Hopefully coming back

Clonmel Blueway

It's been a long road, getting from there to here and it's been a long time, but my time is finally near.

No updates in ages and no races in ages and I've had to cancel my planned running of the Wild Atlantic Way Ultra (50mile) twice (excluding Covid) because very simply my body would not allow but things do finally appear to be on the up!

Since Covid in 2022 this is the longest time I've not been unwell or desperatly tired as I've been ok since October 2023.     Although I've been fine since Oct I didn't want to end things badly by trying to training for the 50mile event in May so instead I opted to just do 5mile runes and occasional longer runs and so far so good.

I'm not fast anymore considering back in 2022 I could bang out a 1:35 half-marathon as a training run but at least I can run. 

So what are my plans? 

I've set a target of a very slow training run at the end of April as I'm going to do the Marathon Club Ireland Clonmel Blueway marathon.  I'm looking for miles under my belt at a slow pace so I've even planned to start with the walkers and I must finish under 5:30 or its counted as a DNR.
I suspect the over 5:30 time won't be a problem for me given my lack of speed these days.

I've longer term plans but I'm going to keep them under wraps as I want to see how the next few months pan out.   I also have a few adventures planned which don't involve running like touring around parts of Ireland on the bike.

Finally, if you've spotted the Star Trek reference in this post then well done!

When best made plans go to crap - 2023 edition.

 2023 was supposed to be a bit of a comeback year for me, my plan was to take it easy enough until start of January and then go back into training with the aim of a 40mile run in April and a goal of the Wild Atlantic Way 50mile in May.

But it was not meant to be, as I previously posted in December I had been ill in November with a chest infection. That was a breeze to what I had in December/January, as I was off work around three weeks and my overall fitness has taken an awful kicking.

Realistically my ultra plans are scrubbed for certainly the entire first half of 2023, I'd only be doing myself harm at this stage to try go into such a heavy training schedule especially with the fitness loss I've experienced in November, December and January collectively.

I'm slowly trying to rebuild my fitness right now and work at even getting my pace below 8:30min/miles for starters!

Finally recovered

 I've been laid down the last two weeks with a very bad chest infection, between steroids and antibiotics there has been no running of course so this week was a case of starting slow and run by feel.

I did an easy run on Thursday but on Saturday I decided to go on for 10miler and instantly I could feel the bounce in my step again! Throughout the run I felt better then I had during any run since late October so things appear to have turned a corner.

Sunday I decided on a rest day as my legs actually hurt, I guess thats what happens when I don't run for a few weeks so after then it was some easy runs on Monday and Tuesday and my legs started to feel more normal again.

On-top of all the runs I've also been doing my usual trips on the cargobike, while it doesn't give me heaps of exercise due to it being an ebike it still keeps things ticking over.

Plans don't always go to plan

Since the Dublin Marathon I've done very little running as I've not felt 100% but none the less  I still perhaps stupidly wanted to back into some sort of routine, I'm also thinking about what I want to do in 2023.

I have a 50mile Ultra in May which was postponed from last May but I need some events between now and then both to build upto but also to push myself in my training.

So this week I started on just easing myself back into running, no fast paces and instead focusing on keeping a low HR. Over the next few weeks I'll work in intervals to bring up the pace to my normal range (7:30min/mile range).

Tuesdays run was much, much more effort then it should have been and as the week went on I wasn't feeling great, Thursday night I didn't sleep well at all and throughout the week I had a higher resting avg HR of 47 instead of my normal of 40.

I woke up on Friday morning and felt rotten, I was also 99% sure I had a chest infection and after a GP visit all was confirmed and I was put on antibiotics and steroids. 

So basically no running until that course is finished, not a great start and frustrating as I've not had a chest infection in years which I've mainly put down to running and improved fitness. 

This weeks runs were
- Sunday: 5miles @ 9:58min/mile pace
- Monday: Rest
- Tuesday: 11miles @ 9:55min/mile
- Wednesday: Rest
- Thursday: Rest
- Friday: Rest
- Saturday: Rest

Dublin Marathon 2022 Race Report

Way back in 2019 this was supposed to be a goal race when I signed up to it, I had previously aimed for a sub 3:20 marathon but only managed 3:29 and the 2020 marathon was going to be another sub 3:20 attempt.

