Eye of the Tiger Beer.

Very obviously the running highlight of the week was an ACTUAL RACE with REAL PEOPLE!!! As fun as parkrun and club sessions are, running in an actual race is a lot more fun and a lot more interesting in the whole post-pandemic-but-not-really world we're living in. I was mildly cranky all week, escalating towards being actually cranky over the weekend, and my wife very perceptively spotted race week nerves a mile away. It's not like I was living a monk's life during the week, but there's something about an uncommon running race that lets itself take over my brain for at least a week or two out, and it's a very noticeable trait. It's not like Raheny was going to be a mad PB or anything, quite the opposite - I reckoned that if I ran it well I could come in around 4 minutes slower than I'd run 2 years ago and a minute or two outside my slowest time.

During the week I also worried about what I should wear and run on. I was feeling a little embarrassed about the thought of showing up in a club singlet and in fancy Nike runners and running relatively slowly. I mulled about it a bit, and ended up deciding to just show up in my best gear and run as fast as possible. Everything is relative, and I was sure I was going to give it the best I could give on the day. But also, it's not actually great being snobbish about times and wearing a club singlet and wearing fancy runners and all. Nobody really cares and judging people on those terms is very lame.

So anyway, I showed up to Raheny in my club gear and fancy Nike shoes looking to run as fast as I could on the day. It was wonderful being in the pre-race environment - saying hi to club mates as they strided on by, a few chats with other runners who you haven't seen in 2+ years, shout outs to boards.ie folks of yore and today... I mean this is actually kind of ridiculous and a little overwhelming compared to what we've had to put up with for the last while. Knowing that the start of Raheny was usually quite chaotic, I bobbled on down into the starting area but didn't make too much of an effort to push forward. I ended up close enough to a bunch of normal looking club runner types so started with them.

Mile 1: 6:45/mile

It's been two years since I've run a race, but I remembered enough about not wasting energy at the start. And holy moly were there opportunities to waste energy at the start. I dodged around folks but kept things consistent and tried not to waste any energy here.

Mile 2: 6:47 & Mile 3: 6:37

Things opened up a bit, and I maintained my focus on running the shortest possible line at all times. Generally running through the field here, feeling good and jumping in behind a few larger guys where the wind was blowing. Went over the "mile 3 marker" sub-20 which was optimistic about my time.

Mile 4 6:45 & 5 6:43:

Down towards the park, I noticed that the right turn was no longer cut off with cones and we had a shorter route to go. It felt good to get into the park while exertion levels were increasing. As always, the avenue felt like it was lasting forever, but it did come with the opportunity to give some shoutouts to a load of Cru folks coming through. After turning around I passed the 4 mile mark and noticed that it was ~1/4 miles off, though it didn't put me off.

The last bit: ???

I ran as hard as I could and it was terrible. I was annoyed that the finishing time was clearly over 35 minutes, as I had ran with a sub-7/mile pace goal in mind, and I thought I hadn't gone much slower. My finishing time was 35:18, a good bit off what I thought I had ran. As soon as I looked at Strava it was clear that the distance was longer than planned, and I feel sorry for Raheny for getting it wrong on the day. Overall this was a successful race - pace was better than planned, I worked my way through the field and I was all out at the end. Not a bad return to racing, even if it was 4 minutes a 400 metres longer than last time around :)

10 weeks left to Boston, and I've decided on a "plan" of sorts. On Tuesday I'll do the marathon session in the club. It's usually around 40 minutes of something or another. I can't say I'm a fan of the sessions on the club plan, but doing them with a group is always good. That then leaves parkrun day as my faster day of the week, and Sunday is the long run. It's lacking all sorts of properties of a great marathon plan, but it is convenient and I can consistently do these things. The purpose of Boston is to get back training regularly, so I'm making things as simple and convenient as possible. I think most runners would do well doing having a tempo-y session, a faster VO2maxy session and a longer run every week along with a bunch of easy running. The important thing is consistency so I'm keeping things logistically simple for now to maximise the previously mentioned consistency. Consistency, consistency, consistency. If I do end up missing stuff, I'll try to do hillier runs to prepare for the Himalayan-esque Boston course. In other news my weight has dropped to 88.8kg, 6 months to the day from weighing in at 98.8kg. I'm happy with this.

January 31st - 5.21 miles @ 10:15/mile post-Raheny run, legs and body very much feeling like they'd just done a serious race and then spent some time in the pub afterwards.

February 1st - My first marathon session in a very long time. This was a 40 minute track run involving a pyramid of 3, 4, 6, 8, 6, 4, 3 minutes at HM pace with a minute not-recovery paced jog in between. I wasn't sure how fast to run this, 7:10-7:15 felt about right. Ended up with a few other runners and the last rep was fast as a result. Overall no problems and enjoyed my first tempo session in like 2 years. Total of 9.75 miles.

