Weekend Meanderings

It's now 5 weeks since the Boston marathon and I can definitely feel the effects of that race wearing off. I can back that up with numbers as well. I tested my resting HR yesterday and it came up as 40, much lower that I would have expected. To see if that was a fluke I repeated the procedure this morning and came up with the same number; I think I can start trusting it now. Immediately before Boston it was as low as 37, the lowest number I had ever measured. I'm pretty sure it will return to that level again as the training for Dingle starts showing.

I did a fast run on Saturday, certainly the fastest since Boston. I tried to tune into a level that would hopefully equate to a ¾ effort according to Lydiard. The HR was in the low 160s in the first half and the high ones towards the end. It was definitely higher than marathon effort, I certainly would not have been able to keep going at that pace for much longer. Incidentally I did a similar run about three weeks before Boston which was 5 seconds per mile faster at a lower heart rate. That's to be expected, of course, I was in pretty good shape then (pity it didn't really show in my Boston time).

Today, with slightly weary legs, was much slower but I surprised myself nonetheless. I would have expected that effort to yield about 8:00 pace, but it was significantly faster than that. Of course, paces don't mean much so far out from the race, but nevertheless I'm pretty happy with the figures. I'd rather run fast than slow, no matter how far away from the target race I am.

It's a shame that me feeling well did not reflect in last week's race. There was a 10k today in Youghal that I had initially intended to go to, but that plan was dropped when the race in Killarney appeared on the calendar all of a sudden. I'm glad I didn't drive 2 hours each way for a performance like last week. Because of the Cork City marathon there won't be a lot of races on for a while (race directors seem to have realised that you wouldn't get a lot of runners) and my next race will have to wait. I guess it's not a bad thing at this stage of my build-up. Let's build a foundation first.

I'll have to be creative with my training this week. Niamh is flying to Dublin on Thursday and I'm left with the boys to mind, which means that I might not be able to run at all. I will have to see. I'd rather she would have stayed at home, but her argument was something like “you went to Boston, and it's only fair if I get some time in Dublin”, to which I didn't have a comeback. The planned 80 miles for this week are very unlikely to happen; maybe an easy (half) week will be good for me anyway.

23 May

8 miles, 55:20, 6:55 pace, HR 163

24 May

11 miles, 1:24:59, 7:43 pace, HR 150

Weekly Mileage: 71+