Christmas running........the story so far!

I'm heading out in about an hour for my first post Christmas run back in Co. Kildare. It was lovely to spend Christmas with my family in Galway but it's good to be back!

I had a few days break from running before the big day, more by accident than design. Monday was our work meal out and Tuesday was last minute shopping day. Wednesday I worked until lunch and then drove down to Galway so didn't run then either. Anyway I'm calling this brief break a gift to my joints and muscles!

On Christmas morning I waited for the kiddos and my parents to get up (how times have changed!) and we took turns opening our gifts. It was lovely and we were all very satisfied with our presents but (and I know this sounds cheesy) it was one of the many times in the house I grew up in where I thought about how lucky we all are to have each other. I'm very lucky with my family even if we drive each other nuts the odd time. 

Me with some much appreciated new running gear - pardon the bedhead and glazed eyes! 

After a light breakfast I headed out for an easy 8-9 miles......not sure of the distance as I didn't bring a watch. It felt nice after the break but didn't have any desire to go faster!

St. Stephens Day dawned grey, cold, windy and wet all at once. I had committed to doing a local 5k fun run but was kind of regretting it now! However I knew I had to get some kind of decent tempo run in so I decided to do it despite the weather.
A three mile warm up succeeded in getting me soaked to my skin so that was fun. This was good in one way as I didn't mind taking off my soaking top layer for the run itself. I did get a few funny looks in my shorts and a thin training top in the freezing cold!
There was no proper startline as such so we set off together at the crossroads. One guy went off into the distance and a few girls kept pace with me on the first half a mile. I felt good so kept pushing up the first real hill and ended up out on my own. The first guy was a good way off at this stage so there was no interaction there. I kept expecting to hear footsteps behind me from some of the other men I had seen warming up, but none came.
The second mile was mostly uphill but I was feeling ok so I just tried to keep the pace even.

Mile three I suffered a bit, especially with nobody that close to follow and I had some silly thoughts about it not being a race as it wasn't timed so why make myself suffer and that sort of thing. The kind of thoughts you only have when you are pushing a bit and want the hurt to stop! I didn't slow down here but I didn't really speed up either which I should have.

I finished in 22:28 so was very happy with that for a tempo. It might not be a real race but I'll take second overall anytime I can get it! (i.e. probably never again!)

A brief pause for some water and two small cups of mulled wine and I was back on the road for my cooldown run home for a total of 8.5 miles for the day.

The next day I had meant to go for an easy recovery run of 6-7 miles. Unfortunately as I'm an idiot and have no sense of direction this turned into being on the road for 2.5hours!!! Who gets this lost in their own locality??
Also nobody even came looking for me so I take back all the nice things I said about my family but that's fine! All well that ends well!

I took yesterday off running and travelled back from the West. Ten easy miles today with the AC girls to get the week off to a good start. Roll on 2015!

Hmmm.....found this post down the back of the couch

* Note to self....make sure to press publish not save.

Lets go back in time to last Monday........

Well I should have known better and got out for a run this morning while the sun shone!
It was lashing this evening as I left the house so I got halfway to the curragh and turned back. Lame I know! In my defense I only had a recovery run on the schedule today as I ended up doing my 12 miler yesterday afternoon.  Consequently I couldn't have been less interested in going out getting frozen and soaked for the sake of a few miles.  I came home, did some dynamic stretches and strengthening exercises for the hips followed by 30 minutes of lunges, squats, planks etc until I had a nice sweat worked up.  I'm so unmotivated to do this stuff normally that I sort of need it to be raining before I'll do it so silver lining right there!!

After my turn helping out at Parkrun on Saturday I was unable to summon up the motivation to do my long run in horrible weather and with visitors expected in a few hours.  So a mildly hungover Sunday long run it was!  Went much better than I deserved considering.

A good weeks running

I'm definitely feeling back in the swing of things here.  While last week was good in that I was consistently running I was also taking multiple naps per day (when schedule allowed) and was generally wiped by days end.  This week I've had energy to burn, which is great as I feel like that sort of gives me the green light to up my mileage a bit.  Doesn't it?

Also I've felt this week has had more quality miles as well as just quantity.

• Monday: Tempo run.  8 miles with 5 at threshold pace.  Was hoping that would be about 8:15 but ended up being neared to 8:30.  I thought straight uphill and into a headwind would be fine.  What? Anyway I worked my ass off for every single one of those miles so I don't care what the garmin says. This was followed by a steak dinner with my visiting parents and then a 2.5 mile walk to get rid of the meat sweats.
• Tuesday: Rest. Or two walks (am and pm) plus some strength work.  It was sunny....definitely a two walk day.
• Wednesday: Pyramid interval session at the track.  Fun!  No really....I think I'm starting to like the track. 
• Thursday: 6 miles with the club.  9 minute miles so faster than I would like for a recovery run but comfortable enough.  Will make up for it with extra slow long run miles. 

Pretty good so far!  

The plan is something short tomorrow 5-7 depending on weather and then long Saturday.  Hoping for 12 miles.  I have visitors this weekend so taking Sunday as a rest day which is good as I'm over-scheduled as hell the following weekend....but in a good way.  Time with new friends, time with my kids and a road race with the club.  Eek!

Back in the running groove

This week I certainly felt more like my usual self.  Well physically anyway.

My appetite is back and I'm back to relatively normal running mileage.  I'm not building my mileage up again yet, but maybe next week I'll bring it over thirty all going well.

