Recovering

There were two sets of photos for the Cork-to-Cobh race on Sunday. The first series is from around the 5 mile point, where you can spot me as the runner in my favourite green singlet. As you can see, it really was a fairly big group. If I’d shown the next two photos in that series they would feature Grellan. He was just behind us at that point.



The second shows David O’Callaghan about to be overtaken by some runner with a faster finish despite heel striking badly. If he had worn a less distinctive outfit I might not have recognised him, and might not have chased him down the same way. Who knows.


My recovery from the race is going well. I ran 10 slow and relaxed miles under a beautifully starry sky alongside Caragh Lake yesterday – just about my favourite running scenario. I probably felt a little bit of soreness in the hamstrings, but maybe it was more psychological than real.

After reading Rick’s recommendation to forget about doing Yasso 800s, I originally thought 10 miles with a few at marathon pace would be a decent workout. But then I thought about the mileage I’m doing this week and the fact that I’m supposed to be tapering, so I cut it down to 8 miles with 6 at MP. The weather has taken another turn for the worse – again – and it would have been too windy for decent 800s anyway. Previous MP workouts have always found me doing about 7:00 pace. I was curious if I would tune into 6:50 with my new-found confidence following Sunday’s race.

Apart from a few drops at the halfway point I managed to escape the rain, but the wind was very strong. I ran the first half of the speed effort at roughly 6:40 pace, but unlike last week I was not fooled. This time I was prepared for the wind effect, and the second half was slow enough to bring the average pace down to 6:51, despite keeping the effort level as constant as I could. In any case I was happy enough with the way I had managed to hit the planned marathon pace, a first in this training cycle.

Now all I have to do is get my head into tapering mode. I’ll try and cut the mileage a bit more. It’s against my nature, but I’m very much looking forward to marathon day already. 18 days to go.

8 Oct

10 miles, 1:21:36, 8:10 pace, HR 137

9 Oct

8.1 miles, 56:27, 6:58 pace, HR 162
incl. 6 miles @ 6:51 pace