Mayo and Me

As I was cycling into work this morning, it occurred to me: I'm just like Mayo.

No, not the condiment.

The Mayo Gaelic football team!

In fact there are two striking similarities.

One, just like Mayo I have come second more often than I care to remember. Not that coming second is particularly bad, it's better than third, fourth or any number following thereafter. But if you've come second (or third) about 10 times as often as you managed to top the podium, it kinda sucks.

Second, just like Mayo I keep finding new and interesting ways to fuck things up. They might miss last minute frees, I keep get overtrained, and always in a slightly new and novel way.

I managed it so damn quickly this time, I'm almost impressed. I didn't even do any fast intervals, there were just 2 workouts of any note, but couple that with running too hard on my easy days and too hard on my long days and too hard on the workout days and Boom! in yet another hole.

I can't even explain why I did that workout on Monday when I knew from the very first step that it was going to be bad. I guess my biggest strength is tenacity bordering on stubbornness, not mental flexibility, which also makes stubbornness my biggest weakness.

The workout was shit, running on tired legs, slower than only a few days earlier and feeling knackered afterwards.

On Tuesday I ran into work, which counts as my long run, and I felt surprisingly good. Until I finished and took a look at the watch and was shocked by slowly I had run. It's not that I finally found my long run groove - I could have sworn I had run at least 30 seconds per mile faster. So I ran slowly and it didn't even feel that slow. That's when I knew I was digging myself into yet another hole.

So, what are we going to do about it?

On Wednesday I didn't run at all. With work commitments, a run would have been awkward to fit into the day, not that that usually stops me, but in this case it was a welcome break. And I'll refrain from workouts for a bit. We'll see how quickly it takes to feel better again. Just take it easy.

20 Aug

4.95 miles, 39:16, 7:56 pace, HR 156

   3 miles @ 7:27 pace, HR 163

21 Aug

10.2 miles, 1:30:46, 8:53 pace, HR 145

22 Aug

0

46

I'm supposed to celebrate today I suppose, though I don't really feel much like celebrating. If I were Grellan I'd go for a really long run or 3, but I'm not. So, as my 21st birthday repeats itself for the 26th time, I'm instead sipping green tea and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself.

As I've mentioned already, I keep underestimating the effect a workout will have on my body. Sunday's run had repercussions. As soon as I headed out on Monday morning the hamstrings felt like they had been cast in concrete. The plan had been for 10 miles but I turned around after 4. Last Saturday I had felt slow and the same happened again - only this time I really was dead slow. I got a bit of a shock when I saw the pace on the watch afterwards, basically 9-minute miles. I haven't run that slowly since, well, reaching Sparta. It's a good thing I did turn around early - I would have been late for work otherwise.

Tuesday saw the unwelcome visit of yet another major winter storm, Jonas, the same storm that had shut down the eastern united states for a while this weekend. It had lost much of its destructive power by the time it touched land in Kerry but it was still sufficient to keep me awake half the night. I tried reading once the ceiling had been studied in sufficient detail but eventually got up at 5 am and spent an hour on the treadmill, inadvertently doing my longest treadmill run ever - yet. It was during storm Desmond in December that I decided the get a treadmill - I'm daft enough to keep running no matter what and indoors is definitely safer at times. Thankfully the hamstrings felt much better - they had already felt better during Yoga Monday evening.

I had contracted a cold in hospital last week and had definitely started to feel better by the start of this week but on Wednesday morning just felt like crap again. Of course I still went running. That's my default action. I had already decided to do 10 instead of the originally planned 12 but when I still felt like crap after 3 or 4 miles I decided to go home instead and ended up with 5; slow ones at that.

I guess a bit of rest might be in store. I'll take a few days off, until I feel better. This is mostly to get rid of that cold but it should also serve to get me out of this little overtraining hole that I once again managed to dig myself into.

