The Course

As the weeks tick by the Trim 10 Mile begins to loom large. This week after a tough, tough session on Tuesday where I completed 10 x 4 mins at 10k pace with 1 minute jogging rest in between and a light 5k with a mate along the banks of the Boyne Saturday morning, I decided I’d jog the 10 mile loop for my long run.

So for this week’s entry I’d thought I’d give you a sense of what to expect.

The start of the ten-mile is nestled into the Athboy Road side of Oakstown Business Park just outside Gerry Ellis’ friendly shop. Having warmed up jogging down from wherever in town you might have parked and finished with strides from AB Hire (good for coal) to SmartParts (good for car parts) you will be ready to go.

From the gun, you hit the Athboy Road and take an immediate left. Then after a short rise up you will have a nice slope down towards Lidl before the road turns left and you head off out into the countryside. With the hill and the cheers of local residents encouraging you on it is easy to hare off too fast. Resist the urge. You will regret it later. After a kilometre you pass by what will be the final stretch on the way back. Fifty metres later the road forks and you swing right and away into proper Meath country and the first mile-marker.

The second mile sees you continue to roll on out through Clonbun in what could be considered section one of three. As you approach the first short climb leading you into the wooded area of Carrollstown you should hopefully be starting to settle into the race at a nice pace that has allowed the body to warm right up.

With this section generally well-favoured towards the prevailing wind, as you pass by the Woodbine Cottages on your left and the townland of Cooltrim (what a name!) the third mile should be where you begin to really enjoy the race. For those urban dwellers among you, don’t forget to smell that fresh country air and to take in those first early green shoots of spring. I can promise you, you won’t be doing that at Mile 9!

As you enter mile 4 it is eyes on the road time as you hit a few blind corners. With the road being well-marshalled you won’t have to worry but all the same make sure to stay on the right on your way round. As you reach the end of this mile you will hit the rise that brings you into Dunderry. I once did my gear-box here and ended up having to coast into town parking up at the church. But don’t worry, that says far more about the state of my car than it does about this little incline.

No sooner do you enter the village of Dunderry (Meath Senior Football Champions 1995, y’up yur boyo!)  then you swing a sharp left and head out of it. Dunderry, is a strong-knit community and very welcoming so don’t worry if you catch a glimpse of what looks like a body hung from a lamp-pole, that’ll be a scare-crow with their village colours of black and white. Either that of a Saturday night reveller from Horan’s sleeping it off.

Once out of Dunderry you will now start the second section, effectively the shortest side of what is a three-sided triangle, as opposed to the four-sided triangles found elsewhere in Meath. This section can sometimes be directly into the prevailing wind so finding shelter close the hedge-rows or behind really tall-runners might not be a bad idea if a breeze is up. Sometimes this can be the toughest part, not helped by the first of two light but longish inclines. Just keep persevering. Remember, there is a graveyard just up ahead!

While a graveyard might not be the most inspirational of sights mid-race, this old ‘reilig’ is a welcome landmark, because when you pass this, you have 8 and a half k complete and are now well over half-way done. Use this mental plus to help you up the second incline of this section. If you can get past this one, then soon after you’ll hit a sharp left and aim for home.

Though only a couple hundred metres will see you finished mile 6 don’t take off just yet. The finish line is still a bit away. A few nice stretches followed by another little incline will see you through the townland of Cannistown and then into the outskirts of Kilbride. You will know you have reached the outskirts of Kilbride both due to the 7-mile marker and also by the fact that houses are almost built right beside each other!

Heading through down-town Kilbride (the church and school) if you are feeling good and there is no wind or it is only coming cross from your right you might like to push on, beginning with this nice straight-stretch out of the village. If however, you are starting to feel the burn a little too much then I would hold off a while and wait a few more kilometres before a final up in pace. Instead keep the legs moving as you follow the road round left and then back into the lightly curving country roads.

At mile 8 you are not far from home but there will still be two small inclines waiting for you so watch out. The first is in the middle of mile 9 while the second and slightly more ‘bite-ier’ is near the start of mile 10. Get through this one and you are nearly home and hosed.

