Shock To The System

After taking the marathon week off work, the return to my desk was always going to feel strange. We drove back to Kerry on Friday for the kids’ swimming lessons, so I had time to adjust but that didn’t help. I spent Monday and Tuesday doing a rather intense work training course that pulled me way out of my comfort zone; as I sat down at my desk on Wednesday morning for what felt like the first time in ages, it came as a complete shock. Mind, the feeling of “what do I do now” dissipated very quickly, I came out of the first meeting with a massive to-do list that took care of that problem.

Cycling into work on Monday had felt strange too at first, but I got used to that in no time.

Dealing with an upset and confused 4-year old at 4 am in the morning wasn’t the easiest task either.

The legs seemed to come round nicely during the week, feeling pretty good on Wednesday; the next shock was delivered during the first half on Thursday’s run when I felt like dragging a pair of concrete pillars around. Mind, the second half of the same run was great; maybe I only had to shake off some cob webs. The HR has come down as well. It is always affected by a marathon for several weeks and will take some additional time to get back to where it was before Dublin, but it is moving pretty quickly.

The final shock came 10 minutes ago when I realised that it’s already Thursday, more than half of the week is already past and I haven’t updated the blog in 4 days. On the plus side I'm almost halfway through to next payday and still got some money in my bank account (something that had not been the case over the last couple of months).

Things will adjust. Except the recovery from Dublin won’t get the chance to run its full course because in 10 days I will run 30 1-mile loops around Sixmilebridge, and if you think that running 30 1-mile loops around Sixmilebridge does not sound like the best way to have oodles of fun then you and me are not on the same wave length.

Then there’s still the Clonakilty marathon to think about, 4 weeks from now. During the first half of today’s run I decided that my legs were not recovering quickly enough and doing 3 marathons and/or ultras in 6 weeks are not a good idea, not even when they’re all run at leisurely pace. But then I was floating effortlessly through the second half of today’s run and things changed again. I do not want fall into the same trap I did last year when training for Dingle, when too many marathon-length training runs in too short a time left my legs unable to recover in-between efforts and all the hard training made me slower rather than faster. I will have to see and adapt my plans. After Sixmilebridge I will have a week to decide on Clon.

7 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:00, 7:48 pace, HR 143

8 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:08, 7:49 pace, HR 143

9 Nov

11.5 miles, 1:30:16, 7:51 pace, HR 144

10 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:06, 7:49 pace, HR 140