Only hours to go...

Thursday, 13th June 2013 - 7.3km Recovery Run (5:22/km)

Forecast for Portumna tomorrow.
The marathon begins at 12pm and
hopefully I'll be finished by 3:15 or so.

Friday, 14th June 2013 - Rest Day

Just a quick update in advance of the big day. I went for a very easy recovery run on Thursday and even though it felt awkward I still wasn't able to slow down properly. I guess it may have been just nervous energy. 

Then today I decided not to run and instead to stay off my feet all day. Two medium sized dinners should have me well stocked for tomorrow. Injury free so can't use that as an excuse but the weather could be tricky. Hopefully I won't need to manufacture an excuse out of that either though! 

This is an overview of who's running what tomorrow:

Looking like there's at least three of us aiming for 3:15 so at least I won't be on my own anyways!

So now, bring it on! ...well, after a good nights sleep first :-)

Killarney’s ‘Marathon of the Lakes’

Thursday 16th May 2013 – 11.8km Recovery Run

I was feeling a little tired and tender after last night’s mountain race so just took a handy pace for tonight. Did a bit of stretching afterwards in a bid to feel fresh on Sat morning but not looking particularly great at this moment in time. 

Prelude to Tralee

Thursday, 14th March – 11.8km Recovery Run (5:29/km)
Went for my last run before Saturday’s marathon on a cool, dry evening. I was over-clothed though so the weather must be getting a bit warmer less cold! Took it nice and easy and whenever I noticed myself moving a bit too quickly I made sure to put on the brakes immediately.

Bohermeen Half Marathon

Sunday, 3rd March – 21.1km HM Race with 2km w/u
Last night I was in Croker to watch a pretty good game as the Dubs (boo!) beat Mayo. During the course of the evening I was prepared to allow myself 2-3 drinks but as is the way on these occasions this eventually stretched out to 5 pints of Guinness. However, seeing that I was home by just a little after 10pm I was ok with my excesses as I was still 14 hours from race start.

Chicago here I come!

Monday, 18th February – 11.5km Progression run
My legs were still a little achy from Saturday but not wanting to be too lazy I decided to throw 9 sets of strides at them after 1km of this run. Rather than measure distance or time on the watch I simply counted my way through ‘one 1000, two 1000, three 1000…’ all the way to ‘twenty 1000’. This roughly equates to 20 seconds and avoids me having to keep looking at my watch in the dark (helping me to avoid tripping and falling…again!).

And we're off...!

My big goal for 2012 was to beat the sub 3:30hr marathon time and having narrowly failed in the Cork City marathon in June I had to wait for my back-up marathon in Valencia in November before I managed to nail it, but that I did in a time of 3:26:37 which I was delighted with. The remainder of the year kinda fizzled out (apart from pacing 4:15hrs in the Clonakilty marathon on December 8th).

So, with a new year comes new targets. My first main aim is to go sub 3:15hrs in Rotterdam on April 14th. My main goal for the second half of the year will be to run the Chicago Marathon where I will be aiming for sub 3:10hrs. Both these goals though are stepping stones hopefully to a go at a sub 3hr marathon in 2014 - A time I never dreamed would be possible just over a year ago when my PB refused to budge below 4:20hrs.