Fast And Loud

Not me, obviously. I'm slow and old. So old in fact that I can actually remember No Sleep ’til Hammersmith being released. The geek in me never quite managed to work out why they had a useless umlaut in their name, though. Thanks for the sounds, Lemmy!

It's December 30th, which means it's time for a review of the year past, I suppose. It's been a mixed year, actually. I had some lofty goals that I did not quite achieve and yet I had some of the best memories of my running career with some outstanding moments in two of the world's most prestigious races in road ultra running.

I could say that running in a world championship was a dream come true, except that until a couple of years ago I would not even have dared to dream about a world championship. I have always been a better than average runner but the gap to the elites is so big you can hardly see across the divide to the other side. Why I'm so much better over 24 hours I cannot say, except that the secret ingredient is not in the legs but in the head. Maybe I'm just too stubborn/stupid to quit when it hurts.

As amazing as running in a red-and-white top in a world championship was, I'm not entirely happy with my performance there. My training was interrupted and sub-optimal but what really hurt me was the fact that I did not have a target in mind. In Belfast 2014 I had a very ambitious target and kept pushing myself to the point of collapse until I got there - in Turin I did not have the same drive and ended up with almost 9km fewer. This is also reflected in this year's world rankings. I am 143rd for 2015 - in 2014 I was 70th. A return into the top 100 would be nice for 2016, though my target is aimed at my own performance and where that leaves me in the world rankings is of secondary importance.

The absolutely outstanding moment of 2015, however, was running towards the statue of Leonidas in Sparta with seemingly half the local population giving us a standing ovation. I get goosebumps just by thinking back, and as much as I had promised myself for 6 hours prior to that never to do anything like that ever again, I knew straight away that I would break that promise.

The low point of 2015 was undoubtedly getting injured at the end of June and subsequently missing 6 weeks of training, though despite my fears it did not stop me from finishing the Spartathlon. My statistics on Strava still give me 3330 miles for the year, with a day yet to come, which is mostly a reflection on how well the last couple of months have gone. As much as I hated not running the Dublin marathon and Sixmilebridge, it was well worth it as I needed to build up from scratch again, without a race disrupting training. It paid off - I am feeling great right now, and with me being off work this week I am finally getting enough sleep to recover from 90 miles a week; the fatigue that has been a constant present for the last 2 months has finally lifted and it did not even require a step back in training.

As per the same plan as the last few weeks, I did 15 miles on Monday, finishing off yet another 3 day workout (fast-long-medium long), feeling surprisingly good after Saturday's race and Sunday's long run. Tuesday was (relatively) easy again with just 10 miles, finishing my run just as storm Frank was about to hit. The legs were a bit heavy early on but felt better with each mile until I felt like flying towards the end. This seemingly carried over to Wednesday, or maybe it was the coffee I drank before setting off, waiting for the worst of the storm to subside. Conditions seemed okay around 9 o'clock but there still were a few wild moments over the next hour before things improved remarkably and I finished off in bright sunshine with a 6:40 mile feeling really good.

I need to bottle that feeling for 2016!

Happy New Year!

28 Dec

15 miles, 1:53:10, 7:33 pace, HR 145

29 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:21, 7:51 pace, HR 139

30 Dec

15 miles, 1:51:59, 7:28 pace, HR 145

2014

December 31 is always a good time to reflect on the past year and if you read a few blogs then you will invariably read a fair few of these types of posts these days.

A year can be measured in may ways, even if we're just talking about running.

One of these ways is by numbers. According to my logs I have run 3838 miles this year, which is the most of any year since I started running over 10 years ago. For a while I thought I might get to 4000, but that would have required things to go right, and I did have a few hiccups along the way, most recently my hamstring issues and then of course that heart scare that thankfully turned out to be nothing serious. This is a fairly impressive number of miles but I can assure you that I never ran a mile purely for mileage sake (well, except those two miles one day back in summer when I realised I had run 98 miles for the week so far).

Another, probably better, way is to check back on last year's goals and see if you have achieved them. 2014 was quite unusual in that respect because I had set only one single goal; even more daunting, realistically I only had one single shot at it. Despite this, it all came through and I managed to achieve my target of qualifying for the championships on a beautiful day in July on the Belfast track. This single day (ok, 24 hours) really defined my entire year. Every mile I had run until that point had been with that target in mind and pretty much every morning since then I have woken up hoping it all hadn't been some very elaborate dream.

I still can't quite believe it - the nerdy kid that was so utterly useless at sport in school is going to run in the world championships, representing his country. Wow.

Even though I only had that one goal race, I did fairly well in a few other races as well. Coming third in the Dingle Ultra was a highlight, as was reaching the same position in the Portumna 100k, which had been one of my favourite races of the year. I still can't quite believe I had felt so good after running non-stop for over 8 hours. Another top-10 finish in Connemara and a successful defense of my Kerry M40 marathon title were other highlights.

I did set a few new PBs; funnily enough, all of them at ultra distances. With Belfast being the sole target, I didn't exactly do a lot of speedwork. Even so, I still managed a 17:55 5k in April, only one week after the Connemara Ultra, which came as a real surprise.

It's been a damn good year! I could not have asked for more!

Anyway .... the last few days I have been a little bit naughty and departed from the Maffetone schedule that I had adhered to for the previous few weeks. I have my club's annual race on New Year's Day and I really feel I cannot miss it. Just to ensure that my legs get at least a minimum of speed work before the start line I did a few strides during yesterday's run, just to get the legs spinning for a change. It's unlikely to make any real difference tomorrow, it probably was more for the head. Expectations are rather modest, if I can get through the 10k without pulling my hamstring I will be happy enough. I've got bigger things to fry in 2015.

Happy New Year!

29 Dec

10 miles, 1:21:49, 8:11 pace, HR 135

30 Dec

8.5 miles, 1:02:23, 8:09 pace, HR 140

31 Dec

10 miles, 1:21:28, 8:09 pace, HR 137

This Was My Year

2013 had started in rather spectacular fashion on New Year's Day by breaking 18 minutes for the 5k for the first time ever. While I don't particularly care about my 5k time, I was rather chuffed to be breaking into 17 territory and subsequently managed to lower that time twice more over the next few weeks, picking up a nice prize from the Gneeveguilla  race series in the process. Another big PB followed in the Ballycotton 10 miler, incidentally also lowering my 5 miles and 10k PBs, though that was overshadowed by missing out on a top-100 finisher t-shirts by 5 seconds/3 places. However, the big prize for Spring 2013 had always been the Tralee marathon where I more than made up for the missing t-shirt by not only setting a new marathon PB but also winning the M40 trophy, which has taken pride of place on the shelf ever since.

