At Home

This is a very unusual day for me; I’ve taken the rest of the week off work, and I’m not going anywhere, just chilling out. As Niamh pointed out, I had never done that before. At least chilling out was the idea, but Maia is still not back to normal and needs a lot of TLC. She has been crying basically non-stop on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so much so that Niamh called me at work just to have someone to talk to – and then I could hardly hear what she was saying because Maia was screaming at the top of her voice. Anyway, she seems to be better today, but in the previous days she had gotten worse as the day wore on, so we might not have reached the end of it just yet.

Yesterday’s run started very slowly, I was stiff and tired (again!) from the hill repeats, and maybe from Sunday’s race as well. The first mile took 9 minutes, but I felt better the longer I went on, and by the end I felt like flying again.

Since I didn’t have to go to work I got up late today and slowly got ready for my run. Only when I was about to head out of the door did I realise that this would mean Niamh had to get the entire gang ready on her own, so I stayed home for another hour until everyone had had their breakfast and was dressed, clean and ready for the day. The kids are at summer camp this week, which makes things just a bit easier, at least until they come home again.

I left at the same time I would usually leave for work, but instead of cycling towards Killorglin I was running towards Cromane. Today’s workout was a fartlek, with 8x90 seconds at my 3k pace, which, according to the book, is 5:52. I felt pretty good, and while some of the repeats were made a bit more difficult by the breeze coming from the sea, others were easier for the same reason. Anyway, I was really pleased with the way it went, the paces for the fast bits were 6:05, 5:32, 5:45, 5:40, 5:42, 5:35, 6:21, 5:40 (avg. 5:47), and the two slower ones were both uphill, which makes this a very good workout. What surprised me was the heart rate, it went up to 188, higher than the HR that caused me to tense up in Sunday’s race, and it was definitely the first time ever I managed to raise my heart rate so high in a training run. I think it means that my body is opening up to that kind of effort, but once again, I’m not even sure if I want my body to adapt to that kind of pace so far out from the marathon.

On the other hand, raising one’s 10k pace is a good way to better your marathon time as well. Damn it, Thomas, just trust the program. After all, you’re committed to it.

16 Jul

7 miles, 55:44, 7:57 pace, HR 144

17 Jul

8.1 miles, 59:53, 7:23 pace, HR 162
8x90 sec @ 6:05, 5:32, 5:45, 5:40, 5:42, 5:35, 6:21, 5:40 (avg. 5:47)