Running with the birds or for the birds?

Thursday January 26th

LSR
I was running this with a friend who has signed up for Conn Full as her first marathon so although she wasn't thrilled about the idea of hills she agreed on this route. I've found that it's much easier to run on my own the first day and then have company the second day for these back to back long runs. We started at the 40foot as the plan was to go for a dip on our return at high tide. We were very, very lucky with the weather, although it was cold we had no rain and not too much wind and even some sunshine. Along the coast, Killiney, Shankill then Bray and the plan was to turn back at 9 miles, we ran along the promenade in fabulous sunshine up Bray Head and onto the start of the route to Greystones, I was enjoying the views so much I almost didn't hear my Garmin tell me it was 9 miles:) We turned around and headed home. Glorious sunshine and high tide made for a perfect end to our run and my legs felt much better after the dip, or maybe I just couldn't feel them??
I had two gels, another Malteser Bunny, some more chocolate, water and orange juice en route and I had a big breakfast before I headed out. I've also been careful to eat and drink lots today so I'm hoping to be recovered well tomorrow.

Pace was a little bit slow for me but time on my feet is what I need and I was thrilled to have the company.

18.12 miles avg pace 9.50 min mile

brownian wrote: »

wow - great route, MarthaStew. That's some run - I've run many bits of it, but never linked them all together like that - nice going.

I'm starting to fret - other connemara-bound have a lot more miles in than I have :eek:

Anyway - that's good going!

Thanks, it's actually not that tough at all, you should give it a go. Plenty of shops en route and super scenery.

And DO NOT fret about the amount of miles people are doing,
I perform better on race day if I have had a fairly heavy duty taper so I need to do lots of hard work now.
best of luck with the rest of your training, time is flying by now.....

Monday January 30th

Miserable weather again confirmed my theory that I needed a rest day.
45 minute Body Sculpt class at lunchtime that left me feeling much more agile.

Tuesday January 31st
45 minute lower body class
45 minutes pilates
... I was feeling great so I decided I would push my total monthly milege up by running a little over a half marathon at GA pace. I cheated a little and avoided the hills; west Pier in Dun Laoghaire and then into the roundabout before the East link then back home (into strong wind unfortunately). I felt really, really good on this run and apart from the cold and wind it was perfectly enjoyable; a rest day really makes a difference to me.
13.52 mile avg pace 8.25 min/miles

total monthly mileage 249.95 (I know, I should have checked exactly how far off 250 I actually was before I headed out)

this time four years ago my average monthly mileage was a big fat zero, I hadn't yet started running, who woulda thunk it???:)

Thursday February 2nd

Another glorious day, sunshine and cold, perfect running weather.
I started off with a 45 minute lower body class to loosen the legs. My left quad is quite tight and I was very aware of it while doing one legged dead lifts etc,not too bad but I am going to make an appointment with the physio next week. My two LSRs this week will definitely let me know if it's something I need to be concerned about. I headed out on my run and once again cheated by choosing the flat easy trip in and back to Merrion Gates. My quad seemed fine, bit tight but ok. Thinking about it reminded me how self-obsessed I become in the run up to a marathon; constantly wondering if a niggle is something more serious, avoiding people with colds, bugs, getting plenty of early nights, very little wine...
A sort of self-centred nun is what I am now:) Poor Mr Stew, just as well he's also training for Conn, our crazy college life is a very distant memory now....

7.27 miles 8.42min mile pace, supposed to be easy pace, I got carried away in the sun. Followed this with half hour spin class.

Saturday February 4th

Luckily I had arranged to meet my friend for this long run, not sure I would have had the discipline to head out in the rain. I woke with head cold even worse and definitely tired from Friday but by the time I'd been to cheer my boys on at GAA and rugby I was more or less back to normal. My friend didn't want hills and I was delighted to suggest we head into town. My legs were stiff and tired at the start and I really had to relax into the run while also concentrating on my form and after a couple of miles I felt good. We stopped in town for chocolate and coke and headed for home. Then the rain really started coming down, I was so glad of the company and we cheered each other up along the way. When we reached Dun Laoghaire she suggested we also do the West Pier to add a couple of miles, at this stage I was feeling very tired but thought I'd give it a go. Half way down the pier I started to feel really great (possibly a sugar fuelled high) and I was so happy, I'd started the run wondering how I'd make it to 16 miles and now I felt like I could run forever. I suppose you could say I've finally HTFUed:D
We added on a few more laps around Glasthule and I was thrilled to see the garmin beep at 21miles. Connemara doesn't seem quite so daunting now with two great LSRs like that.

