Strawberry-Flavoured Chocolate-Coated Fudge

It very much sounds like my beloveds have re-started their assault on my waist line with a vengeance since their return from Dublin. On Sunday Niamh made a Pavlova (“I had some egg whites left over”), and after listening to too much Roal Dahl, Shea got it into his head that he absolutely had to create his own magic recipe. And when Shea gets something in his head, there is no stopping him. I wonder where he got that from.

With all those extra calories maybe I should add a few miles to every run to burn them off, but unfortunately my legs beg to differ. For some reason the pace just went bananas on Sunday, even with a low PRE and heart rate, so I could not even berate myself for running too fast as it was all genuinely easy, which was all the more surprising considering how much I had suffered after last week’s long run. One week later and all seemed to be so different.

It did all catch up with me though, and as soon as I woke on Monday morning I knew a few genuinely easy days were in store to dig me out of yet another hole. What followed was the slowest run in several weeks on Monday and another, not much faster one, on Tuesday, both limited to 8 miles.

People keep asking me what I'm training for, and nobody seems to believe me when I'm saying “nothing”. There is no goal race for the rest of the year. I just came across a list of road races in Kerry and I could be out there every fortnight if I wanted to. I might. I will decide as I go along. I won’t be at my very best because I won’t be able to peak for an ‘A’ race, but that’s fine. Doing it this way will hopefully let me re-charge my mental batteries and come autumn I’m hoping to start another, proper, build-up to a race early next year that will mean something to me.

Trying to follow the guidelines that I have learned from Mystery Coach is helpful, though. Right now I'm mostly learning what not to do, as I keep digging myself into a hole due to lack of recovery. The hope is that the lessons I'm learning right now the hard way will still be etched in my memory once I start training in earnest. I look at this summer mainly as preparation for the next training cycle.

By the way, I have been selected as a pacer for the 3:30 group in Dublin again this year. Grellan will be there as well. That should be great fun and it means I’ll still get another marathon done, even if I'm not training specifically for it. If you’re aiming for that time, see you there.

3 Jul

12 miles, 1:30:37, 7:33 pace, HR 147

4 Jul

8 miles, 1:04:50, 8:06 pace, HR 142

5 Jul

8 miles, 1:02:58, 7:52 pace, HR 146

Weekly Mileage: 77