Once past mile 9 look to Trim in front and right and the sight of the medieval Yellow Steeple calling you home. Once you see that you are nearly there. As soon as you spot it after one last short stretch you will reach the fork in the road last seen in Mile 1. From here you can start to open up the throttle knowing that you have succeeded. The winter training has paid off. Fifty odd metres and you swing right into the business park once more and the final straight. Increase the speed and as soon as you can read the race clock and the finish line, wipe the face for those end of race photos and empty the tank on the sprint home.

You’ve made it. Well done.

Of course, that’s still a few weeks away! In the mean-time we still have this week to think about:)!

This week’s training:

Slow run: 40 minutes.

Tough run: 10 min warm up - 25 min tempo run - 10 mins warm down.

Long run: 90 minutes slow.

The home-country

First up, if you’re training has unravelled a little over the last few weeks, never fear. Put off hopes of a personal best and concentrate on the basics. And the basics are to just go out and run. Between now and race day focus on getting out and clocking up some miles. Resolve to wrap up for the coming cold, toughen up and team up. If you start doing it from this week you’ll still be fine. You’ll be able to get around the Trim 10 mile and you’ll be all the happier for it.

As for me, the training continued though not for the first half of this week. In fact, the only training related activity I did was to buy a new pair of runners from my friendly local running shop. For the next three days, I broke these in as I walked around Madrid on a short family holiday. While this was fun and walking is exercise, I failed to get out for any runs. Part of this was because our city centre location was so good it meant a bit of a trek out to find a decent park to spread the legs and part of this was due to the fact that our little 15-month girl took over the double-bed moving across it each night like an Atlantic weather-front meaning slightly disrupted sleep and thus more desire for lie-ins than run-outs.

It wasn’t until Friday that I got out. And for this I took off on a short but very enjoyable run along the regular route from my home to the nearest pub and back. (I didn’t stop when I got there). It’s about 7.5 kilometres and despite going a little faster than a slow run it was not fast enough that I couldn’t enjoy the mild weather we’re still enjoying.

Saturday I got out again, this time in the company of a bunch of my students from school who are the cross-country team, or several of them anyway. With their season culminating in races late January, a few sessions organised over Christmas have given them more of an opportunity to meet up and keep up their training as well as give me extra impetus to get out and get the legs moving.

Finally, not wanting to let the three-times a week slip I made it out Sunday for a 10k race. Having not indulged at our club annual party the night before I took off for the home country of Westmeath where both my parents are from to compete in the wonderfully well-spirited Lough Lene Gaels 5k & 10k in Collinstown. Here, having called first called into a relative to clean the gutters, an unorthodox warm-up I admit, I lined up with a few fellow runners for the scenic though very undulating G.A.A. club fund-raiser. With a killer 2k uphill coming home, despite giving it a rattle, I didn’t manage a personal best but came home a very respectable 9^th, something my dead relatives in the graveyard I passed 200 metres from the end would have been proud of!

This week’s training:

Slow run: 40 minutes.

Tough run: 10 min warm up - 4*6 mins intervals with 2 mins recovery - 10 mins warm down.

Long run: 80 minutes slow.

* Photo credit – Lough Lene Gaels

An A- Z of Food for the New Year

With it being the New Year and everyone keen to start some new positive habits, I thought it might be nice to return to the A - Z of eating specific for the everyday runner. 

As they say a car is only as good as the fuel that’s put into it. So goes the old adage that is oft repeated in running. And it is true, something that any one who has ever filled up their Volkswagen Golf TDi with petrol will tell you. Eating is important. It is the fuel that drives you forward. So with that a mind, here are a few tips that you don't have to take too seriously:

A: Avocado

A superfood that contains protein, carbohydrates, dietary fibre and fat. You could live off avocados and some people do. Unfortunately, those people don’t tend to marry.

B: Banana

Potassium, carbohydrates, the energy fruit of kings.

 

C: Crosse & Blackwell

Perhaps not. Beetroot has fast become of late a superfood and one that is both very accessible and supposedly very good for you. Personally I like to chop mine up and bung in the oven to make sweet tasting chips. Whatever you do, don’t, under any circumstances, decide to take a “short-cut” and buy a jar of Crosse & Blackwell, drain off the “juice” (It’s not juice, trust me) and drink it. You know who you are!

