Rest And Recovery

Maybe it’s crazy, or maybe it’s just a sign how old and boring I have become the last few years, but I was actually much more excited by seeing my HR/pace data on Monday’s recovery run than I was about anything related to Sunday’s race.

TRAPPIST-1 according to Lola

Still, running almost a minute a mile faster for the same HR than I did last October, when I should have been in top form before the European champs, was quite something. Also, remember how I mentioned my VDOT increase in February and how that would make me world class in a few months if it kept climbing at the same rate? Of course I was kidding but the steep rate of improvement actually kept going all the way through March, which puts me into a very nice position with 3 months still to go until Belfast.

I know I have yet to add some long runs, so obviously the hard work still remains to be done but right now things are better than I could have hoped. Late last year I had some serious doubts if I’d ever get back into some decent sort of shape, and now I have started believing again. I’m actually really looking forward to Belfast instead of being worried.

By Wednesday I felt pretty much fully recovered from the race so I went back to 7 miles on Thursday morning. Training has taken a backseat this week, being trumped by recovery, and all workouts have been put on ice until next week, so my return to the Windy Gap has had to wait – not that the weather would have made that run particularly inviting. The joke around here is that we’ve had a lovely summer, hope you enjoyed it. Let’s see how long the rainy season lasts – hopefully not until September again!

27 Mar

5+ miles, 42:01, 8:19 pace, HR 136

28 Mar

5+ miles, 41:08, 8:09 pace, HR 140

29 Mar

5+ miles, 39:17, 7:47 pace, HR 142

30 Mar

7 miles, 55:09, 7:53 pace, HR 141

Heart Rate

I have known for a long time that heart rate always lags behind but I always took that to mean that it takes a few seconds for it to pick up when you increase effort. I have never heard of a delay of a whole day!

But that seems to be what was happening during my last cold. I already had a sore throat and a slight headache on the first morning but the HR was still fine for one more day. The same then happened in reverse. On Friday I felt pretty much fully recovered but the HR was still elevated when I was running that morning. It took another full day for the changes to show up on the HR chart on Saturday morning, when I finally posted some decent figures (mind, they're still 10 beat higher then where they should be once I reach proper fitness). There is no need to get carried away, though - the HR was higher again this morning, despite me running the same route in pretty much the same conditions and at the same subjective effort level - sometimes I really don't know how this works on a physiological level.

But the cold (or even colds) is finally behind me and I can breathe easily again, literally. Now I'm looking forward to the numbers to improve, though that will require some patience.

Oh, and I bought a new toy. Measuring resting HR in the morning is something I don't do very often, mostly because putting on the chest strap and then setting up the watch is a bit of a pain first thing in the morning. So I bought a little contraption that can measure HR right at your finger tip. Much easier! I could follow the progress of my recent cold that way, with the resting HR at about 55 when it was at its strongest and now back to 49 on Saturday and 48 on Sunday - the level I would expect when not fully fit. Of course it's not medical grade but it suits my needs and for £12 it was very reasonably I thought.

So, right now I'm running 7 miles each morning, which takes me just under an hour, and I'll probably stay at that for a bit now. It should hopefully be enough to build up my fitness to the next level but there is still a long way to go before I get back to where I used to be,

5 Jan

7 miles, 59:10, 8:27 pace, HR 153

6 Jan

7 miles, 57:37, 8:13 pace, HR 154

7 Jan

7 miles, 56:40, 8:05 pace, HR 149

8 Jan

7 miles, 56:52, 8:07 pace, HR 154

A Real Runner At Last!

There are some boxes that all need to be ticked before someone can call himself a real runner. That goes from running through all kinds of weathers, getting blisters, getting a few injuries, running until you throw up and, most importantly, having a mismatched number of toes and toenails.

It took me over 11 years and over 30000 miles but I finally can call myself a real runner! Pop the champagne!

The nail on the second toe of my left foot had been dark ever since the Spartathlon. The same had happened after Turin but it just grew out and I expected the same to happen again. However, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the toenail being rather loose - I didn't touch it and tried to be as gentle as possible but I noticed that at some stage during the last few days it must have fallen off. I always thought losing a toenail must be really painful  but not only does it not hurt, I did not even notice it! It has re-grown up to a point, so right now I have nine-and-a-half toenails. I'll spare you the photos and you'll just have to take my word for it.

Training as such is going swimmingly well but yesterdays (Thursday's) run was a series of mishaps.

I decided to do another Kenyan fartlek run (1 minute hard/1 minute easy). Things did not get off to the best of starts when the HR monitor refused to work. I tried to fiddle with the damn thing (and not for the first time either) but to no avail. Never mind, it's not needed for such a workout. A mile later I kept pressing the wrong button on the watch when I tried to turn on the fartlek app, I even turned off the watch completely at one point. I can only imagine that my brain was still in sleep mode at the time. Things went wrong during the workout itself as well, due to the howling wind it was easy to miss the beep of the watch every minute and I ended up with a slightly uneven pattern rather than a smooth 60/60 one, though I think I still ran the same amount of fast reps.

Most annoying of all, there is still debris one the road where the high water mark had been during Sunday night's flooding and on my way back home I promptly tripped over it and did a face plant. This was during a supposed "fast" segment, which did not help. I have a fair amount of road rash on my legs, though it looked a lot less gruesome once I washed off the blood in the shower (once more I'll spare you the photos unless you've seen them already on a dark corner of the interweb [someone made the mistake of "pics or it didn't happen" on FB - it did!]). I picked myself up and walked for a few steps, more out of shock than any real pain, and then continued with the workout. No harm done, though that's the second time I managed to trip up in about a fortnight!

Thankfully Friday was less eventful with 12 easy miles without any mishaps. After yesterday's misadventures I'll take that any day! I also managed to revive the HRM (take out the battery, insert it the wrong way round for 3 seconds, put it back in the right way - HRM works again. No kidding!)

For at least a month I've been planning on doing an evaluation workout but it just is not happening. First I was sick and then the wind started blowing, the two things that make an evaluation rather pointless as they impact the HR data. The sickness is well and truly gone by this stage but the wind doesn't show any signs of abating - that's the price you pay for living on the Atlantic coast, I suppose.

10 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:27, 7:51 pace

   Kenyan fartlek

11 Dec

12 miles, 1:32:31, 7:43 pace, HR 144

Gone With The Wind

It was always going to happen, of course, and now the unexpectedly nice spell of weather we had at the beginning of November is well and truly over. The last few days, with the exception of Saturday, have all been marked by gale force winds and varying degrees of rain. On Monday a colleague asked me "you didn't go running in this weather, did you?", to which I could only reply "I've seen a lot worse". That pretty much says it all - it wasn't particularly bad and worse is undoubtedly yet to come, but it was the first hint of the winter storms.

