Monday 1 July 2013

More cycling and IMRA

Monday, 24th June, 2013 - 8.9km Recovery run (5:24/km)
Had to take today off work to get the car sorted out (€120 to fix and collected in the evening. Could have been much worse!) so I was planning to get out early but as things worked out it was actually evening time before I managed to get out the door.

I was still pretty tired for this run so took it at recovery pace again although it was still about 15secs/km faster than yesterday, so that was positive. The knee which had been at me so much yesterday behaved itself very well today with only a slight soreness which lasted no more than 100m.

Tuesday, 25th June, 2013 – 79km Cycle around South Dublin
Cycled from my apartment and met up with Niall at the IFSC. We went South along the Coast road before stopping off briefly at the James Joyce Martello Tower in Sandycove. We then continued through Dalkey onto the Vico road for a nice climb and then descent into Shankill before arriving onto Bray seafront. From there we headed for Enniskerry and while here we decided to go via Johnny Fox’s and have a pint in the Blue Light. By the time the Guinness was gone and the midges had their fill it was just beginning to get dark so we started our return journey to the city, dropping Niall off in Rathmines and then adding the final 12km to get home myself for almost 80km in total including some serious hills thrown in. A good night’s exercise which left me feeling almost as tired as the 87km running on Saturday!

Wednesday, 26th June, 2013 – 9.6km IMRA Race - Kippure
Start of the bog road on the return journey. 2km from the finish.
Feeling pretty tired after the cycle last night (and no doubt the double marathon on Saturday) so wasn’t hugely enthused about my 7th IMRA Leinster League race. This was more of a ‘tick-the-box’ exercise to get me over the line of completing the minimum amount of races required for the league. The race itself consisted of a 2.3km section along a slightly undulating bog road before a 2.5km climb to the top where we turned at the trig point beside the giant aerials. 

I found myself pinned in too far back at the start but given my lethargy I figured I’d leave things be. The bog road section saw me slowly move up through the field. Annoyingly though my Garmin was set to auto alert once my HR went above 150bpm (from my trail marathon) which pretty much meant it beeped the whole way! Once the slower stuff arrived with the start of the ascent I managed to adjust the watch to remedy this. In the process of doing so however about 10 people passed me on the climb.I soon got back into my rhythm and regained a few positions but we were at the top before I was properly able to let rip. On the descent the new innov8s were proving their worth and I was ploughing down the bog slope. Because of this wild abandon I twice got caught out by bogholes where I was lucky to get my foot and shoe out without major incident. Still though each time cost me precious second where people went by me once more. By the time we hit the bog road again I had regained almost 10 positions from the summit. A couple more on the way to the finish meant I got home in 87th position (55:04). A quick look at the results tells me that my usual spot of 66th required a time of 53:14 – almost two minutes which would probably have been possible had I been a bit fresher and not lost that time on the ascent to readjusting my watch. Still though, happy enough as I now have my base score for the LL. All future races (3 remaining) will now be in a bid to improve the score.

Thursday, 27th June, 2013 – Rest Day
All the efforts of the past week caught up with me and I deferred to an almost guilt-free rest day.

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