Maybe the Luddites weren't totally wrong.....

28^th April 2012

Woke up at 6am. Hoped to get out the door within 20 minutes with the usual plan of skipping breakfast until later. Attempted to turn on the garmin but damn thing wasn’t working. It charged fine last night. Shades of Rome all over again!!!! Attempted to to toggle it but still no budge. Meant I had to use my regular stopwatch and use a route  where I knew where the mile markers where. In this case this meant running down as far the GAA club, down the railway rd, back up again and down to Ballyhea. This was 6 miles and repeating it meant 12 miles.  Was nervous about the run that was ahead of me as I hoped to do 8 miles at marathon pace (sub 8 pace). Pete Pfitzinger’s  book calls for these types of long runs. Long runs are meant to be run at a slow pace but sometimes a slow start with a strong MP (Marathon pace) finish is called for in the schedules. The benefits are both physical and psychological  but these runs are meant to be run sparingly. When running Dublin last year I ran a number of these and they were a massive boost to me taking 14 minutes off my PB Did first 4 miles at 9 minute plus pace. Ran the last 8 in 1.01.19. Was feeling really strong and I suspect I might have ran 8.2 miles but without the garmin I can’t say for sure. Very happy and has put me in the right frame of mind for next weeks work. When I came home spent rest of the day planting a few trees and setting up our new plastic green house. Rounded off the afternoon having tea, cake and a sandwich with Aoiffe. Yum yum.

p.s

 Garmin now works like a treat. Unreal !!!!

29^th April 2012-04

Rounded off the week with 3 easy recovery miles in Doneraile Park

28^th April 2012 -12 miles (miles 1-4 at 9minute plus pace, miles 5 -12 at 7.40 pace)

29^th April 2012 3 recovery miles (30 minutes)

Total mileage for the week 40 miles