Older, None the Wiser

There as something strange going on with my body. On Sunday the weighing scales reported 147.6 pounds. Nice. 24 hours later, and after a perfectly normal day, the same scales had me a whopping 5 pound heavier at 152.6! I was so staggered that I had to weigh myself again, just to prove to myself that I had not just imagined that.

During Monday the issue became a little bit clearer as I must have sprung a leak somewhere and was spending more time on the toilet than I care to remember; by Tuesday morning I had dropped 3 pounds and another one had followed by Wednesday, back to baseline (I was probably a little bit dehydrated on Sunday, hence the lower measurement). I have seen water retention like that twice before: both time following the days after a long ultra race. On these occasions some other symptoms were clear as well like swollen ankles, and the cause was of course obvious. This time round I haven’t noticed any swelling whatsoever and the cause is a mystery to me.

I know it had been a fairly tough weekend but I have done significantly harder training before, and in fact on Sunday I had been marvelling how well my legs had coped with the very hilly 20 mile run when they displayed no soreness and no signs of fatigue whatsoever!

One other notable thing was the pace for the easy runs on Monday and Tuesday. I do wear my Garmin on these runs but don’t ever look at it (it’s too dark to make out the numbers anyway), just record the numbers afterwards. I did a double take on Monday as this had been the slowest run in a very long time, yet the effort had been pretty much the same as always. Tuesday wasn’t much quicker but this time I wasn’t taken by surprise.

I was therefore curious what Wednesday’s evaluation would bring. It was a little bit windy which might have had a small effect on the numbers, but certainly no more than that.

      
        Mile 1    6:54   HR 160
        Mile 2    6:50   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:59   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:52   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 44 seconds

The pace is pretty much the same as last time, but Good God that recovery time is just brutal. I noticed it straight away out on the road, after waiting for 20 seconds the HR was still somewhere around 155 until finally dropping quickly.

One (hopefully reasonable) explanation is that I am presently fighting off some bug. Two of the kids are sick at the moment. Apart from that water retention I haven’t got any symptoms, no headache or stomach ache, no runny nose and I’m not feeling tired or otherwise affected, but there could still something going on that only shows up when my body is under stress.

And in the meantime I happened to become another year older. I'm not moving up yet another age group, though that isn't far off. Niamh keeps insisting that I am now in the second half of my life and should act accordingly, but so far I have managed to keep resisting.

27 Jan

10 miles, 1:23:18, 8:19 pace, HR 136

28 Jan

10 miles, 1:21:40, 8:10 pace, HR 140

29 Jan

11.8 miles, 1:28:39, 7:30 pace, HR 150
     incl. 4 mile eval: 6:54, 6:50, 6:59, 6:52, 44 sec recovery

Mileage

The legs felt distinctly heavy during the first mile of Thursday's run, a sign that the fartlek workout had left its mark. However they loosened up quickly and once I was warmed up I just ran on autopilot without issues. During these runs I never check the Garmin or worry about pace or HR, I just run at whatever effort comes naturally.

Friday was another easy run but with a couple of extra miles. I'm still trying to gauge if these additional miles are beneficial or not. Right now I'm still adapting to the slightly higher mileage and the legs do feel a bit tired. If that keeps on being the case I'll dial it down again, if they can take the extra miles then great.

The wind was quite brutal on Saturday, which is why I decided to change my usual schedule from 8 slightly faster miles on the (exposed) Killorglin road to 3 x 2 mile cruise repeats. To get a bit of shelter I ran on the Ard-na-Sidhe road, but while it may be a bit out of the wind, the road surface is just shocking with one pothole after the other, though so far I've always managed to avoid going over my ankle. The repeats themselves went surprisingly well; I lost concentration during the first one and put the boosters on during the last half mile to make up for it but the other two were fine. I was pleased that I got a little bit faster on each repeat, even if it was at a higher heart rate, though the effort was the same every time.

I would have liked to join the club run on Sunday, but that did not start until 10:30 and the weather forecast made me change my mind. I preferred to run earlier to ensure I'd be back home by the time the storm front struck. Once again the legs were very heavy early on and I just cruised along at a comfortable pace. The wind was rather fierce on the hills, though I have run in worse. By the time I reached halfway I felt a lot better and subsequently ran the second half about a minute per mile faster than the first one, though the fact that the wind was now on my back clearly had some impact on that as well, of course.

That left me with 84 miles for the week. Going on past experience that is pretty much the maximum I can do in single runs; if I wanted to boost my mileage further I would have to run twice a day on occasions, otherwise I can't recover from it. However, family life usually stops me from doing so – Niamh is extremely supportive of my running but I'd rather not test her patience by disappearing most evening, leaving her alone with 4 unruly children. For the time being, and for the foreseeable future, mileage in the mid-80 is all I can do unless I get a brain wave.

23 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:47, 7:52 pace, HR 139

24 Jan

12 miles, 1:35:12, 7:56 pace, HR 136

25 Jan

10 miles, 1:11:27, 7:07 pace, HR 154
   incl. 3 x 2 miles @ 6:35 (158), 6:29 (165), 6:27 (166)

26 Jan

20 miles, 2:38:21, 7:55 pace, HR 146

Good News And Bad News

I've had troubles with my Garmin yet again, but this time I think I finally figured out what's causing the problem (hint: don't connect it to a computer that is being hammered by your son playing minecraft at the time). I lost the data for Sunday's long run as well as Monday's easy one, but managed to resurrect the thing once more for Tuesday. It did raise the question if it's really worth using that toy, but I also played with the idea of getting a newer one, so I guess re-animating the existing one is some sort of compromise. I'm far too much of a maths nerd to go without numbers.

I was actually quite amazed by the way I felt on Monday. I expected heavy legs at the least after a tough weekend, both running as well as real life-wise. Instead I was running along completely relaxed and without much effort.

I did lengthen the run on Tuesday by a couple of miles to see how that would feel. It also added an extra hill to the route, which at first had me try and think of an alternative route until I came to my senses and figured that extra hills can only be a good thing.

Wednesday is the day of my special workout and this time it was fartlek, done Kenyan style, as in 1 minute hard / 1 minute easy. I never check the pace or HR during these efforts, just had the watch beep every 60 seconds, which can take a long time, especially uphill. As much as I tried to keep the effort as even as possible, uphill always felt significantly harder.

