14 Weeks to Berlin & not enough days in the week

If ever there was a week where things had the potential to go pear shaped then this was it. A step up again in distance and faced with a tough Marathon Paced long run at the weekend. Time management was going to be a nightmare trying to fit 5 runs in with the below all happening in the same week.

• Practice for Golf team I'm joint manager of Wed evening
• Potentially working till 2am on Thurs night
• Emma away for deserved night with work from Friday afternoon
• Golf matches potentially Sat/Sun AM/PM for Golf team
• Qualifying for Captains Prize if I wanted to play in it

Some of these were outside my control e.g not knowing how much time the Golf would take up but when I saw the below slogan on Gerry Duffy's Facebook page during the week that would be my motto for the week and not to make excuses.

Monday 24th June - Week 5 Day 1

Plan:   Rest Day
Actual: Rest Day

Not ideal to take a rest day with the week that's in it but after the weekends running the legs needed time to recover.


Tuesday 25th June - Week 5 Day 2

Plan:   14K w/8K @ Half Marathon Pace
Actual: Club Session

Again went for the Club session in favour of the session in the plan. Went down a little earlier to get a couple of K extra warm up done before joining the rest of the gang for a loop of the college grounds. This was followed by some stretches and drills before a lap of running the bends easy and the straights hard.

The session then was a 10 minute Tempo run @ 5K pace, 1 lap easy, 1x600m @ mile pace, 2 min rec, 2 x 200m. Splits were:

10 min @ 4:15 pace
600M @ 3:33 pace (2:10)
200M @ 3:02 pace (35 secs)
200M @ 2:55 pace (34 secs)
Was happy with how this went. Legs were feeling good with no niggles etc but were fairly whacked after the 200's. Finished off with a nice slow loop to bring up to 12K for the session


Wednesday 19th June - Week 5 Day 3

Plan:   8K Recovery
Actual: Rest

As mentioned above I had to head from work straight to Baltray for the teams practice. Actually got to play which was nice, although my golf wasn't wonderful.

Thursday 20th June - Week 5 Day 4

Plan:   16K General Aerobic
Actual: 16.1K

Avg Pace: 5:28
As I had to be prepared to be in work till 2am I would not start until a bit later today. Dropped Charlie off with his child minder and headed home to get ready. Parked in Gormanston and headed off on the hilly route through Stamullen, St Claire's, and back around to Stamullen via Greenanstown and eventually back to the college to make up the distance. Was a rough enough morning but running in the rain doesn't really bother me. Everything was going fine until around 10K in when I got a dart in my back. I stopped to stretch it out and took it handy for a while and lucky enough it was fine after that. Am enjoying these longer midweek runs.

Friday 21st June - Week 5 Day 5

Plan:   Rest
Actual: 9.3K

Avg Pace: 5:39
Avg HR: 130

Emma was away with work for the night but I managed to get my brother to babysit for an hour so I could get out for this run. This was probably a tad too quick for recovery pace but I had to pick it up for the last K to get back home in time.


Saturday 22nd June - Week 5 Day 6

Plan:   8K Recovery
Actual: Rest

Early morning start with getting ready for Golf match and getting Charlie ready when he eventually woke up. Dropped him off with Tracy (thanks again) and headed to Baltray just in time to see the lads heading off. Spent the morning following the matches which we unfortunately lost. The afternoon was taken up with actually playing Golf and qualifying for the Captain's prize. Was pretty wrecked by the time everything finished. finished off the night with a few drinks for a friend of mine heading to Dubai this week.


Sunday 23rd June - Week 5 Day 7

Plan:   26K w/16K @ Marathon Pace
Actual: Rest

I had already decided I was going to try and swap this run with next weeks shorter long run as part of a recovery week. To be honest I was pretty wiped out after everything from the last week and even by the evening when I hoped to run I was falling asleep on the couch so it fell by the wayside.

So a disappointing week overall with only 3 runs and around 37K running and I suppose at the end of the week I did make excuses which is not always good. At the same time we're not robots either and this is a hobby that has to fit in around real life as well.

The next 2 weeks will be difficult as well with other things to fit in this week namely Golf matches that have to be played and a wedding the following week. Aim will be to get as much done as possible and make sure the long runs are done at some stage. Need to start looking at getting more early nights and looking a nutrition so that I'm not feeling as tired.