This weeks workouts

• 4 miles Monday up at the curragh camp.
• A long walk on Tuesday with some core work, squats and yoga.
• 5 miles including 4x800m at the track on Wednesday.  
• Skipped Thursday as I slept badly the night before so was wrecked and went to bed early.
• 7 miles around town and briefly onto the curragh itself after work on Friday.  Gorgeous evening with the sun just beginning to set as I was turning back.  
• Sunday 8 miles pacing a friend at a 10k

Saturday I tried something new and volunteered at Naas Parkrun which was altogether very enjoyable.  I was as per usual extremely anxious beforehand but everyone was very friendly and I had nothing to worry about.  Except fucking up I suppose?  I did have to worry about that but I think it went ok. I suppose I will find out if they refuse to accept any more of my volunteering efforts.

In other news I badgered encouraged my eldest to participate and he finished in a very commendable 27 minutes and more importantly was absolutely delighted with himself.  He is a wonderful character but slow to make friends that he sees outside of school since we moved.  Naturally anything I can do to boost his confidence makes my day.

Today we got up bright and early and picked up a friend and colleague to enter her very first 10k!  Luckily she has a similar aged son to mine so they stayed behind to attempt to communicate via computer games as teenagers do.  Meanwhile myself and T registered, peed, warmed up, ran and cooled down to a total of 8 miles for the day.

So all in all a successful weekend of forcing both myself and eldest slightly out of our comfort zone and into the company of other people.  Not an altogether bad idea for either of us. Personally I do badly need to broaden my horizons here and have a good pool of contacts to ensure I continue to leave the house.  Why do I say that?  Well if I said the black dog of depression hadn't reared it's ugly head recently that would be a lie.  Staying very active and busy certainly helps although sometimes it's as if that's merely masking what is underneath.  Fake it 'til you make it?

On being right, whether by accident or design.

Oh glory glory glory be! How lovely it is to be right!  Being the grandchild of a wonderful but notoriously contrary matriarch I really don't like being told what to do.  Furthermore being told what to do by a man (even if it's my coach) grinds my gears just a tad.  (Remind me again...Why am I single?)

Being told to rest til Monday didn't sit too well with me to put it mildly.  So what did I do instead?
Well I went for a 3 hour hike in the Wicklow mountains yesterday and then ran 10.5 glorious miles today. Huzzah!

Anyway I feel great now so who cares which of us was right (Me! Me me me! I care!)  
Yes I am 9 years old.

In fairness to the coach I was in such a state Thursday he was absolutely right to recommend rest.  And in my defense, if the hike yesterday had gone badly or I'd felt drained afterwards then I wouldn't have considered going out today.  Despite my underlying misgivings I do absorb information from those who know more than me. Anyone who thinks they always know best and has nothing to learn from others is omitting a lot from the learning process.

The hike was glorious though and I had so much energy when I came back I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom.  After a lovely relaxing evening and a great nights sleep I woke up to blue skies and a perfect view of the slightly snow dusted mountains in the distance.  Who wouldn't be inspired to get outside by that?  And in all fairness I really didn't have anything else to do so off I set giving myself full permission to run 10min/miles and to turn back at any point if I felt unwell.
I shouldn't have worried.  My legs were slightly heavy near the end but apart from that I ran consistant 9-9:30min/miles for the entire thing.  No unscheduled stops (except to fiddle with headphones and my visor) and no stomach issues.  No breathlessness and no nausea.

So hopefully this chapter has come to a close I can work towards getting back to where I was before and then onwards and upwards.

Lovely lovely normal

Did all my stretching and core work today and then headed up to run with the club.  Went a bit early so I could get a warm-up lap done so as not to make the same mistake as last week.  Ended up doing 7 miles by myself as only the men and some of the faster ladies were there and as I just mention repeatedly I need to concentrate on doing my own pace right now while I'm building my mileage...at least outside of sessions at the track.

Its not that I want to plod along indefinitely at my own slow-ass pace.  I just want to throw in faster stuff when my legs feel like it rather than trying to keep up with faster runners during my easy runs.  I'm new to this running with people thing and when I started going to the athletics club first I wasn't getting any recovery or easy runs in.  For the ego this was probably good but it was no good for my poor old legs and I found I didn't have anything left for racing and I love to race!  With myself mostly :)

So did the first couple of miles at about 9min/mile and dropped that to 8:15-8-30 for the next 5.  Felt very comfortable so would be a good half marathon pace so a safe plan for the half in may could be to keep to that pace for 10 miles and go for some negative splits after that.  That should bring me in under 1:50 but maybe it's a bit conservative?  Early days yet....will see how the build up goes.

Shoes! Really this time...

As you can see, my orange-laced Saucony Omni 11's had passed their sell by date.  I got these just before I started training for the marathon so they have got well over the recommended 500 miles on them.  I do rotate my shoes but my other 2 pairs are both over 2 years old.  Shame on me!!
These guys have served me well and I have had no significant injuries in them so far so I made the decision to buy the exact same shoe online.  This meant I got last years shoe at a big discount which is ace as I'm broke :)  I have supported running shops in the past and most probably will again in the future but right now due to the financial realities of being a working single parent of teens I am not in a position to spend 135 euro on runners I can get for 70 online.  I will continue to pay my taxes, give to charity etc. but I'm just not a complete mug!

Can't wait to give the new one's a run out but yesterday, in the rain, on the curragh was not the time.  In fact I didn't even wear the dirty ones so that's not even why they are filthy!  I always wear a less cushioned shoe on the grass as I don't feel I need it as much and when it's wet or uneven I'm much more concerned about grip and contact with the ground than cushioning.  I'm liable to topple over at the least provocation at the best of times so I need all the help I can get on uneven ground.