Focus shifted immediately to the Connemara 100, but I managed to place 3rd in Killarney and Portumna, run 10 marathons in 10 days and a new 4-mile PB during that training, the latter one especially coming as a complete surprise because I thought my legs would be sluggish as hell after all those marathons and no speed work. Connemara went very well, reaching my dream time of sub-17, but coming second once more. With that the running year was basically done, it took a few months to recover from running 100 miles on the road and a couple of marathons in Dublin (running as a pacer) and Clonakilty (running as an idiot) sandwiched yet another second place in Sixmilebridge.

I ran new PBs over 5k, 4 miles, 10 miles, marathon, 50k and 100 miles (plus unofficial PB split times over 5 miles and 10k), which at the age of 43 and after 9 years of running is a rather spectacular return. Things could only have been topped if one or two of those second or third places had turned into victories, but you can't have everything I suppose.

One particular highlight was running my 50th marathon, with the chairman of the Marathon Club handing me my medal. I was chuffed to bits by that one.

--

Since Christmas I have run 10 easy miles on St. Stephens Day, giving the Farranfore race a miss as I did not think a sudden load of anaerobic miles would do much for my only just emerging conditioning. Then the weather turned very nasty indeed. We've had an unprecedented series of storms hitting us, but all others hit land further up North. For this one Kerry took the brunt. Apart from a very interrupted night of sleep we actually got away lightly in Caragh Lake, there was no real damage when half the county was without power, but running in the morning was still out, it was too dangerous. I did manage to catch up at lunchtime and do another 10 miles, but the pace and HR were a bit too high without me noticing. I think running later in the day had something to do with it, it always throws out my gauge.

That might have had some impact on Saturday's run where I tried to do 8 miles at a higher effort, my one faster run of the week. The legs were a little bit sluggish at first but I thought I had the effort very much under control. When I checked the Garmin afterwards I found that once again I had run a little bit too hard, something I tend to do when not paying attention (or, in that case, only running by feel without paying attention to the watch). I'll get it right one day.

26 Dec

10 miles, 1:17:10, 7:43 pace, HR 144

27 Dec

10 miles, 1:13:21, 7:20 pace, HR 151

28 Dec

10 miles, 1:11:09, 7:06 pace, HR 157
   incl. 8 miles @ 6:56 pace (HR 160)

Almost There

I always write a small summary of my training before a goal race, so I might as well to the same again.

Training (from 24 Sep, 3 weeks after Dingle)

24 weeks (25 if counting this one)

Miles per week:

72, 75, 83, 84, 64, 76, 81, 84, 58, 83, 76, 85, 77, 68, 71, 79, 75, 67, 62, 59, 59, 50, 55, 49
Fairly high mileage in base training and a drop over the last few weeks

Average miles per week:

70

# runs of 20 miles or more:

6 (including DCM and SMB)

# of PBs:

2 (5k and 10 miles), though I ran 4 5ks with a faster time than my previous PB, and in Ballycotton I passed the 4 miles, 5 miles and 10k mark faster than in my "official" PBs

Injuries/ailments:

none

Going by the races I ran during training, I had a spectacular training cycle with me clearly running at a higher level than ever before. The hope is now that I did not stoke the fire too much and am now left with the dying embers, but I feel good and I am confident. It's always a dangerous thing to say, especially in the marathon, but a new PB should be a given. In fact I have set my sights a bit higher than that. The golden goal is 2:53, anything below that would be a bonus. Breaking 2:55 is the fallback option, and considering that it's a hilly course it may well be an ambitious target on its own. A new PB the bare minimum target, anything less and I will be disappointed.

When the winter returned on Sunday I did break my habit of not checking the weather report so far out from race day, but the indications are good. It looks like we will have a cold but calm day, which would be perfect apart from the odd rain shower (well, we're still in Kerry). It's not as if you could do anything about the weather anyway, but I'd take the predicted conditions any time.

The course has plenty of hills between miles 10 and 22, which can easily cost a minute or two. I guess I'll find out.

While I can only influence my own performance, I am hoping for some podium place, be it in my age group or the Kerry championships or my age group in the championship, but that's not something I am directly aiming for; if I run well enough, the finishing position will look after itself.

If there is a runner, or better still a group of runners, settling into a pace very similar to mine I will of course try to work with them. We shall see.

Training this week was of course minimal, I only did 3 miles on Monday and even less on Tuesday, where I basically did a mock warm-up for a 5k race but instead of racing I was done.

Today (Wednesday) I did the coach's taper workout. I started at 6:50 pace, worked my way down to 6:30 pace at one mile and then did 6:30 pace for 3 more miles, though I was a tad faster than planned in 6:26; on the other hand that was the Garmin's pace, which would probably match 6:30 in reality. That was followed by 15 minutes of easy running and then I did 3 half-mile repeats in 2:58, 2:52, 2:51 with about 2 minutes rest. It is a fairly easy workout, but 3 days before the marathon you don't want to do any more. In fact, I wonder if I should have done it yesterday instead, but what's done is done. I probably should not run at all tomorrow and Friday; if I get too itchy I might shake out the legs but no more than 2 miles and all at a very easy effort.

There is just one little detail that could derail the whole train. Lola has been sick with a bad cold since Monday. She is coughing a lot, and not exactly careful to avoid coughing into someone else's direction. Nobody else in the family has been affected yet. I do live in hope/fear/paranoia.

11 Mar

3 miles, 22:17, 7:26 pace

12 Mar

2 miles, 14:37, 7:18 pace

13 Mar

9 miles, 1:00:27, 6:43 pace
   4 miles @ 6:33, 3 x 800 in 2:58, 2:52, 2:51

End Of Year Report

2012 is drawing to a close, and if I had to describe it in one single word in the style of a Premier League footballer, it would probably be: "F***ing Awesome!".

Yesterday, on the long drive from Kerry to Dublin, Niamh asked me my 3 greatest achievements of 2012 and I responded with "coming top 10 in Connemara, top 10 in Dingle and finishing second place in a National Championship race", to which she complained that all these are running related, so I changed it to "all of the above while still remaining married to her", which she agreed was some sort of achievement, alright.

Purely from a running point of view, 2012 certainly surpassed my expectations by quite some margin and I'm obviously hoping for more of the same in 2013 (apart from losing a race in a sprint finish, maybe. I could have done without that). I'm in excellent shape already as the St.Stephen's Day race has shown, now I have to try and carry that into the marathon in March. I pretty much have most of my season planned in my head already, but right now I'm focusing on Tralee only, so I won't go into any detail on what is in store after that.