But fast ward to March 2020 and the world changed and we had a worldwide pandemic, I was still running and I even clocked up some very good runs like a 3:45 marathon around a 220metre loop by my house and a 40mile run from Kilkenny to Tramore, Co Waterford.

But despite the good condition I was in throughout 2020 there was only a virtual Dublin marathon which I did and I also did the half-marathon on the same weekend because I signed up to both but didn't see that they had to be both completed the same weekend!

Coming into 2022 I was in great shape and had a number of races lined up including a 50mile Ultra in May and the Cork marathon, I started the year off with the Ballyhoura moonlight challenge in January and then I got covid and the rest of the year has basically been a write off.   

When I had Covid it didn't really effect me symptom wise massively but after I was completely wiped out energy wise, even doing a 1mile walk weeks after would exhaust me. When I did get back to running doing a 3mile slow run felt like doing a 15mile fast run. The effort was crazy.

Things have improved bit by bit but I find I have good and bad times energy wise so Dublin Marathon was never going to be a goal race anymore. Instead my aim was just to run it and treat it as a long run and maybe manage it in 4hours.

After the hectic week I had with Daniel being sick the week before and then a trip for work this was always going to be "fun"!.

As usual it was a early start for the drive to Dublin and I parked in the usual spot, headed off to the start line and on the way met some familiar faces which is always nice.

I had tried to avoid the baggage area since I didn't intend on dropping a bag but I did have a race vest on me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do this and when I went to go through the area one of the staff refused me entry saying I couldn't come through with my bag. I explained it was a race vest and not an actual bag and I'd be wearing it running but they weren't having it.

After explaining it a number of times and also explaining there were literally other people wearing them passing by they still wouldn't allow me pass and they eventually said they'd have to talk to their supervisor after a min of back & forth.

The supervisor took and look and let me through so it does seem like there's a knowledge gap given how common running vests/packs are these days.

Annoying but once that issue was addressed I headed to the start line and even though I was aiming for 4hours ish I headed off between the sub 3:20 and 3:30 groups and off we went.

I kept a comfortable pace and now and then got chatting to people, I actually kept a decent enough pace with the 3:30 pace group only passing me at around mile 15. But by around mile 20 I was flagging energy wise and I knew the idea of a 4hr marathon might not happen.

Unlike other Dublin marathons where I was focused on my own race I did my best to encourage others in the last few miles, especially in the last mile and I eventually crossed the finish line in 4:12:16.

Not my fastest Dublin marathon by any stretch but given I decided to do it as a long training run it still had its use. Another top and medal for the box.

It's certainly not been the year I had planned.

London Trip

 This week is a fairly hectic week!

I was due to travel to London for work on Tuesday but even that was touch and go as Daniel was sick on Sunday night and we ended up bringing him to hospital due to very high temp and vomiting which didn't seem to be getting better.    Thankfully his temp came down and he stopped vomiting but it still meant an almost 8hr stint in hospital with him on Sunday night/Monday morning.

After weighing things up and as Daniel was doing much better on Tuesday I headed off to London and arrived Tuesday evening, given it was a work trip and that wouldn't allow much free time to do my own thing without being seriously anti-social with other people I decided to make use of the time I had on Tuesday night and headed off on a sight seeing run around London.

My plan was to run through the City Of London down to Tower Bridge and then run the north bank as far as the houses of parliament, detour to Buckingham Palace and then come back via the south bank.  Other then when I ran the Thomas Path 100 back in 2015 I've not been to London so I figured this was a good way of seeing lots of sights in a very limited amount of time.

The run didn't disappoint and it yet again reinforces my experience that running around a city is a great way to both sight see and also get your bearings if you plan to do further sigh seeing and trips within the city.  I've done my own running tours in Bruges, Amsterdam and Luxembourg previously and generally on the first or second morning and its always benefited me for the rest of my stay.

I enjoyed the sight seeing but it made me really appreciate that I get to run on nice quiet country roads as I found it very frustrating to have to stop at numerous junctions for roads, bike lanes etc  The City Of London was especially "fun" as I ended up running through it at quitting time so it was packed full of people. I wouldn't like to do this type of running for my normal runs.

