Countdown

The marathon countdown has now reached single digits, and there’s no doubt about it. It’s getting close.

The main thing I noticed the last two days when I left for my run was that: the sky is immensely beautiful. Yesterday I stepped out of our house to look up in wonder. On the right was the moon, on my left bright Venus, and after looking for a few seconds I could make out a number of stars, and Orion was straight ahead of me, all stars perfectly visible despite dawn getting quite bright. I stood there staring for half a minute, until a second sensation became overwhelming: it was freezing cold, about 2C/35F. I did wear my gloves but shorts and t-shirt, and while that is usually good enough when running at a decent pace, just standing there nearly turned me into an icicle, and I had to set off. I jogged for half a mile, then I thought I’m still cold and increased the pace by a lot, just to keep warm. Actually, the cold was an excuse, and I knew it even back then. I wanted an excuse to run faster than recovery pace, because after Wednesday’s workout I needed some reassurance that I can still run at a decent pace. So I tuned into marathon pace. I hit it too, and it didn’t feel too hard either. On my way back home, from about the 3 miles point, I did start to question myself, not only if running MP at that stage was really such a clever idea, but also how I would be able to sustain that for 25 miles rather than 5. I got slightly reassured when I reached home, because the second 2.5 miles stretch had only taken me 17:55, 7:10 pace exactly. I thought back to the back-to-back marathon pace efforts when I usually struggled to reach 7:15 pace and more often than not ended up with 7:25. Today 7:10 felt much easier. Maybe not while I was running, then it had felt tough enough. But once I stopped and calculated my pace, my mind decided that it had felt easy. Easy enough for 26 miles? Who knows.

Today was a slightly more restrained effort, but since I left home before even 6 o’clock, the night was still very dark and the sky looked even more impressive. I love running beneath the moon and the stars, and it was so bright that I even left the headlamp at home, despite my intentions to run the trails of the Kerry Way. Again I stared up transfixed for a minute when I stepped through the door, and again the cold eventually forced me to move on. The run was magical, the legs felt fast and swift, and climbing about 215m/700ft in elevation did not feel particularly tough either. I love it when climbing feels so manageable (I won’t pretend that it felt easy). After the trail portion I was back on the undulating 5 miles alongside Caragh Lake on my way back home that are part of my long runs, and I increased the pace for a bit. I timed myself for the last 3, and covered them in 22:26 (7:29 pace). It was strange to run with the HR seemingly stuck at 141 and knowing that I was covering the ground at 7:30 pace. I don’t know what HR I can run at the marathon, probably around 160, though I will run by feel, not dictated by the HRM, and with so many beats to spare, things are looking good.

Apart from the fact that I’ve got a sore throat! It started to bother me yesterday, and today it’s worse. I’m absolutely determined not to let this develop into anything else. I could dismiss it as one of those phantom pains that always develop during the taper, but Niamh is complaining too. I started taking Echinacea and vitamins, and considering the fact that I can’t remember the last time I was actually sick, I won’t get sick in the last week before the marathon. No I will not.

Tomorrow is a rest day. Zero mileage, shock, horror. If the world comes to an end, you know why.

27 Sep

5 miles, 37:11, 7:26 pace, HR 150
last 2.5 in 17:55 (7:10 pace)

28 Sep

12.25 very hilly miles, 1:38:20, 8:01 pace, HR 145
last 3 in 22:26 (7:29 pace)

Counting the Days

I think I’m still reasonably sane, considering that I’m in the middle of the taper by now. At least Niamh hasn’t commented on any mood swings or similar behaviour as of yet. I am getting the familiar butterflies in the stomach whenever I think of the marathon, but that’s to be expected.

There isn’t much to say about the recent running. I did 5 easy miles on Tuesday, which were fine apart from the freezing cold rain that caught me in the middle. Autumn is definitely here, but since we never really had a summer, that’s not saying much. Today, with 11 days to go before the race, I tried to run my last interval workout, but that didn’t go very well. I had originally planned to do this tomorrow, but a post from Mystery Coach had specifically mentioned day 11 for this, and who am I to argue with the voice of wisdom? I felt quite good and expected a good workout, and 3x1 miles with 2 minutes rest were on the menu. When the first mile went through in 6:03, I was pretty happy. Unfortunately, things went downhill quickly from there on, mile 2 took 6:11, which was a bit of a downer, but I completely crashed and burned on the last one. I knew from the first step that it wouldn’t go well because the legs were heavy and tired from the word go, but to run it in 6:23 was still a bit of a blow. I guess I ran the first one too fast, but still. This kind of slowdown was ridiculous. It wasn’t due to a lack of trying, the heart rate reached 180 on each of the three repeats. If it’s a sign of a bad day, tired legs despite the easy days or a glaring lack of stamina, I don’t know, but since it’s too late to do anything about it now, I’ll try to purge today’s events from memory. After all, I’m going to run 26.2 consecutive miles, not 3 miles at all-out effort, and those are two entirely different things, right?

And now for something completely different, my car refused to start last Thursday. I guess after 15 years of service (only the last one for me) that tends to happen, but the engine is still in good shape, and I hope the starter motor can be fixed without much ado, because a new one would not be worth it. Niamh drove me to work on Thursday, Friday and Monday, but yesterday I took Niamh’s bike and her purple cycling helmet and cycled into work instead. The 5 miles took me 22 minutes each way, which is faster than expected, and if I hadn’t been caught in a short but hefty rain shower yesterday morning, it would have been an even better experience. I have been thinking about cycling to work for quite some time. I couldn’t do it last year because I had to deliver Cian to his crèche, but he’s going to a different place this year which is not on my way, and there was nothing to stop me apart from my own lethargy. I realise that it’s not the ideal time to start cycling, this being the beginning of autumn and the marathon less than two weeks away, but it was kind of forced on me by the circumstances. I hope to have the car back by the end of the week, and I’ll drive to work next week, but after that I’m seriously contemplating switching to the bike for most days. We’ll see.

For the time being I’m blaming today's bad workout on the additional fatigue brought on by the unaccustomed bike ride. Actually I have no idea if 2x22 minutes on the bike would have any effect whatsoever, but I like that excuse anyway.

25 Sep

5 miles, 42:57, 8:35 pace, HR 133

26 Sep

7.5 miles, 58:33, 7:48 pace, HR 150
incl. 3x1 mile in 6:03, 6:11, 6:23

Where I'd Rather Be

Places I could have been on Saturday:

• -in Killorglin, running a 10k. How typical is that? They finally organise a 10k just outside my doorstep, and I’m not here. I would have won it, too.
  
• -in Dublin, running the half marathon. To be honest, this one was too close to the Loch Ness marathon to be a realistic alternative.
  
• -in London, Craven Cottage to be more precise, to watch the match between Fulham and Man City, for which I had been offered free tickets. A cracking match it turned out to be, too.
  
• -in Tralee, at a colleague’s bbq. Perfect weather they had, too.
  

Instead we had to drive all the way to Slane, County Meath, where Niamh’s brother got married. They were incredibly lucky with the weather, Friday and Sunday were foul, Saturday was perfect. The ceremony was nice, the food was good, the people there were relaxed, happy and casual, and yet … constantly having to keep an eye on your three children means you can never relax and enjoy the party. But, having total strangers come up to you and mention how incredibly beautiful your children are, feels nice.

Niamh’s least favourite moment: her older sister coming up to her, looking at her bump and shouting out loud “Oh my God, you’re so enormous!! This can’t possibly get any bigger!!!” No, Niamh’s sister isn’t very good on tact. She also doesn’t know much about pregnancy, apparently.

Running wise, I went on two runs in Dublin, both by time rather than mileage, but I guess they were all at around 8:00 pace. People in South Dublin are still as aloof as ever, a “good morning” never gets a reply, no matter how cheerful I try to sound. With one notable exception I was completely ignored, but one guy greeted me with something like “Good morning, lad. You’re up very early”, which almost bowled me over because it was so unexpected.

We drove back on Sunday, and I fully intended to run 9 miles today with 4 faster miles in the middle, maybe even an exchange workout of I felt really good. However, the weather overnight was beyond dreadful, I woke up several times and it sounded like the wind and rain were just about to blow in the windows. I decided to skip running in that mini-hurricane and turned off the alarm, but had troubles sleeping in, mostly because Cian was there in bed with us, and he kept kicking me in the kidneys every couple of minutes. I got up eventually, noticed that the rain had stopped, and went out for 5 quick miles. To liven up the time I ran one mile in a sprint/float fashion, which is reported to be a great workout for sharpening. I covered that mile in 6:17, though the time isn’t particularly meaningful when run like that. The legs felt fine but the lungs let me know that this was way beyond the usual limits. It took a long time to get my breath back afterwards.

