Doneraile hills

Week ending 27^th March,

It was another positive running week in that I managed to get a decent few miles up on the belt. It was the enthusiasm that I felt for running that I was most happy with. Nevertheless I did take 2 rest days during the week as on Wednesday I was feeling a bit tired, a kind of underlying terseness that I traditionally associated with marathon training and which I generally ignored. However this time I took the rest day on Wednesday and today with good grace. Thursday I ran 7.5 miles with 5 X 2 minute sprints at 6.40 average pace and plodded a easy paced long run of 11 miles at 8.20 pace on Friday.

Actually Friday’s run was probably a bit faster than it should have been and I was a bit worried that I would  suffer when running the Doneraile hills with the club on the Saturday morning. The Saturday morning Doneraile run is a long tradition of the club and is probably the most favoured workout by club members. It was my first time doing it so I was a bit nervous going along. I rarely show my face at club sessions any more so it was good to reconnect with the people there. The crowd was small (7 runners) and I was tipping away for the first 2.5 miles. By mile 5.5 the steam was coming out of my ears and the hill at the back of the park was really taking it out of me. I balked at the thought of doing that hill a third time opting for the flatter route towards the car park. Peadar Lucey looked totally chilled at what was a easy 7.30 pace for him and Pat Daly was flying it as well. Eamonn Nagle was on his second loop of the course at that stage. I covered the 6 miles at 8.10 pace but the last 3 were around the 7.50-7.55 range which isn’t bad for a novice. I have to admit though my legs felt it for the rest of the day. The Mayfield route I used to do regularly has steeper hills but the difference in Doneraile was that the pace and intent was quicker and the surface was trail rather than road. All in all I did enjoy it, it’s a fantastic amenity.

In regard to future weeks a plan is forming but I am still wary of blowing up again.

Miles for the week 37.5 miles.

Churlish

It seems a bit churlish to write about running in the light of the unfortunate car accident that saw the cancellation of the Mallow 10 last Sunday. I was running in the back end group (mile 3) when we came upon the accident by which time the stewards and emergency services were doing sterling work in aiding the injured and diverting the runners back to headquarters. My condolences to all those people affected by this terrible tragedy.

My running seems to be picking up a small bit and while I am hopeful I may have turned a corner I won’t be making any big announcements yet. I ran 6.5 miles on Tuesday at 8.03 pace and Thursday and Friday I ran 7 miles and 6.5 miles tacking on another 4 miles on Saturday. It wasn’t the pace of the run that encouraged me more the fact I was more than willing and enthusiastic to get out and go running. Yesterday I ran a faster 6.5 miles at 7.37 pace with another 6.5 miles this morning at 7.47 pace. The legs felt fresh and I found myself in the enviable position of trying to keep the pace down. The HR for this morning’s run was 155 which while high was a within perfectly acceptable limits.

Week ending 20^st March

Tuesday 6.5 miles, Thursday 6.5 miles, Friday 7 miles, Saturday 4 miles, Sunday 2 miles.

Monday 21^st March 6.5 miles, Tuesday 6.5 miles.

It was the chips..I swear!!!

Week ending the 13^th March

Flying into the New Year. I only realised last night that it was 12 months since I ran the Tralee marathon as a training run and then tacked another 13 miles on the next day. All this was in preparation for the Connemara ultra. I was eating up the miles in training and while the ultra proved tough at the end it was the training that allowed to stick it out and bounce back into the training cycle for the Frankfurt marathon. Alas at the time of writing it looks unlikely I will be running any more marathons in October. A couple of personal commitments have arisen which make it unlikely I will be chasing a PB in October. I hope it doesn’t mean a end to running but perhaps a fresh opportunity to concentrate on other races.

That however all depends on whether I get my mileage up to acceptable levels. The week just gone was a good solid running week. All these were easy relaxed paced efforts somewhere in the 8.10 to 8.20 pace range. The HR was very high on Tuesday but settled in the 150 range after that. Still high but not too alarming all the same. 3 mile walk on Monday, 6.5 miles on Tuesday, 6 miles Thursday, 6 miles Saturday and 10 miles on Sunday.

What is a problem at the moment are my eating habit’s. I am generally eating a lot of biscuits and sweets and crisps. Pretty dire so I will have to put a brake on that. Another side issue was I was carrying a stomach bug on Saturday and Sunday. I had a social engagement in Bandon on the Saturday night and while a good time was had by all I was feeling the effects of it the next day.I didn’t drink but the bag of chips I had down there did for me.

The big race of the upcoming week is the Mallow 10. If I do run it will be a relaxed enough affair again.

Fufilling a fixture - Ballycotton 10

Week ending 6^th March

I ran my 5^th Ballycotton race yesterday, 2 years since I ran my PB there in a time of 1hr09mins40secs. I didn’t run there all last year as I was preoccupied with training for the Connemara ultra. Not running there last year was a mistake and I was determined to rectify it by training well and hopefully getting a PB. However a mixture of apathy (hard to account for it) and a flu picked up in London meant that by the time I arrived on the start line I would be doing well to get around the course. I hadn’t run 10 miles in nearly 3 weeks and got a serious dose of the heaves last Tuesday attempting to jog 2 X 15 minutes at 7.45 pace. Three weeks ago I ran 10 miles with a 5 mile tempo at 7.05 pace so that showed how much I had fallen.  Aoiffe thought I was nuts making my way down to fufill a fixture but I reasoned it was a good opportunity to catch up with clubmates and also with my good buddy Aidan McGee. I also wanted another mug for my collection.

As for the race itself there wasn’t a whole lot to say. A few clubmates who would have been looking to get serious times couldn’t run on account of illness and injury but they were good enough to come down on the club coach. It was good craic on the way down.

I finished in a inglorious time of 1hr21mins57seconds. It’s probably my slowest 10 mile race ever  and while I did feel under a slight bit of pressure at mile 4 to mile 6 I was relaxed enough at the end.

As I say not a glorious running moment but I am glad I headed down. Hopefully I can kick on from here and gradually improve over the spring and into the summer. Improvements will be gradual but possible.

Monday 6 miles, Tuesday 7 miles, Sunday 10 mile race Ballycotton.