After last years PB of 1:37 in Waterford I was aiming to bring
it under 1:35 this year and with the better time set in Dublin and the
Stook 10mile race a few weeks back I figured I was in decent shape for
it.
So race day arrived and I made the a pretty big mistake, I thought the race started at 12pm so I had planned to arrive down at
11.30am, however I only realized at 9:50 that the race started at 11am
so it was a mad rush to get out the door and drive down to Waterford.
I arrived around 11:45 so made very good time thanks to the motorway,
I had a good idea of the course this year compared to last years course as
I'd already ran some of these routes in Waterford or cycled them over
the years. I was pretty hopeful that I'd get sub 1:35 so I put myself in between the 1:30 and 1:40 pacers and could see the 1:30
pacers up until maybe mile 2-3 so started off at a much faster pace then
expected.
Legs felt very stiff for the first 4miles or so which was likely due to
the lack of warm up and it took awhile for them to relax, once that
happened I felt pretty good until around mile 11 when I started to
struggle abit...but I kept going as best as I could.
Finished with official chip time of 1:34:43 so thrilled with the
improvement over last years PB. now upwards and onwards to sub 1:30 :)
After Dublin I figured I was in pretty good shape and since I hadn't ever ran a 10mile race I signed up for the Stook 10mile in Co Kilkenny.
I meant to sign up for this race last year but never got around to it,
I had hoped on hitting a personal best during this run and beating the 1:13 I set in training for running a 10mile, however I was wary that this may not be do-able considering the Stook 10mile had a number of hills including one big hill to climb before mile 8 but I figured I "might" be able to make up for this on the flying mile.
What is the flying mile I hear you ask?
Well, the flying mile is mile 8 - mile 9 during the race that's all down a very steep hill. It even has timing mats at the start and end of the mile so its great fun to see if you can set a fast pace.
Elevation showing climb & flying mile
The only downside about the flying mile is you can't give it everything you got because you still have another mile of running to do to get to the finish line and this includes a slight climb,
Seriously enjoyed 8-9 as I managed a 6min
mile (63rd Rank) even with the hill climbing still in the legs. Very well
organized and supported race.
Not the PB of 1:10 or under I had hoped for but really enjoyed it.
Finish time: 1:13:12 (69th Place) Garmin log of the run.
So another year and another Dublin Marathon, this being my third Dublin Marathon I was determined to get sub 3:30 and I felt reasonably confident i could pull things off this year.
I was queuing for the loo for ages and this made things a bit awkward for getting to the start line on time, I did just about make it and push in to the 3:30 area but I was at least 2-3min behind where the 3:30 pacers would actually be.
So until just before the Phoenix Park I was playing catchup with the pacers, as the miles went on I figured I could comfortably hit 3:28.
However, I got too
confident and I ended up ahead
of the pacers until almost mile 20. Started to struggle after 20 and
ended up walking for the first time at mile 23.
Finish time of 3:33:33
in the end so abit disappointed but not as bad as I thought it would be as the finish clock was showing nearer to 3:36
Atleast this time around I ran into issues at mile 23 instead of mile 18 so my endurance is improving when it comes to running a marathon at a faster place. I'll defiantly get under 3:30 in 2014 and maybe even closer to 3:20!
Its been awhile since I ran a marathon so I decided to take this one nice and easy and purely use it as a long slow run towards training for Dublin, this time around I wanted a sub 3:30 in Dublin!
So with that in mind I signed up to the Carlow/Kilkenny Marathon.
Its a route I ran loads of times of during my training for Connemara Ultra earlier in the year so I was looking forward to getting back on it as I hadn't been on it for months.
For once it was nice to have to only travel around 10miles, so with that in mind I didn't have to get up nearly as early as many other marathons I've traveled to.
Nice crisp morning to start with and everyone met up outside Kilkenny Castle and we all got the bus to Carlow to the start line.
Didn't push the pace too much and kept
things comfortable for the vast majority of the run. However I did experienced some muscle pain (left leg again!) and a blister at mile
24 and walked a little on and off due to this.
I did manage to finished in under 4hours but the course was measured long so the official time is over 4hours as once I hit 26.2miles I
walked the last bit so this is why the time is over.
Joined Marathon Club Ireland earlier in September so had a chat to a good few people from the club after the finish, most of the people taking part seemed to be MCI members.