February 2nd - 9.1 miles commuting home still feeling the race and session in my legs at 9:50/mile

February 4th - 8.1 miles @ 9:32/mile while the younger kid was at Beavers

February 5th - I was thinking of popping over to Donabate for the new course, but late on Friday a call was put out for volunteers at Rivervalley so I offered to run and scan. I ran parkrun quite slowly in the end, the weather was poxy and maybe feeling Raheny still in my legs, finishing in 23:15 despite a moderate effort, over a minute slower than a few weeks prior. 8.1 miles in total

February 6th - Mildly hungover. The wind was brutal so slowly jogged over to Malahide Castle for shelter. I was just about to head back to home when paulieyifter slowed down to have a chat, so I did another (slow for him!) lap around the park while chatting away. 12.3 miles in total, not exactly a great long run but 2 hours on my feet.

Total: 52.8 miles

Ah the curse of writing about consistency on the log. Not only have I not been updating, I had another crappy week over the last month, unsurprisingly the week I had to travel over to London for my mate's funeral. I caught a cold over there (a zillion antigens and a PCR all reckoned it wasn't Covid, but who knows) so was feeling emotionally and physically like crap and so didn't really get out the door much. Other than that some ok signs of improvement running-wise, however my weight loss has stopped at this point, and I am increasingly starting to worry about Boston, so I am going to deploy two super-weapons: 1. run a small bit more 2. stop drinking alcohol. I woke up on March 18th with a decent hangover and thinking about it being exactly a month to Boston, so it's a nice round number to be on the dry for. Sobriety definitely makes it easier to run more consistently and longer too, and also I really don't want to get Covid between now and then, alcohol doesn't tend to help there either.

Week Feb 21 - 27:

Did the marathon session with the Cru on Tuesday, 6 x 5 mins @ HMP off 2 mins slower which went well, paces were on average slightly over 7:00 for the splits. Did a double on Thursday, I had a day off work and I went out in the morning, but turned around having remembered a meeting that I had to go to. So went out again in the evening to bring it to over 10 miles for the day. I got out to Rivervalley parkrun, which was a hungover 22:24. Sunday was a long-ish run of 12+ miles at a decent pace (8:13/mile) with a running pal.

Total: 54.4 miles, 7 days running, not terrible.

Week Feb 28 - Mar 6

Did half an hour or so at 6AM before heading to the airport, then just a couple of runs before taking a few days off. On Sunday the younger kid was up in the Wicklow mountains around Djouce with the beavers, so I jogged/explored/hiked directionlessly around the place. Got stuck on a couple of terrible trails, but also happened across Powerscourt which was splendid in nice weather. 2 hours on my feet and nice to do something a bit different. It was my first time doing anything trail-ish since my MCL catastrophe, the knee itself hasn't had any problems in months now, so I'm taking that as a green light to do some more off-road type stuff.

Total: 24.4 miles... just 4 days running.

Week Mar 7 - 13

Did the speed session with the Cru as the marathoners were off running in Malta that weekend, also probably a better one to do to keep some speed in the legs. 12 x 400 off 45s, which ranged from 1:35-1:30. Not the best but that's what you get for not running. Couldn't do parkrun as the younger kid was playing GAA, so explored the national sports campus while that was on. The highlight of the week was driving over to Bayside and doing a couple of ascents of Howth as part of a HM distance run while thinking about the Boston hills :)

Total: 52.5 miles, 7 days running.

Week Mar 14 - 20

Cru session was good this week, back to the marathon gang, though I ended up running on my own for this pretty much. The session was a "ladder fartlek" of 3, 4, 6, 8, 6, 4, 3 mins@HM pace off 1 min slower, totally comfortable and just over 7/min miles for the splits. I decided to give Malahide parkrun a good go, wearing my fancy shoes and listening to the new Arcade Fire track on repeat on the way over. The run itself was great, chasing down folks throughout, finishing close to all-out in 20:24, nearly a minute off my post-pandemic 5k best time (though not that much faster than Raheny). Sunday's run was another fast-ish one with a couple of lads from parkrun, a hilly-ish 13.8 miles at 8:20 pace.

