The third day

Another day, another run. Almost the same route as yesterday but slightly longer to take it over 10k. I'm now up to 30k so far. Keep an eye on my progress over at my new site where I'm also mirroring all these blog posts. I hope to move over to it permanently pretty soon, once I put the final finishing touches to it all.

Here's the map of today's route, courtesy of Runkeeper

Day 2 of December

The run for day 2 was done earlier this morning, just under 10km from Chapelizod, up through the park, up the Kyber Pass and around by the zoo and Garda HQ before coming back along Parkgate St.



Oh yeah, I got yesterday's run done too. 10km around Chapelizod

December

Wow, it's December already. Time to start another challenge. Yeah, once again it's the "Run 200 miles in December" challenge. Last year ended in failure when there were too many weddings to go to. This year, I think I only have one to go to in December, so it might be a bit easier.

Planning a quick 10k for this evening to get me started. It's cold and wet out but that'll only be a problem for getting out the door.

Incentives

If ever there was an incentive not to get run down, it has to be coldsores. I seem to get them every time I get run down and after getting sick earlier in the week, they've hit me with a vengeance. I've got them in my nose and down onto my top lip. The only thing I can do now is put up with them and keep them covered in vaseline so they don't dry out and start cracking. It does make blowing my nose next to impossible though.

On a better note, I ran in from Chapelizod this morning to work: http://bit.ly/6iqCHV
It felt good, not too hard, and a nice crisp dry morning.

It's been a while

I haven't been paying attention to this lately. I did the marathon, finished it in 3:11 and haven't done a lot since. I'm doing another marathon in Wales in two weekends time, a trail one this time.

I got back on the bike this morning to come to work after being off it for most of the last two weeks. I was sick earlier in the week as well so this was a test as well as a way of not going back on a bus. I got in with no problems, it was a lovely day for it, sunny, cold and not too windy. The wind will probably be stronger later on but I'll deal with that then.

Oh, also as it's Movember, why not sponsor my mo for charity

Short bursts

Since yesterday, I've done two runs. Yesterday evening I did an 8km run from the house around towards HP and back. I managed that in just under 30 minutes and I was pretty happy with that. I only decided part way through to push it harder and managed to keep up a good pace.

Then this morning I ran in from Chapelizod to work. Just took it nice and easy, no rush on me to get in :) Feeling good now after both of them and looking forward to Monday.

Dublin Marathon

It's coming up on Monday, only 4 days away now and I am in a dilemma. Do I go out and race it properly, following the red balloons and try to get near to 3 hours? Or do I cycle in, run the race as I feel on the day and then cycle back home again?

If I want to race it, it'll be in Ronan's name as I'm entered as him. He entered and then wussed out of racing so I said I'd take his slot. I didn't go and change the name on the entry or anything, so technically I am doing a bad thing. I also haven't trained particularly much for this, I have done one long run of 20 kilometres going home from work and a few 10-12 kilometre runs. I feel I have a good race in me, but will it be blighted by having it attributed to Ronan?

On the other hand, I could use it as a small taster for Ironman distance racing. Albeit without the uber long bike ride before hand, which is kind of the essence of it all. That would take the pressure of trying to race it off me, but is a type of wussing out too.

The weather isn't helping either, wind and rain for the last few days doesn't entice me to go out and try and race fast. Nor to cycle :)

I'm going to go for a jog this evening and see how I feel and I will probably delay the decision until Sunday evening.

A long time away

I've neglected this here blog for a while, so it's about time I put down what I have been doing recently.

Football.
We were knocked out of the championship by Cavan Gaels who were then beaten in the semi finals by Butlersbridge who went on to win it. We played Butlersbridge a week after the championship final and to my disappointment/embarassment and lots of other emotions I was sent off with a straight red card for lashing out and kicknig someone after getting rid of the ball. We were a point down at the time and ended up losing the match badly in the end. On the plus side, we are still in with a shout of getting to the semi final playoffs of the league. We have one match left this weekend against Ballymachugh and the winner of that match gets fourth place.

