from Diary of a rubbish Marathon Runner With no race this weekend, things are a bit quieter than usual. I even had the luxury of a lie-in both Saturday and Sunday, sleeping till well after 8 o’clock (yes, that counts as a very late morning in our house). Even Niamh commented how unusual it is for her to wake up and having her husband still there.
Friday was a bit unusual due to it being our company’s day out. This year we went to Cappanalea, which seems strange as it is less than 5 miles from home and yet we usually go much further away. I picked kayaking (with an eye on potential future adventure races) and orienteering (as it was the closest thing to running) as my activities and thoroughly enjoyed the day, though the party afterwards was distinctly flat. I think most people were too knackered after a day out to party.
Saturday was yet another easy day, and by then I’d had it with easy days.
MC won’t like it, but I could not stand the never-ending sequence of 5 mile recovery runs any more and took off for a bit of fun this morning. I used to do a lot of tempo runs when training for Vienna and decided to do another one today. As I had no idea what pace I was capable of I paced myself by HR, but switched the display of the Garmin so that I would be able to see the pace, otherwise the ego would have gotten in the way. The plan was to stay between 165 and 170 bpm at all times I stuck to that. Had I seen the pace numbers, I would most likely have accelerated because there is no way I would have been happy with 6:44 pace; I used to do them 20 seconds per mile quicker only 4 months ago. However, that was then and this is now and I’m not in the same shape I was in when I had realistic hopes of running 2:55 for a marathon.
I am getting a bit nervous about pacing Dingle. Funny, I’ve been saying that before every one of my “pacing” marathons. It just seems wrong tohttps://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif run a marathon without having done marathon training beforehand. Dingle is a bit trickier than most when it comes to pacing with the undulating course and especially the massive hill towards the end. I think the best way to achieve a certain time on that course is to bank about 3 minutes by mile 20, which mean running the first 20 miles 10 seconds per mile faster, because you will need some time for that final hill. Normally, banking time is not a very good idea, but the Dingle elevation profile is not a normal one.
Why do I even worry? I’m sure it will be fine. I ran a 15 miler in 1:35, going through the half marathon in 1:23, only 3 weeks ago. That’s not a bad shape to be in.
5 Aug
am: 5 miles, 40:09, 8:02 pace, HR 142
pm: ~3 miles orienteering
6 Aug
6+ miles, 47:35, 7:44 pace, HR 144
7 Aug
10 miles, 1:09:23, 6:56 pace. HR 162
incl. 7 miles @ 6:44 pace, HR 167
Friday was a bit unusual due to it being our company’s day out. This year we went to Cappanalea, which seems strange as it is less than 5 miles from home and yet we usually go much further away. I picked kayaking (with an eye on potential future adventure races) and orienteering (as it was the closest thing to running) as my activities and thoroughly enjoyed the day, though the party afterwards was distinctly flat. I think most people were too knackered after a day out to party.
Saturday was yet another easy day, and by then I’d had it with easy days.
MC won’t like it, but I could not stand the never-ending sequence of 5 mile recovery runs any more and took off for a bit of fun this morning. I used to do a lot of tempo runs when training for Vienna and decided to do another one today. As I had no idea what pace I was capable of I paced myself by HR, but switched the display of the Garmin so that I would be able to see the pace, otherwise the ego would have gotten in the way. The plan was to stay between 165 and 170 bpm at all times I stuck to that. Had I seen the pace numbers, I would most likely have accelerated because there is no way I would have been happy with 6:44 pace; I used to do them 20 seconds per mile quicker only 4 months ago. However, that was then and this is now and I’m not in the same shape I was in when I had realistic hopes of running 2:55 for a marathon.
I am getting a bit nervous about pacing Dingle. Funny, I’ve been saying that before every one of my “pacing” marathons. It just seems wrong tohttps://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif run a marathon without having done marathon training beforehand. Dingle is a bit trickier than most when it comes to pacing with the undulating course and especially the massive hill towards the end. I think the best way to achieve a certain time on that course is to bank about 3 minutes by mile 20, which mean running the first 20 miles 10 seconds per mile faster, because you will need some time for that final hill. Normally, banking time is not a very good idea, but the Dingle elevation profile is not a normal one.
Why do I even worry? I’m sure it will be fine. I ran a 15 miler in 1:35, going through the half marathon in 1:23, only 3 weeks ago. That’s not a bad shape to be in.
5 Aug
am: 5 miles, 40:09, 8:02 pace, HR 142
pm: ~3 miles orienteering
6 Aug
6+ miles, 47:35, 7:44 pace, HR 144
7 Aug
10 miles, 1:09:23, 6:56 pace. HR 162
incl. 7 miles @ 6:44 pace, HR 167