Aftermath

I just realised one distinctive advantage of running a marathon with a balloon and a very distinctive singlet – you find lots of images of you. Actually, considering how I usually look like Quasimodo’s less handsome older brother in those pictures, maybe that’s more a drawback. But I don't think I've ever had such a big smile at the end of a marathon.













Credits for the photos go to Darren Spring and Gearoid O'Laoi as well as a couple of other people whose name I did not manage to dig up. If one of these pictures is yours you can always drop me a comment and I’ll credit you.

In last year’s marathon, when I was NOT running as a pacer, Seamus stuck to me like a shadow for 15 miles until I dropped him. This year I inadvertently managed to finish the job, this time as one of the official pacers, of course. Funny how things work at times.

I had a look at the provisional results. Apart from the fact that there is a glaring empty space where my name should be at position 116 (what’s going on here? They had my name!) I checked out how many of our group managed to break 3:15. Looking at runners with a half-time split within a couple of seconds of mine and Tony’s 1:37:33, there were 5 who finished between 3:13:35 and 3:14:08. Two more got a time of 3:14:26 and 3:14:28 (that’s got to be the 2 lads who went ahead with a mile to go), and, sadly, that’s it for the guys who were with us at the halfway mark, though we picked up 6 runners between halfway and the finish who stuck with us to the end. There’s no less than 9 runners (unless I missed some) who dropped off at some stage after halfway and finished between 3:15 and 3:19, and some more who finished a bit further back. It shows how difficult it is to maintain even splits for a marathon – most of the guys who stuck with us for a considerable time did not manage to hang on until the end. But I hope the ones who made it found the pacing helpful – we certainly had plenty of people thanking us afterwards and leaving comments on various sites.

Anyway, after taking a rest I was back on the road this morning. The quads were a little bit sore, but not much considering it was only 3 days after a 3:14 marathon, and the knee was perfectly fine. I’ve started weaning myself off the strap, I no longer wear it for 24 hours a day and so far so good. I can feel it improving all the time, which is why him and him and him can bitch as much as they want on twitter. I’ve run through every other running injury I’ve ever had and this one gets the same treatment.

I got chatting to Mick Rice the evening before the race, which is always a great pleasure. He convinced me that it’s ok not to have an A goal for the rest of the year. Ever since Vienna I feel like my mental batteries are completely drained, and while I enjoy running as much as ever (I can’t even rest a dodgy knee, for crying out loud), I am not going to subject myself to another gruelling marathon training cycle until I feel ready again. This will be the summer of fun running without a goal race.

9 Jun

5 miles, 39:35, 7:55 pace, HR 145

A Job Well Done

I enjoyed pacing the 3:30 pace group in last year's Dublin marathon sufficiently to volunteer for another stint, this time at the Cork City marathon. I have raced this marathon twice before, once in 2008 when I first broke 3:10 and last year when I had a decent enough race just a few weeks after Connemara. But when the original pacer decided to run up Carrauntoohil the day before instead (a novel excuse, admittedly) me and Tony, who has paced that group in Dublin with me, got bumped up to the 3:15 group. We were both a bit nervous about it but just got on with it.

After three years of stone-splitting heat and last year's hurricane the marathon finally got a well deserved break with almost perfect running conditions today. It's about time.

All the pacers got their own uniform, bright yellow singlets that really stood out, which was a great idea. We also got green balloons and the choice of two different signs for the back. I let vanity rule and picked the one with my name on it. There was to be no hiding. Grellan had also produced some top notch pace bands; there was to be no excuse.



We lined up between Mick's 3:00 and Grellan's 3:30 balloon. Quite a few guys came up to me and congratulated me on Vienna, which was really nice and a great start to the day, so thank you every single one of you. Right at the start I thought Tony got a bit overexcited and sped off with a gap appearing, but within half a mile we were all together again. A sizeable group formed around us and we tried our best to keep the pace steady.

The Garmin is invaluable when you're doing a pacing job, it takes all the thinking out of it. The only thing you have to take into consideration is that the Garmin will always display more than 26.22 miles at the end because we never manage to run the perfect racing line. We were also aiming to run a little bit faster than target time so that runners crossing the line right behind us would still break 3:15. All this combined to give us a target pace of 7:20 or so on the Garmin. All we had to do now was run at the right pace and check the watch periodically. The pace band helped to re-inforce the pace with periodic feedback at the mile markers.

The early miles ticked along nicely. At mile 4.5 I felt a twinge in my knee, but it went away again quickly. We passed the first relay changeover (where Tony berated the waiting runners to give us a louder cheer) and then headed into the tunnel, a rather unique feature of the Cork marathon. I think the climb out of the tunnel is actually the longest hill of the day, but since it comes early on, just before the 8-mile mark, it's still easy enough.

We had built up a couple of seconds of cushion in the early miles but the long climb and a bit of a headwind coming out of the tunnel ate most of that up again and I put a bit more effort into it. The early miles had obviously been wind assisted. There was a good bit of wind around Blackrock, but nowhere near what we had to contend with last year. At one stage my balloon actually went past me - a certain sign of a reasonably strong tailwind. Around mile 11 we passed the half-marathon starting area, still over an hour before their start, but there was a good contingent there and we got the biggest cheer of the day.

Just before the halfway mark my knee sent out some discomfort signals again, and again they went away quickly. While I was slightly worried, this was actually going well.

The course turned into a rather sheltered walkway and the wind stopped being a factor. The road here was very narrow. It was just about big enough for our reasonably small group, but I'm sure later, bigger groups like the 4:00 one would have more troubles.

We passed the halfway point about 20 seconds to the good, just where we wanted to be. A few in the group gave a big thank to the pacers here, which I found a really nice touch. Thanks guys, it was very much appreciated!

The next few miles were the toughest ones, but it's all relative. Every year you hear some runners moaning about the tough second half, but that's just nonsense. The elevation profile is rather flat, easier than Dublin in fact, and there is nothing to be feared. But the stretch from mile 15 to about 21 or 22 is undulating and there are quite a few drags to conquer, and one very steep bit going up an overpass, but that is very short, thankfully.

Between miles 15 and 16 I suddenly started laughing. Tony, apparently concerned that I had just dropped my marbles, inquired. I had just realised that this was now my longest run since Vienna - but don't tell the lads in the group (there was no lady in our group, sadly). Actually, Tony's last 2 long runs had been marathons as well, he had been pacing in Limerick and Kildare. That's quite a schedule, but this stint here was the only one at 3:15 pace.

Despite my lack of long runs the miles ticked away nicely and I still felt great. We passed the Lough where there was a good group of residents cheering us on and continued on.

At mile 20 Tony and me suddenly got into a tangle - at least our balloons did. We tried to sort it out and just as it looked like we had succeeded the balloons came off their strings. One took off into the sky and I as left holding the other one in my hands.

Have you ever tried tying a piece of string to a balloon that threatens to take off while running at 7:20 pace? It's as tricky as it sounds but eventually I succeeded, though at a reduce string length. I had lost a bit of ground, which enabled me to see who was just about hanging on to our group. There were about 20 runners left, some of them clearly struggling. I tried to encourage them as much as I could while speeding past them to catch up, but I'm not sure if I had much success.

Somewhere between miles 21 and 22 I saw a familiar figure ahead of me. Seamus always runs with a calf guard on his right leg, which makes him rather easy to identify. We slowly drew nearer and then I caught up with him. "I'm on 3:20 pace" he said, "No you're not, you're right on 3:15". "Oh, I'd forgotten you're a pacer today". I encouraged him to stay with us for as long as he could. We were virtually at the end of the hills and the last miles would be a bit easier, at least when not taking the tired legs into account.

After a couple of right turns we arrived at the Straight Road, and this was definitely the home stretch. Tony kept imploring the group to keep running with us; ignore the legs, feel the rhythm and stay with us until the end. For some reason this really seemed to work.

We counted down the miles as well as the minutes left running. By now we started catching up with a lot of runners who had fallen off the early pace. All were encouraged to stay with us, but I don't think a lot took up the offer.

With one mile to go I told everyone who still had something left to go for it. Two guys started speeding up and we told them we would not want to see them again until the end. They ended up crossing the line 10 seconds ahead of us, so well done to both of you. The others stuck closely to us, and to my surprise Seamus was still here. For this he gets my full respect. It is very difficult to up the pace so late into a marathon when you get caught and he had managed this rare feat very, very well.