I changed my weekend training in an attempt to avoid feeling like a ton on bricks for the first half of the week. Instead of doing a faster run on Saturday and then dragging myself over the mountain on heavy feet on Sunday I ventured into the mountain on Saturday. Following several days of rain the Kerry Way was waterlogged in many places but perfectly runnable (apart from the one spot where there had been some minor earth slide a couple of months ago) and I gave it a good, honest effort - but was VERY surprised to see a segment PB popping up for one climb when I uploaded the data into the computer afterwards. Make no mistake, this is still a soft segment, I am nowhere near top fitness and I ran nowhere near top effort. Running this on fresh legs for a change must have made quite some difference.

The legs did feel the effort on Sunday, of course, but it was the lousy weather that made me change my mind about running around the lake because I really did not fancy facing the high winds on higher ground. I chose the most boring option, namely running to Ard-na-Sidhe and back three times in a row, which is the only piece of road I know in the vicinity where the trees provide some sort of shelter against the worst of the winds. The time passed surprisingly quickly and the legs were okay - a little bit heave but it never got any worse, despite this being the longest run since Sparta by 3 miles.
Entirely by accident I reached a figure of 77.7 miles for the week. Neat!

The legs felt a lot better this Monday than on previous Mondays so I call the change in my training a success. Remember, this is still about recovery at the moment, not building fitness. The numbers on Monday were definitely encouraging, the best ones so far since Sparta, which is good. Tuesday's weren't quite as good but with the gale force winds I had to battle that's not overly surprising. But at least I do get the distinct impression that things are going into the right direction. Finally!

7 Nov

10.7 miles, 1:33:56, 8:47 pace, HR 152

   Windy Gap

8 Nov

15 miles, 2:02:19, 8:09 pace, HR 146

9 Nov

10 miles, 1:21:08, 8:07 pace, HR 143

10 Nov

10 miles, 1:21:04, 8:06 pace, HR 146

My Beating Heart

When I mention words like "I need to be patient" then that is usually a clear sign that I am starting to struggle with that very concept. I clearly noticed this a couple of years ago when MC pointed out in a way that only he can that I had mentioned the need for patience in one blog post and then proceeded to display anything but over the next couple of weeks. I have to avoid running too hard too often - what I need now is recovery.

The problem is of course that running at an easy effort day in day out is just not particularly exciting, not even for an ultra runner. So, from time to time, I do feel the need to push the effort a bit higher. That in itself is not a bad thing, you need to give the system a little of a kick from time to time, the problem is to find the right amount of pushing, balancing everything according to your recovery needs. It's something that I clearly do not get right all the time.

After the fartlek last week I did a faster run on Saturday, though I only did 8 miles in the hope that a somewhat lower mileage would stop me from pushing over the edge. It felt really good to put a bit of effort into a run for a change, so from that point of view I have no regrets. I did wistfully remember the times when I averaged a faster pace than that in my easy runs. However, if things go to plan, those days will return in not too far a future. There's that concept again, patience.

I did pay for that effort, of course, with a pair of heavy legs on Sunday. Instead of drudging along for an hour on the road I headed up to the Windy Gap, though I did take it rather easy. The HR was as high as it had been the day before but the run felt completely different. I struggled a bit early on but once I got into it it went much better than I could have expected - the really steep long climb to the Gap itself went entirely on autopilot, which I usually can only do if I'm in great shape - maybe I've gotten used to it? Maybe I need a bigger mountain - there are plenty of those around here, unfortunately most would require me to drive there instead of running straight from home. That's not going to happen this winter - maybe next year.

Today, Monday, I just ran 10 easy miles while thinking of all my friends running the Dublin marathon at the same time. Or so I thought. I did do a double take when I looked at the HR number afterwards - I swear it was an easy run, why the HR was at the same level as the last 2 runs I don't quite know. I guess it's a lack of recovery, with the system still being compromised after Sparta. However, I don't feel particularly bad, in fact today's run was perfectly enjoyable. Somewhere there is a clear disconnect and I'm starting to think I need some help re-connecting things.

I have therefore asked for help.

23 Oct

10 miles, 1:24:11, 8:25 pace, HR 146

24 Oct

8 miles, 1:01:15, 7:39 pace, HR 154

25 Oct

10.7 miles, 1:33:30, 8:44 pace, HR 154

   Windy Gap

26 Oct

10 miles, 1:20:34, 8:03 pace, HR 153

Life's A Beach

Things are continuing to improve but I’m still a good bit off from where I could say that I’m over that injury. After the hip had felt so good on Monday I thought I could start trying to run on consecutive days again but Tuesday was a big disappointment in that respect. From the first step I could tell that this really was not going to go well and after one mile of hobbling along I turned around and hobbled back home. Just to show how bad this had been, I had not even managed to average 10-minute-miles! I went cycling for an hour instead – we have the use of some bikes here, though they were clearly not purchased with the intention of cycling fast or long. However, for the week they’ll do.

Maia's gone native again

After that new setback I was a bit apprehensive on Wednesday but it was so much better! I could just about feel a tiny twinge in my hip at the start and even that went away completely after a mile or 2 and I was running completely unencumbered – well, apart from the fact that the temperatures were over 30 degrees, even at 8 o’clock in the morning! I managed to hold it all together for 10 miles but noticed a lot of ups and downs - in my fatigue levels that is, the road around the lake is entirely flat.

I went cycling again on Thursday but spent more time cursing at that bike than enjoying the ride. I also got a bit lost and was completely parched over that last few miles and suffering badly over one last hill, small as it may have been – exercising for over two and a half hours in that heat without bringing water was probably not my smartest idea ever.

I had recovered from that ordeal by Friday morning and once more the hip seemed in perfect condition, so I drew the run out a little to 12 miles, my longest run in what seems to be a very long time. I noticed the same highs and lows but figured they were closely coinciding with whether I was running in the shade or directly under the sun. Thursday had been incredibly hot, the temperatures had reached 38 degrees; Thursday was slightly cooler at 36.5, but that was still hotter than anything encountered in Ireland, ever! Well, I guess it will give me a fair amount of heat adaptation, which will only help. It probably also explains why my pace is only around 8:30, even when I could have sworn I was running faster than that, and the rather high HR is a bit of a concern. Obviously my lack of recent training and the subsequent loss of fitness has something to do with it as well.

