The second week of training in 2011 was also the last week of running in my thirties. I've been totally aware of the impending arrival of my 40th birthday for the last 6 months or so, but the last few weeks have drifted by very quickly and I'm still a little in shock by the whole affair really.

I suppose what is scary is the pace that time passes by; it's funny when I'm running intervals 3' can seem to last a lifetime but I can honestly say I remember being 21 like it was yesterday. So looking forward, I'm going to try and be conscious of how quickly time passes and to be grateful for the time and times I do get to enjoy.

For my birthday, Siobhan bought me entry into Dublin City Marathon and the race series before it - so that keeps me nice and focused for the year. However, the more immediate goal is the Connemara half marathon in April and the intermediate county xc in February.

Training at the moment is all steady pace with some sub threshold tempo and hills. I'm also trying a little bit of strength work twice a week. Anyway, the week that was in it had

5 runs

1 x 90' easy
2 x 75' steady
1 x hills (10x1' with 90" recovery)
1 x 125' hilly steady

Total mileage was 58.4

In order to tempt prospective executives to relocate their business in Kilkenny; I had a chance to run around the castle park trying to make my stride look reasonable  while being photographed – between all the heel strike photos we managed to find one ok one.

Here’s the link to the project site http://www.investkilkenny.ie

Week 11 was notable for two damn fine reasons, a great training run and a really enjoyable x-country race.  On Tuesday I ran a 60' mixed tempo of 3:34 / 3:49 paces that brought me through 10 miles comfortably under the hour, about 4 minutes less than my actual PB for the distance. What was even better (madder) was I somehow managed to scrape it together at 6:30am in the morning before work. I love these mix tempo runs, when you do a standard long run at any up-tempo pace part of the work is having the mental strength to hold the one pace, but when every 5' you are dropping or upping the speed it means there's always something going on and the time feels like it passes quicker.

The primary consequnce of the early start was a total lack of ability to function in work - as in 100% brain dead and I spent most of the day in a "huh?" state of mind.

I finished the week with a run out in the Leinster Novice XC (results here) which were held in glorious sunshine in Belvedere House in Mullingar. It was my first time running in the Leinster Novice race and I hoped the county was going to be able to put a good team out and I'd be able to sneak in on their coat tails and pick up a medal of some kind (but preferably gold). Unfortunately our clubs better runners are both injured and one of the harriers runners didn't show - so while we had a team it wasn't a competitive one. The course itself was very dry; almost like road running, and the 6k distance had plenty of up ands downs and twists and turns. The route involved a small lap, a medium lap and then two big laps to finish.

From the off I took it pretty easy, probably a little too easy in retrospect. I knew the endurance and strength from the marathon training (in particular from the hills)  would stand to me as long as I didn't burn it up over the first 2k. As we completed the first small and medium lap, I was feeling pretty good and was counted in 49 / 50th place (of about 85 runners). I kinda sussed i was cruising a bit too much and  put the foot down a little from there and in the next big lap i went by about 18 runners and was called at 32nd. On the last lap I pushed pretty hard and got through another 10 - but with a couple of hundred meters to go - two lads went flying by me and I had little left to respond. With a hundred metres to go a quick check over my shoulder revealed no-one near me and it was a cruise to the finish line in 24th place; 3rd runner on the county team and pretty happy with the performance overall. Thanks to the wonders of our motorway system i was back in Kilkenny in time to go out with Siobhan to the savourkilkenny festival, where we enjoyed a lovely local "fifty-mile" meal.

Week 12 had none of the heady heights of the previous week; the Tuesday session was a comfortable track session of 800/400 combinations at 5k/3k pace; with loads (90") of recovery between them so they felt very good. I read a good piece of advice on running during the week and that was never to stray too far from either your speed or your endurance; and one of the real benefit's of Jon's training has been a schedule that works all the systems that need adaptation consistently. I also really like going to the track, it makes you feel like a runner and its nice to be in that zone. The Friday session was a long slow tempo / marathon paceish run of 80' at 4:00 in the middle of a two hour run and then sundays run was 2hr45' of easy running that i did with a friend in the lashing rain covering just over 36K. 

