Cathal Lombard Breakthrough

who the hell cares, Ritz is the man. Go Ritz!

a bit of respect for lombard. he was bearly breaking 30 minutes for 10km 2 years ago and he didn't even win the irish short course cross country this year in march, then to go and run 27.33 and smash mark carrolls irish record. way faster than john treacy aswell.

ritz is the man but fair play to cathal.

Irish record? What is it in the 5,000m?

Mark Carroll holds the irish 5k record, 13.03 set in 98, fair play to Cathal, nearly gave the sport up but stuck with it and now has the 10k irish record.

13:03 is seriously fast.

Any info. on Lombard's breakthrough? What's he been up to for 2 years to bring on this time?

Above and beyond this:

Cathal Lombard was coming off a brilliant personal best at 10,000m when he ran 28.05.27 in Watford a fortnight ago. The Leevale lad was back on track in Heusden hoping to better his 5k best of 13.39.54 that the set earlier this season. He ran a fearless race, mixing it up with four Kenyans throughout, eventually finishing a superb fifth in a time of 13:19.22 - a 20 second personal best! More importantly he reached the World Championship and Olympic A qualifying standard in the 5,000m adding to the 10,000m B standard he already achieved earlier this summer. Lombard now also moves into 7th on the all-time Irish 5000m list and overtakes U.S. collegiate star Alistair Cragg at the top of the Irish 5000m rankings for 2003. This season alone, Lombard has knocked more than 35 seconds off his 5,000m personal best!

Cathal Lombard was on the brink of abandoning his running career when his friend Gerry McGrath called up Joe Doonan to see if he would coach Cathal. Joe Doonan is known as the Coach of Catherina Mckiernan, irish record holder in the marathon.

Cathal was logging 120 miles a week but was getting no good results and a month long trip to kenya back in October 2001 and not quite lived up to expectations. The training that Joe mapped out for Cathal includes plyometrics and drills aimed at increasing strength and economy of effort.

I will post his training later

... wrote:

who the hell cares, Ritz is the man. Go Ritz!

Did "the man" finish in front of or behind Lombard last night?

[Que Ritz excuese list]

Cathal ran a great race. Got settled into the chasing pack with BK, the Kenyan whose name I can't remember, and Ritz. They chased down Abdi and closed a little on Meb too who went out really hard with Bernard Lagat setting the early pace.

I thought he was going to go out the back a few times but he hung in there and ran away from BK and Ritz in the last 600.

If the post race celebrations are anything to go by he still had some gas left in that tank of his.

Congrats Cathal on the new Irish record. It was great to watch it.

Thanks. Only on these boards can you get that kind of info. I was thinking dif. training, new gf/wife and/or dog, stuff like that.

Cheers

easy days easy hard days hard

He trains similar to the colorado approach, singles, doubles for 1-2 days a week.

Indeed, Joe Doonan Cathal's coach has to take alot of credit. This guy is amazing in what he can get out of runners. The drills and plyometrics that he employs really gives him the edgse coupled with tough long sessions but not with High mileage. When training last summer in University College Dublin, before the 13:19 and 28:05 breakthroughs most of the gus who train there were laughing at Cathal doing these drills and srenght work...They are not laughing now!!

Well done Joe and Cathal, go break the 5K record(13:03).

But what is low mileage? 120-160km?

about 70-80miles in winter 60 in summer

I'm friends with an Irish guy who used to go to college over here. He told me that Lombard's PR for 10k 2 years ago was 30.35 and his 5k was 14.18. That is a serious jump(27.33 and 13.19) and begs the question "is this guy clean?"....my guess is that he is dirty...too dramatic a jump, but I bet he never gets caught...sad really....

"Yet another wanker bringing up the drugs card when people are running well."

---I agree with you, yet this is exactly what you do by saying Carroll was the best clean runner out there during his best days. You are insinuating that all the people that beat Carroll were taking drugs.

Carroll is one of my favorite runners, and 13:03 was simply an awesome time. Cathal certainly has had some huge drops in time, but I don't think it raises a dirty or clean flag at all. It's not like he was running 13:30's and then dropped a 12:45. He's simply seeing years of hard work pay off in the form of fast times. It's definately a great breakthrough.

Winter training

Monday--20 mins easy followed by 16 by 70 m sprints followed by 20 mins easy

1 hr of gym work

Tuesday--am 40 mins easy

pm--20 mins steady, then 20 mins of plyometrics and drills followed by 20 mins easy

Wednesday--20 mins warm up, followed by 5 long efforts of 5 to 9 mins with 60 seconds rest, 20 mins cool down

Thursday-- 60 mins easy

Friday--repeat of tuesday with 1hr of gym

Saturday--set of long hill repeats 3 mins long, 20 warm up and cool down

Sunday--90 mins steady, 15 miles

Summer training

Monday--track 6 by 1k reps average 2.42 with 200m rest

Tuesday--50 mins easy

Wednesday--20 mins easy followed by 15min tempo and 15 mins easy

Thursday--20 mins easy followed by 8 by 70m sprints, then 15 mins easy

Friday--30 min easy

Saturday--race

Sunday easy run