I just ran my 3400th mile of the year this morning and obviously there are still two more days to come. It's not my highest annual mileage ever but it's close, and if things continue to go well I'm about to get into the best shape of my life (so far); the year is definitely ending on a high.

The last few days have shown that I need to be careful, though. I ran reasonably easy on Thursday, following Wednesday's race, but the heavy legs on Friday told me that it was probably still too fast. I did a hill session on Friday, despite the tired quads, because experience from previous years tells me that those hill drills train slightly different muscles than normal running, and it's possible for your "normal" running muscles to recover while those "new" muscles are taking a bit of a beating. I certainly found some of the drills rather tough. Bouncing off the ankles is easy, but high knees and driving with the thighs (the same drills as MC had me doing when I was training for Vienna 2 years ago) are really tough. It definitely shows some weakness in those areas. I took it exceptionally easy this morning, because the legs had to recover not only from the race and the hills but also the long car journey.

There is another race here in Dublin on New Year's Day, a 5k in Phoenix Park. I ran reasonably well last year in 18:22; I can't help but wonder what I can do this year with my improved form. I will be racing on tired legs because I'm not interrupting my marathon training for a 5k; still, I'm definitely looking forward to it.

27 Dec

8 miles, 1:00:43, 7:35 pace, HR 142

28 Dec

10 miles, 1:31:52, 9:11 pace, HR 143
   Hill Drills: strides, thigh drive, ankles, high knees

29 Dec

8 miles, 1:02:43, 7:50 pace, HR 141

The Final Countdown

36 hours to go. Normally I would write a post where I sum up my training at this stage, but there is little point in that. I ran 126 miles 8 weeks ago and have spent the time since then recovering. My weekly mileage has been roughly 0, 40, 40, 80, 80, 70, 50 and 20. While the 80-mile weeks may seem high, it was all done at a very leisurely pace, which still makes them easy weeks in my eyes.

My last real training run was on Tuesday and I did a scaled down version of the taper workout that Mystery Coach gave me before Vienna. The idea was to run a few miles at race pace and then 3x800 to round it off. I made the mistake of never once checking my pace on the Garmin and ran at least half a minute per mile too fast. 50 mile race pace this was not. The pacing for the 3x800 was out as well, but since the first one was slightly net uphill and the first 2 against the wind, it's hard to make comparisons.

Ah well. Anyway, in 2 days I'll know exactly how stupid it is to run a serious ultra race under these circumstances. I did the same race 2 years ago, under very different circumstances. Back then it had been my A race and I had spent a full year looking forward to and preparing for it. This time, not only has my training been very different, my mindset is as well. At that point two years ago I was already basically unable to sleep (I ran the race after 3 nights of very little sleep), today I'm perfectly relaxed. If that is a good thing or not will be seen.

There is no way to fake your way through 50 miles. If I'm not in shape, it will be mercilessly revealed. Right now I'm still perfectly optimistic. I think I will beat my previous time and I also think I will have an easier race. I think of it as a 10-mile extension to Connemara, and when I ran Connemara 5 months ago it went very well and running 10 extra miles would not have scared me. Maybe the long, slow, drawn-out death-march towards the finish will be avoided if I don't even think about it.

So here I am, ready to run with a mixture of optimism and stupidity. I'm hoping to break 7 hours, but that requires a good day; on a bad day this will be out by a massive amount. I have no idea where all that would leave me place-wise; if all the fast runners who have said they might run it at one stage or another turn up then I won't have to worry about my place in the field under any circumstances, I will be well down. That would suit me just fine because then I can run my own race and won't get sucked into a silly private battle.

Can I really run 50 miles as a fun run? I'm definitely looking forward to it.

28 Aug

10 miles, 1:12:06, 7:13 pace, HR 149
   7 miles @ 7:15, 3x800 (3:02, 2:57, 2:46)

29 Aug

4 miles, 31:15, 7:49 pace, HR 139

30 Aug

0 miles

31 Aug

0 miles

Summary

Training (from 28 Nov)

17 weeks (18 if counting this one)

Miles per week:

62, 69, 78, 82, 62, 77, 74, 77, 75, 79, 78, 81, 46, 59, 50, 69, 47 (average before taper: 70)
The drop 5 weeks ago was due to recovery from first Donadea and then Ballycotton

# runs of 20 miles:

2 (!)
I started my training after running 3 marathons/ultras in quick succession and felt a lot of long runs on top of that would be counter-productive

# runs over 20 miles:

1 (Donadea 50k)

# of PBs:

2 (or 4 if you count in the fact that I broke my 5 miles and 10k PBs along the way during the Ballycotton 10 miler)

Injuries/ailments:

- none (still 4 days to go, of course ;-) )

After pacing the Dingle and Dublin marathons and then running the Sixmilebridge 30-miler late last year, I went into the training cycle with an emphasis on recovery. I used last year’s Vienna training plan as blueprint, both for the overall structure of the training plan as well as for individual workouts. One main change was switching the marathon pace runs for ultra pace runs but for longer durations. The other main difference was a much better understanding of the system, especially with regards to recovery. I won’t claim that I actually know what I'm doing but I must have guessed right more often than not. I finished a lot of workouts thinking “that’s how I should have done them last year”.

It didn’t start out all that well, I never felt good during base training, which is almost certainly down to the 3 long races at the end of 2011. It just took a while for my legs to recover from that. Things changed radically as soon as I started the hills phase, I could feel the legs improving virtually every single day and things just took off from there. All of a sudden I was hitting paces easily that I struggled to hit last year and I finished all my workouts with something left in the tank. Still, if anything I was developing too quickly, but I just about managed to keep a lid on things and stopped the pot from boiling over, so to speak. The races in Donadea and Ballycotton confirmed that I was in excellent shape and two hard runs (Ballycotton and alternating paces a week later) hopefully put the icing on the cake. Everything since then has just been in order to keep things ticking over until the race.

I am in my best shape ever. No doubt about it.

I also had a major shift in expectations. Two years ago when I ran the ultra in 5:15 I felt I had finally cracked this ultra running malarkey and run it as well as I could. Now I think I didn’t push hard enough. This year will be different. I am prepared to take a few risks and chase a much more aggressive target, and my confidence is high.

This week is of course all about not doing anything stupid. Monday and Tuesday saw easy 5 mile runs, and this morning I did my taper workout, the last workout before the race. I started with 6 miles at race pace, which was a bit faster than planned (I started at the right pace but gradually drifted into a higher gear), then one mile easy followed by 3x800s in 2:57, 2:55 and 2:46, with 2 minutes recovery, and finally an easy mile to cool down. The sunrise right during my second 800 was an added bonus, and I noticed how quickly the temperatures rose after that.