Training.
I've started doing some long runs to prepare me for the Dublin City Marathon on October 26th. Last night I ran home from work. A 20km run in 1 hour and 27 minutes. I felt pretty good after it, but I think I need to do it a few more times before Monday week. I ran in from Ballyfermot this morning too to loosen out my legs after last night. 5km in 21 minutes. I thought I was going faster, but the stopwatch doesn't lie.
I entered an off road marathon in Gower in Wales too. Pauline talked me into it and then told me she was doing the half! Greg and Waggers have entered the half as well and I hear tell that Ronan has entered the 10K race. Should be a good weekend even if the race will probably take the best part of 5 hours.
I've also done some paddling recently. For the last two weeks I have been on the canal in Ashtown for one evening and I was in the pool last Wednesday as well. It's nice to be able to go out still and pass the ball around outside before it gets too cold. Munster League is starting this weekend but I can't make it as I have a wedding to go to in Waterford.

Life in general.
I moved into a new house with Louise. Just the two of us. It's different from living with other people, a lot quieter and a bit easier on us too as we don't have to rush around and try to orgnise meeting up. I suppose it's about time we did it and we're both enjoying it!
Work has been pretty mental lately with a lot of external problems that were out of our control. We still had to co-ordinate all the vendors and consultants to fix things though. Fingers crossed, it seems to be okay at the moment.

That's a quick overview of the last few weeks. I'll be updating here with info on how my long runs are going for the next few weeks and up to the Gower marathon in December. Stay tuned folks!

Gah, I don't like being sick

I've had a cold since last Wednesday or so and I am finally shaking off the last of it, or coughing it up and spitting it out at least. I decided to run in to work this morning because I left my bike over at Louise's house and I need to pick it up later. I felt slow and tired through the whole run but still managed to make it in in 50 minutes.

I am on day 27 of the burpee challenge now, I forgot about them yesterday and because of that I did yesterday's this morning before I left on the run. I'll do the others later on when I get home.

I played a match on Saturday afternoon against Killygarry. I was playing at corner back again, the third time I've played there in a row. I think that's the longest run I have had in one position for about 2 years. We won in the end but made harder work of it than we should have. We played against a gale force wind in the first half and were up at half time. Then in the second half we just didn't build as much as we should have.

We have now played 7 matches in the league and won 4 of them. It's going pretty well and we have a weekend off next week. Because of this I'm heding to Charleroi to watch Louise play and to play division 2 with Kamikaze. It should be a good weekend, I hope the weather is as good as it has been the last few times I was there.

My finisher's certificate

I guess that proves that I really did do it :)

Connemarathon

It's coming!

On Sunday I will be running in the Connemarathon in Galway. It's supposed to be a killer of a race with lots of hills and running into the wind in both directions.

To prepare, I jogged home from work today just to keep my legs moving. A nice 50 minute 10km at an average of 140BPM. Really looking forward to Sunday now.

A win

We beat Templeport at the weekend, though we let it get a little close after letting in a goal in the last couple of minutes again. We won the match by 1 point, 2-8 to 1-10.

Now we have a couple of weeks off from matches, I'm going to be using the time to play in the Munster League next Saturday and to do the Connemarathon on the 22nd.

Runnity run

I went for a run yesterday at lunchtime. I decided to just go and run and not to worry too much about form or pace or anything. I did a 10k loop through the Phoenix Park, a hillier one than my normal loop and there was also a headwind for most of the first half. It took a while to warm up but once I got into my stride I was felling good. Looking at the stats at the end, my HR was an average of 172 with a max of 186, average pace of 4:20/km with a max of 3:59/km. Not incredibly fast for a 10k, but it took me 44 minutes in total.

I was quite happy with it until I went to move later on in the day and my knee was sore. It was my right knee for a change. I did some stretches and after it had warmed up a little it was fine again. I must remember to warm up properly for training tonight and the match tomorrow.

Bad weather

Our first challenge match of the year had to be cancelled on Sunday. There was a large snowfall on Sunday morning and I got a few phonecalls telling me not to drive from Dublin.
The night before I was down in Limerick playing in the Munster League. We had three matches, we drew the first one against Kamikaze and beat Glaway and Bad Company. Ireland were playing France in the 6 Nations but I only got to see about 15 minutes before I had to go with the rest of the Muppets to set up the pitches.

