Another Marathon

Another day, another marathon. But, no, not of the running kind.

 

Runners at the Phoenix Monument, Chesterfield Avenue, Phoenix Park, Dublin

I spent the morning wading through the mountain-there’s over a thousand-of pics I took at yesterday’s Dublin City Marathon.

Naturally, having run a marathon once before, I am made of tough stuff. But, by the time I got pic number 100 uploaded onto my new Dublin City Marathon page, I was in need of a stack of gels. Although a fine red wine would have helped either.

Anyway, if you’ve been there you might want to browse through the pics here. And if you haven’t been there, you’ll get a feel for the whole experience by browsing through the pics anyway.

Today’s additions just takes you past the 3:10 pacer mark. All of the pics have been taken before the five mile point along Chesterfield Avenue, so all you runners look nice and fresh faced.

I’ll be adding more runners in the coming days, right along through to my people in the Third Wave.

Well done to one and all! Hope you’re not in too much pain today!

Malahide Park Run

Last week was a stress-fest. Mostly good stress, it has to be said. The kind of stress that had me high on adrenaline and working, well, like a crazy red hen. That can very swiftly become the headless chicken run though, so I was glad of my running breaks for keeping my sanity.

So,I ran Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The focus for these runs is speed. Or, to be more accurate, shuffling a little faster. And well, not cutting the run short.

Meanwhile, in the past week, I`ve also tried and tried various things to fix my garmin, Apart from sending the damned thing away. No luck yet though. So my Runkeeper app is keeping tabs on things for now.

Runkeeper is a fiendishly temperamental beast.  She has a love/hate relationship with all the satellites around Ireland. She`ll often tell me I`m doing four minute miles. Which, actually, I don`t mind. Anything that brings out the Paula Radcliffe feeling in me is very welcome.

But, more often that not, when I`m panting after a five mile trot, she`ll tell me I didn`t run at all.

Maybe it`s not her fault of course. Maybe it`s the satellites themselves that have it in for us down here in the Emerald mire?  Why blame the woman after all? I`m pretty sure the satellites are male (Clue: swanning around having a great time). So maybe it`s their fault.

Anyway,I haven`t quite figured that out yet. But, you can be sure I`ll post it here when I do.

As it turned out, the satellites and Runkeeper aligned themselves perfectly for yesterday`s parkrun. Yes, I wore my headphones.(Sorry Roy and Runandjump) But not for the race`s duration. Just after a few minutes to check in with Runkeeper.

Yes, I could have let her shout out the time and distance for all in the vicinity but I chose instead to keep that info for myself. Not because I didn`t want to support my fellow runners, you understand. But I didn`t want them falling over themselves laughing when they`d hear Runkeeper`s voice emanating from the general direction of my arse, which is where my little hip bag thingy was located.

Anyway, I was pretty pleased when RK told me I was running 9 minute miles. Particularly because I felt pretty good. Wasn`t busting myself to do it. Could`ve run a tad faster maybe. Three quarters of the way through, and I was still doing 9 min miles. Kinda surprised I`d kept the pace.

At the end of the run, RK had put me at .01 seconds per mile faster than my previous park run. Whey! hey! Tiny improvement! Haha! Amn`t I easily pleased?

The best bit though was that I wasn`t as wrecked as the previous run. Maybe I`m getting a bit fitter then? Maybe my hormones were running in the right direction? Maybe my breakfast agreed with me?

Or maybe the satellites themselves were egging me on.

Who knows?

Anyway, I enjoyed it. And afterwards, instead of doing the daft Red Hen thing of running around, I walked around the park itself. Walking after a run prevents the peculiar backache that has emerged in the last year or so. And its always good to have an excuse to whip out the camera.

Today`s gallery then is Malahide Castle park in some of her pre Autumn glory. I figure, in the few weeks, the trees there will be aglow with Autumn colour.

Yes, for more pics and another go at parkrun, I`ll be back.

 

Running and Rambling

Salterstown, Co Louth

Louth Coastline

Running in the morning, rambling in the evening…

My run went to six and half miles. Decided to walk the last half just because my back was beginning to niggle. And because I really am a lazy sod.

I threw a hill into the run, so maybe that made it all a bit more painful. The first half was pretty much uphill all the way so yes, you can imagine what the second half was like. Though I was a bit too hot and tired to appreciate it.

Anyway, `tis done.

The evening ramble took up me up along the Louth coastline. It was a compensatory trip for Sunday`s sodden disaster. I`d toddled along to the National Botanical Gardens in glorious sunshine. I was almost drooling at the thoughts of the floral explosion my camera would be greeted with there.

Instead, the second I set foot outside my car, I was greeted by the most gawdalmighty awful deluge. It was of Noahesque proportions. I sheltered in the nearest available hothouse with sixty six thousand other people and their annoyingly loud kids. Wouldn`t mind, but it was the cactus house. Is there anything as visually boring as a cactus in a pot? And that vision isn`t improved by the sound of a whiny kid screaming for his Dad, who apparently, had the good sense to shelter in the Tropical House.

Salterstown couldn`t have been more different. Not a whiny kid in sight. Nobody, actually. It`s not a beach, more of a rocky interlude between the road and the sea. But it`s prize, from a swimmer`s point of view is a short pier. And the fact that it`s not swarming with jellyfish.

In my short swim in the Irish sea last week, I had a unnerving sensation of hitting five jellyfish heads within a few short swimming strokes. Shudder! The abnormally warm waters may well have killed them off, as a lot of dead ones had been washed up along the shore. Even so, I had doomsday visions of a Portuguese Man O`War floating my way so I bailed out early.

It was too late for a swim in Salterstown yesterday. But the peace, the skies and the sea were glorious. And yes, I`ll be back for more.

The Long Bad Mile

As promised in my post yesterday, two pics from the hill run. The top one I took on the way down the two mile hill run. Wheeee!

And this one shows the Stop sign that marks the top of the hill. I`m always happy to see that.

 

Good news and bad news. The good news is, I`ve found a field with a one mile perimeter. Running in circles isn`t my thing but it may have to become more of my thing. This field also has a hill within that circuit. Hills are good news for training purposes, right?

Now, for the bad news. For my run today, I only managed to circumnavigate that field twice. And it was too very poxy miles at that. Runkeeper had me hovering at the 10/11 minute mile range. Right back where I started when my on again/off again love affair with Runkeeper started.

But, hey, I fulfilled today`s Janathon obligation and knocked another two miles off my year long 1,000. Only 988 1/2 miles to go….