Run Like An Idiot

The weekend was always going to be a tough one. Work Christmas party on Friday, a marathon on Saturday and Cian's 10th birthday on Sunday were never going to be a piece of cake. But of course I could make things easier for myself by being clever and running the marathon in a sensible way that would not endanger all those recent training gains. So did I do that? Did I ****!

My first problem on Saturday morning, apart from having to get up at 5:30 am that is, was finding the place, because as it turns out the signposting between Macroom and Clonakilty is non-existent and driving on an unfamiliar road in the dark and through heavy fog doesn't help navigation. Nevertheless, I arrived in good time, very much looking forward to the race.

I started near the front, and for the first mile or so found myself running beside Keith Whyte yet again, just like in Sixmilebridge three weeks ago, but this time surrounded by plenty of other runners. A quick count gave me well over 30 runners ahead of me and I wondered if the field had increased in quality since last year or if some people were going to pay a price later on (oh how little did I know!).

Happy at the start, running alongside Keith once more. Photo by Kieran Minihane.

There was a group right ahead of me and I decided to join them; running in a group is always easier than running on your own. Angela McCann was part of it, which should have set off my alarm bells but did not. There were close to 10 runners in that group, including a second lady, Maura Regan. The atmosphere was very relaxed, Angela and Maura were chatting for a while ("aren't you supposed to race each other rather than having a friendly chat") and I was discussing everything from teenage daughters to Manchester City with Conor. At one point Angela asked us to stop making jokes as she couldn't stop laughing and it cost her energy - ever the consummate professional.

Conor remarked at mile 7 how chatty and relaxed we all were and in 10 miles it would all be so different. He was wrong. Within a mile we were labouring hard on the first of a series of brutal climbs (there had been several non-brutal climbs already by that point) and the group disintegrated rapidly, with Angela going off the front, obviously. I hung back a bit, trying not to kill myself on the uphill and being reasonably confident that I would catch up on the downhill again, which was only partially the case. Within a mile or two I started feeling the effort and had to labour rather hard, certainly harder than I would have liked, and wondering how it all had fallen apart so rapidly after feeling so relaxed only 15 minutes earlier.

I fought on for about another mile before deciding that I had indeed been an idiot, especially so as I had made exactly the same mistake 3 weeks earlier in Sixmilebridge, and that by far the best option was to relax a bit, and, reluctantly, let all the other runners in the group go (except one runner, John, who was suffering even more). I started cruising at a slightly more relaxed pace but I felt very rough.

I think taking a caffeine tablet at that point turned out to be a rather inspired move. I reached the halfway point in slightly over 91 minutes but knew I wasn't going to be able to keep the pace and not exactly looking forward to the second half. However, I was right behind Maura and Emmet again all of a sudden, which came very much as a surprise, seeing as I had resigned myself to never seeing them again until the finish. Had I sped up or did they slow down? I did not say it out loud, but a look at the Garmin indicated that it was the latter. Shortly after halfway the course turned decidedly brutal with a series of very tough climbs, one tougher than the other and all of them adding another layer of fatigue on already overworked legs. Conor and a couple of other runners from our group were clearly feeling the effort as well and we kept leapfrogging each other, depending on who was feeling low at the time or who was better at climbing or descending. Two runners from behind caught up with us in quick succession somewhere around mile 16, but rather surprisingly they were the only ones.

There was a very steep drop at around mile 18 and it kept going for a mile, losing all the elevation that we had worked so hard for. My way to run these steep drops is to visualise my body being perpendicular to the road, which causes me to lean forward and the effect of gravity keeps pulling me down the hill very quickly and with little effort; all I have to do is keep spinning the legs enough to not fall on my face. It worked very well, I was doing sub-6 pace at times and gained 5 places or so with no real effort. Unfortunately, running on the flat, and the next climb, felt all the harder. I gained another place, with the caught runner clearly suffering badly, and then hit the worst climb of them all at mile 20.

This really was brutal, steep and well over a mile long, and the fact that we had over 20 miles in our legs made it feel twice as steep and at least twice as long. There was nothing to do but keep working hard, trying to ignore the screaming quads and hamstrings and just get on with it. I made up a good bit of distance to the runner ahead but could not quite catch up, and when I finally reached the top there was a sharp right turn and I caught a quick glimpse of the runners behind me. Maura had overtaken all the boys and was about half a minute behind, with all the guys strung out behind.

The descent was brutally steep once more, which was very hard on our suffering quads, but I got on alright. I was suffering and counting down the miles and got completely paranoid about getting caught from behind. I had taken a coke from the aid station at mile 20 and did the same again at mile 23. To my surprise the runner ahead of me got closer and I managed to overtake him and started chasing the next one. At that point something started to work again. Maybe it was the second coke, but all of a sudden I was flying again and the pace increased remarkably. At one point I caught a glimpse of my Garmin and saw sub-7 pace, which I had not managed for the last 15 miles on the flat (wait, what flat?). I got right behind the next runner, Joe Walsh I think, who had been in our big group earlier on, but then disaster struck.

Getting there. Photo by Kieran Minihane

My calves had sent the odd spasm before, but all of a sudden the cramping got really bad at mile 24. It happened in both legs, which brought back unwelcome memories of the first Dingle marathon when I had hit the deck after both legs started cramping simultaneously and could not support my weight any more, but thankfully I was spared a full repeat. It still was bad enough, very very painful, and at one point I started screaming out in pain, which alerted Joe to my presence and I think he sped up after that. I was tempted to stop and try to stretch out the cramps which were really taking hold of both calf muscles, but that would have cost me some places and I kept going, desperately trying to get things back under control. The right calf was worse and at one point it felt like my toes were turning outwards with each stride (or the heel was turning inwards) and I could feel the leg shaking and struggling to support my weight with each stride, which really did not feel good at all. Even trying to run as relaxed as possible did not help, in fact that seemed to bring on more cramps. For at least a mile I was fighting wave after wave of cramps, all the while desperately trying to keep the pace at a reasonable level. I could see two more runners just ahead of me who a mile earlier had been completely out of reach. This was immensely frustrating, I had the energy levels to run much faster and would have caught them easily but the calves just would not cooperate and forced a much slower pace on me. It was was clearly a case of the chain being only as strong as the weakest link, and the high energy levels were to remain untapped.

Clearly showing the effort at the end. Photo by Peter Mooney.

We got back into Clonakilty and the finish line came all too early (as in trying to catch the runners ahead of me) or all too late (as in dealing with the cramps), but once I crossed it I was happy again once more. My time was 3:09:21, only marginally faster than the pacing effort in Dublin but requiring far more effort due to me being a complete idiot by running much too fast in the first half. Admittedly, it was a much tougher course than Dublin, one of the toughest in Ireland, ranking only just behind Dingle in my view (and almost as scenic and beautiful as that one). I ran 98 minutes for the second half, not a good split, though the second half contained the majority of the increasingly brutal climbs. I also made up about 5 place in the second half, so others had paced themselves even worse, not that that is any excuse for my own stupidity. I came in 18th and the cramps had cost me 3 places, but in the end it does not matter one bit if you come 15th or 18th in a race like that.

Within seconds of crossing the line I was whisked away to a video interview with Frank Greally, the editor of the Irish Runner magazine, and then Pat O'Keeffe, the chairman of the marathon club presented me with my 50 marathons medal, which was a great honour and I am ever so grateful for Pat to come down all the way to Clonakilty even though he was not running himself. Clonakilty RD Bob Hilliard could not have been more welcoming and supporting, but eventually I felt cold and started shivering so I headed for the shower (yes, they even provided shower facilities for the runners!)

Halfway there ;-)

I have plenty of thoughts regarding that run but will leave them for the next post. Stay tuned.

5 Dec

8 miles, 1:01:05, 7:38 pace, HR 143

6 Dec

8 miles, 1:04:50, 8:06 pace, HR 137

7 Dec

Clonakilty Marathon
   3:09:21, 18th place

8 Dec

5 miles, 42:37, 8:31 pace, HR 144

Evaluation

I did not expect any great insights from today's evaluation. In fact, any deviation from the last evaluation would have come as quite a surprise. Well, that's why I do these things. It's always to easy to guess wrongly.

The conditions were much better than expected, the heavy overnight rain and the wind had both ceased, leaving me with almost perfect running weather.

For some reason I found it tougher to maintain an even HR than usual. I have done dozens of these evaluations by now and am quite tuned to the required effort, but I just could not get it right this morning. The HR alarm kept beeping at me almost incessantly, to the point where I was highly tempted to chuck the thing over the nearest fence and go home. However, the average HR happened to be just about right, even if the effort was a bit uneven.

        Mile 1    6:36   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:34   HR 160
        Mile 3    6:35   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:39   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 36 seconds

The pace figures are slightly falsified by a sharpening effect from Sunday's cross country race, so they don't entirely reflect my present aerobic conditioning. However, I am pleased by the fact that the pace was remarkably stable, but much more so by the recovery time which is significantly shorter than last time round. Back then I had seen that I had clearly not recovered from Dublin; I seem to have a much easier time in my recovery from Sixmilebridge, something I had already felt before, but this time I have some numbers to prove it.

Well, with yet another marathon just round the corner I hope that I'm not destroying whatever gains I managed to achieve over the last few weeks. After that it will get a little bit saner without any marathons or ultras for about 10 weeks, by which time I hope to get to some mini-peak in early spring for a couple of races, before the big push towards the summer.