We were soon into the last mile and then on the glory stretch of St.Patrick's Street. Our group had whittled down to 10 runners, but for a time as ambitious as 3:15 I think that's a more than decent size.

Once we were across the line all of them came up to us and thanked us for our efforts, which felt really rewarding. A few runners who had clung on until late did the same. Seamus was especially grateful, but all the lads had done the work all by themselves. Our own efforts were a very small contribution.

I was very pleased with how this had gone. Despite not running more than 15 miles even once since Vienna I did not have the slightest problem staying on pace for the entire distance. The quads started getting heavy around mile 24, but that is to be expected. The knee held up very, very well indeed, but as soon as I had done 5 steps past the finish line it started hurting, so I'm definitely not out of the woods yet.

As far as the pacing job is concerned, we had hit every single mile marker right on and kept on pace right to the end, always encouraging the guys around us. Even if I say so myself, this was a job well done.

Pacer paraphernalia: balloon, pace band, sign with name and target time.

6 Jun

26.22 miles (26.44 on Garmin), 3:14:26, 7:20 pace, HR 160
Cork City Marathon, part of the 3:15 pace group

A Short Taper

I'm following pretty much the same routine I did before pacing the Dublin marathon. It worked well then and will hopefully do so again. Since I have not done a lot of training in the weeks since Vienna there was no fatigue to taper from.

I did the coach's "taper workout" on Thursday which included a 4-mile evaluation run, just like the ones I used to do a dozen times when training for Vienna, and then 2x800 on the way back home. The evaluation run consists of 4 miles of flat road (I'm running back and forwards 4 times on the same half-mile stretch) at heart rate 161, comparing the mile splits and then measuring how long the HR takes to get back to 130 while standing still. My main problem was that the Garmin's sound has stopped working a couple of weeks ago (I dropped it onto the kitchen floor once too often) which means I could no longer use the automatic alarm to keep the HR in a very narrow band around 161. As a result I ran a little bit too hard on each mile, but the coach had a way to correct that, by adding 3.5 seconds to the pace for each beat too high. The raw figures were 7:09 (164), 7:10 (163), 7:09 (163) and 7:06 (164), which give me "corrected" figures of 7:19, 7:17, 7:16 and 7:16. The time to drop the HR to 130 was 34 seconds.

I'm now left scratching my head at these numbers. There was no slowing down at all over the 4 miles (in fact I was speeding up), which should mean my aerobic system is in great form, the recovery time was excellent as well but I was 20-30 seconds slower than during my peak shape. Luckily there is no need to guess how to proceed from here. I'm pacing the Cork marathon on Monday, will then spend a couple of weeks recovering from that and do another evaluation once I feel ready. Thursday's effort served to provide a base line that I can compare the next evaluation to.

Oh, and unsurprisingly I messed up the 800s. I should have run them in about 3:10 - 3:20 and the first one was ok in 3:16 but the second one was way too fast at 3:01. Oops.

Anyway, that was the last "serious" run, I did merely 5 miles both Friday and Saturday, running as slowly as I could without feeling awkward. This produced pretty much the expected pace on Friday but I did a double-take when looking at the figure this morning. It looks like one day into the taper I'm feeling great already.

It may have given me a few anxious weeks but now I am glad I got bumped up from the 3:30 to the 3:15 pace band for Cork. My knee has improved immeasurably over the last couple of weeks but starts hurting whenever I run slower, about 8:00 pace. I can't explain it either but it's the main reason why all runs over the last few weeks have been a bit faster than what I would have done under the coach's guidance. I will re-assess the whole situation after the marathon, which has always been the plan.

2 Jun

12 miles, 1:26:57, 7:14 pace, HR 158
   incl. 4 miles evaluation plus 2x800

3 Jun

5 miles, 39:21, 7:52 pace, HR 145

4 Jun

5 miles, 37:56, 7:35 pace, HR 146

Not Chasing Skirts, Honestly

With the knee improving every day, I tried a few things. The first was my return to the Caragh Lake road on Monday. It is quite a hilly run, and that used to aggravate the knee a lot, but I felt ready. After 5 weeks of almost relentless gale force wind, the conditions had finally improved and I did not feel the need for the sheltered but much more boring road towards Ard-na-Sidhe or the Devil's Elbow any more.

My knee held up well, but I definitely felt a bit of a twinge. I'm getting there, things are undoubtedly improving, but slowly.

Still, I was encouraged to try something else on Tuesday, namely stopping to wear the knee strap 24/7. This worked out less well, after a day in the office my knee was quiet sore again. Strange as it sounds, sitting in a chair seems to aggravate the knee more than running. As much as I would want to, I can't stop attending my desk job and the knee strap was back on for today.

I had planned a fairly slow run on Tuesday. I am well aware that I have been running a bit fast the previous week and tried to reign myself in; after all, there is a marathon to be run on Monday. I started out slowly enough, 7:50 pace or so for the first couple of miles. I switched off at that point and by mile 6 the average had dropped just below 7:30. Still, the heart rate was not particularly high and the legs felt perfectly fine and I was content to just keep going like that for the final stretch. Then I spotted a group of runners half a mile ahead of me, and I did what any of you would have done: I put the foot down.

Now, I am short sighted and I did not wear my glasses, so I could not possibly see who was so far ahead of me. That's my excuse. Otherwise you might accuse me of chasing skirts, because the group just happened to consist of 5 girls on their morning run. I knew some of them but had never met them out on the road at that time of day. Apparently I am not the only early riser round here any more. Once I passed them (after a mile at tempo pace, 6:30 or so) I kept going for a bit longer (otherwise they would have thought I had sped up just to catch up to them, wouldn't they?) and took it a bit easier on the last mile home. Obviously, the average pace of that run was significantly faster than originally planned. Oops.

I guess the universe made me pay for all that caper. This morning my knee hurt from not wearing the strap last night, the wind had picked up again, it was raining and I had slept through the alarm, leaving me just enough time for 6 miles. Then again, with the marathon just around the corner that might have been fortuitous anyway.

I got a bit of a scare on Monday night when the weather forecast predicted 25 degrees for Friday, just in time for another scorcher of a marathon, but relaxed when the next sentence was "but it won't last the weekend". Whew, that's lucky, but Niamh didn't quite see it that way.

I'm finally starting to look forward to the marathon on Monday. Now that I have found some confidence in both my knee and my fitness, they can bring it on.

30 May

8 miles, 1:03:00, 7:52 pace, HR 144

31 May

10 miles, 1:12:55, 7:17 pace, HR 154

1 Jun

6.05 miles, 46:50, 7:44 pace, HR 148

Let Them Eat Cake

I would show you a picture of the birthday girl and the presents and the party and the cake, but all of a sudden Niamh has reached that stage where she is dreading the birthday instead of looking forward to it and she is in deep denial. Even mentioning this will probably get me into trouble. Again. Instead you will have to take my word for it. The cake is great. I should know. I made it.

That's Niamh's big news, of course. Mine is that wearing the knee strap 24/7 has made a massive difference to my knee. I have been testing it out plenty over the last few days. During the last weeks, whenever I got into double figures I'd be in agony at some stage the next day. Now I'm fine. There is some slight discomfort over the first minute of each run and once I'm over that I'm perfectly fine for the rest of it, including yesterday's marathon prep run. I really think I'm finally getting over this issue and this time it is not just wishful thinking.

I was getting increasingly worried about my pacing job for Cork. Not only was I in doubt if the knee would hold for 26 miles, my lack of proper training over the last few weeks made me wonder if I would even be able to hold 3:15 pace for any meaningful stretch at all.

Therefore I set off on Friday with the idea of running at 7:21 pace for a short 6 miles run. I'm a slow starter and was slightly behind pace after 1 mile, more than made up for that on mile 2 and then just let the legs do their thing, which is why I ended up way too fast, but happy enough.

When training for Vienna the coach had me do a lot of back-to-back sessions where I did 7 or so miles on Saturday 10 seconds per mile faster than MP, and then a long run with various amounts of MP at the end on Sunday. Since I had unwittingly done the first part of the job on Friday I decided I might as well finish it off with a few marathon miles on Saturday. My plan to run the first half relaxed at 7:30-7:40 pace failed when the legs felt too good, the wind was on my back and no warning voice of the coach in my inbox and I ended up doing the full 15 miles at marathon pace instead.

