26 Days to go

Saturday 28th September - Moone Kilomarathon

26.2K in 2:20:06

Avg Pace: 8:39

This is a race I had done a couple of years ago and as it is close to my inlaws we are able to kill 2 birds with one stone by combining a visit as well. We headed down on Friday night and I picked up my number on Saturday morning before heading home to get ready. I got dropped off a little bit away from the start and took a very easy jog to the start to warm up.

It was only just over 36 hours since we had finished a tough tempo session and the legs were tired as you would expect but the quads also had a lot of DOM's which was strange. As we lined up at the start it was also clear it was going to be a warm one. The local rector said a prayer and we were quickly away.

The field wasn't that big and a good few people streamed past me at the start. My plan was to run somewhere between Tempo pace and long run pace. The first few miles after the initial hill were mostly flat or slightly downhill and my pace seemed to gravitate towards just over marathon pace for the first 4/5 miles. I had settled into a nice rhythm and took a gel after around 7K more to get used to taking them again.

I was taking on water at every station but maybe not enough for the heat. Between miles 6 & 11 the pace was where I wanted it to be but it was getting tougher to maintain.

Conscious that this was not a race in that I wasn't chasing a time I eased off the pace towards the end and even walked through the water stations to make sure to take on plenty of fluids. Everyone seemed to be in the same boat in that nobody was coming past me and the gap to the group ahead wasn't really changing. The last K was a toughie as part of a steep incline back to the village of Moone and I was glad to finish.

Plenty of refreshments at the finish and I took on plenty of fluids again.

Things I will take from the race:

• I had hydrated well the day before the race and I felt during the race but I still seemed to suffer towards the end more than I would expect. I took 2 gels but these did not seem to have any impact.
• It was 22 degrees when I finished. I would not be a lover of running at any sort of effort in the heat so no doubt this was a factor.
• This was at the end of a week with 2 tough sessions and not much recovery from the tempo session. I probably should have just run at long run pace.
• Am going to try a different type of gel on long run this week just to see if it gives and better impact, and also take on more fluids just to see.
• I'm sick of running on tired legs ;-) and cannot wait for taper to come.

The day was not wasted anyway as with the warm up I got in 18 miles.

Sunday 29th September - Recovery

2.5 miles @ 10:14 pace

After travelling back home I headed down to Gormanston and shuffled around for a little while. This is all I was fit for. Legs were wrecked but nice to stretch them somewhat. Could have done more but left knee was starting to give me bother so I called it a day. I had a massage booked for Monday anyway which was badly needed.

Tuesday 30th September - Session

The session was moved to St Pats GAA this week with the bad weather as they have an All-Weather type track around their pitches that we used. Did a few laps warm-up and then into the session. The session was 7x3 mins @5K pace with 90 second steady recovery. We got a 2 min recovery after 4 sets which helped a bit. I wasn't able to maintain 5K pace throughout but dug in as best I could and as the saying goes 'I got by with a little help from my friends'

Paces for the 3 min segments were (7:03, 7:15, 7:29, 7:37, 7:04, 7:10, 7:07)

Finished off with a few laps cool down to bring it up to 6.07 miles for the night.


Summary: So 26 days to go to Dublin with this probably being the peak week of mileage. Sunday will be the longest run but not before another 10 mile tempo tomorrow evening and a few easy runs. Wish me luck.