During the work trip I unfortunately picked up something which wasn't great as I have a pretty packed weekend as we're celebrating Daniel's birthday tomorrow and I'm running the Dublin City Marathon on Sunday. While I'm just using the marathon as a long run I'd still like to go into it feeling 100%.

Mixed week and a loss to Ireland's running community

 It's not been a great week for training, I managed to get almost a 4mile run on Monday and a 5mile run on Wednesday. I had also planned for another 5miles on Friday but Daniel decided to kick off just as I was going out the door so the run got scrubbed and instead I opted to start work early.

Grace was off to Gareth Brooks over the weekend so Saturday was also scrubbed but I did manage a run of 13mile on Sunday morning before we headed into Kilkenny to take part in the slow roll.

Whats a slow roll? Well, its as it sounds, its a family cycle around Kilkenny City and since Daniel's been born we always try to take part as its something different. This time though its not me putting Daniel in a trailer on the bike as I've now upgraded to a Bakfiets Cargobike!

Bakfiets / Cargobike

The slow roll was sadly a wash out as it bucketed down with rain but a small number of us still did a cycle around the city, hopefully the next one will be better as they usually attract a big crowd with numerous families.

On Friday night I was shocked to read that Thomas Bubendorfer had passed away on Tuesday last week, he had been out for a run in Spain and was hit by a car.    

For those that didn't know Thomas, he was a very popular figure in the Irish running community and he wrote the very popular Diary of a Rubbish Marathon Runner blog.

Thomas started running to run the "once in a lifetime marathon" in Dublin back in 2004 but went on to proudly represent Austria in the 24 Hours World Championships in Turin and completed the Spartathlon in Greece both in the same year. Impressive achievements.

He was a regular face to see at different ultramarathons over the years such as Donadea 50km and truth be told he's one of the reasons I got into running ultramarathons after reading his blog.  

But other then saying hello to him I didn't know him but I was lucky enough to share about 27miles of the 2019 Connemara Ultra with him chatting about all sorts, for all his achievements he was very humble about them but he was very knowledgeable and a nice chap. He will be missed by the Irish running community and it'll be a poorer place without him.

RIP Thomas and condolences to Niamh to your family and friends.

Thomas Bubendorfer, Turin 2015 / Photo Martin Mayrhofer

 

Boston Scientific Half Marathon (Clonmel) Race Report

Blueway at Kilsheelan, County Tipperary

Long and short of the last few months is got I Covid back in January and it did a number on me, few
weeks after I had it I still had very little energy and running what should have been a easy 3miles was like a hard 15mile run.

This of course ruined my plans of a 50mile race in May which I have postponed until 2023 as I lost a lot of fitness and couldn't continue to do the training I needed.

Things are very slowly going along now, I have an entry for Dublin in October which has carried over from 2020 so I opted to make some effort on training and I signed up to the Boston Scientific Half-Marathon in Clonmel which was on the 28th August.

I've done this race a few times and its not what I'd describe as flat, but they changed the course this year and have promised a flatter course.  

Half-Marathon Race Route

The course started in Clonmel and then looped back to Kilsheelan via back roads before going onto the Suir Blueway and coming back to the finish. I've run and cycled on the Blueway a fair bit over the last 18 months or so so I knew what to expect there but I had no idea about how the route would be on the roads to Kilsheelan.

Few miles in and I knew this course wasn't going to be very flat, or at least it wasn't going to be flat until I reached the Blueway.  You can see from the elevation profile below that it certainly had some climbs, but for everything that goes up it also must go down so there were some enjoyable downhill sections.

Race Elevation Profile with Pace Overlay

I managed to keep a fairly respectable pace throughout most of this section but by the time I hit the Blueway at Kilsheelan I was starting to feel the strain of maintaining the pace. 

Up until the 7.5mile mark I only had maybe 3-4 people pass me so this was a good sign, but on the Blueway this changed and I maybe had a good 10 people pass me. This was a little demoralizing as I've not had this happen in sometime when doing a half marathon distance.

But I kept going as best I could and tried to run based on effort rather then checking my actual pace on the watch. Coming up to the finish I managed to pip two people so thats always a boost!

