April Fools

"Are you here for the sword?"

Paddy's question referenced the winner's prize today, a beautiful full-sized hand-crafted sword made by Cyril. "Alex O'Shea is here. The rest of us don't have to worry about the sword". That summed up the situation. I was here to do a training run. A very long training run, the longest of my build-up, but a training run nevertheless. Alex's presence meant I would not have to stress about potentially trying to win and could just pace myself sensibly instead. At least that's the theory, it doesn't always work out like that.

Anyway, the most stressful part of the day was already behind me, namely finding the start somewhere in the back end of Kildare in complete darkness, but I had managed that in good time. Then we all got ready, had Anto deliver his race directions, including "there's a sign at mile 8 saying towpath closed. Ignore that.", mixed with his usual mixture of jokes and abuse.


And at 7am, just as it started getting bright, we were off. Alex stormed away right from the start to disappear behind the horizon in next to no time. 2 lads went past me at a fairly ambitious pace and then it was me. For the next 2, 3, maybe 4 miles I kept hearing voices chatting behind me but they eventually faded away. By that time Alex was a barely noticeable orange dot at the horizon and the other 2 lads were quite a distance ahead of me. At some point, when going through a turnstile, I caught a glimpse of the road behind me for what looked like a mile and there was nobody to be seen. I guess I didn't have to worry too much about being chased.

Directions were simple enough. Follow the Grand Canal from Ollie's and Charlotte's Spartan Way house for about 30 miles until you hit the turnaround point, keeping the canal 2 feet to your left. Then run back, keeping it 2 feet to your right. It really was as idiot-proof as that; it even saved Anto from having to signpost the course. However, I did disagree with his assessment that the surface was "85% road, 10% grass, 5% shit", and more like "50% road, 40% grass and 10% muck". Especially for the first 15 miles I remember preciously few parts of proper road and kept slipping on the wet grass and stumbling on the stones. In fact, the 2 or 3 miles of "shit" weren't really any worse than much of what we had already covered.


The checkpoints were 10 miles apart, which made me think about the best strategy. Most runners had their backpacks with them, and for a while I did consider that as well. However, water is heavy and carrying heavy load slows you down and makes you tired. Besides, I hate carrying stuff, so I just put my phone (the only compulsory item) into a little fanny pack together with a couple of gels and some caffeine/salt/paracetamol tablets (the last ones with the intention of not taking them, though I didn't see that through in the end), with a small muesli bar as a late addition, and resolved to drink at each aid station, and if I really was too thirsty I'd start carrying a water bottle from one of the aid stations.

Coming into CP1

I caught up with the 2 lads at the first aid station, and since I spent a lot less time in there than they did I was right on their heels as we left, though I wasted that time again to reply to some "Happy Easter" messages to the family back home in Austria when the phone started buzzing. I usually hate people posting selfies on FB during a race (it's race, FFS), but in this situation I deliberately tried to remind myself to treat this as a training run and not a race. That initially restored the gap to the lads again but once we hit proper road surface as we got close to Daingean (what? A Dingle in Offaly?) either I inadvertently sped up or they slowed down because by mile 17 I passed them and from then on was in second place.

There were about 12 miles of almost uninterrupted road surface, which initially felt hard on the legs after all the soft grass, but I quickly got used to it and relished the feeling of being able to stride out properly. Yes, I am very much a road runner. I got to CP2 and had a sports drink as well as a chocolate bar, before heading off towards Tullamore, where we passed the marathon distance. I was really pleased with how great the legs felt at that time, until I realised that taking on the carbs from the sports drink and the chocolate was probably responsible for that. There were 2 road crossing in Tullamore but I got through them without having to stop.

Halfway

I got to some rougher surface again and at about 28 miles saw an orange top approaching rapidly, which was of course Alex on the return journey. This would have been my one chance of taking race victory by attacking him unawares, but instead we gave each other a high five and went our respective ways again. The turnaround point arrived sooner than expected with "only" 30 miles on the watch. A quick drink, some banter with Anto, another selfie, and off I was.

At that point I remembered the weather forecast. It had been cold but completely wind still at the start. However, the remnants of the "Beast from the East" were predicted to visit us once again, which meant an increasingly strong wind coming from the East - oh shit! Basically, no or next to no tailwind on the way out and more and more headwind on the way back. Lovely. There was also some forecast of rain in the afternoon. I really hoped to get through the mucky bit 8-11 miles from the finish before that would arrive.

Anyway, I straight away noticed the breeze blowing right into my face though it wasn't too bad just yet. I kept going for maybe 10 minutes before encountering the first runner heading out towards CP3 and for the next few miles it was a steady stream of friendly faces with a common purpose, plenty of hellos, high fives and best wishes, which made the miles fly by and the wind not particularly noticeable. Shortly after Tullamore, just as it got quiet again, another, unexpected friendly face appeared in the form of Jack Healy, who helped out with an extra support stop and encouraging words. Thanks mate!

Off I went again, and eventually I started to notice the wind properly.