Some of you might think this was a stupid thing to do, 9 days before the marathon, but I'm really happy about this. It was much more for the head than the legs; the serious doubts if I would be able to do the pace at all are dispersed and I'm confident I will be able to recover sufficiently to tackle the Cork marathon course. Thinking about it, this is 30 seconds per mile slower than my pace in Vienna. 30 seconds per mile is massive. I'll be fine.

The fact that I was able to bake a cake after my run was a bonus. Sometimes I really manage to surprise myself.

26 May

12 miles, 1:33:32, 7:47 pace, HR 153

27 May

6.05 miles, 43:17, 7:09 pace, HR 161

28 May

15 miles, 1:49:45, 7:19 pace, HR 161

29 May

8.1 miles, 1:00:30, 7:28 pace, HR 153

A Quick One

I've just realised that I have not updated this blog for 3 days and now it's late and this will be a short entry. Stop celebrating, Ewen!

The main problem is still my knee and it will remain the main problem for a while, no doubt about that. I have started wearing the knee support for 24 hours a day rather than just when I'm running. This seems to make a real difference. The problem with this, and also the reason why I haven't done it all along, is that the strap keeps rubbing against the inside of my knee. Last week I basically ended up with an open sore after the top layer of my skin had been rubbed off bit by bit, and that was as uncomfortable as it sounds. I have started putting moleskin on the sore spot which seems to help but needs to be replaced every day and I'm still on the lookout for a better solution.

I have tried two different knee straps, one is slightly more comfortable but the other one provides more compression and that's what I'm after.

Yesterday was the first day in ages when I felt the knee hardly at all. I was really happy about this and thought there was real progress, but today was one of the bad days again and I'm back to square one. As uncomfortable as the knee is at times, it's just not painful enough to convince me to stop running and it does not seem to be getting any worse.

The other thing driving me nuts is the weather. We've had gale force winds every day bar one over the last 5 weeks and it is really starting to get to me (I'm not the only one complaining, believe me). The one exception to this was yesterday, and that provided its own piece of fun. On the cycle home it was sunny, then raining, followed by hailstones, rain, sun and rain again, all within 15 minutes!

And I've just gotten my credit card bill, which includes a lot of the expenses from Vienna. 3000 Euro. Whoops! There goes the plan for ... anything, really. Anyone keen to sponsor a desperate marathon runner?

23 May

6 miles, 45:43, 7:37 pace, HR 151

24 May

10 miles, 1:15:29, 7:33 pace, HR 155

25 May

8 miles, 1:01:16, 7:39 pace, HR 152

Back In Black

The Cork marathon is in 2 weeks and since the original 3:15 pacers cried off with various excuses (like running 132 km over a few mountains), I got bumped up to the 3:15 slot for which, in theory, I would not even qualify (the original criteria was you needed a sub 2:56 time). It was worrying me sufficiently to get me back out onto the road. The runners in Cork are relying on me, and I can't let them down by being undertrained.

Ok, that's a lousy excuse, I admit. Fact is, after one week on no running I could not take the cabin fever any more, Niamh was about to kick me out and I wanted my fix more than I was prepared to play it safe. I have a pretty good injury history (as in NOT being injured, I mean), and as such am much more prepared to take a risk than someone who has lost months to injury in the past.

The idea is now to force myself through the marathon and then re-assess. The knee had not really gotten worse during the two weeks that I had run through it, but then it didn't get any better after a week of rest either. As I just found out, wearing a knee strap constantly, not just during a run, works wonders and I have hardly felt a twinge the last two days.

My latest theory is that the shoes might have something to do with the problem, after reading a remark by someone I know who had switched from Brooks Adrenalines to Saucony ProGrids, promptly got a pain in his knee that sounded exactly like mine and resolved it by switching back to Brooks again. As it happens, I started a new pair of ProGrid Ride a couple of weeks ago, which more or less coincided with my knee issues. It may be a red herring of course, but it's worth a try.

As it happens, I had a new pair of shoes in the cupboard anyway, a pair of Kinvaras. They may be from Saucony as well, but are an entirely different make of shoes. In general I am a bit sceptical about the barefoot and minimalist movement, but the Kinvaras are a transitional shoe with only 4mm heel drop rather than a minimal shoe, and they are not as ridiculously overpriced as, say, the Newtons either.

Well, what can I say, it was love at first stride. I just have to learn to keep my youthful enthusiasm in check and learn to run them a bit slower. The knee was fine (strapped in as it was that might not say much) and the shoes are so light they almost run on their own, but I'll run a bit more than 6 miles before converting entirely.

The Valentia triathlon was on yesterday and one look out of the window made me glad that I had skipped it this year. They re-paid last year's fantastic weather with significant interest and I'm sure the swim was, let's say, interesting, even after being changed to be within the marina. In normal years, half of the fun of that race is to swim from the Irish mainland to the island. It did remind me, however, that I'd still love to do an Ironman one day, but until I can figure out a way to incorporate swim training into my rather busy life, this will remain on hold.

20 May

6 miles, 44:53, 7:28 pace, HR 158

21 May

6.1 miles, 43:34, 7:08 pace, HR 162

22 May

10.1 miles, 1:15:35, 7:29 pace, HR 155

You can safely ignore this

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

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

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

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

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

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

What A Beautiful Day

It's been a spectacular few weeks. First this:



And now this:



35 years of waiting finally over. I can die a happy man.

Oh, and even though Google claim that they fixed all problems on blogger after some idiot had pressed the wrong button, I lost most of the comments for the last post. One of them was particularly insightful:

Stop running, you idiot!

though I'd respect you a lot more had you not hidden anonymously. Incidentally, I saw my doctor yesterday for an unrelated matter and mentioned the knee. After plenty of prodding and poking he decided I have some inflammation in my knee, gave me a prescription for pain killers and told me to stop running for a week or two. Now compare that to my prediction of a doctor's visit and tell me I was right down to the last tee.

Actually, since I felt yet another little twinge in my knee on Thursday, I had already stopped running at that point, believe it or not. Now I'll wait until the pain is gone and then get ready to pace the Cork marathon, which is in 3 weeks' time. I came into last year's Dublin marathon in exactly the same position, worrying about an injury, and came through without problems so I'm hoping for a repeat.

Oh, and one other comment asked which running book I would recommend. If I had to recommend just one book, it would be this one, as long as you're interested in running marathons. It's how I got below 3:30, and I know a good few guys who got a lot faster with the schedules in there.

And now, if you excuse me, I'm off celebrating. Even without my knee I don't think I'd be in condition to run tomorrow morning. Good days.

12 May

6 miles, 45:45, 7:36 pace, HR 147

13 May

0

14 May

0

Fresh and Breezy, Scattered Showers

Being a meteorologist in Ireland must be one of the easier jobs in the world, the above seems to apply 90% of the time and it sure has for the last couple of weeks. I have been reasonably lucky with the rain, Monday was the only day I got thoroughly drenched during a run (though Tuesday I got caught on the bike), but there is no escaping the wind. I even abandoned the otherwise flat and easy Killorglin loop as at the moment that entails running 3 miles into a relentless headwind and somehow that seems to aggravate my knee. That, and running either uphill or downhill. In theory a treadmill might be the best option for me at the moment, but I think I’d rather cut off my leg than suffer through that.

I keep having good and bad days with the knee. Monday was a bad day; after 6 miles I was in agony and went on to moan my way through the next 2 miles, but things improved once I had worked my way through that bad patch. Last week I was running with a knee strap, which definitely made a difference, but unfortunately it also rubbed against the back of my knee. Last Thursday or Friday I finally checked the area and was slightly shocked. We’re not talking about chafing any more, it was basically an open sore and extremely painful to the touch. I left the knee strap at home for a few days, which helped with the open wound but not the injured ligament. Yesterday I started using the strap again and immediately noticed a difference. It’s a balancing act, and so far I’ve just about managed to stay on top.

By now I can hear plenty of you screaming, stop running you idiot. Thing is, I may be stupid but not THAT stupid. If I thought it was a running injury I would have stopped a long while ago. But I'm pretty sure it’s not, and that’s not just wishful thinking. In addition to that, I’m not too keen on going to a doctor. On past experience he/she would send me home after a few questions and plenty of prodding with a prescription for pain killers and the advice to stop running. I could buy pain killers in the pharmacy without prescription if I wanted and paying €50 for advice I’d ignore anyway just does not seem worthwhile.

For treatment I’m doing icing, even though there’s no swelling, so that may well be useless but I suppose it does not do any harm. I'm elevating the knee when I can, and I try not to jump up and down like a deranged lunatic, except when Spurs generously score an own goal to send us into the Champions League. The one thing I think might make the biggest difference was to remove the swivel chair from my desk and replace it with a normal one. Seriously.

