from “Diary of a rubbish marathoner” The marathon was over two weeks ago, but I’m still in the “I deserve a reward” state of mind. Even before the race I had firmly decided to let the discipline slide. I had been very restrained for a lot of weeks, eating raw food, going to bed early, cutting down on sweets (apart from Niamh’s desserts), no caffeine, and so on. But now is the time to relax, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I discovered that drinking coffee black with 2 sugars gives me a massive buzz that rivals that of several illegal drugs, and that’s why I’ve got one beside my keyboard right now (NO! Not an illegal drug. Black coffee!). My sweet tooth is in paradise, and the chocolate bars in the kitchen cabinet are cowering in fear whenever I go anywhere near. Extra cream and sugar on the porridge? Ah go on, have another one! At some stage I’ll have to start reigning myself in again, especially since the weighing scales start whimpering whenever I step on them; I’ve gained 6 pounds since the marathon (well, since 3 days before the marathon, when I started carbo-loading). I hope they’ll melt off once the mileage goes up again.
The worst of the last storm left us on Monday morning, but not until after my run which left me rather frozen. 4C/40F feels cold, especially in the rain and gusty wind. I was thinking about digging out the long sleeves and the tights, but luckily the temperature has picked up again.
The Garmin seems to behave again, or at least the HR readings are believable. With my fitness picking up/my recovery going on it gets easier to stay under my self-imposed HR threshold, and yesterday was the first run that passed by without the HR alarm going off even once. Today I went out alongside Caragh Lake for the first time since the race and managed to repeat that feat, even though the road is much more undulating than the Ard-na-Sidhe road that I had been using up to now. I would have enjoyed it more if the wind hadn’t been quite as strong and quite as cold, but that too is supposed to improve tomorrow (if only for the rain to return on Thursday).
My mum is here this week, and with the improving weather she can hopefully enjoy the scenery if Niamh can drag her away from the housework she keeps insisting on doing (she broke our Hoover yesterday, which should make this easier). She was thrilled when Maia managed to say “Oma” (German for grandmother) last night, but it might have been a once-off. The kids all love having visitors, but if that is because they enjoy the company or the presents that these people invariably bring, I’m not quite sure.
10 Nov
8 miles, 1:06:20, 8:18 pace, HR 143
11 Nov
7 miles, 58:39, 8:22 pace, HR 144
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