Once more, Recovering

I do listen to you guys and gals, honestly, at least sort of. As advised, I didn’t do my 20 miler on Friday. I woke up at 5 am, and listened to the gale force wind howling outside the window, and just couldn’t help but wishing to be out there. But I didn’t go. I can’t take any credit for that decision though. Niamh had decided to go to Dublin for an extended weekend (she had offered to take 1 kid with her. I demanded she take 2. The tough negotiations had lasted for hours, but I won), and left at 6:40 in the morning, meaning I couldn’t have gone out for a long run anyway (going out at 3 am is not an option, not even for me). I didn’t get any more sleep after that, because about 30 seconds after Niamh had left, Shea got up and wanted breakfast. (That would be a reoccurring theme for the following two mornings, btw).

I had to take Friday afternoon off work to look after Shea after collecting him from school at 2 o’clock. However, at 12:50, with 10 minutes to go I thought “if I go home right now, I’ll have time for a quick run before collecting him”. I left immediately (my boss isn’t reading this, I trust. If he does, I’ll find out soon), and changed into my running gear as soon as I got home. I had 40 minutes for 5 miles, and was a bit anxious about taking too much time, so I stepped on the pace a bit. In fact, I stepped on the pace a bit more than I had to, because when I got back home, the elapsed time was 37:01, much faster than planned. That means I inadvertently got a decent tempo run into my training, and it also meant I had time for a shower before collecting Shea, definitely a bonus.

I didn’t have the chance to run on Saturday, apart from running after Shea, that is. I had promised to take him wherever he wanted to, and he chose to go to Crag Cave, a cave about 30 miles from here, with a big play area. He loved it – so much that we stayed for 3 hours. I’m not sure how much that counts as recovery, but he had a blast.

For today, Niamh had organised me a babysitter for 10 am to look after Shea while I was out running. It might be a tad unusual to get a babysitter at that time and for that purpose, but it meant I could get on with my training. I did a repeat of the time trial from 2 weeks ago, 2.4 miles warm-up, 10k time trial, and 2.4 miles cool-down. After the first 2 miles of the time trial I thought I had started out too fast, but managed to pull myself together and push on. I reached the turn-around point in 20:56, and headed back. The conditions weren’t ideal, it was raining and quite windy, but I should be used to that by now. At least it wasn’t gale-force winds any more. I finished strongly and stopped the clock at 41:56 – that’s 1 second faster than the identical time-trial 2 weeks ago, ah well. I was pleased by the fact that the second half had only taken 4 seconds more than the first one. Not quite even or negative splits, but nearly.

Oh, and I did measure my resting HR this morning. Last year it was 48. A few months ago it was 46. Today it was down to 43. I take this as proof that I’m definitely not over-trained, and my little bouts of sickness are just that. I usually get them around this time of the year. The only unusual thing is that I got sick even before the taper started. Usually getting sick is part and parcel of my taper, but I live in hope that this time it will be different.

6 Oct: 5 miles, 37:01, 7:24 pace
9 Oct: 11 miles, 1:22, 7:27 pace, with 6.2 miles at 6:45 pace