Diary of a Rubbish Marathon Runner

Where to begin? Well, firstly, the race is not until next Sunday. Does “Sunday week” have a different meaning on the other side of the Big P...

After Tuesday’s tempo run it was time for another long(-ish) effort on Wednesday. In fact, this was my last long run before the race, becaus...

We’ve had some very nice weather over the last few weeks, which is very unusual for this part of the world in April, to say the least. Of co...

First things first, I did indeed run the 12.5 mile Kerry Way loop on Friday morning, and to my relief my right foot held up just fine. The t...

A few days ago, maybe Sunday or Monday, just as I was finishing my run I stepped on a stone outside our driveway and felt a very sharp pain ...

The heavy legs that I had feared on Sunday arrived a day later. As soon as I headed out for Monday’s run, I felt like dragging a concrete we...

After all those easy 5-mile recovery runs I couldn’t resist temptation any longer and upped the pace over the last few days. This isn’t with...

The long weekend is over, and I’m back in the work routine. The congratulations for the successful ultra have died down, people have stopped...

If you ever wondered what I look like after running 39 miles, here’s your chance to find out. I used the broadband connection at work to dig...

I can’t believe how well I’m feeling. Just six days after running 39.3 miles my quads seem absolutely fine, and there is just a little resid...

I usually do a bit of analysing after each race, to see what went well and what didn't, but I can't think of much to say about Sunda...

Disclaimer: I apologise for the delay. The Internet café in Clifden was closed yesterday, and we spent all day today travelling back to Kerr...

I've only got a few minutes, here from an Intenet cafe. We drove up to Clifden on Friday, and got to our accomodation at 9pm. I slept li...

With four days to go, it's time for another summary post of my training. This will make it easy to get a quick overview of each training...

So what is your race day plan? How fast do you go out for a 39.3 mile race? 7:30's could be deadly later on... Canada Mike made a very ...

What can I say that I haven’t said before? I’m in the middle of my taper, the serious training is over and done, and despite itching to run ...

Monday was a bank holiday in Ireland (bank holiday = public holiday), but, as Niamh said, they shouldn’t have bank holidays in March; they’r...

I did some more soul searching Thursday evening regarding the length of Friday’s run. I studied some more marathon training plans on the web...

Allow me to indulge one more time into the afterglow of Sunday’s race. I know I’m straining your patience, but if you break 40 minutes at yo...

I managed to find a spreadsheet with the results from Sunday’s race (Google Docs are cool, btw). I came 43rd out of 200 runners, which isn’...