2 Dec

8 miles, 1:04:19, 8:02 pace, HR 138

3 Dec

8 miles, 1:02:21, 7:47 pace, HR 141

4 Dec

11.75 miles, 1:25:00, 7:14 pace, HR 149
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:36, 6:34, 6:35, 6:39, 36 sec recovery

Dirty

When I arrived at that field in Beaufort, I immediately noticed two things: the scenery was absolutely stunning with the Reeks in the background, and Michael and Sean both had a seriously worried look on their faces when I approached them. They had obviously been reading my blog. I did assure them that I might have exaggerated my feelings a little bit and was happy enough to run.

Well, happy probably still isn't the right word. Truth to be told, I wasn't all that keen on it. I am very much a road runner, and every time I have tried something else (triathlon, mountain running, adventure racing) I very quickly came to the conclusion that these things are fun but not nearly as much fun as road running. Nevertheless, this was a team event and I was fully prepared to put the required effort into it. Admittedly, I would not have run 10 miles the day before a road race, but that's the way it goes.

Last year I had gotten my backside firmly handed to me in the Kerry novices race, so I was under no illusion how the Munster race would go. The field for the men's master race was gargantuan in comparison to the juvenile and women's races that had preceded it. And since this was cross county, everyone shot out of the blocks at breakneck speed, which seems to be the traditional way to run these things.

I immediately was working harder than I would have liked but was still way behind the faster guys. Over the next 2 or 3 laps I gradually made some limited progress through the field catching the guys who were clearly paying the price for some early kamikaze pacing. At one point I used Pat O'Shea as a pacer but eventually was unable to keep up any more and he inched away from me.

I still made up 1 or 2 places on the next laps; I generally caught people on the downhill section and tried to hold them off on the uphill. The section at the bottom was very muddy and completely churned up after countless foot strikes from all the previous races and I found that a wider line was faster, I caught at least one runner there on every lap.

With half a mile to go I felt a few guys catching up on me and put in some extra effort to stop them breathing down my neck, as hard as that came. I caught up with the runner in front of me and we both overtook one other runner but I never quite managed to get my nose in front of the other guy and 50 meters from the finish line the one runner we had overtaken a minute ago went past me at a tremendous pace as if I were standing still, so I ended up without a net gain, but definitely relieved that I had survived the torture.

In the end we did not even get a team result because we did not have the required four finishers due to some misunderstanding of the rules. Ah well. Better luck next time (wait - what next time?!?).

30 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:16, 7:35 pace, HR 142

1 Dec

7 miles, including:
   Munster master cross country 7k, 28:40, 6:28 pace, HR 177

Morituri Te Salutant

Ah sweet Jesus, what is it about the Irish and not taking "no" for an answer. I ran the cross country last year and not only did I not particularly enjoy it, I also ran really badly. It was akin to one of those dreams when you run and run and run and you're barely moving. I told the club secretary in no uncertain terms that for next year he'd have to find another victim.

He must have forgotten because he started badgering me again and of course I refused. And then some other club mate got into the act, and then we might not get a team together if I don't run and wouldn't you know it, now I'm signed up, not entirely sure how that happened. Last year, when I got handed my backside to me in such a big way it was Kerry only and the novices at that. On Sunday I'll be competing against the cream of Munster's masters, though I'm using the word "competing" in a rather loose way, as in I'll try not to get lapped twice.

Ah Ferchristsakes. This is going to suck. And it's messing up my training. And why on Earth am I whining so much?

Running, road running that is, has been going very well the last few days. I'm definitely feeling a lot better than a few weeks ago and I'm starting to get that "effortlessly floating over the tarmac" kind of feeling again. I ran 10 miles on Wednesday, just do do something different than the usual 8 miles, and was actually quite excited by that fact. Yes, I need to get out more. The pace has dropped remarkably since Sixmilebridge at the same easy effort. The weather has been unusually nice, normally I'm running through 4 degrees and wind and rain at this time of the year; this morning I seriously wondered if I should wear a t-shirt again, though I wasn't quite brave enough for that at the end. In short, it's all really good. And then there comes Sunday ...

27 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:53, 7:41 pace, HR 142

28 Nov

8 miles, 1:00:47, 7:35 pace, HR 142

29 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:21, 7:40 pace, HR 143
   including a few strides

Different

I don’t know what the difference is, but I am feeling so much better than after the Dublin marathon, it is unreal. It doesn’t make sense to me, I ran both at a similar pace and I would expect a 30 mile race to leave me worse off than a marathon 3 weeks later, but that’s not the case. I’m wondering if the backpack we had to carry for the flag might have caused some subtle change in my stride pattern, but that’s a complete guess and quite probably wrong.

Obviously I’m not complaining about feeling good – I’d just like to know what made the difference so I’ll know for next time. Maybe it was just the fact that an additional 3 weeks had passed since Connemara and my legs are finally more or less recovered from that effort. Incidentally, that was just over 100 days ago and with the old adage of a day recovery for each mile race that could even be true, who knows. Last year it took pretty much a day per mile to recover from the 24 hrs, so maybe that is indeed the case.

Anyway, I’m feeling really good at the moment. The weather helped, while most of the rest of the country are moaning about the cold, I just love running on crisp bright mornings. Compared to the usual lousy weather this time of year, this is just pure bliss and I’m loving every minute of it. Even my Achilles is behaving, while I can still feel the odd stiffness every now and then it is 99% better. I’m still scared of running the mountain trails again for fear of undoing all the healing that happened over the last few months, but maybe I’ll change my mind if thing keep going well. Mind, running those trails when it’s pitch dark isn’t something that I would recommend, so it would be a weekend exercise only, when I run slightly later in the day.

I haven’t done any workouts since Sixmilebridge but will probably do a rather mellow tempo run later this week, just like I did 3 weeks ago. I noticed yesterday in particular that the legs were itching to run faster and I kept putting the brakes on again and again. I take that as a very good sign.

23 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:20, 7:48 pace, HR 137

24 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:38, 7:40 pace, HR 143

25 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:10, 7:54 pace, HR 137

26 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:41, 7:58 pace, HR 136

Post Race Recovery

Oh my, it is Friday already? Apologies for the lack of updates, it is mostly related to the lack of any report worthy running.

Not a pretty picture, but happy to be done. Photo by Sean Power

I felt surprisingly good after running 30 miles, much better than after running 26 miles 3 weeks earlier at a similar pace, go figure. I wasn’t sore at all the next day, just a little bit stiff. I did not run on Monday to be on the safe side but did 5 miles every day since and increased that to 8 miles this morning, all of which went by without anything worthwhile happening.

Note: even current national record holders do the heel strike. Photo by Sean Power

With that I’m finally ready to leave Sixmilebridge behind; I had a nice long training run there on Sunday and enjoyed it very much. I was never going to win there with the calibre of runners on display and would not change anything I did there.

It has been getting rather cold this week, at least by Irish standards. The temperature is below freezing but I’ll take -1C and dry over 4C and wet any time, thank you very much. With the moon just past full it is really bright in the morning right now, though I did have my one sleepless night like I do virtually every month. I have no idea why this keeps happening. We have perfectly good blinds and curtains and the bedroom is pitch dark yet I’m left staring at the ceiling for hours on end once every Full Moon. There must be some werewolf in my ancestry that I don’t know about.

Too bad I don’t have time on Saturday because I’m going to miss the 10k in Killorglin yet again, but family time comes first and Saturday is when the kids have swimming/coding/music/whatever on the agenda and Daddy can’t go racing. Not that I’m complaining – racing a 10k this weekend would be a bad idea anyway.

19 Nov

5 miles, 42:43, 8:33 pace, HR 140

20 Nov

5 miles, 41:44, 8:21 pace, HR 134

21 Nov

5+ miles, 40:51, 8:05 pace, HR 140

22 Nov

8+ miles, 1:03:40, 7:55 pace, HR 135

How Not To Pace

Middle of November is the time of the quickly becoming famous Sixmilebridge loop race. Like last year they offered four distance choices, namely half marathon, full marathon, 30 miles and double marathon. I was tempted by the double but had a few demons to wipe out of the system first, so the 30 miler it was once again.

The weather forecast had been pretty good but as I drove towards county Clare I got the distinct impression that we might be in for a repeat of last year's atrocious conditions. As a result, I picked my outfit with the intention of keeping warm rather than looking stylish. I ended up sporting an orange t-shirt, blue girly arm warmers, black shorts with black compression short peeping out, grey compression socks and dark grey shoes of the ugliest colour scheme I've ever come across. It was definitely a question of function over anything else.

As soon as Mark saw me his face went "oh f*ck, I won't win today". I'm very familiar with that expression because a minute earlier it had come across my own face when I spotted first Keith Whyte and then Mike "Curly" Cunningham in quick succession. I would not have to worry about losing a sprint finish today, that much was immediately clear. Keith actually told me he had only just started running again after an injury and was going to pull out after 20 miles, though in all honesty I was not entirely convinced.

I started at the front just behind Mike and Keith. Mike immediately meant business and stormed ahead; for a couple of seconds I actually wondered if I should go with him but that would have been exceptionally stupid, so I didn't. Instead I fell into step right behind Keith who was clearly taking it very easy today. Very easy for him that is - he was doing 7 minute miles. At first that felt very comfortable and I was happy to tag along. I remembered that I had kept that pace in Portuma for the entire 50k and felt very comfortable, so it certainly did not seem out of order. First doubts started creeping in after mile 3 when I realised that we were now doing sub-7 miles, and on loop 5 I glanced my HR from the Garmin as we were going up the hill and it was in the high 160s. Again, that's not outrageous, I have run at least one marathon at a higher average HR, but it just felt a little bit too quick and soon later I let Keith go. He inched away from me very slowly but steadily, and a few laps later he was out of sight.

