Sunday, 22 July 2012

The big sleep..........


22nd July

Spent all day yesterday (Saturday) on the couch asleep. Either I am very tired or my body is going into to shock when I imbibe a few beers. Truth be told I am a very moderate drinker at best, it’s the diet that is my downfall. The last time I had a beer was for my mates 40th in early June. Anyway around 10 pm last night got the running gear, the garmin, the Vaseline and the trainers all ready for my long Sunday morning. I set the alarm at 7.50 and figured it should give me plenty of time to meet the Mallow group at 9 am. Didn’t manage to get to bed until 11 pm and didn’t sleep until 12. The plan was for a easy relaxed 9.30 pace 11 miler – a cutback run in effect with a view to doing 15 miles slow next weekend.

Wake up Sunday morning. No sign of any feckin alarm going off. Looked up at the clock – 12 in the afternoon.  Jesus almighty!!!! The training group would have done their run by 11.00 am and are probably heading to Banteer for a local 5K. When I checked the alarm I had set it to 7.50 pm. A number of lessons to be learned there. Apart from the obvious of setting the alarm correctly treat the long Sunday run with respect and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Traditionally I did my long runs on a Saturday morning and have never needed an alarm to get me up. My internal body clock is excellent and the fact I slept all day Saturday and late Sunday morning out was a indicator my body needed a rest. Also correcting the exams for the last 3 weeks, Monday to Sunday eight hours a day was mentally taxing so perhaps on a sub conscious level I was set to snooze.

In terms of marathon training missing out a easy 11 miler will make little or no difference to training but I am annoyed. I am only settling in with the training group and I was hoping to imbed even further. It also means the pfitzinger schedule is well and truly binned at this point. That said I am still taking on board all the advice in regard to LT runs and MP runs and recovery runs and also the chapter on sleep ;-)

 No point in catching with the run this evening either – too busy for that. On the positive side I did get a excellent rest and it allows me focus on the task for next week.

Total miles for week 33 miles including a excellent training session on Tuesday  and a 7 mile race on Friday.

1 comment:

  1. A very impressive sleep there Cathal - I couldn't dream of sleeping for 12 hours. Obviously your body needed it. Well done on a well executed run in Donoughmore - a race I've alway wanted to do - a guaranteed PB.

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