My Kind Of Taper

There was an interesting discussion in the comments section following the last entry. Keep it up, but remember: as MC said, this phase is all about recovery (just ignore the fact that I'm about to run another marathon).

While the vast majority of Monday's runners are hopefully taking it very easy, things weren't working out quite that way in our slightly manic household. Since Friday was the last day of school before break, there were no less than four separate Halloween school parties to attend, with the last 3 all overlapping, which required careful planning and precise execution for our one-car family, but we pulled it off. Maia went as a ballerina, Cian and Lola were both vampires and Shea, with his fable for unusual things, went as Skullduggery Pleasant (very cool!).

On Saturday we went to Dublin – with a few diversions. If you remember back to last year, there was a race series in Killarney National Park, which is being repeated this year. The first date was rather unfortunate, 2 days before the Dublin marathon, which would normally have ruled me out, but since I'm not racing in Dublin I got permission from both the wife and the coach to go ahead, as long as I took it easy. I was not to run faster than 6:10 – 6:15 pace, which I pretty much adhered to, apart from the very start where I had to put the breaks on rather sharpish. Unfortunately the Garmin went bonkers, showing paces from 2:30 to 11:00, neither of which sounded too convincing, so I was rather left to my own. I think I got it pretty much right on the first and last mile but the middle one was too slow as the runners around me slowed down and I inadvertently slowed down with them. In the end I crossed the line in a rather pedestrian 19:48 (results here), at least a minute slower than I would normally but hopefully with enough left in the tank to run a 3:30 marathon 48 hours later and not having jeopardised my base training.

We didn't exactly take the direct road to Dublin from there either because they just happened to have a Harry Potter workshop in Blackrock Castle in Cork and the kids were rather excited about the prospect, so we took a detour. They all graduated receiving their OWL certificates (no explanation needed for Harry Potter fans), and then we were finally on our way, arriving at about half past seven. Niamh's family found it hilarious that I had just run another race and that a marathon is apparently not enough for one weekend.

I have to spend two hours at the “Meet the Pacers” stand at the Expo today, then it's off to our hotel. There's a treat for everyone this weekend. The kids had Harry Potter, I'll have the marathon, Niamh will have a 5-star hotel. I don't expect any complaints.

22 Oct

5+ miles, 39:57, 7:58 pace, HR 145

23 Oct

5 miles, incl:
Killarney 5k, race 1, 19:48, 6:20 pace, HR 174