Daz Does Tri

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...

Solid week training banked this week.  Very similar to last week but just trying to add a few more miles as I build a speedwork plan up to 40 miles per week! Decent 400m race (for me at this stage) on Monday so lots of confidence for the week. Intervals Friday once I had fully recovered although I was feeling very bleugh - 10 x 60 on and 30 off on the tready.  Felt much better than expected but this was followed by a tired weekend running! Bit of a busy week with lots going on so wasn't 100% focus. At this stage the plan is to keep building on what I am doing. Try and keep slowly adding more speed to the top end and a few extra miles and runs here and there to build economy.  If I can get that 400m to sub 60 seconds then I am really close to the bottom end of where it needs to be! The post session runs are VERY tired and laboured if I am honest. I'm quite enjoying running to feel - mainly 5 miles or so with strides in the middle - but I am 110% battered for a couple of da...

Every morning as I get out of bed I prey for good legs and not the solid mahogany ones that I seem to usually get. Today was so-so.  No major aches but the achilles certainly wasn't feeling 100%. As I settle in to my morning routine - 2 pints of water followed by 3 coffees before breakfast things settled down. Managed a nice easy shakeout 5k with some drills.  The best I could say about my legs is they were 'unresponsive'! Headed over to the track pretty late as I just wanted to arrive and crack on with the warm up. It's only a minute or so of effort anyway! Warmed up OK and dare I say felt not too bad considering how I felt on this mornings run. Was in race 1 with the girls from Dereks group. Combined age of the 3 girls was barely over my 45+ years! Got a decent start unlike last weeks 100m and settled in after a hard opening 100m. Tried to relax down the back straight and keep the cadence high. At 200m started feeling good and pushed hard around the bend. Hit the s...