Time for a sub 3:20 Marathon and a sub 1:30 Half in 2014

Cabaal

I'll give this training log another attempt (my third),

My end of year goals are sub 3:20 in Dublin in October and a sub 1:30 Half in Waterford in December.
I figure both goals are perfectly do-able considering Dublin last year was 3:33 and Waterford was 1:34.

However, for now I'm working towards the Connemara Ultra in April (I want to knock 30min off last years time) and 100km in Portumna in June (I want to finish).

Cabaal

Recap of last weeks 70miles worth of running

So that's it, I'm now officially tapering for Connemara Ultra on the 6th April,

This week I wanted to do one last week of high milage and then drop down the milage for the next three weeks so I'm well rested, so with that in mind my runs this week consisted of:

- Monday: 12miles
- Tuesday: 8miles
- Wednesday: 12miles
- Thursday: 8miles
- Friday: 20miles
- Saturday: Rest
- Sunday: 10miles

Monday's run started off well enough with the aim of keeping a 7:30 pace and all was going well until I met the wall of mist about 2miles in, the visibility dropped to about 200metres or less at times,

Ordinarily I might have turned back and gone a different route, thing is I knew that if I kept going the return 6miler would be a much safer road with no cars on it, I just had to get to the turnaround point first.

The visibility had reduced to about 100metres by the time I hit 5miles and just seemed to get worse. I'm sure any motorists I met thought I had some sort of death-wish running towards them with such poor visibility. (I did have a headtorch and stuff though....)

Tuesday was a much slower run at 8:01 and was pretty uneventful.

Wednesday again was another 12 miler, mist made another come back but no where near as bad as on Monday. It was also the first time in a very very long time that I had a motorist beep at me. I can only assume I sort of scared them (perhaps they were half asleeep?) as I was in the hard shoulder and wasn't a danger to them in anyway.

Thursday's run was another uneventful run but this time I decided to drop down the pace to 9:00 miles as I was wary I had 20 miles to run the next morning,

Friday's run was a very early start and unfortunately the mist from earlier in the week was back with a vengeance which meant I'd have to stick close to town, so I ended up doing 15miles by doing loops of the town. Due to time restraints I had to do the remaining 5miles after work.

Finally my last run of the week to make 70miles was a 10mile run on Sunday, I broke this into two runs of 5miles the first being faster then the other. It actually felt surprisingly easy.

All the mid-week day runs were done in the morning before work, Friday's one was a killer getting out the door around 5am!

Overall its been a very good training week and I feel I'm in good shape

Cabaal

Last week was the start of my tapering for the Connemara Ultra on the 6th April, even so I decided to do the Mallow 10mile race on Sunday.

Its only my second 10mile race with my last being the Stook 10 miler in November, when I ran Stook I wasn't expecting a PB and I experienced no surprises as I finished in 73min which just happened to be the same time I've also managed during training runs so nothing great.

Before taking on the Mallow 10mile race I took it very easy this week as I could still feel the 70miles from the week before still in the legs, so my runs for the week consisted of:

Tuesday: 4miles/avg pace 7:53
Wednesday: 6miles/avg pace 8:26
Friday: 3miles/avg pace 8:01

On Sunday of course I had the Mallow 10mile race and while I wanted a sub 70 I wasn't prepared to really push myself too much as I'm mindful of my next race in April, so with that in mind I sat myself in behind the 70min pacers.

Staying with the 70min pacers worked for about the first two miles, at which point the crowding around the pacers started to annoy me so I headed out in front. For the first 4miles I took advantage of the slight downhill and I managed to hit the 5mile mark around 34:40sec.

At around mile 7 I started to struggle a little and it was around this time that two people from Waterford A/C passed me and I upped the pace abit and tried to stay with them for awhile, I eventually lost them around 700metres from the finish

I found the last mile to the finish a bit of a challenge but then I still managed it in 6:44min/pace so I knew I'd have a very comfortable sub 70 finish, I finally crossed the line in 69:20 so very happy with the result.

Overall a very well organised event and I enjoyed the challenge, I'll try make it back next year for a re-match