I was still feeling okay for a while, but somewhere around mile 8 or so I had a bit of a low, which is rather early. I did try and pull myself out of it by taking a gel or a few sips of coke when I passed the aid station. It seemed to work for a bit but soon returned, and by mile 12 or 13 I was already knackered and supposed that I was going to pay the price for the early pace. I guess I'm not in the same kind of shape as in Portumna and the Dublin marathon is still in my legs as evidenced by the evaluation earlier this week. Oh, and the fact that we had to climb a hill on every loop did not exactly make things easier.

Most people who have never run that race think I'm completely bonkers running a 30 mile race on a 1 mile loop, but anyone who has tried it can understand how that very fact makes it a very social event as you're constantly meeting lots of other runners and the atmosphere is unique. The enthusiastic marshalling just adds to that; I love that race and I'm not alone in that.

Anyway, I was feeling knackered and still had about 17 or 18 miles to run. I resolved that the best way to deal with the situation was to cruise to the finish, or at least for as long as I was still able to cruise. Basically I tried to expend as little energy as possible while still doing some half-decent pace. I wasn't going to win the race no matter what and there was no pressure from behind either (one other runner had started at the same pace as me a Keith but had long since fallen back), so my race position seemed set and taking the foot off the gas seemed perfectly logical, so that's exactly what I did.

I did go through another few lows over the coming miles and kept fuelling in the hope that that would pull me through. A bottle of Lucozade that I had stashed earlier came in very handy and I had 4 gels with me, all of which I consumed (I think that was the first time ever that I took all my gels), in addition to plenty of coke from the aid station. I wonder if all those carbs messed up my fat burning, but it did seem to work. I kept getting plenty of compliments that I was flying and looking good, but you get that kind of talk anyway no matter what you look like, so that's not a reliable gauge.

Looking at the mile splits now I ran the first 10 miles at about 7:00 pace, the next 9 at about 7:30 and the next 10 at about 7:40. I did manage to hold things together reasonably enough but it was never going to be an outstanding performance. Somewhere around mile 23 I did wish I had signed up for the marathon rather than the 30, but those thoughts vanished soon enough. Mind, I'm glad I didn't go for the double.

For a while I answered all questions how I was feeling with "f*ing knackered" but it did eventually dawn on me that negative talk isn't a good thing and switched to "getting there". Switching my mindset from negative to positive had a definite and real impact. My pace might still have been the same but the enjoyment returned and I felt much better. That's definitely a lesson I can take away from it.

I went through the marathon in 3:12 or 3:13, definitely not one of my better performances but no disgrace either, especially since I still managed to add 4 miles on top of that. Towards the end of the second-last mile Ruthann went past me, but once I started the final lap I put a bit more effort into it, which made it look like I was chasing her. I caught up with her right at the top of the hill, said "final lap" as a way of explanation and stormed towards the finish. I ran into traffic right at the end, so the finish line photo won't be a classic if there is one but I was happy to be done.

Keith had indeed pulled out, so I finished in second place, again! I congratulated Curly on his victory and a very impressive performance. Shane James Whitty had won the marathon but seemed more concerned with me coming second once more. The second place finisher in the marathon was Thomas Klimas, who I had run together with for 30 or 35k in Portumna, and we had a chat as well.

It sure was not the best paced race I've ever run, but since I will most likely never ever get the chance to run shoulder-to-shoulder with the present Irish National 100k record holder again I am actually glad that I did run with Keith for a few miles. I did manage to salvage a race when things threatened to fall apart and since I managed to finish with a 7-minute mile I guess I would have been able to race faster had the situation required it, but since I finished 20 minutes behind and 8 ahead of places 1 and 3 respectively, cruising to the finish without killing myself seemed like the best option.

I had said beforehand that I would be perfectly happy to be beaten by a better runner, and what's more, I actually meant it. Unlike last year I did not have to drive home in the knowledge that I had thrown away a rare possible victory, and that alone is enough to make me happy.

The Eddie Murphy memorial one-mile loop race in Sixmilebridge is an absolute classic. I already can't wait to do it again.

17 Nov

Sixmilebridge 30 mile race, 3:40:54, 7:21 pace, HR 159
   Second place

Six Miles From Nowhere

I'm not sure if it's just psychological after Wednesday's evaluation figures showed that I'm not recovered from Dublin yet, but I'm definitely not feeling as good as I did last week. The legs were distinctly heavy on Thursday and the entire run was a bit of a struggle. Friday went better, and Saturday was just a very short and very easy run to shake out the legs before tomorrow's race in Sixmilebridge.

More than one person has mentioned that they thought I'd seen enough of Sixmilebridge by now, which incidentally includes me as well. But in actual fact I have been looking forward to this race ever since crossing the finishing line last year one second too late after being outsprinted at the end of a 30 mile race. I still can't quite believe that a 30 mile race came down to a mad sprint over the last quarter mile, but that's exactly what happened on that occasion. However, I was always painfully aware that I had not lost the race on that quarter mile stretch but instead over the first 25 miles when I clearly had not taken it seriously and deciding only by the time I was almost at the marathon distance that I should actually try and win this.

I don't have to win this tomorrow. I'm perfectly aware that there are plenty of runners who can beat me easily over that distance and if only a single one of them shows up tomorrow, so be it. That's fine by me, I'm totally cool with that. I just do not want to go home again in the knowledge that I have thrown away a win. I don't exactly win a lot of races. That very same race two years ago was my last outright win. So to lose a winnable race due to my own idiocy was bad. Tomorrow is all about about getting rid of that f***ing demon.

14 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:51, 7:51 pace, HR 143

15 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:59, 7:51 pace, HR 138

16 Nov

5 miles, 40:12, 8:02 pace, HR 136

Obsession

My youngest daughter is now 6 years old and she is showing worrying signs of following in the footsteps of one of her parents as far as her behavioural patterns go. 3 days ago she wrote a letter to the Tooth Fairy telling her about her wobbly tooth that will be up for collection soon. The next day, thrilled by receiving a reply from Fairy Land by her Magic Highness herself, she wrote no less than 6 (six!!!) letters, all saying pretty much the same thing. This was followed by yet another letter (this time with a drawing) yet another day later. If I were the Tooth Fairy I'd be thinking about getting a restraining order. We also might need to have a talk about obsessive behaviour.

Myself, on the other hand, carefree as I am, did a little bit of running in the meantime. I lost 10 minutes on Monday morning trying to get a Garmin working that steadfastly refused to even look at the satellite signals coming from the sky. Eventually I left sans GPS device on my wrist, that should teach it a lesson. I probably ran a bit faster than I should have due to being a) late and b) frustrated, but since I had neither watch nor HRM I can't tell. Things were restored back to normal on Tuesday (an IT background does have its advantages), though the legs felt a bit off, which was either a hangover from Sunday's longer run (even if it was far from being an actual long run) or a result of having run too fast the day before, with the former sounding more likely to me.

I took the unusual step of checking the weather forecast for Wednesday and Thursday to set my schedule, and with a windy morning predicted for Thursday I fixed my next evaluation workout for Wednesday. It was a little bit breezy, a bit more than I would have liked. Wind is the enemy of the evaluation because it can really mess up the numbers to the point of making them utterly irrelevant. It was mostly fine but I did notice it picking up for miles 3 and 4, though it was never particularly strong and unlikely to have a significant impact on the actual pace.

        Mile 1    6:49   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:52   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:59   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:57   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 49 seconds

The pace is roughly comparable to the beginning of October but the recovery time is rather excessive, which shows that while I might feel good at the moment I clearly have not yet recovered from the Dublin marathon, which should not come as a great surprise, seeing as it was only 16 days ago. Somehow I was hoping for a better result but that's exactly what the evaluations are for, to take hope and guesswork out of the equation and replace them with cold hard factual numbers.
I won't obsess over them, I think.

11 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:00 (estimated)

12 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:38, 7:57 pace, HR 139

13 Nov

11.8 miles, 1:26:41, 7:20 pace, HR 151
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:49, 6:52, 6:59, 6:57, 49 sec recovery

Autumn Blues

It is 6:40 am Friday morning, it is cold, dark, windy and raining heavily. My left Achilles is feeling rather stiff, as is my right knee. I can only move slowly and everything feels awkward. I am feeling distinctly uncomfortable and would definitely prefer a warm cosy bed to this. Heck, even a cold, hard bed would be better than this.

Half a mile later I am warmed up, feeling much better and running smoothly now. Another half mile later and the rain has stopped. Perfect. Just keep running. The next 7 miles pass by mostly on autopilot.

Saturday was a bit nicer. There was a shower while I got ready but I could see the blue skies in the west and did not dally. The last drop fell just after I had started my run and half an hour later even the sun came out to join me. Lovely. What surprised me even more was the pace on the Garmin when I gave it a quick peek. I'm not sure if I should be annoyed with myself for running a bit too fast on an easy day or if I should be delighted that 7:34 pace felt so remarkably easy.

It was downright miserable again on Sunday and this time I could see no break in the clouds, so out in the rain I went. And come to think of it, Met Eireann had promised us a dry morning; shows what they know. Anyway, it was a rather lousy day for being outside and somewhere around mile 7 or 8 I wished to be anywhere else, but felt better again after a while.

