Easy Week

Even if you're running a marathon as a training run (and don't get carried away), the most important thing is to recover from it, so an easy week it was. I followed Monday's marathon with 5 miles on Tuesday and then a rather repetitive sequence of 8 miles on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

What really counted for me was the fact that the HR readings were much better than the week before, so it looks like my shock therapy of running a marathon actually worked, believe it or not. The HR values are exactly what I would expect after a marathon, and once that is out of my legs I fully expect them to return to pre-sickness levels.

The weather has been absolutely glorious, I cannot remember the last time we had a full week of sunshine, and there is still another day or even two left before the rain returns. To be honest, the only reason I did 8 miles on Wednesday rather than 5 is because I wanted to spend more time in the early sunshine. I even got something resembling a tan over the last few days, though I am under no illusions that it might last.

The one change in the routine was Friday when we had our company's day out and went to the Eclipse Centre near Kenmare, same place as last year because everyone had enjoyed it so much back then. We sure picked the right day! I even managed not to bang my knee on the assault course this time, a major bonus. I enjoyed the day's activities very much, at least until about 8 or 9 o'clock when most of the colleagues started to get drunk and I was merely getting dead tired as my bed time approached and then passed. It took a very long time to get back home, I didn't hit the hay until 1:20 in the morning, when I usually would be halfway through my beauty sleep at that time already.

The post-marathon legs were never sore, walking down a staircase never caused any problems, but they were definitely fairly heavy on Tuesday and Wednesday. I inexplicably felt really good on Thursday but had to pay the price on Friday. They were a bit heavy again this morning, but I'm sure being on my feet all day had at least as much to do with it as the marathon.

I'm hoping for a fairly normal training week next week, including a mountain run which hasn't happened in a few weeks because I had gotten ill after Killarney, and then of course there is the small matter of 50k next Saturday in Portumna, which I am already very much looking forward to. I have heard so many good things about that race that I cannot wait to sample it myself. I won't be breaking any records though and hopefully I won't do what I did in Killarney.

4 Jun

5 miles, 40:25, 8:04 pace, HR 137

5 Jun

8 miles, 1:02:16, 7:46 pace, HR 141

6 Jun

8 miles, 59:14, 7:24 pace, HR 145

7 Jun

8 miles, 1:00:45, 7:35 pace, HR 146

8 Jun

8 miles, 59:43, 7:27 pace, HR 146