Ouchy

Last Saturday I headed down to Shanganagh Park for the weekly parkrun. I'm not entirely sure why, I think it was that I felt good on Tuesday when I did a couple of faster miles and decided I may as well do the same with company, so off I went on Saturday morning.

It was a freezing cold day, there was frost all over the place, including the road, and there was a big patch of solid ice where usually the puddle is in park (and you do cross that patch 3 times in the parkrun, so definitely one to be careful). Obviously I have been around here for long enough to know that these things never start on time but that day they were a whopping 13 minutes late to get things going, which is almost Kerry-levels of timekeeping, or lack of it. If I had known about the delay I would have done a few little runs to keep warm but as it was I, and everyone else, was just standing around in the freezing cold, and when we finally got going I immediately noticed that my calves felt very stiff.

That feeling went away, and I did the parkun at about 85% of effort, enough to feel the muscles working but low enough not to feel wiped out, though I still tied up badly in the last k, and obviously I posted my slowest ever parkrun time but that's ok, there will be worse to come. However, as soon as I started my jog back home my calves were hurting straight away, and things didn't improve.

In fact, on Sunday there were so sore that I binned my morning run, and I changed my plan to go cycling instead when Niamh suggested to do a swim, so that was my workout for the day, imitating a lead balloon, and a particularly uncoordinated one at that. I survived; barely.

Anyway, the caves were still sore for about 3 more days. It felt very much like DOMS, but since it started straight after the parkun there was no delay involved, but I have no real idea what exactly was wrong, except that it did sort itself out eventually, no lasting harm done.

Parkrun is a fantastic institution and I would never complain about the volunteers who keep it going, they are delivering a fantastic service to so many people, but whatever the problem was on Saturday, they came damn close to do me in.

Quiet Time

There's not much to report, apart from the fact that I have indeed managed to stick to my new resolution of running less so far. I'm not cutting down entirely; I ran on Tuesday lunchtime with some work colleagues and then twice on the weekend, though my weekly mileage of about 15 miles is the lowest in a long time, and I have no intention of changing that approach any time soon.

I got a bit of a surprise on Saturday when I set a PB on a Strava segment, entirely by accident - I thought I was running at an easy effort, genuinely, honestly! Obviously it was on a stretch of road where I had never run anything approaching fast pace before but it still caught me completely off guard. Maybe the rest that comes with such a low mileage is really working. I guess that's what tapering is all about.

I still intent to run in Donadea in less than 4 weeks; it's probably not a great idea but it sure won't be the dumbest thing I have ever done, I have gotten away with way worse in the past. I try and think of it as an extreme taper - well, actually I don't, not really. I have no illusions about my chances of posting a decent time, I expect to finish in around 4:30, and just to keep that in context, I have never finished above 4 hours before. There will actually be a 4:30 pace group but I have no idea if I will try and go out with them or not, I will probably decide only on the day.

Actually, I do enjoy the fact that my legs are not hurting every day. Maybe I could get used to that. if that's such a good thing I'm not sure, though. A bit of discomfort is a good thing after all.

Resolution

To say that I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions would be quite the understatement but this year I'm going against my own beliefs and came up with a resolution, albeit a few days late:

Run less

Yup, pretty much the opposite of what most people would resolve, which is why I'm pretty happy with it after all.

It didn't come quite out of the blue. For the last 4 years I have been feeling less and less like a runner almost with each passing day - well, obviously there are better days sprinkled in between, but overall the decline has been rather alarming, not just in my performances but in the way running has felt. I just can't run properly any more, and it is getting worse.

I took 3 days off over Christmas because I had a slight head cold, nothing serious, and I did a few miles when I got back on my feet, and I felt absolutely awful. It hasn't gotten much better since. I ran 10 miles at some point, very slowly, and still felt beaten up for a day or two afterwards. I tried a long-ish run on Sunday, still nothing amazing at maybe 15 miles, and at mile 5 I was already struggling and had to cut it short.

It feels like overtraining, though where from I'm not sure because I swear I haven't done much training in the last few weeks and months - I used to do twice that and felt good! Anyway, it had been nagging at me for quite some time anyway, I need a break from running.

It's not as easy as it seems. I use running for mental health benefits at least as much as for physical improvement and I need my exercise, literally. I'll try and do more cycling and see if that does the trick, and the odd run every now and then hopefully won't do any harm.

Ah fuck, I have a 50k in 5 weeks. I even skipped a trip to Seattle for it!

Ah well. Happy New Year!