From Recovery Straight Into The Taper

The previous week was basically a recovery week for me following the Cork City marathon. In some ways it was the opposite of the aftermath of the Killarney marathon, instead of getting sick I was getting healthy again. I could see straight away that the HR values had returned to normal levels, exactly what I would expect to see so soon after a marathon basically. Great!

Since I ran a marathon that Monday and will be running a 50k on Saturday, I took it easy on the weekend, at least as far as running was concerned, and limited the “long” run to a mere 13 miles. What surprised me was the pace, I never intended to run faster than easy pace, maybe the bright sunshine inspired me. I kind of had to pay the price for that on Monday, though that may well have more to do with the fact that I spent the entire weekend working in the garden and was suitably knackered. It probably had more effect on me than the running.

Initially I had planned on doing another mountain run on Wednesday, but since Portumna will be on Saturday I moved it to Tuesday to give me an extra day of recovery. I think those mountain runs are the key workout of my week even though I take it reasonably easy on the trail, but if you’re running a 20% grade for over 10 minutes at a time, taking it easy is rather relative. I had not done a mountain run in 4 weeks and expected it to feel very tough but the legs must have remembered it and it felt much easier than anticipated.

Unfortunately the beautiful summer weather is a thing of the past, it was quite wet up there on the Gap and the wind is a given anyway (the name speaks for itself). On the plus side, it was quite nice out this morning, in marked contrast to the weather forecast, but I always forget that the weather forecast is for Dublin only, no matter that they pretend otherwise. The legs felt a bit heavy early on today but the spring returned within the first mile; I might still have to pay some dues to the mountain tomorrow. As long as the fatigue is gone by Saturday, that;s ok.

I will do a mini-taper for the next 2 days, maybe 8 tomorrow and 5 on Friday. With a 50k to come the weekly mileage will be decent enough anyway, no need to push things unnecessarily.

The 10in10 is getting scarily close! According to the munsterrunning blog, 20 participants have signed up for the full 10 marathons; apparently this is the biggest field anywhere in Europe to tackle this kind of challenge. Wow – history is being made!

9 Jun

13 miles, 1:34:55, 7:18 pace, HR 150

10 Jun

9 miles, 1:09:40, 7:44 pace, HR 137

11 Jun

12.3 miles, 1:50:30, 8:59 pace, HR 144
    mountain run, Windy Gap x 2

12 Jun

10 miles, 1:14:08, 7:25 pace, HR 144