Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Home Alone

Sometimes Niamh refuses to take responsibility. Isn't there a law that children need to be watched all the time? Instead she trundled off to Dublin for her mum's birthday, and it took several hours of tense negotiations to get her to agree to take two children with her. The other two were abandoned – with me! I even had to take 2 days off work.

It meant a very early start on Tuesday so that I could get a few miles under the belt before driving to Killarney to drop them onto the train. Getting up at 5:45 for mere 5 miles does not sound worthwhile so I spiced things up with a set of hill sprints. I can't tell if they make me a better runner but I can tell that I'm getting better at doing hill sprints. Once more I did not have a set number in mind, but I did 10 before returning home, 2 more than last week. Or so I thought, because when I counted the spikes in the graph afterwards, I got 11. Don't blame me, it's hard to keep count when you're charging up that hill at full belt.

I had accepted the fact that I would not be able to run today, but Niamh suggested taking them to Killarney National Park with their bikes and run alongside. I did not expect them to agree when I suggested it, but they were all for it and off we went. It was a gorgeous day, which helped. I let the kids decide the route and we went from Knockreer to Ross Castle. Cian especially set a ferocious pace and I was just about able to hang on at sub-7 pace at times. We had a long break there and since he was tired on the way back the pace was much more civilised. I got just over 3 miles done; while running like that won't do for marathon training, spending a couple of hours of quality time with the kids more than makes up for that.
15 Aug
6 miles, 48:58, 8:09 pace, HR 137
16 Aug
5+ miles, 46:47, 9:08 pace, HR 144
   incl. 11x15 sec max effort hill sprints
17 Aug
3.2 miles, 23:41, 7:24 pace, HR 144

1 comment:

  1. Great that you could do that run with the kids. I try to fit in quality time whenever possible. I know my running takes up long hours over weekends sometimes and giving a few hours back is always good.

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