Saturday and Sunday had been relatively easy days and I had planned a longer run this morning but felt much too tired last night; I re-set the alarm for another short and easy run, the third in a row. Considering that I’m going to run a marathon 5 days from now, a longer outing was probably pushing my luck more than required anyway, even if it’s a training marathon.
It did question why I ran the Cork marathon, but looking at it now it was definitely a good idea. If next week had been my only marathon of the year I most likely would not have been able to resist the temptation of racing it, and 8 weeks before Dingle this would almost certainly have been disastrous. Instead, with the racing fever well and truly out of my system, I am now looking forward to a comfortable training run with aid stations. Oh the luxury!
Having said that, I am well short of my target on the charity front, so if you had planned on donating a few Euro to the cause but had accidentally forgotten about it in the meantime, now is your chance to do so. Oh, and thanks to all the great guys and gals who did get out their credit card, this is all highly appreciated. That reminds me, the 32-marathon challenge has started already, you can check out the website for a progress report so far.
As this marathon will be a training run, I am not really tapering but will take it easy the last few days beforehand anyway. The weather seems on the verge of changing. We had a great summer so far, at least by Irish standards, but after the last 3 years we were more than due a few sunny weeks. Let’s hope that was not it as far as the summer was concerned, though. The kids are turning into lunatics when they’re house bound.
- 3 Jul
- 6.5 miles, 53:05, 8:10 pace, HR 141
- 4 Jul
- 8 miles, 1:02:28, 7:48 pace, HR 144
- 5 Jul
- 6.1 miles, 49:00, 8:02 pace, HR 142
incl. 8x100 strides
I understand the pull of doing a marathon as a training run but I've always thought that if I did one like that and in the 1st 10K I was still feeling good, I couldn't resist the temptation of racing the rest.
ReplyDeleteEven if I was just in it for a training run if I saw a plodder or someone in a silly costume in front of me I'd have to pass them and it would end up defeating the whole purpose.
Try to exert a bit more will power than that Thomas but I think it's going to be hard for you to do so ;)