The upper limit from now is 2-3 miles per day. Seriously. And then we race.

26 Mar

5 miles, 39:48, 7:58 pace, HR 129

27 Mar

5 miles, 39:13, 7:51 pace, HR 135

28 Mar

10.15 miles, 1:11:36, 7:03 pace, HR 146
   6 miles @ 709 pace, 3x800 in 2:57, 2:55, 2:46

Summary

Even though my training under MC’s guidance has been different to my self-tutored attempts, I decided to keep the same summary format that I used before all my other big races. You would not be able to follow it by the summary alone, though. The genius was in the detail.

Training (from 4 Oct – 3 Apr):

26 weeks

Miles per week:

52, 53, 44, 70, 68, 75, 79, 81, 54, 61, 83, 84, 76, 86, 73, 74, 73, 73, 74, 72, 77, 70, 76, 75, 72, 65 (average: 71)
the jump from 44 to 70 was the Dublin marathon, the drop to 54 was a knee injury. I’m actually amazed how consistent I was.

# runs of 20 miles:

4

# runs over 20 miles:

1 (pacing the Dublin marathon)

# of PBs:

1 (or 3 if you count in the fact that I broke my 5 miles and 10k PBs along the way during the Ballycotton 10 miler)

Injuries/ailments:

- one ballooned knee after running on ice in December (missed 3 days)
- several sore throats that made me miss exactly 0 runs

The seeming lack of long runs is counter-acted by the fact that many of the weekends were back-to-back workouts that were much tougher than a standalone long run. In fact, some of those runs felt suspiciously like the last miles of a marathon (as much as it can do that in a training run). The essence of the training, as far as I can tell, were the steady runs day after day, week after week, always slower than I could have run, for the basic fitness and the back-to-back workouts for the marathon specific fitness. I only raced one single race in the entire training cycle, in Ballycotton, which went so well it almost blew me over.

If I have one regret then it’s the fact that I did not run any 5k or 10k races. Even without specific training I know I would have blown my existing PBs out of the water. That was sacrificed for the sake of the best marathon preparation I could have had. I’m perfectly fine with that, of course, but it leaves a tinge of regret, looking at my existing PBs knowing that I could run much faster.

I was scared enough by Sunday’s high heart rate to take Monday completely off (gasp!). Today I did what the coach calls a Taper Workout. It starts like the marathon might, trying to gradually get down to marathon pace, first half mile 7:20 pace, second half mile 7:00 pace, then gradually speed up to 6:40 pace (planned marathon pace) and hold it for 2 more miles. Jog for 10 – 15 minutes (which was 7:25 pace) and then run 3x800 every 5 minutes 2:54 pace.

My main problem with the first half of the workout was trying not to run too fast. I did the first half mile in 7:10 (a tad fast) and the second in 7:00 (spot on). The marathon pace miles were a bit fast at 6:34 pace and felt a bit harder than expected, not just because of the pace but also because I still felt the porridge that I had eaten 90 minutes earlier in my stomach, something that won’t happen on Sunday. The 800s went in 2:54, 2:50 and 2:52, just about right. The first and third repeats were not helped by the headwind; the second was, obviously, but it did not feel like it. The fact that it started raining was not overly welcome.

Talking about rain, that’s what seems to happening in Vienna right now; the forecast for the weekend is cloudy skies and 14C temperatures, much to my delight and Niamh’s disgust, but it is supposed to be sunny again the following week, which would suit me just perfect. The headache and tiredness from the weekend has gone as well. It’s all systems go and no excuses.

11 Apr

0

12 Apr

9 miles, 1:03:26, 7:02 pace, HR 155
   incl. 3 miles at 6:35, 3x800 in 2:54, 2:50, 2:52

T Minus 12 hours

I'm so nervous I can hardly type; I keep hitting the wrong keys, so if this post contains even more typos than usual, you know why.

I haven't been as nervous before a race for a long time. After 13 marathons, they are no longer something to lose sleep about. 3 Connemara Ultras make me a veteran in that respect as well. But the 50 mile distance is new and I'm a bundle of nerves.

I could not sleep Wednesday night and despite spending 9 hours in bed I only slept for 5 of those. I figured that's not too bad, it might mean I should be able to sleep Thursday night, which was almost true. I fell asleep at 10:30, but was awake at 5 am, so only partial success on that front. I don't expect to sleep much tonight. I'll be getting up at stupid o'clock and have already set 2 alarm clocks, but I don't expect to need either of them, really.

The training was short but intensive. I took it easy for a couple of weeks after the Cork City marathon, but the Killarney leg of the 32-marathon challenge forced me to up the long runs faster than normal. This turned out to be a good thing, I had no trouble adjusting and it meant I got more long runs under the belt than I would have otherwise. The meat and bones of this training cycle were the marathon-or-longer training runs, and I managed no less than 7 of those over a 5 week period, starting with that Killarney marathon and ending with 2 weekends of 30+/26.5+ back-to-back long runs. This had been looking extremely daunting on the training schedule, but I managed it by never looking further than the next run. When it came to it, I just did it and it turned out to be much easier than anticipated, though of course I had started training from a very high endurance base.

If this kind of training was the right thing to do, I cannot tell. I do wonder if a marathon-style training with a few long runs would have been better, because that's what worked extremely well for Connemara, but at the same time I'm glad I did it this way, for no other reason than that I now know that I can handle this style of training.

Training (excluding taper):

7 weeks

Total Number of Miles (excluding taper):

542
70, 75, 79, 77, 64, 92, 85

Average mpw:

77

Highest weekly mileage:

92+

# runs of 26.2 or more:

7

# of PRs:

0

Injuries:

1 complaining achilles tendon (didn't miss any training runs though)

Ailments:

1 nasty allergy attack (still scarred)

One thing that was different this time was the lack of races. Since most races take part over the weekend, I would have had to sacrifice a long run to participate and I did not think this would be a good idea. So I only ran one race in that period, the 4 miler in Kilgobnet that was held on a Friday evening and which had gone surprisingly well.

My troubles from earlier this week seem to have gone up in smoke. My knee is fine, my achilles is fine, my resting HR was back to 43 yesterday. Maybe it really was just your bog-standard taper madness.

One more night, sleepless or not, and then it's time. I have been waiting for this moment for an entire year.

1 Sep

5 miles, 42:28, 8:29 pace, HR 138

2 Sep

3 miles, 24:46, 8:15 pace, HR 135

It Is Time

With the Ultra just three days from now, it’s time for another summary. I included last year’s figures as a way of easy comparison, but of course they were from marathon training, not ultra training.

