Run Injury Free - Workshop

"Champions are everywhere, all you need to do it train them properly"

The above is a quote from 'old school' coach Arthur Lydiard and is one of the motto's of Champions Everywhere along with wanting their runners to Run Injury Free. I had been following their training plans for a few weeks back in January when I picked up a niggle in my achilees that I couldn't shift and was becoming frustrated with. Rene invited me to one of their weekend courses at the end of January of which I was able to make the first day and with that I set off for Laragh in Co. Wicklow not sure what to expect.

The course is delivered by Tony Riddle & Ben Medder who travelled over from the UK along with Rene & Jason from Champions Everywhere. The main thing I wanted to get from the day was to see what Tony had to say about my running technique and how I could improve it.

The below video shows me running at the start of the workshop in runners & barefoot and then at the end in barefoot. Underneath the link I have added in feedback from Tony on each stage of the process.

Before with runners: Head chasing with hips back and foot landing ahead of the body, because of the footwear and posture no option but to heel strike.

Barefoot without coaching: Posture remains the same with head forward, because of this no alternative but to land ahead of your body otherwise you would fall over due to the weight of your head. To start with you have a heel strike until you start to receive the right signal from your foot to your brain that it isn't appropriate to heel strike, you then start to heel stroke and the finally forefoot landing.

After coaching: Posture greatly improved with your head up and back strong you are now landing underneath the head but now with the head in it's correct position. You are now spending a lot less time on 

the ground and are landing flat footed. The less time on the ground with the correct posture and relaxation reduces the risk of injury. I want you to relax more in the ankles as you're still holding tension in that area.

To me it was definitely a day well spent. I learned a lot about running technique and tried to focus on the recommendations above in my running. I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it completely right yet but I know that since the course my niggles have disappeared and I'm  doing pretty big mileage for me injury free.

There is a lot more I could have written about the course that was so beneficial but maybe I would have lost you before now. The biggest positive I can give it is that there was an international standard runner on the course the same day that had undergone 4 hip operations in the last 2 years and was unable to run without pretty chronic pain before the course. Before the day was out he was bounding around pain free again.

It's simple really if you have a history of injuries and want to enjoy your running for years to come then check this course out.

1 Week to Bohermeen

So this was to be the last week of big training before resting up a bit the week before the race. Hmmmm well things did not go to plan.

Monday was a planned rest day and had decided to do the club session of 6x800M on Tuesday instead of my own slightly easier Fartlek session. We did these on the track which was very mucky and slippy in places making it difficult to get up to required speed. 2 minutes recovery between each seemed to get shorter each time. Looking back on the results though it was a good session with the times all similar enough which is the important thing with doing intervals. They should get tougher as they go on but you should be getting in and around the same time for each one. Was definitely of great benefit to be doing this with a group around the same pace as I think we kept each other going.

6.28 miles in total for the session.

Woke up Wed morning with a sore throat which by the afternoon developed into shivering etc. so when I got home from work it was a case of getting Nurofen into me and no running. Charlie had also been sick since Tuesday evening and this theme was to continue for the rest of the week :-(

Thursday was still not feeling great but decided to head down and run a couple of loops with the club knowing I could stop at anytime if I didn't feel up to it. Felt fine when we got going and did 4.56 miles. Legs actually felt fresh enough even when the pace was upped on the last lap.

Saturday morning was spent at the Operation Transformation 5K in the Phoenix Park which Emma had signed up to. I was going to push Charlie around in the buggy but to be honest was pretty wrecked so took a watching brief. Great to see so many people getting active and reminded me of my first race and how much of a struggle it was. We waited for Emma with about 400M to go and joined in then crossing the line together. Was really great to be able to do that. Hopefully many of the people taking part will have experienced the runners high and keep going.

Got out on Saturday afternoon with Maurice & Kate for a run and ended up doing 10 miles. Was a lovely run with snow, a husky dog and general chit chat passing the time quite quickly. Enjoyed the run and felt like I could keep going if I had to.

Had planned on doing another run on Sunday but woke up stuck to the bed with no energy on Sunday morning and felt like that for most of the day really. Is so annoying because when I get out to run I feel fine but it seems to be taking it out of me from a recovery point of view.

So a bit of a disaster week from training/health point of view in general. Main focus for this week is just to try and get to the start line in one piece.

p.s. for those of you (you know who you are Mel) that were mocking me about Man Flu check out the link to what we always knew.

2 Weeks to Bohermeen

I don't know about anyone else but I don't know where the time is going at the moment from week to week. It's difficult to fit everything in on a weekly basis and to do 7 hours of just training in the last week takes a very understanding wife and some jigging around of other tasks. Training for the week was basically as below:

Monday :- 7.16 miles

This was a session carried over from the weekend and was basically 5 x 12 minute intervals straight through with the 2nd & 4th intervals being comfortable hard and the others being easy pace. Went well from what I remember.

Tuesday :- 7.07 miles

Again just over an hour of running mostly easy with 13 minutes of fartlek training thrown in ranging from periods of 1 minute to 3 minutes in duration. Did this with the club while they were doing some 800m intervals.

Wednesday :- 8.9 miles

Medium long run during the week with a friend from work. Horrible evening with wind and rain but we got through it OK. Legs were tired for most of this run and just feeling dead in general.

Friday :- 7.04 miles

Again another run of an hour down in Kildare this time. An out and back route along a dual carriageway as the country roads were in a bad way.Pace probably a bit too quick when I checked it but overall a nice run.