And, since you asked, one more thing:

I was just wondering for your opinion on how influential or beneficial your decision to get an online running coach was in achieving your goal. What did you learn most from his input and what are your views on proper, structured coaching?

I am absolutely sure that I would not have broken three hours in the marathon without the coach’s help, so I think it is definitely worthwhile getting a good coach. Only problem is, I think most online coaches are useless, and it’s the “good” bit that you need to get right. There are some good books on running and they will get you pretty far, but to reach your potential you will need a coach that knows what he’s doing and that you trust fully. What did I learn from him? A lot, not least the understanding that there is still a ton of stuff I still do not know about running.

9 May

10 miles, 1:19:06, 7:55 pace, HR 142

10 May

10 miles, 1:16:15, 7:37 pace, HR 152

11 May

10 miles, 1:16:20, 7:38 pace, HR 149

Why I Run

honestly I do not see why you take risks, while it would be better to go cycling for 4-5 days...

Roberto, as always, is absolutely right. My knee hurts every day and still I keep running day after day after day, when I could either rest or go cycling, which is entirely pain free. Well, I am cycling - from home to work and back, 50 miles a week, but that's commuting, not training or fun.

My knee is perfectly ok most of the time, there are only two things that make it hurt: when getting up from a chair (occasionally, not always) and after running more than 3 miles or so.

It's not getting any worse, and once the pain starts after a few miles of running (usually after running up an incline), it never gets any worse and I can take that level of discomfort.

It's not about the level of fitness. I have no goal race in mind, and I don't think I will for the rest of the year. I'll be running for fun over the summer.

Why do I run? I like the fact that I can get out of the door and go running for an hour or more and not have a single conscious thought for the entire time. It's a form of meditation. That simply does not happen on the bike where I have to concentrate on the road at all times. The level of discomfort from my knee is not high enough to disrupt that process and that's why I'm not too bothered about it. As long as it stays like this I am 100% sure I'm not doing any damage. It will go away eventually.

Call me hopelessly addicted if you like. That's ok. One of the other reasons why I run is that I prefer to be addicted to endorphins rather than other stuff I have experimented with in my past.

Call me an idiot if you like. That's ok, too.

Monday to Friday I ran the same 8 mile course along Caragh Lake at roughly the same pace and the same perceived level of effort, five times in a row. The heart rate was not the same, which is something I can't quite explain, but since it has come down to its normal level by now, I, again, am not too bothered about it. As the coach told me on more than one occasion, heart rate is not that reliable a marker.

Having found some confidence in my knee I went a bit longer again on Saturday, and then added a few more miles on Sunday. On Saturday I did not check the Garmin until more than 6 miles had passed, at which point I realised that I had averaged 7:14 pace up to now. I took it a bit easier on the way home. Apart from that there's not much to report. I got reasonably lucky with the rain and mostly escaped the frequent showers but it was windy every day, which I could have done without. No matter, I'll just keep on running.

5 May

8 miles, 1:01:43, 7:43 pace, HR 152

6 May

8 miles, 1:01:15, 7:39 pace, HR 147

7 May

10 miles, 1:14:07, 7:25 pace, HR 151

8 May

13 miles, 1:41:20, 7:48 pace, HR 146

Weekly Mileage: 63

My Bad

I had thought my knee troubles were already on their way out, otherwise I would not have run 12 miles on Sunday. Turns out, I was wrong. I was confident enough to run without a knee strap on Monday and within half a mile I knew I was in trouble. The right knee was really painful, but sometimes you just need to run for a few minutes to get some relief, so I continued on. The more I ran, the more it hurt. The more it hurt, the more I slowed down. Finally, after 2.5 miles, down to an average pace of 8:20 and by now basically in agony, I decided to try something new: I speeded up rather than slow down further, first to 7:20 pace and then to sub-7 (wind-assisted, as I realised at the turnaround point), and lo and behold, within 30 seconds the pain in the knee was almost completely gone! This was as close to a miracle cure as I have ever come.

The downside, apart from getting rather tired from the pace, was a pain in the left shin. Not shin splints, it was closer to the ankle. My best guess is that it was a follow-on injury, caused by a change in gait due to the knee pain in the other leg.

I made it back home, the pains in both legs eventually subsided during the day (cycling was entirely pain free, btw), so I tried my luck again on Tuesday, this time with the knee strap back on. I intended to run a little bit slower than the day before, but as it turned out I was doing virtually the same average pace, albeit in more even fashion. The knee was moderately painful, the shin was fairly bad.

At that point I really wondered why I was still running. I am not training for anything at the moment; rather unusually for me, I still do not have a goal for the rest of the year. As I am presently recovering from a marathon, I should just rest for a few days to let it all heal. After all, without a goal race there is no training to be missed.

It was raining heavily overnight, enough to wake me, and I decided to rest today.

Well...

By 6 o'clock I was wide awake, by 6:20 staring at the ceiling had lost its fascination and like the complete idiot I am, I got up, got dressed and went running.

Sometimes the stupid things are the correct things to do. Turns out, the knee pain was much better and the shin pain completely gone. I have no idea why. The one downside was a really high heart rate, which I can't quite explain. As I have been pushing my luck enough already, I'll keep things easy for another few days, keep the mileage as well as the heart rate low and try and stay away from the hills.

2 May

8 miles, 1:00:43, 7:35 pace, HR 153

3 May

8 miles, 1:00:39, 7:35 pace, HR 150

4 May

8 miles, 1:01:50, 7:43 pace, HR 154

Bouncing Back

Today marks two weeks since the marathon, and while the initial euphoria has worn off, the warm inner glow is still there. Not even a week back in the office could extinguish that. I must be experiencing the polar opposite of the post-marathon blues, but I've never suffered from those anyway.

On Wednesday, as I was getting up from the office chair, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee, and it has not been right since. Maybe I should have tapered my return to work, 8 hours in one go was obviously too much. The knee feels ok most of the time but there is some discomfort after running for 5 or 6 miles, and running uphill seems to aggravate it more than anything else; I won't be doing any mountains this week. As I'm pretty sure that it's not a running injury as such, and that it's getting better, I won't let it influence my running.

I did not have a plan for this week, just ran a few miles every morning, but was rather surprised when I added up the miles this morning and came up with 62. That's a lot more than I was expecting, and probably a bit more than is advisable. My legs felt rather heavy today and yesterday, and the mileage may well have something to do with that. Having said that, after a succession of runs with the HR in the 150s I seem to have gotten a handle on that and I have noticed a drop in the HR for the same perceived effort; I may start bouncing back after the marathon. Still, the next few weeks will see nothing but lazy running.

Our garden was well on its way turning itself into a jungle habitat and I finally got the lawn mower out of hibernation. Before the marathon I was always too exhausted from training to do any gardening work, then we were away on our holidays, and now it's already May. If I had realised just how much work it takes to look after an acre of garden, I would have told Niamh to pick a smeller house (yeah, right). After 6 hours of toiling I had gotten two-thirds through and the lawn mower ran out of patrol. But instead of praise, all I got from Maia was "Daddy, why did you cut down all the Daisies?". Sometimes you just can't win.

The Rally of the Lakes was on this weekend (it still is, actually), and one of the stages started right on our road. We went down the driveway to seem them all queuing up; the start of the stage itself was less than a quarter mile down the road. The kids were quite excited by it all; I just wished the event would not attract all those boy racers.

28 Apr

8 miles, 1:03:16, 7:55 pace, HR 146

29 Apr

8 miles, 1:01:40, 7:53 pace, HR 146

30 Apr

10 miles, 1:18:32, 7:51 pace, HR 149

1 May

12 miles, 1:35:20, 7:56 pace, HR 144

Weekly Mileage: 62

Home, Sweet Home

Well, it was 25 degrees and beautiful sunshine in Vienna and when we landed in Dublin it was 15 degrees and cloudy and just generally miserable. I ran 6 miles the next morning in Dublin's Deer Park before driving home to Kerry. Tuesday's run was done in very windy and cold weather and it was raining during my cycle commute to work, and I definitely wondered why the heck we are living in Ireland when we could live elsewhere (but then remembered the shocking level of support for the fascists in the Austrian opinion polls and remember again why I left as soon as I could).

