Buying new trainers and keeping the heart rate low.

5^th May

Up and out the door by 7.15 am. Had to p-e-e-l  myself out of the bed for this one. Purchased a new pair of Nike trainers in that great shop “John Buckleys “on Thursday. The service and knowledge is second to none. Can’t praise the place highly enough. John, Conor, Mark and the rest of the staff are a institution in Cork running.

 Plan was to run 13 miles at a slow pace. There was two reasons for this. Firstly to spend a bit of time up on my legs. Running long runs at a fast or marathon pace isn’t always a good idea. Pfitzinger and all good running books speak of the LONG SLOW RUN. It’s the cornerstone of all marathon training. “Long” is important because you want to replicate the very thing you will be doing in a marathon – running for 3 or 4 or 5 hours. Slow because you want to train your slow twitch fibers to be able function correctly and also because you want to be fresh enough to perform the next workout and not be burnt out.  The second reason is to see how low could my heart rate go. A recommended range is 135 to 153 BPM. Anyway I ran the 13 miles. While running fast is difficult on the body, running slow without actually walking takes a bit of practice too. Completed the 13 miles in 121 minutes. Ran the second half marginally faster than the first half. First hour I ran 6.35 miles, second hour ran 6.7 miles Could have gone on for another hour at the pace I was going (9.18 average). Such a pace might suit me the day I decide to the Connemara Ultra. Heart rate averaged out as 138 BPM which I think is some sort of record for me. Normally it works out as 145-154 BPM over that distance. I was delighted with this, though I  was some way off some of the other bloggers featured here who can run 13 miles in sub  1r 30 mins and keep the heart rate even lower than mine. All in good time though.Will concentrate on the gardening and the FA cup final. Can’t decide who I dislike more – Chelsea or LIverpool

6^th May

Finished a very good running week with 3 easy recovery miles in Doneraile .Next race is Bandon half marathon  Saturday week- on my own for this one, it’s supposed to be tough. Anyway  will spend the evening watching the Cork hurlers play the ancient foe with the black and amber stripes.

5^th May – 13 miles

6^th May – 3 miles

Total mileage for the week  42 miles