Friday, April 08, 2016

Manchester Taper

Tapering. I have to be honest, I'm not a great fan of it. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that it gets the fatigue out of your system, but running no more than 5 miles a day in the last week and even taking a whole day off *gasp* is just not me.

On the other hand I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I used to go to Manchester several times a year, even if I usually only saw the area between Piccadilly and Maine Road, but I haven't been back to Eastlands since August 2003 when David Sommeil headed in a last-minute equaliser against newly-promoted Portsmouth (which was just about Sleepy's only positive contribution all season), and I'm looking forward to Saturday's match against West Brom just as much as I do to the marathon the following day. I can't believe I left it almost 13 years. That almost as bad as some of Un***d's bandwagon jumpers.

The magic number for the weekend is 3. 3 goals for City, sub-3 marathon for me. Let's see.

The standard in Manchester is just phenomenal. The 3:05 that was good enough for 4th place in Tralee would have been 651st in Manchester last year, and that's despite Manchester being only a couple of weeks before the London marathon! The only marathon I've ever done with a similar class field was Boston. Make no mistake, having so many quality runners on the road is a good thing and might help me (at least on a good day).

There is an online tracker, and a mobile version of the same.

Training this week is really just barely enough to keep me ticking over and doesn't deserve to be called that. 5 miles on Tuesday were followed by the same on Wednesday, though with a few fast strides towards the end. Thursday was off (I hated Thursday). Friday was barely a warm-up and in a few hours I'll hop into the car for Dublin and then the plane to Manchester, meeting up with one-man-running-club, ace photographer and fellow City fan Marty.

Here we go.

All the best to anyone running in Manchester, Rotterdam, Connemara or anywhere else for that matter!
5 Apr
5 miles, 40:27, 8:05 pace, HR 138
6 Apr
5 miles, 39:25, 7:53 pace, HR 143
7 Apr
0
8 Apr
3 miles, 24:57, 8:19 pace, HR 131

5 comments:

  1. Best of luck at the weekend Thomas. I've enjoyed following your running journey over the years, it's provided plenty of motivation for my own modest level of running. Keep it up.
    Brendan

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  2. No regrets Thomas, empty that tank and let's see the end result. Go n'eiri an bothar leat�

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  3. Take some moments to enjoy, before, during and after. Best of luck, Thomas.

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