There is no doubt that Austria is a much richer country than Ireland. The houses are bigger, the roads better, the public transport clean, efficient and (at least in comparison to here) cheap. I can't put my finger on why that is, though, because I know from personal experience that the politicians there are just the same despicable breed of greedy, incompetent and self-centred bastards as they are over here.

Anyway, I'm still living off the gentle warm glow from my marathon performance, and not even my return to work could change that. I must be experiencing the complete opposite of the post-marathon blues.

Things were much better on Wednesday anyway, a beautiful sunny day, little wind and only half a day's work because I took the afternoon off, because I did not want to miss the twins' 10th birthday party. What do you think of the cake? Cool or what! The party served as a very welcome reminder that other people's children are just as boisterous and destructive as ours, but the house suffered only minor damage and we all declared this a resounding success.

After quite some hesitation, and not without some trepidation, I stepped on the weighing scales again. I was completely baffled when it told me that I was still the same 147 pound I had been when I left for Vienna. I cannot explain this, I have always put on at least 5 pounds immediately after a marathon, and I sure did not hold back when it came to ice cream, chocolate or beer last week. In fact, I was surprised they still had some left by the time we were on the plane back home. Have I inadvertently stumbled over the ice cream-chocolate-beer diet?

One thing I continue to get wrong is the pace of my morning runs. After 6 miles the heart rate rises even when I try my best to slow down, and even though I never push the pace I have been ending up with average heart rates well in the 150s, much too high. I know of course that I'm still recovering from the marathon, even though the soreness is long gone.

Michael, and a few others, have asked me what's next. The answer is, I don't know. I deliberately only set one goal for this year as I wanted to make sure I would not be distracted. Now that I have achieved my sub-3 marathon in April already, I'm a bit at a loss. Had I not managed it in Vienna, I would have aimed for another go in Longford in August, partly because it is supposed to be the flattest marathon course in Ireland but also because it is the only traditional Irish marathon still missing on my list. But things changed in Vienna. I am tempted to concentrate on shorter distances over the summer; after all, I have voiced my regret that I never got the chance to have a go at my 5k to 10k times. I have not decided about a marathon or even ultra later in the year; Dublin will always be a possibility, but if the opportunity arose to run it again as a pace maker, I would probably do it that way. I really enjoyed it last year, and I felt it was a rare opportunity to give a little bit back to the running community.

25 Apr

6 miles, 46:57, 7:49 pace, HR 148

26 Apr

8 miles, 1:02:05, 7:45 pace, HR 154

27 Apr

10 miles, 1:17:45, 7:46 pace, HR 153

All Good Things Come To An End

After yet another long journey, not made easier by our entourage of four children all under the age of ten, we are back on Irish soil. I've had one week to reflect on the marathon; the pain has largely been forgotten, the warm glow is still there.

- Considering the type of shape I was in the weeks before the marathon, I basically underperfomed. All my training indicated that I was in 2:55 shape, on the day I had to fight tooth and nail for my 2:59. Having said that,

- I don't mean I did not perform in the actual race itself. As someone else said, and I entirely agree, I may run a marathon faster one day, but I'm unlikely ever to run harder.

- The main reason why I struggled was that a strenuous 12-hour journey to Vienna and a few stressful sightseeing days with kids had me worn out (at least that's my theory). I tried to relax, especially the day before the race, but it did not work nearly as well it should have. Therefore:

- If you want to run a fast marathon, don't fly a long distance to a destination marathon, especially not with four kids in tow. Having said that

- the Vienna marathon course is ideally suited to a fast time. Just as long as you don't have to travel to it. All if which leads to:

- If you want to break 3 hours, it pays to be in 2:55 shape. In that case you can have a bad day and still break 3 hours. And

- Running right at the edge of your abilities for 3 hours and then achieve your target by a margin of less than 1 second per mile is extremely satisfying. They will eventually have to surgically remove that grin from my face.


The training really came through for me, not only in the obvious way that meant that I was running faster than ever before. It did more than that, especially on the mental side. There was one particularly brutal 20 mile run on a Sunday, following an already exhausting tempo run on Saturday, that had me on the brink the entire time. For the whole workout I was convinced that I would not be able to do it; I just ran one more mile, then one more, then another one until I finally realised that I was almost done. The marathon was very much a carbon copy of that. Since I had been there before, I managed to hold on for the entire 26 miles.

Before the marathon I stated my regret of not having raced any 5 or 10Ks, knowing that I would have pulverised my existing PBs. I sure am glad that the coach did not compromise the training at all. I needed every single ounce of marathon specific fitness at the end.

I tend to hate racing photos of me. They make me look even uglier than I already am. But I love the shot from my previous entry, right at the finish. If ever there was a photo that contained everything about a race in one shot, that's it.

Chances are that it won't be, but during the race I could not help wondering if that would be my one and only shot at breaking three hours. I guess that's the thing that kept me going. The main reason why I managed to break 3 hours is that I wanted it badly enough.

22 Apr

8.4 miles, 1:04:43, 7:42 pace, HR 153
   Bad Aussee – Grundlsee and back. Ran too hard.

23 Apr

5 miles, 39:06, 7:49 pace, HR 146
   Bad Aussee – Altaussee and back. Better.

Thoughts, Photos, .... , Chocolate, Wine, Beer, ...

And there was me thinking my readership had whittled down to about 3, over 40 comments and counting, with the added bonus of making Ewen green with envy. Thank you very much, everyone! This really means a lot to me (the comments, not the envy).



I found Eric's comment funny, scalding me for using the Garmin's HR because after Boston, Roberto, a marathon runner of almost equal ability to Eric, chided me for NOT following the HR. I'm perfectly aware that your race HR is higher than in training; on Sunday I was comparing it to past races, not training runs, and that's why I eased up, but only by a small amount. I'm still glad I did, I had very little left at the end and I think I used my energy rather wisely.

After the marathon I met a mate from my school days who could not get over his amazement that the least sporty kid in school, who was always picked last for football, managed to run a marathon in less than 3 hours. I think it's fair to say that my talent has always been on the mental side of things. I will never run a quarter in 60 seconds, but ask me to run a lot of them and I'll get my head down and do the work. Tenacity is just as important for a marathon as your leg fibres.

I'm recovering quite quickly, the legs were fine the very next day, which was good because I was walking up and down the staircase half a dozen times on Monday morning, packing the car. The coach had prescribed 4 days of no running, I did 3 but went out this morning because I could no longer resist the scenery.

The day after the marathon we drove to Bad Aussee, at the geographic centre of Austria, in in the middle of the Alps. The weather has turned hot and the mountains are just stunning. Maybe we should have come here before the marathon, not after, because it's much more relaxing here and I might have saved my legs for the race.

Now in my post-marathon recuperation period, I have switched from a monk-like life style to one closer resembling Homer Simpson's. I have been looking forward to this, and the fact that the chocolate tastes so good here is great (and there is no weighing scale around here).

21 Apr

8 miles, 1:05:08, 8:08 pace, HR 147

What I Always Wanted

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted - One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
Eminem, Lose Yourself

6 years ago, after finishing my second marathon in a very disappointing time, I decided that if you're doing things as demanding as running marathons, it is worth doing it properly. I bought a book called “Advanced Marathoning”, and one thing they mentioned was that you should have a short, a medium and a long time goal. The latter should be very challenging, so much so that it could feel like boasting. For some reason I decided that a sub-3 marathon would be my long-time goal. For someone who had not even broken 4 hours at the time it seemed as far away as the moon and I did not really expect to ever come close. For several years I did not even mention it to anyone.

I had a (relatively) close call in Dublin 2008 but fell short, and when I turned 40 last year I feared my chance had gone for good, which is why I spent last year running ultras rather than marathons. I liked the slower, casual pace, but the little voice in the back of my had never stopped whispering “sub-3, sub-3”. When I got the incredible offer to be coached to one marathon by the Mystery Coach, it was an opportunity far too good to be missed and I did not have to think twice to accept. Training went very well indeed and I grew increasingly confident. In fact, I thought 2:55 was definitely achievable. But one lesson I learned in the last few days is that flying across a continent to a destination marathon is not the ideal way to run a fast time. As much fun as it was to bring Niamh and all four kids, I spent far more time on my feet the days before the race than I would have wanted and wondered if I was to wear myself out before I had even reached the start line.

Marathon Day was sunny and warm, with not a cloud in sight. Apparently the temperatures at the start were still a moderate 9 degrees, but while it was cool in the shade, it already felt warm in the sun. The race director called those “ideal running conditions”, but I was not entirely convinced, not if you are used to running in no more that 5 degrees in the early Irish mornings.