I realise now that the weather had done me a favour. The marathon is less than 2 weeks away, and I have to seriously cut the mileage. My mind isn’t in tapering mode yet, and somehow still thinks that 10 miles are fine for an easy day. I’m planning on doing another speed workout, probably on Thursday, 10 days out from the marathon, and I’m thinking of 3x1 miles, like Pfitzinger has them in each of his schedules. Having said that, I’ll take each day as it comes, try to relax, and keep an eye on the weather forecast. If there are days of particularly bad weather ahead, I’ll skip a workout.

22 Sep

1:20, ~10 miles, HR 144

23 Sep

1:05, ~8 miles, HR 144

24 Sep

5 miles, 39:33, 7:54 pace, HR 149
incl. 1 mile run/float in 6:17

Weekly mileage: 72

Running with my Head in the Clouds

Beep! Thursday, 5:10am, and the smoke alarm lets me know that its battery is running low. Which is great in one way, we wouldn’t want to be caught out by a faulty device if worse comes to worse. Problem is, at 5 am in the morning I can’t change the bloody thing, and every 30 seconds ... “beep”. Great. The one night Cian actually sleeps through in his own bed instead of bouncing around in mine, I get this. Beep. I could get up and remove the battery, but it’s 5 am and I’m too tired to get up and surely I’m just about to fall asleep again. Beep. No I’m not. Sigh. This equivalent of Chinese water torture lasts until I finally get up at the planned time of 6:10 am. I’ve just lost an hour of sleep, though the rest of the family kept sleeping peacefully and I remove the offending unit before I go out running – and I do buy a new battery at lunchtime.

The run itself was good; since this is supposed to be a taper I added a second easy day after Tuesday's 800s, and I spend the next 81 minutes trying to keep myself from running too fast. The legs want to go faster but the mind is keeping the breaks on. I ran sub-8:00 on Saturday because it felt so easy, and had a bad workout the next day. I want to avoid the same mistake. It works reasonable well.

Friday is the day of the dress rehearsal. I’m wearing the same shoes, socks, shorts and maybe even the same t-shirt (though that’s weather dependant) that I’m planning to use on race day, and I want to run as much as I can at race effort. I deliberately said effort rather than pace, because I’m going around Caragh Lake, and that’s a lot hillier than the marathon course. The one thing I’m keen on testing are a new pair of insoles in my shoes. The lightweight trainers are notorious for giving me big bad blisters on my left foot, and I’m hoping new insoles will do the trick. Unfortunately it’s raining heavily, but who knows. This may well happen on race day, too.

The first mile goes by in 8:10, which is fast enough for a warm-up mile, but it does leave doubts in my head. I don’t want to lose nearly a minute over the first mile, but I try to keep that thought out of my head for the time being. I try to gradually accelerate over the next two miles, and get the pace down to 7:40. Then the hills start, first 1.5 miles of continuous climbing, then some ups-and-downs, and two or three miles of downhill. At the top of the hills I notice a dense fog, then I realise that it’s the low clouds coverage that’s responsible for that. I’m literally running with my head in the clouds. After about 40 minutes at least it gets bright enough for me to turn off my headlamp. I much prefer running without; whenever the lamp is on I only see the small cone of light in front of me, and I’m much more aware of my surroundings when I can turn the damn thing off, just as long as I can make out the road.

I hammer the climbs and run reasonably hard on the downhill sections, and I reach Blackstones Bridge, slightly over 9 miles into the run, in 1:07. Not bad, considering the terrain. There’s no time to relax, another 200 feet climb is starting, and by mile 12 the worst of the hills is behind me and it’s taken me 1:30 to get that far. The rest of the road isn’t exactly flat, I guess you could describe it as undulating, but that’s where I want to get down to marathon pace. I feel pretty well, the biggest concern is once more the fact that I’m prone to lose focus, and whenever that happens I slow down a bit. But I manage pretty well, and I cover the last 5 miles in 36:25 (7:17 pace). It's close enough for me to be satisfied, with the race-day adrenalin and the hopefully flatter course the same effort should yield at least 7:15. I feel ready. I just have to try and avoid doing anything stupid for the next 16 days.

The new insoles seem to work, I'm officially blister-free. The main area of concern is my right hamstring, which got painfully tight over the last 2 miles, but there's no need to panic just yet.

20 Sep

10 miles, 1:20:57, 8:05 pace, HR 139

21 Sep

17 miles, 2:06:07, 7:25 pace, HR 151
last 5 in 36:25 (7:17 pace)

Taper!

The taper did sneak on me this time round. I lowered my mileage two weeks ago, not because I was tapering for the marathon but because I inserted three easy days before the race. Then I added another three easy days after the race, and all of a sudden my mileage had already decreased sufficiently for the beginning of a taper, without me even realising it. So, I guess I’m already in the middle of the taper, but since there are still a few tough workouts to be done, albeit at shorter mileage, I’m not yet crawling the walls.

Mike’s Mystery Coach had mentioned the need for “sharper (faster than race pace) speed workouts that are hard but not exhausting” in this phase of training, so I opted for a set of 800s, and to ensure that I got sufficient recovery I decided to rest for 800 between the intervals, i.e. I jogged back to the start line after each repeat. I used the same stretch of road as for my last attempt at 800s. I tried to measure it in google maps, and apparently it’s about 25 meters long, but it’s difficult to be accurate because that part of road is under cloud cover and I have to guess where exactly the end point is. Never mind, in order to be able to compare this and future workouts I’ll stick with that route.

After warming up I started with the first repeat and tried to concentrate on good form, running relaxed rather than pushing too hard and keep the concentration going. After 300 meters the pain started and I thought this would be embarrassingly slow.

2:59

Nice! I jogged back, but feared that I hadn’t recovered fully when the HR was still around 135 at the start of the next run. The pain started even earlier. I guess I had pushed too hard on the first repeat. I remember the thoughts exactly. This one will be embarrassingly slow, and I’ll have to confess about yet another botched workout in the blog.

2:57

Nicer. Maybe this is working after all. I jogged back, and again the HR was in the same territory. In fact, the HR returned to 133-137 on all the rest periods, except the last one when I didn’t check. The legs grew heavier with that repeat, and I wondered if I would have to call it a day after only 3.

2:59

This is turning into a nice workout! However, the legs were definitely starting to tire at that stage. I’ll try another one and see how that goes.

3:04

Yes, definitely getting tired. I could have left it at that, but thought I might have another good one in me. However, as soon as I started it, I knew it wouldn’t be great; from the first step I was unable to relax properly, it was a laboured effort from the word go, and pushing the hips forward, lifting the knees and swinging the arms didn’t seem to do much good.

3:06.

and HOK time. Definitely had enough by now. Better call it a day.

I relaxed sufficiently at the cooldown to stop by the side of the road for 5 minutes to pick the blackberries that had been tempting me not just today but for weeks! Instant refuelling, full with vitamins and nutrients. Delicious! There’s definitely something to be said about running in the country side. I wouldn't have got that at the side of your average junior high track.

I was definitely pleased with that (read: “I have never run so fast before in my entire life”). When I tried to run my last set of 800s, several weeks ago, the fastest one had been 3:04, and to cut 7 seconds of that time is a very nice improvement indeed, albeit with longer rest intervals. Wednesday was an easy recovery effort, slightly hampered by the fact that it was raining, very cold and quite windy. It wasn’t quite as bad as some of the runs from last winter, but nature is turning the screw. I wore my gloves for the last 2 days, and was glad that I hadn’t forgotten about them. It doesn’t look like it’s going to get better any time soon. Better get that winter gear ready.

18 Sep

8 miles, 1:05:38, incl. 5x800(800) 2:59, 2:57, 2:59, 3:04, 3:06

19 Sep

10 miles, 1:24:43, 8:28 pace, HR 137

Sunday

Sunday was the day the whole county had been waiting for, the day of the All-Ireland Senior Football Final between Kerry and our beloved neighbours, Cork (basically the equivalent of the Superbowl). Confidence in the country was high, and the players had the added incentive of knowing that if they were to lose this game, they would most likely be hung, drawn and quartered on return. There was no need to worry, and after the expected 70 minutes of low-level violence that passes as sport, assisted by some comical defending from the opposition, Kerry became the first county in 17 years to successfully defend the title. For some reason, attendance of today’s morning meeting in the office was sparse, and the few people who attended had mainly come to gloat. Good Days.

