Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Good News And Bad News

I've had troubles with my Garmin yet again, but this time I think I finally figured out what's causing the problem (hint: don't connect it to a computer that is being hammered by your son playing minecraft at the time). I lost the data for Sunday's long run as well as Monday's easy one, but managed to resurrect the thing once more for Tuesday. It did raise the question if it's really worth using that toy, but I also played with the idea of getting a newer one, so I guess re-animating the existing one is some sort of compromise. I'm far too much of a maths nerd to go without numbers.

I was actually quite amazed by the way I felt on Monday. I expected heavy legs at the least after a tough weekend, both running as well as real life-wise. Instead I was running along completely relaxed and without much effort.

I did lengthen the run on Tuesday by a couple of miles to see how that would feel. It also added an extra hill to the route, which at first had me try and think of an alternative route until I came to my senses and figured that extra hills can only be a good thing.

Wednesday is the day of my special workout and this time it was fartlek, done Kenyan style, as in 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy. I never check the pace or HR during these efforts, just had the watch beep every 60 seconds, which can take a long time, especially uphill. As much as I tried to keep the effort as even as possible, uphill always felt significantly harder.

As for the news from the title, the good news is that I've already dropped over 3 pounds. That was the easy part of course, the next 3 pounds will take an awful lot longer and the 3 after that might never drop at all, but I'm getting closer to my race weight already. There might be a slight setback on the horizon in the form of my upcoming birthday, but other than that I should be okay.

The bad news, however, is that I'm definitely not running Ballycotton this year. I don't know what exactly happened, my cheque must have gotten lost in the post; it never got cashed and my name is not on the list of entrants. The cheque for the Tralee marathon that I sent off at exactly the same time got cashed very quickly and my entry confirmed, so that's a bit weird. However, there's nothing I can do about that. What's more, my Ballycotton mug at work has mysteriously gone awol a few weeks ago and I won't even have a replacement ready.

20 Jan
10 miles, 1:18:55, 7:53 pace
21 Jan
12 miles, 1:33:32, 7:48 pace, HR 141
22 Jan
10 miles, 1:15:29, 7:32 pace, HR 150
   incl. 7.5 miles of 1 min hard / 1 min easy

4 comments:

  1. Someone taking your Ballycotton mug is seriously bad form. No one in my house - wife, friends, in laws, family can never drink out of it. Hunt them down !!!

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  2. Mallow would be a nice change of (cork) scene for you This year Thomas, see you there?

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  3. Have a stack of BallyC mugs that never get used, if you want some!

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  4. I've heard some great reports on the 620. You get cadence/vertical oscillation (!) and ground contact time. Even more numbers to geek out over ;-)

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