Week 13 could well be my last big week before Florence; and the training schedule for the week includes a tempo run on Friday that will hopefully break my half marathon PB by a minute or so. Luckily I have two great guys from the club coming out on the run with me so together we should have a good run and hopefully we can push each-other on and all run it well.

My marathon runners arrived in the post today; lovely (!) yellow and white brooks st4's came with a pair of replacement glycerin 7's for training and i'm pretty happy to see the back of the mizuno which just did't suit me at all.

 

 

 

For all kinds of reasons the truth is i'm probably not organised enough to keep an archive quality record of my training. Obviously I'd prefer to shoulder all of the blame for this. It would not be fair of me to let this post past with acknowledging Siobhan's worthy role in the rather messy affair of tracking my training - without her I'm fairly sure the Garmin would be fully charged and reset, ready to go each morning for another piece of meticulous recording taking and i wouldn't spend my evening trying to forensically unpick her GPS records from mine.  But while we are on the subject - with only 6 weeks to go now to her first ( and possibly only) marathon, her dedication to the cause has been fantastic, she's at that brilliant stage where every long run is longer than she has ever run before and with the next few weeks bringing two 19milers and a 22 miler she has lots to look forward to.

Anyway, I'd rather than fight my poor record taking i figure i'll embrace it instead and drop the minutae detail of the training week and limit it to a couple of highlights from the past few weeks. Overall there has been some pretty good mileage  (low 70's) without too much fuss or drama. Weeks 8,9 and 10 have now passed in the blink of an eye and we have maybe 4 weeks of proper training left.

The highight of week 8 was on the Friday a 90 minute run with  a 50' mixed paced tempo of 3:50 / 3:35 in continuous cycles of 5', it was a workouts that I had been dreading all week, but actually and rather surprisingly  it went ok and the recovery bits at 3:50 pace felt pretty comfortable, I was just doing my best to feel strong and in control of the run and not crumble and feel weak as we got to the end.  The lowlight of the week was the 6 X 5' at 3:30 pace with 1' recovery  that I ran early in the morning. It was tough going and was quickly reduced to a state of oxygen deprived stupidity and i got mixed up between the 6's and the 5's  and ended up only doing 5 repeats, only figuring it out as I jogged home whilst going through the splits on the garmin.  I think i need some kind of counting system for intervals - its not the first time its happened I'm sure. On the Saturday, i changed my shoes and got new mizuno wave rider 13, which feel pretty comfortable and on the Sunday i did a pretty hard 90' easy / 60' at 4:00 pace total of 35k in 2.5 hours, this felt solid the whole way, I didn't bring water or gels so was pretty dehydrated by the end of it.

Week 9 was pretty similar in structure, the speed work on the tuesday was 16 X 400's and they went well, Friday's workout was 90' in total with 60' @ 3:50 pace, this took a bit of work to the hold the pace towards the end - and might have looked and sounded a little messy for the final 5 - 10 minutes. Between the jigs and the reels (and the new runners) i ended up with a rather messy looking inflamed toe that necessitated a trip to the doctor for some difene and a bit of TLC at home after my long run on the Sunday.

Week 10 in contrast was an easy week with no sessions at all - just 5 lovely days of easy running and a long run on sunday that I ran in Kilkenny with a friend of mine who recently ran the Berlin Marathon in 2:54. It was a beautiful crisp morning - clear skies, countryside looking fresh and clean -  so we headed out into the hills towards Johnswell and we did 90' easy steady at 4:44 pace before i headed off and did 60' @ 3:57 on a loop around the city. Ok, so the country is in a jocker over the economy, we've a budget coming down the line that is probably going to tear the heart out of the country, and the media has us in a tail spin we ca't get out of - but on days like sunday - you realise there is no better place to live...(and then you turn the radio back on!)

This weekend I'll run the Leinster Novice Xcountry in Mullingar, we won't have a club team but I'm hoping to scrape onto the tail end of a county team if we can get enough people out.