I don't usually run with music. Never in training. I prefer to listen to my body and go through the signal it sends. Music just distracts from that. However, once you run for long enough there comes the point where I prefer not to listen to those signals any more because they're starting to tell me things I'd prefer not to notice, and as I got close to the 40 mile mark I reached that point and I took out my tiny, old, very rarely used mp3 player and tried to drown out the signs of ever increasing fatigue with some good old-fashioned hard rock.

I was still in reasonable shape when I reached CP4 (same as CP2, of course) and didn't spend much time there, just another drink, and put a chocolate bar into my bag as an emergency supply for later. They had some pot noodles there but my stomach revolted at the mere thought of it and anyway, I don't think they would have contained a lot of calories. Some savoury food would have been good; maybe I should suggest to Anto to offer some boiled potatoes there next time, my own special secret for ultra running.

Soon after leaving CP4 I really started to notice the headwind and the miles on the watch ticked by at an every decreasing rate. I still held it together somewhat until I got to Daingean again but once I hit the grass again the wheels really started to come off and I stumbled from step to step again rather than run.

Actually, in some ways I was very pleased with how the legs managed to cope. There was not one muscle that was particularly sore, nothing where I could have pointed to and said "this hurts", and there was no sign of cramping. However, I was undeniably absolutely knackered.

Obviously, this didn't come as a complete surprise. I know I was treating this as a training run but once you hit a certain distance you reach the point where just moving forward required 100% effort, and the idea of taking it easy because it's not a goal race becomes meaningless.

In an ultra you will always have some ups and downs. Sometimes they last, sometimes they come and go quickly. It's how you deal with the inevitable lows that defines your race. As always, I dealt with it the only way I know: I put my head down and kept going. Left foot, right foot, repeat.

The landscape did not help. It's completely flat along the canal (well, duh!) and rarely are there any landmarks you can look forward to. Instead you tend to be able to look ahead for miles and see nothing but a pretty much featureless strip of water and a path either side of it. There will be a bend in the canal at some point and so you run for ages to reach it, only to be greeted by the next stretch of nothingness. And if you let the negativity get to you, you're in trouble.

Approaching CP5

Eventually I got to mile 50 and the final CP. "I need a chair and a coke", and both very provided immediately. I also took a paracetamol here, all good intentions not to take them having long evaporated. They also gave me a fruit bar, which I wasn't sure if my stomach could handle it, but it seemed rude to say no and my stomach did manage. I didn't stay long and left as quickly as I could. I wanted to get this over and done with.

As exhausted as I was, I was thankful to hit the mucky bit before the rain had set in, which was a definite plus. In fact, both the mucky miles as well as the many mile of grass seemed to provide much better grip now than they had on the way out. Unlike on the outward journey I didn't constantly feel like I was slipping all the time and seemed to find good traction all the way. I think the course had dried out a bit in the intervening hours. However, the headwind was now reaching the point where it could be described as "brutal". For a few more miles I was still running every step because walking would have been just as painful but somewhere around mile 55 I did have a few walk breaks, which I think was merely psychological because physically I was actually still feeling surprisingly good with the muscles all in good shape. Just exhausted, that's all.

I did curse Anto's name a couple of times, not sure if loudly or quietly. But mostly I did curse the wind. At some point, when I saw the gorse beside me swaying wildly, which really drove home the fact just how windy it was at the time, I started to scream out loudly in frustration at having to keep running right into the gale, but the wind was entirely unimpressed. I was tempted to just lie down in the grass but that would still have hurt just as much and would have had the distinctive disadvantage of not getting any closer to the finish.

Eventually I remembered that chocolate bar I had taken at CP4 and ate it. My stomach was less than thrilled at the idea of even more sugar and I think any more and it would have all come up again but as it turned out it was the exact right thing to do at the time. Within 2 minutes I was running again and within half a mile I was running faster than at any point in the last 15 miles, headwind be damned (which, admittedly, still wasn't very fast in objective terms). After almost 5 miles of nothing but empty landscape ever since passing Edenderry I finally saw some buildings again, and when I got closer there was a welcoming committee, which was fantastic to see and gave me a big lift. Thank you! There was only maybe half a mile to go, which flew by quickly, and then I was done.

Finally done!

The time was a rather modest 9:34:04, exactly an hour slower than my PB. How much of that is due to the dodgy surface, the wind and a lack of fitness is a question I'm not entirely sure about; however, the main purpose of that run was to build exactly that kind of endurance.

There was a BBQ going on, provided by our fantastic hosts Ollie and Charlotte, and the burger I ate right after finishing was probably the best thing I've ever tasted. Alex was of course long finished, recovered and happy out, and for the next couple of hours gradually more and more runners joined us as they finished. I stayed until about 7 o'clock, happy to have done the race but equally happy to be finished.

Thanks to Anto for putting on yet another great race, to Cyril for crafting a fantastic, unique trophy, and of course all the volunteers who spent all of Easter Sunday looking after a bunch of April Fools.

I never ate my muesli bar.