Training (excluding long recovery from Dingle/Dublin and taper):

14 weeks (2009: 18 for Boston, 14 for Dingle)

Total Number of Miles:

862 (2009: 1388 Boston, 1210 Dingle)
48, 70, 55, 61, 72, 62, 65, 65, 52, 66, 64, 62, 70, 50

Average mpw:

61.5 (2009: 77 Boston, 86 Dingle)

Highest weekly mileage:

72 (2009: 88 Boston, 103 Dingle)

# runs of 20 miles or more:

14 (2009: 6 Boston, 7 Dingle)

long runs by week (20/20 means back-to-back workout):

14, 21, 15, 20, 20/20, 20/20, 20/20, 25, 20, 30, 20, 26.3, 22/15, 18

# of PRs:

0 (2009: 1 Boston, 1 Dingle)

Injuries/ailments:

0 (2009: 3 Boston, 0 Dingle)

What jumps out immediately (to me, at least) is the significantly lower mileage per week but the just as significantly higher number of long runs, both in number and duration. This is not by accident, of course. I wrote a training program at the start but then mostly ignored it, leaving only the long runs in there and moulding the rest of my training around them. The idea was to do many more and longer ones while at the same time ensuring full rest and recovery. Now, if you take 2 days for a back-to-back workout, rest/recover for two days before that to ensure freshness and rest/recover for two days afterwards for recovery, there is only one day in the week left, which I used for a fast workout. Due to a quirk in this year’s racing calendar, a lot of these fast workouts were actually races, including a slightly mad spell of 6 races on 6 consecutive weekends, though I thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of these, so no regrets. On weeks where I did not do a back-to-back workout I either ran very long (25, 26+ and 30 miles) or took an easy week with “only” 20 - 22 miles for the long run.

While I did not set any PRs I was pleased with my races, and I came pretty damn close to my 5k PR that had seemed way out of reach beforehand. And just over the last weeks, coinciding with me taking an iron supplement (ok, probably not a coincidence then), my tempo runs have all of a sudden taken off and I was running 10-20 seconds faster per mile than ever before. Take my new found speed and my hopefully better-than-ever endurance and I should be in for a good day in Connemara, though in Ultras things are never a given. However, I think I’m in better shape than ever before.

The race itself has developed as well since my last go at it 2 years ago. From what I’ve heard the number of runners has doubled since then, from 100 to 200 this year. I like to think that I have personally inspired a few of these new entrants, but this will probably mean that my name will be cursed to High Heavens on the approach to the Hell of the West.

You might remember that I had pledged to stay off sweets during the period of lent. Despite numerous temptations I managed to stay true to that goal and was rewarded with the loss of about 6 pounds, which apparently left me looking like a whippet, according to Richard. Well, after eating my way through a humongous mountain of chocolate during the Easter Weekend, I hoped to become abstentious again for the rest of the pre-Connemara week, but after weeks of iron discipline there was none left and I’m still living on sugar. I could call it carbo-loading, but sadly that’s not really how it works. It doesn’t help that a work colleague won an Easter egg in the raffle, the size of which would make a Brachiosaurus squirm, and has left it out for all the people in the office to share, and I could not resist munching through my share as well. The result of all this saw me 4 pounds heavier this morning than on Sunday. How can it take 7 week to lose 6 pounds (ok, 5 them came off within the first 2-3 weeks) and only 4 days to put most of them back on? Surely I have not eaten that much chocolate!?!? Anyway, since the Easter Chocolate Mountain has now been demolished I might get back to a reasonable diet with 2 days remaining. As for my next blog entry, that will be from beautiful, sunny Connemara.

7 Apr

6.1 miles, 44:57, 7:22 pace, HR 148

8 Apr

4 miles, 32:30, 8:07 pace, HR 142

Dingle Training

It’s time again for another one of my standard marathon training summary posts.

Training (excluding taper):

14 weeks

Total Number of Miles (excluding taper):

1210: 62, 71, 73, 90, 95, 102, 75, 76, 100, 87, 103, 100, 100, 76

Average mpw (excluding taper):

86

# runs of 20 miles or more:

7 (1 x 24, 1 x 22, 5 x 20)

# weeks of 100 miles or more:

5

Highest weekly mileage:

103

Highest mileage over any 7 consecutive days:

109 (oops)

# of PRs:

1 (10K), or 2 if you want, because I lowered my 10k PR twice in successive races

Injuries/ailments:

None. In fact, I recovered from a longstanding mild case of PF while doing those 100-mile weeks. No kidding.

I don’t know if miles really make champions (that’s relative on my case, obviously), but I sure gave it a good go. I always tried to ensure that I didn’t run any miles purely for the miles’ sake. I had a few minor niggles, my left foot is a bit sore on the outside, just beneath the ankle, and has been so for the last few weeks. It won’t be an issue on Saturday. My right achilles seems to be slightly sore, but I think that’s a taper-induced phantom injury.

The taper was very long due to the excessive soreness from the Mangerton Mountain race 4 weeks ago. I’ve no regrets about doing that one, though, but ideally I would have preferred a standard 3 weeks taper. Indeed, I felt on top of my game during last Saturday’s run. I try to remember that you can’t lose much fitness in one week, but the legs felt truly stiff and heavy today, and it’s not down to excessive mileage for a change.

Tomorrow will be my first off day since 2 May. That’s a decent streak, not that I have any intentions of starting a running streak for its own sake. On Friday I’ll do 20 easy minutes, just to calm the nerves. On Saturday, I will race.

As someone just reminded me in his well-wishing message, Dingle is not a place to be looking for a personal best, so I can just relax and enjoy the occasion. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I signed up for it. I wanted to run a marathon without feeling that I have to shoot for a sub-3. Unfortunately my mind doesn’t really work that way and I keep thinking about that 2:59:59. But it’s not going to happen this weekend. The plan is to set out at a decent pace that will be sustainable but ideally keep a personal best within striking distance, maybe 7:10 or so, but I'll see how I feel on the day. If things are going great I might push harder, never forgetting that miles 21-23 are going to be severely punishing, and preferably still have some usable quads for the last 3 downhill miles (that’s a big ask though).

8 Sep

6 miles, 47:46m 7:58 pace, HR 142
incl. 5x100 strides

9 Sep

4 miles, 32:03, 8:00 pace, HR 139
incl. 4x100 strides

Training Summary

Training (excluding taper):
   21 weeks
Miles:
   1388
Average mpw:
   71
Average mpw if I don’t count the weeks compromised by sickness:
   77
# runs of 20 miles or more:
   6
Highest weekly mileage:
   88
# of PRs:
   only 1 (10 miles), but that was a substantial one
Injuries/ailments:

1. a cold at the start of December
   
2. ankle sprain around New Year
   
3. a severe cold in February
   

I didn’t have to deal with a real injury, the ankle problem was most likely caused by an overenthusiastic application of things like bounding, springing and jumping, and went away by itself without having to rest. The infection I had in February was probably the worst one I’ve had in a while (well, since the pneumonia, for sure), but happened just far enough out from the marathon date that it shouldn’t have an effect.