21.02 miles avg pace 9.31 min/mile

Sunday February 5th

Still battling the head cold I decided to skip the recovery run and headed to the gym instead to sort out my tired legs;
45 min spin class
15 min abs class
45 min Body Sculpt class
And lots of stretching, I feel great now.

Weekly miles 61.92

menoscemo wrote: »

Getting in some vital practise I see:D

Great going on getting in two 20+ milers in a row in. The rest of it should be easy enough from here on.

Chocolate and coke taste the absolute bestest while on a long run, I have definitely perfected that part of my training:)

Well done on your 27 MILES:D:D at the weekend, I really must get the name of the shop you bought your new legs in after that virus you had

Monday 6th February

Still smothered with head cold so I had a very quick dip in the 40 foot to help my legs and a 45 minute Body sculpt class.

Tuesday 7th Feb

Head cold, much, much better today.
Dip in 40 Foot,
Physio sport's massage, she said my left quad wasn't anything sinister(phew) and suggested lots of foam rolling.
45 minute pilates class, legs flet very tired during this.
Half hour spin class (fun)

I decided to enjoy the full moon and fabulous evening and headed for the Vico Road while the boys were in karate, tough going but the moon did cheer me up a bit.....
6.15 miles avg pace 9.26 min/mile, maybe the head cold isn't quite gone yet?

Thursday 9th February

Long VERY, VERY Slow Run

Thursday was one of those runs I put down as character building;
I had planned to run with my new found running partner who is training for her first marathon. I was delighted in November when never having met her before she stopped me while I was out walking and asked me if I was a runner. My first thought was; I must finally look like a runner now:) and my second thought was; what pace does she run at? She had recently moved to Dublin and has been running half-marathons for over 10 years at a very similar pace to me.
So we've been running LSRs together the last few weeks. I've been sharing my very limited marathon knowledge and we have lots more in common so the time has flown by. Last Saturday she did really well on the 20miler.
She usually starts too fast (just like I used to do all the time) and I have to keep slowing her down. Thursday started great and I told her she was on a nice easy pace... Fast forward to our return from Bray Head and it turns out she was actually having a bad day at the office (which I have had plenty of also). I reassured her that it's perfectly normal to have a bad day and asked what she'd eaten the day before and she admitted to having forgotten to have lunch and having a small dinner, how could she forget lunch? She said she was so busy with the kids, I think I'd be more likely to forget I had kids before forgetting food:)
As the miles ticked by ever so slowly I decided to take the pressure off her by running down side roads, up ahead and back to her again, with the result that our run started to resemble The Benny Hill Show, except for the fact that I'm pretty sure we weren't being followed by a little bald man and we weren't dressed as French Maids:p. I even ran up and down hills so in actual fact I got a good workout.
She kept apologising and I kept reassuring her. The view was amazing, the weather was great, I wasn't in a hurry so what was the point in getting stressed? We finally made it back to Sandycove.... Phew!

21.01 miles avg pace 10.10 min/miles

Monday 13th February

Quick dip in the Irish Sea at 40foot this morning. It was low tide so heading down the step ladder into the seaweed was not much fun but I'm going to try and get down as much as possible this week cos my tired legs need all the help they can get.
Foam Rolling and then lunchtime Body Sculpt class, my left quad/IT band still feels a bit tight, especially when I'm usiing only my left leg. I'm going to take another running-free day tomorrow if it stilll feels tight.

I got the emial for Donadea today and began to panic when I read through the list of competitors.... I'm pretty sure there will be nobody for me to hide behind dressed in a gorilla suit:p Up till now I've only ever run big races, with a minimum field of probably a couple of hundred and definitely a big range of abilities. This will be the first race where everybody (except me:o) is a seriuos runner. If I'm honest I'm petrified. I think I may have to give myself one of those positive, ego-boosting talks that I give to my sons on a regular basis.
One good thing about the list of runners, there is only one other female in the F45 category, (I'm incorrectly down as F40, normally I don't mind being mistaken as younger but running is the one area where it's good to be old), all I have to do is finish in under 5 hours and I can tell all my non-running friends I came second in my category..... how hard can that be??

neilc wrote: »

Don't sell yourself short Martha, you're a pretty serious runner yourself now. You've trained really hard for this (and Connemara), you've nothing to fear.

