Midweek Report

That’s an interesting observation from a psychological point of view. In my last post, I told you about my encounter with those dogs, and about my best ever tempo run to date. The running effort was basically ignored – everyone went on about the dogs. There might be a lesson in there.

Anyway, I did go to the Garda station (as we call the police here), and was basically told that they are not responsible for dogs, the Dog Warden is. And I need the name of the owner; otherwise he won’t be able to do anything about it. This rather annoyed me, to be honest. They basically ask me to find out more details all by myself before anything will be done. Anything else would probably disturb their cosy workday.

Let’s get back to the running, shall we? I did 6 easy miles on Tuesday, and even though there was nothing to report, really, I did notice that my pace for recovery runs has increased a little bit, as has the HR (it’s still within the accepted limits). I’ll make an effort to slow down again. The very very very easy level for recovery runs has really served me well.

I had to get up at 5:20 am this morning to get in my mid-week 15 miler. I didn’t even need the alarm clock, at 5:18 I woke up all by myself; my biological clock seems to be working very well these days. The weather wasn’t too inviting, it was raining just a little bit, just enough to make it more difficult to turn the door handle and head out into the open. Once that hurdle was surmounted, the run went very well. I did the first 2 miles at about 8:40 pace, by 5 miles I was down to an average of about 8:10, and by mile 10 I was at sub 8:00 average pace. All this was done in what I would call my natural pace. I didn’t run hard, but relaxed, but still putting in some effort; the HR was about 10 beats higher than for a recovery run. Personally I feel very comfortable with this approach, even though I’m running at or even above the upper limit of the usually recommended pace for long runs. I just happen to think that this effort level works very well for me.

That’s all very well, of course, but I’ve still got that massive 23 miler ahead of me on Friday. I’ve been dreading it all week. In fact, I’ve been dreading it since last week. By the end of today’s run, I did ask myself, could I continue for 8 more miles. Well, I felt very comfortable, so the answer was yes, but I was still glad that I didn’t have to do it at the time.

When I got back home, Niamh took one look at the rain outside the window, and commented that she couldn’t understand how I just ran for 2 hours. In the office, someone said basically the same thing. Non-runners just don’t get it, do they? A slight drizzle doesn’t particularly affect your running, it might even make it easier because of the cooling effect. You just have to manage to turn the doorknob. Once that is accomplished, the hardest part of the workout is behind you.

29 Aug: 6 miles, 53:34, 8:55 pace
30 Aug: 15 miles, 1:59, 7:56 pace