My own workout on Sunday, on the other hand, went rather less well. I had planned another exchange workout, but it was clear from the outset that all was not well. My quads were as stiff and tired as they have ever been, and I did question if there was any point on even trying to run fast, but decided to give it a go anyway. The weather didn’t help; rain and gale force winds had delayed my departure until there was a lull in the downpour, but the wind remained just as bad. The Ard-na-Sidhe road does offer some shelter, but not an awful lot. I got going with the initial first mile, supposedly at MP, which once more I got completely wrong, and ran in 6:50, 25 seconds faster than planned. Will I ever learn? The return leg, supposedly at a higher effort, was hampered by the fact that it was against the wind, and when I came through in 6:52, slower than the first mile, I knew I had blown the workout. It didn’t help that the rain returned during the third mile, and on reaching the turnaround point decided to cut my losses run straight towards home. I ran another mile at the higher effort, but how accurate my estimation of that last mile was is anyone’s guess. It meant a very short cool-down, but given the choice of running in the brewing storm and sampling Niamh’s scones with home-made blackberry jam, the scones won by at least the same margin as Kerry did later that day.

I think my legs had suffered a delayed reaction from Friday’s long run, and the fact that Saturday’s run was considerably faster than a usual recovery run – even though it had felt really easy - certainly didn’t help. I still don’t worry about my fitness. Today’s recovery run was a case in point, another run at HR 128, like last Monday, but 30 seconds per mile faster. The main drawback today was the weather. While it had mostly stopped raining (I still got caught for a few minutes), it was very cold. At 9 o’clock, Niamh checked the temperatures, and it was 8C/46F. My run had been two hours earlier, when it had definitely been colder than that. In fact, I should have brought my gloves. Just a week ago I felt like melting in the sun during the race. Today my hands got numb in the cold; autumn has arrived, no doubt about it, and the weather forecast for the rest of the week is lousy.

16 Sep

7 miles, 53:31, 7:38 pace, HR 152
with 4 miles in 6:50, 6:52, 7:10, 6:52

17 Sep

9 miles, 1:17:35, HR 128

Weekly mileage: 74

Not Long Now

Getting up early is definitely the biggest drawback of running all your runs in the morning, especially so if you’re doing your long runs during the week. Once more this meant getting up before even 5am, but I took solace from the fact that this would be the last time for a while.

It was a moonless and cloudy night, and for the first time this year I had to accept the fact that it was pitch dark when I left the house. I literally could not see the hand in front of my eyes; I stumbled around for a minute, hoping that once my eyes got adjusted to the dark I would be able to make out the road, but to no avail. I had to get back home, dig out my headlamp, find some batteries, figure out how to change the batteries in the damn thing, and finally I was ready to go again. The rain had started in the meantime, which was an unwelcome surprise, but turning around and going back to bed never crossed my mind.

I was surprised at my starting pace. The last few weeks have always seen me start at around 9:00 pace, but on Friday I churned out 8:20 from the start, and it was only going to get faster. I ran the same route as for last week’s long run, clockwise around Caragh Lake. Not even the hills slowed me down this morning, or at least I made up for it again on the downhills, and by the time I reached the 13 mile point I was well below 8:00 pace on average. At that point I accelerated again, and hoped to run the next 7 miles at marathon pace, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. I think I could have run faster, but it would have felt faster than marathon pace effort. I thought it would be wiser to stick to an effort that felt like I would be able to keep up for 26 miles rather than force the pace, but if that sounds like a bad excuse then maybe it is. Anyway, I covered the last 7 miles in 52:18, which would equate to 7:28 pace, but I think it was slightly longer than 7 miles, and the pace might have been a tad faster, but not by much. However, the entire workout had only taken me 2:35:01, which is definitely the fastest I have ever covered 20 miles, and that includes any race.

Today (Saturday) called for a recovery effort after that long run, and I duly headed out in the morning sunshine, taking it easy and just letting the legs do their own thing. Each time I checked the watch I was surprised by the pace, but it really was an easy effort. There isn’t much to say about the run apart from the fact that I never had a run at sub-8:00 pace that felt so incredibly easy. Some people measure their fitness by doing tempo runs, or time trials, or speed workouts. I can always tell how well I’m developing by the pace and the heart rate of my easy runs, and with 3 weeks to go to the marathon I’m nearing peak fitness. Before every single one of my marathons (and the one ultra) I have always felt in the best shape ever, and this one is no exception. I can’t wait!

14 Sep

20 miles, 2:35:01, 7:45 pace, HR 147

15 Sep

10 miles, 1:19:55, 7:59 pace, HR 142

Bouncing Back

There’s one more snippet from Sunday’s marathon that I forgot to mention, and then I’ll stop boring you with it. When I mentioned to Niamh that “one day I'll run a half-marathon that’s not full of hills”, she dryly responsed “not in Ireland!”. She’s probably right. I think Longford has a flat course, but I’m unlikely to ever drive 4 hours each way in order to run 13 miles (I might be tempted to do the full marathon though).

My recovery is coming along very nicely indeed. I put in a third recover day in a row on Wednesday, but noticed that I was floating along a lot faster than the day before, but with the same effort, and the same heart rate. In fact, I think my heart rate for the same pace has dropped again. This is something I have noticed after a lot of my races, especially half marathons. Once the initial tiredness has worn off, my heart rate returns to a lower level than before. The same seems to be happening again. All in all I managed 10 miles at a bit slower than 8:00 pace. The run was unusual because the return leg was slower than the outward segment. That was not down to me getting tired, I was just making sure to keep the effort nice and easy. It was still faster that what I had expected.

Since I felt so well, I decided it was safe to do a few miles at marathon pace today. I ran yet another 10 miler (that has become my standard distance over the last few weeks), and after 2.5 miles I turned the screw. Once more I got the effort wrong in the early stages, when I reached the turn-around point I calculated the pace and realised that I was doing 7:00. I slowed down, but got it wrong again, this time I slowed down too much. I noticed the error and tried to correct, but once more I lost my focus and didn’t keep at the pace. All in all, the return leg was done at 7:27 average pace, though my real pace was rather uneven as I kept speeding up and slowing down in a vain attempt of tuning into the right pace. Oh well. I averaged 7:17 over the 7.5 faster miles, which is very close to the desired effort, even though I never seemed to run at that pace.

While I was less than pleased about the way I had executed the workout, I was much happier with the way it had felt. Even 7:00 pace had felt very comfortable, and 7:27 pace was downright pedestrian. I guess three recovery days in a row will do that to me, and the legs thanked me for it.

Of course I could not resist putting my half marathon time into McMillan’s calculator, and it came up with a marathon time of 3:05:19, 7:05 pace. After a run like today I can nearly believe that I could run 7:05 for the entire 26 miles, but I have never come close to my predicted marathon time in the past. Last year was a good example of that, after a half marathon time of 1:35:42 the predicted time came out as 3:21. While my goal time was 3:30, I secretly hoped to be able to come at least close to 3:21, but it wasn’t to be. I ran 7 minutes slower than that, and only after giving it all. There’s still something that’s stopping me from running close to the predicted times (which generally are very accurate for anything up to half-marathon), and I’m not sure if it’s in my head or in my legs.

12 Sep

10 miles, 1:21:48, 8:10 pace, HR 137

13 Sep

10 miles, 1:15:06, 7:30 pace, HR 150
2/5 @ 7:00, 5 @ 7:26 (= 7.5 @ 7:17)

Reflections

Thanks for all the nice comments about the race, they are all very welcome. I can’t take credit for the “chicked” expression, I got that from Eric’s most recent race report, and it actually was a woman who had come up with it. I found it funny enough to plagiarise, though (and I'm relieved that nobody took exception).

Andrew and Mike between them came up with the perfect outlook for the future: I’ll be one of the old guys myself soon enough, but on the other hand there are always a few oldies around to humiliate the whippersnappers, and that’s something to look forward to. That reminds me, I hope that Neil O’Conaill, the “oldie” who put me into my place, won’t ever read my race report, since I estimated his age to be 50. He actually ran in the M40 category. Oops.

The other thing I learned from the results is that the two girls who I tried to hunt down in vain were the only women in the race to beat me. Somehow I think that makes up for beating me. I don’t mind being outclassed by top runners.

Niamh suggested that next year she’d run 13 miles in the heat while I mind the children. She’s convinced that running is the easier job.

I’m probably known by now as the idiot whose race reports are longer than the race. You probably won’t believe me when I say that I actually left out a few things, like the fact that before the race I felt a distinctive pain in my right shin (that’s the ongoing shin splints issue) and in my left hamstring (most likely caused by sitting in the car for 2 hours), but neither was noticeable during the race itself. And I didn’t tell you that I still can’t drink from a cup and run fast at the same time. At each water stop I lost some ground while trying to sip a little bit of water. I ended up pouring most of it down my neck anyway. For the last 2 stops I grabbed a cup form the first person, poured it over my head, then grabbed a second cup for drinking. That worked pretty well. And did I mention that I got a blister on my left foot? No, I didn’t. See? I could have written a race report twice as long, but I don’t think anyone would have bothered reading it.

My right shin has been fairly painful ever since, and I’m back to icing it again several times a day. It’ll get better again soon.