There is no such thing as bad weather. Just bad excuses. And it did occur to me that training in those kind of conditions was exactly what made me come second last year in Bangor amongst a group of amazing runners that I would not have a business competing against in normal circumstances.

The other thing I remembered was that last year it was at the middle of November that I finally started to feel good again after several months of recovery from running 126 miles. This year I "only" ran 100 miles five weeks later in the year, but I seem to be coming round exactly the same time again. Things are definitely looking good on the running front.

8 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:54, 7:44 pace, HR 139

9 Nov

8 miles, 1:00:34, 7:34 pace, HR 144

10 Nov

13 miles, 1:41:13, 7:47 pace, HR 139

Revving Up Just A Little

The next event in Sixmilebridge is only 10 days away, so I do not have much of a window to do some "proper" training. I'm not entirely sure how much damage the Dublin marathon has done to my legs, but I keep checking my heart rate / pace ratio and for the last 3 days I had been in the "neutral" zone, neither too high nor too low, so I thought it safe enough to run just a little bit faster today (Thursday) morning after a long series of easy recovery runs.

The last faster run before Dublin had been 8 miles at roughly 3:10 marathon pace (which had served as a neat test for Dublin), though the heart rate (154) had been a little bit higher than I would have liked. Today's plan was to run at about HR 150 and see where that leaves me.

It was raining heavily when I left but it stopped after only half a mile, though by then I was already soaked right through. Ah well. I felt pretty good during the first two warm up miles and then accelerated to the effort that felt appropriate. At first I had troubles getting my HR up, but I was also running with the wind on my back and I knew it would feel much tougher on the way back home. This turned out to be absolutely correct. I found it really hard to keep the HR at one level and the blustery wind sure did not help. In the end I averaged 151 over those 8 miles, which was surprisingly close to target (I had expected the number to be higher) but in reality it had been 8 miles with the HR fluctuating between 145 and 155 and the effort being rather uneven as well. On the plus side, the legs felt very well and I could have kept going for much, much longer while the pace was actually faster than at that run before Dublin.

The rule that I set last month, namely that every workout, even a rather modest one like today's, will always be followed by two recovery days and which has served me very well, helping me to get out of my overtraining hole, will of course still apply.

5 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:32, 7:48 pace, HR 144

6 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:03, 7:52 pace, HR 139

7 Nov

10 miles, 1:12:53, 7:17 pace, HR 149
   incl. 8 miles @ 7:07 pace (HR 151)

Really Big Girl

Apparently the villager should not be so far away from his village
(yes, tough critic, that one)

Real life just keeps happening, I can hardly keep up. As of Saturday, the erstwhile baby of the family has reached the ripe old age of six, which obviously elevates her from Big Girl to Really Big Girl. Just to underline her growing maturity she decided at fairly short notice to change the design for her birthday cake from Princess to Mindcraft, which is quite a radical change in direction. Yes, she does have older siblings, how did you know? I don't think there are many girls who not only want a Minecraft cake for their sixth birthday but also have a mother able to pull it off, which might indeed make her as unique as she already knows she is - and well done to Niamh, colour me impressed. And by the way darling, I do know they are all mine, so can I please move out of the shed again? It's getting cold at night.

Temperatures have indeed plunged, it was down to a mere 3 degrees C this morning (36F in old money). For once I managed to adapt in advance and brought my gloves to my run, which is a minor miracle in itself. Running is still very much defined by recovery from Dublin. I did a series of 5 mile runs (skilfully dodging two major rain showers on Saturday) and moved to 8 mile runs. On Sunday the HR was all the way up to 150, for reasons entirely unclear to me. I ran at the same easy effort as every other run. I noticed the high HR and tried to relax, even though I was already taking it easy. Nothing would change the HR, and yes, I'm pretty sure my HRM is working just fine. Things had changed on Monday morning when I was running just a tad faster at the same subjective easy effort but with a HR over 10 beats lower. I have no idea what's going on here, but as long as I keep taking it easy I don't think I can do much wrong.

2 Nov

5 miles, 40:22, 8:04 pace, HR 145

3 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:36, 7:57 pace, HR 150

4 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:52, 7:51 pace, HR 139

Trick Or Treat

I only realised it afterwards, but Dublin on Monday was my 10th marathon as a pacer. It really is amazing how quickly those things add up.

Despite feeling really good during the marathon I was quite sore on Tuesday, certainly more than expected. I still managed to walk down the staircase in the in-laws' house without wincing, which is a good thing as I had to do it several times when loading the car, but I was definitely feeling uncomfortable doing so. I was still a bit sore on Wednesday but by Thursday that was gone and that's when I re-started running, though I have only done very short and very easy runs so far.

puffle, halloween, creeper and friendly pumpkin

Zombie, Enderman, Vampire and Witch on the hunt for sweets

Thursday was obviously Halloween, which has been rather Americanised in the last 10 years or so, not that I particularly care - it's a day for the kids. The four kids that Niamh keeps insisting are all mine could not agree on a pumpkin design and in the end I got 4 pumpkins from the shop to put an end to the bickering. Well worth the little bit of piece and quiet we gained that way. Trick or Treating went very well, there had been some grumbling from the troops when they learned that we would be in Kerry, not Dublin, for that night but they have learned since that Kerry people are far more generous than those stingy bastards from the smoke and they all returned with as much sweets as they could carry, or maybe even a bit more. God knows what their sugar levels are right now, but maybe for once they have a valid reason for misbehaving. Cian got so much loot that he even has been off-loading stuff to his dad. Well, obviously I'm prepared to sacrifice myself for the good of my child. No need to have him overdose on sugar any more than he already does.

As for training, right now I need to get Dublin out of my legs and that will take a while, and once that is done I'll destroy them all over again in Sixmilebridge, which may or may not be a good idea but which I cannot possibly miss. I need to get some demons out of my system that have been lingering there since last year.

31 Oct

5 miles, 41:57, 8:23 pace, HR 143

1 Nov

5 miles, 40:19, 8:03 pace, HR 145

Two Germans And An Englishman

The weather forecast had started to get rather ominous the week before the marathon with a massive storm predicted, and it got worse every time they updated the forecast - until Thursday or Friday when it started to get a little better again every time. It's still fair to say that we expected a rather tough day at the office when most of the pacers met up the evening before. The joke about doing a Mary Poppins came up more than once.

Therefore Monday morning came as a nice surprise with the rain already gone and the wind much calmer than expected. I was rather cold before the start but once we got going the conditions were pretty good.

There were three 3:10 pacers; apart from me there was Torben from Hamburg and Martin Rea, a former winner of the Connemara Ultra and rather accomplished runner, and a certain race director gave our group the title mentioned in the headline - 1 out of 3 ain't bad, I suppose.

Running a (sub) 3:10 marathon is about 7:15 pace. Because a Garmin almost invariably measures long, you need to run about 4 second per mile faster in reality and since we wanted to come home slightly under 3:10 that was another second. 7:10 on the Garmin was the target pace.

In my recent training runs I had troubles getting up to speed over the first mile, but with the congestion that comes with a big city marathon that was not an issue. We hit the first mile slightly slower than 7:30, which was to be expected. The second mile was pretty much on pace and over the next 3 or 4 miles we made up the difference. By the time we exited Phoenix Park we were bang on time.

At that point I was maybe 20 meters behind my fellow pacers, but I noticed that they were running a bit faster than goal pace. They were too far ahead to give them a shout and eventually I decided to fall back a bit and remain on actual target pace, even if it meant that the 3:10 pacing group got slightly split up. There was some doubt in my mind if I was doing the right thing but I have paced plenty of times before and decided to trust my own experience.

The spirit amongst the runners surrounding me was very good. The water stations tended to be a bit congested but elsewhere it was mostly fine; it got fairly bad with the 3:30 and 4:00 pace groups, I think, though.

Crumlin road is a tough part of the course, slightly uphill and always against a headwind, but despite earlier worries it was no worse than any other year. My own part of the 3:10 group crossed the halfway line half a minute ahead of time, pretty much where I wanted them to be. The other pacers were almost exactly half a minute ahead of us, so the gap wasn't as big as it might have seemed. It might have grown by a few more seconds until mile 15 or 16 but then started to shrink again. Since I certainly had not sped up, the others must have slowed down slightly, but we are really only talking about 2 or 3 seconds per mile and I doubt any of the pacees noticed any real difference.

My part of the 3:10 pace group - photo by Lindie Naughton

The group of runners surrounding me remained remarkably stable, usually the pacing group more or less falls apart after mile 20 but a remarkable number of runners managed to stick with me. Mile 20 to 23 are slightly downhill but then it is 3 flat miles to the finish and that's where most of the carnage happens. We caught a lot of runners/walkers on that stretch and the pace difference between us and them was at times huge. I suppose most of them were crash victims of the 3:00 bus - I've been there myself, of course.

By that time we had almost caught up to the other part of the 3:10 pace group, entirely without having to increase the pace. One of the pacers, Torben, got into trouble here and fell behind. That's why there are 3 pacers by group I suppose, and he was not the only pacer in trouble today, but overall the pacing was at the usual high standard.

There is a video of that shows the 3:10 group close to the end as well - we get into it 2:40 into the video.

The conditions kept the worst till last, there was a really strong headwind between miles 24 and 25, and anyone struggling to keep up would have been in real trouble here. We were a little bit ahead of schedule, which turned out to be a good thing I suppose because it meant we did not have to kill ourselves and/or burn off the pacees to remain on target.

