Pressure is only for tyres
Stress and loads of it is where my life unfortunately is at the moment. After Limerick Tom had asked me to pace 1:45 half in Killarney. I had 15 miles at this pace pencilled in that weekend so it was a no brainer. However herself indoors got extremely sick and ended up in Limerick A&E again and is still in Hospital with no resolve to her issue. Adding to this I am very busy at work with a job that is physically demanding for 2-3 weeks. Lorraine is coming towards her Junior cert Exams and has had a few teenage freak outs about them as well. Unfortunately I had to pull out of Killarney as there was just too much other stuff going on. I still managed to do the 15 mile run that weekend but the last three miles felt tough and I had to push just to hold the pace.Then the tyre final blows
Training had been tough since and that's expected as its the last couple of sessions before the dreaded taper. Last Friday I had taken the day off to complete my 5th and last 20 mile run. Dropped of my water along the route beforehand and set out my plan. Two miles warm up followed by 16 miles of a progression run 2 Miles @ 8:02, 6 Miles @ 7:55, 6 Miles@ 7:49 and 2 Miles @ 7:42 with 2 miles Warm down. Gels at miles 6,12 and 18. Started off well for the first 6 miles until I took my first Gel. Shortly after this I was struggling to hold the pace. By the time I had got to the 7:49 section I was not making the pace, reluctantly took another Gel at 12 with the same result and my pace was going backwards and the effort level was going up. I decided to not bother with the remaining 2 miles @ 7:42. At this point I just stopped and sat on the side of the road for 2-3 minutes just to get my breath back and try and straighten my head for the remaining 6 mile slog home. While friday was a beautiful sunny day for running, there were times in that 6 miles where I really was in a dark place and questioned my sanity and WTF was I doing this for anyway.Fixing the tyre
Hindsight is great. Well at least I can use it to try and prevent what happened last friday from happening in Portumna. After looking at the HR data my Heart Rate spiked both times after taking the Gel, this is unusual as I had used this Gel in training but I suppose this was the first time they were consumed at race pace. A return to the GU may be on the cards. Ran a recovery run yesterday and the HR numbers were higher but this was expected. Thankfully work has eased off a small bit so I will take the next week and possibly the whole of the taper very easy and just let the body recover. I have planned a trip to Portumna for 13 miles at race pace, I will still go there but do the run at a very easy pace instead.
May 13th
12 Miles Tempo 10 miles 1:17:13 @ 7:44 HR 161 with 1 Mile WUWD
May 16th
8 Miles Tempo 6 miles 44:36 @ 7:27 (10K pace + PMP) ,HR 160 with 1 Mile WUWD
May 19th
15 Miles Long run 2:00:04 @ 8:01 pace, HR 155
May 22nd
10 Miles, 8 Miles Marathon Effort 1:01:13 @ 7:40 pace, HR 159 with 1 Mile WUWD
May 19th
May 22nd
Hey Ger, that planned run of 13 miles in Portumna...is that in advance of the race?
ReplyDeleteIt'd be interesting to hear feedback from you about path quality and any drags present on the course route.
I hear it's pretty flat and that the surface is quite decent but let us know if you find it anyways otherwise.
John Will be doing it tomorrow so I will let you know if there is anything unusual
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