Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Daniel says Hello!

 Welcoming Daniel to our family, born 1.15pm yesterday.


Sunday, October 25, 2020

Virtual Dublin Half/Full Marathon 24th/25th October

The weekend finally arrived to do the virtual Half and Full marathons I signed upto, one of  challenges
with doing these two runs is Grace is due to give birth over the new few days which means I couldn't go running miles and miles away from our house like I normally would.   Instead I ended up doing different loops that were no more then 3-4miles away from the house.

My plan was to get the full marathon out of the way first and do the half on day two, these weren't going to be any sort of runs I was going to set new personal bests on by any means. I just wanted to cover the miles for the back2back challenge.

I set off for the marathon on the 24th just after 7am and started the first of many loops, for very obvious reasons I brought my phone and I also needed to bring it to run the Virtual Dublin Race Series App so I decided to listen to some podcasts for the run.  I met a few people that were clearly doing the virtual half-marathon based on the much, much faster pace they were pushing.

After what seemed like endless loops around the town and surrounding countryside I eventually finished up in 4hrs 2min.

Day two took a lot more effort, I almost called off doing the run but eventually headed out the door at 4pm the next day and again I did loops around the locality. This felt much more of a slog especially towards the end and it was very far from my fastest half marathon but I managed to just about finish it in under 2hours with 1hour 56min.

One major take away I took from these virtual runs is the Dublin Virtual Series App sucks, it was seriously inaccurate when it came to the distance and it was off my 1mile when I did the half marathon.

It was also annoying to have to worry about the app being open on my phone so due to the inaccurate meassuring I opted to upload my Garmin results over the app tracking.

Still, the swag I got in the end wasn't bad. I could live without the medals but I really like the arm warmers and they'll get plenty of use!

Spoils of my two runs, liking the arm warmers

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Some cycling and some running...

I've been doing a bit of cycling and running the last few weeks, I'm not doing the same amount of miles each week/month with May of this year seeing the most miles logged with a marked drop since then as confirmed by my Garmin.

A lot of the reason for the drop in the miles is I've been busy painting and stuff in the house and also I really don't have races to aim for, Tralee, Cork, Dublin, Kilkenny marathons have all been cancelled so there's been nothing to really train for.

Kilkenny and Dublin have put on virtual events and I did the Kilkenny Medieval Half-Marathon on the weekend of the 12th September but the same incentive to push the pace doesn't exist with a virtual event so I finished in a time of 1:38:09 which put me 3rd in the half marathon results.

I'll get back to more running as Dublin gets closer, especially as I accidentally signed up for the Dublin Full and Half-Marathon which have to be both run on the same weekend at the end of October!

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

The problems with not paying attention...

We're still in a worldwide pandemic and I'm still running, although a lot less in the past 3 weeks.

Upto a few weeks back I've been doing between 30-40miles a week and while not improving on my speed I've kept things ticking along and I've been enjoying some new 10-11miles routes I started running because of less traffic on some local roads.

That was until about 3 weeks ago when I went out for a 13miles run, 2miles into the run I felt a niggle on my right knee area which I initially thought nothing of it and ran on, after all these things happen now and then.  

But by 4miles into the run it actually hurt me a little so I stopped and stretched a walked a little and again started running. The rest of the run was pretty uneventful and I finished fine.

An hour after I got home I was crippled, it hurt to walk and going up/down the stairs was a real challenging with me being unable to put any weight on my right knee! So I took it easy and did some cycling over the following days on and off to see if things would be better.

I've since had two sports physio appointments and it turns out that luckily I've not done myself any joint damage and instead my IT band had tightened up so much it was causing my knee to land differently which caused the pain.   I've had two sessions of dry needling and its worked wonders, this week I've managed about 6miles of running with no pain in the area and finally going upo/down stairs is painless once again!

This all could have been avoided if I had cut the 13mile run short and it shows the importance of listening to your body and the problems with not paying attention,

So this shows the first problem with not paying attention!

The second problem with not paying attention is when you sign up to races, due to the Covid19 pandemic of course countless races have been cancelled outright or postponed. 

I go to do the Midnight Marathon in January of this year but since then every race I had planned to sign up to or had actually signed up for has been cancelled for 2020 with the exception of the Tralee Marathon which moved from April to September 26th so I should be running that.

