OMG! when I moved to dublin I wasn't aware that the wind was so strong. why nobody told me before I accepted this job, it's a mystery to me :-)

anyway, today is one of those day....and because I have some catching up with my training to do, I went out despite the miserable weather conditions. plus, considering that this misery is quite common I really need to get used to it! so I went out for my 50 minute run, the usual out and back route and as usual the wind is behind me when I go and is against me when I come back.

I started very well and did the first 2.5 miles with a 9:00 minute mile pace. when I turned it got so so tough, but in a way it was funny. I think I looked like a cartoon character who runs like a mad but stays in the same spot. In the end I did 5.24m in 50' with 9:32 pace. it's not bad....it's basically as if I did a hill session even though my route is as flat as a pancake! and hill sessions are good for you, arent't they???

I hope the wind will stop for my LSR on sunday.....

I was chatting with a friend of mine tonight and he asked me about my first marathon. talking to him about it brought back all the joy (little) and the (great) pain of it all. i went back to my thanksgiving page and i just tought to post it here, so that you can read my report. i think it's sweet and i hope one day I'll do London again. I just LOVED IT, desptite everything...

justgiving page

Got this via email, from debbie, a runner friend. I found it hilarious, so there you have it!!

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won the oscar yesterday for best song in the movie ONCE!!

I am well pleased! I loved the movie and I love The Frames, Glen's group.

it has been a busy week at work: meetings, reading groups, seminars, classes, students etc. etc. But it has also been a week of movie thanks to the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. This has given me a chance to catch up on some italian movies. I enjoyed 2 out of the three I went to see which is not a bad thing really:
saturno contro
my brother is an only child
the unknown
the last two are exquisite, so go and see them if you have the chance.

as for my run, the week did not start very well and it ended even worse :-) on tuesday I had to skip it because of work. on wed I went out to do 2X3000m which I did, but it was tough going. on thursday i was supposed to do 1h. the first 20' went very well and then all fell apart. I decided to cut the run short and I only did 40' and thought, my body is tired it needs some rest. so i decided to take friday off. but on friday surprise surprise, I woke up with a bad flu and some temperature so the mystery was finally explained. I have decided to spend my weekend at home without running at all, even if today I am feeling a lot better. I think it would do me good and I will be very energetic next week.


now....BRING THE RUGBY ON!!

have a laugh. click here

for a comment on it click here

this week I run 36,5 miles. I went out 5 times but I failed to stay around the 9:00 minute mile. and today was really hard: 11.20miles in 1h45'16' with a pace of 9:24. I know that I shouldn't be disappointed as it's 1 and a half minute faster than I used to do, but still......

the only positive thing is that i kept going all week as well as today - even though I thought many time "well, that's it, I'm going home"

boohoo boohoo :-(

plus, my fridge is driving me mad....it's got noisy suddenly and i'm hating it right now aaaarrrgggggghhhh!!

if you have read all the other posts, you know already that my 5th week of training for the padua marathon has been quite tough. i felt tired and out of breath every time i went out and i thought at first that the change of pace wasn't working for me after all. quite depressing, really! the truth was that i was coming down with something (which 'exploded' on friday) and my periods were due.

week 5 ended today, one day later than usual. later because my periods were on time :-) and yesterday was a tough day. i was aching a lot so i gave up and decided to postpone my 'long' run to today. monday is my 'research day' so i am sligltly more flexible.

it was a glorious day today, and my pain was almost gone. so off i went in the afternoon for my last run of the week. the plan:
warming-up until phoenix park (2miles more or less)
6X1km with 400m recovery run
cooling down from the park home

total of 9.48 miles in 1h25'40'' with an average pace of 9:02!! the most amazing things are my splits 5:28 5:27 5:24 5:19 5:15 5:03, ranging that is from 8:46 to 8:08!!! not bad, not bad! this is the longest i've run since i changed my training and my training pace!

needless to say that i feel more confident now and the programme is built so that i could do my longer run with the same pace and now i feel that it can be done!!! i needed this boost of confidence after a crappy week, really!!

so....there is only one thing that I want to say now:

WEEK 6: BRING IT ON!!!!!