As for the news from the title, the good news is that I've already dropped over 3 pounds. That was the easy part of course, the next 3 pounds will take an awful lot longer and the 3 after that might never drop at all, but I'm getting closer to my race weight already. There might be a slight setback on the horizon in the form of my upcoming birthday, but other than that I should be okay.

The bad news, however, is that I'm definitely not running Ballycotton this year. I don't know what exactly happened, my cheque must have gotten lost in the post; it never got cashed and my name is not on the list of entrants. The cheque for the Tralee marathon that I sent off at exactly the same time got cashed very quickly and my entry confirmed, so that's a bit weird. However, there's nothing I can do about that. What's more, my Ballycotton mug at work has mysteriously gone awol a few weeks ago and I won't even have a replacement ready.

20 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:55, 7:53 pace

21 Jan

12 miles, 1:33:32, 7:48 pace, HR 141

22 Jan

10 miles, 1:15:29, 7:32 pace, HR 150
   incl. 7.5 miles of 1 min hard / 1 min easy

Weighty Matters

There were two birthday parties, two swimming lessons, one stage school and one Tae-Kwon-Do workshop; obviously that is on top of the usual workload. It was a tough weekend, is it any wonder that the parents are exhausted! I managed to combine real life demands with running by doing Sunday's long run in Killarney National Park while CIan was doing his workshop, otherwise I would have had to get up before 6 am, and on Sunday I do prefer to catch up on sleep.

I had felt surprisingly good on Thursday after the previous day's hill repeats, but actually I felt fine. For some reason the HR really dropped for that run; assuming the HRM is working correctly, my heart beat about 5 bpm slower than expected. I don't know enough about physiology to explain such a big drop, especially as my training had been unspectacular, but the effect did not quite last, the HR was higher again on Friday. Then again, that could be explained by the mostly sleepless night (Full Moon once again!). It just goes to show just how many different variables there are, you never manage to get all of them under control.

I did my usual faster run on Saturday and was quite delighted with the outcome. Once more I might have worked just a tad too hard, but there is definitely some progress to be seen. If this keeps going I'll be more than happy.

Saturday's weather was much better than forecast; unfortunately the Weather Gods made up for it on Sunday by going completely the other way. Instead of a few showers we had relentless rain, and very heavy at times too. I guess you can argue that the forecasters had gotten it right on average. It meant a wet run in the National Park, which added to the blocked paths due to fallen trees and flooded roads but I got it done all the same. Ideally I would have run a little bit further and with significantly higher hills, but I was happy to get any sort of a long run done at all with all the other things that went on this weekend.

There is progress happening on another front; I started getting my diet in order again about a week ago, once I had managed to eat my way through the Christmas chocolates. It's not a diet as such, I'm just cutting out simple sugars as much as I can. For the first time in several months the weighing scales have dipped below 150 lbs. Good stuff but there is still a lot to be done.

16 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:25, 7:50 pace, HR 136

17 Jan

10 miles, 1:17:57, 7:48 pace, HR 140

18 Jan

10 miles, 1:11:14, 7:07 pace, HR 154
   incl 8 miles @ 6:54 pace (HR 158)

19 Jan

18.1 miles, 2:14:00, 7:24 pace

Weekly Mileage: 75+

Up And Down

I've definitely got a case of the ouchies this week (see picture from Sunday's post), though funnily enough it's at its best when running (and at its worst in the shower). It really was a painful lesson, though if I've learned from it has yet to be seen.

After half a year of surprisingly good weather, it really has been tough over the last 4 weeks. The storms may have abated but the wind and rain are still here and more than once I got reminded that freezing cold rain is just about my least favourite weather for running. Then again, I still remember one (very good) runner once remarking to another "who would train in such weather" and quietly thinking "I do, and that's why I coped with it better than anyone else today".

Monday was exceptionally slow and easy, with Tuesday almost the same. I did  notice that my easy pace has slowed over the last few weeks, though that went hand-in-hand with a lower heart rate. Rather than being alarmed I think it's more a sign that I'm starting to get it right again. Few runners run their easy runs too slowly but a lot are running them too fast.

Wednesday's workout was a set of hill repeats. The last time I did them was 3 weeks ago, and I did feel the Achilles for 2 weeks after, so I am a bit wary but I do recognise the value of that workout. I did more than last time (14 vs 9) and still felt perfectly fine, but I was running out of time and had to head back home. I would have had time for more had I not pressed the snooze button once when the alarm went off at 6:10 in the morning, but hearing the wind and rain outside just did not feel particularly inviting.

13 Jan

10 miles, 1:20:51, 8:05 pace, HR 136

14 Jan

10 miles, 1:19:39, 7:57 pace, HR 130

15 Jan

7+ miles, 1:10:46, 9:15 pace, HR 142
  14 x 60 sec hill repeats

Indecent Picture Ahead

Friday was obviously an easy run, that was never in question after Thursday's evaluation. It was Saturday's run that had me wondering what I should do. In the past few weeks I have always had 2 easy days between workouts, with the weekend's back-to-back runs counting as one workout, which makes the recovery during the week all the more important. I'm not a spring chicken any more and old bodies are healing slower than young ones. But eventually I decided to do my usual faster Saturday run because the early part of the weeks had seen 2 easy and one off day, so I figured I'd probably get away with it.

I was pretty pleased with that run. The last time I had run that loop was 2 weeks ago. Back then I had been a tad faster but had pushed too hard. This time I was much more relaxed and always in full control of the effort, so I call this the better workout even if the pace was a couple of seconds slower.

Stop complaining, I did warn you!  That's what it looked
like after I washed off the blood.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Sunday turned out to be correct and the gale force wind threw the rain against our window in a rather unwelcome fashion. I did wait a little bit until 9:30 in the hope of catching a quieter window and the rain subsiding, but that did not happen and it was pretty brutal up there in the hills. I call this a character-building run. The rain was relentless, the wind pretty bad, the roads were completely waterlogged with one particular area near Blackstones Bridge several inches submerged and of course I was utterly drenched. It did not help that I noticed some chafing happening as early as 5 miles in and obviously that only got worse, though I was still shocked to see the damage afterwards, there was actually blood running down my thigh! And boy, did that start to sting once the endorphins started to wear off.

The run itself was definitely on the slow side, but in these conditions I don't need an excuse. I finished the week on 70 miles despite missing a run on Monday, so I'm happy enough. That chafed area will cause troubles for a good while; ah well. Time to HTFU I suppose.

