Dublin City Marathon Training: Taper week 1

I was quite relieved to hit the taper last weekend.........and so was understandably on the back foot when I figured out this week still had more than 50 miles in it. Feck! 

Oh well! I haven't followed the plan thus far just to throw it out the window when I'm near the end. 

The week went well after the initial shock and I must say even the small step down in miles has given me a fair bit of extra pep in my step. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, as I'm so accustomed to being on the go all the time I've used this extra energy to do pointless stuff like cleaning. I did all the usual bits and pieces but with a few added extras. 

I ironed. (Not a regular occurrence.) My freezer was even defrosted. I think this is the first time I've done this on purpose ever. Any other time it's been a consequence of either the door being left open overnight or an electrical outage. Both scenarios resulting in me throwing away large amounts of frozen food. This time I planned it and virtually no throwing away ensued (apart from the breaded calamari I was never going to eat.) I feel very grown up. Maybe I'll start making jam or something next? 

Today I had a grand total of 4 miles on my schedule. I can't remember the last time I ran that few miles. It was a glorious day too so I decided to go on a bit of an excursion with younger child to make the best of the good weather. 

Howth was the destination and it was glorious once we got out of the car. Next time I'll be getting the train as parking was an absolute nightmare. 

As I'm a tad on the financially embarrassed side just at the moment due to the glories of paying both a mortgage and rent (thanks Celtic Tiger!) and various school related expenses, we packed a lunch and had that on a bench in the lovely sunshine right beside three of the most gorgeous huskies I've ever seen. I wish I could have gotten a picture but they were with their humans so it probably would have looked strange!

After that we had a walk out to the lighthouse where younger did her best teenager impression hiding behind her hair as you can see. 

Then we had a rummage around a second-hand book place and went to the weekend market where we spent a combined total of about ten euro and that includes veggies for the week. Pretty happy with that! Nice to know you can have a day out in Dublin without spending a fortune. 

Tomorrow I have 12 miles at PMP planned so I hope to get that done relatively early. I hope the weather is like today, it's absolutely glorious running weather. Fingers crossed for this at the end of the month! 

The rest of tomorrow involves replenishing the aforementioned freezer and then babysitting for a friend. What I'm going to do with my time when the miles really drop I don't know!

Dublin Marathon Training: Taper time!!!

I'm sooooo excited to be tapering! This was the first week of training when I just felt "I'm ready to be done."
Despite that I had a solid rest of week's training.

Thursday was a 7 miler with a friend a bit faster than it should have been (8:30 average) but happened by accident as we were chatting away nineteen to the dozen. Friday was a rest day which was good as I had a million real-life things to catch up on and then my parents paid us a surprise visit.
Which was lovely but I had planned on staying off the vino and the dinner out put paid to that. (They forced my mouth open and poured wine down my throat obviously. Those assholes!!)

The ensuing mild hangover and the fact that they didn't leave until after lunch on Saturday meant my 10 miler at PMP was later than planned but I'm guessing this just enhanced the handicapping effect it's supposed to have on my 21 miler today. Which is the point really so extra bonus points...I win at making things harder for myself! A fact that everyone who knows me well is already very aware of.

The 21 miler went amazing. I had planned 10 easy pace and then the rest at a comfortable cruising pace that felt like I could still have chatted at and I could eat and drink at. I wore the same shorts, socks and shoes I intend to wear on race day and took 3 gels. One as I was leaving the house, one at 5-6 miles (takes me ages to drink the buggers!) and one from 12-15(seriously...ages!)

I also took two of these guys as GI issues have caused me to avoid gels in the past. I still brought TP just in case.

God bless modern medicine!

Anyway all was well on the gut front so will be repeating that on race day and bringing a couple of extra for good measure.

Splits were:
9:49
9:46
9:46
9:03
9:12
9:20
9:00
9:23
9:13
8:47
8:30
8:38
8:32
8:26
8:39
8:19
8:25
8:21
8:24
8:22
8:16

I felt really good throughout and was quite impressed with myself that I ran around the car park a few times at the end to make it 21. If I had felt tired I would certainly have called 20.7 good enough and dodged inside to tackle the three flights of stairs to the apartment. I could definitely have done another 5.2 miles. Could I have done them if my first few miles weren't easy? I don't know.

For that reason and from information I've gotten on boards.ie I'm planning on going out with the 3:50 pacers and sticking with them the first 10 miles.....so that's 8.47 pace (but I'd say they will be more like 8:40 to allow a bit of a cushion for extra distance etc.)

Then I'm hoping to get onto 8:30 pace if all is well and push that in to mile 22. After 22 most of the hills are over and I can try to take advantage of the downhills to maintain/increase my speed.

Well that's the plan anyway. Today. Ask me again tomorrow!

Big mileage weekend. Warning - This post is unnecessarily long!

The way I was feeling Friday night I was very tempted to do absolutely nothing this weekend. And I would have justified it to myself too as resting to get rid of this damn cold.
It didn't help when I awoke Saturday morning to a dull, rainy morning. Why would I want to go out in that?

