Kaboom

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 24th

          20 Miles, Long 2:46:27 @ 8:20 pace, HR 161 

If life was predictable it would be boring

Tempting Faith

Mid September, herself indoors has a check up in the cancer centre in Limerick Regional Hospital. I am not one for hanging around in waiting rooms so I park the car and have brought my running gear. Plan was a 4 mile tempo run with 1 Mile warm up and warm down. Got back to the car just as herself was coming out of the clinic. As I am changing and towelling down I gaze across to the rear of the Children’s ark to where the Sunshine ward is located I said to herself thankfully we should never see the inside of that place again.

 A month to forget

One day after her 15th Birthday my daughter had a seizure after been fours years free from seizures and about to be taken off her Epilepsy medication. This seizure was different from all the others, which is why on the day I immediately ran the Ambulance. It ended up been some form of Autoimmune Encephalitis and she spent a week in Intensive Care and another two weeks on the Sunshine Ward recovering. Ironically she stayed in the room which is being renovated with funds from the Bridge Milers 10K run this year. Lorraine was released from Hospital last Friday and while not fully 100% she is well on the road to recovery.

We are lucky to have her

Words uttered to me by nurses and consultants alike during Lorraine’s stay. They were referring to Dr O'Mahony who is the paediatric neurologist in Limerick Regional Hospital and I would agree with those sentiments entirely. She is one of the most honest, hard working professional people that I have every had the pleasure to meet.  Also Dr Murphy and her team were excellent especially Johannes who was as elated as I when Lorraine come around in Intensive Care and recognised me. I would like to thank the Nurses in Intensive Care in taking care of Lorraine especially Mairead and Siobhan who dealt with her when she was woken up. They did not have an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. The same is true of Polette and the other nurses who had the difficult task of trying to help her in Accident and Emergency on the night of her Admission.

Lace them up

What I have got from this horrible experience is that it may be raining or freezing or just plain laziness that I might contemplate skipping a run. Not any more "lace them up and run because tomorrow you may not be able to do it" is my new motto.