The Daddy

Friday 7^th March.

It’s been a while since a update. The day after the Adare 10k the legs were feeling heavy, a feeling that lasted well into Wednesday. Accordingly I took it easy in terms of pace running 4 miles, 8 miles and 11 miles over the 3 days.All were run at a solid enough pace somewhere between 8.15 and 8.30 pace. It was pleasing to get the 11 mile run completed in Cork City. It’s something i would like to maintain over the next few weeks. Thursday was a shorter session – a mere 6 miles or so with 3 X 1 miles at 6.50 pace. These I ran with the club leaving Friday as a rest day.

Saturday was the day of the long run. A planned 22 miles in Charleville. I had to do this on my own rather than with the club as I had a work function to attend on the Sunday. It went reasonably well. I took it very handy with the first couple of miles at around 9.15 pace. I picked it up after that stopping for water at miles 7, 15 and 18. As usual I ran without a breakfast in me and didn’t carry any gels. The last 4 miles from Ballyhea were uphill but i was happy to see I ran these at around 8.15 pace. It was funny bumping into different people on the way – Judy, Ger, Fiona, Aoiffe. The little bit of encouragement helped a lot and I felt very fresh when I got to the front door of my house in 3hrs13mins39seconds (8.39 pace). It was even nicer having the couch to myself as my wife was out for the day. Nothing like a good veg on the couch watching a good film (A Prophet) after a long run. 51 miles for the week.

The following Monday was the usual recovery run in the company of my wife. She is training for a planned charity 6 mile jog in Limerick in May so I am volunteering my services as coach and “running expert”. Her pace while slow is steady and I am delighted with the progress she is making. Running isn’t her thing (more of a swimmer and circuits person) so all good so far.

However by Tuesday I had hit a bit of a brick wall. Didn’t sleep well the night before and had no interest of motivation to run. I have been in this place before and the best approach for me is to take a day off  running and get to bed early. That did the trick because by Wednesday I completed another 11 mile run up in Mayfield at 8.14 pace. The rest of the evening was a busy one but I had bags of energy afterwards.

I had planned to do a 7 mile tempo run on Thursday run at around 7.05 pace but with Ballycotton looming i felt it was better to run the tempo at slightly under 7.30 pace. Starting with a 1 mile warm up and a two mile cooldown  the 7 mile tempo was sandwiched in between at around 7.25 pace. It was a solid effort but there was definitely a small bit of zip missing from the legs.

As stated Ballycotton is looming on Sunday. I don’t really know what to expect. A sub 70 would be nice (sounding like a broken record now) but a course PB would be ok too (sub 71). Hell as I write this I would take a improvement on my last 10 mile adventure. Nevertheless the priority has to be Connemarathon. That is the Daddy. 25 miles for the week so far.