Stardust

With work being both manic and interesting at the same time, and Niamh in the last few days before the bay is born, running is probably the least interesting part of my daily routine at the moment. I can't tell you tales of hard intervals or great tempo runs, hill runs or long runs. All I'm doing at the moment are short(ish) runs at easy effort, day in, day out, and since Sunday's madness has cleared my immediate need for stupidity, I'm actually sticking to the plan for the time being.

The weather has cleared up again, and both today and yesterday I enjoyed a run under a magnificent starry sky. I was so distracted early on yesterday that I nearly ran off the road on one occasion. After that I started concentrating more on the running effort rather than gazing up towards Orion. Clear skies at that time of year also mean very cold mornings, and on both occasions I was glad I had remembered to bring my gloves along for the ride.

I started doing some strides as part of these runs. That's something I tend to neglect, but I hope I can stick with it this time. Strides are supposed to be the best workout for increasing your running efficiency, and even though that's a slow process it's also a worthwhile one. Some coaches like tinman suggest doing strides as often as four times a week during base training. I have yet to decide if I want to them so frequently. They can be a right nuisance; they interrupt your run, and they continually break your rhythm. They throw off my heart rate, but interestingly seem to have very little influence on the average pace (at least I find that interesting. Your mileage may vary).

On the home front, Cian, after a few months of reasonably good behaviour (at least in comparison to what he used to be like - frequent readers will still remember a few of his escapades) has turned into the devil incarnate. We think he has figured out that the baby will take his place as the most needy member of the family, and it looks like he decided to get his retaliation in first. He's certainly not stupid. At the age of three he is already able to write his own name (learned auto didactically from his older siblings), and he showed it off by writing it in very big letters all over the walls, floors and furniture of the house. The boy is a genius, but momentarily one of the evil kind, I'm afraid. On the other hand, I guess most parents of other three-year olds can relate.

24 Oct

10 miles, 1:19:50, 7:59 pace, HR 146

25 Oct

8 miles, 1:04:01, 8:00 pace, HR 149
including 8x100 strides