I have to answer this

I think I’ll respond to some of the comments I have been getting recently. Stefano, why would I give away the address of a referee who is obviously a keen Ireland supporter ;-), though I agree, from a neutral viewpoint he made some truly atrocious decisions – all in Ireland’s favour, of course.
Secondly, Yvonne, thank you very much, but I’m definitely not some kind of super human. On the opposite, getting up early and heading straight out of the door is by far the best way to ensure I do get my run in. Every weekend it is a struggle to get out of the door, because there is always an excuse to do some other task first. Looking after three children is something you get used to (it’s not as if you have a choice, once they’re born, is it?), and as for doing a full day of work after the run: well, again, what choice do I have? That mortgage needs to be paid, and the new car is expensive, and the supermarkets expect to be paid at the checkout, too.
Lastly, what is all that about me doing ultras? Are you guys and gals trying to kill me? Half a year ago I did indeed have plans to do an ultra at some stage. The one thing that cured me was my last marathon. I was totally and utterly spent after 26 miles, and the mere idea of doing another 5, 10 or even 20 miles after that was completely out of the question. In fact, when I was at mile 18, I felt really crap, but the knowledge that it was only 8 more miles to the end kept me going. If that had been an ultra with another, say, 20 miles to go, I would have DNF’ed there and then.

Maybe I should also mention my running since the last entry. I did some slow 6 miles on Friday. I had played football on Thursday, and got a nasty kick to the inside of my right knee – which, by the way, is still painful three days later, and for which the perpetrator didn’t even apologise. Friday was therefore a rather pathetic stumble on two hurting legs – the left quad and the right knee being rather painful. It got better after two miles, but kept hurting all the way.

Today I did a 12-mile tempo run, that is 3 miles warm-up, 7 miles tempo, and 2 miles cool-down. I surprised myself on how well it went. I should have started more conservatively, taking into account the heart-rate drift, but instead did the first 3 miles a bit too fast and slowed down slightly over the last two, but I was still pleased on how well the legs felt all the way. This has been a tough week, with the 20-miler on Tuesday and two 12-milers, and I’m now moving onto the speed phase. As mentioned before, I haven’t got access to a track, so I usually calculate the amount of time I should be running hard in advance, and then do those intervals on a reasonably flat piece of road – usually the road alongside the Devil’s Elbow. This is probably not the ideal way of doing things, because I can’t really tell the pace I’m running at, but I believe the pure effort is more important than any numbers on time or pace.

3 Feb: 6 easy miles, 56:07. 9:21 pace
5 Feb: 12 miles, 1:33, 7:45 pace, 7 of those at 7:08 pace