I tried this in 2009 and lasted about two weeks, but this time its for real. I'm cutting imperial measurements loose and joining the metric masses. So now there will be no more...8 min easy, 7:20 steady and 6:50 as marathon pace. Its more like 5:00 is easy, 4:30 steady, 4:00 is comfortably hard and 3:45 is a uncomfortably hard, 3:40 is a great big fkcicn effort, and anything faster than that won't last long enough to be  worth recording. Week 8 - Review The big news of the week in my world is that i came off antibiotics after having a tooth out. I'd had a gum infection for best part of 6 weeks now and during that time i have been pretty much on antibiotics ( 3 types) and pain killers ( the mighty ponstan) - anyway the tooth wasn't getting any better so i had it  extracted on Monday, i was a little tender on tuesday but by wednesday i feeling much better. It was like a foggy-haze had lifted, on reflection i think i've been all over the shop for the past few weeks and to be honest i'm glad to see the back of them prescribed drugs, there is no doubt - antibiotics are horrible things. I ran 5 times this week with three key sessions - the first was on tuesday - a steady tempo of 30' at 160HR (4:00 pace) with 20' either end. This felt good and strong - i actually like those sessions as they don't wipe you out completely  I then had two steady runs of 50' or so - all very handy.  Friday then was a 10 X 1' hills with 90" recovery - again this was a toughie but not as bad as the first time i did a hill session a few weeks ago - and the next morning there was none of the DOMS i got from the first one. Saturday itself was a rest day (from running) and thank god it was - cause i was up late watching a Mesrine doublebill over in a mates house and ended up sleeping over there as i was a tad drunk - so just about managed to do the recycling run and get to watch the rugby on TV -  and finally on today i did 27km in 2:00 -  so around the 4:30 pace but i finished strongly with a load of 4:10 km's. The Total running for the week 8 was just under 80km,  a little down on last weeks 92km but i had one less session. February 2010 Review Week 5  73.2km Week 6 79.5km Week 7  92.3km Week 8: 79.3km February was 325kms with an average pace of 4:39.  In reality it was the best that it could be 4 solid weeks of training, despite the infection, without interuption.  The stand out session was the 10km workout from week 7, won't look forward to doing that again, and i'm really starting to enjoy the tuesday tempo's I have 6 weeks to the first half marathon so hopefully i can keep training consistently till then  in the same vein.

too.hungover.to.type. Saturday; 7.6 gentle miles with my wife and a friend who live in the wilds of north west kilkenny - we don't get to run very often together so this was a bit of a treat. She is primed and ready for the conn half as well. Sunday: 14 awful miles in 1:46, In between the great saturday run and the grim sunday run was a house party that went on till too damn late....

On Thursday, i managed to get my 50' out of the way after work, as usual after a rest day the legs felt like they wanted to go, so i got around 7 miles in 51 minutes and felt good all the while. I finished work at 5:30 and managed to get most of the run done in daylight. More of that please. This morning i was up bright and early(ish) to do my second session of the week. The prescribed work out was 20' warm up, followed by 6/12/4/6 minutes at 10K pace with short recovery between. I felt tired enough as i went through the warm up, but in fairness i always feel sluggish before a session or a race. I had picked a stretch of road about 2 miles long which i thought was pretty flat (turned out it was less so).  Anyway, as ever the first was fine, the 12' was tough in that the last 3/4 of a mile was up hill, and i came off the pace (5:550 - 5:59)...so as i gasped along curing the rise in the road my bloodywatch was beeping at me to get back on pace. The third short interval was fine, and the last one was again tough going but at least on the last one of any session you know its nearly over. Capped off the session with a 15' warm down, and just about home in time for a quick shower and off to work.  On the way into work, i got a text from the club looking for me to run for the club in the master xcountry on sunday...only a handy 3 hour drive away...grrrr....

This week my training schedule includes three sessions - the long steady on sunday, a slower 75' run with 30' tempo on tuesday and a pretty harsh looking 10k work out on Friday.  I kicked off with a steady 50' race on Monday, the legs were a little stiff after Sunday's long run, but they eased out quickly enough. I was running with the head torch on country backroads so that is alway slightly hypnotic, yet you have to keep your eyes open for potholes on the roads. Tuesday was a 75 min workout with 30' at 6:20ish pace, i didn't get to it during the morning / day so i had to do it around the village  under street lights. Once again, i programmed the garmin to control the session and it definitely makes it easier to run these - its a semi-replacement for a training partner in that it focuses the effort.  The pace felt comfortable enough, clockwatching always make these runs drag a little but i managed to run without looking at the time left too often.  Final pace was 6:15. All in all, ended up running just under 10.9 miles. Wednesday was a 14 hour work day - so thankfully just a rest day.

I finished off the week with a 15 mile run in Kilkenny City with a couple of guys I know. I trained a lot last summer with one of them, Davy, as we were both going for sub 3's - him in Berlin and me in Dublin (and then Florence). He's a good runner and has put me to shame with his training over the last few months averaging 70 miles a week and doing some good sessions.  I ended up doing 15 miles with him, he was going on to do another 5. Its amazing how the miles fly by when you are running in a group. I think i might do more of that running. Straight after that, I jumped in the car and went to watch the Leinster Senior Mens Cross Country in Kilmacow. I brought my new Flip Mino video camera and manage to catch some of the action, which i stuck on youtube below. The race was won by Brian Maher from KCH, with two of my club mates Tommy (3rd) and Chris (7th) doing really well. Darren Spring of racepix365.com also ran a stormer to come 9th. So in the end of week, I finished with 49 miles and one session done, very happy with that.

