Liam Ridings: An Epiphany

I have learned the hard way that finding balance is not easy. There have been times where I’ve thought that I don’t train hard enough and have constantly compared the way I train with my training partners and competitors and as a result I’ve over analszed my own training and racing to a point where I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I’ve had the pleasure of training under Ken Green and alongside guys like Roff, Hunt, Milosevic, Moreau and Copey for the last four years. I’ve run PB’s, had some good results and made lifelong friends along the way. I will continue to join in for the occasional run with these guys whenever I get the chance, but for the time being, I’m doing my own thing and trying to find a balance that works for me.

I started running because I love getting out and running by myself, clearing my head, being healthy and having the opportunity to be competitive at something I think I’m pretty good at. Somewhere along the way I lost sight of that and my goal for 2014 and beyond, is to rekindle my love for the sport and try to find a balance with my training that accommodates my changing responsibilities — namely work and study. I’ll be using this blog as a running diary and each week I hope to update it with my training and a session or race review.

Sessions can take a long time to complete and you often need to set aside nearly two or more hours with travel, warm ups, stretching and cool downs. Any session that you can get a good workout and good mileage done in less than an hour is every working runners dream.

This week was about getting training done in one of the busiest, booziest periods of the year and I’m happy with how much I got through. Tuesday was a “Progressive 16km”. The beauty of this session is that you can do it as hard or easy as you feel and you still get something out of it. Worse case scenario you still get a 16km run under your belt and an hour of time on your feet, which will pay dividends in your next race. This week, however, I was feeling good and was able to get through a really solid progressive run. David Byrne and I set sail at 4.52 for the first km (he argues the GPS was out and we were going much faster) and met up with old friend and coffee legend Courtney Carter a couple of Km into the run. Things quickly got going and we were down to 3.45km’s by around 5km. From there, David and I got rolling and into a nice sub threshold rhythm. The final 3km ended up being a bit quicker than we had planned (9.32) culminating in a 2.57 last Km around the white fence of Centennial Park.  The total time was 58.32 with a 34.22 final 10km.

This week I’m hoping to get out similar mileage with some quality shorter sessions before racing next weekend at the NSW 1500m club Championships.

Week Ending Jan 5th 2014

Monday: PM: 16km- 66min + Strides

Tuesday: PM: progressive 16km

Wednesday: PM: 17km  + Strides

Thursday: AM: 8km easy PM: Warm up/Cool down + Fartlek (4 x 2min, 1min, 30sec – all with 1min jog recovery)

Friday: PM: 8km easy+ 2 hour walk

Saturday: AM: Warm up/Cool Down + 10km run First 7km at sub threshold last 3km hard PM: 8km easy

Sunday: AM: 26km in 1h46min long run ~ 4.05km average

Week Total: 135km

 

Author Credit:

Liam Ridings

Contributed by Sydney SEO Copywriter Liam Ridings