Early morning visitors

Even though my hip had felt great all day, it was bothering me once more on Saturday morning, so another cycle was on the cards. This time I fulfilled a very long dream of mine – over 30 years ago I had learned about the Leithagebirge (“Leitha mountains”) and wondered how the flattest part of Austria could have a mountain region – well, even the hills around Caragh lake are higher and steeper than this but a 38 mile cycle through the country side was great and the mere fact that they have a network of cycle lanes going through the country here makes things so much easier and better – Ireland could really do with someone having a look how infrastructure works in other places, but I won’t be holding my breath.

I’ve actually done a ton of exercise this week, with the long cycles and the running supplemented by a fair amount of swimming and rowing as well as my exercises from Derek I must have done close to 3 hours a day – hopefully that will kick-start a last-gasp bout of training that may still get me back to a reasonable level of fitness. I have 6 weeks left.

11 Aug

2 miles, 20:05, 10:02 pace, HR 128

12 Aug

10.1 miles, 1:26:11, 8:32 pace, HR 146

14 Aug

12 miles, 1:43:00, 8:35 pace, HR 153

Progress, Or Is It?

After Saturday's mountain run it was always clear that I would need a few days to recover. The legs never actually felt sore but there was a a certain amount heaviness in each step that could not be denied. I also brought a memento from the trail with me in the form of a hurting right ankle. I had already noticed that it wasn't 100% when I almost went over it on the uneven, stony mountain road. Luckily I made it back down without incident but for the next few days it started hurting a few miles into each run, not bad but clearly noticeable. It finally seems to have cleared up on Wednesday.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were similar in that they were all slow, easy 10 mile runs in heavy gale force winds and on heavy legs, as mentioned. The HR was way higher than I would have wanted on every single one of them, which was partially attributable to the conditions but mostly to the legs just not coming round from Turin.

I was string to get both pissed off and worried about the lack of progress in my recovery. The race was well over 4 weeks ago and surely there should have been some improvement? The numbers did improve at first but have remained more or less on the same level since the start of May. I know I have messed up my recovery in the past by running too hard, but the last 4 weeks have seen me running slower than ever in a recovery program and yet the legs don't seem to acknowledge that.

I knew I was taking a risk and might have set back my recovery once again but with only 19 days to go until the Cork marathon I was starting to panic, so I decided to run a few 7:20 miles this morning, the pace required for a 3:15 marathon (7:25 in reality, which comes out as 7:20-ish on a GPS watch). In past years I would have jumped in straight away and done 8-10 miles at that pace so I think I was actually being sensible by doing only 3 miles after 7 at the usual recovery pace (not sure what MC would think of that, though). It actually felt better than expected but I could tell I was rather close to my threshold because when I went just a little bit faster my breathing started to become distinctly laboured, which isn't great. I still have a couple of weeks to improve. As it happens, today's pace/HR figures look at lot better, especially for the slower miles, so all hope is not lost just yet.

One weird thing was that the Ambit watch clearly showed an average lap of 7:20 after those 3 miles but once I uploaded them into movescount/strava, it came out as 7:25 pace. Bizarre! But either way, the pace was there or thereabouts and in addition to the watch I'll have the use of a pace band and the mile markers in Cork to make sure I'll get it right.

On a much lighter note, for a bit of fun I played around with Microsoft's how-old app and my race photos. Marathons do tend to take quite a bit out of you - I usually age by 20 years between the start and the finish. The one glorious exception was Portumna last year - a mere 3 extra years, and that wasn't a marathon but a 100k!

There were a few interesting results, though, One day, when I feel particularly reckless and suicidal I'll start uploading a few pictures of Niamh and show her how old the computer thinks she is. I better make sure my will is in order before that, though.

10 May

10 miles, 1:25:05, 8:31 pace, HR 145

11 May

10 miles, 1:25:15, 8:32 pace, HR 141

12 May

10 miles, 1:24:58, 8:30 pace, HR 142

13 May

10 miles, 1:20:11, 8:01 pace, HR 146

   incl. 3 miles @ 7:20 (HR 158)

Restart Anew - Again!

So I listened to my body, mainly because it started screaming at me, and made some changes. Not a lot, just enough to hopefully get through this recovery period.

I put the HR alarm back onto my watch. At the start of the year I gradually started to develop a psychotic hate relationship with the constant "beep beep" every time I started to move my legs and eventually took it off, promising myself never to put it back on again, However, the recent couple of weeks have made me break my promise to myself, though I set the alarm threshold at a higher level, which is hopefully a reasonable compromise between keeping myself in check and still being able to enjoy a run.

I did that on Sunday. The HR of each run since has been coming down gradually, and I can already feel some positive effects. After a rather frightening weather forecast, the brilliant sunshine on Tuesday morning came as a complete and very welcome surprise. It sure started the day off on a positive note, and maybe that was the reason why I actually started enjoying running again. The legs finally felt better, though the fact that I had run the previous days at a slightly more sedate pace may be a more rational explanation. I even felt brave enough to add 2 miles to my run, mostly because I thought running the same 8 mile run on the same route 7 times in a row was already more than enough. I might be a creature of habit but I do have some limits.

The legs were still in good shape after 8 miles, though they did start to complain towards the end but since this had been the first double digit run since Turin this wasn't overly alarming.

My feet are in a funny state, ever since Turin. My toes almost feel like they are tingling, except they are not quite (not sure if that makes sense). One of my toenails has gone a distinctly darker shade of grey - I'm not sure if that means it's eventually going to fall off, because I have never had that happen to me, a rather unusual state of affairs for an ultra runner but there you go.

My Achilles/calves area in both legs feels very stiff, especially first thing in the morning. Old age has something to do with it because I have been noticing this for at least a year now but it has become significantly worse since Turin and is the main reason why the first mile of each run is always so pathetically slow,

I tried to use The Stick on my legs muscles. This is a tried and tested way to get some relief for aching legs but no joy. They are not sore in the usual way, there are no knots or tight muscles; whatever damage Turin has done to my legs, it's more fundamental than your usual heavy legs after a marathon.

Anyway, with the legs finally feeling better this morning, this feels like a minor miracle. I'll see how it goes but I'm rather hopeful that the worst is now behind me and proper recovery can finally commence. I'm supposed to pace the Cork marathon in 4 weeks. Right now I'm scratching my head how on Earth I could possibly be fit enough by then to run 26.2 miles at some half-decent pace but I know that I have felt doubtful before previous pacing jobs and in the end they have always gone reasonably well, so maybe there's still hope.