Various data points I can gather from my logs like the paces and HR on my runs show that I’m in better shape than before Dublin, and if everything goes to plan then maybe, just maybe, I could sneak under 3 hours. If not, then a new PR should still be possible, but I am well aware that Boston is generally not a course to go looking for PR; no need to point that out.

Anyway, I'm in Boston now. More of that later.

Summary

I always give a short training summary a few days before a marathon, and here is the one for this build:

Training (excluding this week):

18 weeks

Miles:

1227

Average mpw:

68

# runs of 20 miles or more:

5

Highest weekly mileage:

86

# of PRs:

6 (5k, 4 miles, 8k, 10k, half, 15 miles)

Injuries/ailments:

1. PF in left foot (leftover from Connemara in April)
2. pain in left hamstring (almost certainly connected to 1)
3. dermatitis in right foot

It was an unusual training cycle for me. I followed the Brain Training program, which meant fewer miles but more speedwork than usual. I found this a very tough program, and the massive amount of speedwork paid off spectacularly initially with a slew of new PRs over the shorter distances. However, I eventually decided that there was too much speedwork for a marathon build and started to back off. I had felt really tired and stale at the end of August, but I’ve come around and I am now in hopefully my best shape ever. In any case, it’s too late to do anything about it now.

The week started in total alien fashion, namely without a run on Monday morning. The weather was awful, I could not possible have cycled into work, so I got a lift off Niamh in the morning and ran home in the evening. Evening runs are always faster than morning runs, and it was an easy one, despite being faster than my usual easy runs. The weather almost cooperated, for 3.5 miles it was windy but fine, and then the heavens opened and I was soaked through within 10 seconds. As a result, the last miles and a bit were faster than planned – I just wanted to get out of the deluge as soon as possible.

My right foot started itching about 5 weeks ago, just after the Blarney half-marathon in fact. I assumed it was Athlete’s Foot, picked up from the shower room there. Apart from making sure to wash it very carefully each day I treated it with cream, but that didn’t help; eventually I tried some powder, which was no use either. I purchased some spray, and that didn’t get rid of it either. Eventually the foot started swelling, and it got rather painful. Niamh kept nagging me to go to the Doctor, and eventually I gave in, and had an appointment today. He said it was dermatitis, and after I refused to go on antibiotics he prescribed another cream. It should get rid of the problem within a few days, which would be just in time for the marathon. Funnily enough, even with all the unpleasant symptoms I have experienced over the last few weeks (blisters, crusty skin, irritation, itching, rash, redness, swelling) I was never worried about the marathon.

Because of the foot swelling, and because Niamh kept pestering me to be careful, I took Tuesday off, my first rest day of the entire training. I originally planned the same for today, but I woke at 4am, and when I was still awake at 6:30 I finally got up and ran 5 very easy miles. It felt good.

The one thing I am nervous about is the weather forecast. They keep changing their minds every day. A few days ago they predicted gale force winds with gusts of over 50mph on the day. Thankfully they have changed that by now. It keeps changing every day, though. I still don’t like metcheck’s forecast of 15 mph winds, while wunderground is slightly more benevolent with 11 mph. With 5 days to go, there is still plenty of error in those.

20 Oct

5 miles, 37:26, 7:29 pace, HR 145

21 Oct

0

22 Oct

5+ miles, 41:23, 8:15 pace, HR 140

Summary

Usually I write a summary of my training a few days before a marathon, partly to create a little summary database of my marathon training, partly to convince myself that I've done enough and calm my nerves. I wasn't sure if that made sense this time because my training was rather disrupted first by pneumonia and then by the Connemara Ultra, but then I decided to do it anyway.

This was a highly unusual training cycle. After Loch Ness I was not sure if I would be able to train at all because of Maia being born, and after that turned out to be no problem (as well as a wonderful event, of course), I lost a full month to pneumonia and another one when I had to rebuild my mileage. Initially I thought of Connemara as my main race this spring, but after the pneumonia my focus shifted to the Cork marathon, because I felt there would not be enough time to get fully fit for Connemara (which, in retrospect, was indeed the case). Anyway, here are some bits of my training cycle:

Average miles:

62
This figure is probably meaningless due to those disruptions. To display all the ups and downs, my weekly mileage figures between recovering from Loch Ness and the start of the taper were: 65, 67, 78, 88, 91, 92, 96, 94, 81, 50, 22, 10, 0, 0, 11, 37, 61, 74, 94, 100, 79, 99, 70, 44, 53, 21, 50, 70, 66, 77, 74. That's 31 weeks. Loch Ness was a long, long time ago.

Injuries/Illness:

no real injuries, but the pneumonia more than made up for that

# of PRs:

1 in the Ballycotton 10 miler, but it was the only 10 mile race I've ever done (still, it's the fastest I've ever covered 10 miles in any race)

The weekly mileage has more ups and downs than the road around Caragh Lake. As I've said, this was a very unusual training cycle. However, I feel in top shape now, and I'm quite confident I'll be able to run a marathon PR on Monday.

I did one more workout today. Mystery Coach, who is helping fast guys Mike and Eric, has this taper workout that he makes them do a few days before the marathon. I ran a toned down version of it, 8 miles, with 4 miles at marathon pace and the 2x800 on the way home. The marathon pace section was maybe a little bit fast at 7:07 pace, but it featured 55 feet elevation drop. The 800s were 3:10 (19 feet climb) ad 2:56 (don't get excited, 32 feet drop). I liked that workout, it felt good to get the legs going at pace once more, and I'm looking forward to trying the same over 26 miles 5 days from now. My main worry at the moment is the weather forecast, it's changing daily, and some of their seemingly wild guesses are predicting rather higher temperatures than I would prefer. But I guess there is no point in panicking just yet.

27 May

5 miles, 44:42, 8:56 pace, HR 133

28 May

8 miles, 59:59, 7:30 pace, HR 152
incl. 4 miles in 28:27, 2x800 in 3:10 (uphill), 2:57(downhill)

Nice timing

For once, December 31 is falling nicely into the week where I have no running news, so I can use that space for the obligatory end-of-year post.

