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