....well, slowly, but I am!!
so, this week is over and I have banked 31.5miles which I am pleased with. I went out 5 times and most of the times I avoided looking at the garmin. I am trying to follow my 'natural' pace as much as I can and guess what?! I am faster than I thought. the 5 runs included one hill session, one interval session (10 x 200m), 2 easy runs and a long run of almost 12miles and I am so glad that tomorrow is a rest day.
today I did my long run in sandymount and it was lovely. the weather was fantastic, there were lots of people enjoying the sunshine or having fun with their dogs. my garmin gives me an average temperature of 20c; summer then is here, and I guess this is as good as it gets. but after 3 weeks in horrid temperature in italy I am not going to complain about it all!! the run in itself was tough especially because I was thirsty. I normally don't take any water with me if I am running for less than 2 hours and I am normally fine, but today I suffered a lot. I was so tempted at one point to ask people with bottles of water if they could give it to me or of they could give me some money to buy something to drink. well, yes, I went out with no money, no water, nothing. just me, my garmin and my crappy mp3. how clever am I? so, when I got to k 15 I passed by a cool and stylish pub and the decision was made on the spot. in I went. stopped my garmin. I WANTED SOME WATER. there was noone around and I had to wait for 2-3 minutes before a cute (and very young) guy came to give me what I wanted...erm....water, with lots of ice!!! that felt soooo good. but maybe too good 'cause I lost it: I went outside, started my garmin again and off I went for the last 3ks of my run. but after a while I had a look at my garmin and realised that I hadn't started it!! DOH! it was stuck at 15.2ks and I had at least done 800m. damn it! well, I decided anyway to do 18k on the watch but when I loaded my data on motionbased I could see that I was right. I did 18.8ks, almost 12 miles! this motionbased is great, is even more precise than sportstracks.
I am still thirsty and in a while I'll hit the pub with some friends! YAY!
let's start by saying that on saturday I went to the cinema, which for many of you might not be a big deal. but lately, watching a movie outside the 4 walls of my apartment is quite a rare event. but what is even rarer for me is to go to the cinema with someone else (and no, it wasn't a date!). So basically I emerged from my shelter and became a social person. cool! I should do that more ofter! (?) anyway. I saw a very good movie: gone, baby, gone and I was so glad I went. Ben Affleck is an clever and sensitive director and his brother is just brilliant. it was difficult, though, to understand everything they said as they spoke with an accent I wasn't familiar with. there you go. the pleasure of being a foreign :)
after a week in which I struggled to find motivation to go out and run, I can say that I am happy about the milage and the quality of the work done. my first attempt of a decent run actually started back on tuesday, but I had to go back after only a mile as I was feeling really really bad. once at home I managed to do some of those exercises that you find on the flashy running magazines I read (I should stop buying them) and I used the ball I bought more than a month ago. yay!!
for the rest of the week I just went out to do 5 miles without caring about my pace and I ended up doing my fastest miles. weird things can happen. I concluded this unusual week of training with a painful painful 10 miler on sunday. I won't tell you how difficult it was but what I'll tell you is that I was soooooooo glad to be back home.
so, 4 runs this week with a total of 24 miles. not bad for a week of lack of motivation i'd say!
I have entered Longford half yesterday where I'll try to beat my pb. I have a month to get back on track and hopefully that would motivate me....who knows!
guys...have you seen my MOJO??? I can't find it anywhere. I am kind of worried....it's only week 2 FFS!!
while I was running today I was thinking about my adventurous return to dublin. first of all I missed the plane: I went to the airport on thursday convinced that my flight was on the 10th only to find out that I was supposed to leave the day before. DOH! so I had to book another flight which left on friday. we took off 2 hours after we boarded the plane and the most annoying thing was that I was sitting next to an italian guy who was really annoying! one of the things that came to my mind while I was running today was his theory about mixed relationships. apparently he has noticed that relationships between italian women and irish men work, whereas those between italian men and irish women don't. he knows why: it's because, he said, irish women are too independent, aggressive and don't know how to cook!!! Can you believe that?? he thought that that was a good reason and that his theory was clever! and then you ask me why I left my country????
tomorrow is going to be my last day in italy. I had 3 nice weeks, spent with old and new friends, with my family and my little nephew, eating ice creams and pizzas! but these 3 weeks have also been tough: it has been way too hot for me and I needed my space and privacy which it's difficult to have when I stay at my parents'. I am definitely ready to go back home!
today I did my first run of my first week of training for the dublin marathon: 4.35 miles in 41 minutes. nothing special but it's a start. I think I'm coming down with something and I struggled more than usual during the run. on top of this and of my lack of training in the last 2 weeks I had some problems with my first pair of running shorts ever. I bought them today but it was a bad idea:
they look really nice, but my inner (and fatty) thigh chafed big time and I had to cut my run short. I'll bin them. but I also bought some new cool headphones and they work just fine!
today I have entered the three races of the adidas race series: 5m-10m-half and on saturday it's already time to run the 5 miler. not sure I am ready for it, but I'll do it anyway :)
