Thank God I Did Not Forget

For some reason, 13 years ago to the day, Niamh lowered herself to my level by agreeing to be my wife for the rest of our lives. Amazingly, she still claims not to regret a thing. 13 years. It can’t be unlucky, can it?

Almost as amazing as her lack in taste (or is it sense?) is the difference in my legs compared to last week. Although I inflicted pretty much the same punishment during the weekend, the quads, which were in a sea of pain 7 days ago, are perfectly fine. Can they really have adapted so quickly? I’m a bit weary of this – after the Killarney marathon 2 weeks ago I thought my legs were super strong, only to be taught a humbling lesson one week later, and I know there is still work to do before I can confidently say that I’m prepared for 50 miles, but the signs so far are good.

My shin was still a bit sore on Monday and so I checked the mileage on the shoes I had worn on Saturday. Niggles like that are usually a sign that I need to take a pair of shoes out of rotation and indeed, there were 600 miles on those runners and the reward for several months of faithful service was a one-way trip to the bin. Luckily, I already had a replacement pair waiting in the cupboard.

6 very easy miles on Tuesday left me feeling fresh enough to attempt a speed workout this morning and I chose a set of 400s to get some proper leg speed. Since I had not run fast for a very long time and my legs were still bound to be affected from this weekend’s double workout (as well as the one from the week before, and probably the marathon from the week before that as well) I would have been perfectly happy with 90-second-repeats, but I got a nice surprise by consistently being a good bit faster than that. I did not run back-and-forwards like I normally do for short repeats, but ran along the lake instead, which meant some of the repeats were net-downhill while I had to pay back on others, which explains most of the time differences between the repeats.

91, 88, 84, 81, 85, 87, 87, 89, 84 (avg. 86.6)

I’m very happy with those numbers. I thought my fast-twitch fibres would have atrophied my now.

I also got 2 new shorts, which will hopefully go some way of solving my problem of bringing stuff along for long runs because they have no less than 5 pockets each. I haven’t tried them out on a long run yet, that will come on the weekend, but I was definitely impressed by the prompt delivery from the states. Some companies are good like that and if their shorts are as good as their service, I will be delighted.

27 Jul

6.1 miles, 54:26, 8:55 pace, HR 127

28 Jul

8 miles, 1:00:08. 7:31 pace, HR 151
incl. 9x400 repeats (400 rest)