an 8km (Raheny) and a 50km (Donadea) event got into a fight and…..mid-February update

training update

You couldn’t make this up. I was tipping away with a nice steady increase in my running volume since the start of the year, perhaps 10-20% more than I’d started with last year. All well und then one of those “are you joking me?!” injuries… It was mid-January I’d been in to do some squats - medium difficulty for me when running so perhaps 50% of my limit. There was bench left behind the squat rack and as I was conscious of tripping over it, I finished my squats, turned around and pushed without lifting up the bench onto its wheels. Unfortunately with the fatigue in my legs and the leverage position, I pulled either my hamstring or the tendon at the top of it. Serious pain and since then I’ve been managing a this constant dull ache and niggle. It’s a weird one in the sense that I could keep running on it, however, I was also very aware when pushing it, that it could really blow up….. Which lead to some serious decision making - would I do the Raheny 5-miler (8km) running event that had sent me a reminder email to tell me I had a ticket (ha - seems I bought it last November and promptly forgot!), or skip it to avoid the risk… We all know the answer here.

Raheny 5-mile (8km)

And so, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, I was on the electric bike cycling across to Raheny, all 13km into a solid headwind to both catch up with a friend and give my first ever' ‘short distance’ (yes, it’s not that short…) event a lash. Dropping the bike off, myself and Andy had a short 1km jog down to the registration desk, a painful queue for the toilets, a mad dash to the start line (getting close to the front as there was THOUSANDS of people taking part) and then go go go! I.e. no proper warm-up with strides, etc for what was going to be a fast run for me. With my sketchy hamstring. Sigh…. Anyway, what I can I say only that it wall went surprisingly well on the day!

It ended up being a 31 minute time which clocks in at 3:51min/km and what can definitely be said to be a personal best. I also ran my PB for the 5km time which just shows how little I’ve done at these distances. The heart rate averaged 165 also which implies there was a bit more in the tank also…..

Then, a nice social coffee, back on the bike and home.

All while carrying what was now a slightly louder groaning hamstring. Oh oh…

However, it was a real positive and I came away with a positive feeling for what was to come, even if I was looking at having to manage out a truly odd niggle….

The rest of January came and went and I managed to maintain a solid 70km/week (good average for me) before realising that with two weeks to go to Donadea, perhaps some physio was required. A trip to the excellent Musa at Pearse Street physio came with the feedback that was likely wasn’t the tendon (a good thing as that’s a messy long-term recuperation) and somewhere in the bed of the muscle. However, over the next two weeks, I still wasn’t getting in long runs and I realised as I fast approached the start of the Donadea 50km, I hadn’t run more than 24km in a single training run since early December. Gulp. Either way, I was doing it but it was going to be a real unknown on the day - would I blow up quickly? would the hamstring hold? Should I commit to just coasting so that I can guarantee the finish, or go out hard? Or go somewhere in the middle?

Donadea 50km

Which brings me to the Donadea 50km. Considering last year, I’d had to bail out due to an achilles issue, there was no way I wasn’t finishing it this year - that was a given. However, I was didn’t want to just cruise it - I hadn’t run longer than 2 hours and thought I’d get very very bored if I’d had to stay on my feet for 5 or more hours ;) So, the idea was formed - try go out at the top end of my Zone 2 according to the watch (that’s 130-150bpm) and see how long I could hold on. My previous goal had been to go out at 150-158bpm (zone 3 and in theory my marathon pace). That seemed risky with both a) my lack of distance, and b) that problematic hamstring.

The warm-up was….not great. Hamstring was tight, didn’t want to settle and it felt like I was dragging it. However, I had also come armed with a full tube of Voltarol (topical anti-inflammatory) so layered up the legs and decided I was going to suck it up either way.

How did it go? Again, surprisingly well! I had a good dialled in nutrition plan I was keen to test which involved one 500ml bladder with 1-1.5 scoops of Tailwind (so 25-35g carb) and a single SIS Beta Fuel (40g carb) or Precision Hydration caffeine gel (30g carbs) per hour and I managed to maintain that pretty well throughout the whole course with it only slightly falling down around 2.25 - 3 hours but then working well near the end. However, that 45 minute gap of a lack in energy really paid a price on my legs when they really tightened up in the final 10-12km and it felt like they went flat. This wasn’t just a lack of fuel either - I was well north of the distance I’d been covering in recent months so muscular endurance failure kicked in. I can only say I was working hard for those final two laps of 5km each and there was zero pop in the legs when I tried to push the last kilometre.

However, still a 3:56:05 finishing time left me with a very satisfactory outcome and 4:40min/km pace throughout. My watch had predicted a 3:25-3:30min/km pace for the event so I really wasn’t far off that considering the lack of big distance….. Also Nike Vaporfly 4’s work on flat trail events, who knew!

What’s next

So, where does that leave me? I’ve got 9 weeks to go to the next event, the Altar 100km in Avondale Forest Park in late April. There’s also a 2-week holiday in France early in April which will make it interesting to arrange long runs but that’s part of the game! I’m also excited as Naomi will be taking part in her first 50km even on the same looped course. Yes, it’s another looped course only this time, each loop is 3.2km long. 100km of this is sounding like misery so I’m currently debating if I’ll drop it back to the 50km and try beat the Donadea time….. If I do go for the 100km, I’m aiming for - at least - going under 10 hours however, and ideally 9 hours (so that works out as 2 50km events at 4.5 hours). I have a crazy idea to go out really hard at marathon pace and set a PB in the 50km, and then just coast the rest. What do you think? My feeling is if I can run this in a pair of carbon road shoes, and also get my fueling really dialled in (which means probably increasing from 65g/hour to 80-90g/hour also) I could have a very good day….

It must be an early lap as my shoulders haven’t started to slump :)