In The Doghouse

Niamh: I've read your blog and wish to add in the interest of fairness and accuracy that my timing was not bad. It was my (censored)th birthday!
Thomas: I didn't think you would want me to broadcast your age to the entire world.
Niamh: TELL THEM IT WAS A VERY SIGNIFICANT BIRTHDAY!!!

So I did.

After the madness of the weekend I could not wait to get out and do some real running again, so I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning and ran the Kerry Way to Glenbeigh again, the same mountain run that had destroyed my legs last week. This time I was about 5 minutes slower but the difference was enormous, there was just no comparison. I felt so much better! When I came back I knew I wasn't going to suffer from the same soreness again. If that's due to the slightly slower pace or the fact that the legs have adapted extremely quickly, I'm not entirely sure. Fact is that last week I was really taken by surprise by how sore I felt afterwards and this time I was equally surprised by how well I handled it.

Niamh thought I was really funny, obviously being very happy after my run. She knows I need to run for my sanity.

Unfortunately, things turned sour overnight. I was shivering in bed, feeling really cold. That's generally the sign of another cold coming along, but I didn't feel the usual achy joints and headache and wasn't entirely sure what was going on. But I was absolutely freezing (a hot water bottle eventually solved that problem), very thirsty and slept extremely badly, waking up every few minutes. Maia had a rough night was well, we may well be fighting the same thing. I felt like crap on Tuesday morning, from the cold as well as the lack of sleep, but of course I went running anyway. The legs were a bit heavy following the mountain run, but worlds better than last week. However, I felt exhausted and the HR was elevated by a significant amount. I have lymph nodes that are so swollen that they hurt and I am just generally feeling lousy.

With 6 days to go before the Cork marathon, things are a bit dicey. If I were racing it, that would most likely spell the end of any hopes for a decent performance, but I'm only doing it as a pacer and I'm still reasonably optimistic that I will be able to do it. I don't even want to contemplate what I'd be doing if something like that happened before Bangor.

28 May

12.25 miles, 1:47:15, 8:45 pace, HR 148
   off road on the Kerry Way

29 May

8 miles, 1:03:22, 7:55 pace, HR 148
   feeling like crap