Blowout

I experienced what was basically a flat tyre the other day; but not on my car, no, on my shoe. Those Nike 360s are cushioned on air, and one of the side panels blew, leaving me with a lopsided gait. Luckily it didn’t happen 5 miles away from home, or it would have been an uncomfortable ride back home. The shoe in question had lasted 498 miles, which is a decent mileage (in fact the second highest miles I ever accumulated on a pair), which is why it didn’t put me off trying the same pair of runners again. In fact, I already had an identical replacement in my shoe cabinet, because of a buy-one-get-second-half-price offer a few weeks ago. If the new pair holds as long as their predecessors, I’ll be happy enough.

Monday was all about recovery, not just from Sunday’s mile repeats but also from the double headers that still left a residue of fatigue in my legs. I ran at a very easy effort, and rather enjoyed myself. Later at work I chatted to a colleague who had run the 10-mile race in Ballycotton on Sunday (the same race that rejected my application), and who was slightly taken aback when he realised that his time for a 10 mile race was longer than mine for an easy 11 mile training run. I don’t know what he expected – he had done basically no training apart from playing football twice a week, plus two or three runs at about 6 miles several weeks ago. I wasn’t trying to show off, but of course I’m running faster than him. That’s the effect of training like a lunatic.

The weather has been abysmal over the last few days with torrential downpours basically all day – apart from the hour or so each day when I was out running, apparently. I can’t believe my luck. I woke Monday morning at about 3 o’clock to hear the storm ravaging outside and thought “if it stays like this I’ll bin the workout”. By 6 o’clock it was still very windy, but the rain had stopped, and didn’t restart until I had completed 10 out of 11 miles. Today was similar; the storm blew all night, but calmed down just in time for my run, only to pick up again for the last 5 minutes of the workout. I had planned a continuous tempo run, in contrast to Sunday’s mile repeats, and while the wind was strong enough to make it a bit tougher than necessary, the conditions were definitely acceptable. I managed an average pace of 7:15, which I was reasonably pleased about. As always the second half was about a minute faster than the first one, which meant that I ran the second 4 miles closer to 7:00 pace, though I didn’t quite reach it. I’m planning one more pace workout this week, probably a mile or two of 100on/100off or similar, just to get the legs moving a bit quicker for a bit without wearing myself out.

Shea, at the ripe old age of 5, has reached the existentialist phase of philosophy. How do you answer those questions: “If the world started with a Big Bang, who was there to hear it” or “Did God make the universe, or did the universe make God?” Maybe I should have shown more interest in philosophy when I had the chance.

5 Mar: 11 miles, 1:33:20, 8:29 pace, HR 141
6 Mar: 8.3 miles, 1:00:12, 7:15 pace, HR 155