Even more mileage

I’m thankful there is an entire ocean between us, otherwise Mike might be tempted to strangle me. If he thought last week’s 73 miles were bad, what would he think about the present one? First of all, I don’t think the 10% rule applies when you’re rebuilding your mileage after a hiatus like the one I’ve had. I’ve been doing around 95 miles per week in December, and I think that makes it ok to up the mileage rather quickly now. Secondly, the additional 5 miles on my run home from work last Friday had not been planned, and that kind of caught me out.

The same thing happened at the start of this week, but like any excuse it isn’t quite as valid the second time round. I didn’t really plan the daily miles in advance, but drew up a rough outline in my head what I should be doing, namely slowly get into a pattern of longer runs on Monday-Wednesday-Friday. Accordingly I started the week with 13 miles on a freezing cold Monday morning. What I hadn’t considered is the fact that it’s too cold in the morning to cycle to work, hence I got a lift from Niamh, and ended up running home again on Monday. If the temperatures don’t lift soon, this might become a rather frequent occurrence. I’m able to get a lift on Tuesday when Niamh is coming home from Killarney just at the right time, and on Thursday, which means I might run home 3 days this week, giving me an additional 15 miles. If you add that to the planned increase of my morning runs you’re getting rather close to 100 miles, and not even I think that increasing your mileage from 73 to 100 is a good idea. Therefore, Wednesday’s long run will be cut short, which might be good timing anyway, because after two weeks of nice weather the rain is predicted to return that day.

I felt pretty good on Monday, and the celestial bodies put on a great show. The moon was just about to disappear when I started at 6am, and half an hour later I noticed that half the sky was covered in orange. It was a truly magical display; sunrise was still an hour away, but the first beams of light had clearly penetrated the sky. I kept looking up for the next few minutes as the orange glow started to creep back down towards the eastern horizon, ever decreasing in size but increasing in brightness. The sun was just about to rise when I returned home, and that’s when I realised that once again I hadn’t looked at my watch once, I had been far too enthralled. On days like that I feel blessed living in this part of the world. It makes up for the utter misery of December and January.

After 13 miles on Monday morning and 5 in the evening, the legs felt very stiff today. Maybe cutting today’s mileage down by a few miles would have been the intelligent thing to do, but since I was up already it would have meant a needless sacrifice of precious sleep time, and I’m loath to do that. So I dragged myself over 10 miles, taking it easy, but the heavy feeling in the legs never left. Still, the scenery helped taking my mind off things.

I went to the gym after work before Niamh would come by to collect me, and after my usual core-strengthening routine I still had over 20 minutes left, and I hopped onto the treadmill. I started with 12 km/h (8:00 pace), but seemed to get into a competition with the guy beside me, and we kept on cranking up the pace, until he dropped off at 16 km/h. Only afterwards did I put the number on the calculator, and that’s 6:02 pace? It hadn’t felt that fast, I was still comfortable enough to keep going for quite some time. I guess running on the treadmill really is different, you can’t quite compare the pace with your road running one.

My left foot was hurting in the morning for the last few days. Niggles like that are usually a sign that I need new shoes, and I’ve already got a pair of Nike Vomeros in the cupboard. I bought them at the New Year’s sales, but my enforced rest in January meant they only got their first outing 6 weeks later. Magically enough, my foot was already pain free today.

18 Feb

am: 13 miles, 1:45:23, 8:06 pace, HR 145
pm: 5 miles, 39:35, 7:55 pace, HR 147

19 Feb

am: 10 miles, 1:27:01, 8:42 pace, HR 143
pm: 2.5 miles, 18:34, 7:25 pace, treadmill