 

 

 

 

Courtesy of Sean Cassin

28 Mar

4.1 miles, 35:58, 8:46 pace, HR 121

29 Mar

4.1 miles, 31:11, 8:05 pace, HR 131

30 Mar

4.15 miles, 34:17, 8:15 pace, HR 128

31 Mar

4.25 miles, 36:03, 8:28 pace, HR 130

1 Apr

Spartan's Way 100k, 60+ miles, 9:34:04, 9:33 pace, HR 135

   2nd place

2 Apr

4.15 miles, 43:48, 10:31 pace, HR 121

Recovery Lessons

The last thing I said in my previous post was that I would assess on Friday morning if I should do an easy or a faster effort that day, depending on how the legs felt. The problem with that approach is that you need to be absolutely honest with yourself; once you start arguing with yourself "ah sure it's not THAT bad, I'll be fine" it should set the alarm bells ringing straight away. Well, I didn't heed my own advice, stubbornly went ahead with a faster effort and knew pretty much straight away that I had been stupid.

The most important lesson Mystery Coach had hammered into me was that the base phase is all about recovery, both long term from your previous race as well as day-to-day recovery from training session to training session. Just one look at Friday's numbers shows what happens when you ignore that. The pace was slower than last week, though I can swear that the effort was at least the same. What's quite revealing is the low heart rate: I just was not able to raise the HR, it was about 5 bpm lower than last week, though, as I said, the perceived effort was the same. It would have been better to take it easy on Friday and leave the faster stuff for another morning. The way I did it I ended up with some mediocre pace and a lot of fatigue.

I was late for Saturday's group run. My thinking was that someone who gets up at 6 am every morning during the week won't need an alarm to get up at 8 on Saturday. That has been true every week up to now, but yesterday I overslept. Thankfully it wasn't too bad, I only missed the start by a minute and quickly caught up with the group.

For whatever reason, the pace for the group run was much sharper than usual, but that suited me just fine. Maybe it was because we had the ladies that had come 3th and 4th in the recent Valentia half marathon amongst us, or maybe they are all getting much fitter already. As always I added the runs to and from the meeting point, which gives me a decent mileage for the day, but towards the end I was definitely feeling the miles, another sign that I was behind in my recovery.

I wasn't exactly looking forward to today's long run, but felt that I had to do it. I was prepared to take it really easy, no matter how slow, and just get it done. The 20 miles were made tougher by the hills and the rather windy conditions, and with my legs feeling so fatigued the day before this had the potential to get very ugly.

Instead I was moving well from the word go, cruised over the hills on autopilot, pushed the effort a bit more on the flats and was back home in about 2 hours 30, feeling pretty damn good. I felt I could have done the same loop a second time, though I wasn't THAT tempted to test that theory. So, all of a sudden and without knowing why, I went from feeling like toast the one day to indefatigable the next. There clearly are still a few things about running that I have not figured out yet.

And to finish the post with something completely different, Shea spent the weekend creating a trailer to a movie and editing the pieces together. I don't think there are any actual plans to film the whole thing, but what he did already looks rather awesome, though I freely admit to being biased.

19 Oct

10 miles, 1:09:25, 6:57 pace, HR 153

20 Oct

16 miles, 2:02:47, 7:40 pace, HR 145

21 Oct

20 miles, 2:30:45, 7:32 pace, HR 151

Weekly Mileage: 84.8

Real Progress

Of course, as soon as I said that it would take time for my easy pace to drop below 8-minute-miles, it almost immediately happened. It's funny how these things work at times. I did increase my mileage a bit this week (though it is still well below my usual average) and I can immediately notice the benefits. My pace has dropped, and so has my heart rate. I was dumbfounded by today's HR reading and in fact I'm not entirely sure if I can trust it, it would indicate a big jump in fitness. I guess it will become clearer over the next few days..

I still have no intentions of racing, though. There is a 10K in Glenbeigh on Saturday, featuring a stunningly scenic route (in other words, that hill is massive). I'd love to do it. But I won't. I won't even attempt it as an easy or tempo run because I know I cannot trust myself; chances are I would get into racing mode the second I pin the number to my chest.

There are a few more local races in August, and depending on how I feel I might indeed take part in one of them, but right now I think my next race will be the Dingle Ultra. Then again, a short race shortly beforehand might be beneficial; racing a 10K in Tralee 2 weeks before Bangor worked a treat. I'll wait and see.

I haven't got anything else to write about, so I might as well post a youtube video. That stuff just does not get old. Believe it or not, there is actually a running connection that is relevant to me in all that, but I doubt anyone would be able to guess it.

24 Jul

8 miles, 1:04:10, 8:01 pace, HR 145

25 Jul

8 miles, 1:02:50, 7:51 pace, HR 145

26 Jul

10 miles, 1:18:13, 7:49 pace, HR 138

Irene and Katia

The Caribic and the Gulf of Mexico might be far away from Ireland, but their weather does have an influence on ours. Once the hurricanes have finished their business over there they tend to cross the Atlantic, dumping the rest of their load over here. By then the wind strength is down to gale force and the rainfall is variable, but it never makes for great running conditions. A few runs in what used to be Irene were followed by half a day of nice weather and now Katia is paying us a visit. Bring on winter, I say.

