Washed Out

I know I have been complaining about the weather rather frequently, but this is getting ridiculous. Wednesday’s and Thursday’s storms have already resulted in the worst floods in 20 years/living memory (depending on who you believe) and with more rain on the way things are only going to get worse. They had 60 mm rain over the last 24 hours in Cahersiveen, and since that’s only 20 miles from Caragh Lake you can imagine the conditions here. Compared to what some people are going through (flooded houses, evacuations and sadly at least one fatal accident), the fact that my training is getting inconvenienced is utterly trivial and doesn’t register in comparison, of course.

I had to change my plans on Thursday because heading out into the raging storm seemed just too foolish, even for me. Instead I hooked my bike up on my relatively new indoors trainer and spun away for 40 minutes while watching telly. My eye was still sore from Wednesday and when I woke at 4 o’clock this and the raging storm outside prevented me from falling back asleep, so shortly after 5 I got sick of staring into the darkness and got up. I went back to bed after my workout, and even managed to doze for a bit. Niamh had to drive me to work because cycling was completely out of the question, but had major troubles reaching Killorglin through flooded roads when she came to collect me in the evening. At least she made it through; some others weren’t quite so lucky.

Today was in complete contrast, but sadly this is just a short break in the storm which will start again tonight. I took the opportunity to finally get in another run, 10 miles in the crisp clear air. Since I expected the Caragh Lake road to be flooded in places I opted for two loops to Ard-na-Sidhe instead, where it should be more tolerable. There was a new miniature waterfall at one corner that had not been there last week and which spilt over onto the road, but apart from that the conditions were very good. I quickly noticed the very tight hamstrings, especially in my right leg, but it didn’t really hamper me. After two days of not running the pace was a bit faster than it would have been otherwise and the heart rate was very high, but that will sort itself out once I resume proper training.

At the moment I’m still pretty much in my off-season. I’ve never really had that before, but I feel the need for some downtime after 2 marathons this autumn. There is a 5K on Sunday in Killarney that I intend to run as a fun run (assuming that it doesn’t get cancelled in the weather) and another one a fortnight later, and after that I want to start training again. By then 6 weeks will have passed since Dublin and my physical and mental batteries should be ready for another training cycle. At the moment I simply don’t feel up to it. I guess Canute was right after all, I might have overstepped the mark this time. I’ll try and correct that next time round.

19 Nov

0 miles, 40 minutes on the bike

20 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:45, 7:52 pace, HR 155