1492

"The world is flat and if you head west you'll fall off the edge" Mr Columbus was told before he headed on his first transatlantic cruise in 1492. All that awaited him and his crew 20 miles west of the Azores was certain death. Luckily he managed to avoid the edge of the world despite the fact that the low cost carrier he was travelling with dropped him further from his intended destination than he bargained for - no change there then in 500 odd years.

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With 6 days left to my first 100k run (freudian slip there using the word "first") Abina is getting a bit agnsty, dropping hints over the last few weeks that my heart might not be up to the task, despite the fact that I am following a well trodden path. I tried to reassure her that my heart will be more than capable of dealing with the relatively low effort and that it will be my muscular skeletal system that would be under pressure. I don't think she was convinced. "What about the guy who died on Mount Everest, he thought he was up to the task and what good is he now to his wife and newborn child who he will never see". Did I mention that Abina predominantly operates on a emotional plane - balanced by my logical disposition - making for a perfect schizophenic match.

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Her next plan of attach was the fact that we have only so may heart beats in our lifetime and that i'll have used all mine up before my time - maybe I should take to my bed and wait for the inevitable, although i'll have a longer wait at my resting HR. In the interest of giving her the benefit of the doubt and to be quite honest she is probably (always) right I replied that for the 10 or so hours a week that my heart is working at 70 or 80 beat per minute (BPM) higher than normal the benefit is that it is working at least 10 BPM lower than normal for the rest of the week (158 hours). While this makes perfect sense to me it was like white noise to her as she replied with "well you're no use to me dead" or some such thing. I could have mentioned the life assurance and death benefit that she would get but thought it best not to mention it.

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Abina got me thinking about the theory that we have so many heartbeats in our lifetime - anywhere between 2 and 2.9 billion according to this site. Based on this theory I calculated that if I exercised for 10 hours a week at an average of 70 BPM higher than my normal HR and the benefit of a healthier heart was a lowering of my normal HR by 15 BPM I would save enough heart beats over 20 years to give me an extra 2.83 years (assuming a normal HR of 70 BPM). Alternatively my 10 hours a week would add about an hour to my life, which could be seen as a poor return, if you'd rather spend those 10 hours watching the telly or reading a book. The following table shows the "theoretical" extension to your life in years after 20 years of exercising for 10 hours a week for various combinations of normal HR improvement and average gap between normal and exercising HR. You can see that your life expectancy reduces in the unlikely event that the benefit is outweighed by the exertion. A load of old bull really but a good counter argument should you ever be challenged by the flat earth society.

Postscript: 20:49 hrs -

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I neglected to mention that 2 or 3 hours a week would be all the exercise you'd need to keep a healthy heart and therefore the optimum training level for the ultimate endurance event -life, as you'd be keeping unnecessary exertion to a minimum - don't tell the missus (I reckon i'd get another year with her).

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Clock - 3:29:52.........

.........Chip - no bloody chip. Left it at home this morning in my eagerness to remember to bring everything else. Chip about 3:29:25 as there were 2 runners between me and Frank, the other 3:30 pacer. A good day for running a marathon, generally overcast and relatively cool - the best since Cork restarted in 2007 - although it was a bit warm for the first hour or so.

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To be quite honest I didn't feel great, with slightly tight calves from pushing the pace a bit on yesterdays 34 mile bike ride and a reasonably full bladder from the start. I contemplated stopping for a whiz, but with a baloon strapped to my singlet and "Sub 3hrs 30" emblazoned on my back, I thought it might be a bit unprofessional - pacers are not supposed to be human ;).

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Despite the 7:54 average pace on the Garmin we passed the 8 mile mark, 7 seconds in deficit (1:04:07) - we changed this to a 10 second surplus by the half way stage and over the next 4 miles we extended that to about 40 seconds. There was a sizeable group with us but it was difficult to know who exactly was "with us" as the field was still reasonably congested. I began to feel good after about 15 miles, with the urge to pee gone and bio feedback indicating everything in good working order. My HR fluctuated between 125 and 140 - rising above the 140 on some of the "hilly sections".