Total: 56.5 miles, 7 days running

A good week even if I do say so myself. Three weeks and a day out to Boston, so trying to throw myself into the marathon mines. This week was the highest mileage since January 2020 and the body is holding up well. Maybe my biggest problem right now is my feet are in bits, a good few blisters and my nails could be in better condition. Nothing sore or anything but they look like crap. Has anybody ever gone to a podiatrist for feet maintenance? I guess I could do it myself but I am a very lazy person. I got a load of blisters recently from some Adidas Adistar runners I picked up on a whim recently that look great but unfortunately rub my feet up the wrong way despite seeming to fit pretty well and are now relegated to walking.

Tuesday's club session at Crusaders was good, it was the same as last week's HM paced ladder of 3,4,6,8,6,4,3 minutes with a slower minute in between reps. First couple of reps were fast as I had my watch in kms from the previous week's parkrun and forgot to switch back to miles and I didn't know what exactly what I should be running in kms, but thankfully I was able to switch mid-session. If I ever design a running watch it will have 3 buttons - stop/start, lap and km/mile switcher. I was feeling a bit bloated having eaten a big lunch at work followed by a second lunch/early dinner before training and got a bit of a stitch towards the end. Average paces were around 6:53 and I naughtily did a fast one to finish (like 6:34 pace).

On Saturday I was in St. Annes for the younger kid's GAA match with the unfortunate start time of 10.30, so not much chance of parkrun. I decided to do a speed session and did 6x800 off 400m jog on the avenue. I was targeting sub-20 paces and it definitely felt tough, hopefully thanks to the increase in mileage. Pretty wrecked by the end of it, didn't hit the pace every time but close enough. The elevation loss/gain on the avenue was definitely quite noticeable by the end of it! Picked up some nice post-run lunch from the food stands, it was quite the morning in the park with the beautiful weather.

Sunday was the longest run since Donadea in 2020 I think, a route I've been meaning to do since I went through my brief period of cycling, running deep into the hills near Ballyboughal. Took it easy enough, it was mostly just for time on feet with some hills. The glorious views over Dublin didn't happen due to it being pretty misty today but still some nice things to look at along the way including an actual plane at Ballyboughal airfield. They were taking off 15 minutes later, but I was getting a bit tired so just kept going after taking a photo. I've taken off on that field numerous times on Flight Simulator, maybe I should've given them a few tips.

Total: 67.5 miles, 7 days running.

Next week: Three weeks out is peak week I guess, so same again, however unfortunately I am going to Glasgow for Tuesday night to visit my sister over there and go to see Thundercat play. I might try to do a MP paced session in the morning before the flight (like 10 miles?) maybe taking in some local hills. Not really sure of what my marathon pace is, maybe 7:45/mile? Planning to be pacing Rivervalley parkrun on Saturday doing 22 minutes which will be the fast thing this week.

Just the usual DCM, carry over registration from 2020. Also signed up to the DCM Race Series but unless COVID/war/??? happens I'll be out of the country for the two best races (Swords and Frank Duffy). I've signed up for SF Half instead though, which was the original 2020 plan too.

Thanks all! Weather-wise I think it would be marginally better to be today but it's looking not awful.

This week's update isn't very interesting which is a good thing for race weeks. Monday was just a few miles in between bringing the kids to various activities as I was solo-parenting. Tuesday was out to Malahide, and Wednesday was the final 2x8 minutes @ MP except I ran it a bit faster. On Friday I ran to the airport and back for my COVID test. The highlight of the week was a jog around Boston this morning, huge numbers of runners everywhere and a great atmosphere. I felt bad having to turn around and head back to my hotel.

I hit up the expo yesterday and had some grub with a clubmate afterwards which ended up being a long time on my feet in total, but at least it was all done yesterday. All I have to do today is nothing, other than grab dinner soon.

May as well set some goals, but first some reflection... this isn't a make or break race, but I've never shown up at a race and not tried my best. Training has gone to plan though with only 2 runs longer than 15 miles, and 4 others over HM distance done since Christmas so the lack of long runs could bite me. However volume was ok and I think that's more important, and there was some clear progression. The 16 miles done averaging faster than MP two weeks ago and the fast parkrun last week were good confidence boosters. I didn't lose as much weight as I hoped I would, I got stuck around 88kg which is still a good 12kg down from my PB last year. But here goes:

A goal: Sub-3:25 - go through half between 1:40 - 1:42, hang on during the hills and make some time up (?) at the end. Not impossible.

B goal: Sub-3:30 - as above, but make less time up

C goal: sub-3:32:06 (my slowest marathon) - as above, but things are going a bit more off the rails and I'm regretting not doing more long runs

D goal: Finish the stupid thing

Boston was the best race I've ever run, and the worst race I've ever run. Read on for how to not run a marathon!