As for my running since the race, it has all been slow. I’m still in recovery mode, and today’s HR was a few beats higher than similarly paced runs in the last two weeks. I will definitely do another recovery run tomorrow and maybe try to run a bit faster on Thursday, but only if I feel ok. The next long run won’t be until Friday, when I’m going to do my last 20-miler. The marathon is getting close.

10 Sep

7 miles, 1:03:54, 9:07 pace, HR 128(!)

11 Sep

10 miles, 1:24:46, 8:28 pace, HR 137

Hallelujah

After one of the most atrocious summers in recorded history as far as the weather went, it suddenly turned bright, sunny and very warm about a week ago. Everyone in southern Ireland was very pleased, including me – until yesterday, when I belatedly realised that I would have to race in those rather hot conditions, totally unprepared. The weather forecast for Sunday was 22C/72F, and while that won’t sound impressive to the vast majority of readers, for Ireland in September that’s almost unheard of. Since I do my entire running in the early morning, I definitely haven’t been running at more than 15C/60F, and the difference is telling. Needless to say, I was apprehensive.

When I got the race details sent to me, I thought that 5 water stations for a half marathon would be complete overkill, but with those temperatures that was definitely a wise decision by the organisers. As it turned out, I was gasping for water towards the second half of the race, and the stations couldn’t come soon enough. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Lets start at the beginning.

With the fine weather we decided to make a family day out of the occasion, and at 8 am all five-and-three-quarter of us piled into our car and set off towards County Cork. It was extremely foggy for the first half hour, and Niamh drove slowly and carefully, and I was glad that we had left in plenty of time. It took us about 2 hours to get to Blarney, and I still had nearly an hour until race start. I kissed Niamh and the kids good-bye, and they went off for breakfast and a playground, but Niamh promised to be there at the finish line, and this time should would make sure to be there in time to see me coming in. I started warming up with about 20 minutes to go, and by 11 o’clock we were all assembled at the line. I had hoped to bump into Grellan at some stage, and made a nuisance of myself by asking two or three complete strangers if their name happened to be Grellan if they looked a bit like the photo in his profile (i.e. bearded and in his 40s). The answer was always negative, and eventually I gave up.

The gun went, and we set off. I started close to the front, and in the first minute I went past 2 people and got overtaken by about 20. It was the least amount of jostling I had ever encountered at the beginning of a race, and I settled into a fast but relaxed pace early on. The course is a kind of lollipop shape, 5 miles out, a loop of 4 miles and 4 miles back towards Blarney, with the finish being about 1 mile out from the start. I remembered two things from last year. First, there is plenty of shade along the way, which I was immensely grateful for today, and second, the course relentlessly climbs for 7 miles and then drops back down for the remaining six, which was somewhat less endearing. I thought the climb would be very gradual and gentle, but it felt a lot tougher than that today. The first mile passed by in 6:40, which was exactly what I was looking for. I felt totally in control, and the fact that I had just run 1 uphill mile at an unaccustomed pace had not yet registered. A big pack had formed and I was part of it, but it lost contact with the runners ahead, and since I felt that I could run a tad faster I left the group behind me and chased after the people in front, which I had reeled in before mile 2 (6:39). Maybe I had slightly overestimated my capabilities or maybe the climb got a bit more pronounced, but on the third mile the going got tougher, I felt slightly out of breath and three runners went past me. A split of 6:52 confirmed the problems, but by then I had regained my strength, went past those guys to regain my old position and went through the next mile in 6:46. My PR for the half had been 1:29:57, 6:51 pace, and I was well ahead of target, especially considering that the road was still climbing. However, at that stage my calves started protesting about the relentless chase, and the running got more difficult. I missed the next mile marker, but I could tell that I had definitely slowed down again. Around that time we went round a bend and the climb got considerably steeper. It was at that point that first a group of 6 men ran past me, and I could hear more footsteps approaching from behind. Just as they were closing in on me a spectator shouted “well done girls”, which snapped me out of my thoughts back into reality and realised that I was being sandwiched by two women, one passing me on the left, the other one on the right. Before I could recover from the shock, yet another one went past. I had gotten chicked three times in one minute! I tell you what, as polite and friendly as I usually am, a tired male with a wounded ego throws off the thin veneer of civilisation in an instant, and with all the subtlety of a caveman with a four-foot club all I could think was “at least I’ll have some prey to chase in the second half of the race!”, and I didn’t give two hoots about the fact that this was sexist in the extreme. Ahem.

Anyway, shortly afterwards we reached mile 6 (14:41 for the last 2), and my cushion towards my PR had melted away, not that I was worried. The climb would soon be at an end. By now we had reached the only real hill of the course, and the going had gotten tough. But unlike the previous miles I actually started overtaking runners again on that part, not the women, but the guys from the group that had passed me just before. I was seriously sick of the relentless climb by now, and when we finally crested the monster I loudly proclaimed “Hallelujah!” The guys around me inquired if that meant the end of the climb, which I confirmed, before leaving them in the dust and set off after my prey. The next mile marker came into view surprisingly early in 6:32, which was great, considering that the first part of that mile had included the steepest part of the entire course. I went passed one of the women, which was pure tonic for my wounded male ego, but I couldn’t even see the other two. The thing is, I’m rather short-sighted, and I was wearing shades for that race (the sun required it, really), which meant I couldn’t really see who was ahead of me until I was within a few steps of them. I really pressed the pace now, and while I overtook a lot of runners, they were all male, and I was still chasing. The next miles all flew by in 6:27, 6:25 and 6:27. I must have improved my position in the field by at lease a dozen places along that stretch towards mile 10, but while I knew that the road must be downhill, it didn’t feel that way. I remembered the same from last year. On the way out it felt like climbing without a single step of respite, on the way home it felt like running on even ground. Passing through mile 10 in 1:07 (plus change) was good, but I really started to feel it by now, and the thought of the end was sweet. I heard footsteps approaching for a minute or two, and naturally assumed it was one of the runners I had just overtaken, but was surprised to see an older gentleman (let’s guess about 50) going past me as if I was standing still. Now I was being oldied? I kept learning things about myself today. Not only am I sexist, I’m ageist as well. That guy was unbelievable though; the pace with which he went past me was something else. I did question why it had taken him 10 miles to catch up if he could run so fast. I felt a tinge of regret of losing a hard-fought place in the field, and that's when I thought of Mike’s recent race report. He’d had a very decent race but was annoyed that he hadn’t kept up with people he is capable of beating. In my comment I had stated the hope of having the kind of race he had wished for (albeit a lot slower, of course). This pushed me into action. That man was running a lot faster than what I thought I was capable of, but with less than 3 miles remaining, what’s the worst that could happen? I was hardly going to collapse before the end, and with that in mind I went into the red zone and gave chase. At the very least I managed to keep the distance between us constant, and while the next mile marker passed slower rather than faster than the previous ones (6:33), it wasn’t for lack of effort. I think the course had flattened out again a bit, and of course I was getting more and more tired. I kept pushing hard, and tried to get closer to the man in front. We went past a number of runners, and none of them tried to keep up with us, but I could not close in. I did expect to see one or both of those women again that had stung me at mile 5.5, but none of them showed up on my radar screen. To be honest, at that stage I didn’t care. I just tried to give as much as I could, and I tried to overtake my rabbit. In the heat of the battle (and the actual, real heat) I missed the next mile marker, and when we finally came to mile 13, the split for the last 2 miles was 13:05. I definitely had expected that to be less, with the effort I put into the case, but at least I hadn’t slowed down. The last 0.1 mile went by in 38 seconds, and I crossed the line in 1:27:51, a PR by over 2 minutes and a very satisfying result of a very hard day’s work. Niamh and the kids were there indeed, and all sufficiently proud of the husband/daddy. I congratulated my rabbit, and had a short chat with Mary Sweeney, the third woman who had overtaken me at mile 5.5 (the one I had managed to catch again). She’s very nice, and a very good runner. I had noticed her name in the result pages on a few occasions before, she tends to have similar race times to me. And no, I didn't let on how her overtaking me had stung me.

So, a new PR, and I finished the course over 8 minutes faster than last year, despite the heat. If that means that I’ll be able to cut 16 minutes off my marathon time 4 weeks from now remains to be seen (my target is to cut over 18 minutes, but I’d probably be satisfied with 16). The fact that the older runner went past me was a slice of good luck, without him I wouldn’t have gone into the red zone as much as I had, and probably finished some 30 seconds further back.

The family day continued afterwards, we went on a family trip to Fota wildlife park, where we saw Giraffes, Zebras, Cheetahs, Tapirs, Wallabies, Lemurs, Gibbons, Lamas, Pelicans, Penguins, Flamingos, and at least another dozen types of exotic creatures. The kids were thrilled, Niamh was happy, and I didn’t have to feel guilty about subjecting the entire family to my running obsession. A very good day. Hallelujah.