10 Jan

10 miles, 1:20:40, 8:40 pace, HR 139

12 Jan

10 miles, 1:11:55, 7:11 pace, HR 155
   incl 8 miles @ 6:58 (HR 157)

10 Jan

18+ miles, 2:26:04, 8:01 pace, HR 145

Weekly Mileage: 70

Delayed Evaluation

I was pretty please with myself that I had managed a daily run despite the rather challenging weather conditions over the last 3 weeks. Sadly, the sequence ended on Monday morning. I got up at my usual time, got ready, and just as I was about to head out I was stopped in my tracks by a flash of lightning followed almost immediately by some massive thunder, so it was right on top of me. A bit of wind and rain won’t stop me, but lightning does – I might be stupid but not f***ing stupid; at least not that f***ing stupid.

You can’t make up for a lost run (well you can, but that’s stupid once more) so I continued with my training on Tuesday as if nothing had happened, telling myself that an extra day’s rest might work in my favour anyway.  There was a minor reason to celebrate as my new HRM chest strap had finally arrived and this was its maiden run. Apart from that, it was a completely unremarkable easy 10 mile run.

With the winter storms finally abated I had planned to do an evaluation run on Wednesday. However, technology conspired against me in the form of a Garmin that resolutely refused to awaken from its deep sleep. It wasn’t the battery and not even a hard reset would wake it from its coma. For a normal run I would not have minded quite as much (well, I might), but the Garmin is absolutely essential for an evaluation, I need a working GPS, HRM and timer for these. I did not have time for a lengthy fix and eventually headed out sans gadget for yet another 10 mile run. The effort was identical to Tuesday, so I call it the same time. On the plus side the legs felt very good, which I suppose more than makes up for the technological mishap.

I did manage to resurrect the damn toy in the evening and managed to evaluate with a day’s delay on Thursday. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after all that’s exactly what the evaluation is for. The weather was good, just a tiny bit of breeze that would not have any real impact on the numbers.

        Mile 1    6:48   HR 160
        Mile 2    6:54   HR 161
        Mile 3    6:55   HR 160
        Mile 4    6:55   HR 160
        Recovery to HR 130: 34seconds

Now, the fact that the pace is so stable and the short recovery time are good news. The slow pace is not. That’s a good bit slower than the evaluation last month, though in retrospect that had been falsified by some sharpening effect from the cross country race and had tricked me into running the Clonakilty marathon too fast (at least it was a factor in that). Today’s figures are more reflective of my true aerobic conditioning and to be honest, I’m not happy about it. I was in much better shape same time last year. I could blame the marathons I have run in the autumn (Dublin, Sixmilebridge and Clonakilty) but could point to the fact that the previous year had been even tougher (Dingle Ultra, Dublin, Sixmilebridge), so that’s not the whole picture.

Something to ponder, I suppose.

Update: MC sent me a note that the eval is very good. At this point, stable pace and quick recovery are much more important than fast paces. I can't even begin to tell you how much better that makes me feel.

6 Jan

0

7 Jan

10 miles, 1:18:52. 7:52 pace, HR 142

8 Jan

10 miles, ~1:19:00

9 Jan

11.9 miles, 1:27:52, 7:26 pace, HR 151
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:48, 6:54, 6:55, 6:55, 34 sec recovery

Home And Away

I could have gotten used to it. All I had to do was to sleep until I woke naturally (which was still hours before anyone else in the house), get ready at my own leisure and then run for as long as I wanted. Once my run was done I could laze around for the rest of the day and mostly do f*** all. Unfortunately, the holidays are over and tomorrow I have to get back to work. Frankly, that sucks.

Running away from home is always a little bit tricky, mostly because you have to run on unknown roads, but it does not help if you leave your gloves at home at the coldest time of the year. On the plus side, Thursday night's storm wasn't particularly noticeable in Dublin while it must have been absolutely brutal in Kerry - I'm still shocked at the pictures of a destroyed Rossbeigh beach.

Anyway, I did manage a run every morning, even with frosty appendages.Thursday was alway going to be a very easy run after Wednesday's speed workout. I was still amazed how I had managed to run 22 repeats basically on autopilot and still went home before I was knackered, but there was still a price to pay the next day and I didn't even break 8-minute miles. The legs were definitely improved on Friday, but I still took it easy. It was a bit windy, but compared to what had happened at the other side of the island this was not even worth mentioning.

After 2 easy days I felt confident enough on Saturday to run a few faster miles. Problem was, I did not have my usual Killorglin loop, so comparing the run to previous ones isn't really on. I ran loops in Deer Park, which is pretty hilly. The first mile was as slow as 7:12, but things gradually improved. In fact, I pretty much felt better the longer the run went on and by the end the average had come down to 7:02. A bit slower than last week, yes.

Sunday's long run was in doubt after a rather ominous forecast, but it turned out to be much more benign than feared. Yes, it was cold, wet and windy but nothing like the stormy weather I had been expecting. The legs weren't exactly fresh and for a few miles I kept wondering if I was digging myself into a hole once more, but both the legs and the pace improved as the run went on (that seems to be a developing pattern) and I finished the run basically on autopilot.

It brought the weekly mileage just above 74, still a bit less that I would ideally like at this stage, but I'm getting there.

2 Jan

10 miles, 1:20:06, 8:01 pace, HR 144

3 Jan

10+ miles, 1:19:13, 7:48 pace, HR 145

4 Jan

10 miles, 1:12:25, 7:14 pace, HR 156
   incl. 8 miles @ 7:02 pace (HR 160)

5 Jan

17+ miles, 2:13:56, 7:50 pace, HR 146

Thunderbolt And Lightning

When I started my run on Sunday, I immediately noticed that the legs were rather sluggish. This did not come as a great surprise, having run a tempo run on Saturday as well as a too-fast run on Friday. I did wonder if it was wise to be heading out on the loop around Caragh Lake, but of course carried on regardless. Memories of that awful long run a few months ago were playing in my head, but luckily a repeat was not on the cards. In fact, after about 10 miles I started feeling much better and ended the run with a few faster miles. The fact that the weather deteriorated with every minute did play its part in urging me back home.

Monday did have heavy legs again, which came as even less of a surprise, but this time I made sure to take it very easy indeed. It was a lovely sunny morning, very unusual for the last few weeks, and I could see that the Caragh River and Lake were both exceptionally high and the road was waterlogged in a couple of places, leaving me with wet and very cold feet.