Looking back at it, I had a spectacular year of running. One year ago I had gone to bed thinking how nice it would be to break 20 minutes for 5k, but realistically I would have to wait until 2008 for my running to reach that level. Little did I know that it would take me just 12 hours to reach that level when I ran 19:52 in the New Year’s race in Phoenix park, and within half a year I had taken another 36 seconds off that time, which was mind boggling. Even better was my time in Adare in March, when I broke sub-40 in my still only-ever 10k race. That was even more unexpected, and something to celebrate, particularly so because this was merely a preparation race for the Connemara ultra, and even then it was just a mere consolation for missing out on Ballycotton. My first ever ultra went extremely well, and even though now I look at the time and am not overly impressed, back then I was in high heaven just for finishing the race. I’d love to run a longer ultra (I think I’ve already mentioned that, uh, about a dozen times this year), but Connemara is the only ultra on the entire island (not counting that silly orienteering thingy they do in the Wicklow mountains), and those ultras in the UK keep messing up the rest of my schedule, so I’ve yet to commit to any of those. Lastly, I ran 3:12 in my only 2007 marathon, which was fast enough to qualify for Boston, a goal that had looked further away than the stars only one year ago. One glance at my sideboard confirms that I had a good 2007, every single PR is from this year. I wonder if there will ever be a year again when I can say that?

There are no miracles in running, all those race times came as a direct result of my training, and the whole idea of that was basically to run as many miles as I could. The final counter stopped at 3704, which is about as many miles for one single year as I had done in all my running time together before that, not I have been running for very long. Health permitting, I’m confident I’ll surpass that mileage again in 2008, but we’ll see, especially so as I’m still grounded.

As far as my “quite severe” chest infection goes, I’m definitely getting better, but I’m still coughing a lot. It took a day for the antibiotics to kick in, but at least by now I don’t feel like I’m about to cough up half of my lungs each time. However, my breathing is still rasping at times, and I’m already halfway through my medication. My participation in Sunday’s race is rather doubtful at that point, and a second visit to the doctor towards the end of the week is more likely than a trip to Mallow. Niamh wouldn’t let me take the car anyway if she were in any doubt about my health, and who can blame her? Even though Mallow is one of the closest races to me, I’ve never made it there yet.

Thanks for reading my blog, it’s been a great 2007, and Happy New Year to everyone out there. Have a good 2008.

Last Call

A lot of people who are running Chicago or TCM this weekend seem to be freaking out about the weather forecast. I guess that’s one thing I have on my side. Hot temperatures in the Scottish Highlands in October were never on the cards. I did have visions about running through the autumn storms, but the weather gods are on my side, it seems. It looks like wunderground, accuweather and the UK met office respectively are all pretty much in agreement:



I could do without the passing showers, but I’m not complaining. That’s pretty close to ideal.

What’s less than ideal is the cold that’s still in my system. On Wednesday I finally started to feel good again. Yesterday my sore throat was back, and I felt like crap again in the morning; however, I felt better as the day wore on. Today I woke with a sore throat but sans the feeling of fatigue. There’s not much I seem to be able to do at that stage, apart from hoping for the best. It’s just so bloody annoying that I’ve been as healthy as I’ve ever been throughout the training, and now that. Niamh thinks it’s taper related, that’s the third time out of 7 marathons/ultras that I’ve got sick during the taper, and it’s unlikely to be a coincidence. What I don’t know is how to avoid it.

Enough of that. I usually give a summary of my training before the race, and that’s my last chance of doing so:

Training:

22 weeks

Miles:

1660

Average mpw:

80

# runs of 20 miles or more:

11

Highest weekly mileage:

102.5

# of weeks 100+ miles:

3

# of PRs:

2 (5k and half)

injuries:

two; left knee in June, right shin in August, but neither caused me to miss any workouts

It’s a progression compared to last time round; I ran a lot of miles, but most of them rather slowly. If that’s good or bad depends on your training philosophy. I might have dropped the miles a bit too much in the last few weeks – the half marathon did cause a bit of havoc with my schedule, because I took 3 easy days either side of that race. What pleases me most is the consistency of my long runs. I ran 20+ miles once per week on 11 consecutive weeks, and not one of them left me feeling too tired. Looking back at the training I think I can handle a lot of volume very well. I always recovered very well from 2 hours+ runs, and never felt overwhelmed. I had a few weeks where I ran 4 runs of 2 hours or more, and I think that was the best training I’ve ever done. The one step back from the ultra training last spring was the lack of back-to-back 20 milers. They were tough, but I think they did a good job in building my endurance. There might be a place for them even in standard marathon training. I will have to think about it.

I’m driving to Dublin tonight after work, and I’m flying to Scotland tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I might not be back on a computer until Monday night. For anybody in Inverness (both of you) who want to spot me, I will be wearing either a green singlet or a grey t-shirt, depending on the mood and/or weather (singlet, probably). More specifically, I’m wearing glasses (that should be easier to spot), and my race number is 1771.

There are a lot of races this weekend, apart from Loch Ness I “know” people running Chicago, TCM, Mohawk-Hudson, Portland and Ottawa. Good luck to every single one of you!

Summary

With four days to go, it's time for another summary post of my training. This will make it easy to get a quick overview of each training cycle in times to come.

Training: 20 weeks
Miles (with a few yet to come): 1286
# runs of 20 miles or more: 10
Highest weekly mileage: 86.5
# of weeks over 80 miles: 7
# of PRs: 2 (5k and 10k)
injuries: one, my hip problem

All in all I'm very pleased with that training cycle. I was pleasantly surprised about the number of 20-milers, I expected that number to be around 7 or so. The best weeks were the ones with the back-to-back 20-mile runs, and it's those double headers that give me the most reason for optimism. I think I will have a good race.

My hip feels good in the morning, and hurts more the longer the day goes on. I think sitting in an office chair for hours is the worst thing to do. As long as I manage to survive the drive to Connemara without problems, I will be ok.

I did some running in the last few days, namely 5 very easy miles on Monday, and 8 miles today, with a big fat goose egg in the middle. Monday's run was as slow as I could run without feeling uncomfortable. I don't think running as slowly as that would be a good idea, even for the beginning of the ultra. I felt cumbersome, and not really into it. I did produce my lowest heart rate for a training run ever, though. Tuesday produced my first voluntary zero, the only other days I had to take off were at the end of January, after I nearly cracked my skull open playing indoor soccer. And today was a dress rehearsal for the race. I wore the shoes, socks and top that will probably form my wardrobe on Sunday (depending on the Connemara weather), and tried to tune into the pace that felt easy enough to be sustainable, but faster than Monday’s clumsy run. I was a bit dismayed to find it raining, especially after yesterday had been such a gorgeous day, but I guess that’s preparation for Connemara as well – you can never rule out rain in the west of Ireland. After a first mile at around 8:40 and a second one at 8:20 I settled into about 8:00 pace, and felt thoroughly comfortable. If it’s the correct pace for Sunday, I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out one way or another. The return leg was against a fairly strong headwind, which is the most likely cause for the fact that the return leg took longer than the outgoing one, something that’s very unusual for me. I did manage to keep it easy until the end though, headwind or not.