7 Sep

7 miles, 1:00:06, 8:35 pace, avg. HR 133

8 Sep

5 miles, 43:15, 8:39 pace

9 Sep

~16 miles incl.
Blarney Half-Marathon, 1:27:51, 6:42 pace, avg. HR 176. New PR.

Update 1:

Weekly mileage: 77 miles

Update 2:

I don't know how official that page is, but the time looks correct (they added one second to my watch). Assuming they're the final results I came 63rd, 8th in the M35 age group.

Race Preview

I usually don’t spend too much time thinking about my non-marathon races. They are never the focus of my attention, and just there to ultimately support the marathon training. However, with the 10k in August cancelled, this will be my first race in 6 weeks, and the first race of more than 5k in over four months. That’s a long time without a proper race (both 5ks were more fun runs than races; neither had numbers for a start), and I’m itching to get out and feel the pain in my legs. I know I’ll feel differently at mile 10, when I’ll be desperate to stop, and if I’m not then I’m having a bad race. I do expect a PR (I’ll panic over my marathon if I don’t get one), and I have a certain time in mind that I’d really like to hit, but I won’t announce it in advance, so there won't be a need to wipe egg off my face afterwards. I have no real idea how fast I can run 13 miles. I have done very little running at sub-7 pace, but that’s a standard feature of my training. A week before the Bantry half-marathon I was wondering how I could possible run 6:50 pace for 90 minutes when I couldn’t keep that pace for half the distance in training, but race-day adrenaline is powerful stuff indeed and I’m banking on more of the same on Sunday.

There was still a strenuous workout to be done on Wednesday, the second part of my double header. The first part of which had gone well on Tuesday, but Wednesday was a much tougher proposition. The plan was 3 slow miles to warm up, 10 steady miles @ 8:00 pace and 7 @ 7:15. I have done almost all of the previous runs on a flat road, but yesterday I got more ambitions and ran around the lake; climbs, wildlife and all. I ran it clockwise because that way the worst of the hills would be behind me come mile 13 when the MP portion started. I promptly took a wrong turn at the start, realised my mistake 10 seconds later, swore loudly at myself and turned around. I guess it’s been a while since I ran that route, and at 5:20 am the brain wasn’t entirely conscious yet. The first 13 miles were unremarkable and I felt good; maybe a bit too good because I started to accelerate after 10 miles or so, which I shouldn’t have. When the fast segment started I soon came to the realisation that running MP over an undulating terrain is more difficult than doing so on the flat, and the fact that I had well over 1000 feet of elevation change in my legs from the first part of the run didn’t help either. I think I managed to stay on pace for the first half of that segment, but started to fall behind afterwards. When I reached our driveway after 17 miles I still had a 3 miles out-and-back segment to do, and with each step the legs grew ever more weary. The HR wasn’t particularly high, in the low 150s, if I remember correctly, but I didn’t have it in me to push any harder. I felt like I was running on muscle fibers that had never been used before, and that’s probably pretty close to the truth. It’s also the whole point of that workout. When I reached the turnaround point I could at least flick that little Devil off my shoulder that had been urging me to turn around prematurely for the last 10 minutes, but any hopes that the last mile would feel easier remained unfulfilled. I was completely knackered afterwards.

That leaves three more days until race day, and of course they will be easy days. Today was a much-needed recovery run, and I cut off one mile at the end, both in order to save the legs a little bit and to get a few minutes more sleep. The HR keeps going down and down on these runs; I've come to regard my recovery-run HR as the primary indicator of my fitness, and the signs have been improving steadily all summer.

Strictly speaking, my legs probably won’t have recovered entirely from Wednesday’s workout come Sunday. That’s the price I have to pay, but with three easy days until then I’m quietly confident I can run a good race.

5 Sep

20 miles, 2:37:59, 7:53 pace, HR 147
last 7 in 51:47 (7:23 pace)

6 Sep

9 miles, 1:16:13, 8:28 pace, HR 131

Back to School

Niamh is a relieved woman, the kids are back in school. Lola and Shea are in first class, Cian is in preschool. She might actually be able to get some rest in the mornings, which would be welcome at week 31 of pregnancy, I guess.

I neglected to update you on my shin splints (yeah I know, as if you really wanted the details). I’ve been icing them several times a day last week, and I noted a definite improvement. Then I got lazy/I forgot, and they got more noticeable again, so I started icing again, noticed some further improvement, got lazy again and paid the price again. In short, it’s been a bit up and down, but that’s down to me being sloppy. On the whole I’m definitely on top of the issue and it will affect neither my race on Sunday nor the marathon four weeks later.

I took it easy again on Monday after Sunday’s faster workout, but the legs felt pretty fresh anyway. I was fighting the temptation to pick up the pace for the entire 10 miles and was a good boy for about 8 of them. Then I spotted another runner about a minute ahead of me (I even timed that on my watch), and most of the resolve went out of the window. I didn’t quite speed up as much as I could have, but went below 8:00 pace, which is definitely not recovery pace for me. I went past him on the last climb before home, and after exchanging a short greeting he was behind me. Maybe one day, when I’ve grown up, I might be able to hold myself back sufficiently, but clearly not yet. The HR was a bit higher than it would have been without that little private race, but it was still pretty low.

The main reason why I wanted to take it so easy on Monday despite feeling rather fresh was the fact that I’m planning another double-header for Tuesday/Wednesday. The first part of that consists of 10 miles, with 3 miles as a warm-up and 7 at marathon pace. I’ve run nearly all of the previous runs of that kind on the flat Ard-na-Sidhe road, but today the legs opted for the hillier and more scenic Caragh Lake route. I was already half a mile down the road before I realised that I was going into that direction, and I wasn’t going to turn around by then. It meant a few hills on the way during the marathon segment, but since the marathon itself won’t be flat either I reasoned that it would be a better choice anyway. I gradually increased the pace during the first 3 miles, and then went into MP mode. I actually surprised myself this time, because all of the miles splits were basically within 5 seconds of the target. Accurate pacing was always a weak spot of mine, but I guess I’m slowly able to tune into that effort, which bodes well for the marathon. I’m not quite there yet, though; I still have to concentrate to keep 7:15 pace going. As soon as the mind starts wandering, the legs will slow down. I’m hoping there will be others around me in Loch Ness going at my pace. That has never been a concern before, but as I’m slowly moving up the field, the numbers around me are thinning out. Looking at last year’s result, there was only 1 runner at 3:09, 4 at 3:10 and 5 at 3:11. I guess that should be sufficient to keep some company, assuming of course that that’s indeed the pace I can hold for 26 miles.

3 Sep

10 miles, 1:24:07, 8:24 pace, avg. HR 134

4 Sep

10 miles, 1:14:53, 7:29 pace, avg. HR 151
last 7 in 50:33 (7:13 pace)

More Workouts

On Friday I went out for a 15-mile progression run despite the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure if I had recovered from the intervals/long run double workout earlier in the week. What I had in mind were 5 easy miles, 5 miles at MP, and 5 miles faster than MP. I took my time and started as slowly as I wanted, because it always takes me a few miles to get warmed up properly. After 5 miles I cranked up the pace, but it took some time to get used to the higher effort. I didn’t quite manage MP for that segment, but wasn’t too far off it. I think the slower-than-planned first mile was mostly responsible for the missed target. I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to add 5 faster miles after that, but surprised myself for once. The last bit wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as hard as I had expected it, and the faster-than-MP pace felt manageable. I was pleased.

I decided to make a change from the usual 10-mile recovery run on Saturday, and went for a loop around the Devil’s Elbow. That’s 2.5 mile flat miles, then 1.5 miles of very steep climbing, about 2 miles of downhill, less steep than the climb, and then a flat road back home. I used to run that loop all the time on my previous training cycle, when I prepared for the Connemara Ultra. No matter how stiff I felt at the beginning, the climb always had a good effect on the legs, and they always felt better afterwards. The climb was tough, as usual, and the fatigue in the legs never went away, but I ran slowly enough for a recovery run, even though the HR was a bit higher than I felt it should be. On the other hand, my normal recovery runs don’t include a big climb, and I have nothing to compare it with. I did over 5 hours of gardening work afterwards, which was necessary but maybe not ideal in regards to recovery.