Very Very Frightening indeed it was on Tuesday when the weather changed once more. I was undeterred at first, but after about 6 easy miles I saw some lightning with the thunder coming a second later, so this was very close. I was less than a mile away from home so I turned around and hightailed it home at 6-minute pace, which wasn’t exactly easy effort any more. Ironically, by the time I got home it started brightening up but another roll of thunder convinced me that heading back out was not a good idea, instead I accepted the loss of a few miles and called it a day. I still ended the year on 3276 miles, a very similar figure to all the previous 5 years.

New Year’s Day brought some more wind and rain. By now arrived in Dublin, I headed for the Stillorgan Heath and did some laps there. Normally I would not choose to run in circles in training, but I did a workout of 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy fartlek, which broke the monotony. I ran by feel but on the 2 or 3 occasions when I glanced at my Garmin I saw about 5:40 pace, so this was roughly 5k effort. After a while I checked the time, did some calculations and realised that I had already done 22 repeats, which was about twice as many as I had initially planned so I called it a day, did a cool down and headed for home. I had not noticed it while running, but I was completely frozen when I got home; the shower did its bit to thaw me up but I had pins and needles more or less all over my body and I spent a good while hugging the radiator afterwards. The legs, on the other hand, felt just wonderful and apart from being turned into an icicle I had loved the run.

I like to think it was a great start to 2014. Happy New Year.

29 Dec

15+ miles, 1:58:37, 7:51 pace, HR 150

30 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:39, 7:51 pace, HR 145

31 Dec

6.8 miles, 52:09, 7:40 pace, HR 144

1 Jan

10 miles, 1:15:43, 7:34 pace, HR 148
   incl 22x 60 sec hard

This Was My Year

2013 had started in rather spectacular fashion on New Year's Day by breaking 18 minutes for the 5k for the first time ever. While I don't particularly care about my 5k time, I was rather chuffed to be breaking into 17 territory and subsequently managed to lower that time twice more over the next few weeks, picking up a nice prize from the Gneeveguilla  race series in the process. Another big PB followed in the Ballycotton 10 miler, incidentally also lowering my 5 miles and 10k PBs, though that was overshadowed by missing out on a top-100 finisher t-shirts by 5 seconds/3 places. However, the big prize for Spring 2013 had always been the Tralee marathon where I more than made up for the missing t-shirt by not only setting a new marathon PB but also winning the M40 trophy, which has taken pride of place on the shelf ever since.

Focus shifted immediately to the Connemara 100, but I managed to place 3rd in Killarney and Portumna, run 10 marathons in 10 days and a new 4-mile PB during that training, the latter one especially coming as a complete surprise because I thought my legs would be sluggish as hell after all those marathons and no speed work. Connemara went very well, reaching my dream time of sub-17, but coming second once more. With that the running year was basically done, it took a few months to recover from running 100 miles on the road and a couple of marathons in Dublin (running as a pacer) and Clonakilty (running as an idiot) sandwiched yet another second place in Sixmilebridge.

I ran new PBs over 5k, 4 miles, 10 miles, marathon, 50k and 100 miles (plus unofficial PB split times over 5 miles and 10k), which at the age of 43 and after 9 years of running is a rather spectacular return. Things could only have been topped if one or two of those second or third places had turned into victories, but you can't have everything I suppose.

One particular highlight was running my 50th marathon, with the chairman of the Marathon Club handing me my medal. I was chuffed to bits by that one.

--

Since Christmas I have run 10 easy miles on St. Stephens Day, giving the Farranfore race a miss as I did not think a sudden load of anaerobic miles would do much for my only just emerging conditioning. Then the weather turned very nasty indeed. We've had an unprecedented series of storms hitting us, but all others hit land further up North. For this one Kerry took the brunt. Apart from a very interrupted night of sleep we actually got away lightly in Caragh Lake, there was no real damage when half the county was without power, but running in the morning was still out, it was too dangerous. I did manage to catch up at lunchtime and do another 10 miles, but the pace and HR were a bit too high without me noticing. I think running later in the day had something to do with it, it always throws out my gauge.

That might have had some impact on Saturday's run where I tried to do 8 miles at a higher effort, my one faster run of the week. The legs were a little bit sluggish at first but I thought I had the effort very much under control. When I checked the Garmin afterwards I found that once again I had run a little bit too hard, something I tend to do when not paying attention (or, in that case, only running by feel without paying attention to the watch). I'll get it right one day.

26 Dec

10 miles, 1:17:10, 7:43 pace, HR 144

27 Dec

10 miles, 1:13:21, 7:20 pace, HR 151

28 Dec

10 miles, 1:11:09, 7:06 pace, HR 157
   incl. 8 miles @ 6:56 pace (HR 160)

Stormy Christmas

It's been a stormy few days, but so far I have managed to get a run in every day.

Sunday was reasonably okay, but I preferred the somewhat sheltered road past Ard-na-Sidhe to the totally exposed Caragh Lake one. Then I had the brain wave that I could a full loop on the Devil's Elbow, which might be as exposed as it gets up in the hills but the wind would be mainly at my back. I managed the steep climb well enough but then I heard a loud thunder coming from somewhere behind me and got a bit scared as I was far away from any shelter and being caught in a thunderstorm out in the hills isn't a good position to be in. Luckily, this one single thunder turned out to be the only one of its kind and all I had to deal with was a hail storm, which was painful but not dangerous. I was very pleased by how well the legs felt and how easily they had managed the long steep climb.

Monday morning was very dark but the wind was manageable once more, at least in Ard-na-Sidhe. I ran the out-and-back route twice, which added up to 10 miles. Conditions changed every five minutes, from calm, to very gusty, with rain, hail and even sleet all making a few appearances. Once again, the feeling in the legs was by far the best part of the run.

When I put out my running gear on Monday evening I somewhat doubted that I would be able to run the following morning as the weather forecast was quite frightening with the weather already rather wild and a bad storm on its way. However, things were much brighter in the morning - well, it was pitch dark, but the wind was definitely a lot calmer than what I had feared and running was never in doubt. I did the same route as the day before, and once more, even though I'm sounding like a broken record (wait, do people still know what a broken record actually is/was??),  the best part was the feeling in the legs as the entire run was completely effortless. The HR was a bit high (I eventually remembered my ancient hard plastic Garmin HR strap and dug it out, it seems to work), though that was not really reflected in subjective effort which was entirely comfortable and, you know, just ... right.

I guess I have reached that point in training when it doesn't feel like training any more because running is becoming so easy.