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Crowd support was very good particularly as we passed through relay changeover areas. The group remained reasonably intact, as we crested the last rise on the Model Farm Road at mile 21.5 and dropped down to Inchagaggin Lane and the Straight Road. I could see clubmate, Paul Cotter, ahead who had paced me on some of my looooong training runs over the last few weeks. Following his strong 3:34 finish in his debut Marathon in Dublin last year, Paul was targeting something in the low 3:20's. With about 3 miles to go I pull alongside him, but can only keep him on my shoulder for about 3/4 of a mile - complaining about going too fast after the tunnel f#ck*ed with his Garmin (my words not his) - the mind does funny things when faced with data that conflicts with it's own reasoning. He didn't fall too far behind as I could still see him 100 yards back as we ran along the Mardyke towards the 25 mile mark. Over the bridge along the UCC river walk and into the last mile with about 9 minutes to spare, still a good crew with us. Out onto the north quays, scooping up a few stragglers on the way with those with a bit of spare energy pushing ahead, right turn onto Patricks Bridge and the last 400m to the finish...stopping briefly before the finish to scoop up 2 more sub-3:30's - job done and legs feeling great, the best they've ever felt after pacing 3:30 (3 to-date).

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A half mile jog to the Lee Hotel with previous pacing partner, Tony (now promoted to the 3:15 slot with Thomas), a quick shower, share some ultra nutrition tips with Tony (who's coaching the Irish team for the Trail World Championships) and off to the Long valley for a well earned pint of plain - carbs never tasted so refreshing.

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Well done to all those who raced today, plenty of PB's out there.

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I'm a bit pissed off that I won't have an official result, but then again I'm not looking for membership of the 100 marathon club (The annual sub is hardly worth another medal, no matter what it's made of - I can always fabricate my own) and will just add today to the 7 other "unofficial" 26.2+ mile runs this year - only 2 "official" ones.

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Mile 3.5 - Early Days

Pickup

With a marathon to pace in 2 days, today was a good day to break from my 50 miler training programme. I managed to keep my date with the twice weekly speed sessions on Tuesday (ladder session at the track) and Thursday (Tempo 5k) and my day off on Friday. With the weekend long runs cut back to 2 hours each, I wasn't missing out on much. Still I got just over an hour and a half on the grass of UCC farm this morning with clubmate Dennis, who is also pacing on Monday. I spent the rest of the morning putting a second coat of paint on the spindles of the stairs a home, a job I started a few years ago (Tapering is very handy for finishing odd jobs, so much time!).

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As I was dropping Keevsa to school, yes school on a Saturday - supervised study for the Leaving Cert (state exams) which starts on Wednesday - seems like only yesterday when I was doing mine........ the flashbacks are less frequent now. Anyway as I was dropping Keevsa to school I decided to continue on into town, with Ani in tow, to pick up my race number for Monday. I had to go to a special desk at City Hall as I didn't have the necessary paperwork for priority processing, what with I being a pacer and having the luxury of being registered by the Hunnymonster. I met Gina who promptly gave me level 1 clearance and went away to get my pacing gear (yellow singlet and black shorts - cool) while I picked up my number and goodie bag, which contained another technical t-shirt - unfortunately I found it was a size too big when I got home (They gave me an XL instead of an L).

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Met up with the Beirut taxi and his family as we browsed the food stalls across the river on Lapps Quay, his state of arousal suitably in check. My carb loading started with a spicy beef kebab and continued throughout the afternoon with anything that took my fancy. All that's left now is to wait up and relax until Monday morning. Looks like it's going to be a good morning for running with temperatures lower that yesterday and today and little or no wind.

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Best of luck to all those running the relay, half and full marathon, have a great day.

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C'mon the 3:30's.

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Taper Week 1 (Run 28.3 miles, Bike 60.9 miles, Swim NIL)

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May (Run 349 miles, Bike NIL, Swim 1.3km)

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Blogger Bother

For some reason I can't post comments on some blogs and can on others. Is anyone experiencing the same problem?

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Blogs I can't post comments on include Pauls (over trails and hills), Robs (Running still), Martys (For the t-shirt) and Bobs (Training blog), so well done to you on your recent races/ time trials and good luck in your upcoming events. Funny thing is that some of them have received comments from others but I just get caught in a continuous loop that goes nowhere.

Plugging Away

The last few weeks have been pretty repetitive on the running front

Monday - Day off.

Tuesday - Speedwork in the form of intervals at the track

Wednesday - Easy recovery run or day off.

Thursday - Speedwork in the form of a 5k tempo run

Friday - Day off

Saturday - Long Run

Sunday - Longer run

With all the days off I'm able to recover from the back to back weekend long runs and still get 2 speed workouts in - although i'm not as fast as I used to be.