As we were nearing the finish I did my usual thing at the end of a pacing job and ran backwards at times, trying to encourage anyone behind me to push ahead and get the best time possible, which usually works remarkably well and just about everyone behind me managed a sprint and finished just ahead of me. I crossed the line in 3:09:45 (DCM's time) which is just about perfect, even if I say so myself.

Before the marathon I had been a bit nervous about pacing 3:10, the fastest time I have ever paced, especially since I was still recovering from Connemara and my own stupidity. Running 7:10 pace in training had felt manageable but tough enough after a few miles, so I was really surprised by how comfortable I felt throughout the marathon. It was not until the last 1 or 2 miles that the legs started sending some fatigue signals, and even then it was not bad at all.

Having the pacing group split up by half a minute was not planned but actually worked out very well. I did notice a sizeable number of runners who had started dropping off the pace behind the first group and were starting to become dispirited only to have me catch up several minutes later and realising that all was not lost yet. A few of them managed to hang to me, when otherwise they would have dropped off completely. While it is hard to work out the optimum method of pacing a group, we may just have stumbled upon a great way to maximise success.

Well done to all the pacees who stuck with us from the start to the finish, so well done to Liam and Stephen and Rolando and Robbie and all the others, congratulations. I'm still reeling from a massive bear hug from one particularly happy runner who had just managed to break 3:10 for the first time in 14 attempts, and it's fair to say that the real joy and gratitude of the runners makes pacing a really rewarding experience.

I even managed to get onto the telly, the winner just happened to be interviewed as I was finishing in the background and with that butterfly wing on my back I was rather easy to spot. A few minutes later, who would be shouting my name but Rik Vercoe, the winner of the 10in10 in Sixmilebridge back in July, who had just run his first ever sub-3 marathon after running 32 marathons in a row (and some people have the cheek to suggest that I am mad). He got a big hug as well, obviously.

It was a great day, as ever. The Dublin marathon really is special. I can't wait to do it again.

28 Oct

Dublin City Marathon, 3:09:45, 7:14 pace, HR 160
   pacing the 3:10 group

DCM 2013 - update

Pacing the 3:10 group went exceptionally well, I'm really pleased. Came home in 3:09:44 (my Garmin) or 3:09:45 (DCM's as yet unofficial time), which is just about perfect. While I was a bit nervous before the start because this was the fastest time I've ever paced, I felt very comfortable all the way. Race pace report to follow later - got to go home first.

Once More

Monday morning I will be running my eighth Dublin marathon, which I suppose means that I like that race. The atmosphere is definitely unique, nowhere in Ireland will you get as many spectators for a road race and for the last few miles the crowd is always buzzing. It will also be my fourth time in a row as a pacer, which does put a bit of pressure on me but I'm reasonably confident I'll be able to handle it. The weather could be quite interesting, according to the latest forecast we might just about escape the worst of the storm, but we'll see how it goes. Let's hope the rain won't drive away the spectators, the race would be so much poorer without the crowd support.

I have been doing nothing but easy running since the evaluation workout on Wednesday. The legs have felt very good and the pace has come down quite a bit for the same level of effort compared to a few weeks ago. I think I really managed to get out of that hole just in time for Dublin; let's hope the next 26.2 miles won't drop me right back in. I will certainly have to be careful with my recovery but let's get the marathon out of the way first.

The drive up from Kerry was without incident, at least if you ignore the usual self-inflicted dramas that come with a drive for several hours in a car full of children. I did have a couple of scares during the week when Shea had a sore throat on Monday and then again on Thursday, but nothing came of either. Maia seemed to fall sick Friday night, she had a temperature and slept for hours in the afternoon, but then we remembered that she'd had an immunisation shot the day before, which did explain it. She was right as rain when she finally woke up, though it meant she missed her school's Halloween party, which was very disappointing, poor thing.

Dublin City Marathon will always have a special place in my heart. While there are one or two other races that I would rank ahead of it, Dublin 2004 was my first ever marathon (as well as my first ever road race - not that I would recommend that sort of action in general) and it's always a great race to return to. It helps that the organisation is always to the highest standard and the reputation as the friendly marathon well deserved.

I guess that's enough free advertisement for now. If you're at the expo late Sunday at the pacer stand or the race start on Monday with the 3:10 group, be sure to say hello.

24 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:23, 7:47 pace, HR 137

25 Oct

8 miles, 1:00:53, 7:36 pace, HR 143

26 Oct

5+ miles, 39:25, 7:48 pace, HR 138

27 Oct

2 miles, 14:35, 7:17 pace, HR 149

Evaluation

As you know if you have been reading this for more than a couple of weeks, I have been struggling a bit with finding the correct level of training recently. Running 10 marathons in 10 days in July followed by a 100 mile race in August did put quite a strain on my body (yes I know, who'd have thunk it!), which was exacerbated by me misjudging the level of recovery required. The last few weeks have provided quite some lesson, and I had to completely change my definition of an easy week.

Having said that, there has been some definite and real progress over the last few weeks and I can feel that I'm climbing out of the hole I managed to dig myself into. One very clear indication was the way I felt on Monday; I expected the usual sore legs after a fast run on Sunday, but in actual fact I felt very good - not just the legs, I felt better than usual in general as well.

Noticing progress by subjective feeling is one thing but seeing it in cold hard figures is another, and my evaluation run today provided just that. I ran the evaluation on Wednesday rather than Tuesday to have 2 recovery days after Sunday's 10 mile run, as stipulated in last week's post.

Luckily for me the wind died down overnight, just in time for my evaluation and the conditions were pretty good.

        Mile 1    6:39   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:43   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:49   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:43   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 34 seconds

These numbers show a clear progression from two weeks ago. The pace for each mile is a few seconds faster and the subsequent recovery much faster. The pace is very stable even though I'm not quite sure why mile 3 is a little bit out, but I won't worry about that. All in all these are quite solid figures, considering how bad I had been feeling only a month ago.

On the downside, I somehow managed to bang my head last night (that wall viciously jumped at me - inexplicably, I was completely sober at the time) and felt a slight headache this morning (after my run, I hasten to add). Let's see how it feels tomorrow. While there might not be an awful lot of brain to damage in my case it might still come useful some day, so I'd better take care.

21 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:06, 7:46 pace, HR 139

22 Oct

7 miles, 54:16, 7:45 pace, HR 141

23 Oct

11.75 miles, 1:24:00, 7:09 pace, HR 152
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:39, 6:43, 6:49, 6:43, 34 sec recovery

Pacing Practise

When is Friday not a Friday? When it falls on a Thursday!

Admittedly, that doesn't make any sense. My thinking was that if I do my usual Fast Friday run on Friday there would only be one day of recovery before Sunday, so I moved it to Thursday instead. Wrong weekday aside, I tried to run more or less the same workout again, though I tried to keep the pace of the faster segment at about 7:10 pace, the pace I need to run in Dublin, and a little bit of practise doesn't do any harm. I managed well enough, though I could not fail but notice that the HR was higher than expected, and higher than last week, so that was a bit worrying. It fits in right with the same observations I made in the last post, as soon as I run faster or longer my HR immediately starts climbing much faster than it should.

Following on from that, two easy days followed, and true to form the legs were fairly heavy on Friday but felt better on Saturday, at least once the first two miles were out of the way.

With the Dublin marathon only one week away, I was wondering what I should do on Sunday. I'm not doing a taper as such, mostly because I have no training done that I would now need to taper from, but I still don't want to turn up tired and thoughts of another 15 mile run were quickly set aside.

In the end I decided to do another pace practise. Chances are that Mystery Coach won't like it, but that was a workout for my head, not for my body. I have never paced 3:10 before and I am fairly nervous about it. A little bit of reassurance would go a long way; at least I hoped it would.

Since in the marathon I will have to hit the right pace right from the start I did away with the usual 2 easy miles of warm up. Even so, the first mile was still way too slow (7:30) but then I managed to pick up the speed. Too much, as it turned out, because the next time I checked the Garmin, about 2 miles in, I was doing 6:40 pace and the average was almost down to 7. Oops. I guess that's why they use 3 pacers per band, that way we can keep an eye on each other. The wind made pacing rather tricky; I had it on my back for the first half, which is why I felt averaging 7:00 pace was just about right (no more 6:40 miles, though). Fighting the wind on the way back home was tricky and now that the effort had been established I tried to go by feel rather than watch, which was acting strangely anyway, I kept seeing paces ranging from 5:50 to 7:40 with neither one being right.

In the end I only used up half my cushion and came home about a minute earlier than planned. I'll need to pay a bit more attention in Dublin, I wouldn't want to burn out my pacees with a few fast early miles, but, as I said, there the responsibility will be shared. I do hope my body will cope; it certainly was a much-needed boost for the mind and I feel much more at ease with the thought of pacing 3:10 now. From that point of view, it was definitely a good workout, I suppose.

17 Oct

10 miles, 1:13:43, 7:22 pace, HR 150
   incl. 8 miles @ 7:09 pace (HR 154)

18 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:55, 7:59 pace, HR 138

19 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:37, 7:49 pace, HR 142

20 Oct

10 miles, 1:10:59, 7:05 pace, HR 153

Weekly Mileage: 56

Psychrolutes Marcidus

Me right now

I think the weighing scales start whimpering in fear every time I get close. It's slightly puzzling because I'm still running over 60 miles a week and my weight has been increasing steadily ever since Connemara in August, but the last couple of week that has accelerated significantly and I am now 7 pound heavier and at my heaviest level for the entire year. Admittedly, right now I see no real reason to curb my chocolate addiction, but it's not like I'm stuffing myself with a bar every day. I do believe that it is beneficial to indulge yourself from time to time and put on a few pounds, as long as you find the discipline to cut out the entire range of junk once the racing season gets going.