Thanks Neil, I'm sure it's just fear of the unknown. I just need to HTFU:Dpositive, happy thoughts from now on....

I'm delighted to see your training is going so well. Here's hoping for some nice weather for us in Connemara, not long to go now....

Donadea 50K Staurday 18th February

First thanks go to Emer911 and Krusty, who very kindly collected me and brought me to Donadea, they had proabably planned a nice romantic drive to the forest but ended up with me sitting in the back chatting non-stop and even making them take a very slight detour. We arrived in plenty of time and the atmosphere was very relaxed.
It was very cold to start and I was glad I had lots of layers on. I was a little alarmed and when I saw how much drinks/snacks people had brought to leave on the tables at the end/start of lap area, I had brought flat Mountain Dew, gels, a banana and chocolate.
We all headed down to the start and before we knew it we started. I settled in beside claralara as both of us had the same pre-Connemara goal: finish strong, feeling like we would still be able to run 8 more miles if we had to.
We kept a nice easy, steady pace of about 9 min miles and the first few laps flew by. Before long we had settled in with belcarra and his pal Phil and Tom and we were having a super time.
By the time we got to the end of the seventh lap I was starting to feel it in my legs but not too badly. Before I entered this race I thought the idea of 10 laps of the same route would be tough going but it was in actaul fact fantastic, time flew by and the support we received each time we went through the mats was super (thanks digger and emer911:)). It was also good fun being lapped by the other runners, having sat in the back seat of the car I was quite familiar with the back of Krusty's head so I was well able to recognise him as he passed us by.... twice:)
The volunteers were really, really super and full of encouragement, as a lot of them were female Claralara and I were constantly greeted with special cheers such as "Go girls!!", I think there were only eight female runners so I suppose it was easy to pick us out.
Towards the end of the eighth lap I saw the wonderful Mr Stew waiting to cheer me on with a bottle of flat coke, behind him were my three boys. My oldest son ran along side me for a while, a nice change as like most 13 year olds he's usually too embarassed to be seen in public with his Mum.
During the ninth lap CL and I still felt strong and we decided that if either of us still felt up to it at start of the last lap we should push on. We passed the marathon distance at 3.57, thrilled with ourselves. Just after that we met a family out walking, I'm guessing none of them were runners. I proudly told them we had just run a marathon, they weren't really impressed but we were in our own happy running world at that stage.
Converstaion dropped a little at this stage, probabaly because we had been chatting since the start of the race. I do remember CL telling me there is a new flavour of Philadelphia cream cheese; chocolate, was I hallucinating? Maybe she was? Or maybe it does indeed exist....
Arriving at the end of the ninth lap was fantastic, really, really great support as a lot of runners had finished at this stage. It felt so nice to be heading off knowing that this was it, the last lap:)
I told Cl to push on and all of a sudden she turned into a Kenyan! She had a lot more in the tank, it was quite fun running after her in the distance but with just over 2K to go I could no longer see her. I looked down at my watch and it said 4 hours 27 so I reckoned that if I pushed on I could come in under 4.40.
joy of joys when I reached the last stretch, my three boys ran with me shouting words of encouragement all the way, my final time was 4.39.38:D:D and I quite honetsly felt as if I could have gone on longer But only if my life actually depended on it
Thanks so much to the fabulous Claralara, belcarra, phil, tom and anyone else I chatted to for the wonderful company along the way..
Well done to Racoon Queen on the yummy choclate bikkie cake and muffins, I finished them this morning for breakfast, AND congrtas on coming second and a marathon PB.
Thanks for the treats for my boys Meno and well done on a really super run.

Next stop Connemara:):):):):) Bring it on!

menoscemo wrote: »

Great report, how did the mountain dew go down?

Funny you say about doing another 8 but only if your life depended on it. I said the same to my running buddy yesterday, paul on the last lap. I told him I bet he could another 3 laps if someone put a gun to his head. He told me 'no I'd let the b*stard put me out of my misery' :pac:

I'm sure there'll come a stage in Conn where I might be looking for someone to put me out of my misery:)
Thanks for the Mountain Dew suggestion, nice change from coke. I've got a strong stomach so I can eat just about anything even while running.
I'm surprised at how little I actually ate/drank yesterday;
One banana
500 mls Mountain Dew
About 1 litre water
3 high 5 gels
250 mls coke
One mini Daim chocolate.
I was finding it all a bit too sweet at the end. I might try Pretzels/crisps in Conn. Any other suggestions?