Progress

Doing at least one similar workout every week makes it possible to check your progress as the weeks of training are ticking by. It doesn't even have to be every week - the evaluations are every two weeks and they provide plenty of feedback that way. My one stronger run of the week, though, happens every Friday and if progress continued like it did over the last few weeks I would be a very happy man indeed.

For the first time in ages I managed to keep the pace below sub-3 marathon pace. Don't get me wrong - I could have done so on previous occasions, but I did not want to lift the effort above a certain level. Yesterday I definitely stayed below that, just cruising along at a comfortably hard effort (whatever that means) and in the end I was very happy to see that I had been 14 seconds per mile faster than the week before.

I won't get carried away with this. You don't get medals for training efforts. In all likelihood I won't be progressing 14 seconds per miles again in this training cycle. But it's nice to see that pace on the Garmin's display all the same.

The day before that I had done another set of hill sprints. I found out by accident that yawning on the walk back down is a very effective way to clear out the lungs, and by the end I was yawning on purpose after each effort. For whatever reason, I did not feel any nausea this time and ended it after a set number of repeats.

Running my strong 10-mile effort the day after hill sprints was possibly not ideal, but I ran out of days of the week. Having said that, the legs always seem to recover from hill sprints very quickly. I tend to be slightly sore for the rest of the day but the next morning there is no trace of it left.

Saturday was another group run. I fell into the by now usual pattern of running to the meeting point at a decent clip (7:24 pace), the  group run itself is very relaxed (8:35) and the run home is done at a decent clip again (7:07). I'm sure you won't find a workout like that in any coaching manual, but it's nice to be sharing the road with other runners for a change. I have run thousands of miles entirely on my own.

Unfortunately there is a bit of bad news as well, I had to cancel my run in Clonakilty in December. I was supposed to be a pacer; I really hope they manage to find a replacement. I find it exasperating the way the  pacer list for Dublin changes virtually every week as people drop out and the organisers have to find a replacement, so I feel really bad to be doing just that to the Clonakilty people. Luckily they don't seem to mind and were very understanding. I'd love to make up for it next year - if they'll have me, that is.

11 Oct

8.5 miles, 1:14:10, 8:43 pace, HR 137
   10 hill sprints

12 Oct

10 miles, 1:08:04, 6:48 pace, HR 158

13 Oct

14+ miles, 1:48:46, 7:42 pace, HR 140
   group run