Luckily by an hour before we we due to catch our train the sky was beginning to brighten a bit so the younger and I got ourselves ready and hit the road...or to be accurate, walked across the road to the train station. Very convenient!
Less than half an hour later we were at Heuston station and ten minutes after that we were at the gates of the park armed with hot beverages. At that point the sun came out and we started down Chesterfield avenue to find a good spot to see the runners come past.
We settled ourselves around the 9 mile mark just on time to see Gary O'Hanlon fly past looking very comfortable. Once the drinks were drank we got down to the serious business of clapping and shouting encouraging words. Much like running, it's easier just to keep on clapping as your hands tend to get into a rhythm, whereas stopping reminds you that your hands are sore. So clap on we did!

We remained here until about twenty minutes after the 2hr pacer had come through and then had to hurry on to drop the younger off with her Dad.

I was feeling quite anxious about my plan of running on the marathon course.
Would I wander around like a tit? Would I get mugged? Was I even able to run the proposed ten miles at marathon pace in the condition I was in and after standing around all morning...oh and not eating also. One must never do things by halves!

Anyway I got the Luas out towards Drimnagh and made my way easily enough to the middle of the Crumlin Road. I felt like a bit of an eejit with my map and I appeared to be the only runner around but I got on with it and eventually got a bit more confident in my map reading abilities. In fairness, it's not a difficult course to find your way around so three or four stops to check I was on the right track and one water stop at a garage were all the breaks necessary.

The course felt as tough as I expected it to given my lack of preparation and physical state but PMP wasn't a struggle. My stomach felt fine and I enjoyed the hills if anything as a break from the monotony of the flatter straighter bits. The condition of the pavement wasn't great in areas but we will be mostly on the roads on the day so that shouldn't make a difference. Oh and I much prefer where the hard parts come now (miles 22-24) as opposed to previously. Psychologically I'm much more able to handle a hill if I know I can expend most of my energy on it. If you are hitting Fosters Avenue at around 20 miles when you know you have 6 miles to go it's very hard on your head.

Anyway the proof will be in the pudding as they say. We shall see on the day.

I had only planned to do about 10 miles but couldn't help myself in the end doing all the way to 25 where I was meeting a friend. My average pace was around 8:30 for the duration which I was happy with and I finished at about 4:30.

Obviously this put me on target to have very tired legs for my long run this morning! The fog kept me in until about 10:30 so at least I did get a few extra hours of rest. I can't say my 20 miles were the most pleasant but I didn't walk any of them, my stomach was fine and my average pace was in the low 9's.
I was tired finishing but I did have enough in the tank to do an 8 minute final mile and I feel I could have continued if I had to. Happy with that and I feel that I really managed to get my legs properly battered over this key weekend of training. I was a bit worried with not feeling 100% that I would have had to postpone this big week until later in the cycle and I don't think it would have benefited me as much then with less time to recover.

One more loaded-up long run the weekend after next and then I'm done! Cooked and ready to rest at room temperature.

Scandal!

No not with me. Life is wonderfully uneventful at the moment and that is fine by me. The Scandal I'm referring to is the TV show. I have managed to binge watch the first two seasons of this in the last few days. I'm not really a TV person but something about marathon training makes me want to put my feet up more in my free time (when I'm not running of course.) Also a distraction is handy during foam rolling and donkey kicks etc. to make it less head wrecking.
Anyway....Scandal. Love it. Love Olivia Pope. Love her wardrobe. But how how how does she wear so much white and still drink red wine? I would end up with an array of slightly speckled off white clothing.
I suppose this is what makes it not real.
Get a grip girl!

Starting to focus on the Athlone Flatline Half Marathon on September 13th now.  Haven't done specific training for it...just sticking to my training for DCM. Next week is a step back week with mileage anyway so it fits in nicely.

Tempo this evening. Only girl at training so ran with the guys and felt very comfortable on the whole, and held 8 minute/mile average for the six miles. That course is on grass and on very rolling hills so hopefully that kind off pace is realistic for the very flat half on roads with a pacer. Or maybe I'm deluding myself but hey-ho...I'll find out soon enough!

Dublin City Marathon Training: First 18 miler!

Amazing long run again this morning.  Evil thoughts of changing my marathon target time entering my head.

This was a big mileage week but not much intensity so everything but my interval session were at a fairly easy pace this week up to today.
The interval session happened on the treadmill due to work and family constraints which made it very easy to dial in the paces but not any easier to actually execute.
This was 1 mile warm-up + 1 mile at 5k pace + 2 miles at 10k pace (this sucked!!!) + 1 mile at 3k pace + 1 mile cool-down. There was sweat everywhere after this!

Did two extremely easy 10 milers Thursday and Friday.  Didn't even bring the watch and just enjoyed being out there and refused to get intimidated by people passing me.

Which brings us up to todays 18 miler.
Splits were:
8:50
8:35
8:17
8:23
8:30
8:36
8:26
8:06
8:19
8:34
9:50
9:21
8:23
8:11
7:56
8:13
8:20
8:19

The 9+ miles in the middle were where C had to stop with her knee and jog back to the car which is really bothering her.  Hope she feels better soon!  Also I forgot to stop the watch while we refueled at the cars at that point.

Sooooo! What to do.  I'm going to do a slower long run by myself next week and then see how I get on at the half marathon.  I am aiming for sub 1:45 which I had thought was a bit unrealistic but....maybe not!