Year's End

I felt surprisingly sore after Tuesday's sprints, which really surprised me; after all there had not been a lot of sprinting. I guess I'm just not adapted to that kind of running. I therefore took it easy on Wednesday, just 10 miles at very relaxed pace before we all got into the car and made it to Dublin to visit the grandparents. For some reason the kids had been really good during the journey itself but went completely off the rails once we reached our destination. I half expected to be asked to turn around again and take the misbehaving brood with us. I wouldn't have blamed them.

Anyway, after being treated leniently and being allowed to stay, I did a few hill sprints on Thursday morning in Deer Park. I expected the hill to be a bit steeper. I tried one repeat on grass, but that was too slippery so I did the others on road. I don't remember them being so tough - after 5 repeats I almost threw up, despite my empty stomach, so it left it at that and only did 6 miles in all. That was a lot harder than expected.

Having said that, the hill sprints were a lot better on the legs than Tuesday's sprints on the flat; I wasn't really sore the next day. I did 8 rather boring miles in Stillorgan, made up of loops just under half a mile in length. I find running short loops mentally much harder than out-and-backs or long loops. At least when I'm running on my own; the 30 1-mile loops in Sixmilebridge were fine, probably because of the 100 other runners keeping each other company.

I ended the year with a run from our house in Stillorgan to Ticknock and then up the mountain towards Three Rock. That's as far as I had intended to go, but when I saw that nice trail going up further I could not resist and went all the way up to the top, where a big cairn awaited me; Fairycastle, according to some hill friendly walkers I met on the way. The wind was quite strong and there was no view to be had thanks to the clouds, but that's not what I had come for anyway. The elevation gain from Stillorgan was about 1500 feet, but it was only just over 6 miles each way, which made this not really a long run, but a fun run instead. Still, I decided I had already sufficiently sabotaged any chances of a good race tomorrow, so I went straight back home.

It was a great run to end a great year! Happy 2012, everyone!

28 Dec

10 miles, 1:19:11, 7:55 pace, HR 144

29 Dec

6 miles, 48:48, 8:07 pace, HR 147
   incl. 5x15 sec all-out hill sprints

30 Dec

8 miles, 1:03:23, 7:55 pace, HR 140

31 Dec

12.5 miles, 1:50:03,8:49 pace, HR 145
   mountain run to Fairycastle