I'm actually really looking forward to winter – not the potential for weeks of ice on untreated roads like the last 2 years, but the heavy mileage training that will be on the menu. Last year I trained very hard for the Vienna marathon. I achieved my dream target but at the cost of feeling mentally drained. I spent the last 6 months running purely for fun, not following a program, running just enough to keep my fitness level steady and racing for fun. Considering the lack of focus, my results this summer have been astounding, with new PBs in the 5K (which I thought I’d never reach again), 10K and 15 miles. But now my mojo for the marathon and beyond has returned and I'm looking forward to running long hours in the dark again. Some don’t like it, I love it.

A couple of videos From Dingle have appeared on youtube, and I like the embedded one. Grellan and I are 1:30 into it, easily recognisable by the yellow tops and the balloon. Grellan’s balloon is already gone, so the video must have been taken after the 4 mile mark. I have to say I look rather relaxed, obviously just out for a morning jog. But have a look at the runner 4:20 into the video. WTF!



Following the marathon on Saturday I took it very easy this week. The legs felt great on Wednesday and I thought they might already have forgotten about Dingle, but felt a lot more tired on Thursday, so I dialled it back again this morning. My sleep hasn’t exactly been helped by the presence of a certain 3-year old in the house. 3 times this week she woke at 4:xx in the morning to tell us that she needed the toilet and as much as I tried to get across that she can use the toilet without telling me in advance, I haven’t managed to get through yet. Twice she also woke me in the middle of the night because she was hungry and wanted breakfast – I would have gotten 8 hours of sleep without her all week, in reality this never happened. Her big brother was a night old as well at that age – if she follows in his footsteps, there are 3 more years of that to come. And yet her mother sleeps soundly through all that!

7 Sep

6.1 miles, 47:15, 7:45 pace, HR 147

8 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:25, 7:56 pace, HR 146

9 Sep

5 miles, 40:04, 8:02 pace, HR 142

Short and Concise

Whenever I think of the training for the Cork marathon, I get two opposing panic attacks. The first is “Oh my God, I need more long runs, I haven’t run longer than 13 miles since Connemara” and the second “Oh my God, I need to rest more”. This contradiction is so far unresolved.

And then there is the small matter of my first ever triathlon. The closer the date gets, the more I’m dreading it. I think that’s not a unique perception of your first tri. But luckily I have told far too many people about it, there is no chance to get out of this now. We might get to Valentia this weekend and I’ll make sure to bring my wetsuit.

The last few days have been really windy, which I can feel both on my runs and on my bike commute. I had the wind behind me for the first half of yesterday’s run, which of course meant fighting it for the return leg. But I found that it doesn’t really matter on easy days. The effort remains the same, and the fact that the pace slows a bit does not matter.

It might be way late, but I thought I’d post our video from the Easter Egg hunt anyway. The kids had great fun, and you would not believe how much organisation has to go into setting up a dozen or so treasure stations. Unfortunately my computer is more a museum piece by now and had real troubles with the size of the video files, which is why the final video isn’t quite as nice as I’d have liked, but it’s the best I could do with limited resources. The kids love watching it anyway.



Ewen, how’s that for a short post?

6 May

8 miles, 1:03:45, 7:58 pace, HR 146

7 May

5 miles, 40:35, 8:07 pace, HR 143

Family Matters

About 3 weeks ago, while doing the school run, Niamh suddenly spotted a tiny kitten sitting bleeding by the roadside. It had obviously been hit by a car and was injured, but she could not tell how badly. Being a kind soul, she brought it to the vet who nurtured her back to life. Inquiries into whose cat it might be came to nothing; it was probably abandoned at the roadside. A few days after her brush with death, Dipsy became part of the family.

She’s probably wondering at times what she's gotten into, especially when Maia keeps torturing her. Not that she is really meaning to of course, but the treatment by an overexcited 2-year old amounts to the same. Dipsy is very keen on hunting two things: her own tail, and my ankles. I’m covered in scratches, but who cares, she’s too cute. Then, last Sunday, she went missing. We feared the worst, and especially the girls were very upset. Then, hours later, just as I was folding away some laundry, I noticed a bump in our bed, and guess what feline scallywag was having a great nap! The excitement was great, and we’re a happy family unit once more.


Later that day Niamh asked, pretty much out of the blue, if I would consider cycling to school with Lola in the morning. It would make her school run much easier and of course I didn’t mind the least. At 8:30 next morning off we went down the driveway, just the two of us. Her school is on my way to work anyway. Why didn’t we think of that earlier?

Oh, and I did some running as well. 8 easy miles on Monday passed much faster than anticipated, and the HR was below 140, which pleased me no end. I take it as a good sign. Today I wore my new pair of Lunaracers for the first time. They are replacing an identical but worn pair that have done good service in Boston and Dingle, and several races in-between. I compared the wear pattern on the old sole with the new ones, and was surprised to see that there was little wear at the heels but quite a bit at the balls of the foot. Almost all of the photos of me running show me as a heel striker and that’s where I would have expected the shoes to show most signs of use. Interesting. Anyway, the run was fine, including 12x100 strides on the way home. Things will intensify a little more very soon.

