Forest is a Go

Fingers Toes and everything else crossed

The last week has been hell on earth. A taper without running is not a very nice experience. After going for my pre booked rub down, PT reckoned that the knee was an old injury, Funny It never gave me grief before. Plan was to keep RICE for another few days. So we get the most fabulous weather for running that has not been seen in these fair isle for near on 2 years, what am I doing 7 days before a goal marathon, sitting on my arse with an Ice Pack on my knee. Finally the pain was subsiding and on weekend I hit for Spanish point and several dips in the Atlantic really helped not only with knee but other areas that had got a bit of attention from the PT.

The Test

I could defer Portumna to next year If I wished, but I was really looking forward to this. I also had to give Seb a few days notice, it would be unfair to leave it to the very last minute. Plan was Tuesday 20 lengths with the kickboard and 5 miler on Wednesday with 3 miles at marathon effort. As expected the Tuesday session was not going to be the one to stress the knee and went as expected. Wednesday evenings run was to be a different matter. Started off by weighing myself, up 5 lbs since last time I stood on the scales (24th May before 20 miler), checked my RHR which is normally around 49 to 53 but this was 57 to 62. Aphersivelily I start to run, knee was feeling a little bit funny for the first mile or so. Once I got into the MP pace I kinda forgot about it but with a mile down the other knee starts to feel tight across the top of the thigh. I up the pace and throw in a few butt kicks which thankfully sorts it out. I was ignoring the watch for pace and HR and just concentrating on running at a controlled pace both effort and breathing wise. With the RHR been up and more importantly the extra few pounds I pretty much expected the pace to be around 8 min/mile. When I got home I checked it and as expected 8:03 pace @ 157 HR, unfortunately this is not near 3:25 goal pace and there ain't much I can do other the pray for it to improve between now and Saturday. Final call was this morning to make sure that I got not adverse swelling or soreness from yesterday's blowout. Thankfully all is okay.

The Plan

Pondering last nights figures 3:25 looks beyond me, I have not totally given up on it as sometimes miracles can happen. So I will go out with the 3:30 guys from the start until we get to the start of the first loop. If its easy enough I will see if I can get to and hold 7:45-7:50 pace (24:15/lap) without having to push. If I can't then try and remain with the 3:30 guys. If this becomes an effort before the end of the 5th lap, I will just ease up and let the field gobble me up. The last thing I want to do is put a hard race in my legs just to improve my pb to 3:3x:xx. I will still have enough time to get sub 3:25 before September if I keep the legs fresh. If a sub 3:30 is there however I will take that and leave Boston qualifier till Dublin (3:20 pacers this year), this however would leave me out of the 2014 race. Thankfully the only certain thing I know about saturday is that I will be outside Aldi @ 12:00, so much good and bad can happen after that but thats what makes running Marathons so alluring and what I have missed in the last 18 months.

June 2nd 
        5 Miles M3 Miles Marathon Pace 24:09.2 @ 8:03 HR 157 with 1 Mile WU/WD