I have been dragging all of my 151 blobby pounds over the Caragh Lake road the last few days, but the figures from the HRM are puzzling and I'm left scratching my head. If I run slow, short, easy runs I am getting VDOT values that are as high as I've ever seen, which would indicate that I am in great shape aerobically. On the other hand, as soon as I start running faster or longer I start struggling almost immediately. The weekend showed this up in rather stark light, on Sunday I ran 6 seconds per mile slower than on Saturday, yet my HR was 6 beats higher! It was definitely not a HRM malfunction, I really was struggling and the last few miles were dragging. I'm pretty sure running an evaluation on Wednesday and a few faster miles on Friday had something to do with it, but neither workout was particularly hard - in fact, the effort at both had been distinctly mellow.

For now I assume that I'm capable of doing the odd workout, either a faster or a longer one (and still rather mellow for each variable), but need plenty of recovery in-between, and one easy day between workouts just does not cut it. Let's try with two or more recovery days and see how that goes.

Well, this week I have been doing only short and slower runs so far, not only for recovery but also for family reasons; real life just has a habit of intruding into my running life, though if you're married with four kids that doesn't come as much of a surprise, and it's definitely preferable to have these disruptions now rather than next July! Plus, the way I see it, I am building up credit for the odd weekend away ("Darling, there happens to be that half/marathon/ultra in [insert destination] on [insert date]..."), but don't tell her (and it might not work out anyway).

Meanwhile, life goes on.

14 Oct

8 miles, 1:04:09, 8:01 pace, HR 132

15 Oct

5 miles, 39:29, 7:54 pace, HR 133

16 Oct

7 miles, 55:00, 7:51 pace, HR 137

Dumb And Dumber

I have a projection clock that displays the time on the ceiling. I love it. Unfortunately I did not reset it after Wednesday’s power cut, so when the alarm went off I saw 5 am up there and actually thought I must have dreamt the alarm going off (yes, I really am that stupid). To make matters worse, I did not even manage to fall back asleep and just lay there dozing. Eventually I got suspicious (“this does not feel like 5:30 am!”) and checked a little but closer, and by then I barely had enough time for 5 miles. Btw, Niamh had a very similar experience when her alarm went off, but she got one crucial step further than me by thinking “if it’s 6 am, why would my alarm just have gone off”. Ah yes, at least there’s only one idiot in our marriage. That’s the second time in three days I managed to mess up the alarm. That Alzheimer must be progressing quicker than I realised.

I tried not to rush the 5 miles by running faster than I should, even though I was clearly under time pressure, and almost succeeded.

Friday saw the return of "Fast Friday", or in that case it should probably be called "Mellow Friday" because the pace was much more relaxed than on my previous attempts. Just over a week ago MC had suggested I try running 7:20 pace at HR 150; so what was I to do when his prediction turned out wrong (now there's a first!) as it turned out that the HR would be nowhere near 150 for 7:20 pace? I quickly settled on running relaxed without worrying too much about either pace or HR, and I just happened to fall somewhere in-between, running a bit faster at a slightly lower HR. I like to think that I got that on just right (now there's a first!).

The outside conditions have changed quite dramatically, the temperatures at 7 o'clock in the morning dropped from 12C/53F on Wednesday to 4C/39F on Thursday, and it looks like they will remain there for a while. I don't mind at all, I dug out my gloves and that's all I need. I much prefer cold and dry to rain, not that I get my wish very often here in Kerry.

The legs felt a bit heavy on Saturday and I cut the run down from the planned 10 mile to 8. I did raise an eyebrow or two when I saw the pace on the Garmin, I had not intended to run 7:40 pace, nor had it felt like it. Running two workouts in the space of three days must have reset my Central Governor. The heavy legs were a warning sign, and I got a far more pronounced warning on Sunday when the legs started to feel distinctly heavy after 10 miles and the last few miles became a bit of a drag. I ran around Caragh Lake and the long steep hills might have had something to do with it as well, but it brought back some very unwelcome memories of that crash of a run 3 weeks ago, though it was nowhere near as bad. Still, this time I'll heed the warning - it is back to short and easy runs next week.

10 Oct

5 miles, 38:54, 7:46 pace, HR 137

11 Oct

10 miles, 1:13:39, 7:21 pace, HR 146
   incl 8 miles @ 7:14 pace (HR 148)

12 Oct

8+ miles, 1:01:41, 7:40 pace, HR 140

13 Oct

15.1 miles, 1:57:20, 7:46 pace, HR 146

Weekly Mileage: 65.9

Belated Evaluation

In order to find out where I stand at the moment, I was planning on doing an evaluation this week (MC had suggested it as well). My usual schedule for an evaluation is Tuesday, enabling me to have an easy day after the weekend and 2 easy days before an eventual faster run on Friday. That was the plan for this week as well.

What I did not plan for is the fact that I'm an idiot; I dutifully changed the alarm time on Monday evening but then completely forgot to actually turn the thing on. What can I say, the senility isn't going to get any better with old age, is it? At least my body is well used to getting up early and I still woke up in time for 8 miles, so at least it did not end up a wasted day. I was a bit worried that the conditions wouldn't be the same, a windy day makes the evaluation numbers pretty much useless and a stormy Monday morning had been followed by ideal conditions on Tuesday but my luck was in and Wednesday morning was just as calm.

       
        Mile 1    6:43   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:54   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:50   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:50   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 39 seconds

These are not the best figures I have ever produced, not by a long shot, but they let me know where I stand and in fact they are better than I expected. At the very least they tell me that I will be just fine for the pacing gig in Dublin, and anyway I still have 19 days to get ready for that. A couple of years ago I produced very similar numbers back in December and I suppose seeing them in October is a good sign. I'm certainly happy enough that I managed to keep the pace very stable and the recovery time isn't bad, but of course there is plenty of room for improvement on all fronts (which is what you'd want at this stage).

Oh, and I'm definitely not doing Valentia this weekend. Shame. But it's definitely for the best.

7 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:37, 7:57 pace, HR 137

8 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:44, 7:58 pace, HR 135

9 Oct

11.75 miles, 1:26:25, 7:21 pace, HR 149
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:43, 6:54, 6:50, 6:50, 39 sec recovery

Pick Up the Pieces

I cannot believe how much better I am feeling right now than 2 weeks ago. The transformation is just magic. Those 2 weeks of nothing but short and easy runs were obviously exactly what I needed, and the difference this has made is enormous.

I got the green light to pick it up again on Friday but for once decided to err on the side of caution and did yet another easy 8 miler. I still don't have full confidence in my body. But I did put it up a notch over the weekend, doing 10 miles on Saturday and 12 on Sunday, all at the same easy effort. I did several months of that kind of running 3 years ago, and I was very surprised how much my pace increased for the same effort when it felt like I did not do any real training at all. On the downside, these were not exactly the most exciting months of my life and I did get frustrated and bored after a while. Back then MC held me on a short leash, but I never managed to show the same restraint when training under my own tuition. We'll see what this year will bring. Considering that the end goal of the present training cycle is a long ultra with a goal pace of 10:30, fast running will not exactly be a requirement.

Saturday was a gorgeous autumn morning with the sun shining so brightly that my only regret was not bringing my shades (it never even occurred to me that they might be required). What a contrast to today when the wind was driving the rain horizontally across Dingle Bay and the Cromane road was decidedly uncomfortable to run on with the water splashing right into the face. That's running in Kerry for you - and it does have its advantages, like it did in Bangor when everyone else was complaining about the conditions and the race had been in danger of being cancelled for health and safety reasons, and I just spooled off lap after lap with my head down, being well used to running in this.

My achilles has been very good and basically unnoticeable until it suddenly hurt quite a bit on the last mile today, a sharp pain out of nowhere and without notice. That's a bummer, but I'm hopeful that this was just a short episode and not a sign of a real setback.

4 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:22, 7:48 pace, HR 140

5 Oct

10 miles, 1:17:15, 7:43 pace, HR 143

6 Oct

12 miles, 1:33:53, 7:49 pace, HR 141

Down In A Hole

Oops, is it really four days already since my last update? Problem is the same as usual, I’m running out of things to say, at least things that I haven’t said plenty of times before.

The good news is that after a lot of slow easy short runs I can finally feel that I’m starting to climb out of that hole that I managed to dig myself into. The legs had not felt the same ever since that 17 mile run death march 11 days ago, but today, finally, I started to feel good again during a run, hallelujah.

Looking back at the data for the past three days I can see that my HR has been higher than I would have expected. I was not sure where that was coming from, even compared to last week this is elevated and I’m not fighting off any infection as far as I can tell and I am not unduly stressed. But MC seems to take this as a very good sign and managed to alleviate my worries. Funnily enough the data for Tuesday and Thursday is virtually identical, and yet I felt fairly crap on Tuesday and great this morning, which goes to show that HRM data alone only tells you part of the story.

The one thing that was particularly noticeable on Tuesday was the number of midges out there, it was just unreal. There must have been millions of the little tormentors beside the lake, for a while I was running with my mouth closed to stop inhaling the beasts and I still ended up with a few of them down my throat, never mind being covered in a few dozen of them when I got home. Yuck.

So, with the legs finally feeling better, I am actually looking forward to running again, something that was not always true over the last couple of weeks. I still told Niamh that I would skip the Valentia half marathon. As much as I’d love to run it, I just know I would start racing as soon as the gun went off and fall right back into that overtraining hole I’m presently trying to climb out of. Maybe next year.