Unlike Tralee the Dublin marathon is a much bigger race so its been cancelled for 2020 and its in its place they've recently introduced the virtual race series which includes the Dublin Marathon which is taking place in October.

I signed up because the virtual aspect suits due to two reasons, one it gets another race done under my belt and the second reason I'll get to shortly.

Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to this either as I signed up to both the Marathon and Half-Marathon and only after did I realise that both had to be completed between October 24th-26th. So provided I have the time to do both it's going to be a busy weekend and the legs are going to be a little tired.

So two instances where I should have been paying more attention.

Although the races for 2020 have been almost all cancelled this has at least for me been a good thing, especially when it comes to the Dublin Marathon because we're due our first child at the start of November so heading off to Dublin likely wouldn't have gone down to well with Grace.

When I get out to run from November onwards should be a interesting challenge.....




Sunday, April 19, 2020

A global pandemic will change things...

The world has changed so much since my last blog post on the 4th of February so I'm going to detail some of those changes below as since January the media reported the covid-19 outbreak in China and as things moved into March we heard about it in parts of Europe.

I kept on doing my training runs in preparation for the Tralee Marathon on the 11th April but back on the 13th March due to the covid-19 global pandemic things drastically changed in Ireland as the Irish government starting closing schools, colleagues, pubs and any unessential shops and business.

This, as it turns out, worked well for running as I was able to run some normally very busy roads to do some nice long runs up around Co Tipperary including a marathon distance up around Ballingarry, however then further restrictions came into force on the 28th March meaning any non-essential travel including for exercise beyond 2km was not permitted or encouraged.

Due to the 2km restrictions, I've been doing longer runs by taking in a few of the local loops and out and back sections to reach 8 and 10miles. But I still wanted to do a marathon distance since basically all races between now and July are postponed or canceled (No Cork or Waterford marathons for me either).

Last week I decided I'd run some loops of the estate I live in, specifically I'd keep running the
0.28mile loop outside my house until I hit a marathon. I started off at 8am and to the bemusement of neighbors I kept on looping and passing my water station outside my house and I hit marathon distance in 3hours 47nmin.   Not bad overall.

But even before I hit the marathon distance I decided I wanted to hit a nice even number of 30miles, so while I slowed down a lot I kept on doing loops until I eventually hit 30miles in 4hours 42min 59sec.

All in all not a bad day really.

But back to the pandemic.....right now as I type there are 2,329,651 confirmed cases and 160,721 deaths with the USA being the number one country in the world for infections and deaths (740,557 infected, 38,979 death) much of which can be put at frankly disastrous handling by Trump and his administration. In Ireland, there are 14,758 confirmed cases and 571 deaths and right now they are reporting that we've flattened the curve.

Overall in Ireland restrictions came in quick and we were certainly much more pro-active then our next-door neighbors in the UK which went ahead with events like Cheltenham which result in about 60k people a day mixing in close quarters.

There have been a few infection cases locally and even deaths from health staff in the local hospital which is worrying and extremely sad for the families affected. There is a big focus on protecting elderly and vulnerable groups from the virus and on that note, my parents have been on lockdown since this all kicked off so they've not gone further than their garden.

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Structure Part II

Another week of trying to get some structure back into my weekly running, oh how I miss 2014, 2015 and 2016 where I was doing 5-6 runs a week!

So first thing first, I need to look after my legs so after a very mixed run on Sunday where I did some intervals I rolled the legs Sunday night and headed out for the first of my early morning runs last week.   Not particularly interesting as I choose to run out the Kilkenny Road and Back, its not a relaxing route as commuter traffic passes but I just wanted a simple out a back run.

Monday and Tuesday runs were just to settle back into some sort of sub 8:00min/mile pace comfortably.

For Wednesday I wanted a change and I wanted to get back to my normal running routes so I headed out for an 8mile loop which comes back by the new line, this is one of my favourite routes to run when the roads aren't busy. But, it's not to everyone's like as it involves a 3mile dead-straight stretch of road coming back to Callan.

One thing I need to work into my structure is interval work, I bloody hate doing it but every time I do it I always note an overall improvement in my pace and as I want to get the pace down to sub 7:00min/mile which I was regularly doing this time last year on the newline loop its something I just have to suck up and do.

Keeping that in mind that's exactly what I decided to do on Thursday morning and took a rest on Friday before finally doing a nice fast run on the same route as Wedneday.

