Spring is in the air

The sunrise this morning illuminated the entrance to the passage grave at Loughcrew near Oldcastle in County Meath. The 5,000 year old passage grave is constructed in a such a way that the suns rays forms a narrow shaft of light that highlights the rock art on the backstone. During the time of spring equinox, 21st March, this rectangle of light highlights the solar symbol on the top left of the backstone slowly descending to the solar symbol at the bottom of the stone as the sun rises. Although less spectacular the same sunlight enabled me to see the face of my watch shortly after 6 this morning as running in the dark get consigned to the memory of winter past (or at least until the clocks jump forward an hour in a weeks time). My running has been fairly consistent as I try to build up the weekly mileage from the low 40's of the last few weeks. A five mile recovery run was all I could manage on Wednesday morning as sleep and a tired body won out to will power. I tried to make up for it yesterday morning by planning a long run as I would be racing this weekend and unable to get in the usual Saturday morning long run - but again the fog of sleep prevented me from getting up early enough - I still managed a relatively fast 12 miler - It had to be fast if I wanted to get 12 miles in. Another 10 miler this morning and a few short treadmill sessions have me just over the 52 mile mark for the week so far with a few more miles to come on Sunday at the Munster Master's Road Championships in Beaufort - God knows what I'm doing at a club championship, then again there always has to be a first time and I couldn't resist the call to arms sent out by the Club last week. Wed 18th Mar a.m. 5.28 miles in 43:13 (08:11 pace @ 131 HR) p.m. 2.5 miles in 19:50 (07:56 pace - treadmill) Thur 19th Mar 12.06 miles in 01:27:45 (07:16 pace @ 142 HR) Fri 20th Mar a.m. 10.01 miles in 01:16:53 (07:40 pace @ 137 HR) p.m. 2.5 miles in 19:50 (07:56 pace - treadmill) Have a good weekend.