Pretend Taper, Pretend Carbo Loading

I think we can take one thing for granted; if I managed to run through the conditions of the last few days then there won't be any problems running through the winter. The weather has been absolutely atrocious. Caragh Lake and Caragh River's water are at the highest levels I have ever seen them. When Niamh went walking yesterday morning she remarked that the lake had changed its shape, all the flood plains surrounding it had become part of it. On Friday I ran through a piece of road that was a least one foot under water; there is a little wall at the side of the road, normally separating the road from the lake, which was entirely submerged. I had to run through that twice, on the way out as well as on the way back. Trail runners might be used to river crossings, I am not. Maybe the impromptu ice bath for the lower limbs was beneficial, you never know.

Running wise, I felt reasonably good, trying to forget the numbers from Wednesday's evaluation. I ran virtually the same run on Thursday and Friday and noticed a significant drop in HR between the two. Saturday's run was a mere 5 easy miles which basically makes up my taper for tomorrow's 30 mile race in Sixmilebridge, but of course that will only be a training effort for me, not a race as such. Nevertheless I am very much looking forward to it.

Niamh is in Cork all day today, the twins are out and I am tasked with minding the two little ones. The good thing about sitting around on your own the day before a long race is that you don't have to worry about carbo loading, the carbs seem to find their way into my mouth all by themselves. The bad thing about sitting around on your own the day before a long race is that you take the race as an excuse to totally pig out on anything that's sweet. I must have take more calories onboard that I will burn in tomorrow's race already, and it's not even three o'clock yet and City are going to be on the telly soon.

Well, I suppose the good thing about the recent weather was that it seems to have gotten it all out of the system. It's a lovely day today and the forecast for tomorrow is pretty benign. I don't think we will let get anything in the way of a serious day of good fun. I'll let you know how it went, of course.

17 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:19, 7:40 pace, HR 146

18 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:09, 7:39 pace, HR 143

19 Nov

5 miles, 38:38, 7:44 pace, HR 141