Challenges

Guess what the following sequence means: 5:50, 7:00, 5:50, 7:30. No, it’s not the pace of my most recent intervals. It’s the times in the morning when Shea or Cian woke me up this week. So much for sleeping in during your holiday. Each night I’m dead tired at 10 o’clock, but don’t go to bed because I don’t want to be unsociable. I eventually go to bed around midnight (still the first adult to go to sleep) and pray for a lie-in that never materialises. Twice I managed a bit of a snooze during the afternoon, but usually I’m just tired. Which isn’t optimal when you’re still expected to look after your children as well as running the highest mileage of your life.

I was a bit worried about yesterday’s 20 miler. I had, however, a cunning plan on how I would get water during the run. “Honey, why don’t you take the children to Cabinteely Park at around 12 o’clock? Oh, and while you’re at it, can you bring my water bottle along, please?” This worked a treat. After leaving the house at around 10 o’clock (later than planned) I first ran a few miles towards Ballybrack and Killiney, then turned around and got to Cabinteely at the 8 mile point, where I started doing laps around the park. It’s a nice park with a big playground in the middle, and a lap is a bit more than one mile (and it’s quite hilly). I did about 5 or 6 laps until I saw Niamh, Nana and the kids, grabbed my water bottle off them, did two more laps and then headed home to Stillorgan. One thing I hadn’t quite thought through was the mile long climb from Cabinteely to Foxrock, which isn’t very steep, but challenging enough if you already have 18 or 19 miles in your legs. I surprised myself on how strong I still felt and eventually got home after running for nearly 3 hours. I’m quite sure that the distance was closer to 21 miles than 20, let’s call it 20.5 miles. As Zeke said in his last entry, it doesn’t make a difference to the body how many miles you write down in your log.

I felt a bit stiff today but managed some relaxed 5 miles in the morning while all the other adults were still asleep (after being woken by Shea, as usual). Niamh got up when I came home and remarked that I looked like a man who had barely broken sweat. It’s amazing how well I feel after a recovery run these days – I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I’m much more conscious to keep the effort down to the easy level than I used to be.

I finally managed to sneak off to Mick Dowling's sports shop in Terenure that Liam had recommended, and bought a new pair of shoes (Asics Nimbus, bloody expensive but they felt really comfy), shorts, socks, dumbbells and some recovery drink powder. At that stage I had to leave before I completely bankrupted myself. Niamh now demands to be allowed into a clothes shop. I guess I’m not really in a position to argue against.

We’re driving back to Kerry tomorrow. I hope to be able to run before we leave; I’ve still got to do two runs of double figures before the week is out, and don’t want to do them on Saturday and Sunday.

12 Jul: approx. 20.5 miles, 2:55
13 Jul: approx. 5 miles, 48 mins