The contrast to Wednesday, Christmas, could not have been greater, with a lovely crisp blue sky greeting us all. I ran later than usual because obviously Santa took precedence, and I was astonished by the amount of presents on display; the kids must have been much better behaved throughout the year than I had realised! Anyway, around 12 o'clock I managed to get an hour for myself that I used for some hill repeats. It was my first workout of that kind for a long time and I decided to err on the side of caution. You should always leave it be with at least 1 or 2 more repeats in you, and I followed that advice. Besides, I am still concerned about my Achilles, while it has been fine for a good while now I really do not want to aggravate it again, so the rather modest number of 9 repeats, 1 minute each, was all that was on the menu. Obviously, this is going to increase in the coming weeks.

Happy Christmas everyone. I hope Santa has been good for you.

22 Dec

13+ miles, 1:38:12, 7:30 pace, HR 152 (est)

23 Dec

10 miles, 1:15:33, 7:33 pace, HR 147

24 Dec

10 miles, 1:14:16, 7:26 pace, HR 148

25 Dec

6.59ish miles, 54:51, 8:22 pace, HR 150
   incl. 9 x 60 sec hill repeats

Happy Solstice

Make no mistake, I am not complaining about the weather. We had a great summer followed by a nice autumn and we have had nothing to moan about (not that that would stop some people, of course). The last few days, however, have been rather wild and it's almost as if nature had decided to throw all the usual autumn/winter storms at us at once.

Right now it really seems to pay off that I always run in the morning. Two out of the last three days were mostly fine in the morning but running would have been too dangerous in the evenings. I know from experience that when the weather chart says "gale", I can handle it. "Strong gale" is rather uncomfortable but still doable, but "storm" means it's better to stay at home. Thankfully the latter is usually rare but has been seen all too often the last few days. One saving grace is that Kerry is in the South of Ireland - the North got hit a lot worse.

Thursday night did not sound promising but the storm abated just in time for my run and I got away lightly, apart from a hail shower over the last half mile, which inadvertently made a good training opportunity for a sprint finish; you never know when the need for that should arise again. As I laid out my clothes for Friday I doubted if I would be able to use them but once again the conditions in the morning were better than forecast and I made full use of it. For the first time in a few weeks I added a few faster miles to the mix. The windy conditions and the lack of an HRM made pacing a tricky affair. I did end up running just a little bit harder than would have been optimal, but the legs felt very good.

It was pretty much the same on Saturday with the conditions once more windy but definitely manageable, something that would not have been the case a couple of hours later. I half expected the legs to be sluggish after Friday's faster miles but instead they felt fantastic and I got that "effortlessly gliding over the tarmac" feeling.

It was really dark this morning; of course, it was the shortest day of the year. It will get brighter soon enough, and with the Christmas holidays just ahead, things will get easier again.

I'm not feeling 100 percent at the moment, I had a sore throat on a few occasions and am lacking just a little bit of energy during the day, but it does not seem to have any noticeable effect on my running. With half the office coughing all day and the kids bringing home all kinds of germs from school, the situation is not entirely surprising. As long as it doesn't get any worse I'll be able to handle it (just like the weather, then).

The HRM is worse than ever before, it really seems to be beyond help and the HR graphs are all over the place. I have ordered a new unit and am awaiting its arrival with bated breath, though I don't think I'll get my hands on it before Christmas.

I haven't decided yet if I'll do any races over the Christmas/New Year period. Even if I do, I have no expectations after not doing any speed work, so that would all be mostly for fun.

19 Dec

8 miles, 1:01:16, 7:39 pace, HR 142 (est)

20 Dec

10 miles, 1:10:55, 7:05 pace, HR 158 (est)
   incl. 8 miles @ 6:59 pace

21 Dec

10 miles, 1:15:53, 7:35 pace, HR 146 (est)

Ouchies

My lower back started hurting on Sunday after sleeping in an awkward position (blame that damn cat of ours). It got really bad on Monday after sitting in the office chair for too many hours, which just goes to show how bad and unnatural the sitting position is. Luckily, things got gradually better and today I'm able to bend down again. Even more luckily, running was not affected. In fact, exercise was the one thing that helped the most, both running and cycling provided some much needed relief. Maybe that's the universe's punishment for never getting injured while running (yeah I know, that's just asking for trouble).

The weather has been very changeable this week, but so far I have managed to escape the worst. I did fear for today's run after watching the weather forecast but in fact I managed to run right between two major storm fronts during the night and around lunch time. Things might still get awkward later this week and the weekend.

I thought I might have been able to fix the HRM on my own after spending some considerable time cleaning up the rusty bits on the transmitter unit and getting some believable data on Monday and Tuesday, but unfortunately it all went wonky again on Wednesday and I am back to square one. The HR values this week are all more or less educated guesses, and any values since the Clonakilty marathon are suspect. Like I said, it does not really impact training at the moment, but I'm lacking a little bit of feedback that I would prefer to have. Silly technology. Why don't things just work?

Meanwhile I have been busy planning for next year. I have signed up for several races for 2014, ranging from 10 miles to 24 hours, the latter being the big A goal for next year of course. My running schedule is mostly decided but I am still undecided if I should do one or two other things as well like the Dingle Adventure Race, which I think was a very good training effort before the Bangor 24 hours race in 2012. I still have plenty of time to make up my mind. I'll be busy, that's for sure.

16 Dec

8 miles, 1:01:15, 7:39 pace, HR 144

17 Dec

8+ miles, 1:01:11, 7:35 pace, HR 146

18 Dec

10 miles, 1:17:45, 7:46 pace, HR 144

No Heart (Rate)

It has to be said, we've had some very good weather here in Ireland over the last few months. Not only did we have an actual summer with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees (it wasn't the weather's fault that I had to run 10 marathons during that time), we also had a very good autumn which was cold but dry earlier on and warm but dry later. Even the one storm we had blew itself out overnight just for the Dublin marathon to go ahead unhindered.

It was never going to last forever, so I won't be complaining too much about the present conditions, challenging and not entirely without danger as they may be. It was pretty wild out there yesterday, the combination of very heavy gale force winds with pouring rain always makes for interesting runs. I managed to go half a mile down the road towards Caragh Lake before admitting temporary defeat; the gale whipping the wind straight into my face actually hurt and I didn't fancy spending an entire hour like this. So I turned around and headed for Ard-na-Sidhe, where the trees provide a decent amount of shelter, though the amount of wooden debris on the road showed that things could potentially go very wrong here if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, though I think the actual chance of being hit by a falling branch is quite small.