25 Jan

8 miles, 1:11:52, 8:59 pace, HR 128

26 Jan

8 miles, 1:04:51, 8:06 pace, HR 143, treadmill

27 Jan

5 miles, 42:21, 8:28 pace, HR 138

28 Jan

0

Inspiration

The one thing that had my attention over the weekend was the combined European/World 24 hours running championship race in Katowice, Poland. It featured, amongst many others, John O'Regan And Eddie Gallen who had come first and third respectively in Bangor, just 9 weeks ago. Both had great races and finished with new PBs in 31st and 42nd places in the World championship. However, both results were overshadowed by Ruthann Sheahan of Athenry AC who placed 7th in the World, 5th in Europe with a new Irish record of 229.3 km! I know Ruthann reasonably well (I know all 4 Irish competitors - the ultra running scene really is not very big) and right now I'm really inspired to follow in her footsteps and try and run a similar distance in my next 24 hours race. That's right, I've now moved through the various stages of denial from "I'll never run another step" via "I'll never run another 24 hours" to "sure it wasn't that bad, I'll do that again". I still have to decide where and when, though. I kind of have my mind set on the Connemara 100 next year, which would rule out a return to the Irish championship in 2013, at least as long as I've got at least a couple of working brain cells left.

However, that's still a good bit off. My next target race will be a mere marathon and I still have 6 months to prepare for that. It might well be my last attempt at a fast marathon; age is not on my side, and if I concentrate on long ultras I probably won't have enough time to train for another marathon PB as well. However, before Vienna I was wondering if THAT would be my last go at the sub-3 marathon and here I am now, having another go, so let's not rule out anything just yet.

One advantage of running in Bangor was that I have completely lost the fear of 50 miles races and could regard Dingle as a fun run. On the flip side, the pace required for a 2:55 marathon now seems rather scary. I have hardly run even a single mile at that pace in what seems like a very long time.

Anyway, today marks 10 days of not running since Dingle. After Bangor I made the mistake of saying "I'll run again when I feel like it", with the result that when I got itchy feet after 5 days I was out again on the road. This time I resolved to take at least 10 days off and it was much easier to mentally adjust to that. I also enjoyed the finer things in life, i.e. cake, biscuit and chocolate in generous amounts. I still feel slightly guilty every time I shove yet another motherload of sugar into my mouth, but after a few months of restraint a few weeks of excess just feel right, even if the weighing scales are tipping ever closer to 11 stone.

I'll probably run again tomorrow. I won't set the alarm and if I sleep in then so be it. An extra hour or two of sleep was one of the most appreciated luxuries over the last few days and if my body feels like sleeping in once more, I will let it. If I wake up in time (as I tend to do), then I'll start running again.

By the way, I just came across two interesting race reports, Tom Meany's from Bangor and John Healy's from Dingle. I always enjoy reading race reports (that's why I enjoy writing them, I suppose), if you're interested as well then check them out.

You can safely ignore this

This just does not get old. I know you might disagree, but I don’t.

Eventually I’ll have to remove the match from our Sky box as it’s full and Niamh refuses to delete her Desperate Housewives episodes (and Maia is the same with her Peppa Pig ones). Until then I’ll watch it another few times. Sad, maybe, but what do I care!

The main reason I'm rambling about this is because there is no running to write about. I want to have a full day of no discomfort before I start running again. I thought I was there already on Monday, but as I got off the chair on Monday evening, I could feel the knee again (and that’s how the whole episode started). On Tuesday I could feel a twinge first thing in the morning, same again today. I’m starting to wonder if I'm imagining things, but for the time being I'm still prepared to wait.

Niamh keeps asking when I'm back running. I have not noticed any change in my personality but she might have. I think by the weekend she’ll kick me out of the house and onto the road. Allegedly I'm easier to live with when I'm running every day. I suppose dealing with four hyperactive children is hard enough and she doesn’t need a husband in the same condition.

I’ve started doing some much neglected core stability work, more out of boredom than anything else, and to be honest I have my doubts if I will keep this up once I'm back running. I still cycle to work and back every day, so at least I'm getting a bit of cardiovascular exercise, but not much.

In 19 days I'm supposed to pace the Cork marathon, but I’ll try and ignore that as much as I can. I’m clinging onto the hope that the fitness from Vienna (and the 7 years of training before that) will carry me through. It worked in Dublin last year.