The key workouts for the 100k are obviously the long runs and I finally appear to be getting my head and body used to them. Simple as it may sound it took a while for me to get the last key training element nailed - eating. Twice in the last month, towards the end of a 4 and 5 hour long run I suffered badly due to lack of fuel. Over a period of 10 minutes I went from feeling reasonably ok to a state where every step was a huge effort - the classic bonk/hitting the wall experience. While a few gels and water will get me around a marathon course reasonably intact, going longer demands a higher and more varied calorific intake.

This weekend I completed my last and longest back to back runs covering 64 miles over two days. The 4:05 hour 29.8 mile run on Saturday was the faster of the two, leaving my legs in a suitably fatigued state for Sundays 5 hour run. I managed to get by on Perpeteum and High 5 on Saturday but I was up before 6 on Sunday morning with my chicken noodle soup simmering away on the hob. I had carb loaded on beer and food the night before celebrating a neighbour's son's communion so breakfast consisted of the a cup of coffee to wake me up. Luckily I had the company of Paul Daly, another 100k nutter, for the 5 hours, which included an 11.2 mile club run out the now "very" familiar Passage, Monkstown, Rafeen loop. I stuck to GU gels and perpeteum for the first 3 hours and thereafter resorted to picnicing on soup, fig rolls (newtons in the new world), jellies, coke and anything else we could hoover up, took a few walking breaks when energy levels dipped and while the legs would be stiff once we resumed running we were able to shake the feeling off after a few 100 yards.

To be honest when I set out at 6:40 I didn't know whether I could last 5 hours as I did not feel great - energy was so-so and legs were stiff. However 2 hours in I felt better and by the time i had finished I felt no worse than when I had started. The average pace for the 5 hours was 8:45 which we managed to reduce from 8:50 over the last mile and a half as we chased down a "hare" out for his Sunday run - both of us pleasantly surprised that out legs complied. `We finished on the Marina with a dip in the river to cool the legs down, joined by a few crabs crawling over our feet.

My biggset concern now is the weather - with a veritable heat wave forcast from next weekend, pacing 3:30 in Cork this day week may be harder work than I bargained for.

Doing Time

This weekend was all about time on my feet. The Runners World 50 mile training programme i'm broadly following (these last two weeks ;) has two weekends of back to back 4 and 5 hour long runs 3 and 4 weeks out from the race - although the first of the 5 hour runs has a note after it - (or about 27 - 29 miles). So strictly speaking the 27.8 mile 4 hour run I did last weekend is good enough for the first scheduled 5-hour run in the programme. The second 5-hour run has no such note against it so I decided to err on the side of caution and see what a 5-hour training run was like.

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Time constraints on Saturday - the two youngest had to be in "Supernova" for 10:30 for a company "fun-day" - meant that I only got a 3.5 hour run in, starting at 6:15. A "walk in the park" literally as I ran the entire 3.5 hours on the grass circuit of UCC Farm, joined after a while by Pat Murphy, whom I paced to a sub 3:30 in Cork last year, who was out for his 20 mile long run. The time passed quickly as we chatted away and by the time Pat was done I only had 15 minutes left to run - certainly one of the most comfortable 3.5 hour runs I have ever done, despite the 8:12 average pace. Pat is aiming for 3:10 - 3:15 this year, having gone on to run 3:18 in Dublin last October. Lizzie Lee of Leevale AC was also out for a easy run, ahead of her half marathon in Gothenburg next weekend, where she hopes to run 6 minute miles to a 1:18 finish - having won the Ballycotton 10 miler in 58:47 (5:53 pace) in March, she should have no difficulty there.

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My legs were in pretty good shape this morning for the real test. A club run of up to 22 miles was organised for 8 so my plan was to get an hour to an hour and a half in beforehand so that my "time alone" after the club run would be short. As I didn't have the advantage of running repetitive loops I took a back-pack (hydration pack with the bladder taken out) to carry my two 500ml drinks (4 hr perpeteum mix and a bottle of High 5) and a few crackers with peanut butter and jam (I wasn't getting hungry this time out). I only managed to get 50 minutes in before the club run (Stayed up to watch the Eurovision with the kids), joining Paul, Denis, Derek, Cian and Martin for an extended 18 mile loop from Pairc Ui Caoimhe out to Passage, Monkstown, Rafeen Hill, Moneygouney, Garryduff, Rochestown return. Denis was fresh back from warm weather training in Singapore and Derek gave us the low down on his 2:53 marathon in Tokyo - it's only a matter of time before he gets into the 2:40's.

