Change

Everything is going to be different from today on. Ireland is voting for radical change. According to the media this is the most important day since independence. Everything will be different from now on. Out goes the cronyism, corruption, self interest and outright incompetence of the government. And to get the whole process going, we are going to replace the conservative centre-right party presently in power with the conservative centre-right party presently in opposition.

Big Fucking Change my arse.

Let’s get back to running.

While the legs felt fine, the HR has been a bit elevated since Tuesday. The coach reckons this could be a sign that I’m not entirely recovered from the weekend’s double header, so we’re taking it easy. I basically did a bunch of easy runs all week and Thursday's run had the added spice of a few easy speed sessions. The run consisted of 4 x ( 4 x 30 seconds), separated by 2 minutes of recovery with about 15 minutes between each set. It was a very windy day, which meant running the 2.5 distance from our driveway to Ard-na-Sidhe, back home, and then once again. I did the speed sessions towards the end of each segment which saved me from checking the watch but in reality it meant slightly less than 15 minutes between sets. With so much recovery I did not expect the legs to be affected but was surprised by a feeling of heavy legs from the third set onwards. I cut the last session short by one sprint, partially because I was out of time and partially because I did not want to overdo it.

It was still windy today but I decided to brave the elements on the Caragh Lake road. I was rewarded with some great scenery, lit up by half a Moon, very cool. I love being out there on my own with seemingly the entire world still asleep. I did notice, however, that having a Guns N' Roses tune going round and round in your head is not conductive to easy running pace. I did not even wear an mp3 player, I just could not get rid of that song (didn’t want to; beats the Postman Pat jingle any day). If I can tune into that next Sunday it might help, though.

Spring is definitely here, it is bright when I get back home and I don’t even need my headlight any more when cycling home from work in the evening. No more being blinded by ignorant drivers refusing to dip their head lights – always major bonus.

As alluded to in my last post, the secret to successful marathon training seems to be to run easily in your base phase and then train harder than you ever thought you could on the few workouts closer to the marathon that count. With only 7 weeks to go to Vienna, there seem to be quite a few hard session on the horizon.

24 Feb

10 miles, 1:16:52, 7:41 pace, HR 148
   incl. 4 x (4 x 30sec) [well, almost]

25 Feb

8 miles, 1:01:08, 7:39 pace, HR 147