28 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:09, 7:53 pace, HR 139

29 Sep

10 miles, 1:17:25, 7:44 pace, HR 147
incl. 12x100 strides

Island Dwellers

Following Niamh’s grand plan we are spending this week in Valentia. Well, at least I’m sleeping there. I still have to spend my day in the office. As unusual as it may be to have a holiday house within commuting distance of your office, that’s the situation I find myself in every year. I initially thought my mother-in-law was trying to wind me up when she asked if I was enjoying the holidays yet since I’m to only family member not on actual vacation, but I now think she was genuine.

The one problem with this set-up is that I have to leave shortly after 8 o’clock in the morning to be at work on time. Which means I have to finish my morning run 30 minutes earlier than usual. Which in turn means to sacrifice 30 minutes of either running or sleeping.

I chose the first option on Monday, especially after being completely knackered after Sunday’s run. I regretted that decision for the entire run. I felt completely recovered from Sunday and would have been able to do 20 miles without problems. And the early rise would not have been a problem either. The combined forces of Maia, a noisy window and the unaccustomed-to bed meant I was awake every 20 minutes anyway, and spent large parts of the night staring at the ceiling. For what was left of my run I chose a grand circle around the island. This is flatter than the Caragh Lake loop, but the road still rises from sea level to about 400 feet. The weather was brutal though, as well as being battered by the wind coming in from the Atlantic I was also being drenched by the heavy rain. Nature was teasing me at one stage around the halfway mark when the rain stopped, only to come again barely a minute later.

I thought the loop would be about 14 miles but it was only just over 11, and I added a second stint towards Chapeltown and back to get me to 15 miles for the day. When I got home I realised that a couple of years ago I would have gotten a feeling of “wow, I’m hardcore” from running in conditions like that. These days I just get on with my run without a second thought. I’ve been running in Kerry for too long to take much notice any more.

Later in the day my mother-in-law asked Niamh why I would not cut down on the mileage during my holidays. Niamh informed her “he did”.

Mind, there was one clear benefit from running 15 miles in the rain rather than 20. The chafing is pretty bad again as it is; five extra miles would probably have rubbed the sorry rest of my skin off as well.

I was glad to see that conditions were much improved this morning. I had been wondering if I would be able to do a proper workout in the storm, but lo and behold, the rain had stopped and the wind had quieted down considerably. The shore road in Valentia, exposed as it is to the elements, might be the flattest 2.5 miles in the entire county Kerry, which made it a good choice for my 3-mile repeats. Obviously, each segment necessitated a u-turn at one stage, but that would help to cancel out the remaining effects of the wind. I felt good today and produced average paces of 6:42, 6:45 and 6:44. That’s decent enough for me, and I was particularly pleased that the last one was not the slowest, quite unlike my usual modus operandi. The last time I had done 3x3 miles, 4 weeks ago, the paces were between 12 and 15 seconds per mile slower. That’s good progress.

Enough of all that running business. The last thing I did before leaving for Valentia on Sunday was to cobble together a few videos of Maia from the last few weeks. I think it’s particularly cute, but freely admit to massive bias.

13 Jul

15 miles, 1:59:33, 7:58 pace, HR 136

14 Jul

12 miles, 1:25:37, 7:08 pace, HR 156
incl. 3x3 miles @ 6:42, 6:45, 6:44

On the Road Again

Well, I can only report one very short run of four miles yesterday morning, and after three miles the feeling in my quads reminded me of the 15th mile in Boston. I was glad to be home again after just over half an hour. Private sent me this link for an example of a post-marathon recovery. I have basically skipped the first week, and now I'm vaguely following the second one, which is why I took today off again. There will be 5 miles tomorrow, and very few miles in the days afterwards. Then I'll see. I do have plans.


Since there is nothing to tell about my running, I have a few titbits to show. The first thing is a video of me and Shea in Trabolgan. I know you can't see it, but this really is a video of me and Shea. You'll have to take my word for it.

And then there was the twins' birthday party. Niamh made two cakes, and this time she has truly surpassed herself. Those are genuinely made by her, no professionals involved. Unsurprisingly, the boys loved Sepron the Sea Serpent, while the nameless princess one was the girls' favourite. They didn't just look good, they also tasted yummy, which is why my weight keeps ballooning. Let's hope they are right when they say the pounds will come off once you're back into training. This didn't happen after Dublin, but maybe I'll have more luck this time.

28 Apr

4 miles, 33:38, 8:24 pace, HR 149

Easy Now, Thomas!

Lola declared Easter Sunday as her third favourite day of the year, behind birthday and Christmas Day. I tend to agree, getting 4 days off work without having to take a single day holiday id something I could get used to. In fact, I only have three days of work left before I'm off to Boston. Blimey, time's moving!