So early start for the day of the marathon and had a 2hour+ drive ahead of me to get to Sixmilebridge....this perhaps was not the best preparation before such a run.
Arrived much earlier then I had planned and in-line with recent weather you could tell it was going to be a hot hot day and this was going to be an issue for me later in the day.
Although it was a very hot day I figured I'd try to get into the 3:40's and hope for the best. The heat was a big worry for me as 1. I burn like crazy and 2. No matter how many times I've run in any sort of heat I always fall apart very quickly.
Things however surprised me and the first half actually went pretty well,
First Half
However, as you can see from the miles things went quickly down hill on the
second half of the marathon to the point where I ended up walking a
number of times and was still experiencing muscle pain in my left leg.
Second Half
While not as bad as Portumna its clear the damage I did to my muscle during the Cabot Relay is very much still a factor.
I was glad as hell to get to the finish line and the plastic tub full of water was very much welcome to try cool down and relax the muscle's abit.
So after the disaster that was Portumna I'm still going ahead with 10-in-10 Day Three Marathon event in Co Claire tomorrow, although the event is for 10 marathons I could only manage to fit in one this week.
My original aim was to aim for 3hrs 30min during the event in order to set a new PB, but due to the issues in Portumna and lack of training I'd say I'll be lucky to hit even near Dublin 2012's time of 3hrs 41min.
Not what I had hoped for when I signed up to the event a few months back but I'm still going to enjoy it as best I can. My aim is to try keep a average pace of perhaps 8:40min/mile and see how things progress.
This was my second attempt at the Portumna 50km and I have to say back in February or April I was hopefully of knocking maybe 20min+ off of last years time,
However, that was not to be.
I suppose first thing's first, the last long run of 20mile+ I did was at the start of May when I paced 5hrs at the Limerick marathon, add to this that I really didn't fully properly get back into training after either the Connemara Ultra or Limerick and finally I really did a number on my legs on the Calbot Trail.
I knew my legs weren't right going into this but figured I'll give it a shot, see if i can shave anytime of last years time and worst come to worst I'll put it down as a sort of training run.
A slightly later start then last year as the 50km started at 10am this time around, made the journey on my own this year as well as my wife had other commitments so was unable to be my fan base.
Started off aiming for something under 9:00min/mile, all was going reasonable well until mile 10 when I started to just feel awful in general. In an attempt to feel better I slowed down and actually ended up walking for a short while.
Very much feeling the pain!,
Courtesy of Peter Mooney
Mile 16 onwards turned into a slog and it was effectively run/walk all the way to the finish after that.
I'm a stubbern fecker when I want to be so I refused to drop out and give myself a DNF even though my muscles in my legs (particularly my left leg) were absolutely killing me
Was this a smart idea? Of course it wasn't. But that didn't stop me from being an idiot at the time.
On a side note, I will say that my Garmin Forerunner 305 battery has
really degraded alot lately, in April I just barely got 6hrs 30min out
of it for the Connemara Ultra. During Portumna it died at 4hours 50min
and since then I've started to get battery warnings more often.
During the weekend I made the trip over to Nova Scotia in Canada to run two stages of the Cabot Trail Relay as part of the team "Seventeen Runners", couldn't ask for a nicer invitation.
First thing is first, I've learned two things from the weekend.
1. When they say gentle slopping hills, they actually mean hills worst then the hell of the west in Connemara.
2. The atmosphere during the Cabot Trail Relay is great, its basically a constantly moving party!
So early start and although I missed the start of stage one we started off around 9am, the plan was basically to leap frog the entire trail throughout the next 25hours or so to support our team with water etc.
We weren't on our own however as we had three other cars on the road leapfrogging to make sure people got picked up from finishes and people were ready for the start of their stage. In total we had 17 stages to complete and 14 runners to do it.
My first sight of the really big hills on the course was stage 4 (see photo below) which one of my cousins took on, this stage included a climb of around 320metres over 2.1km which as we drove up to it started to make my wounder to myself about agreeing to do stage 9 and if it really such a smart idea after all, too late to back out now though!
Scary ain't it, note the steep roadway on the mountain
My next encounter with insane hills was stage 9 which another one of my cousins was taking on, this included a 385metre climb and then approx a 385metre decent on the other side, total of 17.5km. Even though it was around 17c most of the day there was snow on the top of this hill. This was the highest climb on the course and it was pretty serious.
