Things Come In Threes

A friend of mine insists that bad things always come in threes, which is a really Irish thing to say. I don't believe in any of that crap but it made me think of him, so when I had my bike stolen and my job been put on the line on the same Tuesday morning I did wonder what other thing he would have added to make up the triple. Turns out, on that occasion he would have been perfectly right as Niamh called me later that day with the news that the washing machine had broken down. There you go.

Nevertheless, life goes on as normal. The washing machine is fixed already. The job may or may not continue, and if it doesn't I might get some redundancy payment that should last until I find a new one. And the bike was almost 10 years old with 1000s of miles of wear and tear, very much on its last legs and desperately needed replacing anyway - I very much doubt the scumbags got much for their loot. It's not the monetary loss that's the issue here - cycling is by far the fastest option to get into town and in around town as well, and not having a bike is a bloody inconvenience.

As it so happens, I had been planning on running twice a day on a few more occasions anyway, so with my most convenient commuting option gone I seized the moment and ran both in and out of work on Wednesday and Thursday. That's about 18.5 miles per day, but much easier than an 18+ mile long run in one go would have been.

Or at least so I thought.

What happened was that it went very well on Wednesday as well as Thursday morning, apart from the fact that the numbers looked much better in the evening than for the morning runs. However, as soon as I started Thursday's evening run I knew it wouldn't be much fun as the legs felt very tired. I hoped they'd come round after 2 or 3 miles but what actually happened was that I stumbled over a non-existing obstacle and face-planted. That happens only when you're tired, don't lift the legs properly and just shuffle along. I also banged up my knee, which I didn't notice until it stung in the shower later on, though there was no actual damage done.

Having said that, Friday morning was actually worse. The legs may have felt the same level of tiredness and I avoided any more accidents but when I got home and saw the numbers I realised that I had slowed down by almost a mile a minute! Yikes!

Now I was worried. I had only run 2 doubles, one more than 2 weeks ago, so it's not THAT much of a step up, is it? I had kept the effort easy, so I expected to be able to handle it. I guess I had not yet recovered fully from Monaghan, though I had not noticed any issues for the last 7 days. Was I due a break?

Well, as it happens, the luxury of 25 hours of recovery between runs seems to make all the difference. I went out on Saturday, back home in Kerry, to test out the legs and if they had felt tired I'd have gone back home straight away. However, quite to my surprise, I actually felt pretty good and kept going. I did limit myself to 8 miles in an attempt not to overdo it (again), but those 8 miles went very well, despite the strong wind not making things any easier. Still, I need to keep an eye on that, there's a hole somewhere that I don't want to dig myself into again.

11 Oct

am: 9.3 miles, 1:15:10, 8:04 pace, HR 143

pm: 9.2 miles, 1:12:39, 7:53 pace, HR 137

12 Oct

am: 9.25 miles, 1:13:17, 7:55 pace, HR 138

pm: 9.2 miles, 1:15:01, 8:09 pace, HR 135

13 Oct

7.2 miles, 1:03:06, 8:45 pace, HR 135

14 Oct

8 miles, 1:03:29, 7:56 pace, HR 141