The past week has been spent focusing on work and real life with a few runs scattered here and there. My left shin is a little sore but i've been stretching three times a day to take the pressure of it. The only session in the week were light hills - other than that there were just 4 X  50' steady runs and a 30' easy on saturday. This was my first time racing proper in the Phoenix Park, last august i'd disastrously paced siobhan last year in the adidas race series 10 mile run, but the less said about that the better.  I went up with two lads from the club and we got there around 12. The race kicked off at 1:30 so there was enough time to do a 3 mile warm up, and watch the start of the ladies elite / club runners race.  As club runners we were penned at the very head of a field of about 10,000 runners of all ability from sub 35 min non-club runners to groups of crisp munching walkers. As we got ready to go, two girls women hopped the fence and got into our section grrrr.  Why bother? Anyway, to the matter on hand - after a few minutes of waiting - we were off.   The first two kilometers were flat, followed by 3 flat - downhill ones - going through 5k in 17:45.  That was pretty much dead-on plan, a little time banked for the hills on the second half. The next two kilometers were good as well both 3:38's with a couple of ups and downs on them. The 8th and 9th kilometers were the hardest and the wheels came off the pace with 3:45 and 3:50. The last K was a good 3:25 and by that stage i was running in treacle.  I found motivation hard as i really wasn't racing anyone in particular, so many runners it was hard to pick a couple of people to run against. I got passed with about 200m's to go, and i tried to go with the guy but eased off when maybe i should have been a bit braver. Next time. Final time 36:10pb Overall position 108th Age category (35-39)  position 16th. So, very happy that i managed to take 43 seconds from my PB early in the season. But i hope there is more to come towards the end of the summer. This week is a nice recovery week of easy - steady running.

To paraphrase one of my Dad's worst dad-jokes - i, like Moses, was an expert at coming forth...but this time, just this once...i came third. The weekend was more or less perfect. We stayed in a local hotel in Oughterard called the Ross Lake Hotel. The hotel has a class seventies retro feel to it - but was perfectly comfortable and since i really don't like interior designer style hotels it was perfect for me.  On Saturday we drove up and registered, and had lunch in Sheridans on the docks, which has to have the finest pub grub in the country. Both myself and Siobhan were feeling a little sick and headachey but nothing too intense - we went to a local health food shop and stocked up on energy bars etc to eat between an early start the next day and a rather late noon race start. The morning of the race, we got up and had breakfast with friends as Fergal got ready to leave to get his bus to the full marathon start which was at 10.30. Siobhan, Deirdre and I then had about another hour to kill before driving to Oughterard and catching the bus to the half marathon start.  It was a pretty amazing morning weathers, crisp blue skies and tshirt warm.  The bus drives the route of the half marathon from finish to start, and the perception as you drive it is that is going to an all uphill run - but thankfully that is a bit deceiving and it runs a little kinder than it drives. In fact the elevation gain on the run is only something like 35m....but a hard fought 35m all the same. The race started at 12 or so, without my garmin i don't have a whole lot of stats...in short, i started the race pretty controlled - i have a 6:45 split for the first uphill mile, and after mile 3 i was just over the 19 minutes, which would have equalled my 83min target pace. I came out of the first half mile or so in 9th position, and pushed a little bit to catch two guys who were running together, I caught them quickly and the three of us ran together for the first 5 miles or so. We were clipping along nicely into the headwind and we passed two other half marathoners. we also passed a couple of marathoners and ultra marathoners that i knew. Just after 5 miles, suddenly i realised i couldn't hear the sound of the lads breathing or their footsteps anymore - and i was on my own from here on in. The next few miles passed without incident, i passed one other runner and i quickly closed another. I probably rushed my closing him down and by the time i got there, i was just able to hang on to him - but around mile 8-9 or so he stretched out a 10m lead on me. At mile 9, at the base of the big hill -  i took a gel and this really helped me pick up the effort - I  closed and passed the other runner on the hill and once clear of him I wheezed and panted my way to the top. At this stage i had no idea i was third, to be honest - there wasn't a whole lot going on upstairs other then a desire to reach the finish. Its the longest 1.5 miles ever from the top of that hill to the finish - but as with all races - as long as you keep running the finish will come. I staggered accross the line, heard my name and club being called out - i was pretty shot and dehydrated - but glad to be finished. I shook hands with the runner who had finished ahead of me, and asked him where he came - 2nd he said - there was only one ahead of him. Holy fcuk....does that mean i came third...i staggered off to get my gear...still couldn't believe...later on when we were back in the hotel i got a text to say i was a prizewinner and i was to contact them. :-) My finishing time was 1:23:42...a new PR by 1min and 11 seconds on a much harder course in harsh conditions. happy days. The only dampner on the day was Siobhan's run - she didn't have a good time of it and got caught with tummy troubles, finishing with a 2:05 - which despite her excellent fitness is a little worse than last year.
connemarathon start in lenaun

ok, so this broke the hard / easy rule to be honest i have no excuse. JB had scheduled a 60' steady run for me but with tired legs i decided to just run easy and headed to the castle park in kilkenny.But i wasn't in the gate when i met up with a couple of lads who are much faster than me and 6 km at 4:12 pace later - they moved on leaving me hot, sore and very fatigued...damn their easy pace. An evening spent eating tapas and drinking beer in zuni's in kilkenny with friends left me feeling less than recovered this morning. Today was a sore and slow 8km over 40minutes or so. Only one more run on saturday before the race on sunday. I have run the half in connemara twice before, both times finishing in 1:46, last year i did the full marathon in 3:22 - so hopefully on sunday i can take a chunk off my previous conn half time and also my half marathon PB of 1:24 from lisburn last july.  The weather is looking good..so bring it on. I found some photos from the 2008 race..my god i look totalled.

Apologies for the radio silence there - we've had a mental time in work finishing off two big branding projects, so i've just about managed to keep my running going, and when the pressure is on - it tends to be the blog that fails. In summary the last few weeks have been a mixture of new workouts including my first 5k pace workouts, more hills, more 10k workouts with less recovery, a disappointing outing in the county over35 xcountry race and my long runs have really moved on - with my comfortable steady pace dropping from the 4:30's to 4:15 - 4:20.  I'm covering about 85k's per week now and last week i moved to 6 runs per week - so that should boost it to close to 100k per week. I am now in an easy week before the half marathon at  connemarathon. I just finished my last workout before the race with an easyish speed session of 4' @5k, 2' @3k, 4'@5k and 2'@3k with 2' rest between each one.  The pace for the 5ks was 3:24 and 3k was 3:17 - and both felt pretty controlled. I did this workout at the watershed, our local track and leisure facility and so got to  have a nice swim afterwards. The rest of the week is pretty handy - 60' steady / 40' easy / rest / 30' easy / race. I hope to do around 83min for the half.