I found the start layout very confusing, there were no signs for the corrals and the layout did not match the map and I inadvertently ended up in the red corral rather than the blue one, but one fellow runner quipped that the blue corral was already filled with yellow bibs. It hardly mattered, even so I was way behind the start line, which seemed strange, considering all the other runners in here were supposed to be sub-3 runners (or sub-90 halfs). I was only a few meters away from Haile Gebrselassie and even though I did not manage to catch a glimpse of the great man himself, his mere presence put the entire event onto a new level.

The gun went and we set off. It took me 48 seconds to cross the start line, in position 793 apparently, not counting the half marathoners and the relay runners. There was a sea of runners ahead of me and of course the usual idiots who started right at the front and went out at crawling pace, two or three abreast, making a complete nuisance of themselves. I ended up elbowing one of them and did not even feel guilty.

We started right at a bridge which meant the first km was uphill and the second downhill, and by the time we were back over land the jostling for position had stopped and I tuned into target marathon pace, 6:40 per mile or 4:08 per km. The course was obviously measured in km, but my Garmin was still set to miles because that's what I'm used to. The other thing I used the Garmin for was measuring my HR, but that can be useless for the first mile or two until the strap picks up the signal properly, so I was not too worried at reading a sky-high number of 177 early on. However, when I checked it later and saw 170 and then 172, it dawned on me that I was actually running at far too high an effort.

That was seriously bad news. Even though the legs felt fine, I have learned on a couple of occasions that a high HR reading is more relevant than the feeling in the legs at that stage and if I ignore the HR reading I inevitable end up suffering badly and slowing down considerably, even over a short distance, never mind a long marathon. I did slow down a little bit, but I still thought Roberto was going to give me plenty of grief for running too hard (he rightly did so after Boston), and I sure was worried I was going to blow up later on.

5k: 21:00, place 497 (gained 296), projected finish time 2:57:14

After crossing the 5k mat slightly later than the planned 20:40, I realised that my HR had never dropped below 170 and was now hovering around 172, which was far too high and I reluctantly slowed down a little bit more. Logic and past experience would have said to drop until the HR was in the low 160s or even lower, but that would have meant going slower than sub-3 pace already and I was not prepared to give up the dream just yet. I feared that I would have to pay for that. The marathon is a question of preserving energy rather than banking time, and for every second you run too fast early on you pay back with interest. The coach had also had one final word of wisdom: The first third of the marathon is to mile 15, the second to mile 22.5 and the last one to the finish, and only then will you give it all. I was afraid I was going to use up all my energy reserves by mile 20, and that I would be walking by mile 20 and crawling by mile 23.

10k: 42:38, place 522 (lost 25), projected finish time 2:59:53

After a run through the leafy Prater amusement park we went onto the grand Ring road and then the “Linke Wien Zeile”. I would have preferred to run along the “Rechte Wien Zeile” because that was in the shade while we were baking in the relentless sun. I am pretty sure that the forecast 16C were in the shade, it was a lot hotter than that in the sun and there was not one cloud in the sky to give us some break. Even if it wasn't that hot, it felt like that to me and it was really getting to me now. I passed my sister's house at km 12.5, and waved to her. I wondered why Niamh and the kids were not with them, as arranged, but I saw them a couple of minutes later. Niamh called out “how do you feel”, and my long answer would have been “Well, I'm still on pace but only just and I don't feel too good, it's too hot and my heart rate far too high and I'm really worried about blowing up and I'm getting tired already”, but all I had time for was “ok”, which did not really pass on the entire message. I also did not want to give her bad news, though it struck me as slightly bizarre, seeing that I was the runner that should be shielded from bad news, not the other way round.

To add to the task, this part was also uphill. It was not noticeable as such but I had studied the course map and the elevation chart. At least I could tell myself that the tough going was due to the elevation gain, not the tiredness already building up in my legs. I knew that negative thoughts can have a real impact on a marathon performance and was ready to believe anything that would keep the dark thoughts at bay.

15k: 1:03:50, place 501 (gained 21), projected finish time 2:59:34

Then Schönbrunn Castle came into view and after two sharp right turns we had reached the highest elevation of the course and the next few miles would be easier. I kept looking at the Garmin, always seeing a HR of between 170 and 172 and the average pace was at 6:48, which meant that I had used up my entire time cushion from the first 5k already. The average pace needed for sub-3 26.2 miles is 6:52, but you never run the perfect racing line and our marathons will always be longer, usually around 26.4 miles on a Garmin and you have to take that into account; 6:48 was the slowest Garmin pace I would want to average and still break 3 hours.

Every time I checked the present pace on the next 3 downhill miles it was significantly faster, between 6:15 and 6:25, but the average kept stubbornly stuck at 6:48, which really started to frustrate me. At one point I actually saw a heart rate of 168, but that turned out to be a once-off. Just as I was about to cross the 20k timing mat, the average pace display finally gave me back 1 second to 6:47, which meant that at least I had a tiny bit of a cushion, even if it was rather immaterial.

One feature of the Vienna marathon is that you are able to drop to the half-marathon because the finish diverts off right at the end. The organisers see that as a plus, to me it is a minus. The thought of calling it a day did cross my mind. I was exhausted already, I did not think my chances of breaking 3 hours today were realistic and I was tempted to spare myself 90+ further minutes of agony and pain, but eventually decided that I had not flown across the continent and spent a couple of thousand Euro for a mere half marathon. Even if it meant crawling home on my teeth, I was going to finish this marathon, no matter how painful. As the half marathoners turned off towards the right, I deliberately looked towards the left. If I could not see the finish line, I would not be tempted by its Siren call.

21.1k: 1:29:42, place 440 (gained 61), projected finish time 3:00:15

I had basically matched my 21k time from Boston 2 years ago, but back then that was achieved with the help of a lot of downhill miles and at the cost of totally shredded quads. I was in better shape right now, but seeing how there was virtually no cushion was not exactly encouraging. I did remember that I had on a couple of occasions managed to run very even or even negative splits, including the last marathon I had raced, Cork last year, and I clung onto that hope.

I had taken a gel at 10k and 15k, and each time it had given me a little bit of a lift. It may have been entirely psychological, but that does not matter. Unfortunately that lift never lasted more than a couple of minutes and was always followed by another low. I took another gel at this point and used the boost to hang on to a runner with a Portuguese flag on his shirt. He seemed to be running strongly and I hoped he would be pulling me along. My pace actually picked up again for a while, there was more shade on the course which made a real difference and I decided that the battle was not over yet. There was still some life left in the old dog.

I also took note as I crossed the 15 mile mark. This was the end of the coach's designated first section and I was still on pace. In fact, the average pace display on the Garmin eventually jumped to 6:46, which cheered me up a lot.

25k: 1:45:55, place 420 (gained 20), projected finish time 2:58:47

I felt like a complete impostor. I felt I was surrounded by strong sub-3 runners and getting totally ahead of myself. If someone had turned to me and told me to piss off back to my own section, I think I would have accepted it. But eventually it dawned on me that the runners around me were suffering just as much from the heat, the miles and the pace and that I was in fact steadily overtaking runner after runner.

We were making our way back to the Prater park and the course just happens to take the same road on the way back home, and somewhere around our km 27, the leaders came the other way on their km 38 or so. That was a seriously cool sight and for the next couple of miles I was distracted by the smooth running style of the elite Kenyans and Ethiopians and the odd Eastern European passing by. I was actually surprised that even at that level you could tell the difference between the runners, the semi-elites looking a lot less smooth than the top runners; I had never seen that before, and here I was having the best view possible.

My Portuguese pace maker eventually faltered but I managed to find another strong looking guy to leech onto, a runner in a black t-shirt, and funnily enough he seemed to be doing the same to a Polish guy in a red and white top. The three of kept running closely together and we overtook a lot of runners as a group. There were several guys who tried to hang on to us, but none lasted longer than a kilometre.

30k: 2:07:28, place 394 (gained 26), projected finish time 2:59:18

Just as we were getting back into the Prater I started faltering again. I lost a bit of time at a drinks station and all of a sudden my two running buddies were 10 steps ahead of me and I was unable to bridge the gap. “There we go, it's Dublin 2008 all over again” I thought, remembering that back then it was at that point that my sub-3 dream had fallen to pieces. I had to find another gear, something, anything, and quickly. We were doing a little out-and back section to the national Stadium, and I could see the runners coming the other way. “The lucky bastards, they are going to break 3 hours and I'm not”.

