September 2009
I know I said I’d keep this thing up to date, but it’s been really busy for the last month. So much stuff going on both with the running and with my everyday life. So I not sure where to start.....

I guess starting at the beginning would help. So far this month the training has been going well, not great but well, what do I mean by that? I think its cos I’m not sure if a)I’m pushing too hard or b) not pushing hard enough. But either way I’m feeling kind of stressed out and right now not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My goal for Dublin is to beat 2:43 and I think I’m on my way to do that. Although it might be a 2:42 effort.

I’ve run the first 2 of the Frank McNamara XC races and in the first I felt good even lead for a bit but ended up losing time to the first 2 guys on the way up to Keilor Road and then really just hanging on for the 3rd place. Here is why I’m a little stressed, that week I ended up running 3 tempo runs of around 40 minutes, the XC race and then a Half Marathon. All went well as I tell myself that the result don’t mean a thing as I’m building up to the Dublin Marathon on October 26th.

For the second XC race I was with the lead pack until about the halfway point and then the wheels (legs) came off, much like Mark Cavendish going up a climb in the Tour DeFrance, there was bits of calf muscle all over the trail.... and they came off in a big way, there was nothing left by the end of the race. The fact that it was about 30’C didn’t help much, nor that at lunch time I ran one of my tempo runs knowing that I was going to race that night – the weather was so good I had to make the most of it, really I have no one to blame but myself as I'm sometimes my own worst enemy. I still did my cool down run, and managed to get my 2 runs a day in for the next 2 days. On Saturday thinking I was recovered I attempted to run 10x3 minutes with 2 min Active Recovery (trying to run at my 3K -5K pace for each of these) I got as far as 6 before I had to call it a day, so I finished up with about 45 minutes of easy running. Sunday I decided to run long thinking it would be easy, I ran about 37K on the trails and then came home in a heap. Its training like this that gets you stressed, mainly due to how it makes you feel insecure about how well you’ve run so far this year.

I missed the third XC race due to the fact that we moved houses. Moving house in the middle of a project at work and in the build up to a marathon is not the greatest idea. But there you go; life sometimes gets in the way of running. We moved houses and my training suffered that week so I’m going to call that a rest week. One of the bad things about this time of year is its now dark in the mornings and since moving I haven’t felt like getting up at 6:00am to run. I think this is due to the curtains we have now, they completely block out the sun light whilst before we had a rounded window that was not covered and any light got in. It’s like I’m catching up on all of the sleep I’ve missed for three years.

I have 18 days before I fly to Dublin and then a week to ten days for a taper before the race. I’m confident that I can run at my goal pace (of 3:40 – 3:45 Per K) I will be running 2 more 37K runs with Marathon paced segments (as that will make it 5 2:30 – 2:50 runs) as well as the next 3 XC races. I’ll also keep my tempo runs going at Lunch time.

One of my concerns outside of running, but which indirectly has a knock on effect is the closing of the parking lot that I’m using. This means I have to think about getting to and from work either by public transport or on shanks mare or pay twice what I was paying to park my car per day. If I use Shanks mare (or my own 2 legs) then it’s either running home or cycling to work and back. Which works out to be either a 90 minute run one direction per day meaning I get home approx 7:00pm or it’s a 90 minute ride (round trip) on my bike. Taking the Public Transport in Edmonton can drain the life out of you if you leave out on the edge of town.

I’m thinking I’ll take my bike...will keep you posted. Well that’s my rant for this week over.