Festina lente

Dory Dory wrote: »

So how did you know the person who passed you was a triathlete? Shaved legs?

Triathy top

Recovery is going slowly - my right calf is very stiff and after a few minutes walking I develop a limp. The kids had a league meeting yesterday and I did a lap with them during their warmup - by the end of the lap I'd had enough of running! So it'll be another few days before I do even a short run. We're off to Spain then, so I hope to be back to daily easy runs soon enough.
Nothing very short planned for the summer, Dunshaughlin 10k and Frank Duffy 10, probably some parkruns along the way. I plan to stick to one session a week through the next training block, which might be a Wednesday session with the club or might be a long run with faster bits, but after Dublin it will be all shorter stuff for a year or more (unless theboyblunder has other orders!)

Month|2010|2011|2012|2013|2014
January|38.8|105.61|187.46|257.13|202.59
February|35.5|106.68|191.79|212.8|217.1
March|53.2|121.83|214|45.93|249.45
April|72|106.33|201.18|51|150.36
May|75.9|107.13|175.21|41.9|123.51
June|90.2|64.85|150.09|89.72
July|118.1|126.92|242.21|147.92
August|124.4|168|240.27|173.96
September|154|171.75|203.69|178.55
October|108.7|191.2|229|196.88
November|58.4|128.9|283.87|208.34
December|83|166.58|285|233.23
Total|1012.2|1578.1|2604|1837.3


Just back from a nice two weeks away. Funnily enough it was just what I needed to get back into a routine. The few weeks before the marathon and the couple of weeks after running was so random that going for a run was a choice that had to be made. Two weeks of getting up and getting an hour in before it got too hot and running every day is back to being the default.

(Did miss a couple of days, sore glute one day, weirdly sore toe the day after, both twinging on and off all through the holiday, and today I've been wrecked between the late arrival and manic return to work. But I notice the gaps more than the runs, as it should be)

Things are starting to return to normal, still a bit of stiffness towards the end of runs but its fading away. Still no garmin though, and I don't bother using a stopwatch to time runs, or record them afterwards. 45 minutes to an hour most days and I'm 4 days in to this routine once a day

Still no speed sessions (since March?) or even strides at the end of a run, but I have had a race. An 800m race in the National Track and Field League in Santry, because that's just how I roll. Also the kid who ran 800m in the first league was injured, and they found me sitting at the bottom of the barrel

Tactics for the race were very simple
1) do not think of it at all until right before the start. Mission accomplished. I was an empty vessel, waiting to be filled by the spirit of the track :cool: It wasn't until I signed in and was watching the earlier 800s that I figured out where the break point was
2) Find the guy in second-last and follow him. Maybe he'll trip. I thought the runner from Sli Culainn looked a bit nervous before the race, maybe I'd be racing him. Turns out he was Timmaay!:pac: He was probably thinking, "he can't just be a random oul fella, he must be one of those dna_leri types who will zip around in 2:0low"
Lined up in lane 7 and off we went. There goes Timmaay in 8. There goes 5. And 4. And 3, 2, 1... 200m in and it was very clear how this race was going to go:pac: Hit 400m in 67, not too far off the back but already completely ****ed. Broke at the right place! Up the back straight where the stadium organisers had very kindly turned on the wind machines, to cool us down on such a hot day. Around the bend and, yes, the winners are being called, and I hit the final straight as the guys in front of me are crossing the finish line :pac: so all of the applause in the stands is for me, no sharing! No official results yet, but a clubmate timed me at 2:24, so a 67/77 split.
Legs were fine afterwards but I spent the next half hour trying to cough up my lungs

But it was all worth it in the end - of the four teams in the pool, only three had runners in the 800. I may have been last, but I was also third, six points for the team, an extra point overall than if I hadn't run.
Default? The two sweetest words in the English language! De-FAULT! De-FAULT! De-FAULT!

I do plan to focus on the track (and cross country) next year. Longer than ****ing 800m though :pac:

30:40 gun time, 30:35 chip, 85th overall, 13th in category

Absolutely terrible race. I'd say shocking but it really shouldn't be a shock - no sessions in months, no great mileage, and mentally I really wasn't in race mode, autopilot all morning. Mile 1 was about 6.05, mile 2 5.50?, mile 3 about the same, mile 4 6.30ish:rolleyes:,and mile 5 6.0something. Nice bag at the end, that's about the only positive :rolleyes:

Time to start hurting myself in sessions again...