Then something happened, maybe it was the next gel kicking in, maybe it was just pure desperation, but I knew I had to pick it up and somehow I managed to catch up with my little group again. A runner in a blue top had joined us and the 4 of us took on the completely straight and flat out section to the final turnaround point.

At that point I realised that, as bad as I was feeling, I was feeling no worse than at the halfway point and if I manged to keep that going for another 10k I would still make it. I kept dropping back at each drink station, each time I would have to speed up again immediately to keep in touch, but each time I managed it. I must have been on the verge of dropping behind half a dozen times, but I closed the gap again and again. The runner in the blue top did not last the pace and fell off again and it was back to the original three amigos (who had not talked a word to each other).

35k: 2:28:53 place 351 (gained 43), projected finish time 2:59:30

All of a sudden, and very much to my surprise, the Polish guy who had mostly lead our little group up to now, fell of the pace as well. The runner in black went past and a few second later so did I, trying to re-establish contact with the only runner that seemed strong enough to keep going. I was now entering the coach's final section and that meant it was time to give my full effort and put everything on the line. I was surprised to still being on pace, for the last 25 km I had expected to falter at any moment. Now the finish was getting closer and closer and I was still in the game. I had never come so far still within a shout and I was wondering if the opportunity would ever come again. I'm 41 and I'm not getting any younger.

The day before I had heard an interview by a former Austrian top runner who had stated that the final 5k of the Vienna marathon are tough. Obviously, the final 5k of any marathon are tough but in Vienna the final 5k are uphill. Not much, and when we had run on that road the first time, 30k ago, we had hardly noticed it. This time we noticed it, alright. I had to dig deep and the runner in the black t-shirt kept pulling away. I don't know if he tried to drop me or if my own pace faltered, but again and again I fell a few steps behind and it was getting more and more difficult to catch up.

I started recognising the grand buildings as we crossed the final bridge and turned into the Ring road again. Running on the tram tracks was difficult and unforgiving but it was the shortest distance and I did not have anything spare.

A friend of mine, who I had met a few days earlier, recognised me and gave me a shout. She would then ring another friend to tell him that I was looking really bad, but luckily I did not know this at the time. Actually, I kind of knew. I was hurting so badly, I do not have the words.

40k: 2:50:23 place 318 (gained 33), projected finish time 2:59:44

Eventually I was no longer able to keep up with the black t-shirt and had to look at him slowly inching away, unable to bridge the gap for what would probably have been the twentieth time. I saw that the average pace on the Garmin was back to 6:48. I had absolutely no cushion whatsoever.

The road was uphill indeed and one look at the Garmin told me the present pace was 7:20 or so. This would not do and I gave it one more injection of pace. For the last 3 hours I had started digging deeper and deeper in the hope that I would get home before I hit rock bottom. Now I was so near to the end and Oh My God, I knew this would be incredibly close. Then I looked at the Garmin again and once more the present pace was 7:20. I swore out loudly, startling another runner in the process, and tried to pick it up one more time.

I saw the fabulous Opera house but had no eye for its beauty. My only concern was how away from the finish it was. There was a inflatable arch. Did it signal 1k to the finish? I don't know but I switched the Garmin's display from the pace and HR fields, now largely irrelevant, to just the time, now highly relevant. There were 2:55:xx on the clock. I tried to figure out if I was inside or outside the pace but did not have the energy to do so. All I could do was to run as fast as I could.

I saw the twin museums on the left, Kunsthistorisch and Naturhistorisch, and I knew the final corner into the Hofburg was somewhere around there but could not make it out. At that point I really thought it was all over. I clearly saw the headline of my own blog saying “Noooooooooooooo” with a time of 3:00:08 or so, and in pure desperation started sprinting all out, the final, panicked move of a man who had run out of options. I did not even know how far it was, I could not not see the final turn until I was nearly upon it. Then, all of a sudden, there I was, one more turn, the Garmin said 2:59:00, and all of a sudden I realised that all was not lost after all. I could see the finish line. Despite me sprinting all out two runners went past, but that was entirely irrelevant. I only had an eye for the timer.

In the unlikely case that you were at the finish line of the 2011 Vienna marathon just as the gun time was reaching 3 hours, you would have seen a middle-aged runner in an orange top and black shorts, sprinting all out, screaming his head off in a deranged way, releasing all the tension and anxiety of the last 3 hours, the last 3 years in fact, in one go, at the point where desperation turned into ecstasy, and who crossed the line 2:59:35 after he had started.

That night, when I brushed my teeth, I looked into the mirror and saw a sub-3 marathon runner looking back at me.

Net: 2:59:35
HM1: 1:29:42
HM2: 1:29:52
Rank: 313
M40: 65

Avg. HR: 171 (!!!)

Vienna Calling

Caragh Lake to Vienna, door to door, 12 hours, with a bunch of 4 lunaticschildren in attendance, left us absolutely knackered but 11 and 9 hours of sleep in the following 2 nights got us back on our feet. I will try and stay off my feet tomorrow as much as possible. The weather forecast for Sunday is still just about perfect.

I only did a couple of short runs yesterday and today, 2.5 miles each. The coach told me I could run, but with a limit of 2-3 miles. Think of doing a warm up for a 5k without doing the race. My legs felt like lead yesterday and I started fearing the worst, but today felt much better and the optimism is back.

There's nothing left but the sub-3 marathon itself.

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

Haunted by Phantoms

Right now, as I'm sitting here, I'm desperately hoping that the tiredness than engulfed me all weekend and the headache from today are just taper phantom symptoms and not the harbingers of the same illness that had affected Cian last week and Niamh the week before. After all that great training over the last few months I do not know how I would cope with having my sub-3 marathon ripped away from me by illness.

Maybe thinking about Connemara exacerbated the symptoms. I was very surprised how much I missed running the Ultra today and how much I thought about it, especially during my run today where I could not get it out of my head.

Yesterday I ran another 5 easy miles, constantly pulling the brakes, trying to stop myself from running too fast. The coach mentioned something about not running every day, but I guess to stop me from running he will have to state it more definite than that (or, on some days, he would have to come over here and tie me down). Anyway, during almost the entire run I felt like I was running as slowly as possible without it feeling awkward, so to average 7:33 pace cam as a bit of a surprise.

Today was supposed to be my final long run but since we had to re-jig next week's one single workout because of my travelling schedule, the coach told me to only run for one hour, which cannot be called a long run by any stretch of the imagination. Throughout the training I almost always ran my “normal” long runs on the very hilly loop around Caragh Lake, but since I ran a lot of runs trying to match a certain pace, I always chose a much flatter alternative for those. I have missed out on a good number of loops and I think my legs are not as strong as they could be due to missing out on those climbs, so I gave them one more workout on the Devil's Elbow climb, the steepest bit of road amongst my standard running routes. I also let the legs go by whatever pace came naturally, without constantly checking the Garmin and subsequently putting on the brakes. This all sounded rather fine, but unfortunately I now realise that I ran too hard, especially on the climb. I now await the chastening by the coach.

The afternoon was just manic, having to bring Maia to see the Peppa Pig show (which is definitely aimed at 3-year olds, not their Daddys), then going to see Lola do her exam for Drama and Speech on stage and finally collecting Shea from a violin concert, I felt like I had run the Connemara Ultra after all. I wonder how Grellan got on.

9 Apr

5 miles, 37:39, 7:33 pace, HR 143

10 Apr

8.5 miles, 1:02:43, 7:22 pace, HR 155

Weekly Mileage: 45+

T Minus Nine

Just like many others I used to follow the Pfitzinger&Douglas plans for some of my earlier marathons. They are solid and intelligent plans, but there was always one particular workout that had me puzzled because I never understood the point of it – a 3x1 mile interval workout, 10 days before the marathon.

Having a coach rather than a book comes with the advantage of being able to pick the knowledge of someone who really knows what this is all about, and Thursday's workout of 800s came with the following explanation:

Tomorrow is warm up the system day, (stretch the heart and capillaries out, fire the nervous system and generally rev everything up), notice I said nothing about exhausting anything

My main worry was not the pace (I knew I would be able to run 2:54) but how to know when to stop. This was supposed to happen while I still had 2-3 more workout in me, no matter if that would happen after 3 or 10.