Sunday seems to have become the day of the Exchange Workout, and since I felt that last week’s effort had been shorter than necessary I decided to increase the distance to 4x1 miles, alternating MP and faster pace with each mile. I had to overcome two mental hurdles for this run; the first one was to leave the house at all because the weather was miserable, windy and rainy, and the second one was to speed up after the warm-up, which just felt impossible initially. Once again, I got the pace wrong for the first mile. I was much too fast, and even though I realised the error halfway through the first mile and tried to slow down a little bit, I didn’t slow down nearly enough and came through in 6:48, ridiculously early. The second mile was only a few seconds faster than that, but at least I can claim to have stayed “in control” this time, and I concentrated mainly on form and relaxation, just like I had learned on Tuesday. The third mile at MP felt ridiculously slow in comparison, but at least I very nearly got the pace right this time. The last mile was tough, but going through the mantras “hips forward”, “lift the knees”, “swing the arms” helped a lot to run both fast and relaxed, and I came through in 6:38. I had hoped for faster times in the speed segments, but at least I can say for once that I had stayed in control all the way through, and remained relaxed for the entire time, which is in contrast to previous attempts at that workout. It took 65 seconds for the HR to return to 120 and 81 for 110, which is a bit slower than last week but better than the week before that; but because today’s workout was longer than last week’s, I can’t really compare the numbers.

I have to decide what to do next week because of the half-marathon on Sunday. I’ll probably do a long run on Wednesday and take it easy on the 3 days before race day, with maybe a fast mile or two thrown in for good measure. I’ll see.

31 Aug

15 miles, 1:55:45, 7:43 pace, avg. HR 147
3x5 mile in 43:04, 36:54, 35:47 (8:36, 7:22, 7:09 pace)

1 Sep

8.5 miles, 1:14:00, 8:42 pace, avg. HR 139, very hilly

2 Sep

9 miles, 1:10:02, 7:46 pace, avg. HR 147
4x1 mile in 6:49, 6:40, 7:18, 6:38, HR 120/65, 110/81

Weekly mileage: 83.5
Monthly mileage for August: 387

Hard and Easy

I have found in the past that I can easily string together two tough workouts in a row as long as they are different, e.g. a hill workout and a long run the next day, or, as it happened this week, an interval workout and a long run. On past evidence I need only one recovery day after those to feel good again, and I guess I’ll know by tomorrow if that still stands.

This is the last week of the kids’ summer holidays, and once they're going back to school I will have to get back home earlier after my runs to help get them ready. This will mean getting up earlier, and therefore I chose this week for one last 22 mile run, while I still have the luxury of sleeping in until 4:45 and still get the workout done. I wasn’t sure how the legs would hold up after Tuesday’s half-mile repeats, so I gave myself permission to bail out after 17 miles (1 loop around Caragh Lake).

The legs felt much better than expected initially, but while I wasn’t nearly as tired as I thought I would be, the first 3 miles were very slow, just a tad faster than 9:00 pace. I did manage to pick it up after that, but crossed Blackstones Bridge (~8 miles) in 1:08, which is as slow as I was a few weeks ago during my sleepwalking run. However, I felt pretty good and the running got stronger the more I got into it. Nature produced a few interesting effects to take my mind off the running, first I ran into a flock of bats; they circled around my head so close that I think I could have touched them had I extended my arm, and then the nearly full moon came out to provide an eerie light to the surroundings. I saw a huge ominous dark cloud around Seefin mountain, which didn’t bode too well because that was the direction I was heading for, but by the time I got there the road was glistening wet (which looked cool in the moonlight), but the rain had already moved on.

I reached our driveway in 2:20, which isn’t particularly fast, but the legs felt as fresh as daisies, and I decided not only to add the 5 miles to Ard-na-Sidhe, I also wanted to run them at marathon pace. I set out strongly, and reached the turnaround point 18 mins and 20 secs later, just a little bit slower than MP. But on the return leg I definitely reached the edge of what I was capable of. I had to slow down, and while I had the feeling that I could run for another 10 miles if only I slowed down a lot more, I found it impossible to keep the old pace going. Mind you, I still managed about 7:35 pace on the way back, which isn’t too shabby for miles 20-22, especially considering the tough workout from the previous day. When I got home I was quite happy with the run, but I was also happy to stop, in all honesty. I had reached my ceiling.

After those two days, today's was always going to be a slow recovery run. The legs were at their heaviest I can remember, and even after the usual three warm-up miles I was still feeling the effects of the previous workouts. I had originally planned 10 miles, but since progress was pretty slow and I had left the house a few minutes late, I turned around after 4.5 miles instead of 5 to make it 9 miles.

My fitness is coming along really well, as shown by yesterday's run, but there is a cloud on the horizon as well. Since Wednesday last week my right shin hurts. It started out as a faint pain, but has grown more pronounced since then. I think it's a mild case of shin splints, and my main worry is not to let it develop into anything more. I know what caused it. My old shoes had almost 600 miles on them (the most I've ever put on a pair), and I had worn my lightweight trainers twice a week for the speed workouts. The increased strain from the lessened cushioning obviously was enough to cause my shin to act up. I've retired the old pair, and I've put the fast shoes back to the back of the wardrobe; all of the faster runs, including Tuesday's 800s were done in heavier trainers. I'm also icing several times a day. There are two-and-a-half weeks of heavy training left before the taper. I think I'll be able to hold off the worst of the shin splints until then, and from then on the reduced mileage should help. At least that's the plan. With 38 days until the marathon I really don't want to get a bad injury, and if the pain gets any worse, I'll cut my mileage.

29 Aug

22 miles, 2:59:22, 8:09 pace, avg. HR 140
last 5 in 37:18 (7:27 pace)

30 Aug

9 miles, 1:17:31, 8:36 pace, avg. HR 132

Slow and Fast

It’s less than 6 weeks to the marathon, and I’m starting to feel slightly nervous about it whenever I think about it. I shouldn’t be. My training has been solid and I’m not a complete newcomer anymore, but the butterflies in my stomach won’t go away. Six weeks. That’s nothing. I’ll be crossing that line in no time.

There’s still some work to be done until then, though. After the exchange workout on Sunday I ran 10 very easy miles on Monday. My recovery paces are all over the place these days, and I don’t take too much notice of them; I run purely by feel. I had another all-time low as far as the HR went on Monday, despite the fact that I ran 28 seconds per mile faster than the equivalent run on the previous Monday. Figure that one out. I was definitely happy with the way it went. The first 2 or 3 miles were stiff and awkward, as always, but once I got into my stride I just ran along seemingly effortless. It’s good to feel fit.

I got a bit more ambitious today, and opted for half-mile intervals. Why half-miles? Why not. I can’t remember the last time I did those, probably one or two workouts when I was following the Pfitzinger plan, and this morning they sounded line fun. How hard can it be to run 800 meters at the time. How much recovery? 2 minutes. Why? Because that’s the first figure that came into my head. I was quite relaxed about those details. How accurate was the distance (remember, no track)? Well, I ran 4 minutes at supposed 8-minute pace a few days ago to measure it, and that’s perfectly accurate, right? Was the road flat? Er, no. It was bowl-shaped, each repeat started with a slight downhill and ended with a slight uphill, and the middle bit was up-and down as well. Sorry. They don’t really do flat road around here, unless you want to run on the main national road, which I don’t.

I ran 3 miles as a warm-up, and then got going. I’ll give you the numbers first, and then my thoughts about them.

3:16, 3:05, 3:09, 3:21, 3:09, 3:05, 3:06, 3:04.

The first one was more of a warm-up effort than anything else, and the fourth one was my fault for totally losing concentration and running much too slow. If you ignored those two, the pace becomes a mot more even. That botched fourth repeat was a blessing in disguise, because after that I finally started to put my mind to the task at hand and managed to tune into the effort. It was like the first 4 were prelude and the last 4 the actual workout. I hadn’t planned on a fixed number of repeats, but the general wisdom is that you should cover 3-4 miles at the fast pace, which meant 6-8 repeats. After the fourth repeat I shortly played with the idea of quitting, but thankfully kept going. However, it wasn’t until the middle of the sixth repeat that I had a kind of epiphany and realised that instead of pushing as hard as I could I should concentrate on form and relax a bit instead of mindlessly pushing as hard as I could. The figures after that speak for themselves, I managed the best times in my last few repeats despite the fact that the legs got more and more tired. In fact, after 6 repeats or so I felt like becoming addicted to the pain, which is why I did 2 two more. For those last two I just went through the same mantras in my head, “push those hips forward”, and “lift those knees”. Later I added “swing those arms”, and that all helped. I’m not actually surprised that running was both faster and easier once I started concentrating on form because I’ve read about that before, but it was an eye-opener all the same. Now all I have to do it remember the same thing in my next race. Maybe I should write it on the back of my hands to remind myself. Anyway, I felt tempted to add 2 more repeats after the eighth but called it a day because 4 miles at speed is supposed to be enough, and since I’m new to that kind of thing I didn’t want to overdo things. If the legs are all springy and fresh tomorrow I know I should have done more, but in all honesty I doubt it. I’m in for some slow and stiff early miles, I just know it.

27 Aug

10 miles, 1:23:14, 8:19 pace, avg. HR 132

28 Aug

10 miles, 1:17:59, 7:47 pace
with 8x800 in 3:16, 3:05, 3:09, 3:21, 3:09, 3:05, 3:06, 3:04

Dolphins and Football

Michelle asked a very good question:

If you qualify for Boston, will you come over? I ask because some can't afford the trip, but want to qualify anyway - to prove they can.

