It's Official

My 100m PB has finally been ratified by the Cork County Board - 16.53 seconds. My third PB of the year after the 39.3 miles and the 100k, and unlike those races I was back running (racing) within 12 hours. McMillian gives me anything between a 3:03 and a 3:15 marathon for my effort - if only I had practiced using the starting blocks (practiced at all) and broke the tape at 14 seconds I'd be on my way to a 2:40 mara (all for the want of 2.53 seconds) - ah well there's always next time. . As I was toeing the line at the start of the race the MC announced over the PA system that the last race that one of the competitors ran was 100k (leaked from the club chairman). As the rest of the guys appeared to all know each other, they all looked in my direction - all I could do was shrug my shoulders as if to say "why not?". At least the spectators knew the reason for the 2 second gap to the guy with all the struggling slow twitch fibres.

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I celebrated my new PB by joining some clubmates on a tempo run this morning, most of whom are training for the National Half Marathon Championships in Waterford on 3rd September or one of the other HM's in Blarney/Charleville a week or 2 later.

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The plan was 25 minutes of fast running sandwiched between 1 or 2 miles of warmup/cooldown. Six of us in all met up in Carrigaline at 8 (Joe, Micháel, Norman, Paul Daly, Paul Hickey - out celebrating the birth of his firstborn - congrats Paul & Myself) for an out and back along the estuary walk to Crosshaven (old rail line) - flat and fast. After the warmup we eased into the faster pace - too fast for me at the start as I slipped to the back with the two Pauls shooting out the front. I maintained a steady pace in the mid 6:20's counting down the minutes to the 12:30 turnaround. Joe had told me on Thursday that the pace was going to be around 6:50 (must have been the salesman in him). with 12:30 on the Garmin we all turned and headed for home (avg pace of 6:24) - some with more ground to cover than others depending on how far they got. The return leg was a battle of mind against body as the rising fatigue in my legs coupled with the slow motion ticking of the clock eroded away at my resolve - yet the pace remained steady @ 6:24 and I ended my 25 minutes within 10 yards of where I started - good solid pacing - any faster on the outbound leg and my pace would almost certainly have suffered on the return.

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A slow warmdown to the cars and we were all set for the day ahead. Where else would you want to be on a warm summers morning.

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Measured my resting HR this morning at 35 (average over 5 minutes - min/max 33/39) lowest ever - maybe my HR monitor is malfunctioning as during some of my easy runs this week my recorded HR shot up as far as 170.

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