Yesterday I woke earlier than I would have liked ideally, but one look out of the window revealed such a stunningly beautiful blue sky that i didn't mind; I was merely looking forward to hitting the road. I had to wait a bit longer, but once the kids had their breakfast there was no stopping me, I had every intention of running easily but I felt so good that I just let the legs go as they pleased. Maybe it was the fact that I was finally able to wear a singlet rather than a t-shirt, but the miles just seemed to melt away. Looking at the Garmin and seeing that I was doing about marathon race pace I regretted the fact that I was wearing my heavy trainers rather than my racing shoes, but I just kept going. Originally I had planned on running 6 miles, but when I thought of all the Easter chocolate I was bound to eat later on I added two miles just to burn a few additional calories – not that it would make a real difference. Anyway, by the time I was back home less than 55 minutes had passed and I felt great. In marked contrast to some earlier runs I was sorry to be done.

We spent the rest of the day doing Easter things (see the end of this entry for proof). Thankfully the meteorologists had been utterly wrong and we had a beautiful day. They tried to make up for their errors and predicted the rain for today instead. Wrong again. I had been expecting to cover today's mile soaking wet, but again I was out there in a singlet, enjoying the early morning sunshine.

The legs were a bit heavy to start with, which didn't come as much of a surprise. I just intended to take it easy, so I didn't even look at the Garmin until 4 miles later. Then I did a double take, because I was almost at 7:30 pace. The miles had been downhill and, as I found out on the second part of the loop, must have been wind-assisted, but I really hadn't expected the easy effort to be faster than 8:00 pace. I then switched the Garmin into menu mode so that I wouldn't be tempted to peek at the readings and ran just by feel. As it turns out, that feeling was misleading; by the time I was back home I must have sped up even more, despite the second part being uphill and against the wind. Honestly, this was not a tempo effort, I had kept it easy all along. It just shows the effect of this week's reduced mileage.

I remember the same thing happening before Cork and Dublin last year; 7:30 pace suddenly feels like jogging. But I have to be careful, the marathon is only a week away, and I must not get carried away. I now have two easy days ahead of me, and I really have to take it genuinely easy. Thursday will see the last workout, sharp and short, and then it's off to Boston.

Things aren't all hunky dory, though. Cian threw up last night, and while we originally blamed overindulgence of chocolate he did do so again this morning and it looks like he has picked up a tummy bug (some friends of his had it too). I keep my fingers crossed that I won't be affected this close to Boston - or even at Boston. Banish the thought! Not that I would want to leave Niamh on her own with 4 vomiting children on my weekend away, either.

By the way, isn't modern technology amazing? Just a few years ago video calls were still part of science fiction, but on Saturday there I was, skyping with Mike, the two of us sitting on opposite sides of the Atlantic. We're all set for next week.



And if that's not enough, you can also take a video of your family and put it on the internet for the rest of the world to view, if you're so inclined. Fancy, or what?

12 Apr

8 miles, 54:36, 6:49 pace, Hr 161

13 Apr

13 miles, 1:35:57, 7:22 pace, HR 154

Weekly Mileage: 53+

... and Now for the Downer

I guess it was only a matter of time. About a week ago I noticed that Maia and me were the only healthy members in the household. Over the weekend, Maia joined to other side and on Wednesday it was finally my turn. I did notice a sore throat on Tuesday evening, “uh-oh”, and the suspicions were realised during a rather bad night. Now I know why Maia was screaming hysterically, though I managed to keep my self in somewhat better control.

Niamh tried to talk me out of running in the morning which was a completely wasted effort because running was the last thing on my mind. I stayed home from work, and I fact slept almost the entire morning, and still rested some more in the afternoon. On Thursday I WOULD have stayed at home had this been a normal working day, but it was the second day of a 3 day-seminar (each day a week apart) which I really did not want to miss. I got through it by taking a couple of ibuprofen every few hours, something I usually abhor. It was the same every time, the pills would take about an hour to really kick in, then I would feel almost ok for 2 or three hours, and then the downfall came until the next dose kicked in.

Today I’m just staying home again, recuperating. So far I haven’t run for 3 days and I’m pretty sure my lay-off will be longer than that. The mere fact that I really do NOT want to go running at the moment speaks volumes about how I feel. I will see how long I’m out of commission for, and then re-evaluate the rest of my training.

On the plus side I much rather have this happen to me now than in April. A few days off now won’t have much effect, and maybe the enforced rest will be good for my legs. I’m a bit worried about the duration of this illness, because all the kids were still coughing for quite some time after the first outbreak. Out of curiosity, I measured my resting HR this morning. My lowest ever reading was 38, before the Dublin marathon. Around Christmas it was 41, and the last two weeks it was 43 (probably a sign that I was already fighting off some infection). Today it was 69 – quite some jump, don’t you think? Not that I needed the number to confirm my decision to rest, I was merely curious.

One more plus, I finally found the time to cobble together some bits of Maia videos that have been on my hard drive for a bit. Don’t expect a masterpiece, but I like it anyway.

4 Feb

0

5 Feb

0

6 Feb

0

Countdown

One of my first thoughts each day is “how many days are there left until the marathon”, which is quite normal behaviour for me during the taper. As of today, we are down to 13. Sometimes it feels like time is crawling, but in all honesty I have to admit that the magic number is going down pretty rapidly.