All in all not a bad week to begin with!


Last weeks training was

Sunday: 3.16miles @ 9:23min/mile (Intervals and walking)
Monday: 5miles @ 7:52min/mile
Tuesday: 4miles @ 7:57min/mile
Wednesday: 8miles @ 7:49min/mile
Thursday: 2.33miles @ 9:07min/mile
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 8miles @ 7:23min/mile

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

New website address

Well, ok it's not new I've owned www.runninginkilkenny.com since 2017 but I've finally set it up correctly to work with blogger.com and this blog.

So now as well as my blog being found at http://runninginkilkenny.blogspot.com it can be found at its new address of http://www.runninginkilkenny.com

Monday, January 27, 2020

Structure

Time for me to get some structure and shift the extra lbs from Christmas, so to focus the mind of creating this structure I have another race booked for 2020!

After 9 years I'm returning to the Cork City Marathon, Cork was my first marathon back in 2011 and in hindsight, I was ill-prepared for it as I barely did enough 20mile training runs before it so this time around I'm well capable of it.

I'll likely do several other races between now and then but nothing else is booked for now.

Last week started off well with a trail run around Slievenamon, then a handy recovery run on Monday with the dog.   For Tuesday I had planned to get a lift into Kilkenny and then run the 13miles home but instead, I decided to head for an 8mile run.  While out for the 8mile run I felt good so I changed my route and finished in 11miles instead.

On Wednesday I had planned on a short run with the dog but hadn't got time in the evening so it ended up being a rest but, Thursday morning was a very slow 2miler during which I found the legs very heavy.   I had a visit booked with Sports Physio at Bodymend.ie as my legs haven't been feeling best (heavy) since the 27mile trail run two weeks back.

To cap things off on Saturday I had a few hours to kill so I opted for a long slow run on-road rather than a trail for a change. I headed up towards Co Tipperary and completed a large 17mile loop near Mullinahone. 

More rest days then I would have liked but then I didn't want to overdo it after the physio visit.

Last weeks training was

Sunday: 12.44miles @ 12:37min/mile (Trail)
Monday: 2.42miles @ 8:45min/mile
Tuesday:  11.05mile @ 8:05min/mile
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 2.13miles @ 9:05min/mile
Friday: Rest
Saturday:17miles @ 12.03min/mile

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Trekking poles and back packs

So after a few days of short runs during last week after the moonlight marathon my legs finally started to feel less heavy and I managed a comfortable 8mile run on Friday morning.

On Sunday I decided to return to the trails as I really wanted to try out the trekking poles I got at the end of December and last week I also picked up a new backpack.

The poles I picked up were the Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z, normally fairly steep but I managed to get a very, very good discount which means I could justify going over my initial budget of €30 for trekking poles.   

The pack I picked up was the Ultimate Direction HARDROCKER VEST 2018-2019, its an end of line backpack so I got it well over 50% off the normal price. It'll replace my Ultimate Direction Scott Jurek 2.0 Ultra pack which I picked up in Oct 2014 in prep for training for my first 100mile race.

Sunday's trail run was a 7.30am start on Slievenamon with a group of us and one of the guys even brought his dog for the 12-mile run, it was -6c but the views were lovely, just stunning.   The route was the normal 12mile circuit of Slievenamon which mainly follows fire road around the base of the mountain, some bog and some open mountain.

Conditions on the circuit were very icy and the polls saved me from at least 2 or 3 falls on my arse, overall the polls certainly made any hilly sections easier but I was curious of just what benefits I'd find on the most difficult sections.

Specifically, I wanted to test the polls on a section called "Waterworks Hill", this is a very boggy section of the trail and its always slow going as its very uneven, your feet sink and its very wet.
But without a doubt the polls made it far easier, I set a new personal record of 12:58 beating my previous best of 17:07.   Of course, there is a caveat here, this section was frozen due to the cold temperatures so the ground was hard, I'll need to give it another test under proper wet and boggy conditions.


The next  real test of the poles on the route was the section we describe as "That f**ken wall!", this is the right-hand shoulder of Slievenamon at about mile 11 of the run and its a killer of a steep climb, by far the hardest section.  I set a new record for this section of 12min 19sec, beating my previous best of 12:21 also set with polls. Without polls, my best time was 14:24 so its clear the polls have a big a benefit in making upward progress.

