Drom and Port

Week ending 12^th July

I ran two races this week, a 4 mile race in Dromcolloger (my third time doing this) on the Monday and a half marathon on the Saturday in Portarlington up in Co. Offaly. In between I ran 9 miles in 77 minutes in Charleville, walked 3 miles as a recovery session with my wife and ran 8 miles in Mallow with the club.I didn’t run on Friday or on the Sunday. I covered 42 miles this week.

An advantage of running the same course one year after the other is that it gives you a indicator of where you are. In Dromcollogher I was running my first short race since December so I was just aiming to give it my best shot. I came in at 27mins36seconds which was around the same time I ran in 2012. The splits were pretty identical too. I ran with Pa and Paudie for the first 1.5 miles so as not to take off so quickly so that I would not burn up in the last few miles. When I crossed the line I was glad to have got a solid time under my belt. I warmed up with 2 miles and cooled down with 1 mile for a good workout.

Tuesday was a easier paced day. I had planned to cover a fixed time in this case 75 minutes as prescribed in a number of running programmes. The idea was to run at a LSR pace. I covered 9 miles in 77 minutes, the pace was faster than LSR pace, 8.30 pace but I think I did pretty well. Wednesday was a walk in my wives company, always a good time for a chat about the day.

I took it handy on the pace in Mallow running the 3 X 10 minutes at 7.20 pace.

Saturday was the day of the half marathon in Portarlington. My mate Aidan only lives 5 miles from the town and the race was a good chance to catch up. Numbers for the 3 races – marathon, half marathon and 10K were small and I couldn’t imagine if the event would have another year in it. From my point of view I was going to use the race one of two ways- a marathon pace run or a simply just race it and see where my fitness was. I opted for the latter option in the end despite the 2.5 mile warm up. The course was marked in kilometres (road markings only) rather than miles but that wasn’t a issue for me and the water stations were well placed. At times the marshalling wasn’t always evident and some cars and trucks were too close for comfort. This is a point that needs to be sorted in future or someone could get hurt. Anyway my legs were finally a bit rubbery after 3 miles- they had no pep in them. I was in touch with the 1hr 40 minute pacers for the entire race but that was as fast as I could go. I obviously was out of practice. This was my fastest long race since last October so some stiffness was to be expected. In the end I crossed the line in 1hr39min51seconds not a fast time  but not entirely slow either. It means I am in reasonable shape but a long way off where I want to be. I was tired crossing the line which also indicates I gave it all I could.Hopefully I could build on this weeks training over the next few weeks.

Mileage for the week 42 miles. Monday 7 miles with 4 mile race at 6.54 pace, Tuesday 9 miles in 77 minutes, Wednesday 3 mile walk, Thursday 8 miles with 3 X 10 minutes, Saturday 15.5 miles with 13.1 miles at 7.37 pace