Connamara Ultra Marathon 2014

 Got myself a MCI singlet the day before the Ultra

This was my second running of the Connemara Ultra and I'd be lying if I didn't say I was abit nervous about it.

It was a early start on Sunday and I could hear the rain bucketing down outside.
A quick check of the weather forecast showed that the rain was due to clear around 10am for the rest of the day, so I figured at worst I'd have to put up with around 1hr of rain. Unfortunately as well as the rain there was also a strong breeze.

This year there were I believe around 250 ultra runners taking part, I think this is the largest  compared to previous years.  As always it was a mixed field from people that do these sort of distances as a training run, those that want to get the best time they can and finally just people that want to finish the course regardless of how long it may take them.

Just before the race start, the dark clouds broke for a few minutes and blue sky could be seen, this may have been for the briefest of moments but it was still a good sign, more importantly the rain stopped.....unfortunately the wind didn't so from the start (esp the 1st mile) we had to run into the wind.

This year I took a slightly different tactic to last year, the tactic being that I was going to take stuff on board much earlier.   So as well as taking on gels and water as normal I had planned to take on 3x 200ml bottles of flat coke from the 13mile, 26mile and 32mile drop bag stations.   I had other items packed into these bags just in case I might want them but in the end I didn't really bother with them.

I settled into a group of runners for the first 6miles or so but I noted after one or two miles that they had upped the pace from around 8:35 to 8:16min miles, as my overall target pace was supposed to be a average of 8:40 I dropped back from this group and ended up on my own on and off.

Fortunately unlike last year I picked up my 13mile drop bag as last year I was a good 500metres past it before I realised I had missed it, this may have been a factor for the problems experienced in the later part of last year's race.

After picking up my 13mile drop bag I slowed the pace a little more at this stage and took on my first fill of flat coke and one of those Aldi nutrigrain bars, these bars seemed like a good choice for the race but by the next drop bag at 26 I found them far too dry to eat.

Around mile 16 the wind started to hit again and the wind seemed to change direction every now and then which at times was frustrating, but at the same time when I was approaching the descend down into Leenane Village at around the 21-22mile mark the wind actually helped me get up a few of the hills as it gave me a bit of a push.

What was a real boost was the fact that I met the back of the marathon pack around mile 19 this year as opposed to mile 25 last year and during the descent into Leenane Village as I had the wind behind me I did one 7:18min mile and past a large number of marathon runners as well as a few ultra runners.  It was great to get support from the marathon runners, with many of them saying "go on Ultra" as I passed.

Doing these faster miles into Leenane had its downsides unfortunately and I could feel the start of some blisters just as I hit the 26mile bag drop so I walked for the first time in the entire race, my plan was to take on board some food and the flat coke and walk for the first mile coming up the hill from Leenane.

What I was surprised about this year is I managed to hit the marathon distance in 3hours 46min this year, this actually makes this my third fastest marathon and was far ahead of  last years time of 4hrs 11min.

I was also really surprised about how well I felt, especially compared to last year.   Since I started running I've had problems with my left IT band and this has affected me during so many races including Dublin, Portumna, Day 2 of the Clonakilty Back2Back and even last years Ultra where I was in agony from around mile 35 onwards due to it.

While I did feel the very odd bit of discomfort during this ultra mainly at the start it gave me no problems at all during the entire race, as well as that I was upbeat and my legs still felt relatively fresh (as long as I ignored the blister) :)

After refuelling on mile 27 I picked up the pace again and very comfortably passed a few other ultra runners as well as a large number of marathon runners, this was a massive boost and so I was able to keep up the pace. I did stop to walk a few times on hills but mostly I just kept on running.

At mile 32 I picked up my last drop bag and I had a quick drink of coke and left the rest of the stuff and I powered down the hill after the 32mile marker, after this point I just kept running to the hell of the west.

Coming up to the start of the hell of the west I felt surprisingly good for this late in the race, unfortunately that's when the wind started to hit me again and it just seemed to drain the energy out of me really quickly and I ended up slowing down alot.

The wind seemed to be gusting a lot, so while I might get 1min running the wind would gust again and I felt like I had to stop myself from being blown across the road.