Anyway, Niamh wasn't too happy with me going out and let me know so on my return. "Not many runners would go out into weather like this". "No, and they won't be running 220 km in July as a result". Good comeback you have to admit, though I am not sure the case is closed to be honest.

I'm fine and unhurt, but the same cannot be said about my HRM, which is well and truly banjaxed. It has been acting up ever since the Clonakilty marathon. On previous occasions a change of battery has always fixed similar problems, but no such luck this time. I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem is with the transmitter rather than the HR strap as I found some rust on the unit, but will have to confirm that first. While it does not affect my training right now, I do use HR data to gauge my state of recovery, so I want that fixed sooner rather than later. And I can't do an evaluation without a working HRM, so that's on hold at the moment.

Yesterday I looked up the cross country results from 2 weeks ago and I finished in a rather modest 77th position out of 127 finishers. I can't remember the last time I finished in the bottom half of a field, but I guess it might have been the one other time I tried my hand at cross country, which confirms the fish out of water feeling that comes with me running through mud. Mind, despite the poor finishing position I still managed to be one of the points scorers for Kerry, which strikes me as slightly bizarre.

12 Dec

5+ miles, 40:27, 7:55 pace, HR 137

13 Dec

8 miles, 1:02:44, 7:50 pace, HR 141

14 Dec

8 miles, 1:02:31, 7:48 pace

15 Dec

10 miles, 1:18:11, 7:49 pace, HR 147

Weekly Mileage: 46+

Blame It On Killarney

It’s always good for a distance runner to be confident. In fact, it is absolutely crucial. However, there is a fine line between being confident and delusional.

It’s all Killarney’s fault. Of course. When I ran 2:56 there in May I learned that I was now able to easily run a sub-3 marathon in a training run without having to do the usual marathony things like race pace runs or tapering or any such like.

When I saw that last year’s first M40 runner in Clonakilty had run 3:05 I figured I had an excellent chance of taking that position myself. There was no prize money for age groups, which meant I wasn’t going to win any prizes, but that’s not the point anyway.

What I had not considered was the fact that I had been in excellent shape following the Tralee marathon in March, and it was that fitness that got me the 2:56 in Killarney. I’m not in the same shape right now – even literally, seeing as I weigh 8 pounds more now (the diet begins after New Year). In the meantime I have run things like 10 marathons in 10 days and a 100 mile run, which means that I can now easily run a marathon whenever I want to, even in 20 day intervals, but not particularly fast ones.

The marathon distance needs to be respected, and if you start the first half in a delusional state you will learn a lesson or two in the second half. Smart people learn that lesson and benefit from it. Others repeat the same mistake another 20 days later. Doh!

The other lesson, also one I have encountered before, is that I cannot trust myself when I have a race number pinned onto my chest. I was well aware that I was running faster than I should during the first few miles, but there is an obvious difference between rationally knowing what one should do, and what one actually does when the adrenaline is flowing. I know I can run easy marathons – if I carry a pacer’s balloon. If I run entirely for myself, things are obviously different. How that will work out next March in Tralee might be interesting.

So, right now I see myself as a runner who can knock out a 3:10 marathon whenever he likes, but it’s probably not a good idea to test how long that theory would hold. I’ll skip any longer races for the next 10 weeks.

First things first, and in this case that obviously means recovery, even I managed to work that out. I have run 5 very easy miles every morning since the marathon and it took until Wednesday for the soreness in the quads to go away. Until Thursday I’m a single dad with 2 kids at home, so training would have taken a back seat anyway.

9 Dec

5 miles, 43:02, 8:36 pace, HR 131

10 Dec

5 miles, 42:04, 8:25 pace, HR 135

11 Dec

5 miles, 41:22, 8:16 pace, HR 148

Run Like An Idiot

The weekend was always going to be a tough one. Work Christmas party on Friday, a marathon on Saturday and Cian's 10th birthday on Sunday were never going to be a piece of cake. But of course I could make things easier for myself by being clever and running the marathon in a sensible way that would not endanger all those recent training gains. So did I do that? Did I ****!

My first problem on Saturday morning, apart from having to get up at 5:30 am that is, was finding the place, because as it turns out the signposting between Macroom and Clonakilty is non-existent and driving on an unfamiliar road in the dark and through heavy fog doesn't help navigation. Nevertheless, I arrived in good time, very much looking forward to the race.

I started near the front, and for the first mile or so found myself running beside Keith Whyte yet again, just like in Sixmilebridge three weeks ago, but this time surrounded by plenty of other runners. A quick count gave me well over 30 runners ahead of me and I wondered if the field had increased in quality since last year or if some people were going to pay a price later on (oh how little did I know!).

Happy at the start, running alongside Keith once more. Photo by Kieran Minihane.

There was a group right ahead of me and I decided to join them; running in a group is always easier than running on your own. Angela McCann was part of it, which should have set off my alarm bells but did not. There were close to 10 runners in that group, including a second lady, Maura Regan. The atmosphere was very relaxed, Angela and Maura were chatting for a while ("aren't you supposed to race each other rather than having a friendly chat") and I was discussing everything from teenage daughters to Manchester City with Conor. At one point Angela asked us to stop making jokes as she couldn't stop laughing and it cost her energy - ever the consummate professional.

Conor remarked at mile 7 how chatty and relaxed we all were and in 10 miles it would all be so different. He was wrong. Within a mile we were labouring hard on the first of a series of brutal climbs (there had been several non-brutal climbs already by that point) and the group disintegrated rapidly, with Angela going off the front, obviously. I hung back a bit, trying not to kill myself on the uphill and being reasonably confident that I would catch up on the downhill again, which was only partially the case. Within a mile or two I started feeling the effort and had to labour rather hard, certainly harder than I would have liked, and wondering how it all had fallen apart so rapidly after feeling so relaxed only 15 minutes earlier.

I fought on for about another mile before deciding that I had indeed been an idiot, especially so as I had made exactly the same mistake 3 weeks earlier in Sixmilebridge, and that by far the best option was to relax a bit, and, reluctantly, let all the other runners in the group go (except one runner, John, who was suffering even more). I started cruising at a slightly more relaxed pace but I felt very rough.

