Daz Does Tri

Getting older has it's obvious drawbacks when it comes to running. What I find difficult is comparing times that I run now to times I ran in my youth. Clearly it's depressing (and totally unrealistic) to think about lifetime bests. This is why I always quote OAPBs !! There are a few good tools and indicies to use out there. WAVA is a great one for comparing times by age grading. The older you get the less fast you have to run to get a comparable time! This year is actually my fastest Age Graded year for many years! My best results this year are - (distance, time, age grading, age) 1500m 4:28.3 = 84.3% 45 5k 17:02 = 83.43% 45 800m 2:13.85 = 83.18% 45 Comparative to my 'best' performances as an OAP - 5M 26:47 = 80.6% 35 5m 27:10 = 80.25% 37 5k 16:37 = 79.81 35 Clearly my 35 - 37 year old self was faster BUT relative to my age my new performances are much better!  I like WAVA as a tool, it also shows that my runs are consistent this year even when (in the 5k) I didn't ...

... or the one with all the wind! Looking forward to this one, a chance for a decent 5k and from recent training a slim chance of an (OA)pb! Training has gone well. Raced Thursday night in Harrow over 800m and then an easy 9 on Friday and a shakeout 4 on Saturday. Early start - that never goes down well with me - to wake up the legs and collect Nic at 8am for the 45 min drive to Milton Keynes. Started to feel a bit under the weather in the last few days but nothing serious. Few early nights and I've been holding together but I am definitely on the verge of getting ill (if I'm not sensible!) #excusenumber1 Today's wind was pretty shocking too. 17 mph with 33 mph gusts forecast. I'm pretty surprised how many people turned out considering! It was going to be pretty exposed for several longish sections #excusenumber2 The course when warming up (and confirmed in the race) had some pretty tight turns to navigate. The Alphafly do not like going around corners !! #excusenumber3...

Tired is best way to describe going in to today's race! Easy 5k leg opener this morning and felt OK but after a crap nights sleep I have been feeling tired all day. It's possibly just apprehension about the race but def not feeling 100%. HR at 49 bpm (just ticked under 50 for the briefest spell) at 4pm after coffee and morning so not bullet proof but either way I am racing! Set off for the long journey to Harrow. Scene of many training sessions in my youth as I lived down the road for 2 years whilst at uni. Track in a bit of a shit state with building work going on. Nowhere to sit and mud everywhere. I digress. Warm up feeling OK -ish. I'm fairly apprehensive if I am honest as I have no clue what to expect. In my head I think 2.12-2.15 but anything under 2.15 will be great. Try not to get carried away thinking sub 2.10 lol Line up and we are off. 11 in my race, a mixed bag. Boys and girls, young and old, even another Preston in the V45 category! Start is quick but settles a...

Almost perfect week in the bag for this stage of training. 38 miles with a race, a tempo session, a speed session and a hills session. It's been a push this week as we build towards the next few races, hopefully capitalise on some good form and consistent training next week. The potential lockdown is a bit of a scare. It could kick in before I have a chance to bank anything else ! But we can only go on the information we have and right now it's all systems go (spoiler alert - it's not !!)  Legs are almost ok this week. Obviously I wake up like a 90 year old man but they come back to life fairly quickly. Need to continue with the s&c - it's a bit of a focus this week to make sure I stay healthy. That needs priority Mon, Tue & Friday! The idea is to pep the legs daily now to make sure I feel really, really good every day. Thoughts of how to continue to build fitness without taking risks are always at the forefront. This week will be pretty relaxed outside the 2 ra...