I would have liked the last 2miles coming down to the finish to be nice and easy and without the wind it would have been a nice fast finish, unfortunately the wind kept up and I actually ended up walking once or twice on the last mile. I still did manage to finish across the line running so that's the important bit :)

Official Finish Time of: 5hours 52min 17seconds (68th out of 193) (My Garmin Data)

This beats last years time of 6:29:21 by a whopping 37 minutes, considering my initial goal going into this race was to get sub6 and my ultimate goal was to get sub 5:40, I'm very happy with the results.

I've no doubt that if the wind wasn't an issue on the day I would have managed to easily reach the goal of 5:40.

This is definitely one of my most enjoyable races I've done and I still can't get over how well I felt throughout, I'm actually very surprised as normally even in a marathon I have my moments where I just want to stop and walk now and then.

One aspect of the race I also thoroughly enjoyed was chatting to the other ultra runners and also the support from the marathon and half marathon runners, throughout the race from mile 8 onwards I also seemed to be leap frogging the same 6-8 ultra runners so it was good to chat to them now and then.

The aftermath is pretty good overall, the legs feel a bit stiff but other then that they feel perfectly fine, I've two blisters one on each foot which already are on the road to recovery.  

I do however have two black nails (one of each foot) so I'll likely loose at least one toenail...but that doesn't hurt so I'm not too worried about that.  I hope to be back on the Ultra starting line next April :)

Weekly Total: 50.7 miles

Miles This Year: 614 miles

Taper Madness!

Taper madness is setting in good and proper, very low mileage last week in the form of:

- Tuesday: 4miles 8:43min/pace
- Thursday: 10miles 8:45min/pace
- Saturday: 10miles 8:31min/pace

Could feel things weren't back to normal for the first half of the week after the Mallow 10mile race as my heart rate was a little higher then normal.    However, things are returning to normal again now :)

Weekly Total: 24 miles

Miles This Year: 563 miles

Mallow 10 Mile Race

Last week was the start of my tapering for the Connemara Ultra on the 6th April, even so I decided to do the Mallow 10mile race on Sunday.

Its only my second 10mile race with my last being the Stook 10 miler in November, when I ran Stook I wasn't expecting a PB and I experienced no surprises as I finished in 73min which just happened to be the same time I've also managed during training runs so nothing great.

Before taking on the Mallow 10mile race I took it very easy this week as I could still feel the 70miles from the week before still in the legs, so my runs for the week consisted of:

Tuesday: 4miles/avg pace 7:53
Wednesday: 6miles/avg pace 8:26
Friday: 3miles/avg pace 8:01

On Sunday of course I had the Mallow 10mile race and while I wanted a sub 70 I wasn't prepared to really push myself too much as I'm mindful of my next race in April, so with that in mind I sat myself in behind the 70min pacers.

Staying with the 70min pacers worked for about the first two miles, at which point the crowding around the pacers started to annoy me so I headed out in front. For the first 4miles I took advantage of the slight downhill and I managed to hit the 5mile mark around 34:40sec.

At around mile 7 I started to struggle a little and it was around this time that two people from Waterford A/C passed me and I upped the pace abit and tried to stay with them for awhile, I eventually lost them around 700metres from the finish

Credit Doug Minihane

I found the last mile to the finish a bit of a challenge but then I still managed it in 6:44min/pace so I knew I'd have a very comfortable sub 70 finish, I finally crossed the line in 69:20 so very happy with the result.

Overall a very well organised event and I enjoyed the challenge, I'll try make it back next year for a re-match :)

Weekly Total: 27 miles

Miles This Year: 539 miles

The last great push

So that's it, I'm now officially tapering for Connemara Ultra on the 6th April,

Last week I wanted to do one last week of high milage and then drop down the milage for the next three weeks so I'm well rested, so with that in mind my runs this week consisted of:

- Monday: 12miles
- Tuesday: 8miles
- Wednesday: 12miles
- Thursday: 8miles
- Friday: 20miles
- Saturday: Rest
- Sunday: 10miles

Monday's Run

Monday's run started off well enough with the aim of keeping a 7:30 pace and all was going well until I met the wall of mist about 2miles in, the visibility dropped to about 200metres or less at times,

Ordinarily I might have turned back and gone a different route, thing is I knew that if I kept going the return 6miler would be a much safer road with no cars on it, I just had to get to the turnaround point first.