I was wide awake at 2AM, as I'm only over for 3 nights I'm not really bothered with getting over jetlag so it wasn't a problem. Sunday was spent successfully off my feet, and I felt pretty well rested. I spent the morning slowly getting ready and grazing on various carby foods. I brought over two Crusaders singlets just in case (?) and accidentally didn't wear my lucky hand-me-down cross-free Crusaders from murph_d, an error which was obviously to blame for what happened during the marathon. I was also wearing my healy-recommended Ronhill racing shorts and Kipchoge-recommended Alphaflys. After what seemed like a million hours it was finally 6AM and I dragged my bag and gear down to the hotel lobby to top up my carbs. I was staying about a mile from Boston Commons, and on the way out of the hotel I made a couple of new runner friends, an Aussie and a college student from Miami who was going for low 2:40s in his second marathon, great friendly chats on the way over. At the bagdrop I met a clubmate W. who I'd been hanging with on Saturday, and we stuck together until splitting up in the wave 1 corrals. Getting the buses to the startline was great fun, though it seemed like a comically long journey to the start area. We got there with about an hour to kill so just hung outside sitting on some disposable ponchos enjoying the warmth of the sun. The runner village area was an impressive sight with loads of tents, toilets and some food and drink. Even at this stage it was hard not to get wow-ed at the organisation of the marathon. There was no wind and no signs of any cloud, though it was cool enough. At 9:15 it was time to start heading to the start area, while was a downhill walk about a mile away and even here there were people outside their houses supporting and there were tents of people giving out vaseline, bandages, etc. I paid a last visit to the toilet in the impressively large staging area, and then made my way to corral 4 in the first wave. In retrospect, this was a terrible idea. I was hmm-ing and haw-ing about dropping back, as there were thousands of people in front and behind me who were probably in sub-3 kind of shape and didn't spend the pandemic avoiding running, tearing their MCL and putting on 20kgs of weight. The American anthem was sung and the airforce did a perfectly timed flyover, regardless of your politics it was hard not to be wow-ed by it all. I was in awe of the morning so far and now all I had to do was calm down and take it nice and easy at the start.

5k 00:22:59 (7:24/mile)

This absolutely didn't happen, of course. It was impossible to go slow, I felt like I was barely walking the impressive downhills and I was getting dragged along by folks around me. I kept cursing my watch as it refused to show any time that was slower than 7:30. I decided to stop letting it wreck my head and just settle into a good pace and hold it until the hills.

5-10k 22:56 (7:23/mile)

10-15k 22:35 (7:17/mile)

Really not much happened here other than holding what seemed like a reasonable pace and good effort. Despite the temperature being relatively cool it was starting to feel warm enough from the sun, and so I was making sure to get water and occasionally some Gatorade at every second water station (there were huge stations every mile). The support was ridiculous. What seemed like whole towns were out shouting at runners, high fiving, BBQing, blaring music and looking like they were having as good a time as us runners in the first part of the marathon. This was no doubt also a factor in maintaining an aggressive pace. I met three people around here, two runners from my club (not in their singlet!) who came over and said hello, and an Irish lad in an Irish singlet who was great fun to run beside as he got a lot of shouts for the singlet. I was only getting a shout every minute or so for my Crusaders singlet :)

15-20k 22:45 (7:20/mile)

20-25k 23:05 (7:25/mile)

Starting to feel effort creeping up here, though the scream tunnel at Wellesley made me forget about all that for couple of minutes. I'd heard a lot about it, but it was utterly unreal. Hearing the roar getting slowly louder as you get towards it was spine tingling, though I didn't take, er, advantage of the numerous offers of kissing a girl half my age so just chivalrously did some WOOs and high fives. I had a good laugh going over half in 1:36:13, I was like "I have either made a complete balls of this or this is going amazingly well". The constant ups and downs were getting a bit tiring too, I never want to encounter another "rolling hill" in my life. Somewhere around here my right quad started to get sore, and then there was a ridiculous drop down before the hills which didn't feel great at all. Uh oh.

25-30k 25:29 (8:13/mile)

As is completely predictable, it turns out you really need to have a lot in the tank to take on the Newton hills even while taking them very slowly. By now my left quad had decided to join in the fun too, and every uphill and downhill was getting quite sore. I experienced my first ever "sniper" cramp in my left calf going up one of the hills which freaked me out and caused me to slow down even more to make sure it didn't come back. I'd switched my watch over to heart rate at the start of the hills, which was telling me I was at my max of 166/167 and I had to start shuffling to get it back down. Despite my body going to complete crap, I was somehow still enjoying things and it wasn't hard to run with a smile, which I think encouraged a lot of shouts from the crowd too. A clubmate who was out supporting ran alongside me for 30 seconds shouting some needed words of encouragement.

