My finisher's certificate

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

Done and dusted

3 hours and 28 minutes. Up hill and down dale. Over the most picturesque countryside to run and finish the 2009 Connemarathon.
It all started at 10:30 by Lough Inagh after the first ultra runner went through. It started off cold with a headwind but that was refreshing once we started. Turning a corner after 5 miles the wind was behind us for most of the rest or the race. Some nice uphill sections later and it was a long downhill into Leenane. That marked the half way point and we then had to run through the back markers of the half marathon.
Coming out of Leenane and straight into a long uphill. I got my hrm working properly from here and my hr was up around 180bpm. I managed to drop it down a bit as I was going uphill. After 9 miles we got to the bottom of "the hill".
This was a 2 mile long hill. Strangely enough the pace dropped off but I still managed to pick people off on the way. From the top it was the last 2 miles. One downhill and one flat. These were the hardest two miles of the entire course. Eventually I made it and didn't walk a bit of it. I was so sore until I hot some food. A fantastic man was handing out Jaffa cakes. I have never been so happy to get a Jaffa cake :)
I'm sitting around now with the compression tights on, eating food and drinking tea. Let's see how well I can recover for a match this weekend. Lots of sleep and food!

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.

Munster League

Last weekend was the end of the Munster League and we were in there right to the end. We finished in second place to Swink. We were put down into second place because we were beaten by Bad Company in one of the first nights when a whole gang of us went off to Revolutions in Manchester.

We had some good games on Saturday night, we drew against Swink and Kamikaze and beat Bad Company. It was also the night of the Ireland Scotland rugby match. I only got to see the end of the first half because we had to help put up the goals. Apparantly it wasn't a good match, but Ireland came out on top to keep the dream of the Grand Slam alive.

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.

The league starts again

And boy did we have a bad day!



We were playing against Munterconnaght at home and were doing alright in the first half until we let in three sucker goals. That left us 3-3 to 0-6 down at half time, not too bad, only 6 points in it. I had started at half back, but was moved to wing back after the guy I was marking scored a goal. Then the wing forward I was on scored the third one. I wasn't with the pace of the game at all. I felt lousy.
The second half was a complete transformation. I was moved to corner back and the team as a whole started to play. We levelled eventually and then went 2 points up coming near the end. Then another sloppy goal. That put them one point up and we weren't able to claw it back.



It was a frustrating and annoying afternoon. Some good play and some bad misses but it all comes down to once again letting in goals. We had a few good chances to score goals ourselves and even hit the cross bar near the end.

Next week we are away to Templeport, let's hope for a better result