Well, you see, I haven’t made up my mind yet. Initially my goal was just to qualify, because that’s a target within reach (or to prove that I can as you've said). But as soon as I announced it, plenty of people commented that I should come over and do the marathon, which wet my appetite. But sadly, the realities of life make it unpractical to cross the Atlantic in half a year. Niamh would have her hands full with the new baby, and we would still be broke. As it is, running the required time in Loch Ness would enable me to run 2008 and 2009 (as long as they don’t adjust their qualifying times, that is), and for 2010 I would be in the next age group, which will make qualification an easier proposition. In short, I think I’ll have plenty of opportunities to run Boston, and future years might be more practical. In any case, I have to qualify first. As long as that’s outstanding, all talk is just hot air.

When I reached the bottom of my usual hill on Friday morning, I knew that I didn’t have the mind for hill drills, and just proceeded to run the hill in a more conventional way. I ran up 5 times, relatively easy at first and a little more strenuous with each repeat. The last one was the only one that I was satisfied with; it was the only time my HR went over 170. I wasn’t happy with the way I had done the workout. I should have pushed harder all along. If I had done 4 repeats like the last one, it would have been a much better workout. If I do another set of hills, I’ll opt for the drills again.

Since Friday hadn’t been very strenuous, I didn’t really need a recovery day on Saturday, and chose to run the very hilly Kerry Way loop instead of a flat(-ish) 10-miler. I usually run this clockwise, but chose to go the other way for once. The reason for that is a stony section of the trail that’s usually covered in water. You have to be very careful along there, and it’s better to run it uphill rather than downhill. The drawback of that direction was that the climb starts less than one mile from our house, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for warming up. Despite that, I felt just great on that run, and ran a lot faster than planned. I passed the 5-miles-to-go point in exactly one hour, and was home 38 minutes later. At first I didn’t really think about that, but when I put the number into a calculator I did a double take when I realised that I had covered that part at 7:36 pace. Wow. I knew that it was sub-8 pace, but it really hadn’t felt anywhere near as fast as that. I immediately feared for Sunday’s workout. Had I taken too much out of my legs to run a few decent fast miles the next day?

The fear seemed to be confirmed initially today. I felt stiff and tired, especially the quads were moaning with every step. When I reached the point where I had planned to start the speed workout from, I didn’t feel ready, and ran an extra 1.5 miles out-and-back to get warmed up properly. I put in 2 or 3 surges to wake up the leg muscles. After that I still wasn’t sure if I was up for it, but went ahead anyway. Since last week’s workout had been hindered by a lack of accuracy in my judgement of distance, I had opted to run 4x0.75 miles back-and-forwards on the same stretch of the Ard-na-Sidhe road. While I still couldn’t guarantee how accurate the 0.75 miles were, at least this would ensure that each section would be of equal length. I set off for the first part, supposedly marathon pace. It should have taken me 5:26 to cover the distance, but once again I got it wrong and reached the first turn-around-point in 5:05. The second part was as fast as I could while still being in full control, and went by in 4:48, which felt good. Then it was back to MP again, which felt like crawling after that faster section. I got much closer to the required pace this time, but erred a bit on the side of caution, 5:30. Mind you, it’s very difficult to judge your pace for 1200 meters without any feedback along the way. The last segment was faster again, and went by in 4:40, but, to be honest, towards the end the word “controlled” didn’t really apply. Nevertheless, I was pleased with the workout. The paces for the 4 sections were 6:46, 6:24, 7:20 and 6:13 respectively (assuming that the distance was accurate, of course). However, I think I still had plenty in the tank afterwards and could have extended the speed part for longer. I’ll probably try and run 4x1 miles next time.

We had a great family day afterwards. We drove to Dingle, went on a boat to see Fungie the dolphin, who did indeed turn up, to the great excitement of the children ( as well as the adults, to be honest). It’s amazing, nobody can explain why this dolphin has chosen to stay in Dingle harbour permanently, and the fact that he loves swimming beside boats makes him the perfect tourist attraction. Afterwards we went to the Aquarium, which went down very well, as well as the museum shop which went down even better. A trip to the Prehistoric History museum to satisfy Shea, our budding Archaeologist at the ripe old age of 6, turned out to be just as successful. And the fact that Kerry beat Dublin in the Gaelic football semi-final to reach the final for the 4th time in a row (of course we'll win the final. Kerry have a God-given right to win the final!) rounded off a pretty perfect day. Combining a running life with family has never gone better than today.

24 Aug:

12 miles, 1:38:24, 5 hill repeats, avg. HR 138

25 Aug:

12.25 miles, 1:38:02, 8:00 pace, avg. HR 143 (last 5 miles in 38:02, 7:36 pace)

26 Aug:

9.75 miles, 1:17:53. 7:59 pace; exchange workout 4x0.75 miles in 5:05, 4:48, 5:30, 4:40 (6:46, 6:24, 7:20, 6:13 pace)

Midweek

After Tuesday’s tempo run, I expected Wednesday’s long run to be a tough one, on stiff and tired legs. I did indeed feel some of that in the first three miles, but once I got into the groove things started to improve rapidly and I managed to go a good bit faster than expected. Planning a slower run rather than the 20-miles-with-7.5-at-MP one had the advantage that I could run over the hilly Caragh Lake loop without having to worry about preserving the legs for the faster bits later on. Nevertheless, the legs felt pretty good once I had left the hills behind me at mile 14, and I managed to turn up the pace another notch. I didn’t take split times initially, but I did take them for the last 3 miles, which went by in 22:22, which is 7:27 pace, something I was very pleased about. I hadn’t expected to be able to finish the run at such a strong pace.

Since Tuesday and Wednesday had been pretty tough, I took it much easier today. But the legs felt really good, and despite taking it easy all the way I got fairly close to 8:00 pace, something that used to be much tougher. It confirms something that I have noticed before, namely that my legs can handle long runs much better than fast efforts. Today I felt like I could easily have run further or faster, and the easy effort might have been a bit overcautious. Not that I’m second-guessing my schedule, it’s always better to err on the side of caution. But I’m very pleased with the way my fitness is developing. I’ve gotten a few comments stating that they expect me to break my PR in Loch Ness. I don’t want to sound arrogant, but merely breaking my PR would leave me rather disappointed. My goal is still 3:10, which will be tough, but I think it is within reach. If I miss that I’ll definitely want to break 3:15 and qualify for Boston, anything less and I’ll be upset, PR or not.

I nearly forgot, I had a rare encounter with a fox during my long run yesterday. It was in the hills east of the lake, at least 2 miles away from the nearest house, and that fox crossed the road just in front of me. He sat down about 5 meters off the road as I passed and we eyed each other suspiciously, each of us surprised by the presence of the other. I used to see foxes regularly when we were living in London, but around here they are much rarer (or maybe they’re shy). I think it’s only the second time in four years that I have spotted a fox in Kerry.

There are hill repeats on the schedule for tomorrow, but I will have to decide if I want to do the steep-hill running and bounding drills, or run up in a more conventional way. I got so fed up with those drills a couple of weeks ago that I don’t know if I want to perform them again. I’ll see.

22 Aug: 20 miles, 2:38:36, 7:55 pace, avg. HR 147; with 3 miles in 22:22 (7:27 pace)
23 Aug: 10 miles, 1:21:08, 8:06 pace, avg. HR 142

Non-American Idiot

It was easy to come up with a workout for Monday. After my first attempt at dipping into the anaerobic zone for longer than a few seconds on Sunday, an easy run was always on the cards. Since easy runs always seem to be 10-milers for me these days, that’s what it was. It was quite windy, which is why I switched from the Caragh Lake road to the Ard-na-Sidhe one, but other than that I did as planned. My calves were stiff and tired, and the first 2.5 mile section took about 23 minutes, which is way slower than even 9:00 pace. The ego immediately kicked in and tried to press on the accelerator, but I managed to keep it in check and just plod along. I did get a bit faster, but that always happens after the first couple of miles. The main thing is, I managed to keep the effort at recovery level, and indeed came home with the lowest average HR for a run ever. 10 miles were in the book, but I still didn’t really feel recovered for the rest of the day.