2 May

8 miles, 1:06:04, 8:15 pace, HR 148

3 May

8 miles, 1:06:25, 8:18 pace, HR 144

4 May

8 miles, 1:07:36, 8:27 pace, HR 142

5 May

10 miles, 1:24:31, 8:27 pace, HR 140

All Clear

So ... I went to see the cardiologist after he'd had a chance to look at my data from the 3 tests I'd had done last week. He was impressed by what he saw and declared me healthy. He also sanctioned me running the 24 hours championships. Oh, and apparently I am very fit.

I'm kind of wondering what I just spent several hundred Euros on, after all I already had a certain inkling that I'm reasonably fit, but then again it's a lot better to be told that you're fit and healthy than to be told that you're sick and wasting away. I am healthy and I am still able to run, and 2 weeks ago I would gladly have given away every single cent I own to get such an outcome, so what's a few hundred quid!

Having said that, no sooner had I found out that I am a scientifically certified picture of health that I started developing a sore throat. Once more that's not entirely surprising as Maia has been coughing a lot recently and a 7 year old isn't always aware where she is coughing at, so somebody was bound to catch it and it happened to be me. But I am very much aware that my heart scare 2 weeks ago was most likely triggered by some viral infection that I had caught from my other daughter and obviously I'm not particularly keen on a repeat. I was a bit anxious before my run this morning because while I was feeling reasonably fine I definitely was not 100%, which is pretty much how I had felt before that episode but I got through 12 miles just fine, despite the wind and weather.

Running at Maffetone intensity is becoming easier, though I think that's mostly down to me getting used to it rather than the body adapting to the training. I can now run up most hills without the alarm triggering. This morning was very windy and while I had it on my back for the first 6 miles I kept wondering how I would get back home fighting against the headwind while trying to keep my HR down, but when it finally came to it I found it surprisingly easy.

My initial plan for Wednesday had been to do an evaluation but the weather had me change my mind; evaluations just don't work very well in windy conditions because that plays havoc with my HR. I considered running it on Tuesday but decided that I should see the cardiologist in a more rested state (in the end it wouldn't have made any difference). The forecast is for a few more days of high winds and I decided that it's better that way anyway, I'll do strict Maffetone training for another week before breaking it for an evaluation - the HR for the 4 miles of the evaluation is 20 beats higher than the Maffetone threshold!

15 Dec

10 miles, 1:23:01, 8:18 pace, HR 133

16 Dec

10 miles, 1:23:30, 8:21 pace, HR 134

17 Dec

12 miles, 1:38:46, 8:13 pace, HR 132

Alive

I got some tests done on Tuesday at the hospital and will see a specialist next Tuesday once he's had the chance to look at the data. In the meantime I'm still allowed to go running, in fact they very much encouraged me to go running on Wednesday morning wearing their own HRM so that they would be able to see what's happening to my heart under those conditions.

After feeling pretty damn awful on Friday morning I seem to have mostly recovered but I don't know if that very slight discomfort in my chest is a figment of my overworked imagination or real, and if it's real if it's significant.

I went out for a very, very easy 5 mile run on Monday morning, did not run on Tuesday because I knew I would be on a treadmill doing a stress test just a couple of hours later in the hospital and did another easy run on Wednesday, this time wearing both the HRM from the hospital (with awkward cables sticking out) as well as my own HR strap.

Apparently I broke their record for the longest time on the stress test treadmill, but since they asked me to stop BEFORE I was going all-out I'd guess they just never had a runner on that thing, so that's not much to boast about,

Assuming that I get to go running properly again I will fall back to a Maffetone-style program. I wrote yet another quick app for the Suunto to give me a HR alarm (btw, any other GPS watch I've ever seen has this built into it from the start - the lack of such basic features is definitely the Ambit's biggest drawback) which I tested out this morning and which seems to work very well. I fully intend to stick with this protocol for several weeks. It's definitely not the most exciting form of training. In fact, I unsuccessfully tried to talk myself out of it but lost the argument with my more logical self because I know that it can achieve spectacular results for long endurance athletes of the very patient kind.

I've been feeling a little bit better every day since Friday and 5 days later I'm pretty much back to normal, assuming that the HR monitor that's still attached to me hasn't picked up anything abnormal. Since they never told me to stop running I'll keep doing just that; probably a bit paranoid at the beginning but hopefully a little bit more confident every time.

One lesson I learned is having your heart acting up is pretty scary.

8 Dec

5 miles, 42:07, 8:25 pace, HR 130

9 Dec

Stress test on treadmill (Bruce protocol, I think) for 19:10

10 Dec

5 miles, 40:48, 8:10 pace, HR 134

Just A Blip?

I know I had described Sunday's long run as a bit of a sufferfest, but the numbers do deserve a closer look. All week my HR had been in the 130s or low 140s. Even for Saturday's tempo effort I averaged in the 140s, which I took as a sign that I'm in pretty damn good shape. But on Sunday the HR was way up to 154, even though the pace actually rather pedestrian. Some of it was down to the very hilly course, but that explains only a fraction of the rise. I do have a rather simple spreadsheet where I track my HR/pace ratio. For April the chart looks as follows:

Races, especially of marathon or greater distance, almost always have a lower ratio and the dip for Connemara is clearly visible, though you can also see how quickly I recovered. However, Sunday's run was nothing short of alarming, the dip is even greater than the one for the ultra. There are a couple of possible reasons:

1. I had a long week of high mileage behind me
2. It was fairly hot
3. I was quite dehydrated in the end (my weight was down by over 4 pounds)
4. I had not eaten for 15 hours before running

My best guess is that all these factor played their part. However, since the numbers picked up again the very next day I think I'm okay, but should probably be a bit more careful.

This week so far has been a carbon copy of last week with 10 miles in the morning and 5 in the evening, except Wednesday when I ran on the Kerry Way up to Windy Gap in the morning. The pace was generally a bit slower but that was on purpose as I tried not to overdo it.

I will ease off slightly over the next few days because I'm doing the Wings for Life run on Sunday. I want to do at least a marathon, which requires me to run 3:08 or faster, something I am perfectly capable of but it won't exactly be a walk in the park, especially with all those training miles in my legs.

28 Apr

am: 10 miles, 1:18:29, 7:51 pace, HR 133

pm: 5+ miles, 37:37, 7:27 pace, HR 138

29 Apr

am: 10 miles, 1:16:47, 7:41 pace, HR 135

pm: 5 miles, 37:39, 7:31 pace, HR 138

30 Apr

am: 12+ miles, 1:50:51, 9:03 pace, HR 138, Windy Gap x 2

pm: 5+ miles, 37:53, 7:30 pace, HR 138

Active Recovery

I was never going to break any mileage records this week. The emphasis was clearly on recovery from the 30 miles on Sunday. I might not have run it at race effort (and don't I know it!) but it was still a significant effort and recovery was needed.

