Sunday 18th July 2010

Blimey AF - where was that?

Forgot to say 'hi' to iamb - welcome.

Afternoon peeps!  I'm still alive and running and I missed you guys a lot.  Had a real tough time with the house sale and the move and ended up with a bit of a physical and mental breakdown.  Don't want to go into detail and the main thing is all the lovely, lovely people I remember are still posting and doing well.

Big hug to Pammie!

TTFN - will post regularly again from now on!

chickadeee! (never forget the extra 'e') How EXCELLENT to see you posting. Sorry to hear you've had a tough time, but ever so pleased to have you back online. xxxxx

And now, with a nod to a certain Antipodean Tale of Suburban derring-do:

Targets, Everybody needs good targets
With a little careful planning
They won't bring you to your knees
Tar-gets ...there to be obliterated
That's when good targets become Pee Bees

The Southern Counties Vets finals are seven weeks today. I will be competing in seven different events, plus relays possibly. I promise to only enter a very few sprint races before then. I will knuckle down to one last block of training, which will be varied and multi discipline to put it mildly. Had a great track session this morning, of which more later. I had almost forgotten what a decent hard session felt like -  I've been so tied up with racing, recovering from over-racing and jumping without knowing how to.

I have some targets which will sound crap and pathetic to anyone but me (or fellow codgers) but I think they're good, sensible ones. 

My first set of targets are for the aforementioned SCVAC finals. I don't see why I shouldn't get PBs for all three jumps and my Javelin throw. Mainly because if you start from piss poor you can only get better!

 HJ sounds pathetic but is ok for age - the other two jumps I really should do better on. Same with the javelin - I've only thrown competitvely twice, and like the jumps lots of it is technical. So huge room for improvement.

Oh, and by the way, J from my sprint group is going to teach me to hurdle.... 

Chick - good to see you back. 

Sharkie, wow, that's some schedule you've set yourself.  And hurdles?  eeeeekkk!

Lots of good running going on out there.  I've just had the most enormouse lunch which was preceeded by a couple of glasses of fizzy stuff which (on an empty tum) left me feeling positively squiffy so I fell asleep in the car coming home from dropping OH's sister at Gatwick.

I ought to do some work but I suspect a dozy afternoon on the sofa is in store....

A'noon peeps.

Just in for  a nosey

Rest day today for me.

Off to Berlin tomorrow on holiday.Can't wait ! I'm like a big kid.

Well done M

If I needed any more proof I now have it. I HAVE been over-racing. Which leaves less time for constructive training and deadens one's race times rather than sharpening them. It's a delicate balance - and as my coach said today - just one sprint on alternate days would be fine, but not the volume and intensity I've been trying to deal with.

Ok, the past seven days have been better. Track meet on Monday with reasonable results - three firsts and a third, one PB equalled. I refuse to get in a state about not equalling my 200 pb. NOTHING Tuesday and Wednesday. Trained on Thursday evening and thought, "Hang on... my legs feel ok! I'm not totally knackered!" It was a technical session - lots of hurdle drills and starts (some from lying down!) and no runs further than 60 metres.

You always feel this one more the following day. And I did. But I walked down to Pilates and had a very good one to one session with Miss Hungary. I did this exercise:

Pilates exercise

neat eh?

Nothing Saturday. Didn't even leave the house which is very rare for me. Knuckled down to the day job.

So, to today's track session.

ASIDE: Announced my PLAN which met with universal approval.

Breezy but dry and progressively warmer.
Jog lap hard work. As it so often is - especially on Sunday mornings with brekka sitting undigested in me tum, the feeling of wanting a wee 10 minutes after arriving, and legs refusing to wake up and function.

Session: 300- 250- 200- 150-100. 8 minutes between the first two reps, then 6 minutes, then 4 and so on.

After asking how I was P said "Sorry sharkie  - you're on 300 too." He knows I have to run another 4 so there's no getting out of the longer reps for me now.

I was given a few seconds start on everything bar the 100, but as soon as Jo caught up she ran the rest of the rep with me - cajoling me along, giving me hints and encouragement. It's brilliant when she does this. I really have to work which means moving my legs faster, relaxing my arms and shoulders, looking ahead, not giving up under pressure. Everything I should be doing.