D: Doughnuts

Okay, not the unhealthy doughnuts but the healthy ones that most everyone calls Bagels because that’s what they are called in New York. Still they are circular with a hole in the middle so how are they not doughnuts?

E: Eggs

Hmm… Eggs. Outside of Monster Munch is there a more universally good food out there?

F: Fat

Controversial theory that we should all be eating a fat-based diet and not a carb. While fat is something like 6 times more difficult to burn than carbs, if you are doing a fat-based diet then your body is used to burning it so does so efficiently. As a result, the argument says it is a much better fuel source. I would consider it more except for the fact that I am 37, I like potatoes, pasta and porridge so changing my whole diet to find 3 minutes is a step that I think I’ll leave to another generation.

G: Goji Berries

Might shave 4 seconds off for you and help contripation. Not sure what else they do but they are expensive, are in the health aisle and begin with G, which I’m struggling with.

H: Herring (and other oily fish)

Fish full stop is good but they say the oily fish (i.e. the one your mother used to cook you on Good Friday) is pretty good as a recovery.

I: Irish potatoes

Or sweet potatoes for that matter. Doesn’t have to be all pasta you know.

J: Jaffa Cakes

Supposedly good in the hours leading up to a race. I have my doubts. I remember my local soccer team eating them on the eve of our local cup final because we heard the did the same in England. About 2 or 3 lads threw-up before kick-off. They weren’t included the following week in the replay.

K: Kellogg’s Cornflakes

Okay, not a running food but having given it up for breakfast (see Oats below) I couldn’t possible go cold turkey on cornflakes and expect to mentally stick with.

L: Liver or Lentils

Two of the most difficult to include foods out there. I mean how many children get excited hearing their having a liver curry for dinner. Lentils are great (if you can remember to leave them out to soak the night before. Doh!).

M: Mother’s Brown Bread

Any brown bread will do as a great slow release food but only your mother’s brown bread tastes this good.

N: Nuts

One food I am not great at eating. Partly because I am not a horse and partly because we just didn’t have them growing up (and monkey nuts at Hallowe’en doesn’t count!)

O: Oats (as in Porridge)

When I finally heard that eating cornflakes for breakfast was like heating your house by burning paper, I finally turned to porridge, now a breakfast staple. This with a few Chia seeds (fancy-ass crunch) and local honey for my sweet tooth. Sorted.

P: Pasta

This carbohydrate is synonymous with marathon and long distances these days with most major city 26.2 milers complete with pasta parties the night before. For the unfamiliar, while these parties might at first sound like something you’d catch Silvio Berlusconi and his tan at, they are in fact big pasta meals where gaunt looking marathon runners swap last minute tips on how to avoid nipple chaffing and 40 mile training weeks.

Q: Quinoa

The most popular carbohydrate amongst hipster marathon runners.

R: Rice

Good old rice. Maybe not as popular as pasta or love as our spuds but pretty good nonetheless.

S: Spinach

Not Popeye energy giving but a recommended natural anti-inflammatory for those long-runs.

T: Tuna

Quick protein, easily accessed. My wife’s favourite along with sweet-corn.

U: Unfizzy Coca Cola

a.k.a. Flat Coke. I hear it is still all the rage. Never tried it.

V: Vegetables

A no-brainer here. Plenty of veg, particularly of the green variety.

W: Water

Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate. Practice walking around with a bottle at work.

X: Xylophone

Full of er… iron?

Y: Yellow Banana

Didn’t we already have bananas down? Yes, we did but no harm having a few more.

Z: Zucchini

Or is it corgette?

Half-way done.

Standing in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts with the sun peeping out through the morning clouds you could almost kid yourself into believing it was the break of dawn of a mid-summer’s day. There was a little bit of a chill in the air but other than that it was bright, dry and windless. Mad to think that it was in fact a quarter past nine on New Year’s Eve!

