Moving on and getting on with it

Week ending 26^th October

It’s not a bad old life really. Back from Amsterdam on Sunday and now heading off a 4 day trip abroad tomorrow. The schools are on their mid term break so like a lot of teachers I will be taking advantage of the free time and heading off for a few days.

The Dublin marathon is on tomorrow and were I around I probably would give it a lash, not because I expect to PB but simply because I always enjoyed doing it and the legs have been in very good shape since last Sunday. Getting back to Cork on Sunday night with Aoiffe and some of the club members the disappointment amongst some of us was obvious.  A lot of us, me included, expected to PB but it just didn’t happen. Some people blamed the weather, others the hassle at water stations but I simply feel in my case I didn’t push hard enough in the last 5k. I attempted to manage the race in order to slip under the 3.30 but had left it too late with 500 metres to go. Anyway it’s all done now. Best of luck to all runners tomorrow in Dublin in particular to all Mallow club runners and also to  my friend Aidan McGee and cousin Don Ryan.

There are  two marathons I will like to have a lash off next year but all in good time.

I headed back into work on Monday and was surprised to see I had little or no stiffness in the legs. My resting heart rate was 56 on Monday morning but by Thursday was back to normal levels of 48 beats per minute. Therefore I ran 5 miles up in Mayfield doing 5 X 1 miles of the estate.I checked the Garmin afterwards and the overall pace was 8.13 but the HR was nice and low 143. This encouraged me to venture out on Friday and Saturday running six miles each day, the pace was very solid 7.48 and 7.53 with the Hr reading 153 and 148 respectivately. In neither case did I push the pace , I simply ran as I felt. On Sunday I met up with the gang from Mallow Ac for the usual long run. We had a good chat postmorteming the Amsterdam marathon and by the time we finished running it was for me a case of putting the whole thing firmly in the past. Running is therapeutic  that way..... We covered 10.5 miles, I took it very easy spending the required 90 minutes on my feet.

I hope get a few miles up on my feet tomorrow before I fly off. It’s unlikely I won’t get any more running completed until Friday but I am hoping the occasional opportunity might present itself. Ideally I would try to get out every day but it may not be possible. Therefore maybe next week I will try to get out Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Total mileage for the week 27.5 miles