Nibbins

Week ending 2th April

A poor running week but 3 useful workouts and one abandoned race entry. Very disrupted and disruptive. The 3 workouts I completed were in their own way very good but there wasn’t as much  running this week. Monday I was determined to catch up on some rest given the systems failure of the previous Saturday so no run there. Tuesday I had planned to do a few AM miles but didn’t set the alarm and slept out the 5.40 am call and was lucky to make into work at all. By the time I got out Wednesday the legs were getting cranky not having had any leg movement in a while. I ran 8 miles and what do you know it was the best workout I had a in a while. The first 4 miles were run in 7.45 pace but the next 4 were run at 7.15 pace giving me 8.04 miles for the hour. If I could manage such running while maintaining a relaxed exertion I would be delighted. There was no effort in it at all. This was underlined by the fact when I did get up at 5.40 AM on Thursday I was able to knock a easy paced 11 miles  8.32 pace without any effort. Friday was a non running day as I wasn’t home till 7.15 pm. That’s the norm though.

On Saturday I ran 8 miles (bumping into Ger Vowles at the train station). Again the effort felt easy but the pace was good -7.45. Only 2 months ago I was lucky to manage a 9 minute pace. The big run this week however was the UCC 10k on Sunday. I ran this last year and wanted to improve on last year’s patchy 45mins09seconds. I reckoned I could pull off a sub 44 minutes but I never made it to the start line. I had to turn around by Mallow and go back home. Iseult was in car with me ready to go up to Nana’s in Mayfield for the drop off before she got sick all over the car (both ends) and was obviously not happy about it. I wasn’t too chuffed myself but the poor mite was very upset. Anyway it meant a return trip home with a disgruntled baby and a disgruntled middle aged runner and a non too pleased mother/wife waiting for us. We cleaned Iseult up and she then proceeded to sleep the whole thing off after around 3 hours. She seems ok enough now, no fever and smiling away. These things happen probably caused by getting up a small too early (even though she awoke at 6) and a full breakfast (baby rice and 180 mls of formula milk), teething and a touch of the reflux. A car journey didn’t help.

Anyway lesson learned but a case of the race that got away. I didn’t go out running that evening either keeping a eye on nibbins and allowing my good wife the rest of the time in the garden- a greenfingers if there ever was one. I was annoyed with the whole drama but it was just one of those things. Learning about parenthood on the job.

I stuck to more mundane tasks for the rest of the day like making dinner , changing bins and doing the laundry. Making tea and having some brioche helped too.

Berlin training doesn’t officially start till the end of May but I would like to see a bit more consistency. The general idea is to be able to manage close to 40 miles a week made up of a long run of 2 hours (13-14 miles), 3 X 8 mile runs (with a couple of 5 mile tempos, 7 X 800 metres, marathon paced runs thrown in), one recovery run (4 miles) plus a couple of races (5 miles, 10k, 10 mile, maybe a 13,1 mile). I got there sometimes but this week didn’t quite hit the mark.

Miles for the week 27 miles. Wednesday 8 miles, Thursday 11 miles, Saturday 8 miles