Restart

It's been a very busy weekend. Because Niamh had to get the twins to their CTY course (the last one for this term), I had to get up early to run. What's new. Since I'm still not trusting my knee I cut the long run down to 15 miles, just the one loop around Caragh Lake. If things keep going well I will get back to my pre-injury mileage next week. The roads are clear of ice at the moment, but if you believe the weather forecast it might be back next week, so better make use of the conditions right now. Last year I used to feel low around the 12 or 13 mile mark on my long runs. This has definitely not been the case in this training cycle. I was back home after 15 miles, just under 2 hours, perfectly fresh and fine; I felt like I could do it all again right there and then.

Instead I ran after Maia for the next few hours and when Niamh came back from Tralee I went Christmas shopping, which was at least as tiring as another loop around the lake. Unusually for me I had checked out prices and availability before setting off, and I had done it early enough to be able to fall back to online shopping for stuff I could not get my hands on (online shopping for toys is extremely frustrating because for some absolutely incomprehensible reason Amazon don't deliver toys to Ireland). Anyway, we're now prepared for Santa.

Talking about Santa, that's exactly who we went to see on Sunday evening¬. The trip to Crag Cave with their play area and Santa's grotto has become an annual ritual and the kids would start revolting at the bare suggestion of not going. Before all that I had to run of course, and since Niamh's presence was required at Cromane's cake sale I was out early once more. One day I'll get to sleep in, I'm sure. Ideally, Friday/Saturday/Sunday would consist of a fast 10 miler, a long run and a medium long run but I have cut corners due to my knee, so Saturday was a mere 15 miles and today 13. All these runs went well enough but I was a bit disappointed to see rather high HR values today and yesterday, which might be a sign that Friday's run was a bit too fast. My resting HR was 46 this morning, shockingly high compared to the 37 I measured a fortnight ago. Before my knee gave out I was marvelling how quickly I was improving, now my numbers are similar to those from 3 or 4 weeks ago and I'm basically catching up, trying to get to the same level again. It's important to remember that I got there by running easily – pushing hard is counter productive at this stage. That's the one lesson that has been loud and clear in the past few weeks and I'm well advised to heed it. As frustrating as it is to run slower than just over a week ago, that's what I have to do.

11 Dec

15+ miles, 1:57:58, 7:50 pace, HR 149

12 Dec

13 miles, 1:39:59, 7:41 pace, HR 150