Juneathon Day 24: Ode to Sir Garmin

Juneathon, Day Twenty Four
Running mileage:Three.
I may have managed a little more
But had depended on technology
To let me know the miles, the speed
And, of course, the elevation
But my damned Garmin would not concede,
Much to my consternation.

We have a mixed relationship
Really, its a marriage from hell
I am his Lazy Ladyship
who never quite runs that well,
He’s happy to be seen on my arm, of course,
When we are out and about
But then, he swiftly loses his charm
When his battery soon wears out.

Or else he’ll start to bleep and bleep,
And when I tire of his teasin’
Suddenly, mid run, he’ll fall asleep
For no apparent reason.
Well its not my fault, how could it be?
Plainly Sir Garmin is to blame
I play my part, dont you see?
Now he should do the same.

I turn him on every day
like any good wifey would.
I cater for his energy needs
Whenever I’m in the mood.
Oh it’s hard to fulfil his electricity demands
He really is very greedy.
And I am the independent sort
Who detests a man so needy.

So maybe we’ve reached the end of the line
the end of the road, if you must.
It seems certain to be just a matter of time
Before our marriage turns to dust
So Sir Garmin, a chroí, wake yourself
Don’t be such a sleeper.
Or soon I’ll be off out that door
With your rival, Mrs. Runkeeper.

Juneathon Day 24: Mileage Threeish

Total Juneathon Mileage: 63.24ish miles.

Malahide Park Run

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November surprised with her glorious blue sky this morning. All the better, because I had actually managed to rouse myself for the Malahide Parkrun, and, perhaps, a personal best for this 5 km romp. There were quite a few Airtricity … Continue reading →

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.

 

Second Parkrun

You know that Paula Radcliffe feeling I mentioned in my last post? Yeah, well, I lost it oh, maybe one minute in, on my second parkrun.

It`s been so long since I`ve run competitively, I realise I`ve got a mountain to climb. Last year I did a run a month. Looking back, I think maybe I overdid it. Which is why the foot ligament injuries and the back ache have been slower to heal. And why I got two chest infections in one year. Gotta love hindsight.

Luckily, I`ve managed to keep my running fitness up to a certain level. But it`s not enough for running a half marathon and not enough for running the marathon in October. I followed the Hal Higdon marathon plan right up until last week but thinking through what I`d learnt from my first parkrun and weighing up how slowly my feet are healing, I`ve decided to pull the plug on marathon participation this year.

I need more speed. January 2012 I ran five miles in forty five minutes. No, not wonderful. But better than what I did as last weeks parkrun-almost ten minutes miles and a shorter run. And I`d got faster over 2012. Right up until the marathon. In fact, if my feet hadn`t crashed at the twelve mile point in the marathon I would have been on track to do it in four hours thirty minutes.I don`t want to run my second marathon slower than my first one.

So instead of doing Hal Higdon`s plan last week, I changed to emphasize speed. My long slow run became a shorter faster one. Luckily, I`d kicked with more interval training from the begining of August so that speed isn`t a complete shock to my system now and on Tuesday I had great fun doing a three mile route as fast as I could. Any time I`d stop-which was very frequently-I made myself walk back until I was ready to run quickly again. That way, I covered more ground and motivated myself to keep running. And it was fun. Boy, the fun matters.

In the back of my head, I`d parkrun PB. Really I should be able to have a few PBs at the begining. I know they won`t be as easy to find after that but I`m learning the route and learning parkrun tactics now and as these elements kick into place I should have a better idea about how to pace myself.

Yesterday, for instance, I took off fairly fast(for me!). I could easily I`ve got stuck in behind some crawlers. Gotta love the crawlers though. There`s such a mixed bag in there.

There was one older guy who looked like he`d slept in a tee-shirt and then pulled on a pair of shorts that were lying on the floor. Only to discover that they were actually his son`s shorts. Certainly, there were a size too small for him. Of course I only assumed all that, as I passed him out. Then there was a girl with “I`m Active” inscribed in cloth letters on her arse. Only there wasn`t a single element of her anatomy that suggested she was in the least bit active, except, perhaps the fact that she was waddling her way through the run. And a guy with halitosis. Whew! I heard him first. He was wheezing badly. It wasn`t until I passed him that I caught the halitosis problem. Oh man. I couldn`t run fast enough.

But that became the problem. I couldn`t run fast enough.

My Garmin is resisting all attempts at resuscitation so I`m stuck with Runkeeper for now. Post run analysis on that shows that my run averaged out at 9 min 04 second miles. Which is grand for me. But what it also shows is that, by the last mile, I`d slowed down to a whopping 9 min 26 secs per mile. Ooohh, lazy old me!

The crap that was going through my head at that last mile was unbelievable. Only, I plainly believed it. My Inner Saboteur kept punching me with every negative statement in her book

“This run is too long”

“You want to stop” “You`re not getting any better you know”

“All the time you put into running and this is the best you can do”

“You should stick to something you`re good at. Plainly, it`s not running”

Man in Shorts passed me out. The I`m Active Woman passed me out. Even Halitosis wheezed past. Plainly, I was an even bigger crawler than I`d taken them for.

But my body actually felt fine. Slightly achy feet and back but nothing serious. Is this just all laziness then?

With the finish in sight, I did my usual burst. Nothing exciting. Just a little extra kick. I almost even caught up with I`m Active but I only got close enough to have a re read of her arse before I lined up for position and place tracking.

I felt like I`d had a hopeless run, but when I whipped out Runkeeper, read the stats and then the splits, I could see that I`m almost back at the nine minute mile level and would have been, if that last mile hadn`t kicked in with all that headstuff negativity. And, if I could actually keep up the decent pace of the first two miles.

Ok then, lessons learned for next week:

Get Garmin fixed.

Put in the earphones to block out Inner Saboteur.

Keep up the training plan

Check out the route before the race to find my optimal point for kickstarting my race finish

Eat breakfast.

Don`t snigger at the crawlers