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!

I'm going to miss mile repeats.....

Not really. But I was enjoying them up until today but I'm done with mentally for a bit. Brain fried!

It was a beautiful evening but I mostly wanted to get home and watch the Great British Bake Off with my daughter so I chose quality over quantity tonight. Which is a bit of a laugh as my times were all over the place. Inconsistancy seems to be the name of the game at the moment for me. 
I started with 2 warm up miles at 8:50min/mile and then 7:10, 6:45, 6:54 followed by 2 cool down miles. I'm happy with the actual paces I just wish they were a bit closer together. It's like I have a disconnect at the moment between how fast my legs will take me and what my brain is telling me. I suppose it was only the week before Athlone that I first saw a mile with a 6 on the beginning of it so I should give my poor old brain a chance to catch up. Slow learner!

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!

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.