Short Update

Things are definitely getting back to normal - Niamh and the kids are back home, it is raining and my weekly mileage has settled in the 80s.

I definitely felt the effects of Sunday's 21 hilly miles in the legs on Monday. They weren't sore as such, but there was definitely some sluggishness in my early morning run, though the nice sunny weather coupled with some warmer temperatures more than made up for that.

The weird thing happened on Tuesday, despite the legs feeling better than the day before the pace was much slower. I ran the same effort level as for all of my easy runs, but somehow I only barely crept under 8-minute miles pace. While it would be obvious to blame Sunday's run, I suspect the  hours of working in the garden on Monday were much more to blame. That usually does a number on my legs - unlike running, I am not used to it. On the plus side, the HR was really low.

The nice weather just wasn't going to last, sadly missed as it is. Actually, so far it has not been quite as bad as the forecast had made us believe; when I saw the warnings of wind and heavy rain I initially considered binning my mountain run, but now I'm glad that I went ahead with it. A couple of hours at dawn in wind and rain can be much more fun than it may sound. I had planned on going over Windy Gap 4 times but had left the house too late (or ran too slowly) and had to settle for 3 climbs, twice from the Caragh Lake and once from the Glenbeigh side. It's quite a cool sight to be running right along the wisps of clouds as they are twirling around the mountain tops. There is definitely an eerie feeling to that place. The legs felt fine, I was surprised to find that the calves had absolutely no problems doing that very steep climb three times in quick succession.

I haven't said much about my achilles recently; it has mostly settled down; I can feel a little twinge from time to time, usually during the first mile or so, but that's all that's left of it. I don't think this will bother me any more for the foreseeable future.

6 May

10 miles, 1:17:55, 7:46 pace, HR 142

7 May

10 miles, 1:19:28, 7:56 pace, HR 133

8 May

13+ miles, 2:06:18, 9:32 pace, HR 136
   mountain run, Windy Gap x 3