Returning to the mountain

Its now been 4 weeks since my fall on Slievenamon which caused the pain to the muscles in my chest and things are just about back to normal as there's next to no discomfort at this stage.

After my 10mile trail run last Sunday I took it easy starting off the week but things started to feel good again so I upped the pace.     During the week I decided to do all my runs as at sub 7:40min pace as I really am just not pushing myself enough on alot of my runs and this means I'm just not making the progress I should!

All the mid week runs went fine and it was great to get back on on some of the usual routes.

For the weekend I decided to return to Slievenamon for yet another 18mile loop of the mountain on Sunday, this time I took my new Ultimate Direction SJ 2.0 pack to test it out properly and I must say I wasn't disappointed.  I found it great to be able to carry all the stuff I wanted and still have tonnes of space.

I will say I did find it heavy at the beginning with the two bottles full but after awhile I got used to this.

New Gaiters!

As well as the Ultimate Direction pack I also got myself some gaiters as I was getting tired of little stones etc getting into my shoes on the trails. They aren't anything fancy but they did the trick just fine :)

At the beginning of the run I decided on a slight detour to avoid around 3-4 fallen tree's which I encountered last time.

Unfortunately this made my run a little short so in order to make up the miles I decided to head for the Killusty Cross, this was the first time I've been on this side of the mountain and infact until recently I never knew there was anything other then trig points and cairns on the mountain.

As you can see from the first photo belong the trails were pretty wet, infact in some patches it was basically just all water. Last time I wasted time trying to walk around the water when the trail was completely flooded, this time I just picked up speed and ran through it and I must say I loved every minute of it.

This worked fine up to a point due to the Gore-tex trail runners and the use of the gaiters, but eventually by mile 10 or so my shoes were full of water. Still it didn't cause me too much bother.   The run went great but I must say I found the last big climb hard going at mile 16.

Slievenamon Loop Elevation

This weeks runs broke-down as:
- Monday: 3.6miles @ 8:39min pace
- Tuesday: 5.05miles @ 7:20min pace
- Wednesday:6.01miles @ 7:32min pace
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: 8miles @ 7:39min pace
- Saturday:Rest
- Sunday: 18.40miles @ 13:29min pace

Weekly Total: 41 miles
Miles This Year: 1,753 miles