I know that there are still 2 months to go, but I found these video and I wanted you to see for yourselves what an amazing race this is. this year, just like last year, I'm going to do the half.

it's being a week now that all my run have been kind of hard. true, the time as increased and the intervals have become longer etc etc. but now i know that i've come down with something, plus it's TOTM.

anyway, today i've decided to go out anyway and just run slow and see whether I could run this thing off. I did it 4.35 miles in 46' with a pace of 10:35. one and a half minutes less than usual. I should be a bit down but I'm not :-) I've decided to be geeky and compare today's run with my run last year this time. and basically what now is my slowest time ever, last year was my fastest. I used to do my easy run at 11:00minute mile and my long runs at 11:30 or 12:00. so that's why I'm pleased today with my bad run :-) I can see my improvement and it feels gooooood. the pics here show the runs so you can see it for yourself!!

and tomorrow....come on ITALY!!!

sometimes it takes me a while and most importanlty I need to experiment things practically before realising I'm wrong. it must be my italian blood!!

let me start from the beginning.

i am slow runner. a slow runner who's trying to get faster. a slow runner who finds a semi-professional 'virtual coach' (a friend who lives in italy) to design a new training plan for her:-)

i am at week 5 of the plan now and for the first time in my running life I have had to do today long intervarls with a recovery run - rather than a walk. so: 4 1km with 400m recovery run. I ask my guy for the pace t keep. he says 5'30 for the km and 6'15 for the 400m (or if you prefere 8:48minutemile for the km and 10:00 for the 400m).

I think....no, I can actually do 5'00 and can easily recover during those 400m, yes! I always recover well.....so off I go and I soon realise that there is actually a great difference between a recovery walk and a recovery run.

I start quite fast and I soon see that my heartbeat doesn't go down as quickly in my recovery run and I feel soooo tired and stupid!

these are the splits: 4’57 (6’09) 5’18 (6’11) 5’34 (6’33) 5’22 (6’25). it was really a killer of a run.

I guess not everything is bad about tonight's run and there are positive things if we look closely at it (veeery closely!):
1) I finally learnt my lesson :-) from now on I'll stick to what he says
2) I kept going and pushed myself as much as I possibly could. that must be better that packing up and going home, right?
3) a few months ago I wouldn't have even dreamt of keeping this pace

now I am exhausted :-)

well...last saturday, at 2pm the six nations started with ireland-italy at croke park. i was there!!! and that was my first live rugby match ever! not bad as a first ah?! when a friend of mine told me the day before that i could have two tickets i couldn't possibly say no!! i knew it was going to be an amazing experience and it was...even though the match wasn't the most exciting of all!!!

you know all about the match, so i am not going there! i just want to say that the rugby crowd can really teach a thing or two to the footie crowd! it was a great feeling being surrounded by thousands and thousand of irish and feel safe....having fun with them with no problems whatsoever!!! 84.000 people...all united by the love for rugby with no hate for the other team....that's what sport is all about!

I loved it...i didn't understand much of what was going on but now i'm going to learn the rules, yeah baby!

week 4 is over and it didn't really go according to plan.

it has been a hard week at work with a deadline for an artile on 31st. i used all my free time from teaching, marking and prep to finish the article off. i created more time for that by waking up early, meaning that i slept not longer than 6 hours at night. i skipped one run 'cause i couln't do it in the morning and postponed it to the evening....silly me.... i know all too well that i CANNOT RUN IN THE EVE i don't know why...how can i force my brain to get out even if outside it's 7pm and not 6am????

all the 4 runs i did this week were hard but i did them. i find that sometimes i get a bit down while i'm running 'cause i think that it should feel less tiring and difficult by now but it doesn't. why is that????

anyway..i try to stay positive and enjoy the sense of satisfaction after the run, after surviving that sort of fatigue that make it say to yourself 'that's it....i'll stop now...i can't do it anymore' and then you stick to it, maybe slowing down for a while.

the run that made me so so happy was today's run. it was really tiring, so much so that at times i felt literally sick. however it was amazing too 'cause i managed to keep the pace i wanted even though at times my heart was pumping so so hard that i thought people in the park could hear it.

i did intervals: 8X400m with 400m recovery (200m walk, 200m run). i wanted to stay below 2 minutes and this is how it went:1'47 1'54 1'45 1'57 1'50 1'54 1'57 1'49!!

now i am tired but looking forward to week 5.

-11 week to the marathon

this morning, as most morning, my alarm went off at 6 so that i could go for my run. but the wind outside sounded kind of scary so i decided to postpone my run to this evening when hopefully the weather will be a bit better (the wind is almost gone now!!)

now, you all know how difficult is for me to go out in the evening but i had a sort of illumination, an epiphany (having an epiphany in dublin is top of the tops really eh eh) and now i'll tell you what it is. so, be patient, sit down and think of something clever to say :-)

besides trying to get faster through training i am also trying to do that by putting down my body fat percentage. my BMI is 22 and i'd like to reach 20. however, if i carry on like this i'll soon reach 50 eh eh!!

i've realised that i normally scoff myself between 5pm and dinner time and this where the joycian epiphany comes into it. if i managed to go for my run in the evening i would 'cover' the scoffing time and i would avoind waking up so early.

now, my runner and no runner friends, I need your help...how do i get home in the evening and avoid disappering in the sofa and behind lots of crap food??? what's your secret?????????????

February 5, 2008 9:44 AM