You learn from your mistakes. Dublin was a bit too fast, and the subsequent recovery just a bit too fast as well. There are fine margins. I ran Dublin at below-than-race effort, just not below enough. And the recovery runs were all at a genuinely easy effort, just not easy enough. Had I run Dublin a bit slower, say in 3:20, I think the effort level of the recovery runs would have been just fine but as it was I was always just over that line that I shouldn't have crossed.
Anyway, things aren't too bad, at least not yet, and can be rectified. It doesn't help that I lost my HRM (my guess is that it fell out of my bag in the train or train station) but I have finally received my replacement. I initially toyed with the idea of an optical HRM but the higher price paired with the lower accuracy drove me back to a chest strap, even though I have regular chafing issues with that.
This morning I remembered that several months ago I started looking into HRV (heart rate variability) measurement but didn't have the right equipment at the time and, being a cheap skate, decided against the purchase of yet another toy. However, my new HRM pod just happens to be one of the devices that supports those measurements, so from now on I will start using that. The idea is to measure my HRV values every morning and over time this should provide a good feedback with regards to recovery and overtraining status. We shall see.
Training has been low key this week, obviously. I followed the same recovery plan as always, a set of daily 5 mile runs until the legs felt better and 8 miles a day thereafter, with a gentle increase to follow. Going forward, in an attempt to learn from my mistakes I will refrain from any future 3:10 training marathons (3:15 is fine if I am in good shape, as I know from experience), which should hopefully avoid mistakes like the one last month as I am trying to regain the kind of form that got me into the National team setup and into European and World championships.
The goal is setting a big number in a 24 hours race next summer. I haven't decided which race I am going to target but just yesterday I saw the announcement that the Irish championships will be held in Victoria Park again. Despite the fact that I usually break those kind of promises to myself, for once I intent to keep the promise never to run in Victoria Park again, the memories from that place are just too painful. That means I have to look for alternatives abroad. The Austrian championships are the most obvious target race; not only would a good performance in front of the the team management do my chances of selection no harm, it is also the venue of the 2019 World championships and being familiar with the place in advance would definitely be a bonus. Having said that, I haven't decided yet and would consider any alternatives.
- 20 Nov
- 4 miles, 35:18, 8:49 pace
- 21 Nov
- 5 miles, 44:19, 8:51 pace
- 22 Nov
- 5 miles, 42:44, 8:32 pace
- 23 Nov
- 5 miles, 41:20, 8:16 pace
- 24 Nov
- 8+ miles, 1:08:59, 8:15 pace, HR 138
- 25 Nov
- 8 miles, 1:04:05, 8:01 pace, HR 138
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