For anyone who has followed the rise, fall and rise of uber-cool ethical clothing company NAU, this is an interesting Forbes article on the story behind the company. Check out their website here www.nau.com or follow them on twitter here Nau currently don't ship to europe.

Whilst i've had my garmin 405 for over a year now, i've had a bit of a love hate relationship with it. At the best of times it allows me track all my running without having to keep a detailed manual training log but our relationship becomes strained when i rely on it too much during sessions and races to keep my pace or judge how long is left. During the week though i managed to figure out how to put a workout session on to the watch and tonight was my first time using it like this. Tonight, i was to do my first proper tempo session since the last week of december, it was to be 3 x 12' starting comfortably at HMP and finishing at 10k pace. becuase i was working late i didn't get out to run until it was dark so drove the 10 miles or so to the watershed which is a cool sports facility in kilkenny, with  a pool, running track, gyms, indoor and outdoor football pitches. I did a 20 min warm up, and then first 12' at 6;04 pace, 2nd at 6:02 and finished with a 5:52 pace and a 20 min warm down. The watch made a huge difference to the session - keeping me on track, beeping at me to increase or decrease the pace and counting down each element of the session.

I went out this morning for my second easy run of the week. My ordinary days at the moment are 50' steady runs. I was awake around 6:30, and the kids were up as well - we had run out of milk so i had to pop to the local shop at 7am. This meant i didn't get out till 7:15 (after doing the kids' breakfasts), the upside was i had my first morning run without the torch. So I ended up doing just shy of 7 miles in 50 minutes, the only other thing of note to happen was i  saw another runner (which never happens around here). I am not sure if it was a male or female or how fast they were running - but its nice to know we are not the only lunatics in the village. My coach had a look at my test and he was happy with the following paces

• Easy:  138 - 142 bpm (no pace for this yet)
• Steady: 143 - 148bpm  7'23" min miles/ 4' 36" min K's
• Heavy: 169 - 174bpm or 6' miles/ 3' 34" min K's
• Maximal: 190+bpm     5'03" min miles / 3'09" min Ks

Tomorrow is tempo day...

As seems to be par for the course with me, once my running goes askew i lose all will to update. January was a month of stop-starts and each and everytime i thought i was back in action, I'd pick up another infection or cold. Looking back at my training diary so far this year my weekly mileage for January has been only shocking.

• Week 1 4th January 20.22 miles
• Week 2 11th January 27.66 miles
• Week 3 18th January 47.96 miles
• Week 4 25th January 5.20 Miles (sick with cold and toothache)

Anyway, I'm hoping i can draw a line under that now, and move onto a new phase of consistent and positive running. February kicked off with a nice strong week that included, a medium long run (75'), a long run (105') and a vo2max test in the performance lab in UCD. I had decided after the Florence marathon to get a baseline lab test done so I'd know where my fitness stood just after my sub3 race. I was hoping it would give me some insight into the optimal training paces and training heart rate zones. However through one thing and another, it got pushed out to the 4th of February. At this stage I imagine my fitness had declined considerably since the marathon. However, i didn't want to push the date out any further so just went ahead of it - at least it will give me proper baseline for this year. There were two components to the test; a sub maximal and a maximal. The sub maximal involved running on a treadmill for 3mins at a time, with the pace starting at a comfortable 9kph and increasing by 1kph. Between each phase i had to hop to the side of the treadmill and a quick blood lactate test was done. This was my first time on a treadmill ( and in fairness it was a massive treadmill, but i had to wear a harness and facemask. The first test was pretty comfortable, big effort was required for the last two sections only at 6:00 and 5:40 paces. I then took a 10 minute break and we moved onto the maximal test to get a reading of my vo2max. This involved running on the treadmill with the speed being increased from 10kph at 1 min intervals until i could take it no more! This was continuous. Again this was comfortable until about 17 kph (5:40 pace), at which point i started to hurt a little (!), i then made it to 20kph (4:50 pace) before burning out. It took a few days before i got my results back, but they made for interesting reading (to me!)

• Age (y) 39 (no surprise there)
• Weight (kg) 75.4
• Height (cm) 177.3
• V& O2max (mlO2.kg-1.min-1) 62
• Running speed at L threshold (km.h-1) 13
• Heart rate at L threshold (beats.min-1) 143-148
• Running speed at L turnpoint (km.h-1) 16
• Heart rate at L turnpoint (beats.min-1) 169-174
• Haemoglobin (g.dl-1) 14.8
• Total cholesterol (mmol.L-1) 4.77
• HDL (mmol.L-1) 1.62
• Glucose (mmol.L-1) 5.4

I sent this information on to J, but I don't think it makes much difference to his training plan for me. So in summary week 5 was a good one back on 45 miles and feeling good about it. It still a bit away from the 60mile weeks i was doing in august but i think by growing slowly i'll grow strong.

• Week 5: February 1st 45.94 miles

This week (Week 6) is another 45 - 50 mile week, with one substantial workout a 3 X 12' tempo run with 2.5' recovery on Friday. I'm also going to hook up with a mate to run on Sunday, he is 12 weeks from a sub 2:50 marathon and has been putting in consistent 70 mile weeks for a few months now.  He ran 2:59 in Berlin in August, so unfortunately for him - he is still behind me in terms of PBs.