Countdown

There are 20 days left until the Cork marathon, and, as I've said, I'm feeling like I'm hitting form just in time. Until very recently I was very unsure what time target I should shoot at, but the Bantry half marathon has made up my mind. Fours weeks before the Loch Ness marathon I ran the Blarney half in 1:27:52, and when I ran Bantry, which happens to be four weeks before Cork, in 1:27:27, I reckoned that I must be in similar shape. My time in Loch Ness was 3:12:29, so I'll try to better that. In fact, I'm hoping for anything under 3:10, as I did before Loch Ness. Of course I want to break 3 hours at some stage, but that's out of the question this time, and if I tried to run at that pace I would only ruin my race. So, 3:10 is the target.

I'm trying to implement a hard-easy schedule in the last few weeks before the race, but that doesn't mean that I'm strictly alternating hard and easy days all the time. What it really means to me is that I'm trying to ensure that my easy days are exactly that. As a result, I ran really really slowly on Monday. I have mentioned Andrew as a shining example of that art before, and while I'm trying to follow in his footsteps, I'm not able to match his paces entirely. Still, that was the slowest run I've had in a very long time, and it also resulted in the lowest heart in a long time. I felt that if I ran any slower I'd be going backwards.

The point of the easy day was to ensure that I would be able to run harder on today's tempo run, but unfortunately that didn't go exactly to plan. Tempo runs should be done somewhere around your half marathon pace, and since it's less than 10 days since my last half marathon I happen to know what pace I should be aiming at. Alas, take that pin off my chest and my pace drops by 20 seconds per mile, and I seem unable to make it up. I have been wondering if I'd be better off shooting for shorter cruise intervals at the same pace; I might be able to hit 6:40 for that distance, and 3 or 4 of those intervals would still make a good workout. However, so close to race day that's a moot point, but one I'll mull about for my next training cycle. Anyway, I decided to ease into the pace for once, started slowly over the first mile, steadily increased the pace over the next one, and then tried to do a tempo run over the following 8 miles. I ran a rarely visited loop to Killorglin, which isn't entirely flat but has plenty of gently ups and downs all the way. The return leg coincided with my commuting route, and I know every grass blade along the road. At the very least I was hoping for sub-7:00 pace, but I fell short even of that goal. I did run a bit faster over the last mile or two, but the bit before that was the problem. I recently seem to have gotten the hang of interval workouts, maybe I'll eventually manage to get used to tempo runs as well.

I've still got to decide what shoes to wear for the marathon. I ran Bantry in racing shoes, but I don't know if my legs will be able to last sufficiently long in a full marathon. I'll probably wear them on Thursday's planned 17 mile run (with 15 at MP), which should give me some feedback on that issue. That means another easy day tomorrow, and hopefully a pair of fresh legs for the day after. Till then.

12 May

7.5 miles, 1:11:23, 9:31 pace, HR 127

13 May

10 miles, 1:13:11, 7:19 pace, HR 152
with 8 miles @ 7:04