Wrapping It Up

There's one question regarding the 24 hours I forgot to answer from Cathal: how did they measure the distance covered, timing mats or pen/paper? Actually they used both, a chipped timing solution as well as  manual counters as backup, though I'm pretty sure the manual counting sheets were not needed in the end. It's still good to have them of course, just in case.

 By the way, this is the image from the Garmin connect website of my race. As I mentioned in the race report, the watch died after about 17 hours and that's the data until then. It's funny how for the very first lap the positioning data was obviously well out, but all the other laps are pretty much there. It's probably got something to do with the fact that I turned on the Garmin pretty much at the last second. It took one lap for the data to become accurate.

One thing I could not fail but notice is how much more athletics is valued north of the border. Bangor is only 10 miles outside Belfast, yet they have a sports complex with a great track and floodlights, as well as a very nice club house amongst other facilities. The mere idea that they might build similar facilities here in the republic in a town as close as that to Dublin is laughable. As for facilities here in Kerry apart from that one track that is 45 minutes drive from my house - forget it.

Regards recovery from that race, ever since I finished my last bottle of beer and started running again on Saturday I have been doing nothing but short, easy, relaxed 5-mile runs in the morning. My right foot was a bit sore initially, but that has now gone. My Achilles hurt on Monday when cycling to and from work, which is a bit weird as it never hurt during the race or any other time since. The one problem area is my left knee, the same pain I had during the last hour of the race. I have learned over the years that gentle exercise actually speeds up the recovery process when muscles are involved. The same might not necessarily be true for knee troubles, but I'm giving it a go nevertheless. I am wearing a knee strap for support, which seems to help. I think it felt better today, and I hope that's not just wishful thinking.

I had already signed up for the Dingle Ultra a couple of months ago but was slightly doubtful if I would be able to recover from Bangor in time. Now I'm very optimistic that I will indeed make the start line. I'm not sure if I will be able to do any real training for it, obviously recovery from Bangor is paramount, but I guess I'm fine as far as endurance is concerned already and I won't worry too much about the rest. It's not my A race and I will just enjoy it instead.

You know what? All of a sudden 50 miles aren't as long as they used to be. Funny that.

15 Jul

5 miles, 45:39, 9:08 pace, HR 135

16 Jul

5 miles, 42:46, 8:33 pace, HR 143

17 Jul

5 miles, 41:58, 8:24 pace, HR 143