Back Again

Have I really been on holiday? That’s the biggest problem if you’re only taking one week off: you’re back at work before you’ve even gotten into holiday mood. We’re still staying in Valentia until Wednesday, which puts me into the unusual position of staying in our holiday house but having to commute to work every day. I’ve done that before, but to be honest I’m looking forward to Niamh and the kids moving back to Caragh Lake.

I’d better summarise my running exploits from the last few days. The legs did spring back into action on Friday, just in time for my long run. As I had done a marathon pace run the week before, I wasn’t too worried about my pace. The first 2 miles were pretty slow, but the legs gradually and naturally tuned into 8:00 pace, making this more-or-less a marathon pace run after all. After 6 miles, I left the main road and ran up a trail towards an old stone fort at Bray Head, the very tip of Valentia Island. That road rises about 150 meters (nearly 500 feet) over 1.5 miles, which makes it a great hill for a workout. It went really well, and one guy muttered something like “that’s crazy” as I passed him, which I took as a compliment, really. The view from there was spectacular across the coast and the Skelligs, but I didn’t linger and turned around to head back. I added two loops at the end, one to make it 16 miles, and another .7 miles to make up for Wednesday’s shortened run.

Saturday was the usual rest day, and Sunday was a bit weird, as Pfitz’s plan called for a double workout – my first scheduled double ever. I was initially tempted to combine the 2 recovery runs into one 10 miler, but as soon as I hit the road my legs felt really heavy, which I attribute to all the hills I’ve run this week, so I decided to follow to schedule after all. The first run went ok, apart from a nasty wasp stinging me in my left hand. That really hurt! Then, on the second run, my left achilles really started hurting. I’ve felt a pain there for a few days, but not while running; it usually hurt in the evening when I went to bed. I didn’t take too much notice of it, but it came back to bite me.

I wasn’t sure if I should go ahead with Monday’s workout, 9 miles with 6x600 repeats, because the added pounding from the speed workout could easily aggravate the injury. In the end I did the usual runner thing, namely to ignore the pain in the hope that it would go away by itself. The workout itself went ok. As usual, I ran my fast repeats by time on the road, because I don’t have access to a track, which makes this more of a hard fartlek than an interval workout. And I didn’t feel sufficiently tired after the 6th repeat, so I added a seventh. I could feel the achilles during the warm-up and the cool-down, but not during the speedy part itself. It wasn’t just the achilles that was painful; I could clearly feel a sharp-ish pain on the inside of my calf, maybe 2 or 3 inches above my ankle. I’m not sure what it is. I still hope that it will go away, and have been icing it on and off since yesterday evening. I’ll also stay away from hills for a few days. This week is a cutback week of 55 miles, and maybe the lower mileage will help, too.

Weekly mileage: 68+ miles

18 Aug: 16.7 miles, 2:16, 8:08 pace
20 Aug: 6.4 miles, 59:08, 9:14 pace
3.6 miles, 32:19, 8:58 pace
21 Aug: 9 miles, 1:17, 8:33 avg. pace, including 7x600 repeats with 90 secs recovery