Looking Ahead

I should not have been surprised, but I was. The quads were rather sore on Monday, following my little mountain run, and the pace was fairly slow. As is generally the case with DOMS, it was a good bit worse again the next day. For some reason, the left leg always seems to be more affected than the right one, and this time was no exception. What was far more important to me was the fact that my shin did not hurt at all, for the first time in well over a month. After carrying this for so long, recovery was amazingly quickly. I guess putting the Kinvaras to rest really was the right thing to do. It's a shame, I loved their light weight and the 525 miles I wore them for is not excessive by my standards, I generally expect to get at least 650 miles out of a pair. I might still get another pair, but will obviously have to be careful once they reach a certain mileage.

I'm surprised nobody called me out on the last paragraph of the previous entry (that's assuming that there are still some readers out there, of course). I do not want to put myself through yet another gruelling marathon training cycle, but have no qualms targeting an ambitious ultra time. I just like the slower pace of the ultras; it was the long marathon-pace and faster-than-marathon-pace workouts that I found really challenging in the build-up for Vienna. On the other hand, I have always loved the slower long runs and never worried much about the distance.

I will try and put a few things into place that I learned from last year's Dingle training cycle. There won't be back-to-back 5 hour runs this time; they undoubtedly built up my endurance but cost me a lot of speed, and my easy cruising pace in Dingle was 30 seconds per mile slower than in Connemara. That won't do.

What I will do is run a couple of long races around the 50k mark for training purposes. I've already signed up for 2 and I might throw in another marathon, depending on how recovery goes.

The pace for a 5 hour Connemara is 7:38. It does sound eminently doable, but I will have to build up a cushion over the first 26 miles because of the 2 tough climbs over the last third. If I can cruise through the marathon at 7:30 pace while still feeling good, sub-5 will be on the cards.

Actually, I'm getting way ahead of myself here. There is the small matter of Dublin yet to come. With my shin now healed, that doesn't worry me, though.

10 Oct

10 miles, 1:19:17, 7:55 pace, HR 142

11 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:55, 7:59 pace, HR 143

12 Oct

10 miles, 1:17:33, 7:45 pace, HR 145