The visibility had reduced to about 100metres by the time I hit 5miles and just seemed to get worse. I'm sure any motorists I met thought I had some sort of death-wish running towards them with such poor visibility.  (I did have a headtorch and stuff though....)

Tuesday was a much slower run at 8:01 and was pretty uneventful.

Wednesday again was another 12 miler, mist made another come back but no where near as bad as on Monday. It was also the first time in a very very long time that I had a motorist beep at me.   I can only assume I sort of scared them (perhaps they were half asleeep?) as I was in the hard shoulder and wasn't a danger to them in anyway.

Thursday's run was another uneventful run but this time I decided to drop down the pace to 9:00 miles as I was wary I had 20 miles to run the next morning,

Friday's run was a very early start and unfortunately the mist from earlier in the week was back with a vengeance which meant I'd have to stick close to town, so I ended up doing 15miles by doing loops of the town. Due to time restraints I had to do the remaining 5miles after work.

Finally my last run of the week to make 70miles was a 10mile run on Sunday, I broke this into two runs of 5miles the first being faster then the other.  It actually felt surprisingly easy.

Faster 5miles

Slower 5miles

All the mid-week day runs were done in the morning before work, Friday's one was a killer getting out the door around 5am!

Overall its been a very good training week and I feel I'm in good shape :)

Weekly Total: 70 miles

Miles This Year: 516 miles

Nice to run new roads

Very easy week of running with some rest days as took longer for legs to recover after the 30miler to Waterford and also have a blister from all the rain during that run which just seems to be taking its time healing up.

On Friday I decided to try out a new running route, its a 12mile loop, 6miles on a busy enough road and 6miles on a road with no traffic.   It worked out well and I encountered no dogs (always a plus!).

Only downside of the new route is its all relatively flat!

Half of this new route goes into Co Tipperary and without a doubt the road quality massively goes down hill on this portion of the loop as 3miles of it are on a back road which must have a good few thousand pot holes.  

However, once I cross back into Co Kilkenny on the same road all the potholes disappear straight away.     Overall it was a good route and I plan to make it a once or twice weekly route from now on.

Didn't manage any runs at the weekend due to other commitments,

Weekly Total: 21 miles

Miles This Year: 442 mile

Lets run to Waterford City....

For this week I decided it was time to up the miles again with the aim of also fitting in a nice slow 30mile run.

I started the week off with 5miles at a 7:16 pace on Monday, Tuesday with 10miles at a much easier 8:36 pace, Wednesday with another 5mile at a 7:32 pace and finally Thursday with anther 5mile at 7:44 pace.

I took Friday as a rest day but headed out for my usual run on Saturday in Kilkenny, I only met up with one of the lads who is running Ballycotton next week so he wanted a faster pace. We end up running 12miles at a 7:29 pace.     I actually joked to him I was looking forward to running a much slower pace on Sunday......even if it was 30miles.

The 30mile route I decided to run on Sunday was a route I've been wanting to run for a few years now, it's the 30mile distance between where I live and Waterford City.   So with that in mind I set off at 6am with the idea and that run would take me around 5hrs at a nice easy pace.

Nobody around but me

Before the dark clouds rolled in

Despite a lovely sun rise the rain and wind started at mile 15 for the first time and stopped again perhaps a mile or two later, however it kicked off again around mile 24 and only got worse after that.

I made it to the Rice Bridge in Waterford and then double backed a mile to get a lift from my wife in the car, all in all I enjoyed the run but I started to get very cold after mile 27 as I was soaked through due to the rain and my hands were freezing.

Considering I had run 12 miles at a 7:29 pace the day before doing a 30mile run I think I got on just fine.

Weekly Total: 67 miles

Miles This Year: 421 mile

Recovering from the Back2Back....

It's been a very low milage week this week due to the problems with my left leg,

It took until Wednesday for my left IT band to start feeling ok again but as I write this now I still have some minor discomfort with my left shin (where the branch hit). Majority of the week was just resting and walks.

For a change on Saturday instead of trying to aim to do a long run I decided on a cycle so I took the roadbike out of the shed where its been sitting since last May, pumped up the tyres and got ready to go.....only to realise the front tyre had gone flat after I had pumped it up!