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As my nutrition was in the converted backpack, every 3 or 4 miles I had to take it off and open it to take a drink, temporarily dropping off the pace. In the latter stages I just stopped and walked to take on fluids (and solids) which served to double up as a rest from the fatigue of constant pace running. Four of us took the longer estuary walk around to Blackrock Castle on the way back to extend the run towards 20 miles (26 for me). Paul ran a loop of the Monahan/Centre Park Road with me to get his 22 mile target in the bag, leaving me with an hour to kill before I could finish. So I headed back out the 6 mile loop around to Blackrock Castle, repeating the opening six miles of my run and finishing up with a short out and back counting down the minutes to the 5 hour mark. While my legs felt reasonably ok the rising fatigue over the last half hour became progressively more difficult to bear and my pace slowed to a 9:30 shuffle by the time I was finished. Can't say it was lack of fuel as I didn't feel that hungry, although I was slightly dehydrated - what you'd expect after taking on 1 litre of fluids in 5 hours of running.

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Before heading for home I dipped my legs into the River Lee to cool them down and aid muscle repair. I had to move my feet about a bit as the feeling of crabs or some other bottom dwellers crawling over them spooked me a little, maybe it was just underwater tumbleweed. The water was quite cool which felt good but as my feet began to get numb I called it a day.

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My 8.5 hours of weekend running got me to 97 km or 60 miles, not far off my target race distance. However, despite the overwhelming feeling of fatigue towards the end of today's run, I know that the struggle I will face in the latter stages of the 100k will be new territory in terms of mental and physical torture. While my nutrition today worked reasonably well - the perpeteum certainly delays the onset of muscle fatigue by preventing the breakdown of muscle for use as fuel during prolonged runs. At no stage either did I feel the onset of cramps or muscle tightness - that's usually reserved for faster paced running. Still I slowed noticeably towards the end which points towards an energy deficiency - if i'm to last 9+ hours in a race i'll have to increase and vary my energy intake - perhaps take on more solids and add the magic that is coca-cola to my running diet. The sugary liquid carbs such as Gels & High 5 certainly become unpalatable after 3 or 4 hours so it may be time to switch to more savory snacks such as the chicken noodle soup and salted potatoes that appear to be a staple of a large number of ultra runners out there - the one peanut butter and jam cracker that I took mid-run today certainly went down well and will likely make it onto the menu for Portumna.

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Despite the reasonably good longs runs over the last few weeks I still feel a bit overwhelmed by the task of completing (or is that competing in) a 100k.

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Sat - 25.6 Miles in 3:30 (8:12 pace)

Sun - 34.7 miles in 5:00 (8:39 pace)

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Build Week #2 - 80 miles (no swimming or cycling)

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Finally a huge congratulations to Clubmate Paul Tierney who yesterday broke the record for running the mountainous 130km Wicklow Way heading out from Marley Park in Dublin at 4 a.m. and arriving at Clonegal in Co. Carlow 13 hours, 38 minutes and 51 seconds later, beating the 2008 record set by Eoin Keith by 7 minutes and 10 seconds. Huge respect.

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Interesting People & Lovely Balls

This post is for Rónán, who told me this morning to update my blog.

Marathon Pacing (Great Limerick Run - 1st May 2011)

This pacing job gets you to meet all sorts of interesting people -

Following the pacers briefing last Saturday evening most of us retired to a local Italian restaurant for a bit of carb loading - if you can call 2 cups of coffee and a baileys cheesecake carb loading - well I already had a belly full of pizza at the briefing. Mick Rice, the 3 hour pacer brought his friend Lezan, who sat beside me. I could tell he was a fast guy even if I hadn't known that he was 5 times winner of the Connemara Half marathon. He was hoping to achieve a sub 2:20 in Limerick - well, I thought he has come to the right place - a restaurant full of marathon pacers!. He told me his PB was 2:13 which he got when winning the Dublin marathon in 2004. Not wanting to waste the opportunity I quizzed him a bit more:-

"What fuel do you use during your marathons" I asked.

"Water" he replied.

"Right" I said - "Doh".

He left shortly afterwards, leaving half his dinner behind him, which means he didn't get any dessert (I have the same rule in my house).

Tom, who organised the pacers, was hoping to break 3:30 with my assistance the following day. Tom's medium terms goal is to get 100 marathons under his belt by the end of 2012, after which he will concentrate on the shorter distances (he has 30 something done already). He's taking the patient route to a fast 5k ;). He's one of those crazy guys who ran the route of the Connematathon (Director's invitational) the day before he completed the ultra with the rest of us. He's also organising 5 marathons in 5 days in Sixmilebridge this July - well he's got to feed his insatiable appetite somehow. I shared a room with David, who was pacing the 1:40 group in the half marathon. However he got to sleep in as his race wasn't starting until 11:30 compared to my 9 a.m. start. No snoring this time out.