I’m as ready as I will ever be. I can’t wait. Bring it on! My race number is 39061 (the 39 is for the ultra distance, they don't have 40000 runners there), but that information won't help you. Tracking? You've gotta be joking, This is a low-tech race for down-to-earth runners.

26 Mar: 5 miles, 44:09. 8:49 pace, HR 133 (felt too slow)
27 Mar: 0
29 Mar: 8 miles, 1:05:11, 8:08 pace, HR 139 (felt just right)

Last entry of 2006

The weather seems to play with us at the moment. Each day is a complete contrast to the previous one, sunshine on Saturday gave way to rain and storms on Sunday, and who knows what’s in store for Monday.

After feeling totally wiped out after Friday’s run I did question my training. I certainly don’t want to fall into the overtraining trap, but one tough run does not cause overtraining. I was slightly apprehensive for Saturday’s 90 minutes, and initially the concerns were well founded. The legs felt very heavy and I really had to drag myself along for the run. After about 4.5 miles I came across a football pitch with a dirt track around it, and on the spur of the moment decided to do a few laps. After two or three laps I suddenly seemed to shake off the fatigue and from then on I felt much better. After five laps I decided to do some straights and curves, partly because I wanted to get the legs moving a bit before Monday’s 5k, and partly because I hadn’t done any strides all week. This kind of strides workout is different to my usual one, normally I have much longer breaks between the fast bits. It went well, though my heart rate did creep upwards with every lap. I did 6 more laps of that, making it 12 strides and 12 recoveries. At least I think I did, I lost count at one stage. There was a guy cycling clockwise on the track while I was doing counter-clockwise loops. He nearly did the same pace as me, after each half lap we seemed to cross at nearly the same spot – though I did work a lot harder than he did, obviously. I still had to run the 4.5 miles home again, of course, but I was very happy with the workout.

After feeling so revitalised, I expected another good run on Sunday, but you don’t always get what you want. The weather had turned decidedly nasty again, though the winds did not quite reach the 60-70 mph that had been predicted (that might still happen later today of course). I tried to take it a little bit easier than I would have on a normal 60 minutes run to save the legs for tomorrow’s race, but I ended up doing a decent pace anyway, especially considering the conditions. The legs felt surprisingly heavy again, as if someone had attached a brick to each hamstring (I checked but couldn’t find it). Oh well. I did feel slightly better as the run wore on, and finished in reasonable shape.

I managed to pick up a spanking new pair of Asics Nimbus in a half price sale at Arnotts, which made my day. The old pair of Nimbuses had been officially retired on my last run before driving to Dublin a week ago. They had lasted for 520 miles, which is the longest I’ve ever worn a pair. I had a few twinges and tweaks in both Achilles tendons over the last 2 or 3 weeks before that, which is my usual sign of needing a new pair of runners. I’ve been feeling fine since.

Lola had a tummy bug over the last few days, with the usual unpleasantness that accompanies that kind of thing. At one stage the poor thing said to her mummy “I think I’m going to die”. Thankfully she’s better now; she seems to be fully recovered. When mummy baked a chocolate cake yesterday, she licked the mixing bowl clean, and she’s been fine ever since, which is more than you can say about the clothes she wore at the time. I hope we can remove those chocolate stains.

Happy New Year everyone! I wish you a good and successful 2007, and may all your PRs be shattered. My personal resolution: run more, run harder, and don’t get injured. I’m not asking for much, do I?

30 Dec: 11 miles, 1:33, 8:27 pace, avg. HR 150, including 12x100 strides
31 Dec: 8 miles, 1:02, 7:45 pace, avg. HR 153

Weekly mileage: 75+ (a new record and I didn’t even think about it until I added up the numbers)
December mileage: 278
2006 mileage: 2562

Summary

Mike does that thing before his marathons where he summarises his training from the last few months. While I hope nobody will compare his and my notes, I thought it would be a neat idea to plagiarise. So, here’s the raw data.

Training: 24 weeks
Miles (with about 17 still to come): 1415
# Runs of 20 miles or more: 7
Longest run: 23 miles
Highest weekly mileage: 70
# of times this was reached: 4
avg. miles per week (without taper): 62
# of PRs: 2 (5k and half)
injuries: just one mentionable one, a pain in the left achilles/calf a few weeks ago.

All in all I’m very satisfied with that. When I started the program back in May I half-expected to get injured due to the increased mileage, but that never happened. In fact, I’ve never run for so long without any major disruptions. This might be due to my body finally getting used to the act of running, or maybe I just got lucky.

My cold/sore throat still isn’t shifting, in fact, it seems to be getting worse. I’ve still got 6 days to recover, and even if it doesn’t get any better than that, I don’t think it will impact on Monday’s performance, just as long as it doesn’t get any worse. I’m still icing my left hamstring and right quads, and I’m still popping those ibuprofen pills.

I was contemplating all of yesterday evening if I should go out for a run this morning. It was while I was sitting on the sofa late last night, icing my hamstring that my brain had a rare moment of insight: Since I’m sitting here desperately trying to treat some running-related damage, it might actually make sense to give it some rest. Great idea, so I went to bed without setting the alarm and was looking forward to some 8-9 hours of blissful sleep to heal my battered body. Unfortunately, I’ve got 3 kids with an uncanny sense of timing. They all got up at 5:30, and proceeded to sing, dance, jump around, run around, fight and scream for the rest of the morning. I finally got up at 7am, and the first thing that happened was that my glasses broke. Bummer. I do have a spare pair of specs, unfortunately I was already wearing my spare one. My “main” glasses broke over a year ago, and I never got a replacement. Since I’m blind as a bat, and I’m working on a computer all day, a trip to the optician was in store, and all the money I managed to save this month won’t go towards the credit card bill after all. Bummer.

Maybe it’s just not my day.

That’s fine.

As long as all the misery is compounded towards this part of the week.

I have to drive to Shannon tonight to bring my mum to the airport. That's another 4 hours in the car, and my hamstring is wincing at the mere thought of it.

I very nearly forgot. I did run on Monday morning, 13 miles in the cold clear crisp air of Caragh Lake. The sky was almost completely clear. During the first hour, when it was till pitch dark, I saw no less than 5 shooting stars. I did make a wish at each of them, but I’m not allowed to tell you what it was.

23 Oct: 13 miles, 1:44, 8:00 pace