Green shoots or a false dawn?

 43 miles this week so that is a positive . Probably my highest weekly mileage since Janruary. 4mls recovery on Monday at 9.20 pace. 6.2 miles at a good 7.50 pace up and down to Pikes Cross on Tuesday evening. 7.5 miles at 8.20 pace on Wednesday again in the evening. No run Thursday - two reasons - storm Helen and I was tired. Friday morning 7.5 miles at a slow pace around 8.35 pace, that run was tough but getting through the mentally tough patches stood to me. Saturday no run, up to Cork with the family. 

Sunday I ran 18 miles with the Mallow gang. I ran the last 7 miles on my own and while the last 3 miles were a bit messy it was a case of mission accomplished. I was delighted with the run overall pace was 8.45 per mile. Hopefully this week can serve as a turning point. Weight wise I am very heavy these days - 14stone 4 pounds but trying to get a handle on the calorie intake. I have taken to calorie counting. it's not easy and requires a fair bit of discipline so I am hoping the counting with the running and the motivation to train for a marathon will have the desired effect. I am back in school/work next week and in this COVID world it will be interesting to see how it all ties to life and running. The reality is it's all interconnected - eating well, losing weight, staying fit, good running, positive mental outlook, happy personal and work life. They all feed into each other but one must keep it all in perspective. 

August update

 The long run last Sunday went better than I hoped. It wasn't fast at all (16 miles at 8.50 pace) but what made it encouraging was I went out and did it on my own. It was my longest long run since February and I was happy with my effort and solid pace. The Sunday previously I just did a easy 5 mile effort, the legs were very tired after a Thursday trip up to Mangerton mountain with the lads and I also had a fair bit of power washing to do on the house using the 62 foot cherrypicker to get up to the chimney breast.  The mileage for that week  was 23 miles.The mileage for last week was high too , 34 miles (4mls + 7mls +7mls + 16 mls) so I finally felt I was getting somewhere, This week started off slow . No run Monday (family trip to Fota). 4 miles Tuesday (family trip to Granagh pet farm). No run Wednesday as we headed to Ballyheigue beach, 7 miles on Thursday evening (very humid) and 7.2 miles today (very humid again). The weather has been great but my sleep has been very broken due to high humidity at the night meaning I am running in the afternoon. Hopefully I will get a few more miles in over the weekend though I might just take it easier on the Sunday run.

.....the Sunday run had it's good and bad points. The bad points were that I was too wrecked to arise to head down to Mallow for the club run heading out myself for a planned 10 mile "8.30" pace run, up and down to Ballyhea. Mission accomplished but the humidity proved difficult and the extra stone on the belly limits me a lot. 28 miles for the week ok i suppose should be better.

down the line

To be fair in the last few weeks  the long runs were going reasonably well  - 11 mls with Mallow, 12 mls solo, 13 miles with Mallow last week. Nevertheless heading down to Mallow yesterday morning I felt I probably might have benefited from a shorter run this time rather than a 14 mile effort. During the week I ran a 5 mile easy effort on Tuesday and a faster 6 mile effort on Wednesday (7.57 pace) but managed nothing on Thursday. I was very tired and quite cranky with it all the week. It was obvious to me I was on the tired side of things and needed to pull back for the week. I took a rest day Friday as we had to head down to the garage to get the car sorted. That meant my next run was  a  Saturday. Again it was good 6 mile run (8.10 pace). By Saturday evening I was feeling tired again and I knew fully well it was better to opt for a  shorter Sunday long run. I met up with the usual gang on Sunday morning and I was doing pretty well after 7 miles but as soon as I hit the Caherduggan hill the energy drained out of me. I struggled on for another 3 miles before leaving the group off at 10 miles and I walked in by myself for the last 3 miles. I knew after 8 miles the problem was not helped by the fact that I was dehydrated. A sip of water would have sorted me out and I would have made the last 4 miles so a lesson learned there.

Anyway this week is a busy one on a number of fronts. Aoiffe is back in the office this week so it will mean a earlier start for me if I want to get the running in. I am also popping down to Killarney for a few nights for a spot of hill walking and then at the weekend I am undertaking a bit of  outside maintenance work on the house. It shouldn't stop me from getting the long run in. My focus will be completing the virtual marathon organised by the club in October.

two long runs in a week

I can't remember too much about the weekend before last running wise but I didn't do a long run last Sunday as we had to attend my sister's 40th lunch up in her house around 40 miles away. I took the easier option of postponing the long  run until Monday morning running 12 miles at 8.46 pace. It felt fine.I ran 4 miles on Tuesday and 10 km on Wednesday resting Thursday and another 6 miles on Friday with 4.5 miles on Saturday. I ran with Mallow Ac on Sunday (today) in glorious sunshine. We ran 13 miles including a tough 2 mile climb up to Dromahane. I thought at one stage I was going to heave up - it was that tough. The miles from 7 to 10 were downhill and while I struggled at the end , doing a lap of the park to make up the 13 miles I was very happy with the effort. The splits and over all pace was solid enough - 8.37 per mile. I wouldn't have managed it on my own that's for sure.

Anyway I entered the virtual Dublin marathon and Mallow are organizing a lowkey marathon on the scheduled day on the 26th October. It's a great idea and gives me massive incentive.

I'm delighted.

45.7 miles give or take but that figure is inflated by the 12 run on Monday.

(re) born on the 4th of July - Mallow long run

....went for a long run with Mallow Ac for the first time since April 2019. I was a active member of the club from 2012 to 2016 but was less involved in the club in 2017 with only sporadic runs with the club since then. I don't know how I will get on in the future but I really enjoyed my 11 mile run with the club on Sunday in the company of Kevin and John. Both guys are in their 60's and 70's but I am in total admiration of their fitness and dedication to running. Very fit guys and very good company.

I went for a run on Saturday , 5 miles and this filled me with a lot of confidence before the Mallow run on Sunday.

A good running week for me. Sluggish starting off but ended well. I was tired all day Sunday (but in a good way) and took Monday off. I'm nearly finished a course I am doing. It was/is going ok until the inevitable falling out in the group project. Lesson to be learned : Teachers can't do teamwork  but this crowd I was working with are a right bunch of shits.

Rant over - happier now!!!

in july

Pretty wet month so far...only running 25 miles a week since last month. The last week very little indeed. I was (sorry to say) floored after donating a pint of blood for the week and took a week off running. I went back two days ago and was struggling to even run 4 slow miles the last two days. I am considering running with Mallow on Sunday but i think even a hour never mind 10 miles could be beyond me. I hope this trough ends soon as I do have a running ambition I wouldn't mind fulfilling in September.

in june

First week of June. When the lockdown started in March I had resolved to use running to get me through the days, weeks and months ahead. This proved to be very successful as I really enjoyed getting up in the morning and getting my running in on the morning.I had plans to get up to a level of 30 miles a week but no more than 34 miles in any one week. I also sprinkled this in with a little bit of speed work, a few marathon pace runs and nice solid 10 mile long runs. On the whole this proved quite successful and even though I was beginning to feel a bit stale in the last week in the two I felt very positive about running. In all this period lasted a 11 weeks.  Considering I had no race targeted and I was running the same routes I did pretty well.

Now in the first week of June I am asking myself what to do next. I took it very easy this week - 21 miles, 4 runs (4 miles Monday, 5 miles Tuesday, 6 miles Thursday and 6 miles Friday). No running over the weekend. I had ideas of training for a virtual marathon in September but might just focus on perhaps upping the mileage from 30 miles to 40 miles, maybe up the long run up to 2 hours.