The Trim 10

I got out for a nice long run last weekend. Meeting up with a great bunch of fellow runners (aren't all runners a great bunch?) I ended up heading out a road that was very close to home but one I had never ran before. It was funny I had never come across it before and it reminded me of how lucky we are in Ireland to have so many tarred roads crisscrossing the country. It also reminded me that these weeks I have been doing little or nothing to allow the body to rest after a long season of running, have seen my fitness drop down. Still it was mild enough and very enjoyable. While I may have only made it out just the once this week I hope you've been able to get into the training much more and are now regularly hitting three solid sessions a week. If you have then a few further tips for the week ahead. First though the schedule: This week’s training schedule: Slow run:  30 minutes. Tough run:  10 min warm up - 4*4 mins intervals* with 2 mins recovery - 10 mins warm ...

So, the first week of training. Did it all go to plan? Did you manage to make it out all three days as planned? Did you make use of the cold but dry weather to take to the paths and the trails, to blow out the cobwebs and get back up and running? If you did, well done, you’re flying. If you didn’t then don’t worry, join the club! I'm currently giving the body rest having decided to help out this 10 mile instead (at least that's the plan at the moment). Even still I had hoped to go out twice this week and it was only on Saturday night when I was on the verge of yet another week where nothing happened that I decided I needed a run like a plant needs the sun so the alarm was set early Sunday and by 8.45 I was in the Porchfields in mild December dry weather with old friends and well-worn runners. There will be weeks when it just doesn’t happen for you. You don’t get out due to illness, due to tiredness, due to weather, due to family commitments, due to paving slabs! But whate...

So it’s booked, there’s no going back, the  Trim 10 Mile . On Sunday February 5 th,  you will be lined up ready and rearing to go. But we need to get there first and we have ten weeks to do it! The great thing about training plans is that no matter how far you have run or how fast you think you can, most people’s training programmes are roughly the same. To best understand them try to think of training programmes as if they were a beer. While there are many different variations of beer they all generally contain the same core ingredients of grain, hops, yeast and water. So that’s what we will use for our training programme (simple key ingredients not the beer!). Keeping the water as water let’s swap the grain for short slow runs, the hops for long slow runs and the yeast for our tough intense fast runs. More on each of those later. And that is what I will base the plan on. I will give you a blueprint based on three runs a week and aimed at a time of 1 hr 30 minutes...

We're back, well kind of! So you’ve bought an entry into the Trim 10 Mile. Or you’ve been bought an entry into the Trim 10 Mile. Or you are contemplating buying an entry into the Trim 10 Mile. And as a result, you are left contemplating winter training. Winter training! Even saying it brings out the goose-bumps and the thoughts of Siberian Gulags and roads closed due to snow. If you remember reading about this last year, well then you know what you're in for. So, let’s first get this all out of the way before I continue. Reasons why you don’t look forward to winter training: ·           Cold ·           Rain ·           Wind ·           Sleet ·           Snow and then let’s not forget ·        ...