Accordingly I did not do any workouts, just ran at what felt like a reasonably comfortable pace. The HR was always a bit higher that what I would have liked to see. I never looked at the Garmin during the runs, they was done always purely by feel. It was only afterwards that I checked out the numbers, and I was always surprised by the high HR figure. This only changed today, Sunday, when the HR finally went below 150. All these runs have been at pretty much the same perceived effort, though.

The most challenging feature this week may well have been the weather, with heavy wind and rain and partially flooded road at the start of the week and icy cold temperatures towards the end. I don't mind either too much, I have run in worse conditions, though there was a short hail shower as well one day, and that's a bit too painful to be called "fun". Otherwise I was ok with it, I see it as additional mental training. I remember the winner of the championship in Bangor, John O'Regan, remarking to someone else after that race "who would train in such conditions!", and, well, I do. It's a side-product of always running in the morning. I get up and then I run, no matter what.

The pace has generally been pretty fast for an easy effort, maybe a bit faster than would have been advisable in a recovery week. Today I ran the last few miles, after the big hills had been left behind, at about 7:00 pace and felt comfortable enough. This bodes very well for Tralee. My present marathon PB pace is 6:50. If I can already run virtually the same pace feeling as good as that, that's a great place to be in, and yet the real training is still to come. The race is 16 weeks away, and the next phase of training, when things will finally start ramping up, is not too far off. I'm already looking forward to it.

23 Nov

10 miles, 1:12:53, 7:17 pace, HR 150

24 Nov

10 miles, 1:12:39, 7:15 pace, HR 157

25 Nov

14.75 miles, 1:49:25, 7:25 pace, HR 147

Weekly Mileage: 58

Cramming

I know I said in my last post that my 20 mile run had put me in an indefatigable state, but unfortunately that was not going to last. A few hours later, after the endorphins had worn off and I had come down from my apparent runner's high, I was feeling the effort, alright.

It was enough to convince me and turn Monday's run into a very easy and relaxed 8-miler, which seems to be my go-to fall back option these days whenever I feel the need for a bit of active recovery. That run went very well and I was fine for the rest of the day, so on Tuesday I felt well enough to do a few more hill repeats. It was pretty much the same workout as the previous week, 60 seconds of fairly hard effort up a hill and a very slow jog down back the hill. Again, I didn't count them, just left it when I started feeling tired.

Actually, that's not quite right. The first few were a struggle, then I got into it, but when I started to feel the effort again, I called it a day. When I counted the spikes on the HR graph afterwards there were 13 of them - one less than last week, and last week the last one had probably been one too many, so I call this a success and a lesson learned.

With the marathon coming up on Monday I will be taking it easy towards the end of this week; the flip side was that I did a bit of cramming at the beginning of the week. I ran 12 miles on Wednesday at 7:20 pace, practising the pace I need to run in Dublin as one of the 3:15 pacers. In case you're wondering why 7:20 when a 3:15 marathon would be 7:26 pace, 1) we want to run about 30 seconds faster than the target time and 2) Garmin miles tend to be about 4 or 5 second off official miles in races, so to be running 7:26 officially you really want the Garmin to display 7:20. The same holds true for all other paces as well or course, for a 3:30 marathon you want to see no slower than 7:55 on your Garmin and when I ran my sub-3 marathon in Vienna last year I knew I had to keep the Garmin at 6:48 pace and not a second slower.

Anyway, the run went well, even with yesterday's hill repeats making their presence known the pace felt relaxed enough to be confident that Monday will go off without a hitch and I won't let my pacees down.

Usually I would be doing my evaluation workouts every second Tuesday, but that would mean doing the next one the day after the marathon, which is not going to happen. I therefore moved it forward to today instead. With the legs feeling a bit heavy I wasn't sure if the numbers would live up to last week's figures, and after a series of very calm mornings today had to be wet and windy, typical. Thankfully the numbers are fine, similar enough to last week when I thought I could see the impact of the sharpening effect from the XC race.

       
        Mile 1    6:37   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:39   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:43   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:45   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 41 seconds

That's a tad slower than last week and the recovery took a bit longer, but nothing to worry about, I think that can all be explained by the legs still feeling the hill repeats and yesterday's miles. I'm happy enough. It's the next evaluation I'm worried about, because it will show the impact of the Dublin marathon. There's bound to be some (hopefully temporary) regression.

But right now I'm really looking forward to pacing Dublin again. The buzz there is always great. If you happen to be reading this and planning on going with the 3:15 pacers on Monday, make sure to say hello.

22 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:09, 7:54 pace, HR 136

23 Oct

7.7 miles, 1:09:35, 9:02 pace, HR 143
   13 x 60 sec hill repeats

24 Oct

11.3 miles, 1:22:56, 7:20 pace, HR 151

25 Oct

11.8 miles, 1:25:21, 7:14 pace, HR 148
   4 mile eval: 6:37, 6:39, 6:43, 6:45

Weighty Matters

The last 2 years I successfully managed to drop quite a few pounds off my frame just before my spring goal race by staying off any sugary things during lent. This year, it was a complete disaster; despite following the same procedure through a torturous few weeks, I actually gained half a pound before Connemara. It's probably all down to starting from a lower base - despite that setback, I was lighter for Connemara than for any other goal race in several years.

You might have thought that since staying off sugar did not lower my weight, re-introducing it should not cause a weight change either. Not so. I must dig out that article I read a few weeks ago that mentioned that eating chocolate can help in losing weight. I'm dying to find out how they did it. Following my selfless scientific experiment of the last two weeks that consisted of sitting on the sofa stuffing my face with chocolate until it almost comes out of my ears, I can conclude that it is not a successful strategy for weight loss. No need to thank me.

Actually, having Easter one week after running almost 40 miles through the beautiful desolation that is Connemara is a brilliant way to ensure a completely guilt-free two-week gluttony session. Me and the Easter bunny have become best mates. Right now I'm 5 pounds heavier than 2 weeks ago and truth to be told I'm loving it. I just need to get back on track in time for my next race.

There is still a bit of a problem as far as my running is concerned. My subconscious pacer is completely locked into Connemara pace and I find it very hard to break out of it. I don't want to spend every moment of my run concentrating on slowing down. It would not work anyway. Instead, I'm working on the theory that low mileage keeps my legs in too fresh a state and am therefore in the process of cranking up the training again. When I say fresh legs, that's all relative, of course. I can still feel the effects of Connemara deep inside. That will take a good while longer to go away.

