My calf injury has had me out of action since the last local road race. So in 15 days, i've managed to run a total of 9 miles (from an average 63 miles per week average), so i was delighted on Monday night to get permission from my physio (patrick treacy) of gowran to start light training again. I think it will take me a further 2 weeks to get up to full speed again and that leaves me only 3 weeks from Dublin City Marathon, which is really meant to be for tapering. So instead, the new plan B is florence marathon on the 29th of november.
Time: 35:56, Finished 5th, 5:56 average pace
This weekend was the kick off of three weekends of races in a row, two of which i'm going to run at race pace. I'd had a light week so far after my aborted tempo run on Monday but even the two "easy" runs after that hadn't felt that easy.
Anyway, met up with a training buddy VR and a few others before and did a 2 mile warm up, it was pretty gusty but dry.
Race was pretty unremarkable, i started slowly settled into 8th place for the first mile, then picked up 7th and 6th by the end of mile 2. I caught the guy in 5th at mile 3 and we ran together for mile 4 (where the pace dropped) and then picked it up for mile 5 & 6. I was 20 seconds down on the guy in 4th, but under no pressure from behind. Overall it was a comfortable race without the competitiveness of the last two races where it was a battle right to the finish.
Mile splits were : 5:58, 6:05, 5:59, 6:12, 5:43, 5:43, (+17 secs for extra .06).
Picked up a prize for 5th, no idea what it is yet...but as last years first prize was a....deep fat fryer (the world's most inappropriate race prize) expectations aren't too high.
My left shin is pretty sore now; so i'll probably do a very short recovery run (if anything) tomorrow before a slow LSR on Sunday.
Warm down was 1.5 miles, total 9.5 miles today.