30-35k 27:29 (8:50/mile)

The last two hills were total slog fests, the ups and downs from the previous two hills had done a lot of damage. By now the headwind was picking up a little, it probably wasn't too bad and did provide some relief from the sun but it was enough to start to annoy me in my increasingly bonked state. Every step was getting very sore.

35-40k 28:55 (9:19/mile)

The crowds were getting deeper, and there was another college along here with some very enthusiastic students, so I WOOed, shouted and high-fived my way past them and they all went nuts. It was ridiculous. I noticed my speed creeping up to sub-8 minute miles briefly, maybe I'd WOOed my way to a second wind? No such luck, once things settled back to normal levels of crowd support, the adrenaline was no longer covering up the pain and it was back to plodsville. At least the city was now in sight.

2.2k 12:28 (9:15/mile)

The bloody Citgo sign and baseball stadium finally appeared, but didn't really help. The last plunge under a road was horrific, I think I walked most of it as I couldn't stomach the downhill and uphill by now. It was finally time to turn right on Hereford and left on Boylston. I did manage to pick things up for the finish which makes the average time for the final bit look a good bit better. I did some more stupid crowd stuff which seemed to be responded to by the crowd but who knows how lucid I was by now.

Finish: 3:28:51 (7:58/mile)

The horror show was finally over, somehow still inside my B goal time. Very slowly waddled through the massive finishing area and was feeling quite lightheaded. The wind had picked up massively by now and the gusts were making even slow walking quite miserable. Got my bag from a bus, found a kerb to sit-down on, and I met the college student again. He'd completely blown up, finishing around 3:15, was shivering a lot and looking close to death. I told him he was making me feel better about myself, but that he should really get to one of the "heater buses" they had in the finishing area. I got dressed and started heading towards the Common to sit-down and check in with family and Strava. My clubmate W. had a place at the bar in Cheers (better than an Irish bar I guess), so I headed over there, chatting with random runners on the way. The beer and service was great, and an hour or so later we had a space with about 5 other clubmates including marthastew formerly of these parts. I think I had blown up the worst of our gang, but everybody had both a tough and amazing time. The beer and great company rapidly worked wonders to my physical and mental condition. Some unknown time later folks started to head off, so headed back to my hotel and ate some food at the bar. When I got back to my hotel I realised that I was massively sunburned with the outline of my singlet ridiculously visible on my body. Also I did my first p!ss post-marathon, which was after a decent amount of beer, so I was definitely extremely dehydrated. Some decent toe damage too, I felt something like a blister popping in the last mile and there's some decent bruising, to be expected though.

What went wrong? Obviously the pace was stupid and I'd done way too much damage coming into the hills. I am not sure if the quad damage was a result of poor form because of getting tired, or vice-versa, probably a bit of both. I did try and focus on form especially after the cramp scare, but all bets are off when you're bonking. The sun/heat was a total surprise, despite obsessively checking weather forecasts I was expecting just a bit of sun with some nice cloud cover. Boston is at the same latitude as Northern Spain and the sun didn't just burn my skin to a crisp, I probably was running quite dehydrated too. I didn't eat huge amounts on the course, just one gel and a couple of packets of other Gu Blocks and Sport Beans, along with some sips of Gatorade, but I was well fed going into it so I don't think that was a factor.

Running Boston on a beautiful day was truly an unbelievable experience. I'd watched loads of videos, read all the old threads on here etc. but it still massively exceeded expectations. I woke up at 3AM with my skin still burning and what sounded like a full-on gale and heavy rain outside. The predictable things at Boston are the hills, blowing up on the hills and the unpredictability of the weather :)

What's next? I am going to NOT do what I usually do and plunge straight back into running. Maybe a few miles on Sunday. Also thanks to the passage of time, Boston 2024 will only need me to run a sub-3:20 marathon at DCM...

Thanks all for the comments! Not many race reports on my log over the last couple of years for some reason, so it was good fun writing that up.

Anything else not in the report... "Eye Of The Tiger" was blaring at half-way which also gave me a good laugh (I don't actually care much for the song but I'm fond of the pun by now). I'm pretty tempted to do whatever European marathon the club are doing next spring given the overall good experience of travelling to a marathon, Boston was far from cheap! Or maybe do Barcelona. My skin is completely bolloxed and is still very burned, sore and peeling like mad, but in good news walking around is now pain free and I've done a couple of runs (total of 10.8 miles) with no problems, though definitely some stiffness still knocking around. 2kgs put on since Monday 😅

Next week: Just more slow running. A rest day or two, which suits as I am probably popping over to London for work stuff. Might volunteer at parkrun. Maybe make it all the way to 10 miles by Sunday.