I think taking a caffeine tablet at that point turned out to be a rather inspired move. I reached the halfway point in slightly over 91 minutes but knew I wasn't going to be able to keep the pace and not exactly looking forward to the second half. However, I was right behind Maura and Emmet again all of a sudden, which came very much as a surprise, seeing as I had resigned myself to never seeing them again until the finish. Had I sped up or did they slow down? I did not say it out loud, but a look at the Garmin indicated that it was the latter. Shortly after halfway the course turned decidedly brutal with a series of very tough climbs, one tougher than the other and all of them adding another layer of fatigue on already overworked legs. Conor and a couple of other runners from our group were clearly feeling the effort as well and we kept leapfrogging each other, depending on who was feeling low at the time or who was better at climbing or descending. Two runners from behind caught up with us in quick succession somewhere around mile 16, but rather surprisingly they were the only ones.

There was a very steep drop at around mile 18 and it kept going for a mile, losing all the elevation that we had worked so hard for. My way to run these steep drops is to visualise my body being perpendicular to the road, which causes me to lean forward and the effect of gravity keeps pulling me down the hill very quickly and with little effort; all I have to do is keep spinning the legs enough to not fall on my face. It worked very well, I was doing sub-6 pace at times and gained 5 places or so with no real effort. Unfortunately, running on the flat, and the next climb, felt all the harder. I gained another place, with the caught runner clearly suffering badly, and then hit the worst climb of them all at mile 20.

This really was brutal, steep and well over a mile long, and the fact that we had over 20 miles in our legs made it feel twice as steep and at least twice as long. There was nothing to do but keep working hard, trying to ignore the screaming quads and hamstrings and just get on with it. I made up a good bit of distance to the runner ahead but could not quite catch up, and when I finally reached the top there was a sharp right turn and I caught a quick glimpse of the runners behind me. Maura had overtaken all the boys and was about half a minute behind, with all the guys strung out behind.

The descent was brutally steep once more, which was very hard on our suffering quads, but I got on alright. I was suffering and counting down the miles and got completely paranoid about getting caught from behind. I had taken a coke from the aid station at mile 20 and did the same again at mile 23. To my surprise the runner ahead of me got closer and I managed to overtake him and started chasing the next one. At that point something started to work again. Maybe it was the second coke, but all of a sudden I was flying again and the pace increased remarkably. At one point I caught a glimpse of my Garmin and saw sub-7 pace, which I had not managed for the last 15 miles on the flat (wait, what flat?). I got right behind the next runner, Joe Walsh I think, who had been in our big group earlier on, but then disaster struck.

Getting there. Photo by Kieran Minihane

My calves had sent the odd spasm before, but all of a sudden the cramping got really bad at mile 24. It happened in both legs, which brought back unwelcome memories of the first Dingle marathon when I had hit the deck after both legs started cramping simultaneously and could not support my weight any more, but thankfully I was spared a full repeat. It still was bad enough, very very painful, and at one point I started screaming out in pain, which alerted Joe to my presence and I think he sped up after that. I was tempted to stop and try to stretch out the cramps which were really taking hold of both calf muscles, but that would have cost me some places and I kept going, desperately trying to get things back under control. The right calf was worse and at one point it felt like my toes were turning outwards with each stride (or the heel was turning inwards) and I could feel the leg shaking and struggling to support my weight with each stride, which really did not feel good at all. Even trying to run as relaxed as possible did not help, in fact that seemed to bring on more cramps. For at least a mile I was fighting wave after wave of cramps, all the while desperately trying to keep the pace at a reasonable level. I could see two more runners just ahead of me who a mile earlier had been completely out of reach. This was immensely frustrating, I had the energy levels to run much faster and would have caught them easily but the calves just would not cooperate and forced a much slower pace on me. It was was clearly a case of the chain being only as strong as the weakest link, and the high energy levels were to remain untapped.

Clearly showing the effort at the end. Photo by Peter Mooney.

We got back into Clonakilty and the finish line came all too early (as in trying to catch the runners ahead of me) or all too late (as in dealing with the cramps), but once I crossed it I was happy again once more. My time was 3:09:21, only marginally faster than the pacing effort in Dublin but requiring far more effort due to me being a complete idiot by running much too fast in the first half. Admittedly, it was a much tougher course than Dublin, one of the toughest in Ireland, ranking only just behind Dingle in my view (and almost as scenic and beautiful as that one). I ran 98 minutes for the second half, not a good split, though the second half contained the majority of the increasingly brutal climbs. I also made up about 5 place in the second half, so others had paced themselves even worse, not that that is any excuse for my own stupidity. I came in 18th and the cramps had cost me 3 places, but in the end it does not matter one bit if you come 15th or 18th in a race like that.

Within seconds of crossing the line I was whisked away to a video interview with Frank Greally, the editor of the Irish Runner magazine, and then Pat O'Keeffe, the chairman of the marathon club presented me with my 50 marathons medal, which was a great honour and I am ever so grateful for Pat to come down all the way to Clonakilty even though he was not running himself. Clonakilty RD Bob Hilliard could not have been more welcoming and supporting, but eventually I felt cold and started shivering so I headed for the shower (yes, they even provided shower facilities for the runners!)

Halfway there ;-)

I have plenty of thoughts regarding that run but will leave them for the next post. Stay tuned.

5 Dec

8 miles, 1:01:05, 7:38 pace, HR 143

6 Dec

8 miles, 1:04:50, 8:06 pace, HR 137

7 Dec

Clonakilty Marathon
   3:09:21, 18th place

8 Dec

5 miles, 42:37, 8:31 pace, HR 144

Evaluation

I did not expect any great insights from today's evaluation. In fact, any deviation from the last evaluation would have come as quite a surprise. Well, that's why I do these things. It's always to easy to guess wrongly.

The conditions were much better than expected, the heavy overnight rain and the wind had both ceased, leaving me with almost perfect running weather.

For some reason I found it tougher to maintain an even HR than usual. I have done dozens of these evaluations by now and am quite tuned to the required effort, but I just could not get it right this morning. The HR alarm kept beeping at me almost incessantly, to the point where I was highly tempted to chuck the thing over the nearest fence and go home. However, the average HR happened to be just about right, even if the effort was a bit uneven.

        Mile 1    6:36   HR 161
        Mile 2    6:34   HR 160
        Mile 3    6:35   HR 161
        Mile 4    6:39   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 36 seconds

The pace figures are slightly falsified by a sharpening effect from Sunday's cross country race, so they don't entirely reflect my present aerobic conditioning. However, I am pleased by the fact that the pace was remarkably stable, but much more so by the recovery time which is significantly shorter than last time round. Back then I had seen that I had clearly not recovered from Dublin; I seem to have a much easier time in my recovery from Sixmilebridge, something I had already felt before, but this time I have some numbers to prove it.

