Diary of a Rubbish Marathon Runner

Starting a new training phase can often be tiring while the body is adapting to the new stressors. I find it quite hard to gauge the correct...

The original plan for this week, at least for the first few days, was to take it very easy and make sure I recover from a rather tough exten...

Last weekend I thought I was developing a cold, with the usual symptoms of runny nose, sore throat, mild headache and so on. It took me a bi...

I felt surprisingly good on Monday morning. I expected to be tired after a reasonably heavy workload over the weekend but in actual fact I f...

About every couple of months I get asked to review a product. In the majority of cases I decline the offer, either because it is not a pro...

The last 4 days have been very contrasting. Thursday and Friday had me rather worried where my training and my fitness were going. The legs ...

One day I'll stop updating my blog without even realising it. I find it hard to believe that 4 days have passed since the last update al...

Seriously, it's Saturday already? It feels like yesterday that I ran in Cork. The weather has been a lot better since, which is of cours...

I have been pacing in the Cork City marathon for 5 years in a row now. I enjoy it very much and it would take quite something for me to miss...

I had a busy weekend so far. I registered for my 4 summer races, all of which will be used as training runs, for a combined mileage of 153.8...

I'm perfectly aware that this blog has sounded like a broken record in the last few weeks, at least to the oldies here who still remembe...

I started doing evaluations a bit over 4 years ago, when MC successfully coached me for the 2011 Vienna marathon. There is nothing particula...

Things started improving rapidly after Sunday's long run, just as I had hoped. The legs were still a bit heavy on Monday but I only ran ...

I have been whinging and whining more than enough over the last few weeks about my lack of progress. Fact is that recovery from Turin took m...

After Saturday's mountain run it was always clear that I would need a few days to recover. The legs never actually felt sore but there w...

Oh shit! What have I done ! Right now I'm barely able to run 10 miles. I'm not even sure how I'm going to pace Cork in 3 we...

So I listened to my body, mainly because it started screaming at me, and made some changes. Not a lot, just enough to hopefully get through ...

I guess this is a post just for the sake of providing an update - I don't actually have an awful lot of things to say. This is a gra...

I owe the 24 hours race a lot. It elevated me from average part-time jogger at any other distance to a holder of 2 national medals and an in...

I did a double take on the weighing scales Tuesday morning. I had not weighed myself for a couple of weeks. I usually put on a couple of pou...