Black Diamond Distance Carbon Z
Overall, it has been a positive experience and regardless of if they are in your hands or stored at the front of the pack, I can honestly say you'd hardly notice you have them due to the low weight. They also don't bounce which means they are not annoying to carry either.

Ultimate Direction HARDROCKER VEST 2018-2019
As for the new Ultimate Direction pack, this is my second Ultimate direction pack.   I got my first Scott Jurek Ultra 2.0 pack back in October 2014 and its served me very well through hundreds of miles of training and races.

But, it does have a few issues. For starters, it has hard water bottles which aren't terribly comfortable and also as you drink your water the water sloshes around and this can get irritating while running.   Due to this, I had actually given up using the Ultimate Direction bottles in favour of reusing a normal water bottle which I'd crush down as I use the water in it, this stops it making noise.

By comparison, the Hardrocker vest comes with Ultimate Direction body bottles which are soft and shrink down as you drink your water, so this change is very much welcome.

The pack itself is much bigger then the Scott Jurek Ultra 2.0 overall,  the Scott Jurek Ultra 2.0 had a 7litre storage capacity, by comparison, the Hardrocker has 10litres. The pocket design is much better with storage for everything including a GPS (if you needed to carry one) and it also has lots of smaller pockets suitable for gels.

The pocket selection at the back is also better, the Scott Jurek Ultra 2.0 had three large pockets but the Hardrocker has three large and one small, one of the large pockets is also open so its ideal for easily getting in/out a jacket without messing about with zips.

So far I'm very happy with the pack design and hopefully, it'll get years of use to come.



Saturday, January 18, 2020

Ballyhoura Moonlight Marathon Challenge 2020 Race Report

The first race of the year and I picked a fairly challenging one!

Not only was it a marathon, but it was a trail marathon starting at 9pm and to top it off I was sick the week before it and still not 100% at the time of doing the race, so here goes with my race report.

Given the late start for the race, I took it nice and easy on Friday as I knew it was going to be a long night.     The plan was to catch a lift with Jaime, Ger and Paul to Kilfinane for the start of the race with the aim of leaving around 6pm,  sure this would mean we'd be at the start for around 7.30pm but it's better to be early rather than late to the start of the race.

Credit: MMRA - Munster Mountain Running Association
After a slight change of plan (Ger made his own way in the end), we arrived in plenty of time and very quickly the school where the event was starting/finishing began to fill up with people for the marathon and half-marathon.   It's been a good few months since I've done a marathon/ultra so it was nice to see some familiar faces and catch up with one or two people, also got to hear about some of their plans for 2020.

The start time quickly approached and before we headed out into the night there was a short briefing to cover the course, the importance of checking in halfway etc.  After a few minutes, we headed out the door and away we went.

Credit: Jp Tierney
The plan for this "race" was for it to be really a social run, meaning that myself, Ger, Paul and Jaime would plan to stick together and from the start this sort of worked.   But after 1mile in myself and Ger lost sight of Paul and Jaime and also there was a problem with a group of about 20+ who continued up the road rather than cutting up to the right into the first forest.

Heading into the wood was the first of the nights many, many climbs and instantly I could feel the effects of being ill the week before and also the lack of training but I knew things would likely even out once I'd got a bit of a workout.    

As myself and Ger ran through the wood we figured either Paul and Jaime had either gone way ahead or they had been part of the unlucky group who continued running down the road and missed the turn into the wood, we continued on through the forest and after a few miles we hit the first of the more awkward descents which involved lots and lots of mud.  Just as we hit the end of this Paul and Jaime arrived, it turned out they had been part of the unlucky group who didn't turn right into the wood.

From here on we stuck together for a few miles but as we approached mile 6 I managed to lose the group as we hit a section of the course which was a single file climb in an area called Darragh Beg, it also involved a loop of about 4miles which took in two hills, much of it single file track as well.

This section was challenging but was immense fun in parts, fog also started to roll in on these sections due to the elevation.  At around mile 9 I came across a runner who was down due to hurting their ankle, luckily for the runner there were people already looking after them.  As it turns out it would be a number of hours until they were safely off the mountain with South Eastern Mountain Rescue.

I continued on and returned to the single-file section at an area called Darragh Beg and from here on it was road from around mile 11 to mile 16. (Not ideal when you are wearing trail shoes!)