Ohm and the Achilles feels much, much better. The discomfort is completely gone, and the stiffness first thing in the morning is almost gone. I'm pretty pretty hopeful that this might resolve itself completely sooner rather than later.

30 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:24, 8:03 pace, HR 138

1 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:32, 7:49 pace, HR 143

2 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:22, 7:55 pace, HR 141

3 Oct

8 miles, 1:02:35, 7:49 pace, HR 143

More Of The Same, Part 361

I'm going to run out of things to say very soon; running short and easy runs day in day out isn't quite as exciting as watching paint dry in the long term, but that's what I'm doing at the moment and that's what I will be doing for a few more weeks at least.

It took until Wednesday or Thursday to lift that extra weight from the leg muscles, until then I felt like I was carrying something round with me. That 17 mile long run from last Sunday will stay in my memory for quite some time to come, that's for sure; it knocked me right out of my stride. By now I'm definitely feeling better and running is starting to feel like fun again, but I'm trying to keep the pace to the same easy effort.

The one exception (there's always one, I know) was this morning. I'm not sure if it happened because I went out a bit later than usual or because I had been watching the Berlin marathon beforehand and some of Wilson Kipsang's magic had gotten to me, but even though I could have sworn I was still running at the same effort level I was going 15 seconds per mile faster. Saturday's very short run might have had something to do with it as well, I only had time for 5 miles because Niamh was once more galavanting at the other side of Ireland leaving me home alone with a gaggle of kids to mind and babysitters were hard to come by (and I'm definitely the only person I know who gets babysitters to go running rather than drinking eating), but general consensus amongst the brood is that Mummy should go away more often because it's more fun with Daddy (Daddy disagrees btw, I can't cope with them on my own, plus those babysitters are getting expensive).

This was a very easy week, with more of the same to come, and yet this is exactly what I need to get ready for a much longer race. Running is a funny thing.

27 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:52, 7:59 pace, HR 135

28 Sep

5+ miles, 40:21, 8:01 pace, HR 133

29 Sep

10 miles, 1:17:32, 7:45 pace, HR 146

Weekly Mileage: 57

Post Crash Recovery

My legs haven't felt great ever since Sunday's disaster of a long run. And to think that I thought I was taking it particularly easy that day by running slowly and staying off the hills!

All I have done since then was running slowly and not very far. At first I was very annoyed with myself for letting myself get into this state, but I compared my paces and heart rates to 3 years ago, when I was training for Vienna, as well as last year, and the numbers are actually looking pretty good in comparison, so I'm probably not in as bad a state as I might feel right now. Not that it's all that great - my quads are hurting even after an 8 mile run, and when I tried running a tad longer on Wednesday I could tell the added strain straight away, even though the effort had been very easy all along.

Luckily my real goal race is still almost 10 months away, so I'm not exactly in a rush. When he coached me for Vienna, I do remember getting a bit frustrated with MC's training after 2 or 3 months of basically nothing but easy running, it started to become rather boring, but I don't think I'll forget the way I'm feeling right now any time soon and this will serve as a warning for quite some time.

I'm not sure what to do about the Valentia half in 2 weeks time, if I feel recovered I might run it as a tempo run, or I might skip it (and if I run it as a tempo run, I know perfectly well that I might be unable to resist racing it), but I'd definitely hate missing it. I love Valentia and it always feels like a second home to me. Ah well, I guess it's a bit early to fret about it right now.

23 Sep

8 miles, 1:06:19, 8:17 pace, HR 132

24 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:47, 8:06 pace, HR 134

25 Sep

10 miles, 1:20:43, 8:04 pace, HR 134

26 Sep

8 miles, 1:04:52, 8:07 pace, HR 133

Emergency Brakes

I got my knuckles rapped virtually by Mystery Coach, who obviously still keeps an eye on my blog. He has dropped the odd pearl of wisdom my way, whenever he thinks I'm messing up too much to ignore; this time it took less than 4 weeks for him to ring the alarm bells - blimey.

At the root of the problem is what he thinks is a miscalculation of mine. I assumed that after doing no speed work all summer this had served as my base training and I was ready to move to the next phase. Not so, apparently. Running very long distances has a very similar exhausting effect on your muscle fibres as big speed workouts and I need to step back.

After a routine 10 mile run on Thursday I did another faster run on Friday (that was prior to the aforementioned intervention). I felt reasonably good, the pace was 10 seconds per mile faster that 2 weeks ago, but at the same time it was 20 seconds per mile slower than during the 10k pacing job. Back then 6:20-ish pace had felt reasonably comfortable, on Friday I was straining to run 6:40 pace. Maybe 5 seconds difference can be explained by the racing shoes, the rest is all in the head, I figured.

But, as I said, at that point MC pulled the emergency cord. I thought I was being good by splitting Saturday into 2 runs, on the assumption that 2 5-mile runs are less strenuous than one 10 miler. The effort was easy on both counts, though I was really surprised to see sub 7:30 pace in the evening. It's not all that unusual, I have seen faster paces for similar efforts before on the rare occasions when I run in the evening.

After such an apparently easy Saturday I expected an easy ride on Sunday, especially as I decided to move away from the hilly Caragh Lake road in order to protect my Achilles. I ran very easily and felt very good until the wheels started coming off somewhere around 9 or 10 miles. My guess was that I was running out of glycogen; I had not eaten before running (I never do) and it was slightly later than usual, so that seemed to make sense. I tried to convince myself that running in a depleted state was excellent ultra training, but in the end cut the run short by a mile and was back home after 17 miles, only barely faster than 8-minute pace (and it had felt a lot tougher than that!). MC seems to disagree with the low glycogen theory, but whatever the cause for today's crash, I guess I'll have to take it a bit easier for a bit.

19 Sep

10 miles, 1:19:04, 7:54 pace, HR 139

20 Sep

10 miles, 1:10:34, 7:03 pace, HR 154
   incl. 8 miles @ 6:42 pace (HR 160)

21 Sep

am: 5 miles, 38:43, 7:44 pace, HR 138
pm: 5 miles, 37:15, 7:27 pace, HR 141

22 Sep

17 miles, 2:15:15, 7:57 pace, HR 140

Weekly Mileage: 82+

Climbing

There was no soreness on Sunday after Saturday’s swift 9.75 km, but the legs had definitely lost their spring. I did not feel bad as I started out on my long run, but I had absolutely no zip in my legs and was content to slog along at a rather sedate pace. Admittedly, the fact that I was running straight into the gale force wind had something to do with it as well, it just was not the day for breaking records. I did speed up for the last 5 or 6 miles, because that’s what I always do, and also because the wind was finally at my back.

There still is not much zip in the old legs, but I think that’s still mostly down to Connemara rather than that faster pace on Saturday. I keep reminding myself that I ran 100 miles only 5 weeks ago. However, the HRM gave a couple of nice surprises on Monday and Tuesday. It has been a while since I have seen figures in the 130s, so progress is being made even if I'm not really able to tell from subjective feelings alone.

I had a sore throat on Tuesday first thing in the morning. I wasn’t sure if it was the same bug that had caused a few minor issues last week, but since the HR was unaffected that day I guess it’s a new one. It’s the time of the year for colds of course, half the office is coughing and it’s no surprise when I do pick up the odd sniffle.

Wednesday morning saw the return of a rare beast, namely a midweek long-ish run. It required an early rise and it was pitch dark outside when I left home, so I brought the reflective clothing as well as a headlamp along, for the first time this year. A couple of days later I would have had the moon for company but today it meant a dark run in the rain. I better get used to that, I suppose.

The legs were rather sluggish again, but more worryingly I felt my left Achilles again. This has never gone away completely over the summer, but it had gone down to “barely noticeable”, or 1/10. Today the last couple of miles felt rather uncomfortable. It was back to basically unnoticeable for the rest of the day, though. I'm pretty sure it’s the climbing that causes the Achilles to act up, and I have just run the very hilly loop around Caragh Lake three times in 10 days and twice in 4 days. That’s a bit of a problem because I firmly believe in strengthening the legs by running uphill. For now I have restarted my usual strengthening routine, namely eccentric calf raises, which has worked very well in the past, and hope for the best.

15 Sep

18+ miles, 2:24:00, 7:57 pace, HR 143

16 Sep

10 miles, 1:19:00, 7:54 pace, HR 136

17 Sep

10 miles, 1:16:39, 7:39 pace, HR 139

18 Sep

15+ miles, 1:58:55, 7:53 pace, HR 141

Last week’s mileage: 80+

Run Like A Girl

Let me confess straight away, I am not a great fan of the Women's Mini marathons. Road running has always been a very inclusive sport for everyone, helped by its accessibility, so to exclude half the population for gender reasons does not sit all that well with me. I get it that some women don't feel comfortable running with men, I still don't like the exclusion.

As I was standing at the start line today at noon, I was feeling slightly uncomfortable for 2 reasons. One, because a male in this environment just didn't fit, two, because pacing 40 minutes seemed a fairly tough task. When Catriona had asked me 3 weeks ago if I would pace it, my first question had been if she really wanted a male pacer, which she insisted on (in fact, all pacers today were male), and my second was for her to wait a couple of weeks until I could confirm (or not) if I would be able to run fast enough, still only 5 weeks after destroying my legs over 100 miles in Connemara. I did a test earlier this week, expecting to fail, but I came through so I confirmed my participation and as a result found myself surrounded by femininity as the gun went off.

