The (Not So) Flying Scotsman

Let's call this another restart at logging after some gentle coercion (you know who you are).

If a month could be called solid if unspectacular then January would be it, decent mileage for the month, some reasonable sessions, 2 trips to Raheny for races bookended the month......first up was the Dublin Masters XC where I snuck inside the top 50 then a tempoish effort at the Raheny 5 mile to end the month where @Lazare absolutely nuked me over the last 200m or so. Delighted for him though...cracking effort.

The start of Feb was always planned to be a tilt at the Trim 10 mile over a distance I don't race too often, technically my 10 mile PB was from our club St Stephens Day race in 2020.

Headed out to Trim with one of the lads from the club got parked up at the OPW and jogged up for the obligatory toilet break (4 porta loos near the start are the only slightly negative point about the race) and dumping of the gear. A quick hello to AMK then headed out on the warm up, bumped into E and had a nice chat going up to the start line.

The aim was always to try and break 60 and it felt like a good milestone to aim for, felt reasonable at the start area.....no warning and we were off.

Took a bit of time to get across the start matt (11 seconds going by the chip and gun time result) and had a good bit of weaving to do over the first mile or so. Taking the splits off the watch which was as expected a little bit shy of the oncourse markers the first mile beeped at 6.05 ( the joys of aiming for 60 made it very easy to pace off the actual markers on the course.

A bit sluggish to start but no really biggie, just settled into it over the next couple of miles ( 5.58 and 5.54 on the watch) three lads near me here we chatting about running 65 so they must have gone out pretty hard to be where they were......also got a nice shout out from AMK around here.

From here on in it felt like I got pretty isolated quickly, pace felt OK but knew I was starting to work (5.53 and 6.01 for mile 4 and 5) took on some water at the first water station and went past the 5 mile marker in 30.05 actual time......well on track but knew there was a couple of tricky spells coming up. Went past Maria McCambridge between 5 and 6 I think she seemed to be struggling. 5.56 on the watch for mile 6 and fairly sure it was 36.02 actual.

We were into a pretty draggy part of the route and there seemed to be a pretty decent wind so with no real groups to work with I took the brunt of it.....told myself to guts out the next 2 miles and see if I could push on over 9 and 10.....6.06 and 6.04 on the watch for 7 and 8. Drifting a little but not haemoraging time.

Still felt like a bit of a drag up to 9 ( and a random car driving up the road here) but had a couple to work with which was good......through 9 in 54.09 I think on the watch.....was gonna have to be a decent finish to hit the goal.

Put the head down as pushed as much as I could, seemed to take an age to get to the entrance to the industrial estate and then the run up to the finish gantry..... hit the line and stopped the watch in 60.02......well fook that was my initial reaction.....caught my breath and grabbed some water and headed over to chat to the other DH lads....bit of a debrief and a catch up with some of the folks you tend to bump into at races.

Got chatting to E here and heard about her amazing run (smashed it out the park) and hit the baggage area to get the gear on for the cool down, one of the lads had checked the results and I had run 60.00 on the button.....if there were any bikes for Christ to cycle he would be on them.....sweet baby Jesus a fooking second.

Nice cool down and jog back to the cars with E and the lads from the club, always good to get chats on the cool down........have pretty much spent the last day or so explaining to nonrunners the significance of that bloody second.....I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you 😄.....60.00 looks better on paper than it felt afterwards, still a really solid effort and something to build on now......might sign up for the Battle of Clontarf 10 mile in April and give the new age category a bash.

Had mentally prepared myself for the Streets of Clane 5k but now that had gone belly up so a new plan will have to be formulated.

60.00 Christ is still cycling that bloody bike...aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

...

Thanks E it's always brilliant to see when others hard work pays off and they get the rewards they deserve. We all take a big dollop of positivity from that.

Weekly Update 57 miles.

Monday 7.5 miles @ 8.12 per mile headed to the club after work to get into the Phoeno before dark....bumped into one of the lads at the top of the North Road so got a bit more than planned.

Tuesday track session : 10 x 600s with a 300m recovery. Nice group of 4 of us doing the session together all reps were between 2.04 and 2.07 so a really solid session. A couple of miles to warm up and cool down thrown in.

Wednesday a planned after work run which turned into a run before going back to work....easy 6.2 miles at 8.32 per mile. Back into work afterwards for a couple of hours which wasn't ideal.....work is going to be mayhem for the next while but if anyone knows any good Engineers looking for a job give me a shout.

Thursday : A couldn't be bothered day so unplanned day off.

Friday : An easy 7.5 miles after work at 8.23 bit of a loop around Malahide.

Saturday : Club session and something different this weekend, back in bygone days Donore had a road race from Chapelizod to the swing gates at Islandbridge of 1 mile and 1000 yards (2523m according the gaffer) so this was to be run at tempo pace followed by a recoveryy via the main entrance to the Kyber via the Wellington Road for some 200s up the Kyber.

Through the mile mark in 5.50 and the 2523m in 9.04. 12 x 200s on the Kyber at between 44 and 41 seconds and a 3 mile cool down, a tough session.

Sunday : 14 miles at 7.58.

Another good solid week and more of the same next week hopefully including my annual trip to the 3 Arena for the Premier League darts.

Got singed up for Dunboyne and the Battle of Clontarf 10 mile, also thinking of giving the Tallght 5k a bash on Paddy's Day.

@Laineyfrecks Enfield and Kilcock are 2 cracking 5k in May and June.....Kilcock might be when I am on holidays though......if it is not I will do it before getting on the Berlin bus 😉

Weekly update.

49 miles over 5 days, a trip to the darts on Thursday (€7.60 for a "Pint" of Heiniken) and a late finish on Friday put paid to a 6 day run week.

Monday had hoped to get out in daylight but this ended up being 7.7 miles @ 7.57 in the park.

Tuesday session day and this was decent one 10 x 800s off a 200m recovery. Ran this on the Chapo Road outside the club, three of us working together....reps were nice and even 2.48 heading from the club towards town and 2.54 on the way back to Chapo.

Wednesday a handy 7 miles with one of the lads from work at 8.31 pace.

Thursday darts and pints 😂.

Saturday session on the big mag lap (1.85k) 600 on 200 off 200 on over the 2 dips/ 200 off 400 on (up the hill towards the Kyber and through through trees) 285 back to the start.....6 laps, felt pretty lethargic on it blaming the Thursday pints and a long day in work on Friday.

Sunday normal 14 mile loop with the lads at 7.51 pace,good crew out for it, an afternoon of watching the good guys (and I don't mean Manure 😀) lifting the cup.

Still procrastinating over Tallaght, maybe by the next update I will have signed up.

C