Strange week coming up. Race on the first day, lots going on at home, trying to recover and then a short and a long race next week to prepare for! As I droned on about yesterday - the race went really well. Yesterday I didn't manage to run as my plantar was playing up and incredibly sore. Lots and LOTS of rehab and today it was OK to attempt a session. Usual 5k tempo session. Met Ian at the bench and set off. HR was lunar but slightly  better than last week. 6.08/mm for the uphill section. 303w and 162 bpm avge but was into a decent headwind. I tried to keep a lid on the effort but HR peaked at 169 bpm which is still to high. Longer recover as I needed a piss and then back down the hill. Struggled this week as it was a lot more effort after Monday but managed to stay on top of the pace. Ian was much stronger today and dragged me round to a raggy 17.41 5k (5:42/mm) off 312w and I binned the HRM after the first mile when it hit 170 bpm. Decent warm down for a 9 mile day so long run b...

Finally, a proper race distance! I have to admit, I was cautiously optimistic about this tonight. In my head I know 4.30 should be do-able but as always until you have raced it's always hopeful guessing! Prepped pretty well today and legs felt good.  In the same race as Jacob so logistics were easy!  Headed to the track and arrived bang on 45 mins pre race. Mile or so brisk warm up, lots of dynamic drills and some stretching and the race came around pretty quick. Conditions were perfect tonight, it was St Ives but it could have been Watford Wednesday #memories Still in a strange place with Covid regulations but after being hearded into a call zone and jogging to start we were ready. Bang. We're off.  Race plan - settle in mid pack early. Start hard and relax as quickly as possible.  Outcome - straight to the back.  100m in and I am running hard to stay in touch with the other 5.  Jacob is in 2nd on Ollies shoulder. 200m in and I make the decision to back of...

I def need to make this blog more interesting.  I read back occasionally to get clues on fitness and what's working but by god some of it is absolute drivel! Decent week in the bag for me. 34 miles in 5 days and pace was decent (around 6.30/mm avge).  It's either the trainers  OR I'm in shape!  Probably just the Nikes but we shall find out tomorrow! Easing down this weekend, a nice solid progressive yesterday was a little quicker than I wanted but felt good. Rest day today to pep the legs up, lots of stretching and rolling plus I REALLY  need to eat well.  Tomorrow I'll do a shakeout and strides in the afternoon and then I just have to go an execute.   I'm genuinely excited about what sort of time I can put in BUT equally without having races in the legs you can only hope it's all good at this stage !! Got up early yesterday to get the Alphafly drop on the Nike website. If I'm honest, I don't know why I did it. I'm running up to 5k and I don't th...

Ironically just in time for the proper races to start ! So I have in the book 1500m next Monday, 800m on the 24th and 5k road on the 27th.  I have to admit the 1500m is the one I really want to go after.  Speed wise I have trained really well. I'm pretty happy with where I have got to and something in the 4.30s is a solid target. The 800m I am not so sure I have enough speed.  Certainly more than last season but the target is a 2.15 or so which would be very solid for me.  I hope next time I go back to specific speed training for indoors to progress from the 60.2 for 400m but at this stage I think the speed work will wind down a bit (although I'll do some specific work for it after next Monday). The 5k I was least confident about. I haven't done anything of any length or pace for bloody ages! So Wednesday I switched up to the 2 x 5k hill session (joined by mystery guest!). Long story short the session went well.  19 mins exactly for the 5k up hill @ 6:07/mm - HR...

Reading a really interesting thread on letsrun this week, basically about lower mileage runners - doing more intervals but at a controlled pace. The thread is about 13 years old and is quite funny because it has contributions from both Jim Spivey (World 1500m bronze) who visited my school sports day in 1987 and a really close pal of mine who ran a sub 4 mile. The main takeaway is based around using intervals more to cover volume but controlling the pace by keeping them quite short.  A great example is lots of 250m reps with 150m jog recoveries. Doing 3 sets of 4 of them with a 400m set recovery seems like a nothing session but is nearly 5 miles (7 with warm up, cool down) and the 250m reps add up to 3km which even steady will be at 4:45/mm pace! Jim is really interesting because he did low mileage, his pace was realaxed when not doing intervals (6:45/mm long runs!!) but he ran hard when he needed to. His easy days were just 20-25 min runs! Last few weeks I've tried to include strid...