No time for the 3, but the 250 was 47, the 200 35 dead, the 150 25.9 (excellent) and the final 100 metres 16.5 (also excellent) All timed by either Jo or Pete.These are good rep times for me so I'm pleased.
 

Welcome to iamb.

 Forgot to say that earlier.

 sharkie, (sorry  but i nearly spat my pre dinner glass of wine over the screen with your s & m clip) the old codger targets keep us focused so no harm in that. i think getting on top of the overracing will give you a good start on the training and racing  goals, which are excellent. hurdles! were you a decathlete in a former life?
re my duff race; our resident statistician reckons it was prob c20 sec slower course than the last one and in retrospect i think i still had leftover holiday guts/food/drink/big hills influencing things so agreed nothing to worry about in the big picture

alehouse - roll on wednesday - have you a particlular alehouse in mind to get the holidays in full swing?  thanks for the info re thursday - had an email earlier re a club fun event planned for that night so i guess we'll  be otherwise engaged but hope it goes well

AF - nice pic, trying to work out if this is your HR while watching beach volleyball, the course profile of your next race or a particularly hard interval session?

chick - spooky as i was thinking about you earlier. hope things are on the up now, keep us posted

mava  - nice but hopefully it wasn't you driving??

Lovely to see you again Chickadeee - have you moved house/job now or is it still ongoing? Hope things are on the up.

Sharkie - certainly sounds as though you're on the up! That's a lot of events.

Good to see you Chick and look forward to you posting some training.

Clink:  will be going out after work, and then I go out late on a Wednesday in the village anyway, so several alehouses in mind! Big choice around here: at least a dozen within five minutes walk! 

Sharkie: painful clip. Also been looking at Euro masters results: amazing number of disqualifications in the women's 10ks, in particular.

Today's 30+ mins were rather more pleasnat than yesterday's, I'm pleased to say.

Evenin'

What: 17 miles

Why: LR 

Last hard: Today

Last Rest: Friday

Lyrics: No

Clocked up 48 miles this week which makes it my highest mileage week so far. Much needed cutback next week.

Welcome iamb. Good running all. Short but sweet from me today as I'm pretty knackered.

Veester - nice long run - do you have a marathon coming up?

Clink - nice long run there for you too - good stuff.

M. - congratulations - really neat to make the Wellington team. I haven't made an Auckland team for years, but it is a great achievement - lifts all your running so much.

Sharkie - you are doing it girl - are you going to do a heptathalon?

AF - just a few hills there then!

What: Nice family walk in the sun - husband, me, daughter, son-in-law, son and 2 of the gdaughters - our own little pack!

NZC - Nope, 'just' a half. I was only intending to do 16 but my Garmin died before I went out and I had to guess a bit. I won't go further that that really but I'd already got up to 16 miles before I decided to run the 1/2.

Your walk sounds lovely.

M, even more exciting news. 

sharkie, I saw several DQs by the 10000m results, and though how odd; its not as though you can run out of lane, do a false start or drop the baton.  I guess the real numbers are well down on the entries in an event like that, My W75 mate and her M45 son didn't go in the end, cos they couldn't find any accomodation, and I think son, who was only supposed to be doing the hammer lost his enthusiasm for going.

iab, hi there

chick, hi there, good to see you back, Sorry to hear you have had a hard time

sharkie, 1) That pilates exercise looks fun.  I've only ever done mat classes, but my teacher then has gadgets, presumably like that at his studio at home.  Perhaps I ought to sign up for some sessions, but I don't want to commit myself weekly, for ever.  What sort of space between sessions, and no of sessions would make it worthwhile ?
2)  isn't running fun when you are feeling fresh !  My problem is always trying to do the optimal training, without getting overtired, but I'm not very good at doing less than maximum thinking that in terms of the bigger picture more might be better. 

What:  14ml easy- stready-easy
Why; still finding it difficult to build up the miles.  Started easy, then got bored with running quite as slowly as my HRM was telling me, so speeded up in the middle section, only to struggle again with the last few miles

LMUH:  Just the rolling hills of North Hampshire!

((Chickadeee)))

clink:  I think the course profile of my next race is worse