Saturday :- 5.06 miles

Called into the Phoenix park on the way back from Kildare with the intention of doing the same session as Monday. Only managed 3 loops although they were slightly longer. I think the warm up and cool down part were probably too quick but I called it a day rather than risk another quicker loop that would have been doomed to failure.

Sunday :- 13.48 miles

About 10 of us from the club headed over to Bohermeen on Sunday to do our long run there and get an idea for the course in a couple of weeks. Legs were tired from the start but got through the run OK with the overall pace a good bit quicker than our normal long run pace. Great to get a look at the route as well. Couple of stomach issues but that was from eating something spicy the night before.

So although Monday's run was from last week's plan it means I clocked up 48/49 miles in the last 7 days. Legs tired at times but that is to be expected after a few good weeks training. Looking forward to getting this week out of the way and then letting them recover for the race.

Would I be confident of running sub 1:40 at this stage? Definitely not. It's hard to imagine holding that pace for 13.1 miles but on fresh legs I'll give it a good go and see what happens.

3 Weeks to Bohermeen

Don't ask me where the last 7 days have gone let alone the weekend. To say it has been hectic is an understatement. Sometimes life gets in the way of running or you just have to try and squeeze in runs where you can and when you can. This was one of those weeks.

The snow came on Monday but thankfully it didn't hang around too long. Got my 3 midweek runs in but changed the schedule around a bit to what suited. Legs were feeling tired for the medium long run on Thursday so welcomed the rest day on Friday.

The conundrum for the weekend was that we had a night out planned on Saturday night (which was a great night) and I was going to the rugby on Sunday (which wasn't so great). So I did my long run on Saturday morning and took Sunday as a rest day instead of today and will do Saturdays run this evening. After that I'll be back on schedule. Saturdays run was horrible, rotten weather, legs feeling like concrete blocks etc etc. Didn't matter what pace I ran at I just couldn't get them going. Was glad when the 14 miles were finished and the only thing I was happy about was the pace which was a lot better than it felt. For the last couple of miles I was bribing my mind with thoughts of Chicken wings in Blue later that night and it seemed to work. I also thought how stupid it was that for the previous day I hadn't really drunk any water to prepare for the run and I also did the run without any fluids so that will help explain how I felt so crap as well as the general increase in mileage from a few weeks ago.

This evenings run will bring me up to around 43/44 miles for the week which is what the aim was. Also have had no issues with injury (touches wood) and tiredness in the legs is to be expected and something to just get used to again.

Next week will be more of the same really with maybe a slight increase but nothing much. Gonna try and focus a bit more on nutrition and trying to eat the right foods and preparing properly for training and after training (that should be fun).


On the subject of marathon training and injuries and running in general I came across the video below. I know I can definitely relate to a lot of it and I'm sure a lot of others can as well. Check it out and let me know if it reminds you of anyone ;-)



4 Weeks to Bohermeen

4 weeks yesterday to the Bohermeen 1/2 Marathon means it's time to get down to some solid training. Hopefully I can get 3 weeks solid training in and a week to recover/prepare for the race.

Last week was about recovering from Raheny so in general it was just easy running, keeping the legs ticking over without too much effort. It was also time to start getting the mileage back up after it had dropped for the previous 2 weeks due to injury.

The week consisted of 5 runs with a long run of just over 13 miles on Sunday giving me a weekly total of over 36 miles. The long run had plenty of hills and was a bonus to be able to run for almost 2 hours with no real pain.

Next week will hopefully be in excess of 40 miles for the week but with a bit more emphasis on speed work on Tuesday & Saturday. Again the aim for the week is really just to be able to complete the prescribed sessions without any niggles flaring up. It's all just about getting out to run consistently (and hoping the snow stays away).

I have added a tab showing my current training plan (well the next 2 weeks anyway). It looks very fancy and I suppose it is but it is not self made. Since before Xmas I have been getting training plans/coaching from Rene Borg of Champions Everywhere. The benefit
for me of this is that each run has a purpose be it the type of run, how long it should be or roughly the pace it should be at. Even in the few weeks I have been following their plans I have learnt a lot about training smarter. 

Hopefully I can do it justice in Bohermeen. If everything goes well I'll hope to run under 1:40 for the first time. It will be a tough ask but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

830 Days 9 Hours & 40 Minutes

Well what is the significance of the above you may ask? It is that long since I did my first marathon in Dublin 2010, but you'll be glad to know this post has very little to do with Dublin Marathon 2010 and even less to do with me.

The significance of the time relates to the time that has passed since a Dubliner Tony Mangan finished that day, but to him it was really only the start of his adventure. The finishing line was the starting point for Tony to begin his run around the world, yes that's right around the world.

Think of everything you have done since that time and practically every day Tony has been running, most days in excess of Marathon distance totally self sufficient with his running buggy moving from town to town, country to country, continent to continent. It really is mind boggling.

I checked his blog today www.theworldjog.com and he has just finished running through the north island of New Zealand. Since running across Ireland to begin with he has since passed through Canada, U.S.A, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile & New Zealand.

There is certainly nothing glamorous about what he is doing in most of these countries but he is doing this because he had a dream and he is now fulfilling his dream. He thinks the journey will be approx 
50,000kms so he is still just over halfway there.

The significance of him starting the run at the finish line of the Dublin Marathon in 2010 is that he fully intends to finish his journey by running the Dublin Marathon in 2014.

I'm sure he will have many more wonderful stories to tell of his adventures so maybe from time to time think of him and check out his progress and send him some messages of support.

Hopefully he will eventually be recognised in his own country for this remarkable challenge.

See you in Merrion Square in 2014 Tony.