After the warm-up, I got going. It was a bit more windy than I would have liked with the odd numbered intervals into the wind and the even numbered ones with wind assistance. I ran all of them mostly without looking at the Garmin, relying much more on feel, trying to stay as smooth as possible.

      avgHR  maxHR    time to 130
2:55  163    170      50
2:50  163    172      45
2:50  169    177      40
2:55  165    173      50
2:57  169    174      45
2:44  172    179      45

The first is always a bit of a warm-up, but the second was already faster than anticipated while still feeling perfectly smooth. The same cannot be said about the third one because I followed the instructions of running every third repeat faster than the others. I was already wondering if I should leave it at that but I kept a close eye on the time it took for the HR getting back to 130 while walking, and that looked fine. The fourth was good, the fifth maybe less so and I might have left it at that but could not resist the temptation of running one fast interval with wind assistance, so I cranked out a final, sixth one with a stronger effort.

Despite feeling guilty about the sixth one I noticed later in the day that I had absolutely no soreness in the legs, something that continued into the next day. A very easy run this morning should hopefully have left my legs in a good state.


I had a look at the Vienna marathon course, nabbing an elevation profile off marathonguide.com. There is a long drag up to the halfway point. I know that road, it alongside a river,so obviously it is uphill but it feels completely even when walking, so I'm actually surprised that the elevation gain is as much as 150 feet. The rest seems quite flat, apart from the final 2 miles; it might not be as easy as the likes of Berlin or Chicago but I think this is one of the flatter marathon courses around. I'm still a bit worried about the potential heat and the possibility of getting sick (Cian is finally feeling better), but there's not much I can do about that.

With 9 days to go, I'm very much looking forward to the race.

7 Apr

8 miles, 59:00, 7:21 pace, HR 151
   6x800, avg. in 2:52

8 Apr

5 miles, 38:46, 7:45 pace, HR 140

Definitely Tapering

Taper madness has not set in yet, at least not enough for myself to notice, but I can sleep in every morning and still get the run done before work, it is bright outside even by the time I leave the house and sore legs are a thing of the past.

I'm brimming with energy but can’t use it. If someone forced me to run 20 miles right here and now I’d be out on the road before they had even finished their sentence.

I took it easy on Monday, just 7 miles, only to find an email from the coach on my return asking me to do something even easier. I should have checked my email the night before, my bad. I did what he asked on Tuesday instead, and it was the strangest “workout” ever: 2 miles warm-up, 1 mile walking (!!!) while visualising myself on the last miles of the marathon, then an easy run home to cool down (from what?). The walking part felt as weird as expected and during the visualisation I could not help but notice that I was trying to see myself in the middle of a very urban environment on a very grand street with thousands of spectators by the side, while in reality I was walking on a totally empty, tiny road beside a beautiful, hidden lake in the middle of the Kerry wilderness. The contrast could not have been greater.

I followed that up with 6 more easy miles this morning. I started the first mile at 8:00 pace and just kept running easily, only to find on my return that the pace had dropped steadily so that I ended up with an average pace of 7:30. It shows how careful you have to be in the taper, especially so as I ran again wrapped up in several layers with a heavy jacket on top to simulate warm weather in case we get that in Vienna. I did notice that the HR was much lower than on a similar run last week, so maybe that’s actually having an effect already.

I am really confident of running under 3 hours in Vienna, in fact I have my sights set a good few minutes below that now. However, there are two things I am worried about. One is the potential for a really hot day; the last week they seemed to get over 20C degrees every day, and for someone who is used to running in 5 degrees that’s a big difference. The other thing is being sick. There has been “something” going round in the family, Niamh has been coughing for over 2 weeks now, Lola is on antibiotics as we speak, Cian is off school feeling awful and Shea had a sore throat, just like me. This has been going on for over two weeks now, and while I can’t tell any negative influence on my running from looking at pace, heart rate or perceived effort, I am worried.

Then again, maybe all those negative thoughts are merely the taper madness slowly taking hold. I'm still confident. My form points to a time well below 3 hours, so even on a bad day I should be able to crack that particular nut.

4 Apr

7+ miles, 54:53, 7:47 pace, HR 139

5 Apr

5 miles, 46:02, 9:11 pace, HR 130
    including a mile walking

6 Apr

6+ miles, 45:27, 7:30 pace, HR 159
    wrapped up in layers for heat acclimatisation

Sign O' The Times

It's yet another sign of old age, but time is certainly flying. I can hardly believe the marathon is only a fortnight away. I could even look up the long term weather forecast for marathon day, but I have yet to come across a forecast that far out that was actually correct so I won't even bother.

The last week was the first of the taper, but it never feels like that because the mileage is still relatively high. My main worry was a health scare earlier on but that seems to have passed, even though I still have a bit of a sore throat and the rest of the family are affected to various degrees. We binned the planned speed workout because “if in doubt, always rest” (I'll have to put that somewhere visible). I could tell on Thursday that the legs were getting restless as keeping the pace down turned into a constant struggle with my inner autopilot. I guess that's why the coach put on a session of hill repeats on Friday. Nominally to wake up the system for the weekend (his words) but probably to stop me from going gaga and doing something stupid (my interpretation).

He said 2-3 x 90 seconds uphill, which to me means 3, to be honest. Since I vividly remembered me almost running myself into the ground by taking off like an idiot last time, I started at a much more measured effort. Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when the twin terrors of lactic acid and shortness of breath engulfed me once more after only 30 seconds. I struggled to the top to raise an eyebrow at the readings on the Garmin that had my HR at 179. Last time I only got up to 175, and I thought I had taken it easier this time! The second repeat was more of the same but the third got off to a bad start mentally when I immediately questioned the need for it (remember, the coach said 2-3) and worried about the weekend's back-to-back workouts. When a wind gust came halfway through it was enough to put me over the edge and I bailed out. Interestingly enough, I did not even feel guilty.

Saturday's runs have been very similar in recent weeks, today's had two variations. It was shorter, due to the taper, and I was encouraged to play around with pace and effort a bit.

The weather at night had been scary all week, I woke up frequently to the sound of very heavy wind and rain but it generally brightened up for the morning, except on Friday and only to a certain extend on Saturday. It had stopped raining but the wind was still a major factor and it definitely had some effect on the run. After a few miles at 6:25-6:30 pace I put the foot down, accelerated to 6:20 and held it for a while, but it became apparent that I was overcooking myself, the HR went well over 170 and the breathing became ragged so eventually I backed off again. Maybe it would have gone better without the wind, but in all honesty the legs never felt particularly fresh and I wondered if yesterday's hill repeats had put some dampener on them. Still, it was not a bad run by any means and I had timed it exceedingly well – 2 minutes after coming home the heavens opened; even an ice bath was preferable to being outside (Niamh still declined joining me, though).

Sunday again was easier than on previous weeks with 7 miles easy and 7 at marathon effort, with the added twist that I was to run the fast half without the Garmin's help. I got off to a very late start as Niamh's main wish for Mother's Day was a long sleep and by some miracle she genuinely got this. For once all 4 kids were well behaved and quiet all morning (this really is a miracle, you have no idea!), and it was almost lunch time when I made it out of the house.

The seven easy miles turned into one of the most frustrating runs of the entire training cycle with me constantly having to put on the brakes as I was going sub-7 even though the effort felt like jogging and the HR was in the low 140s. It took me 5 miles to realise that I had been pushed all the way by the wind, which also meant that the majority of the marathon effort would be into the wind, not something I was particularly looking forward to. After 7 miles I pressed the lap button on the Garmin and changed the screen to make sure that I would not peak at it. Unlike the last “blind” run I was not overly bothered by the fact that I had to rely on pure feel alone; battling the wind took enough mental effort alone. After 5 miles in these conditions I was worn down, it felt harder than marathon effort and I was really looking forward to the end, worrying a bit about Vienna (but not too much). Eventually I finished, was a little bit disappointed that all the effort had only yielded 6:40 pace (then again, it was against the wind), and realised that I had just finished the last longish run before the marathon.

31 Mar

10 miles, 1:15:32, 7:33 pace, HR 146

1 Apr

8 miles, 1:01:14, 7:39 pace, HR 149
   incl. 2x90 sec hill repeats, bailed on third

2 Apr

8 miles, 53:21, 6:40 pace, HR 159
   incl. 5 miles @ 6:28, HR 163

3 Apr

15 miles, 1:45:25, 7:01 pace, HR 154
   incl. 7 miles @ 7:19, HR 146, 7 miles @ 6:41, HR 163 sans Garmin feedback

Weekly Mileage: 65