As the miles tipped by I finally arrived in at the checkpoint at mile 14 at the Ballyhoura Mountain Lodges which seemed like a nice wooded area to stay in, the requirement at the checkpoint wasn't just to run by it and pick up water etc but instead you had to ensure you signed your name so they knew you had passed through. The second I walked in I couldn't see as my glasses fogged up (the joys of glasses!) but thankfully a volunteer signed for me.  

By the time I arrived into the checkpoint all the half marathon had been through so there was next to no coke left, but I did get the last half cup full.  Even though there was no coke there was more than enough soup, sweets and anything else a person might want.

I filled up my water bottle, grabbed one or two things and headed out the door walking and eating....there is no benefit in sitting down to eat after all!

Shortly after the checkpoint as I was walking, I met up with Ray and JP who I've run a number of races with in the past, as it turns out JP was using the Ballyhoura Moonlight Marathon as training for the Wicklow Way Solo 127km race, they were making better progress than me so by the time we started to climb again I left them off.    

Just before mile 16 I began the long climb up Seefin and again the fog started to roll in, this climb continued until around mile 17.5miles and it was hard going especially with all the loose scree. Eventually, I hit the turnaround point near the summit and was fairly amazed to encounter a race steward at this section, it was fairly foggy here and the wind kept picking up now and then so it can't have been the nicest place to stand for the night.

After hitting the top I started the descent via the very, very muddy trail back into the wood, I'll admit at one point as I couldn't see anyone else or even a head torch light being reflected in the fog in front or behind me I thought I may have missed a turn.  But thankfully I didn't take any wrong turns and eventually burst out onto the fire road at the end of the mud trail!

From mile 21 to the finish around mile 27 was a mix of road, wooded areas and fields, some of the sections were particularly frustrating due to the level of mud which would cake under the shoes and make it awkward as hell to make any decent progress.    The last 2miles or so were just on road back to the finish and it felt pretty endless,

I eventually crossed the line in 05:50:12, full details can be found on my Garmin.


Overall the race was enjoyable, but I enjoyed upto mile 11 the most by far. After that, I found the road sections frustrating to run in trail shoes and the mud got to me in the later sections.

Also in hindsight I will say that given my lack of trail running and the climbs involved I would have benefitted from bringing the new trekking poles I picked up in December.   These would have likely knocked 10-15min off my time as I really found the mud slowed me down, also there were also plenty of people who were using them during the race.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

A little bit of catching up!

A little bit of catching up to do on the events I've done since mid-November, so here goes.....

Stook 10mile:
Stook 10mile took place on the 17th November and I had planned to take the race relatively easy with the exception of the flying mile from mile 8-9.  I came in 54th with a time of 01:11:49 and finished the flying mile in 31st with a respectable time of 5:45.

Overall for a race where I didn't push things too much I was happy with the results.

SEMRA Long Way Round Mountain Run
Courtesy of South Eastern Mountain Rescue Association

The Long Way Round Mountain Run took place on the 23rd November and for a change, the course is a trail up the mountains near Clonmel. 

The run was a social run with a group of local trail runners so for pretty much all of the race we stuck together as a group.

For a social run, I came in 46th in a time of 1:25:30 which isn't bad considering I'm not as used to trail runs when compared to the road...they are ultimately harder!

Waterford Half Marathon:
The Waterford Half-Marathon took place on the 7th December and it was the last race of 2019 for me.

I always enjoy the Waterford half and I generally pull a decent enough time out of the bag from it, I've even set a few personal bests over the years.   Unforurntaly there were some last-minute changes with the planned course due to road works and this made for a much harder course especially in the last 3miles or so.

While I did head out with the 1:30 pacers and had sceptically planned for a new PB I dropped off the pacer group after around mile 9 and found the last few miles hard going. However, all in all I finished the half-marathon in 1:33:58
Not the PB I had hoped for but overall not a bad result considering the lack of specific training AND the harder course then expected.



Over the last few weeks, I've done some trail running up Slievenamon and kept up a decent amount of running around the Christmas period including 2x 20mile plus runs. 

After Christmas, I caught the bug that's going around which wiped out about 10 days of decent running,

So tomorrow I will be taking part in the Moonlight Marathon which kicks off at 9pm, I hope to be finished around the 5hr mark all going well.    I'd rather not be out all night after all :)