I had checked last year's result when 3 women had run faster than 40 minutes and knew perfectly well that I might be in for a lonely run. Three ladies took off faster than me but I caught 2 of them on the first hill, still within the first kilometre, but at least the leading lady looked fast and comfortable enough to ensure that I would not be the first across the line, thank goodness.

Some of the km markers might have been slightly off, which did not help the pacing job. According to my Garmin I should have had a couple of seconds cushion at the first km but was 10 seconds behind and I was still 4 seconds slow at km 2. We went up Knockreer hill (hey, nobody mentioned I would have to run a hill!) and by km 4 I passed the markers a couple of seconds ahead of time. Unfortunately I was pretty much running in nowhere land with the first lady a minute ahead of me and the second a minute behind, so I don't think anyone really benefited from my pacing today. I could not slow down to assist the runner behind me, that's not how it works if you're pacing a certain time.

I felt surprisingly comfortable at that pace and always knew that running under 40 minutes was never in question. I was able to admire the beautiful surroundings (coming over the hill and looking at Loch Leane was particularly stunning) and enjoy the beautifully sunny day, which I could not have done had I been racing all out.

I passed all markers between km 6 and 9 about 20 seconds ahead of time, just where I would want to be, so I was confident I'd be just a few seconds under 40, but when the finish line drew close I realised that there was a slight problem, namely a short course. Even the announcer noticed ("you better slow down mate") but I wasn't going to wait in front of the line for a minute just for time's sake so jogged home and finished in about 38:40. I think the course was about 250 meters short, and Catriona confirmed that they had not been allowed to put the finish gantry where they had planned (at least I think that's what she said). The other pacers came home about a minute too early as well, and my Garmin said 6.1 miles, Chris's said 6.07 and Sean's even less, so yes, it was not an accurate course.

Ah well. I still enjoyed running a bit faster today and all the ladies I saw seemed to really enjoy themselves and treasure the achievement.

Oh, and thanks to Anne for giving her medal to Maia. She was thrilled!

12 Sep

10 miles, 1:18:16, 7:50 pace, HR 149

13 Sep

10 miles, 1:18:19, 7:50 pace, HR 144

14 Sep

am: 5 miles, 41:26, 8:16 pace, HR 132
pm: 7+ miles, including Killarney women's mini marathon in 38:40, HR 173

Don't Guess it, Test It

Monday was rather mundane, just another 10 mile run. The legs felt heavy after Sunday’s long run, but I was pleasantly surprised by the low HR; If I go by pace for HR, it was my best training run since Connemara.

On Tuesday morning I did a test run; I wanted to find out if I would be able to pace a 40 minutes 10k on Saturday. To be honest, I fully expected the answer to be “no”, but gave it a try anyway. The original idea was to run 2 miles at a good pace and see what the result was, but when it was windy on Monday evening I decided to run 2 separate sections, one in each direction, to make sure the wind would not have much influence on the test.  I just made that sound much more complicated than it was, basically I ran one fast mile in one direction and 2 in the other, separated by one easy mile, with the usual warm up and cool down on either end. The result was a mile at 6:23 pace and 2 miles at 6:20 pace, so I guess the answer is that I should indeed be able to pace a 40 minutes 10k on Saturday.

I felt surprisingly good on Wednesday morning, so I pushed a little bit harder and the pace was a little bit quicker than usual, though it was all very controlled.

Despite being able to run quicker than expected, I'm actually not feeling 100% at the moment, I had a sore throat on Tuesday and just did not feel all that great throughout the day. I don’t know if it was a misbehaving A/C at work (it was absolutely freezing all day in the office) or if I got a touch of whatever Shea had last week (he missed school on Friday), but as long as it doesn't get any worse than it is right now I’ll just ignore it.

9 Sep

10 miles, 1:18:10, 7:49 pace, HR 139

10 Sep

8 miles, 58:43, 7:20 pace, HR 151
     incl. 1 mile @ 6:23 (HR 163), 2 miles @ 6:20 (HR 170)

11 Sep

12 miles, 1:29:17, 7:26 pace, HR 150

Over The Hills And Far Away

The second week of my training has gone well, though my heart bled at the weekend because I was missing out on the Dingle marathon/ultra for the first time since its inception. Congratulations to Sean Brosnan, who happens to be the only man to overtake me on the ultra course last year, for winning it this year. Maybe I can give him a run for his money next year.

There is a lot of running to be done before I get back into race shape, but at least I can feel the improvements, and of course they also show up in the numbers. If I apply the old rule of thumb of one day of recovery time for each mile raced I will feel back in shape by the time Sixmilebridge comes around, just like last year then.

I did another fast run on Friday and it went much, much better than the previous week. The effort was the same but the pace was over 20 seconds per mile faster. If I manage to cut another 30 or so seconds off that I'll be happy, but let's be patient.

The legs felt surprisingly sprightly on Saturday which is why I was back home within the hour for my 8 mile run, but I did have to pay the price eventually on Sunday's long run, when the legs had that sluggish, heavy feeling from the very first step. I did not make things easier by taking a wrong turn and running 1.5 extra miles for my usual route around Caragh Lake when I had planned on taking the shorter option. I only noticed over on hour later when the Garmin said 9 miles at Blackstone Bridge, which initially confused the hell out of me and it took a while to figure it out. Ah well, I have only done this run a few hundred times, I can't possibly be expected to know all the turns already.

The long climbs up into the hills on the eastern side of the lake went surprisingly well, considering it was my first visit back in some time, but the last few miles definitely started to drag and the pace was always slower than I would have hoped for. There is still plenty of room for improvement.

5 Sep

8 miles, 1:02:09, 7:46 pace, HR 145

6 Sep

10 miles, 1:10:59, 7:06 pace, HR 155
   incl 8 miles @ 6:52 pace (HR 160)

7 Sep

8 miles, 59:29, 7:26 pace, HR 149

8 Sep

16.6 miles, 2:08:45, 7:45 pace, HR 148

Weekly Mileage: 69.6

Till The Cows Come Home

After feeling like standing still for the first week, progress is now definitely being made. I can see it on the Garmin as the pace is quicker and the HR is down, but much more importantly I can feel it in the legs, they seem to be much bouncier after feeling downright awkward a week ago and I'm already back to running 10 miles in the morning without batting an eyelid.

The only incident of note happened on Tuesday. On the outward bound there was a cow on the road, but it scampered quickly as I approached. However, on the way back home she must have gathered the entire gang as there were at least a dozen heifers basically blocking my way. Some of them moved as I approached but at least 3 of them stood their ground and eyed me rather suspiciously, with a rather disapproving look on their faces. I decided the best approach was to slow right down and slowly jog past on the other side of the road. There was a nervy moment when one of them snorted loudly, but then I was safely past. And if you think I'm being silly, have a look here or here or here or here or here. (And if anyone is surprised by any of this it just shows their ignorance. I grew up in the country side and won't ever forget the warnings about cows they hammered into us, though they were usually warning us off bulls).

Monday morning looked rather miserable with the drizzly rain hanging in the air like a curtain but it has been really nice since, which is of course the traditional nice spell of weather as school begins. It is definitely getting darker, at the moment the sun only just about rises above the hills on the last couple of miles. Winter will be here soon enough, though here in Ireland that usually just means that the rain is going to be a little bit colder than during summer.

The upload from the Garmin is back as of today. After trying a lot of things in the end I had to do a hard reset, which wipes all data off the Garmin, and reconfigure it from scratch. Today's run uploaded just fine. Ah well. It's still better than the damn thing giving up its ghost entirely.

2 Sep

8 miles, 1:03:25, 7:56 pace, HR 142

3 Sep

9 miles, 1:10:03, 7:47 pace, HR 141

4 Sep

10 miles, 1:16:49, 7:41 pace, HR 142

Progress

I admit I was starting to lose patience, but things are definitely improving already, still only one week into training. While I should not get carried away just yet, it's nice to see a 7 for the pace rather than an 8.

My main source of troubles is that damn Garmin at the moment. I does work fine when on my wrist but utterly refuses to upload the data into the computer, which can be rather frustrating as I do hope to get some pointers regarding training from analysing the run. I've tried a few things and will see if it starts behaving again tomorrow.

I have often used Friday as a faster day in base training, though at a restrained effort. I was not entirely sure if running faster only one week into training was such a good idea, but frankly I wanted to move faster for a change and was very much looking forward to it. The run itself was rather frustrating, though. I could of course claim that I held back because after all I was only at the start of training, but in reality I ran pretty much as fast as I could, it just happened to be rather slowly. It's rather telling that the average HR was rather low at 156; the body (or maybe it was the brain) just refused to give any more.

However, I did notice the very next morning that the legs seemed ready to move again and I just felt a bit bouncier than before. Most of the run was just another 8 miler bit I did add a few strides towards the end. Now if only I remembered to do that more often ...

12 miles on Sunday doesn't really qualify for a long run, but it just did not look like a great idea to run longer. I managed to move at a decent clip at a reasonable heart rate (for that stage of training that is, obviously) but my legs felt rather tired and sore afterwards, much more so than I thought they would; doing gardening work might have contributed as well, though.

All in all I'm happy enough. This is early days, very very early in fact and things will improve a lot over teh next few weeks and months.

30 Aug

10 miles, 1:14:16, 7:25 pace, HR 156
   incl. 8 miles @ 7:13 pace (HR 160)

31 Aug

8 miles, 1:02:10, 7:46 pace, HR 146

1 Sep

12 miles, 1:30:53, 7:34 pace, HR 147

Weekly Mileage: 62