I went for a run on Monday evening after work to loosen out and it was lovely, cold and dry. I went for a loop through the Park of about 8.5km. Then afterwards I met a gang in town and went to the Bodies exhibition. Then dinner and off to the cinema to see Valkyrie. A good evening all round.

A bridge too far

It looks like I won't make the full 200 miles this time around, there were just too many weddings and days missed. Since Christmas I have run on St. Stephen's Day, the 27th and the 28th. I have done 29km in those three days. Yesterday I didn't get any done because it was too dark by the time I arrived back to Blacklion from Louise's. Today I just haven't had the energy or the inclination to go out and run in the cold. Instead I have been helping out around the house doing some odd jobs and generally being useful. :)

I have managed to cover 264km and almost all of that was outside so I am happy with that. There is still one more day to go, after today and I will try to get out for at least a 10km jog to finish it all off.

I've given it a good go, and I reckon if it wasn't party season I might have made it, but that's what the challenge was and I didn't manage it. I guess this means that I'll have to do it all over again next December!

Christmas Eve

It's almost Christmas and I'm still running. I missed out on the two days over last weekend as I had to go to a wedding on Saturday and then between recovering and going to Airsoft on the Sunday for Sparky's stag, I just didn't have time. I went over 200km for the month on Monday and got three runs in yesterday. Only short ones but it all added up to 17km. That means that up to now, I am at 222km, only 100km to go!

I drove back to Cavan this morning and I'm going to go for a run around the football pitch now to see how many laps I can get in before I get bored of running around in circles. It'll be a nicer surface to run on than the concrete and tarmac that I've done the rest of my runs on.

Almost a week now

I've been continuing with the running, I ran on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday. I missed out on Sunday because I was helping out with the running of a cyclocross race in Raheny.

I did my first double run yesterday, ran into work in the morning and then ran home from Louise's in the evening to give a grand total of 18km. I'm now up near 150km which is slightly below where I wanted to be at the half way point. But how and ever, I'll keep doing a bit. Going to go for a run after work today before I go to the Cub Scouts meeting. That will probably be a 10-12 km run in miserable weather. It's gone from cold and dry to wet and dank today.

I'm still feeling good, no major injuries yet (touch wood). I've realised that I need to spend more time stretching as I'm very inflexible and this has led to some pain in my right foot. I had this happen before and stretching my calf and foot cleared it right up.

Running and cinema

Yesterday I was all messed up, I didnt know what to do or how to do it. I was meeting Louise to go to the cinema at 8 o'clock but I didn't get home until after 6 and I still had my run to do. So I did the only easy thing, I ran from home in to town to meet her. A chilly 10km later and I was in Parnell Street and looking for sustenance. Into the nearest Spar shop I go, but they have next to no sandwiches. It's amazing just how much pork we eat! The pork ban must be affecting a lot of people if the empty shelves are anything to go by.

We went to see Quantum of Solace in the cinema, an entertaining if not entirely realistic film even for one of the Bond series. We both thought it jumped and skipped around a little too much at times.

Today, I'll be running home from work and then settling in for an evening of doing nothing :)

The weekend to now

I managed the run on Friday, slightly over 10km and then off to Brasserie 66 for lunch. Nice food, and good craic. Stayed for one drink in the pub and then headed home to Cavan to join Waggers bringing the car back.

Saturday was spent marching in town with Louise and the teachers, 40,000 if you believe the reports. Then it was back home and off for a run, the same as Tuesday with Waggers.

On Sunday, I bought a suit and when I got home, I had a nice little 10km run to Clontarf and back along the coast road.

I didn't get a chance to run yesterday but still got 30km of commuting in on the bike. I used the fixie for a change and got soaked in the rain.

This evening was a longish run, the same as Monday of last week because we got home early from the cubs meeting. Another 30km of commuting in the frost and cold rounded out the day. The run today was quicker and I really felt in the groove for a lot of it. It's nice to just run sometimes :)

Plan for today

Today I will be mostly eating a christmas lunch. But before that, a jog.

Leaving from work and trying to get as near to 10km as I can in a loop.