Handling The Trauma

Obviously, I've spent some some time in the last few days thinking about Sunday's race. There's no point hitting myself over the head repeatedly. I threw away a possible victory due to a series of mistakes. To be fair, I haven't exactly had much reason or opportunity to hone my tactical racing skills up to now. I'll file Sunday's experience under "lesson learned (hard way)" and move on.

If Fergus really ran 3:35 in last year's DCM and one year later ran the same time for a 30 miler, that's a phenomenal improvement - if you're reading this, congratulations, mate! Don't worry about people thinking you were a bit too intense. You were intense, I was relaxed. You won, I lost. There's a connection here.

In Dublin I ran 26+ miles at 7:24 pace with a HR of 156. In Sixmilebridge I ran 30 miles at 7:11 pace with a HR of 158. That's in the same ball park, but marks a nice little improvement. Going purely by HR, my training is going well.

By the way, I can't quite believe I managed to close out the race out with 6:16 mile. I have run 5Ks where the last mile was slower than that. Just shows how much faster I could have run had I tried properly.

Let's move on, for real this time.

On the definite plus side, the one factor that cost me my win, namely the fact that I regarded it more a training run than a real race, has reaped benefits ever since. After Dublin I wasn't sore but I felt a bit stiff for a couple of days. This time, there is not even a trace of stiffness. I did not run on Monday because I thought a rest day might be a good idea after that race, but was surprised by how well I felt.

Accordingly, I went out for 5 miles on Tuesday.Why only 5 miles? Glad you asked. I got up in time for more but realised that I had forgotten to hang out the laundry the previous evening, so I did it there and then. When that was finished, I only had time for 5 miles before work. Ah yes, there's something like Real Life as well. I bet Mo Farah never had to worry about the state of the laundry before going for a training run.

Tuesday's HR was super low, which came as a bit of a surprise, but Wednesday and Thursday told a different story. The same happened three weeks ago. Two days after DCM, my HR was surprisingly low but increased significantly the following days. The exact same is happening now. If it follows the same pattern (which I think it will), it will improve again within a week.

The weather has been pretty wild this week, with plenty of wind and rain, flooded roads and icy cold temperatures. Great stuff! Makes you feel like hard core after 10 miles. I wasn't too bothered about the conditions in Sixmilebridge on Sunday - I've seen it all before, it was just like home.

20 Nov

5+ miles, 38:29, 7:32 pace, HR 142

21 Nov

8 miles, 59:56, 7:29 pace, HR 154

22 Nov

10 miles, 1:15:15, 7:31 pace, HR 154