From a household point of view, this was a bad month. We’ve had the car, the hoover and the washing machine all fail within a few days of each other, and since they are all rather important items for a family of six, we have been struggling to cover at times. At least by now they are all repaired, the bills didn’t entirely cripple us financially, and we have our fingers crossed that we’ve reached the end of that series.

My biggest worry, as far as the marathon is concerned, is getting sick. Two weeks ago the entire family apart from me had some cold; not too bad but it took Maia especially several days to get better. I’m taking heart from the fact that I didn’t get any symptoms whatsoever. If my immune system can ward off that particular bug then I guess it should be in decent shape. Just don’t let me catch a cold too close to race day, please please please!

If you read a few Irish running blogs you probably get the impression that we’re all obsessed with the weather. Maybe we are, but if you pursue an outdoor hobby in this country it tends to get challenging around this time of the year (not that we had a good summer). Yesterday’s 8 easy miles saw plenty of wind but no rain, today it was pretty much reversed, no wind but heavy rain. Niamh happened to be up at 6:40, the time I left for my run, and just took one look at the weather, one look at me, and went to bed shaking her head in disbelief. You’d think she’s used to it by now.

I had planned an easy tempo run, 2x2.5 miles, at roughly half-marathon pace. For some reason I had set my mind on 6:40 rather than 6:30, but maybe I’ve just learned my lesson from all the frustrating summer workouts. Mind, that’s still 25 seconds per mile faster than the pace I used for tempo runs before the Cork marathon. I had originally planned to use the racing shoes but for some reason didn’t want them to get soaked in all that rain and wore normal trainers instead. The first interval went pretty well, I felt good and the pace came without pushing much. The second interval started the same, but for some reasons not entirely clear to me I completely fell apart over the last mile. While it was slightly uphill, that should not have been sufficient reason to slow down all the way to 7:20. I got incredibly tense and never managed to relax at all. I can’t quite figure out why, but I won’t dwell on it. One botched mile is not worth worrying over.

Just have a look at this instead:

13 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:01, 7:53 pace, HR 142

14 Oct

9.15 miles, 1:07:55, 7:25 pace, HR 154
incl. 2x2.5 miles @ 6:41, 6:58

Not so Good

With 4 weeks to go, I’m in the last stages of heavy training for Dublin. I’ve still got one race to go, next week, and after that the taper awaits. I’m in two minds about that. On one hand, I can’t wait to get to Dublin and put into practice what I have been training for all those months. On the other hand, I wish I could come up with some magic formula that would hand me the 5-10 seconds per mile improvement that I would need to break 3 hours. Alas, no such formula exists. Now I’m unsure if I should accept that the 3 hours might be just outside my grasp this time round, or if that is merely a defeatist, self-fulfilling attitude. One thing is pretty clear; if I don’t expect to break 3 hours, I won’t manage it. The mindset would be all wrong.

After Thursday’s and Friday’s hefty dose of back-to-back workouts I was in dire need of some rest and recovery. Alas, neither was to be had in the required amounts, and I only have myself to blame. I spent all of Friday evening trying to add a few video clips of Maia into one sequence, and since this was the first time I had been doing anything like that it took much longer than it should have. It was well past midnight when I finally made it to bed, and with Maia waking screaming well before 7 am, I did not get much sleep.

Saturday’s run was strange too, but this time it wasn’t my fault for a change. I went for 8 miles along Caragh Lake, 4 miles out and 4 miles back. To my surprise I passed not just one but two crews of workers on my way out, and by the time I was on the way home they had started re-surfacing the road, and I could not pass. At least there was an alternative route back home, but that meant crossing the saddle between Seefin Mountain and the Water Witch, and a 300 feet climb within a mile was not exactly what I’d had in mind on my recovery day. It was my only option of getting home, though, short of a swim across the lake in my running gear.

I went to bed 2 hours earlier last night, but with Maia waking before 6am I still didn’t get the right amount of sleep. After a bottle, some cuddles and a nappy change I brought her into our bed, where she promptly fell asleep again. Alas, no such luck for me. After staring at the ceiling for a long time the boys eventually woke, and after their breakfast Niamh got up herself, and I got ready to go out.

As I was putting the Garmin on my wrist, Niamh, out of the blue, commented “Are you running half-marathon pace today?” I was stunned. “How did you know that?” “You have the look in your face of somebody who is about to be tortured!” Up to now I had assumed she had never even heard the term “half-marathon pace”, but I was wrong, obviously.

