Getting Your Excuses In Early

Or

Why I don’t think I will have a good marathon

• I was sick a week ago. I have run marathons after being sick before. They were a disaster.
  
• My resting heart rate this morning was 47. It should be below 40.
  
• The site of my dental procedure still hurts like hell.
  
• I haven’t been training properly for 8 weeks.
  
• I might be tempted to run with Mick Rice and burn horribly over the second half.
  
• Niamh wanted me to walk the 2 miles from the hotel to the start.
  
• Both calf muscles cramped horribly 2 nights ago – while getting off the sofa!
  
• I’m fat: 151 pounds. About 6 more than in Connemara.
  
• My stomach has started acting up. I was a very frequent visitor to the toilet yesterday.
  
• I can’t get excited about the race.

To be perfectly honest, I can’t even figure why I’m running this race. I am running a charity marathon in 5 weeks and if that were my only marathon this year, I might be tempted to race it and completely scupper my chances of a good race in Dingle. Cork is there to get the racing fever out of my system, and the charity marathon will be a glorified training run for Dingle. So far so good. Except that with my lack of enthusiasm for Monday’s race, there is no racing fever to get out of my system in the first place.

Niamh asked if I was excited about the race. I emphatically answered in the negative. The she asked if I was resigned. I guess that just about hits it. As soon as I got sick a week ago, my hopes for a good race went out of the window. Of course I’ll still go ahead, and of course I’ll drag my ageing body across the finish line. That’s what I always do. At the moment I just want to get it out of the way so that I can start training properly again.

Sorry ‘bout all that. I’m sure I’ll find my enthusiasm again somewhere down the line. I had a great race in Connemara. Maybe that’s just the post-ultra blues.

3 Jun

5 miles, 39:39, 7:56 pace, HR 150

4 Jun

0

5 Jun

4 miles, 32:10, 8:02 pace, HR 146