Darkness Falls

Who turned off the lights? Tuesday morning I ran through Clonkeen Park and was tempted to stop for a photo because it looked so pretty with the morning mist at sunrise. Two days later, at the same time, the entire place was still pitch black. I'm pretty sure the heavy cloud cover had a lot to do with that change but still! Obviously, that same cloud cover turned into heavy rain later on, not that a few rain drops particularly bothered me. I've spent more than enough of time in Kerry to get used to that.

As for my body, it seems to thrive on the higher mileage. I hit 80+ miles last week and the legs seem to respond. The "heavy legs" days seem to became rare and the "feeling good" days are taking over. It's not all perfect, though, it never is. I can feel the asthma during the early miles on at least half of my runs. The good news is that I always get enough oxygen for 8-minute miles, and the pressure in my chest seems to lift after a while. Most of my runs follow the same pattern, a very slow starting mile, gradually picking it up and getting towards some decent pace near the end. I got down to about 7-minute pace the other day feeling perfectly comfortable, the same pace I struggled to keep for that ominous parkrun a few weeks ago, and this time I didn't feel the need for an ambulance

Still, a few years ago my marathon pace was still over 20 seconds per mile faster than that, and I'm a long away away from that - not that I'm training for a fast marathon, but I sure liked being in that kind of shape.

I'm particularly happy how the legs responded to running twice on Thursday. I was a bit worried they'd be heavy for a while but that was not the case. Following that, Sunday's long run itself wasn't particularly great but didn't seem to tax me at all - Monday was the best day in weeks!

I'm definitively getting some consistency back into my training. I think that had been lacking for a while. Maybe that's the missing ingredient.

Anyway, I have a very heavy load ahead of me on the weekend. When living in Kerry I would never have considered a marathon in Monaghan, it's an insanely long drive. Now that I'm based in Dublin, the entire island seems to have shrunk into acceptable range and I'm looking forward to adding another county to my marathon list. Plus, they have a food festival on at the same weekend - perfect! That's the recovery sorted already.

22 Sep

9.25 miles, 1:14:55, 8:05 pace, HR 142

23 Sep

9.25 miles, 1:14:37, 8:03 pace, HR 147

24 Sep

18.5 miles, 2:33:55, 8:19 pace, HR 141

25 Sep

9.1 miles, 1:12:38, 7:58 pace, HR 139

26 Sep

9.2 miles, 1:14:07, 8:03 pace, HR 144

27 Sep

9.2 miles, 1:12:53, 7:55 pace, HR 144