Pre season

Week ending Sunday 12^th January

From what I can see in the racing calendar the road racing season is making a furtive re-appearance. There isn’t really a off season as such such is the number and variety of races out there but there is a definite quiet season all the season all the same. I usually count November to the end of January as my off season. The busy season is probably April to the end of November, in effect the period where people are training for the Autumn marathon using all those 4/5/10km and 13.1 mile races as tune up/ warm up races. My first race of the year and my first since last July will be the Dungarvan 10 mile race. While my main focus will be the Connemara 26.2 in April I would be lying if I said the 10 mile race wasn’t praying on my mind.

The first 3 days of the week were devoted to the art of easy running- running at a natural relaxed pace. Monday was more of a 2 mile walk with my wife but on Tuesday and Wednesday I ran 8 miles each time. Tuesday was run in Charleville – 8.45 pace with a HR of 144 with 8 mile Mayfield Wednesday completed at 8.25 pace with a HR of 150. I was happy enough with the two workouts completed in a relaxed pace and a solid HR. Thursday was a tougher workout. I ran with the Mallow AC gang covering  5.5 miles with 2 X 10 minute runs. Each tempo workout saw me covering 1.5 miles each time, 3 miles at 6.40 pace.

I headed up to Mayfield on Saturday for the long run. I wanted to run this solo primarily to avoid the expected bad weather on Sunday and to do a marathon paced workout in a hilly terrain. I did a 4 mile warm up at 8.50 pace running the next 10 miles at 8.12 to 8.15 pace. At 14 miles I was shagged and was happy enough to leave it at 14 miles. I power walked home for the last mile in 15 minutes for a nice cooldown. The HR for the 14 mile workout was ok enough – 153.  It wasn't a sub 8 minute run and ideally I would have liked to do 15 to 17  miles but that was fine. No point in pushing too hard too soon.Overall pace was 8.30 per mile. I hope to do something longer and slower next week.

Sunday afternoon saw me end the week with a slow 4 mile recovery jog (9.51 pace) and a very low HR of 128.

A solid week.42 miles. Monday 2 mile walk, Tuesday 8 miles,Wednesday 8 miles, Thursday 5.5 miles, Saturday 14 miles, Sunday 4 miles. Total 42 miles