Working for the man

Week starting 9^th December

Monday 9^th December. 2.5 mile warm up with 3 mile tempo in pretty gusty conditions. Splits were 7.30, 7.31, 7.31 with 1 mile cooldown at around 9 minute pace.

Tuesday 10^th December  One mile warm up at 8.16 pace with 6 miles at planned sub 8 minute pace. Went better than I expected 7.30, 7.39,7.39,7.36,7.42. Very satisfying. Ideally I would be happier to run 8.5 miles in the hour but plenty of time for that. Certainly my best medium length workout in a long time. Were I able to get the tempo runs down to a faster pace I hope this would follow on in medium length workouts.

Wednesday was something different. A couple of teachers in work were organising a 7k charity run around Blackrock for 1^st and 2^nd year students. I decided to lead the group so I used this as a ideal opportunity to get some recovery miles up on the legs. Parking the car in the grounds of Blackrock castle I jogged to the start line near Pairc Ui Choimh and lead the kids off down the old railway line. We were in fact tracing the last 3 miles of the marathon that is to say -miles 13, 12 and 11 of the Cork marathon . I’d be lying if two thoughts didn’t enter my mind. First thought was a cold shudder as it was at mile 13 where things started to go wrong for me last June (it still sours me). The second thought is that I was determined to gain revenge some time in the future . (not a necessarily a sub 3.30 just a personally satisfying time)The kids I was  jogging with were amazingly active – playing or participating in rowing, swimming, hockey, karate and/or GAA. In fact I suspected a few of them if they got into cross country or track running could be very useful indeed. They were very comfortable even jogging at 8.30 pace. Anyway I felt happy getting the thing done at a relaxed pace.In total 5 miles at around 9.30 pace. After that back working for the man.....................

Thursday

With Aoiffe working late and then going out to dinner with a friend i decided to take advantage of the “sitting around time” to head out for a interval workout. Normally (well at least in the last few weeks) I have headed out to Clyda Rovers GAA pitch to run with the gang from Mallow. However this wasn’t possible either as my normal after work resting point up in Mayfield wasn’t open to me. Mum was carrying a chest infection and was up to ninety waiting for my sister to give birth to her second child. Therefore  rather than make a long journey even longer I replicated  the scheduled workout planned by the club trainer Shane in my stomping ground of Charleville. It was a case of jogging 2.5 miles at a easy pace of 8.50 pace. I then reached the railway road and ran 10 X 2 sprints with around 60 to 90 seconds recovery. The railway road is ideal for this type of thing. Traffic is non existent and lighting is reasonably good. Each 2 minute sprint covered a distance of 0.29 to 0.31 of a mile. First mile of sprints passed in6.49 minutes with the second mile passing in 6.48. I went 33 seconds over the allotted 20 minutes to complete a third mile in 6.52 running into a strong headwind.I finished the workout with a one mile plod home in 9.24.

Congrats to my sister Niamh and her partner Paul on the birth of a new baby girl – Philippa

Monday 6.5 miles with 3 miles at 7.31 pace, Tuesday 7 miles with 6 miles at 7.34 pace, Wednesday 5 mile recovery jog, Thursday 6.5 miles with 10 X 2 minute sprints