So after 40min spent changing the tube (its been awhile so I'm out of practice) I finally got out and about and I must say it was a nice change.   It was very easy on the legs and it was lovely to cover so many miles in such short time (12miles in around 40min or so).

Finally, Sunday I decided to go out with the club for a run. The new route for the run is around 5.7km but it was at a fast enough pace (7:40min pace) so I only did two loops and then decided to take it easy in the Castle Park to finish just over 10miles.

Even with the fast miles my left leg is starting to feel ok again so its not been a bad week overall,

Weekly Total: 24 miles

Miles This Year: 359 mile

Clonakilty Back2Back Marathons

Last week was pretty uneventful up until the weekend as all I was doing was tapering for the Clonakility Back2Back marathsons at the weekend.

As you all know my big goal was to do both marathons as sub4 or failing that atleast to do both days as sub 4.30, I felt good and was sure I'd manage the sub 4.30 no problem for both days and I might even have a stab at the sub4 target on both days.

Saturday morning started off well enough and I kept a pretty steady pace throughout the run, I felt good throughout most of the run however I did manage to hit my left shin off of a branch around mile 7. Although this didn't seem like much of an issue at the time I started to feel it from mile 23 onward.

I didn't think much of it and went on to finish Saturday in good shape and the legs felt in good shape as well.   However, as the evening went on my left shin started to hurt me more.

On the morning of day two my left shin was still hurting in the morning so decided on a much much easier pace for the second day, I felt the pain in the shin for the first 5miles or so but then it eased off and it barely registered. 

However due to this pain it appeared I was changing my running gait which brought its own problems as after mile 15 I started to experience a fair amount of pain in my left IT band. 

The IT band was particularly painful anytime I went downhill but I had no problems what so ever going up hill. The last downhill was seriously uncomfortable, felt like mile 15 onwards was just a slog to the finish because of all this which was frustrating.

Official Finish times for both days are:
Saturday: 3:58:34
Sunday: 4:49:34

Although day two ended up being longer then the 4:30 initial target, on average both days were still below the 4:30 so I'll take it as a win anyway :)

As I write this my IT band is feeling in better shape and I've been working on it to ease things abit, but my left shin has a nice big bruise on it which i feel everytime I walk.  I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the week and see how my left leg improves.

Weekly Total: 64 miles

Miles This Year: 331 mile

and the tapering begins

Its taper week already for Clonakility Back2Back this coming Saturday & Sunday,

Missed out on a 10mile run during the week due to the very stormy weather, also decided against doing the club run on Sunday which means I missed out on my aim to run 60miles as I felt it wouldn't have done me any good considering what I have to do this coming weekend.

I felt the 20miler at 7:55 pace alot more then I expected last week and it wasn't until Tuesday that I was starting to feel right, in retrospect I shouldn't have run such a fast pace so close to Clonakility but abit too late now.

Taking it very easy this week with the plan of doing 3x 3mile runs at a nice easy pace, my aim for next weekend is to run both days with the aim of finishing no more then 4hrs 30min. If however I can finish both days as sub 4 I'll be very happy.

One final thing, based on my training up to now I've revised my goal time for the Connemara Ultra in April to a time of 5hrs 39min, last years time was 6hrs 29min.   This of course is subject to change :)

Weekly Total: 42 miles

Miles This Year: 269 miles

Upping the pace

Dropped the milage down this week, I did intent on doing around 50miles but life got in the way and Saturday's 15mile run was scrapped.

I decided to make up for it on Sunday by doing 20miles and I ended up running with one of the lads from the club at a much faster pace then I'd normally run a 20miler at.

The starter miles were closer to 8:00/8:10 pace however the later miles from 13 onwards increased closer to 7:40 pace making an average pace of 7:55 for the entire run.     I got to admit the pace was a bit of a challenge especially considering this was a faster avg pace then I did in Dublin in October 2013 which was avg of 8:09 overall. 

 To put the above into perspective, I normally run 20mile training runs at closer to a 8:30 - 8:50min pace.     I really enjoyed it though and it was good to get a good measure of my fitness improvements since October.  

Only two weeks to go to Clonakility Back2Back, looking forward to the challenge!

Weekly Total: 43 miles

Miles This Year: 224 miles