I entered the race expecting 1:40'ish, but I finished with a fairly respectable 1:36:17.

It's far off my PB of 1:29 and prior to January and getting Covid I could have pulled this sort of pace out of the bag on a training run so I have a lot of work to do to get back to that sort of fitness. But its still better then I expected just the same.

Long sleeve finisher shirt after the race is decent quality and it'll get some use during the winter months no doubt and for those into medals its an alright medal.
  

Some fundraising and virtual races

Over the past number of months I've been doing some virtual races, nothing too fancy but just stuff to get me out the door at times.

So far I've done the Centurion One Love Half Marathon and San Francisco Half Marathon back in Feb, will say I do like the San Francisco long sleeve top!

But for more of a challenge I've also signed up to some marathons in the coming months, October in particular is going to be likely extremely busy with the London Marathon, Boston Marathon and Dublin Marathon (Dublin hasn't been confirmed yet as virtual).

But before any of that I have the Centurion Running One Community 100mile starting this Friday the 2nd April and running until the 8th April.

It's going to be a challenge as I have to cover an avg of 14miles per day to complete this and the the highest miles I've covered in a week since October is around 50miles!

To put my effort to good use I've decided to raise money for PAWS Animal Rescue who is situated not far from where I live, PAWS does great work in relation to animal rescue, and they rely heavily on donations from the public to carry out their work.

In addition our two lovely lurchers Buffy and Khaleesi were rehomed from PAWS, and myself and Grace  always try to support them each year with birthday fundraisers and by donating whenever possible.

Khaleesi & Buffy

My fundraising is purely on Facebook so for anyone that is friends with me on Facebook if you could please donate anything I would much appreciate it.  However if you'd like to donate directly you can visit paws.ie

Thats got to hurt!

I've noticed over the past few runs that despite my Saucony Liberty ISO 2 only being new since Christmas and only having about 250miles in them they let in water much more then any previous shoe I've owned. I don't even need to run through a puddle for my right foot in particular to be soaked! All very annoying..

On Sunday I headed out for a 9mile run and I brought Daniel in the running buggy we picked up, I found about half way into the run that I got a slight pain in my back.   I didn't think much of it, I've had this sort of thing now and then over the years.

I was very wrong this time, by the time I got home I was crippled and struggled to take off my top when changing.   I've had a good few sleepless nights since due to this back pain but it has mainly sorted itself and I only feel discomfort now and then when I move a certain way.

Fortunately it isn't hurting me while running normally, clearly the whole issue was caused by my running form with the buggy.

Three Races and a Baby

We're into 2021 and unlike 2020 where this time last year I was planning on doing Tralee Marathon, Cork Marathon, Kilkenny Medieval Marathon and Dublin Marathon as an initial plan I'm going on the assumption that none of these will actually happen.

I do actually have an entry for 2021 Dublin Marathon but funny enough I'll go on the assumption that with covid they won't be allow 16,000 odd people to hang out in Dublin at the same time on the same section for street.

So I've began the year by signing up to a few virtual races, so far I have:

- Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon - Complete between 7th Jan - 7th Feb
- Centurion Running One Love Half Marathon - Complete 13/14th Feb
- Centurion Running One Community 100mile - Complete 2nd - 8th April

The first two races are just a half marathons so nothing special and while I likely won't do a PB I'll still push myself a little more on the runs then a normal long run, but the third is a seven day event where I have to cover 100miles which averages out at about 14miles a day which will be a challenge.

I've started recently to do back2back long runs on my weekends, for example last weekend was 14/18miles and it brings back memories of the times I was doing 20/30miles back in 2016/2017. It does get easier!!!

The last time I had done a back2back run was for the virtual Dublin Half/Full marathon in October which I didn't realise you had to do both within 24hrs of each other when I signed up.   The legs felt it doing the half marathon on day 2.

To add to the above challenge we now also have Daniel who was born in October shortly after I ran the two Dublin virtual runs last year so trying to work, look after Daniel and do 2hrs plus of running a day for an entire week will be a challenge, but I'll give it a go anyway.

Daniel says Hello!

 Welcoming Daniel to our family, born 1.15pm yesterday.

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

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!

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.....

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.

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

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

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

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.