Something is better than nothing

Week ended 26^th September

Well I’m back running anyway so that’s something. The mileage isn’t much higher than 40 -50 miles a week with faster workouts confined to a  Sunday race and the bread and butter long runs completed on Thursday evenings. Last week my two significant workouts were a long run in Mayfield after work- I enjoyed that run, running 2 miles in Mayfield going out as far as the Model Farm road and looping around back onto the Mardyke. I finished on Summerhill North grabbing the bus at St Lukes. I had racked up 21 miles/ 3hrs05mins and that was plenty. Then it was shower and change up in my mums and heading up to the hospital to see my Dad. It was my best run up there in a long time.

The other good workout was the Charleville half marathon on the following Sunday. I had planned to run this at marathon pace with a view to pushing on for the last 3.1 miles. All in all it worked pretty well starting off with the 1.45 pacers and catching up with the 1.40 pacers at mile 12 getting in at 1.39.16. It was a good confidence boost if nothing else as I felt I could push on for a another hour at least.I had originally targeted this race last June as a PB race but sometimes you have to make do with what you got.

This week consisted of two good workouts on Wednesday with 9 miles at 7.32 pace and 22.35 miles on Thursday evening. I didn’t enjoy the long run as much despite the longer distance and faster pace stopping in McCurtain St for the now obligatory bus ride home and the trip to see Dad on the other side of the city. Friday was a rest day with a handy 5.5 jog on the Saturday morning. There was no run on Sunday morning as I was pretty wrecked. I was disappointed in that but the energy was not there to go out again.

While it has been a solid two weeks running I have to be realistic regarding Frankfurt.

Week ended 20^th September 50 miles

Week ended 27^th September 40 miles

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A quick review of the last few weeks. It has been tough that’s for sure. After the stomach bug I dropped around 8 pounds of weight, normally not something I complain about but it reflected the fact that even the most basic workouts proved difficult. As a result I had to start from scratch again. By the end of August I had clocked up around 46 miles that week which on the face of it didn’t look too bad at all but the lowpoint was a DNF in the Tullamore half marathon. This was my first DNF, I have struggled in some races before but always some way or another managed to crawl to the finish – most notably the Rome and Cork marathons in 2012 and 2013 and the sufferfest that was the Connemara ultra this year. This time after 8 miles I had nothing left in the tank and jogged gingerly for a further 2 more miles before calling it a day. I ran a slow hour beforehand covering 7 miles. The plan was use the race as a marathon pace run with 7 miles slow and 13 miles at marathon pace, in this case 7.50 pace. I have done this kind of workout before and it has always proved beneficial but this time I just felt drained after the hour warm up jog. Last year I managed a respectable 1.34.41 on the course last year but this year it was to be a tough afternoon. Maybe I was just out of fitness or still recovering but it was a disappointing setback. My buddy Aidan ran a cracking time in 1.30.33- great going.

I recovered well enough the following week to clock some good workouts running 45 miles with a 8.3 mile tempo run at 7.15 pace on Thursday and a long run of 21 miles on the Sunday. However by the end of this week a planned 50 miles this week had come to a abrupt halt after 3 days and 21 miles. I don’t know why I stopped running but I just did. I simply didn’t have the hunger or zest for it. In fact I was happier not running rather than running, a activity that was supposed to be fun had now turned into a crushing overwhelming drudge. Even doing the marathon in Frankfurt is turning into a type of overwhelming dread. Hence I rested since Thursday but aside from that had a excellent weekend meeting with friends, family and being with my wife. When I get back to wanting to run you will be the first to know but it may not be for a while.