An unexpected break

I haven't run since last Friday; 7 days without a run is the longest break in quite some time and certainly doesn't fit in with the plan-that-must-be-obeyed.....

The reason for this break? - a stinky head cold.    I cycled into work last Thursday & Friday (24k round trip) and Friday evening i ran 10k on a fierce-windy rain threatening evening.

I was meant to do 12k that night but  figured to cheat a little after the cycling to work.   This was to be followed by a 12 mile drop back run on Sunday (isn't it great that you get to the stage of looking forward to 'just' having to run 12 miles).

Anyway Sunday morning dawned and i just didn't feel like getting out, decided to defer to that night.   By the time evening came i was totally whacked out and decided laziness was the better part of valour and I'd be better off waiting till Monday night for my run.

Anyway Monday brought a disimprovment followed by out-of-work sick days on Tues & Wed.    I was ok to go back to work Thurs but still in no condition to go running.

And now (Friday evening)?  The current plan is to do a warm up 4 miles tomorrow and do 17 miles Sunday - bit of trepidation about this, but lets see how it goes....  Just need to get my head round to actually enjoying these runs again, and not feel like i'm on some sort of (dreadful pun warning) treadmill.

A late night 26km

Events conspired against running early yesterday (Saturday) or early today. 

Yesterday we had the normal Satuday taxi service - dropping kids here and there, and we also had a very important trip to Smyths Toy Store to get my daughter K a bike, in celebration of her being 1 year diagnosed with diabetes (might sound weird to celebrate same, but we are looking at it from the point of view of how sick she was and we didnt know why - 2 days of insulin and she was back to herself).

Anyway, this morning J decided he wanted to join the local rugby team (they dropped flyers into the school), so that cancelled running this morning (would have gone earlier but Ireland were playing USA in the World Cup, so couldnt miss that...)

Anyway short story long I got out tonight at 9:15p.m.    I needed to up the distance to 26k (16 miles).   It was a miserable wet night but enjoyable.  I did 2 loops of one of my usual routes - Raheny, down the Howth Road to Fairview, then along the Coast Road to Blackbanks and back up the Howth Road to Raheny.

The blow by blow is as follows;  first 3k were sore enough, as is becoming usual.   The ankles were twingy.   They warmed up and i felt pretty comfortable for quite a while.

During most runs i spend a lot of time negotiating with myself, tonight this took the form of telling myself not to turn for home at 10k, then at 13k, while running thru Raheny village on the first loop.  I then spent about ten minutes calculating how far i needed to run to be able to turn back & still have complete the 26k.   I find during runs that the simplest maths leaves me stumped - i figured wrong, and had i turned back in line with my calcs i'd have only done 24k.

The 2n time running the Coast Road was much windier (at least it seemed that way) but dry.  My ave time per km was moving from about 6min30sec to 7mins (it was 7mins30sec by the end of the run).   However i was still feeling okay, if tired.

My calf cramped up at about 19k and stayed cramped for a while.   I had been to a talk earlier in the week by an Irish Ultra Runner, John O'Regan, and he mentioned having a sachet of salt to take with water to fight cramp thru rebalancing your electrolytes.

I did this and it seemed to help, whether by placebo effect or not, who cares.....but as i sit here typing the calf is still pretty tender.

I reached the Bull Wall at 20.5km, which meant if i ran straight home i'd only do 24.5k, so negotiations started afresh; but there was only one real outcome likely - i didnt want to be out here running this far and this late to feel like a failure, so i passed the shortcut home and continued on the loop.

At this stage i was pretty much doing an old man shuffle but, no matter how slow, i wanted to keep as close to an impression of running as i could muster.  I did concede on one thing, i was going to stop at 26k and walk the last .3k home (i feel this helps loosen the legs a little as well as being able to finally STOP).

I did this and my time was pretty much bang on 3hours - very slow for 16 miles but i'm pretty proud of myself for getting thru it, especially late at night in such crappy weather.

The only downside is getting out of the bath at 12.45am, quite late with work in the morning.

And while am i still up blogging at 1:30am? Cause i'm on the 2am glucose check, and i know if i close my eyes now they'd need a nuclear explosion to get them open again.....

Happy running,

Waterford Half Marathon

On Saturday we drove down from Dublin to celebrate my brother in laws 40th birthday.

As we'd be down in Waterford my daughter spotted that the National Half Marathon Championships would be on the same day (good spot K).    I paid my €20 and figured i'd just use this 'Waterford Half' as a training run, adding on a bit at the end at the end to bring my long slow run for the week to 24km.

Well brain really wasnt in gear when I read the ad - did I mention the National Half Marathon Championships!!!! When I got to the car there was nary a 'fun-runner' in sight......these people literally disappeared from view in side profile.

Being one of the few possesors of extra, lets call it insulation....I knew at once i'd be watching this one from as close to the back as is possible.

We started off on the Cork Road and ran through the town to reach the Tramore Road.    The route was taking us almost to Tramore and then back to the track at the Waterforrd Regional Sports Centre.

The race started quickly and then picked up the pace....  My legs were stiff as pokers and every muscle cried out for relief.    I'm not sure what happened, was it the long drive, dehydration, lack of carbs?

Whatever it was I was stiff and sore and felt i couldn't keep going.   People were passing me with ease, and I was looking back at the end of the field wondering if I'd be finishing last.

M took the kids off to her mothers for lunch.    I thought she might watch the race from a couple of miles out the road and I was lucky she didn't - the first 3 miles were agony, and had she been there I'm pretty sure I would have just got in the car & called it a day.     As it was she needed to get K her lunch and couldnt wait, so I didnt have the chance to give up.

Just as well; after the first 3 miles the legs started warming up just as the rain began to fall.

Halfway to Tramore I could feel myself starting to enjoy the run.   I even started passing back some of the people who had passed me earlier in the race.

The rain really started to bucket (at which stage, feeling the chaffe, i vaselined up my chest, an oversight i'd pay for later...).

The rest of the run was uneventful enough, there was some great support in spite of the weather.

I was quite tired by the end, but forced myself to get through the extra runs around the track to bring the total up to 24k.    Time for the half was 2hr04m50s, with the 24 in approx 2hr27.

The legs were v. stiff the next day, but i spent an hour bodyboarding for the first time - and boy was it fun; i'm defo hooked.