch that I spotted on the way out, I was well & truly going the wrong way. Add a time pressure to get back & daughter to school & you can see why the HR & pace went up!

Anyway a steady / recovery / easy run, legs felt a bit tired but loosened out quickly.

Thursday: 16:39km, 01:23:05, AHR 146bpm, APace 5:05/km

Thursday 13th September - Training File

35,167 Steps - my road to DCM

My training, proper, for DCM '12 started in earnest this week.

I'm happy with my base aerobic fitness, its been a long busy year of training and racing. I'm happy to start building to my race goals.
I'm going to document the run specific training that I'm doing here in my blog and you can follow by using the tag labels below of 'DCM 2012'.

Post 70.3 and onwards to DCM 2012

So the Galway Ironman 70.3 is done and dusted for another year. Now time to settle down to some focussed running in an attempt at running my goal of 3:30 in Dublin City Marathon.

I've been fairly consistent with longish runs, tempo and interval sessions over the course of the Spring & Summer, so there's a solid aerobic base, just need to extend the run durations for the next few weeks.

This week was mainly a recovery week from the exertations of the weekend and I knew I'd be busy making up for time off work, plus I had an off-site analysis and shoe presentation to do in Athlone this week.

Running this week:
Tuesday (4/9) - easy recovery run 4.8k, 27 mins AHR 131bpm APace 5:46min/km
Friday (7/9) - a basic run to stretch legs 13.7k, 01:07 AHR 150bpm APace 4:53min/km
Sunday (9/9) - basic run to work 9.6k, 46mins, AHR 155bpm, APace 4:50min/km

Total for recovery week: Distance 28.1km Duration 2:21:08

Next week will bring the training back in earnest.

Trouble? (27th September)

Tempo run planned for this morning.


Set off nice and easy, usual 15minute warm up followed by a step up in pace for 12 minutes and a steady 28 minutes in Zone 3.


The problem was I developed a pain in my right knee. I've been pretty religious with my rolling with The Grid but had a high volume week last week (relative to my normal running) so I put it down to wear and tear.


I haven't really been troubled with the muscle soreness or joint pain you hear all the horror stories about, so far. Bar a little discomfort in the afternoon after a long run handling the stairs I've been pretty good.


This pain is something new to me. It's like ITBS but it's not. I've had not ITB problems since I learned how painful it is to release the band, so I look after it.

I ended up walking in the last bit of the run and there's no clicking. Just a sharp pain. A bit of rest and ice should do it.


Ah, maybe it's just my old age.

Sunday Slog (25th September)

 Its so easy to break the habit of regular updates on this blog.

This is the first Sunday LSR with my training partner as we get into the final push of the build to Dublin Marathon. Our plan is to gradually increase the Sunday run from 26/27k to 32k over the next 4 weeks before starting to ease back on the final fortnight run in to the event.

At this stage I have started to leave the Endurance running program as designed by www.polarpersonaltrainer.com behind in regard the long runs. The program is not specifically tailored for the marathon and is a general program for developing endurance.


The long runs are being done as empty as possible. Starting without food and only bringing water or electrolyte drinks to ease the thirst. We each have a couple of gels along for the 'just-in-case' senario.


The run out to the main road is grand. There is nothing really to say about it other than its nearly 3 hours of running along the side of a road. We were being conscious of the camber and the possible effects on the body as the result of excessive angles.


Over all the run was steady, I again was using the stride sensor and the figures are slightly out with the actual measurements, about a km short when compared to the Garmin measurements.

Fridays Retribution (23rd September)

After the disaster that was Thursday's interval non-happening I had to get out and bring the mileage up for the week.

BTW what do you call the increase in mileage when you measure in kilometers?


 This is a straight forward run, nothing fancy. Keep it in the Zones and throw down the distances. Aim is to run for an hour and get 10k under the shoes. It's all accumulating exercise and getting used to being on my feet for extended periods of pounding

HRM Data

I find my recovery is getting easier and easier. There is little or no stiffness in my muscles after the long runs. The knees are a little tender but having built up the distances slowly, the pain eases with no lasting effects. It's a good sort of pain!


The Training Summary is showing the issue I'm having with the footpod, the actual run distance is 10.3km where the pod tracked it as 9.91km.

Its just skews the data enough to be annoying. My average pace for this kind of run should be around 5:45min/km and retain a mid Zone heart rate averaging 139 / 140bpm.

It's interesting how the footpod did pick up the very end of the Cool-down where I did a short stretch of quick feet with high knees and kicking my butt.

Interupted Interval (22nd Spetember)

Not a chance of waking me.

Well the planned session didn't start the way it was meant to.


At 7:40am I woke up after cocking one eye at the alarm clock to discover that I was 40mins past the alarm time and10 mins late for an agreed start time for our Interval session, never mind not getting a coffee!


Out of the bed check outside the window, no sign of Conor. 

"Ah!", methinks, "He must have slept in himself, no harm, I'll go down and ring him to find out where he is."


Missed calls, missed texts, missed Tweets, I think he got there before me. 

Now I feel bad. Dragging him across the city for a run and there I am having a lie in.


A change of clothes that would make Superman jealous and I was off out the door hoping that he was sticking to the plan.

After a 15min Warmup we'd agreed to do repeats of 4mins down to the gate at Clarinbridge with 6mins recovery back to the church followed by a Cool-down.

Sure enough there he was, parked in Kilcornan, and running laps of the avenue.
I did catch up with him and the inevitable slagging commenced.  

A fairly dismal day out and we got drenched.The session didn't last long. I was tired having had a very poor night with the kids back in our bed again, a couple of little niggles became an excuse and we headed back to the house for coffee.

The lack of results speak for themselves, I'll have to make up for this tomorrow.

Tempo Tuesday (20th September)

Back to a tempo session again. The program is moving on a little each week, 5 minutes are added to the tempo run over last weeks planned session. The time in Tempo is increased slightly.


The plan for today is an hour, covering a distance of 10.5km. Starting a little later than I would normally like meant I knew I would be getting tight for time on the back end of the session.


Out from the house for the phased Warm up of 15 mins followed immediately with a step up of pace for 11 minutes.


Maintaining an average pace just below 5min / km and keeping within the prescribed Zone 4 is where I need to be at this stage, sticking to the HR training program. The weather however was atrocious and the last couple of minutes where my HR spiked out of Zone 4 and into Zone 5 is as much a reaction to the bitter cold of the rain water as an increased effort needed to 'puddle jump'.


It almost became interval training trying to run between puddles and dodging cars, trucks and buses. The road is always quiet and I reckon these vehicles were trawling based on the following formula:

puddles + runners = great craic for arsehole drivers

As I expected, I did have to cut the cool-down short. Not just because of the time but I was also freezing, being soaked through and a cold wind coming across from the West is not pleasant. You'd think I would be better prepared for the weather.

 I finished up 4 minutes early and 800m short of the plan. So not bad. If I can I would like to stay slightly ahead of the time and distances, but otherwise I know that the plan has now merged pretty accurately with my current abilities.


Training Result 20.09.2011 08:22

Sunday Slog (18th September)

HRM Output for the LSR

Its been a while since I've done a proper Long Slow Run. 

The run at the end of the 70.3 was an LSR by default and doesn't count.