My resting heart rate of 50 bpm is still about 10 beats higher than before the race. I was surprised to still see it at that level yesterday, unchanged from the week before. The pace/HR ratio that I keep tracking after each run is still significantly lower than before Connemara, but at least that one is showing clear signs of improvement.

12 Apr

8 miles, 1:00:31, 7:33 pace, HR 153

13 Apr

8 miles, 58:55, 7:21 pace, HR 153

14 Apr

10 miles, 1:14:31, 7:27 pace, HR 153

15 Apr

12 miles, 1:30:36, 7:32 pace, HR 147

Bonked. Hard.

Stop sniggering at the back, I’m strictly talking about the American, running related meaning of that word rather than the decidedly more fun British interpretation. Today’s run was not pretty.

Actually, the last few days had been fairly good. The HR showed a bit of a wobble on Thursday when it was several beats higher than expected for the slowest training run in ages. It may have been the shoes. I always used to swap between two pairs of shoes, one reasonably light (e.g. Nike Lunar Elite) and one heavier and cushioning (e.g. Asics Stratus), always worn on alternate days. After my knee troubles, which started in April, I exiled the heavier shoes (Saucony ProGrid Ride), which meant that I was now swapping between two lighter pairs (Nike Lunar Elite and Saucony Kinvara). On Thursday I wanted to save the Kinvaras for Friday, and in order to avoid wearing the same pair twice in succession, I dug out the Rides again.

It felt like having two bricks strapped to the feet. I still don’t think it entirely explains the relatively high HR, but it goes some way. I have gotten so used to the lighter shoes, I never want to go back to the cushioning ones again.

I resurrected Fast Friday, which was my one day of fun under Mystery Coach’s base training, which means running 10 miles a bit faster than the rest of the week but still very much within limits, with a HR of no higher than 155. That’s still a very limited effort, but when you try and stay in the lower 140s for the rest of the week it is something to look forward to. As it happens, I ran a bit too hard but the 7-minute pace was much better than expected, a bit of payback for Thursday I suppose.

Niamh took the kids to Dublin on Saturday to gawk at her newest Nephew, which is why I delayed my run until the afternoon, after they had left. I run 98% of my runs in the early morning and running in the afternoon had the effect that my RPE was completely out. It did not come as a surprise, it happens every time when I run in the afternoon, but I found it impossible to correct. I felt like I was crawling along virtually at walking pace even though the pace and HR fields of the Garmin told a very different story. I found it impossible to slow down even further, I already felt awkward. Of course I ended up with a HR that was way higher than planned.

Which brings me to today. After the highest weekly mileage in months and some way-faster-than-planned runs on the preceding days, running the steep hills around Caragh Lake for my long run was quite possibly never the brightest idea. I was a bit worried about my knee, but that never became a factor. I could tell early on that my legs were totally unused to the effort of climbing 600-feet hills; the HR went past 170 even though I tried to keep the effort as low as possible. I guess I then should not have tried to stride out on the downhill, going the next 2 or 3 downhill miles at 6:30 pace wasn’t that great an idea either. By mile 10 I could tell I was faltering and within 2 or 3 miles I had hit the wall, hard. It was ugly from here on. I kept telling myself that it’s those runs where you really have to push yourself where you gain the biggest fitness from, but did not believe myself. I just wanted to lie down beside the road and die in peace. The sun had come out, which did not help as I was getting dehydrated and did not carry any water with me.

4 miles of being hungry, thirsty, knackered and then starving, parched and completely exhausted turned into a death trot. I could almost imagine myself in the final miles of the Western States 100, which was held at exactly the same time, a good few miles away in California (ok, not really). Despite crawling along at 8-minute pace, my HR was in the high 160 (!!!) and I could not get home soon enough. As soon as the Garmin hit 17 miles I stopped running and very, very slowly walked up our driveway. A drink and some liquid carbs revived me sufficiently, but there is a lesson to be learnt somewhere I guess.

23 Jun

10 miles, 1:20:05, 8:01 pace, HR 145

24 Jun

10 miles, 1:10:16, 7:02 pace, HR 156

25 Jun

10 miles, 1:15:36, 7:34 pace, HR 153

26 Jun

17 miles, 2:14:05, 7:54 pace, HR 160 (!!!)

Weekly Mileage: 77

Easy Running

Roberto, taking time from running a sub-2:40 marathon, had a perfectly valid point:

I am quite puzzled by how fast your run your "Easy" run... Because let's say that the general rule would be recovery-easy run: max 75% HRmax

75% of my HRmax of about 190 would be 142 and if you look at the two runs Roberto was talking about, the HRs were 145 and 147 respectively. I guess it’s mostly a sign that I started getting impatient with plodding along after 5 consecutive days of easy running following the Ballycotton race. If you look at the HRs of the 3 previous easy runs, you get HRs of 139, 140 and 140, well within Roberto’s range. He definitely has a point, though. I believe that running the easy runs too hard is the single most common mistake runners make, and I sure have been guilty often enough myself. Having said that, the coach seems to be fine with it. At the start of base training he kept telling me to run slower but he has not brought it up again in the couple of months since.

After the epic weekend training I felt surprisingly sprightly on Monday. I particularly noticed this on Monday afternoon when I realised that my hips and glutes were very slightly sore but the quads, which almost always are by far the worst affected part, were absolutely fine. Those magic ice baths are working, I’m telling you (I should tell Niamh as well).

Of course the running since then has been all easy, and incidentally within Roberto’s parameters, not that I tried specifically to stay there. Monday was very easy, but Tuesday’s numbers had me do a double take. The combination of low HR (141) and fast pace (7:28) was new, and running had never seemed so easy, floating effortlessly over the pavement at sub-7:30 pace. The coach, however, was significantly less enthusiastic and immediately sounded a warning. That kind of feeling is dangerous; it may well be a good sign but it’s very early, we are still over 4 weeks away from the marathon, and there is a danger of me being worn out come race day.

As a result, he is monitoring my pace and HR figures very closely and will decide on the next training accordingly. This is where training becomes a black art to me. I think I have understood most of it so far, from base training to preliminary speed work, but were I left to my own devices at this point in time I would not have a clue on the best way forward.

Good thing I have the coach advising me, then.

14 Mar

8 miles, 1:03:35, 7:57 pace, HR 136

15 Mar

10 miles, 1:14:44, 7:28 pace, HR 141

16 Mar

10 miles, 1:16:44, 7:40 pace, HR 142

Another Year Older, None The Wiser

Maia might be right, I’m really old. At least I feel it now. There is a picture on my desk, showing me with the twins just a few months old. I look about 18 in that photo. People always used to comment on my youthful appearance. Right when that picture was taken, those comments stopped; looking after baby twins ages you 10 years in 6 months. I never managed to get younger again and I found myself celebrating my 41st birthday on Thursday.