I had breakfast with the 3:15 pacers and was joined by Finnoula who was pacing 4:30. If that wasn't enough she was overnighting in Dublin after the race and driving to Belfast in the wee hours to complete the Belfast marathon on Monday - all part of her training for the 90km Comrades marathon from Durban to Petermaritzburg this June.

I was pacing the 3:30 group with Tony, my pacing partner from Cork last year, and an old hat at the job, compared to me. There was a great buzz at the start line as runners psyched themselves up for the long road ahead. Tony certainly went to the motivational school for marathon pacers as he really got the group going. Not being familiar with the route I found it quite good - the out and back past the 10k timing mat where you could see the front runners coming against you and have the craic with the other pacing groups - through the UL campus - through the historic City. We lost Tom shortly after mile 10 due to stomach issues.

It wasn't all plain sailing though - the long drag out past the 15 and 16 mile mark and the wide and windy St Nessan's Road back towards the City centre. We certainly lost a few along these sections. Still we had a core crew of 10 to 12 with us until about the 22 mile mark. Chris, a friend of Tony's, whom Tony has been pacing towards a 3:30 finish for at least the last year, was nowhere to be seen as we crossed Sarsfield Bridge (21.7 miles). The drag up past Thomond Park and the 23 mile mark was particularly challenging as one or two dropped off the back and those who had held back a little were advised to push on towards the finish. I held back a little to keep some sort of connection with 2 guys who had fallen back by 10 or 20 yards but there was another drag up past the Gaelic Grounds and the 24 mile mark and the two guys were unable to close the gap - I could certainly emphatise with them - the last few miles in a marathon are a huge physical and mental challenge, particularly if you have nothing left in the tank - still I reckon even pacing is the most efficient way to get around a marathon, the challenge being the selection of the correct pace, which you may even have to change on the start line depending on conditions - no point in heading out at PB pace into a strong wind or a hot sun - receipt for disaster.

Mile 21 - Group still Intact

The last 2 miles were spent encouraging those we caught up with to keep pace with us and come in under 3:30. Three guys, in particular managed to dig a little deeper, snap out of the fatigue induced autopilot shuffle that we all experience in the latter stages of a marathon and cross he line before the clock struck 3;30 - one poor guy discovering, when a volunteer came to remove his timing chip, that he had left it back at his hotel.

The first guy to cross the line after 3:30 was Chris, who had cramped just before the 22 mile mark, stopped and stretched and put in a super human effort to get back on pace covering the last mile in 7:26 and denied his sub 3:30 by 7 seconds (3:30:06) - although he was gutted he still managed a 4 minute PB, which he wouldn't have got had he thrown in the towel after cramping - gutsy performance Chris.

While my legs seized up a bit after the race (hammys in particular) a bit of walking loosened them out a bit. I met Lezan, who's "John Wayne" gait was worse than my own (even the fast guys suffer) and congratulated him on his second placing - 2:24 - beaten by his compatriot Freddy Keron.

Muzan - sharing 2nd place with Sergiu Ciobanu at mile 21.7

I got a lift back to the hotel with Chris and Tony, used the pool to loosen out the legs a little before heading back to Cork with John D (3:45 pacer), stopping off in Charleville for the obligatory burger and chips.

Ultra Training

With my eye on a 100k ultra in June I though it would be a great opportunity to used the 26.2 miles in my legs for some 100k race training and so the following morning I hit the grass of UCC farm shortly after 8 - opting for the 2.2 mile circuit so that (i) I wouldn't be too far from the end (ii) I didn't have to carry fuel, placing my High 5 drink at the start of the loop and (iii) emulating race day monotony - 20 x 5k loops. My plan was 3 hours at an easy pace between 8:30 and 8:50 (straddling my 9 hour target pace of 8:42 - don't know where it came from and I could be out by an hour or two). The light rain that was falling was in stark contrast to the sun of the day before. The first 2 hours went pretty well with an average pace of 8:38 and my legs holding up pretty well. As I felt relatively comfortable (it's all relative) I decided to up the pace for the last hour, trying to get the feel of negative splitting on race day and surprised myself by averaging 7:47 pace for the hour - glad to be finished though.