Waiting for some friends to come on down for my week’s long run I found myself not only looking back at what was an up and down but ultimately very rewarding year’s running but also a Christmas festive season safely negotiated. With only a few social New Year’s drinks to come this evening I had managed to dodge the festive bullets of too much food and drink and not enough runs. I had eaten, drank and been merry (if not intoxicated much) yet had still gotten out for a decent slice of training. If you managed to do the same or something similar, fair play. You’ve know reaching the half-way point with the Trim 10 Miler now in sight.

 

Sometimes successful training can hinge on a few factors outside your control. You may come down with a bug that knocks the stuffing out of you or you might have a wedding that sandwiches Christmas Day turkey with New Year’s Eve drinks meaning going out training is next near impossible. Encouraging training buddies might be away for the festive season or the weather can turn into an absolute beast. For me I couldn’t have asked for more. The weather became mild once again. Friends hung around that I could meet up with and there was surprisingly a dearth of weddings and winter bugs. When you add in the fact that I teach and am off longer than many of my mates, I couldn’t really ask for better.

In the end I had a great old week’s running. My first run of the week, a Tuesday tough one in a local 5k race, saw me break a PB for the distance! The race, the Navan Athletic Robbie Byrne 5k was one of a myriad of Christmas outings that offered the opportunity to do a fast run in the company of others. On yet another fine December morning I found myself tracking a student of mine the whole way round. While this might sound suspect it wasn’t and by managing to never lose him completely I ended up running in 7^th in a time of 17.26. Goes to show what waking up half a dozen times before 4 o’clock by the 15-month old can do for you!

This was then followed by another tough Thursday session on another mild, dry day where I led out some students of mine who I train/organise the buses for. And finally I capped this with a final local long run out New Year’s Eve with old friends making this possibly the best week’s training this winter. Go figure. This probably won’t last but for now I’m happy to bank the mileage and look forward to week 6 and 2017.

Slow run: 40 minutes.

Tough run: 10 min warm up - 20 min tempo run - 10 mins warm down.

Long run: 70 minutes slow.

If you’re still going, well done.

So, after “Christmas Party Season” we had some “Winter Weather Proper Season”. For the last several weeks and months the weather has been great. Of course, if you were visiting from somewhere Mediterranean it might not fall into your meteorological definition of great, but for us Irish it has been a lovely winter. Very little severe frost, an absence of poorly named Atlantic Storms and little in the way of sustained stretches of rainfall. As a runner, it’s been excellent. That was until last week when the weather closed in and it finally felt like winter. Cold, damp, rain, wind and Storm Barbara. In this type of weather, it is oh so easy to swap the Brooks for a Bake-Off, their Asics for an Attenborough, the Garmin for a Gogglebox as you close the curtains, turn the heat up and break out that box of Seasons Greetings.

It was those Season’s Greetings that I was thinking of as I wrapped up and took off along the side-streets and foot-paths of town on Tuesday night for a short run. Thankfully I had my brother home from Oz for company, which just about got me through. Despite the fact, he had only just left 30+ Celsius summer sunshine Down Under, in his veins still runs Irish blood so he didn’t mind (much) the bitter wind, the icy chill and the flicks of rain.

He proved good company again on Friday when we got out for what was only my second an only other run of the week. It was a fast session with 3 minutes on and one minute recovery repeated four times. On the way, out Storm Barbara’s tail-wind saw me fly along at about 3 and a half minutes a kilometre pace while on my way back getting below 4 minutes a kilometre seemed a terror. Winter weather I tell you!

Thankfully the weather is due to change a little once we get pass Christmas weekend so if you can get past Saturday and Sunday and into “More Turkey, Ham & Stuffing Season” then you’ve done well and are almost half way through.

Slow run: 40 minutes.

Tough run: 10 min warm up – 4 x 6 mins intervals with 2 mins recovery - 10 mins warm down.

Long run: 60 minutes slow.

Finally one last idea. There are plenty of Christmas 5 and 10 k events that you can use for your tough run and to burn off that Christmas turkey and ham.

https://register.primoevents.com/ps/event/TrimAC10mileroadrace

That was tough

So training was tough last week. Part of this was because we’ve entered the staff night and ‘Christmas Season’ season! A place where intervals and long runs do battle with office parties and burgeoning lunches. It will be hard for everyone, but persevere!

