Diary of a Rubbish Marathon Runner

I knew whining about my tired legs wouldn't be too clever after a 50 mile race, so I didn't. I still didn't like the feeling of ...

Two weeks ago, after suffering through a week of heavy legs and plenty of fatigue, I started whining about how tired I was all the time, onl...

In some ways I find it hard to believe that I just run 50 miles. I went shopping on Sunday and deliberately walked down the staircase to the...

I had been a bit silly. There was a perfectly good marathon in Killarney, one that I had run last year and enjoyed very much and had every i...

No sooner had I written a long, whining rant on how my recovery from running 28+ miles was taking too long than my body turned the corner. I...

Ah yes, reminds me of home That was quite some weekend, won the Eurovison on Saturday and the Premier League on Sunday. I think I should...

Km 22. Photo by Sean Murphy. Note the tailback, and the road is clearly not closed Recovery from Sunday's race is going okay. It...

I said on Wednesday that I would dial back the mileage slightly for the rest of the week, but family life dictated that I could not run in t...

I know I had described Sunday's long run as a bit of a sufferfest, but the numbers do deserve a closer look. All week my HR had been in ...

I have run higher weekly mileage before, but only in conjunction with long events like a 100 miler or 10 marathons in 10 days. This week was...

Running twice a day means you are on your feet a lot. I'm starting to learn that. I have no issues with fatigue or overtraining (at leas...

On Wednesday evening I decided that while my back was still in pretty bad shape (I was basically in chronic pain), running definitely did no...

There are different kind of splits that we get to look at today. First of all, my 13.1-mile splits from Connemara: 1:33:51 (16th) 1:34:43 ...

"What do you think about Sunday 13th April?" "That's the worst date possible!" Sean might have been slightly taken a...

The last few days I have looked at the results for the Connemara Ultra at least once a day to reassure myself that a) I wasn't imagining...

It’s funny how perception changes things. When I focus on a goal race, the days and weeks preceding it seem to be drawn into incredible len...

I had a few dodgy miles between 31 and 33 but rallied to have the kind of finish runners only tend to dream about - caught no less than 5 ru...

I used to very much believe in the taper before a race, and to some extend I still do. But I have come to the conclusion that there are exce...