Hectic stuff

Week ending 28^th June

Heading into July now. I have much rather been where I am now around a month ago but recovery from the ultra and then PF hit my running plans for six a bit. I still haven’t entered any short races either. No running 5k’s to 5 mile races isn’t fatal to one marathon ambitions but it does keep the interest going and if they go well it means your ability to run at longer distances at a  slower pace becomes easier. I had planned to enter the Shannagarry or the Milstreet 5 mile races this week but some issues prevented that from occurring. Let’s just say it’s a awkward time at the moment but all fine now.

Monday I headed up to Athlone to the correcting conference. I have been correcting leaving cert history papers since 2008 and the best way to kill the evening downtime post conference is to go for a run. I have no real interest in going for a pint or hanging out with the other teachers post conference, in fact we are all probably glad of the private time. Anyway I jogged the usual route I have been doing since 2008- 3.5 miles out of town and 3.5 miles back in. As usual the sun came out in the evening as it seems to do every conference evening in June. I ran the first couple of miles handy enough around 8.20 pace but picked it up over the last 5 miles around 7.30 pace. I all I covered the distance in around 7.40 pace. It was a testing effort and I was in a bit of sweaty lather making my way to the hotel. HR was around 155 so that was a interesting piece of information to digest. It told me I needed to start shedding around 10 pounds by September (nothing new there) and to get the heart used to running at what would be marathon pace.

Tuesday evening I headed back to Charleville to bring the back of scripts back for counting and to get myself set up for correcting. At around 5.30 I headed out for 5.5 miles. I had no garmin but reckoned I ran at around 8 to 8.30 pace.

There was no planned run on Wednesday as I had a trip up to Cork with my wife.I then had to get moving on the scripts which made for what at times was a tricky day.

Thursday was more of the same but I least fitted in a 70 minute medium paced “long run” in. These are beloved of Pfitzinger and are meant to reinforce the gains of the weekend LSR. The problem with these is that I have to work hard on keeping the pace slow. Pfitzinger’s schedule calls for around 11 miles to be started and to build it up to 15 miles. I hope to get there eventually but not quite yet as such a rapid approach exhausted me 3 years ago. Hopefully by September I will be up to 2 hours running in hilly terrain and hopefully at a good pace and lower HR. Today I ran for 70 minutes at 8.30 pace covering 8.5 miles. HR was 145.

No running Friday. I had hoped to get a relaxed 4/5 miles in at recovery pace but one or two things made that difficult. Not running wasn’t such a problem really as at the moment I am only looking to get out there maybe 5 days a week. The plan is to get up 6 days a week by August.

Saturday was a good workout. 5 easy miles around the town and 6 X 2 minutes intervals @ 6.40 pace around the park with 1 minute recovery. I covered 7.3 miles in total.

My youngest sister in law had her 18^th on that evening so I was obliged to show face but being a oldie was at the same time expected to stay in the background lest I ruin the party.!!!Teenage angst!!!! I had around 2 bottles of beer and kept the snacking reasonably light.

Got home for around 2 am and was out running at 10 am later on. This was one of my big workouts – 1 hour at easy pace and 1 hour at marathon pace. The trick was to keep the marathon pace restrained enough and see what I had left in the tank for the last 10-15 minutes as the inevitable tired legs kicked in. The restrained part was the hard part. This time I was running on my own and the tendency here is to over do the pace and go too fast for the first 4 miles and not complete the workout correctly over the last 3.5 miles. It’s happened before. Anyway I ran 6.92 miles in the first hour at around 8.35 pace. That was nice and handy before picking it up for the last hour on a challenging route. Fast and flat for the most part but some nice pulls too. Anyway the second hour went very well covering 7.8 miles which is around 7.45 pace or so. The sun came out for the last 2 miles and I was feeling the thirst a bit but as I say job done. Spits for the second hour were as follows: 7.48,7.46,7.41,7.30,7.37,7.42,7.48 and 5.20 at the end at 7.56 pace. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was glad to stop the timer after two hours. I’d be glad to return to the LSR again next week.

A tough week in a lot of ways but some good running. Total miles 43 miles