sticking my head above the parapet

Now that the Dublin marathon has come and gone it's time to get blogging a bit more regularly these days. I flogged the race number and it seemingly passed through 3  different sets of hands with the eventual recipient getting a time similar to what i would have got  had I trained well and raced it. But that's all bollix conjecture really as I didn't did I ? That won't be happening again. No more headblocks. By the way if anyone thinks I broke some moral code by passing on my race number, too bad. It happens all the time. Anyway I still lost money on it.

All in the past now. Time to see where I am at now. Since late September and October the running has taken on a certain pattern. 40 minute recovery jog on Monday or walk depending on my routine for that evening. Tuesday I have been getting up at 6.30 am and heading out the door at 6.45 am running either a tempo run (25minutes ) or 5 X 4 minute repeats on alternate weeks. Wednesday I head up to Mayfield after work and run what I call a a "door to door " effort . Currently on a hilly course my time stands at 51mins 50 secs. A couple of months ago it was taking 55 mins so that's something. Thursday is a run when I get home on my favoured Cooleens route covering the hour. Friday and Saturday no running for the moment but i am working to improve on that . On Sunday I with the Mallow club doing the long run on Sunday (13 to 16 miles) . Pace is modest 8.40 per mile but the running is enjoyable.

I haven't used a Garmin in a age. The strap came off it in August and rather than carrying it around in my pocket I simply left in the drawer and used a bog standard wristwatch instead. That will do for the moment. Truth be known ever since the old Forerunner 205 bit the dust in December and came apart in my hands I haven't had a good relationship with the newer model so it will stay in the drawer a while yet.

Mileage wise it is between 30 to 35 miles. Let's kick on. The marathon number stands at a rather low 13 marathons.