I celebrated this by going out for an easy 10 mile run in the morning. I was jogging along slowly, or so I thought, and was mightily surprised when I saw the average pace in the high 7:30s at the end. I point to the low heart rate to attest that I had kept the effort on the easy side, though.

Inseparable from old age are your constant aches and pains, and par for the course my right shin was quite sore in the evening. I was a bit alarmed because shin splints are just about the last thing I want to experience again, but I treated this niggle the same way I treat all the others: I completely ignored it. It still hurt on Friday morning, but after the first mile it was gone and has not come back since; my treatment must have been successful.

I was back on the hills again on Friday and after Thursday’s relative rest day I added one extra drill. The 4x30 second drills were followed by a set of high knees up a steep road. I can only do about 40 seconds of those at a time before my legs give up, so I jogged down the hill and did another one and a third one for a total of about 2 minutes. For the next drill I selected pushing off using just the ankles, which again felt easy, even after 4 minutes. I have done some gentle bouncing for one minute in the morning before each run for several weeks and my guess is that this has already strengthened my ankles sufficiently for this exercise to feel easy. Either that or I’m doing it wrong. The final drill consisted of driving the thighs again - this is the one drill I’m the least sure about. Unfortunately the coach is not here to show me.

The schedule changes for this phase mean that Saturday is another day for the hills. My legs were sore to start with and I decided to cut back to only two drills. I reasoned that since the high knees feel the worst, I should do more of them as I obviously need it. On the other hand I must be careful not to overdo it - I do not want to get injured and I do not want to dig myself too deep into the hole of fatigue. Anyway, after the customary set of 4x30 sec I did another set of high knees, again 3x40 seconds each, and then I slowly went to the top of that hill, did a few more minutes of easy running and followed it up with just under half a mile of downhill strides. All these drills were separated by about 15 minutes of easy running, as always.

Twice today on the warm-up as well as the cool-down I caught myself running 7:15 pace when I should have gone much slower. I really need to concentrate on running slowly or else the legs will just do their own thing.

I measured a lower heart rate of 41 this morning. That’s not exactly amazingly low but still the lowest reading for a couple of months. I’m wondering if theses drills are already producing a sharpening effect. Then again, it might be nothing.

27 Jan

10 miles, 1:16:07, 7:37 pace, HR 143

28 Jan

10 miles, 1:27:12, 8:43 pace, HR 142
   4x30 sec; high knees; ankles; thigh drive

29 Jan

9.15 miles, 1:11:06. 7:47 pace, HR 147
   4x30 secs; high knees; downhill strides

Winter Wonderland

A few weeks ago the coach told me he wanted to see a faster Friday, a long Saturday and a medium long Sunday. The last 2 weeks there was a race that got in the way (so I raced on Saturday and ran long on Sunday instead) and this week was the first time I implemented this. I'm still building the mileage and the long runs are a bit shorter than they will be eventually, but I'm getting close.

To ensure I would enter this 3-day spell rested I took it easy on Thursday with only 8 miles on the book. It was a beautiful clear morning, but I was a bit worried about that very dark cloud I could make out in the moonlight. Luckily it seemed to move elsewhere and I did not get rained on. I still had a sore throat and during the day I did not feel 100%, but nowhere near as bad as Niamh had been. My heart rate was slightly elevated, which I mainly attribute to the body fighting off the infection.

I was looking forward to Friday and the opportunity to run a bit faster. There is no denying, running fast is more fun than running slowly. However, I did learn that there can be a drawback to running purely by feel. Since it was dark I didn't look a the Garmin at all (thanks for your comment, Rick!) and ran purely by feel, but as soon as I looked at the numbers back home I immediately knew I had goofed up. Running fast is relative and I was still to remain within certain parameters, with the heart rate not exceeding about 155 and the pace a bit slower than 7-minute pace. What I had done instead was 6:51 average pace and 161 average heart rate. While it is cool to run sub-3 marathon pace at this time of training already, this is exactly the type of effort that kept undermining my conditioning in previous training circles. The main thing about base training is not to run impressive workouts. It is to run consistently, day after day, and for that you need to recover from run to run. I was really annoyed with myself.

Most people (read everyone but me) use the weekend to catch up on sleep and have a rest. We, on the other hand, had to leave shortly after 9 o'clock to get the twins to their course in Tralee in time, so I ended up setting the alarm clock for 5:30. I was still in denial about my own madness by the time I hit the road.

I opened the door to a scene of Winter Wonderland, lit up by the moon. It was absolutely beautiful. Snow in Kerry in November? Now that is a new one! For the first time this winter I had to wear my tights, the temperatures were well under 0C. I encountered one car, right at the start, and then was entirely on my own for the next 2+ hours, not a soul to be seen or heard. The roads were fine, there was a sprinkling of snow when I hit the higher grounds and only Blackstone Bridge itself was icy, the rest was fine. Running 18 miles was easy, but I made doubly sure to run slowly, especially after Friday's cock-up.

The rest of the day was just mad busy, with the twins at their CTY course and Niamh at her own training course I first had the 2 younger ones and later all four of them to entertain on my own. Running 18 miles had been the easier part of the day by far.

We had even more snow overnight and by Sunday morning the roads were indeed icy. I ran the Cromane loop, and the two people that saw me while in their driveways did make a comment about me running in these conditions. I had to be careful on a couple of occasions when the ice covered the entire road surface, but made it home fine and without any incidents. I was not the slightest bit surprised to find that not even the main road had been treated by 10 o'clock. That's the kind of service we got used to last winter. After all, they are using our taxes to cover the billions of losses the fucking bankers have pissed away over the last few years. We can't expect them to spend any money on keeping the roads safe.

Whatever bugs had been threatening me seem to have been defeated and my resting heart rate this morning was a staggering 37. Only once have I seen a lower number, and that was shortly before a marathon. It's the lowest number I have ever seen in base training by far and another sign that the coach definitely has me on the right track.

25 Nov

8 miles, 1:00:54, 7:36 pace, HR 145

26 Nov

10 miles, 1:08:36, 6:51 pace, HR 161

27 Nov

18 miles, 2:23:15, 7:57 pace, HR 142

28 Nov

13 miles, 1:39:22, 7:38 pace, HR 144

Weekly Mileage: 81

Progress(?) Report

I can finally state with absolute confidence that I’m getting over that blasted cold that has had a hold on me for the last 10 days. On Wednesday I was coughing early morning as I got out of bed. Yesterday I was coughing maybe once. Today I’m officially cough-free.

