It's The Bite

I'm five weeks into marathon training and it definitely has started to bite. I had a few runs that were pretty damn hard work, and not because of any pace targets, it just was hard work to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I can definitely see some results already. For a start, there are a couple of pairs of Jeans in my wardrobe that a few months ago were completely out of the question, and when I needed a pair the other day, wouldn't you know it, they fit perfectly and were actually comfortable. So I know that I have lost some weight, even without weighing myself.

My resting heart rate has dropped quite a bit already as well and is back down into the 40s, which is about 10 down from a few months ago (and 20 from just after Covid). 

On the other hand I have definitely felt very tired at times, not just when I'm running but during the day as well. 

And a couple of weeks ago my left heel started to hurt at the start of each run. I'd set off feeling ok, then after a minute or two my heel started hurting and for about 5 minutes it was rather uncomfortable until it settled again.

True to my usual MOD I did what I always do with those kind of issues: I ignore them. Scoff as much as you like, it worked in the vast majority of cases. problem is, the 3 or 4 times when it did not work it  ended up requiring a break of a several weeks, which would be a massive setback for Dublin. So let's wait and see. Admittedly, it has been getting worse recently - but we're off on our holidays in a few days and I'm not sure if the weather in Crete will be conductive to running anyway, so maybe I'm in for a bit of a break anyway, and let's hope my heel will have settled down by the time I get back home.

More Chocolate

Sunday definitely was a hot day, and I was starting to design Paul's voodoo doll in my head halfway up Vico Road for his insistence on doing the Killiney loop again. Ah well - we all survived, and in fact we were going a good bit faster than the week before, though that was mainly down to Antonia having joined the boys' group and definitely pushing the pace a bit more then I would have done on my own. But in the end I was surprised by how decent I was still feeling. It might only have been 13 miles but that's still my longest run in months and I would have been able to go a good bit longer.

So far, so good.

I'm not sure how I will cope for the first 2 weeks in August when we are meant to go on holidays and running in the Mediterranean heat might be a problem - as well as my usual problem of "Honey, I've packed my suitcase but I have no room for normal clothes after all my running stuff". 

The P&D plan does have a medium-long run in midweek, which is definitely the biggest change compared to my pre-training running. It means having to get up a bit early, but one of the distinct advantages of working from home means I can get home much later than pre-Covid and still be at work in time. And I can really tell the difference this extra day of decent mileage makes.

One thing I already noticed, after less than 2 weeks of marathon training, is that the pair of Jeans that was feeling a bit tight is now feeling a bit loose, so even without stepping on the weighing scales I know the weight is coming down. That was something I always noticed - my weight would always track my weekly mileage inversely. There was never much point in weighing myself - I could always tell straight away. And being able to eat as much chocolate as I want was always one of the big bonuses of running for me. Not everything happens for health reasons, you know.

I hope everyone else's running is going reasonably well, especially the ones training for Dublin as well.

Back To My Roots

If someone is still reading this, congratulations on your patience. If not, well then this blog is back to what I intended it to be when it all started back in 2005 - my own little running diary, to enable me to look back at my marathon training and see what it was like, what went well, what did not.

Also, after years of being told that the title of my blog is just wrong, it got back to being pretty accurate, depending on where you draw the levels, of course. I'm reasonably sure I will never run under 3:30 again, and as long as I stay under 4 hours for my next marathon, I'll be happy, which is, again, a return to where I was when I started out.

One more return to where I started: the next marathon will be Dublin, which of course was also the scene of my first ever marathon.

One more return: I dug out my ancient copy of the P&D Advanced Marathoning book and decided to follow the training plan, the same plan that got me my first sub-4 marathon so many years ago. Let's hope it will deliver again.

I had signed up for Dublin back in 2020, but we all know what happened then. My running performance has taken a massive dive since then, for various reasons: age has not been kind to me, well, after all I'm well over 50 now. However, I think the major issue was that I finally started to pay the price for years of slight overtraining and never truly recovering. I got away with it for a long, long time, and I'm not complaining because it got me to levels that I would not even have dared to dream about, but at some point the body decided it had enough and that was that.

Subsequently my motivation took a nose dive a well, the idea of training my arse off just to be running 2 minutes a mile slower than I used to just wasn't all that appealing.

So, why am I back? Well, I'm still running about 6 times a week, though mostly for health reasons, and to allow me to keep my weight down while being able to eat whatever I like, and while I'm much slower than I used to be, I'm still beating anyone on the couch, so why not. That marathon entry might just be the ticket to entice me to keep running, so that's what I 'll do. 

Oh yeah, and this entry is actually a little bit late already - I've finished week one already, so that's only  17 weeks left. I haven't stuck to the plan religiously, I swapped a rest day for a slow 5k jog, and the recovery run for Saturday was spent pacing 26 minutes at Shanganagh parkrun, though that turned out to be recovery effort anyway.

So far, so good.