I think listening to Green Day on Monday evening must have fried my brain, because I had a severe case of the stupids today. I have done that workout often enough by now, and really should know better. For Tuesday I had planned 10 miles with 7.5 miles at marathon pace, which means each 2.5 miles segment should take 18:07 (let’s ignore the extra half-second). But today, for some reason I had it in my basket case of a brain that the target time was 17:07. I really don’t know where that came from; I must be cracking up. Unsurprisingly, I missed the “target” time (I managed 17:33) , which led me to the conclusion that I had not yet recovered from Sunday’s workout, and kept pushing hard. The stupids didn’t stop there. When I finished the second segment in 17:45, I knew that this was a good 20 seconds faster than the actual target. I still didn’t connect the dots and kept believing that the first segment had been slow. Not only that, the target time switched back to 17:07 for the third segment. Don’t ask. I kept thinking “that’s too hard, I can’t possibly run like that for 26 miles”, but no, the truth didn’t dawn on me until after I had come home. I had felt like a mug on Sunday, but I felt a lot more like an idiot today. The original plan for tomorrow had been to do a long run with 7.5 miles at MP, but after today’s inadvertent tempo run this will be too hard, I think. I’ll just do a slow 20-miler, and if I feel like speeding up in the last few miles I’ll do so, but I doubt it, to be honest. I hope my brain will have switched itself back on by then.

20 Aug: 10 miles, 1:27:55, 8:47 pace, avg. HR 133
21 Aug: 10 miles, 1:14:55, 7:29 pace, avg. HR 153, with 7.5 miles @ 7:03 pace

Weekend Report

After Thursday’s successful long run I was looking forward to 10 easy miles on Friday. My legs deserved some recovery effort and I kept the pace easy. Despite this, I ran a bit faster than it felt. Most of my recent easy runs were around 8:30 pace, but Thursday's was at 8:12. I think this was due to the reduced mileage of this week, an 80-week mile just feels so much easier when you’ve put in a few 100s and 90s. I wanted to cut back the mileage a few weeks ago, but it took a while to change my mindset, and I think I’ve finally cracked it. I expect the next few weeks to be all around 80 mpw, and then the taper will start.

What I wasn’t looking forward to was Saturday’s hill repeats. It was the last session of hill repeats of my hill phase, and after all my moaning and bitching about hills this couldn’t end soon enough. The original plan was to keep one hill session per week going all the way to the taper, but I got so fed up with those drills that I changed my mind. However, Saturday went really well. I think the main difference was the fact that I hadn’t done a hill session for 4 days. Monday was the 4th day of hills in 7 days, and, in retrospect, that was too much. My legs (and my mind) just didn’t recover in time for the next workout. But after 4 days of a different schedule they felt good again, and the hills didn’t tax me unduly. I guess I’ve just learned a lesson. I’ve now gone back to the original idea of keeping one day of hill repeats going for the next few weeks.

With the marathon 7 weeks away, I’m now starting my next phase. I don’t want to call it the anaerobic phase because there will be little anaerobic running. I could call it “speed phase” but that sounds a bit silly. I tried to do an “exchange workout” of 4x0.75 miles slow/fast/slow/fast. Originally I thought the fast sections should be 7:00 pace and the faster ones 6:30, but Mike has corrected me since. Apparently the slow sections should be marathon pace and the fast ones “as fast as you can while running controlled”, which could mean around 10k pace, I guess. After 5 easy miles I set off, and since I don’t have a track I did it on a 1.5 mile section of the road towards the school. I ran MP to where I thought the halfway point was, then accelerated for the second section, turned around for another bit of MP (which felt really slow after that faster part) to crank it up again after the supposed halfway point. That last section was tough, and towards the end there was no way I could describe the effort as “controlled”, it was simply as fast as I could run on my increasingly tired legs. I stopped afterwards and checked how quickly my heart rate would go down. It took 73 second to come down from 177 to 120, and another 22 to drop to 110. I haven’t got anything to compare them to yet, but will keep an eye on these numbers on future workouts. I was really pleased with myself immediately after the run, but when I checked the lap times on my stopwatch afterwards, I was in for a surprise. The times for the 4 sections were 5:30, 4:35, 4:51 and 4:56, and since there is no way that the third section was faster than the fourth it follows that the supposed halfway point was off by a significant margin, and I felt like a complete mug. I guess from a workout point it’s not such a big deal; I did the work and hopefully the body will take something from it. But next time I’ll probably run it back-and forwards 4 times on the Ard-na-Sidhe road. I have the option of running either 4x0.75 or 4x1 mile, and while the measurements aren’t exact, they should be reasonable accurate. It will mean turning around 3 times rather than once, but at least it will ensure that all segments are of equal distance.

I got a very disappointing email yesterday, the 10k race that was supposed to take place next Saturday in Killorglin was cancelled. Actually it was moved to 22 September, and since Niamh’s brother will get married on that day in Dublin I can’t possibly make it (strictly speaking I could, but Niamh would kill me. Really. She would. And I couldn’t even blame her. So I won’t.) I had hopes of another win, but even more so I was looking forward to the chance of lowering my PR, which will now not be happening. My next race, and the only one before the marathon, will be the half-marathon in Blarney on 9 September, 3 weeks from now. I’m very much looking forward to that, especially after that cancellation.

17 Aug: 10 miles, 1:22:08, 8:12 pace, avg. HR 139
18 Aug: 4 hill repeats, 1:41:55, ~11 miles, avg. HR 145
19 Aug: 9 miles, 1:10:25 7:49 pace, with 3 miles MP/fast/MP/fast in 19:52

Weekly mileage: 81

Doubled Up

I’ll say it first, the best thing about doing that double header this week was not to have to run up that hill again for a few days. Those who have commented that I’m fed up with hill repeats are only too right. I think hill repeats feel too much like work to me. As much as I want to improve as a runner, my main objective is to enjoy the time on my feet, and as far as those hill repeats go, well, enjoyment doesn’t quite cover it.

Anyway, the first part of the double header were 10 miles on Wednesday, with 2.5 easy miles to start with and 7.5 at marathon pace, 7:15. I ran out-and-back sections to Ard-na-Sidhe; each section is 2.5 miles long, which meant an easy jog on the first trip out, and 3 faster segments after that. At least it meant I didn’t have to think about where to speed up. It went pretty well, really. I’m generally hopeless at running at the correct effort whenever I have a specific pace in mind, but the faster 2.5 mile sections (target time: 18:07) went by in 18:05, 18:30 and 17:52 (7:14, 7:24, 7:08 pace). The reason for the slower middle section was a loss of concentration, something I had to fight with all the way through. I generally tried to reduce the effort on the inclines in order not to sap too much energy, and promptly forgot to push harder again on the next downhill. I caught myself napping quite a few times, but there was a longer bit in the middle of the run where I was daydreaming instead of pushing the pace, and it's reflected in the time. I tried not to make up for it on the last part and just run 7:15 again, but that didn’t quite work. However, the overall pace for the effort was almost exactly spot on, and I was pretty happy with it. 7:15 pace didn’t feel too bad either. At first I had my doubts if I could sustain that pace, but once I had tuned into it, it was definitely manageable, as long as I kept my mind at it.

I went to bed early last night, but going to bed early is all in vain if you just can’t manage to fall asleep. I very rarely have that problem, usually I’m zonked within half a minute, but last night I kept tossing and turning for well over an hour. It meant that I slept for less than 6 hours rather then the 7 anticipated. I was still tired when the alarm went off at 5am, but woke up soon enough once out on the road; the low temperatures made sure my mind started working. I ran back and forwards on the same road as yesterday, which isn’t too exciting, but well suited to that kind of workout. The idea was to run easily for 2.5 miles, 8:00 pace for the next 7.5 miles, 7:15 pace for the following 7.5 and easily on the 2.5 miles back home. I did give myself permission to turn around early on the last segment if I couldn’t keep the effort going, after all that was the first time I’ve tried to extend the fast part of the long run for such a distance. Previous efforts always saw a maximum of 4 or 5 faster miles. Anyway, the first half went by pretty easily, I managed to hit 8:00 pace almost exactly, and when I got to 10 miles, I accelerated. My main problem was the same as yesterday, namely to keep my concentration going. As soon as my mind started to wander I would invariably start to slow down, and I lost concentration quite a few times. It brought home the fact that I have to train my mind just as much as my legs. I don’t want to moan after the race that I could have run faster but forgot to do so. I didn’t quite hit the times required, the numbers for the 3 faster segments are 18:27, 18:17, 18:24 (7:22, 7:18, 7:21 pace), which is close but not quite. I reasoned that I had worn my lightweight runners on the day before, but my much heavier Asics Nimbus today and that should have accounted for about 5 seconds per mile. At least that’s my excuse, and I’ll stick to it. Despite missing the target, I was quite happy with the effort. It was definitely the best double header I’ve ever had, and with less than 8 weeks to go until the marathon it was about time to get at least close to marathon pace.

Maybe those hill workouts have had some effect and are responsible for the recent improvements. At least that would make the misery worthwhile.

15 Aug: 10 miles, 1:16:43, 7:40 pace, avg. HR 149; with 7.5 miles @ 7:15
16 Aug: 20 miles, 2:37:07, 7:51 pace, avg. HR 148; with 7.5 miles @ 7:59 and 7.5 miles @ 7:21