Well, with yet another marathon just round the corner I hope that I'm not destroying whatever gains I managed to achieve over the last few weeks. After that it will get a little bit saner without any marathons or ultras for about 10 weeks, by which time I hope to get to some mini-peak in early spring for a couple of races, before the big push towards the summer.

2 Dec

8 miles, 1:04:19, 8:02 pace, HR 138

3 Dec

8 miles, 1:02:21, 7:47 pace, HR 141

4 Dec

11.75 miles, 1:25:00, 7:14 pace, HR 149
   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:36, 6:34, 6:35, 6:39, 36 sec recovery

Dirty

When I arrived at that field in Beaufort, I immediately noticed two things: the scenery was absolutely stunning with the Reeks in the background, and Michael and Sean both had a seriously worried look on their faces when I approached them. They had obviously been reading my blog. I did assure them that I might have exaggerated my feelings a little bit and was happy enough to run.

Well, happy probably still isn't the right word. Truth to be told, I wasn't all that keen on it. I am very much a road runner, and every time I have tried something else (triathlon, mountain running, adventure racing) I very quickly came to the conclusion that these things are fun but not nearly as much fun as road running. Nevertheless, this was a team event and I was fully prepared to put the required effort into it. Admittedly, I would not have run 10 miles the day before a road race, but that's the way it goes.

Last year I had gotten my backside firmly handed to me in the Kerry novices race, so I was under no illusion how the Munster race would go. The field for the men's master race was gargantuan in comparison to the juvenile and women's races that had preceded it. And since this was cross county, everyone shot out of the blocks at breakneck speed, which seems to be the traditional way to run these things.

I immediately was working harder than I would have liked but was still way behind the faster guys. Over the next 2 or 3 laps I gradually made some limited progress through the field catching the guys who were clearly paying the price for some early kamikaze pacing. At one point I used Pat O'Shea as a pacer but eventually was unable to keep up any more and he inched away from me.

I still made up 1 or 2 places on the next laps; I generally caught people on the downhill section and tried to hold them off on the uphill. The section at the bottom was very muddy and completely churned up after countless foot strikes from all the previous races and I found that a wider line was faster, I caught at least one runner there on every lap.

With half a mile to go I felt a few guys catching up on me and put in some extra effort to stop them breathing down my neck, as hard as that came. I caught up with the runner in front of me and we both overtook one other runner but I never quite managed to get my nose in front of the other guy and 50 meters from the finish line the one runner we had overtaken a minute ago went past me at a tremendous pace as if I were standing still, so I ended up without a net gain, but definitely relieved that I had survived the torture.

In the end we did not even get a team result because we did not have the required four finishers due to some misunderstanding of the rules. Ah well. Better luck next time (wait - what next time?!?).

30 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:16, 7:35 pace, HR 142

1 Dec

7 miles, including:
   Munster master cross country 7k, 28:40, 6:28 pace, HR 177

Morituri Te Salutant

Ah sweet Jesus, what is it about the Irish and not taking "no" for an answer. I ran the cross country last year and not only did I not particularly enjoy it, I also ran really badly. It was akin to one of those dreams when you run and run and run and you're barely moving. I told the club secretary in no uncertain terms that for next year he'd have to find another victim.

He must have forgotten because he started badgering me again and of course I refused. And then some other club mate got into the act, and then we might not get a team together if I don't run and wouldn't you know it, now I'm signed up, not entirely sure how that happened. Last year, when I got handed my backside to me in such a big way it was Kerry only and the novices at that. On Sunday I'll be competing against the cream of Munster's masters, though I'm using the word "competing" in a rather loose way, as in I'll try not to get lapped twice.

Ah Ferchristsakes. This is going to suck. And it's messing up my training. And why on Earth am I whining so much?

Running, road running that is, has been going very well the last few days. I'm definitely feeling a lot better than a few weeks ago and I'm starting to get that "effortlessly floating over the tarmac" kind of feeling again. I ran 10 miles on Wednesday, just do do something different than the usual 8 miles, and was actually quite excited by that fact. Yes, I need to get out more. The pace has dropped remarkably since Sixmilebridge at the same easy effort. The weather has been unusually nice, normally I'm running through 4 degrees and wind and rain at this time of the year; this morning I seriously wondered if I should wear a t-shirt again, though I wasn't quite brave enough for that at the end. In short, it's all really good. And then there comes Sunday ...

27 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:53, 7:41 pace, HR 142

28 Nov

8 miles, 1:00:47, 7:35 pace, HR 142

29 Nov

8 miles, 1:01:21, 7:40 pace, HR 143
   including a few strides

Different

I don’t know what the difference is, but I am feeling so much better than after the Dublin marathon, it is unreal. It doesn’t make sense to me, I ran both at a similar pace and I would expect a 30 mile race to leave me worse off than a marathon 3 weeks later, but that’s not the case. I’m wondering if the backpack we had to carry for the flag might have caused some subtle change in my stride pattern, but that’s a complete guess and quite probably wrong.

Obviously I’m not complaining about feeling good – I’d just like to know what made the difference so I’ll know for next time. Maybe it was just the fact that an additional 3 weeks had passed since Connemara and my legs are finally more or less recovered from that effort. Incidentally, that was just over 100 days ago and with the old adage of a day recovery for each mile race that could even be true, who knows. Last year it took pretty much a day per mile to recover from the 24 hrs, so maybe that is indeed the case.

Anyway, I’m feeling really good at the moment. The weather helped, while most of the rest of the country are moaning about the cold, I just love running on crisp bright mornings. Compared to the usual lousy weather this time of year, this is just pure bliss and I’m loving every minute of it. Even my Achilles is behaving, while I can still feel the odd stiffness every now and then it is 99% better. I’m still scared of running the mountain trails again for fear of undoing all the healing that happened over the last few months, but maybe I’ll change my mind if thing keep going well. Mind, running those trails when it’s pitch dark isn’t something that I would recommend, so it would be a weekend exercise only, when I run slightly later in the day.

I haven’t done any workouts since Sixmilebridge but will probably do a rather mellow tempo run later this week, just like I did 3 weeks ago. I noticed yesterday in particular that the legs were itching to run faster and I kept putting the brakes on again and again. I take that as a very good sign.

23 Nov

8 miles, 1:02:20, 7:48 pace, HR 137

24 Nov

10 miles, 1:16:38, 7:40 pace, HR 143

25 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:10, 7:54 pace, HR 137

26 Nov

8 miles, 1:03:41, 7:58 pace, HR 136