For me the training week ultimately proved rewarding. That’s the thing about tough weeks; the tougher they are the more rewarding they prove. The more you give, the more you get back.

Tuesday I did my hardt session but my lateness (a characteristic that seems to define me these days) meant that by the time I arrived down, the lads had already completed 9 of their 10 reps. As a result having met them on my third run I only got to do one more in their company before I was on my own. Doing intervals on your own isn’t fun. It’s far from fun. It’s damn hard so it is. It’s the type of training that’ll put hairs on your chest my father would probably tell you. While I can neither confirm nor refute this, I certainly would say that it does make you stronger, physically and mentally.

Physically there is nothing better than intervals to push the ceiling upwards. In effect this training will allow you to run faster for longer. Mentally, running intervals on your own will harden you up, as long as you can complete the set. At number 6 (of 10) I was getting tired and cursed my lateness. At 7, I kind of thought that 8 would be plenty. At 8 though I thought I’d do this and then decide. At 9 I told myself that this would be the hardest one to sustain if I did it. And then at 10 I smiled, gritted my teeth and was thankful that was now the last.

Thursday was a light session of no more than 30 minutes, up and back from my parent’s place while they took on child-minding duties.

And then Saturday was my long(ish) one. However it was also the Meath Cross Country Championship Day so my long(ish) one was also going to be another tough one with a good dose of hills. 5 miles – 8 km – even if my watch read a little more on finishing. And all of it a hard slog up hills, down hills, along riverbanks, around steeples, through gates and beside ditches. The weather was beautiful, the scenery stunning, the going soft and the running hard. You don’t get many better courses. Although I must add, being my first cross-country race since I was probably 15 means I am not the best judge.

Usually at the end of races you don’t want to leave anything on the course. Saturday though I made an exception, I did leave something on the course (or at least just a little bit off it). Thankfully the early week rain should have washed it away by now! As for the time, I was delighted to come in feeling strong, though fecked in a time of 31 mins 29 seconds.

Not only was it a good boost to see I hadn’t lost much since October’s marathon it also meant that when I re-entered Christmas party season later that evening I did so guilt-free.

So this week’s training, and apologies if you have already kicked off is:

Slow run: 40 minutes.

Tough run: 10 minutes warm up – 15 minute tempo* run – 10m minutes warm down.

Long run: 50 minutes slow.

Thanks Ciaran for the photo.

Intervals & Tempo

While short runs and long runs are pretty self-explanatory tough runs might need a little bit more in the way of illuminating.

Yes, you usually feel and look like crap doing them, but they are really important in helping you raise your race pace. As a result, they are particularly important for those chasing a time.

Interval:

The first type of tough run you might be experiencing or want to include into your schedule if you have yet to do so is interval training.

Intervals are effectively where you run much faster than you would expect to run a marathon over a much shorter distance. You can run to the clock or to a specific short distance, though you usually combine both.

For example, you might run hard for 2 minutes at the same speed you might run for a 5 k race and then do a slow recovery run for the next minute before repeating this four times.

Or you could do 800 metres around a track in 3 mins 10-15 seconds taking a 90 second stationary recovery before repeating six times.

Or you could do 6 x 2 k at half marathon pace with 2 minute recoveries.

Or you could just not bother thinking about the mathemathics of it all, join up with your athletic club and run the bollix off yourself as you tag along with a group, grit your teeth and try not to drop out the back.

While intervals are tough, they are really worthwhile pushing the ceiling up on your regular running speed and once you get your breath back, the heartbeat drops and you stop sweating, they do make you feel like good when you’re finished.

Tempo:

Tempo – no, not the small village in east Fermanagh (pictured:) at the foot of Brougher Mountain – perhaps ‘easiest’ type of tough run commonly undertaken during marathon training.

Put simply tempo running is where you run a short to moderate distance for a sustained period of time at a faster pace than you might do your long slow runs at but usually just a little slower than your 10-mile race pace.

I like tempo runs for those sessions where you are out on your own and you want to do a tougher run but don’t have the absolute motivation to push yourself to the limits.