As ultra training is all about back to back weekend long runs I took it relatively easy during the week, getting two 5 milers in, the first on Wednesday at a recovery pace (100k race pace ;) and the second on Thursday with a 5k tempo thrown into the middle of it - my attempt to introduce some speedwork into my training after a long absence. The 5k at 6:42 pace (20:53) was tough but manageable - i'm a long way off a 3 hour marathon at the moment (a 1:30 half is even out of the question - unless it's downhill)

A rest day on Friday and I was ready for my long weekend, getting out the door shortly before 6:30 yesterday morning for a 3:30 run in the regional park - more mind numbing loops. I did mix it up a bit by taking different trails, which slowed me down a bit as I negotiated my way around tree roots and puddles. From the start I did not feel great - maybe last weekend was finally catching up with me. I averaged 8:41 pace for the first hour and 8:26 for the second hour. I decided to change tactics for the third hour by introducing fartleks starting with 7 mins fast followed by 7 mins slow and down to 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 minute. I had read somewhere that introducing faster running in an ultra can help with the fatigue and monotony of a constant pace (a bit like an interval session at the track) It started off reasonably well getting down to 7:35 on the "fast" sections and about 8:25 on the recoveries! averaging 8 minute pace overall - but I was toast for the last half hour struggling to maintain 8:30 pace, delighted to finish and wondering how the fuck I was going to run for 9 hours or (much) more, having visions of being on my knees before I am halfway through the race. I thought I might have entered the realm of "overtraining" but my resting heart rate this morning was 38, down from 39 when last measured on 20th March. An elevated resting HR is a typical indicator of overtraining.

My original plan for the weekend was 3:30 on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday. The way I felt after Saturday's run had me thinking that running on Sunday would be both painfully slow and short. Still with an air of optimism and reasonably recovered legs, I headed out this morning on a Club run of about 15 miles over relatively flat terrain from Mahon to Passage West, Monkstown up over the 1.5 mile hill to Rochestown and back to Mahon, picking up the two Pauls at Pairc Ui Caoimhe en route. I refuelled with 500ml of High 5 and half a bag of cheese and onion crisps, the Kids had left in the car, before heading back out around the estuary loop to Blackrock Castle to meet up with Paul Cotter who had headed back to his car for refuelling (only to find he left his gels at home) and was coming in the opposite direction. The wind along this section of the Cork Marathon route reminded me of last years marathon where horizontal rain was added to the mix to make for a tough run. We also met up with Paul Daly, who had finished his run early (faster pace) to pick up Amanda, a visually impaired paralympic runner who he is guiding - if you thought pacing was difficult try guide running along a busy walkway on a Sunday morning with other runners, walkers, cyclists, dogs, all preoccupied in their own conversations/activities - you get the picture.

I dropped Paul Cotter to his car with 3:10 on my watch and headed out for another loop towards Blackrock Castle with Paul and Amanda, eventually pulling ahead of them for the final solo leg of my run. My legs still felt reasonably good although as I entered the last 15 minutes of my run I was beginning to feel the effects, primarily due to lack of fuel - Paul had teased earlier about what we would have for breakfast - "butter melting on a hot scone", which was nearly enough to send me back to the car early. I replied that the best thing about 4 hour long runs is that by the time you have breakfast it is lunchtime and you can double up. I stopped with less than a quarter of a mile to the car as I hit the 4 hour mark and walked in - tank empty. I took a chocolate/orange GU thick gel with water once I got to the car to give me enough fuel to drive home - Heaven!

25.1 miles on Saturday and 27.8 miles on Sunday gave me 52.9 (85km) for the weekend (still 15km short).

Lest you think I did nothing else for the weekend apart from seven and a half hour of running and put my feet up to recover for the rest of the day think again. With Abina working I was on duty to ferry Saran and his buddy to GAA (hence my pre-6:30 start yesterday) and on to McDonalds, organise a sleepover for Ani's friend and drop her home, drop Safan to town and Keevsa to her friends birthday party and today to meet her boyfriend for their six month anniversary and decide on such issues as whether self-raising flour would make any difference to the roux for the meatball sauce for todays dinner - thankfully I found the plain flour. In fairness they're nice meatball. If you don't believe me ask Abina. She took them to work a few months back, openend her lunch box in front of her colleagues and said "These are Grellan's balls and they're lovely"

Recovery week #3 (Run 47 miles, Bike NIL, Swim 3.8km)

Build Week #1 (Run 85 miles, Bike NIL, Swim NIL)

ps: I can't seem to control the line spacing in my posts - I close the gaps while editing but it appears to do it's own thing - any advice in this regard would be greatly appreciated.

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