Thursday, May 31, 2012

Up And Down

Thankfully my spell of sickness was very short lived; by Tuesday evening I was already feeling a little bit better and after a good night's sleep I was a new man. I ran my usual 8 mile route and added a small extra to pick up the car we had left at the restaurant the night before - it's always good to prove to the good lady wife that having a runner in the house has its advantages. I felt really good and was delighted that the Cork marathon was definitely back on.

I was optimistic enough to immediately plan a longer run around the lake. It meant yet another very early rise, despite already operating on a sleep deficit at the moment, but the weather had been so nice recently that I never minded getting up early; it basically meant an extra hour of sunshine.

I heard some rain against the window at some stage. No matter, they did predict the occasional scattered shower. Imagine my dismay when it was raining when I got up, and we are definitely not talking scattered shower here, these were full blown miserable conditions once more. Of course I ran anyway. You don't get to run much in Ireland if rain puts you off.

Higher up on the hills the weather added a nasty headwind to the misery, but that was as bad as it got. It even stopped raining for a while, eventually, though that did not last. What was more of a problem was the very flat feeling in my legs. Was it a very delayed reaction from Monday's mountain run? I had felt great on Wednesday, so those dead legs came as a bit of a surprise. Having said that, when I started pushing the effort a bit more, they did respond but the HR started to climb into far higher levels that it should have.

I guess it means I should take it easier again until Cork, which is only 4 days away after all. A 3:15 marathon sounds very much like routine at this stage, but you still have to respect the distance. I'm quite looking forward to it. There should be plenty of friendly and familiar faces in the 3:15 group.

30 May
8.65 miles, 1:06:46, 7:43 pace, HR 142
31 May
16.6 miles, 2:06:45, 7:38 pace, HR 152

7 comments:

  1. Another marathon, I've lost count... you're mad!

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    1. Mad or not, I find pacing marathons to be excellent training runs.

      And I enjoy it.

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  2. The flat feeling is likely to be associated with the virus that brought you down earlier in the week, adding extra physical stresses too early in recovery is risk factor so worth being extra cautious about.

    Good luck with the Marathon.

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  3. As long as you recover from the cold/flu completely you should be back to normal in no time. You run these 3:15's with ease and it amazes me. I think your high weekly totals help a lot to keep you so strong.

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  4. Nice post. Only took me 2 minutes to read ;)

    Yes, take it easy over the next few days. I see that'll make 6 pacing marathons in a row. When's your next racing marathon?

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    1. Well, I DID race a couple of ultras in the mean time, and the next race is another ultra (or two [or three]).

      The plan is to race another marathon in spring 2013.

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    2. OK. Spring 2013 sounds good. I was just thinking that by doing all these marathons as a pacer you're sacrificing the possibility of an unexpected PB. Like RJR who has been running all these marathons just to run one in every state and unexpectedly ran a PB last week. http://www.cowboyhazel.com/blog/

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