So during the day we continued leap frogging and supporting our team and others with stereo speakers tapped to the roof of the car and a large LED scrolling screen with different messages :)
My first stage started at 11.03pm on Saturday night, this initially started off with a climb for the first 5.8km. It then involved a decent of 460metres to bring me back to sea level, but after descending I first had to climb two more hills before the finish.
Elevation profile for Stage 11
My initial perhaps slightly ambitious idea was to complete the 14km in 1hr or less using the descent to gain as much speed as I could and then take it easier for the stage 13 which I'd then be starting at 2am on Sunday morning.
I started off pretty fast but I did suffer with muscle pain during the decent, in fairness I'm not used to hills. My mile laps broke down as follows:
1mile splits for Stage 11
As you can see from my laps and pace (below) I faltered on the last two laps and actually ended up walking as the two climbs with such a large decent basically thrashed my legs.
Pace throughout Stage 11
However, even with the walking on the last two laps I still managed a respectable 18th place out of 71 so I was thrilled with that.
Oh and talking of the large LED scrolling screen, here's what the guys had written on it for my stage 11 :)
Stage 13: - Garmin Link
So with my legs thrashed I got to change socks, get a very small amount of food, some water and a rest of about 1hr before I had to run stage 13. Stage 13 as you can see from my previous blog post is described as gentle slopping hills.....yeah right!
It did include some relatively flat parts but it just seemed to me to be endless drags during which I was climbing, But yet looking at the elevation on the garmin I guess the effect was down to my legs being thrashed as it wasn't all that hilly.
My original aim was to run stage 13 at a much slower 8:30min pace but this went out the window for me at mile 3 as I knew I couldn't keep that pace for the rest of the stage as my muscles started tightening alot and I had to stop and stretch.
Near mile 7 this happened again but this time when I went to stretch my muscles started to spasm so I knew the rest of the stage wasn't going to go to very enjoyable, after this I took on a run/walk strategy which worked reasonably well as I also had hills to content with.
I stayed with two people from different teams for perhaps 1mile at one stage but eventually I had to stop and walk again as I was in agony, however I then started picking up the pace alot more anytime i started running after walking.
This allowed me to pass one of the two people just before the finish line dispite the fact they had been perhaps 500-600metres ahead of me at one stage. I finished 48th out of 71.
Overall a seriously enjoyable event and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, the only difference I'd make is to space out the stages more so instead of doing one stage and then having approx 90min before the next I'd like maybe 7-8hours.
The obligatory team photo - Go Team!
So what is my conclusion to the event?
Without a doubt I really need to work on hill work, that is a problem as where I live isn't particularly hilly but its something I'm certainly going to have to work on and its worth improving on as it will benefit me over all.
Oh, one last thing I forgot to mention, the teams can volunteer to cover water stops so with this in mind the teams tend to choose a theme for them, themes I saw included Superhero's, Christmas, Starwars (stage 13....nothing makes you chuckle more when you're banjaxed going up a hill then a stormtropper handing you water) and the village people (see video/photo below)
So, what exactly do I need for a two legs of a relay in another country that's far far away?
The answer, not alot in my case!
I'm keeping packing to a absolute minimum as I want to carry everything hand luggage for ease of on/off planes and more importantly my running gear has to be with me as I'm not taking any chances that it'll go missing!
So off I go this evening, over 15hrs of traveling and I'm back in a few days. I'm going to be so jet lagged :)
So I got a pretty big surprise the other day when I was asked to take part in the Cabot Trail Relay Race in Nova Scotia, Canada.
The race is 185 mile/276.33 km 17 stage event beginning in Baddeck, Cape Breton, over steep mountains in the Cape
Breton Highlands National Park, through many small communities around
the famous Cabot Trail.
The race is on the weekend of the 25th - 26th May and I'll be running two of the stages, the first of which includes over a 400m drop and the second which is relateively flat, both will be at night so sadly I'll miss the views.
The elevation profile for the race can be seen below, some serious climbs that make the hell of the west in Connemara look easy in comparison: (click to view larger image)
My two stages are 11 & 13, as you can see the initial climb and drop in stage 11 is impressive. By comparison stage 13 is a handy number. More details on both of these are below:
This interrupts my training somewhat for Portumna 50km but I couldn't pass up the chance and it looks to be a seriously enjoyable event. So here's looking forward to it! :)