However, one look at the HR for the last few runs shows that not everything is hunky dory just yet. I have always been able to measure my fitness from the average heart rate on my slow recovery runs, and the numbers clearly show that the HR is a few beats higher than it should be. Yesterday’s run, for example, should have yielded an HR well below 140; instead I got 141. And I’d normally expect my resting HR at this stage to be below 40; when I measured it on Wednesday I got 45. That’s better than a few days earlier, but still rather high. With 10 days to go until Dublin I’ll wait and see if those figures will come down. However, I’ll be there at the starting line no matter what.

After Tuesday’s goose egg I did 8 miles on Wednesday with a set of strides. The highlight of that run came the second I opened the front door. The sky was entirely clear, and I was presented with a million glittering stars and a tiny sliver of moon. Brilliant. I even made out 3 planets to my left, Venus, Saturn and Mars in reasonably close proximity. I love running beneath the stars.

The low point of said run came about 10 seconds later. We share our driveway with our nextdoor neighbours, and for some reason that night they had decided to close the gate, for the first time in 6 years. Had I run with a headlamp I would have seen it, but I didn’t and I sure didn’t expect it. I saw it about a tenth of a second before my left knee slammed into it. I’m sure it would have made one hilarious video, but standing there cursing it didn’t quite feel so funny at the time. Anyway, I managed to unlock the gate in the darkness and was on my way. The knee didn’t bother ne during the run, but was really painful later that day. It wasn’t swollen, but I could hardly bend it, and cycling home from work was a challenge.

It was still sore the next day, except for the 40+ minutes of my run when the endorphins suppressed all pain. I also made sure to look out for the gate. Slamming into it twice in a row would have made me feel even more stupid than usual, but it was open anyway.

Today, Friday, I wore my headlamp for the first time. With the moon now gone in the morning it was pitch dark outside. I guess it’s time to get used to that again. Anyway, it’s 10 days until the marathon, and the P&D schedule always has a set of 3x1600 on the cards for that day. Originally I thought about replacing that with a set of 800s, but then decided to go ahead with the prescribed workout. I didn’t want to tire myself out at that stage and opted for slightly slower than 5k pace; 6:20 would have been ok. On the first mile I opted to run relaxed, concentrating on my form, running fast but not all-out. I had done exactly that on Sunday during the race, and back then I had managed sub-6 for the first mile. Today I was absolutely dismayed to find the clock at 6:36. I had avoided looking at it during the run, running entirely by feel. Maybe that was a mistake. The second repeat wasn’t much better. Even though I was forewarned and determined to do better, it took me 6:31. Blimey, what’s wrong with me! For the last repeat I opted to run homewards rather than turn back towards Ard-na-Sidhe; that way the next mile would be slightly downhill, not much (maybe 20 feet or so) but noticeable. It might have been cheating, but I reckoned a faster time would at least fool my confidence. It worked somewhat and produced a 6:10 mile, but I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory that morning.

I just don’t do intervals very well. It probably means that I should do more of them. Of course, I had 3 excuses today: the Dingle marathon, Sunday’s race and Monday’s 18- miler were all still in my legs. Then again, marathon training always happens on a tired set of legs. Time to move on and forget. Again.

14 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:16, 7:55 pace, HR 152
incl. 8x100 strides

15 Oct

5 miles, 41:45, 8:21 pace, HR 141

16 Oct

7 miles, 53:20, 7:37 pace, HR 157
incl. 3xmile @ 6:36, 6:31, 6:10 (2 mins rest)

Under the Weather

The bad news is that I’m definitely not quite right at the moment. The good news is that the worst seems to be behind me. I guess I caught whatever had been affecting Cian since the weekend. He’s better now, though still not entirely recovered, and I think I’m improving as well. For the past few days I could tell that something wasn’t right, but never enough to justify staying off work or cancelling workouts. Having said that, I definitely was not at my best, neither in the office nor on the road.

From that point of view it was probably a good thing that yesterday was a recovery day. The weather was absolutely appalling, the remnants of tropical storm Grace passed right over us and the country was almost flooded. While running in those conditions when already suffering from a cold might not be most people’s idea of a clever move, I didn’t have any symptoms below the neck, which would have kept me indoors. I checked my HR data before leaving the house, and that seemed ok. Having said that, when I came hone I was surprised both by the slow pace and the high HR. An elevated heart rate reading during my slow runs is always a sign that I’m not at my best. That day it was a sign that my body was too busy fighting off whatever germs were circulating inside me to give the running its full attention.

I did question if today’s interval workout should go ahead, but since I could definitely sense an improvement last night I decided to proceed. In fact, the morning HR was lower than normal, which I took as a good sign. The weather was in stark contrast to the day before, the sky was almost completely clear with an almost Full Moon, but it felt bitterly cold. 2C/35F were definitely the coldest temperatures I’ve had to deal with in a long time; in fact, most Irish winter mornings are warmer than that. While these conditions are not ideal for an interval workout, in the end I don’t think it mattered. My body just wasn’t up for it today.

I had pondered on the exact nature of the workout for some time, and settled for a repeat of last week’s 8x800 with 2 minutes rest. Obviously I was hoping for an improvement, but last week’s workout had been before I had gotten sick. The first interval, at 3:10, already told me plenty. The next on at 3:01 was better, just like last week, but then I settled into a fairly consistent pace of about 3:08. I also noticed that the HR never went above 175, significantly lower than last week, no matter how hard I was trying to push. As a reader of Canute’s blog I was well aware of his essays on the parasympathetic nervous system; but I wondered if I would be able to run faster had I not been reading them. In the end I decided to call it a day after 7 repeats. I clearly was not getting any faster, and I didn’t want to incur the wrath of Mike for overdoing it while sick (I could already sense the Evil Eye on me). For some reason I thought I had been 10 seconds per repeat slower than last week, but the actual figure was closer to 3.

It’s funny how the HR can be elevated for a slow run and lowered for a fast one, and yet it still seems to make sense. In one case some energy is diverted away from running, and in the other a threshold is imposed on the maximum level of exertion. I hope 19 day will be enough to purge all those germs out of my system. I don’t really fancy running another marathon while not being entirely healthy. I’ve done that last in 2006, and it wasn’t all that much fun.

6 Oct

8 miles, 1:06:18, 8:17 pace, HR 140

7 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:00, 7:45 pace, HR 151
7x800: 3:10, 01, 07, 08, 11, 07, 08 (3:08 avg)