Week ending 22nd March
This week was to mark the last full week of training
before the taper begins. I have to admit I was disappointed with how the week
went as I expected to hit around 70 miles. In the end I only managed 47 miles
getting out only 3 days this week, rather than the usual 5/6 days a week. I
like to finish with a strong week as it confirms I am on the right track.
As mentioned last time out I ran a back to back long
run of 26.2 miles and 15 miles taking a rest day on Paddy’s day. I expected to
run another 10 miles on the Wednesday but the energy just wasn’t there. Part of
the problem stemmed from the fact that I didn’t run during my normal window at
lunchtime leaving it instead until the evening at 6pm. I had a bad few nights
sleep and a busy day in work and the will had completely evaporated. It does
happen occasionally but this time I was well and truly wrecked.
On Thursday morning though I made amends running 12
miles at a comfortable 8.03 pace and all appeared to be on track. By Thursday
night I started to feel totally maxed out again and hit the stratcher very
early. Again I slept poorly and had real problems finding the energy to lift
myself out of the bed. I feared the onset of flu and the resting heart rate was
above 55 beats, lately it has been around 47 beats, so the elevation was
surprising. I didn’t feel at all comfortable until the afternoon but really
didn’t feel great. I postponed plans to attend the school musical that night , appropriately
“Les Miserables” and drove home.
The schedule called for a back to back effort of a
combined 40 miles and I had originally planned to run 23 miles on Saturday and
17 miles on Sunday (including 10 miles of the Mallow 10 which I had entered
before Christmas). I joined the Mallow gang for a long run on the Saturday. We
ran 2 X 10 miles of wider Mallow area. The first loop went fine but the energy
started to drop again after mile 17 and by mile 18 the knee started to get sore.
I walked for a few minutes letting Darragh, Clive and Peadar run off ahead and I
finished up after 20 miles. The pace was modest enough – 8.39 pace but the
effort felt tougher than the marathon last week or any training run I completed
since January. The rest of the day I headed up to Mayfield doing some household
chores for my Mum.
The knee didn’t feel any better that evening and I had
decided to shelve my plans to run the Mallow 10.
The Mallow 10 is the biggest day in the club calendar
and I have to admit I wasn’t actively involved in the preparations as I was in
previous years. This was mostly down to training for the ultra and work commitments
in the evening. To be fair the organizing committee (Denis, Paudie, Sharon,
Ger, John, Aidan, George and so on) do a cracking job and they had plenty of
foot soldiers to help out. My buddy Aidan McGee was down from Offaly so I was
playing host for the day. I did manage to get down for the start and did some
stewarding at the finish line so I guess that was something. All went well with
the race.
I have nothing left to do now but to simply hope the
knee sorts itself out and that the energy returns. As I say a disappointing weeks
running.
Mileage for the week – 47 miles
Monday 15 miles, Thursday 12 miles, Saturday 20 miles.
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