Well, the plan was indeed 2x4.25 miles at HMP, with half a mile recovery in the middle. I had tried to come up with an alternative route that would not feature all those hills on my way to Cromane, but failed. The road is very similar to the second half of the Bantry half marathon. No big hills but steadily up and down, and all the climbs are longer than you’d wish. I didn’t feel too good from the start. I’ve obviously not completely recovered from the rather strenuous double header, and yesterday’s unexpected mountain stage didn’t help either. I managed to somehow resemble half-marathon pace on the first interval with an average pace of 6:42 and avg/max heart rates of 165 and 171 respectively. Things fell apart completely on the way home, though. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but initially I could not even get under 7:00 pace. Salvation of some kind came in the form of two dogs who started chasing me a mile into that effort. I managed to shake them, and all of my sudden my heart rate was in the correct zone and my speed had increased. But I was still struggling to get under 6:45, and when the hills started again on the last mile I was at the end of my strength, underlined by the fact that I was wheezing badly. That’s something I always do once I pass a certain threshold, and I’m wondering if I’ve got a mild form of exercise-induced asthma. It doesn’t really bother me though; I still manage to get sufficient amounts of oxygen, even though it might not sound like that. Anyway, I seriously contemplated calling it quits a mile early, but I knew that if I kept going the torture would be over within 7 minutes. If I dropped out, on the other hand, I’d hate myself for the rest of the day. So on I went, but the shocking truth is that I didn’t even manage marathon pace over those miles, never mind HMP. The heart rates were almost identical to the first interval (164 avg/171 max), but the pace was 12 seconds per mile slower.

Numbers don’t lie. I did ask too much from myself today, and I’m obviously not getting enough recovery between workouts. There’s no need to comment any further on that. Next week will be slightly lighter with the race in mind, and then we’re entering taper time. That’s probably a good thing, because I might be tempted to overdo things even more otherwise.

I hesitated to embed my video from Friday night because it’s probably mind-bogglingly boring to anyone but family, but I’d probably get requests anyway if I didn’t post it. Watch it if you want, but don’t complain if it won’t provide the 4 most riveting moment of your life.

27 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:40, 7:57 pace, HR 143

28 Sep

13 miles, 1:35:30, 7:20 pace, HR 155
2 x 4.25 miles @ 6:42 (HR 165/171) and 6:54 (HR 164/171)

Weekly mileage: 75

Recovery? What Recovery?

I have one last note about the Blarney half marathon. There is a series of videos on YouTube, apparently taken around the 12-mile mark, though I think it was closer to the end. This particular video features both Grellan and me. Grellan is the runner in white singlet and black headband, 3:00 into the video. I’m the idiot in the dark outfit (not the purple one, two runners later) who’s checking his watch not just once but twice, almost a minute later.



Am I just paranoid, or is there something odd about my running style?

After 9 easy miles on Wednesday, I had another pair of cruise intervals on schedule. I wondered if it was wise to run at HMP yet again, 4 days after the race, but went ahead anyway. I was quite confident I’d be able to run at 6:30 pace, after all I have proven conclusively that this is my true race pace for that distance. It was quite surprised when it turned out that my HMP training speed was essentially the same as last week. It wasn’t because I was not working as hard as on Sunday; my heart rate during the intervals was actually higher than the average HR from the race. Maybe the fact that I was wearing my normal trainers rather than my racing shoes is a factor? They are 3.5 ounces each heavier, which allegedly means a slowdown of 7 seconds per mile, which would account for at least some of the discrepancy. That of course begs the question if I should wear my racing shoes for those workouts. I haven’t worn them at all outside of racing. My was worried about my PF, because the pain always seemed to flare up in the days after a race. Now that there seems to be an improvement I might be able to get away with wearing them more often.

If you’re reading this blog on a regular basis you know that I always do my long runs on the day immediately following a tempo run, and this week was no exception. I decide to run 22 miles, the longest run of the present training cycle so far. In the past weeks and months the long runs have always served as a great confidence booster. Even if my speedier workouts were below par, I could always take heart from how well the long runs went. I was therefore quite confident about today’s run.

Things didn’t quite work out to plan. I felt slow and sluggish from the word go. When I checked the watch at mile3, my pace was slower than 8:20, even though it definitely felt faster than that to me. I also noticed that I started to check the distance on the Garmin every 30 seconds or so, barely 4 miles into the run. That is a seriously bad sign, and the first thing I did was to turn off the backlight of said device. It was almost pitch dark, more than two hours before sunrise and with the moon hiding behind the clouds. I could make out the road but not much else, and this meant I could no longer see the figures on the watch. This worked, I eventually managed to tune into the run, but it never felt particularly smooth. I got back to our driveway at the halfway mark, had some water, and decided to run the same loop for a second time. I had toyed with the idea of running a couple of shorter loops, but deliberately went back towards Cromane, to make sure that I would not be able to bail out early. This was probably a good idea, because around mile 18 or 19 I had a rather bad low and felt like dying on my feet. However, I managed to pull through that and even had a decent finish.

With the heavy legs I was never even remotely tempted to speed up towards MP, and boy was I glad when I got home. I was almost crawling into the kitchen, and could only mumble “this better be worth it in the end” when Niamh enquired about my run. Cycling to and from work did not come easy today. But it felt very satisfying to note a big fat 22 into the log.

17 Sep

9 miles, 1:10:42, 7:51 pace, HR 140

18 Sep

12 miles, 1:25:53, 7:09 pace, HR 159
incl. 2x4 miles @ 6:40, 6:44

19 Sep

22 miles, 2:54:56, 7:57 pace, HR 144
first half @ 8:03, second half @ 7:50