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The most important thing first: Shea is absolutely fine. He now proudly tells everyone how he fell down the stairs, and Lola points out every time that it was she who saved him. I guess the story alone will keep them happy for a while.

As for my running, we are back in Kerry, and I’ve managed to run every day of the New Year so far – no, that’s not really impressive on 3 Jan, I know. I did 8 miles yesterday in Dublin before we left. I expected to be a bit sore from the race, but no, I didn’t feel any soreness at all. The problem started later during the day, when my left hamstring started hurting while sitting in the car. 5 people in one car make for cramped conditions, and I could feel the hamstring getting more and more uncomfortable. I had toyed with the idea of running 18 miles this morning, but decided against it. I regretted this decision early today, because the boys woke me at 4:45, the time I would have gotten up for that run, and kept me from falling asleep for the next hour (our boys are impossible to sleep beside, they constantly wriggle around), and putting them back into their own beds didn’t work either. I eventually got up at 5:50 and went for an 11-mile run, finally back alongside Caragh Lake. My hamstring hurt all the way, never enough to stop me from running, but there was a pain there for the whole way. I’m sure it’s the car journey that made it worse, and I hope it will get better over the next days and weeks again. Anyway, I was glad that I hadn’t gone for the 18-miler, because I certainly would not have fancied another 7 miles on my dodgy hamstring.

Oh, and I found a decent photo of Caragh Lake on the internet. The road you can see on the right hand side is the one I was running on this morning, though it was a lot darker at 6 am, obviously. That part is about 2.5 miles away from our house. The photo is taken from a helicopter over the northern side looking southwards, on what must have been a quite windy day.

2 Jan: 8 miles, 1:07, 8:22 pace
3 Jan: 11 miles, 1:33, 8:27 pace